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Atmospherics 03
Atmospherics
Winter 1994
Volume 1, number 3
=========================================================
Atmospherics Volume 1, number 3 Winter 1994
=========================================================
Table of Contents:
Poems and stories by:
Ayli Lapkoff
David Dowker
Jamie wasserman
c.e. nelson
Niklas Pivic
Michael McNeilley
Ginette Burgess
Ben Ohmart
Allegra Sloman
_________________________________________________________________
This text may be freely shared amongst individuals, but it may not be
republished in any medium without express written consent from the authors
and advance notification of the editor. Rights to stories remain with the
authors. Copyright 1994, the authors.
_________________________________________________________________
Editorial:
Well, this is issue number 3 of Atmospherics. When I started this
journal I wasn't sure if it would take off. Now, I have no doubt
that it will be an ongoing publication.
A change in this issue is the publishing of e-mail addresses. It
was suggested to me that readers may want to contact the authors.
So I have published the e-mail addresses of those authors who gave
permission to do so.
You will notice that this issue has 4 short stories. The poetry
issue was popular but I am glad to get back to a combination of
stories and poetry. In coming issues I plan to add reviews to the
journal. So if you have any reviews of literature to contribute
please send them in.
In this issue David Dowker is publishing more excerpts from his
work "Machine Language", Michael McNeilley has contributed his
short story, "Down to write about my father", Ginette Burgess,
who primarily writes children's stories, has contributed "Who's
mocking who", and the other poems and stories are up to the
usual standards of Atmospherics. Thanks again for the great
submissions.
Since this issue will be published just before Christmas I want to
wish everyone happy holidays. Thanks so much for reading and
supporting Atmospherics.
Atmospherics is available through anonymous FTP at: etext.archive.
umich.edu; it is available on WWW at: http://moesbooks.com; it is
available through Gopher at: etext.archive.umich.edu.
Requests for subscriptions and submissions should be sent to:
Susan Keeping (keeping@vax.library.utoronto.ca or
ag351@freenet.carleton.ca)
Susan Keeping, editor
_________________________________________________________________
COFFEE
Can't you see that I'm a puppet
And my own puppeteer
My black coffee silence
Can be taken straight
With one lump of sugary sweetness
Or with two.
CIRCLES
I am left fragile as eggshells
When my paint has gone sour like milk
Drunk before my nightly jailbird escape
A jailbreak back into prison
I am bald in this tower with no doors
Only a window nestled high between clouds
Or pillows, or illusions made of glass
-Enough of gold and feathers
I speak of punishable uncommitted crimes
And stars that turn around themselves
And circles that embrace each other
So close that they merge and spiral
Cannot end, cannot start
Dream not of each other
Dream only of each other.
RED
Eating cranberries
Bittersweet
Dye my lips passion red
While you spin
Round and round
My silken wed for me
In your silver-grey thread
Nevermind I prefer red.
Scratching my skin
Painful silence
Leave my body anger red
While you whisper
Over and over
My way down the rained out path
In your rational steady voice
Didn't you notice I prefer red.
Speaking from my mind
Splendid release
Turns the air my shade of red
While you refuse
Again and again
To hear my logic-less truth
In your stubborn inflexible way
I've told you before I prefer red.
Ayli Lapkoff
_________________________________________________________________
*
*
*
from "MACHINE LANGUAGE"
I would perpetuate this myth. The metanymph
by the tousled waterfall, weeping. While
calm beyond her soundshell, bees and breezes
drowse, dappled with laughter. Paradoxical
sleep beneath so many eyelids. Caterpillar
dream in which we participate. Our paradigm
poised upon an improbable joy, nimble wisdom
hidden in the phenomena. Echoes through
the gene-pool. Water ponders over stone,
dopplers into day. Radiant agency of flesh,
flowers. This consensual apparition glistens
in the polarized air.
*
NEUROMANTIC
circuits o p e n and close, supra-
liminal information transfer, cellular net
-work.
Ovular,
oracular . ore
from the m i n d f i e l d
transformed, cerebrospores
or meta-euphoric
seed in the head, swollen
sun within
The wind
's eye allows
the honey
in, heaven's
s p e c t r u m
splashed across
the floor
OR
Translate this:
David Dowker
_________________________________________________________________
DOWN TO WRITE ABOUT MY FATHER
_________________________________________________________________
I sit down to write about my father. I am told there is a
contest, or an anthology, or a place to submit a story with a father as
theme, and I realize I have never written a story about my father.
I sit at my computer keyboard, using my word processing program,
facing the dreaded blue screen instead of the long-hated blank white
piece of paper. The screen is blue as the sea at Isla de las Mujeres.
My father and I stand on the pier at Punta Regia. We
gaze at the sunrise across the ocean, side by side,
hands alike on the railing as a gull banks overhead and
down into the frame.
