Grace

We met in a shadowed hallway, both of us discarded on a wooden bench outside of Doctor Langdon’s office, white knuckles clasped on our laps, skirts bunched about our cold feet. As the doctor had asked to speak first with my parents, I’d taken the seat next to a woman who immediately turned to me. She declared, all in one breath, that she had to see the doctor today, that something felt amiss. With eyes wide and unblinking, she said she had questions. Since her arrival three weeks ago, twenty-six teeth and her tonsils and sinuses had been extracted. Tomorrow, April 7, 1908, would be her fourth wedding anniversary, and the day that the doctor would root out her internal womanly organs, the true source of her madness.

I had some difficulty understanding the woman at first but soon became accustomed to her moist slurring, her carefully enunciated mouthing. Adept with a lavender-scented handkerchief, Elizabeth Granger caught driblets from her pale lips before they soiled the bodice of her pretty silk dress. I am quite sure she had once been beautiful, before her bruised mouth had crumpled, before her bloodless cheeks had withered. Before the bridge of her nose had collapsed.

“I wish that Doctor Langdon would have spoken to me before scheduling the operation,” Elizabeth slurred, “but he does know best.” Her eyes grew large. “Do you know how famous he is? He’s cured so many people and only 34 years old.”

She paused to apply the handkerchief to her weeping mouth. “He assured me that, this time, I would positively be cured of my silliness.” As her shoulders fell, she disappeared in the shadow of the wide stairway near our bench. “I call it silliness, but my husband has decided that I am mad. Mad as a hatter.”

“That’s what my parents say about me, though I, too, am not crazy. Surely, there is no harm in hearing voices and dancing in the moonlight.”

“There is not,” Elizabeth said. “I myself have angels that protect me from harm.” She took my hand, her cheeks tugging her ghastly mouth into what may have been a smile. I didn’t tell her how uncomfortable I felt with her sodden handkerchief pressed to my palm.

philadelphia stories
Along the Creek by Deborah Northey

“I apologize if this offends you, but I feel that I may speak openly. When my husband drinks, he takes advantage of his marital privileges.” She dropped my hand and fussed about with her skirt, then looked back at me. “It is at these times that the angels wrap me in their wings to keep me safe, and I no longer have to abide his crudeness.”

She honored me with another grimace. “I don’t know what he will say when he learns that I cannot bear him a child. He has wanted a son for so long.” Her gaze sought the dark hallway. “I hope that my sanity will be sufficient for him. I must trust in the doctor’s treatment.”

What could I say to my new friend? I knew nothing of husbands and married life. “Friends can always confide in each other,” I offered.

I don’t believe she heard me. Her thoughts appeared to be elsewhere. “Have no fears for me. By tomorrow, I will be cured and can return to my husband, my silliness eradicated, once and forever.”

This last surgery would cure Elizabeth of her lunacy. Doctor Langdon had promised.

I was introduced to the doctor ten days after my 19th birthday. Ten days after my mother explained that she, my father, and I would be making a short journey from our farm outside Bordentown to the New Jersey State Hospital in Trenton to meet the celebrated Charles R. Langdon, the doctor who would cure me of my visions and fairy friends.

I understood that my parents would never acknowledge my fantasies and midnight revels. In their world, young women did not converse with imaginary beings or remove their clothing to leap about in the moonlight. Likewise, I appreciated that some gentlemen and their fastidious mothers might perceive my behavior as odd, and this was not to my liking. A young man, a neighbor of sorts, had recently expressed an interest in visiting me on a future Sunday afternoon, and I had no wish to alienate his attention. I agreed to visit with Doctor Langdon.

At a summons from the doctor, I sprang from the bench and walked into his office, abandoning Elizabeth to her solitary vigil. Doctor Langdon introduced himself while I gathered my skirt about me and took a chair in front of his desk. I smiled politely and refused to notice that my mother held a handkerchief to her eyes while my father patted her arm.

It was quite touching the way my elderly parents, James and Sarah Miller, begged the doctor to accept me as his patient. My very large father fell to his knees, a difficult place for him to be. My mother sobbed and pleaded as she hammered her fists on top of the desk. With much patience, Doctor Langdon assured them that I could stay until he’d had a chance to observe my behavior. Until he had cured me. Simply a matter of locating the seat of madness in my body and removing it.

After he led my parents from the office, the doctor settled behind his desk and, with fingers interlocked over his black waistcoat, described his state-of-the-art cure for my insanity. He informed me that he’d studied infection-based psychological disorders in Europe with all of the finest doctors and was well regarded. There was, therefore, no doubt about his ability to cure me. He talked at length but asked no questions.

At last I found an opportunity to speak. “Thank you, Doctor. I am very grateful for your attention.” My mother had implored me to be polite. “Don’t always act the fool, Gracie,” she’d scolded.

Doctor Langdon came from behind his desk to take the chair next to me. “I will take good care of you, Miss Miller,” he said, reaching for my hand.

Green, his eyes were green.

“May I call you Grace?” Beneath his thick mustache, so like Teddy Roosevelt’s, his lip was plump and red.

I licked my own lips, which felt unexpectedly dry. “Of course, Doctor.”

“Well, Grace, one little extraction, and you’ll be cured. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

I inhaled his odor of tobacco and mint. “Oh, yes, Doctor,” but I recalled Elizabeth’s face and added, “though I am concerned about how I might look like afterward.”

He leaned close. “You’ll be fine, my dear. No harm will come to you, I promise.” As we stood, his gaze swept over me, from my carefully-pinned hair, down the puffed bodice of my new mauve blouse to my belted waist, and at last to the tips of my boots. With one side of his mouth curled under his moustache, he gave me a crooked smile. “I will see you soon, Grace.”

A nurse the measure of my father conducted me up a wide stairway sun-bright with ranks of tall windows and onto a dimly-lit floor with numerous closed doorways, our heel-taps echoing in the empty corridor. As we passed the wooden doors, I heard muffled thumps and once a sharp bang, and then something that sounded like “hello” but may have been “help.” I paused and looked to the nurse, but she maintained her stride, pulling me along in her wake.

Near the end of the hall, she jangled a collection of keys held at her waist by a heavy leather belt. Choosing a large key, she unlocked the door in front of us, and we entered a room that was smaller and darker than my pretty bedroom at home. I felt the chill and dampness and hesitated before stepping to the middle. The room held an iron bed with coarse-looking linens, a dresser that had seen use, a small desk missing its drawer, and a chair near the only window.

As she settled my valise by the dresser, the nurse said, “Here we are then, miss. Now rest a bit and someone will come at 6:00 to show you to the women’s dining room.”   She grinned, displaying widely-spaced teeth, and walked out, closing the door firmly behind her.

My heart clanged. The room was dismal and smelled like a washroom. Where was this odor coming from? I wanted my own bedroom and my mother and laughing father. Why had they left me? How could I stay here? I allowed tears to come for a minute or so, but then, taking charge of myself, dragged my chair to the window.

With elbows spread wide on the sill, I observed the park-like setting below. The hospital grounds were beautiful and much care had been taken. In addition to fertile blossoms and softly flowering cherries, I saw a generous garden, raked open, waiting to be seeded, and laundry exhibiting itself in heaving lines spread wide in the spring sun. And scores of budding sycamores and elms and maples on whose waltzing tops I would twirl. When I turned back, I was pleased to find that my books had been stacked upon the desk. I would see how things progressed and whether I would decide to stay.

Then shouts from the hallway and someone baaing, like a lamb, and much frenzied laughter. I was frightened. Where were my fairies? Why had they not come to make me feel better? I sat on the creaking bed and rocked back and forth, calling my fairy folk to me. And they came! They came and joined me in a celebration of this new venture. Falling back on the bed, I slept until summoned by loud raps upon my door.

She was a different nurse, boney and small, and I raced her quick steps down another stairway. As we hurried through a long green hall, a girl, younger than I, glided soundlessly toward us on delicate bare feet, her head nodding as if in perfect agreement with a companion. She was quite pretty, with fine features and a graceful manner, and passed without a word, her head nodding still. I was embarrassed to notice that she smelled strongly of her monthlies.

The nurse gave the girl no attention. As I followed her, she explained that this part of the hospital contained the kitchen and dining rooms and the separate floors for men and women. Two other wings, spread wide to catch fresh air and sunshine, held the operating theatres and doctors’ offices. With almost 400 patients, the hospital was full. “You’re a lucky girl to see Doctor Langdon. He’s our youngest physician, won’t be 35 ‘til November.” She giggled. “Ain’t he a looker?”

Noise burst from the cavernous dining room as we stepped inside, and I surveyed a commotion of women of various ages and appearance. The room, heaving with chatter and squeals, sounded, if I am truthful, like pigs at a trough, and smelled of boiled meats and something not unlike our barnyard after the fall slaughter. I couldn’t stay here, much less eat amidst this calamity.

As I turned to walk from the room, the nurse, stronger than she looked, took my elbow. “Here you are, miss.” She sat me abruptly next to a portly lady of approximately my mother’s age with ferociously dyed red hair and an immoderate barrage of lavender about her satiny evening frock. She ate with a great deal of enjoyment and attention, only turning to me after she’d exhausted her bowl of oxtail soup.

She introduced herself as Mrs. Lavinia Howard from far off Newark. Scratching her scalp with a crooked finger, she told me that she’d arrived at this fine hotel only two days ago. And wasn’t it a grand and lively place, she insisted. She was enjoying her visit, thought the food lovely, and had danced last evening with every handsome captain at the ball given in her honor. In fact, she whispered, she had been asked for her hand in marriage by no fewer than four of the young gentlemen! Wouldn’t Mr. Howard and her daughters be surprised, she laughed, and what was I wearing for tonight’s ball?

Elizabeth, the woman I’d met that afternoon, took a seat to my left. When I looked to her, something fluttered in my throat as I raised my hand to cover my lips. Her swollen, bruised mouth was exaggerated by her pale complexion, and she appeared older than she had a few hours ago. What was happening to her? She explained, slowly and carefully, that she wouldn’t be eating that evening, her appetite was so little, and that she was somewhat uneasy about tomorrow’s operation. Before I had a chance to ask about her visit with the doctor, she admitted to a slight headache and left the dining room.

I longed for a quiet dinner, but, as I reached for my fork, something struck my cheek. Startled, I looked up. “Got you,” garbled a slender woman. She threw back her head and, laughing delightedly, readied herself to throw another piece of bread when an attentive nurse caught her arm. I brushed my burning cheek and prayed to my fairies for deliverance.

Did I want to be cured? Did I seek sanity to find a husband, as my mother hoped? Was that reason enough to lose my beautiful visions, my lovely fairies, my celestial choirs?

I was beginning to find that I would like to be married. My sister was not unduly sad or prodigiously beaten, and my brothers’ wives appeared happy enough, although often looked weary with four children apiece. I considered how happy I’d be to have a man to love me, comfort me. A baby would be wonderful, too, I’d come to believe, and I could almost feel that blissful weight in my expectant arms. Yes, I very much wanted to be healed and decided to give Doctor Langdon’s theory a test. After all, what was one tooth?

I did not expect to see Elizabeth at breakfast the next morning as she was scheduled for her final surgery. The one that would cure her. Of course, she could no longer bear a child, but I was sure that her husband, once he had his wife back home, sane and happy, would forgive her for the sinful state of her womb. She was still a beautiful woman if you viewed her from an angle, and, when she had a visit to the hairdresser, her blonde curls would shine again.

Elizabeth also missed lunch, but Mrs. Howard inquired, as she speared a boiled potato on her fork, whether I had enjoyed last night’s ball. Before I could reply, a starched nurse touched my elbow. “Miss Miller? Doctor Langdon will see you now.”

His office was dark and less cheerful that afternoon. Heavy clouds obscured the sun, and I keenly felt the lack of warmth. As I took my accustomed seat and straightened my skirt, I smiled politely. “I’m sorry, Doctor Langton, but I am feeling a little unsure about my surgery.”

“Think nothing of it, my dear.” He smiled back. “It is hardly surgery, after all. One simple extraction. We have discussed this.”

I studied my intertwined fingers and fumbled for words. “Yes, of course, doctor. As you say.” I thought again about Elizabeth. “But, about Mrs. Granger,” I said, then stopped as his lips pursed.

“Mrs. Granger is doing very well, although I should not be talking about other patients.” He stroked his moustache and continued. “I can tell you that she is now completely cured and ready to go home.” I clapped my hands, as I thought he would expect.

Our meeting went on for perhaps an hour. Doctor Langdon, his voice captivating, told me that he would start with an examination. As he explained how my physical examination would be undertaken, I began perspiring. My heart beat extravagantly, and I felt a bloom creep up my chest and over my face, something that didn’t happen unless I danced with my fairies. Under his intense gaze, I grew quite heated and rocked back and forth at the edge of my chair, my breath rapid. I began to hum, waiting for the celestial choir to join me in my celebration. I rocked faster.

Doctor Langdon’s head jerked back. “Grace, you forget yourself.”

I stopped, and my gaze cleared as I blinked. It would not do. I pretended to faint.

Once in my room, I shut the window against the cold rain sleeting the panes. I ached with the chill, and my heart bled for the fragile petals and blossoms crushed and battered in the garden below. What had I done in the doctor’s office? I didn’t often rock like that. My mother said it wasn’t seemly, that good girls didn’t do such things, but sometimes my feelings overcame me. With numbed fingers, I wrapped myself in blankets and slept, waking only at dawn.

Amidst the raucous crush at breakfast, an ashen specter that looked like Elizabeth was carried into the dining room in a wheelchair. Her back rounded, her shoulders huddled over her waist, she appeared to be in pain. “Dear, how are you?” I asked, although I needn’t have. I could see. There was nothing wrong with my eyesight.

As she adjusted a blanket over my friend’s lap, the nurse reported that Elizabeth needed only one small colonic surgery in order to realize a perfect cure. It was guaranteed. Elizabeth bowed her head, looking like one of the tulips beaten by yesterday’s sleet. She did not speak while I massaged her lifeless hands.

“Elizabeth? Elizabeth, dear?” I said as the nurse walked away.

She raised her head. “They’re gone.” She slipped her hands from my clasp and brought her fingers to cover her face. “My angels are gone,” she mumbled. “I am not well.”

“What’s wrong, Elizabeth? Why are you not better?”

My surgery, a small tooth extraction, would be my first and only surgery. Doctor Langston was positive. I was so close to a cure that the one tooth extraction would eliminate my madness. I was apprehensive, especially after what I’d seen of Elizabeth, and troubled by her words, unsure what I should make of them. My breakfast curdled and rose to my mouth.

After the surgery, there was a tender gap in my lower jaw where the doctor had had to perform not only an extraction but an entire root canal. I was in some pain, though Doctor Langdon proclaimed me quite sane and ready to go home.

“Doctor, are you quite sure? My jaw aches, and I don’t feel at all well. The voices and my fairies are crying for me.”

He rose, squeezing my shoulder. “Ah, my dear. I now believe that the source of your infected brain rests in a different tooth. But, no matter,” he huffed. “Tomorrow I will address this with another simple extraction, and you will be cured.”

