Glimmer Train Stories, Issue 032 - Fall 1999

FALL 1999

Issue32

Stories by Laura Oliver, Peter Lefcourt,Janet Belding,Jana Martin' Lee Martin, Nancy Reisman,Victoria Lancelotta' Interviews with writers Russell Banks and Lynn Sharon Schwartz'

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Russell Banks Interuiewby Rob Tiucks An awful lot of the overt aspectsof any work of art are telling. They tell us what the artist is insecure about, in a way.'Whatyou push in the reader'sface is very often what you're leastsecureabout And as you grow more secureabout it, you think about it less and you have lessnecessifyto assertit.

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Jana Martin Hooe This suitcasewai pale blue satin inside, a little m^oldy,a Iittle crushed. But it still gave off a scent,like lavender and boiled potatoes.Like Irish sisters,never married The name on the tag was written in a parlor hand:O'Toole

Oa;, The PowerBreakfast "l was askedto leave Hollywood." Jesus,you could have knocked me over with a taco.You really had^to be pretry far gone to get run out of thac town.

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Lee Martin \ Insect Life Beffy Hopp was an elementaryeducation major who liked to pep up her conversation with phrasesfrom Dr. Seussbooks. "Het fighting a rweetle-beetle batde," she had said, and Miss Caseyhad noted, with a touch of envy.how the young, even when their loved ones were fighting a war, never really believed in loss.

.z*-fu*Laura Oliver Ant Farm Somerimes,I think, it is as ifadolescence is a carnival ride Adam wants to get off but cant, and I watJh his angry, desperateface fly past me again and again, belted in for the duration.

Victoria Lancelotta Soice The thing thaf my morher was afraid to hear was not that I had slept with him. but rhat I had left him, becausefor me to leave him so easily,so quickly, wirhout thoughr or fear as I had done, meant thit I would leave all of them eventually in just the same way. |L/

6//,2r4t /:d..---^ ie-4*/ Lvnne)naron Schwartz

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Interuiewby Nancy Middleton I think that reading so early perhapschanneled me into seeingeverything verbally.Ifl had had a Gw more years of looking at the world without reading,I might have become a different Derson.

"In tutostraightknestheybroketheirbread andbrushed theirtzethandwentto bed" Madeline by Ludwig

Bemelmans,

1939

C'iH',R"

EDITORS Susan Burmeister-Brown Linda BurmeisterDauies

CONSULTING EDITORS AllysonBourke BrittneyCorriga n-McElroy Reynolds Jennfet Jackson Roz Wais COPY EDITOR ScottAllie

PROOFREADER Rachel Penn

TYPESETTING & LAYOUT PaulMorris COVER ARTIST JaneZwinger STORY ILLUSTRATOR Jon Leon PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

in spring,summer,fall, and winter by Glirnmer Train Press, Inc. 710 SW Madison Street,Suite 504, Portland,Oregon 97205-2900 Telephone: 503/ 221- 0836 Facsimile:503/ 221 -0837 www. glitntnertrain, com PRINTED IN U.S.A. Indexed in TheAmericanHumanitiesInilex. O1999 by Glimmer Train Press,Inc. All rights reserued,No part ofthis periodical may be reproduced without the consent of Glimmer Train Press,Inc. The magazine'sname and logo and the various titles and headings herein are trademarks of Climmer Train Press,Inc. The short stories in rhis publication arc works offiction. Names, characten, places,and incidents are either the products of the authors'imagrnations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblanceto actual events,-locales,or pcnons, livingor dead,is entirely coincidental. The views expressedin the nonfiction witing herein are solely those ofthe authon. ClimmerTrain 0SSN #1055-7520),regsteredin U.S. Patentand TrademarkOffice, is published quarterly,$32 per year in the U.S., by Glirnmer Train Press,Inc., Surte 50,1,710 SWMrd:son, Portland, OR 97205. Periodicals postage paid at Podand, OR, and additional mailing otlices. POSTMASTER: Sendaddress changesto Glimmer Train Press,Inc., Suite504, 710 SW Madison, Portland.OR 97205.

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'edication What you hold in your hands is the 32nd issueof Climmer Train Stories,which brings our eighth year of publication to a close. What a wonder it is that such beautiful work is written, whan an honest-to-God privilege it is to bring it to light, and what a pleasure it is to do this work as sistersside by side. When you open this dedication page in the issue that will mark our 50th year of publication (let's see, that would be lssue 200, out in Fall 2A41), that will be our last. By that tirne we'll be 83 and 89 years old, and by then-30,000 manuscripts a year times 42 rnore years-our eyes will surely have given out. Two lives full of people's stories are rrlvo very blessedlives indeed. Thank you to our readers, to our writers, and to the angels on our masthead.

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"In two straightlinesthey broketheirbread and brushed theirteethandwentto bed." Madelineby Ludwig Bemelmans,1939

'€"*rENrs

Laura Oliver Ant Farm

RussellBanks Interuiewby Rob Trucks 18

7

Peter Lefcourt The PowerBreakfast 41,

JanetBelding In My OtherLfe 49

Short-StoryAward for New Writers 7st-,2nd-, and 3rd-PlaceWinners 5l

Jana Martin

Lynn Sharon Schwartz Interuiew by Nancy Middleton

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SiobhanDowd WriterMemoialized:SlaukoCuruuija 108

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Nancy Reisman Sharks 113

Victoria Lancelotta Spice 137

The Last Pages

PastAuthors and Artists 159

Coming Soon 160

Laara Oliver Thkenaroundtheageof threein our;frontyarda beautifwl but isolated parcelof woodsand pastureland on theMagothyRiuer.Theffirt to be good(notice thearms)tooka lot of concentration.

Laura Oliver began writing seriously with the birth of her third child, and continues to do so from her home in Annapolis, Maryland. She has a BA in English from Washington College and an MFA in Creative'Writing and Literature from Bennington College. She has taught creative writing4 in rhe Fine Arts Department of St. John\ College in Annapolis for several years, and has published a variety of essaysin regional and national publications such as Country Living Magazine. "Ant Farm" is her first published piece of fiction.

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Launa OrrvER

Ant Farm

fter Brian moved out I bought our daughter Erica an ant farm. I thought it would distract her. A flat plastic skyline sat on a slice of sand wedged between two clear plastic panes to form an underground window.Toys R Us couldn't stock live insects,however, so after buying the kit we sent the enclosed coupon to lJncle Willy's Ants and waited for our tenants to arrive in the mail. We were not to be alarmed if they arrived "sleepy," the literature stated,which meant barely thawed. -We set up the display in preparation of their arrival and read the instructions."Ants dont like landslides!" That meant don't shake the farm."Ants don't like leftovers!"A piece offruit the size of an asterisk can feed a whole colonv for a week, we discovered. I think of that now as ants scurry in erratic patterns to nowhere across the family-room floor, but these are gardenvariety ants that have somehow found a way into the house. (Jncle Willy's ants must have been derailed somewhere, because it has been three weeks and they have not arrived. "Don't step on them, Mom," Etica says."-W'ecan put them in the farm." I am not actually stepping on them. I have bought a few ant traps and am encouraging one to venture Climmer Train Stoies, lssue32, Fall 1999 @1999LauraOliuer

Laun a Ortvrr< inside with the toe of my shoe. He veers offagain and again. Finally I pick him up and drop him on it. He scrambles away. Things have been like this since Brian left. The house painter I hired turned out to be a preacher. My son, Adam' a freshman at St. Luke's, has announced to Sister Francescathat he's a practicing Hindu, pierced his ear, and gotten a tattoo. "At least itt not a skull and crossbones,"my son says."At least it doesn't spell anything." "It could have said,'Mom,"' I say. I meet Brian for lunch and he asks me how the kids are holding up. He is living on my parents'boat down at the marina, for now. "Okay," I say."They're so self-involved that they don't seem to pay much attention to anything except their allowances and what's for dinner." He smiles and I hope what I've said is true. "How about Adam?" he says."He giving you any trouble?" "He drove the car around the yard one night while I was at class,"I say."Erica told me, so I had to restrict him." "He's fourteen." Brian savs."He doesn't even know how to drive!" I look at him."Het having sex with his girlfriend, too," I say. "Some things are just easy to figure out." I wonder if I am somehow to blame for all this. I was the one who was unhappy, and, in a way, I am the one being punished now. I get books from the library on raisingteenagers. then try not to quote them. But words are all I have. "He offered to transplant the lilac at the end of the driveway,'I say. "He ofered?"Brian asks. "And ten minutes later he wanted to know who the jerkoffwas who had left the goddamn shovel behind the goddamn bikes so he couldn't find it." Brian signals the waiter for the check. He looks grim'

GlimmerTrain Stories

Ant Farm Sometimes. I think. it is as if adolescence is a carnival ride Adam wants to get offbut can't, and I watch his angry, desperate face fly past me again and again, belted in for the duration. "Get out of herel"Adam yelled when I confronted him in his room about stealing the car and havrng sex."You make me sick! Look at you!You're a freak, a lucking freak! I didn't do anything! Look at your face! Oh my God,you make me want to throw up!" He threw several notebooks from his desk to the floor, careful not to hit me, then yanked his guitar off his bed, flipped on the speakers,and began strumming furiously. Sometimes, when being a parent is really bad, itt as if I detach and float above the scene,watching it all from a numb and objective vantage point near the ceiling. "Sorry, Adam," I said. "You're restricted to the house for two weeks. No dates, no phone. You have got to be held accountable, and I guess I'm the only one to do it." I turned and walked out of his room as he yelled, "'What about you, Mom? Who holds you accoantable?" I had a lover and Adam knows it.What he doesn't know is why I had this relationship, and telling him would mean trying to explain things about my marriage that even I don't understand. If I explain just in terms of myself, it all sounds flimsy, self-indulgent. It's over now but we are still dealing with the aftershocks.I think of Erica's ant farm.They need a stable environment.They can live with so little sustenance. The morning after my lunch with Brian, I pull the mail from the brass box by the front door and a brown mailing bag falls out. I glance at the return address:UncleWilly'sAnts. Our guests have arrived. I think about not telling Erica and just chucking the thing, but can't quite bring myself to do it. She is ecstatic. 'Willyt The package contains the Uncle fact book, instructions, and a test tube full of ants. I pull out the cork without

Fall 1999

Launa OrtvER reading the directions and try to tap them into the narrow opening at the top of the farm.They reactasif they arebeing tappedinto fire, racing up the test tube, down the outside o1 the plastic framing-one drops on the floor where Erica squealsand a couple make a run up my hand.Wejam the top on the farm and scoopup the runaways,then lift the lid again, poking the straysin quickly. IJpstairs,Adam is playing his guitar with the amplifier turned up full blast.He haswritten a new song. It is about a prisoner on death row, unjustly convicted. 'While Erica watchesthe antsexploring their new environread little-known ant factsfrom the booklet that came ment, I with the farm. Fact:Every worker hasa full-time job to help everyoneelse the colony. Fact: All the workers are female. Fact: A new colony begins with the marriage flight. Females and nralesmate in the air and then land.Afterward, the female scrapesoffher wings and enters the nest forever. Adam has stopped flailing on his guitar and comes downstairs."FIey, Mom, what's up?" he asks,as if we haven't seen each other in a while. He rummages through the kitchen cabinets, his T:-shirt hanging out of his pants, sporting a gold hoop the size of my wedding band in his pierced ear. He obviously feels better, and offers me some chips from the bag he is carrying to the sofa with a companionable smile, but I know the calm will not last. He is like a colt circling the paddock, looking for a loose railing, an unlatched gate, deciding where to make the next bolt for freedom. My lover was the admissions director at St. Luke's. Gerald was going through a divorce, and had custody of his three kids. I liked that about him even without knowing the circumstances.The school was crowded with parish children and, as a non-Catholic applicant,Adam was wait-listed' I met

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Climmer Train Stoies

Ant Farm

with Gerald to see if I could persuade St. Luke's to admit one more. Gerald had been aJesuit priest and his office still contained artifacts from that previous life. A wood cross on the wall, a few photographs of Gerald with other clergy. He left the priesthood when he met his wife, a young social worker with problems of her own. I was intrigued by the thought of undeniable passion and wondered about a woman who could turn a man from God. I looked around in case he still had a picture of her, left inadvertently perhaps, in a group photo of the children. The office Gerald was using was lined with books and had the musry smell of a sanctuary. His jacket hung on a worn coatrack near the window, and steam rose from a cup of coffee on his desk. I sat in a leather chair as soft as raw silk and watched dust float like unspoken thoughts in the sunlight as we talked beyond noon and into his next appointment. Brian and I had known each other all our lives. Neither of us had ever been crazy in love. After I 1eft,I couldn't srop thinking about the priest turned man. I could smell the faint scent of him on my palm from where we shook hands,and I imagined him nearby as I walked to my car, made dinner that evening, and, later, turned down the sheetsfor bed. Brian found out. I was too happy, too talkative. Devastated that I had caused someone else so much pain, I told Gerald I couldn't see him anymore, but felt sadder than if I had ended my marriage.Thatt why Brian moved to the marina. So we could figure out what made us the saddest.So far, it seemed that what might have been between us was a greater loss than what had been, and the best thinq between us was the children. Brian stops by to see the children after work, and before is in the door Erica is dragging him offto see the ants. She

Fall 1999

LnuRa OrtvpR wearing on everyone'spatience. "Dad! You won't believe what they've done!" she claims. Brian appearsinterestedbut I doubt that he is listening.It is as his eyesnever leavingher face. if he'sabsorbingher essence, "Hey! How're you doing?" he asksAdam, who has just slumpedinto the kitchen. "Ask Mom," he says."I'mgrounded.Forever.For nothing." They walk out onto the porch together.Adam is nearly as tall as Brian and has his lean frame and slender wrists and hands.They both bear the look of philosopherpoets,not athletes,but, unlike Brian, Adam is so fair it is as if he casts light. Erica stalksthem out the door, carrying the ant farm in two carefulhands. I open a bottle of merlot and decide to make a plate of cheeseand crackersto go with it.'While I push asidehalfempfy cereal boxes in searchof unopened crackers,Adam comesburstingback in through the french doors."You always saywhat shesays!"he callsback to his father.He glaresat me briefly ashe stompsthrough the kitchen with Erica right on his heels,still carrying the ants. "Keep that little freak away fiom me," he orders over his shoulder,headingtowardsthe stairs,Erica trailing.He whirls, bending down to yell in her face,"Shut up about the stupid ants!1 don'tcare!" I finish wiping off the counters asBrian comesback into the kitchen. He looks good. "You must be getting some sun down on the boat," I say. As I hand him a wineglassthere is a shout from upstairsand a door slams,hard.The dull reverberationcomesright through the kitchen ceiling. 'Jesus Christ!" Brian says,flinching. It is something Gerald never say. would 'Just wait. In two secondsyou'Il hear someone'shead hitting wallboard,"I predict.

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Glimmet Train Stoies

Ant Farm Insteadthere is an eerie silenceand then a slow and accelerating,high-pitchedkeening,which within secondsbecomes a pulsing screamthat is neither male nor female.Welook at each other, momentarily frozen, trying to interpret the strangeness of the sound."Nobodyt arguing,"I sayslowly,asif this contradictssome rule of physics.Wemove for the stairs simultaneously.

3.1ip"*?ta* Fall 1999

1,3

LRuna OUvER I get to the landing first and look up. Adam is standing above me, his eyeshuge and empty. He is the source of the a tvvopulsatingscream,yet his face is oddly expressionless, dimensional portrait framed by his hands,which are clasped over his ears.It is as if he is shielding himself from his own sound. I grab him, but he ducks and fends me off with his elbows,fighting to keep his earscovered. "Adam!What happened?" Rocking slightly, he lifts his eyesto my face but does not focus,as if he is blind. I considerslappinghim to break the spell ashe continuesto scream. Erica is nowhere to be seen.I start down the hallway,Brian behind me, and suddenly the door to Adam's room creaks open.Erica stumblesout, her face contorted without sound. It is asif the screamthat begins in her is given voice byAdam' She is holding one hand cradledin the other.Blood dropsto the white carpet like spent azaleapetals. "My God, look at the door," Brian sayssoftly. Again, I feel myselfdetachfrom the sceneeven asit comes into focus.Erica running upstairsafterAdam. Adam throwing himself on his bed.Erica slippingher hand berweenthe door hingesjust ashe kicks it shut in frustration.The door frame is smudgedwith blood. One of her fingers is all but severedFrom the knuckle to tip it is split-the tip,like a grape somesteppedon. one carelessly "lJse this," Brian saysand shovesa washclothat me. Erica hasfinally found her voice and her piercing screamhurts my earsthis close.I wrap her hand in the cloth and Brian scooPs her up in his arms. I know we have to get to the hospital. Brain carries her to the car and I drive. "Run it!" he saysaswe come to the first red light' "I can't!Are you sure?"I say. " Run thedamnlight!" he saysagain,and then,"Look out!" as I hesitatetoo long and pull in front of another car.

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Climmer Train Stoies

Ant Farm I stopin front of the emergency-roomentrance,leavingthe car at the samehaphazard angleBrian left it the night Erica was born. We rush in chrough che glassdoors and a nurse approachesErica and begins to unwrap the washcloth."No, no, no," Erica screams,desperatelytrying to keep her finger wrapped tight. She searchesthe facesaround her, scanning wildly until her eyesmeet mine."It will fall of!" shepleads. "'Wow,"saysthe nurse,finally getting a peek under the cloth. "I'm not touching this.Get Stevensdown here,"shecallsout. Erica is put on a stretcher as if she is a small gift in an oversizedbox. "Calm down, hond' the nurse saysthrough the screaming.It appearsshe is just mouthing the words.An elevatordoor opensand Dr. Stevensappears. He is the surgeon on call tonight and has been at the symphony. Beneath his white coat he is wearing a tuxedo. With Erica flat on her back, he extends her hand onto a small, sterile work table and examines her injury out of her line of sight.I watch him preparea largeneedleto anesthetize the wound. unfortunately Erica seesthe syringe as well, so Brian blows up a surgicalglovelike a balloon,grabsa pen,and draws a face on it. "Look, Erica," he says,desperateto distract her. "Whot this?"We all turn to see that the face he has drawn looks remarkably like Dr. Stevens,the inflated fingers like hair standingon end,giving him a look of perpetualsurprise.The resemblanceis uncanny,and for a moment I am uncomfortable, but the doctor uses the distracrion to inject the lidocaine, and after an initial shriek she is quiet. Now,in the suddenabsenceofpain andterror,Ericabecomes giddy with affecrion.She chatsnon-stop asthe tediousstitches are placed in her hand. Eventually she is wheeled away to X-ray on a gurney to seeif any bones were broken. "I have an ant farml'I hear her tell the attendant as they disappeardown the hall. "My brother plays the guitar and he

Fall 1999

15

Laun a Ortvnx almost cut my finger off" she sayscheerfirlly.Twenfy minutes later sheis rolled out,looking much like a small,bright package that has been labeled and shrink-wrapped,coming off the assemblyline. She is still talking, her blood-smearedTshirt coveredwith colorful stickersthat say,"Ihad an X-ray!" There is a phone on the wall and I turn to callAdam.Brian is with Erica.I call Gerald instead.I haven'ttalked to him in weeks,but havent lost the instinct to tell him when something important has happenedto me. "I'm at the hospital,"I saywhen he finally answers. "My God, what happened?"he asks. "I got hurt," I say,and then stop and closemy eyes."No,not me-Erica. Erica hasbeen hurt." I open my eyes."She'll be okay.I have to go." "Is Brian there?"he asks. "Yes."Yes,of courseBrian is here.He is a wonderful father. "I'll talk to you later,sweetheart,"he says.Theconnection and intimacy are immediate.Then I hear a woman'svoice. "Gerald?"she sayssoftly."Is that for me?" I hang up and dial again. This time Adam answers."It's Mommy," I sayasif he is younger than he is."She'sfine.They think it will be fine." There is no sound from the other end. "'W'e'll be home in half an hour," I say. When we get back to the houseBrian takesErica up to her room to help her get ready for bed. He addsan extra pillow for her to resther hand on, the bandagesmaking it look iike a smallwhite paw.Adamis nowhere to be seen,so I go up to his room and tap on the door. He has tried to clean up the blood on the floor, but the rug will haveto be thrown out. "Adam?" I sayinto the gloom. He is lying in bed, his back to me. Hidden under the peaks and valleysof the rumpled covers,the glint of his blond hair is the only clue that an outlaw hidesin thesehills.I sit down on the edge of the bed, my weight causing him to roll

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Glimmer Train Stories

Ant Farm slightly, involuntarily, toward me. I am in shock at what he has almost cost his sistertonight, but I know he didn't mean to hurt her.Looking ar him,I think the truth is that we never set out to hurt each other. I can hear Erica reliving her experiencesto Brian in the adjacentroom, needing to examine it all, to learn her own imrnediate history now that she is safe."'What did you think when you saw my blood?" she asks."How much did the hospitalcost?" I don't know what to say or do. I put a hand on Adam's shoulderbut he doesn'tturn.'Wesit in silence,the earlyspring moon rising like a life in irs ascendancy, just outside his window. Usually I make speechesabout responsibiliry and consequence. But I haveno words tonight. All I haveeverhad were good intentions. I lean down then, and awkwardly scoop the upper half of my son'sbody into my arms.He is dense-far heavier,I think, than a girl of similar age.He does not resist,but remains motionless, as if to say,"This is my mother. I tolerate these displaysof affection,but I do not participatein them." I begin to rock him in the half-light as I did in his infancy, and we both watch the moon, which appearedso near,rising higher through the trees.It becomessmaller,brighter, more intense asit gainsdistance. Suddenly he sags,asif whatever was holding him rogerher, and us apart, has given way. He is now even heavier in my arms, and I imagine carrying him through blizzardsor war zones.I pull him closerand do not speak.n& I

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/h-

urL*(-

Russur BaNrs Writer

Since 1975, Russell Banks has publisheil thirteen works of fution including Trailerpark, Drift, Continental The Sweet Affliction, Hereafter, anil krle of the Bone. His most recent novel, Cloudsplitter, is also his most ambitious.Sevenyearsin the making and weighing in at 758 pages,Cloudspttter is thestory of the abolitionistJohn Brown, as narrated by his son RussellBanks Owenffty yearsafter the raid on Harper'sFerry.ThatBanks wouldcommitso muchtime and energytoJohn Brown's tale is not at all surprising,Much of the author'sfution is centereilon the relationshipbetweenblacks and whites in America and the legendaryabolitionist is buried lessthan ten milesJrom Banles'shomein upstateNewYork. The book'spublicationffiakesilemandson the writer's schedule.At the time oJ this interview,Banks had slept one night at

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Climmer Train Stoies, Issue32, Fall 1999 @ 1999 Rob Trucks

Writer homein the last threeweeksanil would leaueagain in lessthan forty-eight hours to begina seriesof reailingsin Canada.In the past week,alonehe hail celebrated hisfifty-eighth birthday,given five readings,and attended the Academy Awards. Yes,Banks's work. has also recently drawn the attention oJ Hollywood, a deuelopment that has not only inrreasedthe demandson his time but his uisibilityas well.An adaptationof the 7991 nouel,The Sweet Hereafter, earneddirectorAtomEgoyantwo Oscarnominations, and Banks and Egoyan will soon begin work on an original collaboration.The releaseoJ Paul Schradu'sailaptation o/ Affliction (starring Nick N olte,J ames C oburn,and Will em Dofor) is imminent,andfilmingwill soonbeginon Continental Drift, for which Banks seruedas bothsueenwriterandproilucer I spoke with Russell Banks at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. I guesswith the recentpublicationof Cloudsplitter, the most obuious questionto startwith is,WhyJohn Brown? Well, I think that'sa question you can askabout any novel in a way.'Why a school-bus accident?Why a fourteen-year-old mdl rat? Or,'Why a white whale, Mr. Melville? And you're going to get a similar answer from most writers, because there'sabraid of reasons.There's rarely,if ever,justone reason, if you look at it honestly and try ro understandit, or try to speakabout it honestly. I can saythat, on a personallevel-this is one strand in the braid-Brown was in my life in a vivid way when I was in my twenties in college in Chapel Hill in the middle sixties, becausehe was sort of an emblematic figure like Che Guevara.Very much like Che Guevara.He was a man of action whose idealsone could identi$r with.And his picture would be up on the wall of the SDS office or the SCLC office, and he crossedthose racial lines that a lot of us white kids were trying to crossduring that period, trying to do it in

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Inrerview:RussErr BaNrs a thoughtful and respectful and committed political way.He was also,at the sametime, uniquely connected to the literary figures that meant a great deal to me then, and still do.'\X/hich is to say the mid-nineteenth-century New England writers-theTranscendentalists,Thoreau and Emersonand so on. I loved Melville's poem about him, and evenlesserpoetslike John Greenleaf Whittier wrote about him. So he was a figure who was a part of my literary constellation,too. In addition to being a part ofmy political and socialconstellation,he was part of my literary constellation.And unique in that regard. So Brown was there at the beginning, but I was a kid and I couldn't have imagined writing about him-although at the time I couldn't have imagined but did wite about Simon Bolivar and other historicalfigureswithout much hesitation. But somehow I couldn't imagine him. I couldn't get to him. And then he kind of fadedfrom my consciousmind.But in 1987 Chase and I bought a house thar was going to be a summer house, and itt turned out to be our year-round housenow. It's up in the Adirondacksin the northeastcorner ofNewYork State,justsouth of Canadaa little ways,sourh of Quebec,and it turned out he wasburied up there.Not only was he buried there, but so were eleven others who were killed at F{arper'sFerry, or executed afterwards.He had lived there longer than he had lived anywhere else,and had run an undergroundrailroadstop there.And there had been a settlement of black families, of freed slavesand escapedslaves, living on land grants that they d been given by a wealthy NewYork abolitionist. in this ghostlyway all of a sudden-I mean, So his presence, really,it was almost like his ghost was in the woods, and also him physically.Thatarea,sincemost of it is stateforest,is not that different from the way it was in the 1840s and'50s visually,and I could walk through the woods and over those hills and even alongsidemany of those old roads,and know I

Glimmer Train Stoies

Writer wasinJohn Brown territory. So he wasphysicallypresent,and it didnt take me very long to begin to imagine his life there in that period.And I had been doing somelocal-historyresearch anyhow.I was kind of getting the background, really,of what turned out to be Brownt life. So it wasn'ta very complicated move for me.That'sthe personallinkup. Then, asI got (sort of superficially and tentatively) into the material of his life and the era and the whole abolitionist movement, pretty soon I began to seethat het a really mythical figure,and his story is a majorAmerican myrh, a historical myth.I really wanted to undersrandthat and seeit freshly.I mean, this is why so many poets and novelistsand dramatists and even movie makers have gone back to that story. It isn,t becauseof the personaliryof the man.It's really the arc of his life, and the end ofit, and the obsessive qualiry of it, and the fix that his life hason race,that drives people back to it again and again.Aslong asrace is a centralpart of our historical narratrve-and it is and will continue to be for a long, long timethen you go back to Brown and you try to reconnectwith him and re-understandthat. So there was that, which is a kind of a literary and maybe evensocialor historicalconnectionto Brown.Then I realized that for nearly r\,ventyyearsin one way or the other, certainly in at leastfour books, I had been writing about the African diasporafrom the white point of view. Thati another great and continuously retold story, but itt been told almost exclusivelyfrom the African-American perspective.yetitt a big white story roo. It's a big part of white history on this continent, in this hemisphere,the African diaspora,because we white folks obviously participated in it, and to the greatest degreecausedit, benefited from it, and havesufferedfrom it as well. I realizedthat I've had this sort of obsessionwith it over the years.I've come back to that story havebeen fascinatedby that story.Youknow, the Caribbean in TheBookof Jamaica,and, Fall 1999

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the Haitian exrension ofit in ContinentalDrft,andcerrainly a big chunk of Ruleof theBonedeal with ir from another angle. Brown is central ro thar srory becausehis story dealswith the mosr dramatic episodein it, in a way,outside of the actaalfact of slavery itse[ the commencement of slaveryitse]f So for literary reasons,I suppose,looking at the body of my own work, I thought this was a necessarything for me to do. There'sbeena recenttrend towardsthe rarge,hktorical work. ThomasPynchon,Don DeLillo, and yourse$ three white male Northeastern writersin theirfifties,haueaupublishedlarge,historical nouelsin thepast coupleof years.Cloudsplitter ls twiceas long as any of yourpreviousworks,and it tookyou at leasttwiceas long to write it. was theresomethingin your mind whereyou needeiror wantedto wrlte the Big Book.andJohnBrown wastheproytertopic, or did Browncome a sizableffirt? frst and necessitate I think rhe la*er. I Glt the desirero write this particular book about John Brown, or a novel based on the life of Brown, more accurately,and, of necessiryit would be a long, densebook.The histori cal narrative-for me anyhow,at least to do it in a realistic way-requircd a greatdeal of space,and I didnt want to just focuson one episodeor aspectof Brownt life. I felt that I needed ro cover quite a bit of time, at least twenty years,and that required me to fill out a lot of space. Also just the densiry of detail and background and material which would not be familiar ro mosr readers,and it being a historical fiction displacedby a hundred and fifty yearsfrom the time of its composition required me to explain a lot. I neededa lot of space,so I think thosewere all factors. Actually you've put your finger on an interestingphenom_ enon, really.A number of novelistsin their fifties are writing ambitious,historicalnovels,and that'sof someinterestto me. and I think that it probablyhasto do with a couple of factors. Somethingthat'strue, certainly,for the three you named,and you could add another half-dozen. Charles Johnson.Jane

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Writer Smiley's got a novel coming out right now that,s about the Kansaswars.John'Wideman had a historical novel a year or rwo ago set in Philadelphia,in the antebellumera.you could come up with a number of writers in my generation who are writing historical fiction, and I have a Geling this is in response to a culture-wide mindset-or a culture-wide confusion might be a better way to say it-a culture-wide confusion about what it means to be American. And for a novelist,that questionwill sendyou back in time. In the late fwentieth century we are extremely consciousof ourselves,as a people, of being hyphenated.'We'reAsianAmericans,African-Americans, Euro-Americans, Native Americans.Wete hyphenated.Tothe left of the hyphen we know what we are-Euro,Afro,Asian, or whatever.What we don't know is what really is embodied ro rhe right of the hyphen.'What does rhar mean?'V/hat do we share?'Why bother to call ourselvessomething-American, anyhow? It! historically true, at leastfor Americans,that when people are unsure about what it is to be themselves,their novelistsstart writing historicalfiction.In the 1830sand ,40sit wasnot that clear what it meant to be American. Fifry years after the revolution you could ask,Why arent we British?Well,politically we're not, but really,'Why arent we Bricish? And so Hawthorne writes The ScailetLetter andyou have Cooper and you have Irving and the major novelists, both South and North, of that era, wriring historical ficrion. And I think there'ssomething like that going on now. There's a certain kind of confusionand lack of confidencein what it meansto be American, and novelists are essentially,at bottom, mythmakers-mythmakers with regard to social identiry the tribe's identity. I mean a storyteller, basically,is creating, al_ ways,a myth about what it is to be whoever you are in this tribe.Why arewe in this tribe and living in this corner of the planet insteadof some other?

