Issue Thirty-Six, November 2012

Jersey Devil Press November 2012, Issue 36

ISSN 2152-‐2162

Online Editor: Mike Sweeney Production Editor: Samuel Snoek-‐Brown

Reader: Laura Garrison Founding Editor/Publisher: Eirik Gumeny

All stories and other contributions are copyrighted to their respective authors unless otherwise noted.

www.jerseydevilpress.com

Table of Contents:

Editor’s Note 3

Men of Blood, Craig Wallwork 4

Lorissimo, Charlie Galbraith 10

G.V.M., Daniel Davis 17

Toasty, Thomas Broderick 21

Hard Travelin’, Max Vande Vaarst 27

November 2012 3

Editor’s Note: No complicated themes this go-‐‑round, I’m just pulling together a few of my favorite things. Let’s call this month’s issue, “Editor’s Choice.” First up is “Men of Blood,” a story about the Minotaur. Because, well, everyone likes the Minotaur. When it’s a Minotaur story written by old JDP friend, Craig Wallwork? Can’t miss. What else do I like? Unforgettable stories that single-‐‑handedly restore my faith in the slushpile. That’s exactly what Charlie Galbraith’s “Lorissimo” did and I’m happy as heck to be sharing it with you. Mind the beer nuts. Next, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past four decades, it’s that I never met a well-‐‑written story about people going insane in Antarctica I didn’t enjoy. Thomas Broderick obliges with “Toasty.” We close the issue with Max Vande Vaarst’s “Hard Travelin.’” Stories that mythologize pop culture—especially when it relates to the Garden State—aren’t just something I love, they’re one of the reasons Jersey Devil Press exists. That’s why I’m so excited to present Max’s excellent tale about what might’ve-‐‑sorta-‐‑coulda happened when a certain somebody met a certain somebody else at a psychiatric hospital in Morristown fifty years ago. Somewhere mixed in with all those incredible short stories is a wonderful little piece of flash called “G.V.M.” by Daniel Davis. I don’t know if anyone but Ralph Bakshi and I will appreciate it, but

4 Jersey Devil Press

that’s good enough for me. If nothing else, it allows me to utter five words I’ve always longed to say: “Beware the Giant Vacuum Men.” And that’s Issue 36. We’ll see you next month with our Holiday Half Issue and a novella about ninjas in their natural environment … the suburbs.

— Mike Sweeney

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Men of Blood Craig Wallwork When the phone rang at 3 a.m., John knew it was the Minotaur. He turned over in his bed but Alison nudged him in the ribs.

“It could be important,” she said. “Someone might have died.” No one had died. At the most, maybe some one was hurt. But

John knew that whenever the phone rang this late it meant the Minotaur either had been in a fight or had broken up with his current girlfriend, whoever that was.

“John,” pleaded his wife. John labored a sigh before picking up the receiver. On the other

end he heard the unmistakeable noise of the Minotaur’s breathing. “So which have you had broken?” asked John. “Your nose or

your heart?” From the other end of the phone, the Minotaur spoke.

“Neither,” he said. “I’m scared.”

John had known the Minotaur since they were kids, and in that time he’d never seen him scared of everyone or anything. The Minotaur’s family moved to John’s street in the summer of 1977. It was the day of the Queen’s Jubilee and all the neighbors had dragged out tables and lined them in the middle of the road. Union Jack bunting traversed from gutter to gutter, and when the wind blew, the sound of a hundred rattlesnake tails filled the sky. People wore blue, white, and red hats and waved flags and all the women baked cakes and made sandwiches. Everyone was happy and laughing, except for John. He didn’t see what all the fuss was about. From what he could gather the Queen was rich and didn’t do much except look down on people who were poor. She lived in


a big house in London whereas John and his family lived in a little damp two-‐‑up-‐‑two-‐‑down terrace with an outside toilet.

John was about to go back in his home when a small van with wood on its sides, like a Tudor house but on wheels, stopped at the end of the street. The man behind the wheel sounded his horn and people pointed at the tables and shook their head. When no one moved, the back doors to the van opened and the Minotaur got out. He was only six years old at the time but he was at least five feet tall, and, with his horns, you could add another six inches. He had a broad chest covered with course brown hair, arms that were thick and muscular, like his legs, and each hand was big enough to crush a human skull. Everyone stopped laughing and looked on in shock as the Minotaur dragged the heavy tables to one side so that the van could pass.

John found the Minotaur behind his house a few days later pouring lighter fluid in a long line near an ant’s nest. He watched John approach and didn’t think much of him.

“What’yadoin?” asked John. “Killing stuff,” replied the Minotaur, indifferently. The Minotaur reached into his pocket, brought out two green

leaves, and tore them up between sausage fingers. He sprinkled the leaves along the line, leant down, and waited. After a minute, a black ant emerged from the crack in the earth.

“This ‘ere’s a worker,” said the Minotaur. “It’s a worker’s job to protect the queen and bring her stuff. In a minute there’s gonna be loads of ‘em, you watch.”

And John did just that. He knelt beside the Minotaur, consumed by his vast shadow. There he waited in the cool shade for all the tiny worker ants to leave the nest and pick up the tiny pieces of leaf with their pincers. To help coax them out, the Minotaur slammed his huge fist near to the gap and more ants came scurrying out, running around in a frenzy. The Minotaur then pulled out a match from his pocket, struck it on the wall, and threw it on the ground.

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What ants weren’t burnt to death in the blaze, the Minotaur stomped with his foot.

John asked, “Whya’killin ‘em?” The Minotaur grunted and replied, “Cos, I hate royalty.”

The Minotaur moved into a terraced house, similar to the one John grew up in. He rented it from a Greek guy. John told him how nice the Greeks were when he and Alison spent their honeymoon on the little island of Zakyhthos, and the Minotaur said his landlord was nothing but a rich, fat bastard that lorded it up like he was the king of Greece.

John arrived at the house at 4 a.m. He knocked on the door and the Minotaur opened it with a look of relief on his face. Lit by the sodium hue from the street lamps, the two friends saw the little changes time had assigned to them. John had put on a little more weight around his face, which he put down to Alison’s home cooking, and the Minotaur’s left ear was missing. He also had a nasty scar running through the tip of his noise, probably due to fighting. The Minotaur showed John into the front room where big boxes were stacked on each other and newspaper, scrunched into tiny rock shapes, scattered the floor. There was a peculiar smell in the air that the Minotaur assumed was the remnants of the last occupants, but it reminded John of the day he went to see his grandfather in the chapel of the rest, a mix of chemicals and cheap air freshener.

“So what’s going on?” asked John. “Noises,” said the Minotaur. “What kind of noises?” “Sounded like something trapped under the floorboards, a rat,

or something bigger than a rat.” John looked over to the other side of the living room. A large

area had been cleared of boxes and the floorboards had been


removed leaving a big dark hole that reminded John of a trendy black rug.

