Category: Nonfiction

Seven Train Journeys: Route 01: Varanasi-Hyderabad

4/18/2019

As I sat there intoxicated, the color play on the surface of Ganges looked like a part mirror and part mirage reflection of the sky and the lightbulbs. The city was breathing a sigh of relief at the retreat of the monsoons. Hundreds of people decorated the nooks and crannies of Assi Ghat. Each group more enraptured than the other. There was an air of uncertainty around the plans for the evening. Some suggested drinking and the rest appreciated the call. I too joined in. It was time for me to buy this round of cigarettes.

It was one of those evenings when you could get a looming sense of premonition that everything is going to change. Fiddling around with the filter of a Marlboro red, withdrawn from the ritual of visiting Maruadih¹ for paid sex I sat there waiting for my tea. At around half past seven, I switched on my phone. Other than my sister no other person had called me. There was a text message I would have deleted out of habit, but as I write these words, I do so because I decided otherwise.

After a year of bouncing off from one city to the other, looking for food, female company and select intoxicants, the time had come to part ways with my sundowner lifestyle. I had to pack everything up and board the train the next afternoon. It was going to be a long journey spanning slightly over nine and twenty hours. I sat down on the swing in the balcony and started rolling my cigarettes for the journey. I conveyed the news of my admission in the University of Hyderabad to my parents and they didn't react very well.

There was a commotion in the distance. A funeral procession was enroute Manikarnika Ghat. I could see flashbacks from my life leading up to this moment. As far back as my distorted memory allows me to look into my past, I can't think of a parallel to this star studded, celestial night sky. It was rather cold for a July evening.

By the time people decided to hitchhike their way to the brothel, I found myself disinterested in the idea of spending my night with someone else; and burdened under the sheer weight of similar emotions from the yesteryear. In the four months I spent in Varanasi, I had developed a connect with the way the people here. The city had interacted with me in languages I never knew existed. The language of arrivals and departure. The language of the river and the waves. The language of smiles exchanged over gifting her a mirror.

I scavenged for the cheapest pair of earphones at the railway station. Got myself a bottle of water and a dozen chewing gums. I had run out of money and could not afford to pay for a plate of food. I spent most of my time aboard, sitting at the doorway, smoking. There was an uncomfortable grain in the music because of the poor quality of the earphones.

Train journeys have always been really close to my heart. Flights take too little to reach the destination and voyages too long. Trains keep me interested. A continuous change of coordinates, the air too crisp at places, the water, soggy at some. I had started a journey to yet another city.
The realisation that I was broke, hopeful and intoxicated during the entire journey taught me a very valuable lesson. The lesson that nothing in life is too frighteningly monotonous or revoltingly difficult if you're broke hopeful and intoxicated.

The train was inching closer to Hyderabad. I thought of my mother and the first time I boarded a train to start off on a path away from where your heart belongs. The crossroad where I left my mother, marked the beginning of an everlasting chapter on the significance of distance.
Likewise, the journey in train number 12792, seat number 27 has become a chapter on the importance of courage. The courage to let go of the sun in the river in Varanasi only to find it coming out of the lake in Hyderabad.

Here, the cigarette leaves a strong aftertaste on your palate after sunset. There, you could taste the river in every cup of tea... The city had interacted with me in languages I never knew existed. The language of arrivals and departure, of the river and the waves, of life and impermanence. The city now lives inside me...

Author

Rahul, a T12 paraplegic, finds himself in a conundrum of inebriation. He writes to learn certain things; and to unlearn the rest.
You can find him online at :
https://wordpress.com/view/maroonedmonologues.wordpress.com

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Changing Dollars

3/14/2019

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As we walked into the empty breezeway of this Spanish Colonial style building that was set off of the main plaza of a rural village in Michoacan, Mexico, the sole gentleman standing there pulled out a very dusty and rickety small wooden table from the back corner along with an equally flimsy small chair and set it out in the middle of the foyer for my father. Who promptly set his dark colored cloth bag full of Mexican currency on the top of the table. And as soon as I turned around, what had merely a second before been an empty outside corridor styled with the traditional Spanish archways, was now filled with a long line of working men who were eager to change their U.S. Dollars into Mexican pesos.

It was a most exposed way of changing money. Causing my mother to not unjustly worry about the safety of my brother and me as we were visiting our father during the summer and accompanying him while he conducted his in person money exchanges. With it being the early 1990s and the use of Western Union, Mejico Express, and other means of electronically transferring money internationally not yet in vogue along with the reticence of the mainstream banks to change dollars in a land where counterfeit movies, music, knock-off purses, and fake sterling silver jewelry could be easily purchased at any weekly street market; there was a great demand for those willing to undergo the inherent dangers and risks of such an enterprise. And my father happened to be one of them.

With our proud to be an American side of the family comprising of teachers and professors who were highly educated but receiving at best average compensation, the mass quantities of U.S. Dollars being changed into pesos that day were a first for my brother and me. For we had never beheld so many bills even during our periodic long drawn out Monopoly games. Yet, as the line continued increasing with the men continually bringing their dollars to change, it soon became evident that while the U.S. Dollars flowing through that day would never run out, the Mexican pesos that our father had brought with him for the exchanges - might.

Once the glamour of seeing so many dollars in one place wore off and the day evidenced that it would be a sizeable one, my brother and I ventured out of the breezeway into the village’s central plaza and looked around for what treats we could find to eat. We were deep in the heart of Mexico in the region that had once housed the mighty Purepecha empire, but with Michoacan being a primarily agricultural state, the current necessities of making a living had commanded many to go up to “el Norte” and figure out how to send their dollars back home.

While every year hundreds of millions and perhaps billions of monarch butterflies migrate up to three-thousand miles from Canada and North America to their winter homes in the oyamel fir trees of Michoacan, over time it became apparent that they weren’t the only entity undergoing such a lengthy journey. For the next time my brother and I went to visit our father in Michoacan, his money exchange business was now a brick and mortar one with several branches operated by his siblings throughout the area.