I thought to protest but could only smile. My second operation took place before Elizabeth’s colonic extraction, and I came away fatigued. My jaw and mouth throbbed after the extraction, this time the third molar on the top left side of my mouth.

By evening, I had a temperature. While freshening my pillowslip, a rather brash nurse told me that this was normal. “Why, Mrs. Granger is also running quite a temperature, let me tell you, but we’ve packed her in ice. She’ll be fine.” I must have looked distressed because she stopped her prattling. “Now, don’t fret, dear,” she soothed. “It’s to bring down her fever. Happens all the time.”

Such information was too much for my fevered brain. Throughout the night, my dreams ran violently with scarlet explosions and screams that must have been mine, although to that I could not attest. I woke frequently, the smell of copper rich in my nostrils, and again slept most of that day, taking only watery soups and teas.

I entered the dining hall the next morning feeling as though my head had been thumped about. I hurt all over and wished only for the comfort of my home. Why was I not feeling like myself? Why couldn’t I speak to Doctor Langdon? Ask him questions? I’d never been afraid to speak up to my mother or father. Why was I allowing this to go on?

As I walked to my accustomed seat, I realized that the normally riotous dining room was quiet. Three nurses whispered near the coffee urn, their hands buzzing through the air, and the other women bent over their oatmeal and eggs, eating softly, barely talking. As I took up a spoon, one of the nurses noticed me and put her hand to her lips, as if to catch her words. She came to my chair.

Thus I learned that my friend had passed on. She’d been 23-years-old. The nurse told me that Elizabeth’s infected brain had spread its poison overnight to her colon. Amidst the smell of eggs and toast, I choked on my oatmeal and threw down my spoon. It clattered in the dish, alarming the women who sat near, but I felt nothing for them. Elizabeth had died. Her husband would be bereft. I wrenched myself from the nurse’s solicitous hand.

Again in my room, I sat by the window and mourned my friend, though I hadn’t known her for more than a few days. Why had she died? Why hadn’t the doctor’s cure worked for her? I cried and rocked, but nothing eased my sorrow. Poor Elizabeth, I whispered, holding myself tight, hunched over on my chair. Then I was struck by a thought. Would this be my fate? Would I look like Elizabeth? No, surely that could not happen. After all, I was only 19 years old and would soon be going home. I wouldn’t die here alone, not like Elizabeth. Would I?

The day stretched long, enlivened only at night by a full moon, and my dancing feet soon allowed me to forget my troubles. But, as I slipped into my room through the window at daybreak, I remembered that I had another surgery scheduled in the afternoon. This time, Doctor Langdon had promised, he would absolutely find the infected tooth, and I would be cured. Guaranteed. I had asked the attending nurse to find me a lace handkerchief.

philadelphia stories
Waterbed by Stephanie Kirk

Doctor Langdon found the source of my illness in my top left canine tooth. “Mad as a dog,” he laughed, “but now completely cured!” Although my jaw ached, I mustered a polite smile but couldn’t form a query about Elizabeth. The words would not come. I’d seen how she looked, remembered what she’d said. The doctor must have understood because he said that her death had been such a misfortune, especially since he’d discovered the infected organ and she’d been cured. “Right at the second of her expiration, when it no longer mattered.”

It mattered to Elizabeth, I wanted to say. It mattered to me. But I kept my sore mouth closed, lace handkerchief to my lips. He was the doctor.

The next morning, he shook his head. I’d just explained how I’d been up again until dawn, dancing on the treetops, and was too exhausted to get up. I wanted to discuss things with him, but, again, something prevented me. I found it strange that he wouldn’t want to know more about me. What I thought or felt. For a medical man, he seemed to be more interested in finding a cure than in discovering why I dreamed so fancifully.

Then I had a fourth, fifth, and sixth extraction, and somehow I lost count of the surgeries. With my tongue, however, I could still number my remaining teeth. Eighteen. Of the 32 teeth I had when entering the hospital, I now had only 18 straggling throughout my hollow mouth. In distress, I took my meals in my room. Turning my mirror to the wall, I refused to open my mouth and talked to no one but Doctor Langdon and a few of the more charitable nurses who were patient with my mumbling tongue.

The following Monday afternoon, Doctor Langdon came into my room and told me that he’d written to my parents to explain that he’d finally discovered the source of my malady. It was in my tonsils, of course, and he’d be taking them out tomorrow morning. Now, wasn’t that a happy surprise. He said he was sorry that he’d misdiagnosed some of my teeth. “Some!” I gasped but he went on. This time he promised complete success. By tomorrow afternoon, if not the following morning, I would be cured.

“Isn’t that how Elizabeth’s cure progressed? Didn’t she lose many of her teeth and then her tonsils and sinuses?” I carefully dabbed my mouth. “Doctor, I’m frightened. I’d like to go home, please.”

“Now, Grace. You know I possess the most thorough and up-to-date knowledge. We have discussed this, my dear. I am an expert.”

I began rocking. Something I couldn’t name was wrong.

“Stop this at once,” he called as he walked from my room. “It is settled. Tomorrow is your tonsillectomy.”

It felt as if the doctor had scratched out my tonsils with his fingernails.  Every breath stung, and my throat and my nose throbbed. When I closed my eyes, I saw pulsing flashes of red and purple, and when I opened them, all was obscured by a bloody veil. Even my eyelashes ached.

“You’re looking well today, Grace,” Doctor Langdon boomed.

I tried to nod but only managed to rustle the pillowslip.

“You will be most happy to hear that I found the source of your illness.” His chest appeared to broaden. He’d certainly gotten taller. “As I suspected, it was your tonsils. But I removed them, along with your sinuses, of course, just to make sure. You, my dear, are now completely well and sane.” His smile could not have shone brighter.

He waited for me to speak, but I would not open my mouth. I was cured, but at what cost? I’d turned my mirror right side around and knew how I looked. I’d once been a pretty girl, I’m bold enough to say, but was now not that same young woman. After the tonsillectomy and the removal of my sinuses, I resembled my deceased friend Elizabeth. The bridge of my nose, red and swollen, would no longer have that proud Miller Bump, and my mouth was an inflamed sore that concealed my shrunken gums.

I sent away my fairy friends and the celestial voices that had seen me through years of sadness. I was alone. No man would look at me except in pity or disgust, and I could not abide the thought of either their kindness or their repugnance.

Most days I kept to my room, reading or sewing, staring out the window at our dull barnyard, existing on soups and watery grains. I’d grown thin. After much thought, I considered sending a letter to Doctor Langdon to explain my feelings, but I never wrote. After all, how does one calculate the loss of a husband? A baby, a family? A life?

At times throughout the cold, stormy winter, I contemplated taking my life, especially during that blizzardy February. It would have been easy to do, living on a farm, but I didn’t. My parents had done what they believed was right. Neither said a word about my appearance

In three weeks, I’d be 20 years old. I was cured, the rest of my life before me.

 


Born in Brooklyn, Edna McNamara grew up near the Delaware River and has chosen to spend most of her life along its banks. She spent too many years writing only in her head but eventually put fingers to her keyboard. She credits two of her teachers at Gotham Writers’ Workshop and all of the many writers whose work she admires.

When the Leaf Bug Bites I’ll Be Looking Out the Window at You Smoking in the Rain

On the hotel room balcony, Luke stood smoking cigarette after cigarette as I put the kids to bed. Their excitement at being in a hotel, at sharing a room with us, had them popping up like the moles in that arcade game where you hit ‘em with a mallet. I can’t deal with this, he told me as he closed the sliding glass door behind him. I watched him as he leaned against the railing, his hip pressing into the soft, splintering wood, his long torso leaning out into the crickety night, rain falling softly behind him, drops catching the light of the bare bulb every so often like falling stars against the black sky beyond.

Philadlephia Stories - marge Feldmas
Thunder by Marge Feldman

Esme fell asleep on my arm, which began to prick with pins and needles after a while. She always slept with her mouth open like a goldfish reaching for air. Every time I tried to move my arm, she stirred. Eventually I gave up and lay there, staring at the stained popcorn ceiling. In sleep as in life, Henry fidgeted, which was the reason I’d never let him sleep in bed with us at home. It always meant getting kicked in my belly or my back, and being half awake all night. Now he made little noises as he tugged the stiff floral bedspread on the opposite bed. Was he imagining himself a superhero? Or were his dreams as mundane and frustrating as my own, wrestling with toothpaste tubes that never released their goo or continuously sharpening pencils which would never write?

I wrestled my arm free from Esme and went over to kiss Henry’s smooth forehead. He smelled of baby sweat, damp and sweet. I could smell my own body, too, as I leaned over, a deeper, pungent smell that comforted me in this strange environment. Luke, being what my parents call a real American– which is their way of saying an Annie Hall kind of WASP, is afraid of body odor. In fact, he is afraid of any odor. He generally strives for the neutral in his life – except in me. But maybe he strives to have it in me, too.

 

The hotel called itself a resort. It had an indoor pool housed in a room so over-bleached all the white was yellowing. There was a game room with checkers and a pinball machine, a bar that actually played Frank Sinatra (no irony) and only Frank Sinatra the whole time we were there, and a swing set with a slide in the back. It was Labor Day weekend, we had driven up from Philly to the Poconos on a whim, and this was the only room available for miles around. Our original plan had been to stay home Saturday and Monday, but spend Sunday at the Jersey shore with friends. At the last minute, Luke had suggested the mountains instead. I really preferred the beach, but I didn’t say so. I was afraid it would lead to yet another fight and ruin the weekend. Our fights were usually about how I always had to get my own way. “I just have to get out of the city, Liz,” he’d said, and I had agreed, tired of looking at my grimy basement filled with mismatched toys and socks. But we both knew what we really meant was, “We have to get away from each other.”

There were a million things left unsaid between us these days. We used to argue like all get-out. There were broken glasses, spilled cans of paint, even a vacuum cleaner down the stairs one time. I still didn’t have all the attachments. But we’d started to hold it together when the kids came. Luke was never a fan of direct expression; he preferred the silent treatment. And all my screaming just made me seem like the crazy one, so I started to pull it together, to hold it together, to hold it in. And when Luke reached out for me – when his father died, when he got layed off from the bank – I was too busy holding myself in to reach back.

In the morning, Henry captured a leaf bug on the balcony and brought it inside where it pinched him. Surprised, he dropped it and it floundered, panicked, around the synthetic brown/orange carpeting. It was still drizzling and fuzzy outside, but the sun was peeking through the clouds and beginning to burn off the blur. Henry ran back to the balcony to show Luke the drop of blood jeweled on his finger, and Luke let him lean against his leg awhile, the smoke from his cigarette mixing with the rising mist.

We had taken the kids to the pool as soon as we got to the place the day before. They drank in the chlorine like sugar and had emerged only for dinner, eyes red as potheads, drowsy and cranky from their efforts. Now, they wanted to go back. Once they got in, I knew we’d never get them out. “It looks like it’s clearing up,” I said. “Let’s hit that waterfall I was reading about last night. It should be really close by.”

Esme’s knees started to buckle as she braced for her oncoming tantrum. “No Mommy, noooo!”

“Come on, Liz,” said Luke in his timbred voice that meant he was going to win and he knew it. “They can go for a little while can’t they?” It was a cool sound, an unworried sound, such a contrast to my clenched one whenever we had a standoff, which lately was every day. He sounded like he was flicking a cigarette away and it turned my mind hot and red. The kids jumped on the beds, squealing.

Luke was the good parent now, but I knew what would happen. I’d spend the day inhaling chlorine as my hair frizzed while Luke watched TV in the room, smoked on the balcony, and made a quick appearance to dunk them in the pool just as I would be about to lose my mind refereeing yet another fight over whose turn it was to wear the goggles. Meanwhile, the world outside would become beautiful and sunny, a perfect day for a late summer hike, and I’d have to watch it fade into pink from inside the peeling, steamy room.

“It’s going to rain later,” I tried in a practical voice. “I think we should go now. You know how they get once they start anything. Anyway, we can hit the pool when we get back, before we leave.”

“Noooo!” yelled the kids from the beds.

“Come on, Liz. Why do you always have to be such a hardass?”

Now, the whine crept into my throat, clawed at it like a little troll that lived in my larynx and had made its way up to my vocal chords. It wanted out. “We drove all the way up here. We didn’t go to the beach. I want to get out of this crappy place and see some goddamned waterfalls!” I turned to the kids, trying to win them over. “Who wants to see waterfalls with Mommy?”

“No!” They yelled in unison, the traitors. “Swimming!!!!” But they were joyous, tossing their heads back, their hair flying in the air as they descended back to the mattress from the air, the rough sheets pooling at their feet. “Daddy! Daddy!” yelled Esme, “Tell Mommy we want to go swimming!”

“That’s right. Mommy doesn’t always have to get her way, right guys?” He looked at me as he said this.

“Yeah, yeah! Mommy always gets her way,” Esme cried delightedly, punctuating each jump with a single word, but Henry, though he kept jumping, gave me a sad look, his eyes tender. I pinched my mouth into a smile for him, raising my eyebrows to show it was okay. He smiled back an unsure smile that broke my heart. I turned to look at Luke hard. “Later,” he announced. “As soon as we get back from seeing the goddamn waterfalls.” He looked right back at me.

We struggled the kids into all manner of clothing and sandals and sunscreen. Packed a knapsack with water and granola bars and an extra pair of underwear for Esme, just in case. We were walking out the door, the kids rushing ahead, racing down the hallway when Luke said, “You know, I’m kind of tired. Maybe I’ll just stay back and rest. Then I can meet you down at the pool.” His hand went up to his hair, his nervous move. He knew he wasn’t going to get away with this one.

“This is supposed to be a family weekend. I don’t want to tramp around the Poconos alone with two kids. God, sometimes I feel like I’m already a single mother.”

“It was your idea to do this stupid hike,” he shot back.

“It was your idea to come up here!”

“Shhhh!!!” he scolded. We were standing in the orange carpeted hallway. It wasn’t even 8:30.

I said it again in a whisper, the kind of yell whisper whose peaks are tinged with throaty anger. “It was your fucking idea to come up here! I would have been very happy to go hang out with the Shermans and eat crabs and swim in the ocean. At least I would have had another adult to talk to.” I turned away from him then and ran after the kids who were arguing over who could press the elevator’s down button. I didn’t even look behind to see if he followed.

 

Linnie kerrigan-greenberg philadelphia stories
Rainforest by Linnie Kerrigan-Greenberg

Luke and I met in college. He wore flannels and bobbed his head to Pearl Jam, pumping the keg and handing out red cups, rarely taking one himself By the time Nirvana would be wailing away in the background, and everyone else had either hooked up or had passed out on dirty couches, Luke would be ready to go take a really good look at the stars. He’d get a Mexican blanket. He’d take me by the hand. He’d say the names of the constellations: Pleadies, Cassiopea, Saggitarius. He’d point to them, he’d kiss me, the ground would be wet under the blanket and seep into the seat of my pants, go cold beneath my shoulder. I wouldn’t care, not even if there was a rock under my hip. He would kiss me, and I could see the stars.

