Coraddi [Spring 2009]

              YES!
Taylor Scisco
executive editor
Taryn Cowart
production manager
Catherine Conley
literature editor
Zack Franceschi
art editor
Seamus Lupton
promotions director
Lit Staff
Sam Abbott
Andrew Bauer
CJ Catanese
Meen Cho
Caitlin Conway
Scott Daubenspeck
Ashley Fare
Katie Fennell
Kendra Hammond
Amber Midgett
Jesse Morales
Brandon Rieder
Brian Schumacher
Khaki Stelten
Levon Valle
Art Staff
Devon Curry
Lauren Roche
Jason Rouse
Josh Petty
Each semester, members of UNCG
faculty select their favorite works to
win cash prizes.
Prose Winners, as judged by
Stephanie Whetstone:
1. At the Fair // Gabriel King
2. Brother’s Keeper // Megan Singleton
3. The Last Waltz // Annie Wyndham
Poetry Winners, as judged by
Terry Kennedy:
1. 3 a.m. // Michael Houck
2. Inari // Tristin Miller
3. Cave Love // Nathan Lee
Visual Art Winners, as judged by
Chris Cassidy:
1. Pista De Toledo // Brenda Vienrich
2. Play Dead // Luke Flynt
3. The Life of Elma McDaniel, Jr. // Philip Lawrence
The Coraddi
4 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 5
POETRY
10. 12:15
Vanessa Curtis
12. Women like Frannie
Victoria Duggan
14. The Faceless Hazard
15. The International Space Station
Andrew Heider
16. Bird Hunting
17. The Burning Barrel
RJ Hooker
18. 3 a.m.
19. For who sat next to me in class last Wednesday
Michael Houck
20. Diving Ceiling
Lindsey Hughes
22. Cave Love
Nathan Lee
24. untitled
26. untitled
28. Pencil and Paper, No Pen
29. Rib Nest
Amanda Manis
30. Inari
Tristin Miller
32. Harriet, Seventeen
Steph Rahl
34. The Ruins of Nueva Cádiz
Luis Lázaro Tijerina
36. untitled
Paul Vincent
PROSE
40. Blow Pops
42. Maxwell
Eric Bridges
44. Mike and Me
Meen Cho
54. The Daylilies
Katie Fennell
68. At the Fair
Gabriel King
84. Clean Lungs
Helen-Marie Pohlig
86. Paints with Thunder
Johnathan Sapp
102. Turn Signals on Spaceship Earth
Taylor Scisco
110. Brother’s Keeper
Megan Singleton
128. The Wasteland
Alexandra Skerry
132. The Last Waltz
Annie Wyndham
6 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 7
ART
154. The Life of Elma McDaniel, Jr.
Philip Lawrence
164. A beauty in us...
165. Truth within focus...
166. Gender Studies 1 and 8
Jason Rouse
168. Visiting Mr. Moreno
169. untitled
Kendra Hammond
170. Bryson in Winter
Holly mason
170. Puzzled
Jessy Harding
172. Una Mirada del Cielo
174. Pista De Toledo
Brenda Vienrich
176. Piggy
177.
Lauren Roche
178. untitled
Emily Brown
180. untitled
181. untitled
Andrew Marino
183. untitled
Jessy Harding
185. love Me
Kim Newmoney
186. Attack of the 50ft Woman
Katie Minton
189. Conundrum
Katie Shepherd
190. Street Bums
190. Untitled
Zack Franceschi
192. Play Dead
193. Happy Meal
194. Rush Hour: Clogged Arteries
194. There Will Be Blood
Luke Flynt
197 Envy/Compassion
198. Dreams of Our Children
199. We Walk, We Do Not March
Samuel Dalzell
200-202. Urban Heads
Josh Petty
205. Harmony in Dissonance
Derek Dulaney & Emily Peffer
206. Indoctrination #24
208. Spectacular Communication #3
Scott Mayo
210. LSB 175
Adam Moser
213. Being Willing To Go There
Tristin Miller
214. In Time
215-216. untitled
Liliya Zalevskaya
218. Eugghh
Matt Brinkley
219. Self Portrait
Misty Knowles
220. Swizzle
221. Tinker
222. Balance
Elizabeth Burkey
224. Banananananana
Bennie (BT) Robinson
POETRY
10 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 11
Vanessa Curtis // 12:15
............................................................................
the thin cotton shirt does nothing
to hide professora’s high beams
as she passes the 5th grade neon gel pen for attendance.
the attention-seeking Mohawk slides it beside him, then
continues his feast: dirty nails and jagged cuticles.
the pale thin man nervously breaks four .07 leads
(i counted)
before he settles for the chewed up BIC from his lint cave.
the girl beside me shares her peanut butter M&Ms.
i hope i get salmonella so i can go home.
12 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 13
Victoria Duggan // Women like Frannie
............................................................................
I’ve been living here with the blinds down
like people who ash in cups of coffee,
wearing black static socks,
answering calls, sick of the cold.
Hair stuck to my forehead,
yellow and
bent by the pillow.
I lay down, consoled,
as a fish fingering hooks
in a hardware store.
Leaves
like new teeth,
hurt with anticipation
where there were
brown boots laced
tenacious, soused and
locked up like winter.
Sirius licks the palm of your hand;
walls that I cannot climb
because of something said then
about the stif brim of your hat
and the way we collapsed near the sun
like a wedding band.
Black eyebrows
held up to your pout mouth.
I look so grotesque,
that day at the sea.
A towel,
damp,
hung on the rail.
I had to reach to flick flies swarming around your neck
pull the skin from your tangerine
Shells stuck to your legs.
You walked up to the pier and got ice-cream
I sat still, looking at my feet fishing in the sand.
14 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 15
Andrew Heider // Faceless Hazard
............................................................................
Five o’clock trafic; a standstill, each driver
Watching the sun slowly sink into the granite earth.
Passengers stare blankly through windshields, struggling
To shade their eyes. And then there’s me.
Eyes wide, fighting to stare down the sun.
Each blink causing momentary blindness,
Filled with blue and green splotches left by the sun.
I’m a danger to everyone on the road.
The faceless hazard; even Death avoids me.
My palms are too clammy for the wheel.
They slide from 10 & 2, now resting on my lap.
Ahead, a host of brake lights await,
I feel the engine tremble from under the hood,
Begging to end its interminable existence.
As my heart races, I only imagine the carnage
I will cause, the stories they will write, and the faith
I will justify.
Andrew Heider //
The International Space Station
............................................................................
We both rushed outside late that night.
I remember it was cold, cold for April,
And all you said was, Isn’t it beautiful?
I couldn’t help but agree with you.
The clouds skated through the sky,
Only momentarily permitting us
The view we both so desperately
Hoped to see.
It was small, and bright,
Flashing intermittently. It was
So distinct from the stars I knew
Exactly where in the sky to look.
We both rushed outside late that night.
It was cold, too cold for April, but
We stayed out all night to see it.
And I remember saying, This is worth it.
16 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 17
RJ Hooker // Bird Hunting
............................................................................
I’ve never known much about rustling up dove,
the art is lost on me,
but each fall I trek through the back fields,
dragging my boots and jeans through dry briars,
in search of birds that burst
from under the fallen grass.
By now, the sun’s deep orange,
and planting itself on the horizon.
By now it’s too late to catch glints of frost
from the stifened clots of root and dirt.
Everything’s a dance of opaque shadow,
like splattered paint on the screen of evening.
November’s cold hardens the ground
and spit from the occasional curse or cough
begins to freeze in my beard.
Already I’m tired,
already my reason is scarce.
And then the tripwire,
then the shrapnel of scattered wings,
and the sky is ripped to tatters
by the startled covey.
They disperse and settle along the tree line,
behind the cover of spruce and barbed wire.
My shotgun’s silence hangs in the sky.
RJ Hooker // The Burning Barrel
............................................................................
Sunday mornings were plates
with traces of bacon and red eye gravy,
with Mom snubbing cigarettes
in the heavy glass ashtray.
Dad, long finished with food and coffee,
was outside
framed in the kitchen window.
Paper in hand, he read
as smoke and feathered embers
billowed from an old oil drum
and into the branches of the pine above.
Cardboard pizza boxes,
junk mail,
empty twelve packs,
paper grocery bags,
they all had a purpose. They’d wait in the barrel,
covered by a grill top,
until the finale of the Sunday paper.
As if he were shucking the news,
he’d read,
shake a layer free,
and drop it into the flames.
Then, with a hollowed steel rod,
he’d stoke the coals
of charred words and burning history.
18 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 19
Michael Houck // 3 a.m.
............................................................................
I didn’t mean to wake you last night,
I just really wanted some cereal.
I tip-toed through your living room,
Cloaked in darkness, trying to remain silent.
Your floorboards moan louder than you.
It’s 3 in the morning—you struck the hunger in me.
Michael Houck //
For who sat next to me in class last Wednesday
....................................................................................
Your shoes match your eyes.
I’d like to imagine that
you did this for me.
20 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 21
Lindsey Hughes // Divine Ceiling
............................................................................
I spent that summer alone in a sub-leased 5th floor walkup.
Most nights I would lay awake for at least one hour before
Sleep would wash over and pull me in.
I would stare at the walls, the bedposts, the pictures.
Cofee stained papers were crumpled and discarded like forgotten people
Who made their homes under bridges.
Stacks of books with dog-eared pages lined the walls.
Post-its on the walls that said things like “live your dreams.”
My roving eyes got stuck on
A small pile of hair strands on the nightstand.
But not often would I look up at the ceiling.
The blankness of that holy, empty space was always lost on me.
22 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 23
Nathan Lee // Cave Love
............................................................................
If I was a caveman
And you were a cavewoman,
And I saw another caveman dragging you away
By your hair, while you screamed and thrashed,
Barely like the sophisticated creature
That you call yourself,
I would intervene.
I would stand erect;
Approach the brute and say,
“Ooga booga booga!”
So that he may lay his dirty hands off you
And go play with fire or something.
24 f the coraddi
Amanda Manis // untitled
............................................................................
one
she carried a sac filled with pebbles and shells to show how she carried the
	
world;
(gently) and if you asked her she would pull them out, one at a time – she
gave them each a name and whispered them like a prayer: aalam ailesh bhupen
domnall haruyo jagat mahijit on and on and on (for the world is large and has many
names – but she always remembered them all)
-one day she dropped one and cried enough tears to
break a heart.
two
this is the picture of truth trapped inside a jar like a firefly in summer –
unable to breathe.
and if I pulled it out for you (crudely) you would notice the cracks in it (my
truths never were so reliable). I could speak it to you, but I never could
whisper, and you would hear (through cracked lips and ragged breaths) that
between the lines there were ghosts of words left unsaid:
-once upon a time there was a little girl with a heart
 
 
 
		 made of twine and silver and ink, who was left by a
		 river to float and to sink and her soul flew away and
		 the pebbles all fell and the shells didn’t sing and there
		 were no names (just an empty void and a broken heart)
		 and her ribs cracked in two and her sky fell apart. she
		 was placed in a box in the ground in the dark but her
		 skin was too soft and her laugh too sweet so they joined
		 the stars and the sky and the light and the oceans big
		 waves and
I think of her tonight.
spring 2009 f 25
26 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 27
Amanda Manis // untitled
............................................................................
she said
(sighing)
I want someone to write me a letter and fill it with an
alphabet
and when they send it (on a sunday in december)
I want to be able to smell the ocean and hear the scratch of
their pen on paper
and if it arrives too late (in march or april)
I want to hear the laugh of a child, age three,
and feel the wind pulse gently through my bones.
she said
(eyes closed, head tilted)
I want someone to sing me a song (in colors, not just grey
and green)
and when they sing it (muscles moving)
I want a dog to bark and a candle to flicker
and if the notes are wrong (too high or too low)
I want to blow the candle out and trace fingers down spines
(I want to know that harmony exists).
she said
(quietly)
here is my hand and it is small like me
I held a bird in it once (his feathers made of clouds and
leaves)
his laugh was old and tired, his pulse slow
I could hear (rising from his chest) a tune of no words
and when I turned him over in my hand his eyes met mine
	
and,
for a second I knew the truth of it all.
she said
(finally)
here is my hand and it is small like me
hold it.
28 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 29
Amanda Manis // Pencil and Paper, No Pen
...............................................................................
Want to know what my art is?
I can read people
Like worn novels
I thumbed through yours but
The words tangled and I couldn’t read anymore and put it
down
I got out my pencil and tried to write myself in
-As if by some chance I could be the one
Who would make it different, make you diferent
I should have used a pen
When I dropped you of yesterday you covered me in kisses
And told me you’d call before leaving my car
I sat there and watched you walk away, crossing my fingers in
hopes you’d look back
-You didn’t
Amanda Manis // rib nest
............................................................................
a.
I built a cave in your rib cage and slept in there for days, and
when I emerged my eyes were brand new and I saw what I
never had seen before:
i. it wasn’t a cage but a nest and bundled there
I was warm and loved, safe – not trapped
(you tended your eggs so well).
b.
If I could live inside your body I would, for I know your
scent and your feel and I know where all your secret scars are
– your eyes aren’t black but the color of life (dark and scary
and loving and passionate) and your skin, tan and soft told
me of a childhood long ago (your skin is always where you
kept that youth).
i. you pressed it against my pale canvas
together we made movies.
I have a box where I keep my past, and today I pulled you out of it and
held you close (for just a moment) - just to see if I still remembered your taste.
30 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 31
Tristin Miller // Inari
............................................................................
1.
In the distance,
weaving through the netting of night,
a ball of light bobbles and bounces
between the cedars.
Hunters hush themselves
and wait for it to come closer.
2.
Tiny grains rush
to slide their smooth
white bellies across
polished wooden floors.
Her hands and torn bag
quiver from the absence
of burden.
3.
Bow and pass under gleaming red gates.
Drink from the fountain with the cold tin cup.
Approach the main shrine.
Reach for a thick straw rope.
