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Annabel and Manaia

2/28/2018

Annabel could barely contain her excitement as she watched the sailors lower the boats into the water below. At last, after months at sea, long months when she’d lost hope of ever setting foot on firm ground again, they’d arrived in their new home. The Captain had moored the Charlotte Jane in the port of Lyttelton just after dawn and for the first time since they’d set sail from England the deck beneath her feet was not heaving or swaying or threatening to tip her against the rails.
“I can’t believe we’re finally here.”
Annabel turned at the sound of her mother’s voice, soft and gentle with a distinctive north country lilt, from the railing beside her. Mary Williams, a petite woman whose unlined face belied her age of 35 years, was gazing out across the water towards the blue-hued hills which rose alarmingly before them, almost from the very point where the sea met the shore.
“It’s so very exciting!” Annabel pointed to the row boat which bobbed on the sea below. “Look! There’s your trunk.”
The women watched as two sailors swung Mary’s trunk into the boat and stacked it with the luggage already stowed there; trunks and boxes and odd pieces of household furniture destined for the new settlers’ huts. Which of course weren’t even built yet. The plan, according to Annabel’s father Geoffrey and the other men, was to walk over the hills to the plains they had been assured lay on the other side. Once there they would erect canvas tents to shelter them until the men had the chance to construct more solid housing.
“I must go and check on the younger children. Father said that we’re to be ferried to shore in an hour so do make sure you’re ready, Annabel.” Mary gave her daughter a tight smile, her eyes clearly relaying the fear and anxiety she’d struggled to hide from her family since her husband had first announced they were to be pioneers in a largely unexplored country on the other side of the world, and then she hurried away.
Annabel sighed happily and resumed her watch on the activity below. A couple of reluctant horses, their eyes wide with terror as they pulled against their trappings, were being led from below decks in order to swim the short distance to shore. From her vantage point she could already see some of the men from the ship urging their horses up through the ferns and gorse which covered the hills, slashing at the undergrowth with their machetes as they went. So that was to be the settlers trail, the path to their new start in Canterbury. She wrapped her arms around herself in a warm hug. The new settlement of Canterbury, a perfect new beginning for an 18-year-old girl who’d become utterly confused in relation to what was expected of her back home in the motherland of England.
***
Annabel hung the men’s britches over the clothes line which had been strung between two cabbage trees, comical-looking trees with thin, smooth trunks topped with long, spiky leaves. Monday was washing day, if the inclement weather allowed it, a chore which took up nearly the entire day. After three months in Ferrymead, the community which had sprung up following the settlers arduous trek over the hill from Lyttelton, they had settled into some kind of daily routine. Though of course, with the winds and rains and frequent earthquakes which plagued their new home you could never be sure when your well-laid plans would go awry.
The four ships which had set sail from England had all arrived in port safely. Along with the Charlotte Jane was the Randolph, the Cressy, and the Sir George Seymour, all of them packed to the gunnels with nervous pioneers and all the equipment necessary to recreate an English township on the exact opposite side of the world. Life was difficult and challenging but Annabel was pleased with life that way. It meant that her mother and father were far too busy to scold her about her disinterest in suitors and in finding herself a husband.
“Annabel!” Polly, her 10-year-old sister, suddenly grabbed her hand and pointed to the nearby bushes. “Look, there’s another one of them native people.”
Annabel followed her sister’s pointing finger to where a brown face was peering curiously out of the flax bushes and watching their every movement. The local native people, the Maoris, had accepted the white-skinned intruders well enough though of course there had been a few disputes. But mostly the natives have been inquisitive rather than on the offensive towards the newcomers. The biggest problem was theft as their brown-skinned neighbors appeared to have little sense of just what belonged to who when it came to the ownership of possessions.
The native, a girl, stepped boldly out of the bushes. As was common among the Maori folk she was wearing only a skirt woven from flax leaves, leaving her upper body naked. Her chin was adorned with the traditional tattoo, or moko, and a greenstone earring hung from a tiny hole in one ear. Her dark skin gleamed in the sunlight and she took Annabel’s breath away. Annabel thought she was the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen.
“Should I go and get Henry?” Polly looked around nervously for their brother. The washing line had been erected a short distance from their hut, half hidden from sight by the plentiful gorse and mad Irishman bushes which dotted the landscape.
“No.” Annabel’s eyes were still fixed on the girl, utterly charmed by what she saw. “Hello. What is your name?”
The girl, apparently just as captivated by the sight of Annabel, reached out a slim hand and touched Annabel’s cheek. Annabel held perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe, as her stomach did a flip-flop. The sounds of hammering and sawing, a constant backdrop to the ongoing construction of the new community, faded away and for an instant no-one else existed except for Annabel and the beautiful young maiden.
“Annabel.” Polly pulled at her hand again, disrupting her from her entranced moment. “What do you think she wants?” The younger girl stared at the native girl’s bare chest, her mouth pulled into an expression of distaste so like their mother’s she could have been Mary herself. “She should cover her nakedness. It isn’t seemly to display her breasts like that.”
Annabel ignored her sister. She touched her hand lightly to her own chest. “Annabel,” she said softly. She pointed a finger at the Maori girl and raised her eyebrows in question.
The girl grinned suddenly, her teeth beautifully white against her tanned skin. She patted her chest, causing her small bosoms to bounce enticingly. “Manaia.”
“Manaia.” Annabel repeated the word, thinking it sounded like a song. Musical and exotic. Perfect for the lovely girl who stood smiling in front of her.
Polly, bored now with the other girls’ fascination with each other, turned back to the washing basket. “Come on, Annabel. We have another load to do after this one and Father said he’ll take me for a ride this afternoon if I get all my chores done. He said we can go down to the beach and search for shellfish for supper.”
Annabel smiled dreamily at Manaia and pointed to the washing pile. She made a face of regret. “Later? Come back later? When I’m done?”
Manaia smiled and nodded and slipped back into the bushes. Annabel stared after her, afraid that she hadn’t understood. What if she didn’t return? Annabel couldn’t bear the thought of not ever seeing her again. She stared at the bushes, half-hoping that Manaia would step back out, but there was nothing but the rustle of the leaves in the breeze and the flurry of the tui birds as they dipped their long curved beaks into the flax flowers in search of nectar.
It wasn’t until two days later before Annabel saw Manaia again. She’d finished her chores and was sitting by the edge of the river and watching as her little brother Tom played with the boat she’d made for him out of a stick of flax. She heard footsteps on the stones behind her and didn’t look up, expecting it to be Polly who had come to join them.
“Arna-bel.”
The mispronunciation of her name was the sweetest word Annabel had ever heard. She smiled at Manaia as the girl settled herself down on the ground beside her and slipped her hand into hers. “You came back.”
By the time Mary came looking for them, Tom had fallen asleep on Annabel’s lap, his thumb in his mouth, and the sun was sinking below the horizon. Annabel and Manaia had devised a way of communicating, using hand gestures and pointing, and of course by deliciously connecting through shy glances and smiles. Annabel couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt more content and more comfortable in her own skin. The very air around her seemed to shift and change and grow lighter just through having Manaia nearby.
“Annabel,” Mary said sharply, “We’ve been calling for you. Come along, supper is ready.” She looked at Manaia’s nakedness with distaste, just as Annabel knew she would. “You shouldn’t be associating with the natives. They don’t have the same morals as we do.”
