The Mewsings

This Is The Mews Humor Issue, Dammit

2008-02-25T15:59:00.000-08:00

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The Totally Not Strung Out Cairn Terrier Humor Mewscot

*****

Kick Back With A De-Caf Vegan Boilermaker, A Worldmusic Cd, And La Cosa Laffa Nostra.

I'd like to think that just because we're writers, we're funny. And I'd like to think that creating humor requires more sophistication than just, say, blowing up a toilet with a cherry bomb. Well...okay, that is kind of funny. I'll give you that one.

But I tend to navigate away from people who thought "The Vagina Monologues" was THE most hilarious, unexpected and titillating name for an off-Broadway show. So crazy! So edgy! There's edgy, and then there's...middlebrow edgy.

Here's some more Stuff That I Don't Find Funny, and That If You Think It Is Funny, Then The Infrastructure Of Your Life Is Depressing and Uninformed:

Mucus

Teen movies where someone is tricked into taking a laxative and pooping at an embarrassing time

Dyed hair

Computer generated babies

Computer generated dogs

Droopy pants on teenagers

Mass produced ceramic art featuring grumpy old women with loud jewelry

Commercials where the dad is treated like a brain challenged loser

Sit-coms where teenagers are gratuitously mean to each other

Any bad thing that ever happened on a reality show, which basically means anything that ever happened on a reality show
******
Stuff That I think Can Be Funny:

Long, painfully detailed expository tales of a sexual episode gone horribly, horribly wrong

You tube's Ancient footage of Richie Blackmore and Deep Purple on Playboy After Dark

Cats pushing stuff off a table and watching it go down and not caring

Fred Thompson's indifferent, narcoleptic campaign for the Republican party presidential nomination

The surprised look on my cairn terrier's face when he farts and has no idea where that sound came from

Disturbing foodstuffs at the East West market. I'm not talking about the chocolate pocky sticks, those are fine - I'm talking about the Lungfish in Snout sauce.

Laminated Geology charts from the Creationism Museum gift shop.
******
But you may see it differently. You might hate it when people rank on Richie Blackmore's highwaisted seamless latex goldflecked tights, and you might have a whole shelf full of irrepressible Franklin Mint 'Maxine' dolls wearing tiny sequined sweatshirts and bunion pads.

And that's fine too.

- Frances Pelzman Liscio, MEWS Humor Issue Editrix-In-Chief

Writers' Block
by Harriet Halpern

I want to move to the writer's block,
To that place where published authors dwell,
Where agents will come to fight over me
And whatever I write will sell.

Oh how I long to live on that magical street
Where stories and poems freely flow!
Are there rooms for rent on the writer's block?
Does anyone happen to know?

******

Two Totally Not Guilty Cats Nonchalantly Not Doing Anything Wrong.

* * * * * *

Suggestions For MLB’s Collective Bargaining Agreement
by Steve Hofstetter

All teams that receive luxury tax benefits must use part of the proceeds to purchase Baltic Avenue.

Steroid testing consists of more than just asking players, “Hey man, are you on steroids?”

Karl Marx to oversee new revenue sharing program.

If your team is down by ten or more runs, all stadium concessions are half price.*
*Void in Colorado

Starting pitchers must be removed via oversized hook and a loud cry of “yoink!”

Pete Rose banned from crappy Maaco commercials.

Milwaukee Brewers games consist of one inning of play and eight innings of sausage race.

Darryl Strawberry limited to just five more second chances.

In an effort to speed up the games, the ceremonial first pitch now counts.

Players who say “it’s not about the money” must play for free for the next week.

Any game tied after the eleventh will be settled by a spirited game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”

*****

...And In Other Sporting News:

Hey Diddle Doped?

Cow’s Inexplicable Jump Over Moon Raises Eyebrows

Escalating Moos for Congressional Subpoenas

(Rutland, Vermont) The record books remain clear: the cow jumped over the moon two weeks ago in the sleepy farming community of Saint Albans, Vermont. Forty-seven neighbors, eight horses, one cat, two dogs, and three herds of disbelieving cattle witnessed the spectacle. However, the venerable cow, Thelmalina Buttersfield, most recently of Farmer Brown’s upper pasture, has found herself in the midst of the agricultural community’s greatest doping scandal.

Ms. Buttersfield allegedly missed the mandatory test for artificial growth hormones one week prior to her unprecedented jump and quickly disappeared after landing at an undisclosed location. She was unavailable for comment until this morning, when her attorneys stated that “Thelmalina is enjoying a much-needed respite in her native English countryside.” When pressed for a return date, amid the crowd’s murmurs of subpoenas and Congressional hearings, her representatives explained that it will be impossible to determine due to the current ban on all British beef entering the country. There was no further comment in reference to allegations that all of her assets had been transferred to a Swiss bovine account.

The United League of Competitive Cow Jumping is expected to challenge the record’s standing, on the grounds that the holder was not certified organic.

(Special Report by Christina Loccke, Court Illustrator: Danielle Oteri)

*****

I Prefer My Cups with Saucers

By Joan Garry

Mothers have neither a job description nor a manual but I am quite sure that if they did, under this task it would say “See Father’s Manual (if applicable).” Your son needs a cup.

I remember the moment vividly. Our ten year-old son Ben starts Little League, comes home and makes the request: “ I need a cup.” “OK,” I say with a big smile. I am confident. I can do this.

The next day, I head off to the store. I make the mistake of taking my teenage daughter. We are both clueless. Beyond clueless. We don’t know the difference between a jock strap, an athletic supporter or a cup. But we refuse to seem ill informed. So we march into Sports Authority and come face to face with a huge wall of Cups ‘n Things.

“Uh oh,” I say. “Look at the all the different kinds of things and all the different sizes.” Our ever-patient sixteen year-old, picks up the first thing she sees and says, “Here get this one. Now let’s get out of here.” This works for me; we head out pronto.

We arrive home with confidence with Ben’s supporter and Ben supports us. He tries it on, smiling, and parades around the house. He starts dancing and it looks like he is wearing a highly unattractive thong.

Our male au pair informs us that it looks rather tight and then he casually asks: “Do you have the cup too?” The cup? Oh no. We have to go back.

Once we finally get the cup (which Ben kept inside his baseball hat through most of the season) we believe we are out of the woods.

Until yesterday when he informs me that he has lost the cup. He needs one for tomorrow’s hockey class.

So I head back to Sports Authority. This time, the teenager stays home and I bring Ben and his twin sister. She’s very level headed. I’m sure she will be helpful.

We get there and begin staring once again at that wall. My head starts to spin and Kit, ever the earnest one, begins to narrow things down. “ What color do you like Ben? Let’s try to figure out the size”, she says. I feel useless. Kit continues on. She picks up one package and says “Woa, I think this is much, much too big Ben; your penis is not that big.” Now I am totally speechless. Ben responds calmly (and without a single ounce of defensiveness) “ No Kit, it’s not about the size of my penis- it’s about the area.”

The area. That makes sense, I think. But how in the wide world of sports do we measure the area?

And then there are so many choices of the supporter itself. You have your compression pants, your slide shorts and your plain supporter. I pull myself together just in the nick of time because Kit is beginning to giggle.

Then one catches my eye. It says “Youth – NONE.” My mind races. Could this be for men without penises? Couldn’t be. Then I look more closely. It’s just the cup. Supporter sold separately. I breathe a sigh of relief.

Just then my cell phone rings. My partner Eileen calls and says the pizza is ready. “ I’m going to be late,” I tell her. “ I am swimming in a sea of cups.” She sounds so happy and calm. She has no idea what I am going through.

When we get home, Ben is kind and so patient, appreciative of his mom who worked hard to do the right thing (and his other mom who ducked and stayed home to order pizza). Tomorrow at hockey class, I will be able to rest easy knowing that he is safe from top to bottom. Protected.

As I watch him skate the next day, watch him adjust himself many, many times, I realize that one day, very soon, we will look back fondly on our ability to control Ben’s little world (or his little area). I may have made a mountain out of a molehill (please forgive me Ben for that pun) but there are mountains ahead and I like to believe that we will give as much care and thought to those as we did to the blue plastic one with the compression shorts.

Today we can protect him. I know it won’t always be the case. But soon, as we stumble our way through the condom conversation or the drunk driving conversation, we can look back on the evening we all erupted in peels of laughter as Ben danced through the living room wearing only an athletic supporter. We will remember that stumbling through and giving it your best shot to protect your kid is what this parenting gig is all about.

I decide one more thing at the ice rink. Eileen gets the condom conversation.

*****

Back To Christine

by Anthony Buccino

He doesn't know where it came from.

He was dealing with a terrible two year old

And it arrived when needed

As if on a beam of light.

"If you don't be good…” he warned,

Then hesitated,

“I'll send you back to Christine!"

And neither of them knew Christine

Nor where sending the little one back

Would end up

But it worked and the boy cried,

"Don't send me back to Christine!

I'll be good, Daddy! Please!"

Oh, dear old dad got a lot of mileage

out of that Back to Christine line.

It came in handy for years

To help keep the boy in his place

Until the day he left

To find Christine

*****

The Sad, Sad Coffee of Life (photo by Eric Levin)
*****

[The following story intrigued me. I couldn't tell if the author is talking about trying to break up with her boyfriend named Win, or if this is an allegory of rage at microsoft Windows]

A No-Win Situation

By Martta Rose

I arrived back from the local pub last week to discover that I had been followed. My apartment was full of men of different shapes and sizes. There was a shortish, plump one with thinning hair who was talking agitatedly into a cell phone and a taller one with a pointy goatee just standing around quietly surveying the place.

A skinny guy with ill-fitting glasses sat quietly on the couch reading "Inca Gold" by Clive Cussler. There was a very tall, very good-looking blonde one with blue eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled. That was my boyfriend, Win. This made it sort of difficult to break up with him but what else was new? I have been trying to break up with him for six months now.

The plump guy had come over to sell me some stocks. It turned out, however, that he had brought along the wrong briefcase. Instead of the one that contained his stock portfolios and calculator, he had brought one containing some French ticklers and K-Y jelly. He was jabbering on the phone to his mother, asking her to please, please look in his bedroom for the correct valise.

Mr. Goatee was just there to offer the stock salesman moral support although I failed to see how a guy with a mismatched socks and a "Same Shit, Different Day" T-shirt could offer support of any kind to anyone.

The guy on the couch claimed I had borrowed one of his Cussler books, but had failed to return it. I told him that he must be mistaken, I don't like Clive Cussler, never read even one of his books, and he must have me mixed up with someone else. But no, he was very insistent that it was me who was pillaging his great literary collection and then proceeded to go into great detail about the plot of "Iceberg," the book presumably in my possession.

At this point, I thought I would die but I figured trying to get my boyfriend's attention so that we could have "the talk" would buy me a reprieve.

"Honey, I need to talk with you."

"Uh, I'm kinda busy," he said.

"With what?"

"This guy was telling me about some great stock portfolios."

"But he doesn't even have the right briefcase."

"I know but we're taking a ride over to his mom's house. Wanna come with?"

"No, thanks, I'm set for French ticklers. You go. We'll talk later."

During the past six months, Win and I had grown further and further apart, the irony being that physically, he was always here. But whenever I wanted to talk with him about ending the relationship, he was always watching something important on TV, fiddling with his computer, on his way out the door or, worse yet, doing something incredibly nice like bringing me fresh sunflowers. And then, I would forget why I wanted to break up with him.

A delicious hot and spicy smell of onions, garlic and peppers was emanating from my kitchen. Upon investigating, I found still another man stirring what appeared to be a pot of chili. I was hungry and went to take a taste. Instead, I was harshly slapped.

"Don't touch!"

"How dare you! This is MY kitchen!"

"That may be, but your cooking sucks," he said. "Ever notice how your boyfriend always seems to disappear around dinner time?"

I couldn't argue there. Probably the only way we'd ever have dinner together was if we were held at gunpoint. I decided to take a hot bubble bath instead.

I lit a candle, lay back in the tub, the aroma of mangoes filling my nostrils, the steam cleansing the impurities and assaults of the day, my toes tracing the pink tiles on the wall. I fell asleep and dreamed that someone was caressing my shoulders and feeding me chocolate-covered caramels while I lay in a grassy field somewhere in Vermont. In the distance, a cow's low, plaintive moan could be heard. It seemed to grow more melodic as time went by.

Awakening slowly, I realized that it was not a cow I was hearing at all, but a saxophone. Three men I had never seen before had decided to join me in the tub, one of them serenading me softly with "Harlem Nocturne."

"What are you all doing here? Can't I get any peace?"

"Sorry, but you asked us here," said the one directly to my left, holding an empty box of Russell Stover. He had way too many piercings and tattoos for my liking.

"Why would I do that?"

"To avoid the unpleasant task of breaking up," said the masseuse, who was not much to look at but had the most amazing hands.

"I've been meaning to get around to that…"

"But you haven't," said the chocolate bearer. "So now you must put up with some minor inconveniences. It could be worse, I might add."

"I just want my life back!" I shouted.

Just then Win walked into the bathroom, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was sharing a tub with three naked men.

"Your candle went out," he said. "Let me relight it for you."

"Win, sit down a sec. I need to talk to you."

"Hon, can it wait until later? My hard drive just crashed and I gotta get to the computer store before it closes. I promise, we'll talk later."

"There might not be a later," I said, but he was already out the door.

I turned to the guy on the sax. "Do you know any blues tunes?"

*****

The Sad, Sad Photo Session of Life (Photo by James Mignogna)

*****

I Fell In Love with a Monkey

by David Henry Sterry

Sally and I were hired to act in a Michelob beer commercial. The theme of the spot was evolution. I was cast as a Neanderthal Man. Type-casting. Four hours I sat while a crew of highly-skilled make-up artists glued thin layers of skin-colored latex over every inch of my face, transforming me from end of second millennium American Homo Sapien into a caveman. They sculpted a gigantic forehead with a scary hairy monobrow, wee sunken eyes, a flaring nose cauliflowering across my cheeks, thick rubber caveman lips, and huge wooly mammoth-eating fake teeth. My hair was almost fur, extending from the thicket atop my head to my jaw lines, and down both cheeks.