Ring the bell above.
Clap!
Clap!
Clap!
Slide open the wooden doors.
Accept the distance
between you
and invisible sleeping gods.
32 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 33
Steph Rahl // Harriet, Seventeen
............................................................................
A small tossed roiling glee in her tummy, a
small sea: green as pea, thick with soup,
deep, and sick. The child Catholic in Harriet pleas:
“War for Purity!”
but her insides yield and lack bitter. Sweet
persimmon. Will she be freed?
Can she shed genes? Her mothers willed
her these, unwilling: your hands, her sticky finale.
34 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 35
Luis Lázaro Tijerina //
The Ruins of Nueva Cádiz
............................................................................
“After all, what is more important?
Food for one’s belly or a pearl?”
— Cornelio Marcano, a native of Cubagua
	 The desert on this island flourishes with garbage piles
	 where once a Spanish city stood, thriving with pearl divers.
	 Slain like sting rays caught in the nets of fishermen,
	 their bodies are thrown upon the city streets.
	 The simple and beautiful words of these slaves
	 are forever lost, while the thrashes of the whips
	 by the men who ruled them
	 sear into the memory of Time.
	 The pungent aroma of garlic, the mutterings of old men,
	 Beneath the flag of revolutionary Venezuela flapping
	 like a strong woman’s hand waving to the sea…
	 Limestone buildings, elegant, symmetrical—gone,
	 the wide avenues laid out by the Spaniards, vanished,
	 no longer in our consciousness
	 but in the wind, in the wind…
	36 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 37
Paul Vincent // untitled
............................................................................
The aging Victorian
estate, distressed by
rising property taxes
and swollen floor
joists, reminisces
about the old
neighborhood.
Two doors, down a
rambunctious Spanish
Colonial is passed out
drunk in its lot.
38 f the coraddi
PROSE
40 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 41
Eric Bridges // Blow Pops
............................................................................
“Hey guys, come here!” The boys got up from playing with
Tonkas to see what little Jimmy had.
“That’s a blow pop.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“If you take a blow pop, microwave it, smash it with a
hammer, microwave it again, and then put it in water, it’s
supposed to do something cool!”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, turn into a circus or something!”
“Or a magician!”
“Or a seal!”
“Or a dragon and a knight and a fair maiden and a sword!”
They microwaved, hammered, microwaved, and hydrated it.
Then they waited. And they waited. And waited.
“Nothing.”
“Lame.”
42 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 43
Eric Bridges // Maxwell
............................................................................
It was never lonely in the waiting room. The
receptionists greeted Maxwell when he came, though he only
sat and read their magazines again.
But today, something seemed different. They didn’t
look up. “New management. Can’t let you stay today.”
Maxwell was steadfast.
“I’m sorry, Max.”
Max read unmoved.
“Please don’t make this hard.”
A page turned.
“Do you have an appointment?” A new voice.
Maxwell looked up.
“No.”
“Leave.”
“No.”
“Now.”
Maxwell left, crushed.
That evening, he woke to a knock. There was an
envelope containing appointment cards for every day of the
year. Smiling, he closed the door.
44 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 45
Meen Cho // Mike and Me
............................................................................
I want to say my life is ironic. But it’s exactly what it should
be. And it’s not what it shouldn’t be. Maybe that is what
makes it so ironic? Life is symbol. Life is poem. Life is
mostly annoying. Life is not a perfect movie with perfect
hair and make up and the perfect days with whipped cream
clouds topped with a sugar sphere sun. But that’s what
people expect life to be like. In reality, life is the mud mixed
with gum on the bottom of your shoe making it hard to step
of the sidewalk when you’re already 10 minutes late because
your piece of shit car wouldn’t start so you had to take the
bus but of course you didn’t have exact change and the bus
driver wasn’t going to wait for you to run the one minute
back to your house so you could get the fucking nickel but
luckily the pot-headed kid skipping school had an extra
nickel for you but hey man, those things don’t, like, fucking grow on
trees so I’m gonna need you to, um, like, pay me back asap. It takes all
that you have to smile and not punch this prepubescent
snot in the mouth because then, you, the asshole, would
be responsible for the decline of the world, not him. The
world is heavy like that sometimes. But the weight of the
world is nothing compared to the absence of it.
So, this is what I’m thinking about while in the coffee shop
with Mike semi-stalking a girl.
I’m also thinking about how I wake up sometimes and find
odd scratch marks on my arms. I know it’s not me and
it’s not the bed, either. So, it leaves me befuddled and
confused and sometimes scared that there might be rats in
the apartment, scurrying about on my body, snifing and
I’ll never know because I always drink myself into a jelly-like
stupor so I can fall asleep at a somewhat decent hour.
These days the insomnia is worse than ever and life is all but
keeping me an inch from death.
My drunken dreams are not dreams. OoBE. Out. of.
Body. Experience. Or maybe they’re just lucid dreams. I
always know I’m dreaming but I also know that I’m looking
at myself while I’m dreaming. So what does that mean?
It’s probably nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all.
Which is why the doctor won’t prescribe me anything to help
with it. It’s driving me crazy because while I’m ‘out of my
body’ I’ll always float to my kitchen, grab the biggest kitchen
knife and pretend to stab myself, all the while screaming,
“WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?” Of course, when
I tell this to my doctor he tells me that I should “seek
professional help” and my response to him is always the
same, “No, I don’t need professional help, I.need.sleep.”
He never gives in and I’m sure he never will. I just like the
human contact and the repetition.
“Dude, you should totally go up to her and talk to her.”
Mike takes me out of my head and now I’m thinking about
this girl. He doesn’t know how girls like her work and how
hard they are to find. I’ve seen her around school, around
the buildings, walking kind of fast but not too fast because
she doesn’t want people to think she’s important when she’s
not. I’ve seen her in line buying her yoghurt and water, not
because other people will think she’s healthy but because she
really is healthy. I’ve also seen her at the grocery store paying
with exact change. EXACT CHANGE! Hard. To. Find.
“She’s totally hot, dude. I mean, scale of 1-10, she’s a 7 or 8.
If you don’t go over and talk to her then I will.”
I know he won’t because he’s a little chicken-shit compared
to me. I remember this one time last month at a party he
didn’t have the balls to talk to his girlfriend while she was
busy flirting with another guy. His girlfriend for Christ’s
46 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 47
sake! How am I supposed to excel in life when I surround
myself with friends like this? I guess I’ll have to get rid of
him later.
The girl is packing up her purse now. Making sure that her
book is nice and snug and that no pages will be crumpled.
Her cofee is all finished. I think it was her third or fourth,
I don’t remember. I’m still sipping on my first, which is
already cold but who cares. I mean, I’d pick up drinking
cofee is she likes it that much but I don’t like the taste. No
matter how much sugar and cream I put in, it still tastes
bitter to my palate. She drinks for the taste; I drink, purely,
for the image and to not look like I’m stalking her.
“Man, she left man, I guess you’ll have to wait until next
time.”
“Shut up.”
We leave and once we walk out the sun beats down on my
eyes. My sunglasses are warm from my pocket and it feels
good to cover my face with something. Mike shrugs off his
jacket to reveal an obscenely profane shirt and I kind of want
to push him into the alley and run far, far away from this
kid. It’d be nice to get away from him, just run off into the
sunset with her, holding hands and laughing and not caring
about where we’re running to or what we’re running from
but it’s too bad she left before I had the chance to ask her.
Mike and I walk to the store because I need more cigarettes
and he needs, of all fucking things, a Red Bull.
“Why do you drink that shit?”
“It energizes me for the day, man. I want to be ready for
whatever comes my way.”
Nothing ever comes his way, to be honest, to be bluntly
honest. He thinks that people want him with them, but it’s
his money they want. Money doesn’t buy happiness but it
does buy ignorance.
“Sure, Mike. Good reason.”
He actually gets my sarcasm this time and asks me why I
smoke. Douche bag.
“Because I’m addicted, Mike. I buy cigarettes because it
physically makes me sick when I don’t have any. I’ll probably
die within five years of lung cancer or some other horrible
disaster, like flying off a cliff because I’m trying to light my
cigarette with a shitty lighter, but at least I’ll be laughing all
the way down hoping I have time for one more drag before I
burst.”
He looks at me. Looks down at his drink. Looks at my
cigarette. Looks at me again. And laughs.
“You’re a fucking riot, man. I hope you know that’s the only
reason I hang out with you. You’re a fucking riot. Jesus
Christ.” And he takes a sip of his Red Bull.
This is our friendship. I act like his stupidity doesn’t bother
me. He acts like his stupidity doesn’t bother him either. I’m
not sure if I like this friendship. It kind of brings me down
a level but at the same time not. The more I’m seen with
him, the more it seems like I’m around him on purpose, but
once people see how our friendship works, they realize that
I’m just the underpaid babysitter.
That was Tuesday afternoon.
Today is Saturday.
Everyday before today was Tuesday afternoon replayed over
and over again. It was like a bad VHS tape looping over the
same spot because it’s been played too many times.
But today is diferent because I actually like Mike today. I
don’t want to say it’s because he had gotten some real good
pot and we had smoked it that morning, but it is. We’re
both in a really good mood today.
“Man, I need a Red Bull, man, like, if I were a Red Bull I’d
be delicious and so would you because…Red Bull is the s h i
t…”
“I need a cigarette. Right. Now. Please. Let’s. Go.”
meen cho // mike and me
48 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 49
“Hahahahahaha, dude, you sound like a robot. Dude, we
should put on some techno and dance like robots…” and
I could hear Mike arguing with himself about whether
robots dancing could really be called dancing because “isn’t
someone controlling them, dude? What if someone’s
controlling us right now? Whoa-o-o-o-o. But aren’t we
controlling ourselves? So are we, like, robots to ourselves?
Like, slaves to our…” and although I wanted to speak I
couldn’t because I really wanted a cigarette right then. I
looked Mike straight in the eyes, trying to telepathically tell
him that I wanted a cigarette but he just kept on talking so I
was forced to speak. Dumbass.
“Yeah, intense shit, man. Let’s go to the store, you need to
buy me cigarettes.”
“I don’t know, man. If I go, is it my own free will or am I
being a slave to you? I don’t know man. I want to be my
own person. Fuck this shit…”
“They have red bull at the store too.”
“Man, I could really go for a red bull. Fine. I guess if I want
to go then it’s not enslavement of my body and mind.”
We walk to the store and goddamnit if Mike doesn’t have
cash, so we have to walk all the way to the ATM machine with
the sun beating down on our faces with something more
than hatred, something kind of like indifference to our skin,
to our eyes, to our bodies. The sun is laughing at everything
and it is a cruel, sweaty, eternal laugh.
By the time we finish at the ATM, our highs are wearing
of and I was starting to hate Mike again, so I told him that
we need to recharge so we go behind a tree and roll a joint,
taking turns being the lookout and the looked-out-for.
“Dude, best idea ever doing that. I can’t wait to tell people
that I smoked in Stray’s woods…”
“Maybe you shouldn’t tell anyone Mike. Maybe not telling
them would be the same as telling them because everyone’s
smoked in Stray’s woods and maybe we should hurry the fuck
up and get to the store.” I was so irritated with him. Him
and trying to look cool and hip and awesome for people
that don’t give a shit. Why can’t he just stop and look in the
mirror or in a fucking puddle on the ground? I don’t know.
“Yeah man, just chill out. Let’s go, then.”
So we’re walking and this really huge cloud that isn’t really
a cloud is hiding the sun. I wish I could explain it but the
cloud is enveloping the sun, eating it in one mouthful and I
want to eat the sun too. It probably tastes sweet and I bet if I
put that into my cofee it wouldn’t taste as bitter.
I put on my sunglasses because my eyes are most likely faded.
When we walk in something is wrong. I look at Mike and he
knows it too. There’s someone at the front with sunglasses
on and he’s wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled
over his face so it’s hard to tell anything about him. The
cashier, some twerpy middle-aged man is standing there
nervously. He’s sweating too much for me to not notice. I
get in line behind the hooded mystery and Mike gets his Red
Bull.
“Go ahead man, I’m just here talking with this gentleman.”
And the hooded man motions with pocketed hands to go
ahead.
I look at this guy real hard and look to the cashier, whose
name is illegible but seems to start with a ‘J’ and look behind
me for Mike who comes sauntering up with two Red Bulls,
already sipping on one he’s opened.
All I can do is shrug and ask for my cigarettes.
“O…o..kay, su…urre th-th-thing.” The cashier is eyeing me
weirdly, really shifty business and his erratic blinking almost
makes sense but I’m too high to care.
Mike puts his drinks next to my cigarettes.
“Sssssev-ssseven eight-eighty-eighty-five pppplease.”
Mike takes out his wallet and bumps the hooded guy’s arm
by accident. He’s so high that he notices the shiny metal the
hooded guy is clutching before I do.
“Hey man, what’s in your pocket? Can I look at it? It looks
meen cho // mike and me
50 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 51
shiny.”
And I realize what’s going on at the same time the guy pulls
out the gun.
Mike doesn’t realize what’s going on until after the guy tells
the cashier to turn off the lights and lock the door and tells
us to get on the ground.
“Dude, are we going to die? I can’t die today because I have
to go to class on Monday, we have an exam.”
I can’t say anything because Mike is doing all the thinking
now. I’m just a robot.
“Okay, if everyone stays the fuck down and I get my money
then we can all just leave quietly and no one will get hurt.
Got it?”
The hooded guy is yelling this even though it’s so silent I can
hear the cashier sweating.
I hear the register spring open and the rustle of cash going
into a bag or maybe just on to the counter.
Mike is fidgeting, trying of all things, to get a look at the gun
and I smack him so that he stops.
“What are you doing? You trying to take my gun? You want
the gun, bitch? Try and take it from me and I’ll shoot you
between the eyes and your friend can watch you die.”
