poetry

pamela r. anderson

tara broeckel

jessica jewell

satya palaparty

lea povohazev

contributors notes

                                        cover art: "untitled" by jessica jewell

from the editor

welcome to the second first issue of yack. what began as a project in a publishing class at youngstown state university is continued here with a new look and name, but with a similar intention: to publish a diverse selection of work from the writers of the northeast ohio master's of fine arts in creative writing program (neomfa). the program is a consortium that consists of four schools: the university of akron, cleveland state university, kent state university and youngstown state university. this online journal is meant to showcase the up-and-coming talent of the burgeoning writing scene in northeast ohio. enjoy!

valerie suffron hilty

may 4, 2007

poetry

pamela r. anderson

3:28 a.m.
 

Sleep
time for all the men
and dogs cats
and critters. Dust
settles on tables across
mantles over picture
frames. No running toilets;
basins are dry
to the touch.
The refrigerator
hums softly to itself smug and
satisfied that no cold air
escapes. Right now,
only women
roam through houses. We
tip-toe on bare feet cross
over carpets linoleum
terra-cotta tile. We are silent
ghosts who tuck blankets around
the chins of milk-breathed
children brush hair
back from sweaty
faces offer kisses
that can’t be returned
sticky. Or not at all.
We check Mr. Coffee’s
on/off switch try
the doors steal one
quick look
through the slats of the blinds.
Outside, on the north/south
highway, it’s dark.
That moon is sleepy
and even the eyes of stars
drop like horned owls
over the sparkle.
Forgotten whispers catch
an ear turn
a head. We try to keep safe
what cannot be saved.
 

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tara broeckel

Bref Double
 

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jessica jewell
 

Things I Know About My Father
 
Name was Thomas.
White man from Ohio, Beautiful River.
Came to Kentucky to work in the Cumberland mines.
Kept my mother’s picture with him in the cage room while he rang up
and down the       
   many floors, the chirr of bells, always in his ears.
Never took a liking to church. 
Gave my mother a white gold bracelet when he asked her to marry him.
Had thick black hair that curled in humid summer.
Spent Sunday afternoons dreaming under the Ash Trees, plying steel-
hair lures for trout,
   birch basket woven by my mother, stocked with butter sandwiches.
Sealed in a year before I was born, candle died, still axed his way
out alive.
Got cancer from the coal dust five years later.
No one from the church prayed over his body.
Loved most, fly-fishing the Cumberland River.
Loved the way rain built high waters and surged down the veins of
hills.
Asked my mother to lay him with her people.
Is buried now on Pine Mountain.

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satya palaparty

Sumalata

I am the lily of the lotus pond.
They call me Sumalata.
Early, even before morning struggles
to wake up and all is red and purple
in the sky and the dew is still
on the petals and before the red-plumed cock crows,

my mother wakes me up to go to work.
Still sleepy, I clean my yellow teeth with black charcoal.
My mother combs my hair and I fall asleep.
She braids my hair tightly.
Ouch!
Pulling my skin and that sure wakes me.
I check the pink ribbons on my two curled up pigtails
in a mirror that lost some of its silver.

My pretty purple and pink dress hangs
on a nail in the cracked wall.
My mother lets me wear it only on special occasions.
so I wear a checkered green dress with tiny holes,
unnoticeable. I wear the green glass bangles
my father brought from the fair

My mother yells at me to hurry up.
I move like a rabbit in front of her.
As I walk, I am a snail drinking the cool morning air

Lady Anne makes eyes at me
because I am late.
She is awfully quiet today.
Her father is visiting.
She gives me watered tea and a stale piece of bread
which I throw when she is not looking.

The grandfather brought some chocolates for the kids
and left them on the table
There is also a toothpaste tube with no lid
Reckless.
Everyone is busy.

I look left, then right.
No, I look right then left.
I grab the toothpaste tube,
dab a little bit on my finger,
and brush my yellow teeth.

Then I took a little bit more and swallowed it.
My God, it was tasty!
 

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aaron smith

A Place for Broken Things

A place where clocks move
like grizzly monks at prayer.

This place is sleeping.

All shouts are whispers, but
not all whispers are shouts.

Nameless molecules dance,
masquerading as sea glass.

Little known, a voice sings here.
Long, it stretches between
furthest corners, argues
with itself, whether it sounds
more like Nina Simone
or Billie Holliday while
it sways in a rocking chair,
polished, painted with dahlias.
It drinks whiskey, and it drinks whiskey.

Here, light is irreverent
in choosing what it illuminates,
invites us to the business of crevices,
where flies bask in beer-lights.
Forges a neon armature of forgetting,
half comatose in celluloid cremation.

No Vacancy

I remember decadence,
the slow love of toxicant
revelry.

The red, red flesh,
subtle mingling of fingers
against a porcelain veneer.

Slow count of the collar
bone against my own measured
addition of sparkling wrong
decisions.

Is there anything left
among these ratty boxes
of rags worth saving,

I ask.

I’ve never had such
a devilish lover,
and yet I hang my
six shooter on the door hook.

The touch of your long
nail against the pulp
of my neck, might as well
be a ragged blade whetted
on an uneven stone.

You’ve torn evenly me
among the four winds,
haven’t you had enough,

I ask.
 

My liver?
A gift to Crow?
Ah, so I might never
cleanse myself again.
 

You are the only one,
among the faithful,
who’ll lick my guts
in lust and twirl my
broken locks around
a smooth finger.

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marianne thomas-jackson

Bootleg Whiskey

By 9 o’clock on a sultry Friday night the joint is jumping, humping,
Moving and grooving. Sweaty bodies sway in utter abandon
To the throbbing, sexy tunes of Bobby “Blue” Bland
Telling all their stories out loud and clear, rusted jukebox thumps to the
Earthy beat of the neighborhood. Lovers press flesh
In the corner,
In the back,
In the dark.
Too cool for ice water, sugar daddies, saunter in flashing and shining
In their three piece sharkskin suits, Fedora hats slightly askew
Over processed jet black hair.

Ladies of the night languish on top-cracked, red leather bar stools.
Doe eyes smolder slowly surveying the slim pickins.
Bodies poured into hip hugging, cleavage revealing, bright colored dresses.
Hot-combed hair quickly going back home, heat from damp close press of thighs
And legs cutting a rug.
Windsor Canadian,
Johnnie Walker Red,
Fifty cents a shot.

Congealed remains of boiled pig ears and tails with hot sauce,
A Friday night treat, litter the plastic covered tables
Placed haphazardly around The Neighborhood Bar & Grill.
Forget about the kids for an hour or two.
Forget about Mr. White Man offering his butt for a Black man to kiss
Every day of his life.
Bobby “Blue” Bland
Muddy Waters
B.B. King
Groove me.
 

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sara tracey

This Should Have Been a Love Poem

I lie next to your infidel sleep, all night in pain and lonely with my silenced pleasure.
-Olga Broumas, “Caritas”


She was looking
for something
that would feel
organic. Unmastered.
Somewhere
to rediscover
without memory
or decision.
She waited
in humid dawn
another night
spent wide awake.

Yesterday, he told her
of the night he lost
his flip-flops,
found someone’s chopsticks
in his pocket.
Now, he mumbles,
half sleeping:
this doesn’t make sense.
He will not
remember
that his hands
wandered,
his tongue tasted.