 

Despite being called the Nature’s Wonder Resort, there was no breakfast included or available, so we grabbed food from the gas station across the street. In the car, the kids munched on their stale soft pretzels, and I sipped hot, bitter coffee that burned my tongue in a not unpleasant way, the steam fogging up my glasses. Luke had followed, grudgingly.

From his booster seat in back, Henry told a joke. “What does an elephant get when he sits on a marshmallow?” he asked, already giggling at the answer.

“What?” I turned around in my seat, smiling.

“A mushy tushy!” Henry announced, and he laughed so hard that pulpated pretzel fell in a wad from his mouth, into his hand. He held it up with a big grin as we passed dark green trees, a Girl Scout camp, a boat launch, posters announcing state game land. This got Esme going, and the three of us couldn’t stop laughing.

“Ewe!” I said finally, “Give that to me.”

I held out my hand for the sticky bread and knew I was his mother in an intimate, physical way. I plopped it into the plastic bag with the rest of the wrappers and straws and sugar packets from the gas station.

“Isn’t that funny, Daddy?” Henry demanded when he realized Luke was silent. But Luke was lost in his own world. “Daddy? Daddy!” There is no cover from children, and Luke was forced eventually to join us back in the car. “Daddy – a mushy tushy! Isn’t that funny?”

“Hmmmmm….” Luke nodded, his eyes still focused two car lengths ahead. I shook his shoulder, and he gradually turned to me, his face changing rapidly. It reminded me of this doll Esme had; the head spins around to show different faces, each with a different emotion.  His face settled into an expression with flared nostrils on his aquiline nose, his ears cocked, making the wiry gray hairs at his temple stick out, as if he’d smelled something bad. His eyes locked into mine, I sucked in my breath at the hate I felt radiating from him in that moment. “What?” he finally asked, his voice like metal.

“Henry told a joke,” I managed, but I turned my eyes to the trees, the leaves, the trees, the leaves, the forest for the trees. I wanted to say something, say anything, but no words came to mind. I knew it was not his fault that our marriage was falling apart. It was my silence and my fear. I was trying to hold it together by not arguing back, to make each moment okay, but it was all rotten underneath, and I knew it.

Luke sucked in a breath, and that seemed to flip a switch. He became Dad again. His shoulder straightened, a playful smile came to his lips, his eyebrows raised inquisitively. “Tell it again, son,” he prodded in a warm voice as he turned around slightly in his seat, his hands still on the wheel. “I wasn’t paying attention.” Son – what a WASP-y thing to say. I could hear my mother in my ear – Oy! Americans! Everything on the surface.

As we trudged up the hill towards the stream, each of us with a child, and then switching children, we hardly had to talk to each other. I squeezed Esme’s fat little belly and her skinny bug legs wiggled around in glee and that was enough. The sun went in and out, changing the light dramatically as we made our way beneath the canopy of Eastern trees, blackberries still ripe on the vines just beyond the edges of the trail. The children ran up ahead as they began to hear the faint trickle of water. I smiled, and in my gentlest voice pointed out how lovely the mountains were, even as the summer was fading. Luke just made a guttural sound to indicate he’d heard me, but otherwise didn’t respond.

When we passed a side trail, Luke announced, “I think I’m going to go off this way for a bit. I want to be by myself for a while.”

“Really?” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. I stood sweating and stunned, gnats buzzing in my ear. I swatted them away.

“What’s the problem, Liz?” Luke’s shoulders sank. He asked the question not, of course, because he wanted to hear what the problem was, but because this was the routine.

I felt my throat clench and the voice that came out sounded high pitched. “You’re going to leave me alone? With the kids? Now? Again?”

“You seriously can’t handle them for half an hour in the woods? Jesus, you’ll be fine. They’re not babies anymore. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” He turned to walk onto the green trail.

You always do, I thought as I started to turn my back, to walk off without explaining. I was the demanding, control-freak wife who had no sympathy for a man who’d lost his job and was just getting back on his feet at a new one with a salary reduction. I knew I was being an overgrown brat, but something in those woods, something about being in that run-down motel that my husband and kids seemed to enjoy so much, something about being away from the piles of dishes and laundry and bills and dust bunnies and birthday parties and deadlines at work and phone calls that Luke was going to be late again and issues with the day care and the kindergarten and passive aggressive phone calls from his mother and wet beds at 3 in the morning and crayon all over our newly painted dining room walls and a back turned away from me in our giant, lonely bed made me face him and call him back to me. “Luke!” I shouted.

“What?” His voice like a razor, he turned his face back to me, but his body still pointed up the adjoining hill, into the darkness where the trees swallowed the path.

“It’s not about the kids.” I tried to keep that horrible, whiny sound out of my voice. I took a breath. “It’s about me.” I looked at my feet, at the mud drying back into dirt and a fuzzy red and brown caterpillar making its slow way to a leaf just beyond the toes of my worn out sneakers. My face felt hot and my fingers were prickly. I tried to take another breath, but my chest felt blocked. When I looked back up, Luke had turned fully back to me. “I don’t want you to go. I want you to be with me. To be with me. Here, together.”

He looked wistfully up the trail, and I looked away. I said what I needed to say. I breathed in and out, sending oxygen to the places in my body that were gasping for it. I wiggled my fingers and turned to go toward the kids and the goddamn waterfall and the crowd of people surely photographing it and daring each other to dunk under it and eating hummus and peanut butter sandwiches on large flat rocks next to it. He was beside me suddenly, his long arm caged around my shoulder. He pulled me into him, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding as my narrow shoulders crushed into his ribs. He didn’t say anything and neither did I. We just walked in step down the trail.

 

Driving back to Philly on the highway, we passed over the state park. “Look down there – I think that’s where we were hiking,” I announced. The kids sucked on candy and stared out their windows. Luke nodded. Satisfied with what I could get out of him for the moment, I looked at the cars parked below, the incredible green of the trees. The other trees, the ones lining the highway seemed dusty, lighter, tired, closer to being ready to shed their leaves for fall, to rest.

“Take a look at this,” Luke said suddenly, handing me his iPhone. “I signed up for this thing; it’s a service. You pay 10 bucks a month and you can program in any album you want.” He touched the app and an array of choices popped up. You could look by artists or song or genre. I had a radio feature on my phone, but you could only choose one song on it – then you were stuck with whatever the invisible DJ in the device chose next. This, he explained, would allow you to choose whatever song, whenever you wanted to hear it.

“Neat!” I said, handing it back to him.

He put on The Steve Miller band. He liked to point out all the jazz influences. “Listen to that bass line,” he would normally say. But this time, he surprised me. I was half listening, half wondering what we were going to make for dinner, when he said, “When this song is over, do you want to pick something?“

“To listen to?” I turned toward him.

He smiled back at me, “Yeah, to listen to.” He said it gently, and I remembered him kissing me under the stars all those years ago. I took the phone back from him as Steve Miller finished wailing away. What did I want to hear? It had been the better part of a decade since my musical choices had ranged beyond “ohn Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” or the local alternative station as default aural wallpaper as I drove to my job as a social worker. Usually, I just listened to the news and numbed out.

Now, with the gadget in my hand, I felt electrified. The hairs on my arms perked up. My fingertips tingled as I scrolled through my choices. I glanced at Luke, who was responsibly looking 10 seconds down the road. The sky was again dreary. The answers were nowhere around me. And then it floated to me: Julianna Hatfield – that’s who I wanted to hear: her blunt lyrics, her raw voice, the bare guitar behind her. That was how I had felt in college. The yearning, the anticipation, the new connections to people, ideas, art. I had been truly myself then, interested in the world and eager to join it. I was unapologetically angry: at my parents, at God, at men who called to me on the street, at the idiots in Washington. I used to picture myself on a kibbutz, in the deserts of Arizona, swimming in the rocky blue grottos of the Baja Peninsula. And then I’d met Luke, and for a while, we were alive together, talking through the night and making love on dirty bedspreads or a couch in the hallway, it didn’t matter. Once we stayed up an entire night together, each reading a novel – and they weren’t even novels for class. I read Trainspotting, flipping back and forth to the Scottish-American glossary. I don’t remember what Luke read, but it didn’t matter. We lay head to toe on my long, twin, dorm room bed, our legs wrapped around each other. In the morning, we skipped class and listened to The Pixies.

Julianna crooned about about hating her sister through the speakers as the early evening sun fought its way through the clouds. I had forgotten how breathy she sounded, how like a grown baby. “God,” Luke looked over at me, smiling, “remember her?”

“Yeah, I know. Remember all those baby trends – the little barrettes, the pacifiers?”

“Oh my god, yeah,” He drew out the last word and looked off into the distance, but his hand found mine on the center console as the opening cords of the next song crashed and popped on our puny car speaker. “Sleater-Kinney,” Luke acknowledged the band. “You really liked these guys, didn’t you?” The kids were crashed out in back by now, and I checked briefly to make sure the heavy bass didn’t wake them. Esme drooled, openmouthed onto her car seat. Henry’s head hung down, his blond curls bobbing with the rhythm of the car and the occasional lift from the air conditioner.

Philadelphia Stories
On Kreeger Pond by Stephanie Kirk

The singer’s staccato lyrics rang through their angriest song, “Monster,” the anthem of all the fights I’d once had with my mother. I listened for a minute, letting the pure thrill of her anger wash through me.

“I was so angry with my mother then. With both my parents, I guess, but mostly with my mother. I always felt like I could never be good enough for her. I don’t know. I guess everyone feels that way about their parents.” I thought a minute as the beat pulsed through my whole body. It felt so freeing, just as it had back then. “It’s funny, you know?”

“What is?” he asked. And it felt so good to be asked. To feel that he was really listening. Lately, he always seemed to answer any of my deep thoughts with “Uh-huh,” before going off to make himself a sandwich.

“Well, I think they still have all of these expectations of me, and they are disappointed in me for not becoming a lawyer and marrying a good Jewish doctor. They’d never say that, of course, but it’s there. It’s funny because it just doesn’t make me angry the way it used to. I guess they’ve softened. I guess I have, too.”

Luke appeared to consider this. He’d always had such a mild relationship with his own parents. Not a very deep relationship, but a pleasant one. I wondered if he could understand. I squeezed his hand as the song ended. “When we get home,” he began as a new song started. I leaned in, wondering what he would propose for us. Maybe ordering a pizza and watching a Disney movie all together before bedtime. Maybe getting the kids to bed early so we could hang out together. “I gotta run into the office for a bit.”

I sat stunned, my hand still under his. I pulled it out and my chin jutted forward. I looked over, but all I saw was the long side of his face. His eyes were on the road. “What? Luke, it’s Sunday evening. And tomorrow is Labor Day. Can’t it at least wait until tomorrow? I thought we were having a family weekend.”

“Calm down,” he answered, ducking my question. “It’s no big deal. You can handle one night of bedtime.” I hated when he told me to calm down. I felt the pulse of “Monster” in my blood again. “You know I have to get my numbers up. I’m the new guy there. I need to get back at least to where I was.” There was just no arguing with that. I wanted to pull him out into the middle of the pulsing crowd and get him to jump, jump, jump! But he wasn’t that guy anymore and the crowd had long since gone to law school and gotten 401K plans. I stared out the window at the high sun, which hung like a yellow egg in the sky. Luke kept looking at the road, barely in the car at all.

 


Rachel Howe runs a tutoring program that brings Temple University students into North Philadelphia schools. She has taught writing at Rowan and Temple Universities as well as the Community College of Philadelphia. She also runs creative writing workshops for kids at local recreation centers and libraries. Her work has been published in Dark Matters, The Philadelphia City Paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a variety of radio programs. Ms. Howe holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Temple University. She lives in South Philadelphia with her three children.

An Hourglass Full of Snowflakes

It’s rare for a man to have true peace of mind. Or maybe that’s too negative. Maybe a man has peace of mind the majority of his life, but only notices it once it’s gone, when turmoil is magnified, during times of stress when one looks back enviously on calmer waters. These were the thoughts running through Peter Bloom’s mind as he drove through a flashing red light down the snowy Main Street of Charter Shores.

philadelphia stories
Blue Spruce by Mary Gilman

There’s not much to say about Charter Shores. The town was founded in 1892, according to the wooden sign that greets summer visitors as they cross the bridge to the island – that is, if you could even call it an island. Charter Shores is a glorified sand bar off the coast of New Jersey. Lots of people visit in the summer. No one visits in the winter. That’s why as the snow fell on Main Street, Peter Bloom wasn’t concerned about stopping at that flashing red light. He wasn’t worried about kids running across the street. All the shops were closed. No one was walking back from the beach. The welcome mat of the five and dime, which usually offered a dusting of sand, was now covered in snow. As Peter passed by the five and dime, he thought about the sand versus the snow, and for some reason, pictured an hourglass filled with soft snowflakes.

Is the glass half-full or half-empty?

Peter pulls his car into the only open store within a mile, the gas station at the end of Main Street. The snowpack crunches beneath his feet as waves crash on shore a few hundred yards away.

Peter is 18 years old. He’s in love. The snow, the ice, all is romantic. The air smells like saltwater mixed with gasoline. It’s perfume to his senses.

Peter enters the store. A pile of hamburgers wrapped in foil sits under a heat-lamp. He’s got no appetite. Hasn’t for days. He read somewhere that when you’re in love you release chemicals or hormones that are like a drug. Pheromones or endorphins or something like that. They kill your appetite. Peter likes the feeling. He hopes it never goes away.

From behind the counter, a young blonde girl offers him a smile.

“Can I get you anything, sir?”

“Why don’t you just run away with me?”

“Excuse me, sir?” Her hair’s pulled back into a ponytail with a white rubber band. Or a hair tie. Peter doesn’t know what it’s called. But he loves it. He loves how the end of the ponytail touches her fair skin. The scent of her shampoo drifts across the counter.

“Let’s just get outta here. You’ve got no customers. Let’s just go.” He leans against the counter and fiddles with a pack of cigarettes. She grabs his hand and puts the cigarettes back.

“I can’t just leave. I’ve gotta finish my shift.” The girl pauses and leans back on the wall behind her. “It’s only another hour.”

He’s enamored with how confident she is. She acts so natural around him. She doesn’t seem to have as many thoughts running through her head all the time. Like he does. They’re both 18 years old, but Peter feels as if she’s more mature.

“We should go somewhere tonight, then. Like the city.”

“In the snow? You’re crazy.” She takes out the rubber band, or tie, or whatever, in her hair, and lets it fall. Then she puts it back into another ponytail. “We should stay inside. Watch TV or something. You can come to my house.”

Peter loves going to her house. Everything about it seems exotic. Her baby pictures on the wall. The cat always sleeping on the couch.

“OK, your house it is. We should spend as much time together as we can before you move.”

“Don’t make me sad.” The girl pouts, jokingly pushing out her bottom lip. But her eyes betray her. There’s seriousness in her casual tone.

“Oh, come on, you shouldn’t think like that. We’ve got, like, two months.”

Peter grabs the cigarettes again and flips them high into the air.

