Red Cedar Review
Volume 29, No. 1
1992-1993

 

Editor:JACKIE JUSTICE
Assistant Editor: PATTI TAYLOR

Editorial Staff: WENDY MORISI
MIKE RUSS

Readers for this Issue: HEATHER DUBOIS
LAURA GRONEWOLD
JOHN YOHE
Art Coordinator: SUSAN GILBERT

Faculty Advisor: PROFESSOR WILLIAM PENN
 
Contents

FICTION

The Night the Crickets Stopped
BRUCE M. BROWN

Saving Barry Manilow's Garbage

BRIAN HAMRICK
Moon Man
ANTHONY BROWN
A Too Clear Sky
LYNN SWANSON

POETRY

To My Mother: Winter Circus
LYNN SWANSON

Cheap Thrills
MATT MARINOVICH

Subterranean Buddah
ZACHARY CHARTKOFF

You Take For Granted
LYN LIFSHIN

My Soulmate Called From Albuquerque
R. SCOTT YARBROUGH
 
 
The Night the Crickets Stopped
by BRUCE M. BROWN

No matter how I squinted through the pool-thrown moon reflections
that wouldn’t hold still on the window screen, I was looking at a naked man.
He was floating on his back, arms waving at his sides in the middle of the
pool, open to the world, and I caught myself smiling.

Then I knocked away some of the cobwebs of sleep, stood up, and
cupped my hands at my mouth. I was all set to yell at him when I knocked
away the last of the cobwebs and thought better of it.

Nothing covered me but moonlight and shadow.

As I sank back into my crouch behind the sill I almost laughed outloud,
imagining his naked reaction to an eyeful of a not-bad-looking forty-one-
year-old mother of two—flat tummy, no sag to the boobs—and for an instant,
something like a bright flash at an odd angle made my reflex seem silly, made
notions long taken for granted look strange.

Well? I wondered. Why not?

Because it’s not his property. He doesn’t belong here.

Don’t be petty.

Don’t be stupid. Get him out of here. Yell at him. Call the cops or
something. Wake Stan up.

But why? What’s the harm?

Well, at least keep an eye on him, just in case.

I tiptoed to the dresser, put my glasses on, went back, and crouched at the
window.

He was floating face up. He looked about mid-forty-ish, muscles defined
and ropy but not bulgy, and hardly any flab. He rolled over. Hugging his
knees, he bobbed at the surface, head underwater.

He’s a free spirit, | decided—a construction worker or truck driver—not
a yuppie with a desk job in some office. He must’ve had some thinking to do,
a problem to work out. He took a walk in the middle of a hot night. He
heard the whine of the pool filter, an invitation to cool off.

He plugged his nose and sank a few times, and he always came up slowly,
wiping the water back through his hair, not flinging it. Sometimes when he
curled up and floated face down I lost sight of him in the water-chopped
moonlight, shifting lights and shadows, blacks and whites in motion, and he
would gradually unfold and roll onto his back.

He finally drifted to the ladder and pulled himself up. Streaming water
slicked the hair to his body. Sleek as an ice sculpture, he dripped across the
concrete. Some of the crickets caught their breath. Before they stopped |
hadn’t heard them at all, and I realized: that was what had awakened me. Not

6
their singing, but their song stopping.

He walked to where his clothes were piled, on the ground beside the
webbed reclining chair, in the shadows under the maple. He stood there
looking around. From our back yard, on a small rise in the middle of the
block, he could see only neighborhood treetops and roof lines and a few dark
upstairs windows over the redwood privacy fence. I ducked below the sill,
feeling like I was the intruder.

He knelt to reach into his pile of clothes. Holding his T-shirt by the
neck, he got his cigarettes and lighter out of the pocket, then he dropped his
shirt on the ground and stretched out in the chair. He lit his cigarette with a
flicker too quick, too bright, too close to his face for me to see what he
looked like. He dropped the pack and the lighter in the grass with his clothes.

I crouched down again. He was at least twenty yards away and there was
no breeze, but over the metal smell of the window screen I swear I caught the
scent of his cigarette and I wanted one again—after thirteen years. He
brought it to his lips and the tip brightened under the strain of a long hard
pull. His chest lifted as he drew smoke into his lungs. He held it a second, as
if posing, then slowly let it out.

Moonlight and leaf shadows dappled his body. His left arm was behind
his head. His cigarette hand dangled from his raised right knee. The thin
stream of smoke rose straight up, a broken line, white in the moonlight and
invisible in the midair patches of shadow. Its marbled feather seemed frozen,
an intricate part of the sculpture. He didn’t move except when he took a puff
or flicked ashes. When he stubbed the cigarette in the grass he cupped the
filter in his hand and he sat up and looked around. He spotted the trash can,
in the far corner of the yard beside the trellis of morning glory vines. He
reached down and stuffed the butt in a pants pocket. He picked up his T-shirt
and he stood up, still facing me.

I named him. He looked like someone who'd have Don for a name.

As Don stood in the shadows and lazily used his T-shirt to dry himself—
his fuzzies, his backside—I got that odd feeling again, like I was intruding.

He hung the T-shirt over his shoulder. He picked up his white briefs,
stepped into them, pulled them up, situated himself inside them. He pulled
his jeans on, fastened the snap, zipped the fly. He knelt to tie his shoes. They
were black, probably tennies, no socks. He stood up, took the T-shirt off his
shoulder, poked his arms into it, pulled it over his head, tugged it down. It
was light-colored with bold, dark lettering, three words that covered the
whole front of his shirt. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought it said, “I’M
WITH ME.”

He picked up his cigarettes and lighter, and as he tucked them into his
shirt pocket, he looked around. No evidence. Just a few damp shadows on
the cross-weave of the lawn chair. He walked out of sight, toward the corner
of the house and the gate at the side of the garage. Crickets stopped again.
I checked the clock cn the dresser. A piece vanished from an 8, leaving a
9 standing there precariously. 3:29. I’d been at the window fourteen
minutes, and it could have been seconds or hours. I was damp with sweat.
My glasses were sliding down my nose. My mouth was dry. It must have
hung open the whole time.

I lay on the bed, confused, unable to pin anything down. Stan, on his
back beside me, was breathing heavily but not snoring. His left hand--missing
its pinkie--rested warm on my tummy, collecting sweat. changed my mind
about air conditioners. I wanted one after all. I lay there and watched the
moonlight that reflected off the backyard pool. It danced on the ceiling,
unpatterned, rhythmless, lulling me back toward sleep.

Minutes later, it seemed, the radio clicked on. Sunlight beamed almost
honzontally through the window. The guy on the radio was saying what a
great morning it was but we were in for another hot day.

Stan and I lay uncovered. He was on his back, his eyes open but not
focused, and as I looked at him, at the body I still love to admire, I suddenly
remembered. :

“Oooh,” I said. “I had the weirdest...”

But it came back in one piece, too vivid, too coherent for a dream.

Stan rolled onto his side, facing me. He propped his head on his
pinkieless fist.

“A dream?”

I shrugged and shook my head. “It’s gone now. Weird. I started to
remember it, but now it’s gone.”

I gave Stan a lewd leer, pointedly looking him over—a body much like
Don’s if not better—his hair thick and dark, eyes still half lidded.

“Good morming, you gorgeous hunk,” I said. I rolled onto him, pushing
him on his back. I reached across to the dresser and turned the radio off.
Traces of sweat slipped between our bodies. As I took his left hand I realized
how habitual it had become to reach for the nght one. I kissed the empty
knuckle.

“I love you, Stan,” I said.

The next fifteen minutes were terrific. But I couldn’t stop thinking about
Don.

When Steph banged on the bathroom door and yelled, “C’mon, Mom! I
have to get ready too, you know,” I realized I’d been staring into the mirror
and seeing Don. |

When I walked past the living room TV, Willard Scott suddenly looked a
lot like Don. Another glance five minutes later and Bryant Gumble looked
like him too, though I’d never really gotten a good look at the guy’s face. |
knew he had a mustache, short hair—twenty years ago it would’ve been called

8
long—but I couldn’t picture much of anything else. Hair color? Eye color?
Complexion? I couldn’t guess.

When I got to the store, Joanie was waiting at the time clock to punch in
and all I said was, “Morning, Joanie,” as if everything was normal. I didn’t
say, God Joanie! I couldn’t wait to tell you! You won’t believe what
happened last night!

I didn’t tell anyone.

It seemed like every third or fourth customer through my checklane had
on an “I’m with me” T-shirt. Then I’d do a double take and it would be
Notre Dame or Metallica or something. One said “Disraeli Gears,” and it
started me thinking about Cream, about Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page,
all those early-seventies groups that formed, faded and reformed differently—
Yardbirds, Blind Faith—until no one could keep track of who was with what
group anymore. That took me right back to the shifting shadows on the
bedroom ceiling.

As [ straightened my magazines and candy racks between customers, |
wondered what “I’m with me” meant. You buy a slogan T-shirt because
what it says hits you nght. Was he getting back at his wife for her “I’m with
stupid” shirt? Maybe it meant, “I’m unattached.” “I (am/am not) interested
in getting attached.” It must be custom made. Whoever heard of a T-shirt
saying “I’m with me”?

“Linn?”

It was the new carry-out boy, Rick. I realized he’d said my name two or
three times, and he’d said something else before that. He was standing at the
bagging end of my checkout counter, rolling an empty cart back and forth and
looking at me as if he didn’t recognize me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. I was just thinking about... um... going on break.”

“That’s what I was telling you. Roger says for you to take your break
now.”

As I walked through the produce section, Joanie head-twitched me over
to where she was working.

“You on break?” she asked.

I admitted I was, but I didn’t tell her I felt like taking it alone.

“Perfect,” she said. “All I have to do is finish putting up these bananas.”

