Embodied Effigies, Issue Five

Embodied EffigiesSpring.2015

EmbodiedEffigies

Spring2015

Embodied E!gies, a creative non!ction literary magazine, publishes truth in all forms. "e magazine proudly gathers work from around the world, thanks to the

curiosity, interest, and sharing of our contributors.

Information regarding future issues, submission guidelines, andfeatured writing of Embodied E!gies can be found at:

http://e#giesmag.com

Please email us with any questions or comments at: embodied.e#[email protected]

Copyright © 2015 Embodied E!gies, John Carter, and Catherine Roberts. "e works presented in Embodied E!gies are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-

NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Typefaces: Trajan Pro, Minion Pro, Cambria, Bookman Old Style, Helvetica, Engravers MT, Znikomit. Cover, Verso, Masthead Images: public domain license, obtained from vintageprintable.com. “French Class” images provided by Kirby

Wright, used with permission.All rights revert to author a$er publication.

"e views and opinions expressed by authors featured in Embodied E!gies do not necessarily re%ect the views and opinions

of the editors.

Publication of Embodied E!gies is made possible by theout-of-pocket, not-our-day-job workings of

John Carter and Catherine Roberts.

We would also like to extend our unending thanks to everyone who made this issue possible: our contributors, our advisors, our families, our friends—"ank you.

Embodied EffigiesMasthead

Managing Co-Editors

Catherine Roberts holds a BA in English: Creative Writing from Ball State University and is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Non!ction Writing from Ashland University. She works part-time in her hometown’s library and balances family, school, and writing during the rest of the day. Her work has appeared in "e Prompt. Her current projects include continuing work with language and form. Catherine lives with her husband, Dan, in Indiana. "ey are expecting a son in August 2015.

John Carter is a 2013 graduate of Ball State University, where he earned his BA in English: Creative Writing. His most recent chapbook, At the Edge of the Fence, was completed in 2013, and his work can also be found in Volumes One and Two of "e Ball State Writers’ Community Chapbook Series, as well as "e Broken Plate. He lives in the corn!elds of Indiana with his wife, Chelce, and cat-child, Emerald, both of whom tolerate the stresses of living with a writer far better than they ought to. A more extensive list of his writing blood, sweat, and tears can be found on his website-- jekcarter.com

John CarterCatherine Roberts

Table of Contents

!"##$%&'()*'+',-./01'$%'2-3-04-' ' ' ' ' 556' !"#$%&'()($*+'%% % % %

70849'' ' ' ' 55:' ,(-+%.#*+/%

;/<%' ' ' ' ' 55=' 01$%23#4)

7<-',/9/0>1>#-',"%'' 55?% 0"/#$%5441$)%

@<-0-'A/8B##'!$%C'(4' 566% 6#'#%71/38#'9%

D$9"9$/%' 56:% ,+/#$(+%&#(:;%

7<-'E"%$>'2$98"#' 56=% <#'#;%<1'+$)+$% %

Table of Contents

!0-%><'D#"44' ' ' ' ' 56?' 6('9"%='(*;:% % % % %

7<-0-'"0-'F</494'$%'7<$4'G/84-' ' ' ' ' 5H:' ,1//"%!(3+1>:%

IC-'9/'J-##$-4' ' ' ' ' 5HK' ?()#%6$1@@

7<-'J/1B4'J//94'' 5H=% 7'+*%A1*#+':)%

L65*'D"9-0)$-' 5H?% =(//(#4%B188#C-+'%

' 5:6% !#C;+/%A+/:;%

7<-'7"49-'/M'D/%4/#"9$/%' 5::% ?+#;%7(D+$)%

Embodied E!gies | 1

!"##$%&'()*'+',-./01'$%'2-3-04-!"#$%&'()($*+'

I’ll see you on the other side. So long. Every muscle in my body clenches, as I brace for impact. No ONE can save me now. "is is it. I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. Not a care in the world. Not so long ago, that child was me. I hear a child’s laughter. I hear the %ap of a gull’s wings. "e world is clearer, slower in this moment. I hear chaos and shouting below. People are coming into focus. It’s TWO late now. "en again, I’m glad she’s not here to witness. She could have been the voice of reason. If only I could have seen her, spoken with her beforehand. Oh, my wise and caring mother. "at’d show him. I wish he were here to see this. Of course, my father’s nowhere to be found. A$er THREE months together. I never told her I loved her. She drove me to this. I did this because of her. I’ll never forget the day we met. Dear, sweet girl. "e memories overwhelm. My life %ashes be-FOUR my eyes. Would it have been quicker? Should I have gone head!rst, instead? Count down from FIVE and it will all be over. Something routine, monotonous, like counting. Focus on something, anything else. My mind’s racing like the world streaking by in my peripheral. Fear’s setting in. Like I can conquer death itself. Like I can conquer anything. So alive. Suddenly, I feel weightless. And, jump. Bend my knees. Say one last prayer. Close my eyes. Let my skin soak up the last few moments of sunshine before the cold silence to come. It’s too late to back out now. As much as I want to. Maybe it was all those steps. My legs have gone numb. Whatever you do. Don’t look down. Scurrying around, oblivious to what’s about to happen. "e people below seem like ants. It won’t matter in a few seconds. I have to pee. I can’t breathe anyway. Without taking a breath. On to the other side. Straight down. It will be over before I know it. Yes, I can. I can’t. I can do this. "ere’s my old neighborhood. I can see for miles. "is’ll teach them. Calling me chicken at my own tenth birthday party. Alright, it’s you and me, high-dive.

Embodied E!gies | 3

70849,(-+%.#*+/

Janessa had just le$ the apartment to pick up some Panda Express when a man knocked on our front door. He was carrying a fake-leather portfolio and his shirt mushroomed around his middle. His clothes were a little bit too big for him. His glasses were thick black plastic. He was wearing a lanyard.

Evening sir, he said. I’m part of a local program that helps people in their thirties and forties go back to school and build better lives for themselves and their families. I have a son and we’re staying at the shelter o& Harry Hines. It’s not as nice as the place you’re in here, sir, it’s not as glamorous, but we’re together, sir, and that’s what truly matters. I’ve been given a scholarship to El Centro and I’m going to be studying radiology. It’s a two-year program, but I’m determined. Do you know what the number one piece of advice people have given me while I’ve been walking around your apartment building today?

