Articles – Page 121 – Philadelphia Stories

Under the El Tracks

What I so clearly remember
From the years we lived beneath the el tracks,
Or just blocks from them, were the freezing
Waits for the train and the hopelessly long
Walks through the neighborhoods-Harrowgate,
Torresdale, Fishtown, the bums and crosswalk prophets

We’d encounter. Always the same: what will it profit
A man, if he gains the whole world? I remembered
Meeting one preaching outside the shut gate
Of a half-demolished art-deco theatre. He tracked
Our arrival, our baby strolled deep in her long
Afternoon nap, questioned our wisdom-letting her freeze

Like this. My wife with her camera busily freezing
The twisted steel beams, drooping finials, scenes a prophet
Might relish, beads of gilt debris melted in the long
History of midnight fires, crack, and rats. What we won’t remember
In the rush to rebuild. This was the place beneath the tracks
Where prostitutes sheltered all winter, their gate-

Way to cruising cars, one by one, with that skirt-hiking gait,
Raising 5 or 10 fingers, like figures in an ancient Chaldean frieze.
Everyone takes them in: walkers, drivers, passengers on track-
Less trolleys-you might wonder if they’re the harlots the prophet
Ezekiel railed against: Oholah and Oholibah as they remember
Their Egyptian lovers, whose members were as long

As those of horses, those sisters who continued to long
For the orgies of their youth, before the city shut its gate
To them. Officers with girded loins remembered
Even in exile, even in the heat of this deep freeze.
They crowd around, cooing over the baby-the prophet
Isn’t paying attention,-losing track

Of time and money to be made under the El tracks.
It seems they’ve been doing this for so long
You’d think they’d learn by now. Forget the prophet
Ezekiel’s rant, listen to Isaiah instead. Enter the gates
Of the city. Take your harps and sweet songs. Don’t freeze.
Sing that you may be remembered
Leonard Kress has recent work (poetry and fiction) in Barn Owl Review, Passages North, Harvard Review, New Orleans Review, River Styx, Atticus Review, and Philadelphia Stories. Most recent poetry collections are Braids & Other Sestinas, The Orpheus Complex, and Living in the Candy Store. He lived in Philadelphia for 45 years before having to relocate to the Midwest. He currently teaches philosophy, religion, and creative writing at Owens College in Ohio.

Who’s the Boss

All journeys start by leaving, that’s what Tony must have said
to Sam, packing the van, closing the door, the way epics begin.

Don’t look back. In stations of the cross, you move on.
It’s time to go, he smiles, pulls the key from his ripped jeans,

muscle line in his arms, like a sea wall
meeting sand on a Brooklyn beach

too polluted to swim. There’s an open road and a road that’s hidden,
brand new life around the bend. A theme song’s being sung, just for them.

He’s not sure who sings it, but he knows a thing or two: boxing, cooking,
secret blend of wind and lip to make a whistle. He’ll teach Samantha

to dance-steps only the old folks know. She’ll need to learn
how to speak Connecticut, make friends, shake off headaches

after crying. He’ll vacuum curtains upright, iron a sandwich for uptight
Angeler. Strange how it makes him feel like a man. Isn’t every departure

a return to who we want to be? He’d never admit
he is scared, he might not even know what to call it.

All that matters: they’re together, going somewhere in their beat-up van,
hands taking flight out the windows, future as go as the green light ahead.

Margot Douaihy has taught at Marywood University in Scranton, PA, and received her Masters from the University of London,Goldsmiths. Her chapbook "I Would Ruby If I Could" is forthcoming from Factory Hollow Press.

At Night I Smoke

At night I stand in the street and smoke
among rows of dormant cars, and all dark
save for sporadic twitching television hues

in third floor windows like the last heavy
winks of eyelids fighting sleep. When rain
leaves dry spheres under uncut trees,

when the doors dead-bolted and the
street lamps wane a bit and the neighbors
upstairs stop pushing furniture around,

I stand in the street and spread my arms
wide and smoke facing the line of sky where
a far off forest’s edge cuts into the horizon

and red lit radio towers pulse like postured
strings of Christmas bulbs and the stars all
strain and shoulder each other to be seen.

In the night as breath and smoke converge
and rise I stand centered amid arrested life
and say nothing, dreaming of sleep.

Dutch Godshalk is a poet and playwright living outside of Philadelphia. He holds a BA in English Literature from Arcadia University and currently works as a freelance content writer. In recent years, Dutch has worked as a volunteer for the Philadelphia Writer’s Conference. His poetry has previously appeared in Apiary Magazine.

Atop the Camel’s Hump

Island is a word that calls to mind countless pictures. Common images, ones we all share through vacations, photographs, or what we see on television: azure waves, pristine white beaches, palm fronds sighing in a humid breeze. Islands are places of peace, sanctums of serenity.

Well, not my island.

My island is ugly. Bare and bleak. It rises from the earth, fifteen feet high and dimpled like a camel’s hump, ringed by acres and acres of corn; an ocean of sweet Indian gold. Its muddy slopes are sharp and steep, treacherous in the rain. No soft carpet of grass adorns my island, no bed of furry moss. Instead, jagged thorns tear at flesh and snag on clothes. The island’s only thriving flora, an ancient white oak, watches the world and casts a long black shadow.

It is a truly unwelcoming place, and not very lovely to behold.

Yet I love it.

The Camel’s Hump I named it, upon staking my claim, believing I was the one person in the world to acknowledge this little plot of land, this poor wretched isle.

In the summer, when the country steams and sweats, the corn circling the Camel’s Hump grows tall enough to scratch the sky. Miles of corn, all green and gold in the haze of morning, the stalks glittering like diamonds under a layer of dew. Mice feast on kernels until they are too fat to flee the foxes, and foxes feast on mice until they are nearly too fat to flee the farmer. (I think he lets them get away.)

Several signs along the road that divides the farm and the adjacent neighborhood, read “No Trespassing” but for the moment I am blissfully illiterate. I’m only visiting, after all. The farmer will not fault one girl just for exploring. Corn swallows me like a gaping yellow maw. I run through it eagerly, losing myself among the stalks, the blonde hairs of the corn tangling with my brown hair. There is no north or south, no east or west; only corn, yellow and bright, rising up against a blue sky.

The earth trembles.

From somewhere out of sight comes a roar, followed by a great mechanical groan. The harvester coughing to life. For a moment I see myself racing through rows and rows of corn, desperate to find the road, but I am lost in the maze and the farmer’s tractor hunts me down before I can escape. My bones are ground to dust, my blood and organs and sinew squeezed out of me as out of a tube of toothpaste as the farmer drives on, oblivious that his bountiful summer harvest is now two ears richer… and two eyes richer, and ten toes richer, and a nose richer, too.

But then I see my island. The Camel’s Hump.

I can just make out the peak; the rest is obscured by towering stalks. The old oak stands sure and still, my lighthouse in the yellow sea. Its bark is ash-gray and splintered, its leaves fiercely green. I make it my target, throwing myself up the island’s steep banks, clinging to roots and rocks while the tractor wheezes by, flattening the yellow sea in its wake. Well, thank God I’m not down there.

I am the tallest girl on the planet—emerald meadows and farms and dusty roads unfold before me. I am in the heart of the Garden State. I wait for the farmer to finish reaping his field, with only the splintered old oak for company. Its roots, as thick around as one of my thighs, erupt from the dirt as though the tree tried to break free of the earth and walk the world. Ants travel up and down its bark, which is scarred by time’s passing. The lowest hanging branches are still too high for a girl to climb, but the birds make good use of them. A red-tailed hawk, sharp of eye and sharper of talon, scrutinizes me from the safety of his perch. His tongue flutters from his beak like a trembling pink worm.