Eight or nine bunches were in the bottom of her cart. I handed them to
her as she arranged them on the display.

“You're awfully quiet today,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

I shrugged. “Nothing.”

She put the last bunch on the pile and tilted her head. Her nght eye
squinted.

“Nothing?”
“Really,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”

“Uh-huh.”

I pushed the cart through the swinging doors to the back room. Joanie
followed me upstairs. At the top of the steps she said, “Oh goody. We're
alone. You can tell me all about it.”

She fed the pop machine some quarters from her smock pocket while |
poured myself some coffee. She took her cigarettes and lighter from her
locker, then sat across the table from me. She lit up and blew smoke at the
ceiling.

“Linnie,”
remember?”

“What makes you think something’s the matter?”

““Y our head’s been somewhere else today.”

The hand holding her cigarette rested on the table next to the ash tray. |
watched the nsing smoke.

“Like right now,” said Joanie, waving the smoke away. “What were you
thinking about just now?”

I smiled. “I was just thinking about taking up smoking again.”

“Ha.” She jerked her body once, the way she does when she says “ha”
like that. She pulled back the tab on her Diet Coke. “Like I believe that.”

“Really. I still remember, sometimes, how good a cigarette can feel.”

“No. After all this time? What I remember is everything you went
through when you quit.”

“Quitting’s easy,” I said. “Shoot, you’ve done it a thousand times.”

“Ha. Remind me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was mean.” I touched the hand that held the
cigarette. “Mund if I have a puff?”

She pulled her hand away. “Forget it, girl. I’m not going to be the one
that gets you started again.”

Russ Larsen walked in bringing the smell of stale blood.

“Ahh,” he said. “Break time. Morning, ladies.” Dark red hand-shaped
splotches smeared his apron. He reached under it to undo the tie. “Mind if I
join you?”

“It’s everybody’s break room,” said Joanie.

“Hey, Russ,” I said, “can I bum a smoke?”

Joanie sat up. “Don’t give her one, Russ.”

But he’d already taken the pack from his shirt pocket and tossed it on the
table. Joanie grabbed it.

“Forget it, girl,” she said. She tossed the pack back to Russ.

I laughed. “God, Joanie. Lighten up. I’m joking, okay?”

She looked at me nodding slowly and smiling. “I know what you did.
You went and changed the subject on me. Now it’s too late.”

I smiled and sipped my coffee.

?

she said, “This is Joanie. We tell each other everything,

10
“Okay,” she said. “But whenever you’re ready to talk about it, [’ll
listen.”

I decided I’d better get myself together.

That afternoon I searched the neighborhood within four blocks of home.
I picked a house where all the clues lined up—a dark blue vinyl-sided two-
story trimmed in tan, two-car garage, cracked-cement driveway, a not-too-old
silver-gray Skylark parked out front, a lawn that should have been mowed
three days ago, shrubs edging a week past neat. No pool.

Right after supper, Eyewitness News was reporting on a motorcycle
crash. I turned it off and pulled the evening paper away from Stan and sat
next to him on the couch. I took his left hand in both of mine and I fingered
the empty knuckle.

“Do you ever miss it?” I asked.

“Miss what? My little finger? I can’t remember the last time I thought
about it.”

“Do you ever wonder any more what happened to it?”

He smiled. He looked past me for a few seconds.

“I don’t think I ever told you this,” he said, “but a few weeks after it
happened, I imagined some cat finding it in the weeds along the road. I could
almost see her—sniffing it, batting at it, carrying it off to play with it.
Probably made a nice snack.”

Out in the kitchen, Steph and Jenny groaned in unison.

“Da-aad! That’s sick!” yelled Jenny.

Stan laughed. “You two better quit eavesdropping and get those dishes
done if you want the cars tonight.”

Then he was quiet. “I cried then,” he said, looking away. “I think I
moumed it. Just for a few minutes. Then I adapted.”

Stull holding his left hand, I put my cheek to his shoulder.

“Do you ever wonder,” I asked, half embarrassed about bringing it up so
many years later, “do you ever wonder anymore exactly what it was that took
the finger off? Did you ever figure that out?”

“I gave up on that a long time ago. All I know is, when I came to, it was
gone. Sheered off clean, in mid flight.”

He’d told me once, a few days after the accident, that the whole thing
had seemed so reasonable, as if he were thinking it through while it
happened, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Yeah, we’re
going into a skid here all nght. Uh-huh, straight for that tree over there.
Okay now slam!, and just as I expected, flying over the handlebars and
back there’s the ol’ Harley. Waste of a good oil change. Sure looks funny
embedded in the tree trunk like that. Look. The front wheel’s still
spinning. Looks like I’m going to land in these bushes. Hope they’re soft.

11
Whoa, that hurts. I’ll just close my eyes here a minute.

He’d told me that the missing finger was the only part that seemed
strange. It was cut off so cleanly that the ambulance guys didn’t notice until
halfway to the hospital. His right leg and his back were getting all the
attention. A matter of priorities.

“Stan?” I said.

“Hmm?”

“Instead of getting an air conditioner with that bonus you've got coming,
how about if we get a bike?”

He didn’t answer. I didn’t push.

That night was another hot one. I lay in bed listening for the crickets to
stop.

Three days later, Saturday night, on our way to Mike and Joanie’s, Stan
went in to Stop-N-Go for a deck of cards and a six-pack. When he came
back to the car, he had half a smile on his face.

“Lady in there’s wearing a T-shirt I’ve never seen before,” he said. “‘I’m
with me.’ Must be an answer to the one that says ‘I’m with stupid.’”

At first, all | could come up with was a “ha,” the way Joanie does it. But
as Stan reached for the ignition key I said, “Oh! Wait a minute, hon. I just
remembered something.”

I grabbed my purse and was out of the car before he could answer, before
I knew what I was doing.

Three customers were in the store—two boys playing a video game in the
far comer, and a kid at the beer cooler. I figured I’d missed her. Then she
said, “Can I help you, ma’am?”

She was standing at the cash register, on the raised-up section behind the
checkout counter. Under her unbuttoned red and green smock top was the
T-shirt.

“He’s ahead of me,” I said. I nodded at the kid who was bringing a quart
of Miller to the counter.

While he showed his ID—it had to be fake—and paid for his beer, |
checked her out. She was about my age. Dark eyes, friendly smile. Hair
about the same as mine, shoulder length and full, but a little lighter and
without the streaks starting to show. Touched up a bit maybe? About my
size and shape, too, but not quite as slim.

The kid left with his quart. She smiled at me.

“A pack of Marlboros, please,” I said.

“Reds?”

“Please. And one of these el-cheapo lighters.”

From the small criss-cross cardboard display next to the register, I picked
out a pink lighter. She reached up and took a pack from the overhead case.

ig
She wore a wedding band. Her name tag said “Ruth.” She put the pack on
the counter next to the lighter.

“Two-ninety, please.”

I paid all my attention to digging my wallet out and giving her the nght
change. When I looked at her and handed her the money, I worked up a big
smile.

“Ruth?” IT said. “Ruth, is that you?”

Her face shut down while her brain scrambled for memories that weren’t
there.

“It’s Linnie!” I said. “Linn Oldham! God, it’s been years! When did you
start working here?”

“Last week.”

“I knew it couldn’t have been too long ago. I’m in here two or three
times a week. I see you’ve gotten married. I won’t even know what your last
name is anymore.”

“Young.”

“Young? Omigod. You married him? You married Don Young?”

“Craig.”

“Craig. That’s right. Craig Young. God it’s been so long. Hey, way to
go girl. I always knew it’d take someone like you to tie him down. You're
just what he always needed. I’ll bet you’re both happy.”

“Uh-huh.”

I sighed. “God. How long has it been?”

“Since we were married? Eighteen years.”

“No. Eighteen? Really? You know, it seems like I’ve seen you every so
often over at the school during parent-teacher conferences. I’ll bet you’ve got
kids, huh?”

“Two boys.”

“Yeah? How old?”

“Dave’s eleven. Mark’s fourteen.”

I opened my wallet. “Two girls,” I said. “This is Steph. She just
turned sixteen. And this is Jenny’s senior picture from last year. She'll be
nineteen in October. She’s getting ready to start her sophomore year at
Michigan State.”

Ruth looked at the pictures, said nothing. I put my wallet away.

“Tt’s a wonder we managed to lose touch,” I said. “I’ll bet your kids have
been following mine all through school.”

“T guess the world’s not so small after all,” she said.

“So. What’s Craig doing?”

“Waiting to collect his unemployment. GM laid him off last week.”

“Ohhh. I’m sorry to hear that. Are you doing okay?”

“Well, yeah. That’s why I’m here. I’m working two jobs now, and he’s
busy looking.”

13
“I hope he finds something. Hey, we ought to get together and
reminisce sometime.”

“That would be interesting.”

“Well, I gotta run. Stan’s waiting in the car. I’ll give you a call, okay?
You're in the book, nght? Under Craig Young?”

“Right.”

“Wow. It sure is good to see you again, Ruthie.”

“Good seeing you... um...”

I stopped at the door. I turned back and smiled.

“Hey,” I said. “Cute shirt. ‘I’m with me’? Never heard of that one
before. What’s it mean?”

She shrugged. “I have no idea. It’s Craig’s. He got it at a garage sale, I
think.”

“Oh. Well, see you later.”

When I got back in the car Stan asked, “What’d you get?”

I laughed. “You won’t believe me.”

“What?”

“A pack of Marlboros.” I showed him. “And a lighter.”

“What!?” He let the keys swing loose in the ignition, throwing a °
reflection back and forth on the floor. He stared at me.

“It’s a joke,” I said. “On Joanie. I’ve been kidding her about how I’m
going to start smoking again.”

“Y ou’re what?”

