Coraddi [Fall 2009]

              Volume 112, Issue 1.
Coraddi represents the art and literary community of the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro and has been
published, in various forms, since 1897.
PRIZE WINNERS
Three equal prizes are awarded to our writing and visual art
pieces, as judged by members of the UNCG community.
Anyone may submit to Coraddi, but only non-staff members are
eligible for the contest.
WRITING, AS JUDGED BY TITA RAMIREZ:
Caitlin McCann - Blue
Adam Thorn - From Myrtle Beach, North Carolina (1990)
Lynne Buchanan - Indelible
HONORABLE MENTION:
Caitlin McCann - Forsaken
Caitlin McCann - After Hours
ART, AS JUDGED BY BELINDA HAIKES:
Luke Flynt - Bicycle
Melissa Sullivan - Untitled 1
Heath Montgomery - Mask
CORADDI
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Taryn Cowart
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Zack Franceschi
LITERARY EDITOR
Catherine Conley
ART EDITOR
Ashley Weinberger
WEBMASTER
Jay Lee
FACULTY ADVISOR
Terry Kennedy
LITERARY STAFF
Andrew Bauer
Ryan Boye
Laura Brown
Silas Burke
Kayla Cavenaugh
Meen Cho
Caitlin Conway
Donovan Dorrance
Katie Fennell
Dustin A. Frost
Lauren Gorman
Katie Karambelas
Victor Mendoza
Amber Midgett
Sara O’Brien
Brian B. Schumacher
Levon Valle
Andrea Waldon
ART STAFF
Stephanie Case
Elena Dalsimer
Samuel G. Dalzell
Alexa Feldman
T. Lee Gunselman
Ivan Gilbert
Kelsey Hammersley
Katie Minton
Joseph Santaloci
Max Shipley
THANK YOU to:
our hardworking volunteer staff,
Terry Kennedy, the sweethearts
in the University Media Board,
Funda Mills, Elaine Ayers,
judges Belinda Haikes and
Tita Ramirez, and all of our
contributors for their continued
enthusiasm and commitment
to this publication, as well as to
Heath Montgomery for allowing
us to use his piece Leaf Bustle
for the cover.
WRITING
The Sultry Escape...................................................................10.
Lauren Wilson
Izanagi and Izanami..................................................................11.
Tristin Miller
Apple Butter..............................................................................12.
Nightmare...................................................................................14.
Mary Sullivan Lopez
Leopard Shark..........................................................................15.
Reid Drake
Backyard Anthropology........................................................16.
Chris Welsh
Forsaken......................................................................................17.
After Hours................................................................................18.
Blue...............................................................................................19.
Caitlin McCann
Dinosaur Havoc......................................................................20.
Fires in the Valley....................................................................21.
Helen-Marie Pohlig
The Cocooning of Pangaea................................................22.
The Map-Maker.......................................................................24.
Amanda Manis
Marriage.....................................................................................25.
David Wall
Good Night...............................................................................26.
Jackie Flannigan
I, the Trestle Bench................................................................27.
Foreboding Sacrifice.............................................................28.
Andrea Waldon
The Story: A Sestina.............................................................30.
Michelle Esquillo
Ursula..........................................................................................32.
Unsportsmanlike Grandpa.................................................33.
Mandy Arnold
CONTENTS
Bomber..........................................................................................34.
Cameron Prevatte
Unknown Lady in a Painting..................................................35.
Alexandra Creola
Open Air......................................................................................36.
Michael Hauck
Lovely.............................................................................................37.
Darius Scott
Requiem in the Dust...............................................................38.
Radovan Brenkus
The Ants’ Cost/
Benefit Analysis of the Kitchen Sink................................40.
I Think That Tree is Fake.........................................................41.
Larry Holderfield
Linville...........................................................................................42.
Paul Vincent
Summer of 10th Grade...........................................................43.
Alex Craig
Here I Sit Upon the Very Toes of Spring.........................44.
Gabriel Morgan
K’che-sepi-ack.............................................................................45.
Samuel Dalzell
Filter...............................................................................................46.
Curb-Sitters.................................................................................47.
Amanda Manis
Letters to Heaven.....................................................................49.
Meen Cho
Indelible........................................................................................53.
Lynne Buchanan
From Myrtle Beach, North Carolina (1990)....................55.
Adam Thorn
Mission Control......................................................................57.
Zane Gragg
Satan Was Pissed...................................................................63.
Sarah Sills
Street Spirit..............................................................................69.
Kelly White
ART
Parts and the Whole......................................................80-85.
Robert McKnight
drw3............................................................................................86.
drw6.............................................................................................87.
Heath Montgomery
Bicycle........................................................................................88.
Luke Flynt
Reeds...........................................................................................89.
Paul Vincent
Family..........................................................................................90.
Janie Ledford
Radio ’54....................................................................................92.
Ivan Gilbert
Alexander Hatchett...............................................................93.
Old School Boombox
Untitled.......................................................................................94.
Jessy Harding
Cherokee Hands....................................................................95.
Rebecca Bennett
Untitled 1...................................................................................96.
Melissa Sullivan
Birds of Pray...........................................................................98.
Corey Erba
Fence...........................................................................................99.
Matthew Thomason
Roommate and Sandwhich.................................................100.
Joseph Santaloci
Expanding Mass.......................................................................101.
Kristin Ashley
Carl Ray Carter........................................................................102.
Jared Watson
Untitled........................................................................................103.
Miri Han
Native Tongue...........................................................................104.
Alexa Feldman
Leafy.............................................................................................105.
Taryn Cowart
Dark Places................................................................................106.
In the Name of Our Progress..............................................107.
Samuel G. Dalzell
Untitled........................................................................................108.
Ashley Weinberger
Self Portrait................................................................................109.
Max Shepard
Fender Height............................................................................110.
Trust.................................................................................................111.
Amanda Nicholas
Leaf Bustle...................................................................................112.
Mask..............................................................................................113.
Heath Montgomery
Diagram for Departure...........................................................114.
Karen Lepage
Colophon.....................................................................................118.
CONTENTS
8 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 9
10 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 11
The Sultry Escape
Cold feet, dark bottles, and heat.
She taps to the street’s
seductive bold beat.
The moonlit march sinks
summer wishes, and hopeful spoons
in dirty dishes.
Fuming with rush and
childhood blush, frail flowers must crush
in the tread of contingency.
Old faces were flushed as the
sensuous strut left an honest lush
on the kitchen floor.
Lauren Wilson
Izanagi and Izanami
Their firstborn
was an oil-stained lump of flesh.
This is not what gods make.
Ashamed,
they did only what they could do.
Tucked tight
into a reed knitted basket,
it was ofered to the empty hands of the sea.
Rocked by the current,
Caressed by the salt wind,
The child stared back
into the blank face
of the newborn sky.
Tristin Miller
12 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 13
Apple Butter
Precious love in a jar.
Opened the cupboard and saw
The jar his mom gave me,
The day before BJ died.
She smacked his hand as he reached
“I want a taste,” he beseeched
“Not yet,” she scolded, “Let it set.”
The day before BJ died.
It’s unreal yet today
How his young life gave way.
As full as the fruit,
Pulled out by the root.
A bullet went stray.
He got in the way.
It should never have happened.
It will never be right.
We can never go back
To the day before that night.
Precious love in a jar.
Opened the cupboard and saw
The jar his mom gave me
The day before BJ died.
The taste would be sweet,
But I just couldn’t eat
Precious love in a jar
Stored there for his keep.
Again, she picks,
She peels, she preserves.
She cries, but still
Gives the love he deserves.
Flowers bloom, bees still buzz,
Some things never change.
I want to be who I was
The day before BJ died.
Mary Sullivan Lopez
14 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 15
Nightmare
Brightly colored clowns pass by
Like lemmings to the sea.
They laugh and talk
And plot and scheme
But never notice me.
Standing by the side I watch
And never interfere.
Robed in black and white,
I cry
One red Paliachi tear.
Leopard Shark
It’s beautiful.
Mary Sullivan Lopez Reid Drake
16 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 17
Backyard Anthropology
when i was young and in love with Adolf Rupp
instead of Faye Dunaway,
my father paid someone else’s father,
one with dinosaur tar beneath his fingernails,
to cement a basketball net
into our driveway.
i shot and shot,
and sometimes missed
so badly the ball would jackrabbit over the fence.
i’d trampoline off the monkeygrass, one hand on the garage,
to retrieve my round, orange ego.
i’d find it shaded by young, Jung saplings,
where we’d buried the pets we’d killed.
we were an uppermiddleclass family
with guinea pigs, small birds, and goldfish.
there were many latchkey homicides.
i never saw her but suspected
Dr. Kubler-Ross of using treebark calligraphy on the gravemarkers
and toilet flush on the bodies.
Sherlock Holmes never suspected;
he was whacked out on morphine
with Eugene O’Neill’s mother.
they never played basketball,
or helped to dig tiny holes
for animals i once named.
Forsaken
The horses are dead.
So is the ground
that absorbed their decay.
A rabbit is caught
in the sharp, rusted fence.
Its hind leg gives a final twitch.
The peeling paint
of the abandoned farmhouse
flakes of in the wind.
Bare winter trees
surround the house
like an army of skeletons.
One day, before the house falls into itself,
I will dig the bullet
out of the kitchen wall from the day
grandma tried to kill grandpa.
Chris Welsh Caitlin McCann
18 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 19
After Hours
During the day,
when things were quieter,
my family and I listened
to our upstairs neighbor play the piano.
The notes drifted through the ceiling.
When her fiancé died,
she only played her piano at night.
Tangling themselves with the sound
of a hand striking a tear-dampened cheek,
the notes fell through the ceiling
and hit my ears like rain
on a cracked sidewalk.
My father told me her fiancé shot himself.
I imagined the moonlight,
leaking through the slit of his blinds,
shining upon the Jackson-Pollock-like blood stain
splattered across his apartment’s white walls.
I wonder if the gunshot still echoes
in the nights of his neighbors.
Her slow, sad music eventually stopped.
Now, all I have
are the ghosts of the piano’s notes
and my nightlight;
pulsating like a heart.
Blue
I sat on a bench
at the park downtown.
Stifling air burst from the iron grate
beneath my feet.
I watched birds collide
with the windows of the buildings
that cast a shadow over the city.
I wanted the glass to burst,
for the tattered birds to fall
to the ground like stones
into a shallow pond.
A woman sat next to me.
Her eyes were clouded.
She asked me the color of the sky.
I did not answer.
I did not know how to explain
what blue is.
Caitlin McCann
20 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 21
Dinosaur Havoc
I have never seen you run
The way you did when you grabbed my hand,
Told me not to look back,
A mask of desperate fright crawling up your neck,
Over your mouth, and into your eyes—
Justly so, since the whole ground was being ripped apart
Beneath our sneakers,
Like an expedited tear in two tectonic plates.
I do not want to imagine what the creature
Must have actually looked like in his fury,
Heart beating a million smashes a minute,
Ribs snapping, buildings demolished,
Twenty-seven loopy goats devoured in a flash,
Gardener screaming for his life,
Wondering who will pick up the kids from school
Since mamma is getting a perm.
