Sharon Cebula

The Beauties of Albion County

Yep, that’s really me, with Mary Ellen, a long time ago. You never met her; she died too young. We was quite a pair: the Beauties of Albion County. That was before the war, before the sickness, before yer pop was ever born. She had a real spark in her eye those days. You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but we was hell-raisers. We ran all over the place, all hours; Nannie could never keep track of us. She’d holler and warn us about Hell. Nothin’ kep’ us home. We ran around with the boys mostly, though once in a while there’d be girls, brave ones or angry, with daddies like old man Jessup who drank too much or tried to touch ‘em. Or brothers who did. We walked the railroad tracks, sometimes all night, sometimes all the way out to Indiana, and we’d ride the B&O back, the express from Chicago. We’d hide and wait ‘til the bulls did their checkin’. Then, just as the wheels started turnin’ and there was steam to cover us, we’d run up and jump in the car. Rainny was usually first, he was fearless and stronger than the other boys. He’d give me a hand up: I was always ready to jump before the other girls, always wanted to go first like the boys. That’s prob’ly why they liked me so much: I was fast like a boy. Mary Ellen waited and helped the weaker ones afore she’d go up. One time she almost didn’t make it, had to run flat out and Rainny almost fell reaching for her pale, thin arms. I think that’s why she married him. Well, that and the baby.

It was awful watching the light go out of those big, beautiful, dark eyes. I never could bring myself to tell her the truth about Rainny and me, not even when I knew he was hittin’ her. Specially not after Johnny ran off. I think he guessed and that’s why he run off. It was such an awful mess. It was just easier to push it away as the years went by; I never really wanted think about it myself. And what good would it have done? How could I look into those scared eyes, my sister’s eyes, already fadin’, already full of loss and pain and hurt her like that? It was just a stupid, dumb mistake. I didn’t even want to, really, but he was a lot bigger’n me an’, well, how could I of stopped him?

We was so close before. And after I jus’ couldn’t really look at her the same. We had no idea how long life is, how long and hard. We took off our shoes and stockins and waited at the edge of the river while the boys skinny dipped.

That’s the only picture I have left of her now. Yesseree, we was the Beauties of Albion County.

Rosie Heindel

THE WOUND

I got eight hours of sleep every night, back then. When I came home, ghosts didn’t follow me. I rarely got a headache. Loneliness didn’t touch me.

I remember that night Paul and I went to the U2 concert, my ultimate favorite band. He waited in line five hours and spent three hundred dollars on the tickets. On our anniversary he made me go on a scavenger hunt through the house to find them. He hid little love notes leading to the sugar canister, where he buried the tickets. I made such a mess getting them out.

We sat, stood— no jumped, hollered, rocked, sang, six rows back from the stage. About halfway through the performance Paul lost his excitement and just stood there stiff as a board. I looked at his pale face and asked him what the matter was. He feigned a smile. ‘Oh, nothing.’ I searched him for a clue. A red stream poured down his shin from a catastrophic jump into the seat in front of us. Pushing through the crowd, I nearly knocked a woman out. She would have punched me had she not noticed the blood oozing from Paul’s leg. After about twenty minutes of searching we finally found a security guard. He offered to get an ambulance, but Paul refused. The guard escorted us to our car.

Thankfully, it only took us ten minutes to drive to the hospital. I thought he would die from hemorrhaging. They got him in with surprising speed. When they cleaned the wound, he only winced once. The rest of the time he cracked jokes with the doctors. He held my hand to comfort me the entire time. We didn’t get home until four in the morning.

The next day we slept in until two, but we made love and laughed and reminisced in bed until dinnertime. After rummaging through empty cupboards, we ordered Chinese takeout. We snickered at Paul’s fortune, which read, ‘troublesome days are at hand, but happier ones are to come.’

Paul didn’t go back to get the wound checked on. He smiled and ruffled my hair when he noticed me eying it one day. ‘It’s barely a scratch,’ he said. He removed the stitches himself. When the wound swelled and turned a greenish tone, I begged him to go to the doctor. Purple, black, grey and green seeped around his lower leg. He found that he could no longer walk the way he used to. One day he passed out and his co-workers took him in to the hospital. By then the doctors couldn’t do anything about the leg.

He refused to see me when I came to visit. No one knows when he left. When the nurse made her night rounds she came upon an empty bed. I still wait for him to come home.

Mike Geiger

The Human Orphanage

when day starts to fade into yellow and god is smiling but hes frowning because thats the only thing he could be doing when he gives up there is no reason why he would other than carelessness and he knows he knows

when i first showed up here i was sad and i still am i dont think ill ever get it

the day starts to fade to orange and everything burns like fall in february and i once made a snowman out of flour

it was june and our father told me and my brothers to play outside in the snow even though it was 80 degrees outside he smelled like whiskey but he just said go play outside in the snow so we went outside and started to play tag but he came out with the punishment stick and said why arent you playing in the snow if i come back out here again then youre gonna get it even worse and i was crying but joey was brave

he went into the garage and got some flour that was sitting there and we made a snowman and our father just looked out and yelled at us that it wasnt good enough

