VOICES

“An Imperfect Painting” Lisha Xu

nonfiction

“The End of March” Bret Coons

fiction

“The Travel of the Turtle” Yin-Yin Tsai

fiction

“The Wake” Bret Coons

poetry

“# 5” Meg Tisinger

poetry

“Pitching S l o w l y” Devin VanDyke

nonfiction

“The Annual” Charles Wolford

fiction

“Howling at the Mu,” “America, to Lanston Hughes,” Matt Rinker

“Holy Foreigner,” “(To George Oppen)”

poetry

“The Word is ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’” Mohamed Elkhair

nonfiction

“Snapshot’” Elaine Anderson

nonfiction

“Alyssa,” “Michael,” “Cory” Derek Otte

poetry

“Hair Story” Hua Ou

nonfiction

“Story of a Firefly” Huike Wen

nonfiction

“Captain” Sangdon Lee

fiction

“The Flavor of Home” Yin-Yin Tsai

nonfiction

“[Give and> Between <and Take]” Bret Coons

poetry

“Cactus Pot of Full Moon” Gilsun Lim

fiction

“A Sudden Thought that Came to be Here Bret Coons

Only After More Madness Ensued From”

poetry

“A Thorn” Woo Jin Shin

nonfiction

“Just Wanting” Craig Moreau

nonfiction

“The Beauty of Language” Yuejuan Li

nonfiction

An imperfect painting

Lisha Xu

nonfiction

I was a quiet and unique child at a very young age. I could watch two movies continually without falling asleep at three years old, although I might have not understood them at all. I also cried when my mother took me to kindergarten every morning. My mother grew tired of it and decided to leave me alone at home, which cheered me up. I stayed on the bed all day because I was afraid mice would visit me when I played on the ground. I played everything I wanted by myself. Two things I did all day were playing doctor with my doll and reading picture books with cartoon characters and fairy maidens thousands of times. What I did next was copy these cartoon characters and fairy maidens. I copied hundreds of characters in my picture books and fell in love with drawing. Childhood offered me two things which I now love later in life: drawing and movies.

My mother did not allow me to enter drawing school because she thought it was not a skill which could earn lots of money. What I could do is buy sketch book and draw in it in my leisure time; however, I gave up this hobby because of heavy school work.

I did not touch drawing anymore after that. However, when I was wandering in the Metropolitan Art Museum, standing before Monet’s paintings, I knew I loved them so much deep in my heart, although I could not understand them fully without professional training. As E. H. Gombrich said in his great book The Story of Art, “But once he has succeeded we all feel that he has achieved something to which nothing could be added, something which is right ---an example of perfection in our very imperfect world.”

I plan to take a drawing course next semester to realize my childhood dream. And maybe one day I can sit and paint an imperfect painting to describe the beautiful sunset in my heart.

The End of March

Bret Coons

fiction

Looking down at his leg, Jim could see the blood start to ooze out from the fresh, jagged cut. And more tears started to stream down as he looked back up to the sky, whimpering in short sobs.

‘I-I can’t-t f… feel it.’

‘We aren’t too far away now. Just hang in there man and I’ll fix you up.’

< >

Jim was running to the school’s swing sets where he knew his friends would be. It always seemed like a great journey to him, a quest; a challenge that had to be met. The wind was whipping through his hair while also managing to throw a water fall of rich red and yellow colored leaves from the trees bordering the school. The air was clean and crisp on his young face of seven years, but he felt nothing but the rush of it all; the cold could never touch him here in the school yard, where adventure was real and as tangible as the cold, wet ground below his feet. Looking around he could see friends whose names he didn’t know and those that he still did. People from elementary school all the way to high school but it didn’t matter they all seemed to belong here and so he waved to them all as he ran by. Teachers from every grade he knew appeared in front of him along the path he was taking, smiling gently at him, seeming to admire Jim’s grace and youth. He was feeling great, full of life, when suddenly the mood changed. Looking up to the sky above him Jim could see dark gray clouds racing across the sky with a terrible speed, telling Jim that his time was running out. He ran faster and faster, wheezing on the cold air that once seemed crisp but now was bitter and somehow old. Snow started to fall around him and people started to walk away into indifference, but knew he had to keep running no matter what happened; he couldn’t stop if he wanted to. The snow was coming down heavier, putting weight on Jim as it collected on his shoulders and back. He looked at the people who had once waved at him walking away, farther, farther, then one them fell to the white ground and disappeared, then another and another, and Jim was still as far from his destination as ever. Fear started to creep its way into Jim’s heart when he suddenly realized he was twenty-six again. Once again tall and strong in form, but his speed stays the same and he can’t help feeling that his new size is only dragging him down. Looking around again he could see all the trees were bare; the leaves that had once filled the day were gone, gone from the trees and covered in snow. The people who had waved, teachers, friends, the people of his life, were now being cut down by globs of snow falling from the sky, hitting them with an insane fury. Jim was losing time, but he was no closer. A large glob of snow hit his back, shoving him face first into the snow and before Jim could get up he was covered by snow, trapped and unable to move. In the distance behind him he heard thunder roaring.

< >

Jim’s eyes shot open and his muscles tightened.

