John Jefferies is a concerned citizen.

Here are two pictures that should help you in case of Z-Day, brought to you be Jonathan Jefferies.

Memoire Involuntaire or, Upon Noticing a Woman

Memoire Involuntaire or, Upon Noticing a Woman
Zoe Etkin

Her heavy scent rests in the air before your nostrisl
Take an easy breath, send the particles flying
Pique the olfactory, the limbic--

A bowl of potpourri sits on a doily,
On an end table full of pictures of you--

The candy dish
a tiny bible
A lion and lamb statuette

Your grandmother's living room:
Peppery sweett, scripture-soaked walls.

~~~

The woman stands in her bathroom: marble-white

Soaks herself in French perfume,
Drinks it like holy water

~~~

Grandmothers shrink

Hug them
And your face is buried--

Your grandmother's house is toxic:

Cinnamonbark Dried rose petals
Ammonium

~~~

he woman's husband searches

Tucks his snout into every possible crook of her body--
nuzzling all the places that smell of clean skin

~~~

Try renting your grandmother's apartment--

You can't

She fingers her way through the walls
Soon as you step off the elevator

She exhales--
The wallpaper dampens, peels

Run a hot bath--
She pours oil into the water

And when your eyes are closed--

Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro
Chris Woods

Lying under crumpled sheets, the old man puts down his history book. Plastic tubes are inserted into his nostrils to help him breath, and with each breath in comes a quick shoot of air, hissing shortly. On his dresser is two purple hearts he received in the Second World War and small lead sculptures of soldiers of most wars from 1800 on, and every soldier of World War II from every country, except the French. The old man couldn’t find those toy soldiers anywhere. He breathes again sharply as he son sits down in the chair next to the bed.
“How you doing pop?” his son asked, and the old man looked at the wall. “Fine, fine I suppose. A little bored. I just wish I would die already.” His son winced, “don’t say that pop, please don’t say that.” The old man patted his son’s hand. “Sorry, David.” There was a long pause, son staring at the wall, father staring at the ceiling.
“Do you know a story that goes like this, David?” his father started. “An old warrior lay on his death bed, waiting for his last breath. He had seen many days and many battles, and lived through them all, only to be killed by time itself. After days and days of waiting, he whispered to his wife, ‘please, have mercy. Kill me.’ The wife took her husband’s knife, and held it to his throat, but hesitated. ‘Do it!’ he cried, tears running down both of their cheeks. But the wife couldn’t draw a drop of blood.” David could feel tears building up behind his eyelid, but he held them back, squinting his eyes tightly.
“Finally, after weeks of waiting, the man saw a dark winged creature in his window. ‘You’re here at last,’ he said, gathering the strength to sit up. The winged creature took him by the shoulders, and they flew out of the window. They flew and flew over the trees and through the clouds, up to a mountain white with snow. ‘Kilimanjaro,’ the old warrior said, and the winged creature let out a screech. ‘So this is where I die,’ and the old warrior let go.” The only sound that could be heard was the quick hissing of the oxygen tank.
~~~
David put his keys on the table, announcing, “Diane, I’m home.” His wife leaned back, peeking her head through the door, and smiled. “I just put the kettle on,” she said as she nodded her head for him to come over. The embraced, he lightly gave her a peck on the cheek, and looked at each other for a while, Diane’s smile fading to frown. “What’s wrong?”
“It was something dad said when I saw him at lunch break. He said he wanted to die, just get it over with already.” David turned away from his wife and looked down. Diane put her arms around him, her head on his shoulder. She could feel his slight tremble. “The thing is, though, is I kind of agreed with him.”
“What?” Diane jumped back and took her arms from David. “How could you say something like that?”
“I don’t know.” He put his hand to his brow, covering his eyes. “I just don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
They stood, avoiding each other’s eyes until the teapot began to whistle.
~~~
“It’s good you got this done,” Diane said. “It’s like a cleansing. I always feel great when I clean up.
“But I wasn’t cleaning up, I was packing up my dad’s old house.” David was growing more and more irritable as Diane unfolded a shirt from, looked at it, and folded it back again, placing it beside the box she got it from. Moving his father’s things out of his old apartment was the last thing David wanted to do, but with the landlord’s patience running thin, she threatened to move the old man’s stuff to the dumpster. After all, it had been two months without an occupant, and without rent. David let out an overdramatic sigh that tells his wife that this is the end of the conversation. He stared down at the table.
“Okay, fine” she said, giving up. She lifted an off-white bed sheet out of the box and fluffed it out.
“Hey, did your dad have a bird or something?”
“What? I think you’d know if he had a bird,” David looked up at his wife, and in her hand, he saw a large black feather. “Where did you get that?”
“It was here in this bed sheet. The feather fell out when I shook it.” David took the black feather between his thumb and forefinger, holding it close to his eyes. The words “Kilimanjaro” escaping his smiling lips.