it was the best we could do

i am a good kid ive done what i could to help people ive been good in school nice and paid attention and was always nice to animals whether they were cats or spiders even though i dont like spiders they have a right to walk around just like cats but it doesnt matter how nice i am i try to help people and help people but im not going to anymore because no one wants to help me in return they only want to take like how he took my mom when I was only 5 why would he do that i was only 5 and she was only living her life like a good person

i dont know much but i know that if i ever see him i will show him because it doesnt matter if youre a person or a cat or a spider you have a right to walk around and if you dont think so you shoudnt be in charge and someone has to tell you that because it just isnt right
the day starts to fade to red its very red but for very short

when i first showed up here i was sad and then the warden told me everyone feels this way

i didnt get it then but i get it now

and it goes purple and blue and in a matter of seconds day will stop being day

i cant know exactly when it stops being day but i know it will soon and then

then i will show him

along with everyone else here in the orphanage.

Katherine Schweitzer-Carney

Toxic Relationships

My father did as he saw fit with his daughters. Mom saw it fit to look away. She saw it fit, too, to send me off with a thirty-two year-old pedophile when I was sixteen. Since then, she’s seen it fit to blame me if I call her out on what she did and didn’t do.

I tried to make the best of it. Tried to make him love me. But he screwed the windows shut and took the knob out of the bedroom door. When it was shut, it was shut. He had a hook and latch on the outer side with a combination lock like the one I used to have on my school locker. He didn’t use this all the time though and I enjoyed the company of the dogs. But he broke the Belgian Sheepdog’s back when he got mad at me. Threw it into the wall and killed it. Some time later, when the German Shepherd died, (his favorite dog), he saved its body in an old Pinto out back until the neighbor’s started complaining of a stench. I had to help him bury its blue, bloated body.

I escaped on Tuesday, October twenty-fourth. he forgot to key lock the bolts on the front door. He stalked me for thirteen years.

I usually tell people the stalking is what ended my relationship with Tim even though it isn’t the truth. I mean, how can I possibly explain that clean vacuum lines were expected in the carpet at all times and all the dishes had to be lined up with perfect spacing like soldiers at attention? How can I explain letting Tim pimp me out for his sexual gratification then handing him any monies I made followed by him doing as he saw fit with me as well? Me, taking on my mother’s role of silence about the matter?

I don’t explain the competing stalker I obtained in the form of an alcoholic truck driver after time, either--the one with anger management issues. He was the easiest to escape. All mouth both when he said he loved me and when the other side of his personality cut loose.

So, I took up gardening. Yard work is good for the mind they say. It was true for me once I found the right antihistamine and decongestant combination. Gotta watch the bees, though. I keep an epipen shot just in case.

I told my nineteen year-old cat once that if God decided animals could start talking I’d have to shoot him because he knew too much. The boy just purred and snuggled closer to my chest, pushing his little head backward into my neck. He loves me no matter what kind of mood I’m in and I have cream for the hives and some nose spray to keep me from sneezing. I don’t mind using my inhaler, either. It’s not like he’s going to kill me.

Bob

Window Man

I never had the trouble with my heart. I had a way about me, what they call a Joe Deliver, on top of it all the time, ready to go. Made me a piece of change doing work no one had the guts for. High rise windows, never thought about it, just climbed on the scaffold, down I went. Had me a wind, meant nothing to me—solid as a rock, working the big squeegee.

Then one day, out of the blue, this sweet little breeze blowing, I don’t know what happened. I’m flying, like a piece of nothing. Don't know what happened, where I was. One minute doing my job, next spread-eagle in the air, not thinking, just this, this thing. Then bang, flat on my back! Shoots through my chest and head and legs, and I’m not breathing. What am I? All I saw: flat gray nothing, and it’s ringing, loud. I remember this bird, a dirty sea gull, flapping through the gray, like to drive you crazy. It went on and on. I remember it, if it was there or not.

But somewhere in my head, where it’s not ringing, I must have seen the scaffold blowing loose up there. I see it clear enough now, one end smashed through a window. I didn’t know who I was for a week, not that I’m complaining. I wouldn’t give a nickel to been awake. I wake up nights screaming. Not calling out or nothing, screaming. I’m there, I’m nothing. I’m floating, I’m flying, and I’m nothing, dirt in the wind. Sometimes, it’s like I died, and this here is a dream. Or I’m a ghost.

Elaine, she sleeps in the living room. She’s a good fellow to stay, I know that, drives me if I need to be driven—otherwise, the bus, like you. One minute, solid as a rock, working the squeegee, next spread-eagle in the air, like something God threw away. I can’t get over that. That’s why I come here, back here: get the head on straight. Get a little something for the head.

I got to get over that, but I’m thinking, maybe that’s not something you get over. Hit the wall before I hit the dirt, that’s what they say—can’t prove it by me. Maybe that saved me. Doc says so. I survived is what he means. Now I’ve got to deal with it—my problem in a nutshell. I don’t feel saved is what I’m saying. You can take that to the bank. See if it pays you any interest.

What I was before this happened: without this. I had none of this.