“Mother!” Annabel scrambled to her feet, waking a disgruntled Tom in the process. “This is my friend Manaia.”
“Hmmm.” Mary stared at the other girl then quickly looked away. “Come with me, Tom. Annabel, Polly needs your help.”
Annabel gave Manaia’s hand one last squeeze, smiling into her eyes as she etched every inch of her face into her mind in order to daydream about it later, and hurried after her mother.
After that, Manaia made regular visits to the growing township, never coming too close to Annabel and her family’s hut but instead waiting some distance away until Annabel noticed her. And Annabel came to look forward to her visits as she’d never looked forward to anything else in her life before. The language barrier between them gradually dissolved as they learned words of each other’s language, though Annabel had to stop herself from using the Maori tongue when she spoke of everyday things. She knew without a doubt that her mother and father would never stand for it. Instead she would whisper the words to herself – kai for food, whare for house, and the most wonderful word of all: aroha for love.
Six months after the settlers first arrived in Ferrymead, Mary and Geoffrey called their eldest daughter into the hut, their faces solemn. Annabel looked at their serious expressions and a cold hand of fear gripped her heart. “What is it? What is wrong?” Her initial thought was of Manaia, though of course her parents would not be looking so solemn if they had bad news to tell her of Manaia. They had made it very clear that they had no time for the Maori girl, though they had been unable to dissuade Annabel from seeing her.
Mary darted a quick look at her husband, who cleared his throat and pulled at his beard before speaking. “Annabel,” he said gruffly, “You’re nearly nineteen years old now. Your mother had been married for three years by the time she was your age and we had already welcomed you into our lives. We’ve been lenient up until now in regards to your apparent disinterest in finding yourself a husband, given our extraordinary circumstances, but life has now become more settled and steady. Samuel Harrison has asked for our permission to court you and we have granted him that permission.”
Annabel stared at her parents in horror. Of course she’d always known that one day she’d have to be married but… the thought made her skin crawl. She could not imagine what it would be like to lie with a man each night and to carry his child. Her eyes dropped to her mother’s swelling belly and swiveled quickly away. No, she could not do it. She would not do it.
“Annabel,” Mary said gently, “You are no longer a child. You need to look to the future. The success of the new settlement here in New Zealand depends on the strength of families. On young people forming bonds and having babies who in turn will grow up and have families of their own. You know this – you’ve always known this. And Samuel is a fine young man. You should feel proud that he has chosen you.”
Annabel swallowed the lump in her throat and shut her eyes for a moment. Samuel, with his loud laugh and rough hands was to be her husband. She understood the underlying message in her parents’ words. There was to be no courtship. Their union had already been decided and agreed upon without anyone even consulting her.
“Clergyman Boston has agreed to perform the marriage ceremony one month from today,” said Geoffrey briskly. “That should give your mother enough time to prepare you for, errr, all you need to know.” He cleared his throat again and hurriedly left the hut.
Annabel grasped her mother’s hands and looked at her pleadingly. “Mother, I beg of you. Give me a little more time. I’m not ready to be married.”
“Nonsense.” Mary shook herself free of Annabel’s grip. “You are more than ready to be married.” Her lip curled and she made no attempt to hide her derision. “You are spending your days running around with that native girl as if you are no older than Polly. It is time for you to grow up, Annabel.”
“Manaia,” said Annabel softly. “Her name is Manaia.”
Mary turned away, indicating that the conversation was over. “Can you go and find Tom? It is time for his lessons.”
***
Annabel stared sightlessly out at the endless plains, the fields of yellow tussock grass stretching in all directions, as the carriage rumbled towards Ferrymead. In the many years since their arrival in the new country multiple signs of civilization had sprung up, including dramatic growth in the township of Christchurch where she now lived. However, this 5-mile stretch of countryside between Christchurch and Ferrymead still remained more or less uninhabited, an echo of the state the entire region had been in when they’d first arrived.
“Mother.” Beth, Annabel’s eighteen-year-old daughter, leaned forward in her seat. “Are we nearly at Grandfather’s house?” She rubbed her heavily pregnant stomach. “The baby is kicking so much I fear he or she is about to make its entry into the world right this moment.”
“We’re nearly there, dear. You’ll be fine.” Annabel patted her daughter’s hand absentmindedly and resumed her study of the countryside. Beth and her husband Michael shared all the nervousness and worry of new parents but Annabel knew they’d both cope admirably once the baby arrived. At least they were in love, which was more than she could say for her and Samuel’s relationship when they’d embarked on marriage and parenthood.
It was hard to believe that nearly twenty years had passed since she’d stood, terrified, in front of Clergyman Boston and taken her marriage vows. Samuel was little more than a stranger to her and she’d dreaded the intimacy which she knew awaited her. And even worse, Samuel planned to build his house in the new settlement of Christchurch. Far away from Annabel’s family and far away from Manaia.
But, bound by expectations, Annabel had no choice in the matter. She’d married Samuel, said her heartbreaking and tearful goodbyes to Manaia, and left for her new future. The arrival of children had helped. First Beth, quickly followed by Sara, and two years later the twins, Ben and Geoffrey Jnr, had arrived. And Samuel was a good man, even if he was a little uncouth. He provided well for his family and he treated Annabel well enough. And over time she’d grown fond of him and loved him as much as she did her own brothers. But the only person who’d ever had the ability to change the very air around her was Manaia.
She’d seen Manaia on a few occasions after her marriage to Samuel. They’d made regular visits back to Ferrymead of course, and sometimes Annabel had the chance to speak for a few precious moments with the other girl. Manaia made her own union with a man named Tamati and her first child was born six months before Beth. And then one day Annabel had arrived at the settlement to find Manaia and her family gone and life had never been quite the same again.
Mary had succumbed to the fever ten years ago, leaving Geoffrey a widower. He had never married again, single women being scarce in the new colonies, but he appeared happy enough with his lot. And he doted on his grandchildren, of which he had several now. Polly and Annabel’s brothers had made good marriages, and Polly and her husband still lived in Ferrymead.
Samuel pulled the horses to a stop outside Geoffrey’s cottage and jumped down to help his daughters and wife out of the carriage. Ben and Geoffrey scrambled out, squabbling among themselves as usual, as Geoffrey came to the door to greet them.
After a cup of tea with Geoffrey during which they caught up on the news, the older man took Samuel to see his new foal while Beth and Sara settled themselves in the parlor with their needlework. Ben and Geoffrey had headed over to the river to try their luck at fishing and Annabel put on her bonnet to walk down to the bakery. The Ferrymead bakery had established itself a fine reputation in the settlement and she’d promised the children she’d purchase a treat to take back to Christchurch with them.
She pushed open the door to the little shop, her nostrils instantly assailed by the fragrant scent of yeast and sugar. A Maori woman was working behind the counter, her back to the door. “Won’t be a moment,” she called out in perfect accent-less English.
Annabel peered around at the racks of loaves of bread and buns, trying to decide what she should buy. Samuel had a fondness for scones and jam, but Beth’s pregnancy had given her a craving for sugar buns. Perhaps she should buy both?
“Annabel.”
The sound of her name, uttered from Manaia’s lips after all these years, was both shocking and exhilarating. She stared over the counter into Manaia’s eyes and it was as if all the years between them had never existed. “Manaia,” she whispered.
And in that instant she understood with absolute clarity that aroha could never, ever be restricted or entrapped by notions as simplistic as race, gender, propriety, or time.