{Ohh mannn…} – feeling his heart race – {God I’m hot and sweaty. Why am I wrapped up in this thick blanket? What time is it? Where the hell am…? Oh God… AH HELL} – pulling his arms out of the blanket – {never thought a nightmare would be so welcome over reality. Screw it; maybe I can still get some sleep. Goddamn it} – struggling to roll over – {now what the hell is wrong here? It’s like my legs are stuck or something…}

Jim stopped moving and just laid still listening to the storm outside thundering in the distance. Mason was gone but that did not bother Jim much. He wanted to be alone anyway. Staring up into the blackness above him helped to sooth his anger and so did the smell of fresh wet soil from the storm outside. There was a black plastic sheet hanging at the ripped opening of the cockpit where the generators should be. The plastic that was probably a collage of garbage bags kept most of the rain and wind out, at least from where Jim was. Jim tore off his blanket and looked down towards his wounded leg and felt to see if he was still bleeding from the cut. A bandage was wrapped tightly around his leg and he could feel nothing that was wet, and just then as if to only confirm his thoughts lightning flashed in the distance revealing a clean well wrapped bandaged leg.

{Thank God for that…well now what to do with the two of you?} – looking at his legs. {Since my legs won’t move themselves I guess I’ll have to move them if I want to get on my other side and rest, no use cryin’ looks like I’ll have to get used to it for now. I can’t wait to see a doctor… if I ever will, damn it all.}

Some of the blanket was still firmly under Jim, so with nothing else to turn to he grabbed the blanket tightly and pulled. Surprising himself, he was now comfortably on his other side.

{Good. For once something works my way today. Now} – closing his eyes without any thought of doing so – {to get back to that wondrously numbing sleep…}

< >

‘Oh… . . . . . . . god.’

Twenty five feet in front of Mason, just outside the clearing made from the crash, laid the biggest mystery/problem of his life as of yet. Mason always thought that his life was screwed up and only getting worse, and so far the past few days have only catered to his beliefs; but the dead animal that was hanging by its hind legs with its neck cut wide open letting blood drain into a clay pot beneath it was the last thing Mason had expected to find this morning, let alone any time in his life. He was frozen with the image of the beast, something that could almost resemble a boar if a boar had larger eyes and thick black scaly skin. But it wasn’t this that bothered him, nor did its huge teeth and tusks. It wasn’t the fact that the animal looked as though it weighed at least five hundred kilograms and was hanging up side down that bothered him either or that it had been gruesomely killed at the neck exposing puffy dark red flesh. It was that ‘something’ had done it. That what ever he thought had been following him last night might not have been hunting him, but watching him, studying him. And that there must have been more than one of them to string up the beast that hung before him so well. And even more than that, what ever had done it… it was, intelligent.

[I can’t… I can’t.. i can’t, I can’t i cant icanticanticant… i…] ‘MASON!!! WHERE ARE YOU?’

[… huh…?]

‘MASON!!!’ crawling, pulling him self to the opening of the cockpit.

When Jim got to the opening he turned and saw Mason but could not see the thing that had made him freeze in terror.

‘Mason! Hey, what the hell is going on out here? Why were you screaming?’

‘What…?’ in a raspy voice turning around toward Jim.

‘What is going on man!?’

‘There…’ walking slowly towards Jim ‘there is a dead animal out here… and a… it looks… … something killed it…’

< >

There were flashes of ripping ferns, of the pale sandy dirt and its wet earthy smell, of large sticks, huge gorilla like arms covered in coarse long gray hair and clouds patched with a thin tree canopy, of pain, of piercing screams both recognizable and foreign, of fierce eyes and of very long teeth. Then there was only the ground and darkness pouring in, corrupting the light, but neither Mason nor Jim really saw that.

In the brutal ambush and primal rage that covered them in the form of the large hairy ape like animals, the images they saw in those last moments were not of their attack, they were of images and ideas that could only be shared by God.

The Travel of the Turtle

Yin-Yin Tsai

fiction

In a swamp, there were a variety of insects, trees, ferns, and flowers. It was a warm and humid spring season. A turtle had just laid thousands of eggs, and then went away. In several weeks, those eggs became turtles and ate the shells. Meanwhile, some kids walked into the swamp. They found the small turtles and caught them in a big paper box.

The next day, the kids sold the turtles in front of the elementary school in order to buy new toys. A boy, Yu, who was tall with glasses, asked,” How much?”

“It is just two dollars!” the seller said.

“I’m going to buy it,” the boy said.

“Deal!”

Taiwan is an island. The weather is humid and comfortable except during the cold, windy period. Most people live in concrete and steel apartments. In a big city, there are hundreds of families living in the community area. In a town, they still live in apartments, but there are bigger spaces to walk around and play outside. Yu lived near a big city at the forth floor of the apartment. When Yu came home, he couldn’t wait to tell his mother about his little turtle.

“Mom, mom, where are you?”

A tender voice came from the kitchen: ” Oh, honey. What’s going on? You look so excited.”

“Guess what I have?” Yu put his hands behind him.

His mother put her arms in front of her chest and kept smiling.

“Okay, look, here is a little turtle.” He showed the animal in his hand.

“Yu, you can’t feed it. You are too young to take care of a little turtle.” Mrs. Cho didn’t think her son could nourish a pet.

“Mom, I promise that I will never forget it and I will take care of it, please, please, please!” the little boy begged his mother.

“Fine, but don’t forget your promise!” finally, Mrs. Cho nodded her head, but she didn’t believe that her son really could keep his promise.

“Oh Ya! My mom is the best one in the world, I love you!”

The turtle was an infant. It had never seen its mother before and was put in the human world. It had a home now, even though its family was a different species.