When I looked in the mirror I didn’t recognize myself. I looked for a long time but I couldn’t find myself in there anywhere. Until I looked all the way inside my simian face. There I was. I felt the strong desire to grunt and snarl and hump someone from behind.

Finally, I’m ready for my introduction to Sally the Monkey. Her trainer comes up to me, very serious, doesn’t even notice that I look like a 2,000 year old Neanderthal Man-

“Don’t make eye contact at first. Let her come to you. Get down on her level and don’t make any quick movements. Be very calm and very still. They sense fear. A chimpanzee can jump six feet straight up in the air, and they’re ten times stronger than a human being. For example, Sally’s jaw is so strong she could snap your arm in two like a twig. But it’s really important she doesn’t feel any fear coming off you.”

Suddenly all I can see is my bloody hand dangling out of her mouth.

Sally the Monkey comes out of her trailer, hand-in-hand with another trainer. I squat down to her level. Avert my eyes. I can feel Sally’s monkey stare as she inches slowly towards me as only a wary monkey can. Sounds like a bass drum has been transplanted into my chest cavity. I’m so scared I have no spit. There’s a small crowd gathering, all quiet tension, waiting to see what Sally the Monkey will do to David the Neanderthal. Finally she’s right in my face. Since I’m not making eye contact for fear of having my Adam’s apple ripped out, I smell her before I see her. She smells animal clean, wild, untamed, and of the earth. I feel myself calm with smell of her. Slowly, ever slowly, I turn towards her, raising my head like a simian Southern belle, bringing my eyes up to meet hers.

Sally the Monkey’s stare almost knocks me over. Wise, curious, clever, keen, deep, sharp, smart, mysterious animal passion beams from Sally into me, jolting my soul and rattling my bones. Her face is a picture of puzzlement, brows knitted, head tilted to one side. As she stares into my half-man, half-monkey face, I find I can read her thoughts. She’s speaking to me with her eyes-

“What are you?… You’re not one of them, but there’s no way you’re one of me… Really, what are you?”

Sally the Monkey sniffs me suspiciously, moving her mouth to my jaw. The tension is pulpy, and as I feel her hot breath on my lips, I’m trying desperately not to visualize her biting my nose off. She brings her lips to my cheek, puckers, and covers my face and lips with tiny sweet little monkey kisses.

I’m overcome, undone, head-over-heels in love with Sally. She puts her arms around my neck and hops into my arms. The crowd oohs and ahs, witness to the start of a great interspecies love story.

The whole rest of the shoot, Sally and I are like sweet and potato. Whenever she sees me, she runs up to me excited as a bride, jumps up in my arms, and covers me with kisses. I carry her around like she’s my sweet lovemonkey and I’m her ape loverman, holding hands and going bananas, swooning and spooning. I’ve never known a woman who was so openly, unabashedly, good-naturedly affectionate, who lit up so in my presence.

Animal work laws are very strict, due to years of abuse. On the part of the humans. So animals work very strict 12-hour shifts. This may seem trivial now, but it will prove crucial as our story unfolds.

In the commercial I, Neanderthal, will be sitting next to Sally, Monkey, while an actress, playing a Homo Sapien waitress, flirts with me. We block the scene without Sally. The actress walks up to me all stiffly and skitsy, just lobbing her line in my general vacinity, like a lazy newsboy tossing an errant morning paper:

“Hey good looking, come here often?”

It was bad. Bad, bad, bad. The director stopped everything, walked over to her all cocksure and said, “I need you to hot it up, honey, make with the goo-goo eyes, like you did in the callback, babe.” She promised she would, shot him an obligatory sex-baby look, which evaporated into disdain as soon as the director turned and walked away. I noticed she was a bit aqua green in her gill area as she thought about how Sally’s powerful jaw could snap her arm like a dry twig.

The lights were tweaked. The camera focused. Hair, make-up and wardrobe were fluffed, patted, and tucked. Finally everything was ready, hundreds of highly-paid technicians and advertising geeks all set to make commercial magic.

Sally was brought in, hopped up on her stool next to me at the bar, reached over and kissed me on the cheek as I whispered sweet little monkey nothings into her ear.

“Scene 4, take 1. Roll camera!”

“Camera rolling. Speed.”

“Sound?”

“Speed!”

“And… Action!”

The actress walked towards us like a nervous cat at a dog show. Even I could feel her fear, and I’m certainly no monkey. She started to make the most tentative of flirty eyes in my general direction.

Well, Sally the Monkey went bananas, jumped up on the bar, bared her teeth, and hissed, looking like she was going to rip this poor spooked woman’s heart out, show it to her, then eat it.

The actress’ scream curdled blood as she ran raging wailing and weeping through the set, and out the door.

I thought the advertising geeks should have used that in the commercial, because it said more about evolution than any of the lame shit they can come up with.

But no, they decided to write just the waitress out of the commercial.

So now it was getting to be 6:30 PM, and because the advertising geeks had been so busy figuring out which swanky restaurant they were going to eat dinner at that night, they were way far behind schedule. So they sent some junior assistant flunky over to Sally’s trainer and he asked if they could get Sally to work overtime, because if they don’t get all her shots, they were going to have to bring everybody back and go way over budget.

The trainer says he doubts Sally will want to work overtime but he’ll see what he can do.

The geeks huddled furiously, whispering toxically. It was now 6:45 PM. A much better-dressed executive walked up to the trainer. They’ll pay whatever he wants. Name the price.

The trainer smiled. Slowly reminded the executive that Sally’s a monkey, and not particularly financially motivated.

“Well then we’ll give her all the damn bananas she wants,” said the better-dressed executive.

“Well,” explained the trainer patiently, as if he’s talking to a dumb animal, “Sally already gets all the bananas she wants, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Finally it was 6:58PM. The best-dressed executive hustled over to the trainer.

“Listen, I don’t care what the damn monkey wants, we need to get three more shots off before she leaves, is that clear?”

You could see the trainer was just about to lose it, wishing to God that he only had to deal with reasonable animals.

But before he could say anything, it became 7 o’clock, exactly 12 hours after Sally started working.

Sally then stepped up on the bar, and slowly, dramatically, like the consummate performer she was, raised her left arm over her head, and slapped her wrist where a watch would be, the international sign for:

“Look what time it is.”

She then jumped down, and started pulling me toward the door. As the highly-paid technicians tried desperately not to laugh, and the advertising geeks shat themselves, Sally and I proceeded through the set, and straight out the door, hand-in-hand, like a monkey bride and Neanderthal groom heading for our abba dabba honeymoon.

They had to bring everybody back the next day, and Sally the Monkey became a hero. She got us all another day’s pay, and with incredible style, panache, and savoir faire, she told the oppressive exploiting fascist Boss to stick it. Power to the People! Power to the Monkeys!

When I asked the trainer, he told me that monkeys have an acute sense of time. Because she worked so often, Sally knew exactly when 12 hours were up, and had figured out that by making the sign for time, not only would her day be over, but she’d also make everyone laugh real hard. All day, whenever it was time for a meal, or a break, everyone from actors to Teamsters would raise their left hand up over their head, and slap their wrist where a watch would be, in silent homage to Sally the magical monkey. Much to the amusement of everyone except the advertising geeks, who seemed basically jaded and disgusted by pretty much everything except what swanky restaurant they were going to eat at that night.

As for me, I fell in love with Sally that day. One of the great regrets of my life is that I never got to consummate the relationship, because I know she would have been a powerful, wild, romantic, spiritual and highly rocking lover. But alas, we were from different worlds, and ours was a love that could never be.

*****

The Ice Floe Alternative

By David Holmberg

Like castration for sex crimes, the Ice Floe Alternative (IFA) has a rich and complex history. Here's an example: in the late 19th century an ice floe crowded with oldsters from a county home in Missouri sank when it was struck by a whaling vessel. That's a fact. Did the survivors found Greenland, as some have theorized? Don't you believe it!

Anecdotal evidence of the IFA is sparse. Survivors have usually declined to speak publicly for fear of retaliation by the relatives who initiated this admittedly controversial measure. Their concern is justified. You put someone on an ice floe and you think you're rid of them and lo and behold they show up on your doorstep again. What would you do? I, for one, have the courage of my convictions, however, and have just completed a lucrative speaking tour attacking the IFA. For I myself am a CIFI (Conspicuous Ice Floe Survivor.) Here's my copyrighted story:

One day not long ago, my ex-wife, my cousin who's a lawyer, my nephew who's an accountant, and my granddaughter who may be on drugs, all wished me bon voyage on what I thought would be a pleasant 75th birthday cruise to Alaska. Who could imagine that our doomed cargo of superannuated castoffs was indeed that? We thought of ourselves as indispensable, part of

the fabric of our devoted families. Boy, were we dead wrong! We were actually superannuated castoffs with very few tomorrows. (Which, truth be told, was the caption for a rare group photo.) That was undoubtedly how our families saw us as they waved gaily from the dock. (Being gullible fools, we waved back.) Can you imagine the comments our loved ones made about us, winking and chuckling, as our ship became a speck on the horizon? Well, I don't know and I don't care and you shouldn't either.

Soon, the plan to banish us unfolded. In the Bering Straits, we were in dire straits, as a few of us were able to joke later over cocktails. A freighter rammed our cruise ship early one morning and we were roused from our tourist-class cabins and herded onto life rafts. Anticipating rescue, we were instead picked up by the complicitous crew of the freighter, and dumped on an ice floe a couple of hours later as the sun rose over a calm blue sea. Imagine our surprise and collective chagrin! Those who had cell phones tried to call their travel agents, but most were out of minutes or their batteries were dead. And who would believe their story anyway? You're old and you're on an ice floe and you're looking to be rescued? Sure, and I'm the Pope's altar boy; he's touring Patagonia but I'll leave a message.

I'll spare you the shocking details of our ordeal. Suffice it to say that we were saved by another cruise ship a few days later, and I'm alive and kicking and recovered sufficiently from frostbite to hit the lecture circuit. Make sure to check out my memoir on Amazon: "What Sort of Monsters Are We? Is the Family of Man Adrift?" I certainly was, thanks to my shamelessly scheming relatives. By the way, please don't buy their competing book, "We Ice-Floed Grandpa, But the Old Goat Came Back."

*****

My Glorious Days in Showbiz

Kathy Galletly

When looking back on my teenage years I will always remember the Capital Theater, my job as a candy consultant and my glorious days in show biz. Before Mick and Keith rolled into Passaic, the Capital Theater was an old movie house. When I was a senior in high school I had a part time job working at the candy counter. Talk about celebrity status! What prestige it carried. It was my favorite job. It was the best job I ever had. My Mom told all her family and friends that her daughter had a job in show biz!

During that time kids didn’t go to the mall, you spent the whole day in the movie. There were cartoons and double features .The admission fee was seventy-five cents, unless you had a couple of shady friends, then you would sneak into the movie theater via the side door. Two people would pay to get into the movie. One would distract the usher while the other opened the side door for the gang to sneak in. You always had the one kid that was afraid to move when the door opened so you had to give him a shove. Once in the door you grabbed an empty seat, blended in with the kids that paid and sat back to enjoy the movie. That is if you didn’t get stuck sitting next to the kid that was shoved; he spent the rest of the afternoon telling you how much trouble we were all going to get into. Then he would tell you he wasn’t going to hang out with you again. The real problem was that this was the kid who had the money for the popcorn and candy.

Getting the right candy and popcorn could make or break the whole movie experience. Now this is a job I took very seriously. I was not just a candy girl; I was a candy consultant, I was the queen of buttered popcorn! I was able to match people’s personality with the type of candy they bought. Buttered Popcorn became my own personal power tool. I was instructed to dispense two squirts of butter to a customer, but if you were my “friend” you got more; if the guy was cute there was no telling how much butter he got (I had no pride). Once the movie began, not many people came back for candy so you got to sit and watch the movie; I usually got to sit with the guy who had gotten the extra squirts of butter.

Not only did I dispense candy I counseled the broken hearted. Teenaged girls whose steady boyfriend came with them to the matinee and then to return in the evening with the local hot to trot charlatan would come to me with their sad tales. The questions were endless: Did I see them? What did she look like? Were they making out during the intermission or thru the double features and cartoons? Buttered pop corn after buttered pop corn drenched in tears.

Then on May 25, 1965 I was called into the manager’s office and told there was going to be a special event that evening. There was going to be a boxing match with Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston and it was going to be televised at the Capital Theater through something called cable! They were expecting a huge crowd of men to see this event and I was getting an assistant to help me at the candy counter. This was my moment to shine! These guys were paying ten bucks a ticket and since I was made head honcho for the evening it was up to me to make sure their candy and pop corn experience was top notch! I made sure their pop corn was the freshest; the butter machine had to be able squirt butter at a moments notice. The hot dog grill had to be spic and span shiny, the candy within a fingers reach. As my assistant and I stood waiting; the adrenalin began rushing through my body. I looked at the clock; the usher looked over at me and nodded. He opened the doors opened and in they stampeded straight to the candy counter. Hungry men! My assistant stood back and watched in awe as I took command. Feverishly, I worked to get them their pop corn and candy. The big spenders who wanted their hot dog buns toasted; the double squirts of butter, the bon bons! My head was spinning, I had to keep up. If I did this right I could go up the ladder of success and be moved to a bigger theater, have control of a candy counter twice this size.

As I stood waiting for the second surge of men to descend upon the candy counter the unthinkable happened, in one minute it was over, done. Muhammad Ali was the heavyweight champion of the world. Men leaving the theater unwrapped candy still in their hands, pop corn containers still filled, butter dripping out of the sides of their mouths. I ran through the lobby trying to console these men only to look at a sea of blank stares. I approached one forlorn man and shaking his head in disbelief all he could say was “Ten bucks and for what!” With that I put on my best smile, gently touching his arm and with a cry of desperation I asked “Please tell me. Was your candy experience memorable?”