It's like a frame, as I see it. My father and I were never in
such an exotic place; I can't imagine what comes next, because I can't
feature us actually being in a place like that. I don't think he ever
left the country, except for one border town excursion in Canada, while
he was stationed somewhere in the midwest during World War II. But
after all, what kind of story takes place in a Dallas suburb? I don't
want to write about life in a Dallas suburb in the fifties, and no one
wants to read it. And I'm a writer...I can be honest without telling
the truth.
The letters are white on the blue screen. It's not the tools I
have to blame, if this father story doesn't work, as no attempt to sit
down to write about my father has worked before. My father taught me
the corollary to the old saw, "It's a poor workman who blames his
tools," which, were it worded once, would probably go "If you get good
tools, you won't have tools to blame." But your father doesn't always
have to word things for you to learn them.
So, I can save this to the hard disk, print it on the laser. My
father never heard these terms, but would have been at home with them, I
feel sure. He turned the basement of our home into an office after he
retired, but he couldn't recreate the card playing and the bullshitting
and the hanging around the coffee machine on windswept winter days that
made up an office to him, so he spent little time there. But there was
a big desk, file cabinets, typewriters and even a copier, and it was
just so. And I see him as he sat there smoking his pipe, leaning back
in his chair and looking into the distance, past the dusty weight bench,
not into the mystery of hard drives and lasers, but hearing a card slap
on his desk and building gin runs in his mind.
We look west from Pier 54 into the sunset, watching the
ferry slowly plow Puget Sound. My father's hand rests
on my shoulder. The sweet burnt leaves smell of his
pipe is a counterpoint to the brisk saltwater/rainstorm
smell of a late spring Seattle day. A gull cuts
through the frame, the film breaks, and the audience
murmurs as the bright light from the projector fills
the screen. A flapping sound issues from the
projection booth, and as film piles up on the floor, a
snoring sound is heard as counterpoint.
Still not right enough to go on for a whole paragraph, although
closer to home. I think my father may have been in Seattle once, and I
am here now, but even without the hand on my shoulder, it would never
ring true.
Perhaps my father hugged me when I was very, very small, though
the single story I remember he told of his and my direct interaction in
my early days was much different.
He struggled with the diaper, pins in mouth, wrapping
it this way, then that, then folding it like a cub
scout kerchief, then in a rectangle, then again like a
white bird, then like a turban, a strange baby-butt
turban or blind version of an Arab headpiece, as I took
aim, frogged up my pink little legs and let go my most
powerful stream, catching him full in the face, like a
piss firehose soaking a burning house. His pipe
sizzled, sputtered and died, leaving, I must suppose,
an entirely inappropriate taste in his mouth.
No, there's no way to make that meaningful, beyond whatever
chance meaning it contains by virtue of its own inherent symbolisms.
There's no way to make it serious, symbolism or not. I could never have
been young enough to feel I could get away with peeing on Pop. Still,
it happened, I was endlessly told, although it happened to me, too, and
I didn't remember it. I remember it now, of course, remember it
actually happening, but only in my imagination.
The aroma of Briar Blend pipe tobacco merged with the
smoke from the chimney of the little log cabin as we
stood on the dock, poles in hand, watching the sun rise
across the span of the Colorado lake. Trout rose to
meet their breakfasts, leaving concentric circles
spreading on the mirrored mountain water. Fishing line
arced the sky to the lake, and larger circles spread as
my dad's lure touched down 40 yards away.
I climbed the spruce, desperate to pull my line loose
from the lure-snatching bough, that doubled its
perversity by proving too slender to hold my weight.
"Son," my father said as he lifted me from among the
pine needles and the ants. "That ain't no damned way
to cast."
I think it was my brother who first called him "Pop," and Pop he
remained. He seemed to like it, and smiles in my memory around the
ubiquitous pipe my memory places in the middle of his face, as he
conceives himself as "Pop," head of the clan, defender against
starvation, stupidity and falls from trees. Pop.
Pop would never have used a lure. If the fishing regulations
had stated "no bait fishing, lures only," he would have put salmon eggs
on the lure hooks, stuck on a grasshopper and sprayed the whole thing
with "Amos Handy's Troutaroma." Pop taught me to take chances, so as
not to take chances, in the strangest ways.
For some reason it seems important that there be water, but it
was Texas. At least we were at the lake at some time, but with no
cabin, and no dock...and I'd be still asleep, or fishing with some
weird-smelling, snotty cousin, while Pop fished with Mom, or one of his
sleazy brothers. How did those guys grow up with, spring from the same
soil as my Pop? If Pop would use a worm on a wet fly, his brother Ernie
would use a boat, a sonar fishfinder, dynamite and three kids with nets.
I was often glad I had Pop to look to instead of one of my uncles,
although my cousins always seemed to live in bigger houses, and have
more money.
