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oThe only gift is a portion of thyself...the poet brings his
poem; the shepherd his lamb...the girl, a handkerchief of
her own sewing.� Ralph Waldo Emerson
As editor, I would like to thank my staff for the gifts they
gave to me:
Steve Randolph, who gave spirit and humor to keep
me safe,
Darlene Pelliccio, who gave artistic and literary gentleness;
blue and cool and honest,
Chandra Speight, who gave intelligence, youth, and beauty
to refresh and impress,
Suzy, who gave technical knowledge,
Jill, whose proof reading skills are legendary and
Lisa, who helped open our new ChildrenTs Literature
Category. Without you all, this publication would not be.
Others watched over me:
Craig Malmrose, Lucy Watson, Evelyn and Joe Boyette,
Yvonne Moye, Janet Respess, Luke Sanders, Patsy Groover,
Dr. John Richards, Jerry Jackson, Henry Stindt, Julie Fay,
Dr. Pat Campbell, Dr. Michael Bassman, Hal Miles, Josh
White, Dr. Taggart and Bob Harlow. I thank you all.
The Rebel also found support in the community:
ChicoTs Restaurant, Marathon Restaurant, CD Alley,
ECU Student Store, Stindt Photo-graphic, and the University
Book Exchange. Thank you for your generosity and your
willingness to support the authors and artists of East
Carolina University.
J.E. Boyette
Editor
Rebel '94
ON THE COVER
Jeanne Brady
Kindred Spirits
Textiles
First Place
oIt is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is
the journey that matters, in the end.�
Ursula K. LeGuin
Dear Josie, Steve, Chandra, Jill, Lisa, Luke, Katherine,
Missy and Suzy:
Thank you for taking this journey with me.
Craig,
I respect and thank you for all that you have done.
I dedicate this Rebel to my entire family, especially
Margo, Dad, Nicky, Annette, Alex, Laurie, Joey,
Chris, and Panda.
A very special thanks to my mother.
oA mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.�
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Darlene Pelliccio
Art Director
Rebel T94
The Rebel is published for and by the students of
East Carolina University. Offices are located in the
Student Publications Building on the campus of ECU.
This issue is volume 36, and its contents are copy-
righted 9 1994 The Rebel. All rights revert to the orig-
inal authors and artists upon publication. Contents
may not be reproduced by any means without writ-
ten permission of the creators. The Rebel invites all
students to voice opinions in writing.
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EDITOR
J.E. Boyette
ASSisiakrw? Beis. &
Steve Randolph
PROSE EPRiTor®
Lisa Yates
FOSTER Bust RR
Chandra Speight
oe Me ee ray A
Jill Adams
EIT RRA YY. Bey tSeVas
Dr. Michael Bassman
Julie Fay
Dr. Patricia Campbell
ART DOrREC TO
Darlene Pelliccio
ASS TATAAS se DIRE
Suzanne Simpson
DESIGN DIRECTOR
Craig Malmrose
PHOTOGRAPHER
Henry Stindt
Stindt Photo-graphic
PHOTOGRAPH
Brent Whitson
oe a
PRINTING
East Carolina University
Central Printing
(
A N
1°OR
PES ERARY JURBGES
PROSE
Cindy Thompson-Rumple
Cindy Thompson-Rumple is a fiction writer whose short
stories have appeared in The Seattle Review, South
Dakota Review, and Portland, among others. A graduate
of East Carolina University and Duke University, she has
worked as a reporter for newspapers in North Carolina
and Georgia. At ECU, she served as Feature Editor for
Expressions magazine.
POETRY
Kate Daniels
Kate Daniels is the author of two books of poetry, The
White Wave and The Niobe Poems. Her literary awards
include the Pushcart Prize, the Crazy Horse Prize and the
Louisiana Literary Prize for Poetry. Mrs. Daniels received
her education at the University of Virginia and at
Columbia University. She is currently the Poet in
Residence at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
CHILDRENTS LITERATURE
Dr. Helen Kemp Gay-Stephenson
Dr. Gay-Stephenson spent twenty-five years in the Wake
County School System where she served as a speech
clinician, a teacher in the LD program and as the
supervisor for Special Education services. Dr.
Gay-Stephenson received her Ph.D. from the University
of North Carolina and her MA and BS degrees from East
Carolina University, where she taught for nine years
before retiring to Raleigh in 1989.
ART JUDGES
Leslie Brooks
Ms. Brooks received her MFA in Ceramics & Drawing
from ECU, and a BFA in Painting & Drawing from Old
Dominion University. She has recently established Ayden
Art, a 3-D studio located approximately ten miles from
Greenville and housed in a turn-of-the-century jail.
Although Ms. Brooks has been regionally involved in
various visiting artist programs in addition to teaching
adjunct faculty at ECU, her main thrust has always been
as a producing artist.
Catherine Spruill
Catherine Lawrence Spruill received her BFA in
Painting from ECU. She is currently employed as an
Artist/Illustrator for the Health Sciences &
Communications Department located in the Brody
Building on ECUTs campus. She teaches mixed media art
and craft classes for the Parks & Recreation program
sponsored by the City of Greenville.
Leonard Veillette
Leonard Veillette received his MFA & BFA in
Communication Arts from ECU. He and his wife, Susan
Rinehardt, reside in Rocky Mount, N.C. where he owns
and runs Veillette Advertising and Design. He has won
several PICA and Addy awards for his excellence in
design and printing. Mr. Veillette taught graphic design
at ECU from 1981-1989.
PROSE
12
20
20
28
34
40
CHILDRENTS
66
69
71
rR
79
R
oNdaTs Wedding�
Serpent Angela Bacon Reid
Angela Bacon Reid
A Man and His Fishes Joseph Elchehabi
John W. Nicklas
Angela Raper
Asleep and Dreaming
Domesticity
The Ladies Who Lunch
Passing Steve Randolph
'
Children in Southeast Asia James E.Casey
Charmer Kelle Xaviar Lawrence
The Corporeal Aspect of Art
Talking Tomatoes (AlzheimerTs Winter)
Wayne Robbins
Bedtime Jane C. Sabatini
Untitled Wayne Robbins
Tonya: On the Power of Counting Red
J £. Boyette
Leather Chandra Speight
LITERATURE
Elizabeth McDavid
Laura McKay
Encounterings
Rhinoceros Ate the Moon
Winter 1981
For Kitty
1781
Time For Bed
David Scott Lemon
Wayne Robbins
Eric Honeycutt
Darlene Pelliccio
JE. Boyette
Elizabeth McDavid
Elizabeth McDavid
Rabbit Whispers
Pony Mail
ART
45
49
50
~A|
No
John McManus
�"�~\
Ww
55
50
-"-"
58
59
00
61
62
04
GALLERY
Untitled John Bateman
John Bateman
Ray Kaylor
Jamie Kirkpatrick
Untitled
Basket Form #6
Interference Pattern #4
3 Stages of a Traveling Foot Washing
Jerry Jackson
Lidded Vessel #5 Ray Kaylor
David Grahbek
Jeannette Stevenson
Untitled
Unity
93
Self Identity Cubes Production Class
22Go Darlene Pelliccio
New Age Gaelic Darlene Pelliccio
Swan Song Brian Woodlief
The Rite of Spring Keith Hobgood
Untitled #2 Sean Livingstone
Goat Suspicious Sophia Allison
Untitled #1 Sean Livingstone
Stormy Averitte
Sheri Maffiore
Caroline Rust
Box of Unity
Window Series
Boston Brownstone
Don Jrene Bailey
My Only Occupation Dietrich Maune
Beth with a Hat john Bateman
Keith Hobgood
Fabrizio Bianchi
Untitled
Still Life
Self Portrait
Matthew Reynolds
Melia Elliott
Cliff Coffey
Melia Elliott
Fred Webb Grain Elevators
Holy Rollers
Twisting Souls
Rebecca Putze
Untitled
Ground Zero
Facets & Fathoms
The Turning
Carrie Plank
Marcia Sanders
Todd Robert
Higawari Piece of Many Colors Ray Kaylor
Kinetic from the Twin Series
DTjean Jawkunner
J. K. Dowdee
Alice Swart
Restore
Spider Happi
Whirlwind! Alice Swart
Lady Savage Tamara Fedder
4
PROSE
The Ser
BY ANGELA BACON REID
ITTS BEEN YEARS SINCE 3:7 ROUGHT
of Lucie even though so many times I have sat at this
window, looked out on what used to be hers, the land
my grandfatherTs grandfather gave her. Why should this
view have meant oLucie� to me? This was my mother,
this bay window with its delicate draperies, the good
light for sewing, the sweet scent of magnolias near.
This was the room that she shared with my Papa, the
love of my life. The room where she brought me into
this world, left me alone.
It was June, 65, when I last saw Lucie; I had just
turned 11 years old. The big waxen blossoms had burst
on the trees, and I on my swing drifted backwards and
forwards, backwards and forwards, among them
through the scents and the sounds of the summer. The
day washes over me like the breakers of the incoming
tide. I can feel the coarse fabric of the hand-me-down
pinafore worn by my grandmother before me. The
white linen brushed at my ankles, but I had found
twine to belt it gracelessly high, let the breeze and the
sun kiss my skin. I was enveloped in the musk of the
Nezpique Bayou, a living scent as sweet and familiar as
my PapaTs stale sweat.
From the top arc of the swing I could have seen Lucie
where she sat on her porch in her rocker, a splash of
dark skin swathed in red, but I was bewitched by my
own reflection in our windows, seduced into believing
beautiful what my mirror told me was merely strange.
Lucie did not enter my mind until my thoughts were
disturbed by the cough of my PapaTs old truck starting
up in her yard.
Papa. The sound of him brought gladness, and the
allure of my image was instantly lost in the promise of
being with him. I jumped from my swing, cushioned
my fall with bent knees, sprang into motion across the
shaded grass of our yard. I wanted to know what he
was doing at LucieTs house when he was meant to be
out on the pirogue with Joe"I had myself seen him
off that morning while Grandmama slept, brushing his
silver-brown hair while he ate, preparing his lunch
while he dressed in his worn fishing clothes.
The cypress trees lining the creek blocked my view of
him as I scrambled down the bank to the bridge my
grandfather had built for my pregnant grandmother
four years before leaving to die in the first World War.
I didnTt take time to balance my way over the handrail
as I usually did"if I fell I'd have a mud bath and miss
Papa, miss my chance to ride in the truck with him
LITERARY AND ARTS
FIRST
pent
when he left LucieTs house over the dirt road the
hundred feet to our home. I strained to hear over the
buzzing cicadas what he and Lucie were saying,
tempted to call to him but wanting my presence to
be a surprise.
It wasnTt Papa surprised. I stopped dead on the other
side, astonished that it wasnTt Papa with Lucie. Lucie
never had company, only on Sunday when the priest
forced a trickle of her abashed people to pay their
respects on the elderly would someone appear, on a
bicycle, no black in Ducote owned a car, much less a
truck like the one I had thought was our own. It was
brand new and shining, and the plaque half-visible on
the path from the creek read Crowley Bureau of Hu".
Disappointed but curious still, | moved forward slowly
to the shadow of the old wooden wagon that had been
my playpen when I was a child. There was a woman
on LucieTs porch, well-dressed in a white linen skirt,
pillbox hat. I had never seen light skin at LucieTs house
save for my grandmotherTs, or PapaTs and my
cream-colored complexions. I thought the woman
must also be Creole, but when I heard her speak |
knew her to be that strange distant animal"a north-
erner"more exotic to me than Lucie by far in spite of
our common light skin.
oWe'll be back in an hour, Miss Ricaneau,� the white
ILLUSTRATIONS DAVID ROSE
woman said. oITm so glad we'll be able to help you.
Everything will be much nicer now.�
Lucie was rocking dispiritedly, her palms draped
upright on the knobbed ends of the chair, her gaze on
a cypress tree with its thick Spanish moss, only once in
a while glancing like sunlight off the ladyTs blonde hair.
Her scarlet apron was flecked with decades of cooking
grease, mud"clean, but irreversibly stained. Under
this she wore only a ribbed undershirt and petticoat, a
pair of my PapaTs old boots. Nearly a hundred and
nearly bald, she had covered her lumpy gray head with
the white madras turban she had been given by my
great grandfather when she was born. She looked alto-
gether unprepossessing, her mouth bitter with the
self-contained sullenness she wore when Grandmama
used to come over to get me, mad that my Papa had
left me with Lucie at all.
A big black that was not one of ours came on the porch
of LucieTs house, her old spinning wheel in his hands.
Lucie sharpened and focused on that; I saw her spine
stiffen. but her voice sounded shapeless and soft, lost
in the husk of the bayou. oMind you be careful,� she
said, othat been my MamanTs when she be a girl.�
The lady put a white-gloved hand on LucieTs back,
pursed her perfectly painted lips, oThere, Miss
Ricaneau. James will be careful, don't fear.�
The man put the wheel on the back of the pick-up,
next to LucieTs table, her old spindle bed. Everything
Lucie owned was where that truck idled impatiently,
kicking the dirt into clouds.
My chest tightened, | couldn't tell if in anger or fear. I
wanted to run back to the house, fetch Grandmama,
who if she did not like her would not allow Aunt Lucie
to be robbed. but I knew they would leave before ITd
get back. My very name pressed me to service, my
obligation to Papa. I had to do something to save her; |
had to do something myself.
I stepped from the shadows into the sunlight,
smoothed down the pinafore as much as I could, and
borrowed GrandmamaTs haughtiest tone. oBeg pardon,
Madame. Those things belong to Tante Lucie. Please
have your boy put them back.�
The man laughed without trying to hide it; the white
lady smiled at me. oArenTt you a sweet little girl? Miss
Ricaneau, you have a guest. WhatTs your name?�
The humiliation of that laughter, that smile, bound my
tongue. I was acutely conscious of my dirty bare feet,
the willful crimped tendrils of brown escaping my
braid, the rouge I had stolen from my MamanTs memor-
ial to smear inexpertly on my overgenerous lips. The
black man in his store-bought clothes was pitying me.
The lady was waiting politely. All I could do was
stretch to my full gawky height, hoping the mortified
burn on my face would pass for righteous indignation.
Finally Aunt Lucie spoke. oShelly Ducote she be,� she
said. oI tend her when she be a baby. I used to look
after her Papa.�
The white woman looked surprised. oOh, Etienne
DucoteTs little girl?�
Her recognition I took as my due"the town was my
familyTs: in name if not ownership. I wasn't quite cer-
tain the source of her wonder"my age, for Papa was
old enough to my grandfather, or my demeanor, which
my Grandmama called unrefined.
The woman smiled again, patted Aunt LucieTs shoulder.
oDon't worry, little Miss Ducote. We'll take goc xd care of
Miss Ricaneau.� She started her way down the porch,
stepping fastidiously onto the thick black dirt. I was
astonished to see she wore nylons"in summer, a
weekday. The extravagance more than her quality
clothing spoke to me of big city. Even Grandmama,
who dressed better than anyone else in Ducote, in the
summertime only wore nylons to Mass. oRemember,
Miss Ricaneau, we'll be back in an hour.�
The black man handed her into the truck with a chival-
ric respect that I envied her, before himself leaping into
the back to ride with Aunt LucieTs things. The driver, a
local boy, tipped his hat to us before he put the truck
in reverse, pulled out into the dirt road that would take
him from town.
Aunt Lucie was packing her pipe. She looked strange
to me, older than ever, unreal. I resented that I had
been embarrassed for and before her, but she seemed
unaware ITd been humbled. I thought about leaving,
returning to my swing and my fantasy, but Aunt Lucie
speared me with her anomalous eyes. The familiarity
of that brown and blue was comforting, and it
strengthened my trembling legs to take me to the foot
of the porch. I tried to cover my confusion with arro-
gance, demanding what | feared she might otherwise
not supply. oTante Lucie, who were those people?
WhatTs going on?�
She held the match to the plug in the pipe and drew
long, her face lit as red as her dress. Releasing a thick
smog of her perique tobacco, she looked at me, the
weak, pale eye fluttering, for a moment, and said,
oBeen a while since you come, Marichelle. I took the
notion you thought you outgrow me.�
It was true, but her saying it blunt made me blush. |
wondered if she was mocking me, mocking the
lipstick, the flowers in my hair. I climbed up to the
porch, looked in the glassless window to the barren
interior of LucieTs house. It was sO clean"there was no
dust at all on the wooden floor to show where the fur-
REBEL NINETY-FOUR
5
6)
niture was, only a slight discoloration from the lye she
used for scrubbing. I took that emptiness personally, as
though they were my belongings, my table and chairs,
my pots and pans, turning black in the back of the
truck. oWhat are you doing? Are you moving? Are you
selling your things?�
oCurious little chatte.� Aunt LucieTs voice was full of
patronizing affection. I looked at her, saw her smile,
show the gums so dark they seemed blue, the sugar-
cane stem of the pipe clenched between strong yellow
teeth. oLet be, puss. I got a story for you. She been
waiting a long time for you to come.�
Even at that age, even under those circumstances, the
promise of a story could make me feel eager. If only I
could remember the stories she used to tell"
Woodpecker, Grandfather Rattlesnake, Cunning Rabbit.
So many hours I curled on her moss-filled mattress
under the weight of a crimson comforter listening as
Lucie meandered her way through a tale, piecing a new
quilt together and smoking her pungent pipe. I would
have written them down if ITd known how their details
would flee me, how I would one day read childrenTs
books to my own little girl with distaste that they had
so littke meaning.
| shook off the storyTs attraction, feeling too old, too
grasped by the novelty of that empty house. oI donTt
want a story, Tante Lucie,� I told her. oI want to know
whatTs going on.�
oI want to tell,� she said, obut you never attend.�
She assuredly meant to bait me, but I was too resolute
to be drawn into an argument I could not hope to win.
I sat down next to her rocker, pulling my knees to my
chest and the pinafore far enough down to cover them.
I couldnTt quite cloak my impatience, even though the
last thing I wanted was to start her moralizing"which
would not only delay the story but guarantee that sheTd
never get around to what I really wanted to know. She
punished my impertinence with a painless pop of a
fingertip on my forehead. oI save this one special for
you to grow up.� She reproached me. oShe be the
scariest story I know.�
It wasnTt easy for me to sit still. My nails found a scab
on my shin and started exploring it, my toes curled
around the wood grain, but I held my eyes motionless
until Aunt Lucie was satisfied, drew on the pipe and
leaned back in her chair. She rocked to the rhythm of
the cicadas, reaching for her story-telling voice, and I
watched her gathering herself"her brown eye closed,
nearly-blind blue as closed as it would.
There was a comfort sitting there in the sunshine, feel-
ing the sweat puddle at the back of my knees and
watching the birds do their warrior dance in the
cypress trees. A few women were working the sweet
potato field"they were far out of sight, but I could
hear the occasional screech of their children playing
about. I used to play there myself when I was smaller,
when Grandmama had one of her headaches or Lucie
LITERARY AND ARTS
was busy or Papa just wanted me near.
Just as my impatience began settling out, Aunt Lucie
started to speak. oThe story, she begin with a négresse
in the bayou,� she said. oThat old woman live in a
shack with the snakes and the gators and marsh
rabbits. She have her two sons near an age. The older
be white-skin, blue eyes like heaven, and him she
call Ciel. The younger by twenty-two days be a black
boy, eyes like the midnight, and for that reason she
call him Minuit.�
It was a story about human beings and already unique
because of it; that engaged me at once. oHow did a
black woman have a white son? Was he muldtre?T
oNo, Marichelle, he be all white. DonTt worry ~bout how,
he purely was. But listen now. Those two little boys,
they be good friends as children, but when they grow
up they go different ways and they leave their Maman
alone. Ciel ~come a tiller of soil, make the LoTsiana yam
like you Papa do. He live with the blancs and be like
them; he be afraid of the dark. Minuit. him live with the
negres and cannot come out in the light.
oPeople be hungry. The last year, flood make things
hard; the parish, she take all the food. People be poor.
In an Oberlin store some folk see a négre boy stealing.
They donTt like négres, because their papas tell them
the négre make the white poor. So they do not send the
child to jail, but they drag him to a field and they beat
him until his blood spill out red on the ground.
oThe négres decide to make even. They cover their faces
in mud and go to the food store when it be close,
when the blanc be counting his money, and they carry
him to the same field. They beat him so bad until one
of his eyes falls out, so bad they bust his ear. They
leave him for dead, but the blancs come and save him
before he can die.
oI had seen animal eyes piled in a bucket in the barn,
blank staring orbs without feeling or thought, but |
couldnTt imagine a human one. Nor could I imagine a
face without one"even LucieTs distant blue was some-
thing. 1 pictured a hole through which brains might
ooze, a black pirateTs patch holding them back. It was a
gruesome image, that churned my breakfast in my
stomach quite pleasantly, a sickness not unlike that |
felt on the rides at the fair.
oMinuit, he maybe be with them. He be angry, and
he say things he know he should not. He be there
when they bring in the Oberlin boy. The storekeeper,
he say someone call out MinuitTs name. So when
the blancs come for their vengeance, they come to
take it from him.
oEarly in the morning he flee them into the bayou. He
knows what his Maman knows. He knows where the
bayou will hide him, where the blancs will get lost do
them go. He be young, Marichelle, only twice old as
you are, more scareder than you ever be. He cry like a
calf at the slaughter, no shame to him that him do"
sometime a man has to cry so the /oa can hear him and
know that he needs their help.
oWhat's a loa?�
She smiled. oA /oa be like an angel for the négre. They
used to be gods, but now they be Catholic like we.�
The only angels I knew of were white men in dresses
with golden hair. My mother had a series of miscarriages
before my birth, and there were so many pictures of
angels around my bed that I considered myself some-
thing of an expert. In light of what had happened to
Maman, I secretly believed the angels should have been
up around hers. I found the idea of black angels, these
loa vaguely blasphemous and very intriguing. oDid the
loa help him?�
oThey yes indeed did, for Papa Sun, he rise to midnoon
and sink down again, all the while Minuit, he outrun
them, hide now in the oak trees, now in the fishing
shacks, now and again in the clear. Toward midnight he
grow too sure in his craft and lose care, and then he be
seen by two of the men.
oOne more time he try to run. He want to run to his
MamanTs house, but ~fore him can reach it, he know he
be going to tire. It be close to his brotherTs plantation,
and Minuit, he think he might shelter there. Just as he
step his foot in the yard, they catch him"these bad
men, they knock him down with a hit to his head.�
I couldnTt imagine proper revenge for bursting an eye"
the very effort gave me a horrified thrill that I was too
young to be shamed by. The empty house, the woman,
meant less to me. I turned towards Aunt Lucie and
leaned my hands on the arm of her chair, stilling her
rocking without half realizing what I did as I curled my
feet under me and slid close. oWhat did they do?�
She looked at me for a time without answering, obvious-
ly pleased that sheTd caught my attention. She took one
of my hands in her leathery one, turned the palm
upwards and traced her discolored nail over the lines.
oBright the next sunrise, the old woman turn out"�
oBut what did they do� I snatched my hand away, out-
raged that the tale had been censored, that she still after
all thought me young. She shook her head with a smile
and continued.
oBright she turn out. She had dreamed of a swarm of
bees in a cotton field. She be a wise woman, a mambo,
so she know the dream say somebody going to die.