I stared at him. I thought about how cool it was outside, the !rst cool day since April. "e wind was blowing down the hallway.

Determination, he said. "at’s what everyone has told me. Determination. So let me ask you. What advice would you give me for improving my life and one day being as successful as you are?

Um, I rolled my tongue around in my mouth like I was digging out a popcorn kernel. He opened his portfolio and clicked a pen. Inside the portfolio there was a wad of cash and checks. It bulged against the pocket.

Determination? I said.

He nodded and wrote down the word determination.

Determination. Fantastic, fantastic, he said. Now, tell me, where would you like your magazine subscription sent? "e troops? Or Ronald McDonald House?

4 | Embodied E!gies

I thought for a second.

Ronald McDonald House, I said.

Excellent. Yes, excellent. "ey will appreciate your generosity, sir. "at will be twenty dollars.

Do you take a check? I said.

Absolutely, he said.

I went back to our bedroom, found our box of checks, and I wrote him a check. You wrote him a check? Janessa said when I told her what happened. You realize if he’s even just a little bit smart he could take all the money out of our checking account?

Well, I said, good thing he didn’t seem like the type.

Of course he didn’t seem like the type. "ey never seem like the type.

I don’t know, I said, I really thought he was telling the truth.

Mister. You always think people are telling the truth.

Which is true. I go along with things. Like four years ago when a man on my train convinced me to get o& my train, walk to an ATM, withdraw forty dollars, and then meet him at Starbucks where he would give me a !$y-dollar bill. I remember how he scurried o& into the darkness. I knew I was never going to see him again but I went to Starbucks anyway. I waited on the patio, sipping a decaf co&ee while the SMU students studied microeconomics.

I read a study recently that said 94% of homeless people actually do buy food with the money you give them. But then I read a story about a homeless couple in Sacramento who made $182 an hour panhandling in a Macy’s parking lot. "e story called them Gypsies.

Trust

Embodied E!gies | 5

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Josh said, it’s that you never know who you’re dealing with. We were talking on Josh’s porch, drinking bourbon and smoking pipes. It was 1:30am. "e sky was glowing and the trees were silhouettes.

So what then, I said. Never trust anybody?

Well I think that’s probably the smart thing to do, he said.

"e thing is, I said, I feel stupid when I give people money, and I feel heartless when I don’t. "ere’s no way to feel good about anything.

I haven’t felt good about anything for years, Josh said. I think the last time I felt good about something was my junior year of high school.

Josh blew out a mouthful of smoke and it glowed white in the dark.

Nice night though, he said.

Beautiful, I said.

But if we can’t trust each other where does that leave us? We can be saints or suckers and the di&erence is out of our hands. One night a man was standing in the lobby of my o#ce. His trench coat touched the ground. He wrote me a note that said he was deaf and needed diapers for his daughter. He asked me for ten dollars. I gave it to him. And then I walked to 7-Eleven and bought him a hot dog and a Dr Pepper. He looked me in the eyes when he shook my hand but I still had no idea what was going on or whether he was telling me the truth.

And even us, Josh said, sitting here drunk, telling each other things. Who knows what we’re going to do with this information. Who knows how we’re going to fuck each other over.

We can’t be trusted, I said.

Nagel

6 | Embodied E!gies

No one can, Josh said.

We might as well come to terms with it now, I said.

Yes, Josh said, sooner rather than later.

We swirled the bourbon around our glasses and held them up like we were toasting something. It was almost 3am and the moon was rising above the trees.

Trust

Embodied E!gies | 7

;/<%01$%23#4)

Once there was a little boy born smack in the middle of the country, close to some lead mines. He didn’t have a choice you see. First he lived in a square concrete house that was prone to mildew. His grandmother feared for their health. "en the family moved to a wooden house beside a creek beneath a railway trestle. "e trains ran day and night. He counted the engines. Sometimes there were !ve, but usually fewer. Once his brother kicked his tricycle tire. "e next morning it was doubled over, as from a blow (His father had backed over it in the car when he le$ for work). Later the family moved to a grey two-story house beside a pasture. "e dog chased the cows and got shot, but lived anyway. Later the dog killed a mother opossum with nine babies. "ey put a cross upon their grave.

At school the %ag was on his right hand side. He was not color blind. He did not like playing with the others. Once he gave his teacher a paddle for Christmas. His father brought it to school himself. He played a king in the play and a circus master in the variety show. "e girls ran around him in a circle like horses in a ring when he cracked his whip. His brother sang a song and a black boy tapped.

His parents took him to a fundamentalist Christian church where everyone was saved. He was saved as well, but he could not make himself believe it. He thought he was a moral coward. If he were not a coward he would get up in the middle of the night and go up to the “haunted house” in the woods at the end of their road. What he would do there he could not imagine. Nor was it important. Nor does it matter, for he never made the trip. Perhaps the devil was telling him to do it. He could not be sure. Perhaps the charcoal drawing of "omas Je&erson in the living room was telling him to do it. "e picture seemed to him the source and center of all evil.

He wanted most to be a martyr. In church he prayed for the coming of a war. He wanted to su&er for his convictions. He hated that they did not matter. He was impatient for tragedy, something to level the playing !eld between adults and children. He did not like being a child and he did not like children.