We visited them in Colorado because no one would visit Texas.
In Dallas suburbs, before shopping malls and air conditioning, summers
were no vacation.
We dig footings and frame foundations and pour concrete
in the hot sun. We sweat and cuss and groan, and the
work goes slowly. We swallow salt pills with quarts of
water. We are too fair and too fat to remove our
shirts.
We build a "patio," a new word to us, then, in the
middle of our back yard. We build a pipe frame above
it and put a corrugated fibreglass roof on top. I am
nine or so, and Practically No Help At All. In the
Texas summer heat, we build a walkway from the back
steps to the patio.
The patio is just large enough for a picnic table and a
grill. It stands a good six inches above the lawn. If
subsequent owners didn't like it, they would have had
to work even harder than we did to pull it up and haul
it away.
When we were teenagers, my friends made fun of the
patio, to my seemingly endless chagrin, but at nine I
loved to sit on it in the rain, on or under the table,
on the deck of the Monitor or the Merrimac, steaming
guns ablaze across the green sea. "Damn the torpedoes
...this patio is a foot thick!"
I think, though he never mentioned it, Pop had thought someday
to put a bomb shelter under the patio, having already constructed the
ultimate defense against a near-direct hit; but the duck and cover days
of the early cold war faded into the reality of tailfins and Elvis, and
bomb shelters and swimming pools and a second story above the garage to
put my mother's mother in all bleared into the economic reality that is
with each of us still.
We stand on the patio, gazing across the plain to the
sunset, smoking our pipes, my father and I, me and my
dad, me and Pop. Our shoulders almost touch as we sway
to the music in our heads, I to "Nessun Dorma," he to
"Satin Doll." I cough repeatedly, as I do not smoke.
"That time you set the lawn on fire?"
"Yeah, pop."
"I laughed myself silly."
"But Pop, I thought you were mad..."
"I was mad. But you should have seen your grandma
trying to put it out."
Turns out he had watched from the window. He and
grandma never got along. I had set the fire popping
ants with a magnifying glass. The fire burned so low
to the ground across the sere summer lawn, I never
noticed it until it was too late. I think I remember
grandma running with the hose, perhaps slipping on
something.
A flock of birds rises from trees near the horizon.
They turn in the air, as if connected by wires, and
head south.
"I had this little white rat," Pop said.
"I had this little white rat, and I called him Shorty. I was
maybe your age, maybe ten. I carried him in my pocket. He ran up and
down my arms, and learned to jump in my pocket all by himself, when
grownups came around.
"I put him on the floor, in my room, and he followed me around.
He followed me out the door, and down the hall to the bathroom, and back
again.
"I got up one morning, and I put on my shoes, and my dad was
yelling, and I was late, and I ran to the door, and I stepped back to
open the door to run down the hall and quick go to the bathroom, and I
stepped on him."
"Kid..." Pop said, "hey kid, don't cry. You're too big to cry.
Anyway, he was only a rat."
Mom scattered his ashes here, years ago. It took her a
year to part with them, although this is where he said
he wanted to be. Vacation brings me here, to Colorado
again, to this spot again, as if for the first time.
You should see the sunset from here, on the mountain.
Beams of sunlight cut through the white and red and
orange clouds across the plains to the west, bright
against the darker clouds rolling down from the north.
There is a fresh hint of smoke in the air, from a
campfire or a cabin down below.
Through the sunshine, it is starting to rain. Colorado
is funny that way, it rains in the sunshine a lot.
"The devil is beating his wife," Pop used to say.
The kids clamor from the back seat of the rented car. I cannot
hug the mountain, the sky, the rain, the clouds, the sunset. "Daddy's
crying." says little Tom. It's just the rain, I tell him. But you can
hug me anyway. "I love you, Daddy," says Tom.
We wait for the rainbow, and sure enough it begins to appear,
rising from ground level, then fades again. Not enough light, too late
for a rainbow, and we drive down the pass to town.
.:McNeilley:.
_________________________________________________________________
nervous cough
inside
they scrape their pens
like crows
while school crossing guards
enter adulthood
-wearing yellow belts
to prove their maturity,
the rustle of 'new woman'
and the hum of dead fish
animating in waves
penetrates the leather silence,
"It only took a minute and a half,"
you say,
dry-mouthing an excuse of passion
violet
violet
is my favorite color
in the fall,
the veins of blood
seem almost excusable
as the last decays of sunshine
wither their tentacles
into the smoothness of the road
-demanding equal time
as eyes meet tendons
in the safety
of a backward glance
fetal pig
choking words
through a dust of chalk
you tell me,
"in a room
where things are never as they seem,
your smile has become predictable,"
you needn't remind me
about the bleeding lines
of coal and blood you drink,
i know that look,
it is in its nature
to be forgetful
- the disease
will shake itself completely free
until even you have forgotten who is in charge
-jamie wasserman
____________________________________
blue, the moon falls ill
-------------------------------
charlotte, those legs
strike the ground like hammers.