She spend the morning time casting for signs to learn
who it be to be took from her, and at noontime the
heavens go dark. It be Minuit, he is gone, and Minuit
she must revenge.
oMidnight she go to the graveyard where be buried her
Maman and grandmama, where the old master left his
slaves go when like a cockroach he suck from them all
of their lives. She draw a ring of the coffee grounds on
all sides of her, but not even the smell of the chicory can
hide the stench of death. She be too old for the woman's
blood, so she cut her thighs and smear that blood over
her dugs. She drink from a bottle of whiskey, and, with
the fire in her throat, the mambo, she sing, ~Atibd
Legha, lTouvri bayé pou mwé Papa Legba louvri baye
pou mwé pou mwé pasé
Lo mT a touné, mT a salié loa-yo
Vodou Legha. IT ouvri bayé pou mwé
Lo mT a touné mT a remésyé loa-yo Abobo.T�
Aunt Lucie changed when she spoke the words, her
voice sounded cultured, refined, unlike anything I had
ever heard her say.
The words were not French"they sounded almost
familiar, but they escaped me, like the sense of a
dream upon waking. oI donTt understand it.�
oIt means ~Atibo Legba, open the door for me, let me
come through. When I come back I will honor you.
Voodoo Legba, open the door for me, and when |
return I will thank you.�
Oh, yes, I had heard about Voodoo. It was a delicious
fear to encounter it in a story from someone who might
actually know something more than could be con-
tained in the whispered conjectures of children. I want-
ed to interrupt again, ask about Legba, but Aunt LucieTs
face was taking on the cast it had when the story was
reaching its peak, and I was afraid to lose it and her,
afraid to display my ignorance in case she decided this
was yet one more thing I was not old enough to know.
oSoon the mambo felt the /oad come into her, inside
her very own flesh. The /oa ride men like they be
horses. Many times before the mambo been the cheval
of them gods. Legba drink her whiskey, smoke her
tobacco, and give her permission to speak to the
Baron Samedi.�
Aunt Lucie smiled. oOh, the Baron be a handsome
man. He be the Joa of sorcery and necromancy, the
magic binding the dead. He always be dressed for a
funeral, in a top hat and tails, with white gloves. He
carry a cane.
oBut he be dangerous, too. Sometime the price that
he ask of the mortals be more than a mortal can pay.
Sometime the Baron, he play games and grant prayers
in a way the priestess do not mean. Men ask for their
loved ones come back without knowing the right
words to say, and corps come to them to shatter
their dreams.
oThis mambo, though, she know the rules. She dance
the yanvalou for him"not like the dances your old
grandmamaTs friends do at her parties, Marichelle. It be
the dance of the serpent, the dance of Dambhalla, and
Baron Samedi be pleased. She beg him to show her the
grave of her son, to let her bring her son back to her
through her revenge. Baron Samedi, he name his price,
and the mambo, she promise it, and he tell her in
twenty-four hours her MinuitTs soul would come home.
oThe next night, the mambo, she sit on a raft in the
bayou, again with the circle of coffee, waiting for her
youngest child. So soon as the moon rose, his spirit
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 7
&
on eed eek SS tS, ~~ 16 POPE nse
come. He be a bird in an oak tree, singing with the
voice of a man. He say:
oThree times died I, in bone, blood and hide
By briar, by wire, by pyre.T
oThe mambo, she paint the sign of the bird on her belly
and changed to a sparrow, she go with him to fly
through the night. He take her over the ocean of sleep,
and there the mambo, she see through his eyes: the
world upside down. Minuit fly to and froT through the
night; the thick thorny sticks, they pushing him like a
ball in a little childTs game. His body be bruised and
battered. His brittle bones break. He look at the fore-
man and die.
oThe next day the foreman, he be down in the fields. He
watch the négres plant the slips of the yams, and the
mambo, she watch from the shade of the house.
Hoodoo, she be not evil, Marichelle, she be judgment.
She stand for order, respect for the night. This mambo,
she know the way of it, and she make a wanga, a
charm, meant to kill. It be in a black bag, not the red
color for safety. The foremanTs little son, he be playing
by the side of the field with the workerTs children.
and the mambo, she call him to her. She give the
little white boy the wanga for his Papa, and she hide
herself in with the other négresses to see what be
happening next.
oThe little boy take the bag to his Papa right away. The
foreman, he be afraid. He make the Cross over his
breast. He ask the child to show him where be the
woman who give it. The littke boy, he do not know her
with all the other dark faces. The négresses know, but
nobody deliver her from them. The foreman, he order
them tell him what the wanga, the mojo, will do, but
they can not, so he start to hit all of them even though
the days when such could be done be long gone. The
women flee to their men in the field, and the foreman.
he leave for the church, to beg the priest save him from
the harm that must come.
oWhen the foreman be finished, the mambo wait for the
SpiritTs return.�
oThe foreman was dead? What happened? What did
it do?�
oEveryone know how Minuit died. The négres all hate
the white man, and no man, he would not hold him a
man if he watch his woman be beat by a blanc without
killing him. One of the field hands, he do it.�
oThat wasnTt magic!�
oNot magic? Then what made the foreman forget himself
so, hit the black women at all? Never mind. Marichelle.
Listen.
oThat night the mambo, she have to wait long. It be past
midnight when there came walking into the waters of
the bayou a wild hog. The mambo, she hear from him
come the manTs voice:
LITERARY AND ARTS
oTwo times died I, in blood and in hide
By wire, by pyre.
When two more are killed
My revenge be fulfilled.T
oShe paint the sign of the hog on her belly. Like a sow,
she join him. He take her to the forest of the night, and
with his eyes she see: the swelling of skin. Tight wires
wrapped tight ~round his knuckles and toes, twisted
with metal until his skin crack and come open, bones
come apart and fingertips be taken off, passed around
to the gathering crowd like souvenirs, by the stock-
breeder, who laugh when Minuit die.�
oA crowd, Tante Lucie?!�
oOui, Marichelle. They cut off his fingers at three joints
and his toes, cut off his ears and his nose and pass all
the pieces around.�
I had seen them at the fair, once, at a cockfight, watch-
ing and screaming and yelling for blood. I'd been little.
and I cried until Papa saw I was scared and took me
out. He told me the roosters did not feel like we do.
but I knew better"ITd seen animals weep for their
lives in the barn. Poor Papa tried to entice me with
cotton candy, but I wouldnTt be comforted until we
went home, where my Grandmama told him that he
was a fool, he should have covered my eyes.
He should have covered his own, for it was their
light that had frightened me most of all. He was excited
like them.
Aunt Lucie touched my face, and I looked at her. It was
a moment of silent communication, a communion like
those we had had when I was young, and I wanted to
climb on the chair with her the way that I used to. But
she was too old, and I was too old, and times were not
what they were. oI hope the breeder dies,� I said.
oAnd so do the mambo. But how can she kill him? The
foreman be Creole, superstitious, he know the mojo
and he be smart enough to be scared. The stock-breed-
er, he be a soulless white man, not even Catholic but
Baptist. She can not send her revenge to him from far
away. So she go to the Cajuns and trade for help from
them with some powders to heal.
oThe next day the mambo, she stand at the edge of the
stock-breederTs house, listening to him at work in his
barn. The pigs, they squeal as he lift them by their hind
legs, scream as he bring his knife to their bellies. and
she hear their wet guts hit the ground. She go to him
and stand until he look at her, a long time: he would
not stop what he do to see what an old négresse want.
At last he wipe his big bloody palms on his big rubber
apron. oWell, Auntie?T he ask.�
oI'm hungryT, she tell him, ~Be there any part of the pig I
can eat?T
ooWhy should I give meat to a nigger, when I can sell it
for money to whites?T
Y TRIE Fy : " ee ee ee
, PAY
if i
o~T donTt got no money,T the mambo, she say, ~My son, he
be dead. I live in the bayou alone. But I have what be
here in this basket, and I give it to you for the hock of a
SOW.T
She open her basket. She have in there three dark
brown bottles of beer.
oAll men love to drink, Marichelle; the négres and blancs
and even the /oa, they all of them love to get drunk.
The blancs had a law then that say they could not, and
beer be worth enough money that the mambo, she
could have bought her a whole hog for what she car-
ried there. The greedy butcher, he want it, but he make
believe he do not.
oI have my own beer, Auntie,T he say. ~It be not worth a
hock to me. I give you a boarTs head instead.T
oHe think he will cheat her, and worse, for he keep the
tongue and leave her only the brains and the lips, and
he take from her all of the beer.
oThe mambo, she make to leave but she wait and watch
the breeder man from out by the stables. By lunch time,
he work up a sweat, and he take the beer with him out-
side to eat under a tree. The stockman, he eat and he
drink, he eat and he drink, enough to feed maybe three
men, and by the time he be finished with lunch, he be
already closing his eyes.�
oDid she poison him?�
oNo, chatte, she give him something to put him to sleep.
While he be sleeping she lead two horses out of the sta-
ble and harness them, like they be going to market, but
instead of the wagon, she hook them to the sleeping
manTs legs.
~Then the mambo, she tie a sharp wire around his neck,
just enough to cut into his skin, almost enough to wake
him, and she fix the wire hard to the tree. She hit one
she get back her own that he cheated"she cut out and
take home his tongue.
oShe have a souvenir, like the ones he had cut from
her son.�
The revenge seemed as bad as the deed that inspired it,
but it was just, and it satisfied me. I imagined her, old
black woman of the swamp, with the manTs tongue and
the boarTs head, feeding both to the gators, perhaps.
oThat night, the mambo, she wait for her son. She sit
near her little house, look out in the bayou. She do not
know what animal will speak. Hours and hours she
wait, while the moon, she track over the sky and start
to wake Papa Sun. Then, as the day begin dawning, she
hear a voice hissing high in the trees:
oOne time I be slain, in flame, in pain.
Another must die before I come alive.T
oAt first the mambo, she do not know where the voice
be coming from, but she look around and finally see
him"a snake hanging in the moss on the trees. She
paint the sign of the snake on her belly and, change to
a serpent, she join him. They slither together through
the sands of dream, and through his eyes she see: the
crackling fire. All around him blanc women and
children be playing, laughing at him and his screams.
The sun be high in the morning, daylight, everyone
gather to watch.
oThe stumps of his legs be on fire. He hear the crackling
fat of his own self and try to roll out of the flame.
Minuit, he be too young to go easy to death; life, she
too strong in him, and he fight the pain a long time. At
last, when the bone smile through his burnt flesh, and
the fire, he be going to sleep, the crowd make way for
the blanc devil who be killing him, the man with the
gasoline can. Minuit, he look in his brother's face.�
In my world, in my youth, there was no room for
betrayal, blood stood by blood, and I had not guessed
at such goings on. The image of the burning man was
less acrid to me than the thought that a brother would
do it, would listen to his own fleshTs screams and stand
by. My heart pounded so hard at the images she had
evoked that I could no longer hear the cicadas. The
illusory smell of burnt flesh was so strong that I had to
touch my own legs to be sure.
Aunt LucieTs voice dropped, oAt that very time the
mambo, she go to her sonTs house, go to see Ciel, who
call himself by a blanc name. She go in through the ser-
vantTs doors and wait until somebody who know her go
to fetch Ciel from his bed.
: . ~ ocVy7y TQ , . + or 2?� > ask $ .
of the horses on his flank with the hogTs head, and both Where do your brother be?T she ask him
of them start in to run.� oHow do I know? Do he live with me?T
Aunt Lucie smiled. oBy the time the horses be caught, oWhere be your brother?T she say.
the breeder, his body be out of the parish, but his head
be still fixed to the tree. The mambo, she pour the rest
of the beer on the ground for the /oa, and she take the
o~Ask the négres and buckra men, the white trash, he
belong with. I have no brother no more.T
boarTs head he give her home. Before she leave him, oAny of the servants, even the stock-breeder, would
REBEL NINETY-FOUR
rare
10
GREE ION
ae al . 24 Sache TS K-Ci Sh
have been smart enough to be scared of the mambo
then. The /oa be on her. ~Your brotherTs soul from
the animals call to me,T she say. Ciel only say he
donTt know.
oShe been going to slay him but she could not. She had
make a mojo like for the foreman before she know
who he be. The love of a mother for her son, which
never do die, hold her back. She do not give it to him.
Instead, she warn him, ~Leave your fields, my son.
The seed that you plant will not nourish you. For lack
you will hunger and die.T But Ciel, he pay no mind
to her words.�
Her voice trailed off. She looked in my eyes a long
moment and then looked away, into the afternoon sky.
I waited, in an agony of suspense, my muscles taut
throughout my back and my belly, my mouth gone
horribly dry. I needed to know what would happen,
the penalty for betraying your kin. I was certain it must
be severe.
Aunt Lucie said idly, oDo you think it be almost
an hour?�
[ could not bear it. oWhat happened?�
She sucked at her long-emptied pipe. oNothing. The
story, she be over. She through.�
oTante Lucie, it canTt be. What happened to Ciel?�
She looked at me, brown eye moist, blue eye seeming
ever more distant. oWhat do you think happen to Ciel?�
oT donTt know. Tante Lucie. He starved?�
oThat mambo, she be just an old woman. Why do what
she say have that power?�
oTante Lucie, tell me!�
She touched my face again, brushed the hair from my
eyes and tucked one of the camellias more securely
into its place. oYou going to be such a beauty,
Marichelle,� she said, almost regretfully, it seemed.
oYou grandmama and me, we too old to raise a young
woman like you. You needed you Maman. You need
stories of romance not blood.�
o'Tante Lucie!�
She withdrew her hand, unsmiling. oI tell you, since
you have to know.� She leaned towards me, her face
drawing cadaverously tight, at once back into the
mood of her story, making my flesh creep with the
quiet tone in her voice. oCiel do not believe what the
mambo, she say. He do not starve, and he go on plant-
ing his seed and bringing in what fruit do grow. But
the mambo, she speak to him truly"the seed that he
plant be poison; she sit in his belly like lead, and as
days pass he swell like a woman with child. He say
something move in him, biting and biting his belly,
until he begin to go mad. Nobody, not the blanc doc-
tor, not CielTs wife, can help him. One day Ciel, he take
an ax and cut open his belly and die. Through the slit
that he make come the serpent the /oa had send.�
LITERARY AND ARTS
I felt my stomach wrench again, clearly pictured the
gore of the slit stomach, the bloody snake crawling
out. oDid Minuit come back?�
oNon, Marichelle. It was not by her actions that Ciel die.
The mambo, she have to give the Baron Samedi his
price, but Minuit, he do not live again.�
oTante Lucie, what was the price?�
Aunt Lucie bent so her face was inches from mine,
blue and brown eyes to my chestnut ones. Her whisper
was barely audible. oThe Baron, he want to see in the
living world all the time, Marichelle, and so he take the
power of her eye.� She raised one yellowed claw to the
watery pale eye. oMaybe he watching you now.�
She actually frightened me. Aunt Lucie seemed diaboli-
cal at that moment; I could easily believe Lucifer
looked through that cerulean portal at me, and my
hands of their own volition formed the sign of the
Cross over my budding breast.
oSilly chatte, | change your first diaper, do you believe I
would hurt you?� Aunt Lucie laughed. oShe be only a
tale like the rest. Beside, the Baron Samedi donTt care
about little white girls, he only have time for the dead.�
Embarrassed, I looked down at the scab I'd been pick-
ing, saw I'd released a trickle of blood. I started gather-
ing it with my finger, pressing it back towards the
wound. oI wasnTt scared. Just pretending.�
oMm, Marichelle.� She captured my hand and cleaned
the blood with her palm. Her fingers were gentle but
quivering, maybe a newly formed palsy of age"or
something more. oSometime it be good to be scared.
But no mind, I have a present for you.�
She released my hand, her own now tainted red, and
reached into the bosom of her T-shirt, drew out a small
scarlet bag on a string. She handed it to me and I held
it to my nose, checking to see if it was a cache of dried
herbs like those which made my MamanTs stored dress-
es unbearably sweet, but all I could smell was Aunt
Lucie. oI carry her for a long time,� Aunt Lucie said.
oNow it be your turn to take her. Remember: if you
donTt want to know, let it be.�
The truck came back for Aunt Lucie before I had even
lowered the bag, and there was no time for questions
or answers. The furniture was gone; the black man
picked Aunt Lucie up like a child and set her into the
cab between the driver and the white woman, and
Aunt Lucie was waving good-bye.
I didnTt know where sheTd gone or if sheTd be back,
but I felt unbearably grieved"for the story, for the
poignancy of the present, for the fact that beneath that
white womanTs eyes I'd let her go without even kissing
good-bye. I wasnTt quite sure what my feeling was,
what raised the lump in my throat, squeezed like a
hand on my heart. I stood on the porch and I watched
as the truck drove away, watched until the rich dirt had
settled and the insects resumed their loud song, until I
felt I could move without jarring the tears from my
Then I went into her house, to her bedroom, and
atching the after-
sat in the corner under the window, wa
I must have been hours sit-
listening to the cicadas
eyes.
noon shadows grow long.
ting there, dry eyed, unmoving,
come closer, to my gf% andmotherTs querulous voice call
PapaTs big boots on the stairs.
my name, finally to my
his eyes capturing
I came out to the porch to see him,
oHave
the last rays of sunlight, soft brown like my own.
you been here all along, chére? Didn't you hear
Grandmama call?�
He smelled of the bayou, of alcohol. His hands were
flecked brown with fish blood.
As I looked at him I started to cry. His face crumpled in
a mirror to mine; he scooped me up in his arms and sat
me down on his lap in Aunt Luc ieTs rocker,
thing left of her, hugging me tight to his chest.
Shelly, whatTs wrong? WhatTs the mé utter? Don't cry.
the ny
, little
inst mine. He
I felt the scruff of his unshaven cheek agalt
was warm and solid; I loved him so dearly it hurt.
Aunt Lucie had gone, but |
I thought I would ask where
oTante Lucie
My own words were
It scared me.�
didnTt. a surprise.
told me a story.
oWhat! Which one, Shelly? Jacka-my-lantern/ The ghouls?�
» got killed. He was burned.�
oNo, Papa. About a man wh«
I felt his chest heave against mine; his sigh warmed the
back of my neck, and | knew then that it was ttue"
maybe not in the way Aunt Lucie told it, but that peo-
ple did die, were killed.
Papa turned me to look at him, brushed my hair out of
oThere was a party,
my eyes. oante Lucie is not well, Shelly.� He absently
wiped at the color on my mouth with his wpa
They'll take
oSheTs
gone to a new hospital for old Negroes
good care of her there. She should sa known better
than to tell so tender a heart such a thing. Not since
before you were born has anyone been lynched in the
Bayou State"maybe not anywhere in America. People,
they used to be cruel.�
Papa. People came to watch. They
took parts of him home.�
He flinched and started rocking me, holding my head
to his shoulder, making little sounds like a woman
Marichelle; no more.�
would comfort a child. oNo more,
Papa.
I grew up that night; I was no longer his little girl.
cried forever, then a fever kept me in bed for a ache
By the time I was better the gris-gris was gone. In less
than a month we went to Crowley to visit Aunt LucieTs
nursing home, but when we got there we found she
had died. By the next summer, she and her story had
been tucked into a remote part of my mind with my
childhood. Shortly thereafter her house was destroyed;
everything Lucie was gone.
So I believed.
But I found the gris-gris today, here, in my MamanTs
chest, with my dolls and my scribblings, her delicately
embroidered baby and maternity clothes, the things he
has secretly treasured the most. All these precious
things, left to me to pack to bring to Atlanta now that
he. like Aunt Lucie, is too old to be on his own.
From the window ITm looking down at him by my
swing with my Rosalie, my little girl. She adores him as
| did when I was her age; in her eyes he can do noth-
ing wrong. But even though she is now also his chere, |
have always known I remain first in his heart.
Inside the scarlet skin of the gris-gris is another, a black
one. It is sewn tightly closed, and still the curious cat, I
want to open it, finally see. 1 remember what Aunt
Lucie told me, oIf you donTt want to know, let it be.� I
didnTt understand at the time.
Aunt Lucie, I long ago swallowed the serpent you
gave me; his name was Suspicion; but I ignored the
enawings within. I won't ask why you fed me this,
for I know. I am my PapaTs seed, pl: inted against your
What I donTt, what I canTt, understand is my
s"leaving this bag with his treasures,
advice.