“You’ve probably lost your deposit,” said John. “Probably.” “Did you find anything?” “Pipes mostly, and a few wires. I laid some traps and threw

down some rat poison the other day, but it made no difference.” “Why not call pest control, get the job done properly.” Awkwardness descended between them, one that stopped the

Minotaur from saying, Don’t you think I thought of that. Instead, he grunted and asked John to follow him.

“Where we going?” asked John. “To the basement,” replied the Minotaur.

John and the Minotaur didn’t see too much of each other once school finished. John’s grades assured him a place at a university far from his home, which meant he had to stay in the halls of residence. The Minotaur got a job on a local building site as an odd carrier and general laborer. When John left university, he and the Minotaur rented a small flat together. John received housing benefit, which paid for his share of the rent. The Minotaur paid the rest from doing foreigners. It was great at the start and John enjoyed the company of his old friend. The honeymoon period ended in the third month. Cordial and wistful conversations turned serious, focussing less on fun and more on the practicalities of life. John was getting depressed because he couldn’t find a job and had no money, and the Minotaur was getting annoyed because he was working his fingers to the bone just to keep them both in food and booze.

One evening the Minotaur took John to a pub on the other side of town to cheer him up. At the end of the night they were outside waiting for a taxi and a man kept looking at John. The man was swaying like barley, eyes wilting under the strain of staying

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vertical. An attractive woman joined the man, and, when she passed, the Minotaur wolf-‐‑whistled. In an instant the man’s indolent state ignited with rage and he ran like a bull toward John, grabbing hold of his coat and throwing his fist toward his head. The Minotaur appeared and grabbed the man’s fist in time. Unconcerned about the Minotaur’s size, the drunken man turned on him and both began to fight. John heard the thunder crack of fist pummelling bone, and the tearing of ligaments. He ran into the pub and told the barman to phone the police because someone was going to be killed, but by the time they both went out, the drunken man had gone, and the Minotaur was sat on the floor, blood dripping from his nose. In the taxi on the way home, John didn’t say a word, and when he got home he went straight to bed.

The next evening John and the Minotaur went out again for a drink. Nothing much was said about what had happened, both opting to sit in quiet reflection. John consumed a lot more than usually and toward the end of the night purposely knocked into an older man at the end of the bar. With furrowed brow, John clenched his teeth together and squeezed his fists into tight little balls. He lent his face into the older man’s, goading him to throw a punch, but the older man was not concerned and apologised for bumping into him. John began shoving him, and then a few other people at the bar got involved. The Minotaur came over and grabbed John by the shoulder, apologised to the older man and tried to move John away. But John was adamant he wanted a fight, if not to prove to the Minotaur he could fight, he needed to prove to himself he wasn’t scared. At that moment a beer mat struck the Minotaur’s head and from afar a voice called him a freak. For the first time ever, both John and the Minotaur were united in their rage.

The whole scene played out in slow motion; limbs were ripped off torsos like crab claws at a seafood restaurant. Blood sprayed in jets up the walls and across the optics. Carnage lain in their wake,


and when they walked back to the house, both the Minotaur and John laughed, replaying every moment as if it was a scene from their favourite film, Star Wars.

In the basement, the Minotaur switched on his torch, the light lurching toward the far side of the room where darkness crawled the walls like a thousand tiny spiders. As he panned the beam, the batteries rattled in the casing, shorting out the light so the room flared momentarily in eerie apparition. The air was dank, and the temperature had dropped enough for John to feel his skin tighten. Various tools were strewn across the basement floor. The nearest to him was a screwdriver and, next, a hammer. The closer it got to the hem of darkness the larger the tools became: a saw, mallet, sledgehammer. Thick rusted screws lay on their sides, bent and twisted like toasted maggots. The Minotaur grabbed John’s sleeve and pulled him close.

“It’s in there,” said the Minotaur. “What’s in there?” asked John hesitantly. “Whatever’s been calling me.” John felt the Minotaur’s breath fall on his arm in rapid

concession. He was preparing himself, bracing ever part of his bulk for whatever lay within the dark. The torch gave out again, and the Minotaur shook the casing. John turned, and in the brief yellowy light that shifted the shadows, he saw another door, one forged from solid steel. Its edges had been struck with force the head of the sledgehammer, leaving behind noodle-‐‑bowl-‐‑sized dents in its stubborn veneer.

“It took me the best part of a week to remove all the exterior bolts, but I think I’ve finally weakened the inner locks.”

John stepped back. He didn’t want to know what lay beyond that door. It had no influence on his life with Alison. If he never found out what was in there, it wouldn’t concern him. Some things are best left that way. And in that one moment he thought of Alison

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lying in bed. Before he left the house, she had kissed him on the cheek and said that the Minotaur was lucky to have such a good friend as he. Now all John wanted to do was leave the Minotaur and slip back into bed with Alison, a place where he always felt safe and loved. But she was right. Friends have to help each other, regardless of their own fears and reservations.

John had met Alison while in a library searching for jobs. She was reading The Reformation Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Early Modern Period by Carter Lindberg, a heavy read that intimidated him. To strike up conversation, he asked the librarian for the same book, who made a point of raising her voice to tell him it was currently being read. Alison looked up from the book and that was enough for John to approach her. They talked quietly for over an hour. John discovered that they both enjoyed history. Alison had a lovely smile and when she spoke about Henry VIII, John didn’t hear a word because the world around him had dissolved away and all that existed was her smile. They exchanged numbers and John rang her that night asking questions that made her more endearing, damaged, wistful, tragic, and perfect. Alison was studying history at the local university and hoped that one day she’d be a teacher. John said he had a teaching degree and wanted to be a teacher too, and when she asked why he wasn’t, he told her a Minotaur had got in the way. Alison promised John she’d help him find his way to teaching, and she did.

When the Minotaur found out John had a girlfriend, he asked if she was good in bed. It had been two weeks and John did not want to rush Alison. He enjoyed her company, and that was more important to him than sex. He told the Minotaur this and he replied, “Dick tease, then?”

And one can only guess that all the years of living in the Minotaur’s huge shadow, of being the one who needed looking


after, protecting, finally turned into anger. John threw back his fist and hit the Minotaur’s long, solid head. The pain was immense as the bones shook and splintered in his hand. The strike was not expected and the Minotaur stumbled on his hooves. A red veil descended, the world muted by a crimson hue. John launched another attack on the Minotaur, knocking him to the floor, and there he beat his face until those fearless large brown eyes closed. Not once did the Minotaur strike back.

The Minotaur grabbed John’s hand. “Bit late in the day to tell me you’re gay,” said John, hoping the

joke might lift some of the gravity that was pushing down on his shoulders.

The Minotaur pried open John’s hand and there he placed a cold metal object. The chill went some way to tempering the heat burning up John’s palm.

“Take this sword,” said the Minotaur. “It’s the Greek’s. I found it down here.”

John looked down at the sword. It was old, and the edge of the blade had rusted.