Author

Cherie Mitchell is New Zealand writer with a global outlook. She loves writing pieces with a multi-cultural spin and an emphasis on relationships. Recently released books include Dorothea's Advice for the Lovelorn, Turquoise Girl, and My Dangerous Valentine.

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Maytag

2/27/2018

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1.
My car, the Marvelous Maytag, churns like a washer in an unending cycle, agitating clothes from coast to coast. My girlfriend sits beside me flexing her muscles and tracing the lines of her tattoos. I regret breaking her out of prison. It wasn’t a big deal—minimum security, the same thing I get from her. That’s all I want. I don’t even want that much.
People magazines and empty cans of Red Bull litter the back seat. She lives on Red Bull, vitamin C and cocaine, when she can get it. I’m taking the Marvelous Maytag demo derby. That’s the only foreseeable way out of this mess.
2.
We were in a motel when my brother Allen arrived. My sister-in-law had broken a decorative ceramic squirrel over his head and stabbed him with a sharp shard. Allen needed “a place to hang,” and I couldn’t say no. His wife followed, of course, furious that he’d called 911 and she’d been arrested.
It was a matter of survival, Allen told her as she stood outside the door.
It was a matter of survival for me too, she replied. Her psychology was infantile, and this was how she invariably handled conflict, by turning around whatever was dished to her and feeding it back.
I asked: Your survival depended on him bringing home a six-pack?
He promised, she answered.
It was cold that night, below freezing, and now that I’d dared challenge her, she felt justified to push her way in. They began arguing again. My girlfriend got angry. Sometime in the past, she’d been an M.P. And, of course, she’d been in prison and had lifted a lot of weights there. She threw them out. We watched them skulk down the sidewalk, heads down, plotting revenge. I hoped they wouldn’t come back in the middle of the night and do something destructive to the Marvelous Maytag.
3.
Across the street from the motel, a phalanx of geese, who live at a nearby lake, make their determined way through the Target parking lot, dropping cylindrical poops and causing consternation among drivers who are drunk, or at least buzzed. They don’t want the soul of a goose against them in this sacred season. I watch from my motel window.
The geese head for Target’s front door. The electric eye finds them and the doors swish open. They pass the Customer Service Desk without a look in that direction. Their sliding steps on the polished linoleum reminds them of sliding across the ice of the lake. I don’t know the name of the lake. I don’t know why the geese have come or what they’re looking for.

Author

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over thirteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers Centre Prize (Australia) for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. To see more of his work, google Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois. He lives in Denver.