Fall 1999

lnterview:RussErr BRNrs Yourfiction oJthepast seuenor eightyearshas beentold with a moreconventional narratiue thanyourearlierwork..I'm thinkingin termsofform and structure.Hamilton Stark,for example,had a uniqueform, a uniquestructure. Doesthehistoricalfution, asaform, dictatein any way thestructureof the novelthat you haveto write? We11,Clowdsplitter is basicallyan epistolary novel.That's the form, and the structure of it is the arc of the iife of John Brown. See,I think of form and structure as two different things,almost as if one is exterior-form-and one is inte_ rior--structure-which grows out of the material that you're writing, the necessary pressures that the materialputs on the narrative structure, the narrative itself. The novel is in some waysa sum or a record of the tensionbetweenthe interior_ structure-and the exterior-form-and the limits of both. And I had the structure of it, becauseI had the material of Brown's life in hand. I could haveput a different form on it. It could've been a bildungsroman told by Owen Brown about growing up, in episodic ways. I could have used the same form basically that I used with Rule of the Bone,or I could have done it with four different narrarivesas I did with rhe SweetHereafter,that form, that choral form. But it seemedto me that a more intimate-and yet formalized in terms of rhetoric-mode for telling the story was rhe epistolaryso I elected to use that. I made that choice for lots of different reasons, but in somesenseit just kind of happened.It just was there and seemedto feel good and feel right and so I usedit. It wasn'tall that consciousa process. But to go back to the early part of the question,it is true that one readsmy earlier work with greaterawarenessof the artifices of fiction. They're worn almost on their sleeves. You're very aware of it.But I don't think that I've had any particular\ dramatic shift in my writing liG over the years from that early work, whether it's Hamilton Starkor Relation of My Imprisonment,particularly. It's just that I think I've be_

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Glimmer Train Stories

Writer come more skillful at hiding the form and lessinsecureabout it, and so what was an exoderm has in some ways been absorbedinto the text and made invisible,or lessvisible,to a more scrutinizing, analytical eye,maybe. When I was a younger writer I was acting out of some insecuriry and therefore tended to need to prove to myself and my readerthat I understoodthe traditionsand the forms and the formats of fiction, of modernist and post-modernist ficrion, and so I was assertingit more than I feei the need to do now. But in someways,you know, an awful lot of the overt aspectsof any work of art are telling. They tell us what the artist is insecureabout, in a way.What you push in the reader's face is very often what you're least secureabout.And asyou grow more secureabout it you think about it lessand you havelessnecessiryto assertit.Your trust is there and you don't have to worry about that. Do you any insecurity lookingbackon thosebooks? 'Well, feel not particularly.I mean,obviously I would write them differently today, but I think they have their own essential identiry and qualities.They'rejust different qualities than the work I'm writing now. I don't think they're less or more, necessarily.I have a sensethat all my books are failures and that none of them are finished, they'rejust abandoned.Thati a commonplace,almost.Most writers say that, one way or another,and mean it, too. But what that meansis that you can't then put your work in a hierarchy.You can't value one more than the other, becausethey're all failures in that essential sense,and you have to look at them that way and forgive them. So there'sno particularwork.that maintainsa softerspot? Oh yeah,but that'sfor reasonsoutside the text iself. Like. I have a great sentimental affection for The Relation of My Imprisonment,andithasa lot to do with the fact that nobody wanted to publish it. At rhe time I wrote it I waspublishing at

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Houghton Miffiin, and they didn't even want to look at it or think about it, and then later at HarperCollins, after I had published ContinentalDrift, rhey didn't want to deal with it. They said,'W'ell, ifyou want to go aheadand do it with a small press,you can do it.You won't be violating your contract, and so on. Like it was a big favor.Like,You want to go and play around on the side?Go ahead.Andthey condescendedto it, so it was published first, serially, in about six issues of a wonderful,mimeographed,stapled-together, Lower EastSide magazine called UnitedArtists. Bernadette Mayer and Louis Warsh were the editors. And then an editor at a small, wonderful pressin Los Angeles who had followed the serialization picked it up and publishedit in a small,veryhandsome edition. And then it was a different thing. Later, when Ballantinebrought all the paperbacksout in uniform editions, they picked it up, so it cameout asa nice tradepaperback,and now it's in the HarperCollins Perennial Library their trade paperback.So it's had a nice history,you know? It's sort of like the outcastthat managedto come in from the cold, so I have an affection for it for those reasonsif no other. While we'reon thesubjectof The Relation of My Imprisonment, do youfeel anypressure to writecommercially viablefiction? Wouldsomeone at HarperCollinshemorrhage you wrotekeletion, f PartTwo? They'd publish it, but they'd hate the idea, and they wouldn't offer me a big advance,thati for sure.But any pressureI haveto write commercialfiction, or fiction other than that which is driven by a personalobsession, comesfrom me, myself.I put it on myseif, or would have to put it on myself, fiction getspublished.I becausemy own personal-obsession mean,it's a different position for a younger writer who'sjust sort of worried and trying hard to get his or her work in print.They may think,Well, maybe if I just shadeit this way or shadeit that way then I can get it published,but there are

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Climmer Tratn Stories

Writer no assurances that itt going to reach print. I mean, I have at leastthat, assurance that itt going to reachprint. I don't have assuranceitt going to sell,or be popular, ot that critics are going to like it or anything else,but at leastI'm pretry sureI can get over that first hurdle. I can get it into print in any number of ways, and that's been true, you know, for a long time. So that doesn't put pressureon me. After that it becomesa desireto be loved by asmany people aspossible.you never know the degree to which you're immune from that desire.Andyou need an immuniry becauseit's like a sickness, that desire.It's a sneakysicknessand it getssneakierasyou get older and more popular. In a way,it becomesmore insidious. It can really creep in without your being awareof it, because other people,they'restroking you. How conscious areyou of thereaderwhenyou'rewriting?Wereyou moreconscious with this book? I'm not consciousof the readerparticularly.WhenI'm not writing, I'm consciousof the readercertainly,and conscious of my career,aswe call it, but I'm not consciousof the reader when I'm working. I've worked very hard since I was young to separatemy careerfrom my work, becausethe careeris the part that I have no control over, or very, very little control over,and it's got nothing to do with the work. It's like manaLging, you know, a mutual-stock fund or something like that. I don't know enough about it to do it, so I don't. Let somebody elsedo it. But the work I know a lot about.I'm the only one who knows about it. Nobody elseknows about my work but me. Not even my wife knows what I really want to do, or what I really want to say,or what I really feel or intuit. I don't even know what it is half the time until it's there. But that's where I can do something and can control things, and so when I'm there I don't think about audienceat all.When I'm not there,I do think about audience.Sure,I think aboutit. I'm not going to play somekind offaux naive.l think about it and

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Inrerview:RussErr BRNrs I think I've been reasonablycautiousand carefuland knowledgeable in my handling of my career,but I can say with confidencethat I dont think about my readerat all when I'm writing.That would be death to the writing, for me. I write books that have an effecton me. and thatt t}re main reasonwhy I write, for how they will affectme.Not thrill me, although I hope that will happen,nor move me, but $o that it will make me a more intelligent person, and maybe even, if possible,a more decent person.Writing Cloudsplitter, for rnstance,made me more intelligent about a number of things: about race, about relations between fathers and sons,about sex-Owen, after all, has a sexual identity that plays a significant role-about the interweaving between sex and race in America, about American history. It just made me more intelligent about those things,becauseI put myself at open-endedrisk in the writing of the book, and that'swhat the book\ about.That I'm working within the disciplinesof an att meansit may connect with other human beings in a way that resemblesthe way the writing of it connectedto me. But afterthe book is done and out, then you look around.I mean,I can take a look at it.I'm a somewhateducatedreader of this book, and I can look at it somewhatfrom the outside and I can see,Yes, this will appealto certain people. Or not. If you don't alreadyknow something about American history for instance,this book is going to be troublesome.I have a French publisher and an Italian publisher and so on, and they look at this manuscript and they say,Well, I do4't know. Maybe we need a glossary.Wedont know a lot of this stufI, and who a lot of thesepeople are.And that's a way of considering your reader.I think in those terms I do consider my reader,after the fact,in a kind of demographicor sociological way. And I suppose,naturally,I want the book to be popular. I want the book to reach as many readersas possible,for variousreasons, someof them venaland someof them not so.

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Glimmer Train Stoies

Writer Do you knowwhichof yourbool<s hassoldthe most? Over the years ContinentalDrift, because it's taught the most, but with the initial publication it didn't sell very much. It'sjust that over the yearsit kind of settledinto a comfortable role within the culture, generally, so that an ar,r,{ullot of people under twenry-five have read it.They read it in school, or their friends told them to read it, or something like that. But the initial publication didn't sell very well. In terms of intial publication,then, I would sayprobablythe most recent, Cloudsplitter,butbefore that it wasRule oJtheBone.Eachbook has sold more on initial publication than the previous, but somehave greaterstayingpower. Some are strongerasbacklist books. I know there'snot a directrelationshipbetweensalesand quality, in thosenumbers in termsof learning butdoyoufind anysignificance why eachbookhasdone aboutyour audience? Do you understand Are you comfortable what it hasin termsoJsales? with Continental Drift beingyourbest-selling work?I wouldimaginethatThe Sweet Hereafter is quicklycatchingup. Well, actually,I was just about to say my agent called me earlier and shehad some salesfigures over the last few months for The SweetHereafter,and it's gone through the roof, but that's obviously becauseof the film tie-in. It happened to be Oscar week, and it got a tremendous amount of publicity for the previous couple of months. Fine Line was advertising the film, but they were advertising it in terms of the book often enough and sometimes playing my name up as big as they were playing up the director's name.What's that got to do with quality?Thatt just the luck of the draw,the accident of a film being made, so I don't think there's any correlation between qualiry and numbers.There may be a correlation between the quality of a book and its stayingpower,its ability to continue to be readfor no reasonother than it continuesto speakto people'slivesin an ongoing way.Peoplecontinue to

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read RuIeoJtheBone.Thatseemsto be largely becauseyounger readerstalk to each other and passit on. It hasa real life with kids now. Bone rsyoungetreaders? Do you think theprimaryaudiencefor I didfnd a copyin the young-aduksectionof the NewYork Public Library. Thatt great.I think the NewYork StateEducation Board hasjust approvedit for being taught in public high schools, which pleasesme immensely. Probably it's natural, and t continuing audiencewould be younger readerswho would connect to Boneand would feel that their lives,in many ways, are validated by the book and affirmed by the book. That would be great. wereyou o/ Huck Finn when you werewriting How conscious Rule of the Bone? Totally. with? Is it an homage? What termwouldyou becomfortable It's an homage and a critique.There's an intertextual dialogue that I was trying to set up and particip atein with Huck Finn.Definitely it was there. I mean,thewotds wasn'taccidental. Well,l knowtheconnection "light out" do appearat theend. Absolutely. It's throughout. I want to not only bow down beforeHuck Finnbut alsoto arguewith it and to point out,by similarities,the differencesbetweenTwain'sworld and Banks's world, the 1870sand 1990s.He's a middle-agedman writing about a teenagedkid, obviously an adolescentversion of himself, and I was doing something very similar these many yearslater.It would be absurdfor me to even begin to write a book about a kid like that without first giving more than a passingnod in the direction of HuckleberryFinn, and then going on-by noting the similarities, by seeding the book with plenry of similarities to note that there'sa big difference in our worlds. I mean,the world haschangedin &amatic and

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Glimmer Train Stoies

Writer frightening ways in rhe intervening years. In what senseareyou arguingwith Huc[eberry Finnl I only mean that figuratively. I think that basically what I mean is, not arguing with it, but adding to it.That's a better way to think about it. That book establishes a tradition in American literature that most writers participate in, consciouslyor not, and I was consciousof participatingin it and wanted to extend the tradition into the late twentieth century, because there's so much in the book that's still valid and applicable. It's a great, classicwork of art. But all the best stories,We Odyssey,The Iliad,haveto constantlybe retold,can be constandy retold. That's what we mean by classics. They can be retold. Not just updated, but retold so we can hear again and recycle,apply again to our lives with fresh eyesand ears,the essentialinsightsand power that that tradition holds. This certainlywasn'tthefirst time that you workedfroma specific literary reference. I'm thinking that Tnllerpark is a response to Winesburg, Ohio, and that the short storyfrom Trailerpark, "Black Man and White Womanin Dark CreenRowboat,,,came from Dreiser3An American tagedy. Naturally those are important points of reGrence for me in the writing of the story and of that book, but there are others aswell. Tiailerparbisin some waysa responseto my reading of The CanterburyThles,too, and Dubliners.There are various levelsof responsein, I think, any work ofliterature.you don't write in a vacuum.You participate.That'sone of the great, satisfyingthings about being a fiction writer or a poet, an artist of any kind. Nobodyt dead.you participare in the tradition.You become one with thesebooks,and thesetexts become part of your immediate daily life, and so you enrer into that conversationand hope you become part of rhe chorus in the courseof writing the book. It's inevitable.Iti inescapablefor me. I've been a compulsive reader since my youth, sinceadolescence, so how could I not end up having a Falt 1999

31,

RussErr BaNrs Interview: conversationof that sort?Having my work be a responseto the works, the books that I've read? Can wego to eithera shortstoryor a noveland talk.aboutthe particularprocess? Actually there's a double source for the short story you mentioned,"Black Man and'White'Woman in Dark Green Rowboat."'Well,not source.It respondsto Dreiser,certainly, in terms of the psychology of the characters,but it reverses and playswith it so that the victim is the man, in a sense.But also itt a responseto a Hemingway story in how it's structured. So the psychology in a way,and the erotic component of it comesout of Dreiser,but certainlythe form of the story and the arrangement-one might even saythe architecture of the story-comes out of "Hills Like'White Elephants."The physicalpositioning of the charactersand the movement of the boat, when they turn and so forth, is very much learned from Hemingway. I mean, I learned how to do that from Hemingway, how to dramatize by moving the characters around physically in relation to each other and in relation to the landscape.Wherethey are in the lake and in the boat is all very carefully orchestrated or choreographed, and I didn't know how to do that until I read Hemingway's stories. youjustfinished Whenyou sitdowninJrontof thekeyboard,have readingtheHemingwaystory,or areyou workingfromsomedistant memory? Usually I'm working from memory and what's retained. I read like a writer and what stayswith me is often what has resonancefor me asa writer. It might be a falsememory,too. It often is.If I go back and rereadit,I say,Well,it wasn'tlike I remembered it at a17. But if it getsyou thestory... Right. It's what I needed from it. So it isn't necessarilya closereadingby any means.It's associationaland semetimes it's intuited, and it's strongenough or raisesquestionsfor what

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Writer I really was respondingto, that I'll go back ro rhe text. I did that with Cloudsplitter. As I was nearing the end of it I was hearing certain tones,you know? I'd orchestratedthesevarious pieces, and I was starting to hear tones that were reminding me of tonesar rhe end of Moby Dick.Andl wanted to get it right and I remembered that rhere's a beautiful diminuendo ending to Moby Dicle.'Ihat was how I remembered it. I didnt remember ir as like the grear, cataclysmic ending.There is a cataclysmand then there is a diminuendo, and I was rememberingthet and that's what I was reaching for. I was starting to hear the necessityfor that. Coming down from Harper's Ferry I thought,There hasto be a diminuendo. It can'tjust sort of be like,That's all, folks.There hasto be a follow-through.I was orchesrratingit almost musically in my mind, so I went back and read the lastforry fifry pa;ges of Moby Dick. to see how he did that. Really, it was pacing I was looking at,and the rhetoric, to seehow the rhetoric kind of cooled down, and how the narrativebecamemore direct at the end,and how the whole voice waslowered.And I studied it consciously,but I was led there by what I deeply remembered,not having readMoby Dickin twenty-five years, so I think it operatesthat way, too. Sometimesyou will go directly back to the text and seehow itk done,but you're led there becauseyou have this memory of it.You're led there becausewhat's unfolding on the page is leadingyou rhere.Ir's in responseto what'sunfolding on the page. Was "The Cuinea-Pig Lady" the first story written for Trailerpark? Yeah.Actually, they were pretty much written in the order they appear.Thatbook is more orchestratedthan it looks.It's more formal than it looks. I remember planning it out very carefully,the order in which the stories would be written. Youknew it wasgoing to bea bookbeforeyou wrotethe stories? Yeah.Thatone I definitely did.I had a castof characters, and

33

Interview:RussErr BaNrs I was trying to structureit, in someways,like an opera.All of the charactersappear in the first story.All of the characters appearin the end story.Also,eachof the charactersassumeda role in my mind as a member of the tribe-the wartrior, the magician,the fool, and so on. The mother, the virgin, the initiate.Merle Ring,the fishermanat the end,isthe magician. And the guinea-pig lady is the fool, and they re both at the extreme outside of the communiry but they have the greatest power over the communiry too. So those piecesand those relationshipswere worked out in my mind. I don't remember, at this point, what the exact detailswere, but I do know that they all had roles and I was trying to write a novel that wasn't a novel, but that was,in an important way to me, a portrait of acommumry. Whichis not all that dissimilarto yourattemptwithThe Sweet Hereafter. Exacdy. I think it's much more successfulin The Sweet Hereafter.I was trying to avoid having a hero. I was really playing with the whole idea of having a hero by avoidance. Can you write a novel without a hero? Can you usethe termprotagonktin thesamesenseashero,or do term? you haueto staywith theclassical I think you can say protagonist. A single, central figure. What James called the emotional center of the narrative.A single person where all values are tested.Any action which occurs is important in so far asit affectsthat character.And so Trailerparkis kind of a crude attempt to do what I think I did much more successfullyinThe SweetHereafter,butin The Sweet HereafterI gaveup the ambition of making each of the separate parts stand alone and satisfythe needs of drama in the short story. Trailerparkis a very schematic book in a v/ay. Sometimesmaybe too schematrc. probabtyputs too muchpressureon memory,but This question soit\ stillfamiliar, whenyoutalkaboutwritingthestorysequentidlly

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Writer there'sa certainamountof time that it takesto write eachchapter. Was therea relationshipin the time it toob to write eachof the chapters? Theret literd time and then there'swriting time,and rhey're di{ferent. They really have different clocks. However long it takesme to write a certain section of a book is no indication of how long that secrion of the book is. It's the samething with ContinentalDrift.AlJ, of those sectionsare approximately the samelength. Some ofthem may have taken me a week to write and others may have taken fwo months, but for me that's the same amount of time. It's the same amount of imaginative time. Youtooka breakwhenyou werewritingCloudsplitter.Is that the That youput something aside? frst timeit's euerhappened? Yeah.I think so.I think I probably have stoppedbefore in the middle of a novel to write a short story now and then. How far wereyou inro Cloudsplitter beforeyou took.q break? I think I was probably rwo-thirds through Cloudsplitter when I pulled away from it and wrote Rule of the Bone.Then I went back to Cloudsplitter,and then the last third I went through pretty fast.I did a lot of revising and changing after that, but just getting it down wenr pretty Ast. I think I got bogged down and scared of Cloudsplitterin some ways, becausethere wasjust so much material to organize and to structure into a coherent and compelling story. 'W'hat to leave out, what to put in, how much to allow myself to digress,controlling the pacing. It was hard work. Harder work than anything I d tried before. It's as good as I can do now. I learneda lot and maybe I can do better next time, but I was certainly working ashard as I could. It wasn'ta choiceto pull awayfromit? It wassomethingthat had to bedone? 'Well, you know, it didn't work quite like that. I didn't want to go away from it, but it wasjust aswell and wise that I did.

Fall 1999

J5

Interview: RussErr BaNrs Sometimesyour sleepingselfis a lot smarterthan your waking self,and I just thought,'Well,I'll stop and write a shogtstory about this kid, becauseI was really getting into thesekids and the kid's voice, and I was getting into that world, being seducedby it. And I said,Well,I d love to tell this funtry story about this kid stealinghis grandmother'scoins and using it for dope, and then he doesn't know it until they're alll gone becausehe stole one or two at a time.The story appealedto me, the setupwith the kid, the kid's voice. I could hdar that, because I really like kidspeak. So I wrote the story what became the first chapter of the book, as a story.And I said, Wait a minute. This is more than that. This is opening up a whole world here.Thisis just a door.This is just a way in.It's not a very good short story but it's really a way in to a larger world that I'm fascinatedby, and a character I really, already, love. ['ve only been with him for ten or fifteen pagbsand I alreadylove him. So that'swhen I decided to go aheadand see how long it would take me. John Brown was goinlg to be around a long, long time anyhow. Therewas net)erany doubt that you wouldgo back/o Cloudsplitter? No. Never.I never thought of abandoningit.I just knew it would be there-I d already done too much work afld I was too committed to it to fear that I wouldn't finish it. $ut then when I got into the other book, I realized,Boy, it'd a good thing I'm doing this, becauseI didnt know what the fuck I was doing for a while there,for the last six months,lon that book. And maybe I'll know when I go back,freshenedby this. And it was true. It was the case.When I got bac!<,I was freshened by it. But I didn't deliberately pause and look around, put down Cloudsplitterand say,Now what dq I really want to write while I'm waiting around? Really, I just got kind of seduced.Itwas like a little love affair or somlething. and that You'uebeeninuolvedwith several flm projectsrecently,

Climmer Train Stoies

Writer obviouslytakes a lot of time and energyand attention.Is i t a distraction? A welcomeopportunity?How doesit fit in with your f.ction? Well, I think of it as a temporary engagement and not a distraction at the moment. I rcalized when I finished Cloudsplitterlast May that I d been really working hard for a decade,withouta break,and that I neededa break.I wastired. I was kind of bone weary. So I decided just to rry a few different things, and I had the opportuniry to ger involved in thesefilm projects,to write the script for ContinentalDrift and to help produce Booleof Jamaica and ContinentalDrlft. I've learneda lot over the lastcouple of years,over the making of The SweetHereafterand Afiiction, aboat how a movie gets made,and I liked it. I wasinterested.Iam interestedin how a movie gets made. It's also one of the few ways a writer can keep some control over what the movie ends up being. I certainly plan to do that this year up to a certain point. I mean, I don't think this is a conrinuing thing. But you'uebeenon afction break,sincelastMay? Yeah.I wrote a text for a book of photographsby a man named Arturo Patton who does the author's headshot for Cloudsplitter,but he's mainly known as a portrait artist in Europe.He's not known here,althoughhe is becoming better known. His work is being exhibited now more. Anyway, he did a collection of photographsof all the citizensof a small town in Maine, and I loved them. They're just real formal, renaissance-sryle portraitsof thesecountry people,and they're just beautiful. It turned these people into universal types without condescending, withouf sentimentalizing them. They're just beautiful portraits, so my French publisher wanted to do a book of them and askedme if I'd write the text, and I got into the pictures.Now HarperCollins is going to do it here,and it'll be out next year. And then I'm doing an operalibretto.I've done most of the

FalI 1999

Interview:Russil

BRNrs

background work and blocked it out, and I'll try to write that over the next few months, once I come in off the road.But the movie stuff, you know, if you sit around worrying about the movie stuff, you go crarzy.ltbasicallytakestime in fits and starts,so it'Il be like gwo or three dayswhere I'll work and be all involved in it, and then there wont be anything going on for a week or ten days. whereyou know when the breakswill Is is that easilycontrolled, happen? 'Well, sometimesthe work comes unexpectedly,but most of A lot of it'sjust yak,yak, I know about it in advance. time the phones and stuff, and meetings and bullshit. I don't want to direct a movie. I had fun writing ContinentalDrft- I might write another one along the way somewhere.Egoyan and I are talking about doing something together, an original screenplaythat he would direct. Itt an interesting thing for me to do.I love films and I take them very seriously.I grew up in the era when it was clear that films were capableof being high art. with your participationin Do you expectthe samesatisfaction these flm projectsasyouget withfiction, or doesthefactthatfilm is a collaboratiue ffirt diminishit in any way? It doesn't diminish it. But it certainly alters it, and I'm probably not temperamentallysuited to collaborate,excePtas a temporary engagement. In a continuing and permanent way,I cant imagine it satisfyingme enough' I need to be in control of everything asmuch aspossible. Do you know whenyourfictionbreak.will beover,or will thefilm projectsdictatethat? I'11probably go for another year-et most. I've already got a novel that's starting to boil up in my mind, and I imagine that'Il put everything else on the back burner. There'll be a point in which I just say,Okay,enough of this shit.Now I've got to write fiction.I need to get this story told'

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Climmer Train Stoies

Writer I know it goesagainstall sortsof iles and superstitions, but can you tell me anythingaboutthat novelyou hauein your mind? Oh yeah,I dont havethosesuperstitions.I want to write a novel about the Liberian CivilWar of 7991.I want to follow the diasporato its logical conclusion,which is Liberia in the 1990s,the last chapter in theAfrican diaspora.I want to wrire that. Then I have in my mind a fifth novel, if you think of these as a cycle of novels about the diasporafrom the whice point of view. This would be the first chapter, a historical novel dealing with the slaverrade,set in West Africa in the seventeenthcentury. I'd love to write about the slavetrade, the beginningsof the diaspora.ThenI could put together,in my own mind, Book ofJamaica,ContinentalDrft, Rule oJ the Bone,Cloudsplitter,a;nd the Liberian novel.I d havea sequence of them that would make sense to me, and that would probably exhaustthe subject for me. Will this bea largebook? I dont think so.I dont think so.I don't imagine it that way. I cant imagine it thar way. It'lI be a very personal book, a white woman telling the story.The story of a white woman, a nice white liberal, who goes to Africa as a peace Corps worker in the seventies.A woman my age. Youlovethe research, don't you? Yeah.The researchis the most fun.That's other worlds.$

T

Rob Trucks is on the thin side of handsome, a pillar of his communiry (assumingpole-vault stanchions can be considered pillar$; indeed, a veriable straw of a man. He is currently at work on fourteen novels at his home in Long Island Ciry, New York, but longs to move to Albany so he can truthfully claim ro be an Albanian.