“What do you expect me to do with this?” “Protect me,” said the Minotaur, and with that he picked up the

sledgehammer with his spare hand and swung it at the door. The earth could have split in two and it wouldn’t have made a louder and terrifying noise as each strike of that sledgehammer. The Minotaur huffed and growled with every beat. John considered how much time would pass before the police arrived. The torch flickered on and off as the sledgehammer made contact, throwing fleeting shadows across the Minotaur’s broad and muscular back. The damage to the door was minimal and John was about to stop the Minotaur when an unworldly groan rang out and the door collapsed to the ground. The only noise John could hear was the sound of the Minotaur’s breath, and his own heart throwing itself

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against his chest. The Minotaur crossed its divide and entered the room, the light from the torch consumed by the thick cloak of gloom that lay within.

John cried out, “What’s in there?” but the Minotaur said nothing. He edged forward, tentatively, dragging the sword behind him and repeated the question, but no word of reassurance returned. John was almost at the entrance when the Minotaur rushed out, forcing John to reel back on his heels.

“Jesus! You scared the crap out of me.” The Minotaur handed John the torch, told him to wait and then

ran up the stairs. Light touched the sides of the wall surrounding the door, leaving a perfect rectangle of black at the entrance. Beyond there was nothingness filled with terrifying visions of monsters lurking within, an abyss of nightmare and paranoia. He edged further and further back, sword held out in front, and by the time he reached the stairs leading into the room, the Minotaur returned.

“Here,” he said, out of breath. The Minotaur unfastened one end of a large bobbin of twine. He made a loop with one end, and placed it over John’s hand, typing it around his wrist. He then placed the bobbin on a spike that was jutting from the wall.

“What’s this for?” asked John. “It’s so you don’t get lost,” replied the Minotaur. “Get lost? What the hell is in there?” The Minotaur leaned in toward John and replied, “It’s a

labyrinth.”

On the eve of John and Alison’s wedding day, guilt collided with John’s conscious. It had been so long since he and the Minotaur had been in the fight and John wanted to enter his new life with no bad feelings hanging over him. He rang the Minotaur one Friday afternoon and after a long pause, the Minotaur spoke.


“Hey,” said John. The Minotaur remained mute, save for his breathing. “Wanted you to know, I’m getting married tomorrow.” There was a pause. “That same girl?” “Her name is Alison, and yes.” “Huh…I’m happy for you both, I guess.” John could tell the Minotaur had been drinking, or was still

drunk from the previous night. “Been up to much?” “You know me. Met a girl myself.” “Yeah?” “Her name’s Destiny. Tits like boulders.” “Nice.” “I think her real name is Claire, but I don’t know her well

enough yet to ask.” “You still living at the flat?” The Minotaur’s mood changed. “What do you want, John?” “What do you mean?” “Just wanted to rub my face in it, huh?” “No, not at all. I just…” “Then what?” “I called to tell you I’m getting married.” “Mazel tov.” John didn’t want to upset the Minotaur even more so he let

enough time pass before replying. “I guess I wanted to say…” John felt the word perched on his tongue, one that had lay

dormant for nearly two years and now rose like bile through his throat, burning and making his eyes water. Fortunately, he didn’t need to say it.

“Star Wars is on TV next week,” said the Minotaur. “It’s the version with all the CGI crap, but I was thinking of getting a few beers in and watching it.”

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The Minotaur never went to John and Alison’s wedding. And John never watched Star Wars with the Minotaur because he was on his honeymoon in Greece. But when he returned he rang his old friend and they would talk for hours about what they were doing. Mostly John spoke about his future and how Alison was nagging at him to start a family, something he wasn’t too sure he wanted to do until they had enough money. And the Minotaur always spoke about the past, and what they used to get up to. Sometimes the Minotaur would ring John late at night, drunk, and tell him that the girl he was seeing had dumped him for some normal bloke, and that he’d beat up a random guy to feel better. The next week, the Minotaur had another girlfriend and he’d be happy again.

The labyrinth held the smell of loam. It reminded John of the time before the Minotaur and he were friends, when the boys at school would push his face into the dirt and pile on his back until their combined load robbed him of breath. Now, instead of his face being pressed into the ground, and the weight of half a dozen children on his back, his chest was being crushed by the dark mass that encircled both he and the Minotaur. The second thing John noticed was the Minotaur seemed to have a clear idea of where he was going. He walked with a determined step, and when they arrived at a large wall that blocked them from going any further, the Minotaur instantly turned left or right.

“Do you think the Greek knows about this place?” “I don’t think you can have something this big in your home

and not know,” replied the Minotaur. John thought about what the Minotaur said and realised they

had been walking through the network of narrow corridors for a good five minutes. He equated the distance to be at least a hundred metres. Either they were walking in circles, or the labyrinth stretched beyond the boundaries of the house.


“This can’t be possible,” said John. “We must be lost.” “Isn’t that the point?” asked the Minotaur. John stopped and grabbed the Minotaur’s huge arm. “I thought

we were here so you could find out what was making the noises; you telling me you came in here to get us lost?”

The Minotaur turned and pointed the torch along the corridor. There was no sign of an end.

“I think we should head back,” said John. “Get a better torch, something industrial that will light this place up. We’ll come back better prepared. Maybe even bring a few cold beers and a sandwich. What do you say?”

The Minotaur was facing away from John, his gaze firmly fixed to the distance. “Did you hear that?” asked the Minotaur.

John didn’t hear anything, and was about to tell the Minotaur the very same when the torch cut out.

“Stop messing about,” said John to the void. “Turn the light back on.”

The air turned mute. The breathing John could hear was only his own. He reached out his hand and touched only dank silence. He tried walking a few steps in front and felt like he was about to walk off a cliff. To ease his own panic, he announced that he’d had enough and was heading back.

“When you’ve stopped being an arse, I’ll meet you back in the kitchen!”

John turned and found the end of the twine looped to his wrist. With the hand not holding the sword, he began to gather up the slack, retracing his steps.

“I’m off then,” he called out behind him. “If you want to make it back before dawn, I suggest you come with me.”

Silence. Without the torch, steps were cautious and exaggerated. Every

damp wall he arrived at felt like the one he had just left. Had it not been for the twine guiding him toward the entrance, he would have been convinced he was moving in circles.

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The spirit of the labyrinth’s exit drew the twine taught, and for the first time John saw a faint light pierce the sheet of black before him. His breath faltered only for a moment, but it was enough to allow a noise like that of two heavy stone slabs shifting against each other to gather its rhythm once again. He stopped and turned around, as if the act of facing the direction of the noise would enable him to hear it better. A profound bellow rose in the distance, then a collapse of mass, as if the whole room had been awoke from a deep sleep. The composition of mortar and lime had perished due to the damp, and his hand, pressing up against each one, had altered their position somehow. One by one, each wall that made up narrow corridors to the labyrinth were now crumbling, and, as one fell, it caused another to weaken creating a domino effect.