The Capital Theater is no longer that famous landmark, gone from the pages of history. Mike Jagger has moved on to world tours; Muhammad Ali is still a legend and as for myself after high school I had left my career as a candy consultant. I entered the Dental field and became Dental Assistant hoping to heal the damage made to those people whose teeth were left with a trail of cavities.

*****

The Sad, Sad Car Paint of Life (Photo by James Mignogna)

*****

The Hint Fairy

By Richard Herr

Everybody loves the world of fantasy. Harry Potter is a huge success; The Lord of the Rings movies are big hits. However, I’ve found that there’s one magical sprite whose existence hasn’t been chronicled in any known fantasy story. This is a dear little pixie who makes her way through many houses on a regular basis. I’m speaking, of course, of the Hint Fairy.

The Hint Fairy usually makes her appearance during the end of November and the beginning of December, as we’re heading toward the holiday season. Of course the Hint Fairy also appears at certain other times of the year that are celebrated with gift giving. But her biggest season, just like in retailing, is during the winter holidays.

She’ll make her appearance in many classic ways. The family will be sitting around the dinner table, and the wife will say something like, “You know, that lovely green blouse you bought me last Christmas seems like it needs a final touch. Something like a necklace or brooch.” As these words escape her lips, the husband will feel a light breeze against his check as the Hint Fairy flutters her airy little way through the room.

At least he’d damn well better feel it. But more on that later.

Another example is the husband’s saying something like, “I was watching Ted, next door. He was using his cordless drill to install some drapery traveler tracks, those things you’ve always wanted. It made the job easy as pie.” Once more, flutter, flutter, flutter.

Or else the teenager will leave, in an otherwise impeccable room, a brochure for the latest computer game, open to the proper page for ordering. Flutter, flutter, flutter.

Now, I have to pause for a moment to address all those parents who are wondering what child is this with the impeccable room. Remember, parents, we’re talking about early December. He is trying valiantly to bootstrap himself up from the Naughty to the Nice List. You needn’t worry; come the New Year, the Evil Twin will be back. He’ll be his usual self: monosyllabic and world-class sloppy.

But the Hint Fairy continues her rounds, fluttering daintily here and there, dropping coy little suggestions into this ear or that.

Until about the middle of December. That’s when the Hint Fairy has reached full term and is ready to transform out of her pupal stage. She will roll herself up into a chrysalis and metamorphoses into the adult incarnation: The Hint Troll.

Gone is the delicate little fluttering creature. It is now replaced by the fully grown adult. The Hint Troll has lost the ability to fly, and so he--yes, the metamorphosis includes a sex change–-he must make his way through the world on foot, stomping his considerable weight around. This causes dishes to rattle, windowpanes to jiggle, furniture to shake and fingers to fly out and jab into someone’s ribs.

“You should see that Craftsman Drill Model P-32XF-39Z that’s on sale for $39.95 on aisle 5 at the Sears store.” Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

“There’s this really wonderful necklace at Thompson’s Jewelers. Ask for Muriel, the saleslady.” Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

“If I don’t get the Cruiser Battle P-32XF-39Z game, I’ll just die. Everybody’s got one, and it hardly costs anything.” Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. (In fact it costs three times the Pentagon’s yearly budget; it came out two weeks ago but hasn’t reached the store shelves, let alone anyone’s house; and the consumer testing company says that the software has more bugs than a pizzeria dumpster.)

And so, the sounds of the Christmas season build in volume. “Bicycle.”

Stomp.

“Earrings”

Stomp.

“Pre-Christmas sale.”

Stomp.

Silent Night

“Everything on sale.” Stomp. “Picture in picture.” Stomp. “Gold lame.” Stomp. “Barbie.” Stomp. “Ruby.” Stomp. “Frosty the.”Stomp. “Three gigahertz.” Stomp. “GI Joe.” Stomp

As these sounds reach their full volume, the noise rises in a crescendo of carols, traffic-jam-stuck car horns, hint-induced stomps and jingles, both sleigh-bell and advertising, in celebration of the full life cycle of the Hint Fairy. On Christmas Eve, the Hint Troll stomps his way out the door to his final resting place, preceding the Old Year by a week.

There is a sudden hush as one detects that the cycle of life has reached a completion, that the order of nature has displayed its irrefutable course, that the seasons have once more completed their rounds.

And then, at the start of the New Year, the signs of fresh life begin to peek out from the remainders of the previous season, like crocuses emerging beneath the melting snow. The new cycle starts over once more.

“Boy, you should see the set of bits that Ted got for his drill.”

Flutter.

*****

The Sad, Sad Picnic of Life. (Photo by Eric Levin)
* * * * *

The Life and Death of A Literary Legend

by Martin Golan

Now that New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria) has ceased publication, I feel free to reveal the true story behind its life and death, a story that will surely astonish the legions of fans NYLR (formerly Etheria) attracted in its brief but dazzling moment in the literary sun.

When I was just an aspiring writer and not the literary light I’m constantly told I have become, I confronted the frustrations of getting published. As is now an oft-told tale of literary lore, it was those very difficulties that spurred me to start a magazine. It was the most inspired thing I’d ever done, far more inspired than anything I’d ever written. It was my greatest epiphany, my greatest creation – because the magazine I started, New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria), was a fanciful work of fiction. It never existed!

Yes, I know this will shock the countless literati who so embraced NYLR in its heyday. Only because I am now a major figure in the cultural landscape of America can I confess this secret without consigning myself to the slush pile for all eternity.

The idea for New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria) came when I began submitting stories and poems to magazines and was rewarded with a flood of rejections. Like every writer who ever fretted over a cover letter, I rejected out of hand the possibility that the quality of my work could be a factor. No, I thought, it had to be something much more sinister.

That’s when I decided to start Etheria.

Here’s how I did it: I informed writing magazines and digests and Internet sites that list places to send poetry and fiction of a new magazine. I called it Etheria, an inside joke with myself, by making up a word that appears to be an obscure back-formation of “ethereal,” probably poetic, an antiquated Elizabethan orthography like “compleat” – when it’s little more than a pretentious variant I invented.

Then, in creating Etheria, I had the kind of revelation I wished I’d had in my writing: the name of my magazine should not be memorable but eminently forgettable, as generic as possible, precisely the opposite of what one seeks in a product name. It should sound like something you heard of or, better, should have heard of. So I renamed my nonexistent magazine New York Literary Review, adding “formerly Etheria” to make it more hauntingly familiar.

The next step was a Web site. I designed the logo myself – a huge tablet with a chiseled image that is vaguely Greek, terribly obvious from mythology but that one can’t quite place. Next to it was written “New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria)” and the address of a post office box I rented.

Underneath, in big letters, it said:

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

In two days my new post office box was bursting with manuscripts. Not a single person subscribed or purchased a sample copy. I was swamped with cover letters that said how much New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria) had meant to the writer over the years. Many quoted from the description I had concocted:

Though we often publish established writers, we are always open to new voices. Don’t be afraid to give us your best, but if we can’t use it that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Our standards are high, and the competition is keen. New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria) publishes the very best writing we can find, and we strongly urge you to read several copies before submitting. But do try us, and if we reject you, please don’t take it as a “rejection.”

I was particularly proud of the last sentence, since it makes absolutely no sense yet would be meaningful to any writer. And that it was hard to have work accepted was definitely true, because New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria) had never, and would never, publish anything.

I enjoyed my work as editor. I spent hours with manuscripts, not because I took time with any of them but because there were so many. I sent each back with one of three rejection slips:

1. Thank you for submitting your work to New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria), but it does not meet our needs at this time.

2. Thank you for submitting your work to New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria). Although it does not meet our needs at this time, please let us see more in the future.

Or a third, which I consider a masterpiece of the genre:

3. Your work is compelling, and we enjoyed it immensely. You have a wonderful grasp of the essentials of writing and a quirky, original style that sets you apart. It is rare that a work makes such a lasting impression on us, and we were all profoundly moved. However, though your submission was a gift we will cherish forever, it does not meet our needs at this time.

Good luck in placing it elsewhere.

I sent them out based solely on whim, which, from the vantage point of every unpublished writer, is how every magazine makes that decision.

In own my writing life, I added to my query letter that I was editor of New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria) and had a poem accepted by a magazine that had rejected it twice before. I was invited to literary events: a seminar at Columbia on the state of literature today, a colloquium sponsored by The New York Times on the political responsibilities of magazine editors. As judge for a famous national poetry contest, I saw another endless stream of submissions.

The most interesting event was at the 92nd Street Y, where I gave a well-attended talk on whether there was a “Literary Magazine School of Poetry” today.

“We don’t publish much poetry in New York Literary Review,” I said, perhaps the understatement of the evening. I elaborated on the role of poetry, an ancient form born of romantic passion yet buffeted by a heartless business environment to which it is invisible.

“Sometimes it’s like we don’t exist,” I added, as a hundred heads nodded sadly in agreement.

Afterward I was besieged by people proffering the manila envelopes I was coming to dread. I said I could only accept submissions by mail and told everyone to subscribe to NYLR. Most said they were already long-time subscribers, while others copied down the address. No one subscribed, though I did recognize some handwriting in the deluge of envelopes that gushed in over the next few days. More than one referred to how much they had learned from my talk.

By now I was exhausted. I never realized how much energy it takes to open an envelope and slide a rejection slip into it; no wonder magazine editors all look so tired and world-weary. And don’t think my job was one bit easier because the magazine didn’t exist.

So I came to a sad but inevitable decision: it was time to fold NYLR.

On the Web site I posted this “Note To Subscribers”:

With great sadness, the next issue of New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria) will be our last. We take great pride in knowing that we treated all submissions in a fair and evenhanded manner. We would also like to thank our subscribers, without whom we would not exist.

That afternoon I got a call from the owner of a trendy club in SoHo asking if she could host a party for the final issue. It was the kind of snooty nightspot I’d always been terrified of walking into. Of course I had to agree.

Everybody who was anybody in the cultural world was there, including a few celebrities whose names I knew but couldn’t recall. A woman with an enormous hat wept as she told me how compulsively she read every issue of New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria). Flowery speeches were made. One tearful man became so demonstrative he had to be helped back to the wine bar. The death of New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria) was viewed as the collapse of Western Civilization, along with the loss of independent bookstores and at least three international crises, one of which the history professor on the dais with me never heard of. Poems were read in my honor. My favorite was the villanelle by a startlingly thin woman who explained how New York Literary Review had kept her alive during a painful breakup with a novelist who thought he was too good for her because he had been published in NYLR. “But I won’t hold that against you,” she said, smiling sweetly, as the audience chuckled.

She raised a glass and toasted “the legendary magazine and the legendary man who created it.”

Glasses clinked. “New York Literary Review had something no other magazine has,” she said. “Hard to put your finger on, perhaps, but that’s why we loved it so.”

Before the evening was over I had an offer to teach at a prestigious liberal arts college. They said they wanted me to revitalize a moribund English department and bring the prestige of my magazine, which had long been a favorite of the department chairman.

They hinted rather broadly that I should revive New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria) on campus. I said that if I did it would be a magazine the likes of which they’d never seen.

They said that was exactly what they had in mind.

*****

Don't

Marcia S. Ivans

You can mess with my heart

You can mess with my soul

You can mess with my mind

But don't mess with my hair.

* * * * *

Contributors To This Issue Of The Mews Online Journal, Humor Edition:

Martta Rose is a published poet and short fiction writer. A graduate of Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, she attended the Broadloaf Writers' Conference in Vermont in 1995. She resides in West Orange with her fiance, Tom Kelly.

James V. Mignogna has known since his father lent him his old Nikon to shoot with on a childhood family vacation that photography would be one of the great constants in his life. ?Like so many shooters I know, I was given a PhD in photography from my father: ?Push here, Dummy.? ? In the years since, the list of photographers he has assisted continues to grow, most notably his ongoing mentorship with long time photo hero Mary Ellen Mark. Meanwhile he continues to amass his own collection of work, including a series of abstracts and street shots. James currently works in magazine publishing and is never caught without a camera.

David Holmberg is a former reporter for New York Newsday and a former senior editor of The Village Voice. He's also written for The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and New Jersey Monthly.

Joan Garry is a a nationally recognized gay rights activist and she thought it was a very hard job until she decided to step down from her role as the

executive director of GLAAD to be a stay-at-home mom. Advocating for ‘the gays” may have been easier.

She and her partner Eileen Opatut have been together for 25 years and have three kids, Sarah (17), Ben (12) and Kit (12). Yes, Ben and Kit are twins.

During her tenure at GLAAD, Joan persuaded the NY Times to include gay and lesbian couples on its wedding pages, she created a national debate about the homophobic words of radio host, Laura Schlessinger and even debated Jerry Falwell about whether Tinky Winky was gay.

She is also the first woman in the state of New Jersey to legally adopt her

partner’s biological children and the first female singing member of the NYC Gay Men’s Chorus.

Comedian Steve Hofstetter has been seen on "Showtime's White Boyz in the Hood," VH1's "Countdown," ESPN's "Quite Frankly" and several other programs. Playing 300 colleges, clubs, and private events each year, Hofstetter is also an accomplished radio host and humor columnist, having written regular columns for Sports Illustrated, the NHL, and Maxim. See more at StevesNewAlbum.com or reach him at steve@stevehofstetter.com

Writer/editor/web designer Anthony Buccino has written three books of essays based in and around Nutley and Belleville, N.J. His poetry has appeared in Raving Dove, Rattlesnake Review, The Idiom and Pow Wow Press. He blogs about life in northern New Jersey as alter ego Uncle Tonoose and about transit in New Jersey at http://blog.nj.com/transit/ ; NJ.Com. With the help of his daughter Andrea, two paperbacks were published based on the research about the men from Nutley and Belleville who died in service to their country. For more information, http://anthonybuccino.com or http://anthonybuccino.blogspot.com/

Martin Golan's collection of short stories, Where Things Are When You Lose Them, has just been published, and his poetry and fiction have appeared in many magazines. But he is known mainly for his tenure as the founder, publisher, and editor of the influential New York Literary Review (formerly Etheria) in its glory days, a time when the work of many fellow Mewsies – and even of Golan himself – was regularly rejected by the legendary magazine.