He will let go
before she is ready
to kiss
this waking dream
good morning
and walk back
into noon-time
disregard.
 

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fiction

travis hessman

Wild Roses & Lilacs 

... so we would like to thank you once more for your generous gift of FIVE DOLLARS to the WEST VIRGINIA STATE TROOPERS COALITION.  We just need to verify some information...

—What bothers me the most is the no ring.

—Really?  More than a Nguyen?

—Nguyen’s are rough, yes.  Sure.  But I feel like the no ring is more fundamental.

—The essential flaw?

—The void at the heart of the void.

—But it’s surmountable.

—Is it?  Can it, when it’s such a thing?  Such a flaw?

—Sure.  When conditions are right it’s like no ring was ever not there.

—But that’s too rare.

—And mindless, don’t forget.

—But possible?

—On a lucky day.  Nguyen, though.  That’s the roughest.  Impossible.

—Madness.

—Proof: Something must be silent.

—There must be one.

—But which?

—It could be Nooyen.

—Sometimes I think Gooyen.

—What about the “u”?

—That’s something else altogether.

—Nyen?

—Gyen?

—I tell you, nobody knows.

—Somebody must.  A Nooyen.  Or a Gooyen.  Or...

—Well, if they know, they’re not telling.

—It’s rough.

—And you can hear it in their voices.  When you say it wrong.  It’s like they’ve hung up already.  Inside.

—Certainly rough.

—The roughest.  Some say there’s no way to say it.  Foreign sounds we can’t even hear.

—Still, I think it might be the no ring.

•  Hello MR[S] SANCHEZ, this is JOSE GONZALEZ calling on behalf of the KANSAS STATE TROOPERS ASSOCIATION, how are you this AFTERNOON?  Why yes ma’am, our records do indicate that you may have already received a call this MORNING, but...

—For me it’s something else.  It’s the not knowing. 

—I think it’s the same thing.

—Not knowing who it’s gonna be.  You don’t hear ‘em say hello, it’s lost somewhere before you even know.  But you still have to pick a sex.  How many times is it hello ma’am to Mister Nooyen?

—Or to little Susie Gooyen.

—Or on speakerphone for the whole Nyen clan to mock?

—It’s terrible.  Humiliating.

—I tell you, that’s the problem with the whole thing.  Not knowing.  You put yourself out there.  Out into this void.  You never know who you’re talking to until it’s too late.  The same every time.

—I think it’s the same thing.

•  Hello MR[S] O’BRIAN, this is PATRICK FLANAGAN calling on behalf of the FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL.  MR[S] O’BRIAN, do you think crime pays?  Well neither do we.  That’s why we’re conducting our 2007 WINTER DRIVE. Our records indicate that last year you donated...

—Any luck?

—Nah.  It’s just what I was saying.  Dead air.  Gave the whole pitch to a dead line.

—Could have been an answering machine.

—Oh, that’d be cute.  Wrong-ended, one-sided pitch on tape.

—To be played back at their convenience.

—A thousand times.

—If they like.

—Or never.

—Always the same call.

—Always the same caller.

—Always the same tone.

—Seems wrong, somehow.  Wicked.

—I think it’s all part of what I was saying before.  It’s just silence, nothing, and then beep and you start.  That’s the part.  It’s the system.  Stop and start; have not then have.  There’s no foundation.

—Built on sand.

—For a cliché.

—In a storm.

—More of the same.

•  Hello MR[S] YO, this is MIKE TOMAKA calling on behalf of the NEW YORK VETERANS ASSOCIATION, how are you this... yes sir.  Yes.  We understand sir.  Yes, actually we’ve seen that episode.  Right.  Why don’t you call us at our house later.  Yes, very good sir.  Look, we’re not allowed to hang up, sir, so you’re going to have to... Oh, yes sir.  We are definitely.  All of us.  Yes sir.  We’ll get real jobs tomorrow, sir.  Yes.  Have a great day, sir.

—You know, someday I’d like to call someone.  Me.  Not we or us.  I and me.  That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?

—Personal pronouns.

—Agency.

—And names, too.  I’d like to be the same.

—But it’s culturally inappropriate.

—Most of the time.

—Offensive.

—Ineffective.

—Old-fashioned.

—But still...

—But studies show...

•  Hello MR[S] BURKE, this is EWAN MACCARTHY calling on behalf of the EASTERN CONNETICUT FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE, how are you this EVENING?  Great.  Well, ma’am, we’re calling today to let you know we’re conducting our 2006 FALL DRIVE right now.  Yes ma’am.  TO FUND THIS YEAR’S CHARITY EVENTS, FOR THE ADVERTISING COSTS OF SAID EVENTS AND TO OFFSET THE COSTS OF THE FUNDDRIVE.  Yes ma’am.  This funddrive, ma’am.  That’s right.  Can we count on you for your usual donation of THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS?  Wonderful, ma’am.  Now, we just need to verify some information...

—What do you do with your money?

—I used to save it.

—What, like in a bank?

—No, in a sock.  A dirty sock.

—Is that safe?

—It was.

—But wouldn’t they look there first?  The robbers?  In the drawer?

—It wasn’t in a drawer.  It was in the corner.  Under a pile of other dirty socks.

—Security of filth.

—Guaranteed to repel.

—What did you do on laundry day?

—Nothing.  I never washed those socks.  They were my stashing-the-money-sock socks.  A permanent fixture.  Ever-growing, never clean.

—Didn’t it stink?

—Terribly.

—Seems misdirected in a lot of ways.

—You got used to it.

—Like a skunk.

—Like the opposite of a skunk.

—Like the smell of yourself.

—And those thereabouts.

—Inured.

—Conditioned.

—How much did you have?  Stinking in your sock?

—Inches.  Inches of cash.

—Must’ve been a lot.

—It was. 

—Incredible.  What happened to it?

—I spent it.

—All of it?

—Every inch.

—Incredible.  What did you do with the socks?

—I washed them of course.

—Any change after?  Any change to any fundamental thing?

—It’s much less stinky now.

•  Hello MR[S] DAY, this is ED KELLOGG calling on behalf of the PORTLAND VETERANS ASSOCIATION, how are you this afternoon?  Oh, really?  But ma’am, our records indicate that you haven’t yet given to this year’s drive.  No, ma’am.  Another Ed Kellogg?  A coincidence, ma’am.  A malicious coincidence.  Last year?  TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS.  Yes, ma’am.

—I can’t help thinking its all related.

—I said Nooyen and she hung up.  I think it was a she.  She hung up like a she, certainly.

—What do you think it’s like, getting the calls?  Must be different.

—Certainly.  Altogetherly different.  Think of all the calls.  All the names the same.  Must be different.

—Do you think they hear the beep?

—Nah.  But I think they get the nothing.  They answer and say hello and then have the nothing just like us.

—The void.

—Right.  That’s why we never hear ‘em say hello.  They’ve already said it.  Before the beep.  And then they wait through the nothing for us.  Like we wait through the nothing for them.

—That’s why it doesn’t work, maybe.  All that space.

—The nothing.

—The void.

—Insurmountable.

—All we share is nothing. 

—It’s all that gets us connected.

—I can’t help thinking it’s all related.