“It’s hot today,” I agree, and the hawk wheels away toward the summer sun. I wonder, when the black canvas of night descends, will he return to the oak? Or will some slow-witted owl claim the tree in his absence?

Around me, the earth rumbles.

Puffy white clouds fashion the shapes of fantastic creatures, dragons and dwarves and dinosaurs.

I love this place. Despite the rocky soil and vicious brambles (and my near brush with death) I am at peace, sheltered by the old oak. No one knows I’m here. Not the farmer or the drivers racing past on the nearby road. Only the red-tailed hawk—and who would he tell?

When the tractor sputters to a stop, spewing oily black smoke from its rusty exhaust pipe, I bid farewell to my island, carefully slide down to solid ground, and cross the flattened field of corn. Crushed vegetation cushions my feet and softens my footsteps. I feel exposed and naked—the wonder of the yellow sea trampled to a bitter green pulp. There’s a shout behind me, likely the farmer, and I’m spurred to a sprint.

Over the field, across the road, and into my car.

The Camel’s Hump looks bigger when not flanked by so much corn, yet somehow more vulnerable, a secret revealed.

It is winter before I visit again.

Snow powders the earth and cruel winds sweep across the land. Branches, weakened by frost, splinter and snap, loud as a bullwhip in the eerie stillness of December. The animals have all gone: birds to warmer southern states, rabbits to their warrens. Humans venture into the world only once properly bundled up against the elements.

The oak looms in silent vigil, its naked arms reaching toward the blue-gray sky. The corn is a summer dream, but the Camel’s Hump remains.

Before I cross the snowy field I wonder how many winters the old white oak has seen. Twenty? Fifty? Has it ever seen a winter free of people? A winter before Hartford Road trundled along its left or Centerton Road to its right? A winter before the homes and farms and businesses? A winter before time? What ancient wonders, I meditate. What stories it could tell had the little seedling sprouted a mouth instead of roots.

I study the island from across the road. It looks as though an enormous camel fell asleep in the middle of a snowstorm.

Every season has its scents, I reflect, trampling across the unbroken snow. Spring smells like wet earth, summer like salty surf. Autumn has pumpkins and spices and rotten leaves. But winter freezes in your nostrils until your snot dribbles down your chin.

The old oak looks bigger. A handful of stubborn red leaves still cling to its branches, and a few are tugged free in the frigid winter gusts.

Carefully I make my ascent, pulling myself upward with one of the oak’s massive roots.

There are a few animal droppings here, but otherwise the Camel’s Hump has been left undisturbed. White snow, frozen earth. The gunmetal superstructure of the Cornfield Cruiser, an old US Air Force Space Command site, is visible from atop the island. The building belches steam, hot steam. Suddenly I’m aware of shivers rocking my body. My skin is raw and red, my lips split.

I have to do this quickly.

I take the Swiss Army knife from my pocket, a relic of the days when my brother and I were kids. Where once the blade had flashed polished steel, it now glinted dully, the victim of rust and mud and many gutted fish. Yet it would serve my purpose.

Normally I am not one for defacing nature, but this oak struck something in me. I want this tree to be mine. The sharpest edge of the Swiss Army Knife hacks through the bark with all the grace of a poacher chopping his way through the Amazon. Small slivers of wood peel away under the blade, pepper the ground.

In minutes I’m done. On one of the white oak’s roots I’ve carved my name: CASEY 2008. The letters are shallow on the root’s girth, a root like an anaconda with a tiny tattoo.

As I make the short walk back to my car, I wonder who would come along after me. Two lovers, perhaps, drawn by the solitude. Children who dream of monsters and adventures. Who would see my name? Would someone add his or her own? And in fifty years, when the world is all sterile and steel, will the white oak with my name still live?

So many will hurry by without a second glance. Who could be bothered to marvel at a gnarled old tree and an ugly hill plagued by thorns? Not many, truly. An island in the Bahamas would better serve them. But someday, someone will see the world as I did: from atop the Camel’s Hump.

Casey Otto just graduated from Rowan University with a degree in Writing Arts. She is a science fiction and fantasy enthusiast with a passion for writing about our natural world, specifically locations around New Jersey that have made a huge impact on her life. This story won Rowan’s 2012 Denise Gess Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction at Rowan.

Security Breach

Wednesday, March 20

54 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, NJ

6:30 p.m.

I don’t know where Teaneck is, but John drives me here twice a week. Doctor Berger’s house is on the residential side of a park, opposite the stretch of strip malls with glatt kosher delis. It’s cold today, even for March in New Jersey. Doctor Berger places the space heater close to the couch and pointed toward me in her basement office.

I can talk to Dr. Berger. The crisis counselor at the hospital made me nervous. Her name was Claudia, and she was on call that Friday morning. She was sent to my room, the one closest to the secured doors of the maternity ward. She looked fresh out of school and scared to sit by my bed. She tapped her pad with her pen instead of taking notes. New babies cried further down the hall, but Claudia never shut the door to my room.

Claudia didn’t know what to say. She hesitated even when asking easy things like my name. She never said the words stillbirth or baby, but we both knew that’s why we were there. I had arrived to the hospital in labor, and waddled into the emergency room like I was about to claim a lottery prize. Instead, I got Claudia in my room. My baby Liam died before I delivered him.

“The way she looked at me, like I was a monster,” I tell Dr. Berger again. “She didn’t want to be in the room with the woman whose baby was in the morgue.”

“Did she ever say anything to indicate that?”

“She didn’t have to. I saw it. I didn’t want to be there either.”

I couldn’t tell Claudia about the Rubic’s cube. Today is my fourth session with Dr. Berger, but I told her about it at our first meeting. I watched her record my words. Doctor Berger is a professional and can do something with my words. She doesn’t take notes as I tell her again today.

“My cousin gave me a Rubic’s cube when I was twelve years old because it was a good gift for smart kids.” I look at Dr. Berger. She nods at me to continue.

“I was smart but couldn’t solve the cube. I’d get the red, white and green sides, but the blue, orange and red would be mixed up, and I couldn’t solve those without messing up the sides that were already solid. There was this book called “Conquer the Cube in 45 Seconds”, and the guy who wrote it held the record for solving it in 20 seconds. He said anyone could learn to solve the cube in under five minutes. I believed it. I followed the diagrams, step-by-step, but I couldn’t get it. I spent that whole year turning a cube and feeling stupid.”

“Your expectations of yourself at that age seem unforgiving.”

Doctor Berger has pointed this out in past sessions. I look at the framed diploma on the wall behind her, still askew. It’s embarrassing to retell how I took the cube apart and reassembled it so it was solid on all sides. It remained solved and untouched on a bookshelf until I tossed it out during a summer visit home from college.

“Did you feel satisfied when you looked at the solved cube?”

“Yes, but that’s not how I feel today.”

“Go on.”

“I feel the same as when I was in the hospital. There’s something wrong with my mind. It’s scrambled, the core is off track like it got pounded by a brick. There’s cubelets missing. The ones that are still attached don’t turn smoothly. No, they just don’t turn at all. Here, right here.” I tap above my eyebrows with the fingertips of both hands. “My head. It feels like that, like someone kicked me right here.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “Right here. It’s broken.”

“This is not unusual,” Dr. Berger reassures.

I ask her again if I’m losing my mind. John brings me tea in bed many mornings, and I think how nice he is but don’t recognize him as my husband. I don’t leave home alone. I forget where I am. It’s like I suddenly wake up, but I wasn’t sleeping.

I look at my cuticles, picked and gnawed raw. Doctor Berger hands me “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”. She asks me to look at the bold letters on page 463 again: 309.81, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

“You’re reacting to cues that remind you of the event or something that creates anxiety. At those moments, yes, you do lose touch with reality. Visualize the happy place in your mind. You can stay there until you feel safe.”