“Why doesn’t Mexico just use the dollar as their currency once and for all?” I asked my father. For it certainly seemed like a much simpler option than this continual hassle of changing money back and forth from dollars to pesos and vice versa.
“Well, that’s what I’ve always said” was his reply. “But it is better for me that they don’t.” Then late one night we went to meet with some city officials who were wanting to buy some dollars for the city treasury. For with the ever present concern of the Mexican peso undergoing further devastating devaluations, even the city was deeming it expedient to have some dollars on hand. And my father’s business was in a position to sell them some dollars at a better price than the banks could offer.

Now that the money exchanging business was more official with its office in the center of the historic colonial era downtown, lots of money orders, cashier’s checks, and IRS refund checks were coming through the teller windows, as well. Often times they weren’t filled out properly and we would have to draw arrows back and forth between the “pay to” and the purchaser fields. There were also some very wrinkled diminutive peasant women covered in their native shawls among the clientele now who were coming through with thousands of dollars worth of money orders, the result of five or more sons sending their earnings back home. The locals informed us that Michoacan had reached the point to where there were more people from Michoacan living in the U.S. than in Michoacan, itself. And the rural villages that we used to go to with our father, were now devoid of men. Since all of the able-bodied males from the ages of twelve to fifty were in the United States working. We actually missed getting to explore some of the outlying villages like we’d done before, although, sometimes my brother was able to accompany the security guards to some of the more remote branches.

Why the banks were so hesitant to enter into the money exchange business was a bit mystifying for my brother and me. Since after seeing so many dollar bills come through, it was quite easy to spot the counterfeit ones. There was just something a little bit off about the swamp green ink color or the thickness of the paper not feeling quite the same. Yet, one time, my brother took back a counterfeit bill to the States. And after eating at a restaurant, he decided to see if he could get away with using it. Sure enough, the friendly server accepted the bill without question. And fearing that she might receive a reprimand if her boss were apprised of the fact that she had just accepted a counterfeit, I insisted we tell her to bring it back and let us pay with the real money.

She didn’t want to do so. She just couldn’t see how the bill was a counterfeit since she swore it looked identical to the real thing. But, after a while, we convinced her to let us pay with the real money and still a bit puzzled by it all she reluctantly accepted to make the exchange. Admitting to us that she simply couldn’t tell the difference between it and the real money.

Having more employees in the money exchange business meant there was less for us to do during our summer visits. So my brother and I got to indulge in a lifestyle barred from us in the USA, that of spending the day in the country clubs and fine dining in the evenings. Yet one time I decided I wanted to save some of my money to buy a new cd player. A notion for which I was quickly called to task, since my father felt the money he gave us to spend during our visits was for us to have a good time. So, while I still managed to save back some and make my purchase when we went back to the States, I did learn to spend the money freely. A lesson I learned perhaps too well.

Then one day while I was in college and driving to my local bank in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to deposit my refund check from the U.S. Treasury, I held it up and stared at it in disbelief. I knew that getting a refund back was far better than owing money and going on an installment plan to make monthly payments to the IRS. But I couldn’t help but stare at its pale yellow background emblazoned with the statue of liberty on it. Since I was all too familiar with these checks. They were the ones I’d seen the peasants cash back in my father’s business in Mexico. And somehow it had never occurred to me that I would one day receive one of those, as well. But upon glancing at the amount, it occurred to me that I had a lot more work to do before I could match their sums. And now I understood first-hand where they came from.

Author

Luisa Kay Reyes has had pieces featured in "The Raven Chronicles", "The Windmill", "The Foliate Oak", "The Eastern Iowa Review", and other literary magazines. Her essay, "Thank You", is the winner of the April 2017 memoir contest of "The Dead Mule School Of Southern Literature". And her Christmas poem was a first place winner in the 16th Annual Stark County District Library Poetry Contest. Additionally, her essay "My Border Crossing" received a Pushcart Prize nomination from the Port Yonder Press. And two of her essays have been nominated for the "Best of the Net" anthology. With one of her essays recently being featured on "The Dirty Spoon" radio hour.