On "On the Road"

This one is loosely based on the Michael Silverbatt assignment we got.

It was nearing 10:45, and I still didn’t have my ticket. Of course, this was my fault; I am a hopeless procrastinator. This morning I smooshed all of the clothes I would need for two weeks, enough books to keep me entertained on a train ride that would collectively last about three days, my laptop, and other various accessories. A voice over the intercom announced that this is the last call for all passengers, and I rush to the person behind the desk. I was headed from New Orleans to Chicago, where I had a 13 hour lay-over to tour the town, and from Chicago to upstate New York. All together, it would take me two days, which was okay. I was the one who insisted on taking a train instead of flying, and I was the one who insisted on waiting to book the train ticket until the last minute. So instead of a peaceful ride along the east coast, I have to ride an extra 10 hours through the ugly, mid-western states. Strawberry and cotton farms and dying houses are nice to look at for a little while, but they get old. I need a little variety here! On top of that, we had to go through Mississippi, a state even crappier than Louisiana.

Even though I was making a last minute flurry to get to the train, I was pleased. I wanted to make a dramatic entrance like in old movies, sprinting as the train chuga-chugged away, tossing my heavy suitcase into the open train and diving in after it. However, this was a fine piece of high-tech machinery. It had doors. Doors and a man that shut them.

“Almost missed us,” said the doorman with a smile. “Yeah, I suppose so.” I would not be cheered up. I got on the train, looked back and the doorman shut his door behind me. Without yelling an “All aboard!” How could he do this to me? This was perhaps the most disappointing moment in my entire life. “Aren’t you going to say all aboard?” I asked, desperately. The man chuckled and told me to take my seat. This was not a good start to my first train ride. I collapsed in my seat at the front. At least, I thought to myself, there’s barely anyone on this train. If luck was on my side, I could have two seats to myself tonight. However, there was at least 12 hours to go before I would consider going to bed. Best not to get my hopes up.


Despite all of this, the ride out of New Orleans was pleasant. I found a sick enjoyment in snickering at all the people stopped at the railroad crossings that I was always stuck at, and found a few of my friends’ houses along the way. Then, Lake Pontchartrain. I daresay this was the first time I found that dark, disgusting water beautiful. The way that brown water contrasted the light blue sky was something I’ve never seen before. Rusted train tracks lined with oyster shells and broken bits of rock run parallel to the Causeway Bridge, one I’ve crossed many times. This new perspective was odd, and a bit rejuvenating. Maybe it was this new perspective combined with the odd Icelandic chirpings of Sigur Ros that made me want to teleport out of this crappy train and onto the track, where I could search for perfect skipping stones. I would have to teleport, of course, cause of the damn doors. Now, the horizon was graying, and I knew it would rain soon. No problem, though, because along with the amazing ability of teleportation, I could also fly. This current fascination with flying would come from Sigur Ros’s “Glosoli” music video that I have recently seen where kids fly. God, I envied the crap out of those kids. Flying has been a dream of mine ever since I saw “Peter Pan,” and I’m sure I share that experience with many people. I could fly home, get a poncho, and fly
anywhere I wanted to go.

This daydream snapped to a halt rather suddenly. What I guess was a man-made inlet, only thick enough to hold the train tracks, turned into a wooden, incredibly scary bridge. Please refer, to the picture here. This picture was taken in 1952. I don’t know the exact date that this bridge was built, but I can almost assure you that this is the same track that runs now. There are some addition steel supports possibly added because of the hurricanes that blew through here over the years, and some ballsy graffiti artist’s work here and there, but otherwise this bridge has been untouched for 60 years. This was quite surprising considering our city’s impeccable cleanliness and well-kept qualities.