She forgets I’ve asked her to call it a safe space. Happy place sounds like a drug-induced fantasy where trees turn to lollipops. It makes me feel defeated and pathetic. She asks how I feel about my trip to Puerto Rico. I’m leaving in the morning to spend ten days with my family. I’m afraid to interrupt my treatment, but I can’t stay in New Jersey.

“Can I call you, please, if it’s necessary?” I ask.

“Of course. Remember what we’ve been working on: recognize the signals. Breathe before you react. Think of the happy place. You’re safe now, Nancy. You’re not in the hospital.”

Doctor Berger reminds me to be patient. It’s only been six weeks since I left the hospital. I don’t know if six weeks is just yesterday or another lifetime. Our session is up after 45 minutes, and she walks me to the door. I see my truck at the curb with John waiting in the driver’s seat.

“I’ll see you in two weeks,” she says. “Have a safe and restful trip.”

***

Thursday, March 21

5 Liberty Avenue, Jersey City, NJ

5:47 a.m.

Everyone says going away to Puerto Rico will be good for me. I will surrender to the intensive care of the Marreros, my family, for ten days. I might rest. John and I have not slept since I was released from University Medical Center. No one warned us empty cribs keep you awake at night. John is afraid I’m not resting enough. He watches me as I keep my eyes closed and pretend. Hours pass every night, both of us suspended in silent darkness. We’re raw, edgy, and confined to our condo by this bitter winter.

John returned to work two weeks after my release. I still have six weeks of what was originally supposed to be maternity leave. I don’t think it’s good to be by myself. I got lost in our building. Right in our building. The hallways didn’t look familiar. The man who owns Freddy, the grey schnauzer, found me on the second floor and accompanied me back to the fourth. I didn’t recognize him but I recognized Freddy, and felt I could trust someone with such a nice dog.

I need to get away from the highway overpass being built yards from our windows. The traffic improvement project began before I was even pregnant. It continues every day, day and night, through this snowless winter. The construction crew started up again about 30 minutes ago. The pile drivers thud and unsettle the inside of my head. I squeeze my head between my hands and pace our bedroom, but I still hear the pounding. I want to tear at my skin with each pound. Some days I feel the bathroom tile tremble beneath my feet. That’s why I had called my Aunt Cruza in Puerto Rico. I needed to tell somebody to take me away.

“Mi amor, what do you need? I’ll come to you. I’ll book a flight right now,” she had said.

“No. Please. I need to be with you. I need you.”

I begged her repeatedly until I wasn’t sure if I meant Cruza, all the Marreros or someone else entirely. John and my family made the arrangements. Electronic communications between New Jersey and the island must have crashed networks worldwide. I had an itinerary within 36 hours: Nancy Marrero-Twomey; one adult passenger; Continental Airlines flight 527; departs Thursday, March 21 at 11:57 a.m.; non-stop to Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport.

***

8:07 a.m.

I shouldn’t have believed Slim Cognito’s promises. The body shaping undergarment looks like a pair of black cycling shorts for a circus monkey. The packaging claims the super-duper body shaper is a luxe wardrobe solution, ideal for every occasion when you want to wow. I write marketing copy for a living, and know bullshit when I read it. My family won’t be wowed when I land in Puerto Rico in a few hours. Things might get ugly when I bloat in the plane’s pressurized cabin, and compromise Slim Cognito’s compression technology. I gyrate and try to pull the elastic fabric to below my breasts. I’m sweating from the effort.

“Need help?”

I don’t hear John enter our bedroom and he startles me. The waistband slips from my grip and snaps my lower belly.

“I’m not sure you can.” I grab the fabric in my fists again, determined.

The mirror reflects John standing behind me. He keeps his distance, confused by my hopping, the Slim Cognito, or both.

“It’s called a body shaper. It’s fat-girl underwear to make me look smooth.”

“You’re not fat.”

“I look like I’m still pregnant.”

“It’s only been six weeks, Nan.”

“I’ll die if anyone asks if I’m pregnant.”

John pauses, as he does before he questions a volatile witness. “Do you think anyone would?”

“I don’t want to find out. People say stupid things.”

“They mean well.”

“Whatever they mean, it makes me feel like shit. I wish they’d shut up.”

Our eyes meet in the mirror. I look at myself to break our gaze. I’m a wreck. My breasts hang like empty sock-puppets against my stomach. At another time, I would have looked at John in invitation to reach from behind. Any touch reminds me that I’m not looking good, but I’ve been able to hide under winter layers.

It’s eighty-two degrees in Puerto Rico. I’ll be there in less than seven hours, in shorts and a tee shirt. The last time I dressed so lightly was September. I was pregnant. John and I hadn’t told anyone we were still trying to conceive. We wouldn’t need to deliver bad news again to family and friends if no one knew. But this pregnancy was different. I made it past the first trimester.

See ya, I thought when I exited the waiting room of the fertility clinic for the last time. Let other women sit in that limbo. My nipples were as prominent as my belly button in the thin tee shirts I wore past Labor Day.

That was September. I still carry a belly that makes me look pregnant. It rests on my lap when I sit. There’s no baby in that space. Our baby died in my body. At thirty-nine weeks of pregnancy.

I had looked perfect. I held my belly like a jewel set between my hands. Our baby was perfect. John and I kept the ultrasound images tucked into the mirror. I could see right into him, his vertebrae a string of impossibly miniature pearls against the dark backdrop of my womb. I stored those images in the box with the sympathy cards, in what was to be Liam’s room.

I look at me and John in the mirror this morning.

What a pair.

“Could you give these things a hike in the back as I pull up the front?” I ask him.

“Uh, okay.”

John steps forward, the master of unsexy tasks for the past six weeks: stuffing ice packs into my sports bra to numb my engorged post-partum breasts. Rinsing my vaginal stitches. Carrying the life-preserver orange circle cushion, the only thing that makes sitting tolerable.

“Damn, these things are tight. How do you breathe?”

“I don’t think I’m supposed to.” I wiggle my hips and hop. “I just need one last tug. Pull like you’re giving me the mother of all wedgies.”

“It doesn’t have to be that much.”

“Yes it does. Now get ready. On three.” I hold the front of the waistband in my fists. John grabs the back and leans over me. Our eyes meet in the mirror. He gives a small nod.

“Okay,” I say. “One. Two. Three.”

We hoist simultaneously with a force that almost sends me into the mirror.

***

8:42 a.m.

My carry-on and toiletries are the last things to pack this morning. The medicine cabinet is overwhelming. Do I need antibacterial bandages? There’s floss, a supply of contact lenses. Will I need extra pairs of contact lenses?

John enters the bathroom. Before I can ask him why I’m standing by the sink, he begins to put toiletries into clear Ziploc baggies.

“That’s my stuff, silly,” I say as he dries my toothbrush before bagging it.

“I’m helping you pack. You’re going away, Nan. Your flight’s this morning.”

“I remember.” I turn away. I can’t watch him packing my cosmetics like an aide.

A woman’s face looks at me from the mirror above the sink. Her forehead is aged. I recognize the Marrero crease between her eyebrows. Her nose, full cheeks, and unsmiling lips are familiar. I saw them on Liam’s face. Those features were beautiful on him.

I forget why John and I are in the bathroom.

***

Parking Lot C

Newark Liberty International Airport, NJ

10:32 a.m.

I agreed with John that leaving for the airport after 10 a.m. would leave time to catch my flight. It took 15 minutes just to get through the construction outside of our building. Take-off is in less than two hours. We’re still in the airport parking lot. The web sites for Newark Airport and Continental Airlines both strongly recommend checking-in two hours before domestic flights. We should have left earlier. We’d already be inside the terminal. I might already be sitting at the gate with a coffee.