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Lizzie's Ruin

2/26/2018

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As Lizzie walks across the concrete parking lot of the Hinky Dinky to buy three bottles of two-quart Cokes and Ragu spaghetti sauce, a female radio personality with a cobbled voice holds a gray Styrofoam microphone to her face and asks, “What should happen to a person who attempts to assassinate the president of the United States?” Like a child in first grade when her teacher asked her to sing the alphabet song and she wanted to get all the letters correct but stumbled at “o, p, q,” she prays to sound knowledgeable, She forgets the great discussion she and her new-found graduate school friend Mary held on the same subject, and she responds, “The same as everybody else.”
            On the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite has given up-to-the-minute nightly reports about the woman who attempted to shoot President Ford. Lizzie collates in her mind what little else she knows about Squeaky Fromm, the girl who deliberately released a bullet from her gun's cartridge and knew she would not kill the unelected Commander-in-Chief. Still, the news says Squeaky diligently adheres to the teachings of Charles Manson and will follow him to the ends of whatever world they have.
            The on-the-scene reporter whisks herself away to another person where she will ask the same question. Lizzie intuits her statement will not be released on whatever radio station the woman works for. Lizzie slinks toward the Hinky Dinky grocery store. The faded orange and green letters protrude from rows of windows as she shoves open a door and dislodges a shopping cart.
***
            Like Yeats's widening gyre where a falcon fails to heed the voice of his falconer, Lizzie's world has begun to unravel. Her center has changed. Her modern drama professor asks the six students in his graduate seminar to write about their gut reactions to Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal.
           The black plague ravages through the confines of Europe. Many die while the remaining kill each other in blind fear that this all-enveloping death will soon envelop them. The             title refers to a quote from the Book of Revelation. The Lamb—presumably Jesus—opens the seventh seal, presumably a symbol of death. The film is considered a classic.
            Lizzie has just finished reading this passage from the journal the professor requires them to keep. “But what the hell does the play say to you about the nature of life?”
            She answers, “The disillusioned knight prays to Death in the end, 'Have mercy on us, because we are small and frightened and ignorant.' I often think I am the same.”
            “You think? Tell me what you feel!”
            She doesn't know what to feel, having never been given this command before. “You have your father's temper,” Mother often lectured her.
            She and Mary trudge down Dodge Street to the Prom Town House Hotel. “He shouldn't have lit into you like that,” Mary says.
            “I don't know,” a deflated Lizzie answers. “Maybe I was wrong.”
            “There are no wrong answers about literature.”
            Lizzie recites lines of poetry from Yeats in her mind, The best lack all conviction while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.
***
            Tuesdays and Thursdays are the worst for Lizzie. She tries to prepare class discussion questions, which none of her students care to discuss. For example on the first day of class, she prepared a question sheet to lead students into a vague discourse about why they write. What do they hope to accomplish?
            A girl answered, “Because I have to.” This constituted the only response from the class. Her purple fishnet stockings led Lizzie's eye to the center of the girl's legs. Lizzie attempts to challenge the student: but what does writing mean to you? Who is your audience?
            “You are,” the girls responds.
            Because of the girl's coarse flaming red hair and scarlet lipstick, Lizzie easily memorizes the student's name: Rosalind Jewell.
            After this class, Lizzie has the rest of the afternoon free. She thinks she will take the bus to West Roads Mall and order a charbroiled hamburger at the London Grill, where when she says she wants her burger well done, the guy asks, “Don't you mean burned to perfection?” Lizzie's complexion will then turn lipstick red at his flirting.
            This day, though, she leaves the library. She walks the loosely leveled steps. A girl with dull blonde hair and uneven bangs tugs at the sleeve of Lizzie's pale green polyester double knit jacket. Her mother bought her two pastel pants suits that no one in their right mind would wear—or at least that's what Lizzie thinks and wishes Mama had given her something fashionable. Still, Lizzie has not done the laundry in a week, so she wears the fashion faux pas to class that day.
            “If you have a few minutes, I'd like to ask you a question. It's a survey we're taking.”
            Lizzie boosts her purse higher on her shoulder. She wavers. A man with stringy, ash brunette hair stands next to the girl. He thrusts a pamphlet into her hands and commands her to take it. She barely has time to read the title, before the guy proclaims to the broad open space in front of the library, “You have a mind. Use it!!”
            Lizzie looks down at the lightning cracks in the gray cement. She is not able to make out the first word, but the first word in the title contains the consonants d-n-t-c-s. “This provides a complete guide to mental health. It is YOUR owner's manual.” The guy's piercing blue eyes scare Lizzie, and she moves toward the sidewalk, hoping they will not follow. The girl says, “It's just a survey. Nothing more—okay?”
            Lizzie holds tighter to her bags, but she stays to answer the questions.
            “If there was one thing you wanted to know, what would it be?”
            Lizzie remembers one time on a Wednesday night service before Thanksgiving. The preacher asked everyone to tell the one thing they were most thankful for. Lizzie sat with her mother and sisters at the back of the church. When it came Mama's time, she was most thankful for her daughters. Lizzie had to answer next, and to show off her barely basic knowledge of philosophy, she answered, “Life and hope through thought.”
            This time Lizzie gives a similar response: “Is there a god?”
            The girl announces to Lizzie and anyone passing by, “You have asked the right question. This is one of those points of life we consider at length, and still we ponder.”
            The guy repeats as if he has quoted a Bible verse, “What is true is what is true for you. No one has any right to force data on you or to command you to believe it. If it is not true for you, it isn’t true.”
            The girl shifts her body closer to Lizzie and in a soothingly commands, “Come with us. We will answer your question.”
            Lizzie directs her attention to the long vista that ends with a view of a monument she has never walked near before. The girl's voice lures Lizzie to feel safe in following them to a parking lot near the car. They trudge up the hill and stop at a red Gremlin, a car whose very name signifies the monster in Beowulf. The guy opens the passenger seat door and contorts his small frame to fit into the back seat.
            As the girl navigates past a Bohemian restaurant and then a bar with a statue of a frog holding a platter of drinks and small squares of food, Lizzie can not help but laugh at the name of the bar: Mr. Toad's Library.
            Lizzie twists her head and catches a side view of the guy as he scrunches himself into a space designed to hold small children when their mothers take them to their babysitters. And once again, he quotes from memory, “There is nothing unhappier than the individual who attempts to live in the chaos of lies.” His assertion reminds Lizzie of the schizophrenic guy in an upper level Milton class. On the day of his presentation, he donned a wizard's cap and a purple robe, and then he rambled incoherently as he recited chants from alchemy. When an individual possessed the philosopher’s stone, he could could cause the transition of the base element into gold. Yet because of the human need to claim the stone as his own, he lost the true faith. Thus, the straw remained the same. Lizzie's study friend poked her in the back with a pencil as the student reenacted another chant and sounded like all three witches in Macbeth.
            By this point, the girl tells told Lizzie, “My name's Janna, and this is Tommy.” Janna pulls the Gremlin over the curb while the guy in the back seat moans. “I never knew my mother who died of a drug overdose when I was three. My daddy drank, and he left me and my four brothers in the hands of relatives. We got so scattered that when I was little I never knew which of my relatives were my brothers and which were my cousins.” Lizzie's read newspaper stories about young people like this, but she's never met one before, even though there was Emilee Peters who was adopted and whose mother beat her with a black belt and/or tree limbs when she took too many squares of toilet paper. Emilee's mother committed suicide when she was sixteen, and she wore bright blue eyeshadow that made her look like a whore. No one knew how to help her since the social work lady said children like her were better off in any home rather than no home at all.
            Now, the secret compartment Lizzie holds deep inside transmutes itself from cold water into icicles. When she was twelve, thirteen, and early fourteen, her grandmother's husband singled her out to “take the short cut” from her grandmother's house bordering Meacham Field to the Dairy Queen in Saginaw, where he bought malts or milk shakes that they would bring back for everyone. Each time, he positioned her body close to him like a girlfriend and his knobby carpenter hands slid down the front of her blouse as he swerved across the center lane in her grandmother's 1949 pickup.
            Janna turns off the ignition, and Lizzie shakes the door open. Tommy pushes the front seat to the forward position, stretches his lank body, and like a lizard, slides out of the backseat. Janna enumerates all the times she has felt abandoned: she moved from foster home to foster home and often worried where she'd spend the next night. When her baby Crystal arrived, more than all the stars in the night sky, she wanted to shield her daughter from a backstreet life.
            Lizzie nods in sympathy. She wants to expand herself beyond the graduate school competition to make the most profound analysis of the literature vanishes. She tries to cease fretting about the knight who plays a mean game of chess with Death and who reminds her of the song about the enigmatic horseman riding through the desert on a horse with no name.
            “I had to find my dark spot,” Janna says as she shakes open the thin-glass door to a storefront painted neon blue. With a bright orange and red outline, the white marquee reads Knopik Galleria of Fine Arte. A girl with stringy strawberry blonde hair hunches on a stool and reads Mademoiselle. Lizzie had never heard of the magazine until Mary explained Sylvia Plath's angst as she wrote her semi-biographical novel The Bell Jar and was befriended by the publisher of that magazine, but later Sylvia cast her benefactress as a power hungry bitch in the novel. Struck by the fact Plath was born in 1932, Lizzie feels more kinship to the writer than to her mama who was born the same year. In Lizzie's mind, her mama wears polyester-double-knit pants with a sewn in crease down the front and marches out of tune with the changing 1970s world.
            The bleak photos feature black, white, and muted sepia tones and depict views of aged China men who labored to link one coast of America to the other. Lizzie twists her body away from this current exhibit. Her spine crackles as she walks. Mama blames these strains on the fact that Lizzie limps ands favors one foot over the other. Regardless of her physical distress, she follows the couple up a wavering staircase. Before they start, though, she can't turn away from a picture at the bottom of the stairs of an old lady with coarse black hair streaked with silver lying on a gurney with her stuffed penguin and a Raggedy Ann on the other side. The old woman appears to nurture both the doll and the penguin. In Lizzie's mind, the woman soothes them: “Oh, baby, it's going to be all right.” This scene petrifies Lizzie since her grandmother, whom she calls Mrs. Joiner because her daddy called her that, often talks about her husband losing his mind and accusing her of giving favors to other old men at church.