For more information on him, go to http://martingolan.com/

Eric Levin is senior editor of New Jersey Monthly. He writes frequently about restaurants, Wagner, and golf. His photographs may be seen at www.ericlevin.net.

Kathy Galletly, a member of the Montclair writing group, is still yearning for her glorious days in showbiz.

David Henry Sterry is the author of nine books. His first memoir, Chicken, has been translated into 10 languages and is being made into a series by Showtime. His next book, Master of Ceremonies, drops August 1. He is also a book doctor and talent scout for Levine Greenberg literary agency.www.davidhenrysterry.com

Pamela Redmond Satran's next book, 1000 Ways To Be A Slightly Better Woman, will be published in April by Stewart, Tabori & Chang and is a BookSense Notable pick. The author of five novels and eight other non-fiction books, Satran writes for the New York Times and the Huffington Post and is the coauthor of the Glamour List column. Her websites are www.pamelaredmondsatran.com and www.coolnamer.com; she is the founder and guiding hand of MEWS.

Mr. Richard Herr likes to visit the humorous side of science fiction and fantasy. He has a collection of tales from an outerspace place called The Star Board Cafe. He is also working on a sci-fi story for young adults called Mars from Fred from Mars. He resides in Caldwell. 973-364-5114, richardherr@comcast.net

Danielle Oteri is an illustrator based in Northern Manhattan. When asked if she was any relation to Cheri Oteri, she explained, "Cheri Oteri is a distant relative. I've never met her althought I'm sure she would liven up Thanksgiving dinner." Indeed.

Christina Loccke is a freelance writer, editor, and the mother of an infant and toddler who serve as muses for her monthly “funny mom” column in New Jersey Life and Leisure.

Says poet Marcia Ivans, "the poem Don't is from my second book of poetry titled "Over Easy", by Arseya Publishing. It is available from Watchung Book Sellers in Montclair, Arseya Publishing, Amazon.com or from my website, www.mivans.com."
I am a member of Women Who Write, International Women's Writers Guild and Poet's House. I founded Poetry and Pastries, an open poetry reading at Cafe Beethoven in Chatham over three years ago.

Frances Pelzman Liscio is a Montclair-based photographer, photo editor and writer. Ms. Liscio contributed the photos of the not-guilty-cats and the not-strung-out-terrier featured above.

A Word from the Editor

2007-08-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Dear readers (MEWSies and non-MEWSies alike),

Welcome to the very first issue of “The Mewsings,” MEWS’s online literary journal. It has been very exciting to put together this first issue. We received a completely unexpectedly high number of submissions, far too many to be featured in one issue. The response to this idea has been overwhelming.

“The Mewsings” began as a simple suggestion over lunch: I thought it would be a good idea to have an outlet via the MEWS network for Montclair and vicinity writers to be able to share and read each others’ work. At the same time, I was looking for an outlet in which to flex my own literary muscles (I wanted to be engaged with others' writing, and also open up a possible venue for my own writing); Pam told me I should take charge of the project. We tossed around various ways to go about it, and decided that an online journal would suit the MEWS community very well – it lives in cyberspace and can be accessed from anywhere, just as the MEWS community is linked through e-mails and online notifications. It is a highly accessible way for us to read each other’s work. We then decided to include photography as well – it translates seamlessly to the online medium, and adds a depth and diversity to the magazine.

The outstanding pieces featured here represent a diverse group of styles and genres. We have poetry, we have essays, we have memoir, we have stories, and we have photographs. The selections comprise a variety of theme and tone. Marina Cramer’s story is about a once vivacious friend's protracted weakening and dying from cancer, told from the perspective of the one who is well. Virginia Backaitis has written a hilarious and clever mock breakup letter to her stylist. Patience Moore’s essay about the way that breast cancer is treated in commercial and industrial society, written by a woman who has struggled with the disease and overcome it, is at once incisive, funny, and illuminating. Madeleine Tiger’s poem reminisces on old first childhood sleepovers. And no doubt Denise Rue’s poem will get you talking. The photo selections too are exceptional.

A bit about myself: I am a junior at Yale University, where I study Russian and English Literature and Theatre. I sing in the a cappella group Redhot & Blue and act in plays. I write, draw, and paint as well. I first got involved in MEWS looking for work this past summer – and MEWS was very helpful in finding it for me. Via MEWS, I worked for a variety of people – helping Pam research a new book, helping Allen St. John do research for his sportswriting, and helping Jennifer Prost with publicity.

Thanks very much to all who submitted – what an outstanding pool of pieces it was. Look out for the next issue, in the works, soon. The theme will be Humor, and it will be edited by Fran Liscio, whose photographs are featured in this very edition.

And now, I’m very pleased to present the inaugural issue of “The Mewsings!” Enjoy!

Tommy Crawford

PHOTO. Montclair, 2006. ERIC LEVIN.

2007-08-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

***

Eric Levin is senior editor of New Jersey Monthly. He writes frequently about restaurants, Wagner, and golf. His photographs may be seen at www.ericlevin.net.

Photo. FRAN LISCIO. Part 2.

2007-08-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

***

Frances Pelzman Liscio

www.punksandroses.com

Frances Pelzman Liscio has studied with John Loengard, Eva Rubenstein, Lisette Model, Sean Kernan, and other fine art and media photographers. Her work has been reproduced in numerous rock music anthologies, newspapers, and magazines, as well as cd and record covers, liner note photos and band tour books. She has also been the photo editor of numerous books on rock and punk, and she worked as a photo editor at Rolling Stone Magazine. Ms.Liscio has a BFA in photography and printmaking from Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York.

Ms. Liscio's recent work includes magazine essays, celebrity event photography and both recent and upcoming exhibits of her fine art botanical photography and her archival punk rock photos.

contact info:

franland13@comcast.net

973 509 8882

11 godfrey road, upper montclair, nj 07043

Photo. FRAN LISCIO. Part 1.

2007-08-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

POETRY. Cedar Street Pool 1971. VICTORIA STEELE.

2007-08-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

Mom drives the Buick
though the walk is short.
Gravel
pops and crackles
under white-wall tires.

Park and sprint to the pool house.
They’ll check your badge.
As usual, no umbrellas left.

Toss your bag.
Cannonball in off the side.
Drench
the flowered rubber bathing caps
of elders who dare soak now.
Watch the big boys
create tidal waves to impress the girls
who pretend not to notice.

Too soon, Adult Swim.
Kids jump in once more
a defiant splash.
All swim the long route to the ladders,
ignore the lifeguards’ whistles.

Mom leaves you
to the A.M. hits
and static
on your transistor.
She wades in the shallow end.
Just a cooling dip,
her hair in a hasty bun.
She never dunks.

The Jolly Green Giant towel,
faded from last summer
is spread on the grass;
its warmth a comfort despite the heat.

Cocoa butter and
Sea & Ski
Pay lip service to the sun:
Mom will be brown
You will be pink
Before you head home.

***

VICTORIA STEELE

Is thrilled to be included in the debut MEWS magazine and is looking forward to sampling everyone else’s work. This is her first submission and first publication (unless the high school literary magazine counts!) A lifelong reader and writer, Steele has taken many courses, workshops and belonged to several writers groups through the years, including MEWS, Tunnel Vision, and the Write Group. Also an actor, Steele has appeared in many plays and movies over the years: big parts in the little shows, little parts in the big shows! Her plays Permanent Solution and The List enjoyed modest productions with Spotlight Theatre. The List also enjoyed a staged reading at 12 Miles West. Currently a student of American Sign Language, Steele has not been doing much creative writing these days. However, this vote of confidence is an inspiration to get back to it. Thank you. ☺ Contact: ves8284@yahoo.com.

POETRY. Transformation. LAURA FREEDGOOD.

2007-08-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

For My Father

Hair rising from your head
like white flames
you are dying.

Is this the flower
flung into air
too delicate to breathe?

Show me something lovely
in these muscles
shrouding bone.

Say this is a lily
unfurling,
say this an explosion of rose,

tell me that the gown
about your body
will lift

and you, radiant,
ascend slowly
into memory.

***

BIOGRAPHY

Weather Report, Laura Freedgood’s second chapbook, is a journey through solitude, loss, and death to an embrace of what remains.

Laura’s poems have appeared in New Jersey Journal of Poets, The Chrysalis Reader, Heliotrope, Descant, Hawai’I Pacific Review, Riversedge, Wisconsin Review, Euphony, Crucible, and in other print journals. She was the featured poet for the 10th anniversary edition of The Aurorean, a journal that publishes her poems often. Her work has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, and she was awarded a three-year poetry grant from the City University of New York, from 2003-2006.

A graduate of Vassar College, Laura has Master’s degrees in English from Indiana University and The Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Boston University. She has been a lecturer in English at Boston University and at Bradford College in Haverhill, Massachusetts. She is currently an assistant professor at Queensborough Community College in Bayside, New York, teaching writing to ESL students.

Born and raised in New York City, Laura lived in the Boston area for 25 years, and now resides in Montclair, New Jersey. Her mother, the late Lillian Freedgood, an artist, and her father, the late John Godey, best known for his novel The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three, inspired many of the poems in this collection.

Contact info:

Laura Freedgood
55 North Mountain Avenue, Apt. A5
Montclair, NJ 07042
973-233-0488
laura81@verizon.net

POETRY. Belmar ‘52. RACHEL BENNETT.

2007-08-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

In this one,
you are standing on the beach with your sisters. Five

ruby-lipped brunettes
too young to think of storms.

Link your arms.
Dig your feet

into sand that sinks. Fight the sound of raging winds
that barrel in off the Atlantic.

Laugh your throat dry.
Give the Ocean Hell.

The sea-weed strewn about your ankles:
it is silk, not slime.

Too young for storms. In this one,

glide your wrinkled hand, nail-polish chipped
and pink, across the faces years wore down.

Say their names. Feel pearls roll smooth in your mouth.
Think not of death, the solitude

of white
plaster walls. Echoes down the hall

from an invalid - hear them not.
Laugh your throat dry. Give the ocean hell.

You are too young for calm seas,
for the splatter crash dance

undulating fire
of sunsets that smolder to lavender and cream.

Keep your back to the sea, in this one vulnerable day

that wanes and sucks
its ocean down -

cold water down
the bathtub's drain,

and when you bathe, the sponge that moves
itself on you - not soap:

Sea-Foam. Don't close your eyes.
The hands that lift you to your bed

are not hands at all. They are schools of fish.
Shame that burns your cheeks red

brings navy to your sunken eyes

isn't shame at all. It is sunburn
and soft bruise. In this one,

you were too young. You are too young
for storms:

the splinters from a coral reef,
the salt that stings your skin.

The pain subsides by slow degrees.
You give the Ocean Hell.

***

Rachel Bennett is 20 years old and is from Verona, NJ. In 2006, she received the following awards through Rutgers for poetry: the Academy of American Poets College & University Prize, the Evelyn Hamilton Award, the Julia Carlie Prize, and the Edna Herzberg Prize. My short stories, poetry, and artwork have appeared in the following magazines: The Caellian, Objet d'art, The Podium, and The Mosaic. She is entering her senior year at Rutgers University in New Brunswick where she majors in English with a focus in Creative Writing. She is on the Dean's List and has been on the staff of two on-campus magazines. Her e-mail address is rsbennet@eden.rutgers.edu.

POETRY. The Sleep-Over. MADELINE TIGER.

2007-08-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

Sally tried to go to sleep but

she couldn't, she missed her

Dora doll and her old baby-

sitter and her dad and her

cousins in New York and

the doggy she'd wished for

but didn't have yet and her

old school and the new one,

her kindergarten, and the

teacher who, Sally said in

a thin voice, between noisy

breaths, is - nice, sort of.

She missed her pink rain-

boots and her high bed and

the ice cream she couldn't

finish and her mom

whom she didn't mention and

the pony at Turtle Back Zoo.

After we'd whispered the list and

I sang the old songs: My Little

Nut Tree, Loola Loola Bye-Bye,

and she hugged Fishie, she fell into

the long night.

POETRY. The Doctor Said. JUDITH PINE BOBE.

2007-08-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

THE DOCTOR SAID

I would

DIE

If I didn’t stop

smoking

that cigarette
trailing smoke
across my morning mug
of Jamaica Blue Mountain

that exotic Gauloise
in its chic French blue pack
that black tabac held
in my slender silver holder
at intermission
or at a tiny marble table
while sipping chilled white wine
from a glistening crystal stem

that Salem
dangling
ashes
over the
Italian
blue and white
Carpano
ashtray

my deeply inhaled
oval Regent
while listening
to

Mozart’s A Minor Sonata
Monk’s Epistrophy
Frank Sinatra
in the wee small hours

the Benson & Hedges
snaking
tendrils
of
sultry
smoke
after
having sex
or
making love

that stale stub
of a Marlboro
snatched
from a crowded ashtray
at 3 in the morning

He said

“YOU WILL DIE”

if I smoked
the cigarette
bought at the
all-night deli
on Broadway
or the one
from the Gem Spa
on St. Marks
or the one
picked out
of the carton
from the North Carolina
truck stop

the doctor said

“YOU WILL DIE AND TURN YOUR CHILD INTO AN ORPHAN”

SO
I
QUIT

***

In addition to a lifelong love affair with words, Judith Pine Bobé has worked in theatre, dance, music, radio and television and in an assortment of related areas.Her piece,"Sideffects," created especially for The Inner City Theatre and Dance Ensemble, was performed in both New Jersey and New York. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Lips and the Ever Dancing Muse and she has been a featured poet at many metro-area venues, including the Lower East Side Arts Festival and the New Years Day Poetry Marathon at CBGB. She has recently written the liner notes for "All About Love," a jazz vocalist's CD, which will be released in the fall of 2007.She has been a consultant to the New York State Council on the Arts and a grants panelist for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her e-mail address is: jpinebobe@comcast.net.