John takes my wheeled carry-on from the back of our truck. He rests one hand on the rear gate and pats his coat with the other.

“Yes, the keys are in your pocket. Hurry up,” I want to yell, but it’s too cold to uncover my face. My hat and hood muffle the slam of the truck’s rear gate. John reaches out his hand to me. I hold his arm like an anxious elderly aunt. I watch my feet and the ground. Pebbles of Ice Melt crunch under our treads.

The flat landscape of the parking lot is alien. I see three men in the distance. They’re sexless in thick coveralls, insulated from the 18 degree temperature. They push Ice Melt spreaders around the lot. I’m afraid they’ll spatter me. John guides me past the parking lot barricades, assures me it’s okay to cross the three car lanes, and we continue into Terminal C.

The terminal lower levels are dim. The escalators are slow and catch as we ascend. I remind John to stand on the right side of the escalator so others can pass. I don’t laugh at his comment that I’m usually one of those left-side sprinters.

“It’s a joke, Nan. It’s good you’re standing still.”

The concourse level opens around us at the top of the third escalator. Light comes through the walls of windows and the ceiling soars three levels above us. The sounds of wheels, on luggage and clinking carts, slip inside my hood and into my ears. I hear beeps, pages and soft-toned announcements. There are monitors and directional signs to show where you are and where you need to go. I see an airline employee, a young man, smiling and chit-chatting with the woman in the wheelchair he pushes. She’s white, very heavy, spilling over the edges of the seat, and holding a tote on her lap. She’s smiling, too. She looks nothing like me. I had been giggly with anticipation when the young Filipino man wheeled me to the maternity and delivery ward. I put my mitten over the scarf covering my mouth.

“Are you okay?” John asks. “Are you going to be sick?”

I shake my head. Port Authority officers walk through the terminal, carrying semiautomatic weapons. The back of my throat tastes sour. I hope silently that they won’t notice me, just continue walking.

There is no safe place for terrible mothers. Only a monster leaves her baby in the ground on a February morning. Officers on motorcycles escorted us to Holy Name Cemetery that day. They held traffic at intersections. The morning was flash-explosion bright. I saw the cops’ faces through my reflection in the limo window. One looked so young, his boy face red from the cold. The windows were tinted, but he knew I was in there. Baby killer, I read on his face. Only monsters give birth to dead babies.

“This is too much.”

John lowers my hand and scarf from my mouth, pulls back my hood, and takes off my hat. I’m puffy as a marshmallow in my coat, like a theme-park character without the oversized head. “There. Maybe now I can hear you.”

“It’s almost eleven o’clock. I can’t miss my plane.”

“It’s only 10:40,” John begins, but I’m already approaching the Continental Airlines kiosk.

The screen blinks. “Please wait as your boarding pass is printed”. I pull at the pass as soon as an edge appears.

“Okay, check the departures,” I announce and walk to my right.

“Nan, this way.”

“I know!” I turn to the left.

“Departs to San Juan, 11:57 a.m. Status is on time. I need to be at Gate 36.”

“Did you want to get a coffee?”

I inhale, and look over my shoulder.

“There’s no time now, John. Please. I need to go through security to get to my gate.”

There is only one ticket agent checking boarding passes and IDs by the sign that reads “Only ticketed passengers allowed beyond this point.” The line of travelers snakes around repeatedly. John and I stand four deep from the entry. I sweat like I’m already in the tropics.

“I told you we should have left earlier. There’s not enough time.”

“You have plenty of time.”

“No, I don’t. Can’t you see?”

John pauses before he answers. “Don’t start.”

“What? Don’t start what?”

John glances around, then looks at me with his swollen eyes. They’re just like Liam’s. “Get in line if you’re worried about time.”

I step into line before an approaching clump of women. John and I stand behind four spring break types, female undergrads in Montclair State University sweatshirts and shorts with “Juicy” and “Pink” printed across their butts. The group immediately behind us doesn’t sound like they’re from the Northeast. They are excited about their first trip to “Perderico.”

“It could become the fifty-second state,” one of the women announces.

John looks distant, standing right next to me and holding my luggage. We’re silent, just as we were on the drive to the airport. That’s the thing about losing a child: There are no words. I get angry when John speaks about Liam’s death. I talk about “being in the hospital.” It makes other people less uncomfortable. No one has to say, “When Liam died.” Those words don’t make sense.

The line barely moves. A man to my left talks on his cell phone to his administrative assistant. He guides her step-by-step through his computer’s directories and folders to find his urgent presentation. I want to tear out of my skin.

“Aren’t you hot?” John asks.

“No,” I answer, shivering. “How can they only have one person up there? How can they not be prepared?”

“They’re professionals. They can handle it, I’m sure.”

It’s ridiculous. The agent greets each passenger individually. She looks at the face, the boarding pass, the ID, then the face again. I can’t believe she’s allowed to waste time like this. She should concentrate on her job as intently as I’m staring at her. The sign states clearly everyone must be prepared for their turn with documents already in hand. If John wasn’t with me, I’d tap the shoulders of those undergrads ahead of me and tell them to be prepared.

John interrupts my thoughts. “Was that you as a kid?”

He points toward a boy, maybe middle-school-aged, standing ahead of us. A minor traveling alone, wearing a lanyard with an ID around his neck like I did every summer when I was growing up.

“Kind of. Except my parents would hover till the last minute when they had to hand me off to the stewardess. They would have escorted me onto the plane and buckled my seat belt if they could.”

John snorts. I’m almost forty years old, but my family will be waiting on the other side. They’ll stand right in front, where I can see them, like they’ve done since I was little Nancy. I envy that kid. He’s as casual as if he’s on line at McDonald’s, engrossed in his texting, and backpack straps hanging off his bent elbows. He looks Puerto Rican, honey colored and curly haired like me. I imagine there’s family on la isla preparing for his arrival, too: an uncle grumbling about traffic to the airport; an aunt preparing arroz con gandules frescos to keep warm on a stove top. I’ve joked with John that my childhood summer visits to the island were the family sponsored Fresh Air Fund, coordinated so little Nancy could escape the projects and inner city.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“You have time.”

“Could you just tell me what time it is?”

John looks at me. It is not gentle. His eyes are red. I don’t know when or if he’s slept.

“Never mind.”

“Good.”

“I just don’t want to miss my plane.”

“Nancy,” he says and takes his hand from his pocket. I barely feel his touch through the sleeve of my coat. “Believe me. I’ll get you on that plane.”

I don’t ask for the time again. I can see the watch of the woman to my left, a full line length ahead of us.

“Any big plans while the wife is gone?” I ask to make conversation and ignore that it’s past eleven o’clock.

John shrugs. “Just work.”

“Will it be busy?”

“Busy enough.”

“How’s the trial going?” I ask, though I know. John and his client were on the front page of The Hudson Journal just last week when the judge denied the multipersonality defense. The man faced capital punishment until it was repealed in New Jersey. Now he faces life. I know John will visit his client at the jail as he does twice every week. He’ll speak with his client’s doctors, make sure the man is taking his medications, and provide the only genuine interest the man gets. It’s typically the calm personality who’s present during John’s visits, but I worry. The man has a very violent side. I insist John call me at the end of every visit.

“The work just keeps going. You know how it is. It’ll be going for a while.”

Two additional employees join the original agent. The line stirs, and the momentum worries me, like a current might sweep my feet from under me. I remember the advice the guide gave me and John when we went white-water rafting a few years ago.

“Keep your feet up.”

“What was that?” John leans toward me.

“Nothing. I was just thinking of when we went rafting that time in Frenchtown.”

“That was a while ago.”

