Author Archives: Mary Akers

“Fairy Tales Can Come True It Can Happen to You” by Rex Sexton

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Image result for surreal hansel and gretel

Snow White in a glass casket was what I had
been aiming at with my Surrealistic portrait
of the Dead Zone’s crack racket, trying to symbolize
the lost soul in the black hole of the ghetto, and the
living-death-quest of hopelessness all around us. But the chaos
of contours I created in the fairy tale beauty’s features,
after I started drinking and slashing paint on the canvas,
and the undulating rhythms of brush strokes with which
I concocted her coffin had her come out of my backstreet
fable as an angel wearing a death mask of sable, asleep
on a billiard table. So maybe “Dust” was the thrust of
my journey into oblivion in a game you can’t win because
a drug is a drug and there’s plenty of “Dust” in the hood.
Besides, while Picasso said that what one paints is what
counts and not what one intended to accomplish, he also
said that if you know exactly what you’re going to do
there’s no point in going through it.  Life lives as it does,
I guess. I’m no Picasso, let’s face it; but neither are you.
Dead of winter, I look out at the falling snow from the
window of my ghetto studio.  Ragged figures roam the
streets below, dragging through the drifts – bag ladies,
homeless families, dead-enders, penniless pensioners.
And more each day, as the cubical people lose their
lives in the sitcom world and join us in hell: shivering,
pale-faced strangers who come and go, the likes of
which none of us has seen before. As the Dead Zone
grows, wedding rings, good luck charms, Rolex watches
fill the pawn shop windows.
I grab my sketch pad, draw an old wrought iron oven.
On the top of it I put a kettle.  Inside I sketch the
portraits of Hansel and Gretel.

 

 

 

Rex Sexton is an award winning Surrealist painter exhibiting in Chicago, and his writing tends to have that illusory element about it. His novel “Desert Flower” was published by B&R Samizdat Express. His short story “Holy Night,”which received the Eric Hoffer Critic’s Choice Award, was published in Best New Writing 2007. His poems have been published in Willow Review, Mobius, Waterways, Edgz and others.

“Nothing Happens” by Paul S. Piper

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I wait for the faucet
to drip.  I wait by the window
for the white cat to bound
out of the bushes.  I watch
the sky for the circling gulls
or a wayward jet.  The day is
mist.  People in hats, hunched,
grimaced.  Even the bamboo
in its elegance is bowed, trailing
like a soggy tail in the mud.  I read
in the morning paper that only 23%
of the country is happy.
In the front yard, still bruised
by winter, four brilliant
red tulips, petals poised to drop.

 

 

Paul S. Piper was born in Chicago, lived for extensive periods in Montana and Hawaii, and is currently a librarian at Western Washington University in Bellingham where he
spends more time than he should writing.  He takes his lead from Luis Borges.  His work has appeared in various literary journals including The Bellingham Review, Manoa, and Sulfur. He has four published books of poetry, the most recent being Winter Apples by Bird Dog Press.

“John Doe 43” by Christine Beck

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Image result for denim work clothes

A dingy heap of denim work clothes
lay behind Frankie’s Bar and Grill,
a gin mill with no juke box, dart board–

just the basics: dim lights, shots and beer.
As Jackson and Loretta angled for a parking spot,
she thought she saw the clothing tremble,

then collapse. Jackson was halfway in the door
when Loretta yelled, “Oh, my god! It’s a man!”
His head was bloody at the back where he must

have hit the concrete, his pockets filled with
crumpled ones. He smelled like sileage.
It didn’t seem to be an accident, according

to the cop who finally came, probably a bar-room
argument that turned ugly in the back. No one
seemed to know his name or where he lived.

The ambulance took him to the hospital. They
called him John Doe 43. No CSI searched
for a murder weapon, missing persons.
Fingerprints

seemed pointless. Finally, the hospital found
his former wife, asked if she would pay the bill.
He was cremated by the state, which shipped his
ashes

in a cardboard box. My mother kept them
on her closet shelf, the only time she knew where
she could find him when she had dinner on the
table

 

 

Christine Beck is the President of the Connecticut Poetry Society and the Contest Chairperson of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Her poems have been published in the anthology, Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge, Grayson Press, 2003, J Journal, John Jay School of Criminal Justice; Passager, Connecticut  River Review, Connecticut Poetry Society; Long River Run, and Caduceus.

 

“Whitney” by Louis J. Gallo

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Image result for stone fireplace

We’re gathered in the big room with its hefty stone fireplace trying to keep warm. It’s a long time ago. We’re all young and hormonal and insufferable. Upstate New York, atop a mountain called Claymoor or something pretentious that ends in moor. Lots of them around, uppity mountains I call them, each pinnacled by a gargantuan fortress. Mansion is the word – this one has about fifteen bedrooms, the whole thing constructed of heavy stone dragged up from the river. Who did the dragging? Sammy says in the past they were financed and lived in by robber barons and tycoons. Sammy owns it now after his father dropped dead at forty-two.

Impressive as hell. Nobody believed Sammy’s boasts back at school when we were undergrads at Tulane. But it’s cold and drafty and we’re all constantly carrying in new logs, stoking the kindling, adding sweaters, bunched together on the three sofas arranged in a semi-circle around the flames. You can literally walk into the fireplace – it’s that spacious. The old 1920s radiators in each room stay icy to the touch even when set at full blast.

We’re still in college or just recently out. One of us is edging through law school now, Rick. He’s here with a girlfriend he will marry in a few months. Sammy, our host, bides his time. With money you can do that. Rick used to be my best friend, way back before college, before I’d even met Sammy. We three belonged to the same fraternity, though I couldn’t stand it and dropped out after the first year. It’s law school that killed me and Rick. His first year and he’s talking about how much power he will have.

Sammy’s father sold historical calendars to the big breweries as premium giveaways.  Just think up some catchy theme – like relating each day of the year to, say, a milestone in women’s liberation – do a calendar, make millions. He should have known better than to fiddle with time.

Some others here too, like my current girlfriend, Rachel, who will fly home next day or so while I spend a few more days with Sammy. It’s an off-on deal with some minor violence thrown in like bitter salad spices. I keep my eyes open. Then the jerk of a law professor, one of Rick’s teachers, trying to stay hip with long, sandy hair, caved-in cheeks, wire glasses and endless plastic sandwich bags full of marijuana. Very good weed, though I regret giving him any credit at all. His wife, Vera, I think that’s her name. Another law professor. Same stringy hair and glasses, long hair, thin sallow face. The two look like male-female clones of each other. Hands-on, hungry, sarcastic jaws working their way up the rungs. He’s debating over teaching versus private practice in D.C, where he says he’ll make a lot more dough.

There are others too, friends of the lawyers, but I can’t remember them. No interesting women except maybe this one called Whitney, a grad student somewhere up here in the Catskills. This is not my territory. I’m deep south, tropical, in grad school myself on a fellowship. Living month to month on the paycheck. The hand I was dealt, so I don’t think about it much aside from occasional spasms of envy and regret.

Sammy, always the mover, likes gathering people together.  He stands
back and watches the intermingling and secretly, I think, enjoys a good
personality clash here and there.  Or maybe he sincerely hopes to nurture us,
bring us all together as some loving, happy family.  He’s the common
denominator, a behind-the-scenes auteur.   And a natural host, providing top-
notch booze and food – lots of caviar, pate, deli sandwiches, egg nog, ham
and turkey roasts.  He drives down to the market every day for supplies.  And
let me tell you, the road is treacherous, what with snow blanketing the earth.
It’s the Christmas holidays after all.  Sammy’s battered old station wagon
slides all over the place.  The other day he wound up in a ditch with a cracked
axle and had to call towers down in the valley.

The truth is there’s not much to do around here.  Can’t get back to
Manhattan,  only a two-hour drive usually; can’t spend much time outdoors
because of below zero wind chill; can’t roam the house because you’ll freeze
to death inside; can’t watch television because Rick doesn’t believe in them
and there’s only a tiny set in one of the bedrooms, an old ten-inch black-and-
white with no reception.  So we all spend a lot of time reading and trying to
make small talk.  The first few days or so we got into serious discussions
about the big issues, clashed, learned to distrust and steer clear of each
other.  It’s as if war is about to erupt.

The one thing we wind up doing a lot is cards, mostly poker, because,
well, what else is there?  I never play cards, shudder at the very idea of table
“games,” haven’t handled a deck since I was a kid.  But my old grandpa
taught me a thing or two about poker.  Back then I had no idea it would ever
come in handy.  The lawyer and his wife must have memorized Hoyle’s
because they know all these fancy, weird gambling games and want to show
off.  But the rest of us protest and finally prevail because without us, it’s
Solitaire, not poker. We wind up with five card draw or  seven stud,  easy no-
brainers.  The lawyers and Rick, of course, have lots of money to bet.  The
rest of us don’t.  I can’t afford to lose one penny.

So I decide to make a little spare change.

The lawyer, Dave, had taken instant aversion to me and vice-versa.  I don’
t like his snotty arrogance and wire glasses.  He hates me because I don’t
want to fuck his wife.  He’s one of those guys – there are lots of them around –
who wants all other men to want to fuck his wife.  It must make them feel
macho and giant balled.  He doesn’t really want anyone fucking her, he just
likes it when they yearn to.  And I’ve made it pretty clear that I have no interest
whatever.  Guys can always tell when other guys are sniffing.  It’s all in the
eyes, the joshing, the feeble compliments and enthusiasm.  In effect, I’m
telling Dave that his taste in women sucks.  Thus he’s peeved and seeks
revenge.