POETRY. After Winters Thaw. MARION GOLDSTEIN.

2007-08-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

“…our souls remain hovering over the places where we once enjoyed ourselves” Kahil Gibran

After winters thaw it is the bubbling sound
drawing me up the steep slope

that patch of mountain I call my own
surely as if I drove a flag into the ground

and staked a claim. I’ve heard the trees
playing the wind, witnessed forsythia

praying on their knees. I have scythed a path
hurled stones, dislodged boulders

with a great grunt and a crow-bar
the way my father taught me

that summer at the lake
when the birch was still a sapling
and time had yet to carve a map
upon his face, we unhinged stones
from mountain beds, drizzled them down a hill
exploding lilac and clover.
We set rocks where soil was slipping fast
cemented our days into stone
that still retains the summer.

Today ankle deep in muck
that oozes into my sneaker

I am raking winters rot
and discover under wet leaves

a lush patch of strawberries
summer at the lake

and you father
cemented in my bones.

***

Marion Goldstein is a psychotherapist who lives and practices in Montclair NJ . Articles she has written have appeared in several professional journals and she contributed a chapter to Life Guidance through Literature, a text published by the American Library Association. She is an adjunct professor at Caldwell College where she teaches a course in Poetry Therapy.
Her poetry has been published in several literary journals. Her chapbook Blue Prints was published by The New School Chapbook series. Her chapbook Psalms For The Cosmos was published by Pudding House Press and most recently several of her poems have appeared in Preaching The Poetry of The Gospels and Science as Sacred Metaphor published by The Liturgical Press. She is currently at work on a memoir, Hard to Place: A Spiritual Journey through Adoption. Her e-mail address is miggold@aol.com.

POETRY. Breakdown at the A & P. DENISE RUE.

2007-08-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

Some days the market is just a market.
The oranges mounded in their wooden bin don’t threaten.
The trout sacrificed on its bed of ice doesn’t menace.
Even the man who talks to himself while he piggybacks the carts
seems part of the natural order.

But some days the shopping cart’s wheels shimmy and tremble
and you can hear cream curdling in its carton. You stalk the aisles
and wonder about the other women who push their cages before them.

What is the secret of their self-containment?
This one forages, this one pecks.
This one stalks the bloody slabs of beef.
This one gloves her manicured hand in plastic, pounces
on the perfect head of Romaine.

Don’t any of these women want to thrust their carts at juggernaut speed
into that precarious pyramid of oranges? Doesn’t anyone want to shred the skulless brains of cabbages, strew the aisle with slaw? Are you the only one
who desires the boy behind the fish counter, longs
to drag him behind the churning lobster tank, lick the oily scales from his apron?

Fluorescent lights wince, Muzak oozes through the sieved ceiling
as you lie down on a bed of turnips and bok choy,
open your throat like the stunned turkeys in deep freeze
and wait for the automatic vegetable mister
to put you out of your misery.

***

Denise Rue's poems have been published in Poet Lore, Paterson Literary Review, Inkwell, Alimentum and Miller's Pond, among other literary journals. She received her MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College in 2003 and has taught poetry in schools, nursing homes and a women's prison. She is a two-time finalist in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest and was the 2005 Judson Jerome Poetry Scholarship recipient to attend the Antioch Writer's Conference. She works as a clinical hypnotherapist and is the owner of Wellspring Clinical Hypnosis in Clifton.

FICTION. Not Talking. DIONNE FORD.

2007-08-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

It began as just an exercise but became her way of living. And it was a problem now to the few people in her life who loved her, who wanted to hear her voice talk about anything. They were disquieted by all this non-talking, this new belief of hers that spoken words took away from a lived life. They bristled at the grunts and occasional “hmms” that filled the space where multi syllabic words, complex sentences and even paragraphs used to be.

It started for Angie when she said, “I have a great idea,” and explained it in detail to a friend. She had been so excited when the idea came to her in the little rock garden she had erected on her half of a rented two family home that she wanted to share it. She called up Marta, one of five legitimate friends she had (not including the mailman and the driver who brought their bait and supplies down from up North because Angie didn’t count people who had to speak to her out of civility.) Marta answered of course because like Angie, when Marta wasn’t at work she was at home and if she was at home, but not writing, she was just waiting for something to happen.

“Marta, I think I’ve got a good one this time,” and Angie explained in detail what that meant. She had seen the dome of Sam the mailman’s cap go by her window, so she ran out to give him a misdirected letter and catch a few seconds of conversation. That’s when she noticed pieces of her trash strewn across her front lawn. When she went to pick them up, they weren’t pieces of trash at all, but old poems she had written as a child in the orphanage that some how got mixed together with the recycling and that got her to thinking and later in the rock garden like air on a dull flame, something ignited.

She knew just when she would write it – right after her shift at the Buy Hook or Buy Book tackle and bookstore she worked at. She knew she would make a cup of green tea, turn on the ceiling fan in the three-season porch (really only good for two up there in Maine) and she would begin. But when she got there and arranged all the pieces as planned, nothing came. It was as if someone had zapped her with a stun gun and left her temporarily lifeless there at her keyboard.

That’s how it became an exercise.

“Retain the power for the piece,” she told herself when she was tempted by Bailey, the leader of Write Right to talk about what she was working on. Angie had showed up for their weekly meeting empty-handed. The routine was for all five members to bring something, anything each Thursday night to the little space between the fish tackle and the stacks of mostly used books where they convened. Angie always had something to contribute which made sense because it had been her idea to start the group. Usually, she wrote about orphans. They were always adopted by a rich man, or woman or family. Only one group member made the mistake early on of comparing one of her stories to Annie. Angie stunned everyone by turning five shades of red and kicking a pail of live bait ready for shipping clear across the room. Mention of the curly, red-headed orphan was never repeated.

Bailey had a soft spot for the girl. Angie was just the right age to be her own child and always listened patiently with intense eyes whenever Bailey told the story of how she had always wanted to own a bookstore and saw the good in it when her husband died, left this place to her and made a way for her dream to come true. This part of Maine could not support her with books alone so the tackle remained out of respect to her departed Ed and on account of bills that came round every month. At that point in the story, Angie usually rubbed Bailey’s flannel covered back in a circular motion, hoping to massage away the mounting tears. Bailey wanted to help Angie’s dream come true too so when she told her about these other writers needing a place to meet, she said, “Why not here?” And it was only a matter of time before Bailey joined the group too and assumed her matriarchal place as leader. She had no where in particular to be once she turned the Open sign over to Closed on mesh screen door of her store so why not be near the closest thing to family she could find.

“I can’t believe you Angie with nothing to show in a week? Hope it’s not writer’s block.”

“No, it’s just that I need to keep the energy in the writing. Somehow, if I say it, before I write it, the energy slips out of it, and I just can’t get it back.” Bailey looked back at her stunned, waiting for more, for Angie to say something else, something that would make sense. But Angie stopped there afraid that she had already said too much. And indeed she had. Because when she went home that night, her house stale from being shut up since she left it early that morning, her copy of The Literal World was there. She flew by the commentary, the analysis, the personal essay to get to the good stuff, the fiction. And there, intricately detailed with stunning prose by an up and comer as the Literal World editors described this writer was this very idea of not speaking of works in progress because the life would leave them somehow. In the middle of fiction, the truth. From then on, Angie knew that spoken words were powerful, but fleeting and could not be recaptured once they were released. Even talking about why she chose not to talk about what she was writing was iffy business.

This turned her sour to talking altogether and made her suspicious of people who talked too much, especially the writers in her group. If the words she spoke today were being written and more eloquently mind you by someone else last week, then she was behind, an idea that Angie always accepted but would not acquiesce to. She had been playing catch up since forever with people who could afford to go to college, who could afford to read at length and even visit the places described in the books that they read. That was not Angie’s life. She couldn’t remember being read to. As far as developing early reading habits on her own, well, there weren’t many people to help her sound out the words in the tattered copy of “Gulliver’s Travels,” the only book she remembered seeing in the orphanage that raised her. There was school of course, but she seemed to pass through it like a ghost until she turned 18 and both it and the orphanage spit her out like heavily masticated bubble gum.

Angie had Bailey and their books and tackle by day and Hemingway, Faulkner, Wolffe and Welty by night. She was gaining on the other people just beginning their lives, she could feel it, but she was 35. She would have to peddle fast. This new business of not talking she decided could only quicken her pace. Why say what you could write? Her exercise in silence deepened. So Angie compromised on conversation, did not entirely turn from communication and relied on emails. When Emily from Write Right left her a lengthy message on her answering machine asking for a favor, to feel out this new woman joining their little literary circle, Angie knew she would not call her back, but would email her instead. When she did, all the bottled up conversations in her head burst onto the lit up screen beneath the flashing cursor and what came out was very witty, so witty, that Emily decided to co-opt it, and built a short story around it and read it to Right Write at the next meeting.

The exercise hardened into a belief. Write Right removed Angie from the group.

“It’s selfish to come here with little notes and red marks on our work. We want to hear what you think!” Emily said.

But she wrote what she thought. Wasn’t it the same? Like any conviction when challenged, it was inconvenient. She was truly alone now. Just her and her written words, but she held fast, sure that it would pay off in the end, wherever that may be.

A few months into this new religion and Angie was at work as usual.

“Baby, can you get some doughballs from the back?” Bailey asked her. Angie nodded and disappeared beyond the bookshelves into a back room where they kept the live bait. When she returned a man she had never seen dressed for fly-fishing was shifting his weight back and forth from one thin leg to the next. Angie concluded that he must be an out of towner new to fishing mistaken about the kind of fishing you could do around here.

“Those are the ones. I hope they work.” He smiled down on her and her face warmed. “What do you think? Am I missing anything?” He held up his little wire basket busting with artificial flies, mesh net, bug repellent, sun block and lines for both fly casters and bait casters. Angie didn’t mean to, but she laughed. Why hadn’t Bailey told him he didn’t need live bait for fly fishing? He had enough stuff to be at sea for a month, but not the right combinations to catch much of anything. In her head, she said to him, “ever heard of over-doing it? Maybe you want to try reading up on this first next time.” But she let the thoughts pass, hoped she could retrieve them someday if she needed to. She worried though that her mind was like a sieve letting any good thing that she didn’t write down pass right through. That’s how she saw everyone these days – walking pieces of swiss cheese, mouths in a constant state of motion, heads transporting words from one hole to the next not stopping until they found the one hole that would liberate them to the air.

“So how much do I owe you?” Angie wouldn’t even say that much. Bailey was used to this by now and intervened.

“That’ll be $58.95.” The stranger gave Bailey three 20s then turned to Angie.

“What are you a mute?” Bailey sucked in the air around her and puffed out her chest about to pounce on the stranger, but he spoke again before she had the chance.

“What a dumb question. If you’re a mute then you can’t answer me. Anyway I can tell you’re not a mute. What is it sore throat?”

Angie shook her head.

“Big concert tonight, gotta rest your voice?”

Again, Angie shook her head. Bailey rolled her eyes.

“Just not talking today?”

Angie pointed to him with one thin finger and pointed to her own nose with the other.

“You’d never make it in my family. Words are a form of survival with us. You had to shout to be heard there were so many of us.” Angie had to look away now from his curled up lashes and tilted head suspended waiting on her to say something. Her not talking did not deter him. It seemed to nudge him on to fill the space left blank by her missing part of the conversation. “That’s why I like to get out of the city as much as I can. I’m still running from my childhood. No place is too quiet for me, too remote. I like the quiet. Fishing will be right up my alley. If the bait won’t catch those little suckers I figure I’ll just talk them to death. That’ll draw them out.” Angie laughed and he continued in this breathless monologue while three more customers entered the store, selected their necessities and paid Bailey. Even though she said nothing, Angie seemed to participate in the conversation. When he swayed, she swayed. When he stretched his eyebrows to the sky as a vignette from his 10-hour car trip here from Yonkers came to a climax, her eyebrows lifted too and then released to a rush of teeth and gums filling her face. She wondered how much information could be disseminated through a laugh, if it would detract from her writing somehow.

The place was empty now but for the three of them and Bailey hurried off. “Keep an eye up front, will ya? I have to check on our line supply.” The line supply was good, Angie knew because they had checked it that morning together, ticking off the amount with so many slashes on a Buy Hook or Buy Book notepad. Angie wanted to believe that Bailey was trying to give them an opportunity for whatever might come after making an acquaintance, but she could tell by the way Bailey rolled her eyes at his stories that the stranger repelled her.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, look at the time. Those fish will be working on their next incarnation if I don’t get going. I’m Peter by the way.” He took off his cap and unearthed a bouquet of springy red curls then gave Angie his hand. She hesitated then took it. He didn’t use them for more than computer entries and punching numbers on a cell phone she could tell, because they were smooth and his nails were clean. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, her name probably. Angie looked at the door to the storeroom, hoping Bailey would walk through it and rescue her again. But Bailey didn’t come. Peter looked there too and leaned in closer to Angie.

“Is she your mom? Afraid she won’t approve? It’s just your name. How much damage could that do?”

Angie considered that. Just her name. Just one word, two syllables, probably made up by the lady at the orphanage. How much damage could a fake name do? Words – her best friends, now her fiercest enemies. She decided to write her name down on the Buy Hook or Buy Book pad of stationery Bailey kept by the cash register. She wrote her email address too.