Fires in the Valley
I am waiting for the days
when night will fall and lead me down
beaten moonlit paths,
cutting through jungle vines and palm
fronds bigger than hippo snouts,
when the heat will drag my body,
a heavy mass of melted clay,
up and down the twisted mountainsides
and the fires in the valley
will send shivers through my heart
because a spirit is unable to remain quite calm
on feverish Indian nights like these
and a body cannot sit still
when it is finally in the place it yearns to be.
Helen-Marie Pohlig
22 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 23
The Cocooning of Pangaea
tell me about continents and oceans
and I’ll tell you about highways
and planes.
continents—
fall apart
you say,
oceans—
destroy them.
and I say:
but look,
that isn’t an ending,
that’s just
change.
Pangaea was
beautiful,
it didn’t
need to change.
and I say:
we all need to change,
even beauty must adapt.
and I say:
I adapted,
Pangaea adapted,
why can’t you?
all that distance,
you say:
all those miles.
there is an ocean
between us.
and I say:
highways—
were made for miles.
planes—
don’t care about oceans.
[we sit in silence for some time,
to consider this.]
finally—
what if
I can’t find you?
you say.
and I say:
beautiful,
I’ll draw you a map.
Amanda Manis
24 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 25
The Map-Maker
I am settled here—a geographer. a cartographer. an anthropologist.
see —I always thought to settle meant to cease to move, but I am
heartbeats-fluttering faster than ever. I am a traveler. a student of the world
and it is mine and it is ours.
I know people. I’ve watched them. most have no idea what the word
‘world’ even means.
they’d say a planet. they’d pull out a map of all the continents and say see,
there, that’s the world.
I’d say no. I’d draw them a map with notations in the margins saying things
like the amount of lines on your palm or the exact coordinates of your
birthmark.
(six hundred eighty three. thirty-seven point two-nine, twelve point three-five.)
I’d show them where landmasses form and explain the concept of plate
tectonics; how your hand slides along the small of my back. how, curled up,
I fit snug against your side.
I’d make a note on the evolution of breaths and beats and then another on
rotations and weathering. I’d make a heat index chart. I’d say absolute zero
is when I wake to your breath on my neck and for a second we cease motion,
forget to exhale.
last, I’d draw a time-line. there would be no start or end date. it would
simply read:
foreverforeverforalwaysforever.
years down the road, a noted cartographer would find my map and, in
stunned silence, realize that he had been doing it wrong the whole time.
Marriage
Later, she would come to realize
That the bruises were not fruits of love.
But by then, she really would not care.
Amanda Manis David Wall
26 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 27
Good Night
Once upon a time there was a beautiful woman.
Who traveled the world
and sunk
and swelled
and disappeared.
Part of her went to the sky
through the clouds
through the watercolor sunsets
and the glorious warm mornings
and she could dance around the rings of Jupiter
and laugh among the stars.
Part of her went to the jungle
with it thick green forests.
She became one with the animals
in the bright brilliant oranges, yellows, blues, pinks, purples, reds, blacks,
whites, and browns.
She reflected them
like a rainbow
and in their chorus she sung.
And part of her went to the ocean
where she could be surrounded
forever
by the cool deep water
and she found rest
in the darkness
in the night time
of the ocean
and the flash lights
of the luminescent fishes
and comfort
in the arms of the octopus.
And through these places in all her parts she found her peace.
I, the Trestle Bench
Placed as a public service in the mid-city park,
beneath the shelter of a giant Oak, smug with pride.
I, counselor of many shattered hearts, crushed under the pressure of their
own beating.
The old, battered from abusive years, find their comfort on my trestles.
Their canes gently rest against my own weathered graying wood.
I, a simple bench, a product of extensive budget cuts.
I have no back for those coming to lean on.
My humble form provides the bare essentials one needs to sit.
I have the technology of a rock.
The little girl makes a jungle gym of me
when her mother stops for a conversation, or
to take a long drag on a cheap cigarette, contemplating her mourning.
I am an unsophisticated chaise.
All who find me never look.
I, the lounge chair on which a morning newspaper is read,
stories and obituaries searched for concrete signs of change.
I, love-maker to the earth,
penetrate her with my solemn presence; alone.
A & S, is roughly carved in my seat by immature lovers,
longing to prove what they do not feel,
faking passionate moments that do not exist.
I saw them fight the Tuesday after.
I see the years;
wishing themselves away,
whisking themselves away
day after day.
Jackie Flannigan Andrea Waldon
28 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 29
Foreboding Sacrifice
I wake up to the newly placed ring on my left hand,
Walls, covered in shiny, multi-colored beer signs,
And clothing, littering the small amount of floor space.
A man breathes heavily beside me.
I am the girl with the formal living room.
I cover my walls with floral paintings,
With paintings from foreign countries,
With history. My carpets match.
I lie next to this handsome man,
Observing this alien land
That was his bachelor pad.
Beer cans line his living room table.
They are neighbors with Oreo and Snicker’s wrappers.
His bathroom sink is decorated with facial shavings
And old toilet paper roles lie gracefully on the floor.
I am the girl with the perfect kitchen.
A clean kitchen is a happy kitchen.
My glasses are nestled in their cupboard homes
Neatly arranged by shape and size in their rows.
A family-sized Captain Crunch box
Rests on his end table,
Shoving my stylishly placed candles
Mercilessly out of the way.
I am the girl with the sheer, white curtains,
Potted flowers on her terrace,
And a matching floral bathroom set.
His kitchen table serves as a filing cabinet.
Dirty plates litter the kitchen counters,
Dirty plates decorated with crusted two-day old hot wings
And peanut butter and jelly.
I was the girl with seasonal placemats,
Fresh flowers on every table,
And everything in its place.
Such is the sacrifice of a neat freak in love.
Andrea Waldon
30 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 31
The Story: A Sestina
They called it romance once upon a time—
the damsel in the tower, in the tale,
the prince who wins his princess in the end.
Back then, they said it was a dream-come-true.
Nowadays they say it’s just a dream.
No one believes in heroes anymore.
Nobody tells those stories anymore:
the remnants of some long-lost golden time
that now exist only in dusty dreams
as nothing more than children’s fairy tales.
We don’t delude ourselves that they are true.
We all know how the story goes-—and ends.
What happens after ever-after ends?
That’s not how we tell stories anymore.
We’re looking for an answer, something true.
Anything else is just a waste of time.
Who cares about the moral of the tale?
There are other ways to capture dreams.
They do not want the magic of the dream.
They want the pot of riches at the end.
It doesn’t matter who will hear the tale,
it’s not as if they listen anymore.
To tell the story would take too much time
and they don’t know how much of it is true.
The story can be false, or can be true.
Reality can languish in the dream
and strand the dreamer in the mists of time.
You think you know how all the stories end?
The rules are not so simple anymore.
Come here, my child, and listen to the tale.
They’ll argue this is just a fairy tale.
They’ll say it’s nonsense, say it can’t be true.
They’ll tell you not to listen anymore,
but know this, child: they who deny their dreams
live only life, and that is where they end.
The dreamer lives the story for all time.
Don’t wonder anymore about the tale.
Just give it time, for time will prove it true.
You’ll live the dream until the story ends.
Michelle Esquillo
32 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 33
Unsportsmanlike Grandpa
He plays dirty.
He doesn’t play fair.
He’ll bite, and pinch,
And pull your hair.
He never bunts the ball,
Or takes one for the team.
When he doesn’t get his way,
He stomps and swears and screams.
He calls a ball a strike
And pitches really hard.
He’s been known to cause a bruise or two.
His curveballs leave a scar.
My buddies run away in fear
When he steps up to the plate.
Their shrieks can be heard all over—
The town, the county, the state!
He swings for the moon every time,
So watch out when he’s hitting.
‘Cause backyard ball’s no joke
When Grandpa’s babysitting.
Mandy Arnold
Ursula
The life of Ursula Reversula
Is completely topsy turvy.
Everyone else likes the straight and narrow;
Ursula prefers the curvy.
If we all agree that that is that
And no one strays a bit,
Ursula will certainly shake things up
And think the opposite.
I know this, for I’ve seen her myself
Doing the strangest things.
She cleans her house all winter long
And sings carols in the spring.
There can be a line quite long
From here to infinity.
Ursula will step to the very front
And huf impatiently.
I see her son, Amanda, as well,
Always on the streets,
Driving his mother’s car around
With Ursula in the baby seat.
But I guess it’s better that Ursula doesn’t drive
And she doesn’t do the mowing,
‘Cause she wears her glasses
On the back of her head
And can’t see where she’s going.
Mandy Arnold
34 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 35
Unknown Lady in a Painting
The plastered paint is cracking.
The canvas is tearing at the seams.
In frozen time she smiles,
But in silent night she screams.
Perpetual pain permeates the eyes
Of she who sees but cannot speak,
Cannot gesture, cannot move.
With waterless tears she cannot weep.
Unchanging in her faded glory,
The finished stroke of an artist’s brush,
She sits in torturous solitude
Feeling the weight of ages crush.
And as she watches day turn to night
She can’t but hope to dream
Of life, of breath, of love and loss,
Of freedom she has never known, but often seen.
Bomber
Have you ever been naked?
No, seriously, have you ever been naked?
I’ll admit, I have.
I’ve streaked through a cloud of my friends
like a bat out of Hell just to get them to
look.
But have you ever taken a seat and sat for hours on end,
The cold bare back on your flesh
and the light shining off of you like
a magnified sun?
All eyes are on you as glue keeps you
fixated in the same position for what feels like
hours.
By about this time, sweat was dripping down my
exposed body as someone cracked a
subconscious smile. They weren’t sure if they
did it, but I saw it creep over their face.
No, this adventure would have to wait, because suddenly....
I couldn’t find my pants!
This is what I wanted, but how I hated it at that moment.
My heart was beating so fast, it
felt like a bomb being set of.
The wires were false emotions,
The iron casing was uncertainty,
and the ignition was my thoughts.
At that moment, all I could hear was the
panting of my own breath and
the sounds of laughter, burying me
alive inside the chilly plastic chair.
As I sat there,
bleeding
with nails in my hope,
the light started to grow warmer and warmer
until it was so hot,
it was almost
wonderful.
Cameron Prevatte Alexandra Creola
36 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 37
Open Air
with my hand out the car window
I know what it is to be an astronaut,
floating in space with a head full
of thoughts on what I left behind.
cold air brushing by feels infinitely still.
my pale skin against the black background dulls the stars
of the passing cars and the moon
seems to be hiding behind headlights tonight.
suspended in time, at 73 down the galactic highway,
400 km never felt so close as it does now.
above the beauty, among the giants, remember to breathe:
that’s the real challenge.
Lovely
Lovely
crept pitter patter
(bottom stair)
Lovely dips
in pink satin blossom
sucking hips, Lovely sits
on a mahogany framed chair
with taut, taupe tassels
at the outer corners of each leg
rattling as Lovely taps
her prosthetic peg.
Michael Hauck Darius Scott
38 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 39
Quo vadis?
I am standing face-to-face
with naked being.