            At the landing of the staircase, another girl with thin matted hair splashes paint onto a huge canvas—red, blue, purple, and orange designs that make no sense. She ignores them and sprawls more paint onto the canvas. Lizzie follows behind Janna while Tommy stands in the backdrop, appearing to almost block Lizzie from bolting down the stairs.
            The couple lead Lizzie to a shabby room with a cheap, overstuffed, yellow-orange velvet couch. A man with premature wrinkles and hallowed cheeks that look like a pitted pancake sits at a desk. “Dirk, we've brought a friend,” Janna announces.
            “So you have,” a man in a lime-green leisure suit responds as he writes on a legal pad. Next, he shifts the yellowish sparkled satin shirt to make sure it covers his stomach that reminds Lizzie of the rotunda of the Texas state capitol that centers upward to a point. He invites Lizzie to take a seat in one of the two mismatched straight-backed chairs. Lizzie chooses the one closest to the door. He wheels his chair and stares directly into her hazel eyes. “So you want to know if there is a god?”
            She recognizes he has not been told her earlier question. As he repositions his chair, he rubs his fingers against her shoulder. With her sensitivity to colognes, her left arm retains the fragrance of his Jovan Musk. She sneezes. He rolls his chair backward to a distance that is intended to make her feel more at ease. Instead, she re-envisions scenes from her past where she retreated from whatever it is that teenage girls crave and transformed herself into a sea creature crawling like Prufrock on the bottom of an ocean floor.
            In 1967, Lizzie graduated from Allard's Crossing Community School and began her freshman year at Lindsey High. In health class, Lizzie learned about the perils of syphilis: “it sometimes goes undetected. Girls might develop ulcers in their mouths—or on their private parts. Left untreated in its latent stage, the symptoms disappear, but the disease can still attack internal organs, including the brain.” That summer, Lizzie's friend told her about a senior girl who contracted the disease. Her friend called the girl a slut who slept with other girls' boyfriends and who got exactly what she deserved, even if her father was the Texaco distributor and the family put on airs.
            “If any of you suspect you might have contracted this disease, tell your parents. If not that, tell someone you trust.” Mrs. Leatherwood told the class. Lizzie trusted her teacher . . . there was always a but. Lizzie could not confess her sins to her mother, who had too much to bear—what with Lizzie's younger sister Lana suffering from mysterious headaches.
            Even so, Lizzie once lingered at the door as class ended. “Yes, Dear.” The teacher looked up from the notes she had for the world history class for second period.
            “Nothing.” Lizzie stood at the top of the slick stairs, which were arched by that time. Mrs. Joiner had once sat in one of these classrooms and taken geometry notes. Lizzie clutched the wood banister and walked to her algebra class in the other building.
          The next weekend, Lizzie's sister Lana almost choked to death at Fort Worth Children's Hospital when she drank a Dr. Pepper. Doctors waited to have her parents sign their names on some vaguely dotted line so they could perform an emergency tracheotomy on the anterior of Lana's neck. After Mother and Daddy signed their names, Lizzie curled up in a chair. Daddy and Mother with puffed eyes and cheeks paced the white ammonia coated floor, and they argued.
            This place ain't doing her no good, Daddy must have said.
            I've always followed your pace. This time, we need to stay here.
            No, we got to do what keeps our little girl alive.
            We don't have a promise the Temple hospital will save her. The doctors are just as good here.
            Three surgeries to place a shunt in her neck. Now this!! We ain't staying here.
            At six in the morning, Lizzie stretched her arms into the sterilized, vacant hospital air. Mother decided Lizzie needed a bath and a change of close before she went to the orthodontist. “Mr. Ferrill is coming to pick you up.”
            At all costs, Lizzie did not want to cringe into the corner of the door of the old pick-up. But when you're fifteen and the world appears beyond your control, when you don't want to add to your parents' burdens by revealing what you've just learned in health class about syphilis and gonorrhea, when you're driven to paroxysms of fear when the teacher explained, “If you think you have a sexually transmitted disease, talk to someone. And soon.” You keep quiet.
            Lizzie sat on her side of the pickup, hugging the door handle, determined to open it if she needed to. Before this drive, he had prayed to his God to forgive him. He had said spewed many times as he sat in the living room, “If God forgives me, why can't you?” He could not comprehend how alienated and cut off from the whole wide world Lizzie felt.
            He veered out of the near empty garage into the traffic. He almost ran into oncoming traffic; he honked at cars perched in parking lots. Again, he railed, “God forgives the transgressor. Why can't you?” He almost ran over a Mexican kid on a bicycle who threw newspapers onto lawns. “Christ died on the cross,” he lamented like one of his Pentecostal preachers. Lizzie stammered, but failed to answer: she could never forgive him: if she did, he'd just start all over again. They arrived at Mrs. Joiner's house next to Meacham Field. Someone—probably his daughter—took Lizzie to the doctor.
            And this was Lizzie's ruin. As she contorts her limbs to fit into the plastic orange foam office chair, she envisions Mr. Ferrill in church, patting the side of his thigh and clapping in tune with “When the Roll is Called up Yonder.” She changes the words to “When the roll is called down yonder.” And for some reason, she also recaptures one specific hot August day when they stood at the white Formica counter and ordered seven malts and shakes at the Dairy Queen. A pimpled boy rushed into the store to start his shift and announced: “There's a shooter in the tower.” He was talking about an angry young gunman in Austin, a city far, far away from Meaccham field. Mr. Ferrill lamented, “Armageddon is at hand.” Lizzie winced and wished to join the boy—anything far, far away from Mr. Ferrill and being positioned to appear liked his girlfriend.
            Dirk directs her to envision a time when she felt surrounded—safely ensconced by happy feelings. Lizzie realizes she has never felt; instead, she has murdered to dissect. “Surely, there had to be a moment a time—perhaps a scene from her childhood that she might have failed to capture.” He moves his chair even closer; she inhales his Scope mouthwash; she pulls away. He lowers his voice and murmurs, “ We all have times we want to forget, but tell me your story. What is your Lizzie story?”
            “I have no story.”
            He combs the hairs on her left arm. She positions her chair three tiles away from his, but he rolls closer. “You have a story only you can tell.”
            Because of his Southern accent, she almost confesses—just like she almost decided to confess to her health teacher—and sometimes craves to pull the stop-cord on the city bus as it passes the hospital on its route to Westroads Mall. She holds her secret close and fears too much the results of a blood or urine test that could declare she carries a disease that Mr. Ferrill transmitted to her when he positioned her body next to his and plunged his warty hands down her shorts and into her pubic hair.
            Against her will, Lizzie inhales the false comfort of Dirk’s Jovan Musk. Once at a Tri-Delta rush, she brought into her lungs the musky remains of the marijuana joint that circled around the barn as the sisters took turns inhaling. She choked and then sneezed four times. A girl ushered her away from the circle—and now she chokes and sneezes because the man's cologne almost transports her back in time.
            In no moment has she ever retained a memory, not contaminated with the memories of times past—those moments when, because of his own selfish cravings, Mr. Ferrill transformed every rite of passage into a fear of growing into a normal woman with needs, lusts, and desires beyond Mr. Ferrill's Pentecostal narrow interpretation of the world. Shit, damn, hell, she utters in her mind.
            Dirk interprets her fear. “Our system will cause you to transition into the person you were meant to be. We will not detach you from your religious views. No!! We will enhance your belief systems. But you are not quite ready yet. That much I can see from your eyes as they skit away from me. We will meet again.”
            “When?” she asks. When will she free herself to live in the world of reality? Dirk sounds like Officer Friendly on an after-school TV show Lizzie watched when she was in second grade. “Tomorrow we will handle what needs to be handled.”
            Bundled with shame for allowing herself to be transformed into a prostitute for a DQ malt, Lizzie shivers. Yes, tomorrow, she will share her burden. Today, she rides in the front passenger seat of the red Gremlin. This time Tommy slams on the brake three lights before they reach the hotel. He throws his arm into the vacant air, but avoids directly cussing at the driver who will not allow him to slide through a yellow light as it turns red.
            Janna rationalizes, “Tommy has his ruin, too. His daddy in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, pimped him out to other men, to old women. Anyone who'd pay the price.”
            Tommy glides through the next light as it turns red. “We've all got to handle what needs to be handled.”
            In her mind, Lizzie corrects Dirk's awkward use of the passive voice. Still, there remains her secret. She must handle it in her own feeble manner.
            When Tommy shoves on the brakes of the Gremlin, Lizzie exits the vehicle, not able to express in words the inner angst of the knight as he attempts to forestall death, but instead experiences God's silence.
            God does not direct her when Tommy and Janna with glib gestures move their hands to say good-bye. “See you tomorrow,” Janna says. Tommy nods. Lizzie walks into the plexiglass entrance and pushes the four numbers to allow her to enter the hall that leads to her room. She transposes a three and a one and must start over. On the second attempt, she succeeds and heaves a sigh of false release like an actors in her afternoon soap opera.
            She enters her room, and hears the phone ringing. It could be her mother, her new friend Mary—whoever it is, she does not want to talk. Why didn't Mama see? Why? Wherefore? What? All questions she can not frame.
            She boils water, adds thin noodles, mixes them with Ragu and white cheese—and thinks of eating. But questions haunt her. Tomorrow, she will confess her ruin. She spits up phlegm and pulpy noodles.
***
            She sleeps in the same polyester-double-knit pink pants and flowered blouse. Relieving herself of Mr. Ferrill's ruin appears palpable, even possible. But . . . the next morning she pulls an English muffin apart, toasts it, extracts Smucker's apple butter from the mini-refrigerator in her room, and spreads the jam over both slices. Oops! If this were a process essay she assigned her students, she has neglected to include taking the oleo from the refrigerator. Her life is soggy, complicated by the fact that she over-thinks. She can't enjoy a television show with her parents. “Little House on the Stupid Prairie,” she has told her mother.
            “Your grandmother loves her books.” Neither have to say the author's name. “Don't let her hear you say that. You take the fun out of things.” Lizzie's mother doesn't say what things, but Lizzie knows what Mama thinks. People have always known what Mama thinks, and Lizzie disparages ever knowing what she herself thinks without the aid of Cliff Notes to lead her into seeing what the critics say, not that she relies on the printed cheat sheets alone, but they help.
            Now as she waits, she muses, “Why can't there be Cliff Notes for life?” A preacher might caution her to read her Bible; it presents all the answers to age-old questions.
            The phone rings. Janna says, “I'll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”
            “I've decided not to go.”
            “That is your decision. We will talk some other time—when you are ready.”
            “Yes,” Lizzie answers, realizing she will never hear directly from Janna, Tommy, and Dirk's world again.