Fall 1999

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Peter Lefcourt Euenat a tenderage,I battedfromthe rightside.I and still am,your basicbanjohitter-'240 in a ln year.But I wasneuera slouchwith the leather. mr a runfot his giue Robinson I Brooks could feld ThoughI'ue hungup thespikesand driftedto I am suchaspokerand Suabble, sedentarysports, I ballplayer. suspect yourbasicgood-field-no-hit is however, metaphorformy hfe.Whatit means, therapkt\ at the question.Afewmoregrand not' naybel'Ilfind out.AndmaYbe

& Schuster Peter Lefcourtt fifth novel, TheWooily,waspublished by so rictrly last fall. He saysit has earned him the kind of opprobrium that deserves.

rETER r,EPCOURT

ran into Mickey hovering around the dumpster in back of the liquor store over on Figueroa. He had on a Raiders cap and a bunch of sweaters,and what looked like a skirt, but which turned out to be some sort of cowboy chaps he had picked up in a prop shop on Hollywood Boulevard when the weather turned cold. He alwayswas a goofball, this Mickey, and my first instinct was to pretend I never saw him. In fact, I had gone about twenty feet past the alley when I remembered that the guy owed me a buck thirry from last summer in San Pedro. So I retracedmy stepsand entered the alley.About fifty feet away I stopped and called his name. He squinted into the early-morning sun behind me. "'Who's that?" "It's me. Homer." "That so?" "I ought to know who the hell I am, for chrissakes." FIe was the type you had to repeat things to before they sunk in.You had the feeling with him that you probably had to tell him his name again every morning when he woke up so he wouldnt forget who he was. The guy moved a few stepscloser,trying to verify what I Glimmer Train Storia, Issue32, Fall 1999 @1999 Peterlzfcourt

4t

PrrnR Lnrcourr already told him. He had these big red eyes like a Saint

wouldn't take him anymore on account of his bloodLsugar.I had run into him at the end of the binge when he hit me up for the buck thirry which I should never have given him, except he told me about this other blood bank that was supposed to open first of August. And next thing I know Mickey was back in Hollywood, and I wasnt aboUt to go after him. "How you doing?" he asked. I nodded.Noncommittal.I didnt want to let on too soon why I had accosted him, because this guy was perfectly capableof taking a swift powder. "Pretty goddamn cold," I said. "Yeah."Then he says,likeit had somethingto do with the conversation."It's colder in SantaAna." "You hanging out there?" "That's right." "How come?I thought you hung out in Hollywood." "I was askedto leave Hollywood." Jesus,you could have knocked me over with a thco.You really had to be pretty far gone to get run out of that town' "'What'd you do?" "Nothing I never done before." "Yeah. well that's how it is." I had in my pocket tlvo sweet rolls a guy I knew at the Alpha Beta gaveme earlier.They were intended to be breakfast and lunch, but I saw an opportunity here. It's what they call in the supermarketsa loss leader.You adverfisea box of mothballs or something cheapjust to get them in the door, and then they wind up walking out with sixry bucks worth of

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Climmer Train Stoies

The Power Breakfast toilet paper. So I invited the guy to breakfast. We walked over to Pershing Squarejust as the morning traffic startedto pick up.They came streamingoffthe Harbor Freeway like they were running out of money down here, like if they didn't get here soon, there wouldnt be anymore left. We sat on a bench in the square,eating our sweet rolls, waiting for the sun to make it over the buildings and throw us some warmth. I didnt know what it was like in SantaAna, but this had been one bitch of a winter up here. Nobody I knew was keeping warrl;. enough. At night you had to stuff a whole goddamn newspaper in your pants legs. Couple of guys I knew went down to Baja, but I didn't like the way they set their dogs on you down there and laughed about it, so I was hanging in here for the duration. "So you were asked to leave Hollywood?" I said,kind of casually,so as not to get the guy off. He was a well-known hothead and I didn't want him worked up before I made the pitch. "Yeah." "'W'hereaboutsin Hollywood?" "Over on lvar. Near the strip show." "Oh, there... I know that place." "Far as I'm concerned,itt all right with me, you know what I mean?" "Sure ... " I didn't havethe slightestideawhat he meant,but this wasn't a guy you wanted to contradict over a minor matter,so I let it pass. "I'll tell you something else, there's guys I know in Hollywood d just as soon do you for a quarter.'While you sleep.With a bread knife." He lifted his beard with one hand and dragged his other acrosshis throat to demonstrate.

Fall 1999

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Prrnn LErcouRr "No kidding?" "Yeah. In fact, I'm figuring to get out of this tor,Ltnaltogether." "'Whereaboutsyou heading?" "Prragrry!' "Oh yeah?" "They got good weather down there." "Flow're you going to get down there?" "You take the train.Itt pastMexico.They got a carialdown there..." I let that passaswell.The guy was beyond help.A{ I could think was that it was a good thing I ran into him toddy,seeing ashe wason his way out of town.It looked like I was$oing to have to get into the matter over breakfast. "Listen, Mickay," I said,"rememberwhen we were down in San Pedro?" "Sure." "You had a couple of blood banks going for ydu at the time." "Yeah, that was a sweet deal." "-W'e11, the thing is, I advancedyou some fundslwhich I nevergot back... " He shook his head immediately, wiped the crurpbs from the sweetroll offwith the back of his hand, shooklhis head again. "Anybody advancesme funds alwaysgets it backfYou can ask anyone in this town. Even in Hollywood.I nevef stiffed a

"I would remember a figure like that." "You were waiting for that new blood bank to open, over down by the port."

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Gtinmel Train Stoies

The PowerBreakfast He shook his head again,coughedup somephlegm, shot a load over the hedge. "Dont ring a bell.And I got a memory like an elephant.I can tell you where I was the night they shot FDR." "They didnt shoot FDR." "The hell rhey didn't..." "That wasJFK you're talking about." He looked at me, screwedup his eyes,trying to sort it out. "The guy with the wife was a looker..." 'John E Kennedy.That was the guy got shot." "Yeah.'Well,I was over on Hollywood Boulevard with Leo when it happened.Thewhole place shut down.you couida heard a pin drop, you know what I mean?" The conversarion was drifting in the wrong direction. I needed to redirect his attention to the matter at hand. "Listen, Mickey, you and I go back a while, right? I mean, we used to hang out in Lafayette Park together, before you even went to Hollywood." "I supposethat'spossible.I hung out in a lot of places." "You see,the point I'm trying to make here is that there'sa track record established.I'm not some guy off the street trylng to hit you up for a buck thirty. I believe the matter's just slipped your mind, and seeing as you're on your way ro Paragtay,the honorable thing to do would be to settle your accounts before you take off. You understand what I'm saying?" For a long time he didnt say a word. He poked around under the chaps until he found a burt, then poked around some more for a match. He lit up and inhaled deeply,blew the smoke out in front of him, scratchedhis ears. "I don't know... ," he saidfinally. It wassaidin a way that indicated to me that he wasleaning in the right direction ar least.A little light had flooded into that pea brain of his.

Fall 1999

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PEIEn.Lnrcouru "Look at it this way,Mickey-a buck thirtyt cheap enough when you think what's at stakehere." "-Whatt that?" "Your senseof honor.You see,you go down to Phraguay without your accounts settled,nothing you can do {bout it then. It's going to be too late.I mean,what happensbne day you're down there and you suddenly recollect San Pedro and sayto yourself,Jesus,Idid hit Homer up for a buck tlrirty on account of that blood bank.'Then what re you goirlg to do about it?" "I could sendit to you." "Think it out,Mickey.You got to have an addresstd send it to me, right? I could be in Baja or down in SantaAha or in god knows where by then.Youte going to feel pretfy badly that you can't reach me to settle up." I let that sink in before I hit him with the heavy attillery. "A man got nothing, he dont have his honor." He smoked the butt right down to where I thought he was going to burn up his beard.By then the sun had finally made it over the buildings. He took offone of his sweater$.Sitting there digesting the sweetroll, with the sun squareon frim and the trafiic starting to die down, he must havefelt preqy good.

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Glimmer Train Stoies

The Power BreakJast I mean, that's what I had been counting on when I got the idea of inviting him to breakfastin the first place. "'What if we calledit a buck?" he said without looking at me. "It's a nice round number.'We can call the thirty cents interest." He had that assbackwardsaswell, but what are you going to do with a rocker scientist like Mickey? It was basically a businessdecision.Youhad to look at it from a cost-effectivenesspoint of view. Sometimesyou have to settle for seventyfive cents on the dollar and get on with your life. Nor to mention the fact that I alreadyhad a sweet roll invested. I let it hang there for a minute so he didnt think I was too anxious, and finally nodded. He fished out a bill from his socksand handed ir to me. And that was that. Businessconcluded.We sat there for a while taking in the sun. He talked about Paraguay,maybe finding some blood banks down there. "I figure they got blood down there,they got to haveblood banks,right?" He saidhe wasgoing to check things our soon ashe got off the train. "Why don't you take a ship?" I suggested."This way you can sail right into the canaJ.." "I'll look into that." Eventually he got up and said he was heading down to SantaAna to take care of some last-minute businessbefore leaving the country. I wished him a nice trip. Why not? I knew there was no goddamn canalin paraguay,but there was no point in telling that goofball. Anybody who thought FDR's wife was a looker wasn't going to get very far enyway.* J

Fall 1999

Janet Belding

i

The babywith the "bulleteyes"is my brother i My be*friend Randy ispeekingbehind ) Russell. me;hisbrotheris next to mine.Welooleaslf we are] all aboutto moveor we havejust stoppedmoving. Thesun'sin our eyes,but not so we can'tsee. I wishI was still that blond.Did I actuallyweara beingsopresent' dressto play in? I don'tremember The moreI look,the moreI canseemyself. JanetBelding grew up inVermont and went to school there.After $raduating from the University of Vermont, she moved to Cape Cod, Masiachusetts, where she worked for many years with the mentally

ill. It was on]y after she

left that profession that she discoveredshe wanted to write' Cufrently' she makesher living working at a garden center.This environment, sfrefinds, is remarkably freeing, especiallyfor her writing. Her stories have afpeared in GreenMountain Reviewendlhe FarmelsMarket' sharetheir household with an old dog and a couple of cats.

JarunrBEror

say I'm a man, in his early sixties, vital I still walk eighteen holes with my son. Not a touch of emphysema-what does one cigarette a day do, and only in the years before my kids were born? No prostate rrouble, a full head of thin, grey hair.This is true. Let's sayit's true. A tall man with shouldersI never got used to, yet without slouching, thanks to a great aunt with long cracking fingers rapping me just below the knob at the back of my neck. Even her nails were arthritic.Years ago she said I'd thank her someday. Yes,I carry myself all theseyearsasif I've got appointments I alwaysexpect to keep, deals to make, lives to save:someone important, even if I've only stopped at the gasstation for the papet and my wife's skim milk. My life is this: such that I can walk down the street to my place of business,go in the front door and inside, and I am not famous,not even to my employees.We'reall just the same, whether we sell insurance or carnerasor cruises.I sign the checks,but that doesnt rnake me have more of a soul. My son,still at home, callsme a sap,like a pine tree full of borers. Someday,somewhere,somehow,he's sure,after Becky has an aneurysm blow from all her migraines,another accountant'll come along and rob me blind.Just sign this. Sign this. Glimmer Train Stories,ksue 32, Fall 1999 @1999Janet Belding

49

JaNEr BEroINc You cant fool me, Michael. Youte just an old Buddhist monk yourself. A name less Christian, you might only get there a little faster.Either way,to a lama,ftventy-nine is but an infant. There's nothing wrong with taking your timd, mind you, andAmerican literature is noble, and the way Hawthorne and Melville come through a microphone in a lecture hall is noble, and grading those comp papersis the most basilcform of mentoring. Most of the rime you leave your mother and me in the dust.We'reproud of you.There are questionswe don't ask,of course.'When will you finish your dissettation, almost there,find a girl, buy a house?I've seenyou meditating at the side of a grassyhillock with your five wood, thht look on your face that saysyou don't care how long anything in your life takes. Let's sayMichaelt sistershave two kids each.One lras the twins with the ADD, the other a boy and a girl who can sit in front of a coloring book for hours, the girl enough like her grandmother that itt eerie.Justtake a look at my wifb's baby picture.They could be clones.The girl sits on the xug and crossesher legs at the ankles,like my wife, holds the crayon the way my wife holds a pen, and then she sayssornething hilarious in her quiet voice. Meg, with her tawny Scottish skin and her irreverenceskipping a generation,coming out in this litde girl. Suzy-Q leadsa charmed life when shevisits her pappa;I dont seeanything wrong with that.We make surewe spoil them all:she'lljust get my wife'sjewelry somedhy. Meg and I take a couple of trips ayeat,but to tell f'ou the truth, we're sick of old ruins and vineyards and skiing in the Alps and coconut palms.'Wewent to Berlin right 4fter the Wall came down just to say we did; we went to Patagonia. We ve been on every windjarnmer there is on every Qceanor two-bit sea.The pictures don't do the world justice, granted, but that doesnt mean we have to seeeverything for otrrrselves, ad infinitum. All thatb left-new territory honestly-is to

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Glimmet Truin Stodes

In My Other LiJe stay home and give a couple of barbecuesfor the kids and a low-key pool party for our friends, go to the art museum, take my wife out to dinner at a fried-dough place on rhe beach. It is the last vacation we're taking before I retire and sell the businessto Becky'sson. My wife wearswhite pants and a white windbreaker to the beach and a red dresswith a gold belt to rhe museum. She quit dyeing her hair lastyear so it's come in silver.She'salmost as tall as I am.We can touch shoulders climbing the marble stairs,going through the walnut doors to stand in the gallery for some specialexhibit she'sbeen wanting to seesinceJune. She saysit's lovely; it's worth the price of admissionand tea in the courtyard, but it doesnt make her cry. A wash of color acrossa board, paint on a pa77et, a childt handprint on a wall near a window; art should attempt to say something on other levels besides rhe literal: this is what we've said for years, but we're not disappointed when it doesn't.My wife puts her glassesaway and we stroll through the mummy rooms, through the hallway full of Revere silver, the oneswith Greek coins.Nothing comparedto the museums in Greece andBritain,but we don't mention it. My wife takesout her glassesagain to read the print over a casefull of funeral jewelry. How tiny, for what size fingers, skulls, and caskets: the morbid things. In the room with the Chinese tapestriesand paintings on rice paper in narrow frames,I stand and wait for her to read again. I can read for myself certainly-my eyesnever went through that middle-aged thing-but I let her pull out her glassesbecauseI've alwaysliked hearing ornate and ponderous words lilting in her voice. She'sreading about gilt woven through palacerugs,just above a whisper, although we're the only onesin the room.It Gelsintimate.I restmy hand on the back of her neck,not so much asa sign ofpossession; I'm not young, nor rnsecureanymore,and although the jungle has

Fall 1999

51

JaNer BErotNc mating rules, we don't necessarilyhave to emulate libns or tarantulas.Not possessionthen, but a way of tellin$ each other we're presentthe sameway we touch shoulderswhen we're not thinking about touching. Over the years,I've joked about this or that actressor singer or woman running the supermarketcheckout.She tqld my

nonstop for six months; she said he looked like n[e and I'dlargue, wouldn't I write her a few lines.I'mjust a salesman, I sell packagetours toVegas.Come on. You could try it once forValentine's Day, a wee litqle love poem. I told her I d walk acrossthe desert barefoot, Sg f"t diamonds for her to wear,but shed have to get me a look to read from. I dont expect her to turn straw into gold qr even sew me a fleecevest.She laughed,but itt been only ihe last five yearssheb stopped asking. At this time of life,before everything getsout ofwhdck and worn out, we can look at each other and not seewhht Meg saysshe seeswhen shetakesfruit basketsto a nursing Home at Christmas:a Gw preludesto a corpse. Be that as it may, one or the other of us will be in that receiving line at the funeral home, already picked Qut, the money paid. The kids and their kids in metal chair$.No, I wont buy myselfone of thosewidower rings.If it's ne first,I won't be afraid or feel the pain or occupy anyone'sturret. I've watched enough of Bill Moyers and shows like that to put that final crossingin perspective.Yourproblem, Me$ says,is you project too much. In the end, liG is just this: Walking through a museum, answeringthe phone, slicing carrbts for a carrot-and-raisin salad.Give slide showsof all the placfs we've been.Be grateful;and I am.

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Climmer Truin Stoies

In My Other Life 'While

shet reading, I stand back from the tapestry dull where the gold is supposed to be. She finishes rhe last sentence,lets the lastword trail off. ,.Moth eaten,isnt it,,'she "but the idea is magnificent."Then sheclicksher tongue says, the way her mother usedto. Ahead of us,a group ofpaintings, maybe three or four, hang afoot apartasif theyte supposedto be a story.I gazewith halfa mind at them,thinking ofsalsaand chips and a beer insread of Darjeeling. It's getting later, the light through rhe one tinted window definitely aging sincewe steppedinto the room. Megt shoescreak slightly asshe sreps next to me. So old as to dmosr nor exist, those paintings are like a hundred such paintings we've seen. Peaked mountains disappear,whether out of time or distance,the bamboo and willow fading over rivers, a warerfb.ll.Mist. Always mist. My wife readsthe name of the dynasty.The lyrical depiction of nature belied disasterand violent times, she'ssaying.Notice the figures,a stroke of the brush, ascendinga treacherousroad into those mountains. Human life was in many ways disposable. A few strokesof paint climbing into the ubiquitous mist, of course,and the clouds dropping into the gorge.Merely another rainy day in the middle of monsoon season,I'm thinking. The waterfall runs in mud, the river is brown, and people downstream have died or are drowning. I begin to feel grief. It doesn'tdamageme;it is more like the grief you imagine in a newspaperstory about landmines or videos offamines that merely migrate to one country from anocher. Grief because of clouds hanging into a gorge. I decide it's the clouds after all, and I feel foolish, inane. As Meg used to sayro rhe kids when they didn'r make the field-hockey team or ger into Dartmouth or rate the short list for somejob, Dont alwaysgo looking for the door; sometimes it's the window you want. And the window she alwaystalks

FaU 1999

53

JaNrr BErorNc about: aswide as a wraparound porch or a drive-in sdreen,a figure of speech,but still a window. It can appearat arly time' The kids alwayshated that; even in their disappointmdnt they wanted any door, even if it was trompel'oeil after il1- | Meg touches my wrist briefly, asif she'sopening a dlaspon a bracelet,and the grief opensout, and I have no choice but to merely observe.

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Climmer Train Stories

In My Other Life The clouds hang cold and full of rain, and they move and thin, to expect sun. There is no sun, only that shadow of it, and the rain comes down again in long veils. 'We have no skin left; we are nearb the fish 'W'e we cannot catch. drink from our hands and the road falls away. Climb the rock face until we find the road. There is safety in the next village and the next-high

in the mounrains the rain scartsout asair. We breatheair before it becomes rain and tasterotting wood and mildew. The village slidesaway from the foot of a bridge. 'W'e are told the floods begin above and above. The 'We clouds shift and thin again. see eyes and facesand legs in the water, children drowned in their baskets,the bodies 'Vy'e of rotting dogs. don't sleep even in day for fear of the mud. We braid each other's hair while watching the water, the river in cuffents like a thousandbrown snakeskins.Your hair is thick with silt and filthy rain and is no longer dark in my fingen. The riverbank below us collapses.W'e begin walking back up. The mountains themselvesseem to wear down, leave their edges, send their birds away for other places to nest, even as the rain stops.We stand at the rock where a wall used to be. The sun breathesthrough the clouds.'We stareat it, then down into the swirling mud besideus.

Fall 1999

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JaNrr BErotNc 'We

have brothen and sisterswho no longer can lift their hands to braid their hair. They fish merely by letting the water snake them dong, long eels for their hair, their skin and eyes bright and splitting in the sun. 'We can say nothfuig at their burial' they do not stay dead, only running downstream. The sun gl*itg over them in a horrible light, a horrible blue. This is not us. The riverbank, foodshom' but still holding. The sun gives way to the clouds, and the fish and the dogs and the bodies sink away. The:rain begins. The rain does not end. We say the clouds pray to heaven for release.We sit where there is no edge. One of us slips into the river, one of us loseshis gnp on the willow branch.

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Train Stpies

SHonr-SroRy Awano FoR NEv/'W'Rrrnns Lst-,2nd-,and3rd-PlaceWinners

First-place winner: JaNa MalrrN $1200f0rherfrst-place story,,,Hope,,' whichbegins JanaMartinrcceiues onpage59,preceded by herprofleonpage58.

Second-placewinner: BRUcEJaconsoN g500for "Accidental Bruce receives Sex.,'He is twenty-eight Jacobson

anil liuesin Manhattan.He spendshis daylighthoursin the uhra-glam world oJ aduertising,beeause some Jruit drinks and ereditearilsdeserue

Simply put, he's rired of courting. Such a process,the drain on a young man's heart. What he really wants is a love with wheelchair access,a love that is wide-doored and ramped, easily navigated by a beautiful nurse with beefy forearms.

Third-place winner: GRrc B,rxrER Creg Baxter receiues $j00for "Chauez." Baxter was bom in Victoria, Texasin 1974, andgreu up in SanAntonio. He ha just begunan MFA in fction at LouisianaState (Jniuersity,wherehe alsoworksas editoial assistantforthe Southern Review.

Royle Duggraw owned the last running Datsun in the state of Texas. There were four left unttl 1996, but within a week in February two were submerged in the Gulf of Mexico and one was driven to Arkansas.

We inuiteyou to our website(untw.glimmertrain.com) to seea lkting oJthe top twenty-fuewinnersandfinalists. We thank all entrants Jor sendingin theh work.

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Jana Martin NewYork,c. 1971.Thepoint hereis thestar-spangled pants,whichweremyfavorite,and the desertboots-iltined a monthlaterwhenmyfriend Lisa threwup on myJeet. Otherfavoritethingsat thk point in life includedmy sister Nancy\ wonderfullysoftand unruly hair,whichsmelled like sweethay whenit retainedheatfromthesun,dnd werebothdie-hardOsh-Koshfans' ouerolls.We

Jana Martin, born in New York, migrated to Ohio' Florida, and then Arizona before landing in Brooklyn. Her nonfiction has appearedin Matie znd rhe VillageVoice.She'sthe author of two nonfiction Claire,Cosmopolitan, books, and received awardsfrom the NEA, NFAA, and the Ugriversity of Arizona's MFA program. She! currently working on a novel, RhbberDays.