Or maybe I’m distorting the issue altogether.  I am, after all, telling the
tale.  Dave is long gone on one of the byroads of history, and so is his wife –
though I heard later that they divorced.  Maybe Dave can’t even remember my
name.

Mostly it’s Rick, Sammy, Whitney, Dave, Trudy (his wife), this guy Mark
and I shuffling the cards..  Rachel and I aren’t getting along.   I’m feeling pretty
low.  We’d replaced one of sofa’s end tables with a proper game table near
the fire.  The other guests  join in every now and then, but their hearts aren’t
in it.  Mine isn’t either, but I want to make some money and I’m pretty sure I
can.  Anyway, the games become serious after a day or so and now often last
until dawn.

Whitney makes a point of letting us know that she’s one of those
embittered feminists who hold men responsible for all evil.  She presents
herself as such but I can’t decide if she’s genuine or a party-liner.  Anyway,
during the games, the conversation drifts to the difference between men and
women, and, bingo!, every time I say a word she jumps all over me.  As if
there aren’t any differences!   But that’s exactly her position: society alone,
male-dominated of course, creates the differences..  Otherwise, we’re all be
the same.

“That’s preposterous,” I declare.

So we get into hormones, anatomy, the extra Y chromosome . . . all of
it.  But we’re antler-locked because nobody’s willing to yield an iota.
Meanwhile, Dave baits me at every turn with trivia questions.  He must spend
his nights memorizing them for occasions such as this. Historical stuff like,
What’s Herbert Hoover’s middle name?  He thinks I’m a smart ass and wants
to outsmart me.  He’s paying only minimal attention to the Whitney situation,
though Trudy chimes in often enough on Whitney’s side.   Rick and Sammy
won’t help me out.  They hardly say a word but every now and then exchange
glances.   I could use an ally.

The more I drink and toke the better Whitney looks, but she’s fierce,
hostile, poisonous.  I wish she’d take off the wire rims.  Blue eyes, long blond
hair almost to her waist, she’s wrapped in layers of wool.  But there’s a
disconnect between the sweet Heidi looks and all that rage, so I pull the switch
and withdraw from the games – not the poker, just everything else that’s going
on.  Dave keeps passing joints around and I’m feeling all right, comfortable
but withdrawn.  Herbert Hoover, every second word from his mouth.  I just sail
into a sea all my own, with special background music: Herbert Hoover to the
tune of the Hallelujah Chorus.

I’ve won practically every hand.  After a while, when he’s lost another
twenty-five bucks, Dave looks me in the eye and says flatly, “You’re good.”

Not good, Dave, just severe..  The simple, dumb secret of poker is
bluffing.   Bet high and reckless and keep raising the stakes even if all you
have is a pair of deuces.  Keep a straight face.  And never show your cards
even after the game’s over.  Nobody can stand a straight face, and most drop
out after a few rounds and you’re left with one die-hard who thinks he’ll
clobber you with his mighty ace of spades.  That die-hard is always Dave.
Whitney’s one of the first to fold every time.  Then Trudy and the rest of
them.

Maybe the simple, dumb secret of life itself is bluffing.

It’s late Christmas Day and Dave, Trudy and their troupe are leaving in
the morning.   They’re upstairs packing, making a lot of noise and endless
phone calls.  Rick and his fiancee have already left.   So has Rachel.  Sammy’
s down in the valley getting more food and supplies.  I’m sitting alone by the
fire, about seven hundred dollars richer.   But I feel a little hollow and groggy
and decide to take a walk outside.  Behind the house there’s a gentle slope
full of white birches, one of my favorite trees.   Much of the snow has melted
and you can trudge through the stuff without chunks of it sliding between the
boots and socks.   And it’s a little warmer than usual.

So I’m just hiking a bit with a long branch to keep my balance.  I stop a
moment to take in the beauty surrounding me, breath in the cold, crisp air.
From here you can’t see any houses or signs of civilization or people.  Kind of
nice.   I figure it’s all over between Rachel and me finally — and that’s ok too.
We were lonely and sad with each other.   How stupid is that?

I hear a swoosh from one of the white capped burning bushes and out
flies the reddest cardinal I’ve ever seen.  Crystals of snow explode into mist as
the stems fall back into place and silence resumes.  The cardinal
disappears..   Everything is white and cloudy.  I’m surrounded by white birch
and burning bushes.   It’s so peaceful and spectacular that for the first time
since arriving I’m glad to be here.  Delight, that’s what I feel.  I figure that the
only people who know much delight these days are little kids.

But my toes start to freeze with numbness and I’m hungry, so I start back
for the house.  The wood smoke smells good.  Sammy uses only hickory.
Hungry too for some of that leftover ham and pineapple.   Just as I ram the
staff into a soft spot of ground for bearing,  I’m suddenly knocked face down
flat into the snow as if stuck from behind with a hundred or more pounds of
dead weight.  At first I think maybe it’s a falling branch, but no, it’s got arms
and legs that clutch my body like adamant vices.   I’m on the ground, spitting
out snow, cursing, crying out.  The arms and legs ease a bit and I manage to
twist around for a glimpse of what’s assailed me.  Whitney!  She’s wearing a
heavy military looking surplus jacket and thick wool cap.  She just stares at
me, specks of snow dotting her cheeks.  For the first time I notice she has
freckles.

“Jesus!” I cry.  “What the hell are you doing?  Were you following me?”

She doesn’t say a word,  just keeps staring with what I take as pure
hatred.  No expression on her face at all.  She looks like the snow.

I wriggle loose from her body and stand up and brush myself off.   She
now squats on the ground gazing at me.

“What is wrong with you?” I roar.  “You could have broken a bone!”

My face is scratched from scraping against some twigs as I went down.
There’s a little blood.

Whitney squats, saying nothing, like some animal on the hunt.

“You’re crazy,” I say.  I snatch up my staff and thrust it back into the mud,
limp away fast.  The fall twisted something in my left ankle.  All I’m thinking as I
ascend the slope is, “Hell, this is going to hurt.”  I spot the woodpile and
Sammy’s station wagon.  He’s back with more food.  I don’t even look back to
check on Whitney.  She can crouch out there forever for all I care.

And that’s the last I saw of her.  She never returned to the Sammy’s, not
even for her bags and luggage.   For a while we thought maybe she had
wandered off and frozen to death.  Sammy and I searched some, then called
the police.  But later Dave phoned to say she’d hitched a ride with them to the
airport.  So at least she didn’t die.

It’s many years later and sometimes I still think of Whitney.  Mostly she’s a
blur except for the freckles.  I see them clearly, like tiny, scintillant specks of
time.  She’s just some random woman I happened to encounter back in the
days.  I’ve tried to figure out why she attacked me, but every time I think I’ve
nailed it one way or the other, I change my mind..  None of the options are
good.  I have no idea why she attacked.  She didn’t lose that much money.
An odd sexual game maybe, but not the kind of approach that kindled my fire.
I saw no ardor or interest in her eyes.  Only blank ferocity.

A few days later I too flew home to face varied strains of music and
Sammy returned to the city.  I left him a hundred bucks to help with the
expenses, stuffed it between two books on the mantle above the fire, one of
them Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.   I don’t believe anyone
else left a dime of gratitude.  But surely the rich have learned by now that it’s
better to give than receive.

 

 

Louis J. Gallo’s work has appeared in American Literary Review, Glimmer Train, New Orleans Review, Missouri Review, Texas Review, Baltimore Review, Portland Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Rosebud, Amazon Shorts, storySouth, Paradigm, Clapboard House, Raving Dove, Flash, Rattle, Babel Fruit, Oregon Literary Review and many others.

 

“Before Breakfast” by David Feela

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Image result for cow

All night the cows next door bellowed. By dawn I opened the bedroom window and called to the nearest cow. “What’s all the bellowing about?” I asked. “You should ask?” the cow replied, “You who sleep all night in a comfortable bed while we stand in the field?” “That’s not an answer, and besides, it’s only Orwellian cynicism about the human condition” I said. “Have you no depth, no inner cow resources to plumb so as to describe what’s innately wrong?” I didn’t want to sound overly philosophical, but I hadn’t slept well and the opportunity to talk with a talking cow was unprecedented. I decided on another approach.  “Maybe it’s health, one of your stomachs is upset from ingesting too much fiber” I proposed. The cow stared at me with disdain, as if I’d just made a tasteless joke about hamburgers. “Don’t look at me like that” I said. “An upset stomach is the cause of much discomfort among our kind. Your kind has twice as much risk for suffering with a condition that’s easily treatable.” The cow continued to stare. I knew I’d gone too far, that this cow had nothing else to say to me, that never again would I be taken seriously by any cow,
that I might not even be taken seriously by my neighbors once word got out about me talking to cows. “Moo” I shouted and slammed the window closed. I had more important things to do than try to understand cows, and all this before a bowl of cereal.