“Not really. It’s a joke.”

“Oh. O...kay.”

All the way to Mike and Joanie’s I forced myself to keep talking— about
whatever came to mind. I knew if I got quiet Stan would start in again with
those what’s-really-the-matter-honey questions he’d been asking since I’d
mentioned the bike. I concentrated on relaxing my hands so my fingers
would quit trembling.

Along about 10:30, after a couple hours of euchre, Joanie whined Mike
and Stan into going out to get us some ice cream, peanuts, bananas, and
chocolate syrup. “And, as long as you’re out,” she added, “we’re low on
bread, milk, and eggs, too.”

“All right!” she said when they left. She seemed full of teenage glee, the
way she used to get when she knew something had happened the night
before. She picked up her cigarettes and lighter off the kitchen table. “Now
come in here and tell me all about it, you little dickens you.” She led the way
to the living room.

“Tell you about what?”

“You can’t fool me, girl. I figured it out. I know what you’ve been up
to. And I’m pissed.”

“Pissed? About what?”

14
“About you not telling me.” She settled into a half lotus at the end of the
couch, her back against the armrest. She patted the cushion in front of her.
“Now sit right here and tell me about it.”

I sat facing her. “Tell you about what?”

‘‘As soon as I figured it out,” she said, “it all made sense. Everything fell
into place.” Her smile had a slyness to it that I hadn’t seen since high school.
“You're finally having your affair, aren’t you?”

So much stuff went through my head that I couldn’t sort out anything to
say. Joanie’s “little flings.” Our arguments about them. All I could do was
stare. Where in the world had she gotten the idea I was having an affair? She
stared back, waiting, eyebrows raised.

“Bull’s-eye?” she said.

I was laughing.

“Not even close,” I said, and I was still laughing. There were tears in my
eyes. Joanie waited. I got some Kleenex from my purse. While I wiped my
eyes I said, “Face it, Joanie. We're always going to disagree on that. I’m
never going to have ‘my affair.’”

“Yeah, yeah,” she droned—a sharp and a flat. Then she repeated the
same two notes. “You can’t do that to Stan.”

I took up the tune. “And it wasn’t something you did to Mike. It was
something you did for Joanie. Everyone has an affair. So will I.”

“Well?”

“Well, you don’t get to say you told me so.”

[Tite

“Joanie. [’m not having an affair.”

“You sure have been acting like it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been lugging all the extra baggage around. You go from moody
and preoccupied one minute—like there’s something, or someone, you can’t
get out of your mind—to being right there, and downright sexy, the next
minute. Especially if there’s a guy around.”

It sounded like an accusation and felt like a compliment. I couldn’t even
stammer.

“T mean, look at you,” she went on. “Where’s your bra? When was the
last time you wore shorts and a tank top with no bra? I'll tell you when. At
least twenty years ago, when the drive-in movie was still open. And now all
of a sudden you're feeling sexy again? You're having an affair, Linnie.”

She turned to reach for her cigarettes. | dug into my purse.

“Here,” I said, “want one of mine?”

Her mouth sagged open. She stared. “No...,” she said. “You didn’t...
You haven’t... 2”

I grinned. “No. I haven’t”

“Well then what...?”

15
I sighed. “It’s a long story.”

She looked at her watch. “We’ve probably got ten or fifteen minutes.
Talk fast.”

I made her promise never to tell anyone, and I told her she’d have to be
quiet and listen so I could fit it all in before Mike and Stan came back. I had
to keep shushing her.

“,..Omigod. Was he hung?”

“...Why didn’t you wake Stan up?”

“,.. YOu mean you actually went looking for him?”

At the part about Ruth, she was crying with laughter. When I finished
she said, “God, Linnie. I was right! You are having an affair!”

I thought she was joking. I snickered.

She leaned over the arm of the couch and took the phone book from the
shelf under the end table. I scooted next to her. As we huddled together it
felt as if we were back in her bedroom twenty-five years ago, giggling over
her big sister’s high school yearbook. The Youngs filled a column and a half.
Two were Craigs. One had an address two blocks from my house, but not
the place I’d picked. She closed the book and put it away.

“So what do you do now?” she asked.

She sat staring at me, waiting for an answer.

“Doe” I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.”

“Oh, come on. You mean to tell me you’ve done all this wondering and
hunting and detective work, and now you’ve got some answers, and so that’s
it? That’s all? Linneeee!”

I shrugged again. “Yeah. That’s all.”

She stared at me. “Wow,” she said softly. “You’ve actually kept yourself
from seeing this, haven’t you?”

“That’s something your shrink would say.” Her question seemed to drip
with weird meanings, and I couldn’t figure out what they were.

“Well? It’s true. It’s like you’ve been climbing these stairs without
knowing where they lead—or that they even lead anywhere. You’ve never
once looked past finding out who he is and where he lives?”

I must have looked helpless. A wide-eyed lift of my eyebrows, a head
shake, a shoulder shrug.

“Why?” she asked slowly. “Why have you spent half your waking hours
wondering about him? Why have you been driving around looking for him?
Why did you pull that long-lost-friend bit on his wife?”

“Curiosity?” I asked.

“Girl? There’s more going on here than curiosity. This is an obsession.
I'll tell you what you’re curious about. You're curious about how it would be
with someone that isn’t Stan.”

The curtains hung limp at the open window. The moon, no longer full,

16
was in a different place in the sky, throwing no shadows into the room. I
heard the mile-away whine of a heavy truck on the interstate, a semi backing
off as it crested the hill and headed into the downward slope. Stan lay in a
fetal curl, his back to me under the sheet.

“Honey,” I said.

"Hmm?”

“T love you.”

“T love you, too, hon.”

“Do you remember,” I began, unsure how to ask it, “do you remember
when we stopped riding?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. Then he said, “No.”

“Neither do I.”

I lay there thinking. When I spoke I didn’t know if it was to Stan or to
myself. Or just to the empty ceiling.

“I rode before you were out of the hospital,” I said. “The day they cut
your cast off, you rode. We were down to just my bike between us. We fell
off together, in slow motion. We changed from apartment-and-laundromat
people to suburb-and-swimming-pool people without even knowing it.”

I knew I’d been talking to Stan by the way he took in a breath to answer
me. But when he didn’t say anything I lay listening to the crickets and I
wondered why you never hear them start but you always hear when they stop.

Finally Stan said, “You can’t ride a Harley in a business suit.”

Monday I| bought a half-pint of Southern Comfort before I left work. |
went to Stop-N-Go. I waited in the parking lot until I saw Ruth inside, then
I went home. Steph and Jenny would be two more hours. Stan would be an
hour after that. I emptied the bottle into a glass, and I sipped it straight while
I got out of my work clothes and into my swimsuit. I took the glass, the
phone, and the phone book out to the deck. I plugged the phone in and
settled into the lounger. I looked up the number and punched the buttons.

The whiskey didn’t keep my fingers from trembling, but I hoped it would
keep my voice from choking the way it does when I get nervous. He
answered on the second ring.

“Craig Young?” I asked.

“West

“You know you’ve got a great bod?”

I didn’t sound nearly as shaky as I felt. I took another sip and waited for
his response. Finally he said, “Who is this?”

“I’m the person whose pool you borrowed the other night.”

This time he took a good ten seconds, and it was his voice that was shaky.
“You must have the wrong number.”

I waited. I’d rehearsed this conversation all day. Now I couldn't
remember the rest of my lines. His bit about the wrong number hadn't

17
been in my script.

“Don’t call the police,” he said softly. Then he said, “Please?”

I could almost feel him shrivel. I slapped down the receiver so hard the
phone dinged.

My pale blue house robe felt light and soft against my skin. I[t was
homemade, of T-shirt material, last year’s Mother’s Day gift from Jenny. |
loosened its sash. I let it fall open. It slipped off my shoulders and fell to the
ground and I was standing naked in the shadows beneath the maple. The
neighborhood windows were dark. I stepped to the ladder, turned, lowered
myself quietly into the pool. Shoulder-deep in the water, I let myself fall
slowly away from the ladder, arms waving at my sides, hair flowing around my
face. I drifted for a while in a place I’d lost track of.

I don’t know how long I stayed in the water. The ladder wobbled
slightly as I climbed out. I stepped off onto concrete. I knelt and took the
comb from the pocket of my robe. Standing in the moving shadows of the
maple, | tilted my head to drape my hair one way then another as I worked
out all the tangles and let myself drip dry. I hadn’t brought a towel.

I put the comb back and took out my cigarettes and lighter. I stretched
out in the chair. As I peeled the cellophane strip from around the top of the
pack and tore off the foiled flaps, the tobacco smelled like old memories.

I reached down and tucked the scraps into the pocket of my robe. I
worked a cigarette loose from the pack and held it between my lips. I flicked
the lighter and took a tiny puff, just enough to get it started. I dropped the
pack and the lighter to the ground. For a few minutes I let my cigarette hand
dangle from my raised right knee as the ash-covered glow at the tip slowly
grew. Then I flicked off the ash and brought the cigarette to my lips. I drew
the smoke into my lungs carefully, so I wouldn’t cough. It was just a taste. [
crushed the glow into the grass beside the chair.

Bruce Brown says of himself, “About three years ago, I finished
serving my self-imposed twenty-year conventional-employment
security sentence and became a freelance wnter. While working to
earn a life as a wnter of short fiction, I’ve earned money by wnting
for various publications and private clients in the Kalamazoo-
Grand Rapids area, by playing poker, and by working for a
temporary employment agency as a landscape laborer, floor sweeper,
and builder of large cardboard boxes. I am also, among other
things, the father of two grown sons and husband of one very
understanding and supporting wife.”