J"" fl*(.^t, Manrm JaNa

Hope

Fnsr-PracEWlNNrR Short-StoryAward for New'Writers

t\ beenfour red-eyedhoursfrom Boston to the Port A family caught my eye as I wobbled down in the aisles, thinking movement might be good, and what a mistake that was.The movement,I mean.On one side of the grimy aisle fidgeted two dirty-nosed boyswith their fistsclutched around their mothert dark and heavy hair.And right acrossthe aisle but a whole gully away sattheir fatheq irritably trying ro read a Sanskrit newspaper-words scrolling down in blue and red lines.What I looked like in the sallow buslight I don'r even want to know, but now we've parked at the terminal and they've spotted me here at the newsstandfilching mints, and they think we're friends. In five minutes we all board the bus bound for Florida, a northeast transfer, as the loudspeaker says.And here's the family waving their tawny, bonelesswavesinto this hideous air, and I think what am I doing, if only for a moment. Lifesaversin my hand,I am completely trapped into feeling like this bus ride, this migration sourh, is the wrong thing. "Young lady,"rhe father callsin a deep,spicy voice."Do you Climmu Train Stoies, ksue 32, Fall 1999 @1999Jana Martin

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JaNa MatrtN know what time out next bus is scheduledto leave?"ll-ikethe waiter bowing you wouldlike rnoreteaat Punjab,that rfstaurant I used to go to, back when the Boyfriend was good 4nd I was good. And evenjust standinghere,palming the Lifesdwersand thinking that--oh, the backstabof memory-I know this is not the wrong thing. This northeast transfer to a southeastheading bus, it may not be right. But at this point rhay I just think and may I just saythat there is also no wrong? and This busis dark.anddirty,iswoollyandstickyfioored,endme a again.lfhere's jumblehead the backseat taken up have my guy in front of me with a strangebluish castto his tBeth,and 's I think he going to be a problem.He keepspeering over the seat or bet'ween the crack, smiling and starting to sey something. I sniff and look somewhere deliberately,and he looks there and can't figure out what I'm looking at, which makes

thirty-nine-hour ride with stops everywhere.Even befween Boston and NewYork there were strangeand pointless stops where the driver just got out and left. In Conndcticut he pulled into a servicestationthat wasclosed,but he wientinside anylvay.Tenminutes, maybe,before he came out, *iping his mouth. All businessand burp as he took his mashed-down seat.Thisseconddriver is a spreadofjowl and gut at $r,ewheel, taking us all with a lurch out onto the road, but w[at a relief of motion-we Passcars, the swish of airstreamsbetween vehicles whisper, Ununong,unwrong' What I left in Boston was a gone-bad me, a gone-bad boyfriend, Novenfber's bastard cold whisttng through our apartment-rnorerhke altart-

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Hope Always the bad landlord whistling CaraMia all day instead of fixing the heat like he said. I bruised myself at night by bumping into the wall in my sleep,my skin too cold to be resilient,blood roo confusedby all the chemicalspumped in: What did you saymyjob was?Could you tell meagain?I,m just a little spacedout-Bad no-touch thing. I couldn't, I can't be touched. It hurts, almost.Not an actual hurt but a tickling, nagging,just-can't-take-it kind of hurt. Even a hand on my back made my insidesj.rmp. Boyfriend?A pseudorocker in smallbuttjeans,had no sense ofloyalry did it with girls from the junior high down the srreer and then stole their buspasses, their lunches,and from me stole anything. Stole the wool socks my father sent, my wellmeaning sweetheartfather who livesin a pastof fountain pens and correspondence and buttondowns. My father who'd pinned a letter to the socks: that in light oJthebadeconomy, whichhasbeenthe Just concerned of all papers, the my daughter's developing thebadhabitof being focus discouraged, and I would urgeyou to rejectunemployment for the satisfaction of an honestwage,rf a minimumwageat that. If he rcal1yknew what was going on, he'd be speechless. He d be red. He d be non-erudite, stammeringlymad. But I don't want to talk about it. The bus is someone sneakinga joint nearby.Sucking sounds,airlessvoicesasrhey talk through the toke.They probably wish they had the backseatand think I'm a hog: I'm one small girl with a ratty Irish face to them. But I've escapedthe bad stuffafter all. Soon I will be a girl on the peninsula,the arm of the country down somewhere near the index finger if you look at Florida that way. I'll eat in cafeteriasand live in a motel room for eighteen a night. I wanted to show Dad the map,wanted to tell him my plansand show him the suitcaseI found to pack in. But with thesearms of mine, not a chance. But haven't I escapedby way of my arm in actual medical

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JnNa MnnrtN fact? My arm became an emergency one night latt week, when a microspeckof dirt like someimpure thought hitched a ride on the needlet shaftasit went in. And rny arm went, No, and swelled like an overboiled hot dog, those plump-whenyou-cook-'em kind, and rwenry-four hours later the limb was bilious, outraged, filled with yellow infuriation. The emergency room was scowling faces,a mean-lipped stitchpr giving me the "You are perfectly qualified for insurance'l lecture, meaning You'rea whitegirl-what the hell areyou living of our socialTtrograms for? A rustle-legged nurse recited, "Need we inform you that cleanlinessof the wound is your responsibility," asI throbbed, asher pantyhosedlegsrubbed againsteach other and she circled me, while the betadyne rivergd orange over my {inal narcotic offense. Yes,I decided sitting among the whitecoats,from pow on I will refuse anything stronger than Percoset,though I had to argue with them to get some. "But you have no idea," I managed to say,"what a step this is, for me, in the right direction." Talking to walls over there, dont ask the system why it doeswhat it does.It hasnothing to do with gifts or love, nothing to do with anything but clipboards,paperwork, the quantity in the supply closet-just make sure there's some leftover for the staff. Me that night, clutching the litde manila pill envelope and talking to Dad from the payphone on Boylston Street instead of going to seehim. Me too pale and bandagedup, and while my voice could hide it, my face couldn't. Can't fake it visually ('How are when I'm that punctured.This way he could ask, that matteredyou?" and mean it, and I could tell him in a way So I said,"Dad.I'm tired of this Boston thing, tired of everything. It's too cold. I need to retire.I need rest and sun." Picture my father at the kitchen table,my father at his black rotary phone by the can of Quaker Oats' I seeit all the time, the place I'lI missthe most. My out-oGit father who's more in

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Glimrer Tnin Stories

Hope it than anyone, so sweet to all these dastardly souls that it breaksmy heart. We have a litde thing going, me and Dad. A joke thing.,,If you want to retire, why not try Florida?" he said,mimicking a travel agent advisinga geriatric. F{e wasmaking a little joke so I could say,"Kiddingl'rightaway.Weraketurns ar this:I make ajoke, he takesir literally."Go rakea hike," I ribbed him once, and he said,"Grear idea!" and got his boots. But advice is another thing.Taken, at leasrby me, as a joke.We only speak the samelanguagesometimes.So on the payphone,as Saabs bumped over T tracks and overcoatsflapped in the wind, I said,"You're right, Dad.You'reabsolutelyright." "Get a bus ticket," he said,still joking. "I'll reimburseyou when my ship comes in." FIow very retro and endearing and tragic.The bus station was so near the hospital;did rhey do that on purpose?My last hours in Beantown I wandered the cold dawn, scanning the discardsput out for Mafia trashtrucks.In Back Bay I found an old suitcasenicely propped againsta frozen tree. It was what my dad would call a rwo-suiter, bur it was more like a ladyb case,which my dad would call a fwo-nighterI mean why is it that the men's stuffis known by what you put in it, and the women's by how long you go for? This suitcasewas pale blue satin inside,a little moldy, a little crushed.But it still gave off a scent,like lavender and boiled potatoes.Like Irish sisters, nevermarried.The name on the tag was written in a parlor hand: O'Toole. perhaps the secret spinster branch of that famous actort family, the shadowy figures haunting tall Peter O'Toole?What gavehim the darklined eyesand his face's sad creases,indelible despite all the orangejuice and swimsuit dealingsin Hollywood. These Percosetassociationsgo slow.The bus gearsshift on a downhill. Someone'seating chocolatein here; I can smell the wrapper and the nuts.

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JaNe ManrIN Standing in the kitchen doonvay, smdlbutt Boyfriend watched me take the applesauce jar of money orlt of the oven. The oven was our bank; of course we never cooked' The morningi pinkish light seeped through thd blinds, flattering him just a little. "Where you going?" he sa[dlike it was a big surprise."You coming back?Where's the suitcase from?'Would be great for my records." He was mumbling, eyesfocused on some oblique summary of a story still forming. "Get anything from the hospital?Pills? Codeinre?Leave the money, right?" Oh no, I thought. I protect my own. From now on,lI protect my own like a father wants to protect his daughter.r Six or sevenhourssinceNewYork and arewe anywhere? Wete in the dark. It's an aquarium out there and wefre a lone fish in the giant tank, a tank gone uncleanedforeve(,stuck in the basementof the Natural History Museum no orle goesto anymore.Another minor but sad change to this rryorld,my father would say.Thesmellsin the rear of this bus sweepme back to parochial school, cauliflower boiling in luhrchroom it's so pots,the nuns'coffeebreath:consumewithout pleaslrre, zoo like sweatloffa smell Upstairs.I much better for the trip animal.It's good to be next to the bathroom. I'll be sick the next thirty or forty hours so I might as well bei hopping distance.Therourine is:cramp,run to the can,be sick,sit there exhausted,drag myself back to my seat, slump against the upholstery,cremp,run to the can. I get to be the misfit rider on this bus,the passen$ereveryone wisheswould get offat the reststop and forget tb get back on. Wouldn't they love to watch me baffed and dazed,the wretch chasingthe taillights and waving while no one on the bus saysa word? Well, I apologize for my acrid funk, but it would take more than walking down three rubbertread steps to get lost right now. I mean I'm alreadylost' alrea{y dazed.I mean the purple and red seat in front of me is arl eel-and-

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Glimmu Train Stoies

Hope spigot-patternedfactory weave,and that man in front of me is turning around.The air is beyond stale.We'relungs struggling over the sameair we struggled over hours ago. I want a cool breeze.Even a picture of a cool breeze.Blue ocean and an umbrella drink and slender fingers on the straw. So cruel, really,to bestow only eight Lifesaversper pack. Richmond,Virginia andI'm alreadydownthosethreesteps beforethe driver says,"Miss,wehaven'tcome to a full stopyet. Will you pleasere-ascendand place your feet behind the yellow line-" .lVhy doeseveryone offrcial throw all their ofiicialeseat me, and why doeshe bother sayingthe line is yellow since in this light, like everything else,it's white? When he says"yet" it comesout more like "yit," which comesout like a racial slurHey,youstupidyit, welcome to my bus,nowget of andgo backwhere youandyoursmellcamefrom, anddon'teventhink aboutlookingfor a betterlife. But the airbrakes finally fart: wete no longer moving. There's that specialI refuseto lookat you from the driver, who's staring through his giant windshield like het facing deep spacefrom the StarshipEnterprise.LikeI refuseto look at you so therefore you arenot there.Last stepdown, then I slide through a streakof southern mud. Like soup.Bad associations for sick me. This rest stop is dinging pinball machines and white butts spilling out of bluejeansat the counter. I am sour. My teeth feel scraped.The passengerswander through the gift shop aislesand disappear.I hear a cat meowing in that ass-in-the-air, belly-scraping-groundway.But theret no signofa cat in here. No sign of a crouching female beggar, whiskers after any fellow she can find. Unstoppable,though, that yowling. Reminds me, terribly, of Boyfriend and junior-high-school knees,strange bookbags thrown on top of my clothes. So I

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JaNn MaRrtN decide to call Dad.There's alwaysthe chance he'll say,You're where?I didn'tmeanthat. Then what? His daughter'sdescendingthe country in a bus. There'salwaysthe chancehe'llbe angryas rn,I'm disappointed. And then, the comein personto saygoodbye. Youcouldat leasthave chanceof suspicion.As in, Who areyou with?WLtydidn't you to you? cometo seeme?Then the obvious:What happened But to askthat would not mean he wanted the answer.And this, for some reason,makesmy eyeswell up, makesnilecramp and curl in on myself:I grab amagazinerack for balance'The body agreeswith the mind, occasionally.Andwe're supposed to feel good about that. My luck is that there'sa phone booth down the aisle,so I can closethe door and be alone.My luck is that theret a man in the phone booth. He's bigger than he should be and he'.s closed the door anyway.He looks like he just had a double stack with a side of sausageand sunnyside-up soft, rwo cups black,bring me home fries.My luck is that he now appearsto be arguing and working up a post-digestivesweatMy luck is that he slamsthe receiverand wrenchesopen the door, and doesn't apologize when he knocks into my shoulder, stomping his way back to cup number three of black, a cruller for dessert. He was,while in this cubicle,this public cubicle,redolent. The air is slurry. The receivert slurry. Plastic, they say,can never really be cleaned.Youhave to abradeit.-Which is what in the emergencyroom, I do to my arm once they suggested, I'm ready to look for a job. I didn't understand, at firstthought they were suggestingI braid my arm. Like hair.They corrected rne." A- brade,"they enunciated.They stretched out my right arm and ran a gloved finger over the bad spots.I flinched."Unlike the pain you alreadyput yourself through," they said,"thispain will be worth something." No discountson that kind of logic.

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Hope Phone-booth door cracked for oxygen's sake,piped-in country music seepsinto this tiny chamberwith it. My luck is that my father says,"From who?" to the operator'sdrawl: she made my name sound more like Hole then Hope.At the last moment,when she'sabout to disconnect,he says, "Oh.Yes.I'll accept." "Dadl'I say."I took your advice.I'm really on my way to Florida. ['m on the bus." I expected,likeI said,this kind of silence.Thereta cello and piano thing going on in the background.Very dignified and Bostonian. "Dad? Don't be mad. I really meanr it.About retiring. I've lived so fast. I mean you can only move through life at a certain speedwithout needing to stop for a rest." Dad? I can seehim, sitting by the rotary phone, its heavy receiver a familiar weight in his hand. Heb perhapsin the middle of a snackof cheddarcheese,apples,tea.Het perhapsin slippers. He haskept up the rudiments oflife's daily ebbsand flows. He is unsure,perhaps,ofwhat he'shearing.He hasperhapsgorten up from a nap to answerthe phone. He naps,sometimes,flat on his back on the bed.A disturbingposition ro view from the position of a young woman burning with life in the doorway. My feet, I notice now are cold, the toes numb-I wish I had those wool socks.As I think that, perhapshe is rhinking this; My daughter is aging me, righr now "Dad.tlk to me.I got the ticket and I'mjust headedsouth for a little while to warm up. I'm on my way. It feels good. FIow are you?" "Well," he says."I can't saythat I am used to your acting on the advicebestowedupon you. I cant saythat." "I thought it was great advice," I say."Even if you were kidding around." "Can't sayyou've ever acted on the advicebestowedupon

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JnNa ManrtN you when I wasn't kidding around." 'Just think of it this way,Dad. Regardlessof the mbthod, it worked." "I suppose."His voice trails off. I'm the good daughter, reeling him back. "I'm in a rest stop,Dad.It's full of people." "And what is your scheduledarrival?" "A few days?I'm not sure." "And it is comfortable?And relaxing?" "Leave the driving to us, as they say'' "You'll get some "Then it soundslike a good idea,"he says. for when yolr're back color on your face,which will be nice here."

'We're back in our usual mode, and his laugh saysJr{Il\ well with theworldafterall, soI'll just hangup on this happynote.He's such a good fellow, such a pat-on-the-back kind of man, it's heartbreaking.My modesdy witty father in his uirdershirts and trousers,the failed filmmaker turned projectibnist, my mother alwaysa picture burning up the film. He wai running the camera at a Cambridge art house the night she left. Showing,he'd saylater,La DolceVita.Shecalledhi4 up to say goodbye and caught him in the middle of changing reels,and

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Climmqr Truin Stories

Hope But it\ notpity I'm after. Itt hope. I'm not wallowing. I'm merely recollecting.For those ofus who areborn into this kind ofworld,we live in this kind of world. Do not think we dwell on it.We just tell these storiesinsteadof other stories.Instead of the kind where dotry Aunt Gert cameforThanksgiving and forgot to turn the oven on to cook the turkey,or where we were all headednorth for a sufflrner vacation andDad took a wrong turn and drove the Dodge right into a pond in the darkThere\ strawberry jam in the treadsof thefloot. It's not red but smells sweet and rerninds me not ofjam, but peanut butter. Since I hate grape jetly, I've alwaysrequested strawberry and someone on this bus at some point-not on this trip but another trip, a recent one to who knows wheresomeone out there agreeswith me about strawberry jam. Against the rubber this patch ofjam rakeson a faint sheenin a kind of lace pattern, and perhapsif you could scrapeoft-the Iayer of shoe dirt there'd be that perfect red undernearh.A perfect red spot teeming with micro activity. Healthy, rusharound cells.I've gone through nearly all the money in jar, berweenthe one hundred and something the applesauce dollars for the one-way ticket and the assortedsnacksin Richmond.And that guy sitting in front of me, the one with the teeth,haswoken up again,and is playing that just-aboutto-speak gameIVhich meansI haveto play the just-about-to-ignore-yourexistencegame,which meansa split-secondturn of my head to a farawaypoint he can't see,which turns out to be the luggagerack abovethe seatsacrossthe aisle,where there is an open bag of white bread,and slicesjostle out of the bag, one at a ume"Hum," the man'sjust said.So he'sprobably undaunted this time, bold from being cooped up, renewed from sleeping.

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JaNa ManrtN Maybe I've got a few minutes before he starts,and abthe bus and I've nevel staredat bumps over the road the slicescascade, falling white bread harderThe second time my dad drove into a pond in thd dark, he did it on purpose.He was also headedon vacatiori,but the kind of vacation you don't return from. Bitterly disappointed becausethe pond was a shallowpuddle of muck ifitead of a lake, he ruined the car but not his iife, just set himlelf back, ashamedand carless."Afterall," he'd saywhile waiti4g for the insuranceman to call him back,my father sitting by the rotary phone in the kitchen, its black face with that circlp of little circles,all numbered and lettered with the predigital gfliciency of a kinder, paper-basedtime. "It was a good car. I lnay have erred in judgment, but I could still usethe car.After all,it got me where I neededto go." And I d say,to make a little joke in our dry way "If that's where you want to go." How I knew he was low? Insteadof humor he juot saw the he said,stabbingthe column$of insurtragedy."Itt hopeless," pencil stub."I'm not meantto be dramatic. with his ancecosts I'll leave the fancy exits to your mother and you'" Itgacy, I'm thinking,on thecanagainin the busbathroom, I mean here I am.There's a woman in a wig waitihg for me outside.Sheknocked a minute ago,thenjust openedthe door and stood there, squinting through marvelous grreen eyeglasses. She said,"You a girl or a boy?" Here come the stampedingissuesof hygiene.WdreI a boy, would she feel reduced to using what might asrwell be a urinal? Or would shefeel relievedto know I'm a giil, and she's once again escapedmale frlth? This is not my fathbr's idea of fancy.I hope he never finds out about this-the arrh of it, you could say.Or the vein of it.The damp armpit of itladding its funk to the whole gang of scentsin the unmovin$ air.

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The womant lips are coral colored,a lifelessglossthat adds to my gut cramp. She held the door open while I took a secondto think of an answer.Girl or boy?I thorght of Boston, the writhing nights. I have friends rhat could tweak her

worldview with a garter snap:sex doesn't alwaysmake you know what you are.Her voice crawledinsidethe dirty cup of my ear. She could've asked,You take bathsor showers? Same dlfference,Iwould've said.My hair's short from getting singed on the stove,then hacked off. I was too gone to light my cigarettewith a match so I leanedover the burner,then went nuts with a scissorsfiying to cut our the melts, lightbulb filaments clinking in the bulb. "Guess,"I saidto the lady. She said,"Orly girls make people guess.So you,re that, right?"

Fall 1999

JaNa MRRTIN Why answer the inquiries of unanswerablepeople?Why look her squarein the eyeswith a mouth full of sallow taste and a gut full of cramp?My father, condemned to bb a good man, might enjoy this moment for its comedy, if tre could view it from a distance,which is the only way I d qver want him to seeit. 'oHaven'tcheckedlately,'I saidto her."But I think need to lI continue with this?" She realizedshe was addressingsomeonewith ttleir pants down and asI fumbled with the roll ofpaper, shedu(ked back and slammed the door. I've never so treasuredthe flrivacy of two squarefeet of space,gently rocking asthe bus doversthe road.But she'sstill there,I know. I can hear her shoe$,sticking to the patch ofjam. In Brunswick,Georgia,themansittinginfront of ne getsluphk guf again. Here it comes. I'm sweating a pickle smell. H[s arm is pressingso hard into the bus seatthat the cushion bpwls like a calf."Hey," he saysin a too-bright voice."Here's a question. What would you do if you were on a beach, sfy Miami Beach_" "I've never been there," I say."That's why I'm gding." "'Well,just wait.Just sayyou're at arrybeach.Thef're all this way. Debris washing up. Flots sam, right? I mean, Sam?I rr Some people will do about ar "All right," I say,not wantin the quickest way to end this ir "You're walking," he starts," the sand." "'W'hat?" "You're walking, and you find a used rubber' A prophylacticl'

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Hope "I know what they are." "'Well you'vejust found one on the beach." "Dont people usuallybury them?" "Hey, I'm working out a theory here,so can I finish?" "Sure,"I say. "I mean there'ssomethingabout it, see?" "(Jgh." I feel like acting the prude. My father would like that. "No. I meanyes.Of course.Butthink. Considerthis.There's somethingabout it. It's got somethingin it." "Sure does,"I say. "No.W'ait. Seeyou look at it, and you realizethere'ssomethinginside it thatlooks kind of like money.Yourealizeit'sgot money in it.A bill." "Not a chance,"I say."FIow did it get there?" "A fifty-dollar bill in it.You can seethe number5-plys. Q." "Impossible," I say. "No, really.It'sgot a big bill inside it.You don'r haveany idea why.But there it is. Fifry smackeroos.Now.What do you do?" "Oh," I say."That's a hard one." "Well it was," he laughs,"but probably not anymore.Anyway, what? Would you try ro ger it? Would you stick your fingers in there?Would you stick something else in there? Would you risk it?" "That's a tough one,"I say,stalling.Het happy that he'sgot my attention.He's h"ppy that he'smade me think. I wonder how long it took him to come up with the question.Maybe he rides busesdaysand nights andjust thinks up things ro ask people, feeling like he's some sort of Grand lJnsettler, his purpose in life being to shakeour the truth. Maybe he heard the whole story in a bar. His eyeshave that glint of someone who knows his question to be perfect and unanswerable.For him,I put a stumpedlook on my face.But I can only think of one answer,the only answerI really have.

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JaNa MaanrN See,safetyis not really an issuefor me anymore.It's kind of a non-issue. It's a one-way wall climbed over. I canr'tclimb back. It's gloves,on everyone'shandswhen they have to touch me, sooner or later. "Well," I say."It's too late for me. It really is." "Right," he says. "I mean it. It wouldnt matter." There'sa pauseasmy heart slowsdown and his heaptspeeds up. I know this. I've expected this. I mean, I havent told anyone,but I knew this is the way it would be. "Hey," he says,graven now, his bluish teeth duckirrg inside his dry lips. He settlesback into his seat."The fact hasbeen recorded," he saysquietly. "I hear you, lady. Loud ahd clear. Ten-four. I hear you." His apology is kind of soothing-"And I'm sorrJr,I really trn sorry"-over and over, until I'm on the brink oFsleep. He wasthe only oneI would evertell, I decidedasmy arm heatedup.I pressedmy cheekagainstthe cool of the dark window for a distraction.Then I ttook the rest of the Percosetsso I wouldn't scratch.Scratching is life, though, isn't it? So I scratched.ThenI was sureI was making indelible marks. I scratched because I was worried. then wished it were light so I could seeif I had reasonlo worry. Not the overhead light, which I would've clicked on if I could disengagemy nails from my arm long enougt to reach up. Not that light.'What a garish sight that might be, my battle-scarredarm in the reading light. Read bad s{rape,read mess,read old betadyne.But if light filtered in fron[ the outside,I decided,if it streamedin with the new day,Id takethat. I could look at nearly anything in that light. Outside it was still dark and the bus still rumbled dlong.But there wasa very slight castto the outside,not even aicolor,just a lifting of the heaviestlayer of dark. And still insihe was all

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Hope stale air and too-long sitting, all of us in here.The clumsy whisper soundsof heavypeopleshiftingin the seats, the creak of the undercarriages,a baby letting out one cry, those children with their mother, pestering,"'Why can't we get offyour lap,why cant we get offthe bus?"their handsyanking into her hair. Finally it\ Orlando,and orangegrouesand horse farms. The bus takes me down this coast,traveling away from the freezing rain, the puritan looks on the T. I'm an escapee descending into nitrate canals,green lawns, unnameable birdflocks, the rays of new sun. In the lull of wheels and transmissionshift and the slight seepageof carbon monoxide from the engine,just enough to soothe,I have made alist ofall the jobs I am willing to take. -Waitress, pet-shop clerk, cage cleaner at a zoo, lunchbag stuffer for bad children at a center. ticket-taker at moviessullen but glamorous in a dingy booth. There are so many wonderful things to do if only you imagine yourself a neophyte starlet,doe-eyed and ignorant of your own past fwenfy years.To have such little dreamstakes serious revision, takes serious No, Dad,just let meget somewhere frst and then I'll get somewhere beyondit. I will jerk orangejuice inro cone cupsar a drugstore.I will dust offboxes of envelopesin the five-and-dime.I will time dental X-rays. I will rotate the chickensroastingon the supermarket rorisseriefor the retireesto buy, so they can gum the soft meat and get someprotein, which everybodyneeds. My father will be proud of me. He will forget his tragic yearsand he will not be interestedin the waysI havefailed.He will not pry.He willjust be proud ofhis blood and the way he upbroughtme. And me,whenI land,I will not think of myfatherin themuckpond,

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JaNa MaRrlN tragically averting his own end, or those wool socksstretched by thieving feet, or the pant-less girls nodding oud on my bed, Boyfriend looking at them puzzled,asking me,Can you get rid of her? I mean, I will remember. But therelwill be something else, more simply spelled out and dlawn in brighter colors,like a primer on how to grow up, wi(h words IrkeJood,house,ntoney,jo6.'Weretaught well, don't Jyousee, when wete still young. Think of those black-letterdd words next to the happy pictures. If we only knew how ] to obey them. SeeSpotrun. SeeHope try. We're ready to live our way right out of kindergalten. But we have to wait for everyone elseto step aside,and dont you know it, they don't always.Or they step asideso far fhat they

with the quartet, as I crawled up the calico wallpaler in my bedroom. Massachusetts Here I am, a girl on a bus.My eyesare getting usbd to this

buses,their long, shiny sweep of brilliant tin, that rudning dog on the side stretchinghis legsfar ashe can.I am hdadingfor the land of smocks and weekly wages,for the land of swimming pools. I am heading for the land of paper ba$sfor kids with sunburned nosesand grubby hands. My father,I'm sure,will make up a nice story abopt me. She Sheis learninghflu to run a is on her way to a teachingcertificate. Always of children,mydaugh)ter' nurseryschool.Shewasohaaysfond them,shefeh. Good man. My father, thd cardigan understood innocent,sustainedon Quaker Oats.

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Hope Looking at the orange groves,the grazing horses,the snug buildings and little people here and there, the floral, chemical scentsleaking through the vents, I vow to find my father a sweetwife.That'swhat he needs.Itt beenlong enough.I dont know if I'll ever want the icy ab again,or if I'll missthar bleak northern ciry. And my father, he needs someone.A woman rooted so tightly ro rhe earth that her way of being upseris to make a giant ham, stick pineapple rings on its sideslike big bug eyes,and to weep like a collie over the glaze.S" J

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'LYNNE

SHanoN ScHwRRrz

Lynne Sharon Schwartz

AcclaimeilnouelistLynne SharonSchwartz'stnostretentbook, Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books (BeaconPrels,7996), is a slim but powerful memoir that exqtloresanil hbnors that

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Writer in 1990), and The Fatigue Artist. She has alsowritten two collectionsof short stories (Acquainted with the Night azd The Melting Pot), as well as a book of nonfution (.s/e Are Talking About Homes: A Grear University Against lts Neighbors), and a children\ book (The Four euestions, d/lustrateil by Ori Sherman).Schwartz liues anil works in New York City.