The lake bled into Ponchatoula, then Hammond, then miles of farms, until we hit the most rundown of rundown towns I’ve seen: Jackson, Mississippi. After seeing my third pack of stray dogs in two blocks, and an abandoned building called “The Good Samaritan Center,” I decided I’ve seen enough of this town. I grab my bag and reach in for a book. In the case of books, I did think ahead. A few days before I made a trip to Borders and bought Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” mostly, and I think this is the first time I’ve ever bought a book to impress a lady. I was working at a faux-fine-dining Italian restaurant, in the summer, in New Orleans. The term “slow” often came up when working in the service industry. This was an understatement. On a quote-unquote slow night, I would be lucky to get off without serving a table so I didn’t have to roll silverware. Trust me, the twelve bucks I would be making wasn’t worth staying in the sweltering back room, making sure the linen was right side up so the frayed edges wouldn’t show.

So, I had a lot of free time, and I started chatting with one of the bartenders. It was hard to find someone back home to talk to about books, so when I saw her with reading Hemingway, I got giddy. A cute lady with one of my favorite authors? Impossible. I subtly (not really) ask her the first question I could think about Hemmingway, and she immediately told me she dug the journalistic approach he takes in his prose. Yep, she passed my little test. She loved to talk about Kerouac and Buddhism, but I’d never read anything like that, so then, before the train ride, I decided it would be a perfectly fitting to read On the Road, while I was on the road.
I would read until I got bored, I decided. "And this was really the way that my whole road experience began, and the things that were to come are too fantastic not to tell," says Sal Paradise, the fictional version of Jack Kerouac. What a cool name to have, I thought. Almost as cool as Jack Kerouac. Immediately I wanted to be friends with Sal. Dean’s character was interesting too, but I did not get Sal’s fascination with him. His back story was solid, his obsession with the road explained by his birth while his mom was travelling, and being the son of a travelling bum. But, overall he seems to be a nut-case, getting Sal into trouble with the law and with women.

Before I know it, it was almost 11 o’clock in the evening, and I decide that staying up any later would be pointless, because I’m on a train and there’s nothing else to do. Out of the corner of my I a saw a man take a beer out of his cooler and open it with a sst, and I consider bribing him for a beer, but decide not to. Just before I pass out, ear resting on the window, the chug sounds lullabying me to sleep, a large man sits next to me with a frown. “Is this alright,” the train stewardess says (I don’t know what you would call them), and he grunts an approval. Shit. Please God, don’t let this man snore. Sure enough, a deep, soft sound creeping up out of his body. This sound builds, and builds, and builds, until his entire body jumps, the final wake-up snore loud and sharp, in turn making me jump. And repeat. All of this in the span of 5 minutes. I blasted my softest piano music, which is kind of oxymoronic, to tune it out. Eventually, sleep finally comes.



Drifting in and out of consciousness the entire night, I forced myself back to sleep on multiple occasions. Hopefully, I could sleep off most of the day. I wake up, however, at around 9 o’clock, and the train is completely stopped. I hear the light whisper of a man behind me explaining his catering business, the pros and cons. The large man beside me has vanished. Beside the train is slow moving freight train and I assume that is why we’re stopped. I pick up the book again and start reading. Sal hitched his way to San Francisco, and is working as a night guard while his friend Remi tries to sell Sal’s screenplay in Los Angeles. Reading is slow at this point, I’ve never been to this part of the country, so I’m looking out the window every now and then, catching glimpses of farms and houses. I like the way the farms are all lined up straight, and I bend my body to be at the correct angle. Most of the corn stalks are lined so they form a weird oval shape, with a few stranded in the center. The smaller plants, though, seem to always take a straight path. Besides grape vines, which I haven’t seen any of, I think Soy Bean farms are my favorite. They’re fairly small plants, and look nothing like you’d think they’d look, they kind of look like spinach plants. My eyes strain, following the crops, until they quickly fade into the city.

Standing in the dusty Chicago train station, I get the sudden urge to hop the next train. I tell myself I’ve never been to the West Coast. The East Coast is nice and everything, but I’ve been there at least once for every year of my life. I wonder what my life would be like if I had a friend like Dean, someone there to push me. Would I have the balls then to leave with a little cash and the clothes on my back? No, I decide this world is faster, more expensive, and more dangerous than 50 years ago. I grab my bags and settle on this place, Chicago, as a new enough experience for me.



And for your enjoyment, here is Sigur Ros' "Glosoli" so I don't look totally insane.