Embodied E!gies | 9

7<-',/9/0>1>#-',"%0"/#$%5441$)

It is eight A.M., and everything Bill does, he does in the slow, pre-co&ee con!dence of hardened routine. Bill kills his Harley Davidson’s engine, and they both breathe a heavy sigh. He pushes his sunglasses on top of his American %ag bandana, revealing stern blue eyes. His wispy Fu Manchu curls at the edge of his mouth. Other than his jeans, he is decked out in leather and black – leather jacket and vest underneath and black sneakers. Bill is average sized, !ve foot seven at most, but very stocky. He !lls his out!t completely. Bill leaves his motorcycle behind and starts towards one of his favorite haunts: a Dunkin Donuts on the border of Yonkers and Mount Vernon. Bill’s gait is a deliberate, authoritative waddle, sort of a con!dent lurch which, you might (correctly) deduce, conceals a great many past injuries. When Bill walks in, the regulars at his table – a broad looking Vietnam vet, a slick-haired basketball player, and a large man with a small brown moustache – are having a frantic conversation about 9/11. "ey interrupt each other as if to get in a word before Bill collects his breakfast and his booming Yonkers-accented voice takes the entire restaurant hostage. Once Bill is settled in, he gets the look of someone well at home. When Bill’s mouth opens, he becomes less of a co&ee-shop regular and more of a bard performing the story of his own life. He leans in to make his points. Everything Bill says commands a frantic intensity. His voice has a brassy tenor and it carries to all corners of the restaurant, even penetrating the bathroom door. "e regulars sit enraptured, speaking ostensibly when Bill takes a bite of his mu#n or a drink of his co&ee. But Bill doesn’t eat or drink much. You won’t see him with more than a small co&ee and a pastry. It is more Bill’s style to keep dominion over his table for several hours, going back periodically for several small courses. Presently, Moustache gets him going on welfare: “You know what they did in Louisiana? Anyone who wanted welfare had to have a drug test. "ey passed a law. And you know what happened? "ey lost sixty eight percent of their welfare patients. Sixty-eight percent were on drugs. "at’s sixty-eight percent they didn’t have to pay.” “You think that’s fair?” Slick-hair asks. Bill’s blue eyes go electric as if to con!rm that, fueled by ca&eine and attention, he planned to rattle on all day. “Do I think that’s fair? Listen, if you smoke a joint, if you take illegal pills. If you’re dumb enough to get addicted to drugs, you deserve what you get. Look. It says right on the bottle: Take

10 | Embodied E!gies

ONE pill with food. So if you’re taking two, three, four pills a day, that’s your own fault. If I had to get drug tested to make you your relief money, you should have to get drug tested to earn that money. It’s just common sense. People are just making excuses. “My one friend broke his toe a few years back. Guess what? He’s still not working. You cannot tell me that his toe is still broken a$er all of this time. He’s just milking this toe thing for all that it’s worth, and that’s the problem. "at type of person.” “Well what if he really can’t work, though?” Moustache is playing devil’s advocate now. Slick-hair and Nam-vet shake their heads, already wishing he hadn’t provoked Bill. “Can’t work? Bullshit. I’ve had two herniated disks in my back. Two in my neck. Broken collar bone. I’ve had two heart attacks. Broken ribs. And I haven’t taken one vacation. I went to work three days a$er my !rst heart attack against doctor’s recommendations. I have so much vacation time stacked up that I could take o& of work tomorrow and not work for a year. Yeah, don’t tell me he can’t work.” Eventually, Bill’s listeners will scatter or he’ll have an errand to run, and he will clear his trash and mosey out. What follows his departure isn’t a silence, just sounds that had been previously drowned out that !ll the ringing emptiness. "e gurgle of pouring co&ee stands out. Counter workers laugh and chat quietly. Chairs scrape against tile. "e clock ticks. Outside, an engine roars and purrs into the distance, its voice lost to the day’s clatter.

"e Motorcycle Man

Embodied E!gies | 11

@<-0-'A/8B##'!$%C'(46#'#%71/38#'9

We are sanctimonious, self-righteous. Simultaneously too young and too old. We contradict ourselves and sabotage each other. We are uncensored and unconcerned, but our true motivation driving us to such reckless abandonment is our desperate desire to keep the secret we all silently share: that we are scared to death. Tonight we go into the out-there, telling each other and ourselves that we can navigate through the darkness. ("ere’s a certain assurance that comes with being dumb.) We don’t have enough know to display our individual super!cial vulnerabilities, but don’t hesitate for a moment to grab onto each others’ shoulders when we stumble over something unseen in the dirt. One day we look back and recall the way the thin sliver of the moon so composedly positioned itself in the sky, ready to cradle something. We remember the one of us that didn’t it make it to the now. "e one of us who, at that point, was still most prominently de!ned by her ability to swig vodka straight from the bottle without making an expression, rather than the way her father fell so openly in love with the middle school math teacher. "e two who kissed that night and giggled through their teeth. When we look back intricate details that de!ned the time will have smoothed over like a !nger over a charcoal-pastel picture. We will !nd ourselves groundless when we realize the things keeping our feet planted have since been dispersed into particles. When we discover people never know who they’re going to be, even if they know. In the future our aimlessness will !xate itself on someone else, or something else, obsession serving as a distraction for what we don’t know how to do. For now, though, the acid-soaked colors of our dreams have not yet dripped like melted frosting. "ey are alive and, like the laughter, real. Our names are written in permanent marker; they’re scrawled across the stars. "ey spell our unambiguous desires, illuminated for all the world to see.


D$9"9$/%,+/#$(+%&#(:;

For A.G., hope you’re enjoying college

I am not the one who pulls him aside at lunch to scold him: Beards are against the rules for students.

I am the one he tells in the learning center as we struggle over Chicago Style formatting I haven’t done since college eighteen years ago.

I am the one who does not tell him how many years it’s been since I’ve compiled an annotated bibliography. I am the one who lets him believe, as I hope he believes, I am closer to the age of his elder sister. MLA I know like the back of my hand, but for this assignment I’m consulting handbook pages for internet citations we didn’t have when I was an undergrad while he checks his phone.

He has a dress code violation. "e subject heading reads: Strike One. Not shaving is listed as the reason. "is is his !rst semester on campus.

I am the one who hears his gasp, then his !st meeting the desk. He asks, “Have you heard of these rule? Ridiculous! I tell these teacher: ‘But for the mans, these is natural!’” His palm opens, gently rubs the !ne ebony scru& across his neck and cheeks. It’s the !rst time I’ve seen his o$en-smiling face grow petulant.

I am not eighteen anymore or a boarding student in a foreign culture. I have shaven enough dark hair from my legs and armpits to know it takes consternating upkeep to remove from skin as pale as ours.

I am the one who thinks You could be my son. I am the one thinking, I know the o!cial line, but then there’s practicality. But then, rules are also rules.