Unexpectedly, the noise changed. The shifting of stone was replaced with the sound of an animal wailing in agony. John considered the possibility that the weight of the crumbling walls had trapped the Minotaur. John called out, but what came back forced him to raise the sword. The animal was not trapped, but moving toward him. From the deepest recess of the abyss came a rolling growl that travelled through the ground rather than the air. The soles of his feet shook as the monster gathered stride, dust falling from the structure that clung together precariously around John. A foul stench rooted in all evil announced the monster’s immediate presence, and with a trembling hand, John dug his heel into the ground and placed his weight behind that Greek king’s sword, thrusting it into sinewy muscle and rancid flesh before him. As the monster cried out its final piercing shrill, John’s legs gave way and he fell upon its stinking carcass. Chest beat out with waves of adrenalin as the beast’s heart retreated into a timeless rest. In the stale air that was now absorbing the vestiges of life leaving the slain monster, John called out once more to his friend. Among the dirt and the warm tail of blood, his hand found the torch. A shaft of light drifted toward the nothingness. Dust particles fell


before the beam like a thousand mayflies dancing above a fetid brook, and what was once brutal and unyielding remained still and silent. The Minotaur’s final words stirred the quintessence of dust for the final time. “We are all men of blood,” he said.

The sword remained with the Minotaur in the labyrinth. The tools left on the floor helped fix the buckled bolts with twisted screws. John ascended the steps and went into the living room where all the unpacked boxes remained. The room had no signs that indicated someone was living there. The walls were stripped bare, the shelves empty, as was the mantelpiece above the electric fireplace. The only sign of human existence was a small postcard pinned to one of the cupboards in the kitchen. It was of the Acropolis in Athens, and it had no inscription on the back.

The last of the Minotaur’s words accompanied John on his return back home. “We are all men of blood,” whispered John repeatedly, hoping that to hear them aloud might bring new meaning to each. When he arrived home, the dawn sun had blistered the night’s cold skin, leaving it yellow and red. Though his sleep had been disturbed, he didn’t feel tired, but instead lighter and more content. He checked his watch: an hour remained before he would have to get ready for work. John spent that time in the car, looking out toward the sky. He turned on the radio, and with perfect timing the Sex Pistols came on singing, “God Save the Queen.”

“Men of Blood” appears in the short story collection, Quintessence of Dust.

CRAIG WALLWORK is the Pushcart nominated writer of the novels To Die Upon a Kiss, The Sound of Loneliness, and the short story collection Quintessence of Dust. His stories have featured in many journals, magazines, and anthologies in the US and the UK. He lives in West Yorkshire with his wife and daughter. Rarely does he venture out of the North of England.

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Lorissimo Charlie Galbraith It was seven o’ clock by the time the squad swept into the clubhouse, their spirits buoyed by the tide of recent victory. They formed a boisterous production line at the bar before seating themselves with drinks in hand at a large oblong table in the corner. They played a few drinking games to get the night underway: King’s cup, 21, loping horse, a few rounds of standard hoopla, and a few more of Tabernacle rules. Horace Turgood, a thick-‐‑necked second row, was the captain and sat at the head of the table, as was his right. He was the ringmaster of this loud boozy circus and he began setting hoops for the squad to jump through. Aubrey, a fourth-‐‑year medical student who played right wing, was given a forfeit for missing a tackle early in the second half of the match. He drained his pint in seconds and slammed the empty glass on the table in manly triumph. Jones, a bovine prop who studied botany, was given a forfeit for having his flies undone. He, too, emptied his glass with extreme prejudice. Things escalated from there: Turgood, drunk on power and alcohol, became increasingly despotic, and each forfeit he ordained was more wanton and debauched than the last. It seemed like the nadir had finally been reached when Johnson, a diminutive full-‐‑back, was given a forfeit for being exceptionally well-‐‑endowed—something that they had all noted at one stage or another in the showers, but had never remarked upon until now. He was christened “Tripod” by his venerable captain and positively beamed as he chinned three shots of sambuca. Everyone thought that that would be the end of it; that is, until they saw Turgood staring at Philip with a rapacious hunger in his eyes, and a large hand on the young centre’s knee.


The ponderous clunking of the big second-‐‑row’s thought process was almost audible.

“Phil!” There was a clear logic in the progression from Johnson to Phil,

a common thread linking them both as objects of fascination and scorn in the showers. Phil had never once taken his underwear off in front of the squad; he even washed himself in his boxer shorts.

“Your turn.” It was clear by the grim pallor of Phil’s face that he knew the

nature of what was about to unfold: an awful, and very public, unmasking. Turgood’s huge frame strode to the bar and returned with two pints of Dutch lager. He set them on the table before him and proceeded to undo his trousers and lower himself in to each glass, in a practice that is commonly referred to as “teabagging.”

“Now, Phil. You’ve been repressed for too long. I think you need to let loose, let it all hang out, if you know what I mean. So, either you stand up here and strip to the bare bones, or you take your forfeit like a man. I’m doing this for your own good.”

A stark and ominous silence fell over the previously raucous squad. Phil, ashen-‐‑faced, looked around the room at the lads: leering, boorish, all of them rapt with anticipation. They had been waiting a long time for this—the subject of extensive locker room discussion. Numerous postulations had been made as to its abnormal size, colour, shape, or even its absence altogether. The moment of truth was now at hand.

Phil stood up, walked round the table, and downed both pints with urgent wincing gulps. Turgood’s disappointment was palpable, abundant even, and its echo rippled around the table in the faces of the rest of the squad. They released a collective groan as Phil began to step back towards his seat, with his unflinching gaze pinned somewhere high up on the far wall. A curious breathless sigh slipped from his mouth when Turgood reached out and yanked his trousers down, but the creature that hung between his legs let out a terrible shriek.

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A head and elongated torso stuck out like a monstrous vegetable from the thick patch of hair between Phil’s legs. The creature had a small pointed nose and enormous rheumy eyes that blinked rapidly, obviously unaccustomed to the light. Two thin protuberant arms stuck out of its tubular body like pipe cleaners.

“It’s a slender loris,” said Joe, a flanker who studied zoology. “The top half of one, anyway.”

“What’s that?” “It’s a lesser primate native to India and Sri Lanka. It’s actually

highly endangered.” The loris was in a state of extreme agitation, snapping its fierce

little jaws and grabbing furiously at everything around it with long lank arms. Phil, blushing crimson, made a series of frantic attempts to tug his trousers up but the creature kept forcing them down. He tried to cover his modesty with his hands, but it clawed at them, wrenching his fingers apart and leering at everyone sat round the table in a perverse game of peek-‐‑a-‐‑boo.

Turgood stood there in broad-‐‑shouldered, square-‐‑jawed gormlessness.

“It’s a birth defect,” mumbled Phil, by way of an apology, as the loris picked a pint glass off the table and smashed it back down. “The medication normally keeps it subdued,” he said, as it swung a sizeable shard of glass towards Turgood, lacerating his gilet.