Snow falls on Main Street once more. But Charter Shores feels different. Peter Bloom is 54 years old now.

philadelphia stories, Betsy wilson
Five Pears by Betsy Wilson

When he took the exit for Charter Shores off the Turnpike, he’d tried to remember how long it had been since he’d driven down Main Street. Years. He rarely even drove through South Jersey anymore, and he certainly wouldn’t have been in the area if Harold hadn’t moved offices at the last minute. Whatever the reason, when Peter saw his headlights illuminating the green exit sign through the snow, he’d taken the off ramp. The dark pines, the lack of moonlight on the marshland, something about it had made him think of his youth. Made him drive down the causeway to the bridge. The snowstorm held no romance for him now, at least not in the present. There was a glimmer in his past, though. One simple, frozen sliver of a moment in a gas station 36 years ago. It was the only moment Peter could pinpoint where he had peace of mind. Calmness. On that particular evening, in the near dead of night, it was the only moment of happiness he could remember.

Is the glass half-full or half-empty?

The wooden sign for Charter Shores has a fresh coat of paint. Main Street is lined with new stores. National chains. The five and dime, however, is still in business. Bittersweet memories of buying sand toys there as a child mix with memories of buying his own kids sand toys there two decades ago. Peter’s mind isn’t interested in those two dots in time, though. Right now he’s looking to pinpoint a spot somewhere in between.

Peter pulls into the gas station at the end of Main Street. The convenience store’s facade looks different, with yellow stucco incongruously suggesting the Southwest. The neon logo of the current owner casts a glow on the snowy asphalt. Although the exterior is unfamiliar at first, Peter guesses the steel tanks deep beneath the ground are probably the same ones from his youth.

The shop door shuts with a jingle, blocking out the noise of the ocean. A young brunette with stenciled eyebrows and big hoop earrings stands behind the counter. Her complexion is dark, olive, Mediterranean. Peter nervously browses the three short aisles of the store, occasionally glancing at the shoplifter mirror hanging in the corner. He makes eye contact with the girl’s reflection. Peter quickly picks up a bag of potato chips, absentmindedly reading the ingredients before placing it back on the shelf. Finally, grabbing a bag of pretzels, Peter approaches the register.

“Two dollars, fifteen cents,” the girl says.

Peter doesn’t answer.

“Two dollars, fifteen cents.”

At that moment, something inexplicable comes over him. A dark, hollow feeling. An emotion that’s been welling within him for days, that forces its way to the surface. He swallows dry air as the girl looks at him inquisitively. A strange old man, breathing a bit too heavily. She speaks up again.

“Is that all? Can I get you anything else?”

He looks directly into her eyes.

“Why don’t you just run away with me?”

The brunette steps back.

“What?” She’s not sure she heard him correctly. He doesn’t answer. “What’d you say?”

Peter stumbles. A bit dizzy. His throat tightens.

Almost instantly a man with a tattoo on his neck appears from the back room.

“Hey, you all right, man?”

Peter steadies himself on the counter.

“You OK?” the girl asks.

Peter struggles to answer, his eyes on the floor. He finally speaks.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” Peter almost loses his balance entirely, catching himself on the counter.

The tattooed man steps around a display of candy bars to help. Peter pushes him away and rushes outside.

The snow falls harder. Peter’s hands shake as he fumbles with his car keys. The door finally gives way and Peter throws himself into the driver’s seat. His ears ring with adrenaline.

He knows what do to, once his hands stop shaking. He’ll call Harold and tell him to rip up the papers. He’ll go back to his wife, ask for forgiveness. Everything will be fine.

In the distance, frigid waves crash on shore. The sound echoes off the gas station for a moment, then dies away between the falling snow.

 


A.E. Milford was born and raised in Delaware, spending much of his youth at the Jersey Shore. Now based in Los Angeles, Milford co-wrote both the awardingwinning short film “Another Day, Another Dime” and the documentary film “Who Is Billy Bones?” — which recently began airing nationwide on the cable network LinkTV. His fiction has been published in the Schuylkill Valley Journal. Milford is a graduate of Berklee College of Music and is married with one daughter.

Crossing Bridges

I don’t remember when the panic attacks began, but I remember where.

The first one hit as I ascended the deck of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the twin span across the Delaware River connecting Delaware to southern New Jersey, a bridge I’d driven across hundreds of times over the past twenty years. My mouth began to fill with saliva and my throat felt swollen, on the verge of closing altogether.  My tongue seemed to swell and I felt my heart pound as both my hands sprang off the wheel and clasped tightly over my mouth.  Somehow, I managed to keep control of the car till it reached the summit of the bridge—and immediately, I felt normal again, not dying at all, just casually driving down the western side of a bridge that moments before had tried to kill me.

These attacks must have happened a dozen times since their onset, though I don’t know why. The Delaware Memorial Bridge. The Commodore Barry Bridge a few miles north.  The Walt Whitman and Ben Franklin, both entryways into Philadelphia. Every time I tried to cross them, my body rebelled and I nearly passed out—until, of course I reached the summit and slowly and comfortably descended the other side.

[img_assist|nid=20742|title=|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=260|height=186]I began using avoidance strategies, sometimes driving miles out of my way to cross lower bridges like the Tacony-Palmyra north of Philly, or even driving as far north as Trenton where I-95 crosses a much narrower stretch of the Delaware on a lower bridge under which no commercial freighters need pass.

Let me stress this: to be unable to cross a bridge is to be forever trapped in New Jersey. And that is a trap no one would wish to be caught in.

Then, years later, during a desperate chain of Google searches, I found an unlikely savior in the sky blue uniform of the Delaware River Bridge Authority. “Acrophobia Escort,” a service provided free of charge to those, like myself, constitutionally incapable of driving themselves over the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

Masculine ego, I assure you, takes a back seat the first time you dial a cell phone and ask someone to send you a hero to save you from driving your own car.

This is how it works.  You park in one of the secure areas off to the side just before driving onto the bridge.  On the Delaware Side, this is Memorial Park, a wide place on the shoulder with a row of flagpoles commemorating the war dead of Delaware; on the Jersey Side, it’s a place called the “Jersey X,” a central median where two lanes criss-cross, also presided over by flagpoles.  You dial a number, select from an automated menu, and finally you get a human voice.

“Dispatch.”

“Yes, um,” I muttered unintelligibly the first time I called, “I need an escort.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“I need an escort,” I blurted out.  “An acrophobia escort.”

“Where are you located, sir?”

“I’m on the New Jersey side.”

“In the X?”

“Huh?”

“The X—the place with the flagpoles?”

“Uh, yes,” I said, blushing.  “I’m by the flagpoles.”

“Make and model of car?”

And then you wait.  Eventually, a police car pulls up behind you.  You wait for a moment and one of two officers inside leaves his vehicle, approaches yours with a liability release, you sign it, then he climbs into your car, adjusts the seats for his decidedly more masculine frame, and barrels  your very own vehicle over the bridge at police velocity.

“I, uh, don’t know what happened,” I told the officer sheepishly that first time.  “I’ve driven across this bridge all my life, and then about ten years ago, I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

“You wouldn’t believe how many times we hear that, sir,” the officer said.  “It’s a pretty common story.  And we drive five, six people across almost every day.”

I was so relieved to hear he didn’t think I was some sort of effete freak, that I began to use that line every time I used the service:  “I just don’t know what happened . . . “

One day in mid-summer, feeling rather confident if not proud, I pulled my Subaru into the Jersey X and made my call.

“Okay, sir, as soon as we get two men available we’ll have someone there to assist you.”

“Thank you!” I practically sang, then sat in air-conditioned comfort, jamming to the radio, drumming along on the steering wheel as I waited for my personal chauffeur to arrive.

Before long, I saw a cruiser pull up behind me with only one cop inside.  His partner must be driving up separately, I thought.[img_assist|nid=20727|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=180|height=289]

And then I saw a figure in the back seat: a large man, little more than a shadow sitting behind the driver on the passenger side.

Jesus, I thought.  What the hell’s going on—he arrest somebody on the way to drive me across?  I strained to look in the rearview mirror, hoping to see another cruiser.  And where is his partner?

Then the back door opened, and a giant emerged.

6’4” if he was an inch, 280 pounds or more, the man from the back seat unfolded out of the police car and towered over it.  Wearing a white tank top—a wife-beater, my mind insisted—his bald head sweating profusely, he slammed the car’s door and stepped over to my car.  I unrolled my window just a crack.

“Well?” he said.

“Well what?” I said weakly.

“Get out the car, man.  It ain’t going to drive itself across that bridge.”

As I watched, he pulled on a midnight blue shirt with a patch sewed onto the shoulder—a patch with a picture of the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

Uneasily, I climbed out of the car and went around to the passenger’s side.  When I got there, I found the door was locked.

He clicked me in and said, “Why you got the doors locked?  You think somebody’s going to kidnap you?”

I could feel my face redden as I got in and fastened my seatbelt.

“Who’s going to kidnap you?” said this giant sweating man behind the wheel of my car.  “You got a face only a mother could love.”

I looked at him doubtfully as he pulled out into traffic.

“I got to baby you and drive in one of the center lanes or can I keep it here on the outside?”

“Uh, here’s fine.”

He drove for a moment in silence, then he sucked his teeth and said, “You know you could drive across this bridge if you really wanted to.  Couple shots of Jack and you be just fine.”

My eyes widened in shock.  “You’re not supposed to be telling me that!”

He squinted at me and showed his teeth.  “Fuck I look like, a cop?  I’m a working man, son.”

Then I guessed what had happened.  Dispatch must not have been able to round up two policemen to share the duty of driving me across the bridge.  The one they did locate must have grabbed this giant off a job painting or operating a crane—that explained the sweat still gleaming on his head. It might not have been regulation, but at least I was crossing the bridge.

“You look like you from the sixties,” he said.  “Why don’t you just fire one up and drive your own ass over this bridge?”

He looked at me.  I looked at him.  And suddenly we both exploded in laughter.

“You lived in Colorado right now, you’d be going out your way to drive over bridges just to see if you could get Rocky Mountain higher.”

We laughed the rest of the way over the bridge, I telling him how my dad had worked with Bob Marley for a year in the Chrysler assembly plant outside Wilmington, he saying how he was almost sixty and thinking about retiring from the bridge crew and starting his own business driving people back and forth over the Delaware.  When he got to the other side, he stopped the car and put it in park.  I pulled out a ten and handed it to him.

“The cops won’t take tips,” I said from experience,” but come on, let me give you this.”

“No can do,” he said, lifting his hands in surrender.  “Against regulations.”

“Well then let me give you this, then,” I said offering him my hand.

He took it, shook my hand and said, “All right man, you have a good one.”  Then he stepped out of my car and was gone.

I was still laughing as I pulled through the toll booth and drove on my bridge-free way.  I thought of the big man’s pipe dream of driving people like me across the bridge for a living.  People like me, I thought, smiling and shaking my head.  They’re in for a hell of a ride.

R.G. Evan’s Overtipping the Ferryman won the 2013 Aldrich Press Poetry Prize. His novella The Noise of Wings was published by Red Dashboard Press in 2015. His poems, fiction and reviews have appeared in Rattle, Margie, Paterson Literary Review, and Weird Tales, among other publications. His original music, including the song “The Crows of Paterson,” was featured in 2012 documentary All That Lies Between Us. Evans teaches English and creative writing at Cumberland Regional High School and Rowan University in Southern New Jersey.

How to Get Lost

The first step is to fall in love with the only boy that ever remembered your name. His charmed smile and kind eyes wage a coup against reason and you don’t even notice. Ryan snakes an arm around your waist and your heart flips. “I like that you have some meat on your bones,” he whispers to you, pinching your side. “The girls I date are usually bony.” You automatically hold your breath, sucking in the fat that cleaves to your hips and middle. Martina, the last girl he dated, boasted a 00 jean size, and his summer fling, Steph, had collar bones that could be registered as lethal weapons in all fifty states. The Rice Krispie Treats your mom snuck into the side pocket of your backpack churn in your stomach. You wish she put weights in there instead. Then, at least, studying would count as exercise. But you hate sweating. And celery. Your t-shirt feels like a second skin, clinging to the valleys of your stomach. His grip is too tight and you feel the fat pinch between his long fingers. You try to leave, “Math homework,” you say. He tells you to do it later and leaves a trail of kisses down your neck. One assignment won’t affect your grade that much. 

 

[img_assist|nid=20731|title=|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=180|height=270]You haven’t done homework in a month.  That’s fine because math can’t kiss you back. The tests on the fridge slump, curling from time and lack of achievements.  Your mom asks if you’ve gotten any of your tests back, cracking a mom-joke about the fridge looking bare.  Except that every grainy inch of it is crammed with magnets from each state your dad went to rehab.  “The Rehab Tour” your mom had joked.  Good one. You mumble that your teachers are swamped with work in the middle of the semester.  She puts another batch of cookies in the oven.  You tell her that you’re going to the library to study. Your mom puts chocolate chip cookies from the cooling rack in a tin for a studying snack, but you throw them in the garbage cans out front as soon as you’re out of sight. Her cookies are pillows of chocolate and your breath catches as they arc into the trash.  Pull your shirt down over your hips and take a detour to his house.  He kisses you the way they do in movies: his face crushed against yours.  His lips are slow and smooth against you, while yours are clunky and inexperienced. But in that moment, cradled in his arms in his unfinished basement, it feels like love.  The warmth of his chest envelops you like an old blanket protective and safe.  Did your dad ever kiss your mom like that, before he started drinking?

 

She brings him Tupperware containers exploding with Mexican Wedding cookies when she visits him.  They are gunked with too much powdered-sugar, messy and over-the-top, like him. Can kisses do that? Lock you into his gravitational pull until you’re too far gone to turn back?  More dust collects on your books and in Ryan’s arms you can’t recall what a prime number was even if you wanted to.  The midterm is tomorrow.  The library closes. You are still in his arms.

 

You won’t notice yourself changing, not at first. But it’s inevitable, like your dad’s tenth relapse.  Don’t fight it.  Ryan makes an off-handed comment that you never do anything he wants to do.  At the first hint of disappointment, your heart rate skyrockets and cold sweat beads down your back. So you agree to go to his boring car meets even though you tell him you hate going, they always reek of weed and none of his friends so much as acknowledge that you’re there.  But you need him.  You need him and he doesn’t need you. So you tag along, following him around like a baby duck and coo at the lowered, rusty GTIs and Jettas haphazardly parked in the vacant lot.  Bro enters your vocabulary more than you’d ever hope to hear, let alone say.  You even start dressing to fit in, which mainly consists of hiding greasy waves under a snapback and wearing Calvin Klein underwear with low rise jeans so the band winks overtop.  You ignore  the push up bra effect for your side fat.  You haven’t eaten cookies, but they hang around your hips like an over-protective brother.  You hope he notices how hard you’re trying. You hope it’s enough.