Yu started thinking about what to name his new pet. In a few minutes he said, “Hmm, its color is green, so I must name it Green. Oh, I almost forgot that Green needed water and a sweet home with delicious food!” the boy murmured to himself. Green was as big as two quarters with light green color. It was a very beautiful color as new as herbage. He looked for a small bowl and some water grass. A sky-blue bowl with some colorful glass balls and water grass was filled with clean water. Yu put Green in the sweet home. Then, he moved the beautiful bowl next to the window in his room. At night, he had a wonderful dream about his little turtle. Green couldn’t sleep well because it had a new home, neither big nor poor. “Wow! This is my new home. I like it!” the turtle thought before sleeping.

After several months, Yu was tired of taking care of Green. So, he told his mother that he was wondering about not feeding Green any more because he found some more interesting things to do. Feeding the pet would take away from time playing with his classmates.

“You can’t do that. Remember what you said the other day. Boy, you have to be responsible. Green is a life, not a substance. If you really don’t feed it, you have to look for someone who would like to nourish it,” his mother told him seriously.

“Okay, I will find a home for my turtle,” Yu answered obediently.

After one week, he found that his cousin, Jane, could take his job- caring for his turtle. Therefore, he sent Green to another family. When he brought his turtle to a new home, he kissed the shell of the turtle and said, “I’m sorry, Green. I looked for a warm family for you and I will visit you as much as possible. Take care!” Then he went away and waved goodbye.

The reason Jane promised to accept a turtle very easily was that turtles are considered great animals in Chinese culture. Turtles are a long living animal for Chinese meaning. Especially in elder people’s birthday party, others would say good words to them, such as- I wish you live as long as turtles. In general, a traditional Chinese family is big, including parents, cousins, uncles, grandparents, and so on. But Jane’s family fell between traditional and modern families, which meant her grandparents lived with one of their child’s families. Jane lives with parents, grandparents, and siblings. She is the youngest of the siblings. Jane is an elementary school student, too. She likes animals and the natural environment. Every night, Jane talks to and shares her secrets with Green. Jane didn’t care if the turtle understood what she meant. And Green seemed to know everything because when Jane told it something, the turtle always raised its head and stopped. She put the turtle in a red bowl. Green’s new home was bigger than before. There was fresh air and some plants near the beautiful bowl like a small pool in a balcony. For Jane, Green was a friend without judgments.

As time went by, Jane and Green grew up. She was a high school student now. The turtle became as big as a hand. However, she had to go live at her school except on the weekends. She could not care for Green by herself. Thus she asked her sister, Lisa, to do her a favor.

“Lisa, could you take care of Green? I am worried about it.”

“I will do that. Don’t be frustrated. Green will be all right, until you come back on the weekends” Lisa accepted the job happily.

“Wow! I am glad that you will do that for me. And, don’t forget to feed it regularly, one time per day. Don’t put too much food in the bowl. Don’t forget to change the water twice a week...” Jane can’t stop telling her sister every thing about the little turtle.

“Wait, wait, Jane, stop it. You are not going to leave your lovely turtle forever. You don’t need to mention every thing, all right? I know how to feed Green. Also, it will be fine.” Lisa says her words loudly and slowly.

“Sorry, Lisa, I don’t mean it. I just, I just, I just feel a little nervous.” After considering for a wile, Jane remembered what she thought.

“Dear Jane, I understood how you feel. This is your first time leaving home. Maybe it will be difficult at the beginning. However, you’ll overcome it. Thus, I will keep you in my mind. Green will, too. When you have trouble, you just call back home.

“Thank you, Lisa. I feel better now!”

Jane started her career at the new school in September. Meanwhile, Lisa fed the little turtle when her sister was admitted to a private high school. In fact, Green was not small any more. Its original weight tripled.

One morning, Lisa opened the door of the balcony and said, “Hallo, Green, see what I brought for you?” She had a new foodstuff in her left hand. “Where are you? Green? It is impossible. Green could not run away from the big bowl.” She felt nervous and unbelieving. “How come? It doesn’t make sense? Green is too small to escape from the bowl. Mom! Dad! Something must be wrong!” She ran down the stairs and looked for her parents.

Lisa looked very worried. Mr. and Mrs. Tsai didn’t know what happened to the turtle. “Dear, I didn’t go to the balcony for several days. Are you sure that the turtle was gone?” said, Mr. Tsai.

“Absolutely! No one saw it before I fed it; I bet that Green is hiding itself.” Lisa was calm now. She started recalling every thing about the little turtle. “I got it! I got it!” Lisa screamed loudly. “Dad, do you remember that around a week ago I told you that Green can get out of the little pool?”

“Oh, I remember. You mean that Green probably went out of the bowl and hid under the washing machine?”

“That’s it! So, I will take a flashlight in order to search for the little turtle.”

“Okay, the light is on the table of my room.”

Lisa carried the light back to the balcony and looked everywhere carefully. However, she didn’t detect any clue of Green. She felt frustrated and didn’t know how to explain to her sister that Green had disappeared suddenly. She cried and sat on the floor.

After a while, Lisa made a decision. She thought that if the turtle dropped from the fence of the balcony, she might have another chance to find it. So, she asked her neighbor to open the back door. Then she ran cross the narrow lane to look for her turtle. However, the door was rarely used and the lane was full of dust and an awful odor. After she opened the door uneasily, she opened her eyes and searched the ground carefully. The narrow lane was dark and humid. There were some trash cans dispersed on the land and some wild grass covered a part of the lane. She took a couple minutes in order to search everywhere in the narrow and dirty lane. However, nothing else could she find out. She felt as cold as winter. When she came back home, she could not eat anything and went to her room. No matter how many times her mother called her to eat lunch, she didn’t give any response.