My head got stuck
at the base of it,
and then it coolly stripped me
of my existence.
Thinking has caused more pain
than all the tears on earth,
collected up at every step
and drunk down to drying point.
Is there anything at all bigger?
Any kind of activity
merely wastes my time,
and its bitter-sweet fruit
is crushed here underfoot.
As if homeless
I have nowhere to sleep.
I miss love
in a warm, safe place
that I can always return to.
All sense has left the road.
Spurned, I wait for mercy.
It’s possible to be or not to be.
What is better?
Requiem in the Dust
The Everlasting Pain
A whiskered lunatic with the soul of a child
is pulled away from a nurse,
while elsewhere a few punks
drive a skull with a thighbone
for a hole in one.
Later one vomits into the crypt
of an ancient aristocratic family.
God fled from the chapel,
when he’d had his fill of transience,
the wolfpack hastening after its prey
clamped its eyes on his footprints.
The Forecast
Whoever looks ahead
can see his death,
and who looks back
will encounter it.
Half-sleeping I enter the cave.
The opening behind me
was erased with the blast.
I am losing my face.
Rid me of the ring
that binds me with the dark,
for this night is sacrificed
among the last ones.
Radovan Brenkus
40 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 41
I Think That Tree is Fake
drinking black coffee in a white room
waiting
why do the couches always feel like this
waiting
please, don’t cough on me
don’t sit over here
don’t talk
waiting
this is the worst cofee ever
worse than that gas station
i wonder how long those mints have been there
does anybody ever eat those mints
they look more like lint
no, not over here
sit closer to the bathroom
where you can see the tv
i’m planning to read that magazine
next, don’t take it
she’s taking a mint
i can’t believe it
she took my magazine
and a lintmint
what is that in the bottom of my cup
cofee dirt
cofee earth
cofee grounds
cofee mud puddle in my cup
i can see my future
waiting
drinking cofee in a white room
i should have sat closer to the restroom
i think that tree is fake
Larry Holderfield
The Ants’ Cost/Benefit
Analysis of the Kitchen Sink
Fifty-three percent of scouts
report a barren plane
prone to floods,
filled with the tantalizing aroma of food.
Thirty-six percent of scouts
carry all they can obtain,
overloaded,
a river of sisters neatly queued.
Eleven percent of scouts,
awaited in vain,
never return.
We may never know what has ensued.
42 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 43
Linville
Dylan and I sat,
Cooking our dinner
In the gorge
By stovetop. We sat
With our backs to the
Cold, leaf littered ground,
Curled, nursing the meal.
A sizable oak, adjacent the
Kitchen and weary from
Passing years, creaked out
A discomforting pain:
…crack!…crraaakk!
Our scoutmaster poised
His bald head from the
One-man tent, discerning
The possibility of disaster.
Moments passed
Unchallenged, the
Macaroni nearly
Tender.
The evening light sagged
Like a wet towel, slippery
And fell. Night now
Blanketed the gorge.
Crickets
Began chirping dewy lullabies
That pervaded every natural
Boundary.
Summer of 10th Grade
The simple maple wood of the stairs bowed
beneath your rubber soles, like the rough calloused paws of an elephant,
grinding splinters out of its soft shelves.
Your voice trumpeting, your dominance was absolute.
And me, cowering at the end of the hall, legs trembling,
if only they could see me now.
Your hands, fingers kneading the soft, fleshy dough of your palm,
muscles flexing, tendons and sinews grinding, posturing to make contact
first.
Eyes snapping and sparking, setting fire to the maple.
Nose, strong and bulbous, in and out, spewing thick, hot steam.
Tail swishing, the stark white of your ivory tusks blinding
in the dim light of the hall.
I hope she’s worth it.
Your eyes are pinpricks in the night, glowing with white-hot hate.
Beneath your skin, thick membranes twisting wet and
pumping blood and life and anger, filtering clean the toxins
from your cells.
Your eyes hollow.
You charge.
My body is frozen.
Paul Vincent Alex Craig
44 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 45
Here I Sit Upon the Very Toes of Spring
As the gamebirds haunt
This hill on which I sleep
And scold the very
Marrow of my soul,
Their yodels sing
The nighttime’s sighs,
Of dreams far older than I can dream.
Here I sit upon
The very toes of spring
Like a child at the edge
Of his front porch.
I kick my feet over oblivion
In these Scottish hills
With the wind trampling my sleeping bag.
K’che-sepi-ack
The Chesapeake flows with the same murky salts and nutrients that
comprise my own blood. There is something vastly unsettling about these
dying and antiquated towns, rusted industrial carcasses leaking petroleum and
iron oxide and stinking of long-abandoned paper mills. These places have long
outlived their purpose; they will sit in tangled, corroding heaps, relics of our
ancient industrial heritage, until the tide finally collects them and bleaches
away the scarce minerals that remain. Indeed, this place is haunted. And yet,
there truly is nowhere else that I have seen in my life that can compare to the
dark and lonesome majesty of this muddy estuary. I have tasted its water on
my lips, its tides have nourished me since the cradle. My flesh is composed of
its mud, my blood its waters. My soul has long been entranced by its mystical
and intoxicating air. The sailboats on Wicomico, the canvas of their rigs
bone-white in the hot sun; the dark and pungent sediment that seems to stay
imbedded in the soles of my feet for weeks; the dense subtropical forests
that sweat in the humidity and press all the way up against the very edge
of the shore; the sun- and salt-bleached driftwood left in dry heaps on the
desolate beaches like twisted carvings meticulously hewn by some mysterious
and unseen sculptor. Upon the soft banks of this vast bay, long after the sea
has reclaimed the tired, rusted villages, and long after my ashes have been laid
to rest in the salt and motherly breeze, my descendants will live and play and
bathe, naked, with the sun softly glancing their graceful, olive-tanned skin.
The beauty of it will be startling, haunting, otherworldly. Until the end of
time, my people will inhabit these dense forests and narrow strands, and they
will always taste on their tender tongues the sacred salts of their ancestry.
Gabriel Morgan Samuel Dalzell
46 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 47
Curb-Sitters
I ask her what she wants to be when she grows up and she tells me she already
has, so I say no, what do you want to be when you grow up and she says an
octopus, an eight-legged creature of the deep: solitary, strong.
I tell her that’s the kind of answer a child would give but she tilts her head
and smiles. she tells me that if she hasn’t grown up already, she must still be
a child.
I admit my long-legged gloss-toned friend has a point, but then I also tell her
she’s a smart ass, because she is.  I change the subject.  I say let’s look at the
moon and she pulls her face and tells me she would rather look at dirt.
dirt, yes dirt.  everyone looks at the moon she says, everyone.  what’s special
about that?   why don’t we look at something no one has ever looked at
before. let’s go watch the streetlamps, let’s go watch the sidewalks.
I tell her she’s dificult and she tells me I’m cliché and we end up sitting on the
curb in silence. I look at the moon and she’s probably looking at some car tire
or the McDonald’s cup that’s been thrown out of a passer-by’s window and I
want to force her chin upward, I want to make her see that light in the sky
but I can’t look at her and I can’t think to touch her quivering chin because
the thought of it makes me want to cry and I know she already has begun
to, maybe because she’ll never be an octopus or maybe because I called her a
child or maybe she’s just crying because,
we haven’t looked at the same thing in a dog-year and it’s beginning to wear
on us. it’s beginning to take a toll and I want to look at the McDonald’s cup or
take her hand and go look at stop-signs but
I can’t.  because I’m so frightened that if I give in to her ways, she’ll realize
how weak I am, and she’ll leave me.  and I’m stubborn, I’m a wild-boar, I’m
a horse at the edge of the water and I’m dying of thirst but pride denies me
of water.
Filter
if you wanted to, you’d know where to find me, my red hair burning fierce
against my cool pale skin.  maybe it is raining out and the car won’t start or
the neighbor’s dog ran away and I hear him howling at my door and I should
be asleep but I am pacing, pacing barefooted up and down the gentle hallways
of my old house with the red front door and the hardwood floors.
maybe, or probably, there is a copy of Cummings or Vonnegut or Bukowski
in my hands and I am crying—not because I am sad, but because I can’t
remember my favorite excerpt and I know you would love it if you were here,
which you’re not.  that’s probably another reason I’m crying, and I think about
finding the passage and how I wouldn’t be able to share it with you anyway,
because over the phone my voice may quaver and it would lose its magic and
then you wouldn’t love it as much as I did and I can’t bear that thought.
sometimes when I breathe, I imagine the particles finding their way to your
mouth, your lips, your nose, your lungs, and I feel dizzy then, when I envision
my breath swimming through you, kissing you everywhere I never could, and
then I imagine the same for me, welcome your exhaled breath into my body,
smile at the thought that you are me and I, you.
this is not a love note. I don’t want you to think something dramatic like I
would die without you; you are not the sun or the moon or the stars in my
sky. more, you are the filter I use to look at them and they are all the more
beautiful for that.
Amanda Manis
48 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 49
Letters to Heaven
Letter 1 – August 7th
Hi,
It’s so hot here! The people are okay, not the best looking bunch, though. I
can’t really write much, there’s this thing I have to go to soon. Just wanted to
let you know I got here okay! I’ll write more later. Bye.
Letter 2 – October 19th
Hi again,
Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote. Did you get my last letter? I do hope
you write back soon. Maybe you’re just waiting for me to write more about
what’s going on down here. It’s kind of just the regular old stuf. I’ve seen
some friends I knew back in high school and college. Even some professors
who I absolutely hated. Can you say awkward? Yeah. The woman in charge
doesn’t seem that bad, despite everything I heard about her before coming
down here. She does like to keep things clean, which is hard to do with all
the heat. Sometimes she lets us use the AC but that’s only on rare occasions.
I don’t want you to think she’s a tyrant, though! She likes to joke around as
much as the next person but when you’re in charge, you’re in charge, right?
Well, it’s time for dinner. Let me know what’s going on with you! I’m literally
dying to know! Bye.
Letter 3 – November 1st
Hi there,
I’m wondering if I got your address right. I haven’t gotten a single letter
from you yet. Maybe you haven’t received any of mine but I thought we had
a promise to always keep in touch, no matter what. I guess you’re busy up
there, doing your thing and what not, but it’d be nice to hear from you every
once in a while. It’s creepy the way time passes here. I actually have this
theory that time just stands still. Every watch I’ve looked at is broken and I
I settle on looking at the cup through the reflection in her saltwater eyes and
she asks me to stop staring and she asks me to hold her hand and she asks me
what’s going to happen to us and all I can say is I don’t know, I don’t know.
because I don’t.  and I do.  we both know.  because I still can’t look directly at
the cup and she’s avoiding the moon at all costs and we are breaking because
we haven’t looked at the same goddamned thing in months and, to be honest,
I don’t even think we know how to anymore.
Curb-Sitters • Amanda Manis
Meen Cho
50 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 51
more if I forgot your name. There’s nothing really to write. I’m forgetting
words, too. People here don’t really want to have conversations. They just
sit around and throw rocks at the walls. I’m starting to do that, too. I don’t
know when I’ll hear from you or when I’ll write again but I hope it’s soon.