 

Next, wait for your best friend to leave.  You think this is impossible.  A ten year friendship can withstand anything.  You’ve endured Lizzie McGuire getting cancelled and Sarah Pratt taking Derek to the formal instead of Lisa.  You’ve huddled together in matching ugly Christmas sweaters and smeared mascara because your dad was rushed to the hospital. That trip—there would be many others, but this was the first–your mom baked every cookie in her Pillsbury recipe book arsenal, the flour seamlessly fused with her pale hands.  That time was the scariest.

 

By the fifth time you and Lisa had the drill down.  You ride your bikes to get pints of ice cream, paid for in quarters from your piggy bank. It was always Chocolate Therapy, two spoons, and two heads pressed together.  When Lisa got her wisdom teeth out, her face was bloated and drooling. Chocolate Therapy. Your mom’s face was flour white with red blotchy eyes.  She made another mom-joke that Chocolate Therapy was cheaper than real therapy.  She dug her spoon into the container and swiped a mountain full of ice cream, fitting it all in her mouth and choking on it. 

 

Lisa buys Chocolate Therapy tonight. A solo bike rides down a wet road.  A single pair of tires sloshes through puddles, kicking up mud on her faded jeans.  One spoon peeks over the top of the container. One spoon and four servings. She takes a deep breath, preparing herself for the density of the pint. Lisa hopes that each spoonful of melting therapy will evaporate the image of her long-term boyfriend underneath a freshman cheerleader. That freeze-dried brownies and congealed dairy could erase his smug face when she walked in. Or worse, her best friend walking away. You were at Ryan’s, watching a documentary and snuggling your face deeper into his chest. 

 

 

 

It ends with a walk to the car. You walk out to your car with Lisa and there are daisies tucked under the windshield wipers. Ryan steps out from behind your shitty Hyundai armed with your favorite candy.  You squeal and run to him. He sweeps you into his arms and you never imagined anyone could lift you off your feet. Ever. Lisa rolls her eyes, a habit incurred from years of sitcoms and two older sisters.  The eye roll was an imperative currency in her household growing up; for the bathroom, the last cookie, and the remote.  While you are flying above her in Ryan’s outstretched arms, she rolls her eyes so hard they nearly leap off of her face. “We get it,” she mutters. Ryan drops you to your feet, wrapping his arms around you.  You both laugh, his smile presses into your cheek.  Lisa slams the passenger door, visibly frustrated with her arms crossed.  Ryan brushes a stray tendril from your eyes. “Frozen yogurt tonight. Me and you. Documentary on Netflix. What do you say?” Lisa leans over and honks the horn repeatedly until you finally break free of his touch. “JESUS! Of course, but can it not be the Banksy one? We watched it like ten times!” You giggle and kiss him, running to the driver side with your hands over your ears. Lisa angrily slumps down in her seat, knowing that you won’t remember the plans you made a week ago for a movie and Chocolate Therapy.  Knowing that you’ll blow her off. Again and again. And she wonders if ten years can replace dignity and loyalty.

 

[img_assist|nid=20726|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=180|height=243]Mom gets the call. Dad relapsed. Again. His sobriety is as fleeting as time. The hospital begins to feel like a family reunion.  Your mom sends the nurses Christmas cards, and all of them know you by name and are armed with an ample supply of awkward hugs.  Your mom paces outside of his hospital room.  You call Lisa from the payphone. No answer. No Chocolate Therapy.  You call Ryan.  You sputter into the phone all of the things you’ve been too afraid to say in person. The Rehab Tour, your mom’s cookies, Chocolate Therapy.  You wish you didn’t have to leave it in a voicemail where it can be quickly ignored and erased. But what choice did you have? You never go into your dad’s hospital room.  Seeing him from the hallway, slumped in a backless gown with tubes sprouting from him like particularly fragile weeds, makes it real.  He is always in and out of the house.  Mostly out.  You honestly cannot remember the title of his last job or the last time he even had a job.  Your mom is more ATM to him than wife. If you never go in, he is still the guy that rented It Takes Two and brought you Reese’s Cups.  He watched it with you three times because you kept falling asleep on his chest at the exact same part.  You sit in the waiting room and read bad magazines.  This one is fifteen years old.  You think you remember reading the horoscopes a few hospital trips ago.  There was an article about Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen; you read that one before, too, but this time you could have cried right then and there, big, ugly tears that leave ruddy splotched-cheeks and turn your nose red.  Lisa is never going to call you back.  You chose Ryan over a ten year friendship.  You aren’t even sure if he is going to call you back. Or if he was worth it.  How do you deal with this by yourself? You never had to be alone with it. In the waiting room or at home. 

 

 

This is the final step of getting lost.  Ryan says he found a new girl that’s different from anyone else he’s ever met.  He met her at the car meet when your dad was dying. When the nurses tried to resuscitate him. When the heart monitor bleeped over and over like gun shots and your mom collapsed from shock.  When you took the bus home because you couldn’t face it.  Apparently Ryan hardly checks his voice mail these days.  He says that you and he have too much in common.  It’s too boring, he says.  He talks about her bouncy blonde hair and how she paints.  She’s gorgeous, he says.  He talks about how cute she is with paint-stained fingers.  And she’s a vegan.  You bite back rage. He prattles on about her and you wonder if he lifts her off the ground or brushes hair from her face.  Maybe he kisses her in way that makes her hold on beyond a reasonable doubt.  You wonder if she likes documentaries.  He kisses you on the cheek and you pretend that your hair doesn’t smell stale and oily.  Does her hair smell like that? Do vegans use shampoo? He speeds out, his car scraping the lip at the end of the driveway. The snapback feels too tight and you spent a paycheck on underwear that he won’t get to see. You wonder if he’ll bring you up in conversation.  Will she be jealous? Probably not.  You slink into the house. Your lower lids act as a dam against the threatening tears, but it bursts when you walk into Disney re-runs of Lizzy McGuire. You want to call Lisa. Tell her about the hippie Ryan dumped you for. Tell her about your dad. Dead. Lifeless. Devoid of Life. You still can’t get your head around it.  Can ice cream fill a vortex swirling in the center of your chest? Blood thumps in your ears. Good. At least you’ll have a new pain to focus on. There are no cookies waiting for you when you walk inside. The air is cool, rather than its usually oven-related sticky heat. Your mother is sitting numbly on the couch. This time her arms are not pasted with flour up to her elbows. They are clean. Spotless.  You haven’t seen the freckle on her forearm in years. A new magnet is added to the collection.  This one from the funeral home on the corner.  New wrinkles crease her eyes and a new vein bulges from her forehead.  A black dress with tags is draped over the kitchen chair.  You sink to the ground, wishing you felt your dad’s flannel pressed against your dreaming cheek.  When you felt safe. For the last time.  

Jenna graduated summa cum laude from Ocean County College with an Associate’s in Liberal Arts. She transferred to Stockton University, where she is currently enrolled, majoring in Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing, and minoring in Writing. She has been published in a few small publications. She edited for the Sojourn, which is a school-affiliated magazine about South Jersey history. She aspires to be an editor, while continuing to write, and hopefully revealing a silent truth about the human condition.

The Bad Outside

On the day the others left, we’d all been watching from inside the gates. They didn’t open anymore, and even back then, they had been rusted shut at the seams of their locks. They made our hands smell like blood. The others, maybe ten of them, climbed under the gates where swampy trees had uprooted the concrete where the soil was soft and new. They didn’t look back at us from the outside, holding hands, and their Nostalgia Town t-shirts were stained with sweat and dirt. They disappeared into the parking lot, and we hadn’t seen them since.

Once Petey disappeared, though, everyone started to act funny. They talked about going outside the gates to look for him, because that’s the only place Petey could’ve gone. A lot of them would talk about what would be on the outside, about leaving the inside. I couldn’t let that happen because we were safe here. Our Moms and Dads left us here because we would be safe. We’ve been safe.

We could’ve been worse off. We could’ve lived somewhere cold, or too hot, but we’re lucky. A swamp can never fool you: It’s just a swamp. Nostalgia Town, where we’ve been living, is surrounded by a thick marsh. We’d taken shelter in-between mossy roller coasters and rusting whirly rides. The park used to be lit up and loud, always screaming – happy. Now the rides ache and howl against cool, marsh breezes at night – moaning, and we all cry with them. We used to cry for something, for someone. Maybe for all the Moms and Dads, but I don’t think we know why we’re crying anymore. Maybe it’s just nice to cry sometimes.

We didn’t go on the Outside. That’s where The Bad lived. In the Before Time, we all used to live on the outside. We used to go to school, and we had friends. We used to go on vacation to fun places like Nostalgia Town, or we went to the mall, bought new clothes and shoes. We had video games and dolls and plastic dinosaur action figures. On the inside there were only memories and us.

Only a few of us lived in Nostalgia Town. We’d all been in the same class together at school, so we were sort of friends before The Bad Time. We were grateful for that.

There were several of us left.  There had been more, but after a while in the sun, our faces sweaty and oily, the others decided to go on the outside. They went looking for their parents by themselves, because the seven of us didn’t want to go out there. It was still early on, when The Bad was new, and Nostalgia Town was less rust colored.

But we didn’t bring that up anymore.

Our timekeeper, Peg, used to put up one mark on the back of a popcorn shed at the beginning of each day. The wood on the shed was full of slashes and checks, for each day, each month, each year. We’d almost run out of space, but Peg was the only one who seemed worried about it. I don’t think anyone thought about it anymore. No more Christmas or Halloween. No more tooth fairy, or Easter bunny, or summer break.  We made things fair by having one birthday for all of us at the end of Peg’s calendar. The swamp was bad at telling time, and we all had just turned thirteen, so we weren’t interested, either.

Darla, Peg, Francis, June, Petey, Bug and I, we were family. We’d watch each other’s backs. That’s what a family does.  We gave each other jobs to so we woudn’t be bored, hungry, or dumb. We’d sleep inside of the old First Aid building on bunks with worn, wool blankets. Despite everything, the park keeps us safe from the wind and rain. The spider web moss clinged to the water-warped boards and gives us shade. Some of the rides still moved if we tinkered long enough. We could be safe here, and we all knew that we should’ve been – no, that we were definitely grateful for Nostalgia Town. We just wanted to make this work.

Francis and June were twins, real smart, and they did all of the scavenging because they were good at finding things. The swamp had tiny flowers and berries for us to eat. Petey was our cook, mostly because he was the only one who knew how. His Mom had to work all the time, he said, so Petey and his brother would make themselves dinner. He’d take the scavenged things from Francis and June, canned food and un-popped popcorn kernels, cotton candy sugar, uncooked pretzels, and the like, to make us two meals a day. If we wanted a snack we decided it was best to forage on our own. Sometimes Francis and June would talk about growing plants, but we could never figure it out. We would eat wild flowers and stale M&M’s, but everything always changes—stuff ran out.

Bug made us fires, and had already built some of the other stuff that we needed or wanted. He made us a table once, and chairs, too, and he always had a magnifying glass. Bug really liked to catch ants on fire, and we’d do that too, when the sun was hot. Lately, he was teaching everyone how to sew so that we could mend blankets and clothes, all of which were starting to become worn.

Then there was Darla. She had said once that we were lucky to all be friends. Darla liked to remind us that we could always be alone, or worse off, and then she liked to give us hugs and shush our crying.

If we didn’t get along together, or someone said something not nice, she’d say out loud, “No Mommies. No Daddies. No friends,” and that scared everyone just enough.

After a while, everyone decided it was just easier to help out, to stay friends, to be here rather than leaving. The outside was where The Bad lived, and we knew that nothing could be worse than that. We’d been managing, though. Like I said before, we’re a family, and family is important. That’s what they didn’t understand. They said that finding our real families, going home, that would be most important. They never asked what was most important to me. We never talked about it out loud, but I knew that the Bad would swallow them whole.

*

The day before Petey disappeared, we were all standing underneath a mushroom cap. The mushroom cap had moss on the top, and vines growing up its metal trunk. I remember it felt cool, listening to everyone breathing out hot air, picking at the ground like you would a scab. That’s when they brought it up again.

“But, maybe The Bad is gone now.” Bug said idly, his lips were chapped.

“They said that they’d come back, Bug. My Mom and Dad said so,” Petey had a knife in his hand, and had it stuck inside of a lizard, but nobody said anything when we all saw it move, “I just don’t think our Moms and Dads are even out there.”

Darla shot Petey a look. “That’s not nice to say,” she scolded him. Petey didn’t say anything, finally killing the lizard and wiping the blade on his shorts – red guts outlined his pocket.

“Well, if our parents said that they’d come back when The Bad is gone, then they’re gonna come back. They never lied to us.” Darla always said stuff like this, always rung her index finger around a curl in her hair, like she was sure.

“They lied about Santa, and The Tooth Fairy, too,” Francis looked up finally, and June met his gaze, looking at Darla. Bug, Petey, and Peg were all looking too, for an answer, or for Darla to get upset, or say that he was wrong. Darla smiled at all of us, a knowing smile, “They wouldn’t lie about the big stuff,” and with that it was decided we would stay.

It was a real hot, sweltering day when we realized that we hadn’t eaten yet. Petey hadn’t made us anything, hadn’t rung the bell for us to meet up for lunch. Darla and Francis were teaching us to wash clothes. I walked up on Peg, Bug and June setting ants on fire near the mossy water slides. Petey’s normal spot was around the bend in the first bunch of food stands. That was where he was able to use the burners and stuff as long as he made the fire first. It was empty though, the smell of grease and potatoes hung around. I kicked rocks around the overhang in the shade, wiped sweat from my forehead, but I didn’t say anything about Petey being gone. It was normal for some of us to go out and wander. It was good to wander because sometimes you found stuff, or sometimes you thought about stuff. Maybe Petey just had a lot to think about. When the others found out he was gone, though, they weren’t happy.

June tied her hair back in a messy ponytail, her forehead crinkled and beading, mud outlining the creases; confused. “Where’s Petey?” As I looked around, I realized that all of our hair was pretty long, and maybe we should’ve learned to cut hair.

After a while everyone got the same look on their faces, shielding their eyes from the sun, looking towards where I was standing in the shade.

“Elliot…” Darla’s voice carried well into the humidity.

“Yeah, Elliot, where is Petey? Is he over there with you?” Peg rubbed his stomach, kicking a piece of gravel away.

“If he was over there, h-he would’ve heard us,” Bug glared at Peg underneath a ratty dinosaur hat, one from the before time, “Elliot, he isn’t there, right?”

“No. Maybe Petey took a walk, to think about stuff.”

That seemed to rile them up. They shuffled amongst one another, and I found my place in their group circle. June began braiding her hair, a nervous habit, I thought. Bug and Peg were kicking dirt onto one another, while Francis and Darla exchanged a look.

“You haven’t seen him.” Darla reminded me of what my Mom might’ve been like for no particular reason, “June? Francis?” Her head swung to meet me, but I was quiet, my thumbs running over the dry cracks in my hands. They decided to look for Petey for the rest of the day, only coming back when they were worn out and tired. They then decided that maybe Petey went on the outside. Maybe Petey found a way out. I said that maybe The Bad was starting to come on the inside, but June told us that Petey would come back; he wouldn’t have left without telling us, and that helped everyone go to sleep that night.