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Blunt Thoughts

9/17/2018

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Once, I had a weed dealer that would deliver to the house. Just another cat trying to make a living on the block. Once afternoon, she and I were talking in the vestibule of my apartment building and one point, I did or said something that made her laugh,
“You ain’t hood at all, are you?”
I looked at her and smiled,
“Nah, miss Lady. I’m an educated negro. I don’t need to be about this hood life,”
She smiled and let out a laugh, “yeah, I hear that. This block is too hot.”
Then keep your goofy ass off of it, I’m thinking. But she left before I could ask her the realest question I could ever think of: Man, what made you hit the block to begin with? To be honest, I never thought of it until now. It’s not just the thought of, ‘What makes a person wanna sell drugs?’ Duh, the answer is money. But the real question I’m asking is, as a black person, what drew you to look around and say to yourself, ‘It ain’t gonna get no better than this, so I guess I’ll trap’?
The answer, I guess, can come from being a product of your environment. Well, that’s strange because my dealer and I grew up less than a block away from each other and…I’ve never thought about selling drugs in my life (well, maybe as a fore thought when the struggle got too real but even then…). We could say that she had no guidance or that the guidance she did have, led her down the wrong road? She could have a Master’s and just got dealt a bad card in life; the only person who knows the answer is her.
Black people live a world all our own, which is a beautiful thing when one thinks about it. We’ve gone from 500 years of all-my-life-I-had-to-fight to having a black man running the very country that we were brought to in bondage: look at that beautiful sight. But, let’s go back to the idea of being a product of our environment:
Think about a few things: black people were snatched from a completely different continent, shipped across thousands of miles of ocean…to pick fucking cotton, grow tobacco, sugar cane and rice. Now let’s think about this: the same people who brought us over also snatched away our language, our culture and told us, ‘you niggers will never even be considered human beings’. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know this story, but at the same times, there’s another story. Those same people, who, at the same time, had their culture ripped from their hands and took it upon themselves to remake and shape us into such a distinguishing people. We created our own culture, our own language, our own cuisine; we’ve given the world music that was never heard before: jazz, blues, rock-n-roll and Motown. We are forever looked to for inspiration in everything because we’re that swag.
Black people have stood the test of time, proving on more than one occasion, in numerous different ways that we are some of the most, if not the most, innovative, resourceful, creative and intelligent people on this planet. Here’s the thing, though: if we can create, innovate and teach, why do we chose the corner?
We rap and sing about the allure of fast cash, flashy cars and selling dope; but hold up…who told you that we all were like this, want to be like this?
”Ain’t nobody saying you gotta be like that!” you might be shouting at the page, but let me ask you this: why are we?
Granted, there is no blueprint out yet that I know of that tells blacks how to act, but I do know that just because when we decide to get an education or don’t run the streets, we’re ‘lame’; once upon a time, getting an education was the best damn thing a black person could do. Oh, my God, you’re going to college! Baby, go and get that money! Why? Because we were never meant to have it, we were never meant to be considered intelligent; we were never supposed to leave the plantation. Yet, when the opportunity arises, how many of us will jump at the thought of going to school? Because an education equals money: the more education you have, the more you can make, right? The math is that damn simple. But instead of doing big things with reading, writing and arithmetic, we’ve traded it in for bombs of dope, bullets and handcuffs. That’s one hell of a step back.
Don’t get me wrong, there are more young blacks out in this world who are starting to realize that hood life is not the life that they want. They are starting to see that an education is the key to closing this Pandora’s Box of stereotypes that’s been hanging over us for all these years: lazy, violent and ignorant. Lazy…violent…and ignorant: three words that have been used to describe us for decades. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be damned if anyone associate me with any of those words and I firmly believe that many share my sentiment.
Am I saying that we need to stop rapping and listening to these tracks that talk about trap life? I’m not telling anyone that they can’t make their money, but since when is trapping the only way for blacks to make money? You know, for as creative as we can be, as determined as we are and as stubborn as black folks can get, being seen in such a light must be sickening and frightening that we push such an image out onto the world; the image we pushed out onto the world. Lemme tell you story:
I once went to a college in southern Illinois. The school was predominantly white and truth is, I didn’t give a rat’s because I understand that diversity doesn’t sit everywhere and frankly, I just wanted to get away from home. It wasn’t until I met this white girl who lived on the same floor as I did in the dorm. We were cool; she wasn’t troublesome or anything. She listened to rap strictly; Gucci Mane was her shit. Nevertheless, she didn’t bother me. One afternoon, she’s taking me to pick something up from a store near the school, having no car of my own. A song on the radio came on and I just happened to know the lyrics, because, shit, I’ll listen to anything once. But it was what she said to me that made my brain do a 360. And I quote, “Are you sure you’re not supposed to white and I’m not supposed to be black?”
Yeah, that’s some ignorant shit to hear, especially when you’re sitting in the car with an ear infection. Instead of getting upset, I merely told her that it was music and you can listen to whatever makes you happy. But it wasn’t the music. It was the fact that what she knew of black people came from the shit that she was listening to and watching. Granted, these white kids grew up on farms or on places void of diversity, but what they knew of blacks was what they saw on TV or heard on the radio. I’m not giving them benefit of the doubt, either, so don’t think I didn’t check that girl later when my ear cleared up!
Now, this young woman thought that all black people listened to rap music, that’s number one. Number two: she was willing to believe that any black person who stepped away from that hood mentality was some sort of weird fascination and, oh, they speaks so well bullshit. We can argue that it’s whites who are still holding onto that image, but where the hell else would they be getting it? Who else is glorifying sex, murder and mayhem as hard as we are? Who is telling kids and young adults that it’s lame to have dreams that involve graduating college, instead, why not party at the club, pop a Molly and run with the thugs on the block? Don’t worry, the class will wait…
Now, I do understand that the image sells the records. Again, I’m not stopping anyone from making money, but the question still remains: why is this the image that we continue to feed on a daily basis? Not one black person can say that they have never been on the bus, in a car or what have you, and seen some shit that made them hang their heads. The words are almost always the same: Now, why they gotta go and do this? See, this is why folks can’t have shit…why they always think we act like this. It’s this image that black people have all seen and the reaction is to hang their head and just ponder…why we gotta act like this? It’s not a judgment, but an honest question that every black person has asked.