You should come visit me, please. Or at least write me a letter. I promise I’ll
stop writing if you just send me some words, please. Bye.
Letter 7 – July 1st
I don’t know why I bother writing to you anymore. It just makes me sadder
and sadder every time I check my mail and find nothing. People are starting
to talk more. I keep hearing about some war or fight or something but I just
can’t seem to muster up enough energy to ask people what it’s about. The
boss made some kind of announcement but all I do these days is throw those
same rocks at the same walls, hoping to make a tunnel to you. Have you heard
anything about this? I didn’t even realize there was anything left to fight for,
other than you, of course, but I don’t know if I even believe in you anymore.
The rumor is that if we win, we’ll get to move to better facilities. I don’t know
where but I think it’ll be closer to you, if you even care. I guess if this is a war
it means that there will be death. An escape. If you don’t hear from me again
it means I died again. Bye.
Letter 8 – July 5th
I’ve found some time to write you one last letter. Everyone here is so antsy.
Some people are saying the war won’t even happen and some are saying that
the enemy is too scared to fight. I don’t know what to believe. I just wish
I could have seen you or talked with you before leaving for war. It’s almost
been one year. Do you still remember me? These past few nights I’ve been
having dreams about life. Remember you used to call me your baby? Oh, and
remember that night we danced to that song, what was it called? It was by
the Beetles, or was it the Beatles? I remember that time we stole newspapers
from peoples’ yards and gave them to people who would never get the paper.
The roses and the flowers and the salt rocks in the sun. I remember the
fighting too and I’m sorry. I was wrong. I wish I could be sure that you’ll get
this letter. I wonder if you’ve gotten any of my other letters. It’s okay that
you haven’t written back. And it’s okay that you’ve moved on. I can’t expect
you to always be mine. But I have a feeling I won’t be coming back from this.
I’m not sure I want to come back. People tell me it’ll get better with time and
I’ll forget everything that happened in that part of my life but I don’t want
to. I want to remember everything and the only way to do that is to die again.
There are rumors that when you die here something amazing happens. They
can’t find new batteries to put in mine anywhere. What’s weird is that all of
them, even mine, stopped on the same time. 2:45. It’s so weird. Write back
with your theories on this! I miss you. Bye.
Letter 4 – December 25th
Merry Christmas! They have an odd way of celebrating it down here. It’s not
even a kind of celebration, really. It’s hard to explain. I don’t even know all
the details but I’m excited about New Years. Something BIG is supposed to
happen. Please write back soon. It doesn’t even feel like winter here. We do
get ice cream with dinner tonight, though, so it’s a nice treat. It’s getting kind
of lonely here. I tried to make friends when I first got here but no one really
cares about much. Bye!
Letter 5 – February 14th
People always look at me when I write these letters to you. I actually got into
a fight with a couple of people because they were making fun of me for writing
to you. They think I’m crazy for believing you’ll ever write back after I tell
then to whom I’m writing. I believe you will; you’re just busy. But now that
it’s after the holidays, I’m sure you’ll find time to send me something. I really
do hope I remembered your address correctly. It would suck if these letters
were just floating around in limbo. Well, today is Valentine’s Day. Remember
that one time I was drying flowers on all of the windowsills and you thought
they were trash? I searched through all of the trash cans until I pieced the
flowers back together. I don’t know why I’m thinking of that day, but it was
a good day. I miss those days. Are you ever going to write back? I don’t
want to get angry but I don’t know why you won’t write. Especially today.
No one here cares about today. I wish I could come visit you but they say
that it’s impossible. They say that you’ve forgotten about me and I should
stop wasting the ink and time. I tell myself not to get angry with you but
sometimes I find myself punching the walls until my fists are on fire. Please
write back soon. Bye.
Letter 6 – May 27th?
Hello,
It’s been a while since the last letter. Sorry. This place makes me forget things.
Sometimes I wake up and I can’t remember my name. I wrote it on my hand.
I wrote your name, too. I’d hate to forget my name, but I would hate myself
Letters to Heaven • Meen Cho
52 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 53
Indelible
She asks if it’s going to hurt and I want to scream at her, Of course it’s
going to hurt, you moron. It’s a fucking tattoo. I bite the insides of my cheeks and
try to smile.
“It’s not that bad,” I tell her, “and besides, it’ll be over before you
know it.”
She stands in front of me with her pants undone, rolled down to the
top of her ass-crack. She’d asked for “something tribal with a Chinese symbol
that means ‘forever’ in the middle.” I found the character in a Japanese
dictionary, but I don’t tell her this. I apply the stencil and she walks to the
full-length mirror hanging on my studio door and turns, this way, now that
way. She pulls her jeans up and looks again, making sure the branches flowing
from either side of the symbol are still visible over the top of her pants. She
smiles, and I can tell she thinks it looks sexy.
In the industry, we call these upper-butt tattoos “ass-antlers” or
“tramp stamps.”
She sits on the raised stool in front of me giving me access to her
lower back. I give my machine a final once-over, dip my needles in the first cap
of ink, position my foot pedal, and begin.
To her credit, she doesn’t jump or cry out. Most of them do.
When I finish the outline I tell her we can take a break if she
wants. She stands and stretches, and asks for a cigarette. She doesn’t look
like a smoker. I hand her a smoke and notice her hands are shaking. Some
people shake when they get a tattoo, some throw up, some pass out, some go
into shock…I even had one guy crap his pants. The body reacts, sometimes
violently, to this sort of insult.
A tattoo is an intentional injury. Clients would do well to remember
that.
I open the door for her and we’re headed outside when she collapses.
“Fucking great.” I drop to one knee beside her.
“Hey! You okay?” I shake her. What was her name? Cammie? Callie?
I roll her over and there’s blood on her face. She must’ve smacked her
nose on the concrete step. I’m about to go grab a cold, wet rag when I realize
she’s not breathing. I put my head to her chest and listen. She’s wearing a little
black top with skinny straps and I can smell her fabric softener and I’m aware
that my two-day stubble is probably scratchy on her smooth skin, but I can’t
say that you get to go back. Like, go back and relive the happiest moments of
your life. But others say that if you die again here you stop existing. I think
I’d enjoy either one right now. So I guess this is it? Maybe I’ll hear from you
or maybe I’ll see you or maybe not, but I know that when I feel the last breath
of air release from my lungs, I’ll try to paint a perfect picture of you as I fall.
This is my final goodbye.
Letter 1 – July 9th
The doctors say that you’re getting better and that I can finally start writing to you. I
received all of your letters. Thank you for them. It really killed me to have to read those
letters and not be able to write back, but the doctors told me if I did write back, they’d
throw my letters away. I’m so sorry, baby.
I hope you really are getting better. They said the therapy is helping a lot. Please stop
hurting yourself. The doctors said that once you stop having these ideas for good I could
come visit you! Wouldn’t that be exciting? Your birthday is coming up soon. Do you
remember what we did last year? We planted those rose petals you liked to dry so much. I
don’t know why, but there’s a plant growing there now. I water it everyday. I attached
a picture of it with this letter; hopefully the doctors will let you keep it. Happy birthday.
I’m so happy you’re doing better and I can’t wait to see you again.
Letters to Heaven • Meen Cho
Lynne Buchanan
54 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 55
From Myrtle Beach, North Carolina (1990)
My dad used to tell me bedtime stories about a character he made up
named Ben the Bear that was constantly in search of the moon. My dad was
raised in Virginia in a large upper-class family that was rich enough to aford
a black maid. Last night, I went by to ask him about a couch and he was
screwing the neighbor on the floor, but nobody deserves to be lonely I guess. I
have this picture of him fishing where he looks like this dumb overweight kid
that I would have seen while I was fishing. When he was a kid, he played the
drums. He stopped playing the drums and got herpes in high school. I think
his brother John traumatized him by wearing a werewolf costume into his
room one night, screaming, “I’m gonna get you Jimmy,” or something to that
efect. My dad got a business degree and hated his father, still hates his father
although his father drank himself to death. When we moved into our house
on Hermitage Road in Greensboro, he took pictures of all the rooms that
were recently abandoned so he could track the process of their reinvention.
He watches them grow like children or plants. He would take a picture of
a room that had been painted a new shade of peach or of the deck in the
process of renovation. He takes pictures of new cars or mopeds that he buys,
or sometimes of the house from the view of the street because he’s trying to
sell it, but something is wrong with the insulation in the attic.
There is only one picture I have of my dad and me together where he
doesn’t have a beer belly or hasn’t adorned himself with visors or some kitschy
garment like a fanny-pack. It was taken in a photo booth at a fairground in
Myrtle Beach in the spring of 1990 on my fourth birthday. I look vague and
innocent but I’m not that way now; neither are any of my friends. We’re all
crooked or dishonest in some way; somebody is always using someone for
something else. I’m not trying to get at the idea of lost innocence.
The first time I thought that my dad could quite possibly be insane
was a Saturday afternoon when I was twelve. I was in the bathroom trying to
shave my unibrow to give the impression of a natural division. He was on the
back porch cleaning leaves out of the gutter muttering. There was a thud and
then an, “Oh shit, goddamnit.” He had fallen of the ladder he was standing
on and landed on the Jacuzzi cover. I heard him rolling of the cover of the
Jacuzzi, panting, and then he said, “Oh, I’m sorry lord, I’m sorry, forgive me.”
It shocked me at the time.
My dark Caucasian face looks up at me when I’m reading in Center
hear anything. Just…nothing at all.
I run to the phone and dial 911. I’m explaining that I know nothing
about C.P.R., no, she wasn’t taking any drugs that I know of, yes, she just
collapsed without warning, and I’m holding this girl’s head in my lap and
wiping dirt and blood of her upper lip, then the paramedics are here and I’m
trying to stay out of their way. A cop pulls in behind the ambulance, walks over
to me and takes down my statement, then asks for the girl’s name. I tell him
to hang on a minute. I go back inside and grab my backpack and dig around
until I find her paperwork. I grab her purse from the counter, and then I go
back out.
“Her name is Cassie Stokes,” I say, looking at the line on the form
where she’d written her name about an hour ago.
The medics ignore me. They talk on the radio, write on papers
attached to metal clipboards, and speak with the cop in low voices. A sheet is
pulled over her face.
I call my cab then lock up the shop. Through the glass door I see an
imprint of the bloody outline of Cassie’s unfinished tattoo on the linoleum.
Must’ve happened when I rolled her over. Fuck it, I’ll clean it tomorrow. One
of the paramedics calls me over and tells me they’re taking her to Baptist
Hospital. I’m unsure of what to say. I settle for telling him that I didn’t really
know her, but that I’ll bet there’s a cell phone in her purse that’ll give him the
number of someone who does. I hand him the purse, then my cabbie pulls in
behind the police car, looking wary.
I climb in my cab, looking the other way as the medics load her body
in the back of the ambulance. Heavy drinking is another form of intentional
injury. I’m going to intentionally injure the shit out of myself tonight, I think, and
then I tell the cabbie where I want to go.
Her mother calls me two days later . She tells me that Cassie died of
a brain embolism and that there’s nothing anyone could have done. That it’s
just one of those random things that happens. That it’s all part of God’s plan.