“Mate, it’s fine,” said Johnson, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” said Joe, as the loris upended a bowl of nuts onto the floor. “I never thought I’d get the chance to see one in the wild.”

“I’m sorry, Phil; I didn’t know,” muttered Turgood, in a moment of uncharacteristic sincerity. He bent down and managed to pull Phil’s trousers up while Phil pacified his nethers. They both sat down and the night continued, though the mood had been irreparably soured. The captain’s ribald manner had acquiesced


and in its place was a more tentative, sober demeanour. Phil was silent for the rest of the night, save for the plaintive squeaking that emanated from his lower anatomy. Amongst the rest of the squad, some conversation was attempted, but it was like trying to start a campfire in the rain.

The party broke up well before one and went their separate ways. The captain caught the same train home as did Phil. They talked mostly of sporting matters in a tone of detached masculinity, but all the while the captain was casting furtive glances at the constantly undulating surface of Phil’s jeans and thinking only of the roving primate’s hands beneath them.

CHARLIE GALBRAITH recently graduated from Glasgow University. Since then he has moved back in with his parents and now divides his time between writing fiction, waiting in line at the job center, and scratching himself. He is currently feeling disillusioned and rudderless, which seems like an appropriate response to the circumstances.

November 2012 23

G.V.M. Daniel Davis They’re heading for Sangamon Street next. Can you hear them? The ragged hiss of their breathing masks. Can you feel them? The thundering stomp of their steel-‐‑toed boots. Can you see them? The sun glinting metallic gray off their curved hooded domes, above the rooftops of these foursquare homes, white paint peeling in the late autumn chill.

The Giant Vacuum Men. They were in South Essex two days ago. We got the call, and we couldn’t understand. Screaming and crying, and all throughout the silent suction of their hoses—as though sound were slowly drifting away, being repealed one note at a time. Everything is gone, came the faint shouts through the radio speakers. They’ve taken it all, and all is lost.

What won’t they take with them? Already, I’ve forgotten my history. I stare up at their enormous heads, black glass hiding their careless stares, and I can’t remember my name, nor my father’s name, nor any that came before him. I recall a sense of pride, but not what it was for. I remember love, but not as I felt it, merely as it was explained to me. I know fear, because I feel it now, and I know dread, because it sinks into every inch of me. But I don’t know hope, nor can I remember ever feeling its embrace.

They have taken my home. I watched it go. The hose, a giant black pit, sucked it up board-‐‑by-‐‑board, plank-‐‑by-‐‑plank, memory-‐‑by-‐‑memory. The yard, too. The trees, the flowers, the hornets’ nest above the garden shed. Everything. My family went with it, my wife and son, whose names and faces elude me. They disappeared too, and I ran, because I couldn'ʹt help them. And the Giant Vacuum Men moved on.


Sangamon Street is vanishing. Can you sense it? That void in space, where a street used to be. They look at us, but they don’t see us. They laugh, but not at us, because we don’t exist to them. What do you want? I shouted at them, but their answer was silence. They didn’t hear me. They are incapable of hearing me. Their hoses absorb my pleas as soon as they leave my mouth.

What town is next? I know I should warn them, but it’s hopeless. The Giant Vacuum Men will march onward, consuming everything in their path, leaving no trace of us behind. Only a few stragglers, those of us unfortunate enough to survive. They will keep marching, until they hit the sea, and then they will sail. And when they have devoured the whole of the world, perhaps they will turn on themselves, and after that—perhaps reality itself will cease to exist.

DANIEL DAVIS was born and raised in Central Illinois. He is the Nonfiction Editor for The Prompt Literary Journal. You can find him at www.dumpsterchickenmusic.blogspot.com, or on Facebook.

November 2012 25

Toasty Thomas Broderick “What do you see, Gerry?”

“It’s beautiful,” he says before taking another slightly labored breath. “Grass everywhere. The sun’s bright. No clouds.” There’s a scary optimism in his voice, an unnerving counterpart to the stark “I’m going home” he loudly proclaimed an hour ago during dinner. Yeah, it shocked the hell out of everyone eating, but no one was really surprised. In Antarctica, even more so here at the South Pole, going toasty is a national pastime.

It stinks to high hell in the small, cramped gym. Gerry’s boot clad feet pound in rhythm against the treadmill. He’s going a steady four miles an hour, a brisk walk that could go on for hours. Gloves, sweat pants, and the standard National Science Foundation red parka cover everything on his beanpole frame besides his pale forehead and gray eyes. A quickly packed bag of god knows what is lying just to the right of him. I keep my mouth shut. Two full winter seasons under my belt have taught me much more than how pipes explode as sixty below, that a single leak can put everything out of commission. Crazies go violent if you don’t treat them right.

“Sounds nice,” I finally reply as I shift my sore ass onto a softer spot on the bench press. What I say to Gerry isn’t a lie. Five months have passed since I’ve seen grass, four without the sun. Living at the bottom of the world, it’s natural to miss these things, miss a lot of things. Florescent lights, shag carpeting and beige walls really don’t cut it. We all feel it, a skeleton crew of forty keeping the place running during the six-‐‑month night. It’s all right, Gerry, I want to say. No one’s judging you for this, happens to everyone in one form or another. Your body will give out soon enough. You’ll fall,


probably cry a little before passing out. Tomorrow you won’t hear a word about it.

I, on the other hand, will be pulling a double shift by myself as you recover from your long walk.

Thinking of the inevitable, I place some yoga mats behind the treadmill. Wouldn'ʹt want him to hit his head on the concrete. Finished, I sit back down and resume my vigil.

After a few minutes Dr. Harrison, Kate, leisurely steps in from the hall. She’s a kind woman and a good enough doctor for the scrapes we get into down here. She embodies the type of temperament that everyone here carries to one degree or another: so different from the rest of the world that we all fell to the bottom. In each other’s company, there’s really nothing odd about us. It’s just that war, strife, famine, gas bills: the rest of the world can have it.

No medication or instruments in hand, I guess she just wants to observe for a little while. I motion for her to sit next to me. She does.

“How’s my patient?” She asks with a knowing smile, the deep wrinkles on her bony face stretching almost comically. “Getting his exercise it looks like.”

I chuckle. “He thinks he’s going home.” “He didn’t seem odd today, did he?” “Nope. I thought he was holding up pretty well considering it’s

only his first season down here. Spent six hours today in the crawlspaces beneath the mess. Replaced insulation on about a dozen pipes in that time. Work was pretty routine. We talked a lot.”

“About what?” She adjusts her ponytail. “Shit…normal stuff I guess.” I rub the stubble on my face. “Old

jobs, women. He mentioned after lunch that he missed 5th Avenue bars. You know, the ones like Butterfinger.”

November 2012 27

Kate nods. “That is pretty normal,” she says, tilting her head slightly. “There’s usually signs. You do work with him every day. There was really nothing else?”