 

 

David Feela, a retired teacher, is a poet, free-lance writer, and workshop instructor. His writing has appeared in hundreds of regional and national publications since 1974, including High Country News, Mountain Gazette, Denver Post, Utne Reader, Yankee, Third Wednesday, and Pennsylvania Review, as well as in over a dozen anthologies. For eleven years he served as a contributing editor and columnist for the recently deceased Inside/Outside Southwest.  Currently, he writes a monthly column for the Four Corners Free Press. A chapbook of poetry, Thought Experiments (Maverick Press), won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry collection, The Home Atlas (WordTech Editions, 2009), is currently available through the publisher and online.

“The Tunnel” by David Feela

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Image result for moles

Traffic moved unusually slow, probably an accident in the tunnel up ahead, but because I had time to look around I spotted the sign half hidden among the trees: Mole Problems?  Call 4U2–MOLE.  Normally I ignore advertisers, so what got me interested is still a mystery.  I dialed the number.

“Hello, Mr. Mole speaking.”

“That can’t be your real name” I said.

“Yes, yes, the business has been destiny since the day I was born. How can I help you?”

For an instant I was speechless.  I didn’t have any moles. “Can you tell me what time it is?”

“I’m sorry, it’s too dark to see a clock” Mr. Mole replied.

“So you’re at the job site, very industrious of you” I said.

“No, No, I live here.  Is there anything else you need?”

“You live underground?” I asked.

“Did you expect me to live in a tree?”

I could hear the sarcasm in his voice. Perhaps this signaled the beginning of my mole problems. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” I apologized, believing he’d hang up, but the line stayed open, a musky panting coming from the other end.

“Are you still there?” I asked.

“You don’t get rid of moles by just hanging up.”

“I don’t actually have any moles” I said. “I just called because I’m stuck in traffic and didn’t have anything better to do until I saw your sign.”

“Do moles attract you?” Mr. Mole asked.

“I have no feelings whatsoever for moles!” I snapped back, but I was immediately sorry for my temper.  I pictured the dirty burrow where moles live, the wife clearing a cavern under someone’s garden, preparing a cold kettle to mix a meal of pale roots.  My problems with traffic were trivial compared to the struggles moles face, so I pulled over to the shoulder and settled back.  “Go ahead” I encouraged, “I’m listening.”

And Mr. Mole started talking, all his dark secrets coming to the surface, passions that made my cell phone blush though I’d had it set to vibrate.

 

 

David Feela, a retired teacher, is a poet, free-lance writer, and workshop instructor. His writing has appeared in hundreds of regional and national publications since 1974, including High Country News, Mountain Gazette, Denver Post, Utne Reader, Yankee, Third Wednesday, and Pennsylvania Review, as well as in over a dozen anthologies. For eleven years he served as a contributing editor and columnist for the recently deceased Inside/Outside Southwest.  Currently, he writes a monthly column for the Four Corners Free Press. A chapbook of poetry, Thought Experiments (Maverick Press), won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry collection, The Home Atlas (WordTech Editions, 2009), is currently available through the publisher and online.

“Chimney Fire” by Mary Lewis

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Chimney_Fire_0001

Clara pushed herself off the plywood floor and looked down at where her face had been.  No blood this time, but the skin around her left eye was puffy and tender to the touch. Earlier in the year she would have found some snow to put on it, but March had turned it all to mud and she’d forgotten to fill the ice trays in the freezer. Last time he was upset because she overcooked his eggs again, but this time he found a bank statement for a checking account she had just opened in her name. She should have told Eunice at the bank not to send them, but she was in a hurry to fill out the forms before anyone knew so she forgot that detail. Her first deposit was part of her last paycheck from the turkey plant, split so that most of it still went to the joint account, so Stan wouldn’t notice. Of course now he knew everything, but he only had time to rough her up a little before going off to work in the lumber yard. Later he’d make up for that.

Slowly she stood and walked to the stove in the corner of the old log cabin. Only a few sticks to feed the dying embers, she’d have to go to the outdoor pile to get more.  Then she looked at the stack of broken down cardboard boxes behind a chair, waiting to be recycled. A bit of that would get the fire blazing again while she got more wood. She folded a piece in two and thrust it in. She put in another. As it took, the draft pulled strongly and heat radiated into her chilled arms. Then she heard a small crackling coming from the stovepipe itself. In one spot a circle of red grew larger on the surface of the black metal.  A chimney fire. Creosote had been building up there for years, from low fires out of soft wood, and now it was on fire in the chimney. Hadn’t been able to get much besides box elder lately, and that was great for making creosote. Clara knew what to do, damp down the fire and stop feeding it. She reached for the damper handle above the stove, but her hand went to her eye instead and she stared into the red spot that seemed to grow large enough for her to dive in.

Her hand fell to her side and a tear welled up, stinging the tender swelling on her face as it made a trail down her cheek. She hugged herself and bent forward to ease the empty feeling in her belly, and let the lump in her throat grow large, but she did not sit down. Instead she paced the few steps it took to span the small kitchen, to the window overlooking the wooded ravine, then to the opposite wall where a small window in the door looked out on the muddy path that led to the field road. She paced to ease the tightness in her neck and the indecision in her heart. An image came to her from her childhood, of a tiger who traced the same monotonous track over and over in a tiny cage in the old Como Park Zoo in St. Paul, and looked at her with vacant eyes, as though knowing he could get no help from her.

She paused by the stove, listening to the crackling that was always a fire alarm in the past, but now pulled her down a path she dimly realized she was already treading. Some harsh bit of that knowledge welled up from inside like a sudden release of steam that propelled the hand that knew it should turn the damper down, to do an opposing action. It grasped the chair and threw it aside to get to the cardboard. She stuffed all that she could into the firebox and then flew up the stairs to the loft. The stovepipe glared red-hot in two places on its way to the ceiling. She dragged a cardboard box full of old newspapers next to the chimney and it began to smolder. She pulled the old dresser as close as she could and soon mushroom clouds of smoke grew to engulf it. Clara raced downstairs and threw on her chore jacket. She pulled on her mud boots and charged through the door. Her eyes fastened on the path so she could avoid the muddiest puddles. That’s why she didn’t notice the figure on the path until she bumped into him.

“What the…?” said the figure, a man of rugged build, in coveralls and a denim jacket.

Clara stopped in her tracks and looked him full in the face. The veins at his temple were about to burst.

“Go to Marsden’s and call for help,” said Clara. Why had he come back so soon? Maybe the truck had gotten stuck in the mud.

“You didn’t call yourself?” Stan pushed her aside to get past her on the narrow path.

He ran to the house and opened the door. Smoke poured out.

“Too late, the phone wouldn’t work,” said Clara, picking herself up off the ground.

“We’ll just see about that,” said Stan as he disappeared into the smoke-filled room.

Clara considered her options. Continue down the path to the truck, but it was probably stuck, and she didn’t have the keys anyway. She could race out along the driveway to the county road, but that was half a mile over open fields, no place to hide. Better to head to the woods, he’d have a harder time following her there. She started running along the wooded path that led down the ravine. In a moment she heard Stan screaming, “You bitch, you started it! You torched my house. Son of a bitch! Damn, you can’t run away from this!”

Stan was still in good shape, from farm work and work at the lumber yard, so Clara had to escape with something other than speed. At least she had a head start. The trail twisted down at a steep grade. She had to slow down here to keep from toppling forward.

Gooseberry thorns ripped at her pants. Her feet struggled to regain balance over a muddy spot. Down the ravine, she knew she’d have to cross the creek, and hoped it wasn’t so high as to submerge the stepping stones. No such luck, she splashed through the brown water up to her knees. Nowhere to hide, the underbrush was still bare of leaves this early in the spring. Clara glanced over her shoulder, just long enough to see Stan racing down the slope. She left the trail along the creek and took off uphill climbing to the cliff edge above her. No longer able to run because it was so steep, she planted her feet into the moist earth, one after another.  A wave of dizziness swept over her but she put her head down to fend it off and forced her lungs to gulp more air. Behind her she heard Stan plunge through the creek, cursing as he hit the water.

Just under the limestone ledge Clara followed a raccoon trail that traced the contour of the cliff. It ran into a break in the cliff, a grassy slope between two rocky faces. She pulled herself up the steep slope by grabbing on to scraggly branches of juniper. Her hands went instinctively to the live branches, which looked a lot like the dead ones. Only way to know with juniper was practice. Too bad Stan knew how too.

Now on flatter ground above the cliffs that lined the ravine, she thought ahead. The Torkelson’s had left a bit of their cornfield standing last fall, because it was too wet to get the combine in. She picked up speed again, leaping over fallen trees, skirting tangles of brush. There was a place in the barbed wire fence last fall where the top wire was down.

She angled to the right to find it. Yes, still there. She could straddle it there without having to step on the lower wire. The barbs tore into her pants and bit into the skin of her inner thigh, but did not slow her down. She dove into the corn and loped down a row, ignoring the sharp edges of dried corn stalks that scratched her face. Just a few yards in, there was no way to see her from the outside. She could be anywhere in that patch, maybe a half acre of standing corn. But she had to find a spot and hold still. Any movement would give her position away in the still air. Good thing Stan hadn’t brought Truman. That hound would have no trouble sniffing her out.