Lady & the Dress

I apologize for the low quality of the pictures, I actually had to take a picture of this wonderful piece done by my good friend Kaitlyn Levy. When I find a scanner of some sort, I will put up better pictures of this.
I would like to think Kaitlyn again, forever, because she spent countless hours working on this for me, when all my other artists sorta crapped out on me. So thanks
again Kaitlyn!

Concept: Kaitlyn Levy
Story: Chris Woods
Art: Kaitlyn Levy






To be continued...

March of the Dust Bunnies

March of the Dust Bunnies
Anthony Valdez

The striking shafts of morning sunlight slice through the trees and blossom on the ancient house’s hardwood floors. Spinning in the light of a newly awakened sun and echoing the shuddering breath of an old house coming back to life for a new day, the tiny dust motes shine. The dust motes rise lazily from every sunlit surface and with them rise the memories. The gamboling romps and gorgeous occasions seem to fill every space with chatter and laughter and purpose. The house creaks and moans with the longing to once more have those days, to be put to the use that its makers had intended it for. A mighty structure such as this is for lives to be lived and laughter, for hopes and dreams and heartaches.
And now, what is left?
Dust. Dust and the cry of a derelict house mourning the death of its purpose. Dust and memories. Memories thick as the film on the broken ceiling fans and empty window panes. Memories caked on the mantelpiece and floating along a fractured and forgotten hall. Each floating moment drawn into the atmosphere by the deep, slow breathing of the abode, like some primeval Hill Giant. Each inhalation is filled with a piece of the mystery. Each creaky word the house speaks is alive with the age-old spark, the memory of life.
When the bits and pieces of an old house begin to long for a purpose once more, one of two things will happen. Something will come along and fill the void, or the house itself will give in to its hopeless cause and surrender to destruction and decay. But when the living space becomes the living, how can it choose to go quietly into a weather-beaten death?
* * *
There is a tickling sensation that the house can feel in its timbers. Something is inside. It is walking softly and lightly through the basement, brushing up against the support beams, making its way to the stairs.
The house softly squeaks the stairs as its guest ascends them, trying to communicate a welcome, and then stops and falls silent. The house didn’t feel it’s basement window being tampered with. It doesn’t remember any feeling of entry, just that something is now inside. The house will occasionally let some of the animals from the wood and fields that surround it slip in through the chimney or shove their way into the spaces between the walls. Not many of the animals stay because without the mess that humans make, there is nothing for them to eat or destroy but the wood the house is built out of. If insects dare to eat at the house’s wood, it invites mice and birds to eat the bugs. The house even has a family of blue jays that stay underneath its roof’s overhang in the spring and a few mice and voles living near the front door year round. While the animals are wonderful as guests and pest control, rodents and birds don’t have the grandeur that the humans had. They could never throw parties or decorate with much more that their own nests and droppings. How then, if the mice are out in the fields gathering grain and the jays have already gone for the oncoming winter, did this somebody get inside unnoticed?
The house almost shivers when the stranger wraps a calloused hand around its brass basement doorknob. The door squeaks and rattles as the hand tries to turn the knob and shake the door open. Handling doors like that is much too rough for the house and it shakes dust and dead insect bodies from the rafters onto the somebody’s head.
“Hey! Quit doing that you. I ain’t going to hurt nothing.” Says a grainy, low voice. The house is taken aback. It has never been directly spoken to aside from when its previous inhabitants said that they would miss it upon their departure. The house felt something small being stuck between its door frame and wetness as its lock, knob and keyhole are sprayed with grease. It squeaks a stair, questioningly. An instrument is slid into the keyhole and gently moves up and down as one by one the tumblers click into place. The lock clanks open and the intruder slowly turns the knob and enters the kitchen.
“Oh, just wonderful. Marvelous, if I do say so. This shall be the workshop. And the morning light is absolutely perfect.” The stranger says.
A loud groan is issued from top floor and the house smacks a blue-paint-peeling shutter against a window.
“Yipe!” Says the stranger. “Now don’t you be getting all upset with me for nothing. I just came because you were wanting someone to live here and I needed to have some quiet. You wouldn’t believe the noise in those mines. Always something clanging, someone shouting. A gobbie can never get away from it. I am a mechanic and I’m not interested in creating a new rail system or self collapsing mine carts for those quota-crunching rock-heads trying to hide all the fairy ore before the humans can get to it. The whole idea is a load of rubbish. Those humans wiped out a good deal of one another when they decided gold was worth something besides just being another rock, so lets let them have all the rocks they want, maybe they’ll quit bothering us and get rid of more of one another.”
The house groaned high in its rafters at the last.