In fact, Green had dropped from the fence of the balcony at midnight before Lisa found out it had disappeared. The turtle tried to escape from the bowl every day and succeeded sometimes. When it went out of the bowl, it moved its body slowly and went straight. However, the turtle didn’t know that danger was in front of it. So, while it walked several steps, it couldn’t keep balance and fell down from the third floor. It did not even have chance to scream and to call help.

The shell of the turtle’s back was strong so that it survived the accident. More terrible was that it could not touch the soil with its feet. Because the heavy shell hit the land, it weaved its shell to turn around. Green began to set his neck and two of its fore feet upright in order to turn around his whole body. Green tried the same motion over and over again. Finally he did it. He started going forward. The turtle moved his body by short feet slowly. In the darkness without stars, it crossed the big road safely because there was no car passing on the road. Then Green took a rest, after it passed the big road. The turtle stayed in the grass along the sidewalk. Meanwhile, the sky turned bright without clouds. After taking a rest, Green kept moving on step by step and didn’t know where the right direction was. After all, he is just a turtle.

Next day, the turtle walked into a marsh. There were some frogs, insects, bees, and crickets in the bog. Everything was different from its home. The wild world was more exciting, as if the turtle joined a party. Green met some friends there. He ate some little living things in the water. The little turtle attended a music party where the frogs and crickets sang songs next to the marsh in the sparkle of the night stars. Although beginning a new style of life is difficult, Green realized that he belonged to the natural environment.

The Wake

Bret Coons

poetry

Meg Tisinger

poetry

Fingertips have a conscience

the memory of the distance between

points

ridges rise to make

sense

of first impressions

the hand knows there is

something here worth

holding onto

Pitching S l o w l y

Devin VanDyke

nonfiction

Like many Americans my only real contact with baseball or “softball” other than in the distant memory of high school was watching major league pitchers on the tele. As sure as I can recall softball in the high schools of the dark ages I attended really meant the ball was soft enough to catch with your bare hands. Why else would they call it softball? Physically speaking the harder the ball-- the farther it will go. The only way to make it go even faster and farther is by replacing the seams a pitcher uses to grip, orientate his hand and spin the ball, is with dimples on its surface like a golf ball. Ball engineers actually use a computer to help define the best way to put those dimples on the golf ball to increase the length of the drive. When I went to college awhile after high school I discovered the balls were a lot harder, the bats were no longer wood at all and came in many sizes-- all guaranteed to make it easier to hit line drives at the pitcher.

In the interim between my illustrious temporary-education-career-ending time spent in high school and the time I’m doing in “college,” my only experience with balls being pitched and hit was what I saw out of the corner of my eye on TV. During the time between graduating high school and college for me, the pitches in baseball went from a fast ball of sixty MPH delivered by a guy falling off the mound to ninety MPH and the guy being as graceful as a ballerina as he put his whole body into the small, fast moving object the batter was expected to hit. And now they use a radar gun to see just how fast that ball goes.

Softball evolved into one of two kinds: underhand fast pitch and slow pitch. In baseball the pitcher makes about three quarters of a revolution of his shoulder as he thrusts the ball toward home plate. In underhand fast pitch soft ball the pitcher winds his arm backwards a half turn then forward a whole turn as well as having his entire body straight up and down in alignment with the plate as well as perpendicular to gravity so that all his energy goes more directly into flinging the ball at the batter. None of the major league need for grace to throw the ball fast with a side arm or overhead throw. The pitcher in fast pitch softball is all lined up and throwing a ball as hard as a hardball but as an object, it is appreciably bigger and heavier.

After the politically-correct school had caused me so much stress that I misunderstood the process of being on academic probation, I filled in credits to meet the minimum requirement to earn a college degree by taking what are called PE Skills classes. In these studies the student gets to be part of a team effort and actually enjoy the process of bettering themselves while receiving only a “passing” or “not passing” grade. As I recall-- and I am sure can be confirmed by what can be re-animated by the computers memories that save or delete e-mail-- the process of probation the first time I was on it-- which was my second semester, required or was intended to give me, the student, the impression that I had to make-up units deficient in order to receive financial aid. What this apparently meant is that, even though by a single glance at my transcript, it was clear that I was having a hard time adjusting to a prestigious university; I would need to take more classes in order to receive financial aid. Hoping for a brighter economic tomorrow, I was in college in order to better myself or be qualified to have a better paying job via receiving a four year degree.

Every PE skills class from basketball to water polo requires you buy your own equipment. I think of all my sports equipment as souvenirs from the educational journey I undertook. For softball I picked up a used glove and a pair of cleats for six dollars and fifty cents. When the glove started to come apart I tied it together with rope and added a loop so I could hang it from my back-pack. Used equipment was in harmony with the field we used because if I ran a string from second base through the foot-stops in the mound area, to home plate, it would have been a zigzag line.

I knew when I enrolled in the softball class that I wanted to pitch. This desire didn’t evolve from wanting to be the center of attention so much as it devolved from a simple quandary I faced: If I was to be an outfielder because of inability to efficiently field the ball I would have either ended up standing on my head out of boredom or standing at attention like a statue ready to field the ball. The appropriate choice to me was to pitch-- I also felt as though it would be a skill I could start out doing better than most of the twenty-something’s I went to school with and that it would be a skill I would improve upon. I also felt as though my natural charm, charisma and positive high-spirited attitude would have a place on the mound.