•  Hello MR[S] SPURLOCK, this is MALIK LEWIS calling on behalf of the TEXAS RANGER ACADAMY OF FORT WORTH... yes ma’am.  Yes.  We agree, a rather esoteric campaign.  Yes ma’am.  But for just pennies a day... yes ma’am.  For the safety of all Texans.

—Was it a spree?  Did you hit the mall swinging your inches-of-cash sock like a lasso over your head, screaming the yee-haws of commerce?

—Hog-tying all the miscellany it was thick enough to catch?

—Swapping cash-weight for bag-weight at an irregular rate of exchange?

—Until my arms were laden and the sock limp?

—And still stinking in direct opposition to the scent of the new in the other hand?

—No.

—No miscellany, then.  One big thing.

—The biggest.

—So big Alex or Pete or Johnny, all zits and smock, was paged to wheel it to the car?

—On a squeaky dolly?

—Out through the special delivery doors that open the widest?

—And then tied to the roof with complimentary twine?

—And then slow driving, arm out the window for ineffectual...

—... yet psychologically necessary...

—... yet psychologically necessary support through the turns?

—No.  It came in a little box.

—That fit nicely into a little bag?

—That fit nicely into my pocket.

•  Hello MR[S] SMITH, this is JOHN PARKER calling on behalf of the CANCER FUND OF AMERICA... yes ma’am.  That’s right, last year you gave FIFTEEN DOLLARS.  Great.  Just let us verify some information...

—Anything?

—Grandfathered in.

—Lucky.

—It’s the only way like this.

—No one cares.

—No one can.  All the calls they get.  Phone all day long alive with rings that answer to dead air.  How can they decide?

—All day it’s the same Patrick Flanagan.

—But always different.

—Only in tone.

—There’s no way to decide.

—Unless they already have.

—Always the same script.

—Always the same name.

—Just with a slightly different tone.

—How can they decide?

—Unless they already have.

—It’s a hell of a system.

—All talk.

—Nothing but space.

—Nothing.

—A void.

—It’s a hell of a system.

—There’s no way to decide.

• Hello MR[S] TRAN, this is HAI NGUYEN calling on behalf of... Hello? MR[S] TRAN?  Hello?

—There’s something to the ring that shouldn’t be overlooked.

—Maybe.  We’ve neglected it fundamentally.  Nothing and beep.  Or ring and nothing.

—It’s got tradition to it.  Structure.  There’s the ring and then the answer.  A soft, feminine hello.  And you know how to respond.

—Immediately.

—With a soft, masculine hello.

—Respond in kind, then.

—As appropriate.

—As you deem appropriate.

—As it fits.

—And from there?

—Off script.

—Culturally appropriate names.

—A universal name.

—But studies have shown.

—Damn the studies.

•  Hello  MR[S] KENOSHA, I’m calling on behalf of the PENNSYLVANIA FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE.  Yes ma’am.  Yes.  I’m... it’s as accurate as I can get.  Yes ma’am.  No, you’ve never.  No, ma’am.  A ONE TIME DONATION OF THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS FOR THE BRONZE AMOUNT, FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS FOR THE SILVER OR...that’s great, ma’am.  Wonderful.  Now, I just have to verify some information...

—Do you miss the sock?

—I like the clean air.

—But all it did was take away the stink.

—The stagnant stink.

—But it didn’t freshen. 

—Couldn’t have. 

—Not in the slightest.  No stink can’t make fresh scents.

—Of course.

—But the clean air?

—I had some left, at the end of the inches.  So I bought some potpourri: wild roses and lilacs.

—The stink made scents, then.

—In a manner.

—So you don’t miss the sock?  Not even when you see that spot?

—Where the socks used to be?

—Where they used to be that you knew so well?

—With my system to find and hide the particular one?

—The valuable one.  You don’t miss it?  What used to?  What used to be there?

—I like the clean air.  Wild roses and lilacs.

                                                                                                  • 

Cat Shit
 

It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. So sad, as my back hit the wall in shock, I let myself slip down it into a squat. And then further – knees to chest, chin on knees, sitting down in the candle-lit mysteries of the bathroom carpet. Cat shit or no cat shit. I didn’t even notice the familiar crumbling smush of it through my jeans. I just stared in pale dread at the saddest thing: community toothbrush standing erect amid the odor eliminating crystals of the mossed-over cat box. “Saddest” was the weakest of words.
Hanna poked her head through the missing plank in the door, opened her mouth to ask a question, but disappeared instead, returning a moment later with her clicking Nikon blocking any question she may have had.
“You’re so miserable,” she said behind it. “It’s like I posed you.”
I shook my head miserably. “It’s not me,” I told her, pointing under the sink.
She came in, mindlessly stepping through the various stink and nasty of tiny feces. I pointed her again to the saddest thing, barely visible in the flickering light.
She snorted and gave it a single click before turning back to me.
“I just don’t understand,” I whimpered. “Where do they come from?” I picked up an especially hardened nugget and threw it into the tub.
“They’re ghosts,” she told me quietly between the clicks. “And good ideas. They come from holes in the walls when no one’s looking. They shit where they are and sneak away. You never hear them purr.”
I stuck my lip out as far as it could go. “I don’t even like cats.”
A click and a creak as the ceiling lifted away, burning a light down on us from above. “If ya’ll start worryin’ ‘bout whatcha like ‘n don’t,” the bellowing Voice in the Light told us, “there’s gonna’ be a lotta’ shit to clean up.”
“Thanks, God,” Hanna and I chimed in practiced syncopation as the Light and Voice disappeared with a thick clunk as the plank fell back in place.
“He’s got a point,” Hanna said.
“No,” I told her. “It’s too sad. Just look. Gross little flag.”
“Then we should go shopping,” she offered, pulling me up by my elbow.
“Money?” I asked.
“Shopping, not buying.”
“I guess,” wiping the clinging piles from the seat of my jeans. “I’ll get the couple.”
Down the hall, I stuck my head through the large, bowling ball-sized hole in the door of their room and the spring squeak and grunt in the air grew louder.
“Hey Jude,” I called in my saddest voice. “It’s sad, man. The saddest ever. Going shopping.”
“Buying?” he panted.
“No, shopping.”
“Can’t. Sexing.”
“Oh. Um. What about you, Lilly?”
She called out in strange punctuation, “Take. John. Get. Me. An. Ap. Ple. Oh. Ooo.”
“Who’s John?” I asked.
“New. Room. Mate.”
I’d forgotten all about John.
It took me a few minutes to find him holed up in the corner where he’d built himself a tiny room set off from the rest of the apartment by four-foot walls – one of dog-eared novels, another of ink-soaked notebooks, one of a half-painted canvas we used to keep the winter out, and real wall of perforated drywall that let it in anyway.
I stuck my head over the novel-wall and sighed at him in his little world so flooded with candle and flashlight light. He was wide-eyed and pale, shaking on his little crate.
I sighed again so he’d notice.
Hanna popped her head over the notebook wall, but didn’t take any pictures.
“What?” John screamed.
“Hi,” I offered as sadly as I could manage. “I like what you’ve done to the place. There’s a word for it.”
“Clean! The word is clean! And it… it took me two days. Two days and I’ve got four feet in every direction, that’s it!” He was angry about something and he spit a little when he screamed. I wiped some foam from my face.
“Mind if we come in?”
“God damnit, don’t you get it? Yes, I mind!”
The trap door over him opened and God’s head poked through. His Voice boomed as sure as ever, but the corner was too well lit for His Light to penetrate.
“Could ya’ll, uh, keep it down some?” He asked. “M’old lady just gotter kids to sleep up here and if you wake ‘em up she’ll be up my ass all night.”
“Sure God,” Hanna called.
“Sorry God.”
“Stop calling Him that!” John screamed. “He’s not God, for Christ’s sake!”
“Then how do you explain the Light?” I asked.
“He pays his fucking electric bill, what do you think?”
“Then why does he have all the answers?”
“He doesn’t have any answers, he has fortune cookies!”
“What’s the difference?”
Hanna positioned herself so only the stack of notebooks, the grime and rubble, the tiniest bit of clean light from John’s escape, and I were in frame. She clicked through a whole roll of film.
“We keep a notebook,” I told John as she clicked, “of everything He says.”
“Yeah? I read that notebook. It’s fucking nonsense, all of it. His haikus aren’t even haikus. They’re supposed to be 5-5-7, not 7-5-7 or 8-10-15. He had one that was 1-2-1.”
I dropped my head on the wall miserably. “I was supposed to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Can’t you see I’m so sad?”
He stared, biting both of his lips at once.
“The saddest thing,” I told him. The saddest ever.”
“Good,” he said, shaking.
“And why is your carpet blue?”
“Why is my…. Jesus. All the carpet’s blue! And the walls are white. If you’d clean, you’d fucking notice things like that.”
“But clean is a straight line,” Hanna whispered, changing rolls.
“Yeah!?” he demanded. “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Knots are more interesting,” I told him.
“Then interesting is disgusting.”
A pause there and silence as Hanna and I stared at each other wide-eyed in the candlelight and reflected glow of John’s light. Somewhere in the ignored ether of shit, a new flag was raised.
“Buddha says,” Hanna whispered as I pulled a notebook from the wall and Buddha screamed and the wall fell and I wrote, “‘Interesting is disgusting.’” In heaven, babies cried and feet stomped. Through the holes, cats poured and Buddha fled. And all of it to the chorus of Lilly’s animal “ah.”