“Oh, I see,” the creature said, “you want them to come back. That is why I’m here, I suppose, because you wanted some company. Well, as a part of what those silly mutated apes commonly refer to as the fairy race, I am quite excited to be granting wishes like my ancestors were once prone to do, with a price of course. I want to live here, that will be the price you must pay, and in the process I will fill your halls with, if not true life, then with something at least close to it.”
The house lightly taps it’s shutters twice, as if to say, “Well, alright.”
* * *
A month passes and the house and its inhabitant grow fond of one another. The goblin works on what he calls “mini-mechs,” small clockwork creatures made in the image of the animals that live in the forest and fields that surround the house. Mice and spiders, birds and butterflies, a raccoon, cats, a couple of frogs, even a large lynx that the goblin spotted in the mines once while passing an air vent roam the halls and rooms of the house, along with various combinations of animals, like frogs with eight spider legs, butterbunnies with two foot wings, and battles, beetles with leathery bat wings. The house feels energized from the activity and tries to will its windows into transparency whenever the sun rises in the morning and shines on the goblin’s tools and parts spread out on his worktable. Twitching frog limbs and silvery mechanical feline heads. The parts and pieces of each mechanical being are made by “dust bunnies,” little whirligig tumbleweeds that gallop up and down the walls and float on the morning breezes as they suck up dust. When a new part is ready they fall to the floor wherever they are and bust open, spilling a cog here or a spring there. The house creaks floorboards and rattles windows as the goblin nears dismantled dust bunny bodies during the afternoon search. The goblin speaks to the walls and floors, telling the house what the new parts will make and thanking it for the use of its dust.
One particularly cloudy evening as the cold is frosting the windows and the darkness inside the house is fought by the mini-mech fireflies, the goblin finds a dust bunny stuck in a hole in one of the house’s smaller rooms. The goblin picks it out gently with two fingers and lightly blows it into the air. A few of the fireflies twirl down into the dark hole and the house sighs. Intrigued, the goblin pulls up the loose floor board and reveals an old moth-eaten journal. MaryAlice is written on the cover. The goblin opens it and begins to read the first entry:
July 11
My grandma once told me that you have to really live in the world to have it remember you. She said that as long as you live like you mean it, then you can live forever because the world will never forget you. I know that I will never forget her. I know that she will always live in this old house and that just because she’s died doesn’t mean that she is gone. She is always here. When my door squeaks open in the morning and the sun shines through my window, and when the house moans in its sleep at night, I know she’s there. I see her all the time in my dreams, just standing there at the foot of my bed, smiling. In my dreams I jump out of bed and giver her a big hug and she lifts me up and holds me really tight. I give her a kiss on the cheek and we go downstairs to have a midnight snack. So I know she’s here. Momma can never see her, she says she wishes that she could dream about her as much as I do. Momma was sad for a long time, but she’s happy again now. She says that she believes me when I say that grandma is in the house at night, but she also said that she didn’t believe me for a long time. Momma didn’t want to live here for a long time after grandma died. She used to say that she was stuck with this old house and it was going to make her crazy. Now, she says that she doesn’t want to go. I don’t want to go either.
~Mary
* * *
Big trucks show up at the house one evening. They carry bulldozers and a crane with a wrecking ball. For a month the goblin and the mini-mechs protect the house from the machine’s attempts at demolition. The house sits, silent and scared, hope sinking down into it’s basement and leaking through the cracks in the floor. The mini-mech mice crawl into the fuse boxes of the trucks and chew through the wires. The lynx and the birds break into the drivers seats and spend the nights filling them with branches and dirt. The raccoon twists off the fuel caps and stuffs dust bunnies in. The gasoline isn’t heavy enough to bust the bunnies when they are full, so the whirligig balls bounce around in the tanks absorbing fuel until the raccoon lets them out.
The workers get angry and can’t understand how people a breaking in because the house is in the middle of nowhere. They set up watch the next time they come to demolish the house. The raccoon is spotted by one of the men. The magic that animates the clockwork fails on sight and the mini-mech raccoon swirls back into dust.
They take their machines to get fixed and come very early one morning. “Alright Al, let her have it.” BOOM! SMASH! SHATTER! BANG! ROAR! The house screeches and bellows in agony as the wreaking ball crashes into it. The bulldozers then push the scattered remains down into the basement where it is set ablaze. Only the half melted basement doorknob is rescued because one of the clockwork mice pulls it out. The mouse was spotted though, and fell into its component dust particles.
* * *
The next day the goblin appears back at the empty, charred site. He sends the only thing he grabbed on his escape, when the house was first struck, into the crater of the basement. The lone dust bunny floats down and lands in the ash. With a little spark and a crack it falls apart and a brass key is left in its wake. The goblin jumps down, retrieves the key and fits it into the soot covered doorknob. With a tiny click, the lock engages. He smiles and walks into the forest with the coming of a new day’s dawn.