“No phone? Oh, right. How could you answer it? Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure not talking with you. I hope we can do it again sometime and before I leave tomorrow night, I will absolutely give you a…click? Is that right? A ring for the phone a click for the email.”

Angie let out a breathy, “yeah,” before she realized her mouth was working without her permission and Peter’s eyes lit up like a kid who just spied Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

When they both finally recovered from the shock of her voice in the dusty room, Peter broke the renewed silence.

“Now that didn’t seem to hurt. Did it?”

Angie shook her head.

“It’s all just a matter of proportion. You’ve gotta start small. We’ll work up to two words. Maybe by tomorrow?”
Angie watched Peter’s back broaden to manage all the bags he was carrying as he walked away from her, opened the screen door with his rubber-booted foot and headed toward the gravel parking lot.

She waved at him even though he couldn’t see and watched his capped head get smaller through the screened door. It made her think of Sam the mailman, her brilliant idea and that curly headed orphan, Annie. She smiled and repeated Peter’s final word to her.

“Tomorrow.”

***

Dionne Ford was an award winning journalist before focusing her attention on literary writing. She has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and grants from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and is at work on her first novel, "Pick Me." She lives in Montclair with her husband and two daughters. Contact her at dionneford@comcast.net.

HUMOR. Cheating on Charles. VIRGINIA BACKAITIS

2007-08-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve broken up with my hairdresser only he doesn’t know it because I don’t know quite how to deliver the news. Do I call and say, Hey Charles, remember how last spring you went on vacation, like you have the second week of March for each of the last seventeen years? Well, Charles, at exactly that time this year, my hair had a growth spurt and my bangs began to fall into my eyes. And my mascara, it started to turn the tips of my bangs black, and my bangs started to put black marks on my forehead. So I’m sure you understand, Charles, I had to do something, and quick. I’d heard good things about this guy, Alex, the owner of Salon Mosaic, so I called there and asked if he could fit me in for a trim.

Now yes, Charles, I know, Charles, that any one of the thirty- three other stylists at BANGZ could have lopped off a little length in your absence. But the truth is, there was this big buzz about Alex, and I was a curious to see what he might be like. So I took a chance and dialed Mosaic, and it was my good fortune that Alex himself answered the phone. “I need an emergency bang trim,” I begged. “My regular hairdresser’s away. I know you have a two month wait list for new clients, but I simply can’t wait.”

“If you can’t wait, you can’t wait, sweetheart,” Alex said. “Come right over.”

Butterflies knocked heads in my stomach as I drove toward Mosaic. It wouldn’t be you, Charles, in your black boots, who was standing at eye level with me snipping the ends off my bangs, making sure they just grazed my eyebrows. What would Alex do, fringe them, I fretted, or cut them too short like you did that one time I broke my leg and had to stay seated? Maybe Alex would have bad breath or a bad back. With you I always knew what I’d go home with, a neatened up version of myself.

But life gets stagnant without risk, doesn’t it, Charles? We’ve agreed on this many times while you’ve applied color to my dark roots. It’s why you race your Harley. It’s why I ski double diamonds. How did two people like us not make a change to my hair for seventeen years?

Anyway, Charles, Alex had a pretty good read on me before I even got to Mosaic. He had the receptionist greet me with a cup of chamomile tea. Soon as I took a few sips, Enrique, a youngish bronzed guy came out to get me and handed me a warm, lavender scented robe. And, yes, Charles, I know Charles, at BANGZ I’d refused the robes when you got them; we’d done just fine without them for so many years. But this was a new place, so I went with the flow, and when I came out of the changing room smelling all pretty, Enrique offered to massage the stress out of my shoulders and neck.

“Oh, no thanks, I’m just having my bangs--” trimmed, I began to say, but Alex overheard and cut me off.

“The time is yours, but the treatment’s on us,” he said. His eyes sparkled as he spoke. “I’m going to be a minute anyway. Close your eyes, breathe, and let go.”

I was surprised at how quickly I surrendered.

When I finally sat down in Alex’s chair, he spent a good five minutes massaging my scalp and combing his fingers through my hair. “Gosh, this is soft. Gosh this is pretty,” he kept chanting. “The color, the color really works with your complexion.”

“Thanks,” I said. “My stylist’s expertise is color. I’m here for my bangs.”

“Right,” Alex said. He lifted the hair from my eyes with his comb. “You weren’t kidding,” he said, “Your mascara really is doing double duty.”

Alex asked me to toss my head back a few times, so he could see the way my hair moved. After a minute he took a step back. “Look, I know we’ve just met,” he said, “ you don’t have to answer this if you’re uncomfortable, but do you feel at all weighed down, like your creativity’s stifled?”

“Doesn’t everyone feel that way sometimes?”

Alex shook his head. “Do me a favor. Can I put a few layers into your hair after I trim your bangs?”

“Would that be expensive?”

“The cut will be on me this time,” Alex said. “I’ll just charge you for the trim.”

“Isn’t my hair too fine for layers?”

“You hair is fine, but it’s not too fine,” he said. “Let’s give it a try; I want to give you a chance to feel the flow.”

Flow, Charles. Do you know what flow is? I think you’d like the concept. Flow is unhindered steady movement, eloquent expression, falling loosely and gracefully. If we had thought of it, Charles, I think we would have agreed to sacrifice a little fullness in my hair so we could experience flow.

Anyway, Charles, Alex was right about the layers; my hair has so much more life when I bother to use a round brush and blow it out. And when I put it in its usual pony tail, it curves, like the bottom of an S; instead of reaching for the floor; it reaches back toward me.

Now, before I left Mosaic that first time, Charles, I asked Alex if he would do anything different with the color. “Your color’s great,” he said, “but I might play with it a little, add a few lowlights to give it dimension, or a few highlights to compliment your personality.”

So Charles, when the time came for me to touch up my roots, and you know how my roots are, they’re fine one day and black as a zebra stripe the next, I called BANGZ and explained that I couldn’t wait, that I had to look good for a big business meeting, that I needed my roots done now. And do you know what that snooty woman with the too-good-for-you accent at the front desk said; she said you were booked, no exceptions. So, what could I do, Charles, I called Alex and asked him if he could to do my roots.

Soon as I got to Mosaic, Alex asked if I’d consider letting him paint on some highlights while the roots cured. “Just a few here,” he said at my cheekbone level, “and a few here,” pointing to my bangs, “to bring out the blue in your eyes.” I told him to go for it, even though I knew it would be expensive. And when he finished, I still did look like me, only now there was something extra working for me that no one else could see. And Charles, buddy, at 45, I need the help, I’m not the twenty-eight year old you met once upon a time ago.

And so Charles, it’s because of these new discoveries I’m making with Alex, that I haven’t been back to see you. Months have slipped by and I’ve walked around feeling like a traitor, hardly showing my face anywhere near BANGZ. I know I should quit avoiding you, that I owe it to you to stop in and tell you it’s over between us. But then I’ve considered how you might respond- you’d probably stomp your black boot on the pickled wood floor and tell me that the reason we never did anything new was because we already had it perfect. You might also say that if I had insisted on doing layers and highlights and wasting my money and my time, only to come out looking pretty much the same, you’d have obliged me. But where would that take us, Charles? You’d be the hairdresser scorned and I’d be the scorner. If you went against your artistic beliefs, you’d feel like a drone from CheapCuts instead of a senior stylist at a Sebastian Premiere Salon. And me, Charles, I’d feel like I confessed adulteress, like a woman who sought out greener pastures, liked what she found, and came home, out of guilt, to live in mediocrity. I shouldn’t be that woman Charles, and you, you shouldn’t be that man. Instead we should say that we did hair together very well, for very many years. But that as time went on, we lost sight not of ourselves but of whom we could be. Really, Charles, we’re each better off without the other.

Now, I’m sorry to say, Charles, that I am a coward and I probably will never tell you any of this. What would either of us gain anyway? I’d still have a new hairdresser and you’d still miss me. So, I guess I’ll just have to keep avoiding Church Street during your scheduled hours. I’ll have to keep limiting my lunches at Raymond’s and Cianci to Sundays and Mondays. I’ll have to keep disguising my voice when I call BANGZ to confirm that you’re busy when I want to run into Beans for a cup of coffee.

Of course, I could send you one of those cards that says, Just Moved. Then if you saw me, you’d think I’m in town visiting friends. But that wouldn’t work because Richard upstairs still cuts my husband’s hair, and that would start rumors about me having problems in my marriage. God, then if you ran into me, you’d probably offer me a sympathy blow out.

The only other thing I can think of is to ask my friend Liz, whose highlights you do, (did you know she’s a therapist?) to tell you that my relationship with you was highly codependent (from my end, of course) and that to get to a healthier place she recommended that I no longer see you. If Liz did this, then I could walk around town freely, even wave hello when I saw you. And you, you could point to me and smile and say, “That’s some whacko woman whose hair I used to do.”

***

Virginia Backaitis writes fiction, flash fiction, and personal essays. Her work has been published in both print and web-based literary journals. She regularly writes cover stories for the @Work section of the New York Post. She earns her living as an Executive Recruiter.

Virginia also hosts a number of blogs and welcomes contributions to one of them: www.DualsAndDuetsOnWork.com. Her primary e-mail is Virginia@BrilliantLeap.com.

FICTION. In Case of Fire. MARINA CRAMER

2007-08-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

“Ach, these candies are so good.” The little woman reached past Vera’s elbow to take several tins off the supermarket shelf.

“Are they?” Vera glanced at the stranger, a middle-aged woman like herself, dressed, like her, in black pants, a white shirt and a sweater, pale lavender to Vera’s vibrant purple.

“Oh, yes.” She placed the tins in her cart and reached for two more. “Not too sweet, and they really taste like fruit. I like to bring a box when I visit old people. And look, they are on sale.” The woman’s voice carried a hint of Pennsylvania Dutch; she shook her poodle-cut gray hair for emphasis. “You should try them.”

Vera studied the tins, the miniature fruits in sharp relief against a black matte ground, the boxes flat and round, designed to fit easily in a woman’s purse. “Or nightstand,” she thought, picking fruit pastilles for Solange and lemon drops for herself. “Solange will like these.”

Solange, the girlhood friend of her heart, was not old, of course, but her shopping days were surely over. Their bond, in the way of women’s friendships, was as strong as it was mysterious. Vera did not know what had drawn her, tall, bookish, reclusive, to the petite blonde with sparkling gray eyes who swore like a truck driver and never failed to use her compact, shapely body to best advantage. She was the first of their tight circle – Vera, Nina, Solange – to drink beer, and smoke, and ride with boys in cars. It seemed outrageous to Vera that she, Solange, would be the first to be struck down, too, as if her brash laugh and filthy mouth, her undeniable vitality, should have been shield enough against the cancer ravaging her beleaguered lungs. She, if anyone, should have been invincible, sailing through life on sheer audacity. When the relentless coughing turned to pneumonia, sending Solange, protesting all the way, into the hospital, the tumor was revealed.

“Big as a grapefruit,” Solange told her friend, unblinking, her tone flat. “I’m fucked.”

Except for a younger brother who traveled from war zone to disaster area as a foreign correspondent, Solange was alone in the world, her French immigrant parents long dead, her bridges in cinders. That left Nina and Vera – friends to the end – a vow all the more binding for having never been spoken. And Nina was in Hawaii, a bride at last at forty-eight, extracting every moment of rapture from her extended honeymoon.

Vera, too, had been away, enjoying the solitude of her annual writer’s retreat. The futility of this habit was not lost on her; she had little hope of breaking into print at her age. But she relished the company of other aspiring authors, the evenings at the retreat lodge talking writing over wine, sharing their occasional successes with barely veiled masochistic envy. She returned to learn that, in her ten-day absence, Solange had been discharged from the hospital and transferred to a nursing home. The tumor was deemed inoperable, and further treatment was not recommended.

Vera could hear the television several doors down the dingy hallway, bells and buzzers and bursts of audience applause intruding on the heavy nursing home air as yet another twenty-first century Everyman pursued the prospect of more stuff and free money. It had always seemed to Vera a dubious recompense for possessing the answer to esoteric questions; knowledge was, to her mind, its own reward.

The quiz show was blasting from 433. Vera entered the room briskly and stopped, the clever remark she was poised to deliver falling away into the irretrievable oblivion of unspoken lines. Solange was sitting on the edge of the standard issue hospital bed, her pale thin legs dangling, child like, over the side. The threadbare privacy curtain was drawn almost completely around the bed, leaving an opening a foot or so wide so she could see – and be seen – out the door. Solange looked shrunken, her arms withered, her hair roots nearly translucent against angry pink bare spots dotting her scalp.

“What’s this?” Vera exclaimed, her voice loud and indignant to conceal the shock at her friend’s changed appearance. “Are you waiting for the doctor?”

Solange shook her head. “It’s like being underwater. I feel like a goddam goldfish in a scummy bowl,” she said in a hoarse whisper, with a feeble wave at the encircling shroud-like cloth. “I’ve been sitting here like this since breakfast.”

“But why? It’s nearly noon!” Vera looked around the room, taking in the tall twin wardrobes, the large picture window with its view of the parking lot below, the frail old woman in the other bed, barely visible under a colorful hand-crocheted patchwork afghan, her back to the blaring television set, where a dejected contestant had just lost all her winnings on a double or nothing dare.

“It’s her TV,” Solange said, lifting dull gray eyes to Vera’s flushed face. “I guess I’m not supposed to watch it. Not that I would,” she added, “if I had a choice.”

“That’s stupid,” Vera claimed bluntly. “Then why don’t they put it next to her bed, instead of on the dresser, where you can’t help but see it?” The dresser stood directly opposite Vera’s bed, the drawers labeled Bed 1, Bed 2, two of each.