return to index

jeremy sayers

Pocheen
 

     Beyond the trickle of rainwater down the spout by my window, I could hear the dancing notes of Jimmy McEnnis’s mouth harp. And it made the fingers of my hand tick faster down the ledger. Somehow a shilling had gone missing, but I’d find the little bugger and be down below by the time Jimmy’s feet led him in.

     Ma was in charge of the Moon and Stars, but it was Mr. Murran owned the place. It was Mr. Murran let us the flat above, and it was him took half of what he claimed to pay Ma and me, for three rooms up under the eaves. It was better than resting our heads on the curbstone, Ma said. And I suppose it never occurred to me, there could be room in between for other possibilities. Wouldn’t it be like putting new words to a familiar song, to take what she told me every day and lace it with queries?

     Ink had dried on the nib of my pen, keeping rhythm down the column. The reedy harp put words in my head, ‘Twas in Dublin city, where the girls are so pretty . . . My eyes pushed them out again, searching the black numbers for that quid, two-and-six, three, three, two-and-nine, makes a flourin and three . . . The music was like numbers, could be counted out. Only notes didn’t get dropped. . . That I first laid my eyes on sweet Molly Malone . . . I put another tick on my cuff, read them off to myself. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty . . . not twenty-one pounds! Twenty pound and a Guinea, even. So there it was!

     I pulled the jacket sleeve down. Ma hated when I inked my cuffs. “Twenty pound, one Guinea,” I reminded myself, shutting the ledger. The harp had stopped. I made for the door and down the stair.

     It was a clammy wind followed Jimmy in through the open door, his face red with it, and his hands, just slipping the harp in his pocket, and clapping the door shut against the damp as I came down. “God bless all here,” he said, and blowing on his cold fingers after. Halloos of all the regulars drifted at Jimmy through smoke. He saw me, tossed me a wink, and made for the bar. Ma knew he was there, but kept her back to him until tan foam slid down the glass in her hand. She parked the tap handle and had the skimmer in her fingers before she turned to face him. Then flat across the glass top, foam in the scupper, and her shoulders came around, following her grin, the pint kissing pink marble just as Jimmy’s shoeleather touched the foot rail. He had the silver in his hand, laid it in Ma’s palm, touch lingering just a heartbeat. Like she always did, Ma smiled, pretending to count. “Ah, keep it, Mary,” he said, like always, and she was slipping a sixpence in her apron pocket as the other clinked in the til. One day, I said to myself, they’ll marry; he’ll be my Da, and that will make Ma happy twice over.

     Two years since the summer they’d been keeping company. I fiddled with the numbers in my head. Just two years old and a bit I’d been when my real Da had gone, lost in a storm at sea. That’s when we moved here from Sligo. Ma said she couldn’t bear to look at the sea any more. Two years and a bit; that was a sort of magic number. Tide out, tide in, like.

     That same night when I went up to bed I was still thinking about Ma and Jimmy. Last call was hours off yet, but the crowd was quiet down below. Alone in the dark I could hear the dripping water singing down the drain pipe off the roof. It sang me to sleep with a sweet mournful tune swirling down through the night outside.

     Next mourning dawned pink and brassy. When I had been at the school bright spring mornings made me long for the time I could be out and about in the world and not cooped up in some chalky, oil-smelling room waiting for the egg of wisdom to drop, like I was one of the old hens scratching behind wire in the lanes down along the river. Brindle Johnny, Mr. Murran’s pony, was fat and he moved slow. But I had him harnessed and taking me in the cart to the railway depot with dew still damp along the iron railings. Old Murran got cases of whisky from the distillery down in County Cork. I counted them out as they went from a train car to the cart always. And always he managed to sell about two more cases than I brought. It’s a clever man can sell water for the price of whisky. But wouldn’t he become a fool overnight if ever anyone knew?

     So, it was down to the station to cart back bottles, and my half-day off starting yellow and pleasant. Then didn’t it happen that some event would have to set it off-kilter? Always two day-coaches trundled behind the stoker car, and freight cars trailing in back. Mostly it was people passing along on their way somewhere else rode in those coaches. Though a time and more people from the town boarded and rode away, looking at towns and villages along the way through window glass. But there it was, big as you please, just as Brindle Johnny come even with the platform, off steps this girl, wearing a dark skirt, and a grey sweater. She had foreign-looking shoes, and a big leather grip bound up with threadbare straps and a piece of twine. And pinned to her sweater, a big piece of brown paper that someone had written on with pencil. It said Duffy.
She wasn’t a stone’s toss from me. Masses of black hair all in curls down her back and over a shoulder. I’d never seen hair like that. I didn’t mean to, but I laughed out loud. Then she was walking toward me. Her eyes were pale. I wondered if she might be a Welsh cousin. Pointing to the paper sign, “Duffy,” I read.

    She nodded, heaved her case into the cart. “Sank you,” she said, steadied herself with a hand on the seat back and stepped down into my cart. Skirt smoothed against the backs of her thighs, she said, “I vas not certain zis vas zee correct station.” And she sat down beside me, smiling. But she leaned forward, excited, said, “Ach,” grinning, and unpinned the paper from by her collar bone.

     I begun to think she wasn’t Welsh, after all. “A decent trip, Miss Duffy?” I asked her. The train doesn’t make so much noise with its heaving and puffing that she couldn’t have heard me. But she just sat there looking at the big black engine.