But what di#erence does it make to his academic performance? Days ahead of time he checked his schedule and because of his soccer game during our usual meeting contacted me to reschedule for Friday. "at is not the work of a careless student. But he has been careless in comportment which, although antiquated, is an important sign of respect on campus.

I am the one who reminds him that it’s not worth another violation and a campus court case before the dean and student jurors for such a silly omission. I tell him that a student of mine last year was a juror and she said they get out the rule handbook to prove a student knew better.

“All those students, they speaking against me?” he asks, his eyes widen for a blink.

I do not want him in trouble: this is the never-mother but still-a-mother part of me. I admit I’ve never been in student court, although that’s what I’ve heard happens. Along with testimony from faculty and sometimes dorm deans.

“Scary,” we say, almost in unison.

“Yeah, not worth risking,” he admits.

We both could name male teachers raising money for charity with their Movember facial hair.

I am the one to whom he con!des, “When I see these teacher now, I always will thinking to myself, ‘I hate you.’ Each time.” "at he trusts me makes me feel as if I really were his sister’s age, that I am young enough to be a con!dant.

I !nd myself chuckling, and he, too, laughs.

"e way he whispers hate is almost cartoon comical, with no malice in his tone. He is again the student responsible enough to let me know about his game, worried that his grade will su&er. I refrain from asking which teacher. I am careful to say nothing against other teachers. I sign his hall pass a$er the citations are alphabetized and he thanks me twice for helping him so that

Citation


now he is o& to an electronica dance in the student center from 8-11.

“It is good, these night in front of big game, to feel these freedom a while.”

I nod, although I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve played a team sport outside of gym classes, the number of times I’ve felt free of rules in my lifetime. I pay my bills before late fees; I visit the dentist twice yearly; I have two private-college degrees instead of fancy belongings.

I am the one locking up and returning home. Alone, in a woolen coat and scarf walking on pavement into a brisk wind, my boot soles crumble bus-yellow elm leaves.

I am the one smiling, repeating this phrase at each step, “’But for the mans, these is natural!’”

Faith


7<-'E"%$>'2$98"#<#'#;%<1'+$)+$

Caught in the tempest. Waking in darkness, alone. A blast of noise and violence inside my skin. Hold my own hands tight, repeat my thanks.

"ankful for the lightning $re love that makes me miss her.

"ankful for the pin sharp joy of the taste of living fruit and for the texture of %owers.

Stop to breathe. Endless dark odorlessness. Clutch at the shirt that is hers, but now it only smells like me. Mind like a knife in a blender. Can’t hold these hands of mine anymore, clammy cold. Can’t keep my body still, a hurricane that my sheets attempted to con!ne, !ghting through twisted cotton. Not one person can know this, the me that terri!es. Please. No one, but me and I am not enough. Try again for thankfulness.

"ankful she doesn’t know this orphan-hearted need.

"ankful to still bring the memory of her %esh and touch to my scared $ngers.

"ankful for the taste of her hair that I have clutched in my teeth.

Crying. I am all %esh, all the time. Scratch claw and teeth to bite. I want nothing, but the scent and taste of her now. Nothing unfolds in front of me. "e box of my home and its hell of products to make me feel. "e box of my things, returned, and I won’t unpack them. No. "e carefully folded underpants she washed for me. Can’t touch them without too much feeling. Oh, and I feel. "is vacancy I took, but cannot !ll. I am lonesome as an animal kept half dead and forgotten, staked out in the storm. Wet cold with tears and the vomit sadness of my stomach. It is 4 AM.


"ankful for the rain swollen window ledge, smelling like nights of my childhood.

"ankful for the abrasion of the cats tongue licking my forehead into the hairline, her small body, a dark vibration.

"ankful for heat and cold and light and sound.

"ankful to live now when so many are already gone, thankful for my turn, my chance, the youth and fortune to still stand.

Please. Please be still. My heart pumps slower; my stomach stretches; my tears that are scatter-shot all over me begin to feel only damp. See the plum edged peach %ame !lling me. Light. Hope. Heat. Love. Gentleness. See it. See it. Do not twist my hair. Do not pick the imperfections of my skin. Do not !xate. Peach plum %ame. Breathe evenly. Regulate. Regular. All the worries fade out at the edges like an Instagram and for a fast second I am perfect, measured calm. It happens out of nothing, just like it came from. I sleep until it happens again.

"at’s the ritual.

Once, I was radiant; and she was asleep in my arms. Once, that was true. I tell it to myself, again and again.

"e Panic Ritual


!0-%><'D#"446('9"%='(*;:

THE CLASS WAS SPLIT in half, with two rows of chairs facing each other. Miss Davies, a heavyset teacher in a tailored blue muu’muu, rambled on in Parisian behind a podium fronting the chalkboard. Speaking English was interdit. Students were supposed to keep their eyes on Miss Davies. "e boy gazed across the room at the girl opposite him, the one with the short aqua skirt. Her blonde hair spilled past her shoulders but her ears seemed to hold everything in place. She wore a necklace of irregular puka shells that reminded him of jagged teeth. Her beauty mark hinted at Marilyn Monroe vulnerability. She stretched brown legs into the aisle between rows—it was as if she was tempting him to touch her. He saw green streaks in her hair. He knew that was from the Punahou pool, where she practiced synchronized swimming. "ere was the scent of chlorine whenever she’d pass him in Dole Cafeteria. "e boy had felt like a creature obsessed, sneaking past the gym and squinting through the cyclone fence trying to catch a glimpse, his !ngers clutching wire. He’d seen her li$ a leg out of water, high arch the foot, and point her toes at the sun. He despised himself for spying without taking action. His days were meha and dark before he had known she was alive. He’d listen to love songs like “Ma Belle Amie” on his transistor trying to imagine a girlfriend. Now the belle amie had arrived. It felt as if his very life hung in the balance of having her but he believed his fear of losing her would tip her away. Was he even worthy? He hated his dark complexion, average build, and the slanted eyes that came with being hapa haole. He wished there was a magic lever he could pull to swing her into his arms. He imagined being alone with her on a deserted beach, where he held her in the shallows as the trade winds toyed with her hair. "e girl tapped a slipper on the tiled %oor of the class. She pursed her lips and appeared to be humming. "e boy pretended to be on a street in Paris. “Bonjour, mademoiselle,” he whispered. She met his eyes and smiled a crooked smile. It was the kind of smile that made him look away because it cut through to his soul. His heart pounded. It was earthquake ground. Had she really heard his whisper? Or read his lips? His skin trembled with desire as he struggled for a foothold on an earth rocking with waves of emotion.