When I first started the class I wanted everybody to be happy, including the opposing team. I learned how to pitch so well that everybody was hitting the ball. The hard part was a simple dynamic about the physics of pitching and hitting in softball: if you pitch so it can easily be hit in the window of a minimum of six feet in elevation and up to twelve feet in height while keeping it on the lower end, the batters will hit the ball, a lot, and in so doing they will hit line drives directly at the pitcher. I was pitching strikes which went right over the plate and were about six feet high that were coming right back at me. Those first three weeks worth of pitches were easy to hit, as I was making an effort to please my all my classmates, whether they were on my team that day or not. I wanted everybody to experience the joy of being successful at hitting the ball.

I am one of those unusual students who will practice something just to become more proficient. I got to class early, stretched out and pitched four rounds of six balls each. In my ruminations and practice I had theorized that in the rocket science of softball pitching, if I kept my pitch on the high side of the allowable range of twelve feet on its way to the plate, I would help my team win more. According to my experiments criteria to prove my theory, the hit ball would more likely be a pop-up. I also learned how to throw an underhand back spinning ball which will, when hit, most likely result in a high pop-up that I won’t have to attempt to catch. The incentive of practicing a backward spinning pitch was that I believed that if I executed the pitch as perfectly as I was able, and it was a strike that was missed, it would bounce on the plate, and its reverse spin would exactly counteract its forward momentum and that as the batter had just struck out, the ball would be sitting motionless on the plate waiting for him to go to the dugout. Needless to say by this time I had learned about the concept, and the increase in joy associated with “winning.”

As soon as I learned how to pitch well, and batters were consistently hitting line drives at me, I decided I needed to figure out how to avoid a head trauma. At this point in time I started to associate where over the plate I pitched with where the ball was being hit. I learned at the expense of a blond haired woman batter who was consistently swinging early and hitting foul balls outside the third base line or right down the line. I asked the teacher about the apparent connection between the third base line and throwing an inside ball as well as what I had theorized about keeping the ball as high as possible on each pitch. She confirmed that if I pitched to the inside that, not only would the percentage of line drives drop, but that the particular batter could be consistently gotten out by virtue of the fourth foul being the one that makes a batter out. She also confirmed that the outfield would be the recipient of a high pitched ball. At the same time I learned how to let my pitch drift to the inside of the strike zone and closer to the batter, I was also learning how to hit the ball better-- right down the third base line. I learned how to pitch better as well as how to hit better vicariously from the blond girl being struck out on her fourth foul. I also learned that a good offense, striking people out, was the second best way to defend myself from line drives. The best way to do that was to have a high degree of control over where the ball was going and to change that frequently.

After I figured out how to get the blond girl out consistently, and was learning to hit better myself, I started to take a couple of practice swings with the bat as I pitched my rounds of balls. On one of my cycles, I dropped the bat and it landed in the middle of the plate. I thought to myself that since having the batter avoid contacting the bat was what led to the gratification of winning, why not practice the opposite and use the bat as the ideal target on the base? It made sense to me to put myself in my enemies’ camp even though on some other day they would be on my team and be my friend. I learned to pitch even better and more consistently and learned to hit the ball where I wanted to. Now my own worst enemy would only be being too excited to not quiet and ground myself by playing with the ball a little before each pitch.

Some of the hitters I faced were pretty good at hitting the ball and not getting out very often. One guy would audibly bang the end of the bat on the plate as if tempting me to hit him with the ball. This was when I learned to bobble the ball in my hand a little bit in response to his tapping the dust off the bat before stepping up to the plate. It could become quite a duel as to who has the last “word” in, me with my bobble, or the batter with his banging.

My winning habit for pitching became twofold: first I always pitched at least three balls as my team took the field at the change of innings. Some of the pitches would go completely wild and some would be perfect strikes. I had set a limit because otherwise I would have wanted to continue to ready my self and would have become lost in practice mode. Had this eventuality occurred in the absence of the deadline of a game, my positive frame of mind would have been expended on the sheer delight of pitching strikes to the non-existent batter. The other thing I did is something I practice anytime I don’t do as good a job as I am capable of doing: I owned the pitches that weren’t picture perfect. To me part of this behavior is serious, people should always own avoidable errors, and part was just keeping myself aware and grounded in the reality of my innate desire to have fun and whenever possible, “win.”

The Annual

Charles Wolford

fiction

The smell washed over them immediately –– sweet, nasal, enticing, and through the acrid haze a soft voice heralded them: “Becket’s here.”

The room was dim, bare. Behind Scott, the door shut to. Becket paused, a looming silhouette. Scott made out one figure, seated in a metal chair. A smoking cigarette slanted between his two languid fingers. His auburn hair was buzzed close to his head, and he sat with his dark mushroom corduroys crossed as he regarded Scott. “You two look pretty,” he said. “Did you call each other before you came? Coordinate the clothes, a favorite pastime?”

“You becoming Becket?” the first voice said.

Scott’s eyes were adjusting. He began to see six chairs circled beneath a pale, buzzing light bulb, suspended on a scrawny wire. Five chairs were metal; two were empty; only one was a lawn chair. Scott was aware that the motionless forms were following him with their eyes.

“What’s the matter, freshman?” The figure with corduroys turned a bit, tapping his cigarette. His feline hands were crossed on his lap. “You look lost. What’s bothering you?”