I’m thinking how bad it sucks to be in a world where you can be young and
pretty and your brain just blows a gasket with no warning. She tells me she is
so glad Cassie wasn’t alone at the end. I think about how little I knew Cassie
Stokes and wonder at how alone we are. All the time.
My next appointment walks in the door. I have to get to work, I
tell her. I’m sorry, I tell her. She’s crying as I hang up the phone. My client is
standing on the spot where Cassie’s tattoo left its mark on my floor. If he were
to look down, he’d see nothing but a clean patch of linoleum. I shake his hand
and say, “It’s John, right? Tell me what I can do for you, John.”
I smile and listen, carefully, as he tells me what he wants.
Indelible • Lynne Buchanan
Adam Thorn
56 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 57
Mission Control
I grip her hips with my knees and squeeze as I hold her arms to the ground.
Her fingers hook at the air, and her legs bend up against my ass and back,
drawing ineffectual little curves in the air.
Her eyes are wet and specks of reflection shine from her irises.
I say, we’ve got to survive this if we’ve survived everything so far.
She coughs a practiced, forceful cough to blow dust that she may have
imagined out of her lungs. As my fingers meet hers, her hand stifens into a
jagged melody of agony against my palm.
“Who says we’ve survived, anyway?” her voice is shattered glass and quiet
desperation.
I press my back against the stone above us in convulsion. She yelps in surprise.
“Are you alright?” she asks through gritted teeth.
I smile, or probably grit my teeth, too, and say, about as alright as you are.
Zoloft. Celexa. Concerta. Adderall AR. Xanax. A powder kaleidoscope of
things to keep us happy and healthy.
A building falls victim to a catastrophe
we can’t name
and we lay here, under it, discovering that we were addicts. That those shades
screaming from behind trash cans on our way home could really teach you
something about pain.
That we don’t know if we want to live long enough to see if we come out alive.
Her hand claws at my back, and I bury my face against her shoulder. She’s
City Park (I’ve been using this picture as a bookmark for the past week) and
I ask it, “What implications do you have?” wanting it to teach me something.
There wasn’t anything to worry about at the age of four. A bee died one day
while I was waiting for my mother to lock the door of our townhome. That
was horrible.
Anyway, in the picture there is a plywood backdrop that brings out
the contrast of red and white on my dad’s polo shirt and is forgiving of his
receding hairline. I’m sitting in his lap and have a crooked smile in place in
the first shot. My white t-shirt blends into one of the white stripes of his polo
shirt, he’s passing his chromosomes and predisposition towards substance
abuse into me with each shot taken. He has cyborg eyes that stretch like
something invisible is hooked inside his eyelids. I find this out later from
mom, and the first time I get arrested, that this robotic glare was symptomatic
of a cocaine and pot combo. My mom went around the seedy fair ground
with us that night sitting on benches while my dad and me went through
the haunted house or road the fireball. She was pregnant with Rachael. I
remember eating funnel cake on a bench in front of a black octopus that had
screaming people lodged inside its tentacles. Some music originally produced
by an electric organ was playing. I asked mom if I could feed the fetus funnel
cake. I was worried that a whole person was stufed inside of her, but my dad
told me it was just a fetus.
“Don’t use that word,” is all she said.
Dad always called my unborn sister the fetus when he was around
me. He already resented the new financial strain/responsibility that I was
and I can understand why he was using cocaine and marijuana at the time. My
dad said before taking a bite of the cake, “If you feed the fetus funnel cake, it
might sufocate. It only eats things mom feeds it with her umbilical cord. It’s
picky.”
Most of my vivid memories came from reruns of The Wonder Years,
Happy Days, or The Twilight Zone. I’ve got a memory of a friend’s house that
always smelled like cofee ice cream. I remember that picture in the photo
booth being taken. I asked my dad who was going to take the picture. He
explained that the man who owned the machine kept a midget in there and
that when everybody left the fairground at night they would let him walk
around and pick leftover food up with a long stick. I watched my dad put
two coins in to where the midget lived, or at least spent his evenings. “He’s
has to climb up a ladder. It takes a second. They keep him way down in there
because he’s so ugly.” I remember putting a piece of caramel on the ground
before leaving the fair that night. I hope he got it.
From Myrtle Beach • Adam Thorn
Zane Gragg
58 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 59
made of stone and digging at my ribs.
I open my mouth to speak and the air suddenly feels sinister around me. Like
I shouldn’t let it inside me. Like it’s there to corrode me. I’m paralyzed, but I
need to get Nico to the…
she stopped. She stopped laughing. She stopped laughing. her hand hurts
mine but I can’t let go. She seems to be the only thing amidst this near
darkness, filled with jutting rocks and quaking like a subwoofer after every
explosion or crack.
But she stopped laughing. I pull on her hand. she follows this time, closes in
on me, the skin of her arm warm and dusty.
Without
sound or thought, she crawls over me and I feel her sweat on my forehead as
it drips. Her breath blows wet across my nostrils. I try to imagine her weight
shifting over me, but it just makes me sick.
She bends her face down to the water and sucks it up.
I feel the moment as an eternity, watch the water flow into her mouth and
throat and nose and lungs and feel the cool indiference of drowning
she’s drowning even as I feel her pull close to me and over me and back onto
her back beside me.
I say, I thought you were drowning. I think I’m...are you okay?
“That was like a second at most. How could I be drowning?”
I say, you don’t sound so convinced yourself. Her fingers are clawing at my
arm again.
- - -
Celexa, Adderall AR, Concerta, Xanax, and Zoloft.
Citalopram, amphetamine, methylphenidate, alprazolam, and sertraline
chloride.
All our senses are in appalling revolt as this litany of gods drains out of us. I
breathing staccato rhythms. My eyes are hot and dry, and my skull is filled
with pressure.
“There’s no way we can get out of here,” she murmurs in stripped tones. The
ground shakes around us, the sound enveloping me from behind, rushing
past me, and leaving us blanketed in the emptiness behind it. I whimper
involuntarily.
For nearly a day we’ve been trapped in the tail end of apocalypse. Light leaks
through the rubble, but my attempt at heroically moving the rocks ends in
failure. Those medium-sized rocks in movies aren’t around, so I’m either
digging at pebbles or clawing at boulders.
- - -
She starts laughing. “We think we’re dying, and we are, but…” Then the
laughter swallows her words.
The sound is sharp and I’m disconcerted. But, I think.
The laughter just keeps coming, but as I pull myself over to her, I realize she’s
crying. She’s howling with laughter and tears are pouring down a frieze of
animal terror where her face once was.
This makes me so very afraid. So very afraid.
I’m thirsty. There’s a little water pooled in a corner. I drink from it with my
hand, afraid to let go of hers with the other. She still laughs. I pull on her hand.
You need to drink, too, Nico, come on.
She resists.
Her laughter is filling me up, and I don’t really think. Every sound she makes
has become some psychic grotesquery, overwhelming me.
She goes limp. This makes it even harder to move her. I crawl back to her, only
as I flip over from on my back, the whole world stays behind. Everything is
dark, blank, tasteless.
This is what death is
and my vision slams into view, late, sloppy, useless but relieving. My heart is
Mission Control • Zane Gragg
60 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 61
I say, I don’t want this either. My body contracts, pulling itself toward my
torso, then goes limp. Did it? She doesn’t move.
- - -
I scream. Something is touching me.
“Jack, the light is getting bigger.” I throw her arm of of me and crawl to our
little puddle of water. I can hear her crying, suddenly, whimpering in surprise
and desolation.
The shocks in my head are getting worse. I feel so sideways, I say.
What time is it?
A bright blue brilliance floods the tiny space as she opens her cellphone. “Oh
wow...it’s been two days now.” This isn’t what time it is, but this information
seems more pressing.
I say, Nico, how are you feeling?
“Like a crumpled up, pissed-on piece of paper.”
Were you crumpled up or pissed-on first, I ask. It seems important at the
time.
- - -
They have been coming. That’s what she was telling me when all I was afraid
of was the cold thing touching me. They find us huddled like scared children,
rubbing each other’s hair and mumbling in confusion. It has been two days
and we were only hungry. Specks of light become slices of light become a
torrent of so much information I think I’m dead.
When I pull myself out, with Nico’s hand in mine, dragging her along
I vomit. The light is so intense. Amidst rubble and about half a dozen
emergency personnel, I puke in response to salvation. The paramedics pull
us apart quietly and without words, and sit us down to check to see if we are
okay.
As he asks me questions, his face seems to blur on one side as it sharpened on
the other, back and forth. I decide not to tell him. My arm twitches violently.
have never felt so forsaken as I do now. Reality as I know it melted before me
in vicious whirls. The lines and angles of my life, every little square and circle,
look alien and forbidding to me.
I wonder if my arm is bleeding where Nico had kept clawing it earlier. I reach
down and it’s wet. I touch this wetness to my mouth, and it was salty and a
little dusty.
Well, what was I expecting? Sweat and blood taste the same. I feel cold.
- - -
For the past as long as I can remember, she’s been saying “fuck.” That’s all. Just
fuck, in growls, moans, various sighs and keening animal cries. She appears to
be exploring the word with whatever executive function is left to her, seeing
if it fit with happy, with sad, with frightened, with angry, or with all four at
once. I don’t think she was saying anything in particular, just the babbling
exploration of something new to this world.
Nico, I say.
“Fuuuck.” she groans it. I look over and in the darkness I can hear her fingers
rubbing her face.
Nico we. It echos
Nico we across
Nico we everything
Nico we I am.
Nico, we need to pull ourselves together. As I say this, my words take on this
fatal evaporation in my mind.
Maybe we should make some noise, I say. Help them to find us.
“Who are they? Who’s going to find us, Jack? We don’t even know what
happened, how do we know there’s someone coming?” Her sudden lucidity
startles me, and I stay quiet, mollified less by meaning than by the clarity she
seems to have dredged out of the air.
“Fuck!” she says, then all of the sudden she rolls over on top of me. I feel her
breath against my shoulder and can feel her hair against my lips. “I don’t want
this anymore, Jack. Jack, I don’t want this.”
Mission Control • Zane Gragg
62 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 63
Satan Was Pissed
Satan was pissed. Expenses were up, sales were down, and he hadn’t
gotten laid in months. He absent-mindedly poked his talon-esque fingernail
into one of the mottled, squishy eyeballs embedded in his desktop. At the
faint “…ow…” that ensued, the tension in his shoulders lessened slightly.
“Sumac,” he called to his administrative assistant, “What do I have
today?”
“Ah…lunch with Cain, an appearance at orientation, and a
teleconference with Pat Buchanan at four.”
“Cancel it all, Sumac. I’ve got some personal business to attend to.”
“Very good, Your Nastiness.” Sumac bowed curtly and backed out of
the room.
“And you can quit with that fucking butler act, I’m not the King of
Siam!” Satan rolled his eyes. Sumac could be so needlessly dramatic.
- - -
As he passed under the flamboyant sign for Serpentina’s, he removed
his dark glasses but kept on his wide-brimmed hat and overcoat.