Redlight, Greenlight

Red Light, Green Light
This past Christmas break, my mom found some old photo albums. I have virtually no memory of my childhood, just flashes of images, but somehow my brother remembers everything. Flipping through, I noticed the amount of pictures with me and my dad, me on his shoulders, him watching me bat at little-league, both of us with our tongues sticking out, showing the color the snowballs (snow cones everywhere but New Orleans) made them, mine was red and his was tongue-colored because he didn’t have a snowball. My mind sort of works like those photo albums, snapshots of things, just an image from an event, enough for me, if I think about it long enough, to remember what happened. Or, I’d remember parts of the event, mostly just the beginning, and make up the rest of it. Realistically, of course. For example, I remember the female security guard at LSU Dentistry School kicking me and my childhood “girlfriend” when she caught us “French-kissing” (she learned it from her mom’s soap operas) behind the main building. I assumed, of course, that the building there was a regular spot for us two to be alone, and that the first time she suggested “French-kissing.” I said ew, but did it anyway.
“You and your father were buddies” mom said, and I responded “really?” We’ve just never been very close, from as far as I can remember, that is. I mean, car rides are so uncomfortable with him. The radio too low to hear, the awkward silence building up until you want to hum or scat-sing under your breath.
Back then I had a huge alien head (still do, most normal people’s hats don’t fit it) and buck-teeth to match. I could fit my thumb and have almost enough space for a pinky between my front and back teeth, perfectly accentuated by strategically placing my lower lip under these massive set of teeth. It was a comfortable little nook where I could store it. Also a runny nose, can’t forget about that. However, all of these attributes combined somehow made me sorta cute. Maybe it’s because all little kids are cute, or maybe I was an ugly cute. Anyway, I had a less dramatic Oscar Wao experience in day care, St. Andrews, two “girlfriends,” one I don’t remember at all, the other named Madeline. Like the one in the row of twelve. She even had the redish-brown hair.
~~~~
I was antsy and borderline hyper in day care. While all the others were taking their afternoon nap at day care, I lay fidgeting, waiting for the hour break to be over. I tried getting up, playing with some LEGOs, but it appeared to be a break for the adults more than for the children. I was picked up and put right back on the crappy mattress every day until I gave up, and stayed put.
After a good thirty minutes of staring at the ceiling fan one day, I decided to get up and go to the bathroom to kill some time. Anything was more entertaining at that point. I sat straight up, and heard a muffled voice asking me what I was doing. Without looking up, I told the voice, going to pee. The voice giggled, and in turn, I giggled, which erupted into laughter, and a loud hush from all sides. I looked up to my partner-in-giggle, and there lay the pig-tailed Madeline. Since then we were inseparable.
~~~~
We had Terabithian imaginations. When we heard that at one point the Nutria population in New Orleans was such a problem, the city was offering $5 for a tail, we took things into our own hands. Armed with a tennis racket, a red plastic bat, and my Davey-Crockett had, we headed towards the pond by Madeline’s house. Of course, the pond was too small to have Nutrias, but it didn’t really matter to us. Invisible Nutrias became invisible knights, dragons, trolls, until we couldn’t swing our tiny arms any more.
Sometimes, during summer, my dad would take us to the gym. While he was inside, lifting weights, we would go to the pool. "Don't jump off the diving board," he would say to us, just before leaving. Of course, we still did. I would pretend I was Peter Pan, and she, Mary, and everyone else in the pool were pirates. If we jumped near anyone, we'd swim away as fast as we could, to the edge of the pool, where we would lift ourselves out, and jump in again.
When my dad came out, he caught me jumping off the diving board. He sat me down on a pool bench for ten minutes. When I said Madeline jumped off too, he said he didn't catch her, did he? He walked off, and I grumbled more about pirates.
~~~~