I think that’s where it all went downhill, because up until
then we were slowly inching our way uphill to a time where
this isn’t happening, to a time where I would be smoking a
cigarette and Mike would be on his second Red Bull but now
that time was shattered and the downhill momentum was in
full swing.
“No man, I just want to look at the gun, it’s pretty sick.
Where’d you get it?”
Mike is getting up slowly, trying to poke at the gun and the
hooded guy freaks out. He freaks out like someone whose
suddenly lost control of everything.
“Get the fuck away from me.” He’s pointing the gun at
Mike’s head now and Mike doesn’t know what to do. I’m still
on the ground and now I’m thinking. My thoughts are like
fish frantically trying to swim away from a shark. I’m the
shark. I get up and face the hooded figure.
“Hey man, we don’t want any trouble. Just put the gun down
and we’ll forget any of this happened.”
What the fuck am I saying? Who would forget about
something like this? I know I won’t, I know Mike won’t,
I know the cashier won’t, I know God won’t, if He’s even
watching. So I start laughing. Because what if God is
watching and He doesn’t care. He’s up there or wherever
watching this little skit on a big plasma screen T.V. and He’s
thinking wow, they are fucked. I’m pretty sure that’s what
He’s thinking. When has He been there for me? But maybe
He’s not supposed to be there for me. I don’t know. And
I’m still laughing right now because there’s a gun being
pointed at me and my life isn’t flashing before my eyes
because I haven’t done anything of significance. All I wanted
to do today was get high and buy cigarettes and possibly go
get cofee. But now I’m on the edge of a cliff and all I want
to do is jump.
“Stop laughing. Stop laughing. Keep putting the money in
the bag. You, back the fuck up and tell your friend to stop
laughing right now.”
I’m snickering and this hooded guy is all jittery in the bones.
He’s moving the gun back and forth between Mike, the
cashier named ‘J’ and me. He doesn’t know what to do and
we can all tell. So I go up to him and grab the gun. I didn’t
know I was going to do it, he didn’t know I was going to do it
and God didn’t know either because now He’s thinking that
this show just got really good and He’s glad He turned to this
channel.
So now I have the gun and Mike is yelling at me to shoot
the hooded guy and the hooded guy is telling me not to do
anything stupid and the cashier just wet himself and I’m
still laughing about God. I look out the window and see
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52 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 53
the sun is gone and the moon isn’t there yet either. It’s the
blue hour. l’heure bleue. I don’t feel anything, not even the
heaviness of the metal in my hand or Mike’s obscenities in
my ears or the calming voice of the hooded guy.
I point the gun, first, towards the cashier and he whimpers
and then he’s on the ground.
Then I point the gun towards the hooded guy and he steps
back saying that I can have the money but then he’s on the
ground too.
Then I point the gun towards Mike and he just looks at me
like I’m crazy and then he’s on the ground with the hooded
guy.
And finally I point the gun towards me and the barrel looks
like a dark, dark tunnel with a tiny light inside. The creases
between the tiles are all converging with red and it looks like
a river I want to swim through.
My finger is on the trigger and the safety is off.
My finger is of the trigger and the safety is off.
My finger is twitching and my safety is off.
My finger pulls the trigger and nothing happens.
Turns out the fucker forgot to put in more bullets.
meen cho // mike and me
54 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 55
extended around the house. Its original white color was now
a yield-sign yellow, and rooms that had been open, large
enough for gathering crowds of boys, were diminished with
the addition of walls. Wandering ghosts of former students
would not be able to navigate the maze its new owner had
set up. My parents restored the house, knocking down the
wall that had broken up the dining room, ripping up the
linoleum and carpet that hid the oak planks, unbricking
closed fireplaces, and removing the wrap-around part of
the front porch until the house’s original architecture was
visible. Its fourteen rooms began to slowly fill. Chimneys
began to breathe smoke and windows were again able to see.
Walls were painted and wallpaper was added. Clocks began
to tick and the former quiet that filled every room was slowly
whisked away by presence.
My house sits a few feet back from a main highway,
separated from it by a white picket fence. The road out
front has always been there, a two-lane highway that sees a
little too much trafic for its 40-mile-per-hour speed limit
and residential area setting. Since the time of the daylilies,
my house has begun to look old. It didn’t start to look this
way, its paint peeling and its windows sagging, until I went
to college. That was when my parents decided to pack up
and spend most of their time at our house in the mountains,
returning only for holidays, town meetings, to mow the
grass. The Palace isn’t totally abandoned. Its rooms still
have all of their furniture, though now dusty and worn from
neglect, and artwork, its matting mildewed, still hangs on
the sun-faded walls. An occasional brisk, heavy walk will
wake up a clock and its hammer will emit a deep, undulating
reply—that is, only when someone is there to hear it.
When my parents first bought our land in the mountains, they said it
took hours to find. They bought it from a woman whose grandparents used to
Katie Fennell // The Daylilies
............................................................................
I used to deadhead the daylilies in the summer. I
would gather their wilted, sometimes dried heads in a shal-low
straw basket and dump them on the shaded ground
underneath a tree in the side yard. My mother and I would
count this pile of multi-colored brown and I was paid, at
first, two cents a dead blossom for my work, but because
there were so many, my profits were reduced to one cent
a head. The blossoms were counted and then piled again
in the basket, and I carried them to the burn pile, pouring
them on top of the browning Christmas tree and heaps of
sticks and leaves.
The house I grew up in is a two-story Georgian-style
clapboard house, built in 1894 as a dormitory for
an institute for normal and secondary education. After
114 years, it is natural for something to age, and from its
beginning, my house, known by its first inhabitants as “The
Palace,” underwent change. Trees were planted, stones
were set as a walkway to a tennis court, and eventually a back
porch was added. Inside, coals fallen from the cook stove
left burn marks on the wooden floors, too many mid-night
pranks of rolling tin washtubs down the stairs left dents,
and dorm-life “grafiti” marked the walls of rooms home
to dozens of boys enrolled at the Institute. Their lives were
everywhere—but they were wandering presences, visitors
passing through.
From the days of the Institute to its later being turned
into a private home, my house underwent more change.
When my parents fell in love with its history, its antiquity,
and its beauty in the 1970s, linoleum and carpet covered the
wooden floors, wood that had been purchased from water-run
sawmills in the 1880s, and the front porch had been
56 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 57
live there, and one day when I was three, she led my parents and me through
the high weeds and brambles to a clearing between three large hills. I can’t
remember very much, but I do know that it was sunny, and on our way there,
my mother’s foot got stuck in the soft silt of a creek and I cried. We bought the
21 acres of land as a vacation spot. Part of it was set in what the mountain
people call a “holler,” or a hollow between three large hills. It was surrounded
by woods and the cleared spot in the holler contained the old Brinegar house
and a spring. The Brinegar family had lived here since who knows when until
the 1960s. Their wooden house was now just a shack, the front part gutted
and fallen, leaving only the back room intact. For some reason we called it a
cabin, the “old cabin,” and my young mind thought it was beautiful. And, in a
way, I guess it was. It was full of darkness, hidden treasures, and antiquity. As
I grew up on this land, I found old, rusty advertisements from bottles and boxes
and the remnants of leather shoes, cold and black from the earth, the holes for
the laces perfectly round in the darkness of the curved, damp material. One of
the shoes I found was well over a foot long—my parents and I used to wonder
what kind of giant had once lived there in the holler. I would find rose-head
nails, old stove legs, pieces of paper tucked away in corners of the old cabin,
and one winter I found an arrowhead sitting on top of the dirt in a spot where
the snow had melted. On the base of the arrowhead was a smudge of red, and
for years I told people it was Indian blood. Often, I imagined I was one of the
Brinegar children. Sitting on jutting planks of what was once the floor of a
front bedroom, the roof of this part of the cabin now at my feet, I pretended I
had eight brothers and sisters, that I had to do my homework on a slate, and
that I had to help my mother cook supper over the fire. Old school books from
antique stores sat beside me, and I read them and completed lessons in them,
just as my imaginary teacher instructed me. Other times, I was an Indian,
scouting bufalo and doing sun and rain dances.
Over the years, my parents and I would travel to the mountains
every weekend from our other home—a three-hour trek from the Piedmont.
Sometimes we would go up on a Friday afternoon after school, but a lot of the
time we headed up in the darkness of a Saturday morning, the air still cold and
damp, broken by the sound of a bird or two waking up, and me still half asleep
and dreaming. Either my mother or father would wake me by yelling up the
stairs in our house, or sometimes by coming into my room, their forms lit by the
light of my night light, and gently shaking me, telling me that it was time to get
up, to head to the mountains.
Their plan for the mountain house was to build a cabin and to have
that be our vacation home. My father sketched rough plans for the cabin, one
in particular I remember as a two-story house similar to The Palace, with a
front porch and steps, a curl of smoke rising from the chimney. Our original
intention was to have our cabin on top of one of the hills surrounding the
holler. We made a path to the top of one and started clearing the land. The
sounds of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto would echo across the holler and even
now, the sound of that Concerto brings with it the smell of the woods and the
memory of discovery. Realizing that the delivery of lumber up the steep hill and
the drilling of a well would be too dificult, we decided to build our cabin down
in the holler behind the Brinegar’s old cabin, where the land was somewhat flat
and where there was a natural spring. Construction was done by hand, by my
father, and started slowly, lasting for about nine years before we could fully
move into the cabin. In the beginning, we camped out in the Brinegar’s cabin,
its only remaining room large enough to contain a wooden platform that served
as a bed, a wood stove, shelves, and tools. My father made the makeshift
bed and set bags of concrete mix at its head, which served as steps: my way of
climbing into bed at night. A large multi-paned window, the outside of which
always seemed to be covered in cobwebs; a corner cupboard, its dark blue paint
chipped and darkened with dirt and age; and a counter of sorts, which had a
hinged door that swung out and revealed a hollow space, something I imagined
was an ancient refrigerator, were the only original items left from the days of
the Brinegar’s.
Camping out in the old cabin and discovering all that it held was
some of the best excitement I’ve ever had, and my parents indulged me in this
fun, though my mother often had a very diferent idea of it all. When we first
started clearing out the main, back room of the cabin, we were greeted by a
large family of bats. My parents and I were sweeping its large floor boards,
which were caked with dirt, some of them warped and some loose and creaking,
when all of a sudden bats flew down from the ceiling and out of the holes in the
floor, scaring us. My mother has never been a fan of too many wild, knowingly
filthy animals, and the first sign of these bats sent her running out of the cabin
and down the road, waving her arms and screaming, “Don’t let them get in my
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58 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 59
hair, don’t let them get in my hair!” My father and I laughed at her. We always
played tricks on her, whether it was by pretending to get our fingers caught in
doors she had closed or pretending to see mice run across the floor.
Once the cabin was made somewhat livable, we stayed there at night,
warmed by our small Reginald cast iron stove and entertained by our tiny black
and white television. My father had strung up a light bulb, which hung from
the ceiling by a nail and was connected by power cords to the fuse box, which
hung on a tree outside. Even with this light, though, the corners of the cabin
were still dark and at night, when the bulb was extinguished, the wood stove
produced a red glow, and this one small trace of light alleviated my fears of the
dark. Often in the winter, my father would have to get up in the middle of the
night to stoke the fire, and red sparks would fall at his feet, throbbing to a bright
orange and then burning into darkness.
At night, we sat in our metal and plastic camp chairs and tried to
watch the television, which, even with its huge antenna, was still too fuzzy to
make out. Because of the age of the cabin, holes were plentiful, and we would
often see mice running across the floor or shelves, and usually our dog Sally
would spot them first. She would run out from underneath the bed and bark
at them until either they found their way out or my father chased them out.
Of course, with their presence known, my mother would become hysterical,
jumping on top of the bed and screaming, “Kill it, kill it!” I would sit back and
laugh at her, joined by my father, who would say, “Oh, it’s just a little mouse.
It’s not going to hurt you.” She would respond with, “I don’t care, kill it! I
don’t want it crawling in my sleeping bag with me at night and making a nest in
my hair!” This was one of her main concerns, that of a mouse making a home
in her hair, or, really, just that of a mouse being near her. At night when we
went to sleep, it was very clear that I was to sleep on one side of the bed and my
father on the other, my mother safe in the middle, away from the mice. She
would say to me, “Now, if there is a mouse crawling on the wall, it will get to
you first and I’ll be safe. You’re so brave.” One thing she still doesn’t know is
that she was right next to a mouse one time and didn’t even know it. We were
all sitting in the cabin one night, trying to watch our fuzzy television when my
father motioned to me to look at the wall in front of us. Behind a rope was a
mouse crawling towards the ceiling. My father and I just looked at each other
and smiled, all the while my mother talking about whatever the show was we
were trying to watch on television.
When I was four, my mother was in a car accident.
She was hit head-on by a group of speeding teenagers flying
down the wrong side of the road in front of The Palace.
Her car flipped, landed upside down, and pinned her
inside. A passenger from the speeding car pulled her out
and dragged her into a field. Soon after, they witnessed the
explosion of her flipped Jeep. All that was left after the fire
were a few coins spilled in the middle of steaming ash. She
escaped with nothing more than a broken knee, depending
on crutches for months afterwards. I remember going to
visit her in the hospital after the accident and not wanting to
get out of the car. She lay on a gurney in the hallway of the
hospital, her hands covered in dried red clay.
Her bedroom was on the second floor of our house, and
every night and every morning, she would sit on the stairs,
moving up and moving down, counting each step as she
went.
“I memorized each step,” she would say. “There are
eighteen, and I know them all.”
After that, I would run up and down the stairs,
counting to make sure there were really eighteen. There
were, and as I mimicked her migration of sitting on
each step, pushing up with my left leg and holding on to
ascending balusters, I, too, began to know each step. I
learned the pattern of the grain in each wide plank of each
stair as I ran my hand along their smooth, worn edges.
These stairs would become the subject for several of my
artist father’s paintings, as would the rest of our house. Our
dining room, the lights of to let natural light filter through,
would be turned into a temporary studio, the table covered
in drapery and plates of fruit. The air would become strong
with the scent of paint thinner and Winsor & Newton oils,
and, after weeks, with the addition of molding, rotting fruit.