It was easier to be still when sitting, so she found a place to settle, where some stalks had fallen over. She willed herself to breathe deeply and slowly so she could listen for Stan, but her heart was still too loud. In a few more heartbeats she heard him rustling at the edge of the corn. He cursed quietly now, hoping not to warn her she supposed. Clara saw without seeing the curve of his back as he plunged into the cornfield. He had a way of sliding his shoulders up and forward that gave his back a hunch when he was angry. It was a warning to her, like the fur raised on Truman’s’ neck when he caught the scent of a coon. Stan was too good a hunter to think he could find her this way. He’d have to flush her out or wait her out. Maybe he’d go back and get Truman. Nope, then she’d get out of there. He could wait all day in a deer stand, barely moving. But he wasn’t angry at the whitetails. He wouldn’t last two minutes in this hunt. Clara could keep still. She’d had practice. When a drunken fog gripped him it was best to get out of his way. In their little cabin, the only way to do that was to be still. She’d sit in her red rocker by the kitchen window looking out while he swore at the TV and the government and Maynard, his boss at the lumber yard. He’d forget all about her at such times, unless she got up to get a cup of coffee. Then she’d be the focus of his curses, and the blows would not be far behind.

He was closer now. She could hear the dry cornstalks scratching out of the way.

Suddenly the rattling stopped. Clara turned her head way to the right to see the spot.

Maybe six rows over, a black boot smeared with mud. That was all she could see because near the ground the corn forest was thin with only stalks. The canopy of pale brown leaves concealed the rest of his body. At his eye level there were so many leaves in the way you couldn’t see more than the next row. All he’d have to do was to crouch down and he’d see her. But would he think of this? Clara held still but her heart would not stop beating. The brown fabric of his chore pants stretched over a bent knee, and a hand reached to the ground. His back carved a hunch in profile. He looked ahead, then to the left. When he looked right he’d see her.

She didn’t give him that chance. Like a ruffed grouse she sprang up with a yelp. No matter how many times she’d had one fly up in front of her, it always startled her and made her stop in her tracks. She hoped it would do the same to Stan now. She sprang straight forward in the direction she was facing, the woods. He wouldn’t expect her to go back. Clara scaled the fence at the same place she’d just crossed it in the other direction. Stan crashed through row on row to get to hers and he was fast, but he’d taken a moment to start his pursuit and change directions. The grouse impersonation had worked.

“Damn, you think you can scare me you bitch! This is it Clara, you’re not getting away this time.”

He’d kill her, she knew it. She started back in the same direction she’d come, looking for ways around brush and over fallen trees. Her path angled downstream along the cliff edge to a break she’d climbed up many times before. The slope was so steep and rocky she had to use branches again. Like aerial stepping stones she reached for one, then the next, twisting to go backwards down the draw. They might not support Stan. When she reached the creek she heard Stan starting his descent. A branch cracked under his weight and she heard his boots scuffle. His curses changed from anger to fear for a few moments. But he regained his feet well down the slope.

Clara plunged back across the muddy water and headed along the creek edge to the path that she’d come down from the house. Fastest trail out of the ravine. Too tired to think of strategy. Smoke settled into the ravine, burning her eyes. At a turn in the path she glanced over her shoulder. Stan had gained on her. If she stumbled he would be on top of her. She’d get to the house and put it between them. Close now, she made her legs struggle on though her lungs screamed and spots of dizziness passed in front of her eyes. Another few steps and she was out of the ravine and on flatter land again, twenty yards from the house. Clara raced to get to the other side of it where the smoke was thickest, and ran into something, someone.

“Clara, we came as soon as we saw the smoke,” said Frank, their nearest neighbor.

“Tried to call you, but got a busy, so I called the fire department. Don’t know if they can even get in through the mud.”

Clara could barely speak through her heaving lungs. “Frank, what a savior you are.”

She pulled back from him and let her heart beat twice before saying, “We were checking the woods fence when we smelled smoke.” A little ways back Frank’s grown son, Mike, peered into the windows of the smoke filled house, an ax in his hands.

“Think you can hide from me!” Now it was Stan’s voice disembodied in the smoke.

Then he burst through the screen of smoke, still running. Stan braked when he saw Clara and Frank, but it took several yards for him to come to a complete stop, so close Clara’s feet bit into the soft earth, ready to run again. But she stood her ground when Stan grabbed her arms and shook her hard. “She started this fire, and I’m not going to let her get away with it.”

“Mike get over here!,” yelled Frank, and they struggled to pin back Stan’s arms to release Clara from his grip. “Just calm down Stan, let her be.”

“The Hell I will, she’s trying to destroy everything I worked for, the bitch!” He broke one arm free of Mike, who had to grab it again.

Clara looked at the three of them, framed by the cloud of smoke engulfing the house.

“It was nothing but a cage and you can’t keep me in it anymore!” She took deep breaths to stop her heart from crashing into the walls of her chest.

Frank said “Clara, take my truck, the keys are in the ignition. Amy’s home.”

Stan struggled against his captors like some overgrown beetle in a horror movie, his human guise now shed. That was what she’d lived with all these years. He bent forward in half to lunge against his restraints, so his eyes raged upward from beneath his heavy brow to look a her.

Clara planted her feet to draw strength from the earth and looked down at him. “I’m leaving you Stan.” She took her time to turn away from him, as though she was in a video in slow motion. Her breathing slowed with each step down the path. It was good to be done with running, but it would take a long time to get the smell of smoke out of her hair.

 

 

Mary Lewis has published many works of short fiction and has a story in the collection Frank Walsh’s Kitchen and Other Stories. She contributes articles on environmental issues to her local paper and teaches biology at Luther College in Decorah, IA.  Before that,  Lewis worked on a research farm for sustainable agriculture that she co-founded.  Lewis taught piano and dance for a number of years and has a weakness for Beethoven and Chopin.  Skating is another passion, both ice and roller, but wheels work best in parades.

“The Prison Diaries of Arthur Longworth” by Arthur Longworth

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one:  where I am

Sunday, July 27th
(first day of diary)

I suppose I should start by telling you where I am. This is an
old prison (well over a hundred years old) and it would be better
suited as a historical site, than a place to keep prisoners. It’s
falling apart. The state wanted to close it years ago because it
cost too much to operate, but they can’t, Even though they are
constantly building new prisons and adding to the ones they
already have, there are too many of us.

They have nowhere else to put us.

The massive Romanesque architecture of the prison’s
buildings, gun towers, and the thirty foot wall that surrounds us
is composed of worn red brick. Millions of them. The mortar that
has for so long held them together is falling out. In places, the
bricks have separated in distinct fault lines. Weeds have taken
root between them and sprout directly from the sides of buildings
and the wall. It’s a funny sight.

There is a contrast in the wall between the uppermost
section—which was replaced after it broke apart and toppled into
the big yard ten years ago during an earthquake—and the rest of
it which is covered with a dark, crusty type of moss. The contrast
is becoming less apparent though. Long streaks of rust from the
razor wire that crowns the top of the wall have stained the new
section and the moss is beginning to encroach.

I’m not as old as the prison (43 now) but there are times I
feel like it because prison is all that I know. I have been in since I
was eighteen. That is, if you don’t count the juvenile institutions I
spent my childhood in. Longer, if you do. Looking back it seems
like a long time. I’m conscious that I’m swiftly approaching the
limit of a prisoner’s life expectancy—which isn’t the same as that
of a free person’s.

two: proximity
Monday, July 28th

My celly, Bucky, began vomiting a few days ago. He’s in the
infirmary now with some kind of food poisoning. He isn’t the only
one who got it, so he has company.

I wouldn’t wish a sickness like that on anyone but, I have to
admit, his absence from the small place that is our cell is a bit of a
relief. I am less distracted, able to write more, and can get off my
bunk whenever I want, instead of the way we have to do it when
there are two of us…taking turns.

It isn’t that I don’t like Bucky, or care what happens to him. I
do. He came highly recommended (my friend Jimmy vouched for
him). After my last celly was transferred, the cell house sergeant
told me I would have to find another, or he would find one for
me. I had Bucky move in later that day.

Bucky came to prison as a juvenile with a four year sentence,
but in the few years he has been here six more have been added
to it because of his behavior (and I suspect he will stretch it to
more than that before he is through). He gets into trouble
because he’s afflicted with what used to be called in my time
“hyperactivity”, now ADHD. They give him Ritalin in an attempt to
control it, but he sells the pills. He has no other source of money
–no parents, he was raised by the state.

You may wonder why I choose to live with a prisoner like
Bucky, afflicted as he is and only nineteen years old. But, the
truth is, I am more comfortable around him than I would be
around someone who wasn’t sent to prison until he was older. I
have patience for Bucky because I understand him…at least the
circumstances that brought him to prison, because they are not
much different from the ones that brought me here when I was
his age.

I have to yell at Bucky sometimes to take a shower because
he forgets, or to wash his socks. But, besides that, he isn’t a
problem. He’s trustworthy and his word is good. What more
could I ask?

The problem isn’t my celly, it’s that this prison has the
smallest cells in the system—we literally live on top of each other
here. State officials know they aren’t supposed to put more than
one prisoner into a cell this small. An injunction was issued by a
Federal Court years ago that kept them from doing it—until the
state got it lifted by telling the court that prisoners were
volunteering to be crammed in together. Bastards.

I’ve pondered writing to the court to tell them the truth, but I
know it wouldn’t be wise. Others have tried it and everyone
knows what happened to them. Because of the overcrowding,
more than a thousand of our state’s prisoners are housed in
other states (long distances away), and I would quickly find
myself with them if I were to write the court.