you... sister whore gravedigger
bind my hands.
i swore ide never lie to you;
like this:
dirty hands
peel paint thick
rotting teeth
horsecock and
magistrate... fall
sarcastic child
writhing molasses
with infantile grace,
you... moddish thief
of tongues.
i say: that girl laughs like
dead twigs snapping underfoot,
and i smoke endless chains of camels.
harlot! i should have shot myself in lexington
in plain view of your family, or in the dead
of night, surrounded by gravestones near robert's.
she asks: do you love me still?
i do i do i do i do i do
like seasons,
some things
never rot.
oh she loved him so
-------------------------
with a bullethole to the chest
and pissing blood streaming
like most exit wounds make
their debuts he stumbles
(and the bleeding copious)
white/eyed (blood death ad nauseam)
a whimper,
lover! calling he
she with angry eyes,
spatula in hand
screams: you
gone
and spilt
yer heart
all over my
clean carpet!
why the mess
harry? why the mess?
and he had hoped
this would make a point
concerning devotion
...........
.........
.......
......
.....
....
...
..
.
bone happy
-------------------
this is the season for fury.
leaves from windtorn
trees
a million fingered confetti beast.
i watch from the third floor of macy's
but i am not in the heart of manhattan.
i have no place
in any
heart
broken or
pierced
my skull creaks now
with the chiming of the clock.
and my bones
reduced to dust
will
cake the faces
of millions.
but i digress.
hip poem in e minor
--------------------------------
big
arsed
woman
blonde
and pumpin
all that
cotton
clothed
madness
in the mid.day
heat as i sat on
holly.wood
bou.le.vard
drinking the
sun away...
it is a crime
such torture
......
all words are the property of c.e. nelson
copyright c.e. nelson 1994
__________________________________________________________________
"-but on the other hand, human beings in the phone system are much
harder to reach in the first place." - Bruce Sterling, *The Hacker
Crackdown.*
WIRED
There was once a person called Wilma Thearson. Wilma had worked
for the *National Publicist* for twenty years, and was now in her
early forties. Wilma was the sort of person who didn't have many
friends, mainly because she wouldn't change her principles - or
anything other - for anyone. Some called her obnoxious. Nevertheless,
Wilma was a widow, and her husband had died an early death, which was
someone she rarely talked about. Her friends sometimes caught her
talking about him in a spiritual sense, but never dared to ask her
about him, not for any reason.
Now, Wilma didn't have a lot of life. But at this time everything
changed for her. One of her friends asked her if she wanted to join
her working nights at the municipal greenhouse (!) with small things
like mending broken pots, planting flowers, et. c. Anything a
greenhouse had to offer, for short, come good and bad. She accepted
it, hoping it would decrease her sadness, which she almost always felt
inside. One night, she met Arthur. Arthur showed to be what Wilma
called "a perfect gentleman", who was in his late fifties and made her
feel young again. And happy. They started going out to restaurants,
and suddenly Wilma smiled when she was with her friends, telling them
of what had happened on her latest meeting with Arthur. Her pessimism
almost vanished. It almost was as if she were brought back to her
youth's days, when there were no troubles at all. Then Arthur made her
the proposal. They were getting "hitched properly", as she told her
friends.
There was a big ceremony, almost all of their friends attending,
but only Arthur's father - their other parents were dead - came,
leading him to the podium and Wilma walking by herself. They were
happy, very happy.
At the wedding night, after a lot of drinking, singing, dancing,
et. c., Arthur carried Wilma over the threshold and they made love.
Some minutes after, Arthur was excited. He was very keen on showing
some kind of machine to Wilma, which was supposed to be "a blast". She
waited for him to unpack some kind of strange-looking case he had
under the bed, and in some way, connect it *between* the phone cable
which went to the phone, standing on the bedside-table. The machine
which seemed to split the cable, consisted of a box with a tube in the
middle, sticking out at the edges (up and down).
"Wilma, you know I wouldn't do anything in the world to hurt you,
now would I babe?" Arthur asked Wilma, looking at her excitedly.
"I do know that, Arthur, but what's that machine for?" Wilma
asked, looking awkwardly at the machine which AT&T didn't put there.
"Darling, you know that I've been busy these few days before the
wedding, right? I mean, except for the _normal_ absence?"
"Yes?"
"Well, I've been putting the finishing touches to this little
machine," Arthur said, pointing to the machine. "It's going to be our
own little pleasure-dome!"
"Oh yeah, how?" Wilma asked, raising a brow and a corner of her
mouth.