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60 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 61
The hurry of sable brushes on stiff canvas would mark the
beginning of the process, eventually slowing down to soft,
careful strokes, silenced by the melodies of Mozart concertos
and my father’s whistling, but visible behind by the pressure
of brush on canvas.
Our hallway, too, would be immortalized in many
of my father’s works, his temporary studio set up in the
hallway or in the doorway of the billiard room. Brown and
crimson would move from palate to canvas, forming the red
patterned hallway runner, the wooden side table, the stairs
and their red risers. I sat for him once, on the ninth stair,
reading a book about pilgrims. My right leg stuck straight
out before me and I complained about sitting still for
extended periods.
In late winter, seed catalogs lay strewn all over
our kitchen table and on our couch. My parents would
order large quantities of green bean seeds, various types
of lettuces, heirloom tomatoes, hollyhocks, larkspur, and
foxglove from Burpee, Gurney, and Shepherd. I would only
order from R.H. Shumway, the catalog that advertises with
old-fashioned pictures. I would spend my small hoard of
money on packs of romantic-sounding flowers like Loves
Lies Bleeding, Bells of Ireland, Kiss Me Over the Gate, Bird
of Paradise, Canterbury Bells, Trumpet Creeper, and Job’s
Tears. Once our packets arrived, we would spend all day out
by the pump house, unloading bags of potting mix into our
rusty wheelbarrow, hosing in water, and filling trays with
the moist dirt, scattering and poking in the seeds. When we
“plantin’ folks,” as we called ourselves, planted our seeds,
it was early in the season, maybe late March, and the cold
end of winter air and March winds would make our work
even harder, our hands freezing and our faces and arms
becoming speckled with dirt and water. After everything
was sowed, we would make a space for them upstairs by a
window, on shelves my father had made. For a few months
in the early spring, this junk room would be turned into a
mini-greenhouse, the usual dry, dusty air moistened with
the smell of damp earth and fertilizer.
The old cabin in the mountains was way back in the
woods, about five miles from the main highway and at least
a mile from a somewhat frequented rock road. You could
hear nothing outside at night except the sound of bugs,
bullfrogs, and the trickle of water from somewhere far of,
and you haven’t seen a really dark night until you experience
those there. The air was always sweet, a mingling of sweet
grasses, drying leaves, and fresh creek water. The Brinegar’s
had a spring that was a small pool of crisp, clear water set in
the dip of a hill. Stacks of moss and lichen-covered rocks
formed a half wall around the pool. I would stand on a
large rock slab by the spring and watch as my father dipped
a metal pot into the cold water and poured it into a cooler.
Sometimes the water ran low and the metal pot would
scrape the bottom, silty sediment billowing up, the water’s
clarity darkened. A gigantic arborvitae tree stood outside
the old cabin and my father hung a swing from one of the
lower limbs. As I swung, I saw the old cabin in front of
me, its rusty roof slightly curling, its color a dark weathered
gray. Its image would rise and fall with my swinging and
the fragmented creak and groan of the back and forth of the
swing broke the silence of the hills.
The old cabin had a faint aroma of dirt that became mixed with the
sweet smell of wood smoke, and when my father’s tools rested in the corners,
a hazy film of oil masked the cabin’s natural odor. The doors on the old cabin
were original and without locks, and the only way we had of locking them was
by either pieces of wood or by bent nails. We latched the doors on the outside
by the bars of wood, which were nailed to the doorframe, and we would turn
the bars to secure the door to prevent it from opening outward. On the inside,
we had curved nails that we turned to secure the door from being pushed in
katie fennell // the daylilies
62 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 63
from the outside. Little moon-shaped indentions became permanent where
the heads of the turned nails rested on the door. The only visitors we had were
deer, rabbits, and maybe a possum or two. One night, we got a very special
guest, one that my mother almost welcomed into the family. My father went
outside for something and we didn’t latch the door. Shortly after, the door
began to slowly open and in trotted a large red hound dog, its side painted
“49”. It walked right up to my mother with a big canine grin, its long tongue
hanging out of the side of its mouth, and looked at her, hungry. Sally, a
German Shepherd mix, came out from underneath the bed to sniff the visitor.
Of course, my mother became hysterical, and yelled for my father to come get
this “crazy dog” that had come into the cabin…with no response. She grabbed
Sally’s collar to get her away from “49,” yelled at the hound to get out, yelled
for my father to help, and yelled at me to stay away from the hound. Finally,
she got the dog out and shut the door, letting out a sigh of relief. However,
it wasn’t long until she realized that it was “49” she had so carefully kept
inside, and she was hysterical again, yelling at the hound, which by this point
looked confused and somewhat sad, it’s wild grin gone, and shoved it out the
door, grabbing the right dog, our dog, and pulling her inside for protection.
My father never heard the end of why he wasn’t there to get “49” out of the
cabin and still can’t understand the hysterics that accompanied “49”’s visit. I
remember asking my father why the hound had “49” sprayed on his side and he
said it was a hunting dog, and because some hunters have so many in their pack
when they go hunting, they number them to distinguish them from one another
and to keep track of them. I haven’t seen a numbered dog since.
When I was young, I got up early on weekends and
during summer vacation and would surprise my parents by
making biscuits. In the dim morning light of The Palace’s
kitchen, I would make them, sometimes plain, other times
with herbs, able to reach the height of the counter with the
help of a chair. I would take these baked treasures into the
dining room, sit on the couch, and watch cartoons. As I
got older, I got up later, often forgetting to make biscuits
when I promised that I would. A faded, curling sign on my
bedroom door reads, “Don’t forget to make buscits.”
I would spend hot summer afternoons riding my bike
around the yard, stopping and yielding at imaginary
crossroads and railroad tracks. I would make camp by the
smokehouse, staking out Indians, and would later gather
wild onions and fallen plums into my teepee for winter
storage. I opened a mud bakery in my playhouse, and sang
along to recordings of “Annie Get Your Gun” and “South
Pacific” as I swung on my swing set. Sometimes I would
lie on the floor of the dining room underneath the ceiling
fan and try to absorb as much cool air coming from the
floor and from the fan as I could in our un-air-conditioned
house.
In the few years before I left for college, I would
often quietly walk from room to room and listen, trying to
block out the cyclic passing of cars. I made my own “grafiti”
on the walls, adding my name and the date alongside those
of boys a century before, and I would listen to the sounds
of the house: a far-of creak, a shutter gently tapping, a soft
breeze whistling through the cracks around the windows.
Birds would sing in the trees and from somewhere far away,
it seemed, I might hear the back door slam. The windows
would let out a slight shudder and the silence of the house
would be broken. The house’s sound was beautiful, historic,
alive.
The Brinegar’s old cabin had at one time been covered with
newspaper as wallpaper. This was a typical thing among the poor. Some of the
old advertisements were still legible, but mostly they were just small fragments
or larger pieces still pasted to the walls and ceiling—some hung down like those
curling flypapers you see in gas stations. Those that were stuck to the ceiling
above our bed, though, were my favorite, because they were shaped like things:
a dog that looked like Toto, its nose a knot in the ceiling, perfectly situated and
dark; a man in a canoe, his long white beard blowing behind him; a high-heeled
shoe; an angel. These shapes took their form at diferent times, the dog
coming first, followed closely by my discovery of the shoe and the man in the
katie fennell // the daylilies
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canoe and then the others. I would lie on the bed and look at them. I told my
parents about them, and they would look at them with me, helping me to find
other shapes in the fragmented and peeling ceiling.
During the summer, we often camped in a tent outside the old cabin,
under the gigantic arborvitae tree, making enemies with the ground and the
bugs. At our other home, we raised goats. One goat, Matthew, became an
orphan shortly after birth and we had to take care of him. We bottle fed him
and covered him with warm blankets at night, and sometimes when he was sick,
we fed him warm bran and molasses. On our jaunts to the mountains, we took
Matthew with us, and on the way up, my mother would hold him in her lap
in a towel, like a baby. When we went up early on Saturday mornings, we’d
usually have to stop somewhere to get coffee or some breakfast. She often says,
“Those people at the drive-through sure looked at me funny. I think they were
probably thinking, ‘She sure does have an ugly baby!’” We heated Matthew’s
bottles of milk over the campfire and bottle fed him. Sally became like his
mother, and when we took walks down our road, Matthew would follow right
behind her, bleating to catch up, and trotting alongside her when he did reach
her. Matthew was later sold at auction. Male goats easily get out of hand, and
Matthew soon outgrew the sweetness and gentleness we witnessed when he was a
kid.
Over the years, the Brinegar’s old cabin became less of a home and
more of a storage facility. As the architecture of our new cabin progressed, we
stayed in it more, preferring the heat of several kerosene heaters to our Reginald
stove and the products of food cooked over a two-burner hot plate to campfire
food. In the first few years of our taking up residence in my father’s creation,
we still had to deal with dirty floors and makeshift walls. To get from the
basement to the first floor, we had to climb a wooden ladder that my father had
built, and for years I wasn’t allowed to climb it by myself. Entrance to the back
door was by a wooden bridge, really two wide planks of thick flooring, which
crossed a deep ditch that had been made when the foundation to the house was
dug. One time after picking wildflowers down the road, I was walking across
that bridge looking behind me when I fell of of it and into the ditch. My left
shoulder was scraped, and I didn’t tell anyone about falling of of the bridge.
After a few years, steps were built from the basement to the first floor, the ditch
was filled in, and a back porch was added to the area where the plank bridge
had been. The interior of the cabin became livable, and new memories began
to form in this new place.
We didn’t have running water for a few years after moving in and
had to depend on our spring and a “miracle” spring found by a man in the
1800s for drinking, cleaning, and washing. On the way to our cabin, we
would stop at the “miracle” spring, located on a quiet of road and just a few
miles from the rock road that led to our house. The spring had its origins deep
inside bedrock, and in the small white well house, towards the back near a wall
of rock, were a red metal hand pump and a Plexiglas covering that showed a
deep pool of crystal clear water. I pumped the water into our large orange
Rubbermaid water cooler and would drink water straight from the pump, trying
to absorb as much healing power as I could. I wrote in the guest book supplied
by the owners of the springhouse of “ailments” I had had before drinking the
healing water, which were, of course, fictional. Once we got a call from the
owners about how well their water had cured a particular “ailment” I had
related to them in the book. Of course I had never had an ailment—I just liked
making up crazy stories about peeling skin and rotting flesh that became normal
again after drinking the water. I’m not sure if they believed me.
I am convinced that The Palace didn’t really begin to
age until we left it. It used to be surrounded by lush green
trees and gardens full of blooms, and even in winter, when
the trees stand like stark skeletons and the gardens a mass of
knotted vines, the house stood proud, regal. It has retained
a little of that noble presence, but bears it more as an
ancient monarch would, worn from activity, slumped under
a heavy robe. Now, the dirty gray face of the house seems
smaller, less majestic, and sad, and the skeleton trees seem
more bent, almost crippled. The house’s shutters hang,
sagging, and the porch swing sits still, covered in dust and
leaves, sometimes swaying back and forth with a stray gust or
a fast-moving car. The chains clatter against each other.
Many of the gardens we once had are now mown
over. In the spring, sometimes a stray tulip and several
katie fennell // the daylilies
66 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 67
dozen daffodils, snowdrops, and hyacinths appear, but they
are scattered, within the boundaries of the old garden plots,
no doubt, but seeming now to be as wild as the Creeping
Charlie. Sometimes I can see the bricks that once marked
an edge of one of the gardens. Wrought-iron fences seem
to stand on their own in the middle of the yard, rusting,
ornate jewels in fields of brown grass and warped trees. In
the back yard, a clothesline hangs, lower in the middle.
Dark wooden clothespins dot it, their bodies randomly
placed and leaning in all directions. The clothesline is hung
between the barn and the woodshed, the unpainted wood of
the former a weathered gray and the latter a bent shell, its
doors padlocked and missing panels, its windows broken.
The fenced-in yard of the chickens is a jungle of dried stalks
and browning vines. The wooden door to the chicken house
hangs distorted on a hinge. The tin roof is loose, the sheets
becoming un-nailed, curling.
Our path to the front door has grown over, no
longer worn smooth from constant travel. A sudden gust
of spring rattles abandoned plastic trays, their corners dark
with dirt. A wheelbarrow, its tire flat, is pushed against the
side of the pump house, half hidden in tufts of browning
grass and drifts of leaves. The Damson and Winesap trees
have fallen, their dirtied splay of roots wide. Grape arbors,
once held high by wooden posts, are a mass of shaggy, twisted
vines, fallen on beds of periwinkle and wild honeysuckle.
Wilderness has taken over, and soon enough our house will
become the guide for wandering wisteria tendrils, which will
slowly make their way up the sides and down the chimneys,
creeping their way through keyholes and around bedposts,
into what was once home.
You can get to the old cabin by turning left at the end of the bridge
of the main road. You follow a dirt and rock road for about five miles, the
river on your left and woods and hills on your right, the dark forest sometimes
broken by a house or road. The road curves and dips, and takes you past
thickets of hawthorns, outcroppings of rocks that contain caves, rushing creeks,
cow pastures, tobacco fields, and barns that hold drooping, dried tobacco in
late summer. On sunny days, the road becomes mottled with sunlight, the
shadows of leafy trees and the brightness of the sun dancing on the road, the
way sun’s light on water is reflected on a solid object nearby. You take a right
at a silo and follow an even rockier road past a Christmas tree farm, a pond,
and a sloping hill covered in daylilies, until you come to a holler. Our holler.