Bucky is a decent celly, but I am going to enjoy this time while
he is gone. I don’t miss being forced into such close proximity
with anyone.

three: birds of a feather
Wednesday, July 30th

We were allowed out into the Big Yard this morning and I went
with the hope of catching sight of the young osprey that has been
hanging around the prison recently. Last week he landed on one
of the lights above the wall and I was able to get a good look at
him. He at me, as well.

No sight of the osprey today though. It was warm early and the
only birds to see were starlings, a small group in the grass on the
far side of the yard. They are always here because they don’t
migrate, the prison is their home. I have watched enough
generations of them live out their lives here, go from chicks to
death, to be able to tell you with certainty that they don’t go
anywhere.

I like to watch birds—which is strange when you consider that I
have spent many years of my life in IMU (maximum-security)
where I was unable to see them. There you are confined only to a
small cell, you don’t get to see outside. Then again, maybe it is
because of that experience that I have gained this appreciation for
them. I don’t think I had it before they put me in that place.

The starlings in the yard this morning were parents with their
offspring. Although the young ones were no smaller than the
adults, they were easy to pick out because of their coloring and
the way they behaved. While the adults search the grass for
food—thrusting their heads down into it and looking around, then
taking a few steps and repeating the process—their fledglings
follow them raising a ruckus, squawking and shaking their wings.
The only time the youngsters were quiet was when one of their
parents stuffed a bug in their throats. As soon as they got it
down, they would begin squawking again.

Sometimes when I am watching birds, thoughts come to me—
like the one I had this morning. As I watched the starlings, I
couldn’t’t help but recognize a correlation between them and a
certain kind of prisoner—those who were raised by the state in its
institutions. They, too, were brought up to be where they are.
Free people, I suspect, would think it ridiculous to say that, but
that is only because they don’t know what it is like—what growing
up in those places teaches you, and what it doesn’t. It doesn’t
prepare you for a life in civilized society. The only thing a young
person raised by the state is fit for is this right here. I’ve been in
long enough to see that cycle play itself out too, generation after
generation—I’m thinking of Bucky now, one of the most recent
generation.

Is it fair to write this? To believe it? My own generation comes
to mind now, those who grew up with me in those places. Yes, I
think it is fair…because I can’t think of a single instance where it
wasn’t true.

four: home
Thursday, July 31st

It is raining today. When we’re locked in our cells we can’t see
outside, but I know it is raining because water is running in
rivulets down the inner wall of the cell house, being absorbed into
state-issue blankets that have been laid out for this purpose. The
blankets must be changed frequently by the tier porters. Water
drips from cracks in the ceiling, the drops fall into large plastic
garbage barrels placed strategically on the cell house floor four
stories below.

It isn’t raining hard, if it was, more water would be coming
through the cracks. It’s funny to see streams of water pouring
from the ceiling (funny in the same way it is to see errant weeds
growing from the sides of old brick buildings here and on the wall).

I wonder how much longer this place is going to last. What if it
fell down? Wouldn’t that be funny? What would they do? Tell us
to go home? When you have lived your entire life in prison, where
is home?

five: fight
Saturday, August 2nd

There was a fight tonight during the last movement period.
(Movement periods are times during the day when we’re allowed
to move from one area of the prison to another.) Fights are
hardly unusual here, they happen all the time. I wouldn’t bother
mentioning it if there wasn’t more to it.

The fight broke out in the main corridor leading to our
cellhouse between two prisoners of different races and quickly
swelled to include more prisoners of those same races—six of one
and eight of the other. This kind of fight is more serious than
usual because it affects everyone in the prison, tautens the
already threaded line of tension that runs through everything
here, and carries with it the very real possibility that the entire
place will erupt into violence.

Alarms sounded, and the gates inside the prison that control
movement on its sidewalks and through its corridors slammed
shut, cutting off other prisoners’ ability to get to the disturbance.
Guards converged from every section of the prison.

I saw the fight from behind a wall of bars that separates one
end of the corridor from the other, part of a large crowd that was
caught there when the gates slammed. All of us watched as the
drama played out. One of the race groups involved in the fight
was my own and I was immediately conscious that there were
members of the other race in the crowd around me. I tallied the
numbers in my mind—theirs, ours— and shifted in the crowd,
moving closer to the others of my own race. I watched myself
doing this and realized what I was doing was automatic—having
done it so many times in the past, I didn’t have to think about it.
And I wasn’t alone, everyone in that crowd did what I did. The
races separated. I wonder at what point in a prison sentence that
a person becomes like this. Reaching into my memory as far as I
can…I can’t remember. I’ll have to ask someone newer.

We are in our cells now, locked in for the night. The cell block is
quiet, that’s  how you can tell something is going on. All it would
take is for someone to say something, to direct it out through the
bars of their cell into the quiet bock. Maybe not even that. It may
be already going to happen anyway. We’ll see what tomorrow
brings, when the cell doors are racked in the morning.

six: search
Monday, August 4th

I found my cell destroyed when I returned from the Big Yard this
morning. It was impossible to take it in all at once, so I stood at the
bars for some time looking in, trying to make sense of the mess,
assess the damage.

Everything was on the floor. The sheets and blankets that cover the
thin foam pads we call mattresses, stripped off and thrown there—
Bucky’s and mine. The cardboard boxes that I keep my property in had
been turned upside down and dumped there too. My heart froze at the
sight of my writing tablets in a twisted pile, loose pages scattered.

Anger came over me and I entered the cell. The door racked shut
behind me. Bucky’s property was dumped in the corner and his meager
collection of possessions were pushed under the toilet. The cover of my
favorite writing book was torn and I realized that it is as good as gone,
its useful life ended—not because the damage had destroyed it, but
because it is the reason guards will use to take it in the next cell search.
According to prison policy, it is now “altered.” No matter that they did it.

When I picked up the writing tablets, I noticed that my photos were
under everything, strewn across the concrete floor face down. I
dropped the tablets and hurried to pick them up. Some lay in water and
there was no way I could salvage them.

It would have been easy at that point to tell myself it was the last
straw, to self-destruct. It was what I wanted more than anything to do.

The photos were of Kriss—of Kriss and me together. Kriss, who has
visited me for the last fifteen years, who sacrificed so much in her life in
order to befriend me, then more in order to marry me. She has been
with me through the hardest times and is the only family I have ever
known. Do they not know that I love this woman more than life itself?
My anger turned red-hot; my hatred of them, implacable.

I reminded myself that the photos aren’t her, they’re just photos.
She doesn’t want me to self-destruct and end up in the hole. I tried to
imagine her here, what she would say. A shadow passed in front of the
cell and I looked up to see a guard standing there. He looked young and
a bit nervous. I stared at him with the blank cast of my prison face, not
saying anything. I didn’t know why he had come to my cell (to witness
firsthand the misery he had caused and revel in it?) I remember exactly
what I thought at that moment, “It’s too soon…I haven’t composed
myself yet…I’m not ready to hear what you have to say…get out of here
and leave me alone!”

The guard smiled in an attempt to appear friendly, to bridge the
gulf. He offered an offhand apology for the mess and informed me that
it wasn’t their fault (he and the others guards who did it), the order to
search the cell had been handed down “from above.” He looked at me
as though he expected me to say something.

I held on to my deadpan expression—as much a part of me as it is, I
had difficulty maintaining it. I told him quietly to leave.

The guard began to say something, but I didn’t give him the chance.
I yelled, ”LEAVE!” imbuing the word with all of the anger that I felt, no
longer interested in concealing it. It was as civil a tone as I could
manage, His expression turned angry instantly, his lips compressed into
a tight resentful line and he moved off.

For a moment, I tried to look at things from the young guard’s
point of view, but it was useless. There is no way I could understand a
guard like that, how he and his buddies could possibly think that it was
okay to do this, and that he would be able to come by the cell afterward
and explain away what they had done, that I would be okay with it and
everything would be all right—or, at least, no different than before they
did it.

I sat down heavily atop the wreckage of my property, no longer
interested in trying to sort through them or pick things up, the photos
of Kriss still in my hands. I counseled myself—as I have done countless
times in the past—that I don’t really own anything…photos or anything
else. No one does here. What you have in regard to property, you only
have through good fortune, and only for the time being, there is no
guarantee you will be able to retain it. If you lash yourself to it—what
you think is yours—prison will break you. Anything you have in here can
be taken or destroyed on the whim of those who keep you, and the
more you cling to it, the more likely it is to happen.

Breathing deep, I allowed my thoughts to settle and reminded
myself of the source of my strength, My strength lies in the knowledge
that guards can take everything from me, strip me naked and throw me
into a concrete and steel cell with nothing, leave me there an indefinite
period of time (months or years) and I will find a way to survive, to
come out of it sane and still a functional human being with the ability to
start anew. I know this because they have done it, and I have made it
through…many times. It is these times that are my greatest victories.

The only thing we truly own in prison is what we possess when we
are naked…locked inside of a cell with nothing. If a person can figure out
what that is and cultivate it, abide in it, what they take from him
materially means nothing, that is when he is doing time right. If you’re
unaware of what you have to fall back on when you’ve been stripped of
everything…then you truly are poor.