"Well, I'll show you," he said, putting the machine on his side of
the bed, now sitting on the floor with the machine between him and
her. He suddenly inserted his right index-finger into the tube and
said "Now all you have to do is to press the number I'll be telling
you," at the same time as he gave her a machine, oblong, with a lot of
digits and a button with an arrow on it.
"But what's going to happen?" Wilma asked.
"Oh, just complete pleasure," he answered, smiling wide.
Wilma did what he instructed her to do, pressing the right buttons.
"Now, point the controller towards the machine," he instructed
her. "And press the button with the arrow on it." Wilma did so.
"All we now have to do is wait." he said, smiling and sitting with
his legs crossed.
A minute passed. "Here it comes," he said, watching Wilma as she
pulled back a little to her side of the bed. "No, nothing bad is going
to happen to me, even if it looks that way--" He was interrupted by
strong convulsions, his body turning straight on the spot, having
spasms like an epileptic during an attack. "Arthur!" was all Wilma
could say.
Suddenly Arthur came to. He sat straight up, looking at Wilma as
though he had slept for ten hours and not had seen her since. "It was
terrific," he said, looking at her terrified eyes through his calm
ones. "Nothing to be afraid of. Mixing electrical currents by adding
my own machine to it, suddenly changes a person's vibration level. You
feel like you could take over the universe or something! Gives you a
_great_ self-confidence, anyway. I thought you'd like to try it," he
said, as he climbed onto the bed, finally kissing Wilma on her mouth.
"I...I..." was all Wilma could say, as she pressed her right hand
to her chest, looking into Arthur's eyes with her very opened ones.
"Trust me. It will take you to other worlds." he said, kissing her
again.
Wilma lied down, the bed and other things around her carefully put
away, with her left-hand index-finger in the tube.
"Don't worry," Arthur said, pressing a lot of numbers on the
controller, and then, pointing it towards the machine, pressed the
arrow.
"That should do it, my dear! You'll feel like a queen in a matter
of seconds! Nothing's too good for my lovely!" he said, smiling and
caressing her face. Suddenly he looks into her eyes, and doesn't look
as nice as he previously looked. His shape changes, turning into a
whirl-pool of images from their wedding, the day they met, et. c.
Suddenly the pictures aren't post-Arthur anymore. They reach back.
Long time back. Limitlessly. Colours and shades are not of any
importance anymore. She knows how the Universe is built up, and she
has reached her apotheosis.
Arthur is no longer of any importance. The world is hers any shred
of humanity flows within her blood. Anything else stands as a speck of
intelligence within her, the Earth itself is no longer any
intelligence to speak of, Time isn't any problem, there are NO LAWS
for her anymore. She is no longer one with the universe. She Eats the
Universe-.
"Hey kitten! Wake up! You've been in there for a full minute!
That's enough! Anyone can't stand that much power at first! Up!"
Arthur's voice came ringing out to her.
Wilma suddenly felt like someone had given her a
thousand-dollar-note, and then ripped it to pieces. She slapped
Arthur.
"You idiot! How dare you!" she howled at him, discovering nothing
but the way her finger still was stuck to the machine.
"Hold on! Hold on!" Arthur said, as he tried to grab her hands.
"What's this? First you show me something... Something...-"
"Yes..." he grabbed her hands. "You've entered a world only we two
know about. I've been developing this for the last five-
"But... But..." Wilma started shaking the machine like nuts, when
the phone started ringing.
#
When Wilma woke, she saw Arthur lying in a pool of blood across
the floor. She looked at her hand and couldn't see her fingers. Or the
rest of her hand. Her ex. hand was covered by the tube, which had
increased, becoming one with it.
What we (the Netrunners) see at the screens everyday had become
one of her everyday impulses. She was connected. The net had absorbed
her totally. What she knew was the everyday fantasies coming directly
from us, The Netrunners. Everything she had ever known became none,
and her psyche became the net. She controls us everytime we think of
her and vice versa. Her brain is no longer one with "the universe". It
doesn't have to be "fantastic". Look at what we have and try to
improve this instead of dreaming. Or shall we skip the whole idea for
something new?
Niklas Pivic
________________________________________________
Defi
It is a catalogue I speak of, love's most
pressing substitute dismantled and contained.
Membrane, pelt and tendon form
a plain text read with sober mind
by a surgeon, translated in life to
sculpture and dance, ink and silken billows.
He arrives in cotton, sober as a butler
. hair shorn to show the bones .
appearance is useful and trivial by turns.
Words fail, misunderstandings riot in the cracks
I reach through them to the motion that swings
through his calves, through his back
appalling and perfect
withdraw amid caution and confusion
plunge forward.
It is this sensation I sought, somewhere
between the stifled laugh and the attunement
dwelling in his arms.
I will not cede to youth the rights
of desire and requital.