“I don’t know, Vera. Please don’t say anything about it.” Solange shook her head again, sadly. “I don’t know if she’s even aware of it, that poor woman. She never makes a sound. They come in and wash her, sometimes they feed her a little, but that’s about it. Her daughter came yesterday, she brought some more pictures,” she gestured toward the wall, bare on her side, but hung with cheerful children’s drawings above the other bed.

“So they don’t have you like this all the time? Behind the curtain?” Vera felt the anger subsiding, replaced by a glimmer of compassion for the dying stranger, touched by the visible tokens of tenderness surrounding her immobile form.

“No, not all the time. Maybe they were going to bathe me, and forgot. It happens.”

They looked at each other in tacit understanding. That could be you, or me. Maybe sooner than we expect. “What’d you have for breakfast?” Vera asked, to break the mood.

“Oatmeal, or some such slop. Cardboard toast. Shitty coffee.”

“Here, or in the dining room?” She recalled passing a large sunlit room, round institutional tables for four with a plastic carnation on each for cheap perpetual cheer. She had noticed the near absence of chairs, assumed most residents wheeled in on their own seats.

“Here,” Solange winced. “I can’t take the dining room. All those sick old people, snot dripping down their noses into the soup, hands shaking so bad they can’t even hold the spoon, let alone use it. We’re supposed to try to ‘socialize,’ but, honestly, Vera, if anyone on this floor ever knew anything, they forgot it years ago. I know the poor bastards can’t help it, but I just can’t stand it.” Her fingers fidgeted with the hem of her hospital gown, crumpling then smoothing the worn cloth. “What I wouldn’t give for a soft-boiled egg. Fresh hot toast, a cup of good strong tea.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Vera’s mouth twitched in a sardonic half smile. “I doubt their kitchen has even seen a real egg. How’d you end up in this place, anyway?” She felt a twinge of guilt for having been away, for giving her friend’s predicament no more than a passing regretful thought while she pursued the hedonistic illusion of literary accomplishment.

“Champagne taste, Medicaid budget,” Solange replied. “The hospital gave up on me, I’m too sick to go home. I had a choice of two facilities, couldn’t see a bit of difference between them. Eeny meeny. Here I am, sponging off your tax nickel.”

“Sweetie, you’ve paid for it many times over. They owe you better than this.”

“Oh, hell, Vera, what’s the difference? I’ll be dead in a month.” Solange pulled the beige cotton blanket over her bare knees. “I just wish it didn’t smell so nasty, like day-old puke covered with Lysol.”

“Don’t they clean?” Vera stepped to the TV, turned the volume down by half, ignoring the model housewife ecstatically folding fluffy white towels while her cherubic toddler crooned engagingly on the spotless floor.

“Sure. Can’t you just see the ad sheet for the cleaning product? ‘Authentically stale aroma, disinfectant highlights mingled with just a hint of ammonia undertones. Perfect for cheap motels, hospital waiting rooms, nursing homes for the indigent. Economical ten-gallon size in stackable non-recyclable plastic containers, guaranteed to clog up landfills until Kingdom Come.’”

Vera laughed drily. “Sounds like you’re back at the ad agency. Did they at least give you a pension?”

“Nope. Eighteen years layout and pasteup, all I got was a handshake and a big smile. That perky little college girl, what was her name? Unpacking her new computer as they walked me out the door. Tiffany. Why would anyone name their child after a lamp?”

“Listen,” Vera said, groping for a less sensitive subject. “Where are your clothes? Don’t you feel like getting dressed? That sexy gown just doesn’t do it for you any more.”

“You think nobody wants to see these droopy boobs and skinny butt?” Solange deadpanned in mock surprise. “Look in the wardrobe, they stashed my stuff in there.” The wardrobe yielded hot pink sweatpants, a bright floral shirt, a well-worn black sweater. “No underwear? These drawers are empty.” Vera ran her hand deep inside to make sure.

“Welcome to the Depends generation. I’ve joined the ranks of the adult diapered,” Solange said, not without a sly hint of caustic pride. “And my bra got lost in the laundry, so I’ll have to hang loose.”

“OK, here goes,” Vera untied the hospital gown closures, held the shirt for her friend like an old-time gentleman helping his evening date into her wrap. “You lost some weight, huh? Getting your girlish figure back,” she joked to mask her horror at the washboard back, the ripples of pallid loose skin around Solange’s waist.

“You know it, honey. If I wasn’t sitting down, these pants would fall off. Thanks,” she nodded to the uniformed attendant setting down the lunch tray.

Vera lifted the domed metal cover and peered underneath. “Pasta,” she proclaimed. “Shells.”

“Oh, joy. I swear it’s a government conspiracy to rid society of poor, sick people. Death by pasta.” She glared vengefully at the plate, where two shells, their edges dry and curled from excessive microwaving, oozed snowy cheese into a pool of watery red sauce. “And this,” she snorted, picking up an institutional packet of French dressing, intended for the single slice of translucent pink tomato resting demurely on a lettuce leaf. “As if there was anything remotely French about it. And Jell-o? Yes, Jell-o.”

“So what do you want?” Vera covered the offending food. “I’ll go get it for you.”

“Nothing. I’d just as soon skip it.” Solange sulked; for a moment or two neither woman spoke, while on the TV a clownish fat man extolled the virtues of a fist-sized hamburger, the meat glistening with fatty juice seeping through fluorescent orange cheese. “What’s it like out?” Solange asked.

“Nice.” Vera brightened. “I’ll get a wheelchair, we can go look at the tulips.”

They waited for the elevator for what seemed like much longer than the elapsed five minutes. “Hey, check it out,” Solange pointed to the wall between immobile sliding doors. “How’s that for comfort.” The sign, printed on a yellowing card, read
IN CASE OF FIRE USE STA RS
DO NOT USE ELEVATORS

The space where the missing “I” had been gleamed white between block vinyl letters.

“Must be somebody’s idea of a joke,” Vera guessed.

“Huh. Just wonder if it’s cheerful capable staff or captive inmates,” Solange replied grimly. “Abandon all hope, blah, blah, blah. You notice how they hide us hard cases on the fourth floor. What are the chances, you think, of anyone carrying us gimps and lepers out of a flaming building? My guess is stars are a better bet.”

They rode down in uneasy silence punctuated by the creaking and grinding of neglected machinery, landing with a jolt on the ground floor. “Don’t forget to sign me out,” Solange said. “I’m government property.”

The grounds consisted of a grassy area at the side of the building, bordered by a few budding azalea shrubs against the wall and a narrow sidewalk abutting the parking lot. The tulips – pink, yellow, white – grew in a raised bed in front of two green plastic benches. A small picnic table, no doubt convenient for staff breaks, judging by the abundance of cigarette butts protruding from a sand-filled bucket, stood on a bed of gravel in the shade of a lone maple.

Solange raised her face to the sky and closed her eyes. “Sun feels good,” Vera said.

“Like a lover’s caress,” her friend agreed, opening one eye. “Almost.” Her skin looked papery in the bright light, like fine muslin draped over a barely concealed skull. How tenuous, Vera thought, our hold on life. How fragile the vessel.

“Hey, Sol, let’s split this joint,” Vera brightened at her daring idea with adolescent enthusiasm, lapsing easily into the retro-sixties lingo that was never far from her outlook.

“Hell, yeah,” Solange breathed. “Where can we go?”

“My place. I’ll make you that soft-boiled egg.”

They drove without speaking for fifteen minutes or so, Solange cradled deep into the seat like a child, her slippered feet barely touching the floor, her head turned to the side window.

“Fuckin’ flowers,” she said, as if to herself, not looking at Vera. “Don’t know if I ever noticed them before. Pretty.”

“How much gardening can you do in a high-rise apartment? You never were a nature lover.”

“Still, I never cared. Flowers came and went, it didn’t concern me. If they weren’t long-stemmed red roses – without thorns – from the man of the moment, I just did not see them.” They lapsed back into silence, neither woman needing to say: Enjoy them now. When Solange suffered a fit of explosive, raspy coughing, Vera remembered the candies.

“Oh, hey, I brought you some fruit drops,” she said, eyeing her friend uneasily, not sure what, if anything, she could do to help. “They’re right here in my bag.”

“Thanks,” Solange seemed to shrink even further into her seat, her breathing rough and ragged. “I may be beyond fruit drops. But thanks.”

Vera’s aging postwar two-story “starter” home, intended for young couples making their first real estate purchase, could not be entered, front or back, without negotiating porch steps. It was best for Solange to stay in the yard, they decided, rather than risk a fall from Vera’s uncertain grasp.

“This is the part that sucks the most,” Solange said grimly. “Two weeks ago I could walk. Now I think I would give anything just to get down on the floor and crawl across the room. Screw the dignity, I just hate being helpless. They can give me drugs for the pain, but nothing to bring back a little strength.”

“Must be hell,” Vera acknowledged, finding no words of comfort that did not sound anemic or trite. “What kind of tea you want? Earl Grey, Jasmine, English breakfast?”

“You got Russian Black? Yeah. Make it strong, sister, with lemon. No sugar.”

Vera had pulled the car as far up the driveway as it would go, then half dragged, half carried her friend the short distance to the lawn chair she wouldn’t put away until first frost, Solange making an effort to move her feet in a heroic semblance of walking. The yard was small but private. “Look up,” Vera said, pointing. “The cherry’s in bloom.” She raised her own head to admire the masses of white blossoms swaying high overhead against vibrant green foliage and too-blue sky. The tree had grown wild, its smooth black trunk straight and strong, thick branches spreading above the diminutive Japanese maples and rhododendrons. The fruit, when it came, was strictly for the birds, who came for it in their plumaged variety, filling her yard with song punctuated with frenetic territorial squawking. Just now it was quiet, three crows holding an avian business meeting in a nearby oak, emitting the occasional guttural utterance, and a lone mockingbird practicing its deceptive repertoire, fooling no one.

Solange glanced at Vera with profound indifference, her mouth drawn down in pain, exhaustion dulling her eyes. “Right,” Vera said, moving toward the house. “I’ll boil you that egg.”

In the kitchen she moved with efficient grace and culinary confidence, assembling the tray with an eye to aesthetic detail while the egg boiled and the teapot warmed. Within minutes it was ready, the brown egg smooth and hot in its yellow ceramic egg cup, the toast edges perfectly crisped, the cutlery nestled artfully in the folds of her best linen napkin, wild strawberry jam glowing like rubies in a small cut glass dish. Vera hesitated to add the salt shaker, but only for a moment. “Let her decide,” she said out loud, placing the shaker on the tray and backing out the door, down the steps into the yard, where Solange sat perfectly still, eyes closed, legs straight out in front of her on the faded blue webbed chair.

“I’m not sleeping,” Solange assured her. “Just zoning.” She raised her head and reached for a slice of toast before Vera had finished settling the tray across her lap. “Do you know how much I love this? Hot toast with the butter just soft but not yet melted, is there anything better?” She bit into the bread, continued talking while chewing with evident pleasure. “You can keep all your fancy dishes, just give me a piece of decent goddam toast.”

The egg was cooked perfectly, the firm opaque white encasing a warm but still liquid yolk, which trembled like leaf-dappled sunshine on the spoon in Solange’s pale hand. She ate slowly, dipping slivers of toast into egg, adding the occasional dash of salt, taking deep slurpy sips of mahogany-colored tea lightened with thin lemon slices. Vera sat, her own cup balanced on the arm of her upright lawn chair, saying nothing. Is this it? she thought – is this what it comes down to, all the struggles and aspirations, all the desire, heartbreak, frustration, accomplishment, the endless busyness of life lived at a frantic pitch of boredom and fury, violence and joy? An egg, a cup of tea, the perfect slice of toast.

“You want more?” she asked, watching Solange scrape the last shred of egg white out of the shell.

“No.” Solange licked a stray spot of jam off her finger. “It was divine.”

“You want some music? I could bring the radio,” Vera offered, suddenly inexplicably shy, as if Solange’s suffering had somehow extended her friend’s horizons, placing her on a higher plane of existence where things were both simple and sublime, a blurry outline of peripheral concerns around a crystalline center focused by pain. It was an alien place, a place she could not go.

“No. There’s nothing I want…” Solange pushed forward, unable to continue, her chest wracked by a fit of phlegmatic coughing, gradually subsiding into a throaty rumble, the episode leaving her gasping for breath. “You got a blanket, maybe? For my legs?” she managed, when her breathing quieted.

Vera took away the tray. When she came back a few minutes later, Solange’s head was resting against the back of the chair, her chin turned to one shoulder, a faint flush spreading across her prematurely aged cheeks. She stirred when Vera tucked the blanket around her. “You’re a fuckin’ angel,” she murmured, her voice hoarse and sleepy.

Vera went into the house. “Let her sleep,” she thought. “I’ll get her back to her keepers in time for dinner.” She scraped the crumbs and eggshells into her composting bucket, watered the windowsill potted ivy with the last of the cooled tea, ran hot water over the dishes, and wept.

***

Marina Antropow Cramer, European-born child of Russian refugees, sailed into New York Harbor in 1956, with a memorable first sighting of the Statue of Liberty, and (truly), a rainbow. More recently, a staff member at Montclair's watchung booksellers most weekday afternoons, having clocked 22 years in the industry, and counting. Had work performed by professional actors in Roselee Blooston's Tunnel Vision Writers' Project three years running.

The selection is part of a work in progress, a story cycle tentatively titled The Vera Stories.

Contact: 845 355-6802 home
973 744-7177 work (best)
cupchaucer@yahoo.com

ESSAY. Women In the Family. QUINITA E. GOOD.

2007-08-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

She is marked across her body as a laborer. Several scars on her right hand, gleaned from picking cotton carelessly on her grandfather’s share. A raised black circular blemish over her left breast, the remainder of hot ash droppings from a cigarette in bed. Discolored calluses on her hands and feet, autographing her work as a laundress who walked everywhere she went and washed clothes by hand. And moles stamped around her extremities and face, a common signature for Black women her age. She is seventy. She is my mother. And she still works.