Miss Davies stood at a table beside the podium, one where a slide projector and record player were perched. Someone turned o& the lights. Davies pressed a clicker and a circular tray of slides perked to life. She put on a record. Images of a cartoon couple played on a screen unfurled in back of the room. Davies advanced the slides to match the narration coming o& the record. Monsieur and Madame "ibaut lived near the Ei&el Tower, shopped at the boulangerie, and existed on baguettes and steaks with fries. "e boy saw himself as Monsieur "ibaut and the girl as his wife in an alternate universe, one where he spent his days worshipping Madame "ibaut while strolling hand-in-hand along the Seine. "e boy looked away from the screen. His eyes met the girl’s in the %ickering half-light. "is time he didn’t look away. He recognized a longing in her that mirrored his own, a hunger to be held and kissed. Her lips parted. Here was the acknowledgement he’d wanted, a communion that made him feel desirable and %icked on a switch that turned his future into a bright place. "e needle slashed the record and the narration ended. "e screen froze on a scene of the "ibauts entertaining guests in their %at. "e lights came on. Miss Davies ambled down the aisle between rows, stopping in front of the boy. She crossed her %eshy arms. “Monsieur,” she groused. “Oui, Madame?” “Prenes vos yeux de la jeune $lle.” "e boy recognized yeux and jeune $lle and put it together. He heard snickering from his classmates. "e bell rang. Miss Davies reminded her students to check their mimeographed schedules for the next assignment. "e girl glided past the boy with her crooked smile and headed for the door. She was gone. But she had found a secret passage to his mana. He realized, no matter what happened in that world beyond the door to French class, she would be a part of him until the day he died.

Notes: interdit: forbidden hapa haole: part Hawaiian and part white mana: spirit, divine power meha: lonely puka: hole

French Class


Wright


7<-0-'"0-'F</494'$%'7<$4'G/84-,1//"%!(3+1>:

"ere are ghosts in this house.

"ere are ghosts and they do not %y, they do not %oat, they do not walk with creaking steps up and down the landing. "ey develop like mist, slowly turning from nothing to something. "ey are Polaroid pictures hanging on the walls, vacillating from empty white to image, image to empty white. "ey cling to the low-lying parts of the house: the basement, the den, the bottom shelf in the pantry. On chilly, humid nights, they dri$ to the second %oor.

Some of the ghosts I built by hand, but many were handed to me, gi$s murky and opaque. One uncle’s mental disability. Another’s mental health. "e phantom limbs of the stunted apple tree far in the back of my grandparents’ backyard, the one branch a perfectly horizontal gymnastics bar. I don’t remember how old I was when my grandfather, too old to bend under it when mowing, took the saw and cut o& my hanging branch. "e fruit-wood seeped around the scar and sent out new shoots. "ey went up, not horizontal.

When I was a sophomore in college, my mother, crippled by unknown pinches and pulls, was forced to crawl up the stairs to her bed. "is was how things were now, my father said, this was the routine. And there stood I, the guest back from school, at the head of the steps, at the goal of the climb, and I looked down at my infant mother and knew this was not something she wanted me to see.

"e worst ghosts are the accidental ones.

At night I count backwards from the day-numbers to the night’s, and with each decreasing digit I banish a specter. It is a silly custom, but it is mine, and with the diligence of a duckling I follow. I


pee. I wash my hands. I climb under the sheets and if it is cold I warm my toes under the backs of my knees. "en I count to the end. Some evenings I never get there. Some evenings I’m stuck, tight-chested, in the crepuscule of digits between 201 and 183, and as I lie with twitching feet, one little ghost wanders in and sits. She does not make a sound.

When I was a child, rational, logical, perhaps eight or nine, a child who liked to count the pennies and glass stones she kept in a wire-latched mason jar, I liked to imagine what kind of a number “Molly” might look like. My mother did not understand. If, I argued, there is an in!nity of numbers, then every word in the English language, every word in every language, every sound or grunt or exclamation with no alphabetical representation, was the name of a number. How many zeros, I wondered, did a “Molly” have?

My mother told me she didn’t think it worked like that.

I went back to my room to count my pennies and my stones.

"ere are Ghosts in "is House


IC-'9/'J-##$-4?()#%6$1@@

"e rhythmic patting of hands on skin drums and the tinkling of bells at the far end of the farmer’s market draws my attention. I pay the farmer for a bag of green peppers and then stroll to the open space near the fountain where a small crowd has gathered. In the shade created by the north wall of the Amtrak depot are bright, moving colors, mostly red and gold and turquoise, a %owing stream of scarves and skirts and veils. Women dancing. Women dancing in midri&s and low, hip-hugging skirts. Belly dancers. Middle-aged belly dancers. I know their age not from the lines on their faces (in truth, I haven’t yet looked at their faces) but by their bare, jiggling bellies. Bellies thickened by changing levels of estrogen and androgens, which slow the metabolism and send new weight to the abdomen instead of to the butt and breasts. Bellies once stretched taut over hard, full wombs, now hang so$ and loose. Bellies scored by pink or silver stretch marks. Why are these women dancing here and why have we stopped to watch? One dancer steps forward for her solo. Rising in a mound around her navel is loose doughnut of pale %esh. Silver-white stretch marks radiate outward from the navel and along the sides of the waist. As the dancer shimmies, these lightning bolts %y in a stormy sky. I li$ my eyes. Her eyes are ringed in black eyeliner. Her cheeks and the corners of her eyes crinkle as she smiles. A string of gold coins frames her face. Her long blonde hair hangs in dozens of skinny braids. A man on the edge of the audience watches with delight. His own belly is round and protruding, a real bay window, a big enough shelf that he could sit his co&ee and half-eaten kolache on it and have his hands free to clap to the music. Big enough that it’s probably been years since his sandaled toes have seen sunlight. I try to imagine his belly without the striped polo shirt (this clothing choice is the opposite of camou%age!). It looks !rm though I suspect that it jiggles when he laughs or coughs or walks; the omphalos probably looks sad and sunken. "is isn’t a belly that gently laps over the belt buckle. No, this paunch is out there for all to see, like that of the laughing Buddha, Santa Claus, President Howard William Ta$, Jackie Gleason, the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island, John Candy, and Homer Simpson. It’s the drawing of a man accompanying an article about the link between heart disease and a deadly sin; it’s the before photo accompanying a weight loss ad; it’s half the reason why restaurants have placards in the window warning customers: “No shoes, no shirt, no service.” "ere are all of those other bellies, too, each beautiful in its own way: a baby’s, smooth,