“Good morning!” a sales associate chirped obnoxiously. “Welcome
to Serpentina’s, distinguished distributor of fine lingerie since 857 b.c.e.! May
I show you to Constricting, Pinching, Squishing, or Wedging?”
“Just looking,” mumbled Satan in his most generic tone. He
pretended to finger a few goods nearby, but quickly managed to make his
way back to the bustiers. He had told himself just last week that he would
not indulge himself for a long, long time, not unless there were extenuating
circumstances. But really, when one is ruler of the underworld, when are
circumstance not extenuating?
He trailed his finger along the silk covered whalebone of a royal blue
number from the “Demonique” collection. It was their most recent style, and
it was begging to come home with him. Its black lace seemed to whisper to
him, “I want to lie upon your sinewy thighs! And besides, fishnet stocking are
buy one, get one!”
Satan snatched an XL and two pairs of stockings before he could
change his mind. At the cash register, the cashier swiped his SVC card (under
the alias of Mack Donaldson) to receive the 5% discount. He handed her
“Has that always happened?” Not really, I say. I hear Nico’s voice tremble from
about 20 feet away. I wonder what the paramedics think has happened in that
dark little crack. I wonder if I know. I ask if I could go home soon.
Mission Control • Zane Gragg
Sarah Sills
64 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 65
Of course, the next three times he visited Serpentina’s, she wasn’t
there. And of course, these visits had to be over the course of several weeks.
It wouldn’t do for the employees of Serpentina’s to recognize the tall, red-tinted
gentleman as a regular. Wouldn’t do at all.
He tried his best to search for her in The Database, but there wasn’t
much to go on. Name? Good question. Address? Well…hell. Hades All-
Purpose Community Identification Number? Yeah, right. If only he could
search by magnetic appeal or breast succulence.
“Sumac?” he called, “Get Tech Support on the phone. I need to run
something by them. And clear my afternoon; I’ve got…um…an appointment
with Jezebel.”
From reception, Sumac rolled his eyes. Satan was canceling more and
more meetings these days. He was starting to suspect that these were early
signs of another nervous breakdown. The rings under his eyes hadn’t been
this dark since Constantine declared Christianity the oficial religion of the
Roman Empire. Reluctantly, he picked up the phone and began dialing the
number of the first board member on today’s meeting list.
- - -
Back at home, Satan scratched behind the ears of Gomorrah.
“Who’s Daddy’s sweet kitty? You are! You are! Does ‘Morrah wanna go for a
walk? Oh, yes she does!” Gomorrah writhed unapprovingly at the leash being
slipped over her head, but calmed down when Satan opened the front door.
“Mew?” she said with a pause when Satan turned left at the corner.
“Not the park today, Munchkin. Daddy doesn’t feel like being around
people. Let’s go to the lake.” The lake, accessible to only the most elite group,
was surrounded by a twelve foot fence. The fence was interrupted only once,
by a small guard shack and a hydraulic arm with red and white stripes. It was
at this entrance that Satan slid the magnetic strip of his gate pass through
the electronic reader. The guard nodded smartly and then returned to his
computer screen with a studious stare. Satan knew that he was actually
playing dirty Tetris, but didn’t feel like turning around and reprimanding him.
Although a little entrail ripping always did ease his mind…no, he just didn’t
have it in him today.
The lake, boathouse, benches, and gazebo were all deserted. Mostly
because Satan was the only member. All the other members of the Lake
Woebehere Society were manufactured identities. Biel Z. Bub was Satan’s
favorite. He snickered at his own cleverness and made a mental note to create
an exclusive ski lodge.
Satan was rounding the curve of a mulched pathway, feeling relieved
$200 cash (always cash) and declined the ofer for attentive wrapping in
delicate tissue paper.
Ten feet from the exit, his body froze mid-stride. He eyes, immune
to his better judgment, swung determinedly to his left and settled on those
of a startlingly gorgeous woman. Her eyes were dark and full of heat. Her
lips, painted almost purple, were curved in an amused smirk. Also not going
unnoticed were a pair of the most succulent breasts ever manufactured,
nestled tortuously in an orange rufled push-up bra.
“Save it for somebody else, Romeo,” she laughed, and turned back
towards the thong section. Her hips seemed to sing with each step, “want
me…want me…” Satan rushed after her, lingerie boxes banging noisily at his
knees.
“Excuse me,” he squeaked at her back. “I wasn’t. I mean, I know I
was…um…but, actually – wow.” As she turned, he found himself staring again
at her eyes and momentarily forgot the art of forming words. “Ungh,” he
tried, but quickly gave up. Without knowing why, he reached a hand toward
her, as if asking her to dance.
She rolled her eyes and came forward a half-step, causing an audible
sizzle in Satan’s eye sockets with her own eyes. “Tonight,” she whispered,
“Please don’t think about me while you’re fucking whatever tramp you can
find to wear that,” and she gestured towards his bag. She calmly turned away,
breaking whatever evil spell had been binding his feet and tongue.
- - -
Back at home, the feel of luxurious material against his skin did not
please him like it usually did. The intense binding of the whalebone corset
elicited only the palest excitement. Even his favorite fuzzy open-toed heels
seemed to stare back at him boredly from the mirror.
In his mind, it ceased to be his own reflection posing in the mirror,
and turned into a vision of her. Her exotic, lavender-toned skin seemed to
shimmer, as if she were an apparition. Pitifully, he reached out towards the
image, but felt (as he knew he would) only cold flat glass. Before the vision
dissolved, he almost perceived a patronizing smirk.
He carefully folded his lingerie into strips of pink satins and placed it
in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet marked “2006 – Accounts Payable.”
He turned the key, placed it in his mouth, grimaced, and swallowed. He shook
his head and shufled back to his six-poster bed. And for the ninety-eighth
night in a row, the Lord of the Underworld climbed under the covers with
scented lotion and two tissues to quickly jerk himself of.
- - -
Satan Was Pissed • Sarah Sills
66 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 67
way.
“Oh shit,” murmured Satan, and slowly floated towards the bedroom.
Was he dreaming?
“Hello, Sethie,” purred Stella from a mountain of red satin pillows.
“Feeling frisky?”
Satan nodded and took a half a step forward.
“No, no,” Stella pouted, “I want you to be my kitty! Kitties wear
collars.” Her baby-voice carried over to the den, where Gomorrah crawled
futilely under the chaise.
Satan nodded dumbly and backed out. He found Gomorrah, who
was slowly shaking her head, and slipped of her custom designed collar with
her name stitched in silver and pink rhinestones. As if hypnotized, he wound
the collar around his neck and fastened it securely.
He returned to the bedroom and noticed Gomorrah’s water bowl
nestled in the center of his bed. “Mommy made you some yummy milk!”
crooned Stella. She did not have to ask twice. Satan obediently crept onto
the bed and began lapping at the liquid inside. He had ceased to care about
ridiculous conventions like dignity, and could think only of gaining access to
that perfect, lavender body.
“Good kitty.” Stella scratched behind his ears. She did not seem
to notice the slightly raised circles above each temple. Satan felt blissfully
shaken at her touch. His vision blurred, his limbs tingled. His heart beat ever
faster. He fell face first into the bowl.
- - -
When he awoke three days later, he was naked and dehydrated in his
bed. On his nightstand was a card. His stomach shriveled at the sight of the
insignia on the front. Inside was a single sentence: “You will always regret
ruining Eden.” There was no signature. When he opened the card, a photo
fell into his lap. Staring mournfully at him from the photo was Gomorrah,
sitting on the lap of a white-clad figure. Satan did not need to lift his eyes to
the figure’s face. He knew exactly who held Gomorrah.
- - -
Thomas eficiently skimmed through all two dozen photos. He almost
laughed out loud once, but managed to suppress it stoically. An assistant to
the Ruler of the Universe must always maintain an air of professionalism. He
placed them on his desk and took the collar from Stella. In return he handed
her an envelope with an obscene about of cash, certificates, and real estate
deeds.
at last, when he saw her. She was reclining demurely on a bench with a book
of verse. She was here, in his park, and he did not know how she had gained
entrance. Nor did he care.
“Mngh!” He attempted, exasperated at his once-again-suspended
ability to speak. Clearing his throat, he advanced forward and began again.
“Gnt, gnd, good afternoon!”
She slowly lifted her eyes as if she had anticipated this very encounter.
“Good afternoon,” she responded curtly. Her glance moved to the cat and her
countenance brightened. “Oh! A kitty! Come here you little schmoopsie!
Oh, look at you! Just look at you. Can I pet the little kitty?” She directed the
question at Gomorrah, not yet acknowledging again Satan’s presence.
Gomorrah took two steps back and stared imploringly at Satan. “Of
course!” Satan gushed. He scooped up the cat and twittered over to the bench.
He ceremoniously placed the cat on her lap, the same way an archaeologist
would place a dinosaur skull on a museum’s pedestal. He tried not to notice
her slight recoil at his touch. She immediately warmed, however, to the fuzzy
nervous ball in her lap. Reluctantly, Gomorrah snifed her hand and allowed
the woman to pet her back. A hand, after all, is a hand. One must take the
attentions that one can get.
“Oh she loves you!” Satan declared, pointing needlessly at the cats
face. “Just listen to her purr!” The sound of silence, interrupted only by
cricket chirps, escaped his notice. “By the way,” he continued, “my name is
Sa – Seth. Seth.”
The woman scratched Gomorrah’s head for a moment and then
finally lifted her face. “Nice to meet you, Saysethseth. My name is Stella.”
- - -
Back at the house, Satan’s fingers shook slightly as he measured cofee
grounds into the filter. He couldn’t believe this was happening. The most
gorgeous, intriguing, mysterious woman was sitting one room over, petting his
cat, and he was about to serve her cofee.
“How do you take it?” he called to the next room.
“In the back,” came the reply.
“Pardon?” he asked, poking his head around the corner.
“I said, just black.”
“Right.” Satan leaned against the counter and panted slightly. Just
black. Of course.
When he rounded the corner with the tray, the chaise had been
deserted and Gomorrah sat by herself with a bewildered look on her face. A
familiar orange bra lay conspicuously on her head. “Meow?” she wondered,
and looked towards the bedroom. One sheer black thigh-high pointed the
Satan Was Pissed • Sarah Sills
68 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 69
Street Spirit
“Stories, poems, and art! You interested in some poetry, man? Five
bucks for one, seven bucks for two. I write my own stuf! Check it out!
Stories, poems, and art!” That was his routine – the old Boone mascot vagrant,
Jameson. Everyone in town knew his name, and those who didn’t were quickly
educated. It was impossible to miss him. Either you saw him on King Street
selling his stories, poems, and art, or you saw him walking down Blowing Rock
Road, with his impossibly large backpack and wizard’s walking stick. If you
were lucky, you’d find him hanging out at Wal-Mart, hitting on the ladies
working there. If he wasn’t doing his sales pitch, he was mumbling to himself,
seemingly in deep thought. Once I said “Hey” to him, and he waved and
smiled, but never made eye contact.