PapaTs part in thi
where it would finally have to be found.
He put the ax into my hand.
12
RRA eee
Aslee
PROSE
SY ANGELA - BGACOR BED
1H £OCE Fis B41 T- FLEE CRABS
on the beach. They hunker down and scuttle backwards
and sideways, throw sand at each other, deliberately
stomp each otherTs small feet. Innocent children,
untended. Unaware that anyone else is awake.
I know them. The elder, sheTs about six, she is my
brother Peter in miniature"dark hair, fair skin. No one
would doubt she is related to me. If I picked her up and
carried her off from here, if I could somehow wipe clear
her memories, sheTd pass for my child. I could save her,
if itTs not already too late.
Wipe clear her memories. As if she needs my help to do
that. Funny how even I speak of it as if it were impossi-
ble, a difficult thing to do.
My Pic ~n Pay plastic sandals slap against the planks as
[ come nearer. These litthe walkways have a distinct
sound"the sand rubs like sugar on linoleum; thereTs
the forced unevenness of water-warped boards. And
the smell! ItTs so rich. Salt and space. ItTs hard to
explain what space smells like to someone who
doesnTt know. When you've lived in close places,
crowded places, thereTs always a smell of people: per-
fumes and deodorants and diesel oil. Sometimes out
here, when the windTs coming off of the water, you
can close your eyes and breathe in and believe youTre
the only one in the world.
I wish I was wearing my sweater. Not that itTs cold, but I
am. ITm nervous and wishing that I hadnTt come.
It's going to be a beautiful day. I know this; I can read
the waves like a fisherman, judge by the glint of the sun.
These little rows of over-priced houses line the beach
like so many hopeful children watching the water. Will
it be warm? Will it be worth what they paid? Wet bathing
suits from yesterdayTs swimmers hang over wooden
rails, flap in the early breeze. Like flags they speak of
the people they stand for"in that house, a large
woman with two little kids. In the other must be an old
couple"fanny ruffle over her bathing suit bottom to
hide a middle-aged spread. I look back at my own par-
entsT deck. Little suits"yellow with blue stripes, Minnie
Mouse. My motherTs chaise lounge, plastic bamboo and
blue vinyl cushions, brushed clear of sand. My fatherTs
LITERARY AND ARTS
at ae al . Fo Sabie ED) Keeble Sha,
SECOND
PLACE
Dp and Dreaming
big rubber waders, his fishing pole. They havenTt been
used in some time.
I stood in the surf once, on a morning like this. I remem-
ber that pole thrusting over the water. There were sand
sharks, a million it seemed. Little ones, washing ashore.
[ picked one up by the fin on his back and his belly; he
didnTt move. He didnTt smell right, fake, like tuna fish
out of a can. His skin felt as rough as if he really was
made out of sand. I carried him into the house to show
to my mother, but she was still sleeping.
And dreaming. As good people should.
[ treasure the memory. ItTs so rare that I get one
that clear.
oI know you.� ItTs one of the children, the older. Carly,
the little blonde, shrinks away. Penny looks grave and
somber, a serious little girl. Scrawny where Carly is
plump. oDaddy has you in his wallet.�
CarlyTs frankly curious now. Seems sheTs decided she
knows who I am; she wants to know what ITm about. I
know I look strange. My skirt is too long and too full; it
ties my legs. ItTs an Indian print, and it clashes with my
sleeveless green flannel shirt. My hairTs gotten longer,
down past my shoulders, and itTs all uneven because I
chew on the ends. I wish I'd thought to pick up one of
those temporary tattoos; that would shore up my
armor. This is not nearly enough to protect me from
three-year-old eyes. They see things, they notice, and
theyTre not afraid to make comments. The first time she
met me, five years ago now, JenTs little Melissa said that
[ looked like a man. Her father and grandmother
shared these significant glances, like to say, oOut of the
mouths of babes.�
And into them.
Damn. Unwanted thought. Hold my breath for a
moment and count, and it leaves.
oI know you, too,� I tell her. oYouTre Penny. I remember
when you were born.�
oMy name is Penelope,� she recites. oIf Daddy wanted me
to be Penny, Penny would be my name.�
ILLUSTRATION PAULA CREECH
2%
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REBEL NINI
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14
7) ar Pabaateee ie Sle ean ieee ess bit LOO
The tyranny of parents"even my brother is doing it
now. oYou look like a Penny to me. You were named
after a girl in a TV show your daddy and I used to
watch. You know it? She was pretty, like you.�
oDid it have a spaceship?�
I smile, but before I can answer, Carly bursts into
motion. oMa! Ma!� SheTs running and yelling down the
beach, fit to wake the sleeping tourists. ITm trying to tell
her to hush; there are penalties for waking them. They
might not come back. And my parents would lose on
the income. But then I see itTs my mother, jogging
towards us at the waterTs edge where the sand is firm.
oAunt Alice is here!�
Mother slows. Her approach is guarded, but she has to
approach. SheTd leave them unwatched by the ocean,
but she won't leave these girls here with me.
ItTs painful looking at her, all the more because she
doesnTt seem to have changed. She looks powerful,
more fit than Ill ever be. The leotard under her running
shorts outlines these incredible calves; they bulge like
my fatherTs biceps did when I was a girl. ItTs hard to
believe sheTs fifty, she looks so young. Her hairTs grown,
too"past her shoulders. I wish she would take off
those Ray Bans, let me get a look at her eyes.
She stops just before she reaches us. oAlice, what do
you want?�
She knows how I hate that name. But she hates my
perversion of it even more. When I was a teenager she
seldom approved of my friends; she called me a magnet
for trash. So in what I thought was a moment of
brilliance, I decided to call myself Ellis"like the island.
Immigrants. All that. She never got it, but I came to like
what it stood for to me. Now most of my friends
call me El.
oHaven't you hurt us enough?� They are melodramatic
lines, flatly delivered. ThatTs always been my motherTs
problem"she knows the role, but she canTt quite con-
vey it convincingly. SheTs got the sense to know we're
better without an audience, though. ITm not very good at
keeping to script. She turns to these two little girls and
suggests they go play.
oMa, can we swim? You're here.� Little one, Carly. When
Mother nods, she screams like a gull, running up the
wooden walk towards the deck. Strange, ITm already
forgotten. You'd think meeting her only aunt for the
first time in her life would count for a little. More slow-
ly Penny follows behind her, age already weighing her
down.
Mother looks at me, tilts her head back and examines
me the way she did when I was a child. I can almost
hear her toting it up in her brain"chapped lips, split
ends. No make-up. Still not taking care of myself. Still,
she might guess, tending bar. And ITve lost weight again.
Nothing outrageous, just decreased my skirt size an inch
or three. oDo you still live with that girl?�
LITERARY AND ARTS
Rae ee ol Ee : : 2 % _ i
oNo, Mother. Jen and I, we broke up.�
She smiles. Score one to mother. She turns and starts
walking up towards the house. Expecting, of course,
that I'll follow.
oITm with another girl now.�
ITm not, this thing with Jen is too fresh to consider it, but
I donTt want her to think I gave in. She thinks that I am
what I am to get back at them, although what she thinks
I have to get back for is a mystery to me since sheTs
always denied they did anything wrong. Very early in
our relationship Jen and I had a fight, not so rare at the
end, where she accused me of that very thing. She said
it quiet and sad because she believed it, and for a little
while I did too.
| donTt want to think about Jen. It still makes me weepy,
and for this I have got to be strong.
oWhereTs Peter?� I ask her. oI see you've got the kids. Is it
a good time, with /im in the hospital?�
I can see that she wonders who told me. She ought to
know. ITve got aunts and uncles, cousins. One of my
cousins is going to Duke, and he spends lots of time at
the bar. He tips pretty good. And he doesnTt think ITm
disgraceful. At least, not so disgraceful as to cost him the
joy of sharing bad news.
oYour fatherTs fine,� she says. oHe has to stay in bed
for a few days, but with the medicine he sleeps a lot.
The girls are good; theyTre quiet...� Not like me, she
means, but I know better; I heard that little one. They
havenTt broken her yet. Mother stops at the first step
and sits down. oPeter and Stephanie went to a conven-
tion in Atlanta. They didnTt know what else to do
with the kids.�
She says it disdainfully. What else to do with the kids:
she has unusual ideas about that one, my mother. I
remember my mother in my bedroom once, me about
nine or ten. ItTs late, near my bedtime, as most of my
memories are. ThereTs that lamp that I used to have"lit-
tle stuffed dog skewered through by a pole and a light
bulb. ItTs raining outside, so hard I canTt tell where the
sound of the ocean begins. ThereTs her eyes, that clear
blue. No expression at all on her face, never is, especial-
ly not when sheTs angry. oDonTt have children, Alice. It
isnTt fair, bringing them into this world. ItTs selfish.�
Silent, but understood"J/ I had it to do over, neither of
you would have been born.
MotherTs watching me, or I think that sheTs watching
me"with those smooth black mirrors itTs hard to be
sure. So I sit down beside her, better than facing her, and
| look back over the water. Picture pretty. Gentle white-
caps, nothing a surfer would want. ItTs a wonderful
morning for swimming. Penny and Carly are up on the
deck changing clothes, unself-conscious, it seems. I rec-
ognize the slurping sound of wet cloth sticking to flesh,
the peculiar pop of a one-piece shoulder-strap being
oYou know what ITm talkin
adjusted. They must feel really bad on, those suits, but
the lure of the water makes up for it. ve never forgotten
that part.
oAlice, you know what you have to do if you want to
come home.�
oIT donTt want to come home.�
SheTs frowning. I donTt need to look over at her to know
that. If she could do it extempore she would ask me
why not or even, then, why I came. But she canTt, so she
says what she thinks she should say. oDo you know how
much youTve hurt your father and me? How you've
embarrassed your brother? ITm not sure we Can ever for-
give you.�
I should be angry, but I donTt feel angry. I'm frightened.
ITm sad. My hands are shaking as I reach into my p cket
for a cigarette. Then I remember that since she doesnTt
smoke I left the pack out in the Plymouth. Traitor. Why
do I need to appease her now?
oForgive me for what, Mom? For Jen? Or s« ymething else?�
oYou turned on us, Alice.�
oTurned on you, Mom? With Jen? Or something else?�
9 about. ThereTs no reason
oO
you should pretend.�
Lie, she means. ITm the familyTs liar. When I was four |
saw Heidi, the year they preempted the game. My dad
was upset enough to write a letter to the station manag-
er, but thatTs not what I remember about it. | remember
Klara. WasnTt she something? I remember when she
dragged herself over the fields, the way her sheer
willpower took her to her feet and reminded her that
she could walk. I think of it now because weeks after I
told everyone that I was her. She was my hero. I donTt
remember it, but I take their word that hand over hand |
dragged myself everywhere, through the living room,
down the pier, over the beach. When I try to imagine
JenTs little girl doing something like that it seems funny,
but for some reason it embarrassed my mom. Made her
mad, I guess, to think that her daughter would lie.
Mad. HowTs that for a loaded word?
oWhat are you laughing at?�
oI was just thinking of when I was little.�
She touches me on the back of my head. oYou need a
haircut,� she says.
Short hair looks bad on me. It took me years to notice
that. I remember me in first grade. Some kid in his
snazzy blue uniform"funny kind of fanatical look in
his eye, a recruiter in making. Would I like to join the
Cub Scouts? Didn't I cry. My mother cut it that way, so
short. And so sudden! Until I was five it was long"his
little Rapunzel, my dad said. It got snarled, she said.
Took too much time to brush out. So one night she cut
it all off.
oMother, do you remember when I was real littke and you
found me one morning asleep with my eyes open? And
you thought at first I was dead?�
oNo,� she says.
oCome on, youTve got to. You scared everybody, you
yelled so loud. DonTt you remember that?�
oYou probably dreamed it, Alice. You had so many bad
dreams.�
oNo, Mom. Forget it.� She obviously already has. Little
hurricanes push past us. CarlyTs hand touches my shoul-
der, steadies herself, as she and her sister run down the
stairs to the beach. CarlyTs got the bikini"thereTs a
mouse tail drawn on the rear. I think itTs meant to be
cute.
oAre you still seeing that doctor?� Mom asks me. oThat
doctor who says its okay for you to be with a woman?�
The tickler, that I want to be with a woman. ItTs strange
that it was for JenTs sake I went to the doctor. I was
really afraid I was taking advantage of her. Maybe |
didnTt love her, or maybe what I loved best about her
was that she would hurt my parents, or just that she
wasn't a man. It took me a long time to be comfortable
enough with myself to realize it wasnTt about them.
Even now it embarrasses me when it comes up in con-
versation with people who donTt understand: oEl had
problems with her old man.� Aha, their eyes say, that
explains it. But it doesnTt. And I hate that they have to
make ugly my feelings for the one person in my life
who ever made me feel good.
oYes, ITm still seeing that doctor. CanTt I have someone
to listen?�
oI listened to you. I always listened to you.�
oYou didnTt listen. Even when you read my diaries you
didnTt listen. Everything was my imagination, a dream.
Or I lied.�
oHow can you say such a thing? I was a go« x1 mother.
Look at your bré ther.�
oYeah, look at him. He still drinking?�
oHe doesnTt drink.�
oHe still screwing around on his wife?�
That hurts her, hurts me, that ugly word. When I say it |
get an image of my father out in his garage with his drill,
spinning and splintering wood. I think of Peter's wife
Stephanie, sweet, stupid Stephanie. Sleep-walking.
Never a clue. And Peter, now ITve betrayed him, drag-
ging his sins to the light to drive home a point. He's
weak but never unkind.
oEveryone blames the mother,� she says. ItTs rote, without
feeling. For a minute I almost broke through. oI gave
birth to you, but ITm not responsible for your life.�
What an ironic statement, it catches me off guard so that
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16
CMRI S ee Sl tt een See In,
I almost laugh. But thereTs truth enough there to stop
me; sheTs right about blaming the mother. I used to.
Maybe sometimes I still do. But this is different. And I
donTt know how to make that fact clear.
Penny and Carly bob like buoys in the water. They canTt
be deeper than their waists, but theyTve mastered that
kid-trick of kneeling, pretending itTs over their heads. |
used to love to go out in the water, spending hours and
hours facing out to the sea, making believe there was
nobody else in the water but me.
It wasnTt easy, with the summer trade. When I was older,
a little alcohol in me, I'd brave the water in winter. One
time, I must have been fifteen or so, I lost it"I donTt
know exactly what, how"but one minute I was floating
and fine and the next I was flailing and yelling, and it
was like I didnTt remember I knew how to swim. Thank
God my brother heard me. Thank God my mother didnTt.
But then, she always slept very soundly.
I lean forward, pick up a handful of sand. ThereTs one of
those teeny little blue shells; fairy clams I always called
them. Peter and I used to watch them burrow into the
sand at the waterTs edge. I sort of imagined they had
cities down there, just a little bit further than we could
dig. The ones we saw were ambassadors, spies. Peter
played along; he said they were vehicles"armored, like
tanks. This oneTs been abandoned; itTs open and empty.
I wonder if the kingdomTs still there.
oWhy did you come, Alice? What do you want from me?�
oItTs a long ride here from Durham,� I tell her. oTook me
five hours. I was thinking along the way"do you know,
since ITve started seeing that doctor ITve spent about
twenty grand? ItTs a good thing ITve got insurance.�
oMoney,� she says, her voice hard and cold. ItTs a touchy
subject with Mom, worse than sex. She was born poor.
When we were little she used to drive us out to the
boondocks, down around Salter Path, then up into
Morehead and back streets. oThatTs where you'll live,�
she'd tell Peter, oif you donTt make enough money.�
Man, we didnTt want to live there. It was easy for me, I
could get married like she did, but poor Peter. No won-
der he drinks.
oNot money,� I say. oITm not asking for money. I just want
you to know itTs important.�
oYou never could manage your money,� she says. oYouTd
have made it through college if youTd saved something
from your job at the store.�
oI'd have made it through college if I hadnTt had a break-
down. I was okay with the student loans, summer jobs.
It wasnTt money, Mom. It isn't.�
oThen what is it? What didnTt I give you? You had a roof;
you had food... You lived on the beach. Do you know
how much people pay to bring their kids to the beach?
LITERARY AND ARTS
But it was here for you. Everything, here for you.�
Cook-outs in winter time. ThatTs a pleasure most kids
never know, what itTs like to sit on the beach with the
wind blowing cold and an open fire. Of course, the
Parks and Recreation people donTt let you do that any-
more. I understand you canTt even bring cans to the
water, although to look around most people still do. ITm
just beginning to remember that kind of thing"my
father roasting hot dogs. And laughing.
What's wrong with this picture? ThatTs been my question,
you know"the big one. All my life, what a beautiful
picture. Sure, you look a little closer and you see my
momTs kind of weird"sheTs got this obsession with
money, and she seems sort of plastic except when sheTs
mad, and when she gets mad, she gets very mad. But at
the same time, she loved us. She made me all these cute
little dresses with matching pants and scarves and little
dancing bears on them, very feminine little things. She
paid for me to learn ballet and horseback riding. She
spent hours and hours down on the beach watching me
learn how to swim. And she tucked me into bed each
and every night, without fail, with a sweet smile to wish
me goodnight. Every night, all soft and fuzzy in the light
from the hallway, she whispered to me with that mean-
ingless, well-rehearsed voice, oAsleep and dreaming,�
and in my head I would preface it, as she meant me to,
oAll good people are.�
Good people. It took me a long time to finally
fall asleep.
It's taken me this long to start to wake up, to stop
dreaming. So long to realize what was happening when
I closed my eyes.
oMom. Did you like me when I was a girl?�
oWhat kind of question is that? YouTre my daughter; I love
you.�
oLike Dad did?�
She flinches, flinches so hard that it scares me a moment;
I think sheTs going to hit me. She knows. But, no. Mom
never hit. Never knew. ItTs what I said, and the way that
I said it: Dad. I thought I was under control, but some-
thing escaped me, something must show.
She stands. oPenelope, Carly. YouTre getting too deep.�
They would like to pretend not to hear her, but they
canTt, of course; they canTt. SheTs too big and too
powerful. On a whim she could pull them out of the
water completely, banish them to the quiet and dark of
the house.
Quiet, dark house. I was afraid of the dark, so afraid.
The only light that I got in my room was thé light from
the living room, filtering down the hall. I was the closest
to the front"me, then Peter, then them. So long as they
were up, watching Johnny, what have you, the light
would be on. But it would get dark. And I tried so hard
to capture that light with my eyes, that last moment,
make an imprint of the room all around me. Like some-
how that would make it easier to detect when move-
ment came.
ItTs funny, Jen and I fought about that one a lot. In our
apartment in Raleigh there was a street light outside our
window. All the time, not nightly but close enough, I'd
wake up in the night and open the curtains, let that light
in. The light didnTt bother Jen, but we lived on the
ground floor, and she was afraid someone would see us,
know what we were, and take Melissa away.
So Penny and Carly come in just a little, enough. They
keep an eye on my mother until her face relaxes, and
then they get back to their play.
oOkay, Mom? Got it together?�
She looks at me and walks past me, walks up the board-
walk towards the deck. But ITm feeling stronger now,
more in control. I get up and follow behind.
oWhy are you running from me?�
She stops on the last few steps to the deck, turns around.
oYou have an evil mind.�
o All good people, Mom.�
Her face blanks. She doesnTt get it.
oHow ever did you manage to stay asleep?�
oWhat kind of child, what kind of person, would
come here"�
oNo, I'd like to know. See, sometimes I have insomnia.�
o"knowing that your father is ill, and try to do some-
thing like this?�
oAnd sometimes I have bad dreams.�
oYou always had bad dreams, Alice. Even when you were
a baby you cried at night.�
oAnd whose fault I was crying?�
oYour father loved you. He sacrificed everything for you.
You were his special child, his little girl. And you act
like, you treat him like some kind of monster""
oMom, I was speaking of you.�
ThatTs a slip on her part. She assumed I meant him. I'm
halfway to victory.
o How can you be so unkind to your mother?� Be quiet,
Jen. WeTre over. You canTt lecture me now. But she can.
I still see her face, so serious. She looked a lot like
Melissa. She was sitting down with one of her psycholo-
gy books, doing her homework, half-listening to me rant
and rave while I got dressed to go to the bar.
~ Woman is the universal victim.�
* Always blaming the mother,� Mom says now.
I'm not blaming the mother. I blame her"her the per-
son, not her the role, the institution, the toilet-training
and socializing and all of that. Her, sleeping beauty. Her,
sanctimonious bitch.
oYou should pity your mother,� Jen said. It felt like she
slapped me. She sat at the table, chewing the end of her
pencil, looking at me over the rim of her glasses.
Analyzing, accusing. In the old days she would have
hugged me, held me. Tried to make me feel better. I
yelled, much too loud, so loud that I woke Melissa, oPity
her? Pity me!� oI donTt have to,� she said. oYou can do
that for yourself�
DonTt make me"lI cried every night"donTt make me
go to sleep. All good people. But dreaming, the dreams.
Good girls are quiet. They stay asleep. Mom, you were
such a good girl.
ITm trembling. ItTs cold. Mom is trembling, too.
oWhat do you want from me?�
oI want you to admit there was something wrong.�
oAlice, everyone has something wrong.�
oThis isnTt about everyone. This is me. Me and you. My
suffering, Mom. Mine.�
She turns and takes the last few steps to the deck, stoops
mindlessly to pick up the kidsT clothes from the floor.
She smoothes them over the railing, weights them down
with a conch. oYou should think about othersT suffering.
It might make you appreciate what you had.�
And now I, too, am on the deck; the sliding glass door is
a time machine. ItTs scary. I have to turn away and look
over the water, see the girls splashing close to the shore.
The sunTs getting high. Where are the tourists? I want to
yell out to come on then, itTs time to wake up.