Redlight stop, Greenlight go. The stoplight turns around, and screams Greenlight! Make a break for it, run, go, but don’t get caught. Redlight, and the stoplight turns around. Don’t let it catch you. Greenlight! Gogogo. Redlight. Greenlight! Go! Redlight! Stop! Ah, caught you. Start over. Don’t be in such a rush, the stoplight will always be there. Trust me, as a seasoned veteran I know exactly when to go and when to stop. It’s all about timing. Ready? Runforit! Aw, too bad, you got caught. You gotta pay attention, do exactly what I say, okay? And- go! No, no, no. Too slow, that time. You’ll never be the streetlight if you move that slow! Greenlight! Redlight!
~~~~
When I can’t think of anything to write about, I take a long shower, and that’s where the image of Madeline came to me. Buzzed from cheap red wine, hot water soaked my head and the steam creeped up all around me. It brought me back to the picture I saw that Christmas break in the photo album was us two. I had on seersucker overall-shorts, a spider spread in the middle with eight shoes and a red cap; she was wearing a pink dress, poofing out, and red bows in her hair. Our hands held tightly as our moms push us against the wooden fence to take a picture and we squeeze out fake smiles. Her mom invited me over via my mom, and for the first time in my life, I went to someone’s house without the company of a family member.
~~~~
Let’s tell them we got jumped by Billy, he’s the neighborhood bully. He would do it. Come on! We’ll say on our way back from snowballs, he and his little brother stopped us and asked us for our change. We said no, of course, that it was our money and we were saving it for another snowball for later or something. He pushed me, and you stepped in. You could be like Prince Charming saving me, the princess. And then we’ll say he hit you, and you bled from your mouth. Stick out your tongue. Good, strawberry. Do you know what blood tastes like? Just say it tasted bitter. Tell them it tasted bitter, and we’re home free. This way, Billy will get in trouble, and we can keep the change. I’ll do the talking. Stick out your tongue when I say you bled.
~~~~
Years later, in a poetry workshop, we each draw three words out of a box. With these words, we write everything that comes to mind, and the teacher underlines what she thinks is interesting, and finally we write a poem including all of these lines. I picked diamond, spacewalk, and spiders. The first drafts involved my father and my childhood. Eventually, I end up writing about her, though I only partially realized it:
On the lake behind the levee,
bathes the girl in the sun,
the light reflecting on the waves
leaving blue spots when I close my eyes.
The floaties of oxygen and tube
around my waist remind me of
Diving Bell Spiders –
I break through both silver
silk bells into hers,
sharing breath.
She stalks— the black widow,
and shows her dark stomach
with the red hour glass –
she comes, puts my hand under
her shirt, the soft bump
still forming,
and asks “How does it feel?”
~~~~
A dragonfly catches my eye while I was watching the baby alligator in the swamp that surrounds Nature Camp. It’s our last day here, and summer is winding down. Keeping still for hours, the baby alligator’s patience finally pays off, and picks off the dragonfly, and loudly swallows. The wooden pathways and buildings are built above a swamp, a perfect area for bugs, and thus spiders. I pick up a Daddy Long Leg; Madeline tells me they have the most venomous bites in the world, but their mouths are too small to hurt us. I believe her, but swipe the spider off anyway. After we were taken inside, a special guest from the Audubon Zoo brings cases with preserved spiders and tells us about some. The others peer down at Black Widows and Brown Recluses, and the spiderman points out the red hourglass and the violin on the spiders, and how dangerous they are. But my attention is on a very shiny, smooth spider in one of the ignored boxes. I ask the spiderman why there is glue on this particular spider’s butt. “That’s a Diving Bell Spider, or, more commonly known as, the water spider,” his voice sounded fake and uninteresting as he tugged his graying goatee. “That glue, as you so cleverly pointed out, represents a water bubble that keeps them alive underwater. They spend most of their lives underwater.”
Most of the others have lost interest and gone to look at the live animals, the snakes or play in the Japanese Sand Garden, but I remain giving the spiders another look. They give me the pee-shivers, but excite me nonetheless. However, Madeline grabs my hand, and pulls me towards the stuffed bear.
“I found the bullet hole!” Six feet of grizzly bear greets everyone in the main building of the nature center, arms stretched out and mouth wide open, showing every one of its nasty yellow teeth. The older kids told us the bear is real, and there is a bullet hole hiding somewhere in the fur as proof, but none of us have found it yet. “I think it’s here,” she said, pulling back some fur and pointing.