Honestly, most of the time I avoided him. One time, though, I
couldn’t. I had been living in Boone for nine months at the time. I didn’t have
many friends except for a couple of guys I worked with and my girlfriend, with
whom I lived. It was a rare beautiful day in March – one of those days you
can’t wait to get outside and for once not layer up in thick shirts and coats. I
took the chance to walk alone to The Saloon for some tacos during my lunch
break between classes. Jameson was at his usual spot on King Street, by the
old movie theater. He was selling his stories and poems with particular energy
that day; I assumed the weather afected him, too.
He was a short man by nature, but the years of trekking wild and
being generally insane had caused his back to curve. It reminded me of Mister
Burns from The Simpsons. He had a thin, long grey beard, and extremely
natty dreads. He wore the same thing every day – a knitted black skullcap,
a brown jumpsuit, and of course, military boots. The stench that surrounded
him defies definition. It was the combination of a man who most likely never
bathed, slept outside in a tent, spent every day either selling his words or
spending time at Wal-Mart, and ate cat food. No shit. The man ate cat food.
Now I don’t mean to make it seem like I am talking badly about
Jameson. Whenever I crossed paths with him, he seemed nice enough. He
never asked for handouts, and refused to take money from people. He only
wanted to sell his art, and, I guess, “be free.” I just never really had any interest
in reading any of his stories, so like I said, I mostly avoided him. This one day,
though, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the wind wasn’t blustering, and it must
have been at least 60 degrees, which is a big deal for March in Boone. I was in
“Great doing business with you both. Call me whenever you need
another demonic superpower to be seduced.” Stella snorted and walked out.
Thomas sat down at his desk and began the arduous task of
transferring, exaggerating, distorting, and fudging. A payof this large would
take a while to cover up. He glanced from his books to his boss, who was
contentedly petting his new cat. His glance then fell on the photo on top
of the stack on his desk, which depicted Satan in a sparkling tutu with angel
wings on his back. Thomas sighed and shook his head. “What a man won’t
do for a little pussy.”
Satan Was Pissed • Sarah Sills
Kelly White
70 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 71
young man here, my friend Ishmael, requested a tragedy, and I always do
my best to please. So with that, do you think you can believe that what I’m
preparing to tell you is true? Sure you may buy into that now, but eventually
you may decide you don’t want to believe me. You may even find yourself
wishing you could stop listening…”
He was addressing only me again. He even dropped his voice back to
almost a whisper. There was a desperate look in his eyes. It was almost like he
yearned for me to believe what he was saying… “Well, get comfortable with
this fact right now – reality is unavoidable. And I would never tell you a story
that isn’t true. Especially this one.” Then suddenly, he was right back to his
jovial attitude.
“Where was I? Right, Rocco was wearing his favorite brown jacket.
It was beginning to get cooler in the evening, and Rocco had about two miles
to walk from campus. He had no desire to be chilly on his way home, even
though the sun was pleasantly bright and the low 60s isn’t really that terrible.
In fact, what I’m used to, that’s nothing.
“Do you know how the air smells in the autumn? Rocco noted this
as he took in a deep breath while crossing the intersection. There were
barely any cars at that moment, which Rocco thought was strange. It was just
after five, and usually the trafic was quite bustling. He breathed deep, and
thoroughly enjoyed not smelling the exhaust he expected. Instead there was
the incredible smell of dead leaves in the air. He looked up and around and
noticed for the first time that season how the trees were colored. There really
wasn’t very much variance in the shades, just a lot of dark greens and almost
brown reds. No yellows, no oranges.”
It was remarkable. Here I was, sitting in audience to a nearly crippled,
homeless man. I had always considered this man to be crazy. Totally gone.
Everyone did. Yet here he was, telling me a story, in the most eloquent manner.
He was intelligent, and clearly very aware of himself. It made me wonder
about his usual mumbling ways, but I couldn’t distract myself. Jameson was on
a roll…
“As he stepped from the street and onto the curb, he was startled from
his gazing as a stranger on a bicycle narrowly missed knocking him down as
he passed. Rocco had very little time to react, except to feel his stomach turn
hot with just the quickest shot of adrenaline as the cyclist sped past. I’ll tell
you this, if it were me at that moment, I wouldn’t have let the guy go without
something protesting coming out of my mouth. But no, Rocco just shook it
of and breathed in the cool autumn air again. Now that he was farther from
campus and across the street, houses surrounded him on both sides. There
was a faint smell of chimney smoke, and it only added to Rocco’s relaxation.
“He felt it suddenly and smoothly rush over him, that feeling of
calm. The scent in the air of dead leaves, hearth-burning fires, and even that
a good mood, and something just drew me to Jameson that day.
“Stories, poems, and art! Hey, man! You wanna buy somethin’ today,
man? Lemme tell you a story. For five bucks, I’ll tell you a joke. Seven bucks,
and I’ll tell you a love story. For ten bucks, I’ll tell you a tragedy…” It was the
way he emphasized the word “tragedy” that stopped me. He looked at me
with his old, intense eyes, waiting for me to react. He was holding his callused
palm open, and I found myself opening my wallet and giving him a ten-dollar
bill. He smiled and revealed what only seemed like seven or so rotten teeth.
“A tragedy! The fella seeks tragedy! Oh, have I got a story for you,
then, my friend! What’s your name, mate? Or shall I just call you Ishmael?”
I didn’t quite get the Moby Dick reference, but I thought it was funny,
so as I laughed, I told him my name. He laughed a little, too, and remarked at
how few men he knew who had my name. He said he liked it.
“Names are important, my friend. They say a lot about your character.
Your name defines you. And from your name, I can see why you’re interested
in a tragedy. Well, well, well, have I got a story for you. Even better, my friend,
this story is true. And it happened right here in this very town. But come now,
come. Before I get carried away, let’s make room, and you sit down on the wall
here. Perhaps more people will join us if we seem more open…”
He ushered me to sit down next to his artwork and stories. They
were simple pencil and charcoal drawings, but really quite interesting. The
one I remember vividly to this day was of a dark forest. There was a large,
indistinguishable form in the middle of the picture, with large piercing eyes. I
didn’t have long to investigate, as Jameson had suddenly begun to practically
shout his story. I could tell he was attempting to get more people to stop and
listen, and I admired his enthusiasm.
“It was mid-October. October 13, to be exact. It was just after five
in the early evening, and Rocco Granger was walking home from school. He
was twenty years old, and a senior at this fine institution to our right. He had
wavy, shoulder length hair, and it was the kind of dark brown that might as
well be called black. It was always falling in his face, but he ignored his mother
whenever she told him he should cut it. He was wearing his favorite jacket,
the light brown one that he’d gotten as a birthday gift several years before.
He really couldn’t remember how long he’d had that jacket, but what does it
matter? It was his favorite jacket, and that’s that.
“Now, as I said to you, my friend, this is a true story, whether you’d
like it to be or not. Right now, I’m quite sure you’re okay with that notion,
all comfortable in this beautiful weather here on King Street. Nothing would
probably please you all more…” Upon saying this, he turned his back to me
and addressed the strangers passing by as if they were the rest of his audience.
“…than to hear a pleasant made-up fairy tale, written by yours truly. But this
Street Spirit • Kelly White
72 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 73
else in the town, and darker too. If I ever had the unpleasant need to walk by
these woods, I swear I refused to step across the street, or closer than thirty
feet towards the border of those trees. When I peered into them, all light
seemed to be sucked away, and my soul was truly chilled. There are houses on
either end of the plot, but they also seem to avoid the borderline by thirty or
so feet. And no one lives in them, either. They are as dead and empty as the
trees between them appear to be.
Jameson paused. He took a drink of water from his canteen, and
I looked around. His spell had broken for a moment, and I realized my
surroundings again. Everything around us continued as normal. Jameson’s
audience had not grown – the people passing by simply ignored him, just as
I had so many times before. My stomach growled, and I remembered my
hunger. But I couldn’t leave now – Jameson seemed to have the power to hold
me in place. He was mesmerizing.
“Sorry, mate. My throat was getting quite dry,” he said with a laugh.
“So where was I, Ishmael? Ah, yes. It was eerily silent in the street. He wanted
to keep moving, but he felt like some unseen force was holding him. All he
could hear was his breath and the leaves rustling in the breeze. He noticed
his heartbeat was quite audible now, as it slowly decreased its speed down to
a normal rate. There wasn’t even the sound of a squirrel or a single bird. He
stood, gazing around. He brushed his hair out of his face, and swallowed his
saliva. The breeze that stopped all sounds had also brought on a terrible chill
to the air, and he shivered. Something was of, and he was suddenly terrified,
though he couldn’t understand why.
“His heartbeat quickly resumed its thumping and his whole body
went hot when the terror appeared from within the trees across the street. It
was obviously canine, yet as thin and as tall as a horse – or at least that’s what
it seemed like to Rocco. Its pitch-black fur was uneven and strewn all about,
and there were areas that appeared wet. It had a madness in its eyes. And
that stare. Oh, that stare was projected directly at Rocco. The first real sound
he’d heard in what seemed like an eternity was the low, deep throat growl. It
sounded unearthly – way too deep and wet to come from any dog Rocco had
ever heard before.
“They stood thirty feet apart. Rocco was on the sidewalk across the
street, and the beast was on the border of the woods. The woods that I’m sure
you know very well, friend. I don’t know of anyone who dares to look into
those woods. Attempting to do so would surely cause someone to lose their
mind…
“But Rocco was now staring into the eyes, and soul, of those woods.
There was still no sound but the low growling, and not another living soul
seemed to exist at that moment. All Rocco could sense were those mad,
purposeful eyes. The beast stood, swaying slightly as if it were unbalanced in
shocking odor of dog shit he just passed. It was a beautiful autumn day, the
week was ending quite well, he was going home to his dog, Shane, and he was
going to have a few beers on the porch while Shane got to run around in the
front yard.
“He liked his house. It was a tiny, one story hut. The front porch
seemed too big for its own good, and Rocco liked it that way. There was a large
oak tree in the front yard, which shaded the porch in the evening, and Rocco
and Shane spent most of their time there together when the weather allowed
it, like these beautiful days in the autumn.
“A rather athletic-looking girl was approaching from the opposite
direction. She was wearing too-short shorts and a white tank top. First thing
Rocco noticed were her huge headphones. Second thing he noticed was no
bra. She was walking rather fast, and they were not supported in any way,
shape, or form. He quickly looked down at the ground as she passed, and
it was all Rocco could do to not look back up at her. He laughed a little to
himself after she passed. He thought of her headphones. He recently bought
himself one of those Walkman tape player things, but he never listened to it
while walking to or from school. He enjoyed listening to the reality rather
than blocking it out.
“Besides, Van Morrison was stuck in his head, and he didn’t have any
qualms about that. The words ‘Ding-a-ling-a-ling, Ding-a-ling-a-ling-ding’ of
Jackie Wilson Said kept playing over and over in his head. He began to sing, ‘I’m
in heaven, I’m in heaven’ out loud just as he was stepping through some leaves,
and the sound of the crunching made him smile. He stepped on a manhole
and he smiled again at the dull, hollow clunk.