“Yeah.” I remind myself I’m not in a river. My feet won’t get caught in a tree limb nor my body weighted by my down coat.

“You’re almost up,” John says. “Got your¼”

“Yeah,” I answer, pulling my driver’s license from my wallet.

John looks at the photo on my license. “Your hair was so long.”

I don’t recognize the woman in the photo. Everything is different about her. The photo isn’t even two years old. I don’t answer John and don’t want to engage in small talk. We’re approaching the checkpoint, and one of those agents might decide I’m not the woman in the photo. I have to remain calm and focused.

The original agent is still all smiles. The male agent to her right squints at the snaking line, and the woman to her left is humorless.

“Excuse me. Excuse me,” says the male agent, too weakly to get anyone’s attention.

“Attention!” barks the humorless woman. “Everyone should have their boarding pass and ID in hand. Do not wait until it is your turn. Be. Ready. Now.”

I do not want to take my turn with that woman. I count the number of people ahead of me, but there is no way to predict which agent will check my ID. The woman whose wristwatch I’ve been watching gets through the male agent without incident. I look again at my license, then at John, who’s staring ahead.

The minor traveling alone is attended by the smiling woman. He waits to the side for another agent to accompany him through the metal detectors to the gate. I’m getting closer. My tee shirt sticks to my back. I don’t ask John how well-trained these front-line workers are in identifying unusual behavior. It’s better if one of us can remain calm and natural.

The undergrads each take their turn. I stand behind “Juicy”, and she gets waved forward by the male. The smiley woman is still wasting time grinning at everyone. I stand at the head of the line and hope she calls for me. The humorless one becomes free and stares right at me.

“Next!” she yells.

I wonder if I should let the women behind me, the ones who’ve never been to the future fifty-second state, go ahead.

“It’s you, Nan.”

“I know! Don’t rush me.” I try to act normal as I approach. John walks behind me with my wheeled carry-on. The agent’s name is on the ID on the lanyard around her neck: Lorraine. Her photo is dated but the penciled eyebrows and hard-set jaw are clearly hers. I can smell the cigarettes on her clothes. I hold the boarding pass over my license.

“I need your, oh, you have it already. Hmm. Nancy Marrero-Twomey.” She glances at the boarding pass, my license, me, the license again.

I’ll be taken out of line if she notes a discrepancy, escorted to a room and questioned. I don’t know why that woman in the photo is not me. John is an attorney, but he can’t defend me if he doesn’t know why I’m not that woman.

Lorraine hands everything back to me. “Okay. Will it just be you traveling today?”

I nod.

"Did anyone pack your bag or give you anything to carry?”

A lump lodges in my chest. It’s a trick question. I watched John bag my eyelash curler and eczema lotion this morning. Lorraine won’t believe I’m incapable of packing my own toothbrush. The woman in my license photo can pack her own bag, but I’m not her. I stand in front of Lorraine, with John by my side, afraid she will ask more questions.

Lorraine breathes out loudly through her nose and looks upward. "Did anyone…"

"Yo no se," I blurt.

Lorraine places both hands on the stand before her and leans toward me. "Excuse me?"

She could unravel everything, keep me from getting on the plane, keep me in New Jersey. I begin to pant, shallow, like a dog sensing thunder. Why did I let John pack my bags? He prepares his clients for questioning, why didn’t he prepare me? If I had more time, I’d know what to do.

"My wife has trouble with English," John lies.

"Well, does she understand the question? Can she answer?"

I know John can’t repeat any of this in Spanish. I grab his sleeve and say the few words I know he understands. "Si. Si entiendo."

"Okay, muy bien," he answers with the few words he knows and pats my hand.

"She understands. Yes, it’s her bag."

“That’s not what I asked. Does she understand the question?”

John steps forward. “She understands English. She doesn’t feel comfortable speaking it.”

I steady myself with John’s arm. My tee is sopped under my coat, and my tongue is stuck in my mouth. I pucker for saliva and repeat, “Si. Si entiendo.”

“Is she talking to me or to you?”

I am suffocating. My face quakes even though my molars clench the inside of my cheeks. “Por favor,” I plead. “John, me tengo que ir. I need to go. Por favor, Dios mio.”

“My wife is indicating yes, she understands. It’s her bag, which she packed. She’s very upset. She’s very afraid of flying.”

I squeeze John’s arm, and he keeps his hand on mine. The metal detectors are yards away, like time counters at the finish line of a race. Other people are getting through and continuing to Gate 36. I inhale audibly to expand my chest and fill my stomach, like Dr. Berger has taught me.

Lorraine doesn’t even look toward me. "Jesus Christ. Always on my line. She’s traveling alone, right?"

"Yes."

“Tell her she needs to get to Gate 36, straight ahead after the metal detectors.” Lorraine jerks her head as she gestures for the next people on line to hurry and approach.

John and I step aside. My heartbeats throb in my ears. My hands fumble as I unwind my scarf, slip off the ankle length coat with its hood and the zip-up wool sweater. I stuff the random small articles into the sleeves of my coat. John rubs my upper arm, cups my shoulder, and squeezes as gently as if it were my cheek.

“Ah, there you are. Tropical Nancy.” He leans in, and adds, “We know you’re not afraid to fly. Lovely Lorraine back there wouldn’t understand. I can tell these things about people.”

I nod to play along. I’ll be in Puerto Rico in less than four hours. A new woman. I collapse at the joints like a spring-loaded toy. Tears run down my cheeks before I can get a tissue. I’ve cried so much over the past six weeks, but these tears come fast. I tremble and look down at my exposed knees.

John places my coat on the ground, and gathers me to him. “Hey,” he repeats into my hair, my ear, my cheek and neck.

My nose swells and I clutch his coat. “I’m okay,” I say, muffled by the wool.

“This is good for you. Everyone’s waiting for you.”

“I love you,” I say and it makes me want to cry more, so I think about making it to my gate in time. The delays of going through the metal detector, of standing behind people who have to unlace shoes. I need to make one last trip to a normal-sized bathroom before boarding the plane.

“I love you too, Nan.”

I lift my chin and close my eyes. Even without sight, our lips find each other. I kiss him as if I’d not seen him for weeks. We look like lovers whose rendezvous is ending too soon: Me, the small brown woman returning to my island; John, the white man, staying behind. The image of us is more romantic than the truth. We are long-married. We lost our baby boy. This is breaking me. I am afraid.

I take the handle of my carry-on and pull it behind me as I walk past the rope barrier. I turn one last time to wave to John. He raises an arm in uncertain response. My quilted coat is draped over his other arm. The stuffed sleeves hang down stiffly. It looks like a small woman John has caught just as she fell back in a faint.

***

Wednesday, April 11

54 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, NJ

7:00 p.m.

It got warmer in New Jersey while I was away. I sit on Dr. Berger’s couch and tell her I don’t need the space heater. She comments on how tan I look. I wore as little as possible in Puerto Rico. I would have walked around naked to feel the sun on every inch of me.

“But I don’t think my family would have been into my being naked. They think I’m still little Nancy.”

“Is that how they view you?”

I say yes and laugh, realizing Dr. Berger doesn’t know the Marreros. Years pass so quickly on the mainland, but time is suspended on the island. The Marreros are always the first Puerto Ricans I see when I get off the plane. They must camp out at the airport the minute I book my flight. They were waiting right in front at the arrival gate, crying, and seeing them like that unhinged me. I stumbled and thought I’d have to crawl on the rough airport carpet to reach them, but my Uncle Pedro ran and caught me. I was nested in their arms, and we were all one shuddering, wet mess, but that’s what Puerto Ricans do at airports: We cry whether we’re arriving or departing. Me and my Marreros looked like a normal boricua reunion. My family drove me everywhere during those ten days and hovered over me like I was just learning to walk.