I thoroughlyenjoyedRuinedby Reading, asa compulsive reader myse$Did you har.'ethe ideafor this bookin youfor a long time? Well, it cameabout in a funny way.Actually,I wrote it out of a kind of desperation.Right around when Itauing Brooklyn was published-1989-I didnt know what ro wrire next. I thought I'd written myselfour, that I didn't havea subject.So I pondered,well, whar do I know? And the only thing I came up with wasreading.AndI decided,'Well,I'llwrite something about reading,justout of the blue, and seewhat happens. And it becamethis long, meanderingpiece that just went here and there-and I let it, becauseI didn't haveanything else to do. It becamean essay, which was published in Salmagundi, a literary magazinethat comes out of Skidmore College.And that was that.Then, yearslater-last year or a year or so agoan editor at Beacon Presswrote and askedwhether I would considerexpandingthe essayinto a book. My initial reaction was,"No, I've saidall I can sayabout it." But I thought it over and-to make a long story short-I did it. I didnt know exactly how to expand the piece, so I began opening it up like an accordion. If I saw a place where something could be expanded,Idid it. Soon it doubled in size.The whole challengebecame:Could I keep it to the point, to the theme of reading, and yet make it so digressivethat it was partly autobiographical, part hterary criricism, part rumination.That waswhat I enjoyedabout it.And now that it's done

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Interview:LvNNE SHRRoN ScHrvaRrz I think I couid double it in sizeagain;thereareso manf places where I could go into more detail.Thebook could beqomean infinitely expanding universe:my whole life looked dt under the aspectof reading. Youlearnedto readat a veryyoungagr--threeanda haflThe girl who livedupstairstaughtYou? Yes,I remember it well. She was about eleven.It w4 a t\rvof"-ily house and we would stand in the hallway on the landing. She would write letters on the blackboard'put I'm not sure reading so early is a good thing, asI imply ifi' Ruined by Reading.Itwas too soon.There are probably otherlpatterns

without reading,I might have become a di{ferent Pfrson' A Little Princeis and the 1r Ruined by Reading you discuss "flashof recognition"yougetfrom otherswho wereffixpd by that you. bookasa child.lt wasa piuotalbooleJot Yes,it was!I've had many encounterswith it. I rea{ it many times as a child. And then about eight or so years dgo I was askedto do an afterword for the new Signet edition' po I went back and read ic again. Of course' as I've mentioned, I was a little horrified at its implicit politics-very incorrecit! Never-

As a child I senseda disparirybetweenwho I feltll was and who I was perceivedto be, or who I was being genftYpushed into being.I was very conflicted'Yet here was this Child who had no doubt about who shewas.Evenifshe remaiiled in rags

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Writer for the rest of her life, shefelt shewas a princess.Her integrity wasjust immenselytouching. At onepoint ireRuine d by Reading yousdythatwhatyou loue to readisn't necessarily what you end up uniting.That the subject chooses you-and euenthestyle. It's true that the subjectof the story choosesyou. But it's the style even more. I wrote about this in connection with Natalia Ginzburg, who wanted to write very lush prose,yet writes extremely spareprose.Bruno Schulz,a Polishwriter who died inWorldWar II, is a very fantasticaland wonderful writer. His work is rooted in the banal, as my writing is, but he lifts his subjectup out of the banaluntil it becomesvery surreal-an act of levitation.And I think, why can't I do that? But you sit down to write and what comesout comesout. I don't mean you don't have any control-there's a lot of revision. I'm an obsessiverewriter. I love the rewriting process.Still, the result is not totally under the writer's control. In an interviewin AYoice of One's Own [HoughtonMffiin, 19901 you said that you made yourselfa twiter. I found thk intriguing,sinceso manypeoplethink writersarejust born to it. Oh well, actuallyI do, too.You have to be born with some sort of gift. Nowadays the writer's training is excessivelydemocratized.Thousands and thousandsofpeople arein writing programs-and that'sfine. It's better for them to be doing that than sitting at computersor getting MBAs. But there'sa sense that if you go to school and are diligent and practice,you'Il succeedat it. And that's not exactly true. There has to be somethingthere to begin with. For example,I could go to arr school for twenty yearsand neverbecome a painter. When I said,"made myself a writer," what I meant was that I didn't grow up among writers. I didnt have mentors. I was really not in a milieu that had anything to do with writing, althoughmy parentsrespectedbooks.I neverknew a writer. I just knew I wanted to do this.It was asif that liG wassome-

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lnrerview:LyNNB SHanoN ScHwanrz where and I had to find it and enter it. I had to breaklinto it. How did you breakinto it? Well, I had alwayswritten. Since I was about seven I had planned to be a writer. But it was an imaginary thing, you know? I would do this.It would happento me.And ! wrote. But I rarely did anythingpractical about it like sending my work to editors.I wasbrought up at a time when wompn were very passive.Theidea wasthat your life would happen to you, that a girl didnt have to do anything.You would get married, you would have children. And these things do tend to happen-well, not so much anymore, but they did then.'We lived in the passivemode.We didnt go out and make our lives. I did editorial work.I worked in Boston attheWriter magazine. I worked in Harlem at a fair-housing prograqn.I did public -relations writing. I did pro ofreading.I taught fteshman comp at Hunter College. And I did some translatiohs.I did lots of things.But none of it waswriting.And then I went to graduate school. My almost-doctorate was in cor4parative literature. 'When the women's movement began I was in my late twenties, early thirties. And I watched the way my husband pursued a career.It came over me that if I was going to be a writer, I would have to lo something about it. Go Out there and do it. So,I droppedout ofgraduateschool.I decidednow or never.I knew that I wasnot a scholar;I was getting ill at the thought ofwriting a thesis.I thought t d drop out for a year or so and write a novel.And I did, and I liked it so much I never went back to school. I had one or two storiespublished,but the first big thing was which wasnot, in 1974,what it is now. It in the NewRepubllc, was more like the Nation.Doris Gtumbach was ttre literary editor, and she was wonderful. She took a piece of mine, a Watergate satire,and she published it. And then I began to review for them. From then on I was ... changed.I went at it

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Writer with a vengeance.This was an amazing turnabout. I was turning away from the whole way I had lived. In that sameinterviewyou said that aroundagethirty-twoyou decided that you couldeither"begoodor bea writer." Yes,well, thatb a harderone.I'm gettingbetter at it.You can't be nice and pleasepeople and alsobe a writer. It's very hard to overcomethe desireto please.Womenare brought up to be nice, take care of things, smooth things over,be ladylike, etc., etc.It takesendlesswork to undo that.It goesso deepthat you can be intellectually quite awareof it and yet keep doing it.It becomes a reflex, like using your fork instead of your hands. You do it and later you realizewhat you've done and you can't undo it. Do youfeel this held you backin your writing? Did you worry abouthurtingpeople's feelings? No, I wouldn't say that. I alwayswrote what I wanted to write. But it was a struggle to feel free enough to write it. During the writing process,I would have to constantlybeat back feelings of "That isn't very nice," or "'What would my mother think?" I knew enoughto say,"Oh,forget all that."But it made the writing processlonger,more arduous. Youknow that theyusedto saya womdncouldeitherbea writer or hauea family. Was that muchof an issue for you? Finding the solitudethat beinga writer requires? It's very hard.There'sno way of glossingit over.Itt veryvery difficult. At this point my children aregrown,but still they'reof course-more important than my work.And that'show it is. It's a very hard question.'When they were little it was a constantstruggleto find time and,even more, the spacein my mind.And that'sstill a struggle.Ithink that a woman who has children can never give herself as totally to her work as a woman who doesn't.I sometimesthink back through history: -Were there any great women writers with children?And I've been unable to find any.Of course,the way history is written

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Interview:LyNNE SHaxoN ScuwaRrz we don't know ... but those whom we know didn't have children and families.And in this generation,itt too early to tell who will be the great ones,the enduring ones. the energy It's hard.And it will continue to be hard,because comes from the sameplace.Yougive the samekind of profound engagement to the writing and the children. It's not like being a waitress and being a writer. It comes from a different part of your mind. yourselfa writer? When did youfinally consider I don't remember.I guess after a couple of books. It's a constantquestion.If you're not doing it right now you don't feel you're a writer. But that's more of an existential issue.As far asprofessionally-yes, I know I am, and I knew that after a coupleofbooks. Whileyou weregrowingup theallureandthemysteryof bookswas howit wasdone,onceyqu'dbeen importanttoyou.Onceyoulearned on the otherside,did it losesomeof the mystery? No, although there are some writers for whom I think it does.'Whenyou know how something is put together,or you want to find out,you begin to read very carefully and analytically,and you're not ascaught up in the mystery and glory of the story.I dont do that. I do read asa writer, but I can always losemyselfin that childlike way.I get carried along and either don't pay attention to the technical aspects,or I'm registering them-as in, "Oh yes, she'sdoing this, she'smanipulating 1[is"-fs1 it doesn'tinterGre.I hope I neverlose that ability. Nowadays, academics-especially the ones who are into deconstructionand so forth-seem to go so far into the intellectual, cerebral analysisof a book that they lose the senseof what a book is, that a book is supposedto transport1rou,take you out of yourself, do something to you that you cannot analyze. Of course you can endlesslyanalyzea work of art. But the core of art has to be mysterious.That'swhy it mattersto us:

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Writer becauseitt something that is new and unresolvedevery time. It's something you've never experienced before no matter how many booksyou've read.Andthe wonder ofit is that you a wondont know what it is or why it is.It just happens.It's derful thing that happens.Andwhen you try to explain it away you're performing, really,an act of murder. ls the novelreallyyourpreferred Jorm? Actually, I used to think I preferred short stories because you can encompassthem with the rnind.The novel is a dangerousform.You're very much at sea,becauseyou go out for fi,vo,three yearsor more in this big, vastspace.It's like being in the ocean or a desert.Youdont know where it will end and where it will takeyou.And it's a little terrif ing.Although I've done it five times now. A story is finite;you can seethe end.And it's not that I need the immediate gratification-it's that rny mind can hold the whole thing at once, whereaswith a novel you can't keep all the words in your head at once.You alwayshave to go back and seewhat you've said.So a story is a little safer.But I've been doing more novels.I'm getting braver. [Laughs] How doesa noueltakeshapeforyou?Do youstartwith a character? Or is it dfferentfor eachone? Right, each one has been difGrent.'With the first one I wrote, BalancingAcrs-which was actually the secondone that waspublished-I was still very tentative.It hasa plot, which is very unusualfor me. And I had an outline.I had it mapped out. It's somethingI don't think I could do now, becauseI'm much more loose about the whole process.But I guessI neededan outline at the beginning to keepmyselfin order,to staveoffthat terror. And the secondone,RoughSfrgft,grew out of short stories. I had written five related short stories, and an editor, Ted Solotaroff,wantedme to do a novel basedon the stories.What I did waswrite a novella with the samecharacters.and then. at

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Interview:LYNNS SgRnoN ScnwaRrz his suggestion,Iinsertedthe storiesinto the novella.It took on an entirely different shape.Now I think of it asa hothouse novel,in the sensethat it wasvery contained,not overwrought, but very heated.And there are only rwo characters. Disturbances in the Field,my third one, is a long novel.The germ was an idea, and it built up from there. And then the idea,of course,was changedcompletely in the courseof the writing. I wrote partsasthey cameto me, and then I fit them togetherlater.I had thirteen long sectionsand I spreadthem out on the floor. It was like architecture:'Whatorder should they be in?'What design? LeavingBrooklynwas almost easy,like one long breath.And the last one,The FatigueArtisf, grew out of anecdotespeople told me. I would write them down, and, again, try to piece them together,changing them and arrangingthem to make themfit. Do you write dffirHow do you think your rutitinghasevolued? matter? ently now,in termsof *yle, or evensubiect Well, I try to do different things with each novel, becauseI wasa conventionalnovel with a plot. get bored.BalancingActs Now, RoaghSrrl;&was publishedfirst. So the critics'reaction was:'Well, here was this lovely, elegant, sophisticatednovel, and then comesthis conventional,realisticnovel.What'swith her? in the Field was an all-out, big, family-tragedy Disturbances novel.Some people thought it wasbasedon my life, which it is not.And after that I thought,"'Well, I've gone as far asI can with the family novel. So,what next?" ln lxaving BrooklynI used a new voice. It was in the first person, a wry cool, self-reflectivevoice. I was almost playing with the narcator:Do I really remember this or am I making it up? I playedthis sort ofmind game,makingthe story sound like a memoir. I enjoyedthe idea of inventing a narrativevoice so convincing that people would mistake the novel for a

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Writer memoir. And then The FatigueArtisttookthatvoice and that mode a little further. Leaving Brooklyn was short, and it did not exhaust-the way Disturbances in theFieldfor me exhausteda certainform. I dont meanfor the world; I meanjust for me. So, The FatigueArtist took it even further, and now I've had enough ofthat. The next one,which I've just finished,is somethingdifferent. It's a comedy of manners.When I began, I knew the beginning and I could foreseethe end.'Whattroubled me was the middle. But after a couple of diflicult years,it found its shape. Writing doesn'tget easier,becauseeach challengeis new But I write with a little more confidence. I'm more aware of what I can do. There's a little more relaxation. I know that when I get to those moments, as everybody does,of ..My God, I'll neverget pastthis snag,"one way or another,a month or two, I'll get pastit. I havethat confidence. At this point I feel a lot ofpossibilities and forms are open ro me. I've been writing more poetry. I've been writing essays, especiallysincefiction is not... I don't want to use the word "demand" or"market"-but publishersaredoing lessfiction. And my fiction hasoften tended to soundlike an essayanyway. Are thereanyparticularessays you,reworkingon? Yes,they're kind of like meditations. I did an essayabout telephonesthat cameout in Salmagundi,and itt in a Graywolf collection about the effects of technology on writers and readersat the millennium. It's called Toktoy\ Dictaphoneand,is edited by Sven Birkerts. What I do is take a very common aspect of life, something so ordinary that we hardly think about it, and do an anatomyof it. I did this with,,Help," about hiring a cleaningwoman.I did this in a piece about beggars.I seebeggarsevery day,at leastin our large cities,but we don't think about what they mean.So now I've done telephones.

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lnterview:LYNNP SHanoN ScgwaRrz What is our relation to the phone?I'm hoping to do rnore of theseand then make a whole book of them-anatomies of ordinary things. don'tuselonghand? Do you work on a computer?You Oh, I mostly write in longhand, especiallyfiction. But then I put it on the computer.It's easierto print it out' I print a lot! I like to see the work. Seeing it on paper makes a big difference,particular\ asI'm very interestedin the pacing of things-how long things are. For instance,how long is this description as opposedto that description?I like to seethe balance,the proportion, where the words are being allotted, becausethat's a reflection of their relative importance, their priority in the piece. do you keepwhenyou unite? What kind of schedule Thati hard to answer.I have a studio that I work in: it's about a mile away from my apartment. Ideally' I get up, get organized,andgo there for the better part of the day.But lately everything'sbeen so disjointed that I don't really keep to it. When things settledown I supposeI will.I try to go there as I would go to ajob. Otherwise I wouldn't get any work done. Writing is not somethingyou do whenyou're in the mood. Peoplealwayssay,how do you find time to write? It's really the amateur'squestion becauseit missesthe point. The point is how do I find time to do anythingelse?Youdont aska doctor how he finds time to take care of parients-thatk what he does. growingup'There Yousaidyou didn't haveany modelsor mentors you encourdged you, wereprobablysomepeople,though,who helped in someway. There were a few. Not a whole lot- Right after I got a master'sdegree at Bryn Mawr, I moved to Boston because my husbandhad a job there.So,I found myselfin Boston at the Writer magazinewith this wonderful woman whot still editing it-sylvia Burack.Shewas a kind of model' She'snot

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Writer primarily a writer; she's an editor. She was a professional woman back then, thirry or more yearsago.She must have been in her forties,with three children,she and her husband running two magazines,in the oflice every day.A woman of unparalleled enerry and spirit and intelligence.Watching her and getting to know her wasan inspirationto me. Shewasan example of how hard a woman could work and how successfulshe could be. And she certainly did not hide her intelligence. But she was not a role model as far as being a writer. Then, there wasTed Solotaroff. I was alreadywriting when I met him. I had publishedfive sroriesabout this couple in Rough Strlfe-Ivan and Caroline. He called and invited me ro make a book out of these stories. And he was my editor through six books: an example of loyalry encouragementjust marvelous.He stoodby me at a time when I reallyneeded it.Justthe thought that I had the attention and the support of suchan eminent personmademe feel my work must be good. There was that. But he wasn't a role model, becausehe was a critic and an editor,not a novelist,and certainlynot a woman novelist. Thesewere good people.I'm surethere were others.I had friends who wrote, but they were like me*just startingout. Aside from the fwo peopleI mentioned,thepeoplewho were my mentors were dead.I mean the writers who influenced me were deadpeoplewhom I had readsinceI wassevenyears old.And they were the people that I looked to, really. Nowadays,young writers expect a good deal of help.They all have teachers,and they certainly use the teachers.Many times I think that when they rewrite they wish you d standby and guide their hand. I don'r know if that'sbad or not. I just know that I didn't do it that way.And one tends to think that things shouldbe done the way you yourselfdid them.Which is not necessarilytrue.'Why,just becauseI had it hard,should

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Interview:LyNNE SHaRoN ScHwanrz others?But sometimesthingsthat arehardwon . . 'you possess them more firmly.You know they're yours. You'uenotedminimalismasa trendthatyou'renlt dll that crazy about. It's true, I don't especiallyenjoy it. I go to reading for an experienceof richnessand intrigue and I dont find that in minimalism.Besidesthat,it'snot fun to read.I don't meanthat I rather like depressingbooks.By fun I mean it's depressing; that it doesn'tgive you the pleasuresof reading,the sort of rich, panoramic sweep-the whole battery of what language can do. In many ways it is like an acrobatwho jumps up and down, and that's the only trick he knows.'Whereasa writer like Proust does everv trick in the book. And thatt what I edoY. I understandthe aestheticof minimalism: seeinghow large an effect you can wring out of very small means.It might work in the handsofa very good writer like Raymond Carver' yes.But there aren't too many Raymond Carvers out there. Mostly what you get is small meansand small effect. I alsothink that therei somethingnot true about it in that I don't perceive life as minimal.I think life is pretty terrible not an optimist-but it's also rich and full and difiicult-I'm and soupy and frothing over with sometimes awful, sometimes beautiful things.There'sa lot happening,and minimalism doesnot reflectthat abundance.So when I readit I think:This is not the world I know. Doeswriting,and living asa writer,helpyou acceptthings,give a asyou'vesaid readingdoes? contextto euents, Reading does.I'm not surewriting does.I cant compare, becauseI've nevernot been a writer. I've alwayshad the need to put things into words.If somethinghappensto me, it's not quite real until I've recreated it in words. I think in words. Realiry life itself, is not quite real to me without the words. I don't think this helpsme acceptthings.Actually,Idon't think

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Writer writers havean easiertime, or a hardertime.Writing is simply their way; it's a different way. I don't like the notion that writers are specialpeople.Just asI saidearlierthat there'sbeen a democratizationof the arts and yet you do need some talent,on the other hand, I don't believe writers have deeper feelings, more profound thoughts,or that their experiencesaresomehowmore meaningful.What writers haveis a particulartalent,like a musician, say,of using words. I don't believein exalting the artist.You can exalt the work-there are books I could worship-but never people.It's almost as if the people were the medium. Once the book exists,theyie the medium through which we've receivedthis book, this experience. The writers I know, theirlives are not easy.SometimesI Gel it's harderto write than,say,to be an accountant.But in other ways,the accountant'slife may be more diflicult. Everybody's life is hard. What aduicewouldyaugive to writersjust startingout? Well, the taskdiffers for eachperson.Youhaveto really want to write very passionately. I mean,there must be no question that this is what you wanr to do. If theret any questionlike, "Well, do I want to be a writer or would I do better in law school?"you'd probablydo better in law school.Ifyou want it badly enough,you'llfind yourselfturning down other things you want to do.But you haveto be kind ofruthlessand sayno to a lot. You have to have perseverance.And it really takes a kind of nerve-not only in what you write.The whole act is very nervy.Sometimesyou find yourselfsitting there thinking, "What am I doing?" "FIow can I saythesethings?""'W'hy2,, and,"'W-hatfor?"And you somehow have to believethat itt worth i,.d" -[

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Lee Martin I still louethinkingthat wishescancometrue. HereI am,nearlythree,sittingon thewishingwell yard. in mygrandmother's

Lee Martint story collection was the winner of the 1995 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, and was published by SarabandeBooks. His stories have appearedin journals such as ClimmerTiain, Srory,the CeolgiaReuiew' and Double Thke, and his memoir, From Our House,is forthcoming from Dutton. He teachesin the creative-writingprogram at the University of NorthTexas and is the editor of the Auetican LiteruryReuieu

d,*rr

y the time Miss Caseyand Mr. Satohad crossed the highway and walked down the gravel road to the lake,the sun had dipped behind a stand of pines, and they rested a moment in the shade.Neither of them mentioned the red Corvette convertible pulled offonto the grassor the fact that the doors were open and the engine was running, and one shoe,a penny loafer,was hanging from the gearshiftknob. Mr. Sato dabbed at his forehead with the white squareof a folded handkerchief. "V.ry hot today,"hesaid,soundingeachconsonantwith his precisediction."Ninety-eight. I heard on my transistorradio." Each Friday, when they walked the mile and a half from Miss Casey'srooming house to Lake Charleston,Mr. Sato listened to his radio, and they didn't speak.He kept the radio in his shirt pocket and connected the earplug. Its thin cord snakedup his neck so all that Miss Caseycould hear was the sound of their feet crunching on the gravel road, the chirring of cicadas,and from time to time, the sharp call of a crow circling overhead. They had agreed--she and Mr. Sato-rhat shewould wield the net, and he would empry the insectsthat she caughtinto the killing jar, its bottom lined with cotton soakedin ether. Togetheq back in Miss Casey'sroom, they would pin the Glimmer Train Stoies, Issue32, Fatt 1999 @1999LeeMartin

LEpMnnrtN insectsto a riker mount and label them for the entomology Casey class they were taking that summet-1966-Miss becauseher schoolboardhad insistedshefinish her bachelor's degree,Mr. Sato becausehe had served in Korea and was finally using his GI benefrts. Today,Mr. Satohad rolled the sleevesofhis white shirt to his elbows and loosenedhis necktie-a lovely necktie,Miss Casey thought, a narrow blade of blue silk with the most attractive design:a man and woman leaning againstthe rail of a ship,sea birds lifting up behind them.The woman wore a yellow dress and a yellow cloche hat.The man stood closeto her,one hand in the pocket of his trousers,hispolo shirt open at the neck. Miss Caseyrestedher butterfly net on her shoulder,and its tail hung down her back. She fancied it the train of a bridal gown, and then, thinking that a foolish notion for e woman her agewho had nevermarried,sherecalledthe meshpouches of snoodsshe had worn around her hair asa girl. How stylish they had been.How pretry they had made her feel' o'There,"Mr. Sato whispered,and Miss Caseysaw a monarch butterfly perched on a milkweed pod. She brought the net down quickly, skimmed it acrossthe milkweed, trnd swept it up in a graceful arc.She graspedthe net, her hand closing off the mouth,and therewasthe monarch,suchaprizesincethey hadjust begun to appearthere on the prairie,carried up from Mexico on their orange and brown wings, so prettily laced with black veins."Danuasplexipus,"Mr. Sato said."A perfect specimen.Welldone." They were the only people their agein a classof twenry year olds.The first day,they had sat in the back row of the lecture hatl-Miss Caseyat one end, furiously scribbling notes;Mr' Sato at the other, his elbow resting on the chair arm, his head tilted againsthis hand to hide, Miss Caseyfinally surmised,the earplug of his radio.'When it came time to pair up for labora-

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Insect Life tory partners, she looked about for someone she could choose-Mr. Sato'sradio and the way he hid it made him seema poor risk-but the others,the young boys and girls, made short work ofthe task,and in the end there wasonly Mr. Sato left for her. "-W'e'11 each have to pull our weight," she said to him, and she heard in her voice the samecoaxing tone she usedwith her fifth-graders. He bowed his head to her and smiled."Oh, yes,,'he said..,I think you will find me most he1pful." They exchangedaddresses and telephone numbers. Miss Caseyhad a room in a house on SeventhStreet where she shareda bathroom and kitchen with the other girls who lived there, all of them young coeds.Mr. Sato had a room above Ike'sPlace,a studentbar acrossfrom Old Main.A fire-escape stairwayled up from the alley to the room, he told Miss Casey. "V.ry noisy there," he said."I'm certain it would be much more quiet where you live.'Wouldyou permit me, please,to study with you?" Miss Caseycould still rememberhow ugly peoplehad been toward the Japanese-Americansafter pearl Harbor-shop windows smashed,houses burned-and now the war inViet_ nam had recalledit all. "Hank's over there killing gooks," she had heardone of the girls in her rooming housesayabout her fiancl..Betry Hopp was an elementary-education major who liked to pep up her conversationwith phrasesfrom Dr. Seuss books."He'sfighting a tweetle-beetlebattle,"shehad said.and Miss Caseyhad noted,with a touch of enrry,how the young, even when their loved ones were fighting a war, never really believedin loss. It had been the samefor Miss Casey.Asa girl duringWorld War II, she and her friends had spent their weekendsdown_ town where flyboys training at Chanute lolled about on the streetcornersand calledto them: "Hey, toots.Hey, baby.Oh, Fall 1999

LBn MnnuN you sweet thing." How easyit was to stir them; how exciting to have them watch her as she strolled by, sat on a bench, crossedher legs.She and her friends talked about how far they would let one of the flyboys go' They talked in code' "First base?"they said."secondbase?Home run?Would you let him kissyou?Touch you?Would You?" "l'd takeoffmy clothesand let him look at me," Miss Casey said."But I wouldn't let him touch me." "Naked?You'dlet him seeyou naked?Abby,you're bad'" Boy crazy.That'swhat her mother said."Abigail,you'reboy crazy.You'll get in trouble someday." Miss Casey knew what "getting into trouble" meant' It meant "getting knocked up,""p.g.," and she told hgrselfthat would never happento her. Shewould find a nice boy,and she would marry him. while her Then her farher had fallen ill-nephritis-and Casey Miss Steel, Mesker at mother worked the night shift caredfor him. Shefed him, turned him so he wouldn't get bed sores,sat with him, and sanghis favorite hymns everrthough she was tone deaf, her voice reedy and sharp. "'Well, missy,you're not chasingboys now," her mother said' "At leastwe can be thankful for that." Miss Caseybegan to believe that God had found a way to keep her from temptation. She becameearnestand somber, the sort of girl boys wouldn't notice, and when her father died and shegraduatedfrom high school,shetook the exam for her teacher'slicense,found a position, and began attending the university in the sufiuners.

The owner of the rooming house,a Mrs. Read,insistedthat "her girls" meet their gendemen callersin the sitting room or on the porch where they could study or converseor listen to music, provided it was nothing wild or loud' Mrs' Read was fond of reminding her girls that she had been married to her husband-the dear,departed Mr. Read-for forty--'gulott"tt'

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InsectLife "Choose the right man," she told them, "and you'll have nothing to regret."The one thing she wouldn't permit was hanky-panky.Therewould be no monkeyshinesin her rooms. "Why, Miss Casey,I'm not worried about you," she said when she learned that Mr. Sato would be coming. "By all means,stay up in your room where the two of you can have more quiet." Bery Hopp overheard Mrs. Read, and she said,"That 'What doesnt seem right to me. Beezlenuts! goes for one should go for all." Betty's fianc€wasa first lieutenant with an infantry unit,but it wascommon knowledge that shewasgoing out with other boys.Miss Caseyhad even seenher birth-control pills carelesslyleft on chebathroom vaniry. "Miss Caseyis a lady,"Mrs. Read said."A mature lady.Not someflibbertigibbet.I'm sureshedoesn'tneed to be chaperoned." When Miss Casey escortedMr. Sato to her room, they passedBetry in the hall. "Miss Casey and her gentleman," Betry said.Her brown hair hung straightdown her neck and turned up in a flip. Shewasn't,to Miss Casey'sway ofthinking, a particularly pretfy girl-not stunning like some of the others-but shehad learnedhow to usemakeup,and she did have the most charming smile andjust enough brassto guarantee that men would alwaysnotice her. She winked at Mr. Sato."Super-dee-dooper-dee-booper," shesaid. And then, with a swish of her skirt, she was gone, making her way down the stairs slowly, exaggerating the sway of her hips.Miss Caseynoted how Mr. Satoroseup on his tiptoesso he could watch Betryt descentaslong ashe could. The monarch butterfly struggled to open its wings against the meshof the net.And that waswhen Miss Caseyheardthe cry of a young girl, a single word called out over and over-

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LEE MaRrlN "Oh, oh, oh." It was a breathlesscry a gasp,and at first Miss Caseythought someonewas in trouble,but then it became clearto her that shewashearing a cry ofpassion.Sornewhere, deep in the pines, on the carpet of red needles,there were to monkeyshinesgoing on, and Miss Caseywas embarrassed be standing there with Mr. Sato,the two of them suddenly thrust into the roles of eavesdroppers. He had told her how afterPearlHarbor,the'WarRelocation Authority had moved the Japanese-Americansin Cdifornia to assemblycenterswhere they awaited assignmentto relocation camps.Mr. Sato,then elevenyearsold, lived for a while with his f"-ily in stable sixteen, stall fifty at the Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno before being shippedby train to a relocation camp inArkansas.Their first night atTanforan,they heard someonecrying in the stall next to theirs.Many nights, they heard this weeping and other weeping coming from other stalls, but always, when morning came and people moved about, no one said a word about the sobs that fillec theirnights. "Ninery-eight,"he saidagain.He returned his handkerchief to his shirt pocket, stu{fing it in behind his radio.He turned on the radio and disconnectedthe earplugso Miss Caseycould hearthe tinny soundofthe local station,WElU,playingan old Mills Brothers'tune,"Glow'Worm." "Too hot to be out here, Miss Casey.'Wemust take care of this butterfly at once and begin our walk back to town." "Yes,"saidMiss Casey.She was thankful for the radio music which coveredthe girl's cries."At once." It wasMr. Sato'shabit to usea pair of forcepsto removethe insectsfrom the net and then place them in the killing jar, but today he pressedthe sidesof the net togetherso the monarch was cornered,its wings folded over its back.Then, using his thumb and forefingeg he squeezedthe thorax and held it while the monarchb wings quivered.