I feel better now. I realize I only get upset because I forget, lose
touch with what I already know, the source of my strength. When I’m in
touch, none of this is able to bother me…and I don’t feel the need to hate anymore.

seven: fat jack
Tuesday, August 5th

They transferred Fat Jack to the infirmary today. I was glad I got the
chance to see him before he left, but it was difficult watching him go. I
have known him a long time and he really is a decent person.

It’s funny that I still call him Fat Jack even though he isn’t fat
anymore and hasn’t been for some time. His belly protrudes, but that is
only because his organs are distended, painfully bloated with the toxins
his liver is unable to filter from his blood. The rest of him is skeleton-
like, the flesh that remains hangs loosely from his bones. He is in the
latter stages of Hepatitis C infection.

Jack’s transfer isn’t a surprise, he knew it was coming. It’s inevitable
when you lose touch with who and where you are—when you ask
guards questions that don’t make sense and wander unconsciously into
sections of the prison you aren’t supposed to go. We have both seen it
before (infirmary staff say that the prison HVC infection rate is over
seventy percent), most recently with some of Jack’s closest friends:
Chuck, Leo, Speedy…Bill.

Jack took Bill’s death the hardest. Bill, who spoke of being betrayed
before his transfer to the infirmary. He passed most of his sentence
working as a clerk in the chapel, certain that Jesus would get him out of
prison one day. “Faith” he called it. As it turned out, it was nothing
more than overconfidence in Jesus’ ability to influence the affairs of the
Department of Corrections. Bill died within days of his move out of the
cell house and Jack has made a point of declaring his own position on
Jesus ever since. Even when he is in one of his delusional states, his
position doesn’t change—there is no Jesus.

For me, what the state is doing to Fat Jack throws into question
their assertion that their prisons only house those who are too
dangerous to allow into society. After all, Jack can hardly get around
anymore—he was sent to prison for drug offenses. What would it hurt
to cut his sentence and let him die outside these walls? Wouldn’t that
be the right thing to do? Every terminally ill prisoner I have known
asked for this, but I’ve never seen it granted.

It was hard to watch Jack make that walk today. I tried to lighten his
mood by telling him that Bucky (my celly) is in the infirmary…that he will
see him there…but my words sounded phony because they didn’t match
what was in my heart. I wish that I could have thought of something
more meaningful to say. Jack seemed unusually clearheaded. Watching
him trudge off down the walk in the direction of Medical, I believe he
knew this would be the last time he was going to make that trip.

eight: about education
Thursday, August 7th

Everything stopped while I was reading a newspaper in
the library today—the article said that Alexander
Solzhenitsyn passed away in his home in Moscow. The rest
of the world continued on, I suppose, but everything
stopped inside of me. I retreated to my cell and remain here
in order to contemplate his life, and the connection I have
for so long felt with him. I realize you may not understand—
why Mr. Solzhenitsyn meant anything to me, why the news
of his death affects me. Let me try to explain.

When I was sent to prison many years ago as a very
young man, I had only a seventh grade education and didn’t
read or write very well. I had never heard of Mr.
Solzhenitsyn. I wanted to go to school and get an
education, which was something that was not available to
me before I came to prison, but I soon discovered I wasn’t
allowed to attend school inside either. Prison officials said it
would be a waste of their time and resources to educate me
because I had a life sentence. They told me I would only be
allowed to take barber or janitor classes—two vocations that
would make me a useful prisoner.

At this point, I didn’t even know if it was possible for me
to learn—if I had the same abilities as others—but I had
made up my mind to try, so I set out to educate myself. I
went to the prison library and began to check out books. It
was a small library and poorly stocked, but I read everything
I could…biography, history, philosophy, language. Then I
made tests and gave them to myself in order to be sure I
had retained all that I was pouring into my mind.

On the back shelf of the library one day I came across a
treasure—a three volume set of Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag
Archipelago. When I got it back to my cell, it held me
entranced long after I finished it.

I went on to read all of Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s published
works. My favorite is a small book entitled One Day in the
Life of Ivan Denisovich—the story of a day in the life of a
prisoner in the Soviet Union. I love that book, not only
because it reflects the strength and perseverance of the
human spirit in the face of seeming hopelessness but,
because it could have only been written by a prisoner…only a
prisoner can know of so many of the things he wrote. In
fact the book startled me when I read it because I knew it
was written about prisoners in another country, during a
different time, under different circumstances, yet I felt as if I
was reading about prisoners and guards I know, what goes
on here, and what goes through many of our minds while
we’re experiencing it. There were so many parallels, I couldn’t
help but feel close to them. Of course, I am conscious that
Ivan and many of those in prison around him were political
prisoners, and I and those around me are criminals, but
there is still a connection…and that connection is that we are
human beings.

The experience of prison as it exists in our country today
is no less damaging to the individual or society than the
experience of it that Mr. Solzhenitsyn wrote about. There
are many differences, but it is no less harmful and those
who would believe otherwise are deluding themselves;
certainly they have never been prisoners. The only argument
to be made is whether or not (because of the harm many of
us have caused others) we deserve it, and if the price of
doing this to so many of us is worth the toll it takes upon
society. I’ve often wondered what Mr. Solzhenitsyn would
think (write) if he were able to experience what it is like to
be a long-term prisoner in this country today where prison
has become an industry into which human beings are fed,
and out of which is spat a product that is much less capable
of functioning in society than the one that went in.

Being in prison in this country is different now than it ever
has been before. There are more people inside—many times
more. Never has there been anywhere close to this number.

And sentences are longer and harsher than ever. Is that
because people are worse today than they were in the past?
Worth less? Less able to redeem themselves, or less
deserving of the opportunity to do so?

And young people—the ones with the greatest potential
to reform themselves—are given those sentences. We have
prisoners in this state who were given mandatory Life
without the Possibility of Parole sentences when they were
thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years old. We have prisoners
struck-out as career criminals when they were nineteen,
twenty, and twenty-one. They too have mandatory Life
without Parole sentences. “Mandatory” means that a judge
didn’t have a choice in the matter, the sentence was
mandated by legislators (lawmakers who decided without
ever meeting these young people or considering their
circumstances, that there is nothing in them worth
salvaging, that they can never change, and that they
deserve nothing ever other than unremitting punishment.

Maybe I am deluding myself, but I have always felt that
Mr. Solzhenitsyn would be able to relate to what is going on
here with many prisoners…feel as close to us as I have
always felt to him. Getting a sentence of Life without Parole
when you are young is hopelessness. Continuing on after
that, learning to survive in an American prison and proceed
forward as decades stack one atop another, and you have
long since forgotten what is on the other side of these
walls, is perseverance of human spirit.

Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s writing inspired me as a young prisoner
to continue my efforts to educate myself and, eventually, led
me to write a book modeled after his One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich. It’s a manuscript that is passed from
convict to convict; the story of one day in the life of a
prisoner inside the prison in which I grew into adulthood and
have spent most of my life—the prison in Walla Walla. When
officials there discovered a copy and read it, they threw me
in the hole and revoked my medium-custody classification.
But the manuscript still makes its rounds. Prisoners read it
because it puts words to what they are unable to, relates
the truth about prison, and what it does to those who are
in it. I have always felt that Mr. Solzhenitsyn is as
responsible for the existence of this convict manuscript as I
am.

I wonder if Mr. Solzhenitsyn ever dreamed while he was in
prison that his life would turn out as it has…that he would
live outlive the system that imprisoned him… that he would
one day live free…that he would own a home (in Moscow)
and that he would be able to die there. Perseverance of
spirit. Thank you Mr. Solzhenitsyn for showing us what that
is. No better example could have been given, no better life
lived.

nine: crowded
Friday, August 8th

Bucky was released from the infirmary today around noon. He
surprised me when he showed up at the cell haggard and pale,
hunched over because his stomach still hurt. He said that he had
seen Fat Jack.

Part of me is glad that he is back. Tomorrow, if he is up to it, we
will play chess. He likes getting beat.

I am trying to suppress the other part of me—the part that
doesn’t like to be crowded.

ten: a river of faces
Tuesday, August 12th

My friend, Kenny, got out of prison yesterday. He felt bad
about leaving, I could tell. Not bad that he was getting out, but
that I’m not.

It’s a kind of guilt that I don’t understand. He wanted me to
say something, I know, to allay what he was feeling. But I didn’t.
It’s not my fault what he feels.

Kenny is a decent person, but he cannot fathom the endless
line of people I have seen get out in the last twenty-five years, a
river of faces almost as large the one I have watched flow in. And
he is only one ripple in that river. I didn’t want to try and explain
that to him. Better that he just went…thinking what he thought,
feeling what he felt.

Never do I mouth the same tired platitudes I hear from
others—“Good luck…” “I hope you make it…” “It’s been good to
know you…” etc. I can’t bring myself to do it. Only in the last few
years have I become aware of what I say—“See you later…” Maybe
that is what I am hoping for. And…why not. The odds are it’s
true. Am I supposed to feel bad when they come back? You think
I want to be alone in here? Or surrounded only by those I don’t
like?

I realize it’s a fucked up way to think. I’m working on it.

Eleven: The Sting
Thursday, August 14th<

An unusual sight on the Big Yard today—two gold finches. I
heard them and looked up in time to see them flit over. That was
it, only a second or two worth of sighting, but enough to be sure
of what they were.

The young starlings were more independent than last time I
observed them—they have ceased to bother their parents so
much. All that differentiates them from adults now is their
coloring.