Author

Donna Walker-Nixon founded Windhover: A Journal of Christian Literature in 1997. She co-edited the Her Texas series with James Ward Lee, and she co-founded The Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas. In 2010, her novel Canaan's Oothoon was published. And she was the editor of Her Texas: Story, Image, Poem & Song.

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Real Heroes

2/25/2018

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          If anyone had suggested Jonah and Jeff would split up over career choices, Jonah, the three-sport high school letterman would have given them one of his billion-dollar smiles and said “no way.” He and Jeff had been together since Junior High. They were going to share an apartment and go to Iowa State. Then Jeff fell in love with filmmaking and left for U.C.L.A. Jonah went to Indiana State on a baseball scholarship. Sometimes love affairs start with friendship and end in passion, his father told him. Sometimes they start with passion and end with friendship. Sometimes they just end. What his father didn’t tell him was that falling in love was a bad bargain, and Jonah made up his mind to discard the word love from his vocabulary. He sidestepped anything that even resembled commitment and discovered he relished being handsome, educated, and available. Then he met Mike Snyder.
            “I’m lookin’ for 859 Wilcox, but somebody moved it,” Mike said, newspaper in hand. In his sleeves-rolled-up stenciled-name BDU’s, he looked like an overgrown boy scout.
            Jonah had been sunning and answered the door in shorts and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt. “The numbers are hidden by Mrs. Holloway’s bougainvillea. Jonah leaned against the door and looked into blue eyes and long black lashes. And below a crooked nose was a crooked smile with a chipped tooth. The forearms and biceps said barbarian boxer, maybe.
            “The studio’s supposed to be open.”
            “Follow me,” Jonah said and led the young man down the hall to a corner apartment bursting with afternoon sun flooding through a row of windows that overlooked the backyard.
            “It’s bigger than I expected. If I got a screen, I could make a bedroom about here…” He was thinking out loud as he moved to the kitchen area that was once built-in bookshelves.
          “Check out the bathroom. Newly tiled,” Jonah said. “Holloway has a thing for tile.” Holloway also said she’d take ten dollars off his rent the month he rented the place. Mike peeked his head inside and nodded approvingly.
            “Clean.”
            “Squeaky. Is it just you?” Jonah said. Holloway said two max, no kids.
            “Yeah. Business graduate program compliments of Uncle Sam. Guess he feels bad about that IED thing.” That explained the pronounced limp. “You a college man?”
            “Junior. Compliments of a scholarship from St. Leo’s High. Guess the Pope feels bad about that inquisition thing.” Mike laughed.
            “Scholarships are earned,” Mike said. “You smart or athletic?”
            “Both,” Jonah said. “I play baseball and maintain a 3.6 GPA.” Mike smiled. Was it admiration or was he being patronized?
            “Careful. I’m studying marketing so I can sell the Army to guys like you.” He walked to the windows, the evening sun outlining his silhouette in a soft glowing light. He talked for a few minutes, then returned the phone to his pocket. “Mrs. Holloway says I give you the check, you give me the key. You allergic to cats?”
            “Holloway doesn’t allow pets.”
            “She said okay. It’s a companion pet.”
            “A what?”
            Mike shifted his weight and shrugged. “Army orders.”
Great, a psycho barbarian. “Oooooh-kay.”

                                                                             ***

           Two gorillas in gray sweats helped unload the Ryder truck. Jonah offered to help, but was told, “We got it.” Fifteen minutes later the three of them were sharing a six-pack of Bud Lite, and talking about deploying to Afghanistan, their voices drifting through Jonah’s screen door. They laughed a few times, but then got quiet. Mike said he wished he was going and told them to watch their backsides a dozen times. If you need anything, call VA, they said. Mike said thanks a million. Jonah saw Mike wave good-bye as the truck backed out of the driveway.
The next day Miss Manners arrived and snagged a field mouse among Holloway’s hydrangeas as Mike sat at the patio table perusing a stack of textbooks. “Good girl,” he said as Manners dumped the plump little carcass at his feet. Mike stroked her head, picked up the mouse with a trowel, and dumped it in the trashcan.
            “She’s great,” Jonah said. Carrying tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa, he joined Mike at the table.
            “The shrink told me she’d ease the pain of being left behind. It’s bullshit.” Jonah nodded. Teammates were as close as family. “I’m makin’ spaghetti tonight if you want to drop by.”
            “Maybe, but only if you promise no mouse meatballs and you won’t tell me what a wonderful officer I’d make,” Jonah said.
            “I promise. You aren’t officer material anyway.”
            Jonah hadn’t expected that. “Why not?” Mike was inspecting him like he was an animal at auction. “You don’t think I’d look good in a uniform?” He knew summer practice had made him as lean and tight as Mike’s haircut.
            “You’d do a uniform justice, but it takes more than good looks to lead. You gott’a be bold. You ever captain a team?”
            Shit, he wants an answer. “No. So what?”
            “I only mean…”
            “You mean I’m not stupid enough to get myself shot up so people like you can drive gas guzzlers?” The resentment was front and center. Nobody wanted brainwashed robots on campus, strutting around in their starched shirts and pressed pants. He meant his words to wound, but Mike didn’t flinch.
            “Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean,” Mike said before bending to give Miss Manners another pat on the head.
That’s what he sounds like when he says put down your weapon - no argument, no second chance. “Being nice to a cat doesn’t make up for killing people.”
            “Sometimes I don’t agree with my orders, but I do my job. I’m right about that officer thing. It’s not for you.” Mike limped past him. No argument allowed. “You’re still welcome to dinner.” But he did give second chances.
            What did he expect, Jonah wondered, that he’d be awestruck? He was headed for the Major Leagues, if he was lucky. A good tech job as consolation if he wasn’t. Yet, even after he finished his calculus homework and tried to invent a topic for his Western Civ class, the memory of Mike’s eyes traveling up and down his body nagged at him. It made him hard too. I’ll show you bold, you son-of-a-bitch. On the other hand, insult was a lousy way to say welcome to the neighborhood. Where had his anger come from? Mike’s not Jeff, for Christ’s sake.

                                                                              ***

            Avoiding Mike was easy⸺early classes, practice in the afternoon, and evenings spent studying in the library⸺Jonah was only aware he had a next-door neighbor when he heard Mike’s uneven footfalls. Once he came home for a forgotten History paper and heard muffled voices coming from Mike’s room. Army buddies probably. Let it go, he kept reminding himself, but two months into the fall term he was still distracted by the bad blood, yes, he created. He’d been a dick. It wasn’t the officer remark. It was those eyes looking at him – through him. I’m a good lookin’ guy, he told himself, then admitted that on a college campus there were hundreds of good lookin’ guys – young and healthy - who roamed the sports fields and haunted the gyms. He hoped Mike wouldn’t notice them. Fuck, he was jealous.
He started searching the commons for anyone wearing camouflage, listening for the rustle of stiff material as he studied midst the business journals in the library, and scanning the bleachers before practice, just in case, so he could apologize. The day before Thanksgiving break he was desperate. He put on a pair of slacks and a dress shirt and went to the ROTC office.
            “I’m interested in the program,” he lied to the black woman at the desk. She straightened the papers in front of her before putting them in a manila folder.
            “I’m Captain Fortesque.” Folder in hand, she led him into a bigger office and sat behind a bigger desk. The room was blue, one entire wall covered with pictures of autographed tank crews and battalion standards. “You are…Mr.…?’
            “Jonah Beltran, Sir…M’aam. ”
            “Mr. Beltran, have you been through basic?”
            “Basic training? No. Athletic scholarship. Baseball.” His boldness seemed a little silly now. She must have been forty. Next to her left lapel were small squares of colorful striped ribbons, and Jonah felt he should salute.
“How did you find out about us? The table in the commons?”
            “Sergeant Snyder.” he said.
            “A referral from Mike?” She said it like it was something special.
            “He’s my neighbor.” Thirty minutes into her explanation of what a military career could offer him, Jonah asked her the big question. “Do you think I’d make a good officer?”
“There’s only one way to find out. If you want to be a coach, you have to be a player first.” Sometimes he ignored his professors, but some people got all his attention. She was one of those people. “Our army is the best in the world because all our teammates are expected to be players and coaches on the battlefield if necessary. Adaptability. Initiative. Consistent performance. Are you up to the challenge?”
            “I’ll get back with you on that, “Jonah said. Fortesque shook his hand and gave him a handful of brochures.
            “I’ll tell Mike you stopped by,” she said.
            “Thanks, do that.” Sure, they’re friendly till you swear in. Then they treat you like crap. He dumped the brochures in gym’s trashcan and got ready for practice. Coach Crenshaw said he was playing like a man on a mission. Crenshaw said he should play every day as though scouts were in the bleachers because they just might be, often coming to practices unannounced and unnoticed. Now he played in case Mike was in the bleachers.