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lnsect Life "Much quicker this way,'Mr. Satosaid. Then, from deepin the pines,the girl'svoice roseabovethe music on the radio. "Super-dee-dooper-dee-booper." And Miss Casey saw Mr. Sato lift his head and squint toward the pines,just for an instant,before he returned his attention to the monarch, which was now dead. In Miss Caseyt room, she helped Mr. Sato prepare rhe monarch for mounting. He held it by its body, being careful, she knew, not to touch the wings and take a chancethat he might brush off the delicate scalesand ruin the specimen. Often, after they had finished placing an insect in the riker mount, he touched his fingerslightly to rhe glass.Sometimes she saw her face reflected there, and she decided that her featureswere still pleasant,nearlyAsianin their delicacy-the smallnose,the thin lips,the skin that turned so brown in the summer sun. Each Friday,afterhe had gone,shetook out her watercolors and did detailedpaintings ofthe insectsthey had placedin the riker mount. Sheheld the brushsolightly ber'vveen her fingers, and asshetouched the bristlesto the paper,she capturedthe subtle colors and shapesof the insects-the thin whiskers of antennae,the frills and scallopsof wings. She had given him several of her drawings-grasshoppers and spiders and moths-and he had said the same thing every time: "Yrry pretfy." Then he had folded each drawing into fourths and placedit into his entomology rext. The room wasshadedon the eastby a largemaple tree,and even though there were hours of daylight left, Miss Caseyhad to switch on the goosenecklamp on her deskso sheand Mr. Sato could seeto their work. He swivelled his wrist and turned the monarch so its wings were down.Then he took a pin and stuck it at a right angle through the thorax."'We will need the balsawood," he said.

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LEn ManrrN and Miss Caseyfound the squarepiece shehad bought at the lumberyard, and she laid it on the desk where the light from the lamp fell. As they worked, their fingers did a delicate dance,hovering and dipping, passingstraight-pinsand forceps, and sometimesher fingersbrushed againsthis. Mr. Sato held the butterfly above the board and told Miss Caseyto gently spreadthe wings with another pin.'When she first touched the point of the pin to the paperywings and felt how easilyshecould piercethem, shethought ofBetty HoPp, though she hadn't meant to think of the girl at all. Suddenly her hand was shaking,and she dropped the pin to the balsa wood."I can't,"she said. "Can't?" saidMr. Sato."'What doesthis mean,you can't?" "That girl ..." With his free hand, Mr. Sato put his finger to Miss Caseyt lips."We must not talk about her."There was a fierce edgeto his voice that she had never heard."I knew girls in the camp like her.They ruined families."When he took his finlger away, shefelt the air move acrossher face.He picked up the pin she had dropped and used it to spread the wings apart while pinning the butterfly to the balsawood. "In the camp," he said, and now his voice was calmer, "people became better than they had been before, or they were becameworse.It wasimpossibleto staythe same.Threre would we fences,guards,dogs.'Wewere never sure whether be killed.What would you do if you thought you rnight not see another sunrise?How would you choose to live?" He took another pin and placed the point just behind the main vein of the forewing. Using the pin as a lever, he moved the forewing so that it was at a right angle to the body and then stuck the pin into the balsawood. "some becamesaints,"he said."Others became criminals." He brought up the hind wings until they just overlapped the lower edges of the forewings."I learned to want nothing so there would be

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InsectLiJe nothing more they could take from me." FIis entomology text waslying on the desk,and he opened it and removed what Miss Caseyrecognizedas one of her watercolors,which he had folded into fourths. "scissors, please,"he said. "Scissors?"shesaid."But my watercolor." "I only need a small strip.Don't worry. I won't ruin your pretty painting." He cut rwo strips from the edge of the paper and pinned them over the monarch'swings."There.'Wemust Ieaveit now for five days.Thenit will be ready for mounting. You must keep it dry. Do you understand,Miss Casey?" She made no answer.A flap of the drawing paper had lifted up from the crease, and shecould see,next to her renderingof a grasshopper, a pencil drawing.Shesawit for only a moment before Mr. Sato folded the paper and stuck it back in the entomology text, and though shecouldnt be sure,shehad the suspicionthat what she had glimpsedhad been the sketchof a naked woman, the kind of crude drawing Miss Caseyfound from time to time scratchedinto a deskin her classroom.She didnt know how to react becausethe disturbing and yet exciting thought came ro her that the drawing might have been ofher. "Five days,"Mr.Satosaidagain,and all Miss Caseycould say was yes. That evening,she stayedin her room and listened to the soundsof the girls getting readyfor their Friday-night dates. She heard water running in the shower, the whirr of hairdryers,the callsfor fingernail polish to patch last-minute runs in stockings. In the spring,sheherselfhad known the thrill of preparing herself for a man. His name was Mr. Dietrich, and he was the photographerwho came to take the classpictureseachyear. On their first date,he askedher whether she might permit

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Lrs ManrtN him to photographher.'Whenhe touched her-to unpin her hair and let it fall down her back-she let her head lie against his hand.Thenhe pinchedher cheekswith his fingersto make the blush rise up in them. He told her to moistenher lips with her tongue so they would glisten for the camera,and she did. He thought she was pretry this man who spent day after day staringat facesthrough the lensofhis camera.He thought she was pretry and she was eagerto pleasehim. 'When the girls had gone and the rooming house was quiet, she went downstairs and sat in the glider on the porch. The gathering dark was sweet with honeysuckle, and thunder rumbled in the distance. Soon Mrs. Read joined her."It's so quiet when theyte all gone, isn't it?" Mrs. Read sat in the glider, and her weight disturbed the gentle sway Miss Caseyhad managed."I don't know how you put up with them.A settledwoman like you." "Don't forget I'm a teacher,"saidMiss Casey."I'm usedto, might we say,the exuberanceof youth." "Young girls," Mrs. Read shook her head. "They don't know what we know, do they, Miss Casey?" "No, they dont know," saidMiss Casey,though what it was Mrs. Read had in mind, she couldn't say' Mrs. Read sighed."One of them, poor Miss Hopp, is about to find out." Miss Caseyfelt her heart quicken' "something's happened to Betty?" "I just had a telephone call from her mother." Mrs. Read pushed herself up from the glider."I'm afraid Miss Hopp's fiancl hasbeen killed in the war." The first time Miss Casey had taken o{f her clothes and posed for Mr. Dietrich, she had known the depth of her loneliness,and it had shakenher to think how far shemight go to filI it. Only later had she felt the shame of what she had done. and even that shame had excited her' Now she knew

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InsertLife what Mrs. Read had meant when shehad made referenceto some knowledge the rwo of them shared.Live long enough and your living would corner you. It would show you exactly what you were. In the alley behind Ike's Place,Miss Caseyclimbed the fire escapeand knocked on Mr. Sato'sdoor. She could hear loud music coming from a jukebox in the bar, the clinking of bottles,and a hum of voiceslike the frantic buzz of bees.She knocked on the door again,and, still having no answer,she shieldedher eyeswith her hand and brought her face closero the smallpane of glass. Mr. Sato was sitting at a cerdtable,his back to the door, and Miss Casey could see the cord from his transistor radio's earplug trailing over his shoulder.She knocked again,but still Mr. Sato didnt turn around.Her hand found the doorknob, and when she turned it, the door opened,and it was so easy, then, to make the few stepsacrossthe floor, reach out, and touch Mr. Sato on the back. He turned around with a start,a look of terror on his face, and the earplug fell to the table.Miss Caseyheard a faint drone of music from the radio. She imagined how frightened Mr. Sato must have been in the relocation carnp,afraidthat one night while he was sleepinga guard would wake him,whisper in his ear, "Come with me," and Mr. Sato would have no choice but to obey.Now, seeinghow shehad startledhim, she felt ashamedof her intrusion. "The door," she said.,.your radio.I knocked." On the card table were the watercolors she had done for him-moths in flight, beesatop flowers. Next to every insect she had painted was Mr. Sato'sown pencil drawing of that insect, every gentle stroke she had made answeredin kind. "Miss Casey,'hesaid,and his facerelaxedin a smile.,.you've come."

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LEr ManrrN He saidit without surprise,asif he had alreadydetermined her arrival and had only been waiting for it to take place,the way Mr. Dietrich, in motel rooms, had said,"At last," whenever she had come to him. The thought ofMr. Sato,inhis room, secretlyrespondingto her paintings-answering her passion with care and restraint-{tirred her much more than earlier,when she had believed she had glimpsed a nude drawing on the watercolor he had taken from his entomology text. He rosefrom his chair and took her face in his hands.They smelledof pencil lead and the faint scentof ether from earlier in the day when he had lined the killing jar. "I havethought of you," he said.

His voice frightened her, the Grvent strain of it, and, in that moment, sheknew the truth of him: he had storedup yearsof want, had nearly gone mad with wanting, until he had found the one personhe could trust,someonewho achedasmuch as he. She had let Mr. Dietrich take photo after photo. So many photos,so many poses.Each time, shehad told hersolfit would be the last,but she had alwaysreturned.

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Insect Lile Mr. Satobrought his facecloseto hers,mumbling her name over and over."Miss Casey,'hesaid,and shelet him kissher once beforeshebroke free,turned and ran.Shehurried down the fire escape,into the alley,thinking how foolish she had been to come. Later,in her room, she heard the girls coming home from their dates.She heard their murmured voices outside in the dark, and, from time to time, a girl said,"Oh, youi' with a naughry laugh, and then there was silence.Miss Caseyimagined the couple stealingone lastkissbefore they cameout of the shadowsand steppedup on the porch where Mrs. Read had left the light burning. It was well past midnight when Bery Hopp came home. Miss Casey had nearly drifted off to sleep when she heard Betty call out in surprise,"Foxin socks,Mrs. Read.you scared the beezlenutsout of me, sitting there in the dark." "Miss Hopp," Mrs. Read said,and then in a quieter voice, "Betty." And, after that, all Miss Casey could hear was the rumble of thunder, the wind rusding the leavesof the maple tree,and finally the slow footfall asBetry Hopp made her way up the stairs. Miss Casey listened for some sound of grief-a sob, a wail-but all sheheardwasthe creakofBetry's door shutting and then the click of her lock. Miss Casey dozed,and then woke to the sound of someone tapping on her own door. 'Abigail," she heard Bety Hopp call in a hushed voice. "Abby." And Miss Caseynearly wept, becauseit was the first time, in all the weeks she had lived in the house,that anyone had calledher by her given name. Shewent to the door and openedit, and there wasBeffy in a baby-doll nightgown, the swell of her breastsvisible beneath the sheer fabric. Miss Casey had worn lingerie for Mr. Dietrich-garter belts, stockings, flimsy G-strings. Now

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LEE ManrtN Beffy's gown reminded her of how immodest and desperate she herself had been, and all the sympathy she had been preparedto offer leached away. "'We heardyou," shesaid."Mr' Satoand I.Todayby the lake. You should be more discreet." Betty crossedher arms over her chestasif shewere suddenly ashamedto be standing there in her scanty gown. "Heard me?" she said."That Jap?I bet he got his jollies*his jorries' M"yb" you did, too." "'What a hideous thing to say''Miss Caseysharpenedher tone the way she did when she scolded one of her fifthgraders.She shook her finger at Betry."(Jgly people sayugly things." Thatt when Betty began to cry-great, choking sobsthat seemedto Miss Caseythe sound of every misery the world had ever known. Mr. Satohad told her about the railroad tracksthat ran along the edgeof the relocationcamp,justoutsidethe barbedwire. From time to time, someone would avoid the guardsand cut their way through the wire, and there, on the other side,the first freedom they had felt in months would overwhelm them and turn into despair.Wherewould they go? How would they begin their lives again in a country that despisedthem?They would lie down, their necks on the track, their heads tilted back against the ties, and they would wait for the train to come. convinced that, like their samuraiancestorswho had practicedharakiri,theywere doing the honorablething. Miss Casey opened her arms and gatheredBetty to her, feeling the percussionof the sobsvibrating in her own chest. Shefound the namesofinsects coming to her-camel-cricket, passalidbeetle, aradid, carabid, tachinid fly' She thought of butterflies: egg,caterpillar,chrysalid' Such a marvel that these creatureswho had no chanceto learn anything from a mother could manage cheir way through the world, each turn of

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Insect Life living somehow replicated though never before seen:the wasps who built complicated nests by tamping mud into pellets with the same motion other wasps had used, the monarch butterfies who knew the migratory route ro Mexico though they had never flown it. In the lastphoto Mr. Dietrich took, the one that horrified Miss Caseywhen she finally saw it, shewas lying on the bed, trussedin a black corset.Shewaslying on her side,facingaway from the camera,and though sheknew it washer-knew that she had done this thing-the terri$iing thought came to her that the woman in the photograph was a stranger,someone who must havewanted more than anything to escape.Butthat hadn't been true. Miss Casey had loved the moments-so tantalizing-when shehad listenedto the camera'sclick,wondering when it would stop and Mr. Dietrich would come ro the bed and touch her. "Abby," Betty said, and Miss Casey stood there, trying to recall the girl, Abby, who had worn her hair in a snood and imagined that sometime soon a man would notice her and they would fall in love. It began to rain. Miss Caseycould hear it in the leavesof the maple tree.Then the wind came up and the curtains billowed out over the desk. She heard a faint strain of music, a slow and dreamy dance tune, drifting up from outside, and then the sound of Mr. Sato calling to her,"Miss Casey,Miss Casey."She knew the windswept rain would fall on the monarch butterfly and ruin it. Still, she stood there, warmed by the heat of Betty's skin, thinking of the way insects,threatenedby predators,could blend in with leaves,thorns, could find just the right form to cling to, the one they knew would savechem. "Abby," Betty said again, and Miss Casey held her more tightly, there in the dark, unable to let the girl go. $

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SiobhanDowd of International PEN's Witers-in-PisonCommittee in Londonwritesthis columnregularly,alertingreadersto theplight of writers aroundthe world who deserue our awareness and our writinp action.

WriterMemorialized : SlaukoCuruuiia by SiobhanDowd

s the bombs drop in Kosovo and Serbia,and a tragedy of unimaginable proportions unfolds along the bordersof Macedoniaand Albania, it may seem a strangetime to mourn the death of one particular person,and that person a Serb. Curuvija may not have been a direct victim of ethnic cleansing,but = when a voice such as his is snuffed SlaukoCuruvija out-a voice of dissentand reason in all the mayhem-it is a devastatingloss to everyone.The MilosovicYears may go down in history as a nightmare; for

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Writer Memorialized: Slauko Curwuiia many the mystery is not so much Milosovic as the support Milosovic enjoys in his country. Curuvija srood for the many Serbians,however,that find Milosovic and his policies deeply abhorrent. We will never really know how many of them there are because,given the options open to them-exile, silence, or a difficult and dangerous dissent-it is hardly surprisingif many choosesilence. For Curuvija, silence was never an option. He was a thoughtful and courageousopponent, neirher hystericalnor facile in his views and writings. Nor was he, despite the Serbian press'claim, a proponent of the NATO bombing raids, as he believed before and after the air offensiveswere launched that the ner result would be a spiralling of atrocities and human misery. He was brutally murdered on the evening ofApril 11 by two maskedmen who fired gunshotsinto his spine ashe left his apartmentbuilding in Belgradewith hiswife,Brankaprpa, who was pistol-whipped and knocked unconsciousby the assailants. Policesealedoffthe areaand startedan investigation, but, in the context of a war and the known official abhorrence of the victim, it is hard to believethat the perpetratorsof the crime will ever be identified and broughr to jusrice. Curuvija knew his death might come at any moment. In recent months he had gone everywherewith rwo bodyguards. When the official pressdenouncedhim asa.,nationaltraitor" after the NATO air strikes began, he apparently said to a friend that now "any fool" had a licenseto come out and kill him. Aged forty-nine, Curuvija spentthe bestpart ofthe 1990sas an opposition journalist-an increasingly rare breed in Milosovic's Yugoslavia.He was editor of the renowned and reliable Belgrade dally Borba,until it was taken over by the authoritiesin 1.994,andheresignedin protest.IJndeterred,he founded a new weekly, Nedeljni Tbtegraland then later the

Falt 1999

SrosHaNDorvP and finally a DneuniTblegral$he Weeklyand DailyTblegraphs), magazine cilled Evropljanin,the Eutopean-He also freelanced for many papers abroad, including the Independentand the Guardianin Britain. Matters began to deteriorate sharply for him' however, in October 1998,when NATO first threatenedthe air strikes' The Serbian government introduced a decrpethat effectively banned severalj ournals, including Curuvij a'sDneuni Tblegraf' The decreewas quickly followed up by a new Law on Public Information, which proscribed the publication of rnaterial deemed"harmful to the State"on pain ofmassivefines.(Jnder this law Curuvija soon found himself in court for a scathing open letter he co-wrote to President Milosovic, which letter was appearedin the October 19 issueof Evroplijanin.The headed,"'What'sNext, Milosovic?" and went on to say,"After ten years of your government, everything that is of value to the people of Serbia has been destroyedby you-" He then accusedMilosovic of driving a generation of Serbia'schildren into exile and building up a statusquo of corruption and lies. Not surprisingly,he was found guilty of undermining the "constitutional order" and given twenfy-four hours in which to pay an astronomicalfine of $250,000.Curuvija refusedto pay-he could not havedone so evenifhe had wished to.The following Sunday night, Curuvija's offices were raided.Only two dinars were found in the company account, so the police made off with furniture and computers' but could still only net a smallportion of the fine. Curuvija, unaffectedby theseevents,re-registeredhis publications in neighboring Montenegro, which then enjoyed somewhatlooserpresslaws.He wasquickly fined again,however,this time for an advertisementappearing in the Dnevni Tblegrafabout a student organization The issuesof the paper were confiscated,but Curuvija said that whatever happened, he would do his best to stayin print, evenif it meant sending

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Writer Memorialized: Slauko Curuuija his orders out to Bulgaria, Hungary, or Italy. In December 1998,he managedto travelto paris,where he denouncedthe draconianpresslaws before the political Committee of the Council of Europe. On March B this year, he was given a five-month prison term for another article publishedin one of his papers,this one implicating a SerbianVice-PrimeMinisterin the deathof a medical doctor.By now, sincehis passporthad been seized, further international travel,should he have chosen to undertake it, was impossible. The air strikes began, and immediarely all independent media was shut down, including 892, a large and influential radio and TV nerwork. NATO produced garbled reports of opposition figures being summarily killed, many of which proved afterwardsto be inaccurate.In the caseof Curuvija's killing, alas,the report was only too true. At his funeral on April 14, his daughter Jelena threw the controversialcopy of the Evropljanin(containing his open letter to Milosovic) onto rhe lid of his coffin. About two thousandcame to mourn him, but most showed unwillingnessto talk openly to foreignjournalists.AccordingtoVeran Matic, an independent journalist and former chief of 892, Curuvija'skilling haschilled the whole journalisric community into silence,and his deathis "tantamount to calling for the public lynching" of all writers who do nor toe the parfy line. An unknown woman left a wreath saying"A final goodbyeto the bravest man in Serbia." One of the gravediggers obviously felt differently. He had this to say, to Maggie O'Kane of The Cuardianafter the funeral was over:..A traitor was killed," he said simply."An enemy of Serbia."

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Nancy Reisrnan A Cape Cod portrait, with dinner.

Nancy Reisman'sstory collection House Fireswon the 1999 Iowa Short Fiction Award and will be published by the Universiry of Iowa Pressthis fall. She recently received an NEA literature fellowship, and her work has appearedin GlimmerTiain,AmericanFiction,KenyonReview,Press,and other iournals.She teachesat the tJniversiryofFlorida in Gainesville'

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YJruW

"44

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shork,

hen Mattt stepmothercalls,Matt imagineshis head ballooning with water, the skin around his face and skull thinning until he's translucent and freakish.It takeshours to recover: in the meantime he's irritable and distracted,he smokestoo much, his girlfriend Alice finds reasonsto go to the movies without him. His father checks in quarterly, but Louise callstwice a week, sometimesmore. She callswhen his father is off at work, before Matt leavesfor his bookstore job. She calls in the evenings when his father ignores her. "Matfy," she says,"you're the only one who understands women.t'

SometimesMatt screensher callsand locks himself in the bathroom, or convincesAlice to pick up.When Alice is in a good mood, she'll wink at Matt and improviseexcuses:"He's playing Parcheesitoday. He's out pricing Flarleys." Lately, though,Alice can't be persuadedto do much. Tonight Alice is at her graduateseminar on the psychology of women and girls, and Matt answersthe phone, hoping for her raspyhello. But it's Louise,starting right in about Christmas,which Matt alwaysspendswith his mother.The edgesof Louise'sconsonantshave alreadybegun to blur. Climmer Truin Stoies, Issue32, Fall 1999 @1999 NancyReisman

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NaNcv REIsuaN "I don't seewhy we can't trade this year.Why can't we have Christmas Eve?" Louise says."The rwenty-third isn't the same." "Can't do anything about it," Matt says. "Your mother could be more flexible." Not really.Most years,his mother books solo travel plans for Christmas-bird watching in the Galapagos,hiking through Mayan ruins-but when Matt sayshe wants to see her, she drops the plans and becomesalmost maternal. He isn't going to passthat up."It isn'tjust Mom," he says. "Why dont I call her?" Louise says. Matt shakeshis head at the empty kitchen. "If you want. But dont expect much." "You're probably right," Louise says."She's got that stubborn streak." "Louise.Shet my mother." "Of coursesheis.A fabulousmother.Look how beautifully you turned out:' Matt chain smokes,opensa beer,pours black beansinto a pot of water. He records a cassetteof saxophone greats for Alice's car: he'sbeen trying little surprisesand gifts,puzzling out what kind of attention she needs.Roses have no effect, the yo-yo and soap bubbles trap dust, and the herbal-bliss massageoil has disappearedaltogether.She locks him out of the bathroom when she'sin the tub. A tape seemsharmless enough. He throws some cumin over the beansand tries to read a little Joyce, which quickly gives way to televised basketball. Matt's on his third beer when Louise'sdaughterTanyacalls. She'salready twenty-rwo, five yearsyounger than Matt, and her good looks astonishhim. SometimesMatt thinks of her as a very smart Rapunzel: she still lives on Long Island with Louise and Dad.

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Just wonder ingl' Tanya says," about Christmas." Plaintive. "Sorry," he says."Foryou I would, but I'm going to Momt. The usualthing." "I thought so." "Listen,ifyou're going nuts,call me. I'11drive up Christmas night." In the background,he can hearLouisemutter.He thinks he hean Joan,his mother's name.He thinks he hearsthe word bilch. "Tell Louise I can hear," he says,and for a moment Tanya muffies the phone. He imagines her skin, which is milky, delicately veined.When she returns he makes a joke about mothers wanting to invadetheir children'sbodies.Her laugh fweaks a little, asif her throar is partly closed. Hek about to say goodbye,buc ir occurs to him rhat his father might have somerhing to do with this phone call, might evenhaveaskedto seeMatt on Christmas.He stops."Is ChristmasDad'sidea?'Whatdid Dad say?" "Nothing,"Tanya says."Not a thing." Everyone at the bookstorewhere Matt works is a lunatic: all day delirious Christmas shoppersjam rhe aislesin long lines.The clerks ear bottles of Advil and wash them down with Diet Coke and cold espresso. Matt's on the information desk every third shift: the rest of the time he rings up salesand wraps books in silver paper, fumbling with the ribbons. "Merry Christmas,"he says."Happy Holidays.""Have a nice day''Most dayshe has to skip his breaks;after work he ends up napping or drinking more beer than usual. The thought of his own shoppingsendssharplittle spasms through his temples.His mother wantsornithology reference books, and Alice requestedsome novels,but Louise claims that buying books means he isn'r putring enough thought into the gifts. So a week before Christmas Matt takes the

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NRNcy RrrsuaN train to Copley Squareand buys Louise a silk scarfand a pair of earrings. The clerk at Saks avoids eye contact. ,.Merry Christmas,"she says."Have a nice day''Afterward,he combs the antique sroresand galleriesfor something small ahd perfect forTanya.On Newbury Streethe finds a cameobrooch and a miniature kaleidoscope.Thenhe givesup and doesthe rest of his shopping at the liquor store and by telephone.A gift certificate from L.L. Bean for his impossible brother Larry, overpriced Broadway tickets and a high-end bottle of scotchfor his father. 'What he really wants for Christmas is a trip with Afice to a B&B in Maine or Cape Cod, someplace beautiful and deserted,strippedclearof distractions. Dunes.He wantsto eat lobsters and pour champagne into Alice's mouth and make love with her there. He's already suggestedthis for New Year's. " Decadent," ATicesaid."I'll haveto think about it." Then she wandered into the living room to meditate. After that, the sceneshe d pictured seemedpale and tawdry and he bouldn't bring himself to askher again.For a few daysshesaidnothing about the holidays; then she announced shed go to his mother'sfor Christmas,but plannedto spendNewyear's Eve with her grandmother. The drive from Boston to Long Islandis slow and icy, but for miles Matt feelsalmost festive.Busy interstatesalwaysgive him a senseofposibiliry;in a small,shyway,he GelslikeJack Kerouac. He smokes Camel Lights and listens to Dizzy Gillespie.Then he picks up his brorher Larry in Great Neck. Larry doesn'tlike cigarettesand he doesnt like jazz.Also, he detestsLouise. "A fake," Larry says."A real phony." Larry chews gum with his mouth open, and in befween sentenceshe brays.Matt tries not to wince but sometimeshe

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Sharks can't help it. "A fake," Larry repeats. The car in the nexr lane skidsand rights "You know who.Wife number three." "A fake what?" Larry btays again."You name it." "A fake fake then." "-W'hat?" "A fake fake." Larry stickshis fingersin his ears."I can't hearyou," he says. Aflake,Matt thinks. He hasn'ttold Larry about the phone calls.Not even the one last spring in which Louise used the words yourfatherand heartepisodeand emergency roomin the samesentence.Larry walks with a small limp, the sort of thing people notice and then stop noticing;the problem is rhat he thinks the way he walks.He's smart,accomplished,but certain cognitive functions havebeen shorteneda litde. Once, in a weird moment of candor, Larry told Matt that the limp has kept him from developingrelationshipswith girls.Girk.In high school this wasprobably true. But Larry's stuck to the notion ever since, instead of developing social skills.Last surrrrner,the weekend Matt and Alice and Larry all stayed at his mother,s house, Larry hung about the bathroom door in rhe morning and stared through Alice's T-shirt ar her nipples. Finally, Alice crossedher armsover her chestand returned to the bedroom. "Your brother gawks,"she said."Dont sayanything. Just get me a bathrobe." Around Louise, Larry's beyond containing himself. He snickers.He makesjokes about her cleavage,and of course her intelligence.No one laughs,even though Larry is often right about Louise;in a cruel sort of way he'sgot her pegged. It's like beating up on a blind person, only Louise isn't defenseless.