It’s not that we don’t know how to act; indeed we do. Hell, we are some of the most dignified people around. Let’s ask ourselves a quick question: If that’s not who you are or not what you want to be, why do we continue to look at this image as the shit to be? Granted, if you live that trap life, do what you do. But, I’m not talking about you specifically; I’m looking around and asking why we make our own shake their heads in shame?
When we see young men and women glorifying this behavior, it makes us cringe a little bit because we all fear what the new generation is going to do when they come to bat and it’s their turn to show the world what we’re capable of. Not to say that this upcoming generation is lacking education, passion or dignity; not at all. It’s merely holding up the question of: Are they going to break that mold and reshape how we’re seen? Every generation brings something new to the table and it will be very interesting to see what the young ones will add to the pot.
As it stands right now, they seem to be doing fine; we have more young men and women gravitating towards education and realizing at earlier ages that the streets isn’t where they wanna be. But at the same time, there are still some who want that trap life. And the strange thing about that is, we know what the trap life brings. Yeah, yeah, you get the money, the attention from the opposite sex; yeah, yeah, you get to get the flash and glitz. But at some point, you know you’re gonna get picked up by the police. You know that you can’t do shit with a felony drug charge on your record, thus, keeping you in the game because you’re disenfranchised; you can’t get a loan for school, housing, or a well-paying job because that background check…the Domino Effect is real.
Each time I think of this, it almost makes me want to pull aside a drug dealer and ask: “Man, if you know what the real result of this is…is it really all worth it?” Yes, there are socioeconomic factors that can lead to a person doing what they do. Some can’t sit and struggle; that’s understandable. It’s also easy to simply say, ‘I wanted the money.’ I get that but what I don’t get is: If we know, why do we continue to put ourselves in the line of fire that the system designed to fuck us up?
So, here we are: knowing that what we’re doing is going to land us in jail, we know that if we go to jail, it’s a wrap: no school, no job, no decent housing. We know the consequences to those actions…we know. It’s a like a little kid who knows they’re gonna get in trouble if they do something Momma said not to do. That same kid is probably gonna think that they don’t deserve a whooping when Momma catches them. Why did the kid do it? Watch him shrug his shoulders.
So right now, the answer as to why we feed the negative image remains to be answered. Yeah, yeah, we know why we trap; we know that that sells some of the most fire tracks we could record but does that mean that we have to promote that image within ourselves, knowing what we know will happen if we do this trap shit? We know how we’re going to be seen by the outside world the more we do this.
Instead of feeding the system that meant to oppress and suppress, why not starve the system instead of giving it fuel? Why should we continue to allow them to wrangle us in jail like cattle? And if that analogy hit a cord, it’s because we know how they see us, so why confirm the image? The system doesn’t care if we trap or not. The system isn’t designed to stop and go, ‘Hmm, I wonder why they do x, y, and z?’ The system is in place to have us fall and not get up. Falling already fucks up your day, think about breaking both of your legs in the process.
Maybe that is why they call it Trapping to begin with; the idea that it’s a trap for us to fall into? Okay, that’s an easy assumption to make, but that still opens the door to ask: If we know it’s a trap, why do we fall for it? I’m not saying this is our entire fault, but too many rappers have come out on tracks and off, saying that that life isn’t the life to have; none of them advocated it. None of them advocate jail; yeah, they rap about it, but use caution because a lot of it is a warning.
Rapper T.I. has a song called Da Dopeman, where at the end of track, he openly states that the trap life is a dead-end street that ends with jail or death. Granted, the song paints a picture of a young man who saw no other option, which is fine, but in the end, that choice led to the very thing that black people fear the most. Black people hate the thought of jail; it’s almost worse than death because none of us want to go through the system’s revolving door. But it happens, unfortunately, yet at the same time, could it have been avoided? Of course, but why should that even be a question?
The real question, overall, is: Why do we glorify this image of players, pushas, pimps, ratchet and the like? If this isn’t who we are, then what should we be? Who are we? Think about the time, when, as children, we were asked, “What do you wanna be when you grow up?” Eyes would light up and we would be so quick to say, “I’m gonna be a fireman!”, “I’m gonna be a doctor!”, “I’m gonna open a business!” And it was never ‘I wanna be’, it was ‘I’m gonna be’, when we gave the answer, like we were speaking it into existence. Such a passion, that we already had our futures planned in our small minds.
Take that same question now and ask ourselves: What do we want to be? Fuck how the world sees us, we’re gonna do our thing one way or another. Fuck the system because we’ve proved that we can take that down without a second thought. So if we can take the system apart, if we can demand civil rights, a competitive education, to not be seen as ¼ of a man, why are we still struggling with ourselves like this? Why are we still making our own turn their noses up and say things like, “See, this is why we can’t have shit”?
Black people, when we put our minds to it, can be extremely hard acts to follow; we go hard as hell when we get started, regardless of the subject in front of us. And that type of intelligence is awesome to watch and we should remind ourselves of it more. Not to say that we don’t remind ourselves how great we are; we call each other Queen and King all the time to remind us of that greatness but it’s one thing to remind ourselves, it’s another to proactively own up to it.
Am I telling people to stop trapping and get an education? I’m not telling anyone to do anything. I’m not standing on a soapbox, waving a baton, commanding the black community to ‘get their shit together’; our shit is together, it’s just that we have this weird P.R. problem that we can’t seem to shake. And in all honesty, we don’t quite know how to fix it. Is it really education? It is really because of a fucked up home life? It is the system? The cause doesn’t matter, really. What matters is: Why do we do the things that lead to this negative image, knowing what we know about the results?
Let’s take it back to the question of, why do little kids still fuck around and do what their parents tell them not to? We can compare notes and say, ‘well, maybe they didn’t think they would get caught?’ ‘Maybe the kid thought Momma would forget she said not to do that’ ‘…hell, maybe the kid just didn’t give a fuck?’ That would be interesting, if the kid didn’t care, knowing that they would be in trouble. No one wants to get into trouble, especially not with Momma. So, that’s like saying the kid wanted to get into trouble, right? Nah, the kid wanted the chocolate. But was that Hershey bar really worth the ass whooping? Not to mention Momma took the chocolate and threw it out.
So, we trap…we get the money…we get caught and now, we have no money. We can’t get jobs, we can’t get to live in the nicer neighborhoods and we’re trapped in a world where we get pinpointed by the police; we’re left kicking ourselves in the end.
But, for what?