But you look around and see not an old, fallen cabin, but a large two-story log
cabin behind a huge arborvitae tree; a chicken house in an orchard on a hill; a
latticed and screened-in spring house, its door frame yellow, its spindles rings
of blue, green, and red; a pump house; and an ornate storage shed, an antique
lightening rod on top, its glass “flag” crimson. An old swing hangs from a limb
of the arborvitae tree and I’m tempted to sit on its plank seat, to break the
sounds of the hills with the creak and groan of its rusted chains.
katie fennell // the daylilies
68 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 69
replied.
“What?”
“Discretion.”
“Oh. Well, you don’t let Lindsey smoke, do you?”
“I’m addicted. What would drive me to share?”
Sheila’s laughter was interrupted by Lindsey’s sing-song
voice coming down the hall. “Are you done hitting on
my mom?” she asked, punctuating the question with her
arrival at the door.
She stepped partially out of the door, one foot inside
the house and one on the porch. She was short and wide-hipped
like her mother, though to a lesser degree. Her eyes,
the color of fossilized amber and shaped like almonds, were
fixated on Connor’s car in the driveway. Connor surveyed
her in her tie-dyed shirt, jeans, and skate shoes that made
her feet look awkwardly large and clumsy. If it wasn’t for her
youth and the intensity of her gaze, she would not have been
beautiful.
“I will never stop hitting on your mother,” Connor
said.
“Are you ready to go?”
“You’re in more of a hurry than usual, but yes, I’m
ready. Sheila, when shall I return this charming young lady
to you?”
“Sheila surveyed Connor for a moment, “Have her
back by midnight.”
“To the very second,” he replied.
Connor ambled lazily down the steps toward the car,
but Lindsey rushed past him and was waiting at the passenger
door before he was halfway there. He unlocked the car, and
they climbed into it. It was a two door Saturn, a model from
the early 90s, and reeked heavily of Marlboros and pot. The
backseats were covered in dirty clothes and empty cigarette
packages.
“Sorry about the lack of music,” Connor said,
Gabriel King // At the Fair
............................................................................
It was a cool Friday night and Connor breathed in
the autumn air and relished how it felt in his lungs. He
stubbed out the Marlboro he was smoking; best not to look
rude if Lindsey’s mother or stepfather answered the door.
He took another deep breath and rang the doorbell.
Lindsey’s mother, Sheila, opened the door. Connor
looked her over obviously, so that she would notice. She was
in her early forties, short and wide across the hips. Her hair
was cut short, though not nearly as short as her daughter’s.
“Hello, Connor,” Sheila said.
“Enough of ‘hellos,’” Connor said. “Let’s quit this
game! We should forget your daughter and the two of us go
out instead.” Connor knew this line of obvious flirting was
wasted on most women of his parents’ generation, but Sheila
enjoyed it. Using her first name with teenagers made her
feel young.
She liked the boy: his easy humor and grace, his
androgynous, youthful beauty and his ice green eyes eased
in her accepting him and elicited her trust. And they both
knew the flirting contained no real meaning or threat. What
adult would take him seriously in the standard band T-shirt
(Flogging Molly, green), jeans and combat boots common to
so many Fayetteville youth?
“And what about Mike?” Sheila asked.
“Mike who? Forget him, too. I already have.”
She laughed and then stopped abruptly, snifing the
air. “Have you been smoking?”
“Like a chimney.”
“You’re only seventeen. Who buys them for you?”
“I choose to invoke the better part of valor,” he
70 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 71
pointing to the center console. “The CD player is broken,
and I really can’t stand the radio.”
“It’s cool,” she responded. Connor reversed the
car out of the driveway and put it into first gear, which it
protested, groaning.
“I’m surprised your mom let you out tonight. It is
the Sabbath.” Connor said.
“We’re not that observant. She only lets me out
because of you.”
“Lucky you.”
“I didn’t think you’d even feel like going out tonight
since you came over after school already.”
“Nah. I like getting out of the house as much as
anybody. It’s a necessity of supervised living I guess: ‘make
love when no one’s around, get out when everyone is.”
“Don’t say that. ‘Making love.’” She said.
“My apologies. I’ll try to be cruder from here on
out.”
Connor fished in his pockets and produced the
Marlboros. He removed the cigarette he had shorted out
earlier and lit it, pulling a face as he inhaled. “Gah. The first
hit tastes so horrible when you relight, and they smell even
worse.”
He rolled down the window and the crisp fall air
forced its way into the car and his lungs. After he finished
the cigarette, Lindsey told him to roll up the window. She
was cold. He sighed and consented. They rode on silently
for several minutes, and when Connor looked over to
change lanes he saw Lindsey looking pensive.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“I said ‘are you alright?’ You seemed really eager to
get out of the house earlier, but you seem out of it. I know
it’s just the Fort Bragg Fair, but a date’s a date.”
“This isn’t a date.”
“Sorry, I oversimplified. The vocabulary for our
little marriage of convenience can be a bit long-winded
sometimes.”
“Stop saying that stuf. ‘Marriage of convenience.’
We’re just friends. We hang out and have fun and do what
we feel like with each other.”
“That’s a complicated way to say things. It’d be
simpler if it had a name attached to it,” he said.
“It does. It’s called ‘fuck-buddies.’”
“That sounds terrible.” Connor had known the name for the
relationship, but he despised
it. He hoped that it had evolved into something simpler.
“Don’t start. You’ve known what this was.”
“Yeah I, guess. But anyway, why so down and out?”
“I’m not, I’m just thinking. Kyle’s supposed to come
to the fair tonight.”
“Kyle?” She had mentioned him before, but Connor
could not remember exactly who he was. Some other guy she
was sleeping with?
“The guy I was seeing two years ago.”
“The older guy? The G.I.?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t he, like, twenty-five or something?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Isn’t he the one who got you on house arrest in the
first place or did the promiscuity come first?”
“Don’t be a dick. It’s not his fault. My mom just can’t
understand how much we have in common.”
“Neither do I. How do you know he’s going to be
there tonight? He call you?”
“Yeah right. My mom would flip out. I called him
on the payphone outside the cafeteria on Wednesday.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“You’re pissed,” she said.
“A little. A heads up ‘Connor, this G.I. I’m in love
gabriel king // at the fair
72 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 73
with is going to be at the Fair can he hang out with us’ would
have been nice.”
“Oh, I thought you might give us some time alone.”
“Whatever.”
“If your ex were there, wouldn’t you want to see
her?”
“Emily? No. I don’t know, I hope not. But she’s in
Missouri, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe not to you. Some of us don’t give up so
easily.”
“Whatever.” He turned up the radio.
Parking at the fair was never easy. There wasn’t a
lot for kids to do in the towns surrounding Fort Bragg on
a Friday night, so when the Fort Bragg Fair opened for the
fall it was usually bursting with teenagers. Tonight was no
diferent, and Connor ended up having to park far from the
entrance. Even though they were so far out, Connor could
see the Ferris wheel from where they were, and he began
to feel a little excited in spite of himself. The Ferris wheel
was larger than life, bombastic. It was covered in bright
shimmering lights, and it looked like the flaming wheels
the Bible says are the limbs of angels. It was an engineering
marvel, a big, silly behemoth designed to do nothing but
carry people in endless circles. But then he thought how
he’d have to ride it alone, and his glee was stifled.
He reached across Lindsey’s lap and pulled a joint
from his glove box. “Excuse me,” he said perfunctorily.
“Smoke?”
“Not tonight,” she said.
Of course, he thought, she would want to stay straight
so that she could remember everything that happened
tonight. He lit the joint and inhaled deeply, welcoming the
burning smoke. He smoked the joint quickly, not out of fear
for getting caught but because he was in a hurry to get high,
to numb his disappointment. He opened the car door and
threw the roach to the ground.
“Ready to go?” he said, smiling at nothing.
They made their way through the rough parking lot
to a booth where tickets were being sold.
“Your dad’s in the army, right?” Lindsey’s eyes were
on the price board.
“Yeah, but he’s not single.”
“Shut up. I forgot you can get a military discount.”
“Right. Want to use me?”
“Yeah, let me see it.”
They paid reduced price for their tickets; Connor
let Lindsey use his discount but didn’t ofer to pay for her
as he had intended to earlier on in the evening. On his
way through the gates, Connor stopped to appreciate the
turnstile. It was one way only, spinning to let people in,
punctuating each entrance with a sharp click. It kept people
moving in even cycles.
“How stoned are you? Go through it already,”
Lindsey said impatiently.
The turnstile clicked Connor through. The fair took
over his senses. He heard the shrieks and laughter of riders,
the metallic scrape of bumper cars colliding and bouncing
away again. Music came from all directions. The sound of a
cover band playing one hundred feet away mingled with the
carnival music of the rides, the whistles of games being won,
and voices over megaphones issuing challenges of strength
and weight guessing. The smell of funnel cake and turkey
legs was palpable in the air along with a thousand other
foods and the musk of bodies moving back and forth.
Games and rides flashed, leaving streaks of light and
the deafening rush of air behind them. The brightest lights
were located at the center, on the Ferris wheel. Connor
hadn’t noticed from the parking lot, but the Ferris wheel
was diferent from those of previous years. It was larger,
gabriel king // at the fair
74 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 75
brighter, and it was a triple wheel. The Ferris wheel was
made of three concentric circles placed one within the other,
with the smallest in the center and the largest on the outside.
It moved people around each other over and over, stopping
only to let on new riders and release those at the end of the
cycle.
Connor longed to ride the wheel; to feel its plastic
seats and smell the crisp air when it reached its apex, so close
to the lights in the sky. He tried to express his longing of it,
but he was too high.
“I’m thirsty,” he said.
“Go get a drink then. Lemme borrow your phone.”
He pulled the cell phone from his pocket
absentmindedly and handed to her and walked of to find
a lemonade stand. There was one nearby and the line was
short. He paid only a dollar fifty for a large. He drank the
first half greedily in front of the stand, nearly in one gulp,
and then walked back to the entrance. Lindsey was sitting at
one of the five picnic tables near the entrance with her hands
in her lap. The phone rested on the table, and she was
staring vacantly down at it.
Connor sat down across from her and lit a cigarette
and let the smoke come slowly from his mouth, drifting in a
cloud instead of the straight stream of smoke he usually shot
out like a dragon.
“What’s the good news?” he asked her.
“Kyle won’t be here for another hour.”
“Oh. Well that gives us time to goof of. Want to go
play some games or ride the Ferris wheel?”
She kept eye contact with the phone. “I’m gonna
wait for him here. I told him I would. You can go do
whatever,” she said.
“Don’t sit and mope. The guy said he’s coming,
right? So why not go have some fun and have him call when
he gets here? We’ll come back and meet him.”
“No. I said I’d wait. I haven’t seen him in awhile
and I’m not gonna miss him.”
“Fine. Then you won’t need this,” he said, pocketing
the cell phone. He threw his cigarette into what was left of
his lemonade and stood up. “You’re not being a very good
friend,” he said and then stalked of.
Connor walked past the main stage where a cover
band was playing Audioslave’s “Like a Stone.” It sounded
alright, he thought. He made his way through the throngs
of bodies, feeling like a boat that had come unrigged and
drifted into the water. The currents were trying to force him
from reaching his destination, but he knew he would make
it. Even if he was stoned, his feet knew where to take him.
He ended up right in front of the Ferris wheel. It
was more imposing than ever, being so close, but it was
much more beautiful from far away or on it, where one
could take in the whole wheel or the whole landscape.
Unfortunately, the line was long, and Connor was feeling
too impatient to stand still. He decided to play games in
hope that the line would taper of.
He had been to the fair before with Emily, and even
though she’d known she was going to leave him soon, it had
never showed on her face the night they spent at the fair and
Connor was thankful for that. She’d let him hope and had
played the game. Connor thought that he had preferred the
game, playing at something that wasn’t there. It was better,
he thought, than being alone.
Connor was always something of a prodigy at
carnival games, and it was not long before he had won giant
stufed animals through free-throws, water guns, and the
notoriously rigged game where one attempts to throw ping-pong
balls into fishbowls. He liked the stufed animals;
winning them made him feel a little pride. He wished he
had someone to share to share them with. Lindsey would
never take one; Emily would have. But they were far too
gabriel king // at the fair
76 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 77
embarrassing to carry around, so he unloaded them on a
group of sophomore girls he recognized from school.
He was beginning to sober up, and disappointment
and a sense of betrayal crawled back into him. He was
inventing ways to sabotage Lindsey’s and Kyle’s rendezvous
when he passed a whack-a-mole booth. He paid two dollars
and picked up the little padded club. It felt good in his
hand, like his anger flowed through it and out of him. He
tried with every stroke to smash the happy plastic faces of the
moles, to beat his anger against them until they both ceased
to exist. But neither the doughy-eyed moles nor Connor’s
rage were obliterated. The whistles shrieked, and the
flashing lights illuminated Connor’s face.
“Highest score I ever seen, kid,” said the carny.
“What’ll ya have?”
“Nothing,” Connor said. “You don’t have anything I
want.”
As he stood there, Connor’s anger slowly
metastasized into guilt and he wondered if Lindsey was still
sitting alone. He felt a hand on his shoulder and his anger
pulsed again. He turned around and saw a short, spiky-haired,
and fully bearded seventeen year old: his childhood
friend Jared.
“Jared!” Connor yelled as he hugged his friend.
“What’s up, man? What’d those moles do to you?”
“Nothing. I’m just a little aggravated. If I’d have
known you were coming, I’d have picked you up.”
“It’s cool. My mom dropped me of. You here
alone?” Jared asked.
“No, I came with Lindsey.”
Jared laughed. “I couldn’t have ridden with you
anyway, then. We’ve been neighbors too long. She hates
me.”
“Too true.”
“She ditch you?”
Connor explained the situation to him and Jared
laughed derisively. “I hate to say I told you so,” he said.
	 “But I told you what that girl was like. She
just makes nice with people so she can do what she wants.”
“I remember. And I’m so stupid, after you told me
that I,” he lingered on the next word, “fucked her not ten
minutes later.”
Jared laughed. “At least you ditched her,” he said.
	
“Good for you.”
“I guess so.”
“Got any smoke-ables?”