*

June was the next to go. It had been a few weeks since Petey had gone, enough time for us to feel comfortable again, even if we were sad. We checked the insides of cabanas near the green tide pool, the ride houses, the offices near the front gates. All the windows were boarded up or broken because we liked throwing rocks or playing stickball, but otherwise the park was empty and abandoned and creaking as usual. Nostalgia Town never kept secrets from us.

Francis had been real upset about it, tugging on his fingers until his knuckles were red and raw. He and June had never been apart before, and Francis was half of a whole now. Darla was upset, too; the only other girl was gone, her best friend. Bug had lost his magnifying glass and we couldn’t figure out fires. Peg lost track of the days after he ran out of space on the back of the shed a few days ago.

“She wouldn’t have just left,” Francis’ eye twitched, “She would’ve said something to me. Darla, she would’ve said something, and if she wanted to run away she would’ve taken me too. We would’ve gone and looked for our parents together.” Francis kept running his hands through his thick hair, kept licking the corners of his lips. Bug and Peg stood silently. Darla looked to me again; her brow was stern, like a mother who wanted to scold you.

“Elliot.”

“What?”

“You’ve been real quiet.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“Why not? Aren’t you sad that June and Petey are missing?”

“Well, yeah of cour –“ Darla grabbed Bug’s hand, who grabbed Francis’ hand, who grabbed Peg’s hand, and I grabbed my own hand.

“You’re the one always talking about family. How we gotta be a family, and I don’t see you sad. Francis lost his sister, Elliot!”

“I am sad!”

“Oh, yeah? Sure seems like it. You’ve been real quiet.”

“I just am sad and I don’t have anything to say. I don’t gotta say something all the time.”

“You always got something to say,” Darla tugged on the connected hand chain, and Bug spat on the ground in front of me while Francis and Peg began to cry. She looked back at me with something similar to disappointment, “If you were really sad, Elliot, you’d say something.”

 *

That night the wind was bad. The carousel horses spinned and groaned, and the fallen Nostalgia Town mascot in the middle of the park whistled as the breeze caught in his neck. A piece of Sky Tower, the biggest roller coaster in the park, fell off and made a loud thud into the muddy waters of the swamp. The huge bang gave Bug, Francis, Peg and me a reason to climb into a nest of blankets. Our blanket nest was warm and comforting while the windows rattled and shivered, plush toys littering the inside. We briefly mentioned that Darla had gone. In between strands of Bug’s hair, my eyes caught onto her empty bunk. June’s empty bunk. Petey’s empty bunk.

It became more of a problem when we woke up in the morning and Darla wasn’t back, and Peg had gone, too. Francis hadn’t stopped crying, his lips were chapped and his face was red-stained, caked with snot and dirt. Bug started to rip off pieces of his shirts and I could feel my stomach get hungry and nauseous. We walked outside, leaving the safety of the blanket nest of the night before, and out into a cool humidity. The willow trees had shed much of their dead growth; branches had made homes out of the upturned gravel and muddy swamp silt. Planks of wood had fallen from the windows in the surrounding village buildings. Bug and Francis stood opposite of me, holding hands and shaking, and not just for lack of food.

“Elliot.”

“What, Bug?”

“Where is Darla,” We were all standing around kind of stupid-like, “Darla wouldn’t have left us.”

“Peg, too,” Bug chimed again.

It was true, and a good question, but it was too hot. Francis was crying so hard his body shook and no tears were coming out. I shrugged them off. Bug spat at the ground in front of me again, t-shirt threads hanging from his fingernails.

“El-Elliot we gotta find them,” Francis stuttered.

“I know that.”

“Well, you know how Darla said yesterday you’ve been real quiet. You have, ok! You have!” Francis picked himself up out of a crouching position in front of me; his nose and my nose were real close. Bug looked up from a hole in his shirt.

“You’ve been real quiet, Elliot.”

“And all you’ve been doin’ is crying,” I shoved him.

“Hey!”

“No, you hey!

“Seems real funny that you’ve been quiet. You don’t care, do you?” He shoved me back.

“Francis! Sto-stop!” Bug pulled on him; pulled him so hard he almost made him fall. Francis’ face was real red, and Bug’s knuckles were white. My fists felt like bricks against my sides and I said, “You wanna say what Darla said, fine! I hope you disappear just like her,” He shoved me back again, I was spitting, “You can disappear just like Darla and June, Petey and Peg. Ok! I don’t even care.”

Bug had pulled Francis towards him and the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder in front of me. We were all sweating, mad and hungry and sad.

“You care, Elliot.”

“Oh yeah, funny. Cause it was just you saying I didn’t.”

“Shut up. You aren’t funny or cool,” Francis kicked dirt at me.

“You better take that back.”

“No, Francis is right. You’re being mean.” Bug doesn’t have anything left to spit at me now.

“I’m not trying to be cool or funny or anything at all. You all won’t stop.”  I couldn’t stop tugging on my fingers. The others hadn’t moved. They were united against me.  All I could do was whisper, loud enough for them to almost hear, “I hope the Bad gets you!”

*

The blanket nest was lonely with all of the empty bunks and stuffed animals hanging around. A storm had picked up early yesterday afternoon, and it hadn’t stopped raining. The thunder shook the entire building; the lightening was the only source of light. Bug and Francis hadn’t come back last night, and instead the shadows kept me company, while somewhere outside I felt like The Bad lurked. I was too afraid to go out in the rain by myself, but I had to look for them now that they were all gone.I kept thinking about Darla, how she said they’d never lie to us about something this big, and it was true. Our parents always said they’d be back, “Once the bad is gone, Elliot. Mommy and Daddy will be back. Before you know it!”

I think I made that part up. I don’t know. It’s so hard to remember. It was pouring rain and sticky, but it felt good, like a really hot shower. It soaked through my clothes as I made my way past the calendar shed, the mud getting under my toenails. I knew where I had to go because there was one place in the whole park that would give me the answer.

When I made it to the gates, the rain seemed especially hard, almost like hail. It was coming down on me so hard that I had to keep my eyesclosed for a little while. I just stood in front of the gates with my eyes closed for a long while. I knew that when I opened them the answer would be there, I would just have to see it, but it made my head hurt. The rain slowed down, though. I was soaked through my clothes, but my eyes were open.

Everything looked the same. The same empty parking lot. The same empty park. The same rusty lock that kept the gates together, that sealed out The Bad outside, and the answer. My fingertips were orange, everything smelled like blood. Rust just smelled like that when it was wet, someone told me that once. Maybe it was Petey. I was looking for their footsteps, truthfully. Looking for a sign that they had left willingly, or at all. The mud around the gates was too sloppy now to tell.

Maybe they were just playing a prank on me, hiding somewhere deep in the park where the grass is waist high. That’s what it had to have been, one big, fat joke. They wanted to make a point. I didn’t talk enough. I didn’t stick up for them. I was mean. I didn’t look for Petey, or cry about Darla or June and now they had to play a prank on me because of it.

Maybe they had all gone on the outside. They thought Petey had gone there, and maybe that was where everyone went. My foot squeezed between the iron gates, but I stopped. My hands were shaking, but if they were out there, I needed to be, too. For a brief moment I thought about how they would’ve told me, or should’ve told me. Maybe they didn’t want me with them. I began to slide through the opening in the gate; I remembered a time when I couldn’t do this. I stopped.

“Guys?” It was still raining, but my voice echoed pretty far, “Hey, guys. Are you out there?” It was just a prank, they knew The Outside was bad, “This isn’t a funny joke, ok.” I’m saddled between two iron bars, not even sucking in, “I’m sorry, ok?” Nothing. Not even swamp noises, just rain and the smell of blood, “Darla…June…Francis…” I listened to the quiet, sucking on my bottom lip until I tasted blood too. I felt like crying.

“Petey? Bug?” There was mud in between my toes, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t cry. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder….” The Bad was close. I could feel it on my right side, the side out of the gate. “You can come back now. I’m sorry…” A thick fog had come up from the ground, swallowing up the rain and the parking lot with empty cars and vacant ticket booths, “I’m sorry, please, please, I’m sorry.”

I slid myself through the rest of the way, on the outside of Nostalgia Town. It felt like static on the outside. The pavement had started to crack from dandelions and new grass, “Hey, you guys…” No answer still, just the rain and the fog and the whistling from the wind against the rides. Maybe I’d go back inside. Maybe I’d wait for them and they’d turn up.

My bare feet felt raw on the pavement, hot. My stomach ached, and my wet t-shirt was covered in orange rust. I started to cry as I leaned my back up against the gates and shouted for them. They were my family. The fog settled, and the sky continued to spit rain. I slid down the bars, sat in the mud. “I’m sorry,” was all I could say.

I waited for The Bad to tell me what to do.


A current student at The University of the Arts, Emily is also a writer for Halfbeat Magazine, an online music publication, as well as an editor for Underground Pool. She is available for contact at emily@halfbeatmagazine.com.

It Is Not About the Stuff

“Mommy, wanna play Kings and Queens?” It’s my older son asking in his five-year-old speak if I want to play his version of chess. Which I don’t. I will anyway, however, because in the end it’s not folding the laundry that’s important. It’s my little guy. And the chess set is my reminder.

The wood inlay set came from an estate auction a few years ago, found when I was rifling through a blue storage tub full of board games looking for bargains. The tub and I were on the front lawn of a house in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb—a house I’d never been to before, belonging to a family whose story I didn’t know, beyond their curious decision to dissolve their assets through an on-site auction, opening their home to strangers like me so we could search through their belongings for hidden treasures at rock bottom prices. Like the aforementioned chess set that cost me three bucks.

The newspaper ad promised “Cars, Tools, Furniture, Clothing, etc.,” and along with it, “Real Estate,” which consisted of a three-story house with a backyard that included a swing set for the kids and an oversized shed for Mr. Mysterious and his lawn tractor.

Arriving early to survey the scene, I spied three cars in the driveway along with several boxes on the lawn filled with random utensils, mismatched plates, and bric-a-brac. Slipping around back, I saw garages and sheds full of tools and outdoor paraphernalia. Stepping into the rear of the house through the kitchen door, I found furniture on every floor, with each of the “4+ bedrooms” housing a full- or queen-size bed, a night table or two, dressers, bureaus, and armoires. Throughout the house were end tables and coffee tables, kitchen chairs and desk chairs, floor lamps and table lamps, and all of it—everything you could see—was for sale.

As I looked around, however, it seemed increasingly odd that all of it was for sale, that everything was up for bid, especially since it appeared the family didn’t take anything with them. For example: the kitchen cabinets were stocked with bags of rice, boxes of baking soda and cans of beef broth. And those dressers, bureaus and armoires were full of socks and underwear, suits and dresses. Even the jewelry collection appeared complete.

Back outside, the auction began on the front yard. The bid-caller was auctioning those randomly-filled boxes when, in my periphery, a brightly colored bouquet of silk flowers caught my eye. Like something a magician would pull out of his hat, they protruded from a shrub by the front of the house—gauche for a neighborhood like this, but I was too engrossed in the auctioneer’s chatter to give it much thought.

The vehicles were next—a Honda accord, a Toyota Camry, a Ford van—items for which I had no budget. I took this time to scope out the basement. In my experience, it’s those tucked away corners of a property where the real deals are. That’s where you find those hidden treasures you can get for a steal, like the Shop-Vac I bid on later and took home for a cool five dollars.

Near the Shop-Vac was a cardboard box with gold trophy heads poking out, and next to that, more of those blue storage tubs. I peeked inside hoping to rescue some long-forgotten stamp collection or maybe rare coins. Instead I found family photos. In a photo that appeared to be from the 1980s was the man I presumed to be Mr. Mysterious, about 45 years old. And there he was again, this time with Mrs. Mysterious, posing with smiles. Another taken in the backyard (I recognized the shed). The tub was full of images of every day moments; glimpses into this family’s private life, all captured for posterity, and all, it seemed, left behind.

The laundry area was under the basement stairs where bottles of detergent and cleaning supplies sat on a shelf. That’s right: bottles. Plural. Like someone stocked up at a buy-one-get-one sale and expected to be around for a while to use up all of that Tide and Mr. Clean. Nearby, the spare fridge was still running, keeping tilapia filets frozen for some future meal.

Now the auctioneer was inside, too. I tracked him to a third floor bedroom where, on one of the double beds, was a cross-stitch marking the birth of the Mysterious’ son. Like the family photos, it seemed odd this keepsake had been abandoned, with its embroidered pink and blue clown happily presenting the boy’s name and his birthday in 1987.  Again I lamented for the family at having deserted such a memento.

Then I found a second cross-stitch, nearly identical to the first, differing in name but not date! The Mysterious Family had been blessed with twin boys.

Crossing the front lawn, with an igloo cooler in one hand and a barstool in the other, I glanced at an unsold bin of household goods in the grass, my eye catching a commemorative plate that read, “My First Communion,” engraved with the name of one of the sons. I slowed as disparate images and details of the day came together in my mind. Like a Magic Eye puzzle, perceived chaos transformed into a clear image, telling the sad story, not of things that were carelessly left behind, but of a family that had built a life filled with love, a life tragically cut short.I traveled with him as the auctioneer worked his way through the house. I added a coffee table and a pineapple-shaped lamp to my growing list of deals. Eventually it was time to pony up. While waiting to pay I noticed the door jamb in the kitchen was covered with dozens of marks and dates indicating the heights of the two boys and of “mom” and “dad.” I was eager to take home my new-to-me possessions to escape the vicarious feelings of loss I was having for the family.

“My god,” I thought, standing by the driveway. “This is the house where the boy killed his twin brother and their parents.” I was certain of it. It had happened only months before and had been all over the news. The way it was reported, on a Saturday in March, 2011, a young man of 23 years, who lived at the property I was now departing, used a sword to kill his twin brother and their parents. In their home. Surrounded by their stuff. Some of which was now mine. And that young man was now serving three mandatory life sentences behind bars.

This explained the framed diplomas, the unexpired coupons, and, sadly, the half-used bottle of hand soap. The magician’s flowers confirmed it, lovingly left to honor the deceased, like a makeshift roadside memorial.

Suddenly I wasn’t so thrilled with my bargains. I felt nauseated. Had mother read to son under the pineapple lamp? Had father and son (which son?) played board games on my “new” coffee table? And at what point in the recent past—and for what purpose—had that Shop-Vac been used?

The idea of furnishing my home with these possessions now felt dangerous, like they might be contagious with madness and mayhem. Maybe those fears rose in me because, like Mr. and Mrs. Mysterious, I, too, live in a Philadelphia suburb with manicured lawns sporting purple and white petunias in the front yard and swings in the back. I, too, have an oversized shed where my husband keeps his lawn tractor. I, too, have two boys, preschool age, like those boys were years ago. Maybe when they were little the Mysterious Brothers liked to run around the yard, giggling, with milk moustaches and banana stuck to their eyebrow, just like my sons.

It was all a little too relatable. And yet no mother wants to blame the child. I can understand why that boy’s mother probably didn’t believe he was capable of what he was doing, even while he was doing it.