     Then those pale eyes turned to me, and her black brows were knit. “Vhat? Oh, you vere speaking to me? It haas been a long trip, tsorry.” Then she laughed so I saw her teeth. “Vhat did you ask me?”

     “Was it a decent trip you had coming here?”

     “Oh, yes.” Her lips twitched at another smile. “Ferry nice, Mistur Duffy.”

     “What? . . .”

     “I’m tsorry?”

     “What about Mr.Duffy.” I spoke a bit louder; trouble with the hearing, maybe. Then she started to look scared.

     “I’m tsorry? Perhaps I misunderstood? Iss it Captain Duffy, perhaps?”

     Pointing at my shirtfront, I said, “You think I’m your cousin? Have you never set eye on Duffy, then? Isn’t he twice my age, and big as a horse?”

     It was half scared and half smile her face wrestled with then. But the smile won. Both hands smoothed the skirt over her knees. “I zee. You are taking me to Mistur Duffy.”

     “Looks like it. Only I’ve freight to take off the train first, if you please.”

     The black hair of her head moved soft down over her shoulder when she gave a nod, quick and crisp.



     It was well into the supper break by the time I got back, and had the crates in their storeroom among the copper pots and iron cranes old Murran’s ma had used for jam and tallow. And Brindle Johnny was put to his fodder, of course. Ma wasn’t at her place behind the bar, so I climbed the stair, my heart going with a joy that had no words to tell about it. All the same, I went through the door saying, “Ma, you never seen the like. Down at the station this morning there was a . . .” But I was talking to the walls. Ma was nowhere about in the front room, nor back in the kitchen. The second my knuckles wrapped at her door, I knew she wasn’t taken to her bed, but out of the place entirely. Harder than ever my heart hammered under my ribs, only it was sick at the stomach I felt.

     At the sound of shoes treading up the stair my fury settled, and I felt silly, champing at the bit after my Ma when she wasn’t right there. It was her step I heard. Then she was standing at the door. I wondered had she been out scouring the town for me, so I started in on my news. “Ma, I was down at the station this morning, early. And never would I have believed . . .”

     “I know, Michael. But we have to think it’s for the best. I can’t get it right in my head either that he’s gone . . . Gone.” And when she repeated the word, she begun to cry, standing there in the open door. It was exactly like ten years dropped down over her like that, while she stood there.
“Who’s gone?”

     She didn’t answer me. But all at once I knew it was Jimmy that was gone.

     “Gone where, Ma . . . How come?”

     So lonely she looked I went over to where she’d stopped, awkward like, and put my arms around her shoulders. She just stood, like she had no notion I was there. It’s an odd thing, how God seems to want a sacrifice from us, of the thing most dear to us in exchange for the thing we most want. Didn’t that old man in the Bible, Abraham his name was, want to show he loved God? But to prove it, he had to put a knife into his own son, and spill his blood. Except he didn’t have to outright kill him in the end. But the price for loving God was to suffer. Now Ma was suffering, and I was too, twice over; for her sake, and because I couldn’t tell her how happy I’d been earlier in the day. I couldn’t tell anyone how happy I still was deep down inside when I thought of Eva.

     There was a rage in me. I thought about a great oak tree, one half green, branches waving in the wind, the other half roaring in orange flame. It’s what I thought of, so help me. That was just how I felt.

     After that, when she was behind the bar, Ma never let on that a thing in the world was on her mind. But upstairs the talk had gone out of her. I let her be on her own. Not really intending it at first, I’d walk down along the river when I wasn’t working, to collect my thoughts. Somehow though, I ended up at Duffy’s place two days running. Eva was glad of my company, Duffy being a sour old coot. We agreed I would come by regular those two hours following close and before evening hours begun. Ma still appreciated my help, washing glasses, fetching in peat for the fire, and all. But when the commotion and noise closed up for those two hours, it was quiet in a chair by the window with a book I knew she wasn’t reading, for the place she cracked it open never changed. And the cool song of those waving branches, and the blaze of that fire drew me in all at one time.

     I promised Eva the fortnight next when I’d leave to take the cart and horse again, we’d drive the liquor shipment the long way home, same as that first day. But it didn’t work out like that. I drove to the station, but the train never came. Not that day, not the next. Then we all got word that the track was out. The secret army, they said, had blown up a bridge, where it spanned the Liffy. They wanted to show the English they meant business, the story went, to squeeze their purse. For the old Moon and Stars, though, it meant no business as soon as those crates down cellar ran dry.
Ma looked more worried than ever; Murran just went stupid, said he’d sell the place and go to his sister’s in Dublin. What fool would buy the place when liquor and beer shipments couldn’t get through? And as for fools, what was it teaching the English to kill a little town like ours? Wasn’t Dublin still swimming in the stuff, when they made it right there, right where all the folk with money had their shops and houses? Well, Murran did go. Though to be fair, he slipped Ma two months worth of pay before heaving himself into the hired trap.

     I asked Eva if Duffy could use an extra paid hand at the shop. But it was only room and board he gave her. Sponsoring and orphan he called it; getting a slave given to him by the church was what it was. We sat on the bank, Eva and me. It was nearly as bad as Ma looked that first time after Jimmy had gone that I felt. But for Eva, I’d have sunk my head in my hands and bawled like a calf. Knowing what hard times were all about, she tried to lift my spirits.

     “My Uncle Hans had a shop where he made bread.”

     “A bakery?”

     “Ya, dat’s right, a bakery. But it vas not from making bread zat he got his money. No. In zee back he hat ziss big pot.” She put her arms around the air. “And from it came a pipe, like ziss.” Her finger moved like a spindrift leaf. “Into ziss pot vent potatoes, how do you call it?” Fist twisted against palm.

     “Mashed? He put mashed spuds in a pot?”

     She nodded her clipped nod. “Ant viss zem shugar, after sitting. It smelt very . . .” Her nose wrinkled. In spite of my misery, it made me laugh.

     “Like zee bread, maybe, ya? Only strong. You zee?”

     “What? . . .”

     She shook her head. “No? It vas like zee public house, in back of zee . . . bakery.”

     It was like I’d been sleeping, and just opened my eyes. “Pocheen?”

     Her black brows knit.

     “Your uncle made whisky in the back of the bakery?”

     The clipped nod, and her eyes twinkled.

     If figuring out the pocheen was opening my eyes, the next thought was like someone letting the window shade fly up and a noontime sun streaming in on me.

     “Could you?”

     “Tsorry?”

     “Could you make the stuff, like your Uncle Hans?”

     Now she was grinning. “Coult you make ziss machine, if I explain?”



     Before the crates had gone empty we had the contraption built. Simple enough, really, the boiler, the place being littered with jam coppers. But the spout, where the whole mess cooled from steam back into liquid, now there was a puzzle. Where to find a bit of copper? For Eva declared it must be copper or the taste would be spoiled. Well weren’t there any number of things kept in that shed at the depot for if the steam engine should need mending, and no need of them with the train never coming? Half a pint of unwatered Dublin prime got me a length of tube twice as tall as myself. Same for the spuds, a cartful for the other half. And once we’d got going, there’d be more at pennies to the pound so to speak. So we were in business.