I find, among
uncounted pauses, during which I summon
from the steam and garlic of another meal
a kiss, perhaps the warmth retained by a coat
or smile's imprint, all teeth and merriment
a buoyancy unlinked to the joke.
It is dormant adolescence I recite
oppressed but not effaced by setback
and denial. Lust is as strong
as the death occluded by these
moments, for which heaven's a mere gloss.
---
RESONANCE April 7, 1990 23:55
candescent plasma overturned over
investment and reaving, no stasis
or balance or equi
librium
in sigh
t
the properties of fluids, solids,
exhalations and inspirations, musing
and being 'mused' for a tricky
thought,
a perfect ream. picture a woman
ankle deep in crumpled paper
every pencil gnawed down
to a nubbin, knowing
and incapable of
chew the the's down. eliminate the a's
and hoe your own flesh for the enemy
adverb, the unnecessary
give entrance to the doorwarden, who
is locked out. who is.
pat yourself down for keys
graphic shrug, the empty pockets
of the universal casual
I don't have them. They went missing.
I lost them. Someone (there's a thought)
has stolen them.
They are not necessary. There is
another ingress. This way to the egress,
but I am already out.
reagent of the c r e n e l l a t i o n.
Fortress Idea.
My arquebus does not fit through the slot.
But do I have to? I address you:
Come back. I am the one who leaves.
Depart. I have no choice but
to stay. I am stuck in this
< >, this [ ], this horrific { },
which can be anything
but your presence, saving your presence,
your candescence.
Allegra Sloman
_________________________________________________________________
Who's mocking who
There was a horrible little boy who lived next door to us. His name was
Charles Wesley Tripe and he was ten years old. He used to drive my mother crazy
sometimes as he was always picking on one or the other of us, her four children.
It took a lot to bother my Mum and she generally loved children and always looked
for the good in them. She even encouraged a little naughtiness because she thought
it showed a little character. But Charlie went a bit too far sometimes. One incident
that comes to mind that seemed to change Charlie for the better was when he
found a snapping turtle and made it into his pet.
Charlie loved to scare people and when he got this turtle it was a favourite
trick to try to get someone to pat it and almost lose a finger in the process. My
mother caught him trying to make our two and a half year old, Ben, touch the
turtle. Charlie was holding him tight on his lap, forcing him to bend over the little
fence that served as a pen for the turtle and stretching Ben's arm out so that his
hand was held tight and straight right near the turtle who was about to bite. Mother
had heard Ben's screams of protest and had come running from the kitchen to the
large back yard. When she couldn't see him in the sandbox where she had left him
she ran to the small ravine at the back of the yard where she know all the kids went
to play and followed the well worn path down the hill to where she knew Charlie
kept his pet turtle. It only took a minute to get there but it seemed longer to mother
as she rushed to save her child from whatever was tormenting him. And there she
saw Charlie sitting in the little chair beside the pen forcing Ben to pat Digby Turtle.
"Charlie! Stop this instant. Let my baby go now! You horrible child! This is
the last time you bother my kids. I am telling your mother right now!"
My mother gathered Ben into her arms and marched back to Charlie's mother's
house and into the kitchen to confront his mother with this latest incident.
My mother was a professional cook and worked for Charlie's mother. Three
days a week she cooked meals for them and this was one of those days. They were
very well off, Charlie's parents, and the only reason we knew them or associated with
them was because our house was next door and it was convenient for mother to work
for people close by. My father was a salesman and away a lot. Mother needed to work
"to make ends meet" as she said. This meant that I did a lot of babysitting as I was
twelve years old and the oldest child, Bernie by name. When I did my paper route, my
mother had to take Ben with her over to the Tripe's house so she could start dinner.
This was why I wasn't on guard for Ben when Charlie decided to pick on Ben.
Generally he left Ben alone as he knew Ben's older brother, me, would pulverize him
if he pulled any of his tricks. Mother knew Charlie picked on others to get attention
as his parents generally ignored him. He was an only child and very spoiled with toys
and anything he wanted to buy. Unfortunately, when it came to needed attention from
his parents he didn't get it often.
This time he was going to get some negative attention. My mother told Mrs.
Tripe what Charlie had been up to and how Ben had almost lost a finger. Mrs. Tripe
was bothered enough to call Charlie in to apologize and she told him to "do something
about that turtle! Get rid of it! Then go to your room for the rest of the evening!"
My mother knew that probably Mrs. Tripe would forget what she told
Charlie to do shortly after and go back to her social calendar, but at least she had
made and effort to get something done.
All Charlie did was give my mother a sour look a apologized sullenly and
then he walked out to the ravine again.