“I took him out this morning on the snowmobile to see the Aurora,” I admit after a few seconds of thought. “But he was fine the whole time, I swear.”

“How far?” Kate asks, her tone sharpening somewhat. “A mile, maybe just a little under,” I reply, looking at Gerry.

“It’s no good if you can still see the base lights.” “Christ.” She shakes her head. “Harris is going to have your ass

if he finds out.” She’s referring to the base leader, a small lump of a man who cares more about not getting fired than anything else.

“He’d be more mad that I used a gallon of gas without permission,” I reply, grinning ear to ear. To hell with Harris or any of his bosses in the Colorado home office. They can bill me for it.

“It was a miracle we found you last year,” Kate whispers. “If you hadn’t had your personnel transmitter with you…” She trails off.

I reluctantly nod. “I know.” Last year, after the end of a three-‐‑week twilight, I started going

off by myself before shifts, taking brief strolls in the still night. My strolls became long, solitary walks, a quest to find the perfect spot to lie down for a while, plug in the iPod, and watch the Aurora. I soon realized that I could save time by taking one of the snowmobiles every day, riding it out a few miles behind the nearest low ridge where it was perfectly dark and the sound of the jet fueled generators didn’t carry.

One day everything went wrong, at least that’s what I was told when I woke up. The sky was as beautiful as ever, and I was listening to a Mahler symphony burned from CDs I’d received as a birthday gift from my baby sister. All of a sudden the Aurora became especially bright, and in half a heartbeat there was no time, no space, no me. All existence, the universe and the mysteries


beyond became the image floating above my head: a pale band of green light dancing endlessly against a star filled sky. Nothing had come before it. Nothing would exist after it. The end of time was also its beginning. Kate later said that when they found me, tears were frozen to my nearly frostbitten face. Fortunately for me, the psych tests came back normal.

“But at least I had Gerry with me this time,” I say, trying to shore up my defense.

“Look at him now,” Kate says, pointing with both arms. “What if he had done this out there?”

I see it in my head, both of us frozen in the dark, Gerry a few miles closer to home. All of a sudden I feel like shit.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I say as if apologizing to my mother. “Just don’t do it again,” she tells me, rubbing her palm against

her forehead. “What do you think set him off?” I ask after another few

minutes of only Gerry’s footsteps filling the room. “Good question.” She pauses for a moment, sighing in the

process. “What happened to you out there last year?” “Wish I knew.” Did I go out there to lose myself again, Gerry

only coming along to snap me out of it? Oh course he’d never tell anyone. He looks up to me too damn much. For the life of me I can’t remember any other intention besides wanting to show him a perfect sky.

“Did you know that if you put your neurons end to end, they would circle the entire world?” Her words break me out of the self-‐‑inquisition.

“Really?” Kate shrugs. “I don’t know, but I think I read it in a book once.

The point is that there’s a lot of wiring upstairs in our heads, and maybe for Gerry all it took was one little chemical misfire or break at the right time.” Staring me square in the eye, she taps her temple for emphasis. “Anyway, he’ll be fine by morning.” Kate slaps her

November 2012 29

denim-‐‑clad knees before standing up. “You look tired. Sure you don’t want me to take watch?”

“Nah. Gerry’s a nice kid. I want to make sure he’s okay.” “Suit yourself. I’ll be in my room. Call me if anything should

change for the worse.” I nod, smiling at Kate as she steps outside. Gerry is still walking

along, oblivious to the conversation that just ended. “Still beautiful over there?”

“A little warm.” Of course it’s warm, I want to reply. Running in that many

layers in a seventy-‐‑degree room will do that. Beads of sweat are dripping off his forehead. His pace is just as strong, though, eighty thuds a minute. It’s hypnotic, an annoying metronome.

Yawning, I get up briefly to pull over Gerry’s duffel bag. It’s surprisingly light for the size. I’m sure he won’t mind if I have a look. Two sweaters, long johns, briefs: it’s a mundane assortment for someone having an episode.

“Had you pegged wrong, Gerry,” I say aloud as my fingers grasp a square glass bottle near the bottom of the bag. The bottle of Johnnie Walker Gold is over half full. “Never took you for a scotch man.” I unscrew the cap and take a small sip. “Before you decided to take your walk, I was going to buy you a drink tonight.” I grin. “Guess I owe you two now.”

No reply. I’m alone. A half mouthful of the Scottish firewater burns all the way down my throat. I inspect the bottle, rubbing my thumb over the paper label. It’s so perfectly normal, like driving down to the store on a whim to buy a candy bar, or barbecuing in shorts on the 4th of July. During the holiday last week we ate microwaved hotdogs and watched a fuzzy fireworks display on the rec room TV. Going out in shorts would have been suicidal. I take a full swig.


I shouldn’t be drinking so much. The first wave of intoxication hits and I immediately think of another poor soul...Carl Rivers. Jesus Christ, compared to Carl, Gerry’s in heaven.

“You know, Gerry,” I say, a little sigh escaping my lips. “I never told you about Carl. Carl was an old timer. In all he spent ten seasons down here. After a shift rewiring a fuse box two years ago, Carl sat next to me at the bar, pushed his beer gut against the table, and calmly lit a smoke. One jack and coke turned to two, two to three. Then, without warning, Carl gabbed the bottle from behind the counter and started to chug. We got it away from him pretty quick, but the bastard kept fighting for it. He screamed over and over that some unholy monster was going to pull him into the darkness if he didn’t have ‘home’ in him. He kept going until Kate shot him up with enough Thorazine to knock out a horse. I walked away with a black eye and Carl didn’t wake up for two days.” A few words later and I trail off.

An overwhelming pang of disgust and fear makes me set down the alcohol. There’s already wetness on my cheeks. “Gerry,” I say, voice trembling, hands clenched so tight that my knuckles are white. “I almost froze to death down here once. Carl tried to drink himself into an early grave. Even Kate sobs in her room. She doesn’t think anyone knows, but I can hear her when I walk by before bed. We’d give it all up, all the little distractions meant to keep us sane, the DVDs in the rec room, books, games, and even the fucking tax free liquor, all of it for five minutes of what you have now.”

As I lean forward, probably to fall on the floor and weep, the bottle at my feet reflects the ceiling light into the corner of my left eye. My tears turn the simple flash into a bright, flowering starburst that envelopes everything.

Aurora from a bottle. Calm and collected, I slowly stand before walking to the phone

hanging near the door. I dial.

November 2012 31

“Hello,” Kate answers, groggy. She probably just nodded off a second ago.

“I think I’ll follow Gerry for a while.” “What are you…” Click. I hope she understands. I won’t be long, just a few days,

enough time to see my girlfriend, sleep in my own bed, and maybe even barbecue a little. I’ll work some extra shifts when I get back. Yeah, no one will mind.

I step up on the second treadmill. There’s no need to catch up to Gerry. We’ll run into each other eventually.