“What’s up? Who’s here?” Scott said. He looked around, recognizing some vague faces. “Chris –– Zack.” Not knowing what else to do, his left hand gripped the back of a chair in front of him. “My, my.” Then he pointed. “Who’s this? Who’s your third man, Becket?”

Lowering himself into the last metal chair, Becket smiled. “Ethan, Scott. Scott, Ethan,” he said. “You two should like each other. We’re all seniors here.” Through the drifting smoke, Becket’s eyes met Ethan’s. “Except one,” he said. He looked back at Scott. “Mr. Legree here is already at Middlebury, just like our King of the Hill. Waiting for Grant with open arms.” He made a suave, conclusive gesture. “Fathers consulted fathers. They’ve known each other forever. Old friends. You’re a ––” Becket looked back. “Sophomore now?”

Ethan nodded. “Tell me about your friend,” he said.

“My good friend Scott,” Becket smiled. “We’ve been friends for years. He’s basically lived at my house these last few months.” Becket turned back again and glanced up, patting the seat of the single lawn chair next to him. “Sit down, Scott. Sit here. Get blazed. You’re formally invited to smoke.”

Luke was there, too. He sat to Scott’s right. Leaning forward in the chair with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in front of him, his face floated out of the darkness and into the wan halo. Brushing a dark cowlick, he looked shabby and gaunt. “Becket, Scott,” he nodded, acknowledged. His cheeks were flaccid and sunken, but his triangle smile widened faintly, dimples rippling away. Many sizes too large, a white shirt ballooned around him. Barely visible, he seemed to sit at the bottom of the circle. He said nothing else.

Becket slumped a little in his chair, his right foot on his left knee, and his right shoulder thrown over the metal back, the arm dangling. “What’s happened?” he said. He looked around. “Taking a breather?”

Zack shrugged. “Business,” he said. He sat across from Scott. “This is our reception room. We’re between appointments.”

“Deal after deal,” Ethan said.

Becket looked around, still smiling. “Well, good.”

A pause.

Next to Zack, Chris said, “Let’s have a round of that weed.”

“You two all right to toke?” Ethan asked. “Smoke off a buzz?”

“Amen,” Becket said.

The joint was burnt halfway. Zack shifted, retrieving it from the floor with golden tweezers. In a second, the pinched end flared a miniscule pyramid. Zack puffed languorously. Smoke rose slowly around his face. Writhing in a brooding, sensual dance, the coils sifted along the contours of his rigid chin and cheekbones. Zack’s face was lifted slightly into the light, so that the drifting cream dissolved into pale petals just beneath his draining eye-sockets.

He breathed, drawled out pure pleasure: “Shhhhiiittt,” softer and softer, until the sound was only a whisper clinging to his lips. Holding the joint before his glassy eyes, he turned the slim specimen slowly. He grinned. “Delicious. That’s high quality KB,” he said. “I taste like forty dollars in there.” He turned to Becket. “Grant spoils us. How much you selling this? Twenty, I heard?”

“Fifty for two eighths.”

“Delicious,” he admired. “I’d buy that.” He smoked again, his face obscured. “This is really a treat. My compliments.” His foot touched the beer near his chair. Then he looked at Scott, sidelong, interested. “A hit, Scott?”

Scott grinned weakly. “Well, I ––” he faltered. The light seemed brightest on him. He was suddenly aware how his face might have appeared: the innocence of awe and fear. It was as though in the mirrors of the surrounding stares he could see his own flushed cheeks, his uneven sideburns, his fatuous eyes too close together. The wave of blackheads studding his nose looked like countless strawberry seeds. A thin rubber band circled his agile left wrist, and he began snapping it without thinking. He blushed. “Tempting, isn’t it?” he said at last.

Zack was looking at him.

Someone exploded in muffled laughter, leaning back into darkness.

Scott started to mumble, say something. Then Zack said: “You do smoke, don’t you?” The whole group could hear. His voice was smooth, paced. “Just try it. Just once.” Zack extended his arm. “Smoke that.”

As Zack’s voice faded away, Scott stared at it: the buzzing insect, hovering in a chilled vortex, seeming to consider him, to float forward by its own volition. That was all, the last image. Placing it demurely between his lips, he made the motion, hearing someone nearby: “Yep. There you go. Beautiful.” Scott smoked vigorously, feeling it. He was immediately deaf, and for a moment blind, too. His lungs seared with fire-ripped wings, and his head pounded faintly.

“Jesus,” he croaked. He coughed: once, twice, violently, retching a little. Someone laughed. Not exhaling, the wisps still clung to his lips. Gasping, he snorted the dissipating fumes harshly, choking with spittle. Blinking frenziedly, he thrust his arm as far away as possible, and felt an invisible hand pluck the joint away. To his left, Becket was slapping him on the back, saying, “Easy, easy.” The rite was over.

“Keep your shit down,” Chris warned. “Don’t tear up on us.”

“It’s been a while,” Scott said.

Zack spoke. “I hear you’ve been claimed for four years, Scott,” he said.

“Yale,” Scott nodded.

“That’s what they tell me. That’s beautiful. Very nice. A mighty Ivy.” Now something edged his voice. “You won, didn’t you?” He was looking straight at Scott. “You special motherfucker.”

“Zack.” Becket passed. “Not everything’s a competition.”