rounded, and kissable orb; a puppy’s, pink, taut, milk-!lled drum; my ex-husband’s, more of a %at tire than a basketball, in spite of all the jogging and weightli$ing, and still inexplicably sexy; old cats, with their sagging burden that swings from side to side as they run; the bud of a belly sported by young women in their low-slung jeans and shirts that do not cover all; my own concave belly before my two pregnancies; my own mid-life belly that has lost its edge and will never, I mean never, again appear in public in a two-piece swimming suit. "e grand-bellied man watches, too absorbed in the show to !nish his prune kolache. Oh the delight, he must think, of holding a pond in one’s belly, cradled by rocking, swirling hips, that roil the water, that stir the pond-bottom mud, that spin the waters into eddies, that raise waves too high and energetic for your little boat; that send the silver-white !sh darting in turbulent waters.

Ode to Bellies


7<-'J/1B4'J//947'+*%A1*#+':)

"ere is a small café in Sydney Road, Brunswick, barely a hole in the wall with a few tables and chairs and a menu no longer than a page with large, child-like printing on it. Inside the café it is warm when it is !lled with customers. Because the pasta and the sauces that go with it are famous along the umbilical strip of tar with tra#c teeming into and out of the city of Melbourne. On a mantelpiece, above the heads of the diners, sits a pair of boots, they are old boots, the leather is cracked, torn in places. "ey are small boots that once belonged to a boy, who drowned in the Hunter River near Newcastle in NSW. "e boots sit there and some of the customers, when they look up from their meals think they can see the small remains of river sediment encrusted in the leather. Others fancy they can trace the shapes of the small boy’s feet in the leather. Everyone who dines in the café knows about the boots because the owner of the café, Mary James, is the owner of the boots and she tells any new customer her story about the boots that belonged to the boy, who was only seven when he drowned. "e mother of the drowned boy gave Mary James’s great grandmother the boots, and they were eventually handed down to Mary. But the real interest that arises amongst the regular customers is why the mother of the drowned boy gave the boots of her dead child to Mary’s great grandmother. "e customers can never really decide why the boots were given away. But whenever a conversation is struck up on the subject of the boots, Mary always comes from the kitchen because she senses that words are being spoken about the mystery. It is something that has bothered her ever since her mother handed her the boy’s boots, through the car window just as Mary was about to drive out of Newcastle to settle in Melbourne. And there is that rich-red-silt smell to the leather of the boots that reminds Mary of the Hunter River when it is in %ood. An odour Mary used to smell when she lived near Newcastle. "e smell haunts Mary, even when she is in bed, upstairs, trying to sleep a$er a hard day and long evening in the café below the bed. Sometimes Mary wakes with fright because the %ood-river smell has her convinced that the Hunter River is %ooding, rising up through the %oorboards of the top storey of the tenement in Brunswick. It is then that Mary’s husband, sensing her fear, wakes, reaches out in the dark and pats


Mary’s stomach, plump from child-bearing, strokes it tenderly until he hears the so$ snore of his wife begin. But sometimes the gentle hand of her husband is not enough to soothe Mary; she gets out of bed, walks so$ly along the corridor, checks on her three children sleeping soundly in their bedrooms. Sometimes she will go into one of the rooms if she cannot see the face of one of her children. She leans over the bed, !nds the face, turns her head sideways, close to the face of the child, checking that her son or daughter is still breathing. "e next morning, a$er such a night, Mary is wan, tottering about the café and kitchen from lack of sleep. She looks as though she has been taken from deep water by a !shing net, she looks as though the loams of water have washed away any sign, any feature that identi!es her as Mary James. "e customers sense it, word seems to spread along Sydney Road and the café won’t do the business that day it usually does most days. When Mary is ovulating, when the blood is thick between her legs, she cannot rest at all during the night, she constantly checks on her children and the next morning she is a ruin barely able to cook the pastas for her customers. Not that the customers say anything. "e women, sitting at the tables, look with concern at her, they dare not even glance at the boots sitting like small tombstones on the mantelpiece. Female hands reach out, as Mary, carrying full and empty plates, moves amongst the tables, the hands touch her, gently. No words are spoken. It is a communion of grief.

"e Boy’s Boots


L65*'D"9-0)$-=(//(#4%B188#C-+'

“Its short feet are tipped with suction pads that enable it to tirelessly climb slopes and walls.”

"e time I slipped o& the rocky ledge and pulled her down with me: I wish I had a clearer memory of it. Where were we hiking that day? Watkins Glen, maybe. Or Ricketts Glen. Somewhere in Pennsylvania or upstate New York. I was holding onto her arm because I do not trust my own footing. "e ground was slick with the dew coming o& a nearby waterfall. I cannot summon a clear picture of the geography. How far did we fall? What stretched between us and the ground? How did we land? Where did we have scrapes or bruises? Our fall happened so quickly I almost couldn’t believe it was real, couldn’t process the cause, didn’t store an imprint of the images in my brain. She must feel disappointed and frustrated with me sometimes. In six years together, she has never understood why I can’t run down hills, or jump over rocks, or cross certain bridges. I blame my temporary paralysis on my upbringing in the New York City, where every terrain I knew was a sidewalk along a paved road, and every “hike” was a well-trodden path through a manmade park in the center of a network of steel buildings and subway trains. I choose green for the color of my walls and blankets because to me it seems exotic; to her, green is home, familiar, who she is, the world and her in it. She can cross a streambed or a sand dune or a !eld of boulders as easily as if she had suction cups on her feet. Meanwhile, I straggle and struggle yards behind, or I insist that she slow down so that I can clutch her arm as I calculate my careful footsteps. She always says things like, “Just trust your sense of balance,” but I lack that kind of mutual understanding with my body. As a child I had no forest in which to train my limbs for outdoorsy environments. But we both know my urban birthplace is just an excuse for my stubborn immobility. On a podcast I heard a man describe his fear of heights, and I realized the same was true for my own anxieties and limitations. It’s so obvious and senseless at the same time: standing near an edge, looking down, I have the feeling—not a desire, but an impulse—that I might throw myself o&. It’s so easy and so possible that it seems likely, even inevitable. I don’t expect her to understand that, or feel it, too, but I need her to know that I might fail, that danger is real and present. Every time she says, “You won’t fall,” those words do nothing to reassure me, no matter