                                                                               ***

            When it was Jonah’s turn, he said he was thankful he’d made it home safely and on time for turkey. His sister Mary told him Jeff had made it home too and wanted to see him. The best revenge is lookin’ good, she said when Jonah said ‘no way’. He heard Mike’s voice telling him to be bold. Mike wouldn’t avoid confrontation. He probably wouldn’t have had sex with an old lover in the Motel 6 either. When jock and artist took off their clothes, they were just two beautiful bodies that had nothing more in common than desire. Jeff was probably thinking of someone else too.
            “My professor tells me I have a deep understanding of the human condition,” Jeff said. “You want a hit of this weed?” They’d agreed to meet on the neutral territory so the families wouldn’t mistake a tryst for a reconciliation.
            “No thanks. The coach always piss-tests us after holidays.”
            “You’re still no fun.” Jeff would get chatty soon, asking questions about the guys, who was cute, who had the biggest cock, and then he’d start babbling about Hollywood. “There’s this club…there’s this guy…you gott’a experience the world before you can film it…it’s thrilling.”
            Jonah wondered if Jeff could imagine the thrill of pitching no-hitter. It wasn’t what other people did, but what he did that counted. That’s what Mike would say. That’s what Fortesque would say. “It sounds like you’re having a great time,” is what Jonah said. It sounded like, ‘yeah that’s exactly what I meant’. Goddamn Mike.
            “It sounds like you’re a real butt-head.” Jeff said as Jonah headed for the shower. Jeff joined him. There was a time they’d go a second round as they lathered up, slippery and sweet smelling. Now they just got clean and dressed, parting without a wave as Jonah said, “Have a good trip back”.
            “How’d he look, Jonah?” Mary whispered to him as he headed for his old room that was now the den.
            “Glitzy. He wears earrings and has blue hair.”
            “Bullshit,” Mary said, elbowing him. “Really?”
            “No. He’s still George Clooney handsome. I’d love to fuck George Clooney.” He galloped up the stairs and flung himself on the rented bed, staring at the ceiling. He needed the get some sleep for the drive back to Indiana, he told his mother, and could she wrap up some turkey meat for Miss Manners.
            “Who?”
            My neighbor’s cat. She brought me a field mouse the other day. One good catch deserves another.”

                                                               ***

At first practice, Mike was sitting behind home plate, one leg propped up on the chair in front of him, his arms resting on the backs of chairs next to him. God, he’s hot, Jonah thought and blushed with excitement. Keep your shit together, he told himself as he faced a left-handed pitcher. Don’t blow it. The ball sailed into center field. Not the homer he wanted, but a base hit. He dashed to first and slid into it, took off his cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Act manly. Concentrate, goofball. When Crenshaw called, “Showers!” Mike would be waiting for him.
            “You’re really good,” Mike said. They walked towards the commons. Not too close but Jonah could smell the musky scent of his aftershave. “You do look good in a uniform.”
            “Only I take mine off when I’m not playin’. But thanks,” Jonah said.
“Fortesque thinks you have potential.” Mike had a textbook tucked under his arm and carried a laptop in a black leather bag.
“How’re your classes?” Jonah said.
“I’ll make it through.”
“I never see you on campus. I wondered if you dropped out.”
“I’m TA-ing for a Business 101 class. Forty students. Then there’s physical therapy.”
“The Army doesn’t expect you to run a hundred miles a day still, does it?”
Mike laughed. “No, thank God. And it’s more like thee miles a day.”
“Does your leg still hurt?”
“It’s ugly mostly,” Mike said. “A big ugly secret you hide under your
clothes because you don’t want to watch peoples’ faces turn to pity and then relief that it’s you that has the big ugly scar, not them.”
Jonah swore, if he ever saw Mike’s leg, he wouldn’t let his face change to pity. They’d stopped in front of the business building, and Mike nodded towards the stairs. “I got a class.”
            “Sure…I meant to ask, how your holiday was. I have enough leftovers to feed an army… I’m sorry about that officer remark. It was fucked up,” Jonah said.
            “Okay. It was okay. Flying was a nightmare, but I fly military transport so I know I won’t be bumped for a movie star or a congressman. I couldn’t stay long. Can’t leave Miss Manners. Gott’a go.”
            “See ya’ round,” Jonah said, fighting the urge to say ‘stay and let me tell you I missed you’. He’d go to the commons and have a double shot of caffeine to calm down.
            “Wait,” Mike said. “I’m making spaghetti, if you’re into some carbs.”
A rush of pleasure turned him red again. Jonah walked a few more steps before turning around. “I’ll be there!’ he said and Mike gave him a wave, precious as a child’s. George Clooney wouldn’t have waved to him like that. Jeff wouldn’t have waved to him like that. But Brigadier General Jimmy Stewart? Yes. It’s a wonderful life.