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NnNcv RBIsiuaN Matt slows to a near crawl as he turns onto his father's street. It's a neighborhood of white Christmas lights and discreet wreaths, tall hedges and wrought-iron lampposts lining the roadsides.But garish blue lights blink in the windows of his father'shouse.A plastic elf standsby the door' Matt parks on the sanded half of the driveway, kills the engine.He climbs out of his car with a shoppingbag of gifts and the bottle of scotch,and locks the driver'sside door, but Larry doesn'tmove."Larry|'Matt saysto the windshield.He walks around to the passengerdoor and raps on the window' "C'mon, Larryi'he says.He opens the door and hands over the bag of gifts. When Matt rings the bell, his stomach clenches.There's Louise,peeking out the front windows, swinging the door open; she's wearing a green silk dress too light for this weather, but it suits her, and aV-neck with soft draping, her gold chain and earrings gleaming against it. She steps out next to the eE her mouth is peachtonight, and she'swearing some expensivescent,a lot of it. "You're here!" She kisses Matt's cheeks and pulis him against her suddenly and for slightly too long. Her body is one tall pillow.When she lets go of him shet brushing snow out of his hair, and he feels like her fingers are alreadyinside his head. "Hello, Larry)'she says,and kissesthe air next to Larry's face."Presents?"She takesthe shopping bagshe's carrying' "Did you bring presents?"She ushersthem into the overheatedhouse and squeezesMatt's arm. "How sweet of you' Your father will be so Pleased." "Honey? Charles?The boys are here." "Let's get you warmed up," she says."Lett get you something to drink.'We have eggnog.And of course the usual things.Whatever you boys want.Larry, you can hang your coat in the back closet."she holdsher arm out for Matt's coat, then hands it to Larry.

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"Honey? Charles?"'Whenno one responds,she staresat her green suedeheels."Your dad'shad a long day." Then Louise is quiet for a moment, and Matt can hear Christmas carols piped through the speakersin the living room and kitchen. It's familiar and sentimental, the sort of stuffthe bookstoreplays,that he ought to know instantlybut can't seemto place."'Who's singing?"Matt says. "I love this stuff.So seasonal," Louise says.,,BobCrosby.,, "Bing," Larry says."It's Bing." Louise shoots him a look, then smiles and shruss. course,"she says."Bing." In his readingchair in the living room, Matt's father scans the WaIl Street Journaland strokesan obesecalico cat.,.Thatb my girl," he says,his fingers tangled in fur. "Hi, Dad," Matt says.He bendsto hug Charlesin the chair, but there'sno way to get pastthe newspaperand the cat,and Matt's right arm danglesawkwardly;his movement is like a strange hiccup he has to correct. He straightens...Merry Christmas." "Right. Merry Christmas,"Charles says.,,How are you? Everything good? Larry here?" Mart nods and his father's voice rises,a surprising burst of sound.,,Larry? Larrv? Did you bring back that software?" Matt licks his lips. His mouth has gone cortony, and he traces the sensationdown his throat to his chest and beily, which also seemstuffedwith cotton-statrc, vague,opaque. This happensonce in a while. FIis arms are still loose,and he swings the bottle of scotch from his left hand to his right, until Louisetakesit and holdsir out to Charles...Look,honey, look what Matry brought." "Drinks. Good," Charlessays."Matthew, help yourself." "Oh, and we have wood," Louise says. Matt hasno idea what shemeans.

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"I got half a cord delivered today," she says."lbu boys wouldn't mind stacking it, would yofi Larry?" she shouts at the kitchen door and pivots back to Matt."And then you can have a nice drink." The cottony feeling has traveled up behind Matt's eyes' "No problem,"he says. But Larry refuses,claiming het fighting off a cold. "I was I, Matt?" sneezingthe whole way here in the car.'W'asn't Frozen air clearsMatt's head.There's some satisfbctionin stackingthe wood, eventhough Louisewatchesout the window and wavesat him. He's wearing his father'sheavy boots and parka, and there's something satisfyingabout that too, about feeling the dips and curves his father's feet have made, catching the slight whiff of aftershaveand mild body odor from his father'sjacket and wrapping himself in it. In fact, Matt likes his fathert clothes much better than anything else about his father,even though they don't fit him properly.The clothes are his father minus his father. The scents and aura and planes of the body without the dense,acidic mass. Matt's halfway through stacking the wood when he notices that the falling snow smells like pot. There's no one else outside,not in the neighbors'yards,not on the street.Louise waves from the kitchen window a'gain,and she's holding something besidesa drink, some slim cylinder. But no, it's an ordinary cigarette,one of her Menthol Kings. In the firstfloor study, Larry bends over a computer, tapt' his face a luminous green.Above them, a second-floor window is open' The room's a dark blank, but he can seean ember,a slight trail of smoke.When Louise turns away,he nods and wavesat the dark upper window, and the ember makesa quick ri,ravingarc back.Tanyawill staythere aslong asshe can get aweywith it, which can't be much longer. Already Louise must have called her.

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Sharks Louise is alwayscalling her.'When Matt first metTanya she was fourteen and already beautiful, trying to hide whenever she could: Louise paradedher around.Within a year she'd cooled and hardened.She was still in high school when he'd caughta glimpseof her sitting at the edgeof her bed, poking the skin on her arms with safetypins until a little row of red dots appeared,like strangefreckles,or some creepy highfashion ornament. It's possibleshe still does this. Or perhaps something else:Binge? Purge?Tanyaspendsa lot of time in bathrooms,but so do most women Matt knows. By the time he's done with the wood, Louise has made a small dent in the bottle of scotch."You're a hero. Matt.', she says."Have somepat6." Louise hasmanagedto get appecizercaffangedon rrays,but she'slost interest in whatever else needs to be done. The kitchen is blue with cigarettesmoke.But here'stnya, in a long-sleevedblack-velvet dress,her arms completely concealed.Her hair falls midway down her back, amber and war,y,the strandsmagneticalTyaligned.Tanya'sall reserveand sophistication:she'sjust smoked a joint and her eyesaren't even red. She kissesMatt hello and gets down ro business. "Let's finish cooking, Momj'Tanya says."'What'shappening with the green beans?What about the ham?" Louise looks around as if she'sin someone else'skitchen. Shepulls the lid offa pot on the stove,peersin, then snapson a burner, which Tanya adjusts."Matt brought presents,"she says. Tanya smilesvery sweetly."Thanks, Matt.',Then she yanks the ham out of the oven. "We're doing a smallChristmas,"Louise says,,,youknow? Not much money this year.I got some soap for your girl_ friend.-Whatt her name?The good stuff.I,m sureshedoesn't need soap,but it's the good stuff.Tanyapicked ir out, right?

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Didn't you, Sweetie?" 'Jasmine,"Tanya says."Alice sounds like someone who d like sandalwoodorjasmine. Exchange it if you don't think it's right." "Of course it's right, how could it not be? You have wonderful taste.And why would Matt's girlftiend treturn a presentfrom us?" Tanya shrugs at Matt. "What have we got for appetizen, Mom? Pat6?" "Of course.Matry's favorite." "Actually," Matt says,"Dad's the one whok really crazy about it." He swings a napkin ring around his index finger and pours himself a scotch. "You don't like pat6?"Louise says. "Sure I do. So doesDad." "Good. Tanya, baby, why don't you take some out to Daddy?" Tanya shovesthe ham back in the oven' "Okay," she says, and pushesthe oven mitts at Louise."Here." Once Tanya'sout of the kitchen, Louise shakesher head. "She'stouchy around the holidays,"Louise says. "I understand,"Matt saYs, o'Youunderstandevery"Of courseyou do," Louise says. thing." Before dinner has even begun, Matt excuseshimself and sneaksup to Tanya'sbedroom, where he tries to call Alice. It's a habit he'sacquiredover the years,making secretphone calls from his father's house. Sometimes he calls high-school friends who have stayedon Long Island. He used to call his mother, but one year he fell into whispering his unhappiness over the line, and she listened to him asif he were one of her clients."l'm sorry you're feeling that way, Matt," his mother said.In the background he heard another woman's voice'

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Sharks "Who's that?" he said. "Oh, just a friend from work." She didn't offer anything more.He didn't askher again,butlaterwonderedif the friend had anything to do with his mothert books about androgyny, or her occasionalweekend disappearances. Still, when he d try to follow thar line of thought, he d drift offand awakenro find himself calculatingthe phone bill, or biting a thumbnail and staring out at traffic. Tanya'sroom is spotless,done up in turquoise and cream. The bedspreadmarchesthe curtains,which march the pillows and the carpet. Scandinavianfurniture, blond ash. One window is ajar, the air chilly, fainrly laced wirh vanilla. Matt checksthe dressertop for safetypins,pokesin the wastepaper basket for bloody Kleenex, and finds nothing but neatly written to-do lists with all of the items crossedoff. He picks up Thnya'sphone and punches in his calling card and home numbers. No one answers,and then some reggae music comeson the machine,followed byAlice's voice:,,Leaveus a message."It's the optimist's voice she useswith outsiders, almost cut short by the mechanicalbeep.,.Justwanted to let you know I'm here, at Dad's,"Matt says.,,Roads aren't so great, so be careful, okay?" He says,.,I love you," to the machine.Thenhe dialsback and listensto the messages. Her friend Marci inviting her to a movie. Louise,svoice saying,,.I cant wait to seeyoul" and then his own voice playingback to him, soundinglike someoneelse,asit alwaysdoes. Eventually,Larry abandonshis computer starshipbattle and askswhen they'll get to eat.Matt's father risesfrom his reading chair and lumbers into the dining room, catsfollowing at his heels.EventuallyLouisegetsthere roo,with the undercooked greenbeansand overcookedpotatoesand beautifully cooked ham. Louise loads up the plates of the men in the family, serves herself and Tanya half-portions, and sends around a

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NnNcv REtsuaN bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.Before they start to eat, she raisesher wine glass."Merry Christmas!" she says.Hoppy Holidays,Mattthinks. Hauea niceday."Merry Christmas,"he and CharlesandTanyatoastback."Christmas,"Larry mumbles. It's not what Matt would call an ordinary meal, but for a while dinner seems okay. He gets Tanya talking about Bloomingdales, where she works in the cosmetics department, and where romantic scandal has decimated the sales team. Someone had to transferto another store.There's the r\atter of Larry's promotion, his new condo-"You'relooking good thesedays,"Tanyatells him, and for a few minutes Larry beamsat her. Charlesdoesn'tspeakwhen there'sfood on his plate,but before he reachesfor seconds,he saysa few words about the stock-marketfluctuations and a new tennis club opening in Roslyn. He wonders aloud about Matt's game. "You're still playing,son?"he says,but his words run together: You'restillplayingson? Louise is drinking fast,andThnya keepsrefilling her glasses with water-first just the water tumbler, then the wine glass as well. Louise pours the water from the wine glassinto the tumbler and refills her wine glasswith Cabernet Sauvignon. The third time Tanyapours water, Louise grabsat her wrist. "Stop that right now,missy''A sharpnessin her voice which even she seemsto hear. She softens,patsTanya'shand. "Or Santamight forget your presents." For a few minutes they eat in silence.Matt wonders if itt like this in the eye of a hurricane: loud silence,waiting, a debilitating barometric drop.Theret not much food left on his plate-some straypotato bits,somefat slicedoffthe ham. Then, suddenly,a green bean. He glancesup in time to see Louise launch another from her plate to his. Surreptitiously, although everyone at the table has noticed. "I bet you're still hungry," she says' He isn't. Really,Tanya'sthe only one in need of sparegreen

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Sharks beans:that'sall shet eaten.Mostly shet been sipping on her Diet Coke and drinking water.you d think pot would make her hungrier than that. He picks up the hardiestof the beans and tossesit back onto Louise'splate. She sendsit back; he returns it again. She laughs and sendsover tvvo green beans and throws a small red potato. It's a game now: he's gone and done ir, he'sinto a food fight with Louise.God. He forks up the potato and eatsit. "Knew you were still hungry," Louise says,and throws another one. He bendsdown and wavesa string bean at one of the cats, who paws it and attacksit on the carpet. "No fair," Louise says. "Louise, contain yourself," Dad says.It's in the voice of Matt's childhood. "Contain yourself," Dad repeats.Louise is spilling out over the edge again,but when isn't she? She doesn't staywithin the lines, even rhe lines of her own body, and she never keeps secrets.The one exception-halfexception-is Tanya's father. About him, Louise won,t tell much. Insteadshe'll say,"My lips are sealedon that subject,,' and widen her eyes."Ipromisedmy baby,,'she'llsay,,,Iprom_ isedThnya.No more talk about all that." But he knowsTanya'sfather is a businessman in Chicago.A shark,Louise once let slip.A real shark. "Some of us arejust minnows," she said. Matthew wonders if Tanya's father did anything horribly shark-liketo Louise,likehit her,or hitTanya,which would be even worse,if you can saysuch a thing.And if you could say something else:you can seewhere the impulse to hit Louise might come from. Tanya is another story though. No one should even rhink of hitting Tanya. Louisepicks up her lastgreenbeanwith her hand and bites into it, then winks at Matt. Patience,he tells himself. She'san abusesurvivor, of one Fall 1999

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kind or another. Matt knows a few things about abuse survivors.Twice a month, Alice volunteers at a battered women's shelter, and shetells him storiesabout victims who stop being victims, or forget how not to be victims, vicrims who identify with their abusers,abuserswho were themselvesvictims. "It's a real mess, isn't it?" he says.She nods at him solemnly. That's the gesturehe seesAlice make most often thesedays, the solemn nod.When he first met her,Alice was more likely to kiss his cheek or srick out her tongue. Back then he was inching his way out of another relationship. His almost-ex would call him when her car wouldn't starr. Shed call him when her family upset her. He spent a lot of time bailing her out, something he was good ar.Alice usually bailed herself out: she'dlook under the hood, check the battery connections, listen to the car sounds,and call AAA. During family crises,shed buy herselfflowers and meditate,or go for long runs. He liked Alice's selGsufficiency,her orderliness,her clean lines.Alice didnt seem to need him, at least not for those small, daily rescues.Now, after t'rvo years, she still doesn't seem to need him. Not even for sex, which they haven't had much oflately. She'sin therapy,working on issues. He's wondered if they have to do with the battered women. He's wondered if he's gotten too fat. And he's wondered if he'stoo clumsy for her,if his tongue or his cock are substandard. Have any of his former girlfriends faked it? Have all of them? Surely not all of them.'Why would they? He's ordinary looking. He doesnt have money. Maybe they sensedhe'd jumpstart their cars and take them to dinner when their familiesexploded.The truth is, they d get his help no matrer what. And how hard is it, really,to find a jumpstart? Occasionally,Alice is still tender with him, and funny. Around her he feels,in some remote way,protected.He tries

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Sharks to think of the tender moments. Their early lovemaking. Alice kissinghis fingersand bringing him strawberriesin bed. But mostly he thinks of the funny moments, her deadpan imitations,her acid senseof humor. At the dinner table he clearshis throat and announceshe really should call Alice. She'sbeen driving in bad Boston weather.He ought to make sureshe'sokay. "I-Jsethe phone in the kitchen," Louise says. "No, my room is more private,"Tanyasays...Thesecond door on the right." Matt nods,asif he needsthe reminder. This time when Matt reachesTanya'sroom, he closesthe bedroom door and opensthe drawershe earlierignored.Her underthings arc neatTyfolded, and he lifts them in the air and shakesthem out: black and white bikini panties,brasthat are all lace. He gazesthrough the lace at rhe fleshy pads of his fingers pressedagainstthe fabric, then drops the bra and digs through the rest of the garments.There,snothing hidden at the bottom of the drawer,not even a twenry-dollar bill or a box of checks.He refoldsthe panties,replacesthem, setsone set of lace cups over another,and easesthe drawer shut. On top of the deskis a text called Contemporary pediatria.Inside the file cabinet,her folders are labeled,arrangedalphabeti_ ca\ and by color. Chemistry, MCAT prep,Rlsumd,Financial Aid' 92, Financial Aid' 93, Financiat Aid' 94.In the deskdraw_ ers there are paper clips and staples,pencils and pens and white-out, clear tape, Elmer's glue, ordinary paper,r6sum6 paper, index cards.No rolling papers.No little srashof por, no bottle of Prozac.No Dexatrim or Xanax.No razorblades. He knows better than to do this, and he knows if he's caught he'll sayhe was looking for matches.Although his cigarettes are in the car. He dialsAlice againand getsthe machine.

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The dining-room table is a ruin of dirty plates,stray green beans,and glasswarestreakedwith wine. Matt hesitatesbefore reentering, then automatically begins to clear' Louise gives his hand. a light slap."None of that," she says,and ushers Charles into the living room. "'W'e'll have dessertthere'" Tanya'salready brewed coffee, and she takes charge of the operation,pulling clean cups from the china cabinet,setting lp ^ traywith the silver coffee pot and sugarand cream,forks and dessertplates.But Louise pulls the dessertplates off the ttay and turns to Matt. "You help me with the pie'" Tanyashrugsand lifts the tray with one arm, carriesit over her head like a waitressat a nightclub. Maybe she'swearing one of thoselace things under her dress' In the kitchen, Matt can see where Tanya's made small effortsto clear offcounter space.Once Louise setsdown the dessertplates,shet back to her kitchen distraction:it's as though she'sforgotten what the platesare there for' She pours herself a brandy and lights a cigarette.She smokesmenthol, but it smellsgood, and it's been hours since Matt's smoked' He asksher for a cigaretteand shewinks and opens a drawer' There'sa pack of Camel Lights. "I thought you might want some,"she says' She tries to light his cigarette for him, but her fingers slip againstthe lighter."It's okd'he says,"I'lldo iti'but she'sstill leaning closeto him ashe flicks the lighter, and he hasto turn and cup the flame so he doesn'tburn her' They stand in the kitchen smoking and gazing out at the falting snow,and then he turns to take the ice creannfrom the {reezer.She'slike t cat at his heels,and when he tqrns again, there she is, in closeuP. "Good brandy,"Louise says,and offers him a sip" He takes it. He's still feeling the warm flush of it when Louise leans right up against him and kisses hirrr on the

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Sharks mouth, a long wet kiss.Her mouth is open and he feelsher tongue. She tastesof brandy and menthol smoke and every_ thing about her hasa lovely wet warmrh. He kissesher back, thinking only of getting the restof his body into that warmth. Picturing the pink of her throat.Feelingan impulse to reach up and thumb her nipples through the green silk dress.He pressesinto her, slides a hand up to her breast,and for a moment everything seemsfluid, even his skin. There's the sudden pleasureof her hand againsthis groin, and what is it that stopshim? The drip of the kitchen faucet. Another slow, thick sound: footsteps?The dizzinesshe feels. The sudden awarenessthat all this sensationis also Louise,his fathert crazy wife. He stepsback, and the expressionon her faceis not the usualpracticedcoyness, but somethingyounger and more vulnerable.There's a rustling near the doorway, a fluttery movement, then Tanya in her velvet dress,squinting at them. "Mom?" "Hmm?" Louise lets her arms drop. Thnyastepscloser,placesher palm on Louise'sshoulder.She seemstaller than usual."Mom, let'sfix your makeup." Louise raisesa hand to her face. "It's not bad,"Tanyasays.'Justa little smudging I'll touch up in a minute." "Okay;'Louise says,and lets herselfbe led off toward the bathroom, "I'm sure Matt can manage the pie, flat.

says,her voice

In the half-destroyedkitchen, Marc mechanicallyslicesthe pumpkin pie, setsthree pieceson frilly dessertplates,scoops vanilla ice cream on top, and carriesthem out to the living room. Charlesis pacing,and a wave of nausearipplesup from Matt's stomachto his throat.

Fall 1999

NaNcv RptsuaN "Here you go, Dad." Charles eyesthe loaded plate asif itt a live hamstet.He sets it on top of the stereobut holds onto the dessertfork and fingers the tines ashe walks. A Rangers'hockey game slidesover theTv screen'but the sound is off, and Larry's standing directly in front of the TV taunting the slow,fat calico with a catnip mouse' o'Cut that out," Charles saYs, o'Larryl'Matt says.His voice soundsstrangelyeven' separate from his body."Pie." And then Larry's docile: he drops the mouse, he takes a plate, he sits on the sofa and quietly eats.He inadvertently smearspumpkin on his chin, but he doesn'taskabout Louise and Thnya, and he lets the calico settle, unmolested, on the armrest. Matt's hands have begun to sweat.He takesthe seatnext to Larry and slowly, deliberately forks up his pie-one bite, one swallow,one bite, one swallow-despite the edge of nausea. Charles finally picks his plate offthe stereo and eatsstanding up, swayingfrom side to side and wdking in small circles.No one saysa word, and finally Larry turns up the volume on the hockey play-by-Play. At the end of the second period, Louise and Tanya are still absent,and Charles cradles the calico in the chair furthest from the sofa,awayfrom his sons.He's half-asleep,of enraged, Matt thinks; both look the sameon Charles.M"ybe his heart is acting up.All that scotch, all that ham and bad marriage' That would be enough, wouldnt it?Without standing in the kitchen doorway. Why be in that doorway instead of his chair? He was pacing, Matt thinks- Pacing! The hockey announcer keepsreplaying the only goal of the pefiod, a late tip, the goalie sprawled to the left of the net, clips of a defensemansmashinga winger into the boards,the winger later tripping the defenseman.On the sofa,Matt counts his

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Sharks own breaths,the way Alice taught him to, but it doesn'tseem to be working: the room appearsjumbled and incoherent, and his heart is beating too fast, as if he's mixed amphet_ amines with vodka. FIe wanders over to the tree, kneels,and begins to pick our the packageswith his and Larry's and Alice's nameson them.This seemsto take a very long time. "'We'11open theseon Christmas,Dad," Matt says. "'W'hat?"Charlessays. "The presentsfor Larry and me?We'll take them to Mom,s and open them Christmasmorning. " Charles gezesat Matt's legs."Fine." Then the door is all Matt can rhink of; he finds his coat and carriesthe presentsout to the car.The snow hasnot abated;a drift is building around the plascicelf The lawn glows bluish white and he wonders if this is what people seeduring neardeath experiences.It seemssaferout here,the way the tundra is safe.He could leave now, without sayinggoodbye,without even waiting for Larry. It's tempting. He lights a cigarette, then a secondone,and waits out the impulse. "Here we are,"Louise says.Mattt brushing snow out of his hair,handingLarry his coar,andtnya's leadingLouise down the stairs.Louise has an entirely new makeup job: rosier cheeks,longer lashes,brighter lips. Thnya looks exactly the same:icy and marvelous. "You're leaving?"Louise says.Her eyesseem to skip over Mattt face. "It's still snowing," Matt says."It'll take us a while to get to Momt." "But we have waffles for tomorrow morning," Louise says. "I bought waffles and syrup." "That's nice," Matt says.He catchesLouise'seye for half a second,then breaksawayand pulls at the fingers of his gloves. "Thanks. But we haveto go."