My mother wondered what he'd be up to next and so as soon as I came home
from delivering the papers she called me over to the Tripes' kitchen and told me
what had happened. Then she instructed me to watch Charlie secretly in the ravine
and to get my two sisters, Bev and Anne, to help. She'd keep Ben in the kitchen
with her. I was angry that Charlie would do such a horrible thing to a two year old
and waited and watched him, trying to think of an appropriate revenge. I need not
have worried as this was one time someone else got to Charlie for his evil deed.
As I spied Charlie in the wood down in the ravine, I hid behind a tree near
his turtle pen. He had an old axe and was throwing it at a tree stump near by. We
used to do this as a game to see who could make it stay in the stump near the pile
of firewood.
Suddenly the axe went flying backward toward the turtle pen and "Thunk!".
By some strange freak accident of fate it caught the turtle right on the neck and the
head of the poor creature was severed.
Charlie looked at his pet in horror. Then a look of anger, revenge and
mischief came over his face. "What evil idea has he thought up now, Bernie?", I
thought to myself. "You'd better watch him."
I heard my mother say, "Hello, Charlie. Dinner will be ready in half an hour."
"That's nice, Mrs. Connor. Hey! Look at that bluebird out there! Isn't it
pretty." Of course my mother looked outside, and that's when she saw me with my
finger to my lips. She looked puzzled.
"I don't see anything. Where? ... Charlie? ... Oh, he's gone. Strange child.
Bernie, what are you doing out there hiding on the porch? Come inside. What is
Charlie up to?"
"Mom, he came in here with a turtle's head. You don't think he might
have ..."
We both looked in horror at the soup pot. My mother picked up the soup
ladle and fished around in the pot. Sure enough, there was the head floating around
in the soup.
"Oooooh! That horrible boy! I just thought of a great idea."
With that she marched outside and disappeared down into the ravine. She
was back in a minute with something in a plastic bag.
"You go on back home with Ben while I finish up here."
"Mother, what are you up to?"
"Never you mind. Go home with our Ben."
She had an evil grin on her face almost the same as I'd seen earlier on Charlie's
face.
When my mother got home later that evening she looked very satisfied. She
had a wonderful story to tell me.
She told me that Mrs. Tripe had the habit of taking a short nap before
dinner and had gone in to lie on her bed. As she removed the cushions from her
bed she discovered a headless turtle and screamed for Charlie. She had never heard
Mrs. Tripe so angry. Charlie had to stay in his room to eat dinner for a few days.
Nothing he said would make her believe it wasn't one of his tricks and that wasn't
how he had planned to get rid of the turtle. Later that evening, Mrs. Tripe asked
mother to send dinner up to Charlie. Mock Turtle Soup was the first dish served to
him and how he screamed when he had taken a sip and then asked what it was.
Mother couldn't stop laughing in the kitchen and had had to come home a little
early.
Charlie was much better to us after that and even admired my mum a little.
I guess he knew who'd be feeding him for the next few years.
Ginette Burgess
c1994
_______________________________________
Let Him In
The firetruck stirred up the dirt alley, its siren running out of power,
and a couple suit guys told me I couldn't burn my leaves in this residential
neighborhood. Most got back in the truck, but one said to me, "Lets valueless
toxins in the air," before he grabbed onto the back. So I bagged up the dead
things in $4.50 worth of plastic bags, and set them prettily in the front
yard. Garbageman came by and took shots at them, laughing as he rolled on his
route.
Went in, had Lipton sweet tea, saw on every channel the news about these
sanitation workers, saw the address for recruitment, so I went to the nearest
Jenny Craig to sign up.
All the mirrors had been taken down, all the fat people disappeared,
they gave me a gun and enough bullets for 20 or 35 garbagemen, gave me a
little booklet to read on how to recognize the enemy "because chances are
they won't be using pine straw forks or smashing cans into the back of a
truck", and I was given power over 15 men because I had an American name, a
pronouncable name, and that was important in those times.
I was given the hill of Bradley, then a patrol up the Redwood district
where the rich people lived, where garbage was more of a myth to the eye, and
four days later I could say I killed three of them. Meeting at the Lupo's
Family Restaurant, as another makeshift deployment station, all the group
leaders compared numbers and I won a trip to Saudi Arabia for having the most
kills.
While my girl, Sadie, and I were waiting in the airport, we heard the
war was over, because we'd killed enough to make a point, and normal twice a
week trash pick up was resumed steadily as long as I can recall. On the
beach, Sadie said, "You love me, don't you?" I told her about my maudlin past
life with women who couldn't see past their own love for me, and how the
grains we were scooping up with our shovel feet couldn't be any closer than I
felt to her, and how her hair reminded me of treasures dusty by neglect and
unwillingness to touch the other large hands that wanted, needed her. She
held my hand and I felt compelled to promise a love that wasn't completely
mine yet, since I didn't love myself with that much vehemence, compassion;
and I told a truth, that when I closed my eyes the wind was only the memory
of kisses she'd strewn over my face and chest in the luxury of passion, and
she said closely, "I'm pregnant."