how many times she is proven right. I have fallen before, so I must fall again. Remember that time, I want to say to her on each new hike. I slipped o# the rock. I pulled you down with me. I feel myself the anchor tied around her ankles. We all fall down.

#10: Caterpie


!#C;+/%A+/:;

!"#$%&'&(#)*#+*&,%-#."#/0&#1'%&.0"*&(

Q: I like your necklace. What’s it called? A '()*+,-( doll?

A: "e name Matryona was a popular women’s name before the Revolution, derived from Latin’s mater, mother, like a portly Russian peasant. “-shka” to make the word diminutive—“dear mother.”

Q: Does it have a smaller doll inside it?

A: "e !rst '()*+,-( doll was made in 1890, inspired by either Japanese nesting dolls or Russian nesting Easter eggs, at a time when Russia was searching for her artistic North, for her soul.

Q: Did you get your necklace when you were in Russia?

A: I found it in a plastic bag taped to my bedroom door, unlabeled. It was the beginning of my sophomore year of college, and I returned to school with gi$s for my friends, '()*+,-( dolls and rubles laminated into bookmarks. Whenever someone mentioned Russia, I snapped to attention, “like a puppy,” said my friends.

Q: What does your Russian friend, Irina, say about your necklace?

A: M()*+,-( dolls are made from lithe hardwoods—linden, aspen, birch. Aged and dried. Carved


with a turning lathe, a knife, a chisel. Smallest doll !rst, complete set formed inside out. Painted with disproportionately large faces to emphasize eyes, expression, soul.

Q: Do you think '()*+,-( dolls are kitschy?

A: My Russian friend Irina says Americans don’t understand the Russian soul. American movies like War and Peace and Anna Karenina are naively presumptuous. When I ask her to describe the Russian soul, Irina smiles and shakes her head. “I can’t,” she says.

Q: What do you love about Russia so much?

A: Once, I saw !reworks coming from the direction of Red Square. I was alone with my friend Abby in the hostel’s kitchen, and we pressed our cheeks against the window, trying to !nd a dome or spire of the Kremlin. "e sky was still pink, even this late at night; against it, the !reworks looked pale, almost translucent. Other people crowded around the window, pressing against my back, so I wriggled away. I never found the Kremlin spires from that window, only chimneys and the tops of cottonwoods and !reworks that matched the sky.


7<-'7"49-'/M'D/%4/#"9$/%?+#;%7(D+$)

I’d hoped that Germany would !ll some of the holes I had remaining every day I was awake. Like the ones in black lava rock, when air gets trapped and the hot lava dries and you’re le$ with a strange texture that looks unearthly. "e structure of a sponge but the material is new and rough and resistant to your !ngers. "e rock is black, the blackest black you can imagine, so any light shining on it doesn’t get re%ected; it just seems to disappear into the ridges and cracks. (Later my mind !nds the word for the stu&: pumice. Doesn’t sound dark and intricate enough.) I went about !lling those empty spaces. My back braced hard against a wall scrawled with a question I refused to see: what will satiate something like me? At seventeen, knowing less than ever, I made an attempt with honey and bread—new %avors, maybe stronger than pain. My healthy mother had shunned our country’s !ltered junk in plastic bear-shaped bottles. But here in Europe was the real stu&, gritty and tangy and sweet, in a jar whose metal lid clamped sticky with richness, from bees on a farm not far away. And the bread, not my hometown’s kind, those rectangular blocks of pre-cut slices sealed in a bag with a twisty tie. "ese fresh roasted loaves greeted me each week with hope and yeast, their crispy outer layer %aking like a hard-earned sunburn, with an untouched inner white %u&, just begging to be dipped or coated in the golden mush. "e combination melded like an angel joining heaven. Why had I been banned this panacea all my life? I sat on the tiled kitchen %oor, a$er taking the bread from a lower cabinet and the honey from an upper one, and indulged. All while watching the oven’s electronic clock for a sign that someone might be close to arriving. I’d eat and eat, my eyes suspended between those lit red digits and a vague space in front of me. Sun %owed through the big windows, trimmed with thin green-and-beige checkered curtains. But my height put me below the counter, and like a mouse, I could watch the evening’s shadows progress undetected. Not yet...not yet...I could pretend...two more bites...it wouldn’t be obvious, if I le$ a few inches of the loaf, didn’t !nish it entirely, that the family hadn’t simply had an unusual need to balance one dinner’s cheese. Or that an unseen guest had gobbled up some polite o&erings. My host mother, the most frequent shopper, wouldn’t wonder what had happened to a piece she’d just bought. Not silly at all; nothing like an alcoholic hiding bottles.


But once while imbibing, I encountered an unexpected appetite. "e family’s cat came over, interested, sni#ng, wondering what I might give him. Here, Berlin, was my !rst taste of life with a feline; during childhood my mom had only conceded to guinea pigs. I’d heard animals weren’t suited for people food—even chocolate could kill a dog—so I attempted a wave I hoped translated as shoo in any language. But the cat returned to my side even a$er I’d wrapped the last few bites of bread and found the honey a place to hide. What did he want? I checked: water, yes; enough of his dry pellets. I went to sit on the couch, stretch out my intestines a bit and go over some homework. "e cat jumped up to my le$, close, fur almost brushing my jeans. Black and white, curious eyes. I li$ed my papers from my lap like it was natural and he padded over. His weight settled me. He began kneading my thighs as though he knew I had pain that needed massaging away. "en he rested, cozy as a cushion. Looking down at his contented circle, I knew there was no going anywhere for a while. And despite the family headed my direction, the people so kind and open they seemed even more foreign to me, despite the chill outside that threatened to turn biting, I agreed to just be.