But my backTs to the door. I can feel it, and I must look
at it, like I once stared at my bedroom door in the dark-
ness, like I look to a needle piercing my flesh because it
hurts much too badly when you look away.
The last time I was here that door was my path to
escape. For some reason I chose it over the front, chose
to walk out on the beach. Into the sunset. Twenty-two, |
was. And it came from the phone call"anonymous call
to my dad. oDo you know about your little girl?� That
shed some light in the darkness. Of course they had
known about Jen, but only about her. Who would have
thought, no less with a married woman? I can only imag-
ine the ideas he had in his mind as he stood screaming
behind me that I was a freak and a whore, flung my
clothes out to scatter over the deck.
Twined with Jen in her bedroom, her husband at sea, |
couldnTt choose between crying and laughing. | felt
ashamed, even more I felt free, but I wasnTt. Even
though she left her husband, took an apartment with
me, Jen crouched in that closet through all of our five
years together. So thereTs me, standing out in the open,
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Rete en ER
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as far as sheTd let me, and thinking, oThe things that we
do for the people we love.� With no one to blame but
ourselves if it hurts. oDo you love me El? Really love me?T
Then I have to keep quiet, I know.
But I won't, and I couldnTt. I got too loud, Jen, and you
started to change. But I just couldnTt keep dreaming. I
won't stay asleep anymore.
So I turn and face her, face the deck and the time
machine. It strikes me how shabby everything looks
from up here. Did the wood used to be rotten around
the door? There are boards peeling loose in the corner.
And look at Mom. I didnTt notice those wrinkles around
her mouth in the glare of the sun. Not smile lines, sure-
ly, but there. And deepening.
SheTs frightened. SheTs frightened of me.
oStop squirming!� she said. Not even a towel on my
shoulders, the scissors flash next to my eyes. It gets
down the neck of my nightgown, next to my skin, and it
itches. As much as the fear of the scissors, that makes
me scream. My bedroom is dark: itTs past midnight; the
light is the light from the hall. SheTs plastic; that face, itTs
unmoving. No anger. No feeling at all. My hair falls in
black clumps on my bedspread. My father looks ready
to cry.
SheTs frightened. SheTs frightened of me.
oMom, you donTt want me coming back home.�
SheTs startled. ITve slipped the script once again. SheTs
backed up to the doorway, standing against it, caressing
the glass with her hand. oNot until youTve changed,� she
says. oItTs not natural, what you do.�
oNot good, Mom? Not what good people do?� I hear the
anger; I hear the threat in my voice.
You shouldn't be mad at your mother; she was a victim
like you.� Self-conscious Jen. Guilty Jen. Do unto others,
I hear what you mean: donTt hate her for her failings, in
case Melissa might also hate me. oYou're projecting. You
identify with your mother. Your anger at her inaction is
anger you feel at yourself.� So I should ally with her the
way she allied with me. I should hope in the future the
people that I betray are similarly understanding.
She slides the door open, steps back. The house hisses,
air conditioning spills out on the deck.
The time machine is open. SheTs retreating into the liv-
ing room, and ITm stepping into it, feeling my terror
begin. I can see it"chartreuse flowered sofa bed frayed
at the bottom where PeterTs toy soldiers would hide;
bronze-footed coffee table, photographs covered with
glass, our little hand prints frozen forever in plaster; and
the clock on the cabinet, that treacherous, villainous
clock. Six oTclock, seven and bath time with him
through the half-open door.
Mother stands still in the hallway; ITm counting and
shaking my head. ItTs not there. The sofa is white, over-
AND ARTS
stuffed, strewn with pillows. The table is gone. No hand
prints, theyTre portraits now"glossed-over photos by
Olan Mills. Penny, dark-eyed in her motherTs lap;
StephanieTs eyes are half-closed. Carly and Peter. Peter
holds Carly before him; he hides. She laughs. ThereTs a
sheepish regret to his grin.
Mother is frozen. I look at her, past her, look down the
hallway that leads to my own little box. She backs
away as I near her, as if she thinks that ITm going to
attack, but she matters less for the moment. ItTs time
now to open my eyes.
Here, the bedroom is different. Bunk beds, no less, for
these two little girls of their son, forgotten outside. |
walk to the window and look out, to the water, see
them both playing close to the shore. Alive and unin-
jured. Hopefully too sheltered to realize that protection
is at best an occasional thing. Out on the beach Miss
Ruffled Rear-End stands with a coffee cup, smiling up
at the sun.
Please let her protect them. I canTt, not now. When I
leave here I'll call my brother. I'll make sure that he
understands.
But how can I? I canTt understand it myself. ThereTs no
smell, no sight, nothing in here to bring back the little
girl Alice. ItTs as if all the feelings, the pain, that I felt in
this room never were, like a dream. But sheTs here; sheTs
still dreaming. Darkness shrouded my memories all
these years. I didnTt understand the darkness or fear. I
couldnTt figure out my motherTs anger. I didnTt under-
stand that she hated my father. And me.
oYou knew, Mom.�
Dreaming: my mother at breakfast, my orange juice
spewed over the table and dripping down onto the
floor. Her hand on my shoulder; sheTs shaking me, back
and forth, so hard that she topples my chair. What is she
saying? I canTt quite remember"something. My home-
work and school.
I hear her panic, voice quivers. oPlease, Alice. I donTt
want to hear.�
Penny stoops down to a face full of water, stands up.
She looks so open and free.
oYou didnTt then, either. You already knew.�
Dreaming: that sickly sweet smile. ITm crying, snot rop-
ing down from my nose. ITm four, maybe five. SheTs
soothing me. oJust a nightmare.� Through the slits in my
closet I see him, I think. HeTs holding his hand to his lips
as it moments ago had held mine. WhereTs Daddy? The
question that never got answered. The question that
never got asked.
oYour mother as victim"� She sold me out, Jen. And I
know, donTt even begin, my father abused me, not her.
But how could she let it go on?
Her hands on my shoulder, heavy and needing. SheTs
crying, my mom. ITve never heard of her crying before,
so I turn to look. Her Ray Bans are still on. ItTs incredi-
ble. Who would believe?
In the hallway beyond her, my fatherTs here.
Guess they already let him come home.
o Alice,� he says, all dizzy and dazed.
Sure, I should have known it. oHeTs sleeping,� she said,
and oThey're quiet.� Why would it matter that the chil-
dren were quiet unless he was sleeping at home?
o Alice.� He says it again.
My, but heTs weathered. And old. Did five years change
him so much? His skin doesnTt look like it fits anymore,
like it stretched in the wash, and he didnTt have anything
else to put on. I could tear him, I think, with my fingers.
This isnTt the man of my memories. That man was pow-
erful, strong.
I look back at my mother. I take her Ray Bans in my
hands, and I take them off, pretty gentle and slow. SheTs
still sobbing, my father more or less out of focus over
her shoulder. I donTt care if heTs angry or sad.
oGet out,� he says. Mad, then. He seems hurt that he isn't
the focal point of my attention. I wouldnTt have come if
IT'd known, but now that ITm here I find that he just
doesnTt matter. HeTs history. Already dead. My doctor
would say ITm avoiding and maybe I am, but today he
isnTt important. Today I am here for her.
This woman. She was the beast of my childhood. She
was the one that I trusted, I needed, the one who never
would see. The one that I need to see, even now. We
can be each otherTs salvation. Give me permission, and |
will forgive you. Let me let go of the pain.
Those eyes, blue, clear. TheyTre focused and dry.
oGet out, or ITll call the police.�
He staggers; medication, Mom said. I donTt care. oGo
back to sleep.�
Because she is the one that ITm waking. I drop the Ray
Bans to the floor, take her face, still sticky from her
morning run, and kiss her soft on her cheek.
Taste the salt of her sweat and the ocean, but never the
salt of her tears. Her delusions are sealing her eyes.
I stabbed her, I know. Stabbed her deeply. These
sounds coming out of her throat are alarms. She may
wake; she may not. In some sense, .I am freed by her
pain. In itself it proves she believes. In truth I expect
no more.
But then comes my validation, in the form of a feeble
excuse. oIt wasnTt my fault; it was him.�
My father looks like his heart will fail him again any time.
He looks at my mother, bleakly. My motherTs not looking
at him. She will, I imagine. I'd have to hear a more heav-
enly voice than JenTs before I'd believe this a permanent
change. I'll never know what brought this from her.
Maybe itTs having me here, in this bedroom, him here.
What pictures does she see when she closes her eyes?
What nightmares when she dreams?
Now my father is looking at me"naked guilt, naked
need. ItTs out in the open; his accomplice has turned. He
expects more, I think, center stage, but heTs not the star
of the show. ItTs my mother, my broken mother. She
stands in the midst of her shattered delusions of every-
thing: him, her and me.
The roles are reversing. HeTs leaving, almost running
down the hall to his bedroom, the way she so often left
me. She plays little Alice; sheTs bleeding. She begs some-
thing ITve never seen.
Mercy. Forgiveness. Not me, it was him. Never me. Can
she be excused?
Not by paying so little. Not by me.
She was never his victim; she helped him. Silent, she
might as well have held me down.
And ITm leaving.
Out into the living room. ItTs darker inside than out; the
open door glows and mimics itself in a square patch of
light on the ground.
oMore than once,� she says.
I'm not stopping. Out on the deck and ITm taking the
stairs from it to the boardwalk two at a time. No sign of
Miss Ruffled Rear-End. The kids are still playing alone.
oMore than once I found you with your eyes open in the
morning. I found you that way all the time.� SheTs fol-
lowed me out. I almost expect to see clothes flying into
the wind, my meager possessions flung after me once
again. She stops on the porch, and her voice grows more
steady, that tattle-tale quiver is gone. oI did what I could
to keep you away from him.�
But not oto keep him from you.� I have to look. So I turn,
and I see her standing there, waiting. SheTs curiously
regal, all things considered. She could almost be wearing
a crown.
«But, Alice, there was nowhere for me to go, no one to
help. What did you want me to do?�
Gee, Mom. You might have woken up.
I donTt say it out loud. I donTt need to. ItTs heard, and itTs
understood. And ITm leaving. Not angry, so much any-
more. It isnTt easy, I guess, to stay mad.
Because we all have our prices. Jen sold me out for
Melissa. In his own way my father abandoned my mom.
And Mother: the ultimate broker. Even me, to keep Jen
and my mom, I sold myself. Forgot what I knew had
happened.
Everyone can be bought, or bribed, to stay sleeping. All
these good people can. Someone should tell them what
price they must pay for the dream.
REBEL NINETY-FOUR
19
nn aii ke tet el eee
me al id . Fela t Wesel Sas
PROSE
Man and
ELCHEHABI
A
BY JOSEPH
Being master of all you survey is the most fascinating
part of maintaining a miniature world...
"The New Tropical Fish Handbook
Harold was scrutinizing the small plastic bottles of fish
food when Mrs. DeVane said hello to him. At first he
pretended not to hear. But she came closer to him,
called his name a second time and touched his shoul-
der. He bit the corner of his bottom lip and turned
around to face her, something heavy weighing down
his stomach.
As she talked, he stared at his cracked leather boots.
His sweaty hands were stuffed into his black corduroy
pants, and like spiders they writhed in his pockets and
pinched him. Occasionally he looked down at her, into
her brown eyes, because he knew it was the polite
thing to do when someone was speaking to you. He
tried to make sense of the words popping out of her
bright red-painted lips, but his brain was going all
screwy. He could actually feel the cogs and sprockets
grinding and smoking inside his skull. Certain words
would register in his mind, snap into place like jigsaw
puzzle pieces, but others would not fit, no matter how
hard he pushed and pushed.
Harold. Grass. Jungle. Grass. Overgrown. Grass.
Please. Cut. Money. Pay. Please. Grass. Cut, cut.
Tomorrow.
Harold nodded dimly, loose strands of black-silver hair
falling into his face. He bit on the edge of his lip hard
enough to draw blood. The taste was salty.
oOkay,� he said. Even that much took great effort. His
tongue felt as if it were stuck to the roof of his mouth
with peanut butter. He swallowed hard, then: oYou"
you can count on me.�
Mrs. DeVane thanked him with a smile that made her
lips do odd things at the comers. She pushed the shop-
ping cart down the aisle. One of the wheels was loose
and squeaked.
Harold shrugged, focused his thoughts again on the
small plastic bottles of fish food that were on the metal
rack before him. One of his hands, strong and thick-
fingered, crawled out of his pocket, and the other did
the same but a litthe more slowly. Together they
reached for a bottle of Big Fish Fish Food.
RAs: AND ABTS
THIRD
PLACE
ie ea vad of BU
Someone slapped him on the back.
oWhat's up, Aquaman?� Raymond asked. He was tall
and bony and his arms seemed to hang too far below
his waist. Behind Raymond stood Billy. A comic book
was rolled up tight in his fist. Both of them were wear-
ing those big blue jackets with the white leather
sleeves, the kind with the letters on them, the kind you
get when you play football. The letter on their jackets
was an A. Harold knew A was the first letter in the
alphabet. He tried to meet eyes with Billy, but Billy
wouldnTt look at him.
oI ainTt done nothing wrong,� Harold said to Ray, but
he was still trying to meet eyes with Billy. oMy
fishes is hungry.� He leaned forward, faced Billy so
his eyes wouldn't escape him. oHey, Billy, howTs your
daddy doing?�
BillyTs lips hardly opened when he spoke. oJesus. HeTs
dead, Harold. Been deader than dog shit for awhile.�
He crossed his arms over his broad chest, grunted.
oRetard,� he mumbled.
HaroldTs eyes were watering. His hands crawled back
into his pockets and did their crazy dance.
oListen up,� Ray said. oWe seen you talking to Mrs.
DeVane. What she want from you, anyhow?�
oITm gonna cut her glass. I mean grass. ITm gonna cut
her grass.�
Raymond bowed his head and laughed into his cupped
hand, and BillyTs hard lips were bent into a jagged
smile. Harold laughed with them.
oGoddamn, you stupid man,� Ray said.
oRetard,� Billy said. And they left.
Harold bought the fish food, tucked it inside his book-
pack, next to his Velcro wallet, and left the Wal-Mart.
For two miles he walked down 701, the August heat
sucking the sweat from his skin. He walked with his
hands in his pockets, his head bent low and his broad
shoulders hunched. He was thinking about Billy
Seevers, about the word retard. He was also thinking
about his fishes.
He wanted to see his fish immediately, but he
stopped himself. He had a routine. He always kept to
his routine.
The house was big and silent and he moved through it
carefully, like the way a crab scuttles on the sea floor,
making sure the windows were shut and locked, that
the blinds were sealed and that the front door was dou-
ble-bolted. When this was done, he felt safe. He went
into the kitchen and placed the small plastic bottle of
fish food on the blue formica tabletop. While he ate
Chef Boyardee cheese macaroni out of a can, he exam-
ined the bottle, turning it between his callused thumb
and forefinger, pausing every time he swallowed a
mouthful of mushy macaroni.
On the bottle were two zebra-striped angelfish. They
were kissing. The printing on the bottle was tiny, the
words crawling like bugs. His blue eyes studied them
intently; his forehead wrinkled and his brows drew
together. Harold could not read.
After scooping the last bit of macaroni out of the can
and licking the spoon clean, he made sure to straighten
up and wash the spoon. It was very important to him
that he wash the spoon.
oAll done,� he said.
None of the plants in the living room were real. The
cacti were rubber and plastic, so were the two six foot
palm trees. The roses in the straw basket on the coffee
table were nylon and wire. A stuffed mallard duck,
most of its shiny green head worn bare, was perched
atop the twenty-four inch black and white TV. An old
black man with no front teeth had given him the dead
bird. It looked ancient and wise, its smoky-yellow glass
eyes gazing at the two-foot by four-foot aquarium
across the room.
The tankTs air filter was making a deep-thr« vated hum, a
sound that Harold associated with all that was good
and perfect. Gus and Thelma, HaroldTs two celestial
goldfish, were waiting patiently. They looked like fat
chunks of orange candy. Their long, delicate fins
reminded him of gossamer veils of spider web. And
their eyes. They bulged out like bubbles about to burst,
and were permanently screwed upward, always watch-
ing heaven. Harold knew they were watching God.
oCouldnTt make it to the fish shop today,� he told them.
4 TRGM ETE ING
E
BE
NINETY
Y
E
re
a
>
ac
ILLUSTRATIONS
7 ar Pena a) eatin eb Nae
arn al ae . : hb EWS Tha,
oHad to go to the Wal-Mart. Mr. Bullard was sick and
couldnTt gimme a ride.�
Gently he held flakes of fish food between his thumb
and forefinger just below the warm water's surface.
Their little fish mouths nibbled at the food.
He studied Thelma. She was ripe with eggs, would give
birth in about a week. The babies would need brine
shrimp. Dale had told him that.
The first fish heTd had were guppies. He had bought
them and a small globe-like bowl at a pet shop in
Wilmington called CharleyTs. Charley was a fat man
with beady eyes and a red beard. Men in red beards
scared Harold. Mr. Jessup had a red beard.
The guppies died in two days. He buried them in a
cigar box, the fancy wooden kind with a hinged lid, in
the backyard, with one of his fake roses.
A couple of days later he found a new pet store, this
one in Fayetteville. It was a pet store that sold only
tropical fish.
The kid who worked there was named Dale. The thing
Harold remembered most about Dale was his ear. The
left one was ragged. Dale said it was like that because
when he was seven his neighborTs rottweiler mauled
him. He said they put down the dog.
HaroldTs daddy was put down too.
Lit G@aaAaAgyY AND ARTS
oItTs like this, Dude,
Not because he did something bad, but because he was
in a car accident and never woke up. The nurse with
the hairy mole on the edge of her chin had used the
word vegetable. He heard her.
Harold told Dale about the man with the red beard and
about the guppies.
oSome pricks just shouldnTt be selling animals,� Dale
said. oCome with me, Dude.�
Dale lead him into the back, into a storage room. The
fishy, salty smell was not as strong here. Cardboard
boxes and empty crates were stacked shoulder-high
against the lime green walls, and the floor was littered
with styrofoam peanuts. In the center of the room,
lying top-down on a paint-splattered sheet of canvas,
was an aquarium.
�
Dale said. oIf my old man knew I
was doing this, heTd kill me, really.� He set the tank
upright. oItTs yours, man.� Dale put his hands on his
skinny hips and wrinkled his nose. oDamn,� he said.
oIt'd be kind of shitty of me to give you a tank without
any fish.�
Harold nodded. oFishes!�
So, Dale gave him two celestial goldfish. He told him
how to get the chlorine out of the water and how to
heat it, how to hatch the brine shrimp and what kind of
fish food was best to buy. He also gave Harold a book
about tropical fish. The bookTs cover was green and tat-
tered, and the pictures inside were black and white.
That bookTs ancient, man,� Dale said, smiling. oWas
one of the first books I read about raising tropical fish.�
HaroldTs eyes going red and watery, his big hands
scampering over the bookTs pages like hungry things
that needed to be fed. oOh, thank you, Dale.�
oCalm down, Dude,� Dale said and patted Harold's
shoulder. He pushed his glasses up the slippery bridge
of his nose. oRaising fish ainTt easy, Harold, but if
you're good to them, they'll be good to you. Just feed
~em and clean Tem, and they'll love you.�
oTll feed Tem. I'll clean Tem.�
Dale smiled. oYou all right man, you know that? You
all right.�
He liked Dale and he liked the book. At first he did not
like that the bookTs pictures were not in color, but he
had quickly come to appreciate them. Now c lors
confused him. They tickled his eyes, made him feel
funny. He knew that fish and God saw things in black
and white. When you see things in black and white, he
thought, you see them as they really are. Colors only
get in the way.
And names fascinated him. He always asked Dale
about the names of the fish until he could name every
fish in the store and he chanted them religiously. He
liked the way they made his tongue feel.
Cichlasoma. Hyphessobrycon. Semifacioulatus.
Oliglepis.
It was important to him that he knew he did not have
just goldfish, but celestial goldfish; and that one of
them was Gus and the other Thelma. When he knew
the name of a fish or when he had named his own fish,
he felt a kind of power that made his arms warm and
the hair on his neck stand on end. He knew it was how
God felt.
oAll done.� he said to Gus and Thelma. oBedtime.�
Before he went to bed he stopped by the closet next
to the bathroom. The closet was filled with boxes and
some of them contained old photographs of him, his
mother and his father. He had sealed those boxes
with duck tape, had never opened them after his
daddy died. He did not want to look at them. They
made him sad.
He took out a heavy box, carried it to his room and set
it on his bed. Inside were some of his old clothes that
were too small for him. Wadded up tight in a plastic
Wal-Mart shopping bag was a pair of jeans. He pressed
them to his face and inhaled. After eight years the smell
of urine was still there, lurking underneath the musty
odor of mothballs. He wrapped the jeans in the bag,
put it in the box and stuffed it back in his closet, next
to his daddyTs old rubber hunting boots.
They were not his jeans. They were Billy SeeverTs. One
REBEL
NINETY-FOUR
RIS oe ayn ne Ne ebebeniihiietades corneal a Pemrereret sn tnd
October afternoon Billy, who was eleven then, was
playing football at the park with his friends. He had to
go to the bathroom really bad, but he was having too
much fun. Finally, he couldnTt wait anymore, and he
went to pee in the bushes, but his zipper got stuck, he
pissed his pants, and he cried.
Harold heard him in the bushes. He took him home, let
him wash off and gave him a pair of his old jeans to
wear. Afterward, he made some hot cocoa and they
played Pacman on the Atari.
oYou ainTt gonna tell no one, are you?� Billy asked him.
oNo I ainTt. YouTs my friend. I ainTt gonna tell no one.�
But now HaroldTs hair was thinning at the crown and
going the color of polished chrome at the edges, and
Billy was big, bigger than he was, and he played
football, dipped snuff and kissed girls. And he called
him retard.