I spoke with a friend about my unwitting participation in the aftermath of this triple murder. I wondered what I was going to do with my adulterated possessions. She was pragmatic. “Shit happens,” she said. “Not to be heartless, but it’s the story of some other family. It’s not your story and it’s not your family. And the stuff you picked up is just stuff. It’s not them, and it’s not suddenly going to become you.”

She was right, of course. The sordid past of some coffee table was not the cause of the horrible decisions made that day. Stuff is “just stuff.” It gets left behind, lost, broken. It does nothing more than exist. Conflicts arise not from stuff but from people. Because, unlike stuff, there is mystery around people. They have emotions. They do more than just exist.

Now that I’ve been to that house, I have an idea about who used to live there. I know their story—or at least part of it. I know the parents loved their sons from the minute they were born and they celebrated their accomplishments throughout their lives. I know they filled their lives with opportunity and indulgence when and where they could. And I know that in a fleeting moment one of those sons made a tragic decision that ended it all.

I also know their stuff had nothing to do with it.

So now I’m going to focus on my sons—love and celebrate them and give them as many opportunities as I can. And at this moment I’m going to play Kings and Queens with my older boy over this nice wood inlay chess set I picked up at auction.

Editor’s Note:  In August 2014, Joseph McAndrew Jr. of Upper Merion, was found guilty of three counts of first degree murder, but mentally ill, in the deaths of his mother, Susan, his father Joseph, and his twin brother, James.  He attacked them with an 18-inch sword. All three were found in the kitchen with multiple wounds. The murders occurred March 5, 2011 in the family’s Gulph Mills home.

When a person is found guilty but mentally ill, they are sentenced to prison, but evaluated to determine if they should be sent instead to a mental health facility for treatment.  When and if that person’s mental illness is deemed to be under control, he must serve the balance of any sentence in prison.


Estelle Wynn is a creative non-fiction writer whose work has been published in Main Line Ticket, Island View, and Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber. Previously an urban dweller, she now resides in a 100-year-old farmhouse in a suburb of Philadelphia with her husband and two young sons.

In The Box Marked Sunday

Danny wouldn’t drop that fantasy of his. He jabbered at Maggie over breakfast, at the laundromat, when they were buying tires for the car that now needed a jolt of whatever made the air conditioner work. It was heartily blowing warm air that only fanned her annoyance.

“Would you want to get married on a beach in Jamaica?” he said.

“Why, when there are beaches here?”

“That mean you want to get married?”

“Please,” she said.

“Why not the mountains of North Carolina?” he said.

“Ticks, Danny, that’s why not.”

“San Francisco, then.”

“I’m not getting married in a raincoat.”

He was wearing sunglasses with mirrored lenses, so when his attention shifted from the road and he turned to face her, she saw only herself, slightly distorted.

“Do I make you the least bit happy?”

“Of course you do,” she said, “and please get your eyes back where they belong so we don’t die before we reach my mom’s house.”

“Your mom could use some cheering up, being a new widow and all,” he said.

“That’s a reason to get married, to cheer my mother up?”

“At least the timing would be good.”

 Maggie wasn’t mean enough to tell him to shut up, so she answered in a way that bought both time and relief and left room for clarification later.

“Let’s just say I’m leaning in the direction of yes.”

Danny slapped the steering wheel as though he was high-fiving it. “We can at least tell her that,” he said.

“We go every Sunday now, Danny. Maybe next time, we’ll tell her.”

The road was rising slowly, and when they reached the top, Maggie saw again what never bored her—the still-surfaced blue Intracoastal that curved narrowly between the Florida mainland and the beach. Enormous houses on stilts rose from behind the mangroves that lined the water, and now and then between, rows of mobile homes appeared, white as piano keys lined up on narrow black-topped streets. In a few minutes, after they pulled into Sunrise Isles, if Maggie stuck her head out the kitchen window of her mother’s mobile home and cocked her head just so, she would see a bit of the water. Maggie would never be caught dead living in a mobile home park, but she envied her mother this slice of a view. Her own view, from the apartment she shared with Danny, was the flat tarred roof of a tiny strip of stores, an eye doctor, a tanning salon, and a lawyer who specialized in DUIs.

Catherine Murray came to the door waving a black-handled hammer that she swung triumphantly in the direction of the wall above the TV. Maggie stopped. The Sunday before, the wall was a wall. Not now. In the center was her parents’ wedding picture. Circling it were a dozen more, all of her father, all by himself, in what seemed like an infinite number of celebratory poses: holding a freshly-caught fish, a bowling ball, a winning poker hand. In another, the skeleton of a roller coaster was behind him as he bent down, in the direction of what Maggie knew to be her legs, as she ran away from him. He was smiling, trying to coax her, meaning well, to ride it with him. She was eleven. She hadn’t been on a roller coaster since.

“What happened?” Maggie said.

Danny had settled himself in her father’s corduroy lounger. “I like it. Why don’t you like it?”“Nothing happened. I just did a little rearranging.”

“So when you rearranged things, where did everything else go?”

The photographs of her that had been on the wall— in middle school, in high school, on a cruise she and Danny had taken—were piled on an end table.

“I’ll put them in the hutch.”

The hutch was stacked with never used China and a collection of souvenir spoons from every place they had ever visited. The hutch was standing room only.

Danny ran his palms along the worn arms of the recliner. “I remember that one,” he said, pointing to the wall.” The one where he’s holding the fish. Bigger than what I brought in. Your dad was something, a good something. It must run in the family. I’ve got a good something, too.”

Danny was gooey about families. His had been miserable, so he thought every other one was enviable. When Maggie said she believed she didn’t particularly matter to her parents, Danny insisted that couldn’t be true, not at all.

Her parents did love her. That, she knew, but they never looked at her the way they did at each other. Even as an adult, when she stood between them, and that didn’t happen often, she swore she felt an electric crackle pass over her head.

“So,” Danny said to Catherine. “Maggie and me want to ask you a question. I mean we want to tell you something.”

Maggie had taken a place standing next to him in the lounger.

“What kind of fish was that, Danny? I don’t remember,” she said.

“Of course you do. Grouper. You’re the one who grilled it.”

“Good eating, it was,” Catherine said, “although your dad thought you made it a bit dry.”

“I thought it was just fine,” Danny said.

Maggie flicked her fingers across his shoulder, as though she was getting a bug off his shirt. She didn’t need any defending. She was used to this habit of her mother’s, to run interference so Maggie could get only so close to her dad, to suspect she wasn’t good enough. It was one of the ways her mother made sure that nobody came before her relationship with him. Her mother was possessive as hell.

“Married love. It’s a beautiful thing, Catherine, isn’t it?” Danny said. Now he was patting his pocket. You and Dick were regular experts. I’d sure like something like that.”

If he ever got it, he’d be the oddest man out among his friends. Maggie didn’t know anyone whose marriage lasted more than ten years. Her own, soon after high school to a man who rented her a car when she smashed up her parents,’ barely got past one. Puppy love, they called it, and they refused to accompany Maggie and the car rental guy to the courthouse.

“Here’s how you get it, Danny,” Catherine said. “You believe in your vows. People your age don’t even say the words we said. You make up your own.”

“They’re just trying to be special,” Maggie said.” What’s wrong with that?”

Danny patted the arms of the lounger as though he owned it. “I’m sure my parents said them, but they were just words. Me, me and whoever I married, they wouldn’t be words to us.”

Catherine placed the hammer on the dining room table. “Somebody here thinking about getting married?”

“Not this week,” Maggie said in her best imitation of her mother’s upbeat voice and then leaned into Danny’s ear.

“Get up. I’ve got to talk to you.” He was peering into his shirt pocket. “What are you looking at?” she said.

“Nothing.”

She pushed open the front door. He followed her into the carport. Her parents had once hung a ceiling fan overhead, but its motor had long ago burned out. Whatever air they might have moved was wet and close. “It’s miserable out here,” he said.

“It’s worse in there.”

“Let’s tell her. She could use a boost.”

“Tell her what? That we don’t have the money to buy a house? Isn’t that what you do when you get married? We don’t even have the money for a house.”

“So we’ll keep renting.”

“We haven’t even talked about kids. I don’t know if I want kids. I’m too old. What if I don’t get pregnant?  What if I do get pregnant?”

“Kids are nice. But they aren’t a deal-breaker for me,” he said. His voice had risen. For a moment, it was just a little too high for a man.

“You think it’s simple. It’s not simple.”

He stepped forward and put his arms around her. She felt his heart thumping, serious and slow. “It’s okay, baby. We don’t have to tell her today.” She opened the screen door to go inside and looked back at him. He was patting his pocket again. She rubbed her eyes. Enough sweat had gathered at her hairline to run down her forehead and make them burn.

Catherine was calling Maggie from the bedroom, asking for help, not panicking, just asking. Her mother was usually the master builder of cheerful fronts; when Maggie entered the bedroom, the front her mother maintained in the living room was gone. The curtains were nearly drawn, and the bit of sunlight that they did not conceal was a harsh interruption that made her eyes ache. Maggie reflexively turned away. An unruly pile of clothes was heaped on the bed.

The pile constituted the only answer to the question she’d had for two months, about where her father went after he had been rendered into a bony, gray powder and hurled from the sea wall that protected the park. Her mother told her to put the pants in one spot, shirts in another, socks, belts and shoes in another. Everything was going to Goodwill.

“You’re throwing him out,” she said.

Her mother worked quickly, as though she was sorting laundry she had sorted a thousand times before. “Somebody will find his things just right for them,” she said. “One day, I’ll see a man who reminds me of your father coming down the street.”

“And that won’t freak you out? It would freak me out.”

“Not in the least. He’ll still be in the world. Not gone like that damn dust.”

Grief quieted her mother, as it did then, but tears missed their cue. She had turned on a light and was matching the socks and tying them into pairs, one after the other. Maggie picked up her father’s walking shoes. The heels were uneven, a lace was missing, and the toes were scuffed from his daily walk up and down the streets of the park.

“Forty-five years. You were with him forty-five years and you never got bored with each other.”

The pair of socks her mother had just tied made a soft thump when it dropped into the pile. “Of course, we got bored. Sometimes we even enjoyed not having anything to say. The silence was a comfort. We didn’t expect to be thrilled by each other all the time. You do.”

Maggie felt vaguely accused, like she’d been caught lingering, which she sometimes did, in front of one of those bridal magazines racked in the grocery check-out line. She had believed that those magazines, in which the future came in shades of pink and ivory with a fair amount of crystal thrown in, were overdone to cheer up the women who bought them and who pretty much already knew the future would likely end up a deep olive drab. They were wisely pessimistic. So was she.

Her mother had stopped pairing the socks. “You’re all children, people your age.” she said.

She was 35 years old and two inches from indignation. Danny was the childish one. He believed in horoscopes and every stock tip he heard at the bar where he tended of late, he had trouble making his half of the rent. She tossed the shoes in her mother’s direction and walked out.

The TV in the living room was playing some show about dumpy places to eat when you have to stop on the highway. Danny was always promising that they’d just get in the car one weekend and go someplace, nowhere planned, and eat in one of the dumps  on the show. The volume was up. He didn’t stir when she walked past the recliner, and she didn’t hear her mother follow her, after a few minutes’ delay, into the room.

“Can’t you turn that down?”  Maggie said.

Danny leaned down to pick up the remote that was kept in a side pocket of the lounger. He did as he had been told. The TV went silent.

“My,” her mother said. “Would you look at that?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Danny said. “It fell out of my shirt pocket. I swear.”

A tiny silver circle was on the carpet. A pull-top of a can of beer, maybe. Not a ring. It better not be a ring. It was a ring. A small stone. A flicker of bright light. He didn’t get it for her. He did. But not now. Not yet. She would tell him when she was ready. She would know when she was ready because that buzz of failure she carried within her, in every circumstance, would finally stop.

“You promised me,” she said.

“I like the sound of that,” Catherine said. “Just like in sickness and in health. Those are promises. They sure are.”

Maggie spoke to Danny, and Danny only. “Out there. On the carport. You promised.”

“So things went wrong, if you think they’re wrong. I don’t.”

He reached down and picked up the ring. When he rose, she saw that his face had reddened. That was so like him. He was lousy at hiding his feelings.

He held the ring between his fingers and extended his hand. The diamond was bigger than she had imagined. And she had imagined it. Yes, she had. She imagined a dress and maybe Hawaii for a week. She had never seen Hawaii. After that, though, the screen went blank.

If the ring falling out of his pocket was an accident, it had to also be true that if the fool in a suit she was waiting for one night at a bar had not stood her up, Danny would have picked somebody else, and he would have been just a bartender working to run up her tab. And that middle of his, in ten years, that middle would be so big he wouldn’t be able to see his feet. They’d be one of those couples who eat in restaurants without speaking.

“Maggie,” her mother said.

She’d already bought some time and relief once that afternoon.

“Well, I did say I was leaning in the direction of yes.”

 Danny went down on one knee before her.

“Get up, will you? You look ridiculous down there.”

“He does not.”

Danny began to slide the ring on her finger. What if it got stuck on her knuckle? What if it was like a dress in a store you were sure would fit until you couldn’t get it over your hips?

The ring fit nice and snug, as though it had been custom-made. Custom cost money, maybe half the rent, wonderful him, sweet him, forever him, damn him for playing on her wishes.

Catherine launched into chatter about who at Sunrise Isles she would tell first. Dick would be so happy, she said, and scurried to the kitchen. She returned with a plastic tray that contained beers and pretzels, ice tea and cookies. “You’ve got me so excited, I couldn’t decide.”

Danny sucked down a beer. Her mother’s chattering resumed. They had to pick a date, but it couldn’t be too soon, and the park clubhouse was available because weddings were expensive, they had to be practical.

Maggie promised her mother they’d figure out the details later and told Danny that he’d have to wait for home if he wanted another cold one. She didn’t make a regular habit out of kissing her mother, but she kissed her then, on the cheek. Catherine kissed her back. Her breath held the sourness of age. As they left, she stood in the doorway, waving furiously her goodbye.

The car was hot. Stinking hot. Worse than the ride over, that Sunday afternoon. Danny turned on the radio. He liked oldies, doo-wop so old he wasn’t even alive when doo-wop was the thing, and some song about convertibles and starry skies was playing. He said some people thought words were just words. He said he knew. She figured that it might take a few days, but eventually he’d understand that she would have said anything to escape her mother’s house. Anything.

 


Mary Jo Melone is a writer in Tampa. Her work has appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, 2 Bridges Review and Crack the Spine. She is a Philadelphia native and a former journalist. Early in her career she was an anchor and reporter at KYW Newsradio.

Chapter Thirteen: Cities of Light and Brotherly Love (by Mary Anna Evans)

Life goes easier without love.  The poets would damn this for a lie, but it is true.

I should retreat into hiding. I’m good at it, and I’m safer when no one really knows me. But I want to be here. I want to be with her. Perhaps I can blame my indecision on Paris and its murderous spike of a tower. In Philadelphia, I knew who I was, but only in Philadelphia.