                                                                        ***

Jonah heard voices in the hall, Mike’s and a deeper one that said something about signing papers. It was possible Mike had invited someone else to dinner too. He waited fifteen minutes, then took his curiosity next door. Mike answered the door, ashen and shaking.
“You Okay?” Jonah said.
“Let’s take a rain check on that dinner.”
“Like hell I will. You want me to call the cops?” Jonah looked past Mike at the middle-aged soldier digging in his briefcase. “Who’s that?”
“He’s from the AG’s office,” Mike whispered. “Please, Jonah, it’s military business.”
Jonah backed away. “Make it short, I’ll be back in a half hour.” And in exactly a half an hour, he was back at Mike’s.
“Come in,” Mike said. The bogey man was gone. He took Miss Manners from the sill and opened the window to the night air. “Feel that? Winter. The Taliban’ll be getting’ ready for the spring offensive. Stockpiling weapons. Building bombs.”
“Can the weather report, what the hell’s goin’ on?” There was an open suitcase on the bed filled with uniforms and military issue shirts and ties. “You leavin’?”
Mike took off his army-green t-shirt exposing the left side of his rib cage that was missing the bottom bone. His chest was dotted with the raised white flesh of scar tissue. He slipped into a white t-shirt, then lowered himself to a chair where he pulled off his pants. He stood up, and Jonah saw the red raw scar that ran down from the groin the entire length of his withered-looking leg. A strip of muscle and been removed, and the knee was gnarled. Large purple and red pits polka-dotted his thighs and a leg brace held his foot in place. Mike pulled on a pair of shorts, folded his BDU’s and placed them in the suitcase. “I’m not leavin’, the Army’s leavin’ me…with this.”
            Mike tossed him a small velvet case. Inside was a purple heart attached to a gold ribbon. He’d never seen a real medal or a battered body except in the movies.
            “I don’t understand, I thought they reassigned you…”
            “I still get my GI. benefits. I’ll have my MBA and an honorable discharge.” He was looking at Jonah, waiting to see friendship turn to pity. It didn’t happen.
            “Were you brave or just dumb?” Jonah said.
            “We were escorting a bus of young girls to school. Nine, ten, and eleven-year-olds. The Taliban doesn’t allow female education. They grazed the bus with an RPG – they’re rotten shots. The back exploded, but there were survivors. Half of my unit chased terrorists. My guys and I radioed for medical assistance and ran to the kids. I had one of the girls in my arms when the IED blew. With her and body armor, I survived. She didn’t.
            “Jesus Christ.” Jonah struggled to breathe. Where did this information belong⸺ reality, insanity, fairy tale? He had to choke back tears. Man up. “They give you a medal and then cut you lose? I don’t get it.”
            “Get this. Somebody with bars and stars asked and somebody told. Now, if I don’t tell anyone that one of their officers made a pass at me first, the Army won’t ask me to give up my benefits.”
            “Mangy mutha’fuckers….”
            “Uh-uh. Tomorrow tell your coach you want to play baseball with a football. See what he tells you. I knew the rules going in. It’s just at seventeen, I didn’t know I’d fall in love with a Captain from Amarillo Texas.” Mike slumped to the bed and Jonah heard the loneliest sob he’d ever heard. Just one. Followed by a stream tears that fell on sinewy hands. “It’s my fault I’m not a soldier anymore. Me, the bastard who learned the national anthem when he was five.”
            The fog of war. That’s how Jonah’s dad explained the friendly fire that killed his grandfather in Vietnam. War isn’t orderly like the silent drill teams they watched the History Channel. It’s a chaotic slog fest where everyone tries to stay alive. His dad took him to the Wall in D.C. and traced his grandfather’s name on a piece of notebook paper that he keeps in his wallet. Jonah never understood why his father’s grief never turned to hate.
            “You want me to call Mr. Amarillo for you?” Jonah said
            “No,” Mike whispered. “He’s married. I wrote love letters. He didn’t. It’s called plausible deniability. The goofy part is, he never would have told if he hadn’t been accused of sexual harassment. Yeah, even gay people can be harassed, you know? Some girl makes herself available to him, and he winds up using the ‘I didn’t do it because I’m gay excuse.’ Prove it, they say, and he shows them my six-year-old letters.”
            Mike’s lieutenant was a switch hitter – but adulterous no matter how you looked at it. “The army needs to change the rules, Mike. My teammates don’t give a fuck who I go to bed with to get my jollies as long as I’m at the top of my game on the playing field.”
            “Agreed. But until they do change the rules… You really call it jollies?” Mike was smiling.
            “That’s what my mom calls sex. Dad calls it getting’ his rock off. Ain’t old folks a hoot?” It was time to be bold again. Mike was boring into him again with those blue-blue eyes and Jonah knew why. It was the way he read enemy terrain, identifying hiding places and vulnerabilities. He sat down on the bed, put an arm around Mike’s shoulder, and pulled him close.
“Who will I be now that I’m not me anymore?” Mike said softly, fearfully.
            Jonah gave out a long hmmmm. “Is that a country western lyric or a real question?” He felt Mike chuckle. “How about cat owner extraordinaire? Business teacher or Chef Snyder.” His parents wouldn’t care that he’d fallen in love with an ex-soldier, but his teammates wouldn’t understand at first. He’d tell ‘em, boldy, to fuck off. But, there were tough days ahead. Mike would never be able to run a hundred miles a day again or be asked to. He’d never get to wear his uniform again. And he’d always have shrapnel in his heart.
“Add this to your list of love affair truths, Dad.” he said when he called to tell the family he’d be bringing a friend home for Christmas, “Sometimes love affairs begin when your five years old.”

Author

Jenean McBrearty is a graduate of San Diego State University, who taught Political Science and Sociology. Her fiction, poetry, and photographs have been published in over two-hundred print and on-line journals. She won the Eastern Kentucky English Department Award for Graduate Creative Non-fiction in 2011, and a Silver Pen Award in 2015 for her noir short story: Red’s Not Your Color. Her novels and short story collections can be found on Amazon and Lulu.com.

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Nostalgia

2/24/2018

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I miss the open roads of my hometown
the smell of alfalfa and sugar beets
orange sunsets and fields of green
I miss going to your house after school
riding the crowded bus
our skin sticking to the plastic seats
in the dusty, August heat

In some ways I am still a child
even though I have lived an eternity
been so many people
and done so little
had many lovers
yet none at all

This flesh is weak
and I grow weary

Author

Allie Nuttall is a student at Brigham Young University. She likes to write poetry in her spare time.

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Girl Talk

2/23/2018

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I keep thinking about the advice
my friend gave to his teenage son:
“Be careful, now, because girls talk to each other.”

I’d be more upset if it weren’t true:
girls talk about recipes and who has the best cherry pie
and which pectin gets the right set.

They tell stories about their mothers
and making jam:
Mine used really old jars
and berries from Lavoie’s or Lull’s
but never Brookdale’s
because she didn’t like it after her sister
(the one everyone stopped talking to)
got a job there.

They talk about whose kid got the worst grades
or that one time when hers stabbed
some older kid in the forehead
with a pencil--
probably because he was angry, they say.

Girls talk to each other about their favorite outfits
and the engagement ring they really wanted
and how he proposed
(and how he cheated with that woman at work)
and how she decided to sleep with the neighbor
and then how they all got divorced
and who gets the money now
and why she’s stuck with the dog
but not the kids
(boy, relationships are really fucked up).

and Did you hear Karen’s husband died
Yeah he shot himself
She’s the one who found him
Isn’t that terrible
We should bring her some dinner or a pie.
Can you call her to tell her
we’ll just leave it on the porch?
Do the kids know?
Won’t they find out at school?
How do you tell them something like that?
Maybe it’s better they don’t know
We should have them all for dinner
Maybe with the Rosses
Did you hear their oldest daughter is pregnant
no one is supposed to know
but now it’s pretty obvious
so they had to say something
God, I hope she’s okay.

These people…I think I need to get out of here sometimes.
Did you know in Norway
they don’t have any poor people?
The government takes care of everyone
Yeah but it’s so cold there
and I don’t know if I could take it
he’d be miserable
and Lord knows I don’t think I can take
any more of his misery
after his mother died.

Girls talk about how his penis looks
and how often they have sex
and how it’s been weeks but they don’t mind
because they’re all so tired
and Kim had the flu and the dog
and oh yeah sure I miss it
and I miss dating sometimes
he was so romantic
Why don’t you two go out?
I’ll watch the kids—Have a movie night
with popcorn and everything
you know they love me
and yes I’ll make sure they go to bed.

Girls talk about how it’s just really unfair
that people think girls talk so much
but what else can we do with these men anyway?
(If they talked we wouldn’t have to and besides
they don’t care about this stuff).
And shouldn’t it be “women”—we aren’t girls
that’s demeaning…fuck the patriarchy.
Yeah but God I need a man
We all need a man, need them all.
Where would we be without them?
On a condo at the beach with dogs and books and cocktails.
But don’t you love him?
Yeah I really do (most of the time)
God I need a man.
What about that guy from church?
I don’t know but I met someone yesterday.
Oh is he cute? Let me see…yes he’s cute love his smile.
Yeah and he let me talk.
Oh look he has a cat that’s perfect!
You should call him.

I wish my friend
had told his son that girls--
women—talk about all these things
that men don’t.

Author

Sarah A. Etlinger is an English professor who resides in Milwaukee, WI, with her family. Her work will appear in a forthcoming issue of Magnolia Review, as well as on "The Poetry Professors" podcast (episode 107). Interests include cooking, traveling, and music.

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