"e Taste of Consolation


Contributors’ Notes

Don Adams recently has published in Contemporary Buddhism, Anak Sastra, Crunchable, Radical Orthodoxy, "e Qouch, Luvah, Hyperion, disClosure, Genre and "e Gay and Lesbian Review. He is Professor of English at Florida Atlantic University and spends a part of each year living and working in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he has been a Fulbright Scholar and a Visiting Professor of American Studies.

Rachel Belth is an instructional designer, creative non!ction writer, and poet. She holds a BA in Technical and Professional Communication from Cedarville University. For work, she pieces together powerpoints, elearning modules, and other corporate training materials for a variety of companies. She is a fairly recent transplant to Columbus, Ohio, and she enjoys reading as many good books as she can get her hands on. Her work has appeared in Prick of the Spindle, *82 Review, and "e Jewish Literary Journal, among others.

Dylan Emmons is a writer, educator, public speaker, and consultant living in Westchester, New York. He holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and writes predominantly non!ction. Diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome at age six, Dylan o$en writes and speaks about his experiences living with the disorder with the goal of promoting understanding for and improving the quality of life of individuals on the Autism Spectrum. Dylan works at a community college as well as with charities teaching reading skills to underserved children.

Greg Bogaerts is a writer who lives in Australia. He has had many short stories published and !ve books.

Melanie Faith enjoys warm weather, snail mail, and collecting shoes and books. She is an auntie, tutor at a college preparatory high school, and freelance writing consultant. Her writing has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and most recently published in "e Writer’s Monthly Review Magazine. Her %ash !ction placed in the Bevel Summers Prize for the Short Short Story and was subsequently published in Shenandoah (2014). Her Tiny House chapbook was published by Porkbelly Press in 2015, and her WWII-era poetry collection, Catching the Send-o# Train, appeared at Wordrunner eChapbooks (summer 2013) and is now available at Amazon.


Ryan Frisinger is a professor of English, holding an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University. He is also an accomplished songwriter, whose work has been featured in numerous television shows, such as America’s Next Top Model and "e Real World. His non-musical writing has appeared in publications like Foliate Oak Literary Magazine and "e MacGu!n. He resides in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with his more-talented wife and couldn’t-care-less cat.

Leah Givens’s writing has appeared or is upcoming in "e Healing Muse, Camroc Press Review and the ethics section of the journal Surgery, among others. She is currently compiling a collection of essays. She received her MD from Washington University in St. Louis and has worked primarily in medical research. Her photography is also widely published, and a selection can be seen at www.leahgivens.com.

Kara Goldfarb received her BA in Creative Writing from Ithaca College. She is a native East Coaster presently living in sunny California. She is currently a freelance writer and an editorial associate for an independent poetry and art press. She’s very into music and very into candy.

William Ho!acker was born and raised in New York City. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cartridge Lit, Meat for Tea: "e Valley Review, Sundog Lit, Crab Fat Literary Magazine, and others. He currently lives and works in Tempe, AZ.

Lisa Knopp is the author of !ve collections of essays. Her most recent, What the River Carries: Encounters with the Mississippi, Missouri, and Platte was the winner of the 2013 Nebraska Book Award in the non!ction/essay category and tied for second place in the 2013 ALSE (Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment) book awards for environmental creative non!ction. Currently, she is completing two books: Like Salt or Love: Essays on Leaving Home and Bread: A Memoir of Hunger. Her essays have appeared in numerous literary quarterlies, including Missouri Review, Michigan Review, Iowa Review, Gettysburg Review, Northwest Review, Cream City Review, South Dakota Review, Connecticut Review, Shenandoah, Creative Non$ction, Prairie Schooner, and Georgia Review. Six of her essays have been listed as “notable essays” in the Best American Essays series (1990, 1994, 2001, 2002, 2008, 2010). She is a Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where she teaches courses in creative non!ction.


Mike Nagel’s essays have been published by "e Awl, Apt, Curbside Splendor, Switchback and elsewhere. He and his wife live in Dallas.

Molly Rideout is a writer and the Co-Director of Grin City Collective Artist & Writer’s Residency. Her !ction and non!ction has been published in the book Prairie Gold: An Anthology of the American Heartland (Ice Cube Press 2014) as well as journals such as Bluestem, Marathon Literary Review, Dirty Chai Magazine, WarBing Magazine, "e Grinnell Review, and "e Wisconsin State Journal. Her visual art !ction piece “Due Date” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize this year by Dri$wood Press.

Sarah Sorensen has most recently been published in Monkey Bicycle, Black Heart Magazine, and Skin to Skin. She holds an MA in English from Central Michigan University and is currently completing a second MA in Film "eory. Her work is forthcoming from Gone Lawn, Cactus Heart, Your Impossible Voice, and Whiskey Island. Find her at www.type!ngertapdancer.wordpress.com.

Kirby Wright was a Visiting Fellow at the 2009 International Writers Conference in Hong Kong, where he represented the Paci!c Rim region of Hawaii and lectured with Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Snyder. He was also a Visiting Writer at the 2010 Martha’s Vineyard Residency in Edgartown, Mass., the 2011 Artist in Residence at Milkwood International, Czech Republic, and the 2014 Writer in Residence at the Earthskin Artist Colony in New Zealand. His futuristic thriller, THE END, MY FRIEND, and his second poetry collection, THE WIDOW FROM LAKE BLED, were both released in 2013. His third poetry collection, NOTES ABOVE WATER, was published in 2014.

Adams,

Belth,

Bogaerts,

Emmons,

Faith,

Frisinger,

Givens,

Goldfarb,

Hoffacker,

Knopp,

Nagel,

Rideout,

Sorensen,

Wright,

Don

Rachel

Greg

Dylan

Melanie

Ryan

Leah

Kara

William

Lisa

Mike

Molly

Sarah

Kirby

Documents

Embodied Effigies, Issue Five