18
Saving Barry Manilow's Garbage
by BRIAN HAMRICK

On Thursday nights I always feel really sad. That’s the night my father
makes me take out the garbage. When I[ go from room to room, putting it all
into my grocery bag, I look down at it and think about what’s going to
happen to it. I used to think that the garbage trucks took it to the Salvation
Army where they put it all together and used it again. But then my mother
told me before she left that it all gets smushed together and put in a very deep
hole, where it spends the rest of eternity rotting like a stinking corpse.

So I try to save the garbage. Instead of dragging the large black plastic
bag to the curb I pull it behind the garage and go through it. Sometimes |
find glass jars that can be cleaned and used again. Or I’ll find some plastic
butter tubs that I can keep my marbles in. There’s lots of stuff that can be
saved and hidden in the bushes by the garage. And the stuff that I don’t want
to keep I flush down the toilet. It’s much better to flush something down the
toilet than put it in the garbage, because then it floats into the ocean and is
used for fuel by big oil tankers as they dig undersea wells.

But this Thursday night my dad has decided to take the garbage out
himself because it’s raining. I sit at my bedroom window and watch as he runs
to the curb with a bag in each hand. I wish I were strong enough to do that.
And the garbage just sits outside my window and gets all wet. I don’t know
why my dad doesn’t worry about the garbage like I do.

kkk

“Tony Baloney eats macaroni while he rides his pony!” shouts Suzi
Horman from her front porch as I walk to school. She runs up to me and tries
to grab my lunch box. “My mommy says that your daddy doesn’t know how
to feed you right. She says all you eat is Twinkies and pasghettios!” |

“I do not.” I try to say really tough. “My dad says your mom has a
mustache.”

“I’m going to tell her you said that!” Suzi yells as she runs ahead to walk
with Liz. Suzi is my next door neighbor and her mom is divorced.
Sometimes my dad goes to talk to her about stuff and leaves me in the house
alone with Suzi. I think he’s asking Mrs. Horman about my mother because
she’s a woman, and will understand why my mother is the way she 1s. [’m
going to see my mother this weekend for the first time in three months.

On Friday night my dad takes me to the supermarket to buy food for
the week. In the car on the way there he always asks me if I have a
girlfriend. When I tell him that I don’t he always says that I’m not old

19
enough to think about girls anyways.

This night we pull into the parking lot next to a car with its headlights
on. There’s a little white shaggy dog in the back seat.

“Dad, that car parked next to us has its lights on.”

“Well Tony, what do we do when we notice that someone has their
lights on?”

“Uh, I don’t know.”

“We open up their door and tum those lights off before the battery goes
dead!”

“But Dad, what about the dog in the back seat?

“Don’t worry about the dog,” my dad says as he opens up the front door
and reaches in to shut the lights off: “He’s too small to bite me... OUCH!”

The dog jumps from the back seat and sinks his teeth into my dad’s hand.
At the same time an alarm goes off in the front seat. My dad jumps back and
slams the door shut, hitting the dog right in the face with the window.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

My dad grabs my hand and quickly walks me into the store. “I take that
back, don’t you ever open up someone’s car door if it doesn’t belong to you.”

[ keep quiet as I try to walk as fast as my dad. Before we go through the
sliding doors I look back to see if the dog is hurt, but all I can see is the light
from the car’s headlights.

My dad always goes to the fruits and vegetables section first. We choose a
different fruit or vegetable for every day of the week. That way my dad says
I’ll have something healthy to eat every day.

“Now, if you’re gonna eat fruits and vegetables, you have to check them
first to make sure they aren’t rotten. Look here, this brown stuff means that
the farmers grew this in cow poop.” My dad is holding a stalk of celery and
looking it over so hard that he doesn’t notice that the sprinklers overhead have
turned on and are spraying the top of his head and back. I don’t want to
interrupt what he is saying, so I just keep quiet, hoping he’ll notice it himself.

“If you don’t want to eat cow poop you have to make sure that you wash
it off...hey, I’m getting all wet. Why didn’t you tell me?”

I laugh as he shakes his head out like a wet dog and growls at me. He
pretends to be angry and grabs me by my jacket.

“Boy, if we weren’t in a store I’d stick this celery in your ears.”” Then my
dad laughs and runs his wet fingers through my hair.

“Hello there Mr. Kelly!” shouts Ms. Horman from the cucumber
section. “How are you?”

My dad turns to see who is talking and lets go of my hair. “I’m just fine
Ms. Horman. Tony and | are buying our food for the rest of the week.”

Ms. Horman pats me on the head and smiles at my dad. In a low voice
she says, “I thought he was going to his mother’s?”

“Uh, yeah, he’s going with her Saturday. Are we still on?”

20
Ms. Horman nods her head. “Have you seen Suzi?” she asks me. “She’s
probably in the video section. Why don’t you see if you can find her, Tony.”

My dad tells me to run along and find Suzi, so I take off down the aisle.
As I turn the comer I brush up against a jar of spaghetti sauce. It wobbles
then falls to the floor, breaks into big chunks of glass and spaghetti sauce. I
feel really bad for the jar and begin to pick it up. My dad and Ms. Horman
- come over and try to get me to leave it alone but I have to save the glass. It’s
still good if we can just scoop up the sauce and put it in a plastic bag we can
still use it and the glass can be glued back together and used to catch bees in
the summer. My dad keeps yelling at me to get up and leave the glass alone
but I don’t listen to him. Finally he picks me up off the floor and drags me
away. I have stains ali over my knees from the sauce and my hands are
bleeding.

kkkk

“IT don’t know why you are so...1 know about the garbage you’ve been
keeping behind the garage,” my dad says in the car as we drive home from
the store. “Why are you hiding garbage?”

“T don’t know.”

“It’s just junk, Tony. That garbage is all moldy and dirty. You can’t be
saving it for something important.."

“I don’t like to throw it away.”

“IT don’t umderstand Tony, it’s just garbage, people throw away their
garbage.”

I just look out my window and don’t say anything. My dad doesn’t care
about the garbage because he doesn't care about me. I stare at the houses
through my window, with their big lawns and high curbs. Some of them still
have empty garbage cans sitting out front.

When we get back home my dad sends me to my room. Later he comes
up and sits next to me on the bed.

“Do you know why your mother doesn’t live with us anymore?”’ he asks.

“Suzi Horman says that it’s because she’s moved away to live with Barry
Manilow.”

“Well, Suzi doesn’t quite have her facts straight.” My dad takes a deep
breath and stays quiet for a minute. “Your mother is having some trouble
dealing with...understanding reality. She still loves you, and I think she still
loves me. But right now she feels that there are more important things going
on in her life.”

“Like what? Does she want to live with Barry Manilow?”

“No, there’s more to it than that. Your mother has always been a big fan
of Barry Manilow, but now she’s convinced, or she believes that Mr. Manilow
is more special than he really is.”

21
“Dad, what does fuck mean? Is mom fucking Barry Manilow?”

“Fucking is when a boy puts his penis into a girl’s vagina and goes pee.”
Suzi Horman says to me during recess. Paul is calling to me to play smear the
queer, but I’m more interested in finding our what fucking is, and why it
makes Dad so embarrassed.

“And when the boy goes pee the girl has a baby.”

“Well what if the boy doesn’t pee?” I ask.

“I don’t know.” Suzi says.

“Well what if the boy has to pee and doesn’t want to have a baby?”

“Then he wears a rubber.”

“What's a rubber?”

“It’s a balloon stupid. Don’t you ever watch teevee?”

“T hope I never have to do that, it’s gross.”

“It’s not gross, my mom and your dad do it.”

“No they don’t.”

“Yes they do.”

“Not together.”

“Yes together.”

If I wasn’t a man I’d have punched Suzi right in the kisser.

Fucking, I like the sound of that word, it’s like trucking only you’re not
going anywhere. I’m thinking about trying that with Suzi. If my dad is going
to do it with her mother, I probably should be doing it with Suzi.

Right now I’m going through my garbage box to see if there’s anything I
can throw away. My dad was right, it’s just garbage. But I still can’t find
anything that I want to get rid of. There’s a half-used pack of matches that is
wet. And an old TV Guide that can go. I don’t know when I’ll ever use any
of the stuff that I’m saving, but it’s good to have around in case I ever need
something. Or maybe my dad will be hunting for a jar to put leftovers in
some day and he’ll ask me to find one. Then I’ll be able to use one of the jars

that I’m saving. I wonder how many balloons I’ll need and what color they
should be.

tt OK

Ms. Horman is talking to my dad in the kitchen so I sneak out through
my window and climb down the side of the gutter. I knock on Suzi’s front
door and she lets me in.

“Did you bring your rubbers?” She asks me as I stand there in her living
room. She’s got an apron wrapped around her waist and is drying a plate with
it.

“Yeah, I’ve got red, blue, green and yellow.”

oe
“Well let’s see you put it on.”

“I’m not gonna do it here with you watching me.”

“Then go in the bathroom. I don’t want to see it anyways.”

I go into the bathroom, leaving the door open a crack behind me. That
way | can hear if Ms. Horman comes back. I can hear Suzi washing dishes in
the sink and humming to herself: I pull down my pants and underwear then
open my package of balloons and choose a wide blue one. I’m not sure if I’m
supposed to tie it around myself or slip it over. I think slipping it over would
be less painful. The balloon rips as soon as I try to pull it on. Next I try a
long red one on, stretching it tight between my fingers. It goes on a little
easier, but as I get halfway in, the balloon slips out of my fingers and snaps me
right where it counts. I lay down on the floor and shut my eyes to stop the
pain, and when I open them Ms. Horman is standing over me looking very
surprised. She grabs me by the front of my shirt and pulls me up to my feet.
My pants are still down around my ankles, and I trip over them as I back away
from her.

“What the hell are you doing on my bathroom floor looking like this? Is
this what your father taught you to do?”