“Everything is a competition,” Zack answered. “Someone always misses out. A known fact. So you preserve what you have.” He had not switched from Scott. “You understand? ‘The first shall be last’?” He laughed. “A pretty story, but, alas, no. Who gets ahead, gets ahead.” Beneath his slanted hat and the mushroom of shaggy hair, the reptilian eyes were averted, roving. As always, his upper lip was perpetually lifted. Raw red bumps swirled in static constellations upon his greasy forehead. “A big roller,” Zack said suddenly. Then, turning back to Scott: “Take it. It’s given to you, take it.” He leaned back. “All that work does pay off, huh, Scott? The way is long, the trek is hard, but you’ve pursued the path into freedom.” He smiled invitingly. “Now play hard.”

Scott’s voice was clear and steady. “That’s what Adam used to tell us,” he said.

Luke looked up. Smoking slightly and easily, his mouth filled with a condensed ball. Dual jets emitted from his nostrils. With his head turned to Scott, he passed, not seeing to whom. Thick scruffs of hair hung around his nape. A white pen was slanted in place above his ear, and Scott noted, resting on his paint-splattered jeans, his left hand: just below his thumb, four jagged lacerations intersected a black scab. A slick orange crescent imprinted the corner of his left eyebrow. His lip was scarred. Now they eyed each other steadily, Luke and Scott, the old expression, absorbing and quiet. The room was silent. Luke had been staring with dull eyes into his hands through most of the time, neither speaking nor listening, but all at once he had snapped up. Gray spears flecked his irises. Although he seemed to be wincing still, he nodded resolutely. “That’s right.” There was something in his voice, guttural and plain, the way he said it. “I remember that.”

“That’s not how I remember Adam,” Chris interrupted. A container of guacamole and a plastic bag of purple chips lay at his feet, and he was bent over, dipping. “What about last year in class? Just standing there screaming and swinging and shit ––”

Becket grinned. “You’re thinking of Grimes.” His shaved cheeks gleamed. “Remember when he used to smoke with us? When we let him? That motherfucker used to choke to death behind the church wall.”

“That kid’s totally fallen off the radar for me,” Zack said. “Is he here tonight?”

“Everybody’s here,” Becket said. “Even Scott.”

Ethan adjusted. “How do you like the Annual, Scott?” he said.

“It’s my first year going.”

“Enjoy it. Grant’s is usually good. It’s the best weekend of the year. And it’s just the first month, almost the second.”

“This is a crib,” Becket said. “I know all about this place. You could get lost on the first floor. It’s a mansion. It’s ridiculous. Everybody’s here. He’s having over five hundred. More. Don’t put a number on it.”

“Everybody goes just to have fun,” Ethan said. “To completely lose themselves for a night. They’ll love you, even if they don’t know you.”

Scott said, “Why does Grant throw these?”

“Cause he can.” Ethan laughed.

III

Around midnight the party began to peak. The three hours before were merely a steady build-up of faces –– faces that brought lights, and with them drugs. But by midnight they had arrived: all of the high school, showing up, dispersing, complicating the baffling matrix of engagements. They knew the party was not over, not yet half over, and the lambent roar of the house became invigorated with the prospect of never-ending night. Now the smell of marijuana hovered above the pool, and boys slung screaming, delighted girls out of the water and carried them bodily through the open crowd-choked doors. It was easy enough to find Grant –– although more difficult for Scott to catch up with his brisk guide –– leaning against the dragon-snout of his car amid an adoring assembly. He had been drinking in the interim. Alyson was not with him, he told them immediately, because she had to call home. She was late, and her father was furious. But Scott wasn’t listening much. He was examining the car, the shining, dangerous curves. Grant noticed.

“Yeah?” he smiled, shifted a little. “My steed? You like my steed?” He gestured. “Go ahead. Take a good, long look at this motherfucker. Get a sweet ––”

Over the polished hood, Scott lit a cigarette, his eyes roaming. Others stood near, surveying appreciatively. Because he was watching his own face float on the fascinating mirror, Scott could not see how Grant no longer heard anything Becket was telling him. Still Becket talked at Grant, yet in Grant’s mind the voice had long ceased, just as all other sound and motion had not only stopped but dissolved, washed away so that only a single tableau remained. His expression utterly collected, he was looking past Becket’s shoulder, near the grotto. Something had caught his attention. Later, lying in fever on his dark bed in the huge house, he would still be unsure if it was imagination or not that she had looked back –– the amber eyes luring from across the water. It was a girl. From this distance, she was gorgeous. With her round nose and curved smile, her fair skin and red hair, a jagged ponytail waving above her lithe shoulders, she resembled a Renaissance beauty, a Raphael or Botticelli, the fluctuating light playing upon her vain features. She walked barefoot near the grotto, steady, aloof, her eyes slowly combing the unfolding space. A slash of fire was painted slickly across her brow. Grant watched her, her alabaster hips, her swanlike neck, the faint freckles spread over her cheekbones, her pronounced dimples and pursed mouth. At the moment that Scott admired an instant longer, and then glanced back, Grant had already torn himself away. Scott first saw that Grant was nodding to what Becket was saying, and then that Alyson had returned: she stood gazing at her boyfriend with a look of moist fawning. She had snuck up on him from behind, her hand lingering upon his peach back, slicked with sweat. Her touch then crept lovingly around to the muscles in his stomach, bulging above his narrow waist, and upward to his flat chest broadly spanning the length of his shoulders. Gleaming, his torso was stocky with a power kept in brooding restraint. Draping one arm sluggishly over Alyson, he grabbed up a drink from the table. He chugged the beer and threw the blue can onto the ground ferociously, stomping it with his foot. “Ten’s my limit! Ten’s my limit!” he began shouting exultantly, and, grasping the neck of a champagne bottle, mounted the Mercedes’ trunk and wrestled with the corked end. The cap shot off, glinting and spinning, and a jet-stream of blue froth burst bubbling. Soon the congregated audience was flailing wildly, their voices climbed to a serene, joyous height. Pulling two Bacardi handles out of the crowd, his heavy arms raised, Grant poured the spewing transparent liquid over the mob clogging the end of the pool. He started yelling, pointlessly, without words. Others took up the call: the ape-sounds resounded, clamored uproariously. A vacant light possessed Grant’s face. Swinging one bottle away from him in a violent parabola, he drank from the other with frantic relish, before tipping it over an underclassman girl, writhing and shrieking happily, baptized in the opulent holy water.