Fall 1999

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Sharks "I don't like waffles,"Larry says. "They're good wafHes,"Louise says,"andrealmaple syrup.', "Mom,"Tanya says,"we'llhavethem.you and me and Dad.', "I thought you were staying,"Louise says..,Igot waffles." "I'm sorry,"Matt says. For a moment Louise stops.Tanyaguidesher over towards Charles,but Louise pushesher away and headsfor the tree. Then she'son her kneesin that green silk dress,rummaging with the packages,finally looking up at Matt, not taking her eyesoffMatt. "Did you get the presents?Charles,did you give them the presents?" From a few feet off, Matt can smell Louise's perfume. When she reachesfor him, hek on the verge of pushing her away,hard enough that she could fall; het on the verge of falling himself. Her goodbye hug is a thick clutch and he holds his breath, then tugs his body back from her, watching the walls,watching his feet. Charles shakeshands-a quick shake,the kind you might give a businessassociate-but he saysnothing, not even "Drive saGly," or ',Talk to you on Christmas."Tanyawatcheswith the expressionof a mannequin.When she hugs Matt goodbye,her touch is so light he barely feelsit. In the car,Larry finds a country station, a woman singing "Big Red Sun Blues."Matt keepshis hand offthe dial, even though the song makeshim feel absurd.He opensa window and lights a cigarette,and Larry saysnothing about it.This is Larry's version of kindness,Matt thinks, this is as close as theyVe been in years.Light gustsofwind rattle the car doors, the smoke hits Matt's lungs, and he can barely contain the welling urge to confess to Larry, to his only brother, how Iittle he undersrands, exceprthat he kissedLouise and liked it. Fall 1999

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NaNcv RusvtRN That dread and desire blur together, no matter how vigilant he is.ThatTanya probably hateshim now and might for life, but at leastwould not tell Dad, though what if Dad knows? What if there was, still, some thin wire connecting Matt to Dad, now cut?What still connectshim to anyone?To Alice, who doesn't love him? She saysshe does,but it isn't the sustainingsort of love; it's more like the love of comic books or a pop songsfrom your adolescence'the kind that catches you fast then leavesyou with wry fondness.It's possible,not likely, but possible, that Matt's love for Alice is fake, a substitute for something he cant name. When he tries to imagine her in five years,even three years,he can't seehea he can only hear her on the other end of the phone, with an unfamiliar voice in the background. On the Long Island Expressway,Matt wants to confessthat het going to staywith Alice anyway,until he can figure out what to do next, until they're ready to be honest. Matt blows smoke at the open window. He wants to confessthat his craving for that warm slicknessobliterateseverything else. "Lrryl' Matt says."I'm an okay brother,right?" "'What?" Larry says,a litde irritated-"Yeah." "I mean. I know we're not that close." Larry doesn't answerthis, but he lowers the radio volume' "Did you count how many drinks Louise had?" "A lot." "No kiddingl'Larry says."A lot a lot' Let's skip this next yeat' M"yb. in a year their father and Louise will have divorced' M"yb. by then Matt will live in some other part of the country. Or maybe Louise will tire of Christmas on Long Island and there will be money: she'll convince Dad to cruise the Caribbean. These are the only escaperoutes Matt can imagine. Larry glartcesat Matt once, twice, as if waiting; he blinks

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Sharks and blinks at the oncoming carsand tucks his fistsagainsthis belly. "Okay," Matt says.He turns the windshield wipers up a notch and adjusrsthe defogger.Beyond the wash of snow,the string of red taillightsexrendsfor miles.$

Fall 1999

Victoria

Lancelotta

This was taken in my grandparents'kitchen, in Baltivnore. In the summer,myfamily would buy bushelsof liue blue crabsto steamat home;mygrandfatherwould sometimes let afew looseon the kitchenfoor to race'Thiswas greatfun for me, especiallyif my feet were bare.

victoria Lancelottawas born and raisedin Baltimore,Maryland. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and the Djerassi Resident Artists' program, and was the recipient of a 7997 HenfieldTransatlanticAward. Her fiction has appeared in numerous journals, including ThreepennyReuiew, CreamCity Reuiew,Ohio Reuiew,and others, and has been anthologized in Fiction2A00 (Red Hen Press,1998)'

r\'l | \lMts,---------.- l k l VrcrozuaLRNcrrotra Spice

have been married for three years now; and my

parentsand husband get aTong,intheir way.My parentsdon,t come often to our house;we live outsidethe ciry a little over an hour's drive, and my fathert sight is failing. But we go there, my husband and I, every other week on Sunday,and I bring gifts to my mother-brown leather glovesto wear to church, or a pair of small earrings.On theseSundays,my husbandand father sit together by the television and my mother sets up card tablesfor them with bowls ofolives and peppersand fried smeltsdraining on paper towels.My husbandhad never eaten like this;we had to explain the smeltsto him---*mall fish, deep fried, and eatenwhole, with headsand bonesand tails. Like peanuts,my father saidto him,laughing, you eatthemlike peanuts. My father has become a man who laughs often, and my mother besideme in the kitchen will say,I just don'tknow.I worry,I don't know what he thinksis sofunny.But for my pat,I suspectthat my father laughs nor becauseanything is funny, but simply becausehe is suddenlyabreto,becausethereis time for him now. He jokes with my husband, and he kissesme often when we are there.My mother tells me that he wants to take her dancing on Friday nights at the lodge in the neigh_ Climmer Train Stoies,Issue32, Falt 1999 @1999 Victoia l-ancelotta

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VrcroRrR LRNcnrottt borhood.This too is a causefor alarm to her--+he imagines that he is becoming frivolous, that he doesn'trecogrrizethe fact that he hasbecome old,that he fails to treat their ageswith the proper graviry. On these Sundays,my mother will sit acrossthe kitchen table from me asthough I havenever left, fingering the gloves or the earrinp I've brought her. She will tell me about the people in the neighborhood. toxemia' silspect is notgoingwell.Thedoctors Marie'spregnancy Jimmy\fatherhashadanotherstrokeandwillnotbeleauingthe hospitalanytirnesoon,if at alt.Jimmyand his wife aretakingcareof the mother. again,thethirdtimein asrnanymonths. storewasrobbed Delano's isgoing isgoingdown,shestys.Theneighborhood Theneighborhood down. From the next room, I can hear my husbandand my father shouting at a ball game on the television,and when it is over, my husbandand I will sayour goodbyes,and get into our car and drive from the parking lot and out of the city, and I will tell him most of what there is to tell. It had been a spicefactory,where that lot is now: five stories of faded brick, the first floor converted to a gift shop and museum, glasscasesfilled with doilies, trivets, dried flower arrangements,and wooden racks,a1lmanner of things quilted and embroidered. They began tearing it down in June, slowly, piecemeal, using cranes,hoses,wrecking balls'It could not be imploded becauseof the new glass-frontedhotel acrossthe street,the danger of the glasscracking, shattering,raining down on the headsof tourist familiesand businessmenon convention' There were three separateshiftsofworkmen who camethat summer:the first startingat 6:00 A.M',the secondrelievingthe first at noon. The ones who came in the evening were the

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Spke lucky ones, working short hours from six to eleven in the coolest part of the day and on into the night.Although it was alwayshumid, the slight drop in temperature made the close_ nessmore bearable,and the men who worked this shift were loud-joking, shouting things to the people who stoppedto watch, and teasingthe neighborhood boys,who rattled the temporary chain-link fence and tossedsmall stones at one another. These boys came most\ from fwo streetsover, away from the harbor and the new hotel and the small glittering shops that surrounded it. This street,like the ones that ran perpen_ dicular to it, wasnarrow and dark,and lined on both sidesby rowhouses that seemed in their age to lean in towards one another,asif the weighc ofthe generationswho lived in them wasbecoming heavierwith eachpassingseason. Floorssagged and marble stoops cracked with the weight of women and their pregnant daughters, and the men and boys who worked-had worked-in the spicefactory or worked now in the steel mill acrossthe water, and came home at dinnertime with rolled newspapersunder their arms,going to their doors straight {iom being dropped at the corner bus stop,or else stopping on their way to buy lotto tickets for the weekend. There were trees on these streets as well-not like the flowering ones that had been planted along the bricked walkways of the waterfront, but smaller,rising from mulched and iron-grated squares in the sidewalks in front of the rowhouses,squareswhere stray dogs relieved themselvesin summer'The smell would havebeen intolerable except for the fact that it wasgood fertilizer,the neighborhood women said, and laughed,becausehow else could you figure the trees managedto live, year afteryear,their leavesgrey_spottedwith exhaustand chewed ro lace by flies? In the evenings,the women moved their families out to the marble stoops,left the windows and front doors open to air Fall 1999

VIcroRn LaucEtorra their houses of the smells of cooking and diapers'They brought lawn chairs and dining-room chairs out to the sidewalks,high chairsfor the babies,and if the cord was long enough they would move their small televisionsto the front doorways, facing the street so they could watch the game shows or ball games.When the children ran in and out of the housesfor a drink of water or to use the bathroom, the women yelled at them to mind the cords,to be careful; they didn't want to fall and cut their chins open with their own teeth like Eddie down the street did just last month' Eddie, since then, had gotten the stitchesout, but the scar remained, and after the other boys tired of looking at it, of touching the shiny white of it with dirty fingers, or asking him to fold his lower lip down so they could seethe inside,he had taken to sitting on the stoop closeagainsthis father-a big man with faded tattoos on his arms and a gold crucifix on a hearrychain around his neck. Why don't yougo play,his father would prod him, or at leastrun to the storeandget me a pack of Eddie refusedrepeatedly,until his father became cigarettes?B:ut frustrated, and, cursing, got up to get the cigaretteshimself, leaving the boy alone on the stoop' After a few rninutes of sitting, chin cupped in his hands,he would get up and move back into the darknessof the house,hovering shadowyin the doorway for a moment before disappearingentirely' This was the way these streetsmoved in the summer: at night, passingcarsinfrequent enough for the children to play kickball without interruption for three or more innings, illuminated by streetlights and the higher, brighter glow of the floodlights trained on the spice factory two streetsover.That waswhere the tra{hc was,too, concentratedby the waterfront on the main north-south thoroughfare of the ciry, and this was where the older boys from the neighborhood sometimes took their girls.Thesecould not be called dates,preciselythe boys' idea of datescamefrom the television. It involved

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Train Stoies

Spice picking a girl up in a carand meeting her parenrs,shaking the hand of her father, and promising to have her home at a decenthour.They had no cars,for the most part, or none that ran reliably,and their parentshad all grown up together,gone to the sameschool and church.The notion of actuallymieting anyone filled them with a quick hot dread-this was nor a thing they had to do, or knew how to do, beyond grunting an acknowledgmentto a customerb thank you as they handed her the groceriesthey hadjust bagged. And there was this: these boys knew enough that dates involved the expenditure of money, usually more than the price of a sodaor a pack of cigarettes-in short, more than they could afford.And so they waited in loose knots on the streetfor the girls to come out to their stoops,showeredand powdered after dinner, their hair carefully teasedand sprayed, smelling of drugstore perfume and strawberry_flavoredlip gloss.Each boy stood,nervouslytalking and feinting pr;.r.h.r, until the girl he waited for appeared.Thenhe walked over to her parents'or grandparents'houseto exchangea Gw words before suggestinga walk to the water. He waited to take the girl's hand until they had turned the corner at the bus stop.He offered,standingat the crosswalk,to light a cigarete for her;he cuppedhis handsagainstthe wind blowing from the harbor and discreetlywiped any salivafrom the filter before handing it to her. They were not without manners'theseboys,no matter that most were tattooed before graduatinghigh school,if indeedthey did graduate;jailhouse_ tattooed with a needleand India ink, girls,initials on slender biceps or wrists.The manners they did not learn from the television,bur from watching their fatherswith their mothers or grandmothers,watching their clumsy dance of ch ivalrythe holding of doors,or of coatsfor the women to shruginto. So they would walk with the girls to the harbor, crossing berween the facrory and the hotel in light that was brightei Fall 1999

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than any on their own streetsin the falling dusk'They walked on the bench-lined brick promenade,past families in white shorts and sandals,the children carrying ice-cream conesthat dripped and ran down their arms,chins smearedwith chocolate,usually,or sometimesstrawberry.They could not seetheir neighborhood,the rowhousesor marble stoops,the chairson the sidewalks.what they could seewere the lights of the ships in the harbor, the glasselevatorsthat moved up and down in the front of the hotel, and the wrecking ball, knocking chunks of brick and mortar to the upper floors of the spicefactory tearing holes that grew in uneven circumference, window frameslong emptied of glassdisappearingastheir boundaries were destroyed. They walked the length of the promenade, talking occasionally or not at all, the boys acknowledging someone they knew with a nod, then waiting, smoking, side by side,as the girls moved off a few paces from them and leaned in to whisper and giggle' They had no idea what the girls talked about at these moments and would not have thought, afterwards, to ask-they imagined that this was not a thing for them to know,the secretwords ofthe women who sleptin the houses next to them, the language they spoke with one another. The girls, almost without exception, were beautiftil' Their skin wassmooth and fine, more delicatethan one would think they had a right to, unblemished by layersof makeup or the cheap cold cream of their grandmothers,their hair worn long and painstakingly curled' Sometimes,when a girl walked on thesenights that could not be calleddates,one of the men in white shortswould turn quickly and glanceback at her asshe walked awayfrom him, at her legsin too-tightjeans and short high-heeled boots. The boys knew this and were proud' although they would not have admitted to it' After walking the length of the promenade,stopping for a

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Spice large sodaro share,the boys would take the girls to the hill at the far end ofthe harbor-it wassteep,and grassy,out ofreach of the streetlights,and dotted here and there with the blankets of picnickers.They climbed to the top and sar,withour a blanket, somerimesspreadingout the boy's flannel shirt if the grasswas particularly damp.They sat and from the top they could seethe line of buildings rhar separatedtheir neighborhood from the brighter lights of the warerfront, from rhe traffic and crowds, and felt lucky for that, protected, the girls securein the thought they would not have to worry who to rlra;ry,or when. They would marry the boy who got them pregnant, as quickly as possible, and though this was not necessarilya causefor shame to them, they would not have admitted to thinking it consciously,or planning it, or even allowing it to happen out of thoughtlessnessor lust-it was simply a thing that their friends and sistershad d.one,and often their mothers before them. The boys, for their part, would not have to worry about commuting to work through heavy trafiic from a house outside the ciry or having their suits cleaned in time for a business trip. They would dressin the heavypantsandboots of their fathers and grandfathersand take the bus,one transfer.ro the steel mill.The boys were ar easewith these thoughts and only when they looked at rhe clouds of dust rising from the wrecking ball at the spice facrory did they feel a quick, cold stabin their guts,and when this happenedthey would rurn, handson the girls'waisrsunder the thin fabric oftheir blouses, and rock back againstthe slope ofthe hill,pressing their warm narrow chestson top of them. Although I am married now, my initials have nor changed: there is a boy in that world who could still claim me. I tell my husband about the housesand the smells of the houses-the way the hardwood floors, once polished, were Fall 1999

r43

VrcroRtl. LaNcErorrR pocked and giving in spots,rotted through sometimesto the planking beneath,or the concrete basementsthat were damp with mildew through most of the year'Some of thesehouses have finally, in the past{ive or ten years,been sold from their families to young couples from out of town, transferred by work. Before moving in, thesecouplespay to have the houses gutted and renovated,to have blond-wood chopping islands put into the kitchens, to have the cheap paneling torn from the front-room walls. When my mother saysthat the neighborhood is going down I wonder which part of it shemeans'I look' sometimes' walking from our car to my parents'front door, at the houses that havebeen renovated,imagining that people like me must live there now.And I look too at the other houses,ttre ones I remember,unchanged,and I know that peoplelike me live in those aswell. The spring before the spice factory was torn down, a girl named Gina Capello tried to kill herself'We had not been close but I knew most of the details,heard in bathrooms and cafeteria lines: there was no one to tell me directly, and it would be a lie for me to saynow that I was bothered by this' BecauseI was not included in the way I had been once,I was and disapsavedfrom having to expressshock, and s1'rnpathy, at wonder proval, and hopes for her speedy recovery' and whether she would graduatewith the rest of us, all in the courseof one conversation.I was savedfrom being expected to stop by her house after school and pretend that nothing had shouldhaueseen changed,that no one knew or cared,to say,You who waskissingon the hair today'ot, You'llneuerguess Margaret's backoJthebus. Gina, upon confirming that she was pregnant, had locked herself in her bathroom and cut her wrists with a blade pried from a disposablerazor.This was a thing that happened on television shows,not in our neighborhood, and the reason

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Spice for the whispering at school and the clucking of parental tongues was the fact that she had attempted something so melodramatic,so out of proportion to the problem,so unnec_ essary. As it happened,Gina Capello graduatedbut did nor cross the stage with the rest of us. FIer wrists were stitched and bandaged,and the blousesshewore for the rest of that warm spring were long-sleeved,buttoned tightly, and shortly after the graduation exercisesshe and the boy were married in a smallceremonyat the neighborhood church.I went with my parents and satbefween them in the back row, wearing a black dress I had not worn since my birthday that winter. My mother, I remember, did not speakto me any more than she had to that day,partly becauseshebelievedthat black was an inappropriate color to wear to a wedding, but mostly,I think, becausewe had not been included in any of the preparations for the wedding, or invited to the reception, a slight that she imagined to be my fault. ThatAugust, my mother ran into Mrs. Capello,who volun_ teeredthat Gina and her husbandwere doing quite well,living with his family, and that she and some of Gina's friends had planned a baby shower for that weekend.Out of politeness, Mrs. Capello askedabout me, said that no one had seenme around much that summer.My mother told her that I had been busy packing for college,choosing my classes, and filling out registrationand financial-aid forms. When my mother told me about this conversation,I imagined Gina in her familyt living room, surrounded by pink and blue streamers and balloons and the girls we had grown up with, wearing a frilly materniry dressthat perhaps did not have long sleeves, tearing open wrappedand ribboned boxes.Ithought of Gina, and her husband,who had sat next to me in our advanced math class,and I thought of the boy whose name my mother had never menrioned since the night of my birthday.

Fall 1999

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VrcroRn LANcprorra This boy who could still claim me, who has the shadow of my initials still on his arm, who used instead of a needle and ink a knife to carve them in, then tapped embers from his cigaretteinto the curs,grinding them deepwith his thumb.It

Yl6'{*"1S*

wasmy birthday andI waswearing a black dress,the first black dressI had ever owned. I had seen it on the sale rack in an expensivestoreand draggedmy mother there,tried it on again and spun around in front of her, the three-way angled mirror, and the saleswoman.It was beautiful, sleeveless,long and narrow and plain, the kind ofdress I had never seenany ofthe girls in the neighborhood wear.They would have said,There's nothingto it, what'sthe big deal? So I wore it, the night ofmy birthday,ro that boy'sbasement, with my hair slicked back smooth and small silver earrings, and he said to me, Wait in the otherroomfor a minute,I havea surprisefor you, So I got up and left rhe room and waited,

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Spice expecting a necklace or charm bracelet.And when he called me back he was sitting where I had left him, his sleeverolled up, holding out his forearm for me to see:blood smearedon the skin there and dotting the front of his shirt and his mother's couch, and the cigarette still burning in the ashtray, and his pocketknifelaid acrossit. He held our his arm for me, and picked up the cigarertewith his other hand and dragged from it. Hoppy birthday, baby,hesaidto me. I loveyou, I have wondered often, since then, what would have happenedto me if I had srayed,if I had not simply picked up my coat and purse and le{t that boy sitting in his mother,s basementwith blood on his clothes and the smell of his own burned fleshin his nostrils.I havewondered,too,whathe told the girl he married the year after that, or what he tells her now when she cries next to him at night, the sound of her own sobsdrowning out those of the babyt in the next room, how he explainsthosemarks to her. Scarsfade,that I know, but the cuts on his arrn were deep. On that night I left and walked the short blocks to my parents'house,walked pastmy mother, waiting up for me in the living room, without a word. In my own room I stripped and hung the dresson a padded hanger,the only one I had. I pulled a plastic garmenr bag over it and hung it in the back of my closet. After that Monday, things were easy for me. I remember walking into the school, not even worrying that I would see the boy at lunch, becausethe problem was more immediate than that. No one cleared a parh for me in the halls,and no one whispered,at leastnot that I could hear,becausenone of that was necessary.The talking had been done, over the Saturday and Sunday,and there was nothing left to say:the conversation was over, the outcome decided. I spoke to no one,and when I got home that afternoonthere wasa note on Fall 1999

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LaNcnotta

the table for me from my mother. She wanted to talk when she got home from work; she came home early and askedme what I had done. She said she had heard things. She said she was afraid they were ffue. The boy's mother had called hel' Yourgirl, she'd said, I'm He won't talk to me,won't tell me ot his afraidof what happened. father nothing.But somethinghappenedto my boy. And my mother had been caught, ashamed,becauseshe knew nothing,becausewhateverhad happenedI waskeeping from her, though neither shenor I mentioned the boy's name' She satpatiently at the kitchen table and waited for me to say what I had to say.Istill wore my school uniform, white blouse and plaid skirt, the hem held up in spots with staplesand Scotchtape. Mrs. Marinelli called me, she said' She doesn'tknow what happenedbetweenyou two,but he wouldn'tgo to schooltoday'And it doesn'tlook good,ffienot knowingwhat to sayto her' And I thought, then, that I had not, in fact, seen him at lunch, but I had not really seen anyone at lunch-I had walked into the cafeteriawith my head down, found a corner table,and proppeda notebook in front ofme, readingover and over a page of history notes until the words lost all meaning, until the letters resemblednothing so much as hieroglyphs, strangelines and curves running in random sequenceacross the paper, ink dotted and slashedin no pattern I could recognize.He could have been standing two feet in front of me and I would not haveseenhim. I would haverefusedto see him: his dark hair and eyes,his pretty shoulders that I had restedmy head on in the backseatsof carsand the basements ofour friends'houses,his shouldersthat I had scratchedand bitten as I sat naked on his lap, my legs around his waist, feet locked at the small of his back ashe moved beneath me' In that place, there was no clear division of gerrerational

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Climmet Train Stodes

Spice loyalties-we were dl on our way to where our parenrswere, and so it waspointlessto speakbadly to them, to exclude or mock them. They knew about our lives becauseit had not been so long before for them, and becausewe told them. The thing that my morher was afraid to hear was not that I had slept wirh him, but that I had left him, becausefor me to leavehim so easily,so quickly, without thought or fearasI had done, meant that I would leave all of them eventually in iust the sameway. I do not rememberexactlyhow long the two ofus satin the kitchen that day.I know that it was a cold day in February and that the thin afternoon sun made the kitchen bright asit set, filling the window and burning through the chain-link fence of our backyard,glaring offthe patchesof snow still left in the shadyend closerto the house. Please,mymother said,wecan,tmakeit betterunlessyou tell me. The ciry had planned for anorher luxury hotel to be built after the spicefactory was torn down. Fifteen yearslater there is still no hotel;bookings have,in fact,decreaseddramatically in the one alreadystanding-?fu e neighborhood isgoingdown.ln place of the factory is rhe corner parking lot, with a bullet_ proof glassed-inattendanttbox.Early-birdspecial,inby g:30, out by 4:30, six dollars.The boys in the neighborhood work there now, and sometimes,when my husband and I stop on our way out to pay,they look pasthim to my face,the profile of my face;they are looking for something there. It was a small thing that boy did,I think now: perhapsnot somethingthat deservedsuchan eKreme reactionon my part. He had, after all, taken me out and told me he loved r.rre,and I had let him inside me for that-we had both done every_ thing we were supposedto do accordingto what-we knew at the time.I can still nor saythat I walked out of his housethat night because of any realization or premonition of what Fall 1999

VrctonIa LaNcnrorra would happen to me if I stayed,if I had let him kiss me and wrap his arms around me while his blood dripped on his mother's couch. He was married shortly after I left for college' My mother sent me the announcement clipped from the paper,a photograph of a girl I did not know. She had highlighted the name of the groom in the accompanyingtext.The couple plannec to honeymoon in Florida and reside in town' Now I think of him rarely,and when I do, I find that my thoughts turn more easilyto his wife than to him, to a woman my ov/n age whom I do not know, but who may well know my name,might have learned it from someone in the neighborhood, or from her husband. She might have asked him once or many times about the shadowsof cuts on his arm, until he told her asmuch of the story ashe could' Or perhapsnot. He could havethat secret.It is one I keep from my husband-in all the times we talked about the people we were involved with before eachother, I havenever spoken of that.It is a story I would not know how to tell him' It is not that my husband is a passionlessman, but it makes me uncomfortable to think that he would laugh, or that I would cry if I told him. But I imagine,sometimes,that what I need to do is tell my husbandwhat that boy did for me, and if my husbandthinks it stupid,I will explain to him that it was not: he will not laugh and I will not cry. I imagine telling him this. But what I tell him insteadis that the summer they tore the spicefactory down the dust roseup over our headsand it smelled of cinnamon and nuffneg, that the whole ciry by the water smelled that summer of our mothers'safekitchens,sweetand hot, and when the building was gone and we lifted piles of rubble to our faces,it smelled as if the factory were srill there. fr" I

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7/"

fur

Cary and Linda, second timearound, February 9,1999

'\

Zwearher

durilrg the

l"trorty I wrote this story was warm and rai{ry,with mist hanging in the trees,the sun just a sulftrhpatch behind the clouds.It wasthe kind ofweather that hasalways tugged at memories that aren't truly mine. Another life, perhaps,or I'm merely empathic, I cant say. This story came to me asa gift, unearned,out of t$e blue. The first words,"Let'ssay...l'and I was writing asif I were merely transcribing.I wrote the story in rwo days,unheard of for me. At a conference severalyearsago' the writer f.andall Silvis told me that when a story comes out on the p{ge in a rush,the writer hastappedinto his/her voice.I belieVethis is true. but I also believe there is more to it than just voice, somethingmore personal. "In My Other Life" was a responseto questionsI didn't know I was posing. There are no answers' of coupse;the questionsare only better elucidated.Either way' our presence in this world is transient,certainly,but may well be perrytanent, our mortaliry basicallyalwaysa surprise.

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memoir and essay, learning to write fiction has been a struggle for me. Every time I made something up, I felt asif those lines had been highlighted in bright yellow, so great was the discrepancy between the,,fake,'part and the rest of the story. "Ant Farm" was one of the first stories Id written where I no longer stared critically at the seams between fact and fiction.

I have dways dreaded being asked whar a story is about. First, becauseif your answer isnt entertaining enough, the personaskingisnt going to readit. And secondly,becausethe plot is never the subject anyway...Ant Farm', is a piece of fiction in which the only purely autobiographical element is the mother's abiding love for her son. I like that term, "abiding" love. It is different from every other kind, and I could explore it for along,long time.There is an elementof faith, or ar leasthope,implied in that kind of endurance.

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'rl""othis in a box photograph of family keepsakesafter both of my parents had died.I have no idea who the man in the photo is, but I have often imagined that he is one of my ancestors-

perhaps my great-grandfather,James Henry Martin, or my great-great-grandfather, John A' Martin. I have seenphotos of neither, so my imagination is free to put either name to this face. Such fancy both pleasesand frustratesme, since there is no one left in my family who might be able to identify this man. He will remain a mystery' asimpenetrable as his stare,which looks into the camerat lens, and reaches through the yearsto me, who found him, and savedhim, and put him on this Page.

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Climmer Train Stories

uring an earlier incarnation, I was theAssistantChief of a small village inTogo. As such, I was responsiblefor replacingthe Chiefwhen he went to visit his relativesand the general administration of the palm wine harvest. I have subsequentlyleft AssistantChiefdom to pursue a literary career.But I havefond memories ofmy African years, and often look back nostalgicailyto a rime when I didnt have to worry where my next yam was coming from. Unlike the genesisof mosr things I wrire, I can actually rememberthe moment that,'The powerBreakfast"wasborn. I waswalking down a streetin a seedysectionofEast Holly_ wood when I heard one streetperson turn to another and say, "I was askedto leave Flollywood.,, It was such a wonderfully self-important pronouncement, given the source-a man picking through a garbage dumpster-that I knew that somedayI would write about it.

Fall 1999

'4

&

\-,/ood

has always been

immensely important in my family. My mpm is an arrrarzingcook, as was my grandmother, though neither

of them set much store by recipes-I never refnember them measuring anything out, or reading from thbse little stainedand dog-earedindex cardsto check on ingredients or cooking times. The problem with this is that when I make one of their dishes-past e fagiole or caponataor mollicae acciughe-l'rnflying blind, addingpinchesand dropsof herbs and oils, tasting and seasoning and correcting and tasting some more. Eventually, things start tasting likd they're supposedto, like I remember them, and I'm feelirlg triumphant, and inviting people over and uncorking the wine, and I realizethat (no doubt due to some genetic Italian predisposition) I haveno real idea ofwhat I did to make the dish.No notes, no index card, nothing. I feel the same Way about writing: the trick is to get your story to tastegood, and if it does, if what you've done has worked, it's uselessto try to duplicate it the next time around, becauseyou'rb starting over from scratch.Peoole with sozsche6 are luckv.

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Glimrler Train Stoies

though I tried. One day I woke up and had a thing againstone-word titles.So I tried,,Girl on a Bus" or "SoutheastCorridor." Everything that came up sounded very old-fashioned, which I supposethe father in rhe story would haveliked e greatdeal.But I wanted Hope's conscious_ ness to be entirely her own. She'd certainly worked hard enough to get there. Of coursewhen you saddle something with a title like "Flope," you risk attracting a kind of scrutiny.A friend asked, "You going Oprah on me?" But one of the philosophies I grapple with as a writer is whether or not

No matter how much you want or dont want change,there'salwaysthat one inevitable.Which is why this story is dedi_ cated to my Late,great-uncle Sam, the family's original sroryreller.In the photo he'stelling the one about this youngjoker he knew on Henry Street, who got through hard times with a rigged scale,a pound of green grapes,and a pushcart.Sam'sthumb is up for emphasis, since that's what his friend used to rig scale.

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7K"I

I thinkof "Sharks,"

think of snow I grew up in Buflblo and speht many yearsin New England:the landscapesand weather ofthe Northeast haveleft their mark.I now live in central Florida, but it may take a while for the tall pines, Spanishntross,and steambathheat to show up in my fiction'My niece,Deborah, lives in Northern California, and her parentshave planted a wonderful, year-round garden behind their house' So far, Deborah's fiction features flowers with nectar (as well as magic rocks,dragons,tea parties,and characterswho fly)'

E E J E

Nanu with her niece,

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Glimuer Ttuin Stodes

(t,--x <J/ AST CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS AND ARTISTS

Issues1 throughj7 areauailableforeleuendollarseaeh.

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Dorothv CraceBurmeister anddaighterLinda, 1961

Coming soon: I was embarrassedto show it' this raw, doting, unharnessed

pocketbook with just three words bread'milk, chocol4te' Rabb from "How to Find Inve" by Margo

paintedjust this PastsPring.

from "Camlto" bYManuel Mufioz

I have used travel to break through constraining roles' but also to work on fear.-Womenof my generation and culture were taught to be afraid.It was"appropriate" to be afraid then' Timid women were thought to be appealing women' Men more felt braver around them, and the timid woman lvas likely to get a husband,among other perquisites' qhatmask' But on-reflection,it's clear that when you put on going to m9' For off' worked be it adheresto your face.It must off''Southeast mask the strangeplaceswas a way of working Asia.Nepal.Tibet. from an interuiewwith Karen Swensonby SusanMclnnis

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Climmer Truin Stnies