     With the stuff that came out, water was no bother, but a blessing. For looks it was nothing like what came by the railway. Clear as water itself it was. The taste was close though. And it felt the same going down, and after. Eva said if we ran the contraption early of a morning when Heanan, the baker, had his ovens going, no one would smell it cooking. A time and more we even took the cart, with a tarp strapped over the empty back, out of town and down the pike, as if to say we had a new local supplier. I knew there must be something afoul of the law in what we were doing, but it kept body and soul together, for ourselves, and those with money to spend at the Moon and Stars.

     Being in the neighbor shop, Heanan pieced the scheme together after a bit. But a little sharing and he even pitched in burnt sugar to make the pocheen look more like the old stuff everyone was used to. And didn’t it add something to the taste?
 
     More and more elaborate the workings got, sugar and potatoes in, jars and bottles out. In the end though, we turned a better profit than Murran had ever done with paying for rail shipments and all. Ma seemed to be getting over Jimmy, God having given her a new suffering to ease her mind about him. She and Eva even worked together sometimes.

     Eva was happiest of all, I think, having a family again, like. And she kept a sockful of money behind a lose stone in the cellar. A riot might have welled up had it been known our customers were putting down their money for something that started and ended right there under the floor boards. As long as they thought it came from somewhere else though, they were happy enough to pay for it. Everything had settled into a new pattern.

      Fine. Until one morning I set out along the pike just after sunrise. Down along the river in a lonely, willowy place near the bridge, I’d taken to stocking up a few crates that I’d bring out over several nights. We could make a show of lugging them back into the storeroom.
Brindle Johnny was happy at his willow shoots while I slipped down along the bank. Not a dozen yards in among the bushy green though, I caught a whiff of something out of place. A familiar smell, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I thought I saw something move in the thicket ahead of me.

     Near my foot a lose branch lay on the ground. I picked it up for a cudgel, eased out the way I had come in and legged it around to the high side of the willow grove. Close by where the cart and pony idled I caught sight of a man. He flicked a fag-end from his fingers and stamped it out. It was tobacco smoke I’d smelled. A long coat hid most of him, and his cap was pulled low. Not too big of a fellow. I tested the weight of the stick in my hand.

      If I could work my way around to the right, couldn’t I get up behind him and see what he was up to? Back in among the brushy stems and leaves I went. When I came out by where he’d been though, nobody was there.

     “Pssst.”

      He’d got behind me already. I knew in that instant, I was done for. Quick as I could, I turned myself. Then the stick dropped from my grip. Jimmy! A finger to his lips to keep me quiet, he motioned for me to follow. At a little open place we could hear the rushing river, but not see it.

     “Jimmy,” I hissed, trying to whisper, but I was too excited. When did you . . .”

      Up went the finger again. Barely could I hear him when he spoke. “Ah, it’s a good lad you are, Michael, doing what you’re doing for your Ma.”

      He looked years older. For I don’t know how long I just gawked at him. Finally I found my voice, whispered, “Ma’ll be so happy to see you, Jimmy. . . I’ve got the cart.” I waved a hand up toward the road, knew he’d seen it. “You can ride back with me.”

     Then it was his turn to just stare. He had another smoke out, put it in his lips, but took it out again. “Michael . . . I can’t come back with you.” A stop motion of his hand withered my question. “Michael . . . Ah, it’s a bugger of a world we live in, son. It’s a . . . Listen . . .” He made to put the cigarette in his mouth again, slipped it into his pocket instead. “It’s like . . .” His eyes searched my face, and the trees behind me. Then he outlined an invisible shape in front of him with his two hands. “It’s like the whole sotted place is some big tree. See? And part of it’s the green beauty a tree ought to have, just as the Lord intended it. But the other half,” he glared at the empty place between his hands, “that’s blazing orange, with a flame the world never needed. See? And that orange menace, that’s got to be put out. See?”

     I did see. “Jimmy . . .”

      “No names, lad. I have no name anymore . . . It’s alright. You’re a good lad. . . a good man. . . Just take care of your Ma. You’ll be looked out for, the both of you.” While he talked the air went out of the shape in his hands. The cigarette came out again, stuck in his lips, then his fingers found a match. As it flared off his thumbnail he tossed me wink, then watched the flame shrink as he drew in. Smoke drifted from his parted lips, and the cigarette bobbed. “You’re a good man,” he said again, and he was stepping off into the willow branches.

     I wanted to go after him, wanted to make him go back and marry my Ma. God help me, I even wanted to snatch that cudgel up again and clout him in the head. I just stepped into the green, uphill toward the road. . . . a good man. “And you,” I said, swallowing his name before it passed my lips. For I knew, the time for keeping secrets had come.

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john skarl

The Girl in the Moon in the Lake

     The night Sydney McConnell almost drowned, his father told Sydney’s mother they were going for a night-walk and it was “just for men.” This made Sydney feel special. Truth was, the father was brewing moonshine and wanted to set it to distill. He had planned on peddling it to the speakeasy where he delivered ice after hours. It was hot during the summer months and restaurants used a lot of ice. His father had to move quickly, which he did best in bare feet. Most of the men in the city pointed at his father’s bare feet and mimicked his accent. Most of the men in the city called Sydney’s father Mick, which Sydney thought was a glorious nickname until he used it himself and felt the sting of his father’s open palm. Nevertheless, Sydney believed his father was very popular in town. In a sense, he was.

     Sydney’s father had spent most of the family’s money on an expensive camera that he set up downtown next to a wooden crescent moon. Sydney’s father had built a bench right into the crescent moon and worked hard sanding the splinters. Folks sat on the moon and his father offered to take their picture for a quarter. Despite his best efforts, Sydney’s father was unable to make profit. The mother called him a lunatic for spending so much on the camera, and indeed the waxing and waning of that celestial sphere truly affected Sydney’s father, and on this night, the heavenly body was in full form.

      Perhaps Sydney inherited his father’s lunacy. Like the tides, he was constantly shifting from one place to another. His mother threatened to paint the bottoms of his shoes with glue so he’d stay put, partly the reason he too went about barefoot.

      Father and son tramped through wet grass that night in the woods behind their house. His father handed him his red bone jack-knife and asked him to stay put. “Whittle me something.” His father almost never allowed Sydney to whittle with his jack knife! Sydney couldn’t find any sticks, so he sat down in the grass. It didn’t take long until he was lured to the curved trunk of his favorite tree, Old Sexy.

      Old Sexy was the largest tree in the woods. It was easiest to climb because the double trunk had goosenecked to resemble crossed legs. Sydney had heard his father use the word sexy to describe the legs of the women that sat on the crescent moon to have their pictures taken. He thought it was the highest compliment a man could give a woman, and Old Sexy was a special lady.

     Soon he’d forgotten about whittling and was busy climbing into Old Sexy’s lap. Sydney was soon high enough to spot the clearing where they lived. Maybe he’d climb so high, he’d tell the girl in the moon that he thought she was sexy. He made up a song as he climbed—

Girl in the moon, I only see your face,
You smile even in that awful place
I sure wish you could walk across the stars
Maybe we could have a picnic up on Mars
I’d bring a loaf; I’d bring a dozen eggs
And stare all night at your sexy, sexy legs.