Author

K. Snyder addresses the question of why does black America continue to feed a negative social image, asking the audience throughout to question, knowing what is known of the consequences of living up to the negative image that blacks have been continuously presenting to the world.

As a black person herself, K. Snyder is looking to spark positive conversation that has been asked, not only throughout black America but across all races. If we know the consequences of our actions, why do we continue to do the negative things, thus creating a negative image, not only to the world but within our own community?

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Roller Derby

5/30/2018

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Roller Derby

Los Angeles was burning the night I drank beers with women who like to participate in the rituals of hip-checking and slamming their bodies into one another. “I get really angry and I need to hit a bitch,” explained roller derby skater Dannia Alfonso. Alfonso was joined by her Reseda Wreckers teammates last December at the Empire Tavern in Burbank. Part of the San Fernando Valley league (SFV), the team’s practice had been cancelled as multiple fires burned throughout southern California. One of the blazes threatened the league’s track, so the team had an impromptu gathering at the bar. Chatting about an upcoming tournament and their collective performances, conversations soon turned to weeding out misconceptions about a sport that has seen a rise in popularity in recent years.

Roller derby is both aggressive and sexy, however, it is not to be confused with vaudevillian antics or hyper-sexualization. It’s a contact sport that requires skill. It is also, some teammates told me, duly lacking in diversity. As I later came to observe, the Reseda Wreckers is a team that is varied in both self-expression and ethnic identity. Pitting flesh and skates against other players, the team is challenging fallacies about the game, both on and off the track.

I first heard about the Reseda Wreckers when my best friend mentioned that her cousin, whom I’ve known sporadically the last 20 years, had taken up roller derby. Katia Rios is petite and polite, the opposite of my idea of the stereotypical muscled and foul-mouthed derby skater. I was surprised to hear that she willingly (especially given her small body type) played in an aggressive sport that threatened bodily harm. But once I saw her slam like a small cyclone on 8 wheels into a fellow team member at a practice session, my surprise turned to admiration.
Roller derby, Rios points out, is not just about body slams. Reciting her favorite quote, she explains that it’s “like playing chess while having bricks thrown at you at the same time”. It’s a contact sport that is both strategy and physicality. Wearing roller skates, two teams compete against one another on a circular track skating at high speeds moving counter clockwise.
Designated “jammers,” “blockers,” and “pivots” work offense and defense, constantly strategizing to score points and to also prevent the other team from scoring. That said, like any sport it does have its rules. You can “hit” another player using your shoulders down to your hips, but you can’t punch, kick or clothesline (think of slapstick comedy - extending your arm across a person’s chest or neck to knock them down). Rios and her teammates practice these skills and strategies on a piece of land that reflects LA culture.