“I don’t see anything.” I said. She grabbed my pointing finger and pressed against the skin. “Feel that?” she asked.
“No, not really. Well, I dunno, maybe. I might feel a bump, but I don’t see anything.” Now her eyes roll, dramatizing it with a shift of the head.
“Gosh, you’re such a pain. It’s right there!”
“Okay, okay, I believe you. I just don’t see it, is all.” There is a long lull in conversation, and I look away. She breaks the silence, “I don’t want to go to Hanes. I want to go the St. Anthony.” Her mom can’t afford a private school, so she’s headed to Hanes Elementary, one of the better public schools in New Orleans. I’m headed to St. Anthony of Padua, a Catholic school. Pretty bland one, but better than most public schools.
“We’ll still see each other enough, though. We have the weekends and maybe some weeknights, won’t we?”
“Yeah, we might. But we used to have every day.
“It won’t be that bad.” She rests her head on my shoulder, and it rests there until our next activity, tie-dying Nature Center t-shirts to bring home. We say our goodbyes, and I get one last look at the spiders before my mom picks me up late, almost when the center closes.
~~~~
It’d been a few months since we left for elementary school, and today was the last day I would see Madeline. I was back at her house, comparing our handwriting. We still didn’t know how to spell, but we knew our abc’s. I had big, childish writing, but hers was small and neat. When I show her the way I write that usually gets me in trouble, with my head resting on my left hand, like I’m asleep, she tells me one of her classmates writes practically upside-down, contorting her hand around the paper. I say that’s weird. The living room is cluttered with the usual Bud Light cans and empty Camel packs. We agree to go outside and chase the nutrias around the pond, but first get equipped with a plastic bat and a tennis racket. Nutrias are supposed to be really vicious, and have been known to kill small dogs, she tells me. Scared, I look out towards the pond and see little brown dots, some moving, and decide I don’t really want to go. But before I say anything, I’m saved by Madeline’s mom. She asked us to bring some soup to Jim, her boyfriend who lives down the street in a house boat.
“Why don’t you live with your dad?” I asked her. “Who, Jim? He’s not my dad. My dad died when I was one in a car wreck.” She said this nonchalantly, and I, having no experiences of death, asked what it was like. “I don’t want to talk about,” she said, and we walked the rest of the way in silence.
Finally, we got to the boathouse, the bowl soup and our nutria weapons in tow. Jim was curled up in a ball on the couch with a wool blanket over him. The entire place dark except for the glow of the TV, even though it’s still the afternoon, and he gives us a weak “hello”. We give him the soup, and Madeline says we’re going to tell jokes in bedroom. She whispers “greenlight” into my ear. I don’t know any jokes, but know what she means.
The boat rocks and we start to giggle. The door is locked behind us, this is the only place we can do anything. We giggle some more, and “French-kiss” like she taught me the year before. Basically, we touch the tiniest bit of our tongues together. I yell out, “haha, that was a good one,” obnoxiously loud. We had to be inconspicuous; the walls are thin, and we can hear the TV and the clinking of spoon to bowl in the next room. I said I had to pee, she asks if she can watch, but I say no, and she giggles, and doesn’t put up a fight about it. The walls are thin, and as soon as my stream hits the water, I hear giggles from the bedroom, and I start to giggle.
I don’t know who starts it, but we end up naked, giggling at each other on either side of the bed. Nothing new, we used to take baths together when we were younger, but now we’re just curious. We want to figure things out. I say something like, “that’s so weird,” and she points out a mole on my right testicle. “I don’t remember that being there!” I say, cracking up, and she calls me mole-y, and I’m starting to lose my breath I’m laughing so hard. But, a heavy knock on the door, and the laughter is cut silent. Even though we’ve taken baths together with our parents there, we knew we were doing something bad.
“Madeline, I have to get to the bathroom!” Jim couldn’t keep the soup down, and was beating at the door. “Hold on a minute!” "What's going on in there!" There was a fumble of keys, a dashing for clothes, but it was too late. The key made the loudest noise a key has ever made entering a keyhole.