     He climbed higher, but the girl in the moon wouldn’t budge. Maybe she couldn’t hear? Maybe she wasn’t impressed. High above the forest floor, he nestled his bottom in a niche between two braches. He enjoyed the view. It certainly was nice being up in Old Sexy with the girl in the moon.
How could the girl in the moon be in two places at once? There she was high in the dark sky and there she was below, against a darkness that puzzled Sydney. But, he was a smart boy and soon realized he was looking at the girl in the moon in the lake. He enjoyed the way the girl in the moon in the lake floated. Maybe down there she’ll like my song, he thought.

     So, he slid to the dew damp ground. It wasn’t far, but as he approached the water, the girl in the moon in the lake moved further away. He tried to cross to the other shore to cut her off, but she was avoiding him.
Sydney pulled off his clothes and stepped into the water. It was cold, but not freezing. The water caressed his ankles and he wondered if his whole body would feel tingly if he were bathed in the girl in the moon in the lake. Soon the water was up to his knees and then his waist. It lapped against his white stomach as he pursued the girl in the moon in the lake and soon the dark water was at his chest. How stubborn she was!

     The farther out he went, the higher the water became until it reached his chin. He didn’t mind because it felt like a cool hug and he knew he still wanted to bathe in the girl in the moon in the lake, as she was very close. He decided that if he snuck up on the girl in the moon in the lake she would be surprised the way the girls at school are surprised when you lift their skirts.

     Sydney leapt, pinched his nose and dunked completely. He felt his feet sink into the mud at the bottom of the lake. One hand held his nose and the other clenched as he bent at the knees to spring back up to the surface of the water to surprise the girl in the moon in the lake. It was he who was surprised! His feet were stuck in the mud at the bottom of the lake! The mud sucked his bare feet and he was held fast. He tried several times to dislodge his feet, but each effort only seemed to sink him deeper. His air was beginning to run out and he unpinched his nose to use both arms for leverage. His heart was beginning to race and a panic seized his mind. I’ll be stuck here forever! For a moment he was sure if he opened his eyes toward the weedy bottom, he would see the girl in the moon in the lake—pale fingers curled about his ankles. Moon-face framed by the dark water and floating hair.

     Sydney opened his eyes. No girl. His white legs disappeared at the ankles. He looked up. He saw the girl in the moon above. Or, was it the girl in the moon in the lake? He saw that she was still grinning and he gave up trying to free himself.

     He was out of breath as the muck began to loosen its hold. Sydney didn’t fight. His body was being lifted. Slowly.

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tobin terry

The End
 

     I’ve been the janitor at Lordstown Middle School for thirty years now. My mother, God rest, always told relatives and friends that I was a “custodial engineer,” but I’ve never felt ashamed about my life’s work. She just never realized the benefits of being a janitor. Then again, not many people do, but I’m thankful for that. At times, it is a solitary life. At night, just before I lock the doors, I realize that I am the only person on school grounds. There’s something divinely invigorating about that.

     It’s a humble life too. It took some time to adjust after leaving the plant, a thirty-three year old foreman accustomed to being in charge. A close friend at the time got me the job at the school as “Chief Custodian” almost a year after my many failed interviews and consequent divorce.

     “I can’t take this job. It’s a step, no, it’s a nose-dive backward,” I told my friend.

     “Frank,” he said, “it’s honest work.”

     I took the job and for the first couple of years I hated it. I was the subordinate of everyone else in the building, excluding one man, Jerry, an old auto industry retiree. He only took the job to keep busy since his pension was large enough to pay the bills. Whenever someone ordered me around, I took it out on Jerry and made him clean the bathrooms by himself. Whenever a teacher called me for a “protein spill,” I sent Jerry. If there was nothing else to do, I sent him out front to scrape the gum off of the sidewalk. Jerry decided the job wasn’t for him.

     After Jerry quit the superintendent decided that I didn’t need any help keeping the school clean. I started to become familiar with the building, the teachers, and the children. I set up a routine, leaving room for accidents of course, and nestled into the profession I’ve come to love. Every day I arrive at school before sunrise, start the coffee in the faculty lounge, do a quick run through of the building, unlock the doors, and head to my office to read a little of the morning paper. My mother called it a “rut.” I call it a groove. I learned the children’s names and watched them grow, from third grade to eighth. They came back after each summer taller and older and when they moved on to the high school building, I was sad to see them go.

     My office is actually just an old mahogany teacher’s desk stuck in an oversized closet with all of the cleaning supplies and heating and cooling controls. To anyone else, it might be called dingy, but to me it is ideal. The single light bulb hanging from the ceiling casts long shadows behind the cool metal pipes running along the off-white brick walls. At the back of my office is a gray metal door that opens to the rear of the school next to the loading dock where delivery trucks drop off cafeteria and classroom supplies. In the mornings I prop the door open just after the sun rises over a clean green hill at the east end of the school campus. The sun’s rays pour over the dandelions and into my office washing out the long shadows and painting the walls with gold.

     Principal Brown, having just arrived, pops his head into my office every morning. “Good morning Mr. Brown,” I say, trying not to stare at his hair piece.

     “Good morning, Frank. Spectacular job again I see. The place is sparkling,” he replies.

     “All in a day’s work Mr. Brown,” I answer. Mr. Brown smiles and leaves my office.

     The rest of my morning usually goes by without incident. Every so often I make my rounds through the school, checking to be sure the place is clean and the toilet paper rolls are full. My real work begins after the children go home, aside from the period after lunch when I clean the cafeteria, but ever since Principal Brown introduced the disciplinary table cleaning program, that part is easy.

     At night, for a few hours straight, I clean the school from one corner to the other, sweeping and waxing floors, emptying trash cans, washing chalkboards and so on. At the end of a work day I look down the hall. The sun is getting ready to set and glistening off of the freshly waxed hallway floor and I feel like I’m looking across my own private placid lake. The place truly is sparkling and I am tired. There is something very rewarding about being able to physically see and feel the work you’ve done. A twelve hour day of hard work can be a religious experience.

     Typically I spend most of the daytime reading in my office. Occasionally a teacher will ask me to run an errand or clean something. I gladly do whatever they ask, because they ask so nicely. I get along rather well with most of the faculty. We have a mutual respect for each other, that is, except for Mr. Mark. Mr. Mark is the seventh grade science teacher. He is also the head coach of the high school football team.

     One day during school hours, while making my rounds I turned a corner and saw a crowd of children in the hallway. They were shouting and gathering around in a circle. I felt a sense of urgency and hurried to the crowd, pushing the children aside. There in the center, fighting like dogs, were Bobby Adams and Scotty McGregor. Scott was at least a grade older than Bobby, and maybe fifteen pounds larger. He was a fiery red headed devil, and the son of the Mayor. Scott pinned Bobby onto the floor and began punching him in the face.

     I knew Bobby too. He was a skinny rotten mouthed little punk who had no respect for his teachers. Once I caught him throwing wet wadded up paper towels onto the ceiling in the bathroom.

     “So it’s you that I’ve been cleaning up after for a over month now?” I said.

     The brat just smiled. “You can’t do anything about it, you’re just the janitor.” He spit his gum into a urinal and walked out.

     I watched Scott beating Bobby for a moment. The boy had it coming, I thought. But quickly my conscience took over and I grabbed Scott by the arm and with a single movement lifted him off of Bobby with one hand and lifted Bobby with the other. There I stood with both boys in the air when I heard the booming voice of Mr. Mark.