“Just cigarettes. I told you I smoked what I had in
the parking lot.”
“Oh, right. Well, shit. You wanna get out of here,
go score some?”
“Nah, I need to find Lindsey. I’m her ride home.”
“Don’t be a bitch,” Jared said, but he was smiling.
“Yeah, yeah. I feel guilty leaving her with no phone
or anything. I’ll see you later.”
“Alright, have fun with the whore-next-door and
G.I. ho.”
“Watch it, sir. I aim to make an honest woman out of
her.” Connor laughed. “Later.”
“Well, it usually works with her if you aim lower.”
Jared called after him.
Before he started his search Connor bought
lemonade. He was still thirsty from the pot, even though its
other efects had all but vanished, and he regretted ruining
the first lemonade. Lindsey wasn’t hard to find. She was,
as Connor had suspected, right where he had left her. But
now she was not alone. Sitting across from her was Kyle.
He looked tall, even sitting down, and his hair was cut close
in a tapered high and tight that Connor had been forced
to wear himself until he was thirteen years old. Connor
was not surprised to see Kyle there, though he was a little
gabriel king // at the fair
78 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 79
disappointed. What surprised Connor was the petite, pretty
blonde woman sitting beside him.
Connor took the seat beside Lindsey and the three of
them looked up at him. “I’m Connor,” he said. “You must
be Kyle.”
“Yeah,” was Kyle’s only response.
“And you are?” Connor said directing his gaze at the
woman.
“Jessica,” she said.
“Nice to meet a fellow spare, Jessica,” Connor said.
He wondered why he couldn’t stop acting that way before
continuing, “but don’t let me interrupt.”
“We we’re all just saying ‘hi,’” Jessica said brightly.
But Lindsey and Kyle reflected a negative of her
bright mood. Both of them looked drawn and anxious.
“Then I was just in the nick of time,” Connor said.
	
“What do you crazy kids want to do?”
Kyle and Lindsey both looked up at him with their
mouths open but before either of them could speak Jessica
said, “Let’s all ride the Ferris wheel.”
“Best idea I’ve heard all night,” Connor replied.
The four of them walked in silence over to the Ferris
wheel. Connor walked behind Kyle; he had to be at least
six foot five. The idea of Lindsey, who was short, having
sex with the G.I. was comical and annoying. The line for
the Ferris wheel was short, and the silence followed them
into the line. Connor could have cared less; he was elated
to finally get on the Ferris wheel. He might even get to ride
alone with Lindsey. But when he got to the front of the line
he was disappointed to find that the carriages would seat
four comfortably.
“Shall we all ride together, then?” Connor asked no
one in particular.
Jessica was opening her mouth when Lindsey
blurted, “Kyle and I are going to ride alone.”
Kyle looked at Jessica, and she nodded her assent.Lindsey and Kyle
chose a carriage on the Ferris wheel’s center ring.
“I guess that leaves us.” Connor said.
“Let’s sit on the outside ring.” Jessica said.
The two of them clambered into a carriage. Inside the plastic seats
were violently pink, but Connor wasn’t interested in the color. The wheel
began to spin, and Connor looked at the carriages in the other rings as he
orbited around them, inwardly marveling at how the wheel carried people
around each other. He looked over at Jessica and was surprised to see her
smiling smugly.
“Aren’t you worried?” Connor asked.
“About her? No. Kyle just came to tell her he’s done with her.”
“But what if he changes his mind?”
“What could? She’s just a girl. He’s a grown man. He’s sick of her
calling and whining to him all the time. He wants to move on but she won’t
leave him alone. What would they have to look forward to together? He’s too
old to go to prom.” She snorted derisively.
“That’s a little cruel. She really loves the guy.”
“No, she doesn’t. She just doesn’t know any better. She should be
chasing after guys her own age.”
Connor wanted to defend Lindsey but he didn’t see the point. If
Kyle wanted her out of his life then that opened doors for Connor. But he
wondered how confident Jessica really was, since she selected a seat from
which she could see the other two easily. Connor looked down at them. He
couldn’t hear them but he could tell Lindsey was doing most of the talking,
moving her hands as she spoke. When she stopped, Kyle’s head would nod
or shake for a few moments and Lindsey would resume frantically. He felt
horrible for her, and worse for being happy about it.
As the wheel made its final revolution, Connor couldn’t help but
feel a little hopeful. The wheel paused briefly in its rotation to let off riders
and soon Connor’s carriage came to a halt at the apex of the ride. The air
smelled and tasted wonderful, much better than pot and cigarettes. And
even though Jessica was there, he felt wonderfully alone and disconnected,
gabriel king // at the fair
80 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 81
and yet he could see the whole fairgrounds. But soon the
wheel lurched forward and the top became the bottom and
Connor was forced back down to the earth.
After disembarking, the group reassembled at the
ride’s exit. Lindsey’s eyes were as red as Connor’s must have
been earlier in the evening, but he knew it was for diferent
reasons.
“Good ride?” Connor asked, elated but trying to
save Lindsey some embarrassment.
“Sure,” Kyle said.
Lindsey stifled a sob and then, her voice breaking,
said that she wanted to go home. Connor nodded and
exchanged good-byes and pleasantries and walked through
the exit turnstile, feeling as smug as Jessica had sounded on
the Ferris wheel. Lindsey and Connor stepped through the
turnstile, and it clicked its metallic goodbye.
It was only 10:30 p.m. when Connor pulled out
of the parking lot. In the rush to get there and the rush to
get out, they had spent only two hours at the fair. Connor
tried to pay attention to the road, but the trafic was light,
since everyone was still at the fair, and after a while he
could not bear to drive with only the straight black roads
and street lights winking past for company. He tried not to
notice Lindsey, sobbing silently into her hands, her body
convulsing irregularly. Half-way to her house she could no
longer contain herself and let out a large gasp followed by a
sob.
“So it’s over?” Connor asked tentatively.
“No.” she said.
“Then why are you so upset?”
“He only said it was over because she wanted him to.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“No, but I know it’s true.”
“Maybe he meant it.” Connor knew he hadn’t been
able to hide the hopefulness in his voice.
“No. We’ve shared so much. We’re so alike.”
“I don’t see how. From what I heard, he can barely
speak a sentence.”
“You just hate him. You want it to be over so you can
have me. Don’t lie.”
“I won’t,” he said.
“Well, it’s not that easy. I love him, not you. You and
I are friends. We have fun. That’s it.”
“I’m sick of being so goddamned fun,” he said.
	
“What makes him so much better than me?”
“God you’re stupid.”
“Hardly as stupid as he is.”
“It’s not about better or worse. We just click. He’s
smart and sensitive. And he’s mature. If you were diferent
you’d und—“
“Be a statutory rapist too? Of course, he’s mature.
He’s ten years older than you. Maybe when I’m his age I can
get high school girls to date me. If he’s so great why’d it take
him so long to find someone his own age?”
“He doesn’t care about age. His parents were strict
like mine. He didn’t get to be a teenager. I let him be
whatever he wants,” she said.
“Great. Hope he appreciates it more than you
appreciate me. Before I came along, your mom never let you
out of the house, but you don’t care.”
“I do appreciate it. I showed you that this
afternoon,” she said.
“I thought we had more than a prostitute/client
relationship.”
“We do. We’re friends.”
“I don’t want to be your friend,” he said.
She sighed. “Don’t you want Emily back?”
“Not anymore. I can’t have her. I’d rather move on
instead of feeling guilty and sad.”
“Then I guess we don’t have that in common
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anymore. I thought we were helping each other.”
“By licking wounds and having a pseudo-romance?
It’s worthless. I’m sick of being a get out of jail free card.”
“You’re just jealous,” she said vindictively.
“Probably.”
She tried to respond but he turned on the radio.
When he pulled into her driveway, she got out, but stood
with the door open looking into the car. After a minute
Connor conceded and turned off the radio. “What?”
“Can we talk about this later?” she asked.
“As friends?” he asked.
“What else?”
“Then, no. I’m sorry, I’m sick of the way things are.”
But she slammed the door before he could finish and ran
into her house.
Connor vaguely wondered what Lindsey would tell
her mother. She wouldn’t tell her about Kyle; that would
get her locked up until she was eighteen. She would tell her
mother Connor had dumped her. She would use him one
last time.
Connor cranked the radio, hoping the music would
drown out his disappointment, but it did not. He thought
vaguely of calling Jared to see if he still wanted to get some
pot, but he knew that would only work, at best, temporarily.
It wouldn’t last, nothing did. Everything was moving in slow
circles stopping at the top to shower him in light before it
inevitably brought him down to the earth to which he was
bound.
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Helen-Marie Pohlig // Clean Lungs
...........................................................................
Tonight the earth is quiet, breathing deeply in the afterglow of sunlight, leaping
west off the diving board of Russia. There are no words to push forward,
nothing imperative to say, except that today I have enjoyed your company,
and it is magic to stand next to you, lightly touching your elbow, at the edge of
a supreme world, high above the seven seas, an epic image caught in the eyes
the size of cherries off the tree out back. And even though I have swallowed
eighteen thousand years with my feet upon this electric ground, I feel younger
than ever before, overwhelmed by the weight of this earth. So let us stand, you
and me, our bones erect and strong, and silently witness the death of the day
without weeping for what we have lost, fully feeling the memories of moments
past, days when we would swim in pools of liquid sun, the rain speaking for us
when we could not; days of adaptability, with no concern for clothes or food,
no knowledge of politics or academia, forcefully feeling the life of Ugandan
children in all their joy, somewhere far across the hush of the sea. We have been
alive, you and me, in the presence of the highest height, and tonight, at the edge
of the earth, the blood is furiously raging, splashing and spraying, the energy
resounding in the chambers of our hearts.
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pipe in his teeth, Johann produced a small buckskin pouch.
He stufed a sweet pinch of tobacco into the pipe and lit it,
cradling the bowl in his hands for warmth. The smoke rose
slowly, an oily ghost.
He started thinking of Blue Elk again, when suddenly
a mufled crash broke through the tree line to his left. Just
where he was told it would be. The elk bolted across the
plain, steam pufing from its nostrils in grunts, like some
feral engine. His footsteps barely made a sound in the virgin
snow. The beast’s eyes were wide and dark, almost soulless.
Johann raised his rifle, his vision a tunnel. He clenched his
pipe in his teeth. The world slowed. Under his breath he
muttered a quick prayer, asking brother elk for forgiveness.
Does God hear Crow prayers? He shook his mind clear.
He watched the elk, lead him. The head tilted toward him,
as if he knew. Then, cock the hammer. Breathe in. A sharp
crack pierced the stillness, and the recoil pushed into his
shoulder like bony knuckles. A hellish mushroom shot from
the muzzle. Smoke clouded Johann’s vision and he coughed
at the smell of burnt powder. A knife of mountain wind
cleared the scene and he saw the elk lying in a great black
heap, antlers like dark wood against the pale sky. Good, we
eat tonight.
The forest was quiet for a moment, and Johann
lumbered from the cover of the trees toward his kill. He
pufed his pipe. Standing still for so long caused his knee to
complain, but he gritted his teeth and made his way out onto
the plain. He moved with a deliberate shufle, leaning on
his rifle for support. The wound always seemed to get worse
before it got better, and on the worst days Johann wished the
ball had taken his leg of entirely. He truly was getting old.
Reaching the elk, he stood over it with impatience, scanning
the trees. Suddenly, a screech like an eagle cut through the
frozen air, startling him. Of course it was Blue Elk, out of
nowhere. The Crow war cry echoed and was gone. He saw
The morning dawned high and cold. The wind
howled through the trees, sending trails of snow twisting
in the air, invisible birds with wings of ice. Johann stood
within a line of trees overlooking a plain. He watched a
woodpecker. The birds always seemed to be smiling at his
misfortune. Three years up here and he had only one duty.
Wait for Blue Elk. The Crow could track a field mouse from
here to Quebec, but he always shot high. All Johann had
to do was wait, but he didn’t care. Napoleon had never left
anyone waiting, but any lack of patience was long gone by
now. Why was it he always remembered the war when times
got hard? Was it the wish for company? Johann reminded
himself of Blue Elk. He always thought it queer that his best
friend in America wasn’t even white. What of the Moravians?
They were comrades, true enough, but Johann and Blue Elk
lived three winters in the Rockies, and survival was the tie
that bound.
He rubbed his graying beard, listening. The
woodpecker began making a fuss. The sound penetrated the
woods, making it impossible to hear. Suddenly a sharp crack
startled the bird, and he flew of. Johann rested his rifle butt
back in the snow, and frowned at the dent in the bark. He
straightened his hat on his head and leaned on his rifle. How
long had he been waiting? Was it two hours or three? He
searched for the sun behind the grey sky. Two hours indeed.
The wind began to pick up, and Johann held up a great
wooly arm to shield his eyes from the chill. “Thank God
for elk.” He said aloud. He scanned the tree line curving
of to his left for movement. He sighed, letting his arm fall.
Pulling of his paw-like gloves, Johann fumbled in his satchel
for the cool smooth handle he knew was there. Holding the
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the man shuffling through the driven snow with enthusiasm
rare in an Indian. Whooping as he came, he seemed more
like a great bear come to claim the meat. As he neared,
Johann lifted the wide brim of his hat and grinned at his
friend. Against the stark white snow, Blue Elk was a sight.
His clothes were a dark mass of fur, beads, feathers, claws,
and leather straps. Great eagle feathers rose from behind his
head like demon’s horns. He had been running for a long
distance, his long hair was matted and wet. A boyish grin
split his usually chiseled face. He reached into his satchel
and withdrew a steel flask. He took a long pull, and ofered
it to Johann with a grunt, his celebration. Johann took it
tentatively, drank, and coughed as the metallic brew warmed
him. Whiskey straight. All Blue Elk ever had. But he drank
less now, thankfully.
“Paints with Thunder made a good shot, and elk is a
fine reward.” Blue Elk spoke in his native tongue, he disliked
Prussian. He dropped his rifle and began skinning.