It was twenty minutes later that Scott left them, wandering to where, he was unsure. He pushed through the overflowing crowds, the incandescent house, stepping through a doorframe in a single stride. Soon he was in the kitchen, noting strange details. Somewhere close by, a coke can was opened savagely. In the sink, the skin-top of a lemon-disc floated in a soapy glass of gold-red iced tea. On a cutting-board lay a red ballpoint pen with a bent, pulpy needle. He kept moving. The microwave clock read a quarter till one. Leaving the kitchen, he found his way into the front hall. The music had ceased for a moment, and in the bright open space surged the dizzy confusion of a bazaar: bodies and voices reeling with dreams, wishes, worries. The overlapping venn-diagrams were whirlpools of shaking hands, surreptitious trades, rapid and businesslike –– streams and eddies, currents, electric with a buzzing pulse: a compact generator of smiles, shouts, kisses, faces relaxed, shocked, wide-eyed, all swarming around each other in dense incoherence. The heads were countless: never pausing, kneeling in corners, slumped on couches, packing the stairs, blocking the doorways. Glittered, rouged, painted to perfection, girls wore vacuous pilot-glasses, faded jeans, dangling earrings, wrapped in tasseled scarves. Birdlike in slender flocks, seeking hugs, exchanging handbags, their jaunty midriffs exposed, their voices in lavish imitation –– “Honey,” “Babe,” “Lover” –– their hair help up above flapping hands. Pink heart stickers covered the backs of silver cell phones. Flashing hoops hopped silently tickling their necks as they walked, the two arcs engraved on their lower backs revealed. Glances were gushing invitations, or spiteful contracts, used to penetrate and extract, searching with a consuming intensity. Derisive and aggressive, boys wore trucker hats and nice khakis, twirling long lanyards. They would condescend with a nod, a quiet grin. They shook hands, squeezed shoulders, their smiles easy, saying things like, “Glad to meet you, good to meet you,” “But here’s the thing, here’s the thing ––” Above the rims of cups, their eyes were officious. From the gaping mouths of baby robins poured forth the chatter of money, profit, people: the wallets were out, the hands darting. Starry-eyed freshman girls followed their senior dates, the hands leading to the staircase that wound upward into the higher floors. Scott’s eyes lifted. He knew the sensation, was overcome, the secrecy: the farther inner hallways within the house, the bedrooms lining the mazed corridors like a hotel. Locked and lightless, the guest rooms would be full of the awkward grappling of limbs, the steady current of breathing, quiet and enflamed, the risks of eyes among the sheets. It was again the empty tale of love, the incomparable beginnings: the fever uncertain and amazed, the terrified release of flesh –– tangerine lips, milky breath, mouths and hair, the contours of faces –– while in a fervor of speculation, foretaste, readiness, ingenuine smiles, the heart-arpeggios drowned out the quick monologues. Even in the upstairs rooms, the house had been stripped of most personal belongings. All jewelry, silverware, had been boxed up, all family pictures hidden away. The computers were unplugged, the bathrooms cleared of all but a bar of soap. Whole kitchen cabinets were vacated. Expensive pottery could not be found. The collages on refrigerator doors had been stripped to a white canvas. Still, the innumerable shapes that passed through sought out files, tweezers, lighters, groping with glass cabinets, shower-curtains, wrestling with locked cupboards. The floors were teeming with an exhilarated physical energy, a sea of booming noise spilling in and out of the entrances, winding up and down the stairs: urgent with lawless possibility, haunted with transience, the air was sporadic, thick, overwhelming. As wine-spills, cigar-ash, kicked-off muddy shoes, dirtied the rooms, as bodies began rolling on couches, as the inside horizon swelled even more with flowing tides, the mounting pressure pitched to an inconceivable mass discord.

Howling at the ‘mu’ (for Kara Everset to Allen Ginsberg)

Matt Rinker

poetry

How is now any different? Exhausted I read 426 consecutive lines of hysterical madness as You listened to Lester Young play 69 consecutive choruses Were you this exhausted?

Moloch! Moloch! You appeal to my mental tendencies Sell them back! Moloch! Moloch! False god related to a plant a shrub a Bush The holy horde preached prayers like a jingle Got drunk with God and feasted on his kid’s cadaver

I howl at the ‘mu’ on my knees Worn Exhausted “under the wartime/ blue floodlight of the moon” hearing the “bad music” as Ashcroft lets his eagles soar Eternity, Time, Alarm clocks, and the hedge plant successively successfully fall on my head

“Listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen bomb jukebox” How is now any different? Exhausted! Listening to the smack of thronged disillusionment stuttering, foolish, spiteful and wrong The impulsating cries of Iraq