It made Harold sad. All of it. Why did people change?
Why did they forget when they got older? Maybe they
couldn't help it. He bad to smell the sour piss on the
jeans. It told him he was real, that Billy really had
pissed his pants that day, that he and Billy really had
drunk hot cocoa thick with marshmallow cream and
played Pacman.
He wondered what it would be like if you woke up
and forgot your name. Would you still be you? Or what
if you knew your name but everyone else had forgot-
ten it? If a Hyphessobrycon had been called a
Semifacioulatus, would it be a Semifacioulatus instead
of Hyphessobrycon, or would it still be a
Hyphessobrycon? The cogs and sprockets inside his
skull were grinding and smoking again. He said the
magic words" cichlasoma, hyphessobrycon, semifa-
cioulatus, oliglepis"and soon he fell asleep, and had
the dream about Mr. Jessup again.
They took the pregnant dolphin that they caught and
laid its guts open upon the hot red brick bench in front
of the Wal-Mart. Mr. Jessup did the cutting.
oThe best meatTs right here, right here, I tell you,� he
said. The greasy razor danced in his hand and separat-
ed the flesh from the blubber. When the half-dolphin,
half-human baby hit the hot cement it made a wet
thump and slid, kicking and screaming, half-entangled
in its motherTs innards, several feet into a bicycle,.
oWe gotta be quick,� Mr. Jessup said. oTake the razor.
Quick. I need help, damn you!�
But Harold could not take the razor. He stood
there watching the baby thrash and squeal. oITm sorry,�
he said.
oRetard,� Mr. Jessup said, laying out slabs of the
motherTs meat on the brick. He was neat about it, care-
ful and brusque.
24 LITERARY AND ARTS
oITm sorry,� Harold said again.
Mr. Jessup smacked him with a slippery backhand.
oGrow up.�
Harold made like he was going to pick up the baby.
Several crying girls in flower print dresses and sandals
were running toward them with small plastic cups of
ice water.
oNo!� Mr. Jessup said and he slashed the baby open. He
looked at Harold, grinned. oAnd youTre gonna eat it,
too, buddy-boy. ITll make sure of that.�
The DeVanesT three-story house squatted in the middle
of the sprawling, bright green ten acres like a white
elephant. Harold navigated the rumbling John Deer
lawn mower through the knee-high blades of grass,
giving the sea of green form, a clean-cut geometry
where there was none before.
Mr. and Mrs. DeVane were on the balcony of the sec-
ond floor, watching him from under a parasol and sip-
ping lemonade from tall glasses. Mrs. DeVane, her
wheat blond hair carelessly falling over her shoulders,
was wearing white cotton shorts and a blouse decorat-
ed with blue and red and yellow and green parakeets.
Mr. DeVane was in a wheelchair. He was always in a
wheelchair. Mrs. DeVane had told Harold that her thir-
ty-nine-year-old husband had been a Lieutenant
Platoon Leader during the Panama Invasion. She said
his platoon had been digging in dumpsters for classi-
fied documents that some soldiers had accidentally
thrown away from a gutted building. Lieutenant
DeVane didnTt know that another American platoon
had booby-trapped one of the dumpsters with a dam-
aged LAW. A LAW, Mrs. DeVane had explained to him,
was a short-range rocket launcher. Lieutenant DeVane
was twenty feet from the two young men who were
rummaging through stacks of computer print-outs and
maps when the rocket went off. The mouth of the
dumpster erupted dragonfire and thunder, ripping out
the teeth and tearing off the faces and limbs of the
two young soldiers, leaving Mr. DeVane paralyzed,
one-armed and deaf.
[t was hard for Harold to look at Mr. DeVane directly.
It was as if a child had gone over his face with a
pizza cutter, and the only thing he would say was,
oJeemeeflummung.� Jimmy Flemming was the name of
one of the young men who had died. She told Harold
the story of his accident whenever he came over to
cut the grass.
When he was finished, Harold, thick with the sweet
smell of fresh-cut grass and sweat, parked the lawn
mower in the garage and looked out at the ten acres. In
his dreams, the DeVanesT jungle of grass had grown
from the body of a slain giant, the same giant who had
the magic goose that laid golden eggs. The giant was
long dead, but the same grass that had shot up from
between his ribs and through his eye sockets was still
growing thick as dog hair. The only thing that gave
Harold more pleasure than feeding and caring for his
fish, was the cutting of the DeVanesT grass. It made him
feel like he was worth something.
Harold was about to leave when Mrs. DeVane stopped
him. She placed a crisp twenty-dollar bill in his hand,
closed his fingers over it. The contact of skin against
skin sent warm waves of electricity up his arm and
down into his stomach. His knees almost buckled.
oWhy donTt you have supper with us, Harold? I would
appreciate it ever so much. Go wash up. WeTre having
something special.�
Her words didnTt sound jumbled. They were clear and
sharp. Like broken glass.
oPlease, Harold?� She moved closer to him, put her
hand on his crotch, gently pressing. He could feel the
warmth of her hand through his jeans. oPlease?�
gf 8S I
She slid closer, against him, her breath warm on
his cheek, the parakeets on her blouse exploding into
color. oYou and me Harold,� she said, oweTre a
lot alike.�
Harold gulped down the spit that had been building in
his mouth. Fat globs of sweat were rolling down his
forehead and into his eyes, burning them. And his
hands. They were balled into tight fists. They wanted
to touch her, but they were afraid.
oCome eat with us.� She turned away from him, sighing.
oITm a lonely woman, Harold,� she said and went back
inside.
oLawd,� Harold whispered.
She had touched him the way Mr. Jessup had, but her
touch did not make him sick to his stomach like Mr.
JessupTs. Mr. Jessup was the man who worked for the
city and checked up on him. One day Mr. Jessup had
promised to take him to the aquarium in Wilmington to
see the dolphins. Instead he had taken him to a desert-
ed parking lot behind Sears. When Mr. Jessup fondled
his crotch through his Bermuda shorts, Harold
knocked out three of his front teeth and crushed his
cheekbone with a crowbar. Mr. Jessup had not been by
to check up on him for three months now.
oJeemeeflummung!�
When Harold went into their house to use the
bathroom, Mr. DeVane tried to knock him in the
stomach with his only good arm. Except at his wife,
Mr. DeVane swung at everyone who got close
enough to him.
Harold dodged the scarred fist and ducked into the
bathroom. He bent over the pink washbasin and ran
cold water, splashing it over his face, on his head and
down his neck. When he was drying off, he saw the
rainbow trout swimming in the bathtub.
It was big, about a foot long. Its coloring tickled
his eyes.
He ran out of the bathroom.
oMrs. DeVane. There a rainbow trout you gots in
you tub!�
oI know, sweet-pie. Mr. Bullard dropped that by today.
ITm keeping it fresh, sugar. We gonna have it for
supper.� She winked at him and went back to cutting
her carrots.
Harold ran back to the bathroom, and Mr. DeVane
caught him square in the gut with his fist, knocking the
air out of him.
oJeemmeeflemmung!�
Harold grunted, wobbled past him and made it to the
safety of the bathroom. He slammed the door shut.
oJemmeflemmung!� Mr. DeVane laughed. He was
beating the door.
HaroldTs arms and legs were shaking. He wasnTt going
to let them eat the trout. It was wrong. He looked
under the sink, found a big bucket. He put the slippery
trout in it and bolted out of the bathroom.
Mr. DeVane grabbed him, nails biting into his arm. The
water in the bucket was sloshing everywhere.
oJemmeflemmung!�
oHyphessobrycon!� Harold screamed and kicked Mr.
DeVaneTs wheelchair as hard as he could. Mr. DeVane
crashed on his back like a defenseless crab. Harold ran
out of the house and down the long driveway. He
didnTt stop running until he got home.
He kept the rainbow trout in his bathtub, huddled by it
while eating a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli. He shoved
the TV against the door, just in case the policemen and
Mr. and Mrs. DeVane tried to bust in.
But they didnTt.
At night he made his way to Snake Creek, the rainbow
trout in the bucket. He jogged down deserted dirt
roads, passed ramshackle clapboard houses and little
black children on bicycles. An old black woman with a
face like a shriveled prune asked him what he had in
the bucket. He didnTt tell her. Maybe she was working
for the police.
He kissed the rainbow trout and named it Maria. Maria
was his motherTs name. He knew that, because his
daddy had told him so. Pale moonlight made the water
shiver and he watched Maria dart upstream past a
bend, and then she was gone.
REBEL NINETY-FOUR
PROSE/EDITORST.CHOICE
wOmesticity
oF £20O0N WW. MIiCKtas
oWhat time is it?� oHoney, just because two people have a different sexual
orientation than we do, doesnTt mean they donTt have
similar lives. Why donTt we just try to stick to neutral
oAren't you going to get dressed? We told them to be here _ conversation? You'll be less likely to blurt out anything
oSix-thirty.�
at seven.� embarrassing that way!�
oYou know it only takes me a minute to get ready. Okay, oBut thatTs just what I mean! We canTt talk to them like we
okay. I'll hop in the shower now.� would any other couple.�
oItd be nice just to relax for ten minutes before they get oI was joking. Though, I do sometimes enjoy that bright
here, donTt you think?� crimson you turn when youTve embarrassed yourself.
Honey, you're not good at playing the pussyfoot game.
You're too honest. I washed my new jeans last night, are
oI know, I know. ITm still a little stressed. This is kind of they in the drawer? Oh, thanks. No, you donTt like to
unusual, for us.� hurt other people, and it bothers you to think youTve
oRelax. TheyTre very nice people. It'll be a fun evening.�
eee BE 7 somehow, unintentionally, been rude to anyone. ThatTs
TheyTre an average couple, just like you and me. ' Sa aes
one of the reasons I love you. But I seriously think you'll
oNot quite like you and me.� like these two. And theyTve been looking forward to
P ~i ae meeting you.�
DonTt hold that against them. Towel? 5 3
. me oHave you ever met the spouse?�
oHere, in the basket. Well, you know what I mean. WeTve
never spent a whole evening, in our home, with anyone "_ oNo, but ITve seen their picture on ScottTs desk. Nice look-
different than us.� ing. And same name as yours"Chris.�
oYes, we have lots of times.� oHa! Well. Good bi-gender name. I know you think ITm
saad ' ie silly, but I'd hate to have them think weTre doing this just
Single people, yes. But never couples. It feels different.
to be trend setters. I really do want to meet them.
oThe only thing different about them is their sexual pref- Especially since ScottTs the best office manager youTve
erence. WeTre out of shampoo!� had in a long time. So just what kind of neutral topics
ies we ~ were you thinking of raising?�
oLook under the counter. That herbal stuff you like. But ) 5 5
isnTt that enough of a difference? DonTt you think that oI was joking. ScottTs pretty open. I think you'll find he
makes them different from us? I mean, weTre all human pretty much says whatever's on his mind. Like you. Wait
beings and God help me should someone call me a a minute. Did I just say ~just like youT? Could it be we all
bigot or something.� have something in common? Could we maybe be about
Perey i eae to make some new friends?�
You've always been open to intellectual progress.
oWhat?� oCould we maybe be less heavy on the sarcasm tonight?�
i ; a oHereTs how I think the evening, which starts now in
I said you've always been a good sport! é :
ten minutes"
oYes! Well, even so, our /ifestyles are different. When .
2 . ye aie on oWhoops. Close the door to the guest room, ITve got my
our regular friends come over, itTs so much easier to x ;
, epee ee studentsT papers strewn all around.
relate to what is going on in their lives. We all have
similar experiences.� oHereTs how I think it will go. They will come in. We will
26 LITERARY AND ARTS
"_ > "
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al rash ape decennial a a eee natal a an : - * - ,
pass around the introductions. We will get them a drink.
We will sit and talk and laugh. Scott will tell a few funny
_ ries about me at the office. I will tell a few about him.
You and Chris will learn that you have a lot in common,
Scott will be interested in your immigrant heritage, you
will tell an anecdote about one of your students, and we
will all sit down to a good dinner. Good drink, good
conversation, good dinner, good people. That's all any-
one could expect.�
oThink so?�
oKnow so.�
oTk a , : ,
know you're right. Guess ITm a little nervous about
the unknown.�
a c 4 y re
know you're not nervous about what other pec yple
will say.�
o5 ¢ 1 oee
: ! No, ITve never really cared what other people
ought. ITve usually found that, most of the time, they're
not thinking.�
Ready to have a good time?�
oYes " T i
es. I guess, really, ITm worried that they might not like
. I guess we must be pretty different for them.
Different, but familiar.�
oy : a ; i �
ou know, this is pretty brave for them to do.
" Very,�
a at � . .
O letTs get this straight: No one comes to my home and
has a bad evening, got it?�
One kiss, before they get here?�
hereTs the doorbell! One kiss now, one promised for
ater.�
(hanks for having them over.�
Honey, would you relax? You act like itTs a big deal!�
oa S rear �"� . P : ~ ;
swear, there must be a history of split personality in
your family. Now remember, theyTre just an average,
normal, straight couple.�
oWho've probably never seen a gay couple before. Any
bids for neutral conversation, honey? Too late! Scott! Hi.
ITm Chris. Good to meet you. Hi Christine, ITve heard a
lot about you, real glad to finally see you. Come on in,
make yourselves at home.�
ILLUSTRATION TOM KIM
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 27
no SS : aa al ed . Pe DART REDE NS . ae Ber PI - - _" 2 - "
" e28:8 ee eas oP oe eee es ok nee
PROSE/EDITORST CHOICE
The DPadies; Who .sunch
ANGELA RAPER
WHEN DELIA STEPPED OUT OF THE forward to it with a knotted mixture of joy and appre-
glaring sunlight of early June and into the airy coolness hension. She and Fuller hadnTt planned on having a
of the pseudo-French cafe, she realized that she wasnTt baby this soon, but they were financially comfortable
going to be able to spot Prue as easily as she normally enough that this pregnancy wasnTt unwelcome.
could. For one thing, Prue wasnTt sitting in the right
hi oFuller's goin overboard on this whole ~miracle of birthT
place. The two women had chanced upon the small
thing,� Delia snorted, rolling her large brown eyes
restaurant in the French Quarter nearly three years P ;
expressively. oI told him the other day be ought to be
before and had been charmed by its carefully cultivat- oi
; a ee . the pregnant one. Then he could have all the labor
ed Provencal air, complete with huge lace-framed pic- ca
pains, and/ could stand on the side, coachin him on
ture windows, lush greenery in the form of ferns and meng
his breathin and tellin him to push.
hot-house flowers and wrought-iron tables and chairs.
It had become a frequent haunt, the scene of innumer- Prue pulled her narrow face into an expression of
able lunches and teas, and the small, dark maitre dT exaggerated sympathy. oDoes it hurt when it kicks?�
automatically led them to a particular two-seater table ee 2
hy s A little, sometimes, but"
at the far window, provided it was free.
A smiling blond waiter interrupted with a cheerful
request for their drink order. oUnsweetened tea,� Delia
But they were having company today, and Prue"
assuming she had already arrived"had probably relo- , ihe 6
~ is replied, and Prue requested a KillianTs, causing
cated to a regular table. Or maybe a booth. Delia ayn
~ Steak i ane Delia to screw up her face in distaste. How can you
couldnTt tell; the combination of sunlight streaming in ote
drink that stuff?� she asked once the waiter was out
the spotless windows, reflecting off the light oak floor, rh x
and the lingering smoky sting from the Ghosts of ree
Cigarettes Past and Present made her squint until she oIt smells awful, and I donTt even want to think about
could barely see two steps in front of her, much less the taste.�
distinguish one patron from another. ~ItTs a pre-requisite for bein an English professor.� Prue
S juis ein an English professor.� Prue
oDelia!� Instinctively, she turned in the direction from leaned forward with her elbows on the table, regarding
which the welcoming call came, and there was Prue her friend with lazy blue eyes and a sardonic smile.
waving at her from a table against the wall beneath a oOnce you hit grad school, you have to become addict-
garish, technicolor print of a Toulouse-Lautrec painting. " ed to coffee, cigarettes or beer, otherwise you donTt get
t ares a 5 your degree.�
Hey, girl,� Prue drawled, smiling lazily up at Delia as
she approached the table. oTook you long enough to Delia shook her head and laughed softly. oYouTre hopeless.�
get here. YouTre walkin slow these days, Del.� ee
Considerin how long weTve known each other, you
oDidnTt your mama ever tell you not to pick on fat shouldnTt be surprised by this.�
ladies?� Delia tossed her friend a mock-scowl as she ree ,
God, donTt remind me,� she groaned theatrically,
carefully lowered herself into the chair on PrueTs left. .
drawing a polite chuckle from the young waiter return-
oHuh!� Prue scoffed. oShe may have told me, but that ing with their drinks. oYou'll make me feel old,� she
doesnTt mean I /istened.� Suddenly she dropped her added as she dropped the lemon wedge into her tea
disdainful air and patted DeliaTs rounded abdomen ten- __ then sucked the juice off her fingers, wincing at the
derly. oSo howTs the little rugrat-to-be anyway?� sudden tartness.
oKickin up a storm,� Delia chuckled, smoothing the oWe are old,� Prue declared, taking a pull on the long-
folds of her cotton maternity dress with a gentle caress. necked bottle. oBut I guarantee SuzyTll come slinkin in
Her time was getting close now, and she was looking here not lookin a day over twenty-five. I may throw up.�
28 LITERARY AND ARTS
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ILLUSTRATION KEITH HOBGOOD
REBEL NINE TY-FOUR 2
Oe oom eres DER as suttheueiiiatnitisine ends ina ee
Delia felt a sudden ripple of concern in her stomach;
while PrueTs words may have been joking, her tone had
held an underlying note of seriousness. She knew Prue
had private doubts about this reunion; as usual she had
kept them tightly inside, refusing to share her feelings
no matter how many subtle openings Delia provided.
oYou didnTt have to come,� she reminded Prue gently.
oI know, I know.� She tossed her head, an irritated edge
in her voice. oItTs not a question of want; itTs a question
of need. You should know that.� PrueTs gaze was
accusatory, and Delia stared resolutely at the linen
napkin in her lap.
oWhy do you think ITm here after what happened?� she
replied quietly. oITm not expectin the four of us to walk
away friends, you know. ItTs just that when Hope called
and said Suzy would be in town, I thought"�
oYou thought you could tidy up the past.� She sounded
almost angry now, her fingers curled tightly around the
lacy iron chair arm.
oYes,� Delia whispered, meeting PrueTs hot blue gaze,
her eyes silently pleading for understanding.
oShit.� Prue threw herself against the back of her chair in
disgust, and folded her arms across her chest.
Please, I'm nervous enough as it is.� Delia reached over
and touched PrueTs shoulder, but Prue refused to look
at her. oWe've got to support each other through this.�
Prue glanced sidelong at her, then sighed and
shrugged, curling her thin fingers around DeliaTs hand
and giving it a reassuring squeeze. oDonTt we always?�
HereTs to us then.� She raised her glass of tea and
nudged Prue with her other elbow, trying to coax a smile.
Prue swayed in her seat, looking as if she wanted to
hold onto her sulk, but after a moment she raised her
bottle. oHereTs to the end of the term,� she said solemnly.
oHereTs to the end of another year,� Delia, who taught
third grade, amended.
oHereTs to no summer school.�
oTTll drink to that.�
She clinked her glass against PrueTs bottle, and they
drank, both lapsing into a contemplative silence while
the rest of the cafe hummed with the low murmur of
conversation. She began to sink into daydreams of the
past, of the time when Delia, Prue, Hope and Suzy had
LITERARY AND ARTS
WIM AR a Pe DAS RSTHFT SS
shared an apartment during college, borrowing each
otherTs clothes and make-up, staying up all night shar-
ing deep secrets of who loved whom madly and eating
most of the chocolate chip cookie dough before they
could get the cookies in the oven. But that was all before...
oShit!�
Delia jumped, her heart racing at having been so
suddenly startled out of her thoughts.
oItTs half-past,� Prue complained. oWhere are they?�
oWell, theyTre supposed to come together, and you
know Suzy.� Delia flicked her fingers dimissingly. oShe
canTt have changed that much... But speaking of
changes.� Her grin turned devilish. oI wonder if sheTs
just as"�
oHorny?� Prue suggested blandly.
\ Ss
oThatTs not exactly the word I wouldTve chosen.� She
gave her friend a reproachful look.
oI would,� she muttered. oJust pick up any fashion maga-
zine, and there she is, sprawled on the cover in all her
glory.� She sat up straight then, staring intently at the
door. oWell, well, well,� she drawled, her eyes half-lid-
ded, shielding her emotions as effectively as if sheTd
slammed a door in her head somewhere. oI do believe
the queen has arrived.�
Delia followed PrueTs gaze"and there Suzy was,
standing in the door, looking as sleek and carefully
groomed as one of the countryTs most photographed
women should.
Suzy swept her gaze around the room with cool
indifference until it rested on them and, visibly fixing a
smile on her flawless face, she glided over to greet
them. For a brief moment, apprehension which threat-
ened to cross the line to fear clutched DeliaTs stomach;
the last few weeks of their senior year had not been
pleasant, but she wanted to make peace now, to put
the past to rest permanently.
The sweet floral scent of SuzyTs perfume wafted around
Delia as she felt that powder-cool cheek press ever
so briefly against her own in a swift air kiss. oDid
people really do that?� she wondered. Apparently so. It
took great will-power for her not to shrill, oKiss-kiss,
darling!� but she had a feeling that Suzy wouldnTt be
terribly amused.
So much about Suzy had changed; Delia remembered
the time when Suzy wore her dresses tight and allowed
nas thick auburn hair to cascade down her back with
just a few stray ringlets caressing her face, tempting
men to brush them back just so they could touch the
rest of that curly mass. Now her hair was chopped off
in a pert, trendy bob, and her tight dresses had been
traded for suits with classic, simple lines.