“I don’t know,” I say, afraid that she’s going to hit me.

“Get out of here and take these with you.” Ms. Horman says as she
throws the balloons in my face. “If I see you over here again, I’m going to
call the police.”

I get up from the floor and squeeze past her through the bathroom door.
I stop just long enough to pull my pants up in the kitchen as Suzi watches.

“See you later Suzi,” I say.

“Not if I see you first,” Suzi says as she wipes a fork on her apron.

Then I run out the front door, across the yard and into my house. My
dad is sitting in the living room reading a newspaper.

“Where have you been?” he asks me.

“Nowhere.” I say.

“How about we make some popcom tonight and watch McGyver.”

“Okay. 99

From my bedroom window I can hear my dad talking to my mom. She’s
come to pick me up for the weekend. I don’t think my dad wants me to go,
but he says he can’t stop her because she’s got more rights than him.

“Hello Tony.” It’s my mom standing in the doorway. I go up to her and
give her a hug.

“How’s my little boy? Has your daddy been taking good care of you?”

“Yesterday we went shopping, and the sprinkler came on and he got all
wet and he said that he was going to stick his celery in my ear.”

“That’s funny, Tony.” My mother says without laughing. “Are you
ready to go?”

23
I grab my bag and follow my mom out to the porch. Then I[ turn around
and give my dad a big kiss. He hugs me real tight like he’ll never see me again
and tells me to be careful and listen to my mother. Then he stands on the
porch and watches as we drive away.

My mom has pictures of Barry Manilow all over her apartment. She even
has a huge picture of him playing piano. All around the pictures are hundreds
of little candles. And she plays his music all the time. I remember when she
was home she used to play his music all the time and my dad would get angry.
I used to try to hide her records so they would stop fighting, but she caught
me once and told me I’d be punished. But she never told Dad and nothing
ever happened.

“So do you want to do something like go to a movie tonight or
something? Or would you like to stay home and listen to my records?” my
mom asks me during dinner. We're eating chicken and it tastes really dry.

“I don’t care.” I say, even though I don’t want to listen to her records.

“Well, I'll make you a deal. If I take you to a movie, I get to tell you a
story first.”

“Okay,” I say, even though I already know what her story will be about.

My mom gets up and puts on one of her records. Barry Manilow sings “I
write the songs”. She sits down next to me and smiles.

“Do you know about God and Jesus?” she asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Well when God looked down from Heaven and saw that his people
were suffering, he sent down his son to save them and put them in control of
their lives again.”

“Why’d he do that.”

“Because he loved them. But that was two-thousand years ago. When
Jesus left he said he’d come back again at the apocalypse.”

“What’s the apocalypse?” I ask, stumbling over the word.

“The apocalypse is the end of the world, when God comes down and
judges all of his people and sends them to hell or lets them join him in
Heaven.”

“And when is Jesus going to come back?”

““He’s already here Tony, and you’re listening to him.”

“I don’t hear him.” I say trying to listen over the music.

“Yes you do...‘ write the words that make the whole world sing, I write
the words of love and special things.”

My mom shuts her eyes and crosses herself, then she pats me on the arm.
“All right, what movie would you like to see?”

“I don’t care.” I tell her. Now I have something new to worry about.
Barry Manilow is going to bring the end of the world. I wonder what will
happen to all the garbage, will it go to Heaven or hell?

24
kkk

“I’m pregnant.” Suzi tells me the next Monday at school. “My mom says
I have to have an abortion.”

“You’re really pregnant?” I ask. I know I didn’t get my rubber on all the
way, but I didn’t go pee either.

“What’s an abortion?”

“It’s when a girl goes poop and her baby comes out of her butt.”

“Oh

“My mom says that she’s gonna put you and your dad in jail.”

“Why, we didn’t do nothing.”

“She says you did.”

The school bell rings and Suzi runs towards homeroom. I stand there as
all my friends run past me and I look off into the school-yard. Above, the sky
is growing dark and cloudy. It’s probably the apocalypse coming to destroy
the world. I wonder if I’ll get to see Barry Manilow. Nobody else realizes
that the end of the world is coming. My teacher is yelling for me to come
inside but I ignore her. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die at home, with
my father and my garbage. Suddenly I realize what I can do with all of the
garbage I’ve hidden behind the garage. I run home to tell my father as big
drops of rain start to fall on my head and back.

Bnan Hamrick ts a recent graduate of Michigan State University
with degrees in Telecommunications and English. In the future, he
plans on evolving his creative talents into a career in film making.
This story of Mr. Hamrick’s was chosen as a winner in the 1992.
Red Cedar Review Writing Contest, judged by Jack Dniscoll.

25
Moon Man
by ANTHONY W. BROWN

Moon Man’s peeping in my window. I know that’s his name because the
first time he popped up, squeaking his shiny fingers on the glass, he said it real
big-like with big blue lips and silver teeth:

M-O-O-N MAN.

Moon Man wears diapers, big shiny diapers with little red
flowers where his thing is.

I’ve seen his thing. It’s stiffer and purpler than So-So Daddy’s, but it
doesn’t hurt my eyes to look at it. Moon Man likes his thing, plays with it,
calls it funny names like Buzz and Skipper, then tells me I can play with it too.

So I play with it, but he doesn’t like it, the way I play.

“TOY” he says, “FUN THING.” Then he takes it in his hands and pulls
it like taffy, wraps it around the bedpost, ties it in knots real tight till it looks
less purple than before.

"ene, besays, “FUN.”

He’s saying that right now, over and over in big letters:

F-U-U-U-N.

Moon Man is only six years old. I’m eight. But he’s a lot bigger than
me. Mommy’s scared I’m never going to get bigger. She says I stopped
growing when I was five, and I believe her, because she keeps talking about
me going to the doctor. So-So Daddy told her that was silly.

Moon Man taps on the window and I wave at him, but then his eyes get”
real big and the little round holes in his face turn into eggs and drop off on the
window sill, bouncing and twirling like pennies.

“Alicia?” It’s So-So Daddy with the stringy beard knocking on my door.
“T’ve told you about locking this door at night. What if there was a fire?”

Moon Man feels better now since he knows the door is locked. He’s
making funny long faces again:

S-O-O-O WH-A-A-T IF?

I giggle, but So-So Daddy hates that, because he knocks harder on the
door.

“Open this door right now, little lady.”

Moon Man shakes his head and his eyes turn down into little teardrops,
then big drops, then all drops then no drops, then he’s gone.

I open the door and So-So Daddy’s got his robe wrapped around his
waist. He’s got a glass of cherry Kool-Aid and ice held against one of the little
brown kissy spots on his chest. That’s what he used to call them when he first
started taking my shirt off. “These are your little kissy spots,” he’d say and
tickle-pinch them.

(26
He doesn’t call them that anymore. Now he just puffs and huffs at them
while he pinches.

“I brought you some Merry Cherry.”

That’s not really what he called it—he called it Kool-Aid like everyone
else does, but I heard him making it in the kitchen one time and he told
Mommy it was “Merry Cherry.” So that’s what I think he says every time he
_ brings it.

“Thank you, Daddy.”

He’s not my real Daddy, but he likes me to say he 1s, so I say he is.

Moon Man always likes that, giggles and covers his mouth with his
bumpy hand when I step up to the window and say real big like him:

S-O-O-O S-O-O-O.

The first time I did it, he laughed so hard he fogged the window till |
couldn’t see a thing. I thought he was gone, but then he wrote FUN
backwards on the glass.

That was when So-So Daddy first came, before he started bringing me
Kool-Aid.

“Now you drink that right up, and go to the bathroom before you go to
bed.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

So-So Daddy trots off down the hall, looks in at Mommy when he passes
their bedroom, and then stops at the bathroom, reaches in and turns on the
light. He looks back at me and makes a drinky face—turns up his beard to the
pink light and holds his hand near his mouth, makes his little throat apple go
up and down.

I take a big drink, and it hurts when so much goes down so big and fast
that I chuck some of it back up on my Pooh Bear jammies. So-So Daddy
looks real sweet at me and starts untying his robe. Then he does that little
crooked finger thing like he’s got a secret to show me.

Moon Man sometimes does the little finger thing too, but he can’t help
from giggling when he does it, and I have to make him stop. I tried a lot of
different stuff to hush him up. I fed him jelly beans, cotton balls, cob webs, a
little picture Bible I got at Sunday School, even my Little Miss S makeup kit,
but he would just laugh harder, cover up his mouth with his hands and
squinch his face all up like he was holding in a sneeze. | finally got so scared
he’d wake So-So Daddy up I hauled off and whacked him one and he flew
across the room and bounced around in the corner like a rubber ball. His eyes
got all big and scared for a second, but he hopped right back up and said:

FUN.

He bounced right back over to me, so [ hit him again, chased him against
the wall and kicked him so hard he sailed right up to the ceiling and landed
head first on my bed, and then bounced straight up on his feet by the closet.
We played for hours, till I got so sleepy I had to ask him to leave. I thought

at
he was going to cry, so I told him to come back every night and we’d play
some more.

But we don’t get to play when So-So Daddy brings Kool-Aid and makes
little crooked fingers at me, when he makes me go pee even when I don’t
need to, because he likes to watch. Moon Man never comes back on nights
So-So Daddy shows up. He won’t come back now.

“Alicia, come on in here. You’ve made a mess of yourself.” So-So
Daddy says, and then I hear Mommy rustling some papers in the bedroom.

“I want to finish my Kool-Aid first.” I can hear Mommy getting out of
bed.

“Alicia, you come here right now.” So-So Daddy’s lips hide in his beard
so I can’t see them—that’s his mean look—but then Mommy walks out of the
bedroom with a record in her hand, and his lips pop out again real quick so I
can see his teeth.