I’m not sure what made me think of it, but as I watched the
birds it occurred to me that prison is harder on people who were
sent here when they are older. At least, those who are older than
twenty-one. When you’re sent to prison younger than that, there
comes a point when it loses its sting, you lose touch with the fact
that you are being punished. This is true especially if you have a
life sentence because when you live your entire adult life in prison,
no matter how bad it gets in here, your situation is only what
you, as an adult, have ever known it to be. You go about life the
best you can without the handicap of memories of a better time
or place (unless it’s memories of a better prison you were in
once, compared to the one you are in now).

After living so long here I’m conscious that prison is
punishment only because of what I see on the faces of those not
yet accustomed to it. Watching the newly arrived, it’s obvious
that what they find in here isn’t what they are used to, not what
is considered normal outside these walls…undoubtedly a long way
from it. Their reaction infuses itself on their faces, a dawning look
of horror; realization that they now have to live like this, will have
to find a way to do it…or knot a sheet around their neck. They
don’t know the half of it yet.

Even as I write this I’m aware that it isn’t completely true, I’m
not entirely unbothered by prison, the experience of life here isn’t
bereft of punishment for me. That is because I’m not blameless. I
am responsible for the death of an innocent person, that is why I
am here. And it eats at me…always has. What bothers me is that
I don’t feel like I’ve ever been able to pay anything back, in any
way make up for the crime I as an ignorant young person
committed—no matter what happens in here, no matter how bad
or intolerable it gets, prison has never made me feel like I am
doing that.

 

 

Arthur Longworth has been incarcerated since age 18. His youth was spent in a variety of foster homes – usually for only two or three months at a time. He was separated from his sister at an early age and, in his teens, he lived in a series of youth facilities. At sixteen he was released to the streets with no means of support. He had only a seventh-grade education and began life in Seattle breaking into cars and doing petty criminal activity. At age 18 he escalated to armed robbery and in one holdup a victim was killed. Arthur was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.  After Longworth arrived in prison he asked to go to school to get an education. He was told that as a “lifer” he wouldn’t need an education. Eventually he visited the library and educated himself.

“The Persistence of Desire” by Richard Wirick

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This is, of course, the name of one of his stories. In it, a man who has escaped his  farm town past, a rustic with urban vanities, nonetheless returns there to visit a trusted dentist. He sees the things that have changed since his childhood visits, the most telling being a digit-based (though not digital) clock, its minutes dropping away, as he watches, “into the brimming void.

What has not changed is his passion for a childhood flame who happens to drop
by the office, chat him up a bit, blush under his revived attentions, and eventually,
almost silently, alludes to the anomies her marriage there has doomed her to. Though
his themes are as abundant as Adam’s names, persistence is Updike’s perpetual
character-driver, the life force that animates each form of his characters’ transcendence:

[Janet] arose and came against his chest, and Clyde,
included in the close aroma her hair and skin gave off,
felt weak and broad and grand, like a declining rose.
Janet tucked a folded note into the pocket of his shirt and
said conversationally, “He’s waiting outside in the car.”
The neutral, ominous “he” opened wide a conspi-
racy Clyde instantly entered. He stayed behind a minute,
to give her time to get away. Ringed by judging eyes of the
young and old, he felt like an actor snug behind the blinding
protection of the footlights; he squinted prolongedly at the
speedometer-clock, which, like a letter delivered on the stage,
was blank.

And who wrote better about abiding religiosity, the search for faith that Updike saw as essential and unexplainable by reference to historical or social forces? In the story “The Man Who Loved Extinct Animals,” the protagonist sees in the joints and hinges of the fossils he assembles the delicate bridges that the mind builds over the abyss. The brimming void may blind us, he seems to say, but as long as we rivet the beams together, keep busy with the reality or the illusion of building and don’t look down, we will be fine for the time being.

Persistence also abides, though less than in other writers, in those characters who shore up some art, or artifact, against their ruin. One of the most powerful of “The Olinger Stories” (Collected in 2004’s Collected Early Stories), is “The Alligators.” An elementary school boy fashions his first illustrations not out of any transcendent wish, but to satirize a classmate whose ostracism is a requirement for popularity. He feels guilt  at creating for such a mean and limited purpose, but then, as he shares other, maturing drawings with friends, sees that he has inherited a transfiguring power, and one conferring the consolations of infinity.

What often persists the most could be the most unattractive but necessary of qualities—market ambition, social climbing, the Sinclair Lewis hucksterism that tells us the historical echoes of the “Rabbit” nickname. In the story “The City,” a man falls ill while traveling on business, and as he recovers through hallucinations and incisional pain, we think that maybe he will reassess, prioritize, hunger for the stasis of a family and fixed life. But the desire to impress and dazzle is as basic to the organism as eating or breathing, and the brush with death seems to have taught him nothing but the need for reserves of energy stored up by rest. It was always Updike’s exploration of ambition that made him that most American of writers. Roth and Bellow approached it brilliantly through urbanized machers of immigrant merchant classes, but Updike filtered it through our Rotary Club speakers, the Toyota salesman (Rabbit Is Rich) quoting gas mileage stats to us from Consumer Reports.

Perhaps the greatest persistence he portrayed was longing itself; yearning, the desire to rise higher and keep hope borne up in one’s bearing as the very badge of existence. Like Francis Bacon, Updike believed the world is laid out for us, kindly disposed to our discovery and enjoyment: “Full of Joye and Wondrous Goode.” That transporting, almost erotic elixir of exploration runs through the age-sequenced life snapshots of the narrator of “Museums and Women.” It first visits him like a spell as he traverses a county reliquary with his mother:

Who she was was a mystery so deep it never formed itself
into a question. She had descended to me from thin clouds of
preexistent time, enveloped me, and set me moving toward an
unseen goal with a vague expectation that in the beginning was
more hers than mine. She was not content. I felt that the motion
that brought us again and again to the museum was an agitated
one, that she was pointing me through these corridors toward a
radiant place that she had despaired of reaching . . .I was her
son and the center of her expectations. I dutifully absorbed the
light-struck terror of the hushed high ceilings and went through
each doorway with a kind of timid rapacity.

What is sought here—though great—is not as important as the sensation, the very texture of seeking: she was pointing me. . . toward a radiant place she had despaired of reaching. Updike owns the luxuriance of The Search more than anyone (perhaps excepting Walker Percy) in modern letters: he invented the theme out of whole cloth and then perfected it in more than fifty books, through hundreds of characters. His perspective on it was tactile, limber, instinctual, breezy, and at the same time solemn, like one of his epistolary clergymen. William Pritchard said of him, reviewing the collection with the above story as its title: “He is a religious writer, he is a comic realist; he knows what everything feels like, how everything works. He is putting together a body of work which, in substantial intelligent creation, will eventually be seen as second to none in our time.” Eventually seen? For those in the know, the fathomless depth, and the dexterity, was staggeringly obvious from the start. Chip McGrath, in his tribute in The Times, posed the question: “If you could write that well by taking a pill, who wouldn’t swallow whole fistfuls of them?”

Though we had no way of knowing it, my colleague Victoria Pynchon  and I saw him in his very last public appearance, at UCLA’s Royce Hall in December. He read a quick passage from The Widows of Eastwick, where Alexandra, the aging Rhode Island witch of the Seventies, is now an old woman on a Nile cruise, telepathically electrocuting bats that are flying across her steamer bow and mussing her hair. Everything you could want in establishing a scene is there: the colors of the foul but suddenly clearing river, the Monet hues of the Egyptian twilight, the precisely rendered sound of something we’ll never hear but know could sound only that way were we to witness it—a bat’s fur and rubbery extremities flaming up and then dousing themselves to death in the water.Wrapped up in this sensuous music—much as with his beloved Proust and Bellow—is the effortless, sudden ranging between third person and first, the immediately recognizable hinges of his free indirect style. It is what hit American readers of Rabbit, Run like a thunderbolt in 1959, or like the welcome sun Harry sees on the first page, sliding open the door of his dark, Satanic Linotype shop and blinking at the kindly-disposed world, the bright, haphazard gravel under the soles of his basketball hi-tops. It was the same shifts in register and perspective that made you always know but never care which thought was Rabbit’s or which was his creator’s. He dove like a . . . what?

Like a bat—down into everyone’s head and hovered there meticulously. He got out of them just what was needed for reality to create their observations and then, with a pirouette Sam Tannenhaus called “pure magic,” let his characters’ minds in turn press out upon the world their seeing had reconstituted.

He honed this to perfection in the opening scenes of Rabbit At Rest, where the narrator jumps inside Rabbit (he’s waiting for his wife to get out of the bathroom at the Ft. Myers airport) long enough for us to feel the man’s gluttonous elation, then leaps back to look at his character like a Babbitesque, portly clodhopper, chewing and dribbling a candy bar, gazing at his own strange sunstruck extinction:

While she’s in the ladies he cannot resist going into the shop and buying
something to nibble, a Planter’s Original Peanut Bar, the wrapper says. It was
broken in two somewhere in transit and thinks one half to offer his two
grandchildren when they’re all in the car heading home. It would make a small hit.
But the first half is so good he eats the second and even dumps the sweet
crumbs out of the wrapper into his palm and with his tongue eats them all up like
an anteater . . . . . As he tries with his tongue to clean the sticky brittle stuff, the
caramelized sugar and corn syrup, from between his teeth—all his still, thank God,
and the front ones not even crowned—Rabbit stares out at the big square of
sunny afternoon. As the candy settles in his stomach a sense of doom regrows its
claws around his heart: little prongs like those that hold a diamond solitaire.