Delia, Prue, how delicious to see you again.� Suzy
perched in the chair across from Prue. She crossed her
long legs, letting her ivory silk skirt slide up to
mid-thigh, which Delia suspected was all for the benefit
of the bug-eyed, slack-jawed young executives she was
pretending not to have noticed. oHow are you?�
" Fine as Ir a . ~ -
.�� Prue answered for herself and Delia, her tone
7 aT > o
guarded. oAnd how are you, Suzy?�
uzanne,� she corrected.
Bo l .
f; th women darted startled glances at her; Prue
rowne laT
ned, but dull heat burned in DeliaTs cheeks at the
subtle reprimand.
SuzanneTs voic
neTs voice was breathy and distant as she glanced
around, barely registeri is!
e d, barely registering curiosity. oOh, by the way,
Ope isnTt c 7 :
F be isnTt coming. She called, said something about a
ast-minute meeting.�
ii fea spare deflated at the news; she had count-
pe serving as an objective mediator. Now it
Pao they were on their own. oWell. how is she? I
ah " her in ages.� She felt completely inane,
any neutral topic, no matter how trivial.
heTs fine. Busy as usual.�
e Did S >» > ° -
she mention Preston?� She tried to sound casual as
S 1e ASKE > ti ;
isked the question so Prue wouldnTt have to.
oHer b or?� SuzyT
poy rother?� SuzyTs expression was toO innocent to be
Ca . oRy »� N > e . ti
a Fine.� She cast a sly look at Prue. «Still unmarried.
avbe heTs still carrvi | 3
: o e heTs still carrying a torch for you, Prue. If you re
Still not married, that is.�
oo & . "
a uzanne,� she replied in the deceptively calm
~Ol ~e ~ 14. - . ; � ~
ce that Delia knew boded ill. oITm not.
oReally?� Her f a of
Pi ly?� Her full red lips formed a dramatic oO� of
eione panne oe awry : Y
| eve surprise. oWhat a shame. No luck snaring a
Ps a ee
ling young professor? Or is there such a thing?
oLetTs just sav 17T one : ve
S just say ITm selective.� She leaned forward, smiling
dNeasz , & cial oa pape , :
P antly. And what is it for you? Three divorces: Or
IS it four by now?�
oSo.� Her voice came out loude
oItTs perfection!� she gushed.
oIf | have to hear one mor
Suzanne flinched as if she had been struck; if her
n cool before, it was pure ice now.
expression had bee
was surprised that Prue had clawed
Delia imagined she
back: acerbity hadnTt been part of her personality when
they were in college.
oWell!� Delia exclaimed far more cheerful than the situa-
o?'m starved. What looks good?� She
pretended to study it, acutely
ence, but helpless to diffuse
tion warranted.
picked up a menu and
aware of the oppressive sil
the potentially volatile situation.
The waiter came and went, their orders were taken
and, other than Prue snapping al DeliaTs quiet opposi-
tion to her ordering another beer, no one spoke. Delia
fiddled with her napkin, fretfully crumpling it between
her fingers, feeling more than a little awkward and
foolish. She had been so anxious for them to reunite,
and now one was absent and the other antagonized.
r than she intended as
she groped for words. oHowTs your shoot going,
Suzanne?� The photo shoot was, Delia knew, the only
reason Suzy was in New Orleans at all, but asking Suzy
anything about herself had always been the best way to
start her talking. Some things never changed.
oPhilippe is a brilliant
artiste. He works sheer magic with my face.�
Delia anticipated Prue on that one and kicked her
under the table before she could open her mouth.
Suzanne chattered throughout the meal, while Delia
rue nodded and made interested noises at
es, feigning absorption in every
just like the old days.
e word about Miss Hot
had often shouted, oITm
ately agreed, but Hope
and P
all the right plac
word to keep the peace,
PantsT latest conquest,� Prue
goin to throw up!� Delia priv
had always shrugged and smiled as if to say,
oThatTs just Suzy.�
oSo. Delia.� Suzy suddenly turned to her, and
artled at being directly addressed;
she thought Suzy wouldnTt wind down for at least
another ten minutes...and she trusted that paste-on,
as much as she trusted an
oIs this how Fuller keeps you?
Suzanne continued, her
as Delia flushed
Delia glanced up, st
day-glo smile about
unpinned grenade.
Barefoot and pregnant?�
sweetie-pie air never flagging even
scarlet. oPerhaps I should be glad I didnTt marry
him after all.�
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 31
)
As
?
~~ . oe De er sii ata a ~~ seein atiaie oe eT ee
oOh, like you had a choice "!� Prue exclaimed hotly,
but Delia cut her off with a weary wave of her hand.
oPrue, Suzy"please.� Her voice was softly pleading.
oNot today. All right?�
oFine.� Suzanne gave a graceful, indifferent one-shoul-
der shrug. oI was just asking a simple question.�
oSimple, my sweet ass"�
" Frue.�
oAll right, all right.� Prue fell back in her seat, staring at
the far corner.
oI could have married him, you know.� Suzanne contin-
ued, her tone as light and conversational as if she were
talking about the weather. oI could have gotten him as
easily as I got Preston.� Delia heard PrueTs sharp intake
of breath but didnTt dare look at her; she was riveted
on Suzy, a thousand conflicting emotions surging
inside her: horror and contempt for SuzyTs casual inflic-
tion of pain, fear of being unable to defend herself
against such a brutal assault, but over-riding all was a
growing anger, slowly seething to the top of her emo-
tional list. oIt would have been no trouble at all to take
him away from you.�
Delia clenched her hands into fists as she fought off the
instinctive insecurity Suzy had always been able to
invoke. She was trying to intimidate Delia, just as she
had in college, thinking, no doubt, that she was the
same meek, quiet, eager-to-please girl she had been
then. Suzy had always derided her, wrecked her confi-
dence"but no more. Delia had grown up, gained the
inner peace she had lacked then, and instead of being
cowed by SuzyTs remarks, she was furious.
But she held her wrath in check, and instead, very
calmly, very quietly, she said, oThen why didnTt you?�
Suzy hadnTt expected that; her eyes grew round with
surprise, and her mouth fell open as she searched for
an answer.
oI know you tried, Suzy. But it didnTt work.� She forced
herself to smile. oRemember?�
Delia looked into SuzyTs eyes and could see that she
too was remembering the time when she had just
seduced"and abandoned"Preston and had begun
on DeliaTs lover. Prue had disappeared for two days
and returned looking pale and ill, and would say only
that she had been osick.� Hope had tried desperately to
keep Delia from discovering SuzyTs machinations in a
futile attempt to prevent their increasingly fragile
friendships from crumbling altogether. But Delia had
found out; she overheard the end of an argument,
LITERARY AND ARTS
heard him tell Suzy that she wouldnTt do to him what
she had done to Preston, and Suzy had fled in tears,
perhaps in expectation of him chasing after her. But he
had not"ever.
oI loved him.� Suzanne switched tactics, playing the
martyr now, complete with welling tears in her clear
green eyes. oI was trying to make him jealous.�
oNo.� Delia shook her head slowly, a rising swell of pity
filling her voice and her eyes.
oHe was the only man ITve ever truly loved, and you
kept him from me.�
oNo"T�
oHe would have come to me if he hadn't felt so sorry
for you!�
oNo, Suzy. It wasnTt like that.�
oHe should have been mine!� SuzanneTs mask shat-
tered"completely, horribly"resentment splayed
naked on her ravaged face.
Delia stared at her, numb. HadnTt she watched this on
As the World Turns last week? Conciliatory words died
half-formed in her throat; there was no balm to soothe
this old wound. She became vaguely aware of stares
from neighboring tables, of the hovering concern of
their waiter, of Prue hunched over, her face buried in
her hands, but she was too focused on Suzy to react.
oI canTt believe you hate me this much,� Delia said
brokenly. oThat you blame me for your own failure,
your Own stupid games. You had no reason to be
jealous of me. Why canTt you let it go?�
oNo,� Suzanne murmured, shaking her head as she
stared at the floor.
oThatTs what weTre here for"to make peace with our-
selves and with the past. We were friends once. Why
canTt we be friends again?�
SuzyTs head jerked up as she glared at Delia, fury still
burning in her eyes. oBecause you stole the only bit of
happiness I could ever have had!�
oAnd you stole mine.� Prue, forgotten by the other
two, now spoke up, her voice oddly calm. Her blue
eyes were bright with unshed tears, but her expression
was tranquil. oI can never forget what you did, but I
can forgive.�
oItTs over and done with.� DeliaTs voice was unaccusing-
ly soft. oLetTs start over.� She held out her hand, offer-
ing her friendship, unconditional and forgiving, praying
Suzy would accept it.
i
Se
S yp » Ara . ° � . - -
uzanne stared blankly at Delia, at her out-stretched Of course I am,� she said with a trace of her old cocki-
h; ~ r a : : ,
and, at Prue. Then, drawing in a deep, shuddering ness, then
and, fluffing first time in quit
isk fall tonight.�
dispelled it with a sheepish grin. oFor the
breath, she rubbed her palms on her skirt e a while. Maybe I'll even call Preston
out her hair with her fingertips, she let the m
back in place.
o{ think you should.� She looked at herself"really
looked at herself"in the mirror, at her swollen,
Vell, ladies,� she smiled only a little shakily as she rose
and she scrubbed uselessly at them,
fro > f- . 7 ,
m the table, looking at them vaguely as if they were red-rimmed eyes,
passing acquaintances whose names she couldn't quite then idly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. oOh,
re 7 - = Pad rr .9 ry �
emember. oItTs been lovely. We'll have to get together me. What a mess.
ag : ei : ~ -
gain sometime. Maybe next time, Hope will come... ya nee
Cline inmnemeicT oYou'll be okay.� Prue tugged her towards the door.
paused, took a breath, brightened her smile. poi ae
NChescasl tie *-alen nal ' Come on. We'd better get back to the table before the
ye,� she said, and then she was gone. as) a
waiter starts thinkin we ran off without so much as
| elia didnTt watch her leave, excusing herself and flee- leavin a tip.� She tilted her head, a hint of r yguishness
Ing » |e tacT r 4 . ' : o > er » = .
1g to the ladiesT room instead. Once there she began in her smile. oBuy you a beer.� she offered, then hastily
ishing her hands to divert her attention from her d protest, oa rool beer.
amended before Delia coul
rolling emotions, staring at the dingy porcelain sink so . fe ae 3
think ics teresa n'e re . ~ Delia stared at her friend, fighting a losing battle with
she wouldnTt see the mirror. She surprised herself; POG 2
she expected laughter at Prue s earnest concern. oThis ume, she
xpected to be weeping disc ynsolately at this ; ° :
replied, oyou're On.
01 eves wer
point, but her eyes were hot and dry as she r ycked on
her heels and scrubbed her hands.
She had washed them for the fifth time and was begin-
ning on the sixth when Prue opened the door, walked
in and leaned against the sink next to DeliaTs, hands in
her pockets. She said nothing for a long moment, mere-
ly watched DeliaTs frenetic actions.
wale idnT : i :
yu didnTt murder the past, you know, she said at last.
o t THO « 7, , oe A * o -
was already dead, so quit playin Lady Macbeth.
oHow cz , 54 ��
W can you say that?� Delia strangled back a sudden
urge to sob. oThere was a chance"�
No.� Prue slipped her arms around Delia and rested her
chin on her shoulder, gazing at her in the mirror,
Today was nothin for me if not a revelation. I've been
blamin Suzy for all my problems just like sheTs been
blamin you, and neither one of us was right. I allowed
her to destroy my relationship with Preston even
though I knew it was all a game to her, and that was
my own pig-headed fault.�
Delia met her gaze in the mirror, silent tears streaming
chit ies cheeks as she reached up and clutched
ues comforting hands. oItTs just that I regret,� she
Said. oIt didnTt have to be this way. I wish"! wish"�
She drew in a deep breath and let it out again slowly.
We were friends, you know?�
Yeah,� Prue said simply, her expression rueful. o1
know, But you canTt always tie everything Up into neat
little packages. Sometimes you have to make do with
the bag it came in.� :
Delia man:
elia managed a chuckle. oI suppose, NO, | know
you're right.�
~Y
WN
REBEL NINETY-FOUR
ILLUSTRATION JOHN STILES
PROSE/EDITORST
MY FIRST MEMO RIES OF
(my grandmother) come into focus
PIHEL
around the age of
four when I recollect this frantic woman hustling me into
a new black Packard"for which she had no license to
operate and only the vaguest idea how to drive.
Because of my DadTs penchant for loose blondes with
no teeth, Mom and I lived briefly with her parents,
Ethel and Bryan, while Dad worked on his priorities,
Each morning, as soon as everyone had left the house.
Ethel and I would board the Packard and go lurching
down the street toward town. since Ethel never both-
ered to change gears, I'd Stay in the back seat with my
arms wrapped around her neck until the jerking leveled
off and we reached a semi-safe cruising speed. SheTd
sing oShe'll Be Coming Around The Mountain�"loud
and off key, trying to drown-out the grinding of the
suppressed gears.
The entire day would be spent snaking around town.
Ethel showing me off to all her friends and faithfully
telling each one that I was her favorite grandchild. In the
late afternoon, with the Packard still pitching like a zeal-
ous drunk, weTd head for home. swearing never to tell
anyone about our secret adventures "
came to an abrupt end.
adventures that
Dad, having see
n the light, brought his little dysfunctional
LITERARY
AND ARTS
CORE SR i TERS
CHOICE
family back under one roof. After Mom and I left for
home, my grandfather, always a friend to the bottle.
grasped this change as an excuse to obolt off the
wagon.� Consequently, the Packard disappeared; then a
greasy 40-watt efficiency apartment replaced the red
brick home that granddad had built himself, forcing
Ethel to take a job as a sales lady in a floppy department
store in a decaying section of Alexandria. Familiar with
the baggage of an uncharmed life. Ethel once again
made the adjustment.
Armed with a ready laugh and a defiant sense of
humor, she attacked her dilemma, relying on familiar
affectations to hide the growing hollowness in those
sugar brown eyes. This time. though, the rally was
unsuccessful. My statuesque grandmother was being
replaced by a slumped shouldered. brittle, old woman
whose hair no longer took a youthful rinse,
appearing
yellow and dull"seemingly resi
gned to some
unknown, yet expected conclusion.
As Ethel evaporated, | began to fill-in"thanks to the
inevitable insistence of puberty. My hormones smox thed
the angles, allowing me to finally become comfortable
with my body. Each day, I discovered s« mething new
and lewdly intriguing about my uncharted anatomy. My
peers replaced my family. I could no longer bear the
thought of spending the night in EthelTs stifling little
Se ae +
Sas eS
apartment with its stale smells, watching my grandfather
get drunk, while she fussed over the few leftover memo-
ries from an all-but-forgotten past. My mind no longer
had room to cope with anything that wasnTt new and
exciting and young.
Christmas vacation °63. My grandfather was celebrating
the holidays with Seagrams"or in his more lucid
moments, a woman named Pansy, leaving my folks to
try and distract Ethel from her loneliness. | managed to
guiltlessly coast through the holiday with friends, mas-
turbation, and idle afternoons spent glued to the radio,
waiting to see if the Supremes would be number one on
this weekTs Top 40 Countdown.
With only a few precious days left before reality once
again intruded upon my bliss, I went downtown to kill
some time with my friends. God, we thought we were
the coolest things to ever hit the streets of Alexandria.
Moving as one complete unit, we did the usual cruising,
some amateurish shoplifting, and sopped up french fries
and gravy at HOJOTs"worming our way down to the
front of J.C. PennyTs on King Street, where only the truly
cool gathered.
Since each of us had a holiday parent curled up on the
couch, leaving all our homes off limits, we decided to
catch the bus and go to D.C. Unfortunately, as the bus
pulled up, who should be the first person off? Ethel. Like
a jammed honing device, she obsessively zoomed
straight for me with that olet me hug your neck. Oh
Honey, itTs been so long since ITve seen you� look in her
eyes. By allowing myself to be absorbed into the flood
of people waiting to board the bus, I side-stepped her
maneuver and pushed away from her impending
embrace. oWhen are you going to come and see me?�
she called. oSoon,� I quickly lied, anxious to reach the
safety of the bus.
Suddenly, from nowhere, sheTs behind me, leaning over
as if to kiss me, completely unaware of a faux pas I was
not going to allow her to make. You donTt kiss a guy in
front of his friends"-No way! I countered the effort by
persistently pushing my way toward the safety of the bus
door. As the bus pulled away from the curb, my mind
abruptly pulled away from Ethel"leaving her in a haze
of exhaust fumes.
After seeing me downtown, they speculated she must
have gone directly home"Granddad wasnTt there"
once again being in a wayward mood. According to the
medical report, as she bent over to take off her shoes,
she was slammed by a massive brain hemorrhage, dying
almost immediately "alone.
Her death brought me even more notoriety at school
and a strange sensation that something permanent had
happened. Mom turned it into an academy award
moment, justifying her outrageous behavior with over-
whelming sorrow.
oYou mean to tell me,� Mom would shriek, refusing to
be calmed, oafter all your grandmother did for you, as
much as she loved you, youTre telling me you won't go
to the funeral?�
You nailed it, Glenda. ITm not going to watch you wal-
low in your self-pity as they put Ethel in some hole and
throw dirt on her.
The rare periods when MomTs rage turned into a thick
brooding, seemed to truly, unnerve Dad. Granted, the
silence was eerie but I found it a welcomed respite. Not
Dad. He would reminisce about how good Ethel had
been and how we were all really going to miss her, mak-
ing sure to mention how much she used to care about
me. After about five minutes of this priming, Mom would
crank back up, hitting those decibel levels of a sincere
tragedienne, as she bemoaned my shamelessness and
the added grief it was causing her.
Mom,
In my own fucked up way, I loved Ethel
very much. I
just donTt think I'm ready to admit sheTs really gone. The
last time I saw her, I wouldn't even kiss her. Why are
you doing this? DonTt make me feel any guiltier than I
already do. ITm hurting too . For Christ sake, Mom, we
never touch. And now you're pissed because I don't
physically comfort you? What is it you want from me?
WHAT! ItTs impossible to know " you keep changing the
rules. It all has to revolve around you. Right?
She won. There was no way to argue with her. My only
defense being silence, I agreed to go to the funeral
home (what a crazy fucking term"~ofuneral home�).
God, what a mistake. I had no idea what to expect. But
then there was no way to predict what I experienced.
(The medics found $740 in EthelTs bra when they tried
to resuscitate her"just enough to cover the cost of her
funeral"fortunately they arrived before Granddad.)
Obviously, the word never reached most of the rela-
tives regarding EthelTs depleted finances, or the turnout
would have never been so prodigious. It appeared to
be a carnival for the dead. Ones she hated. Ones that
hated her. Ones that didnTt give a shit either way. The
ones so far removed, you weren't even sure there was
a blood connection. Right up front, headlining the
show, crying crocodile tears, was Granddad, whom
Mom had followed to a pick-up bar the night before,
physically slapping him out into the street where, my
sister and my brother and I watched as she
manhandled him into the back seat of our Chevy sta-
tion wagon, where we sat in complete shock, moving
as far away from him as possible.
When I actually entered the osanctuary� and laid eyes
on Ethel in that steel gray coffin, it proved too much. |
woke up laid out on the pew nearest the coffin. Jesus,
this wasnTt my grandmother. She didnTt wear her hair
like that, nor did she use that much make-up. And that
peach thing she wore, what bullshit. Even when times
were hard, Ethel knew how to dress. She looked like a
cadaverish clown.
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 35
>
Be
0
oYour grandmother looks so natural.�
oYour grandmother was certainly
oDoes it seem hot in here to you?�
oAfter everyone leaves, we'll be Stay
oOh, my God,� I said aloud. without thinking,
oLook. SheTs not dead. Look, d
oHe seems flushed.�
oGranddad is a shit,T
""" fee te tt
a CCR
some familiar face
with no name remarked.
Who the fuck are you? Natural? Since when was Waxy
looking, natural? You stupid, shit. ITm still not convinced
that thing is my grandmother
But the more I stared. the more the cosmetic injustice
remote thing laid there. the
more I began to recognize Ethel. | couldnTt
eyes off her. Everything
faded. The more this still.
take my
around me seemed to fade"
my Only awareness fixated on that thing resembling
my grandmother.
a good woman.�
The woman who had turned my
grandfather into the
crowed Anna Lee.
IRS for not paying taxes.
[ asked. But Anna Lee
had no more time for me. nx ving On to a more
recep-
tive audience.
Oh, God. Here comes Mom, dripping with remorse.
All she needs is a breast beater to complete the
grief ceremony.
~ing behind to say our
The funeral home director
said we could have the chapel for thirty
minutes"to be alone with mx ther
more before the burial.�
final farewells. You stay put.
as a family, once
A family? We've never been a family. The Cleavers are
a family. We're just passing " going through the
motions so the neighbors will think well of us. If it
werent for the nights you and Dad lock the bedroom
door, I doubt we'd all still live in the same house. And
now, you want Granddad to move in with us, because
he has no where else to 20? That should just about
complete the American Gothic. And where in the hell is
he going to sleep? With me probably. Snoring like a
goddamn gorilla. And how will we ever get to use the
bathroom? He naps while reading on the toilet. One
bathroom for seven people. Great! Now, there really
won't be anyplace to masturbate.
I went back to my watchful vigil ove
r Ethel. I canTt
remember being more
focused. ItTs as if something
wouldn't allow me to blink or look away. Then the
shit hit the fan. Ethel sat Straight up, turning with a
smile toward me, while Slowly lifting out of the
Did the mortician shoot her full of he
formaldehyde?
coffin.
lium instead of
osheTs not
really dead.�
oSheTs not what?� asked crazy Aunt Alice.
ammit. ItTs a mistake.� |
yelled.