“John how about some music?” Mommy says, and I run over to her and
hold up my Kool-Aid.

“You’re mother doesn’t want that. You asked for it. Now you have to
drink it.”

I tell him I’m full and I don’t want anymore, and then Mommy tells him
I don’t have to dnnk it if I don’t want, and then he gets trembly mad and says
yes I do because it’s some kind of lesson I’m supposed to learn. Mommy
looks real scared like, like she’s going to walk back into the bedroom, but then
she looks at me and wraps some of my hair around her finger. She tugs on it a
little, but it doesn’t hurt, so I catch some of her pajamas with my finger and
try to wrap it, but it’s so slick I can’t catch it just right.

Mommy lets go my hair and asks him if he’s seen one of her records, and I
want to say | didn’t ask for the Kool-Aid, but So-So Daddy’s madder than I’ve ever
seen, and I know he’d kill me if | said anything like that.

So I tell Mommy I'll help her look for her record, because I know she hates
looking for stuff. She can’t ever find anything. One time when So-So Daddy went
bowling, she sat in front of the bedroom door and cried because she couldn’t find her
sleepy medicine. I sat by her and told her about Moon Man and she kissed me til my
face was wet.

“Go to your room,” So-So Daddy says and points, “I'll help your mother find it.”

So-So Daddy goes into the bedroom, but says real loud I better be finished with
my drink when he comes back because he’s tired and needs to get to bed. I’m hoping
Mommy lost that record real good, because I got a lot of Kool-Aid left and I just can’t
drink it too fast.

When So-So Daddy closes the bedroom door I hear Moon Man’s squeak at the
window. I run into the room and sure enough, he’s standing there sort of grinning.

“You're back!” I’m so happy I drop the glass on the floor and all the Kool-Aid
spills out. Moon Man hops through the window—he can do that when he wants to—
and jumps up and down in front of me.

28
“So-So Daddy’s going to kill me, Moon Man. I messed up the carpet.”

Moon Man’s eyes turn down into little drops again, but then his head kind of
glows brighter than usual. He kneels down and then his lips stretch way out from his
face like blue caramel till they touch the wet spot, and then all sudden like, the carpet’s
dry like before.

“Where did it go?”

Moon Man jumps up, pulls down his diaper and points to his stiff purple thing:

F-U-U-U-N.

I giggle and he sets the glass up on the floor. He runs to the other side of the
room, turns his face to the corner and bends his head all the way back till the top of it
touches the floor.

He smiles at me and then the next thing I see is a little rainbow shooting out his
purple thing. It goes clear over my head, nearly touches the ceiling and lands right in
the glass. The colors dance in the glass and tinkle like the music in my Little Miss S
jewel box, soft, happy music. I clap my hands and squeal at Moon Man and he keeps
on peeing and smiling till he hears So-So Daddy close his bedroom door.

He springs up, runs and belly slides under my bed right as So-So Daddy steps in
my room.

“Come on, Alicia.” So-So Daddy leans on the doorway real tired like
and | think he ought to go to bed. Mommy’s already in bed I know because I
can kind of hear her record player through the wall. The music sounds like
it’s got cotton in it, and it makes me sad. I should be in bed too. I don’t need
to go to the bathroom. I don’t want to play with So-So Daddy. I already
have the best fnend in the world hiding under my bed.

But I got to go, because if I don’t So-So Daddy will plop himself down
on my bed and hurt Moon Man and Moon Man will jump out and see So-So
Daddy making me naked and then he’ll get real scared and run off and never
come back, because he doesn’t know anything about kissy spots.

“Alicia?”

I jump up and run by him real fast, and I get real scared when I get by
him because I can’t see him anymore. I always think he’s right behind me,
getting ready to grab me and pull me off the ground, so I cover my ears and
run to the bathroom before he gets there.

I pull down my jammies and hop on the toilet seat. It’s so cold it shivers
my eyes closed. I try to pee, but nothing much comes out. If I’d finished the
Kool-Aid, hadn’t spilled it, I could do better and be finished before So-So
Daddy comes in. I could do like Moon Man and make happy sleepy music. I
open my eyes and So-So Daddy’s watching me from the door.

“Please Daddy. Don’t make me. I want to go to bed.”

“In a minute, sweetheart.”

So-So Daddy pushes my hair away from my face and it makes me cry. |
cry soft as I can, because he’ll hold my mouth shut if I don’t and then I can’t
breathe too good and then my head will hurt. I’m not sweetheart like he says.

29
I hate sweetheart. I want to punch sweetheart and spit on it and stomp on it
and pee on it.

So-So Daddy picks me up off the toilet and carries me to the sink. He
turns on the water, puts me down in it and starts rubbing me. He shushes me,
tells me he loves me and licks my knee, but I can’t stop crying. I just can’t.
Not even when I see Moon Man’s shadow behind the shower curtain.

He’s standing, all drooped over, with his ear to the curtain. I know he
hears me, because when I breathe in real deep, his shoulders kind of bob up
and down and his head wobbles and rolls against his chest. I wish he wasn’t
here. He won’t understand. He’s going to think it’s my fault, and leave me
by myself.

“Is this forever, Daddy?”

So-So Daddy stops what he’s doing and looks at me for a real long time.
His beard’s all wet and drops little sparkles on my knee. He reaches up and
rubs my cheek with his thumb and says for me to please don’t cry no more,
but when he says it, his face wrinkles and shakes and he cries a little too.

“It’s not forever, sweetheart,” he says. “I swear.”

“Really? You swear?”

So-So Daddy wipes his eyes with his thumbs and sighs.

“Let’s just sit here a while. Real quiet. Okay?”

“Okay. But can I get out? The water’s cold.”

“Just sit. A while. No questions right now.”

I sit quiet as I can and Moon Man stops rolling and wobbling his head.
His shadow starts to fade and I get scared. He’s going to leave me here. He’s
not ever going to come back, because now he knows I play with grownups. I
didn’t want him to know. I don’t want anybody to know.

So-So Daddy is sitting on the floor hugging my legs. He whispers over
and over he’s sorry. But I don’t care. I move my lips without talking. I say it
in my head, real big-like—as big as I can:

M-O-O0-O-N M-A-A-N.

And Moon Man hears me. His shadow gets dark, dark swirly blue and
then turns around and faces me. He rustles behind the curtain like he’s
looking for something. He squiggles his hands. And all sudden like, the
curtain poofs into shiny flakes, then to a wiggly sheet of water, and his face
spreads out real big till it’s all I can see. A sparkly quiet smiling face.

Then he says it to me. Slow, in letters so big they light up the room and
dance over my face:

MADE FOR YOU.

Anthony W. Brown currently pursues an MFA at the University
of Arizona, where he serves as Editor of Sonora Review. Hs

30
stories have appeared in a number of journals, the most recent of
which include The Yale Review, and the Sycamore Review.

31
A Too Clear Sky
by LYNN SWANSON

Joe turned the truck around and headed toward old 59. The pickup fell
into a hole in the road then climbed out. Rain, Joe thought. Gutting the
road and tearing the autumn leaves down before Halloween. He felt the
cereal he’d just eaten roll in his stomach as he made the left turn onto the
paved highway. No rain now, though, he thought. Looks like the sun’s here
for the day. He looked to his right and responded to the majestic reds and
yellows and oranges and golds of the woods lit by the late morning sun. He
felt an easiness in the way the pickup hummed between the trees, the way his
hands fit the wheel, the way his back fit the old seat. He glanced at Sarah’s
side of the seat. It wasn’t as worn as his, didn’t show the deep indentation of a
body the way his did.

He lit a cigarette and opened his window. Sarah would be having her last
cup of coffee, he figured. Then she’d feed the dog and do up the dishes. He
pressed the accelerator hard and enjoyed letting the cigarette smoke swarm
over his head. He remembered their wedding. Saw himself in the tux he’d
rented at Jameson’s watching her come down the aisle. He’d smiled at her
dad like it was OK. Like it was good that he should give her to Joe. Is that
what it was? A handing over?

He heard himself telling Sarah at breakfast that he had to go up to Hank
Corber’s to get the wrench back. Well, he’d go around there and get it later.
Or maybe say Hank wasn’t home. Since his accident he needed to drive
more, to see a wider spectrum of the land, to know the country was large.
Eighteen years, Joe thought. Last June he’d been married that length of time.
He felt it as a record to be notched contentedly in his mind at the same time
he felt relief that Sarah’s father had died two years ago.

Joe took the skinny back-road down to Johnson pond. He stared through
the windshield at the reflected colors of the trees streaked on the water’s skin
and tried to figure how many trout he’d nabbed in the spring-fed coldness.
How may times with his dad, how many times alone. How many more
before he died. If he started the calculation from when he was five and
averaged ten times a season till now, age forty-two—then he made himself
stop. He didn’t want to know. Because it never had the night projected sum.
Not in terms of numbers, but in the overall ending. The ending was like a hollow
sky, too clear and void to let you know what the weather really was, he thought.
And he knew it was because of the child. The idea that the sum wouldn’t be
multiplied or continued by fishing with a son that was his made Joe see that sky.
Or sometimes when he lay in bed thinking about it, it made him feel faceless.
Like he had a scalp and hair and ears, but no face.

32
He got out of the truck and sat on a tree stump. It was not what he had
planned, not having a son. When he watched Sarah come down the aisle he had
felt a richness, a fullness about her that promised his son. How could she not be
able to do it. He winced, not from the question but from the answer. The open-
end empty, eery sky answer that there was no answer. The stones looked smooth
and clean in the sun and Joe tossed one into the water enjoying the feel of
controlling how heavy the stone was that he chose, how far he’d throw it, how
loud the sound of the splash would be. He threw three more then left.