A strong work ethic is not uncommon in my family. (Although, when doled out, it seems to have skipped me.) My grandmother and great-grandparents were sharecroppers, where only Thanksgiving and Christmas were sacred. But even then, the women worked all day in the kitchen cooking and all night, the night before, cleaning the rest of the house. So, it really isn’t that surprising that my mother still works at seventy. Yet it isn’t my mother’s work history or markings that intrigue me. Rather, it is her pride—a marking in and of itself. Resplendent in its ability to motivate her friends. Voracious in its capacity to devour her enemies. As her only daughter, I often found myself in the latter category, floundering helplessly to become my mother’s friend.

It’s difficult to come to terms with the fact that I never bonded with my mother. My earliest memories of us together are steeped in battles. The dress that I liked that she didn’t want me to wear. The friends I loved that didn’t meet her expectations. The decisions I made that disappointed her. The fact that I was a constant physical reminder to her of my father. As far back as I can remember we were at war. Years and years of war.

I, too, am marked. Invisible but ever-present emotional scars are the property of my mother’s anger. I’ll never forget the first Christmas I bought my mother a gift. I was nine years old. One particularly cold winter afternoon, I stopped by the Shrine of the Black Madonna, a local African-inspired book, clothing and gift store in our hometown of Detroit, to look for the perfect gift. Besides being a hard worker, my mother was also an avid reader and a political activist, so I thought that a gift from the Shrine would be suitable. I scoured the bookshelves looking for something we didn’t have and she hadn’t read. Nothing struck my eye. I stopped by the jewelry case and the clothing rack, but everything was too expensive. Finally, my eyes settled on an exquisite wood sculpture of a Masai warrior. Surely she would be pleased, I thought. I think at the time it was less than ten dollars—just my price. I bought it, wrapped it in very pretty paper, attached a nametag, and put it under the tree.

That Christmas, I was more excited about my mother and brother opening their gifts that I had bought them than I was about opening my own. I was especially excited about mamma opening her gift because I wanted so much to please her, something that rarely happened. She opened mine first. She smiled and gave me a big hug and thanked me. I felt like a big girl, responsible. I had shopped on my own. I bought my mother a gift. I was close to becoming a woman. Buying gifts was something women did.

That night, after all the presents were opened and the dinner dishes were being put away, our next-door neighbor Mrs. Warren came to visit. I was never used to interfering in grown folks’ conversations, but I couldn’t help overhearing my mother tell Mrs. Warren that she didn’t get anything for Christmas. I think that was the first day the scar of insignificance wore wide across my own body. I felt like nothing I did mattered.

Later, there were other scars, too. Like the time she threatened to commit suicide, and I felt helpless in trying to help her. Like the time she embarrassed me in front of her friends by telling them I was a difficult child. Like time after time when she made me lie to someone on the telephone because she didn’t feel like talking. And I don’t want to sound like I was always the innocent party. I often did things I knew would rub momma the wrong way. Like sneak and wear her good clothes to school, have boys over when she wasn’t home, and drink all the black pekoe tea she loved so much. Like I said, we were at war.

Be that as it may, Christmas stands as a marker in our relationship. However, this past one was a very positive one. My mother, who now lives in Detroit, Michigan, after several years of living in both Wisconsin and New Jersey, came to visit me for Christmas. Putting all my reservations aside, I decided to try and shower her with unconditional love. This time, it wasn’t about pleasing her; it was about ending the war. I had decided not to fight.

Two days into our visit, her wrath resurfaced. We were spending a leisurely time at breakfast with two of my friends when my mother announced to them that I had always been “hard to please.” One of my friends, Janie, shot back: “That just isn’t true. Quinita is easy to get along with and easy to please.” My mother’s face stiffened and I had gained position without even taking one. I knew that my mother knew that her statement wasn’t true. I just think that she was so used to fighting with me that her comment was more of a reflex emotion. The war between us had become second nature.

The conversation then moved back to my mother. Her education. Her work. Her political views. As always, she was happy to talk about herself. But something new happened—I was willing to listen.

I learned that my mother, who was not raised by her own mother, was bitter about not having that mother/daughter closeness so many women share. I learned that her work made her feel “useful and progressive.” She felt that it would add years to her life if she continued to work. I learned that she felt more useful when she was helping others. And I learned that she wished she had become a doctor. My mother had divulged information to my friends that I’m sure I had heard before. The difference this time was that I listened.

After really hearing my mother speak, I began to understand her a little more. I had never really appreciated the fact that she hadn’t had her mother with her while she was growing up. Somehow, I’m not sure how this has impacted our relationship. I still haven’t figured it all out, but I have developed more compassion for her. I even admire her.

During our visit, I made it a point to constantly remind myself of what a wonderful person she was, albeit flawed like the rest of us. I now see her as a trailblazer. After all, as a Black woman from a sharecropper’s family, she graduated from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, with a master’s degree in organic chemistry. She raised my brother and I with no husband. She has worked hard throughout her life and is deeply respected by many for it. And she is beautiful to look at. Her smooth dark chocolate skin is without wrinkle. He almond-shaped eyes are telling of the many obstacles she has overcome. And her markings, once I understood them, tell me that I come from a woman who is leaving a legacy.

Markings. We all have them. They are tied to our experiences and responses like DNA, informing what we are really made of. And the fact that we survive despite them, points to our indomitable spirits and strong resilience. Will my mother and I ever end the war between us and implement peace? I don’t know. But I do know that none of us is whole without our markings. And none of us are exempt from them either. This is the essence of resilience, the essence of spirit.

And what is war? It has various meanings, depending on to whom you speak. A warrior will most likely speak of hand-to-hand battles—yet he will tell his story from the point of view of “we.” A general may not see battle at all, but will give commands and be captivated by his own logic wherever it may lead. Through the many battles that my mother and I participated in, we sought to change one another into something we felt we could live with. But the mystery that every soldier sees, but seldom realizes, is that as we expend energy in battle, we are releasing the need to control. At first we think that someone must win. It is not a single person who wins, but it is the “we” that wins. We remain mother and daughter, women connected in ways that no one can destroy. Not even us.

***

Quinita Edmonia Good is the mother of one son. The recipient of two 2005 New Jersey Press Association awards, she is employed in the public relations industry and also offers writing and editorial services to businesses and individuals. She can be reached at quinita_good@hotmail.com.

ESSAY. Attack of the Pink Ribbons. PATIENCE MOORE.

2007-08-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is kicking my butt. It’s October 2nd and I’ve already had enough of it. I am totally in favor of it. For other people. I am in favor of it for the people for whom it will help. It will save lives. I want them to do it. Them. Whoever the men and women are that have launched and maintained this awesome promotional campaign that is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I, myself, am quite aware, thank-you.

There is so much press and PR about Breast Cancer these days that I am actually starting to feel hip because I had breast cancer. It’s the chic cancer. It’s the edgy, trendy way to face your mortality. I now have an opening line for when I am chatting up Melissa (Ethridge) and Sheryl (Crow), thank God. “Oh, yeah. Breast Cancer. Been there, done that. Where’s the buffet?” It’s good that Breast Cancer Awareness Month has joined Halloween in October. Breast cancer is spooky too.

I go for treatment at my hospital and there is a plastic pink ribbon tied around literally every tree surrounding the hospital. The same kind of plastic strips the cops use to cordon off a crime scene. But bright pink. A different kind of crime scene. I go to the mall with Van and the kids to get my computer fixed and there are the same pink ribbons tied around every tree surrounding the parking lots, which take up acres. Inside the mall, there are HUGE-at least 30 foot-pink ribbon sculptures hanging from the ceiling like the balloons in the Macy’s Day Parade, framed by lines of festive pink Christmas tree lights. A bizarre celebration of a deadly disease. There are special offers to buy from this store and that store and a certain amount of the purchase price will go to Breast Cancer research. I am astounded at the breadth of this campaign as I walk through the mall and am dizzy thinking of all the phone calls and deals of which this all is a result.

Maybe now a few more women will get their yearly mammograms. That would be very good. A mammogram saved my life. But for me, every time I see a pink ribbon, it says, “Did you die? Oh-not dead now, but maybe dead later? Maybe recurrence? Remember this past year? Remember how shitty chemo was?” This, when really all I am interested in is a new operating system for my Mac from the Apple Store and to scout out a new dining room table at Crate and Barrel that will go with the furniture I inherited from my father who died three years ago of skin cancer that had metastasized to his brain. Can I just shop? Must I think about the silicone pillow that has replaced my right breast? About dying?

Today I got up at 5am to be on my friend Nelsie’s radio show. We had been talking for months about how I was going to do a segment on breast cancer when October came around. It was incentive for me to stay witness to this journey. I collected ideas, stories, jokes to tell the radio public from the mouth of someone who is right in it. From someone who is aware, very aware, of breast cancer. I rose and shone. 5AM. Green tea, stoned wheat thins, a little yoga, a review of my notes, and bingo. I did a great job. Told all my good cancer jokes right on cue, like the one about looking like an aging poodle as my head, bald from chemo, sprouted gray curls. I closed with thoughts of how cancer enhanced how I see myself as a mother to my little boys. I was strong, a warrior, a survivor. Poignant yet funny. Deep yet snappy.

Like the muscle man in the circus, I hit the target and rang the bell. But only a couple hours later, the reverberations from the bell of success have mutated into the din of a bunch of nervous monkeys, chattering nonstop but saying nothing. My mental ‘to do’ list is ticking things off in my head, but the sound is garbled, warped. I am unmoored.

A bike ride helps. I push up extra hills, deliberately exerting myself to get grounded, to find a thread of sanity again to hold. But it’s not enough. Not enough. I’m still swirling down a drain, my mind obsessively reviewing the radio show looking for where I must have screwed up to cause this much anguish. Even a half hour of hill sprints isn’t enough to anchor me so I decide to attack our lawn. I bee-line for the mower and fire her up. I push it onto the long moist grass and cut, controlling the grass, putting it in its place. The obnoxious buzz drowns out the monkeys. I want to mow forever. Then the coin drops and my body relaxes. I stop pushing and stand still with the mower handle still vibrating in my hands. OH! That’s it!

This anxiety isn’t about whether I did a good job on the radio. The anxiety is from hearing, during this friggin’ Breast Cancer Awareness month radio show, that a woman dies of breast cancer every thirteen minutes in our country. Does that mean I have 12 left? It is from seeing a thousand pink ribbons and from talking about my cancer on the radio for God’s sake, being the featured guest contributor for the segment on breast cancer. “Next up, hear how a mother of two survives breast cancer…stay tuned” and it’s me. I’m the mother of two. The two are in the house right now waiting for me to finish mowing.
I sit heavily on the lawn chair by the garage. Though my heart is broken, at least I have returned to myself, to sit by my side, hold my hand and breathe my breath. I will take this pain over free-floating anxiety anytime.

I leave my grassy rain boots outside the back door and slip inside to the play room where a feverish 5 year old Theo is watching TV. Gus is crashed out on the sofa. Out like only two year olds can be. I climb up onto the dark green knock-off La-Z-Boy with Theo.

“Wanna watch SpongeBob together?” I surprise him with this rare offer.

“YAH!” he raises his high voice higher with joy.

“Do you know when I got this chair?” I ask him, with a smile.

He looks at me, dark brown eyes clear with fever, waiting for the story.

“I got it when you were born so I could nurse you in it.”

We both smile and keep our faces close. We hold hands. Theo strokes my hand. It’s perfect and special and I am lucky. Loved, cared for.

I take the remote and punch a few keys to get SpongeBob. And while Theo watches the antics of Bikini Bottom, I float in the aliveness of this fresh, hard-won serenity, of touching his insanely soft skin, smelling his salty hair; this pause in the scrambling dance that I have to do to shake down the acceptance of my breast cancer.

***

A few days later, shopping for a new car, we navigate through two dealerships and three test-drives and end up at the Panera Bread Company for lunch. I see on the front door a large photographic poster announcing that they are now serving BAGELS IN THE SHAPE OF RIBBONS FOR BREAST CANCER. Someone is in some kitchen somewhere deftly criss-crossing raisin bagel dough into the classic awareness-raising ribbon shape. So it’s no longer enough that I have to SEE the ribbons everywhere, I now am suppose to eat them. My awareness is reluctantly being shoved to new heights.

After lunch, we drive up the street to the animal emergency hospital where our red bone coon hound, Cyndi-Lou, the sweetest girl of our home (besides me ), is locked inside a Lucite oxygen cage fighting for her life after being whomped by a car that then drove off, leaving her to limp home and collapse in the kitchen, her mouth in a strange smile of pain and shock.

“She has sustained serious trauma to her chest,” the vet told us. That makes two of us. “As much as she could stand without dying.” Yes, I know what that’s like. We stroke her short, rusty fur and coo at her through the boy-in-the-bubble hole of the cage.

Home again at the end this VERY stressful day of pain (my reconstructed breast hurts me), parenting stress ( dragging a four year old through a grown-up day), and doggie hospitals with four thousand dollar invoices, I am in our kitchen, making chamomile tea looking to let it all go, when I glance over to the English Muffin bag that Van has brought home from the A&P. “JOIN FORCES FOR THE CURE” is scrawled across the plastic bag, with the now unmistakable bright pink ribbon swirl on it. They have reached virtually every single company in the civilized world!

I turn on my heel and go upstairs. I’ll join forces with my bed and start over in the morning.

***

Patience Moore is a recent MEWS member and a singer/songwriter/producer who won five awards for her family music project Buckaroos Sleep Too! She is currently writing a memior about being diagnosed and treated for Breast Cancer in 2005 called Top Ten Reasons to Get Breast Cancer. She will be joining NJ LIFE and LEISURE with a new column called " That's Life" beginning in the November issue. Patience also teaches elementary school music and private voice lessons. She lives in Montclair with her husband Van Manakas and their sons Theo and Gus.
(PatienceMoore2@Gmail.com www.PatienceMoore.com)