As an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University, THOMAS BRODERICK published short fiction in The Vanderbilt Review in 2006, 2007, and 2008. His work has most recently appeared in The Legendary and Curbside Splendor.


Hard Travelin’ Max Vande Vaarst The young man from the north country was rail thin and poor of posture, dressed in thrift store clothes and a corduroy hat. In one hand he gripped a shovel, in the other, a guitar. His palms were smooth and fragile, though his fingers blistered in the places where he struck the strings. He stood for a while on the hospital lawn, a thousand miles of travel behind him, and wondered beneath which tree he’d hollow the grave.

The young man told lies. On some days, he was the progeny of circus folk, a bone-‐‑spitting geek whose bloodlines were tangled in trapeze wire. On others, he was a pureblood Indian, sprung from the warrior trailers of wild Navajoland. There were days when he claimed that he had no parents at all, and that America itself had birthed him alone beside a back road in some empty western state.

The truth was that he was bored with being middle class. He was bored with having a mother who worked in a department store and who mailed him spending money each month. There were men deep in the guts of steel mills whose whole hands were bloody claws. They knew the satisfaction of real work, of real sweat. The young man had only his fantasies.

As a child of the Iron Range, he used to sit awake at night in his pajamas, catching the AM waves that streamed in from across the sky. The singers on those stations had strange names like Muddy and Howlin’ and Luke the Drifter. They sang songs about hard times and broken hearts. The young man watched the snow fall outside his window, white and vast, and prayed that he might someday get some hard times of his own.

When the young man learned his hero was lying dead in New Jersey, he left his school in the Cities and hitched a ride to Madison,

November 2012 33

then took a couple Greyhounds down through Chicago, Indianapolis, Columbus, Pittsburgh. He would sit in the back row and play his hero’s songs as loud as he could. If they chucked him out, he would hitch his way to the next big town and try the Greyhound thing again. The Midwest unfurled itself like a tedious flipbook, grain elevators and yellow cornfields blurring into factories and barbed wire fences, until the entire thing rolled back against the cusp of Appalachia and vanished.

The young man liked to imagine that he was riding the back of a freight train, hiding out in a boxcar with a flock of California hobos. He’d slide a harmonica out from his blue jeans and blow a tune about Tom Joad, who didn’t really exist, but was everywhere at the same time. Then he would remember that it was 1961 and that he was traveling coach, and he’d quiet down a bit.

The Greyhound dropped him off in a place called Morristown, which looked like it could have been anywhere in Jersey. The young man got directions to the asylum from a drunk at the Elks Lodge and set to making up the remaining miles on foot. By the time he arrived, the winter sun was already low over the Psychiatric Building’s tall rotunda. The clouds were black and fat with snow, and all around him the bare limbs of trees rattled and ached. The young man pulled his jacket tight, threw his tools across his shoulders, and stepped inside to collect the body of Woody Guthrie.

A pair of orderlies guided the young man down a fluorescent hallway, to a door stenciled with the numbers 4-‐‑0. Ribbons of rust and old paint clung to it like barnacles, and when it opened, it opened with a death rattle. As he stepped inside, the young man pulled his shirt collar over his mouth and nose to keep from choking. The air here was rife with ash, which seemed to neither


drift nor descend, but hang, unmoving, as though it were born from the static between television channels.

“Second-‐‑to-‐‑last room on the left,” said the orderlies, who nudged him inside before shutting the door.

The young man whistled as he made his way through the ward. He kept his sights fixed on the opposite wall, trying not to steal a peek inside the patients’ cells, for at times he thought he could hear moaning or the jangling of broken bells from somewhere within them. The ash that hung in the air left black streaks on his hair and clothes.

The second-‐‑to-‐‑last room on the left looked no different than any of the others, though the young man could smell a fresh breeze wafting through the smashed glass of the door’s windowpane. There was light in the cell, the last scraps of day seeping into the blackness of the asylum.

The only furniture inside was a corroded bedframe in the corner, a stringless guitar propped against it. Woody’s body lay in the center of the room, seared into the floor. Its flesh was the texture of charcoal and ripped with sores. There was an IV tube still stuck in the dried veins of its arm, and the young man could hear the drip drip drip of the saline as it bled its way down the line. The body was naked.

The young man cried into his folded hands, shaking and snarling, cursing at nothing and no one. In a rage, he kicked the bedframe, threw his shovel to the ground, tore the IV from its arm, until he was so consumed by it all that he could only think to pick up his guitar and play.

“I ain’t got no home, I’s jus’ a-‐‑roamin’ round,” he hollered, his bare fingers working the strings fast and angry. “Jus’ a wanderin’ worker, I go from town t’town.”

The walls of the cell seemed to suffocate the young man’s voice, swallowing his words before they could return to his ears. He was deaf to his own song, but he kept playing.

November 2012 35

“Oh, the gamblin’ man is rich an’ the workin’ man is po’, an’ I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.”

On the last note, the young man drooped to the ground. He remained there for a minute, working a million different thoughts through his head, until he heard a voice. It was low and gnarled, spoken in short, errant gasps, the sound of sandpaper on sandpaper.

“I ain’t dead yet, kid,” said the body of Woody Guthrie. The young man crawled over to examine the corpse, which

looked back at him through one opened eye. “You alive?” the young man asked. “Nah, jus’ ain’t dead yet,” Woody said, stammering through his

words. “There’s a difference.” His body remained locked into the floor, all but melted in the

places where it made contact with the tiles. There was a heat rising from it, and though the young man wanted to reach out and touch it, he was afraid.

“You the one they called on to set me in the dirt?” Woody asked.

“No one called on me,” said the young man. “I came on my own. I came a long way fer you, Woody. Left my family behind. Left a girl behind too, back in Minnesota. Came t’give you the buryin’ you deserve.”

“Was a fire,” Woody said, a pool of Thorazine sloshing through the bare pockets of his mouth. “Was always gonna be a fire. Fire killed my sister. Got her dress coated in kerosene one day. That was the end of her.” The young man pulled in closer, and could feel the flames blazing on Woody’s brow. “Fire crippled my father, an’ it turned my mother into a heap of cinder. See, there was a fire started in me the day I was born. Been smolderin’ all my life, jus’ waitin’ t’combust, an’ now that fire gonna kill me too.”


“Well, no shame there,” said the young man, brushing Woody’s forehead with the back of his palm. “There’s a fire waitin’ fer all of us, I guess.”

The body of Woody Guthrie looked up at the young man through its greying cataracts. “Know what, kid?” he said. “I like that.”

The cold day had become a colder night. Snowflakes fluttered in from behind the moon, invisible but through the dim lens of bleary lamplight. There was a parking lot on the edge of the lawn, its lone occupant a black Lincoln Cosmopolitan with Connecticut plates, parked in a reserved space. It looked like an angel’s chariot, its hood all dusted white.