As he pulled back onto 59, Joe was glad at least that he had today, a
Thursday, to himself instead of having to give himself to the hardware store. It was
part of what he’d got in Sarah, her father’s store someday. It hadn’t been so bad,
he thought, measuring chicken wire, plopping nails into bags, finding old ladies
the nght electric switch. But now that it was his, it seemed to Joe like a frame
around him. He saw himself as a kind of picture held together by a wooden
square. And somehow Sarah was in there, too, or maybe part of the frame. Hell,
Joe thought and gunned the truck toward town.

He got to the crossroads and stared down Mainstreet. He was casual in his
glance at the hardware, trying to see what he’d think if the store wasn’t his.
Maybe he’d have one of the kids paint the trim a deeper red before winter. Sam
crossed in front of the truck on the way to his diner. Joe waved and wondered if
Sam felt them equal now that they were both owners.

Coffee and pancakes at the diner sounded good to Joe for a second, but a
sudden boredom filled him and he made a U-turn and headed for Wakely, ten
miles up. He turned the radio up loud to squeeze out a little twinge of pain he felt
in his right hip. When he was completely over his injury from the fall he was sure
he’d feel more energetic. More like his old self. More like talking to Sarah over
coffee in the morning again. More like going to bed at the same time she did
again. He swung the truck off the side of the road and snapped off the radio talk
show. Hell, he thought. Fora second he lost a basic sense about himself, that he
had a place to go, that he had a face. He stared at the dried cornfield to his nght
and felt safer next to the straight and orderly rows. He lit a cigarette and
remembered chasing Nancy Ann Baird through her father’s lush green corn the
August before he’d married Sarah. Now he wondered if she had let him catch her
or if he had actually overtaken her.

At the other end of the cornfield Joe saw pumpkins. Orange balls heavy and
scattered like they needed direction, someone to tell them how to line up. But
each pumpkin looked perfectly round and clear to him from this far away. He
started the truck and felt that he could be reassured by coffee. Sarah would be
running the vacuum, he thought. And he pictured her narrow legs in tights jeans,
maybe her red sweater on top.

“How is Sarah?” Mrs. Hardy asked as she put coffee in front of Joe. “And
how’s that leg of yours?”

“Fine. Good.”

33
“Yeah, well stay off of ladders till you learn how to get down without
falling.” She meant it and Joe wondered if she knew somehow that he wasn’t
healing fast. He wondered if his face or posture showed this. He stirred milk into
the coffee, watched the black make light brown and thought how easy it had
seemed to mend after the motorcycle accident. He was twenty-five then and they
were trying to have a son. He finished the coffee and left.

He caught sight of himself in the drugstore window and was surprised how
tall and strong he looked. How much the same he looked as he did when he was
twenty-five. He felt an untruth. Like a spunky new quilt covering an old creaky
bed. He saw his skin as wrapping over a network of hidden frayed lines
connecting his heart to his stomach and liver. He got into the truck and looked at
himself in the rearview mirror. The mirror reflected what the drugstore window
had implied. He wasn’t old. He wondered what had kept Sarah’s father going
counting nails each day until he died. Not with his hands but with his heart. He
backed the pickup out into the road and headed out to Hank’s place. He’d get the
wrench, then go on home and fix the fence.

When he approached the cornfield, he swerved left to get to the side where
the pumpkins lay. He parked the truck and got out. Maybe if he could find a
perfect one he’d take it home. He walked into the field and touched a good sized
one but when he turned it over, it had a dent and was faded. He tried another
and it had good color but was too tall. He stared at the waiting truck. He’d
just go on up to Hank’s.

Behind the wheel, Joe tried to picture the candle-lit glow of a fresh-
carved pumpkin in the living room window but couldn’t connect himself
with it. Couldn’t figure he’d do it. They had quit doing that years ago. He
enjoyed the sound of the wheels crunching as he got off 59 onto the gravel
road,

He sat at Hank’s kitchen table looking first at the coffee cups between
them, then out the window at the bright leaves. He couldn’t look around the
kitchen much since Hank’s wife died last spring. It seemed hollow and messy. |
No, I’m not at the store today, he told Hank. Always take Thursdays off.
Yeah, I know Sarah’s dad never did that. Yeah, I know you two fished
together on Sundays. No, I didn’t know you helped him put the original roof
on the store. No, the house won’t be needing roof work this year. Yes, a
sandwich would be good. Joe watched Hank’s hands quiver as he slid
mayonnaise over white bread and opened two beers.

They walked a mile of Hank’s fence looking for downed wire and fallen
posts. Joe felt the cold air on his face and liked helping the old man pull posts
up out of the weeds, liked the vibrations of the hammer in his hand. He
considered whether Hank ached over his wife’s absence or if he might enjoy
being alone. When Hank got the guns out of the house Joe took one and
headed into the woods with Hank for woodcock and quail. He’d mend his
own fence tomorrow.

34
Somewhere leaves were burming. School buses were taking children
home, Joe knew, and he enjoyed the depth of the woods and the smell of the
burning leaves. The cover and solitude. He saw the bird flutter off and heard
Hank’s gun pop behind him in the same instant. He waited, then saw the bird
fall to the ground. Hank had flushed it up and located it without a dog. Joe
contemplated what it would feel like not to have a wife or a dog. Or a steady
job. A place to go. Did a man ever stop needing that, he wondered.
“There!” he heard Hank shout. He raised the gun and felt the recoil against
his shoulder as he fired. He smiled as the quail fell. He realized as he picked
up the warm bird that this was something he hadn’t done for a long time, that
Sarah didn’t like him to hunt. He’d leave the bird with Hank.

Back at the house Hank coaxed him into sitting in front of a fire. They
sat with tall glasses of bourbon and watched the day become dark. An hour
later when Hank poured him a third glass he thought of dinner and Sarah. He
looked at the dusty clock on the mantle, but felt himself sunken comfortably
into the old couch. He listened to Hank talk about gathering enough
firewood and storing the last of the potatoes. He wondered what it would be
like to live there with Hank forever, to help fix a roof now and then. To give
up the store and the rest. He let Hank pour him one more bourbon. He had
made himself stop looking at the clock some time ago, but finally said he’d
better go home. He took his wrench and put it on Sarah’s side of the seat.

Once clear of Hank’s narrow drive, he gunned the truck and turned the
country station on full blast. He lit a cigarette and opened the window.
When he flew past old 59 he laughed at his mistake, enjoying his euphoric
mood. He hit the brakes, made a steep U-turm, and got the pickup on 59.
But he wasn’t ready to go home. He drove to town and parked under a street
light in front of the closed hardware store. He shut off the radio and threw his
cigarette out the window. He looked at the reflection in the store window.
The whole picture—the headlights, the truck, himself behind the wheel. He
remembered how seeing himself in the window in the morning had surprised
him.

“Hey, Joe.” Julie Deener, a waitress from the diner leaned against his
door. He thought she smelled like the perfume his Aunt Dormie used to get
cheap from Simpson’s Drugs, but her sweater was cut low.

“Just leavin’ work, Julie?” he said.

“Yeah. Another great night at the world’s most exciting diner...How
about a ride home?”

He moved the wrench from Sarah’s side of the seat and motioned for
Julie to go around and get in. She took the step up with ease and as she
settled in, her jeans seemed to spread nearly to his. Julie Deener, he thought.
Must be all of twenty-two. Probably waitress till she ends up married with
four kids.

“Always work late?” he asked as they headed out to the highway.

35
“Most Thursdays, anyhow. Sam and Doris bowl on Thursdays.”

“Oh, then you get all the excitement to yourself on Thursdays.” He
laughed and touched her knee. It seemed easy to do it. When he returned his
hand to the wheel he tried to feel if Julie was offended, but nothing told him
she was. He drove pretty slow and looked at her white skin and dark curly
hair. Her gum-chewing kind of ruined something, but Joe forgave her that
and looked at her pink nail polish.

Suddenly, Joe saw eyes glowing directly into the headlights. “A rabbit,”
he told Julie. He nearly stopped and they watched the animal get off the road
and disappear into the grass to his left. As if neither of them ever saw rabbits.
When he turned back to the wheel Julie was close to him. He smelled her
skin. He looked at her then pressed on the gas pedal a little. Her house was
about an eighth of a mile, he figured. He thought of the time he had chased
Nancy Ann Baird through the cornstalks. But he knew he wouldn’t do
anything unless she did. They didn’t speak and Joe wondered if he should pull
over. Jesus, he thought. No.

“Here’s my road,” he heard Julie whisper. Then, “Say, want to park the
truck and walk in?”

“Sure.” Joe thought the girl she lived with was probably home. He
drove the pickup a little way into the long wooded drive. They shut the
doors quietly and met in the center of the path. The moon was a skinny slice
floating in a black, clear sky. Joe sucked the cold air into his nostrils and
mouth. He pictured Sarah waiting for him asleep on the couch in front of the
TV. Then he looked at Julie. He felt eager and lead-filled at once.

He caught glimpse of her porch light on the trees up ahead. He wanted
to stay in the darkness with her. He slowed his steps and she matched his
pace. Then she stopped and tumed to him. Joe felt his arms hanging at his
sides. Julie took his hands and put them around her waist. She pressed herself
against him and looked into his face. She tip-toed up and kissed him. He
took it and gave it warmth and length. He felt her hands press his hips. Then
she pulled away.

“You taste like bourbon,” she said like she kind of liked it. He nodded.
“Pm going in,” she giggled. And she headed quickly toward the house. He
thought of chasing her. Like he had chased Nancy Ann Baird. But he felt the
day tug at him. Felt the years between Nancy Ann Baird and Julie Deener.
He stood in the drive for a long time thinking about calculations and sums and
overall endings.