I vaguely heard her say.
I said, responding to a « omment
LITERARY AND ARTS
oYeah, Mom is really showing her ass.
oThanks. That makes me feel better.�
for GodTs sake.
oHurry,�
oMom. SheTs not there. I saw her le:
oIf you start with me at a time like
from the floating Ethel.
You mustnTt talk about your Granddad that way,� cooed
Aunt Alice, trying to get me under contr: dl,
for assistance,
as she called
oBetty come over here quick. something
is wrong. I think heTs overheated.�
But what did you
expect, Ethel. You know she lo\ es an audience,� | said.
unaware of MomTs closeness.
Before I knew it. ey eryone had been ushered out. Mc m,
Dad, Granddad and I were the Only ones
chapel.
left in the
were my final
remarks to Ethel as she floated right past the bare beams
and track lighting, eventually being swallowed by the
darkness beyond. Only then did I hear Mom crying, as if
disappointed in the climax of her passional. Ignoring my
conversation with her dead mother.
The Director herded us all nearer the coffin and ask that
we hurry. He needed to get home to his family. It was
getting late. First, Granddad stepped up to the body and
bending over, tearfully kissed Ethel good-by.
odd because her lips didnTt seem to give und
sure. Next,
It was so
er the pres-
Dad placated Mom by kissing Ethel. I noticed
his AdamTs apple bob, fighting the gag reflex. Then Mom
swooped in clutching, and si »bbing,
and grabbing the air
for some unseen stabilizer,
culminating her drama in a
swoon seen only among the finest actresses,
After collecting herself. she turned to me, oGo on. Kiss
her good-by.�
NO! SheTs not there. I saw here leave. This is qa Carcass,
! can't do it. I'll throw up.
she said. othe Director needs to lock the chapel.�
My grandmother's dead. Fuck the director. And fuck
you too, Mom. You're just pissed because she didn't treat
you 0 a special good-by matinee. You y ere always jeal-
ous of our special friendship. Something you and I never
had"and never will. Lock the chapel? Against what? Is
somebody going to come in and steal that awful peach
casement you chose for her. What a petty way to try and
Set even. You knew she hated that color. You knew she
didn't want to be buried on some forgotten hill in North
Carolina and you knew she ner er wore bangs and
gaudy make-up"damn you!
ave. I swear to God.�
trying a jab at sincerity.
this, I swear to God.�
she promised, with that twistedly sincere look, I'd seen
many times, oyou are going to get it.�
[ bent over"a (temporarily) defeated twelve year
old"holding my breath, closing my eyes"allowing
my lips to lightly graze a mouth that only days be
fore |
had refused to kiss.
+ EE DSF
POSTRY
f el
ILLUSTRATION MICHAEL SHOAF
C
oC SORE Bg > ene TEM os
hildren
JAMES �,�E CAs EY
brERARY AND ARTS
> aay
i
FIRST: PLAGE
a)
Southeast As
The elevators landed and the children spilled out.
We were cutting up newspapers at the time.
They filled the halls in silence,
we didnTt know their names.
But they looked at us
with eyes like a thousand tin cans,
-d and rusting by the highway.
ed to cut, taking scissors to headlines,
4e words we needed.
make a list, I thought,
owly by.
ee oo" - . - nat TI Tn . 0 6 wren 68 LEB rs oy _- ee ee ey
POETRY SECOND PLACE
Cnarmer
BY KELLE XAVIAR LAWRENCE
[ wore you
like the charms
dangling at my breast.
You were the St. Christopher I found
lost and dented in the mall parking lot.
You were the cracked, milky quartz
a friend passed on to me.
You were the twisted metal rhinoceros
[ found in my living room
after the party.
[ wore you
until your breath
stained a dark ring upon my neck,
and the weight bruised my chest.
Flaking green heavy element,
[ unclasped you
to stretch myself.
iE T
ee
=
7.
2
ri
ei
4
*
M4
ILLUSTRATION LISA LUDWIG
~"Rs
40
Tne Cor
: . Meuron
erase, oo Ck TN REN Lot A EER
BY JOHN MCMANUS
Not as much the sound
When six strings are made to blur
As the feel of the guitar
Against my body.
The music travels through my hands
As a subtle, silent hum
That is deeply, deafly
Tangible.
And writingTs in the pencil
When I scratch
Onto a page
The constantly swirling spirits of my brain
To make them still.
These are my appendages:
The vibration of sound
The friction of lead or
The tapping of keys
And in them I feel my ghosts.
PEST ERARY AND ARTS
rOERTRY
ILLUSTRATION SEAN LIVINGSTONE
THIRD
Hporeai A
PLAGE
epect Gf Ar
Lae NE BE
ae
= at i nzak ape eRe�
~ � 2 oreo wees FPR LM CNA se.
" "_ " 7 eee ee _ "" mIaBiF Pe
net ing? +e eet ee Se ee . ~
CNAs a ant teas ae ae ee ~~
» nna ti N
POETRY, HONORABLE MENTIO
3 aA | k 1 ni : Omd { O @�,� S (AlzheimerTs Winter)
BY WAYNE ROBBINS
(FIRST LINE BY
heTs
digging
in his head
again (the
fadings
of his
waters
come to
mind) and
we can only
watch
from
Outside
while we listen
we can only
stand behind
his fence
we
digging
in his head
again (the
fadings
of our
waters
come to
mind and
we can barely
swim) and
not so
sure
whatTs
in there
we must
simplify
just to
begin
ITm
digging
in his head
again (why
does it all
evaporate
(the
fadings of
all waters)
as it
moves
into the
Wwind?).
CAMILLE BECK)
~~ =,
J ~
3 me """ - WAX... .
Pd a . &
sl cha ade Sore Mey
late he
: : ae ~,
"pee gt sd Pi fs ~ PF ih ,
- rr i ©.
' ~
as ee A me
ILLUSTRATION BRIAN WOODUEF
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 41
. eR. t
4)
Bene ns cern SETS EE ge TE ea a
POETRY
Bedtime
BY JANE C SABATINI
For a long time |
buried my mother each
night under my pillow. |
had her trapped in a
silver frame.
In my photo, I stand
beside her. She wears
pink and I am in blue and
white with my hair pulled
back. Her arm is around
my waist as we smile
in the May sun.
Her disease did not show up
in the picture.
When I would go to sleep each night
my motherTs smiling face disappeared
Instead she would be back in the
hospital bed with death beside
her. The tube down her throat
made it hard for her to speak. She
tried to say something to me, |
pretended to understand her. But then
she is better and laughs in the May
sun, holding my hand.
LITERARY AND ARTS
HONOR
ILLUSTRATION BRIAN WOODLIEF
A BI
| :
ME
N
ION
POETRY EDITORST CHOICE
Untitled
WAYNE ROBBINS
- . : P in lee " . ee ee .
eee a. err} oh
rs . me Kae nh tho sons vhs Rat: ; ey) °
v ~ 7 and a 2 be 5 a 7 % ft . 4 ' . ¥1 ~fo
ih P give
he mk a
ad Aye
me the
sea in a
bucket to
carry around
like a child
in sand. I'll
help you to gather
it all from the corners
of blue (we can see fish
that flop in the sun till
they die (we can laugh as the
seals dive headfirst into rocks
(we can walk up to whales feeding
them with the plankton we've found by
our feet (we can hike to vienna and
drive to calcutta (we can dance
in the mud with the airstricken
kelp or drink vintage champagne
on the famous titanic (we'll
discover atlantis)))))) and
when we are done with our
bucket of fun we can dump
it back into the nile
and watch as it fills
up the sea like the
bathtub it is. |
can just go home
eat seafood and
ILLUSTRATION LEE MISENHEIMER
watch the tv
till I fall
deep asleep
on the
couch.
REBEL NINET Y-FOUR 43
OPIS: -- See pga Bet ha!
Tonya: On the Power of
SOTETTE
Every other
Thursday
Daddy says,
oTonyaTs got stomach cramps.�
so I miss the bus
I miss school breakfast
then catch a ride to the Suds-N-Fold
(warm from fifty-cent-dryersT heat)
and do his laundry
colored-clothes tumble,
like teachersT words
too fast to catch,
but I watch
stomp my foot, loud
when red patches fall by
count the stomps
in my head, not on my fingers
and I wait
for lunch
11:00 oTclock
12:00 or 2:00
Daddy comes
blows the horn
[ stack clothes
(stained ones on bottom)
between Daddy and me
clothes on hangers
I seat belt across my lap
across my chest
He brings one
tomato sandwich
[ eat fast,
six bites
44 LITERARY AND ARTS
eOITORST CHOICE
gone before
we get to the house
oThank you Daddy.�
In the front room
He says, oGet ready girl.�
[ take off my jeans
my underwear
pull my red T-shirt
under my arms
grind the hem
between my teeth
count goose bumps
wait, wonder
if stacked clothes have fallen
if stains will show
DaddyTs match strikes
the kerosene heater to life
thick fumes pound in my head
flames hiss across its metal mouth
too fast to catch
but, I watch
they lick up, down
in time with Daddy
and I stomp my foot, loud
when red flame-faces dart by
count the stomps
in my head, not on my fingers
And I wait
for supper
and red things to count
reasons to stomp
loud
red
Counting Red
eer
Hoe
»
20 88 JOM RASS DMF: A S87
ono Ty bere oon
snk ROR AALS Ie
eee Ae eS
Se LPF
iD. pet pe
*e
.
~
5 meer A
7
7
.
_ a es, a
Fs ~
Cnn ~
jes
YOVENIVLS LISI NOUVaLSAT
ee eee en
PUETRY/SEDITORSG CHOICE
Leather
CHANDRA SPEIGH
At ten, I decided
of all the people
| did not like
this car had driven
leather or church or God to and from cemeteries
all the tears, saliva, and mucus
seeping from faces
how leather had sucked it all in
as it was now gulping down my sweat
| wondered if there had been any others like me
dry eyed girls traveling away from death
sitting on gloved palms
trying to protect themselves
every part of themselves
from the sucking mouth
of the ravished
black leather
oLittle girls
do not wear black�
Mother said zipping
my Easter dress
the fuchsia flowered one
scratchy crinoline underneath
fabric stiff and warm from ironing
| pulled on white gloves
buttoned petite pearl buttons
she fussed with my floppy dotted hat
pulled elastic tight under my chin
Besides the flowers
I was the only color at the funeral
The clothes were black
The coffin was black
The Bible was bound with black leather
I wanted to blend in
but the pearls on my gloves
stuttering in summer sun
giggled
When it was over
the black clothes
tramped away
escaping to multicolored
air conditioned prisons
not free, but safe
from this death
MotherTs heels sunk in mud
as I walked behind her
my legs itching
and chin irritated
I climbed into the big car
and listened to her sobs
a man in a black hat
and black leather gloves
carried us away
the backs of my legs
sweated themselves
to the black leather
of the car seat
[ remember thinking
ILLUSTRATION DAVID ROSE
40 LITERARY AND ARTS
|
;
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i
GALLERY
ART
ee oe Ls oe eed
CS
wom He SSB RR * ..
PSS
Sa
[a4
ART G
. 41S
Se rR te
50
Ray Kay
Basket Form #6
Ceramics
First Place
Or (te »p lett)
Jamie Kirkpatrick (top right)
Interterence Pattern #4
Ceramics
Second Place
Jerr y Jack son
3 Stages of a Traveling Foot Washing
Ceram Ics
Third Place
Aat. GALLASF
nn NEES 0
o~ a RS ye oes a
stacy aa agi
my,
Ray Kaylor (top left)
Lidded Vessel #5
Ceramics
Honorable Mention
David Grahek (top right)
Untitled
Ceramics
Honorable Mention
Jeannette Stevenson
Unity
Ceramics
Honorable Mention
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 51
paint " Saber te Fe ie 4 a tS "s
Cer tet i et Ls
Sele pgims THA
.
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~
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=
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Selt Identity Cubes top)
Pro duction & f ISS 1993
Communication Arts
First Place
Darlene Pelliccio (lett)
2 2 Go
Communication Arts
Third Place
Darlene Pelliccio (ri
New Ac Je Gaelic
Communication Arts
Honor able Mer ition
is ART: GALCER Y
Pes es PVRS Ge DUE
a0). eRe a
=
Ww
pring
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PCLT iM
S
rite ot
The ]
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BEL NIN! Y OUR
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: - i ical mpeg ad ee tee = pl Bes ates . mi
> gest See o 552 Se Se CEL SAP
54
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GALLERY
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REBEL
Sean Livingstone
Untitled #1
Drawing
Honorable Mention
NINETY-FOUR
"_
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ans eect ok ADULTE
5
Be,
>
be
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me mee
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aaa es oe
Fon t5,
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, - apa rye ; x 7 2 _ > oon oe ery et oe & 4 Lol ANS yO gt oF Mgt og
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 5
se
_
ee ee
SABE Oyge 4- + Lesa eal? 5S aps tn See snes us - ,
SMES oe Ow : i - a ~~ sa, ae MNS SOS Tt ER SO EIST nnn ce NIRS RG Cie nae EEN I = oe 4
- Wns Shih ss ° , 0) ? : i Sie he. 2 =. i rere ne oe " oN PER ct "e a eae
o - . °. _"" " camiaiai ~ ° a ~ oes - .
Fr 5 | reve
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SS ART GALLER
od MEME RS HK OD
John Bateman (top)
Beth with a Hat
Painting
Honorable Mention
Keith Hobgood
Untitled
Painting
Honorable Mention
REBE
NINETY-FOUR
59
60
ART
aa a al ee So ES
GALLERY
+ tote ele oe, Se a is Ta
. 6 mes Abe P Jip
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LENG I
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St rd tee) be ed be
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First Place
iV \e | 1K
nd Place
Melia Elliott
VECO
C
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The Turning
ei
Place
Wd
Ol
R
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NINE
BEL
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62
ART
« ne a
ar
ank (b ttom lett)
Fred Webb
Printmaking
First Place
Marcia Sanders (top right)
H shy Ry stl TS
Printmaking
Ȏ CC nd Pi ICe
Todd Robert (bottom right)
Iwisting Souls
Printmaking
Third Place
ol ANT rE Seo
Grain Elevators
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eg) ot woe onoo a te
a
GALLER
one ee� 5 TaN the
Ak COTM Tn Se
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Ray Kaylor (top lett)
1
Higawari, Piece of Many Colors
Sculpture
First Place
»D jean JawRunner (right)
Kinetic trom the Twin Series
Sculpture
Second Place
|. K. Dowdee (bottom left)
Restore
Sculpture
Third Place
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 63
oe
so deen rsa eee? SE SEARS SSS Sete ae RRR SR URIS oS oR RNR REN AN RN ~ nee
WARE EEATS Lith
o12 ats gis. Ae
ey ae Ses
ae |
>
604 ART GALLERY
CHILDRENTS
LITERATURE
CHILDRENTS LITERATURE/FICTION/FIRST PLACE
BY ELIZABETH MCDAVID
PoCOUnreringes
oMOM, COME LOOK,� NATALIE CALLED
oFor me. ITm curious too.�
through the open screen door. oThat crazy Fran across
tee Mas oOkay, but ITm not staying. I'll just ask her and come
the street is doing it again. Kass, yin , , r
right back. I donTt want her weirdness rubbing off
NatalieTs Mom came out and sat on the front steps on me.�
beside Natalie. oHoney, you shouldn't call people crazy. . ; :
ene a aes Natalie plunged her hands into the pockets of her jeans
It isnTt polite. Besides, Fran seemed like a nice girl
a and marched across the street. Fran was stretched out
when she came over last week to invite you to go to
ge on her back in the grass, eyes closed, breathing heavily.
the pool. And you wouldn't go.� She brushed a strand pare ie "aaa CRED :
LES oe 5 She made no indication of noticing NatalieTs approach.
of damp brown hair from NatalieTs forehead. oYou pes rep, ;
+r ; Natalie shot an oI told you so� glance at Mom, still seat-
ought to make some effort to get to know the children es ~ si
oa iy 2 ed on the porch. She stood silently over Fran, waiting
in the neighborhood. You need to make some friends.
for Fran to acknowledge her. Nothing. Finally she
oI donTt want to get to know that Fran. SheTs too weird. clenched her teeth and spoke out.
The other kids all gather at her house "I guess theyTre ~
oHello,� she said.
as weird as she is. And I have friends"lots of them"
back in New Jersey.� FranTs eyes blinked open. oHey,� she said, apparently
ice Seem ; as Spa unfazed by NatalieTs sudden appearance. oITm still a lit-
oBut we live in Georgia now. This is our home. I know ; hgh
i ys tle winded. Hold on a minute.� She pushed herself up
it's been rough on you, leaving your friends...and
we ~ T on her elbows, leaned back, and raised her face to the
your dad.
dusky sky.
Natalie swatted at a wreath of gnats hanging in her
. oi oWhy do you do that?� Natalie blurted out. She knew it
face, and tried to swallow the rising lump in her it
was rude to be so abrupt, but she didnTt want to stay
throat. MomTs arm on her shoulder helped some"but
around Fran any longer than necessary.
not much.
oe oIts easier to catch my breath this way,� said Fran.
oNatalie, youTve been through a lot of changes this past aoe EOS,
talaga Expands the lungs, you know.� She drew a deep breath
year. The divorce. My new job. Now the move down i
: aE as if to demonstrate.
South,� Mom said. oThe best thing you can do, though,
is jump in and make some new friends. You could start
with Fran. Think how nice it would be having a friend
your own age right across the street.�
Natalie was exasperated. oWhy do you run around your
house every night, then flop down on the ground, like
you're doing now?�
oNo way. Look at her, Mom. Running around her house
over and over again. Every evening, after the other kids
go home, she does the same thing. SheTs probably Se : ; one
i . ages, : Natalie felt herself blush. oOh, you waved? I didnTt
obsessive or compulsive, or something like that. I donTt ae '
; notice.� That was a lie; she had noticed, but she hadn't
want to have anything to do with her.
wanted to encourage crazy Fran to come over and talk.
Fran sat up Indian-style and grinned. oYeah, ITve seen
you watching me. I waved but you never waved back.�
oOh, Natalie. How do you know she doesnTt have a per- ase "
he a Fran shrugged. oThatTs okay. I figured youTd warm up
fectly good reason for what she does? a raha a8 a
st when you were ready. Sit.� She gestured toward a
spot on the ground as if she were offering Natalie
an easy chair. Natalie didnTt want to, but she found
oCome on, Mom. A good reason for dashing around her
house every night?�
ay herself obeying.
oWhy donTt you just go over there and ask her?� Mom "
had a resolute look on her face. oLook. SheTs stopped
oEncountering,� Fran said matter-of-factly. oThatTs what I
now. Go on over there.�
call it.�
oMom.� oYou call it what?� Either Fran was the weirdest kid in
66 LITERARY AND ARTS
Georgia, or Georgia was full of weird kids.
oEncountering. My sister says it all the time. Like itTs her
word, y'know?� Fran looked thoughtful. oI think it
means meeting, experiencing something. ThatTs how |
use it anyway.�
oI don't get it.�
Fran sighed. Natalie got the impression Fran thought she
was being very patient with her. oItTs like this,� said
Fran. oSummers down here get really hot. Scorchers. So
muggy some days you can hardly breathe. You don't
wanna do anything but lay around.�
oYou're telling me.� NatalieTs sentiments exactly.
oBut when the sun goes down,� Fran went on, oit takes
the heat with it. Makes the air crisp. Feels like biting into
a juicy watermelon.�
Natalie nodded. Fran wasnTt sounding so crazy
anymore.
oItTs like the coolness gets into my blood,� said Fran. o1
canTt sit still. I gotta run. By that time, itTs getting too
dark to run to anywhere. So, I run around the house.�
oI donTt see what encountering has to do with any
of this.�
oITm getting to that.� Funny how FranTs eyes sparkled
even in the twilight. oRunning, yTknow, just gets you all
hot and sweaty again.�
oYeah. ThatTs why I hate running,� Natalie broke in.
oBecause you donTt know how to encounter it. Like I
said, encountering.�
Natalie waited for Fran to explain. This had better
be good.
oYou pull around the house for the last time. The bloodTs
pounding through your body. HeatTs pulsing from your
face. Your breathTs coming hard. Your legs feel weak.
You think you'll never be able to take another step, but
somehow you do.�
Yes! Natalie knew just what that was like. She dreaded
running laps at the end of gym class, felt torment in
every leaden step. More than once she had faked
a pulled muscle or a cramp to avoid that tortuous
final lap.
oAnd when you finally make it,� said Fran, oyou get your
reward.�
oReward?� Just as Natalie was starting to understand Fran,
to actually agree with her, here she went getting weird
again.
oSure. Encountering is the reward. You throw yourself
down on the ground and give yourself up to the
experience.�
Natalie shook her head. There was simply no hope
for Fran.
Tie nee ee ee en ee eee
Fran ignored NatalieTs reaction.
You can feel your body working your heart, lungs, cir-
culation, the pores of your skin. Stuff you usually take
for granted. A breeze blows across your face. The tree
frogs and crickets start to sing. The lightning bugs come
out. You can feel the coolness of the grass next to your
skin. You can smell it too.�
Then Natalie felt it. A soothing chill seeping through
denim to her skin. The coolness of the grass, she
thought, and she closed her eyes for a minute to savor
the sensation.
Fran continued. oSometimes I even want to taste it, so |
break off a blade of grass and chew it. Or cut a slit in it
and make a whistle. Then the moon rises, and if ]
look real hard, I can see the faintest glimmer of the first
star.� Fran lay back again on the grass. Natalie
supposed she was straining to see that first star. oRight
about then Mama calls me in, and thatTs the end of
encountering for the day.�
She fixed her gaze on Natalie. oSo, what do you think of
me now, Natalie from New Jersey?� A grin spread over
her face.