“Did you enjoy that?”

“It was nice to have everything taken care of,” I admit. “It’s okay when it’s temporary. I haven’t been little Nancy for a very, very long time.

We’re silent, but that’s okay with Dr. Berger.

“Doctor Berger, what I’m saying sounds crazy.”

“What does, exactly?”

I hesitate.

“It’s okay, Nancy. Just say it.”

“I sound like I’m talking about different Nancies. I feel like I’ve been away for longer than ten days. I recognize New Jersey. The diploma on your wall is always slightly crooked. Everything is familiar, but it doesn’t feel mine. This is the life of someone else. I recognize the lives of little Nancy and the old Nancy, but none of those are mine.”

“What experience is your own?” Dr. Berger asks.

“I’m not sure.”

“Let me ask another way. What Nancy are you now?”

I look at her in the arm chair across from me, legs crossed under her, and notepad on the side table. She waits. I know I can talk to her.

“I don’t know, Dr. Berger. I’m not any of those Nancies.”

“Are you a new Nancy?”

“No. New means never scrambled. The old experiences are too familiar. I’m different.”

“Can you describe how?”

“I tried to do things I used to do, but nothing feels the same. I started running again. I ran every day while I was in Puerto Rico.”

“It must have felt good to do something you enjoy.”

I tell Dr. Berger it wasn’t the same. I expected running to feel different after being pregnant for 39 weeks and delivering a baby, but my limbs were reluctant. Doctor Berger knows about the mind, but I’ve learned about the body. The body is not faithful; it can only be counted on for betrayal. All those tens of thousands of miles I’ve run over the years should have earned interest like a bank deposit. I felt ripped off as I lumbered and gasped around the track in Puerto Rico.

My Aunt Cruza went with me every morning. She’s the other runner in the family, the one who remembers my marathon finishing times. We would arrive at the track before sun rise but were never the first ones there. The temperature in San Juan hits eighty degrees before 8:00 a.m., so runners complete their daily miles predawn. We’d go round and around the track. I’d think about the years when I competed and my running was fluid. I had transcended the barrier between the mental and physical. I didn’t wear a watch when I trained or raced because I could feel my pace and knew I was running seven-minute miles.

It wasn’t anything like that in Puerto Rico. I felt like I was pushing through Jell-O. I did three frustrating miles in the dark every morning with Cruza. My breathing was too labored for chit-chat and Cruza is a silent runner. The white lane lines of the track were barely visible. The sound of other runners approaching and passing guided us.

Every morning, I wondered if I still had it in me to reach the post that marked the end of our last lap. We’d be on our final laps when the line of pink appeared above the treeline, grew wider and split the sky open like a papaya. The other early morning runners ahead of us became visible. Past races played in my mind, and I willed my legs to turn over faster. My arms pumped faster, hands open, as if there was a winner’s tape at the finish, and I anticipated the snap against my hips as I burst through. I ran like there was still a medal for me. I cursed God, my body, and my life as I grunted through those final early morning sprints. I ran as if I heard the crowds from past races instead of my lone aunt, calling after me and asking if I should be running so fast.

I’m breathless as I recall this and tell Dr. Berger. She asks if I completed the final laps, and I tell her I did. I reached that post every morning and slapped it, knowing I can never run fast or far enough.

Nancy Méndez-Booth was born and raised in Queens, New York. After receiving her BA from Amherst College, she relocated to New Jersey, where she received her MA and MFA from Rutgers. Nancy’s work has appeared in phat’titude, Jersey City magazine and The Packinghouse Review. She has been a featured blogger on mamapedia.com and also blogs at http://www.nancymendezbooth.com. Nancy teaches writing, Latina/o literature and cultural studies in the New York City area. She lives in Jersey City with her husband, John.

New Art Exhibit Celebrates Forgotten Philadelphia Sites Through Art and Writing

PHILADELPHIA – Philadelphia Stories literary magazine and The Fairmount Park Welcome Center will present “Forgotten Philadelphia,” a new exhibition that runs from September 15 through November 9, 2012. The exhibit combines art inspired by specific heritage sites with poems and short fiction that speculate on the stories behind these hidden treasures. “Forgotten Philadelphia” explores hidden treasures from the Philadelphia area, from abandoned historic buildings to forgotten parks, through the work of local artists and writers.

CHOOSING THE SITES
Melissa Tevere, Art Editor of Philadelphia Stories, selected the fifteen heritage sites represented in this exhibit from proposals sent by local artists. She based the final selection on the diversity of the site location, the diversity of the artists’ chosen medium of expression, and whether or not the site is in danger of disappearing, has been saved or its future is uncertain.

Once the sites were chosen, they were assigned to local writers and poets selected by Carla Spataro, Editorial Director Philadelphia Stories, and Courtney Bambrick, poetry Editor. The writers and poets featured in this exhibit take a variety of approaches to interpreting these heritage sites. Some writers imagine stories of characters who may have experienced these sites as visitors or residents. Some poets chose literal reactions to the sites, some reflected on the sites more figuratively.

The resulting exhibit presents a unique interpretation of these heritage sites through words and art. PS Books, the books division of Philadelphia Stories, will publish the collection this winter.

ABOUT PHILADELPHIA STORIES
Philadelphia Stories is a non profit literary magazine, founded in 2004, that publishes the finest literary fiction, poetry and art from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware and distributes free of charge to a wide demographic throughout the region. Our mission is to develop a community of writers, artists and readers through the magazine, and through education programs, such as writer’s workshops, reading series, and other affordable professional development programs for emerging writers and artists.

Featured Sites, Artists, and Writers:

Girard College
Artist Anna Norton
Poet Courtney Bambrick

1500 Block of North 17th Street Row Homes
Artist Cavin Jones
Poet Trapeta Mayson  

Valley Green Inn
Artist Pauline Braun
Author Nathan Long

Independence Hall
Artist Michael Neff
Author Randall Brown

Philadelphia Zoo
Artist A.D. Loveday and Maggie Mills 
Author Sarah Rose Etter 

Cochran Triangle, Powelton Village
Artist Virginia Maksymowicz
Poet Angel Hogan

Divine Lorraine Hotel
Artist Kip Deeds
Poet Hal Sirowitz

Dox Thrash House
Artist Brenda Howell
Poet Kim Gek Lin Short

Laurel Hill Cemetery
Artist Susie Forrester
Poet Blythe Davenport

Frank Furness Designed home in Merion Station
Artist Nina Sabatino
Poet Ryan Eckes

Bank at Norris and Front Streets
Artist Paul Santoleri
Author Christina Delia

Parrish Mosaic in the Curtis Building
Artist Suzanne Comer
Author Myrna Rodriguez 

Metropolitan Opera House
Artist Vincent Natale
Author Carla Spataro

John Heinz National Refuge at Tinicum
Artist Russell Rogers
Poet JC Todd

Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park
Artist Melissa Tevere
Author Michelle Reale

Read the article about the exhibit at the Welcome Center in Philadelphia’s Love Park in THE METRO Here.

Hate Island

Shannon tapped her pencil on the desk, trying to command my attention. Everything about her annoyed me—the way she sat, the way her hair fell into tangled strands across her face, and the way she incessantly tapped that goddamn pencil against the kidney bean-shaped desk in our sixth-grade classroom. We’d been assigned to work together by the teacher; it was not by choice. We kept as much distance from each other as possible, I at the tip of the bean, she on the outer curve.