Matthew Meduri

Rope Mending in the 21st Century

Milton the rope mender had no work. It was the twenty first century and repairing rope was a thing of the past. It cost about the same for a man to replace the rope altogether than mend portions of it. He was not as fortunate as some of the other men of his trade who were hired by the government to repair rope, mostly navy based. But like them, it was all he knew. His father was a rope mender, and his father’s father was a rope mender, though both deceased. If he knew his genealogy well enough, he might trace back his ancestors to being rope makers.

Now, for Milton, it was not just a mere job but an art form and a contribution to society. He looked at rope as the final product made up of simple strands that gave it complexity much like quarks give protons or protons give atoms and so on. He was creating and sculpting something durable that would serve mankind for years to come. But given the quality of today and the synthetic materials that were cheaply mass-produced, his work was impractical. He was a tradesman with no trade, and artist with no art form.

Milton had no family. His only obligations were the rent and food. Both were difficult to manage without wages, so he put his nimble mind to work. He had several different grades of rope left to him by his father: thin and black, thick and white, and hemp.

Pull. Cut. Unravel.

His imagination directed his nimble fingers in the task of weaving and twisting the different strands of rope together. Bracelets. He made as many as the night and early morning and his body would allow, finally falling asleep atop a pile of rope ringlets.

When he woke at noon the next day, he put most of the bracelets he made into a large, cardboard box. Struggling to carry the flimsy box, Milton walked to the center of town near the bars and the small stage. He saw the Wiccan women in front of the bar selling her scented oils, charms, and jewelry and continued a little farther so not to intrude upon her territory. If she could sell what she made, so could he.

People passed Milton on the street and only few bought his bracelets. Maybe he charged too much. Seven dollars. Maybe he should say they are earth friendly. A young man with a beard and old clothes asked how much for a bracelet. Five dollars. The man asked for two and Milton said they were earth friendly.

“I have some earth friendly friends, man who would like what you’re selling. Bring yourself and your box to the field next to the old bridge. We’re having a party tonight for the meteor shower. You’ll probably sell them all.” The man said thanks and goodbye.

~
Milton took all the bracelets and placed them in the box. Heavier than he thought. He walked clumsily through town continually shuffling the box to get a firm grip. Cars blared loud music. Yellow. Red. Milton crossed the street. The car did not stop. Little rope ringlets scattered on the street and Milton’s body was flung thirty feet. No one could mend Milton, at least not in the twenty first century.

Rosie Heindel

DRIP

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Horne Lake Provincial Park. My name is Bill. I’ll be your guide this afternoon.” He paused, glancing at me. “This is the five hour Extreme Rappel expedition. The next ninety minute family tour meets just outside the visitor center in thirty minutes.” He looked around at the other five spelunkers, but he intended the comment for me. I stood tall and proud and jiggled my harness against my twinky layered behind. He raised his eyebrows and went on to tell us a few safety precautions.

We left for the caves. The air smelled like laundry after sitting damp in the washer for a few days mixed with pennies. Turning my head I revealed with the light on my helmet knotted stalagmites of many sizes staggered all across the floor and roof of the cool damp cave. I could feel the water gathering minerals and pulling them down to elongate the cave sculptures. Drip.

One long twisted one coming up from the floor reminded me of my old decrepit Uncle Earl. The long skinny portion at the top mushroomed just before it ended. It made me think of that strange hat he always used to wear. The beret had a funny point at the end that used to really annoy me. Just thinking about it got me irritated again. I remembered all those jokes that Uncle Earl made just before he died two years ago. Dementia is no excuse for a man to tell his beloved niece that she looked like a high-maintenance poodle mixed with a whale on acid. What’s that supposed to mean anyway? Anger burned.

I pulled out my rock hammer from my harness and smashed the head of the formation off. I stomped on it. Then I felt something warm trickling down my leg. I felt my cheeks get hot as I remembered the doctor’s advice about not allowing myself to get worked up. It’s normal for women my age to have stress related incontinence, but that didn’t ease the embarrassment. No one will notice, I hoped.

When I finished my little rampage, I looked up to see only darkness. Where did the rest of the group go? “Hello?” I shouted. “Can anybody hear me?” I stumbled forward. My heavy body felt stiff and cumbersome. Water droplets fell from the roof and rolled down my helmet. Drip.

I searched. I yelled. I cried. I pleaded. I received no answer, but the sound of water droplets falling methodically down. Drip.

I followed several passages searching, hoping. I had a few close calls. Once I unknowingly stepped onto the edge of an abyss. I lost my footing and nearly went down. I grabbed onto the fat base of a stalagmite just in time. I wished I had a rope to clip my carabineer to. I didn’t know I had so much strength, but when it’s a matter of life or splat, vigor comes out of surprising places.

Who knows how long I wandered; long enough for the flashlight on my helmet to burn out. My eyes would never see light again. I never did get used to the dark. I could feel the twinkies slowly disappearing. Uncle Earl had his revenge. I lifted my head, stuck out my tongue, and allowed the majestic stalagmites to drip their excess to satisfy my thirst. My feet became immobile. My hands grew cold. My body hardened. The minerals built up on my outstretched tongue. Drip.