In Brooklyn, my edges blurred so profoundly that only three morning cups of strong dark espresso, brewed the way my strong dark Sicilian father taught me, could bring any of my selves into focus. Amanda, whom I did love, would bring me each cup, her anxious eyes watching to see who would emerge when I came fully awake.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that most of me loved Amanda. The part of me who is Katrina did not. All these years, Katrina has been as divided as I, and she never knew. There was the physical Katrina, my childhood playmate who stayed in Philadelphia and let herself be ground down by life. And then there was the Katrina who lived inside me, cheek by cheek with Amanda and all the others.

There came a day when it was too painful to have Amanda walking around in the world, doing things that the Amanda in my head would never do. Getting pregnant, for example. When the tension grew too great between Amanda-as-she-was and Amanda-as-she-should-be, I did what had to be done. I retired Amanda, whole and pure, to the Bar For Characters Who’ve Been Deleted From Stories.

Katrina, whom I’ve always loved more than a cousin should love a cousin, has lived in my head for a lifetime. She could have maintained her duality for the rest of our lives, if I’d stayed in Brooklyn, away from the physical Katrina. My return to Philadelphia meant the end of her corporal body.

I couldn’t bear the changes in her, you see, the fine lines around her mouth and eyes, written by financial catastrophe and by grief for the the husband she’d barely had time to know.

I chose a slow poison for Darrell Malfois, dusted over a slice of wedding cake and sprinkled into the big goblets of cheap red wine he downed every week at the DeSantis Sunday dinners. Within a few months, it was done.

Katrina wasn’t even twenty-five when Darrell died, but his passing left an aged sag to her facial skin, and I couldn’t look at her. Her pain was my doing, which should have bothered me but didn’t. The sagging skin, the dull eyes, and the slumped shoulders were the things that bothered me. I couldn’t love her properly when she didn’t look like my image of her, so I had to go. Or I had to kill her. After her husband’s funeral, I fled Katrina, and Philadelphia, too.

In Brooklyn, I found a kind of pale, sickly literary success and I found Amanda, but it’s hard for me to hold onto anything or anyone for long. The light shifts and my memory shivers and then I find myself, once again, barricaded in my room and living solely on food that can be delivered to my door. When it happened this time, I thought that home would make me whole. I told myself that I could live with Katrina’s changed body, if I could be with her soul. I suppose it was always inevitable that Philadelphia and Katrina would see me again.

But-and here’s the joke-I found that my careless, life-loving Katrina was gone. That wild and girlish soul was gone, even when I could see her body standing right in front of me. In her place was a woman who carefully counted out the cost of her dinner, every penny, and then undertipped the wait staff because she made even less than they did. In my valiant cousin’s place was a woman too ground down to free herself from servitude to the institutes of higher education who were wringing her dry. I bore the company of this damaged woman for as long as I could, until I had no choice but to free her and her little dog, too.

Now their bodies lie at the bottom of the Delaware,and Katrina’s essence sips champagne with the other characters I’ve deleted from this world. I don’t give a damn what happened to the dog’s yappy essence.

On a good day, with the right wig and when the light is right, I can look in the mirror and speak in Katrina’s voice, fooling even myself. I can only convince myself for a moment at a time, but I can do it. When it happens, Katrina is with me. So she’s not gone, not really.

***

Chelsea took a long drag off her cigarette. She leaned against the thigh of the man she very probably loved and wondered who he was. His name wasn’t Ben Travers. That was certain. She didn’t trust much of anything any more-betrayed wives rarely do-but she trusted her own skills as a detective. Travers’ trail consisted almost exclusively of his internet presence as a blogger and late-night commenter on internet discussions that covered an astonishing variety of interests. Even that faint trail petered out at about the five-year mark. There were no photographs, not even on his blog. His only physical presence was in the here and now.

He wasn’t who he said he was, but that didn’t mean he was a killer. Chelsea knew Ben Travers’ mind from the inside out, in a way that was far more intimate than sex. She had been reading his deep thoughts and strong opinions for so long that she was now like a spy who was so good at being a double-agent that she eventually found herself cheering for the wrong team. She wasn’t sure Ben was a murderer and she wasn’t sure that he wasn’t, but she knew that she didn’t want him to be.

Chelsea had exercised the same skill set on Steven Barr, who hadn’t given her much to work with beyond his books and three author photos that were careful to conceal more than they showed. Big, heavy glasses.  Eyes that never addressed the camera. A goatee.  Hanks of ash blond hair escaping from his pony tail and hanging over his cheekbones. A hand cupping his chin in a writerly pose that covered most of his mouth. And, in every shot, solemn and expressionless brown eyes peering out of a face that managed to be both handsome and nondescript. Perhaps this was the epitome of physical beauty, features so symmetrical as to be completely generic.

In the course of all this detecting, she’d fallen in love with them. Both of them. She loved the detached intelligence of Barr’s books and the shrewd muckraking of Travers’ political screeds. She loved the secrets in Barr’s photographed eyes and she loved the warm reality of Travers’ touch. But Travers was the one who was here. And Barr was the one that she was certain had plotted the murders of five people with poisoned salt.  Six, really because she would always believe that the crime lab had fucked up determining Angela Nicholetti’s cause of death. Barr’s books showed a deep and concerted study of poisons, and they told the stories of protagonists who hated athletes with the passion of the man who was once a bullied boy. He knew how to do the killings. He had a motive. The timing worked. It beggared belief that he didn’t mastermind the murders.

She wasn’t sure how he’d delivered the salt packets to his victims when the innkeeper said he’d been holed up in his turret at the times of most of the murders, but she had a suspicion that she didn’t like much. Early on, she had set aside the idea that Ben Travers had been Steven Barr’s accomplice. The Ben Travers she knew was too brash to do the work for or share the glory with anyone but himself. The only way she could imagine Steven Barr masterminding murders carried out by Ben Travers would be if the two men were one and the same. Based on the flimsy evidence she possessed, she just wasn’t sure.

Like most detectives, Chelsea was both aided and hindered by an extreme rationality, and she had rationalized her way into this solution to her dilemma: It didn’t matter to her if Travers wasn’t who he said he was, just as long as he wasn’t Barr. If he was covering up a dark past that didn’t involve her, fine. But if this man beside her was Steven Barr, he belonged in jail.

Also, if this man beside her was Steven Barr, then she stood every chance of ending up like poor, pregnant, dead Amanda unless she got the hell away from him. And, since all five of Katrina Malfois’ cheapskate employers had reported her missing shortly before Chelsea and Travers got on the plane that brought them to Paris, there was every chance that she would soon be joining both Amanda and Katrina on the list of Barr’s victims, if she didn’t flee.

She looked up at her lover’s chiseled profile, silhouetted against the City of Light. His straight nose was distinctly different from Barr’s aquiline one, which had been undeniably visible in all three of his author photographs. She had hung onto that one obvious difference, because she had wanted to love Ben…until tonight, when she saw his naked body for the first time and understood that he did not have the body hair of a red-haired man. That observation forced her to face another fact that she had suppressed: There are thousands of plastic surgeons in the world who are more than happy to give a man’s nose a new shape and never ask why.

This man whose right hand was stroking the curve of her hip was a natural blonde who wanted the world to think that he was a redhead. He was present at both murder scenes where she had reliable witnesses. He and Steven Barr both were writers skilled enough to attract an audience. Nobody had ever seen the two of them together. Nobody but the nearsighted innkeeper and the late Katrina Malfois could even say that they’d laid eyes on both men.

The facts took her to an uncomfortable theory, but they didn’t give her the proof she needed. Chelsea Simon needed to decide what to do, and she needed to do it soon.

***

I’ve enjoyed being Travers. I’m going to miss him if if he has to go sip sparking wine with Amanda and Katrina. Just because a writer is blocked doesn’t mean that he has nothing more to say, so Travers was born to be my voice until my wandering muse comes home and gives me another novel to write. Blogging has been a release, and I needed a release.

Bloggers can blog from anywhere. Hardhitting journalists can do damn near all of their research from anywhere, too, which is very useful for a journalist living in Brooklyn who is obsessed with his Philadelphia home. Years of blogging fame had passed before I let Ben Travers be seen in public. Even then, the appearances were staged to baffle without revealing.

A ride on Amtrak, two easy hours, brought me into the City of Brotherly Love whenever Ben Travers needed to make an appearance. A red wig, a trenchcoat, a briefcase, makeup skillfully applied to resemble facial hair, a fedora that was affected but did the trick-Ben Travers was these things and no more. Ben Travers can never truly go to the Bar for Characters Who’ve Been Deleted, because there is nobody to delete, just Steven Barr passing through Philadelphia and pretending not to be a man with a dissociative personality disorder and an unfortunate tendency toward homicide.

Katrina knew I was the man under the red wig, and eventually the man wearing red hair dye. Maybe she suspected the dissociative personality disorder. She may even have suspected the homicidal tendencies, but she hated the world too much to believe that it deserved to know the truth about me. She let me be Ben when I needed to be, and the alter ego was distracting enough to quiet the voices in my head for a good long while, although not forever.

Now there is Chelsea to consider. Can I keep being Ben, forever and always, living with Chelsea like a man who doesn’t have enough people inside him to populate a warm and intimate drinking establishment? Is it a coincidence that Steven Barr sends his cast-off characters to drink together for all of time at a very special bar? Is Barr even my real name?

Katrina should know. I’ll ask her.

But first, I must decide whether I can spend the rest of my life fooling a very intelligent and intuitive detective into believing that the man at her side is Ben Travers and only Ben Travers. If I can’t, then she needs to be deleted, too.  I need to push her out the window in front of us and let her fall six floors to the Rue Cler, as the Eiffel Tower’s murderous spike watches and wonders. Chelsea is a Philadelphian through and through, so I suppose she deserves a death that speaks more of brotherly love. A fall from the clock tower of City Hall, from the very feet of William Penn.  A dive off the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, perhaps. But I’m not in Philadelphia. I’m not at home. I’m going to have to work with what I have.

I love Chelsea, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t kill her.

I watch her take one last drag off her cigarette, study it with regret, and toss it out the window. Its glowing tip is visible for most of its long fall. She’s changed. She’s no longer a rule-follower, but I knew that. If she were, she wouldn’t be with me. Unfortunately, I cannot trust a woman who could go off the rails at any time.

Now I know what to do.

***

When Barr made his move, he was a heartbeat too late. Chelsea felt the muscles in his thigh tense as he prepared to shove her out the window, and she was ready for him. She was a cop, after all, and she was trained in hand-to-hand combat.

This was Barr’s weakness, believing that he could do all the things that he wrote about so well. She’d seen it when he’d been so obvious about tailing her in the Audi. She’d seen it big-time when he’d lacked the road skills to outmaneuver her when she’d called that bluff.

She dropped into a wide stance and used the forward vector of his shove against him, toppling him over her bent leg. His center of gravity passed into a place where he couldn’t shift it back over his feet, so he now had no hope of remaining upright.

Her fist hit his reconstructed nose as it passed her. Its impact shoved him through the plane of the open window and out into the Parisian night.

Naked, she watched his naked body fall.

Chapter Twelve: August (by Don Lafferty)

“Ben, Ben, over here!” The media formed a semicircle around the makeshift podium outside the courtroom.

“Ben, what’s your next move?”

“Ben, what about you and Special Agent Simon?”

“Ben, how does it feel to be a free man again?” asked Action News’ Dan Cuellar.

The August humidity was stifling and he loosened his tie. A trickle of sweat coursed down past his temple.

Free at last.

“I am, of course, pleased with the outcome.”

He paused to survey the familiar faces of the local media and the not-so-familiar faces of national media and media obscura.

“But wish that I had been given the chance to prove my innocence, while shedding a proper light on the events that took the lives of five people last October.” Travers paused, unexpectedly overcome with emotion that he’d buried for months now. Mickey put a hand of support on his shoulder while the crowd of reporters snapped and tweeted and Instagrammed the shareable moment.

“Five deaths,” Ben continued, “that remain suspicious and unresolved! There’s a murderer out there and mark my words, nobody in this city is going to do a damn thing about it.”

Travers was pleased to answer the torrent of questions that followed, but repeatedly referred to future articles on his blog and a book deal. The Truth continued its spiral down the drain into the dark underbelly of Philadelphia history.

Not only was the Court of Common Pleas unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ben Travers murdered “Pants” Deleon, but the prosecutor dropped the case once defense witness, Seymour Purnell, agreed to testify about one small event that occurred at the beginning of the case — the nature of the delivery of Nicolas Hodges’ corpse to the city morgue. Nicholas Hodge, whose murder remained unsolved.

When Assistant DA, Cheryl Garton, approached the bench to withdraw the charges, the look on Judge Parise’s face was a mix of amusement and disgust. The blindfold worn by Lady Justice is a dream illustrated by a statue. In the real world, judges have their eyes wide open. In the real world judges don’t always get the opportunity to do the right thing, which in this case had little to do with Ben Travers.

#

“Why here? Travers asked.

“What, you have a better spot?” Simon asked.

They lay together, legs tangled, while the top of the Eiffel Tower showered twinkles of light through the high windows of their sixth floor flat.

“I mean, why not New Orleans or Austin of Vegas? Why did we have to come all the way to Paris just to see each other?”

“Things are different now Travers.” Simon’s gazed locked on a space just beyond the window and Travers saw the twinkling of the tower light in her eyes, behind which the truth was locked. Travers’ journalistic Spidey senses were tingling off the hook, and he was determined to get to it. All in time.

Travers stood naked in the kitchen of the tiny flat and set about finding the coffee maker while Simon lay silently.

“Is anybody looking for Barr?” he asked.

“Steve Barr is a ghost,” she replied. “He got over on both of us, Travers, and now, he’s gone.” She swaddled herself in a cotton sheet and stood at the window. Below her, the market stalls in the Rue Cler were laden with a kaleidoscope of Paris’ finest produce for early morning shoppers, barely visible in the pre-dawn darkness. “Whatever. He’s not my problem anymore,” she said.

Travers handed Simon the steaming cup of café noir and joined her at the window where they watched the first rays of sun splinter through Paris’ night sky.

“You know I can’t just let it go, right?” he said.

“I wish you would,” she answered. “But I know you can’t.”

“And us? What happens when we go back?” Travers asked.

“Our worlds are too far apart,” she said. “Too many forces pulling us in different directions to build anything serious.”

“Serious?” he said. “How about real? Isn’t that what we are? The real thing?”

“Ben,” she lay a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be a man here, please. Look out the window. Look around you. Don’t fuck this up.”

She put down her cup and turned him to face her.

“Here we are Ben. This is what we have. That’s why Paris. Philly is the past.”

He pressed his forehead to hers and ran his hands up her smooth back while she leaned into his thigh. Simon looked up at Ben’s face and saw the twinkling light of the Eiffel Tower in his eyes. She kissed him with a tenderness that surprised even herself. Soft. Real. They shared each other’s breath and kissed again, deeper. They were the real deal.

Travers lifted Simon in his arms and carried her back to bed.

Steven Barr could wait.