     “What the hell do you think you are doing? Put those boys down!”

     I let the boys go. Their eyes and mouths were wide open. “I was just—”

     “You were just assaulting those boys.” He was an ape of a man, weighing in at 250 at least and very, very hairy.

     “Coach, he was only breaking-” Scott started to say.

     “Get to class. Everyone!” Mr. Mark bellowed. The children scattered. Mr. Mark poked his finger on my chest and backed me against the lockers. “Listen. You’re a janitor. I don’t want to see you put your hands on a student again or I’ll have you fired. You got me?”

     I couldn’t help but stare at the thick, coarse hairs on his knuckles. It was like thatch work.

     “I said do you got me?”

     “Yes Mr. Mark. Coach. Sir.”

     “Good.”

     He stormed off down the hall and from then on Mr. Mark gave me the evil eye whenever he saw me. He paraded around like a proud silverback that just backed off a mating competitor, beating his thatch work chest, talking to me while I’m trying to use the restroom. There could be a whole row of open urinals, but he always picked the one right next to me.

     That evening, as I was cleaning out classroom number 138, I came across Ms. Angler’s coffee cup. It was unusual for Ms. Angler, the special ed. teacher, to leave anything behind. Her desk was always in order. She didn’t even leave those dreadful little paper scraps from spiral notebooks like most teachers.

     You can tell a lot about a person by their desk and trash and people tend to trust janitors quite a bit. For example, I know that Mr. Stanley keeps vodka and cranberry juice in his sore throat spray bottle. Mrs. Shaffer, you know, the one who eats just a salad at lunch and complains that her diet isn’t working, eats an individual bag of potato chips and two candy bars a day. My personal favorite is the fact that I found an empty bottle of “natural male enhancement” pills in Mr. Mark’s garbage, but the secrets are safe with me.

     There were papers scattered all over Ms. Angler’s desk. The coffee cup was stained around the edges with coffee and thick red lipstick. The dark fluid inside was probably cold by now. I stuck my finger in to find out. It was still warm.

     “Hey there, Frank,” said a voice behind me. I whirled around and coming through the doorway was Ms. Angler. She looked different than I remembered. Her hair was down, and her blouse was unbuttoned a little. She looked relaxed and remarkably attractive, considering we were under the fluorescent lights. “I was just finishing up a little work before I went home.” She walked over and picked up the coffee cup, taking a drink before I could say anything. “I’ll be out of your way in a minute.”

     “Oh, no hurry Ms. Angler,” I stuttered.

     “Oh Frank. How long have we known each other? Call me Cathy.”

     “Alright, Cathy. I’ll just come back later then.” I started toward the door. The downside of a life of solitude is awkwardness in these situations.

     “Wait, Frank.” I stopped and turned around. “I heard about what you did with Scott and Bobby.”

     “Yeah, well, I was really just—”

     “It must have taken some strength,” she said.

     “Well, the work I do is very physical.”

     Ms. Angler laughed. “I know that, but I mean not to let Scott beat the snot out of Bobby.”

     “Oh that,” I was making a fool out of myself. “I guess I just reacted.”

     With that I left the room as quickly as I could. I was sweating. I must have looked like such a fool or an ape. I mocked myself under my breath, ‘Yes Ms. Angler. It took lots of strength. I’m the strongest janitor that ever lived. You should see how many children I can lift into the air. With one arm, no, one finger at that.”

     I finished my duties for the evening all the while avoiding Ms. Angler. I was done a little early so I went to the loading dock and climbed onto the roof of the school. I walked across to the west side and sat down on a block to enjoy the sunset with Mr. Stanley’s throat spray bottle. Red and purple filled the sky in that second part of the day where everything turns gold. I thought about Ms. Angler. I knew that we could never be together, after all, her being a teacher, and me just the janitor. I convinced myself that it was just the price you pay for living so free. I unscrewed the cap of the vodka and cranberry and took a drink. I’ll fill it back up tonight, I thought.

     A heron stood at the edge of the pond about fifty yards from the school. It was like a creature from Jurassic Park with its long neck stretched out over the water, stepping carefully, if at all, and in one prehistoric motion spearing and swallowing a frog or some small crustacean. The bird was majestic. Its regal white wings spread out maybe six feet wide as it lifted off of the ground and its outline crossed the setting sun. It’s a solitary life. It’s a humble life too, and I wouldn’t give it up for Ms. Angler, or anyone else for that matter.

     In the months before she passed my mother grew distant from me. I did most of the talking when I visited and she just stared off into the television and nodded. She loved to watch soap operas. Nothing real ever interested her. After my experience on the roof, I was determined to get her to understand.

     “Mom. Mom, listen to me.” My voice was getting louder. “I am a janitor and I’m proud of it.” She didn’t respond. The doctors said that she might not even know I was there.

     The next morning when Principal Brown poked his head into my office he told me that the mayor and his wife were here to speak with me. I assumed it was about the fight.

     “Hello Frank, I’m Mayor McGregor.”

     “Yes, I know. I voted for you,” I said, though I didn’t really, but I thought it might help my cause.

     “Thank you. Listen, I’m here to thank you for straightening my son out. He feels really bad about the whole thing.” He handed me a note. I opened it up and on the inside was a poorly scribbled, “Dear Mr. Janitor, I’m sorry.” Signed, “Scott McGregor.”

     “Thanks.” I said, putting the note into my pocket.

     The mayor’s wife chimed in, “We were talking with some of the other parents and we realized how much of an impact you’ve made on our children. They all absolutely love you.”

     Mayor McGregor interrupted, “Which is why we’d like you to be ‘The End’ of this year’s 4th of July Parade. You could wear the barrel, you know, it straps over your shoulders and looks like you’re naked inside. But you’ll be wearing shorts of course. And it says ‘The End’ on the back. What do you think?”

     I thought about it for a moment. It felt like the mayor and his wife kept leaning in closer until it was almost uncomfortable.

     “I’d be honored,” I said, and I have been ever since.

return to index

non-fiction

lea povozhaev

from When Russia Came to Stay

     Language class offered a glimpse into what it would be like teaching in Russia. Even when I wasn’t picking up on the unending verb tenses, it became a game to imagine life as a woman in Russia. Teaching appeared a role of mothering and training youth how to survive. Depending on one’s world view, one might teach opportunity and growth, or rigidity and sameness—acquiescence to a system corrupt and unfair in many ways, especially for women. I realized the importance of opening students’ minds and encouraging them to be confident and hopeful.

     “Take a short break for tea, but remember we still have much to review,” our teacher said in Russian. We went to the International Office for tea and small crackers. The tea was strong and sweet, served in ornamental pots set along the long table. Tom and Sasha talked in the back of the room pointing to a large map of Europe.

     “What’dya see?” I asked Tom sipping tea.

     “Russia’s like three times the size of China,” Tom said. He said he wanted to go to China someday, but it was hard to believe him. He wasn’t even trying to learn Russian, and sometimes I wondered why he’d come. He would stand out among the Chinese, not only in appearance with his large frame, blue eyes, and full beard prickling his face by tea time, but simply in his manner. He wasn’t quiet, ever, or meditative, the way I pictured the Chinese.

     “Yeah. I’d go there,” I said.

     After too many crackers and more sitting, I was hardly hungry for lunch. But the group would walk to a cafeteria behind the building wh