“I had time to aim. What kept you?” Johann moved
to help.
“Snow and wind, as always. I chased our friend
across many a mile to get him here.”
“Any problems?”
“Not at all.” Even if he did, he never told, Johann
thought with a smile.
“I was getting worried.” Johann opened the elk from
neck to groin, and Blue Elk began wrestling with the shaggy
hide, peeling it like some grotesque coat. The snow was
crimson and steaming.
Blue Elk stared. “You or your stomach?”
“Both.”
“I thought at first Paints with Thunder would miss.”
“And I wondered whether you’d come at all.” Johann
beat the sternum with the butt of his knife. A dry crack. He
began cutting out the innards, while Blue Elk severed the
head.
Blue Elk pointed at Johann’s leg. “Yes, my friend,
but without me there would be no elk to shoot.”
“And without me there would be no shot.” Blue Elk
laughed, a sharp bark.
“Paints with Thunder is in fine form today. Did
you thank your brother?” He motioned toward the carcass,
looking more skeletal by the minute. Johann nodded. “Yes,
and the proof is here.” A wet smack, and the glistening ball
of lead rested heavily in his gloved palm. Inside the dark
hole white bone could be seen. A fine hit. Straight into the
ribcage.
They finished quartering the meat and Blue Elk
strung what they couldn’t carry into the highest tree he could
find. Climbing was his job, thankfully. Johann had severed
the head, and the vacant face stared up at him, seeming to
smile.
The sun sank, dying, toward the west, and the sky
blushed with red, giving way to a deep purple and blue.
The trees reached black, withered fingers to the sun, as if
begging for a last bit of warmth. Johann began to worry if
they had gotten lost, and the night got darker. Owls called
out, the humanlike wails piercing the night. Hauling the
meat wearied him, and he dropped his head, watching only
the moving heels of Blue Elk’s feet in the darkness. The old
soldier’s daze. Perhaps he was only imagining the distance.
They only traveled a few miles when he bumped sharply into
Blue Elk’s back. They were home.
The cabin stood on a hill amid a clearing. It was
inviting even in the dark. There was a rickety corral beside
it, and a horse, a ruddy Indian pony, was quietly sleeping.
Johann wondered whether the white one had gotten loose,
his eyes found it as it swayed. Such camouflage was an old
Crow trick.
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The night made the place seem more a pile of logs
than a proper home, but Johann was glad to see it. Massive
logs made the frame sturdy, and planks of wood, blackened
by age and rain, made the roof seem like some ragged straw
hat. Blue Elk shook him from his trance.
“Paints with Thunder must wake, there is merriment
to be made.” His wide smile could be seen even at night. “I’ll
make dinner if you tell your white man’s stories.”
Blue Elk took the meat behind the cabin to the
smoking-shed. Johann limped inside and lit some lamps.
The golden glow lit up the single room. The beams of the
ceiling were hung with a motley assortment of furs, meat,
and tools. The wood was stained from age, use, and years of
smoke. There were no windows, and the door shut so tightly
that it quickly heated inside. Johann hung his afects on the
peg by the door. He sat by the fireplace, worrying with a
flint. Blue Elk returned and slumped down beside him. He
stared intently at Johann, watching him try in vain to light a
fire. Johann hated the game. A smile crept over his face, and
his eyebrows slowly lifted.
Johann slammed the flint on the mantel, frustrated.
He looked to his companion and sighed. “Alright, have it
your way.” Blue Elk laughed and playfully slapped Johann’s
shoulder. “I hope you are satisfied.” Johann said. Blue Elk
had a fire going in minutes. “White men’s hands are cold,
and fire comes slowly.” He saw Johann’s glare break to a grin.
“Have I taught you nothing?”
Johann set to work cleaning his rifle, then Blue Elk’s.
He was so absorbed in his work that he hadn’t noticed the
rich smell of fresh elk roasting. He pointed to a small sack of
potatoes on the mantel.
“You going to peel those?” Blue Elk pushed them
over. A second later, a knife landed next to them. Johann
propped his rifle against the table and began work. He
looked at Blue Elk, sitting by the fire as only an Indian can,
patiently watching the meat.
“We check the traps tomorrow?” he asked.
Blue Elk was stone faced. “We get the elk first. Then
the traps.”
Johann grunted. “You’re a sparkling
conversationalist, you know.”
Blue Elk snorted. “I am cooking, sir.” Johann felt a
question rise up.
“How many elk have you shot, Blue Elk?”
“I cannot recall, but it must have been many. The
Great Spirit smiled on me and guided my shots truly.”
Johann felt a nagging feeling.
“Blue Elk…why do you help me?” The Indian looked
at him out of the corner of his eye. His smile faded into
solemnity.
“You saved my life.”
“Oh, come now, that excuse is getting tired. You
could have easily left me to die when you recovered.”
Blue Elk paused. “I will tell Paints with Thunder
a story. When I was young, and growing as the trees grow,
white men came to my village. They too were starving and
ready to die. The winter was harsh and we had nothing to
spare, so they threatened our chief with death, and stole our
food. To teach us a lesson, they shot the wife of my chief
and stole my bride, and other women. Soon after this, I
discovered the white man’s whiskey, and I found peace there
that the Great Spirit had denied me. When I met you, I
saw none of the white man’s arrogance, just a man trying to
survive. So I will stay with you so that my former self will
live on in you.” Johann was speechless. To hear such honest
emotion from Blue Elk was rare.
“I see.” Thank God for the humility of the
Moravians, Johann thought. Blue Elk turned back to the fire.
“We must be careful tomorrow.”
“Why is that?” Was this another joke? Johann
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92 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 93
retrieved a pot from the oak chest in the corner and began
to stew the potatoes. He wondered when Blue Elk would be
done cooking.
“When I was out there today, I noticed brother bear’s
tracks.” Johann felt a flash of fear.
“How far?” Johann had not dealt with bears before.
“About a mile out from the clearing.” Blue Elk
smiled. “I wouldn’t worry about him, but keep an eye out.”
Johann shrugged, but still felt a twisting in his gut.
He left Blue Elk to care for the food, and moved out from
the cone of orange light to the chest in the corner. The old
thing was stained from years and war. He undid the hinges,
and out flew a smell only soldiers knew, the eternal stink of
sulfur, sweat, blood, and the musk of horses. His old life lay
dormant here. Amid layers of clothing, Johann found what
he was looking for. A small buckskin pouch. Inside were
small bits of ribbon and iron. His medals. He pocketed them
for later, when he and Blue Elk told stories by the fire. The
wind began to howl outside, and Johann heard the ethereal
sound of trees talking.
He was about to shut the trunk when something
caught his eye. He pulled it out and stared at it,
remembering. It was a grapeshot revolver, in a holster. A
monstrous thing. Nine balls and a scatter-load. He had
forgotten he had it. Blue Elk had laughed at him for it,
and why hadn’t he sold it? Because he was sentimental?
No. Maybe he missed the familiar weight of a pistol. Maybe
because he was crippled and afraid. Brother Bear. The
dark metal winked in the firelight. He shut the trunk, and
strapped the pistol to his belt.
The meat was well done, hot and greasy. Blue Elk
had overcooked the potatoes a bit. The two men sat at the
table by the fire, eating with gusto. After such a cold day full
of work, the hot meal was welcome. The fire lengthened the
shadows across the floor, and the cabin was pleasantly warm.
Blue Elk declared a toast, and Johann lit his pipe. As the
wind wailed outside, the cabin was full of laughter, smoke,
and stories. Usually Crow fables, Bible stories, and the like,
but tonight it was the clatter of muskets, the thunder of
cavalry and cannon, the voices of armies.
The next morning found the pair trudging through
the forest, whipped by wind. Gusts pushed on violently,
stifling talk. The morning had been clear, but clouds swiftly
moved in and snow fell. Johann pulled his hat over his face
to block out the tickling flakes, and Blue Elk would move
of occasionally, searching for scat or tracks. He stufed a
wad of jerky in his mouth and lumbered on. As they moved,
the snow worsened. Soon it was tricky to see, but somehow
Blue Elk kept going, staying within sight. Johann scanned
the trees for the hung elk. He was deceived time and again
by old nests and galls. He considered asking Blue Elk to turn
back, but he quickly forgot it. Blue Elk was stubborn. When
they reached the clearing, Blue Elk moved of to the right,
disappearing like a phantom into the falling snow. Johann
called out to him, but the wind gagged him. He felt a stab of
fear but beat it down. Blue Elk would be back. He decided
to stay until Blue Elk retrieved the meat. He slapped the
gathering snow from his great wooly frame as he waited.
For a long while he heard nothing. Then a distant thud.
Silence. It would take him five minutes, maybe more,
to return. He heard an eagle call, high and long, almost
humanlike. The screech lengthened. A cold chill worse than
the Colorado wind crept through him, wrapped icy fingers
around his heart.
It was a scream.
The yell rolled toward him, then he saw a dark shape
forming. Blue Elk was running toward him, legs pumping,
hair askew. The death song was erupting from his lips. When
he saw Johann, he began to yell. When he reached him,
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Johann felt a strong arm wrap around his shoulder, pulling
him forward, shouldering both rifles. Johann looked to
the ground, saw the threads of blood. Blue Elk’s voice was
shrieking in his ear. “Go, go, GO!” He looked back, saw
something. A bark in his ear, “RUN!” Blue Elk helped him
along, dragging him almost like a toy. Waves of pain shot up
his leg like needles. He began to breathe hard. Confusion
reigned. Why didn’t we take the horses? He still didn’t
understand. What are we running from? He wanted to ask,
childlike. He limped along, pushing his rifle into the snow.
	
Every step was like a thunderclap.
Then he heard the roar.
The bear thundered through the blizzard, leaving
great scars in the snow. He was a mighty, grizzled boar. Fear
made his eyes burning coals, the skin hung so loosely on his
head that his skull seemed to be forcing itself out. The very
face of Lucifer. His breath came out like white fire. Johann’s
breath caught in his throat, and a frigid, black thought
forced its way in.
You are going to die.
He thought of nothing but the steady, crushing steps
of him and Blue Elk. Too slow. He willed himself forward,
thinking only of the path before him. He pleaded to God,
“Who teaches my fingers to fight, and my hands to war.” As
if in answer, Blue Elk’s grip faltered, slipped, and Johann
crumpled in a heap. Blue Elk kept running, cocked his
rifle, and disappeared. Johann heard the rolling grunt of
the monster behind him. He looked back. The bear was
closer now. One hundred feet, seventy-five, fifty. Then he
remembered, like a beam of holy light. He reached for the
grapeshot revolver. “Thank you.” He whispered.
Like a living thing, the pistol whipped up. His thumb cocked
the hammer, cramping. His vision narrowed. The bear
grinned, fangs white. It was going to kill him. He squinted.
“Not without a fight.”
He fired once, twice, thrice. Blood sprayed. Wet
smacking. In between the pops of pistol fire, he could hear
the cracks of a rifle, but no hits. He knew Blue Elk hadn’t
fled. He fired again, and a great bellow came from within.
“Damn you, Blue Elk, aim lower!” He fired until he was
empty. The bear’s face was a bloody ruin, but his momentum
still carried him. Johann discharged the buckshot load,
relished the thunder. The bear faltered, fell. There was a
deep rumble, and the earth shook. He crawled away from the
spreading redness.
After a few moments, Blue Elk ran into view. He
helped Johann up, and they stood there, shivering. Johann
breathed heavily. “You red son of a bitch, don’t ever do that
again.” He rasped in anger. Blue Elk always escaped. “Why
must you run from everything, you coward?”
Blue Elk stared, he was growing angry. “I was helping you.
Watch your words.”
“Blue Elk, damn you, you always aim high. Might as
well use you for bait, you’re good for nothing else.”
“I’m good for nothing, yet you lie crippled in the
snow.”
“I’ll remember that when I’m buying your whiskey,
you fool.” Johann got to his feet, grunting. It was a great
labor.
Blue Elk glared at him, then, quick as lightning,
backhanded Johann across the jaw. He fell back into the
snow. Johann looked up, and the Blue Elk stood over him
like a statue, seeming to crackle with energy. Johann tried to
rise, but his knee was aflame. He looked with rising fear at
his friend. Blue Elk had his tomahawk in his hand.
“Are you going to kill me too, like your brother?
You have to be drunk first, remember, and I can’t banish
you, like your tribe.” There was a pause. Blue Elk did
nothing, and seemed to wilt. He sat in the snow by Johann
and they shared a silence. Blue Elk spoke first.
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96 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 97
“I am sorry my friend.” He put his arm around
Johann, held him up.
“Me as well. I am sorry if my words hurt you.”
Johann was cold.
“We should work together in these things.” He
helped Johann up, and they stood together.
“I prayed,” Johann said. “Thank God, thank God…”
“The Great Spirit is ever watchful.” He whispered.
As the snow silently fell, Johann wept, Blue Elk sang, a high,
mournful, noble song. His own thanksgiving.
The snow stopped the next day, and the sky was
clear. The wind slowed to a near breeze. The black and
white skeletons of trees stood sentinel over the cabin. Cool
white smoke rose from the stone chimney. The stillness was
pierced by sharp blows. Johann was splitting wood over a
stump. Work warmed him enough to wear merely a shirt,
darkened by sweat. He chewed on bear meat. Blue Elk was
cooking, and the smell kept him going. He worked for over
an hour when Blue Elk emerged. Johann looked up.
“The traps need checking.” Blue Elk waved his hand,
moved to the corral, mounted the white horse, and rode
of. He blended quickly into the trees, like a white phantom.
Johann smiled, you do not question. He watched Blue Elk
go, laid his axe down by the door, and retrieved his crutch.
The fall had worsened his knee. There was a rip in one of his
shirts he remembered to patch. Gathering the supplies he
needed, he sat on the stump and set to work.