Practice and home game tournaments for the SFV league are held on a flat track which has been dubbed “The Lot” harkening back to old Hollywood film lots. It’s an abandoned parking lot in an industrial part of Sylmar that resembles a backdrop of a dystopian cold war movie. Barbed wire encircles the track and large storage containers sit heavy and silent against the back wall. Large spot lights cast shadows on skaters that look like elongated ghosts keeping in time with body checks.

Standing out amongst these shadows are the matching team shirts worn by the Reseda Wreckers. The logo on the shirts was designed by teammate Morgan Perry. With input from her fellow teammates, Perry wanted to show the diversity of the skaters. The logo is a drawing of a woman with a half-shaved head who, Perry points out, “looks kind of multi-ethnic since we have like a crazy amount of [multi-ethnic] people on this team”. The backdrop is a bomb with a wick on fire and the profile is accented by a Wonder Woman “W,” the comic book heroine of yesteryear who beat up Nazis.

Ethnic diversity is also found in the derby names of some of the skaters who integrate their ethnicity with playfully aggressive verbs. Natalie Rankin, aka Tokyo Takeout (like the Japanese city), and Amber Javier, aka Gunner Ginzu (a play on Ginsu knives and a childhood nickname referring to her eye shape), were inspired by the skaters’ Asian ancestry. Both players have varied backgrounds; Javier is Filipino and Hispanic, and Rankin is Japanese, black and white-Spanish. It’s this diversity, the skaters tell me, that is unique in the world of roller derby.

“Roller derby is a white woman’s sport,” states both Rankin and Javier. Though the sport exists all over the world, Rankin elucidates that there are a lot of leagues, especially in the southern states of the U.S., that are lacking in diversity. The SFV league is an exception, she tells me, as the team boasts many different ethnicities, a reflection of the multi-cultural landscape of the Valley. Yet, even with these varied players, Rankin hasn’t been spared from racism. While in New Orleans for a tournament, she was at a jazz club with a former white teammate. The teammate confided that she was “uncomfortable” with the amount of black people in the room. Rankin after pointing out that they were in a predominantly black city told her, “You know I’m black, right?”. “It’s okay,” the teammate retorted, “because you’re mostly Asian”. Shaking her head Rankin recalls telling her, “I’m the same percentage black as I am Asian. You just can’t go around saying that.” Rankin’s current teammates find varied experiences and cultures to be an asset to their value as players on the team. Veronica Pacheco, aka Sammi Smacky-Yao (her derby name was inspired by the boxer Manny Pacquiao), explains that it was the diversity of the SFV league that attracted her. “This is where I was meant to be,” she recalls, emphasizing the support she has found among the league, “We accept anybody and everybody”.

This acceptance extends to the different body shapes and sizes of the skaters. Rankin explains that roller derby is a very body positive sport and that “every single body type has a genuine advantage on the track”. This is especially true for Javier who was a cheerleader in high school and felt pressure to be thin. But now in her late twenties, she finds acceptance in the Reseda Wreckers. Her full figure is ideal for blocking other skaters on the track. “I have a muffin top,” Javier states, adding “I don’t have any shame in that because that’s who I am”. This body positivity also allows for a freedom of expression with many players opting to wear fishnets, tight clothing or modest and loose workout clothes. Pacheco is quick to point out that with this expression the sport has often been sexualized. One misconception is that players are “half-strippers”. Javier interjects, addressing Rankin, “She wears booty shorts? Guess what, she just fucking kicked somebody’s ass on the track”.
***
The fire had begun to clear up and The Lot was left unscathed allowing for the home team tournament in early December to commence. The score board indicated that the Reseda Wreckers were playing against the Van Nuys Valkyries. Night had descended, and the smell of smoke lingered faintly in the air. The barbed wire and spot lights looming over the track lost its dystopian charm as children ran around and families lined up for nachos and soda. Spectators sat in plastic chairs that lined the track reflecting the ethnic diversity of both the SFV league and the San Fernando Valley. Men also filled the audience but there was no leering or cat calling, instead they gave directives to the skaters shouting, “Offense!” and “Defense!”

Many of the skaters from both teams sported war paint, wearing red lipstick pin-up girl inspired pouts, to drawing on exaggerated comic book Joker mouths. A flash of hot pants, fish nets and work-out pants skated by the track at full speed. All of the players wore helmets, knee pads and elbow pads, a reminder of the physical risks of the game. At times, the momentum of bodies resembled big enveloping waves. Helmets and swaying bodies moved up and down in unison until a crash toppled the flow. Rios was hit and left with a swollen nose, though she shrugged off the minor injury. Many were swift on their skates, weaving in and out like they were hovering just above the concrete asphalt. Pacheco, like her boxing namesake known for his fast punches, was quick and jabbing. The game soon ended, and time was called.

The Reseda Wreckers lost to the Van Nuys Valkyries, coming in fourth place at the tournament. But the loss doesn’t define the team. Pushing themselves both on and off the track, Javier told me, “These females make me want to be a stronger version of myself”.

Photo Captions:

The Reseda Wreckers are part of the San Fernando Valley Roller Derby League (SFV). The league was started in 2011.
Natalie Rankin is leading the team’s practice on The Lot, an abandoned parking lot in Sylmar.
The Reseda Wreckers team logo sports ethnic diversity, aggression and comic book inspired imagery.
Katia Rios body slams into another teammate at practice.
Bonding night for the team at the Empire Tavern in Burbank.
Dannia Alfonso (right) and fellow teammates outside of the Empire Tavern in Burbank.
Veronica Pacheco, aka Sammi Smacky-Yao, at the home game tournament.
Natalie Rankin, aka Tokyo Takeout, at the home game tournament.
A volunteer sells merchandise at the home game tournament. The San Fernando Valley League (SFV) is volunteer run and DIY.
Audience members watch the Reseda Wreckers play against the Van Nuys Valkyries.
Amber Javier, aka Gunner Ginzu, blocks Van Nuys Valkyries skaters at the home game tournament.
Roller derby is about physical strength, skill and strategy. Two teammates from the Reseda Wreckers practice for the home game tournament.