"When?" I asked. I scooped at the sand, looking at my arm.
"You mean will it be?" And she told me her due date, like she was some
milk carton or something, and we left for the states right then because I
knew who the father was going to be.
I got a job at a stereo wholesaler's, and brought home a plastic player
that played huge grooved records, and we continued to make love until she got
too fat, so that my sperm was mixed with his, and perhaps I could salvage
something.
I began smoking because Sadie couldn't anymore, and we painted the
baby's room in smoke grey so he, and we knew from the doctor what to expect,
could get used to the world right away, and after my first raise in three
months, we could afford a second coat and minute track shoes for the life.
Sadie, in her tenth month, was in one of her emotional rants when I
came home from a cigarette run, and kept spouting off about garbagemen and
how could I not care, and didn't I know how it felt to be a human egg that's
not special from any other mother hatchery in the world, and didn't I love
her less for not being the man who met her egg, the father. I slapped her
easily, lovingly, with a care that I hadn't felt before. I shook her so that
I got an erection, which I tried to force her hand down to, to show us both
the proof. The wonder of blind committment. She stopped crying and began to
scream, and I knew the baby finally decided something.
There was an ambulance two minutes from my phone call, and it was great
the way Sadie kept screaming, I was so proud of her for it. I told her so.
She was loaded carefully so she wouldn't break and put in next to three
others. Only she screamed.
She only made it to the lobby when my son wanted out, and the visitors
in tweed-covered chairs were repulsed by the smell and yells and blood rivers
that forced them from their sad seats and whatever usual life stories drove
them on for the moment's seclusion. My son was much like a calf in those
western movies, stories you hear of, and because he was turned around in the
womb, he was no good. Sadie died. But that was obvious because of the blood,
and the long time she waited to get rid of a lot. She held it all in and now
it took her with it.
Because it was no good the lobby doctor offered to throw it away, but I
said it was half mine, and that I wanted a prayer alone with it. I took it
back home, wrapped him in a lovely rug Sadie had liked when she could smile,
and understand, and laugh at serious things I said, said to make her feel
those emotions. I told my son about my life, my duty, my emotional outlook on
life, now that he wasn't mine anymore. And I walked out into the front yard.
Sitting him on the couple large and black Glad bags, I gave him back to the
garbageman.
Ben Ohmart
_________________________________________________________________
Appearing in this issue:
After 17 years in the work force, Allegra Sloman is now
interacting with western civilizardization in Greater Montreal,
as a housewife and mother of two. Her interests are so diverse that an
accurate representation of them wouldn't be useful, and it would
not describe the smells emanating from her kitchen or her very loud
laugh. A truncated list of interests follows: anarchism, sf,
pestering friends & relatives to get email addresses, and staying
warm.
dunciad!argella@smegheads.montreal.qc.ca
_________________________________________________________________
Ayli Lapkoff:
I'm a high school student who has been writing poetry since I was eight
years old. Recently, two of my poems, "Fraud" and "Midnight Sideshow" were
published in "GraffitiFish."
I hope this is okay. If not just let me know. I hope to hear from you
soon. Ayli.
av841@freenet.carleton.ca
_________________________________________________________________
David Dowker
*
Continuing with "Machine Language." Hope to have complete on-line
version available in the not-too-distant future. Collaboration on
SF novel seems to be becoming and other projects remain projected.
david.dowker@canrem.com
_________________________________________________________________
"jamie wasserman has a chapbook due to be released by big easy press in
february. he is a baltimore poet attending school in virginia. he has
had several poems published over the net and in local baltimore literary
mags. he is in love for the first time with jeanne marie clair."
jwasserm@s850.mwc.edu
_________________________________________________________________
c.e. nelson is 27 and resides in gainesville
florida.
please direct all email replies to:
bukowski@dkeep.com
more works by nelson are available upon request.
_________________________________________________________________
Michael McNeilley is editor of the Olympia Review; was Founding Director
of the National Student News Service; worked as a reporter and
correspondent in Washington, DC; and has published poems and stories in
New Delta Review, Red Dancefloor, Poet, Gypsy, Hyphen, Minotaur, Chicago
Review, Slipstream, Silent Skies, Poetry Motel, Stet, Lilliput Review,
Bouillabaisse, Tight, Writers' Forum, Rockford Review, xib, Exquisite
Corpse and elsewhere worldwide.
mmichael@halcyon.com
_________________________________________________________________
Ginette Burgess is the mother of 3. She lives in Sudbury, Ontario with her
husband and children, she writes children's stories in her rare spare time.
_________________________________________________________________
Niklas Pivic
_________________________________________________________________
Ben Ohmart
"I've had stories accepted by LOTS of zines from AArtvark to X-Ray"..
_________________________________________________________________