He had been working maybe a half hour when he
heard a rustling of to his right. It could not be Blue Elk, but
he did not look up. Perhaps it was, the blizzard might have
lost some traps, to be dug out in the next thaw. He missed
the seam with his needle and pricked his thumb. Grunting,
he popped the finger in his mouth.
“Excuse me, sir,” said a small, light voice. Johann
looked up, surprised to hear English spoken. Before him
was a boy, not older than twenty, with rumpled blonde hair
beneath his forage cap. He had bright blue eyes and his
smile was wide. His face, however, could not disguise the
raggedness of his appearance. The uniform he wore may
once have been blue, but now was a brown threadbare rag.
There were spurs on his feet. A cavalryman, that was clear.
On his arms were the stripes of a major. His afects clung to
him loosely, and his feet were thickly bound. He looked like
some tattered clown. As Johann stared, he moved closer,
trying to look dignified. There was a certain wildness in
his eyes. Johann tried to look blank. Pretend you know no
English. But you are a white man, he will assume. He looked
again at the tattered clothes. Only a boy.
“Are you alright son?” He could not hide the accent
or the pity. The boy beamed.
“Lost my horse back in that clearing ‘bout a mile
back. Came out alright, I guess.” He laughed. “Is that food I
smell?” Johann got up and sat the boy down on the stump.
“Sit down.” The boy looked longingly at the cabin.
	
“Say, what exactly is that smell?” he said.
“Bear.” Johann felt a small jab of pride.
“You killed a bear?” The boy’s eyes glanced over his
leg. Johann began to feel strangely worried.
“I did.” Try to intimidate him. He may back of.
“Indeed. Well, the food, if you please, sir.” Johann’s
eyes narrowed slightly at the sarcasm. The boy didn’t notice.
Johann went inside and cut a chunk of meat off the roast,
stuck it on a spit. He yelled outside. “Where you headed?”
	
There was a pause.
“I’m delivering dispatches through the Colorado
territory. Tryin’ to get to San Francisco.” He heard the voice
move. “Got lost though, don’t know how I’ll get back.”
	
Another pause.
“What’s your name, son?”
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98 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 99
“Corporal William Jenkins, of the third Colorado
Cavalry.” He said his rank with pride.
Johann went outside, and as he looked up, he saw the
boy mounted on his horse, aiming a pistol at his head. He
was keeping control of the horse only barely, and Johann was
almost comforted by its subdued bucking.
“Wow, that was easy.” The boy said. He breathed a
sigh of relief. “I thought it would be hard to get the jump on
you.” Johann stood stunned. His eyes glanced to his rifle, the
damned thing sitting just inside the door. He had no chance.
Wasn’t fast enough. The boy had the same idea. He cocked
his pistol and fired a shot. The bullet whizzed by Johann’s
head and buried itself in the cabin door. “You look at that
rifle again, the next one goes through your throat.” He said.
	
Johann waited. Distract him, wait for Blue Elk.
“Listen, son, no need for any of this, you say you’re
lost, I can help you find the way.”
“You’re a cripple, how could you survive?” he
laughed.
“You won’t make it without me, I’ve been up here a
while.” The boy stared, his face suddenly unsure. He knows
I’m right. “Don’t be a fool, son.”
“Stop calling me son. I don’t need your help, I have
your horse.”
“If you take that horse, I’ll die.” Pity might work.
A laugh. “You’d die anyway. That’s what old people do, die
alone.”
“No one dies alone.”
“You will.” The boy sighed, annoyed. “You’re a
nobody.”
Johann kept his eyes in the pistol. Of behind the
boy, he saw a shape in the brush, still as stone. Blue Elk. He
was moving silently up, hoping for an ambush. There was
a change in him. The drink was completely gone, and his
eyes sharpened. Drunk, he was fierce. Sober, he was a holy
terror. He moved like a panther from the brush, ready.
Johann looked up at the boy, the child. His eyes were wild.
“I’m not alone.”
There was a snap, and the young corporal whipped
around and fired. Blue Elk cried out and fell to his knees, a
stain growing in his side. He gritted his teeth, and quick as
a snake, drew his tomahawk, threw, and Johann felt satisfied
at the dull thud of the blade lodging in the boy’s collarbone.
He sagged in the saddle, dropped the pistol.
Seizing his chance, Johann limped as quickly as he could to
his horse, grabbed the boy by the lapels and dragged him to
the ground. The boy’s bag was empty He looked over to Blue
Elk.
“You alright?”
“I’ll be fine as long as he’s not.” Blue Elk was trying
to stop his bleeding.
Johann looked hard at the boy.
“Good thing you have an Indian slave to keep you
alive, you weak old bastard.” Johann looked to Blue Elk, who
was sitting down, his breath even. “He says you’re a slave.”
Blue Elk scofed sharply, a dry sound that widened
the boy’s eyes.
“Ask him who the fool is with the red man’s
tomahawk in his neck.”
Johann slapped the child, kept him conscious. “You
call me a coward, yet your bag is empty, Corporal Jenkins.
You ran, didn’t you? Did you tire of the soldier’s life? Did
the growl of cannon scare you? Were you afraid your face
would be marred by musket fire?
The boy spat in his face. A weak spray, tinged with
red.
“I don’t need to explain myself to a civilian, you
know nothing of the life, how could you?” He coughed.
“You ran away too, up to these mountains. You’re no
soldier, just a broken old has-been.”
johnathan sapp // paints with thunder
100 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 101
Johann smiled. A long, creeping smile.
“Not a soldier? I am Colonel Johann Gottlieb
von Solingen, of the 5th Brigade. I fought at Wavre and
Waterloo, as well as several smaller engagements under the
7th Coalition. I’ve killed dozens of men and had nothing
but bits of metal strapped to my chest for it. I lived so close
to the beast of war that it crippled me for life. I’ve marched
till my shoes rotted, fought straight for almost a decade,
followed men’s orders for twice that long. Smallpox carried
of my wife and child, my ancient memories and hopes
dashed by a coffin. I traveled through continents to get here,
and I’ll be damned if some green little corporal dares to call
me coward. That’s who I am.” He shook him, but the boy
was dead. Johann was surprised. He dropped the body and
stood, feebly. He was hoarse; he didn’t realize he had been
yelling. He looked down at Blue Elk, helped him up. They
stood for a moment, taking it in. After a while Blue Elk
chuckled.
“Paints with Thunder always leaves with more work
than when he comes.”
johnathan sapp // paints with thunder
102 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 103
the hands alone as a formality.
“It’s supposed to rain later this week,” I said.
“These things happen,” said Quentin.
A pickup truck bounced over the curb and parked
in the middle of the library lawn. Its bed was full of white
rocks.
“So you don’t want a tent or anything?” I asked. “Or
an umbrella?”
Quentin shook his head. I wandered over to the
A/C shed and set the groceries down by the corner. Beside
them, one can opener, one fork, one spoon, one knife.
They glowed under the moon. When I struck two of them
together, they made a very flat, very short D.
I guess if there was a real storm, he could take shelter
inside the shed. That’s where he kept his notebooks anyway.
The stack of used ones got taller and taller, and soon he’d
need more. College ruled, spiral-bound, Mead, single
subject, they were ten for two bucks at the Family Dollar.
Next to the books was a pile of spent pencils, and a Ziploc
bag where he kept the shavings. I used to think I was pretty
screwed up.
Back at the edge of the roof, I kept looking down.
In the lawn there was a dull thud. Some young woman had
thrown open the truck hatch and was tossing rocks out onto
the grass. I watched them hit the soil, and slowly the heavy
sounds of their impacts reached me. They sounded like
heartbeats. Thump, thump, thump.
“Now what in the hell,” I muttered. I glanced at my
watch.
“There are new constellations,” Quentin said, and
pointed gently at the horizon with his pencil stub. “Sarnath,
Pleistocles, and Falcor.”
I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. He
must have noticed me looking around, because he kept
extending his arm further and further, until the pencil was
On the roof, Quentin liked to say that distance was
the clearest expression of love.
He told me: “Distance makes the heart grow fonder.
And that’s why God doesn’t talk to us anymore. That’s why
it’s so much better up here.”
I looked down ten stories at the people on the
sidewalk. It was true. From up here, I hardly hated them at
all. They cast long orange shadows under the streetlights.
Each one of them looked like a sea urchin. The grocery
bag handles dug little trenches in my fingers. Every day, my
calluses faded.
“Now that Dana is gone, I find that I love her more,”
Quentin continued. He was in that kind of mood. “I forget
now which one of us did the leaving.”
“Yesterday you said it was her,” I told him.
“Yesterday I said a lot of things,” Quentin went on.
Quentin hardly ever looked down. When he caught
me doing it, he discouraged it. He told me not to allow my
gaze to slip below the horizon line. Anything lower than
that, he told me, and we’d seen it all before. I disagreed. He
scribbled in one of his notebooks with a pencil no more than
two inches long. The eraser was untouched.
A girl in a wheelchair drifted across the street. I
couldn’t hear the buzzing of her machine, so I didn’t hate
her. A cloud moved over the moon. I wondered if those
below could see it under all that orange light. Earlier that
day, before I bought Quentin’s groceries, I took the crystal
out of my watch and wrote time for work across the face. I left
Taylor Scisco //
Turn Signals on Spaceship Earth
.............................................................................
104 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 105
hanging out over the gulf.
“They blink,” he said, “Because they’re so far away.”
He was pointing at the radio towers. Their aircraft lights
twinkled along the horizon. I had never noticed how many
there were. I watched their sequence without moving my
eyes. Thump, thump, thump. For a while, it was not time for
work.
My walkie-talkie hissed like a branding iron. The
signal barely reached the roof.
“Christ,” I said, “Gotta go.”
The gravel crunched under my boots on my way
toward the stairwell. Quentin called out to me before I left.
He said: “Gravity is a constant.”
“Ain’t it the truth,” I murmured.
I jingled the keys a little when I locked the door
behind me. Nobody knew that I had duplicated the roof
key for Quentin. Nobody knew that he lived up here at all.
I pulled the walkie-talkie off my belt and spoke on my way
down the stairs.
“What’s that?” I said. “Did someone call me?”
“Yeah,” Kevin said. “I’m taking off. Everything look
okay?”
“Sure, sure.”
“Inspector’s coming tomorrow,” Kevin continued.
“So we’ve gotta keep ship-shape.”
Kevin was six years younger than me, doing work
study. He was my supervisor. What business did a kid that age
have saying shit like ship-shape? He was going to put this job
on his resume. What else can I say?
I wandered into the darkness on the ninth floor and
hit the elevator button. The elevators in this building went
down a lot faster than they came up. That worried some
people. Out the window, the new constellations blinked. I
thought about the couple I had caught in here after hours
last year. The girl had whispered: “We can’t do it here, this is
the childhood development section.” The boy agreed with
her. That’s what I wanted to say when Quentin went on
about distance. The best expression of love is agreeing on
which aisle to screw in.
“Hey,” said Kevin, grainy, “There’s somebody parked
in the lawn down here. Can you clear them of before you
leave?”
I wanted to say: Man up. Man up, little Chinese boy.
“I’ll get right on it,” I replied.
Kevin was from Vietnam, anyway.
The elevator’s descent was quiet and without
resistance. Air pressure settled onto me in piles, forcing its
way into my ears. Things are just barely heavier down here.
I stepped outside into the orange light. It was warmer
on the ground, even though it was nighttime. That was how
things got in May. I wondered if Quentin was ready for the
real heat. The hinges squeaked behind me. G-sharp.
Already the girl had tossed most of the rocks out of
her truck. They were big chunks of quartz. I should have
asked her what the hell she was doing.
“Where’d you get all that quartz?” I asked.
“Quarry,” she grunted, flinging another stone onto
the lawn. This time the thump was immediate.
I nodded. “Well, I’m gonna have to ask you not to
do… whatever it is you’re doing.”
With an impatient grunt, she tossed another rock
and brushed her hands of against her legs.
“Are you going to shoot me?” she asked.
Are you fucking kidding? They don’t give me a
gun on this job. I don’t know what to do when I run into
that kind of conviction. Hell, Quentin asked me the same
question when I caught him trying to pick the lock to get on
the roof. People like that are living their first lives, haven’t
been reincarnated. I guess I tend to stay out of their way, but
damn if it didn’t make my fingers itch a little.
taylor scisco // turn signals on spaceship earth
106 f the coraddi spring 2009 f 107
Some little screwhead was practicing his guitar over
on the edge of the tulip garden. There were a couple girls
with him, just agape at his mastery. His piece was all out of
tune. They watched me with defiance. Too ready to resist. I
asked the kid what kind of guitar he was playing and he said
it was a Gibson.
“Yeah, but what kind?” I asked him.
“Dunno, man,” he replied, “It was my dad’s.”
Christ. It was worse than I thought. I held out my
hand and he gave me the instrument. It didn’t take me ten
seconds to put the thing in tune. Gibson J-50. I didn’t need
his permission to snap off a riff or two. Those kids were
Woodstock ’94, and I was Dickey Betts. I handed the piece
back and wandered over toward the truck.
The girl was setting some of the rocks up in a line.
Maybe a photography project or something. She caught me
watching and stood up with a hand on her hip. I don’t think
she had had much sleep. Her hair was a mess. I didn’t say
anything. There was a 24-hour convenience store on the
other side of the lawn, and I had Quentin’s check card.
The guy behind the counter nodded at me when he
rang me up. I guess we knew each other or something. It
gets harder to tell every day. The ice cream machine in the
corner buzzed like a metal hive. I didn’t envy the cashier. He
rang up my frappuccino and kept grinning.
“I didn’t know you drank cofee,” he said.
Well, I don’t drink cofee. So I wasn’t sure what to say
to that.
“Interesting,” I muttered. I took the little bottle back
out into the orange light. There was an electric bell attached
to the door, and every time it rang, without thinking, I
hummed the rest of the arpeggio.
The girl gave me a crooked smile when I handed
her the drink. I was about to ask her name when