Natalie found herself smiling back. oI think you're cool.
«And I think I might like to encounter with you some
time.� She couldn't believe she had really said that.
Great. Come over tomorrow. WeTre getting together a
game of kickball after supper.�
Natalie left, feeling the happiest sheTd been since the
move. For the first time, she was actually looking for-
ward to the next day. And she owed it all to encounter-
ing"encountering a new friend.
REBEL NINETY-FOUR
67
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CHILDRENTS LITeRAtT ARE TITC TIONS] TFHIRD PLAC
Rhinoceros Ate the Moon
BY LAURA MCKAY
ONE NIGHT ON THE AFRICAN PLAIN Little Cricket said.
old Rhinoceros couldnTt get to sleep. He grumbled . Pa en
oMaybe we could tickle Moon out of him,
and moaned, and tossed and turned, but couldn't ;
: Monkey said.
fall asleep. '
. are ; . ae oRhinoceros is not ticklish,� Bird said.
Rhinoceros said, oItTs the light from Moon shining down
that is keeping me awake!� So he stomped to the top of | oWe could pull on his ears until he gave her back,�
a tall hill, stretched up on his hind legs and with one Lioness offered.
big gulp, he swallowed Moon. Swallowed her whole!
nf geen She was never very fond of Rhinoceros and the thought
Glump! Then he ambled back to his thicket-den and : ,
. . of tweaking his ears made her happy.
went to sleep, quite content with himself.
oNo, that would just make him all the more cranky,�
Soon, the other animals who lived on the plain began ial ace stir
: itn : Bee cRSA Gazelle said. oRhinoceros has a short temper!
to stir and sniff and wake up. Something is different,
they thought. It is so dark. oI know!� Little Cricket said. oWe can wait until he
# yawns and when his jaws are stretched open wide, I'll
oIt's Moon!� Monkey cried.
hop in and grab hold of Moon. All of you grab hold of
oWe canTt see!� complained Bird. me, and we can pull her out of his mouth together.�
oWhere is Moon?� cried Gazelle.
oI know,� Little Cricket chirped. oIt was Rhinoceros.
| saw him swallow Moon in one big gulp.
Glump!�
oRhinoceros?� Lioness said. oWe'll just see about this!�
And in the dark, all the animals stumbled over to his
thicket-den.
oRhinoceros!� they called. oOoohoo Rhinoceros!�
oWhat is it?� came a grumpy reply. oCanTt you see ITm
trying to sleep?�
oNo, we canTt see anything because you swallowed
Moon.�
oOh I did, did I?� the tricky rhinoceros asked.
oYes, you did!� chirped Little Cricket. oI saw you swallow
her in one big gulp.�
oWell, maybe I did,� sniffed the old rhinoceros. oMaybe
she was keeping me awake, maybe she was shining too
brightly and maybe I ate her and maybe I won't give
her back, ever. Now go away.�
oBut Rhinoceros,� Little Cricket sang, ohow will Sun
know when to come up in the morning without Moon
there to tell her? SheTll never come up and it will be
dark all the time!�
oAll the better,� grumbled Rhinoceros. oThen I can get
some more sleep.�
The animals walked away stumbling over each other in
the dark. oHe certainly is a stubborn old rhinoceros!�
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 69
70
Line o1 SS ete 2 rer RENE
The other animals liked Little CricketTs plan. It was the
best one they had. It was the only one they had. So
they felt their way back to RhinocerosT thicket-den.
oOh Rhinoceros!� they called.
oYes,� Rhinoceros sleepily answered as he rolled over
and yawned.
Lickety-split, Litthe Cricket hopped into RhinocerosT
mouth and grabbed the edge of Moon.
oI've got her!� he called. oHelp me, help me pull Moon
out!�
All the animals grabbed Little CricketTs feet, and togeth-
er they pulled and pulled and pulled.
First, a tiny edge of Moon shone out, then more and
more until Cricket was out of RhinocerosT mouth and
half of Moon was out too.
Rhinoceros did not at all like what was happening. He
finished his yawn with a hard clamp of his jaws and bit
off half of Moon.
Little Cricket and the other animals fell backwards,
jumped up, grabbed Moon and scurried off into the
night. They ran to the top of the high hill and happily
hung Moon back up in the sky.
Just enough light shone down so the animals could see
in the dark. In the morning, Moon told Sun just the
right time to come up, and it was day.
The next night, Moon got a little bigger and each night
she grew a little more until she was full again.
On full-moon nights, Rhinoceros would toss and turn
LITERARY AND ARTS
6 EAS
~ 4s, Fie "*
and grumble. Moon would hear Rhinoceros and get
smaller and smaller letting off less and less light until
she all but disappeared.
Then Moon would grow larger and larger so all the ani-
mals could see and then smaller and smaller so
Rhinoceros wouldnTt eat her again.
Rhinoceros didnTt want to eat Moon again because she
wasn't very tasty the first time. So he just tossed and
turned on the full-moon nights and slept soundly on
other nights.
All the plainTs animals were content. Little Cricket
chirpped happily because he had been brave enough to
jump into RhinocerosT jaws and free Moon. He sang at
night, pleased with himself.
CHILDRENTS LITERATURE/POETRY/FIRST PLACE
Winter isi
SY BOAVIGP SGT AS OR
searching for the perfect rock
my playful hands crept along the creekbed
freezing cold water rushed
over my tiny fingertips
i searched for the perfect rock
leaned out
pinched off an icicle from the far bank
and thought i'd keep it forever
but it turned to water in my pocket
searching for the perfect rock
i splashed in wintery solitude
water soaked my toughskins
but not my feet
~cause i had my big green boots tied
in double knots
searching for the perfect rock
my careful eyes swept up and down
four feet from me i saw
my perfect rock of gold and crimson
reached down and picked it up
and thought as i tossed it back
if i kept it
what would i do tomorrow?
¢
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ILLUSTRATION ERIC MANNING
REBEL
NINETY-FOUR
7
/
1
Sa So A RE SO ~~ a St.
CHILDRENTS LITERATURE/POETRY/SECOND PLACE
POY Bitty
WAYNE ROBBINS
I
heard
them say
that you
donTt have
a soul and
that (divine
the rules) we
people full of
perfume do and
if itTs true ]
hereby (here in
spite of all the
suns that rise
to shed their
light) give
mine and
all its Y
joyous z
hopes 3
=
to 3
you. =
je LAT ERARY AND ARTS
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE /POLTET/ THIRD PLACE
rye.
BY ERIC HONEYCUTT
Oh come mighty wind;
come and cool my hand.
Stay with your flag
Always...
Men stand your ground
We shall abound
Sound of the drum
Stand by your gun
A cry shakes the land,
With a command
Ears ring
Lead sings
One by one
Death begins, today...
~
Sere ®
Hy .
Oh, the blood and the fire screens my world,
But will give me the strength of my life
From thirteen stars our freedom has burned
With immortal and true inner light
x
i Re a ee
+ ~ >.
Clawing the earth the vanity bleeds;
And the enemy falls in our hands
Colors of red on the cold winter leaves
And Guilford is claiming the land
ILLUSTRATION PAUL RUSTAND
Victory smiles as we stand
In 1781...
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 7
BLE r SS So Re ES andthe es : ae ER Rey Se ae
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE/POETRY/EDITORST
CHOICE
Time
DARLENE retusa. GSS
ror Bed
Alex fell asleep at 8:15.
NickyTs in his room practicing his guitar.
JoeyTs running around teasing the dog.
It's 9:00.
Dad says, oItTs time for bed.�
| call from the bannister, oMom come upstairs.�
And she does.
First stop, my room.
She sits at my bedside and listens while | pray.
Then a kiss, a smile, an oI love you� and
oyou forgot your Marmalade Maybear.�
She tucks my teddy in with me,
leaves the door open a crack, the hall light on.
Next, Joey and AlexTs room.
Last stop, NickyTs.
SheTs halfway down the stairs and I ask.
oMom, can you bring kitty up?�
And she does.
Now, ITm not eight
and SheTs in Heaven
ILLUSTRATION DAVID ROSE
so I say my prayers to Marmalade Maybear.
. BEE EBRARY AND ARTS
CHILDRENTS. LITERATURE
Rabbit Whispers
BOVEFTE
Fox hunted rabbit
sits motionless :
POETRY
fur bristles stiff ry & Seth
against the breeze
long ears listen
and instincts whisper
oWait, be quiet!�
Across the meadow
Fox approaches
RabbitTs heart
ignores instinct-whispers
and shouts
to feet bred
for speed
oRun! Now!�
Fear mixes,
whispers
turn to shouts
oWait, Run!�
Confused,
Rabbit twitches
Fox
catches the movement
and approaches
ILLUSTRATION DARLENE PELLICCIO
on whisper-padded feet
.
nett
EDITORST
CHOICE
REBEL
NINETY-FOUR
75
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CHILDRENTS LITERATURE/NON-FICTION/SECOND PLACE
¢ das
BY ELIZABETH MCDAVID
LAGOS, THE CITY OF LAKES, IS SAMMY
NzewiTs first taste of Nigeria, his parentsT homeland.
Rams tethered on the sidewalks! Throngs of people
everywhere! Vendors hawking goods carried on
their heads! Mudwalled houses and tin-topped
shanties! Skyscrapers! Bicycles and buses, motorcycles
and cars"no traffic lights! Congested streets and
open-air markets!
Can any American city compare?
Never! ThatTs why Sammy hates to leave. But tomorrow
in the village, festivities begin for the wedding of his
nda (aunt), and he canTt wait to meet his Nigerian
relatives for the first time. Sammy suggests they travel
on a brightly painted truck called a omammy wagonT;
his parents tell him heTll have to settle for a luxury
bus ride.
The bus rumbles and bumps along winding dirt roads,
through evergreen forests, where monkeys swing in
the branches of towering iroko trees. His mother points
to a sunbird which swoops across the road. Finally,
their destination: prosperous little Aba, where most of
the houses are brick. In poorer villages, dwellings are
fashioned from wattle (twigs woven together) or mud,
with thatched roofs.
In the obi of the family compound, Sammy and his lit-
tle sister Ogechi get a big hug from their grandparents,
onne-nne� and onne-nna.� An 067 is like a parlor
detached from the house, used for entertaining guests
and holding family meetings. Within the compound are
clustered all the houses of his fatherTs relatives.
Traditionally, every family maintains a house in the
home village, no matter where else they may live.
SammyTs parents plan also to build a house here,
though they will continue living in America.
,
The evening brings the obride price� ceremony, similar
to an engagement party. The groom presents the
Wedding�
brideTs family with a dowry or token. Perhaps it will be
money, perhaps a goat or cow. Sammy feels very
grown up, dressed like the men, in his agbada, a long,
full shirt with pants underneath, a cape, and matching
hat"so grown up that he thinks he should be allowed
to join the adults in drinking omai ngwo� (wine made
from the raffia palm) and bestowing blessings on the
bridal couple. oNot a chance,� says his mother. oWatch
the dancing instead.�
Sammy rises early on the day of the wedding. He will
be a ringbearer, one of many children in the wedding
party. Ogechi is too young, but there will be several
flower girls, bridesmaids, page boys, and a miniature
bride. Christian weddings in Nigeria are usually huge,
and more formal than western ceremonies. The entire
community attends.
A lavish reception follows. All the excitement has made
Sammy hungry. His mouth waters as he eyes the ohigh
table� spread with a hodgepodge of western and
African food, from goatTs meat and rice to chin-chin
(fried pastries). When will the speeches end and the
eating begin? At last, heTs allowed to dig in, and he
tries everything; his least favorite is the bitter kola nuts.
The best part of the reception? Drinking Fanta soda
with Ogechi, while the orchestra plays and the
grownups dance, every now and then slipping money
to the bride and groom.
The day concludes with a party at the groomTs family
home, with still more food, this time, strictly African:
ofofu,� cassava, yams, and Nigerian dishes made with
fish and ramTs meat. Here Sammy has a chance to play
with his Nigerian cousins, but thereTs one problem; the
cousins speak only Ibo, the tribal language, and Pidgin
English. They manage, though, to get through to
Sammy. oCome chop,� they tell him, which means,
oCome eat.� And Sammy, though his belly feels stuffed
already, somehow manages to comply.
REBEL NINETY-FOUR /7/7
SO APL IIE oe Swe re o3 -
7 et Seen SE ES. wee Rat TSIEN 9 os ~~~ a eo 2 ae
. ca . 9 t% caper > r a. - ae - * 0a tee tebe ISS. x - " " = "
. ; m . . . Sena ren ata on TEE SINT 6
ea WANTED
FE AS YOUNG SKINNY WIRY FELLOWS
not overeightcen. Must be expert
riders wes (0 risk, death dajly.
�"� week
. = °y 2
PRY | Cettval Overland Ex
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, Manigomnery St
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ape Pgh ORE
ILLUSTRATIONS PAUL RUSTAND
78 LITERARY AND ARTS
\ \
CHILDRENTS LITERATURE
Pony
o Wanted: young, skinny, wiry fellows not over age 18.
Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily.�
This ad appeared in frontier newspapers in 1800. Reply,
and you became a rider for the Pony Express, rushing
mail on horseback from Missouri to California and back,
across 2000 miles of deserts and treacherous mountain
trails, braving blizzards, sleet, mud, rain...and sometimes
angry Indians.
Before the Pony Express, letters lumbering by stage-
coach across the West took a month or more to reach
the booming new state of California. Since the discov-
ery of gold there in 1848, settlers had flocked to
California like hawks to a henhouse. Every last one
pined for news from back East. And with the country
on the brink of civil war, they wanted news fast. What
~f the war should begin and end without their knowing
the first shot had been fired?
A man named William Russell believed mail could be
hustled west in just ten days, by boys as young as 14,
astride speeding horses. Scrawny boys"so a pony could
run its fastest. Boys like Robert oPony Bob� Haslam, still
in his teens, and weighing barely a hundred pounds.
When Pony Bob pledged on with the Pony Express at
its beginning in April 1860, he recognized the dangers
he would face in carrying out its unwritten creed: mail
first, horse second, self last. He didnTt figure on such
devilment as an Indian war.
The Paiute Indians of Nevada were enraged by white
settlers encroaching on their land. All the antelopes had
been slaughtered, water holes polluted, and the pinon
trees, whose winter nuts kept the Paiutes from starving,
had been razed for firewood. Young braves retaliated
with attacks on the Pony Express"burning relay sta-
tions, stealing ponies, and ambushing riders.
NON-FICTION
PIRST PLACES
Mail
BY ELIZABETH MCDAVID
An ambush"thatTs what worried Bob now. His
Mexican compadre, Bart Riles, was late getting in from
his orun.� Bob pushed up the rim of his Stetson hat, and
fastened his eyes on the glaring desert flats.
oReckon Bart ran into Paiute trouble?� asked the
station keeper, as he led BobTs saddled mustang out of
the corral.
oMaybe,� Bob said, grinning. oBut it didnTt stop him.� He
pointed to a dust cloud rising in the distance.
In no time flat, BartTs lather-soaked pony was pounding
up to the adobe swing station. Dust swirled around its
hooves, burying even BartTs company issue red shirt and
blue pants.
Little time for Pony Bob to voice relief at the safe arrival
of his friend. Only two minutes allowed for switching
riders. He yanked from BartTs saddle a square leather
sheet, the mochila, and fit it over the saddlehorn and
cantle of his own fresh mount. Cantinas, locked leather
boxes sewn to each corner of the mochila, held the
mail. It was BobTs job to safeguard the tissue-thin letters
and news dispatches in those cantinas, and deliver them
to his home station, 50 miles distant, where another
rider would be waiting.
Pony Bob spurred his mustang and thundered out into
the deepening shadows of late afternoon. He traded
horses at each of the first three relay stations; when he
galloped into Reese River station, no fresh mount stood
waiting to relieve his tired pony.
Two blasts on the horn tucked into BobTs belt brought
the station keeper running from the stone hut. oSorry,
Bob.� he said. oAn army patrol took every horse we
had. Claimed you couldn't get past them warring
Paiutes no how.�
REBEL NINETY-FOUR 7/9
SO
PPL RISE ee a
Siptetienit t,t
Bob knew he had to try, at whatever pace his weary ani-
mal could hold. He pressed on.
But more bad luck awaited at the next stop, his home
station, where he had counted on a hot meal and a bed.
BobTs relief rider, a substitute, was spooked by the
Indian hostilities. He refused to make the run.
Bob squeezed the back of his own neck, trying to wring
the fatigue from his aching muscles. Three more quick
changes, and heTd be at SmithTs Creek. oI'll take the
mochila on myself,� he said.
The sun had long since dropped below the sandy
Nevada hills, and the alkali bottoms were washed in
inky blackness. Bob strained to keep watch on his
ponyTs ears; a pony could sense danger lurking nearby.
Sure enough, while racing through a shallow bow] car-
peted with sage, the ponyTs ears flipped up. Arrows sang
through the night; rifles flashed and roared. Paiutes! Bob
crouched low, holding his Colt revolver ready, and
LITER
ARY AND ARTS
a . ee
urged his horse to greater speed. A grain fed Pony
Express mount could usually outrun the IndiansT grass
fed mustangs. BobTs pony tore through the brush, leav-
ing the Paiutes and their ambush far behind.
He handed over the mochila at SmithTs Creek station,
and sank into bed, but his nap was not to be. The rider
heading east came in with a broken leg, barely able to
sit the saddle. Would the mochila be delayed? No! Pony
Bob would ride again! When he finally dragged in to
his home station, young Bob Haslam had ridden 370
miles in 36 hours; the longest single haul in Pony
Express history.
And alas, a short history it was. On October 26, 1861,
western newspapers reported, oThe Pony Express will
be discontinued from this date.� Pony mail couldnTt com-
pete with the newly completed transcontinental tele-
graph. Ponies pounding across the West would carry
mail no more, but the legends created by the boy heroes
of the Pony Express would be carried on.
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AUTHORS
Donnie Anderson Jr.
Ginger L. Ausband
Angela Bagri
Lisa D. Bannister
Camille R. Beck
J.E. Boyette
Christopher L. Brannen
Mark F. Brett
Paula Brothers
Brian Buchanan
Heather McClean Burt
James E. Casey
Clifford J. Coffey
James H. Culpepper
William R. Doar
Joseph Elchehabi
Kay Getsinger
Amy R. Gidley
Matthew C. Gill
Timothy C. Hampton
Cindy Hawkins
John Herron
Kris B. Hoffler
Eric Honeycutt
Jason Horton
Christian Infinito
Davin W. Jackson
Preston Lashley
Kelle Xaviar Lawrence
David Scott Lemon
Christopher T. McCaffrey
Heather E. McClean
Elizabeth McDavid
Laura E. McKay
J. Mark McKeown
John McManus
John Marte
Patrick J. Matthews
Angela Marie Moss
Amelia K. Mustard
John Winslow Nicklas
Nikki Outland
Robert E. Owens
Paul Pagliughi
Darlene Pelliccio
Traci Leigh Perry
Gary D. Potts
Steve Randolph
Angela Raper
Matthew Readling
Lois Redmond
Angela Bacon Reid
Wayne Robbins
Kimberly A. Roberts
Jane C. Sabatini
ALL CONTRIBUTING
Heather Seanor
Jeffrey T. Smith
Mary Anna Smith
Chandra Speight
April L. Surratt
Larry Justain Sykes
Jason Tilley
Robert Todd
Sarah Wahlert
Michael W. Walker
Cynthia J. Watkins
Joshua H. White
Michael Jason Williams
Dale Williamson
Bradley J. Williford
Amy E. Wirtz
Laura L. Wiser
Brian E. Wright
Laura Wright
ARTISTS
Sophia J. Allison
Bess M. Andrews
Stormy P. Averitte
Irene F. Bailey
Angela Bagri
Kristen Barber
Brian Barker
Matt Bassett
John F. Bateman
Fabrizio Bianchi
Jeanne Brady
Johnathan W. Byrd
Tina C. Catoe
William Chadwick
Dwayne Clark
Clifford J. Coffey
Steven Cozart
Christine L. Cranford
James H. Culpepper
Jack Curry
Adrienne S. Dellinger
Bill Dermody
J.K. Dowdee
Katherine Dymond
Melia Elliott
Robert A. Ellis
Kevin Allen Evans
Stacy Evans
Tamara B. Fedder
Joyce Gardner
Hanna Kaltenbrunner Gilham
Erica Gimson
David R. Grahek
Jamie Griffin
AUTHORS AND ARTISTS
Melissa E. Griffin
Joseph A. Grimes
John Harrell
W. Keith Hobgood
Mary V. Hollingsworth
Aileen A. Hynes
Christian Infinito
Jerry Jackson
DTjean JawRunner
Cheryl H. Johnson
Ray Kaylor
Jennifer Green Kidd
Tom Kim
Jamie W. Kirkpatrick
Naphavady Ladara
Kathleen M. Lamb
Joshua P. Lesniack
Scott Lewis
Andrew P. Linton
Sean Livingstone
Lisa Marie Ludwig
Sheri Maffiore
Eric Manning
Javier Marquez F.
Dietrich Maune
Justus Mercer
Ranie E. Morgan
Eric Osborne
Kimberly A. Payne
Darlene Pelliccio
Carrie Ann Plank
Gary Potts
Rebecca Putze
Matthew J. Reynolds
Todd M. Robert
Michele D. Roberts
David K. Rose
Caroline Rust
Marcia Sanders
Gregory A. Scott
Beth Ann Senger
Laura Sharar
Brian K. Simpson
Brad Smith
Kristi Stainback
Jeannette A. Stevenson
John K. Stiles
Scott Stroud
Alice Swart
Jennifer L. Tedder
Lori A. Twardowski
Linda Wertwein
Lanier Williams
Joseph Winter
Brian Woodlief