Finally, when I was on the verge of ripping the pencil from her hand, I glared at her. With immense satisfaction, she tapped once more and shot her tongue out at me. Despite being the weird new girl, Shannon had a knack for playing offense, but she didn’t yet know my specialty in basketball was blocking. I was a defensive all-star. In retaliation, I wrote on my paper and turned it so she could see: Shannon sucks. I looked at her with told-you-so eyes, sure my message would be enough to erase her stupid smirk. It wasn’t. She squinted back at me. Then she wrote the horror beyond all horrors on her notebook and nudged it across the kidney bean close enough for me to see: Gavin is ugly.

Gavin. As in my Gavin. Gavin Rossdale. The lead singer of the alternative-rock band Bush. Gavin. Whose poster I kissed every night before bed. Gavin. Whose face was printed on my t-shirt. Gavin. The recipient of my perfume-drenched love letters. Gavin. The epitome of all things lovely and good to adolescent girls everywhere with a disposition for head-banging to grunge music (behind the safety of closed bedroom doors). My face flushed and contorted with rage. She raised her eyebrows to ask if I had any other moves in my arsenal. Nope, my game was shot. I couldn’t block that one. She won The Battle on the Bean, but from that day forward, I started sharpening sticks and recruiting allies.

Earlier that year, Shannon had joined our class of eleven students in the small town of Port Republic, NJ. Her prospects for fitting in seemed bleak: thin, mouse-like demeanor, baggy clothes, pursed lips, and a small vocabulary. Her stupid purple sunglasses seemed to be her most prized possession. She didn’t talk much at first. When she finally did speak, it sounded like she was trapped inside a plastic tube. The words could barely escape her tiny mouth. Shannon’s speech impediment meant she had to get extra help with her school work, so she was automatically lumped into that group—you know, the “dummies,” the kids who dreaded report cards and parent-teacher conferences. With only twelve kids in our grade, the division between the “dummies” and the “smarties” was exacerbated twelve-fold.

I was a smarty: one of those know-it-all elitists whose worst nightmare involved a B+. Before the final bell had rung on her first day at our school, we smarties had already agreed upon Shannon’s status. She was definitely not one of us.

Shannon was an ‘army brat,’ and her perpetual new-girl status had provided her a strong offensive game, but even that couldn’t have prepared her for the vengeance I plotted. In the name of Gavin Rossdale, Shannon had become enemy number one. Did she actually imagine that she was ever going to fit in? If you asked Shannon, probably not. She’d tell you that our class was Lord of the Flies, and I was Jack Merridew—the tyrant leader of the cruelest kind of soldiers: a pack of sixth-grade girls.

Soon after the Gavin incident, I appointed myself president the We Hate Shannon Club. Every day at recess, all of the sixth-grade girls except for Shannon met by a set of double doors at the far end of the school. No one ever used those doors, not even the teachers. A two-foot overhang and brick walls formed a small cave—where we hunted for wild pigs—where I became Jack Merridew, rallying the wildlings.

We carved and scribbled our unoriginal insults into the bricks and on the doors. Shannon sucks. We hate Shannon. Whoever thought of the best Shannon-hate slogan was crowned winner for the day. The better the insult, the greater the reward—distributed in superficial flattery and cackles from the pack.

After several weeks in the cave, I hatched a more devious plan. At lunch, communicating only in whispers and hushed giggles, we waited for the right moment. Each morsel Shannon ate lasted an eternity. Finally, she stood up from the lunch table to buy ice cream. Casually, I stood up as well, walked to Shannon’s empty seat, snatched her beloved purple sunglasses, stuffed them in my pocket, and took my place behind Shannon in the line for ice cream.

The pack watched from the table as I smiled, triumphant. Shannon stood in front of me, buying her ice cream, not yet knowing what I’d done. Taking her seat, however, she realized immediately that her sunglasses were gone, her sunglasses, the mask that hid her reactions to our persecution and the wetness in her eyes. She got up and told the teacher on duty. Then I had no choice. I had to dispose of them.

During recess, out of sight of teachers and other kids, we, the pack, tossed the purple sunglasses around in a circle until they landed back in my hands. I threw them on the ground and stomped on them, cracking both the lenses and frames. Dust rose as I ground my foot into the glasses, thinking of my love for Gavin, which was then surpassed by my hate for Shannon, hate for things I didn’t understand, and most of all, hate for myself.

The other girls began stomping out their secrets too: divorces, illness, abuse, and other unspoken forms of hate that we’d filtered into Shannon. We hid our rage behind laughter, the way Shannon had hidden her tears behind the sunglasses.

We destroyed Shannon’s sunglasses, but the hate within us only grew stronger. We left the glasses in a drainage hole, but a pang of fear told me I couldn’t leave them there. Once the last bell rang, I snuck back into the school yard, found the glasses, and threw them into the woods behind my house. I smiled to myself, another smile of triumph, without a single feeling of regret or shame.

Later, when our principal questioned me about Shannon’s missing glasses, I knew he knew I had done it, but I also knew he had no proof. I played the clueless honors student who couldn’t fathom such a vicious crime. Only the beating of my heart could have given me away. He had nothing, and, with an unhappy sigh, he released me to return to class.

Shannon was no dummy. She knew I had taken her sunglasses. She even tried to fight back, but the pack swarmed her like bees when their hive is threatened. She cried until her eyes were red and swollen from our stings. She cried without the protection of her sunglasses, but this only made us torment her more.

One day, at last, Mrs. Smith, our language arts teacher, asked all the girls in our class but Shannon to skip recess and return to her classroom. I felt another pang of fear, a stronger one. Sitting at our desks, we exchanged anxious looks. Did she know about the glasses? The cave? Would she tell our parents? Would we never be allowed to go to recess again? When Mrs. Smith entered the room the tension thickened. She had something to say:

“What I saw over there, outside by the double doors, made me sick to my stomach.”

Something deeper than anger emanated from her words. She repeated what we’d written in the cave, “We hate Shannon. Shannon sucks. Shannon is dumb. Die Shannon die.” Each word spread venomous gas around us. We couldn’t look at each other.

“Do you know what that reminded me of?”

No one spoke. We couldn’t. We waited for an angry speech. Instead, Mrs. Smith said only two words:

“The Holocaust.”

The wildlings in the seats around her, me included, began to disappear and human beings, adolescent girls, my friends, took their places. I felt sick. Anger and hatred morphed into nausea, a knot hardening in my gut.

“Yes, the holocaust,” Mrs. Smith repeated. We, the pack, the sixth-grade girls, stared down at our desks. “This is where it starts,” Mrs. Smith continued as I began to recognize the truth of what we’d done. What I had done. “This kind of disgusting, unwarranted hate is where it starts.”

Mrs. Smith stood in front of us, a mirror of truth, forcing us to see through our distortions, our anger, our intolerance. The flies of Hate Island swarmed over me. Yes, I’d been Jack Merridew. I had sharpened the sticks and set out to hunt. I’d held the flag of victory after each slaughtering. And none of it could be undone.

Looking back, I realize Mrs. Smith reached us before our sacrificial rites escalated from plastic sunglasses to the physical self; before the fire on top of the mountain went out. Although, if you ask Shannon, she would probably not agree.

*Editors note: The names of some of these people have been changed.

Samantha Brown was born in Atlantic City and grew up in the small town of Port Republic, NJ. She is a recent graduate of Rowan University and holds an M.A. in Writing. "Hate Island" tells the true story of an experience she had in middle school. Samantha also writes fiction and her award-winning poetry has been published in several smaller venues. Her poem "House on Moss Mill Road" was featured in Lines + Stars Winter 2012 issue. She lives in Clementon, NJ, with her husband and is writing a middle grade fantasy novel.

Sestina for El Barrio

Under a pale sun, a dark-haired woman sweeps glass
smashed in last night’s brawl. Scattered
shards are edged in blood. Across
the street a boy dribbles a ball—a steady beat
like fired shots. The woman brushes silt and sings:
mi amor volverá (my love will come back).