“Where you want me t’start a-‐‑diggin’?” asked the young man. Woody coughed phlegm into the crook of his elbow. “Yer

teachers learn you that English?” “No sir,” said the young man. “You did.” “Thought as much,” Woody grumbled. “You ain’t the first fan

of my music t’come callin’ here. Used t’get ‘em every week or two. Bunch of baby-‐‑faced city kids, tellin’ me they knew where I’d been, knew what I’d seen.”

The young man rubbed his virgin hands together to keep the warmth in.

“An’ sure, they play the songs right,” said Woody. “Got all them little words where they meant t’be, but the feelin’s wrong.”

Woody took a seat between the trunks of two great weeping beeches, their sagging branches still clothed in green despite the season. The young man sat down next to him.

“I heard you playin’ my song. Back in the cell,” he said. “Wasn’t too bad. There was feelin’ to it, alright. Got any others fer me?”

The young man nodded and took up his guitar.

November 2012 37

“This one here I first heard on a flatwheeler leavin’ Topeka, Kansas,” he said, tuning the strings. “The fella who sanged it was the saddest man I ever knowed.”

Woody cracked a small grin and scratched at his stubble. “I’m a man of constant sorrow, I seen trouble all my days. I say

goodbye to Colorado, where I was born, and partly raised,” the young man sang, strumming the chords and stirring his voice with all the passion he could. “Through this open world I’m a-‐‑bound to ramble, through ice and snow, sleet an’ rain. I’m a-‐‑bound to ride that mornin’ railroad, perhaps I’ll die on that train.”

The blisters on the young man’s fingers pulsed. Drops of cold sweat formed under his cap. Woody’s expression had not changed.

“You got talent, no disputin’ that,” he said after a moment. “Problem is, yer singin’ somebody else’s song. Talkin’ ‘bout places you never been, lives you ain’t ever gonna live. You gotta know yer own song ‘fore you start a-‐‑singin’.”

The young man sat looking at his feet, fingerpicking idly. “How do I do that?” he asked.

Woody pointed to the boughs of the weeping beeches, which swayed in the dark before them.

“Watch these trees, boy. Watch these trees and you’ll see.” The young man didn’t know what to say. Woody held a finger

to his lips for quiet. The wind picked up and the trees began to quake.

There were colors in the leaves, bright pastels and hazy blues and browns, swirling as the world rocked back and forth. Stars raced from the westward horizon to the east, scattering streaks of white light across the lawn. The asylum appeared to dissolve, and with it, yesterday and tomorrow and every yesterday or tomorrow before or after that.

The trees were painting pictures with their branches. There was a leaky-‐‑roofed farmhouse in Oklahoma, and a Negro boy on a stoop playing Railroad Blues. A dust storm blew into the Texas


Panhandle, leaving only blight and fields of mutilation. The young man saw hootenannies, raucous barn dances, golden faces laughing and singing in the bitter corners of migrant camps.

Days and decades erupted in a flash, floating through the air not like ash, but like embers, little fires sparking in the night. The pop of each ember brought whispers of new towns, new travels, new failures and hopes. Most of all, there were people, the voices of friends and lovers, children and strangers. Some faded slower than others, but all went quiet before the young man could stand to hear them pass.

“I learned my song,” said Woody from someplace far away. “Learned it the only way a man can.”

The wind and leaves came to a calm, and the illusion ended. The young man’s head stung. He looked around for Woody, but he was nowhere. All he could see was a single light in the distance, and he crawled on his belly to meet it.

It was a window, and through its frame he did not find a trapeze artist, or a Navajo soldier, but a middle class boy in his pajamas. He was eleven years old, maybe, and not yet through puberty’s roughest patches. The young man rolled onto his back, while a voice sang to him from a radio behind the wall, “This train is bound for glory, this train...this train is bound for glory, this train...”

The snow kept coming, covering the young man until he could not see, nor hear, not feel, but sleep. Behind the window, the song kept playing, “This train is bound for glory, this train...”

When he awoke he was holding his shovel. There was a pit before him, one man deep. Woody Guthrie sat at its edge, his legs dancing above the grave.

“Ain’t this why you came here, Bob?” Woody asked with a smile. The young man kept silent.

From the highest point of the weeping beeches fell the evening’s final ember. It sank into Woody’s hand, where it caught on something and ignited, lighting the walls of the pit. Woody held

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the fire out for the young man to take. He thought it at first to be a small torch, but it turned out to be a lit cigarette. The young man popped it in his mouth and smoked.

“If yer gonna play the undertaker, you might as well look the part,” said Woody, climbing down into the ground. He lay on his back, his arms crossed over his chest, and mouthed a quick Christian prayer. The young man stood over him, looking once more upon the body of his hero.

“I told you ‘fore, an’ I’ll tell you one more time,” said the body, hot with flames. “I ain’t dead yet.”

The young man brushed his tears as he scooped the soil, heaping ice and mud like a winter blanket over the cinders that now lay below him. His muscles strained and his hands became rough and hard with the work. Pieces of a song swam in and out of his mind.

“I’m leavin’ tomorrow, but I could leave today, somewhere down the road someday. The very last thing that I’d wanna do is t’say I’ve been hittin’ some hard travelin’ too...”

The words bubbled into place as the grave filled. Each swing of his shovel became a promise, a vow heard by none but the New Jersey night.

He was John Henry, hammering hard rock and driving train steel with every beat in his big heart. He was Teddy Williams, dropping ten fascists to their knees with each crack of the bat. He was Woody Guthrie, dust bowl troubadour, author of the only true songs ever written, riding a lonesome railroad car through the heart of the country that had birthed him. MAX VANDE VAARST is a maybe possibly someday up-‐and-‐coming writer of imaginative fiction. Like Fake Bob Dylan, he spent an uncomfortable amount of his youth exploring abandoned buildings all across New Jersey, most often with his nervous Jewish grandmother serving as the getaway driver. Max can be reached at www.maxvandevaarst.com, or by way of the Maxsignal. Please allow twenty-‐five minutes to an hour for Maxsignal response.

On the cover: ”Union Beach” Jon Zois Before superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast, JON ZOiS and his girlfriend Meridith lived in this 150-‐year-‐old historic home in Union Beach, New Jersey. This is just one example of the scale of the devastation that Sandy caused across the region. "We were safe at a hotel," Jon and Meridith wrote online after the storm, "but Hurricane Sandy destroyed our home and washed everything we own into the bay. […] We are physically fine but emotionally and financially devastated. Anything you can contribute is greatly appreciated. We're also happy to receive prayers, reiki, good thoughts, love and any messages of support." To help Jon Zois, go to jonzois.chipin.com/jon-‐and-‐meridiths-‐hurricane-‐relief-‐fund. To help Union Beach, go to facebook.com/groups/258416487614092. To help all of New Jersey and every other state impacted by Sandy, go to redcross.org/hurricane-‐sandy.

Issue Thirty-Six, November 2012

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Transcript of Issue Thirty-Six, November 2012