Author

Tiffany Hearsey is a writer and photographer. Her work has been featured in The Atlantic, Salon.com and LA Review of Books.

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Transfigured

3/10/2018

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She wanted out. I knelt, hang dog and disbelieving until her U-Haul pulled down the gravel driveway. She stood erect, somber in the sunshine, dramatic and self-consumed. “Give me your hand,” she insisted, twisting the diamond off her finger. “Here.”
My innards twisted. She didn’t notice. I battled my instinct to throw it into the woods. The stone reflected her: ideal cut and nearly perfect. I slipped the ring into my pocket.
“Now help me clear out.”
We scoured the house to extract her paraphernalia, junk jewelry, Christmas decorations, loads of outfits and assorted furniture that had moved in over ten years. Photos of enchanting travels spiked our memories: castle-topped mountains of Portugal, sizzled squid and ouzo in Greece, Egyptian tombs of Tut and Nefertiti, blue ocean Curacao, millennial galas in Quebec and all-nighters in Vegas, mirages without mass or substance.
She vanished, leaving only apparitions, specters mourning.
I first saw her after midnight at Foxwoods, the world’s largest casino. A svelte inamorata beckoned me, a Bombay Sapphire martini girl, straight up, extra dry with a twist. “Hey sailor, can I buy you dinner?” Her eyes fox-flashed behind ebony curls and arrest-me-red lipstick. “I just won a thousand dollars. Celebrate with me. I’m Bombi.”
I skydived, freefalling love struck into daylight before I pulled the rip cord and realized I neglected to get her number. I wanted to stand in a circle and kick myself in the ass, agonizing over my stupidity until a card arrived at work. The note read:
Hey sailor, you owe me dinner. After dessert, we’ll go Velcro wall jumping. Call me. 203-598-0264. Bombi.
I called, palpitating. “It’s Zeth, how did you find me?”
“Your business card, silly. Let’s get together.”
We did, spending every weekend, holiday and summer laughing and romping in protracted private celebration. Never quite together, we lived parallel lives during the week, but on weekends, we plunged into each other. We mastered the art of extended sexual orgasms and choreographed strip tease acts, cutting off clothing with knives and scissors in the well-mirrored rooms of the Poconos and French Provincial Montreal. We made love on a balcony high above Atlantic City and on the glacier of Mount Rainier.
Bombi sported the breasts of an eighteen-year-old girl, tea cups, round and perky with brown nipples. She flashed me while we dined in restaurants or climbed the cliffs of Santorini or hiked the Mojave Desert. Her head swung left, then right while her hands dropped to her waist. Her shirt rose like a stage curtain to reveal the cyclorama.
Always preferring a Marriott, she learned to eat by fires and sleep in tents but going gamey soiled her pretty clothes. I enjoyed jerky, and she opted for ganja. At home, she employed electrolysis to eradicate unwanted hair, but she condoned my beard. Her perfect nose job contrasted my slightly deviated septum, a reminder of my stint as the world’s worst boxer. Our differences seemed trivial. After two years, I proposed.
Bombi said yes to marriage, but she coveted the cloistered confines of Connecticut’s exclusive college prep, Westover School, where she lived and reigned as dorm mother for notables like Princess Zein of Jordan, daughter of King Hussein and sister to King Abdullah II. She taught health, sex education and aerobics. The young ladies loved her irrepressible energy while she delighted in their pubescent antics. Leaving Westover was so unimaginable that she repeatedly delayed the wedding, resisting change for eight years. She needed two lives. I pushed too hard, forcing her to cut and run. She reminded me before she drove her Uhaul up the gravel driveway to escape, “You’ll never find another Bombi.”
In the aftermath, I blazed, seared by fiery remembrances, flowing lava slow, molten remnants of great love reduced to ash and pumice. I disappeared into the Cambridge think tank, grappling with the boys in the back room, solving elusive problems no one had ever solved. We built a system to listen for the shock wave off the nosecone of a bullet and put the sniper in somebody’s gunsight. Secretly, I leveraged their frenetic brilliance to paper over my void.
She knew where to find me. After eight long months of Radio Free Bombi, she called for the first time since she left. “I’ve been thinking. We should get together, over dinner.” We met halfway and sat in a corner booth, to probe paths to reconciliation. Like the unguided rafting expedition through the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, Bombi was a wild ride, dazzling, delirious and death defying, but possibly not a do over. We agreed to take time, a month, to reconsider.
On my way home, I stopped at Kmart. Contemplating Bombi as I walked across the parking lot, I didn’t see the car. I only heard the shrill screech of tires. Reacting, I leaped up and out of my sandals. As I reached apogee, suspended momentarily in midair, a car rushed beneath me, backwards. I returned to earth, hands on the roof, shoes under the car, face to face with an elderly woman in an old Dodge. I envisioned my mangled body under the chassis. For what? Some blue light special? My life passed before my eyes, literally, not myth or metaphor, my life flashed before me, critical moments and significant people, but no Bombi. As I knelt to retrieve my shoes beneath the undercarriage, I knew what my answer would be.
I lollygagged for weeks, procrastinating the showdown. Parallel lines, however close, cannot converge. Defying our fervent wishes, they never bundle or entwine to attain unity.
Bombi called me, and her voice quivered, deadly serious. “I’ve had a life altering experience, and I need you.” Her words struck my sternum like a stiletto that snapped as she continued. “I have breast cancer and big decisions to make. My mother had it, so she’s freaking out. My sister is freaking out, feeling herself up all night. I have nowhere else to turn. I need your logical mind to get me through this ordeal.” A prepared speech, delivered flawlessly.
“Of course. We’ll take this trek together.”
The biopsy confirmed a malignant lump, aggressively enlarged, threatening to snuff her out. She required an immediate mastectomy. The decision to take the second breast to thwart metastasis loomed large. We researched the risk/reward statistics and decided not to gamble. Both breasts had to go.
“Play with them one last time,” she begged me with tears on her cheeks. “I’m too young. I’m not ready.”
“We are not ready.”
“If I make it, I’ll be a good girl. I will pray,” she promised.
“Pray now.”
I raced to her after the operation that removed tumors from both breasts. She was beyond consolation.
“Look what they did to me,” she wailed. Slowly, the curtain rose. The core of each breast had been excised with the wounds crudely sutured, creating the illusion of bruised and swollen figs, purple and puckered.
“When do you start radiation?” I reached for her. The curtain dropped. She shook her head. “Chemo?”
“Nothing,” she said. “They got it all. The bastard said, ‘Have a nice life.’”
I held her as she lapsed into slumber. I held her until the morning paper plopped outside her door. I made breakfast and put her to bed before I left. “You should get a second opinion.”
She did. Another, “Have a nice life.”
More surgeries lay ahead. Her saline implants grew rutabaga hard, painfully grotesque reminders of her mutation into a disfigured cancer survivor. I worried about her despondence, fearful and angry at her diminished body. She needed to look forward to something, and she looked forward to silicone implants, soft, pliable and her choice of size. She always wanted larger breasts and asked me for them every year at Christmas since we met. Now, she found an unconventional way to hoodwink her insurance company into paying for breast enhancement, and her attitude improved as the date approached. Afterwards, she called on me to inspect, fondle and evaluate, but Bombi rejected my assurances. The reconstruction left one breast larger than the other. She scheduled another treatment to achieve symmetry.
The final operation purloined patches from her buttocks to form aureole and snippets of earlobe to simulate nipples. The last step tattooed brown the summits to match her original shade. She called less often now, and when she did, she came to visit me, to sit by the lake, allowing her psyche to convalesce in sylvan settings as her physical regeneration progressed.
One evening, she appeared unannounced, wearing white, miniskirt and thigh highs that didn’t quite reach. “I’ve always wanted to wear this outfit. Since I was in the office anyway, I ponied up for liposuction.” We made martinis and strolled by the lake, hand in hand. At curtain call, I stepped back to venerate the masterpieces. I palmed them and placed my nose into their pliant warmth, inhaling her pheromones, then tonguing, licking and burbling bubbles while she giggled. She pushed away, raising her skirt to reveal lacey panties matching the lace atop her hose. I snatched her in my arms and lifted her to denouement, casting its shadowy spectre behind us. Our finale intoned the transience of flesh and passion, the unbearable gravity of emptiness and the contrasting cravings for entirety. For me, it was a life-affirming celebration of love and gratitude. For her, it was dress rehearsal for her resurrection.
“Did you pray today?” I asked as we sprawled on the lawn in post-coital exhaustion.
“No.” She rose up. “Changes don’t last forever.”
She dressed quickly and kissed my cheek. “I’m leaving. I can never thank you enough.” Standing erect, phosphorescing in the moonlight, she whispered, “You’ll never find another Bombi.”
Bombi was back, and she was gone, forever out there in the wild, flashing her killer breasts.