Around the corner, Pacho leans back
and lights another smoke. His thick glasses
make him look startled. A song
crackles under a needle as he arranges scattered
photographs. A solitaire hand that beats
him every time. He wears his son’s crucifix.

His only boy, first caught in crossfire
and then a crowded E.R. Shouts for back-up,
a gurney, a god had filled ellipses beating
from monitors. Finally, his son’s eyes had glassed
over. Pacho gathers the pictures, scattering
his ashes on the floor… Down the block a song

rises from St. Michael’s church. A song
about a shepherd who bled from a cross
and promised salvation to his scattered
flock. Two boys lounge in a back
pew. Figures plead in panes of glass.
Candle shadows shimmy like girls. Qué ritmo,

they crack, craving the bass beats
that boom from cars. It’s always the same song.
The priest pours wine into the chalice studded with glass
as voices climb the steeple’s cross
and pierce the sky. On stone ledges, birds back
away as a gust scatters

dust and leaves. Then they burst—scattering
up like cards after drunk fists beat
down… Pacho sticks the needle back
into its track. From idling cars, songs
unfurl like skulls and cross-bones.
The dark-haired woman slides her glass up.

Cross now, she beats the sill, scattering curses. (It’s always
the same song.) The boys saunter off, caps on backward,
the grooves of their soles glistening with stained glass.

Angela Canales is a high school educator, freelance editor, translator and writer. She earned her master’s in Writing Studies from St. Joseph’s University, and her story "Out of Nowhere" was included in the 2009 anthology The Best of Philadelphia Stories: Volume 2. Most recently, she was included in the 2012 cast of Listen to Your Mother, a national 10-city reading series exploring the bond between mothers and children.

The Do’s (and Some Don’ts) of a Successful Speed Date

I’ve been on both sides of the speed-dating table at Push to Publish. As many of you begin to prepare for your own special ten-minute talk with an agent or editor, I thought I’d share what I’ve learned to do and what to avoid in order to get the most out of your ten minutes.

1. Do come prepared. As an editor, I had ten minutes to read an author’s writing sample and offer suggestions. I couldn’t read a fifteen-page story and give feedback. Come with three pages of your short story. If you have a novel, have an elevator pitch (a one-minute description of the novel) and a few pages of the work. You want your work read, but you really want the discussion. Make sure the bulk of your ten minutes is devoted to talking to the editor or agent.

2. Research the editors/agents coming to the event. As a literary fiction editor for a magazine that does not accept genre, I had someone hand me a sci-fi fantasy piece. Again, you have ten minutes with this person. You want to make sure you are sitting across from someone who really can advise you. Keep in mind, you are signing up for these editors/agents at registration. Do your homework to choose the best editor or agent for your work, and make sure to have a couple of back-up people just in case that person’s time slots get filled. All of the bios are posted on the website well in advance of the conference.

3. Do not request a speed date with an agent if you are not ready. I know this is hard to hear. Most attendees want to meet with agents. However, during the speed dates, agents want to meet with authors who have polished, edited, revised material ready to pitch to a publishing house. Agents do not want to spend this time listening to ideas for novels or reading unfinished material.

This does not mean agents don’t want to meet you or hear your ideas—just not during the speed date session. Agents will be there most of the day, and they DO want to make connections with talented writers. Introduce yourself at lunch or say hello after the afternoon “Meet the Editors and Agents” panel. Get business cards. Follow up as appropriate. Review all agent bios and make a connection with someone you think might be a good connection when you are ready. Make a good impression by making the most of both of your time.

Also, consider attending Friday’s “Spend the Day with an Agent” workshop. Agent Sheree Bykofsky offers insider tips for how to find an agent, and provides the opportunity to review individual query letters.

4. Come with specific questions you want the editor/agent to answer for you. As an editor, I tried to make sure I left time for the person to ask me any additional questions. During this additional time, all of my speed date authors looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my nose. I was surprised no one thought to ask me anything else. While, yes, it is your time to discuss your work, you have an agent/editor sitting right there giving you her attention. Pick her brain. The goal is to help you feel ready to get your work published. Be your own advocate.

5. Put your best foot forward. Have your work printed, held in a folder, typed, Times New Roam 12 point font, and double spaced. Anything else will be very hard for your editor/agent to read. One of the authors I met with handed me a handwritten story. I wasted most of our ten minutes just trying to read the author’s handwriting, and the writer lost valuable time.

6. Smile, and relax. Remember, the editor or agent in front of you is a person. As an editor, I was initially nervous when I had my first few “dates.” As a writer, I was also freaking out at first. Then, I smiled and cracked a joke. The tension dissipated, and we had a great conversation about my poem and my ability to be a poet. Basically, be yourself.

The bottom line is this: you are coming to this event to push yourself and your work into the publishing world. I have yet to meet a kinder and more welcoming community than at the Push to Publish conference each year. Relax and be prepared.

MM Wittle is a professor of writing with an MFA from Rosemont College in Creative Writing. MM’s work has appeared in Nailpolish Stories, Transient, The Bond Street Review, and is forthcoming in The Fox Chase Review, and Free Flash Fiction. For the past seven years, MM has been a fiction board member of Philadelphia Stories and is now a PS Books Poetry and Creative Nonfiction editor.

Local Author Profile: Shaun Haurin

Q: All of the stories in Public Displays of Affectation are set in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs. What’s your connection to the city, and what makes it an ideal setting for this collection?

A: Aside from my having been born and raised here, the stories are set in Philadelphia because this city is a perfect metaphor for two seemingly contradictory sides of my personality. I’ve long since tried to reconcile the dreamy artist in me with the working-class pragmatist who says I should be doing something more respectable or lucrative with my life. (Many of the characters in PDA are struggling or failed artists at odds with themselves.) Obviously there’s a thriving arts scene here in Philly, but in my experience there’s also a stigma associated with making art, as if it’s frivolous or somehow not hard work. As a fiction writer, I can tell you that all worthwhile fiction is hard work.

Q: Many of the stories in your collection are about love and the many forms it takes—as Liz Moore says in one of your blurbs, “new love, old love, faithful and unfaithful love.” What draws you to this theme?

A: Walter Ego once said that all thematic roads, no matter how circuitous, eventually lead back to love.

Q: What’s the unifying theme of your collection, and how did you decide on the sequence of stories?

A: Love, of course! But other detectable themes include squandered talent and this driving need we all have to constantly reinvent ourselves, whether reinvention means sporting a new pair of spectacles on any given day or something more profound and truly life-altering.

Q: Public Displays of Affectation features a fairly long piece, a novella-length story titled “Me, Tarzan.” What’s it about, and what was behind the decision to include it?

A: “Me, Tarzan” is a coming-of-age story that deals with the question of personal fulfillment vs. familial duty. The adolescent protagonist is in search of a father figure, and he finds a flamboyant (though less-than-satisfactory) one in the person of Johnny Paradise. I included the story because it serves as a thematic microcosm for the entire collection.

Q: Your book trailer features a young woman walking the streets of Philadelphia armed with a water pistol and haunted by a pair of lovers. How does the trailer relate to the collection?

A: “Blondie Girl” (as she appears in the credits) is not a big fan of public displays of affection/affectation, although she too traffics heavily in the trappings of reinvention. There are quotations from the book interspersed throughout the trailer, but we didn’t take ourselves too seriously while shooting it. Once I had the image of her filling a water pistol at the beginning, Chekhov pretty much dictated how it would end.

Q: Are you working on anything new?

A: Yes, the novel I’m currently working on is another exploration of the theme of reinvention, only now the emphasis has shifted a bit to the ways in which we invent each other.

To order a copy of Public Displays of Affectation, visit www.psbookspublishing.org