Lynn Swanson holds a BFA in dance from the University of
Michigan, and is completing her thesis in poetry foran MA in Creative
Whiting at MSU. She ts currently learning to live as a wniter, working

36
at a bakery/restaurant, dancing, wnting poetry, and waiting to hear
from publishers on the manuscnpt of a novel as well as submitted fiction
and poetry.

Ms. Swanson’s story was chosen by judge Jack Dnscoll as a winner
of the 1992 Red Cedar Review Writing Contest.

37
 
 
40

To My Mother: Winter Circus

by LYNN SWANSON

Here, in Florida, you live
in a sun-soaked house like
the others

with a pool to soothe
your arthritis, and a cocker spaniel
your second husband walks.

You are exactly like

your fellow dancers

at the Elk’s—grey

hair curled, pink lipstick
over Punta Gorda skin—

except for the homing
device deep in your chest
that lets you know how close
you are to opening

day at the winter circus.
When I visit, you

take me there and sit
next to me like I used to
sit next to you,

your eyes bnght as spotlights
sweeping the tent, smiling
harder than children, grabbing

my sleeve so I won’t miss the

clown spilling water. You have
only these hours, these years left

as spectator, transforming

your body back to performer

and you do, feeling each bump on
your bare-backed horse, each sway
of ballet aerial rope,
every red sequin and feathery
bow, center ring lips
kissing crowds.

I see you clap your hands and remember
how you used to tell me there was no
hot water traveling with the circus

only cold, crabby elephants and

slivered sleep on the train. The horns
screech brass ghosts into my ear, but you roar
at a seal barking notes.

I could peel you from this

no easier than I could remove
from myself the rustly taffeta
skirts, long satin ribbons, little
silver shoes I would take from

your trunk in the attic, no easier
than I could shake from my limbs
the monkey-bar spins you taught me
to do, the stage smile I learned

to go on with.

We take our bodies layered in our
other bodies out of the tent, tie
balloons to the car, let our cells
light the way back

to your retired subdivision,

let them shine like spotlights on the
houses all exactly like yours.

This poem was chosen as a winner of the 1992 Red Cedar Review
Whiting Contest.

41
42

Cheap Thrills on Route 1

by MATT MARINOVICH

Route 1,

a city that washed up on a highway.
Where fiberglass cows graze
outside the steakhouse

and fiberglass dinosaurs loom

over the miniature golf course—

a family piled on a stone bench

like refugees, waiting for a toddler
to make an eighteen foot putt
through a spinning windmill.

Kids pinch bubble gum shreds

from huge packets, outside the batting cage.
Route 1,

where beer is served in goblets,
seafood in a tall red ship,

sausages outside the topless bar.

Amateur Night. Blue chandeliers

drip from the ceiling. Desiree impales
dollar bills on her nipples, kicks quarters
back into the crowd of bobbing

baseball caps, and blows

her husband a kiss.

She spins once for a couple of teenagers
who avert their eyes

when she gets down in a four-point stance.
Jeff squints hard but he can’t decipher her tattoo.
When she exits behind the neon banana,
we watch the runway lights.

Beats Times Square, Jeff says,
where once we squeezed into

a sticky peep show booth

to watch a naked woman cry
because it was Christmas Eve
and she was coming down.
There was nothing she could do
about the metal windows

which whirred open, and closed,
and opened.

43
Poem of the Subterranean Buddah
by ZACHARY CHARTKOFF

.
& they tore off my wings
& they threw down my crown
& my leather was no more.

last night the poet was down
at the faux french cafe
laughing her head off

at her male counterparts.

“listen to me! listen to me!”
she staggers about
in her hiked skirt,
“theeeze poets, i tell ya, are crazy!
theze poets are dead & wild-eyed
& think they screw god every night.
theze poets are all anal retentive,
repressed,
always bichin’ about zen
death erotics;
ol’ vagina
envious
suppressed
kept down
tied up
quelled
quashed
spanked
poetzzz...”

II.
& they tore off my wings
& they threw down my crown
& my leather was no more.
the poet howled at the passing students
heading off for ancient precalculus,
intro. to western arts,

44
bodhisattvas & zygotes.
they blankly stare at this paper
goddess - not the male
pseudonym.

tomorrow the poet says we
should march outside
up
down
the italian embassy
in protest,
“cuz’ they won’t let
can’t let
cicciolina
over for the latterday
sex holidays.”
jive ass
soft flesh
subterranean
buddah

Ill.
“& they tore off my wings
& they threw down my crown
& my leather was no more,”

muttered the poet in her rusty tone
as we walked through the rain
& over grey cobblestones

that led to swarmy cafes -
- the halfnote, the underground,
the mod hatter’s poetry party.

yokahuna says that bad luck comes in threes;
the poet’s work returns from the publishers
unmarked, not even folded right, someone
reading each during lunch with one ear
screwed to the phone, her finest dreams
sent out into the void & not |

45
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
bodhisattvas & zygotes.
they blankly stare at this paper
goddess - not the male
pseudonym.

tomorrow the poet says we
should march outside
up
down
the italian embassy
in protest,
“cuz’ they won’t let
can’t let
cicciolina
over for the latterday
sex holidays.”
jive ass
soft flesh
subterranean

buddah

III.
“8 they tore off my wings
& they threw down my crown
& my leather was no more,”

muttered the poet in her rusty tone
as we walked through the rain
& over grey cobblestones

that led to swarmy cafes -
- the halfnote, the underground,
the mod hatter’s poetry party.

yokahuna says that bad luck comes in threes;
the poet’s work returns from the publishers
unmarked, not even folded right, someone
reading each during lunch with one ear
screwed to the phone, her finest dreams
sent out into the void & not |

45
one “sentimental” scrawled in red.
tonight the venus in furs
seems like a pale, sleepless thing.

her hair is suddenly asymmetrical.
while her head is still shaved
from her depression, the left side

blooms again, a cascade of black
down to her ass, onto the street
& away. away.

i do not think she can discover
america in her dreams.
she mutters female eroticism is dead.

you can only write so many poems
of your excess - so many words
covering your junki past...finding

your sartori between your second finger
& clitoris, years of cheap wine
& yesterdays pipe smoke. yes, she

did have the power of the wyrd once
& on her jacket she wrote her poems
floating in cowhide abstractions
&
her wings shouted steel +
visions, yes, her eyes were so clear

that it made her words

strange & delicious.

46
You Take For Granted
by LYN LIFSHIN

the dripping lilacs
the blue petals
battered, holding
on holding their
brightness in hot
steamy air as if

to become brighter
once hail melts
from the slick

dark stems. A
postcard wouldn’t
do it. How much
should I try to

tell you. If there
was a photograph
I’d be the blonde
in the black velvet
fitted suit. It
would be Cape
Anne in November.
The lilacs would
have flamed and
pulled away, a
summer romance
now short as

the weeks. The
woman, let’s think
of her as a spy,
guernilla, stealing
in where no one
could go, camouflaged
as some poet, man
crazed, a little
flaky who visits
rooms she can’t
stay in, undresses
and lies down with

47
48

danger, cocky enough
to suppose she
could lose her skin
or her balance,

still be ok. The

blue of lilacs,

veins thru flesh
cashmere, roadmaps
to places where
there are roadblocks.
Blue of the gas, the
blue tattoos. Even
if I was alive

the numbers would
have been worn
from what tied me.
You take the lilacs
for granted, the blue
leaves in the bottom
of Dresden china,
cyanide glowing
with a blue light
that zaps like

no lover
My Soulmate Called From Albuquerque
by R. SCOTT YARBROUGH

My soulmate called and told me she was dying
under her husband’s heavy weight.

We grew up the broken children of our own god,
A Phoenix meeting itself in each morning’s fire.

We are all dead,
and born again each morning.

Across the city a lover lies snoring and fat,

after empty cans and pretty

pills to balance the light and dark on his nose,

but she’ll carry the weight of those seconds for nine
heavy months.

My cat made love to six cats

on the porch four moons ago while the
children watched and laughed at their
howling;

the mother died

giving birth on York’s bed. An hour later
I pulled the nursing kittens

off her empty breasts.

How many gardens of squash and yellow corm
and firm red tomatoes must I push

into the dark earth to watch

rust under winter’s heavy skirt?

Don’t talk to me of night’s dark tunnel;
all | can remember is your smile:

slow and dry, and your laugh

how you fed me

like biting into an orange,

rind and all,

ripe and tart,

sunshine and smile,

sweet sinewy pulp and peel.

49
 

 
On our thirtieth year of publishing, we'd
like to give our gratitude tothe people
that have supported The Red Cedar Review
with time, effort and money throughout
the years.

Special Thanks to:

Sharon Tyree for years of selfless, devoted,
bend-over-backwards help with too many
things to list in this book.

Jim Cash, the late Richard Benvenuto, and
the Swarthout Foundation for making our
annual Red Cedar Review Writing Contest
possible.

Jill Crane, Shirley Kirkland and Dr. Victor
Paananen for all of the questions answered
with time, perseverance, and effort.

And to Joe Kuszai and Brenda Clark-Pluta

for their patience and advice in layout and
design.

With great appreciation,
The CR Staff

I]
Red Cedar
REVIEW

Writing Contest

 

Prizes
$300 Short Fiction
$150 Poetry

=iubmit to:

Red Cedar Review

 

One winner & two
finalists per category. recom yet Marl
Winners published & Department of English
finalists announced in WO
the next issue of the E. Lansing, Ml.
Fred Cedar Review. 48824

All entrants recieve a free

(Include SASE

copy of the next RCRA. Fee

for manuscript

is $10 per story, and $5

return & contest

per poem. (Checks payable

notification)

to Red Cedar Review)

Deadline April 1, 1993
 

 

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Advise: The anthology will be mailed nationwide to literary and
other publications as a sampler. PrePress Publishing of Michigan is
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bring something unique to this publication, please submit.

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