Author

Douglas Gilbert is the author of the soon-to-be published novel “The Last Saturday of October," a historical novel that delivers the bloodcurdling saga of the now-declassified B-59 incident that took place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Dark and intense, this powerful encounter with history follows the “Man who Saved the World” against the backdrop of the politically turbulent cold war era and relives the most dangerous day in human history from inside the hull of a Soviet submarine preparing a nuclear attack from below the sweltering Sargasso Sea. The men, the sea and the nuclear precipice come to life through vivid imagery, preceptive dialog and historiographical research that depict the hard and profound truths of the tenuous nature of our existence in a nuclear world, and how we nearly lost it.

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When Serendipity Touches a Journey

3/3/2018

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There is something about going on a journey. It frees the spirit and opens the door for one to encounter new and exciting experiences. If you’re lucky, the fates might steer a bit of serendipity your way. A wrong turn on the road leads you to discover an old castle, it’s an architectural gem that you find fascinating. Maybe a chance meeting with a poet in a café livens up your sightseeing day and you remember it with a smile, long after the trip is over.
    These serendipities are like gifts, a reward for getting off the couch and taking to the road! Sometimes the memory of your excursion is enhanced by the objects you bring home. Those seashells you picked up on the beach remind you of that brilliant blue sea. The jaunty pottery jug on your bookshelf recalls the small hill town in Portugal where you found it. You never tire of looking at it and it brings back the memory of that long ago adventure. On a vacation trip to America’s Southwest, my wife Elizabeth and I met a Native American artist. It was one of those chance meetings that wind up staying with you long after the trip is over, illuminating your life in an unexpected way. Here’s how it happened.
   Part of the attraction for my wife and I to visit the southwest was our mutual interest in Native American arts and culture. We planned a visit to the Hopi Reservation. We’re both artists. Liz is a painter and I’m a sculptor and an art teacher. I teach Ceramics at a middle school in Brooklyn. When I go on vacation I try to gather some material for my art making, and some things that I can share with the kids back at school. My students are at the age where they still have a sense of wonder and they enjoy seeing the art objects I bring back from my trips.
    I’m not a hot weather person, so perhaps the summer wasn’t the best time to visit the southwest. We rented a small car whose pseudo air conditioning just barely fought off the summer heat, but the car ride was beautiful. The big blue sky seemed never ending, and I was taken by the surprising vastness of the landscape. Across the miles of burnished desert you could see the rusty, reddish-brown mountains in the distance. It looked like one of Georgia O’Keefe’s landscape paintings. Coming from the concrete and steel canyons of New York City, the sights of the mountains and desert canyons were a welcome relief. We drove by red rock outcroppings that rose up high, like giant, monolithic sculptures. Their peculiar organic shapes were sculpted by the force of the wind. Near the red rocks there were gnarled trees with olive green leaves.
     We drove for a few hundred miles, and arrived at the Hopi mesa at nightfall. After enduring the heat of the day, it was lovely to be out in the desert at night. The air was cool and fragrant with sage. The nocturnal sky looked enormous; a velvety backdrop of inky blue indigo was speckled with thousands of sparkling stars and a crescent moon. The glow of ancient starlight seemed to amplify the immense silence of the desert night.
    We stopped in the reservation restaurant, and ate a delicious dinner of stew and blue corn tortillas, a local specialty. Then it was to bed for a good nights sleep. That night I had a simple dream. I dreamt I was sitting in a chair and a painting appeared on the wall in front of me. The painting had very pronounced Native American designs and colors. I especially took note of the picture’s bright blue sky. With that, the dream ended. When I woke I dressed and mulled over my dream, I recalled the painting on the wall, not really sure of what it all meant.
    We headed over to the Hopi restaurant for nice breakfast. Now here’s the thing, I’ve mentioned the quiet of the desert, but I was amazed at how it carried over to people. There was a good size crowd of visitors in the Hopi restaurant that morning, yet the volume of sound was low, like a murmur. In New York, a crowd that size would be making a lot of noise, even to the point of being annoying. Recently I was eating in a diner and a woman sitting near me was shouting so loud into her cell phone, it was like she was making an announcement at a football game! But here in the Hopi restaurant, the sound emanated from the crowd had an almost reverent air about it.
    After breakfast we stopped at the museum and viewed their collection of cultural artifacts and some more contemporary paintings and pottery by the Hopi artists. It was a fine display. The museum had a nice gift shop too. Like a bird drawn to its favorite bush, Liz soon found the jewelry counter. I went outside tried to keep myself busy and I walked around outside the museum. From the hilltop of the Mesa, the landscape opened up like a vision. Giant white cumulus clouds cascaded across the pale blue sky, floating high above the flat plain of the desert.
    After a while, I ventured back into the gift shop to try to speed things up a bit. Liz was gazing at the handmade jewelry created by the Hopi artisans, who are known for their silverwork. She asked the woman behind the counter if she could try on a silver bracelet. I looked up at the colorful painting on the wall behind the counter. It had Indian designs combined with landscape elements – its bright blue sky that took me by surprise - it was the painting I’d seen in my dream!
“That’s really a nice painting”, I said to the woman behind the counter. She smiled and said, “Oh, that’s by Michael Kabotie”. Then looking at my wife she added, “By the way, he’s also made that bracelet. Since you like the bracelet and you like the painting, you probably should go visit Michael”.
“Visit him?”
“Yeah, he lives right down the road.”
I took another look at the painting, “How strange”, I thought, “That’s definitely the painting from my dream.” When we stepped outside the shop and after a short conversation realized that it would be foolish to ignore such an unusual synchronicity. We scrapped our plan to get on the road early, and opted to visit the artist instead.
     We were welcomed with warm smiles by Michael Kabotie and his wife. Michael wore his hair long, in a pony tail, and had on a necklace of wooden beads. He wore a regular shirt and blue jeans and it seemed like visitors to his place were a usual occurrence. Once he found out my wife and I were artists we launched into an animated conversation about Hopi art and culture. His art work was influenced by Hopi spirituality. He told us that the Kachina spirits are the intermediaries between our world and the spirit realm, and they are represented by doll-like statues.
    As a sculptor, I was interested in the Kachina dolls, which are in essence, small sculptures. They are made for children, so they can learn the attributes of the different Kachina spirits. In her book, Kachina Dolls; The Art of the Hopi Carver’s, Helga Teiwes writes about these mysterious beings. She describes the Kachinas, “They are beings to whom all Hopi look to for direction, heed and give prayers for the continuation of life... To the Hopi, all things are imbued with life. People, animals and plants have spirits, but so do rocks, clouds, water and earth.” The Kachinas, who have names like Snow Maiden, Eagle, Morning Sun and Chasing Star, represent all the facets of our universe. They are an integral part of Hope culture.
    I started asking Michael one too many questions about Native American practices and he held up his hand with a smile as if to say, “Whoa”. He added teasingly, “Listen, I’ve just spent 5 days in the kiva doing an intense ceremony, so I’m really Hopied out. Can we talk about art instead?”
    I quelled my curiosity and let the man speak. He was a cool guy. Living out in the middle of the desert, he was immersed in his culture, yet he was interested in what was happening on the New York art scene. Seeing that we were interested in his work, he showed us a few of his paintings which were done on thick water color paper. One that featured the Hopi spirit guides was titled; “Kachina Song Blessings”. I thought it was beautiful and told him so. Then he showed us prints that combined Native American imagery with modernist abstraction. “I’m getting back into Kandinsky”, he said.
    There was a knock on the door and a woman entered with a young boy. She was a curator from a German museum here to see Michael’s paintings. We said our goodbyes and got back on the road to continue our journey.
    I felt that the Hopi Mesa had the heightened resonance that you sometimes encounter in distinctive places. I wondered how much of what happened in the Hopi Village had to do with the spirit of the place; the sustenance contained in the earth and the traditions, which are steeped in a thousand years of culture. Emerson once wrote that, “The student one day discovers that he is being led by unseen guides…” After our lively talk about Kachinas and Nature Spirits, I wondered if it could have been one of those unseen guides who sent me the dream that steered us to that fateful meeting with Michael. I can’t say for sure but I know that I was grateful for our visit.
    Years later, my wife and I were saddened when we heard that Michael Kabotie had passed away. I would have liked to have told him that our conversation widened the way I thought about art, and added another dimension to it. After meeting him, almost every group I taught had some lessons on Native American art, whether it was making pottery, or drawing and painting Indian symbols. Exploring Native American arts and culture always seemed to fascinate my students and fire up their imaginations. In my own way, I was trying to make them aware of a great tradition. I think Michael would have liked that.
    In the beginning of this essay I mentioned how the souvenirs and memories that we bring home from our excursions add richness to our lives. As Liz and I drove away from the Hopi Mesa that day, we were changed in a way, and we carried with us a wonderful memory. That serendipitous visit with Michael Kabotie took on a profound significance and stood with us long after the trip was over. That meeting had graced our journey, and turned it into an unexpected adventure.

Author

Anthony Rubino is a writer and a sculptor. His work has appeared in: October Hill Magazine, The Offbeat, (the print journal of Michigan State University), The Moon Magazine, The Young Ravens Literary Review, and riverbabble literary journal. Along with his writing, Anthony likes to sculpt with clay. He lives in New York City with his wife, and their trusty pooches.

"When Serendipity Touches a Journey" first appeared in Moon Magazine.

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