“He thought, This is Fall, and it’s amazing, and I love it. A chilling breeze
flushed through the air, and the smell of chimney smoke vanished. And he
realized how suddenly silent the street was. He stopped walking and looked
around. The houses on his side of the street all had pumpkins out on their
porches. Some were carved into comical faces, some were not. There didn’t
seem to be anyone near for miles. Across the street was the spot of woods
everyone avoided. There was sidewalk, but people always crossed the street
before passing this stretch of about fifty or so yards.”
I knew instantly what place Jameson was speaking of. Much like
Jameson himself, everyone who lived in Boone was familiar with that spot
of woods. I always encourage people to visit the town if they’ve never been.
I am still quite fond of that area, though I’ve since moved away, and traveled
to many places. Boone is absolutely gorgeous in the autumn. These woods,
however, are something else entirely. There is an area, about a mile from
campus, heading northeast on Rivers Street. This small spot of forest is
neither pleasant, nor attractive. I’ve experienced my share of haunting places,
but this, I tell you, is something else. The trees grow taller here than anywhere
Street Spirit • Kelly White
74 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 75
some reason I couldn’t help but wonder…was it really true? He did say it was
true, after all.
He spoke again, and I was immediately gripped back into his control.
“Do you see? See how I knew in the beginning that you were happy to hear a
true story? No matter how tragic I warned you it would be? And do you see
how I told you in the beginning that you would eventually wish this wasn’t
true after all? Are you getting your money’s worth?” It was as if he was angry
with me. He stared at me for a moment and I saw sorrow in his old, grey
eyes. It was almost unbearable; my heart sank and I lost my breath. Then he
blinked and began again.
“He awoke moments later to the noise of growling and yelping
and biting and fighting. He opened his eyes and saw two dogs of about the
same size desperately tearing at each other. It was dark and he could barely
understand what he was seeing, but he recognized one of the dogs as Shane.
He was just a Labrador Retriever, and didn’t really stand out among any others
of his type. But Rocco knew it was him. There were a few glass shards jutting
from his shoulders, and blood all over his neck and front legs. The other dog,
however, Rocco didn’t know. It was slightly smaller than Shane, and it had
black, wet fur. And it was so skinny it looked to be more like a skeleton with
a faux coat of fur on. The dogs were relentless with each other. They were
leaping and tearing and biting at each other as if they were immortal enemies
from centuries past. Rocco closed his eyes and all he could think was how
much he wanted to drown out the horrible noise of the fighters. He wished he
had his tape player on him. He wished he could walk over and get it from his
bag. He could see it; it was only ten feet away. Ten feet away? How could that
be? He felt like he had ran for miles from that dark, evil spot of woods.
“He tried to move and get up, but a sudden shock of pain burned from
below. He looked down at half of a leg. The other half was several feet away.
He remembered and frowned at noticing that his departed foot was missing
a shoe. He thought, It must be cold over there all alone and without a coat. I should
try to warm it up... The dogs were still fighting. The noise was unbearable. He
looked over at them, and said, ‘Shane, stop it! That’s enough…’
“There was a sharp cry so loud that it made Rocco forget about
his pain. He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. The black skeleton dog was
limping away fast, back towards the black hole it was birthed from. Shane
stood his ground, with his front legs spread wide and teeth bearing. Blood was
coating his neck and face and shoulders. Rocco watched the beast disappear
into the darkness, but for a second he could swear he saw its eyes shine back
from the depths.
“He felt hot breath and a wet tongue suddenly all over his face. ‘Oh
god. Okay, Shane. Thank you! …Thank you, Shane…really…’ He breathed in
deep, and as he let it out, he could hear faint sirens in the distance. And he fell
this world. It parted its mouth and thousands of teeth revealed themselves.
The growling continued to drone on, as if the thing were unable to stop it. Or
unwilling. White, foamy froth began to form on the edges of all those teeth,
and it was dripping uncontrollably.
“Rocco knew if he broke his eyes away from the thing across the
street it would all be over. He also knew, however, that his house was less than
100 yards away. If only he was able to feel his legs, he might be able to move
them and break away. And suddenly he was moving. He immediately dropped
his bag, because he knew it would only slow him down. It was the fastest
Rocco could remember ever running in his life. He also regretted wearing that
damn jacket now. He was no longer all that cold.
“The rabid beast, however, refused to let Rocco gain any ground.
Within seconds he could already feel its hot breath on his ankles. It was no
longer growling; now it was only panting in a ravenous, desperate way.
“Rocco could see his house. He knew Shane would be waiting for him
to be home soon. He was so looking forward to their time together that day.
But now the prospect seemed to be fading away with the sunlight.
“He was within a stick’s throw of that porch when his right shoe came
loose. Rocco faltered, and all of those hot, wet teeth sunk into his right calf.
He immediately fell to the ground, and the beast was on top of him. At first
his fear and agony didn’t allow him to scream. All his throat seemed to be able
to produce was a disappointing groan. And the hound thrashed his leg, over
and over in the same spot. Even in its singular vehement attack, it swayed,
unable to keep a balance on its four finger-thin legs. With another powerful
bite, Rocco was finally able to scream. He couldn’t move, for the pain was too
overwhelming. He tried not to look, but the hot burning adrenaline refused
to let him close his eyes. He saw his shinbone begin to split in two under all
the blood and open flesh. He yelled again at the site of that blood. It seemed
to never stop flowing. It was everywhere. It sprayed over his pants and shirt
and even his face. It sprung forth into the dog’s face too. It flowed over the
ground and into the grass. Even in his terror, Rocco noticed how the green
of the grass and the thick, dark red of his own blood seemed to resemble the
leaves of the trees around him. He began to feel cold. He could feel Death’s
blue, cold hands touching him. He looked down at the hound again as his leg
was finally torn away from his body, and he saw Death’s beady eyes looking
right into his. There was a crash of breaking glass to his right, and everything
went black.”
Jameson stopped. Again, the spell was broken as he cleared his throat
and took a drink of water. I broke my gaze from him and looked around. It
was still just the two of us. Everyone kept walking by. No one noticed, and no
one cared that right at that moment, Jameson, the town mascot vagrant, was
telling me the most amazing story. It was ridiculous and unbelievable, yet for
Street Spirit • Kelly White
76 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 77
lady? Five bucks for one, seven bucks for two. I write my own stuf! Check it
out! Stories, poems, and art!”
I shook my head and sighed. I couldn’t help but laugh a little. My stomach
growled again, and I looked at my watch. I missed my class, and I had no idea.
“Thanks, Jameson.” But he didn’t hear me. Or at least he didn’t
acknowledge me. I picked up my bag and turned to walk away towards The
Saloon. Those tacos really sounded good now.
“Kelly!” My heart dropped as I stopped and turned around. He was
pointing south, towards Rivers Street. “You stay away from those woods,
mate. Trust me. I would never lie to you.”
back into darkness.
“Again, he was awakened by noise. This time, however, it was of
people shouting. He opened his eyes and he was blinded by the flashing red
lights of an ambulance. At first he felt like he was floating, but was quickly
annoyed to find he was being carted on a stretcher when it was knocked into
the door jam. ‘Sorry about that, buddy! We’re trying to get you in here as
smoooothly as possible!’ The EMT was a portly fellow, with a moustache. He
sounded like Bert, from Sesame Street.
“’Where’s Shane? Is he okay?’ Rocco asked faintly.
“‘How’s that? Shane? Is that your dog?’ the fat man responded.
“‘Yes…my fucking dog. Where is he?’ The man hesitated, which
aggravated Rocco. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t just tell him where
Shane was. ‘Hey! My dog, where is he?’
“‘Your dog is dead, son. He was by your side when we got here.
There was blood all over him and for some reason, glass sticking out from his
shoulders… Your neighbors said he jumped from your window. They said there
was an attack? They said you were attacked by what looked like a rabid dog,
and your dog…’
“Rocco stopped listening. His head hurt and his eyes burned. The
man kept talking, making that awful noise with that awful voice. Now he
was asking Rocco if he was okay. No, he wasn’t okay. He was missing half his
right leg and his goddamn dog was dead. He began to cry. He was freezing.
Particularly, his right leg was quite cold. All he wanted was his dog back, and
to be warm. The sunlight from earlier that day would have been nice right
then. And why wouldn’t the damn EMT shut up? He thought of his tape
player again, and what lovely music he could listen to, in order to drown away
the reality of right then. He understood now why people seemed to want to
shut out the world’s noise.
“But there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing he
could do about any of it. He had lost his leg and his dog. And that fat EMT
wouldn’t stop talking.
“That’s it. The end. Thanks, mate. See you around.”
I shook my head in confusion. “Wait, that’s it? Dude, you can’t just
stop now! What happened to him? Did he die? Did he live? Did he get a new
leg? What happened to the beast? What was the beast?” I was getting angry
that Jameson would just stop right there. He stood and stared at me with that
painful look in his eyes.
“Ten more bucks and I’ll tell you a comedy.”
He winked at me and smiled. He tapped his right leg with his walking
stick and it clinked with the sound of wood on metal. I stood up, completely
bewildered, and without a single idea of what to say. Jameson turned around
and began shouting, “Stories, poems, and art! You interested in some poetry,
Street Spirit • Kelly White
78 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 79
(next pages)
Robert McKnight
Parts and the Whole
80 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 81
82 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 83
84 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 85
86 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 87
88 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 89
(previous spread)
Heath Montgomery
drw3 and drw6
(next page)
Paul Vincent
Reeds
Luke Flynt
Bicycle
90 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 91
Janie Ledford
Family
92 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 93
Ivan Gilbert
Radio ‘54
Alexander Hatchett
Old School Boombox
94 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 95
Jessy Harding
Untitled
Rebecca Bennett
Cherokee Hands
fall 2009 / 97
Melissa Sullivan
Untitled 1
(next spread)
Corey Erba
Birds of Pray
&
Matthew Thomason
Fence
98 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 99
100 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 101
Joseph Santaloci
Roommate and Sandwhich
Kristin Ashley
Expanding Mass
102 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 103
Jared Watson
Carl Ray Carter
Miri Han
Untitled
104 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 105
Alexa Feldman
Native Tongue
(next page)
Taryn Cowart
Untitled
(next spread)
Samuel Dalzell
Dark Places and In the Name of Our Progress
108 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 109
Max Shepard
Self Portrait
(next spread)
Amanda Nicholas
Fender Height and Trust
Ashley Weinberger
Untitled
110 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 111
112 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 113
Heath Montgomery
Leaf Bustle and Mask
fall 2009 / 115
Karen Lepage
Diagram for Departure
116 / the coraddi fall 2009 / 117
118 / the coraddi
COLOPHON
This semester’s issue includes selections of art
and literature submitted to the Coraddi from
August to late October, 2009.
Body text is set in Hoefler Text 10 pt.
Piece titles and other added type is set in
Neutraface, and the Coraddi logo uses a
sporty typeface called Aktuelle.
This magazine is distributed FREE
throughout the UNCG Campus.
CONTACT
The Coraddi
Box D2 EUC
UNCG Campus
Greensboro, NC 27412
web: thecoraddi.com
e-mail: the.coraddi@gmail.com