We come finally to the little shadow under the intensity of appetite: its forbiddeness and its premonition of oblivion. You stuff yourself, but with something of your own negation.

Later, even closer to death, Rabbit looks up from his heart bypass operating table and sees on a video screen his own horrific viscera, “the pulsing wet tubes we inherited from the squid.” Harry is reassured that his doctor is Jewish, having a

Gentile prejudice that Jews do everything a little better
than other people, something about all those generations
crouched over the Talmud and watch-repair tables, they
aren’t as distracted as other persuasions, they don’t expect
to have as much fun. They stay off the booze and dope and
have a weakness only . . .for broads.

We get Harry’s immediate assessment of his surgeon’s vices, but only after we’ve sailed around the room a little, flitting omnisciently within the purely authorial, purely sociological adumbration of the character.

At the reading, Updike finally laid down the copper-jacketed book and talked awhile with a writer from the L.A. Times Book Review. All his observations were witty, generous, self-deprecating, and in the words of his own epitaph for his beloved editor William Maxwell, “funny and wise and kind and true.” He finished with a gush of enthusiasm about the newly-elected Obama, clasping his hands together, appearing to rise up out of his chair like one of his early cartoon whiffenpoofs. Then he took a series of mostly inept audience questions, steering each gracefully toward a cognizable answer. The inevitable what-are-you-working-on eventually arrived, and for once he really didn’t have a thought-through response. He shrugged his shoulders, slapped his palms on his knees, and said “I’ll only say I intend to stay in this writing business until I drop over dead.” And lucky for us, by God, he did.

 

 

Richard Wirick lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife and three children, where he practices law and writes. He is the co-founder of the journal Transformation and the author of the hauntingly lyrical collection of prose poems 100 Siberian Post Cards.

“The Menopausal Warrior Queen Dictates 7 Rules for Fighting the Evil Breast Cancer” by Tana Suter

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After I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I couldn’t help but notice circumstances that, when they arose, seemed to strike me as blatantly unfair.  To each I would respond with a dramatic sigh and state emphatically to anyone who would listen, “There ought to be a rule against that!”

Now as the self-proclaimed Menopausal Warrior Queen, I decree that the rules that follow are hereby effective immediately and across the universe.
Okay, so I don’t really have that kind of power.  But if I did, here are the ones I would implement with the snap of my noble fingers.

Rule 1: Bad behavior on the breast cancer patient’s part should not be held against her by others, at least not permanently.  Actually, this rule was in effect for me although I wasn’t badly behaved all the time.  I was at my worst when I was recovering from my mastectomy and breast reconstruction surgery and my husband was my primary caregiver.  After a week in the hospital, he drove me home and bundled me off to bed,   then set to the design and execution of a well-documented system of round-the-clock checks, meds, and drain line cleanings that would have impressed Florence Nightingale.  He made sure I ate on schedule.  He arose every hour on the hour, night after night, to lead me to the bathroom since I couldn’t walk without wandering because of the pain medication.  He was the model of loving efficiency.   Since I was unable do much by myself, I really did need his help.  But his unlimited cheerfulness made me want to smack him, so I soon dubbed him the “Nurse Nazi.”  

Luckily, he remained steadfast through my emotional outbursts and did not hold them against me.  His explanation was that my temporary lack of gratitude was the result of exhaustion, pain, medications and fear which sounded plausible enough to me.  Therefore, I dictate that this rule is now in effect for all, henceforth.

Rule 2: Anyone who accompanies you to a diagnostic test should be prepared to dress you once the test is complete.  I took a doctor-prescribed Xanax prior to my MRI biopsy and it did the job because I don’t remember any pain or discomfort.  The tricky part came when the procedure was finished.  I was so out of it that I couldn’t dress myself, so the nurse called my husband from the waiting room to help me.  The jeans I wore had slipped off quite easily when I undressed to change into a gown.  But getting those same jeans back on proved to be about as difficult as stuffing sausage meat into a casing, only without the spiffy machine.  Ed was able to place my feet into the leg openings while I sat on the bench, but when he tried to stand me up my rag doll posture made it difficult for him to pull them up around my waist.  His military training served him well as he draped me over his shoulders in a modified fireman’s carry, propping me up so he could slide the jeans over my hips.  My giggles over Ed’s groans coming from behind the dressing room curtain caused the nurse to check to see if everything was okay.   In retrospect, I was grateful that I hadn’t asked one of our male neighbors to drive me to the test.  That would have made the rounds of our neighborhood at lightning speed!

Rule 3: You should not be held responsible for breaking basic fashion rules when coming home from the hospital or at anytime
during treatment.

This rule can keep you off the fashion hook for four or five months, at a minimum.  For example, although it was not a combination I would normally wear, drawstring sweat pants, a blouse that buttoned up the front, and pink Crocs on my feet were all I could manage when I left the hospital.  Since it was chilly that day, I layered my white terry cloth robe over it all for an attractive finish to the outfit.  The good news is, no one cared because everyone leaves the hospital looking like hell anyway.  And I didn’t care because… I was on pain meds.  Thank God my oldest daughter, ever ready with her camera, was not there or I would certainly have shown up on the back page of Fashion Don’ts in a future Glamour magazine with a black rectangle over my eyes.

Then there are the days during treatment when concocting any outfit, much less a fashionable one, is just too overwhelming.  One afternoon after a chemo treatment I answered the doorbell looking a bit green while wearing my trusty terrycloth robe over pink knit pajamas, slippers, and a pink terry turban on my head.  A Victoria’s Secret ad gone terribly wrong.  The FedEx man, polite but wide-eyed, had me sign for the package, then literally sprinted back to the safety of his truck.  Note the common theme of the robe in both anti-fashion examples.  Maybe I should decree that runway designers need to elevate the style status of fluffy terrycloth robes in next year’s collections!

Rule 4: As a cancer patient, you should not be embarrassed to admit to the use of unorthodox methods to solve unexpected annoyances. I submit the example of what to do with your head after you shave it, that is, if you choose to shave off your hair prior to it falling out during chemotherapy.  A week or so after you shave, some hairs will not fall out readily, won’t come out when rubbing your head in the shower, and are also not growing.  They feel like little needles and can be pretty uncomfortable under a hat, scarf, wig or crown.  

I presented this dilemma to my husband, ever the willing problem solver.  He suggested the typical male answer to most all of life’s problems – duct tape.  My first instinct was to snap back at him: “Are you crazy?  It isn’t enough that I am bald?  Now you want me to rip the skin off my head??”  (This was a holdover from the bad behavior highlighted in Rule #1.)  But I managed to hold my tongue and, after conceding that this stuff was used in wartime to patch bullet holes in helicopter blades until repairs could be made, decided that I didn’t have much to lose if I was careful.  And I had to face the cold reality that none of my ideas had worked.

Per his instructions I cut a 9” length of tape, wrapped it around my palm and the top of my hand, sticky side out, then slowly and gently rolled my covered palm across my head where the needle hairs were.  Sure enough, many of them came out without any pain while my skin remained intact.  As I performed this exercise Ed sat in the bedroom anxiously awaiting the results.  I walked out and stated ruefully, “As much as I hate to admit it, this actually works.”   After a few more duct tape treatments, I progressed to my Sheltie’s pet roller for the less stubborn hairs.  These two techniques got me to the point where I had no more needles and no more hairs falling out and sticking to my pillow or turban.  Therefore, I order that we will no longer be embarrassed to share our unusual (okay, weird) solutions with others who might benefit.

Rule 5: Staying with the hair theme, wigs need to be cooler. I don’t mean better styling, although President’s wives must be popular /images for some wig designers because one made me look like Mamie Eisenhower while another channeled Pat Nixon. The wig I finally selected was a stunner and was comfortable enough when I bought it in mid-October.  That is, until my first serious hot flashes began after I started chemotherapy.  Then, all I wanted to do was strip off everything – my clothes, the wig – and do it fast.  Since that kind of behavior can get you arrested out in public, I sucked it up until the flash was over.  But over a period of four months I went through several packages of batteries for my personal hand fan.  That sweet little device saved me from becoming bald jail bait.  So forthwith, wigs will help us look terrific while containing a cool gel lining in the net cap so we can survive climate change, both personal and global, while staying on the right side of the law.  

Rule 6:  Steroids and adjuvant hormone therapy should not result in weight gain. Here’s another one where the drug universe really sticks it
to us.  Although I didn’t have a weight problem before, once I started my second round of chemo accompanied by steroids, I packed on 13 pounds before I could bat my skimpy-eyelashed lids.  It didn’t help that I was moving less because of bone pain, fatigue, and winter weather, and my steroid-induced appetite evaporated any attempts at portion control.  But the appearance of my ballooning alter ego was definitely unwelcome.  And, for the record, I was still bald.

As the effects of the chemo drugs faded, and the weather started to turn warmer, I began an exercise regimen to strengthen my body, doing a little bit at a time, and progressing as I felt stronger.  Just about the time I started to feel like I was hitting my stride, my oncologist initiated a one pill per day hormone therapy which will continue for five years or more.  One of the most common side effects is – yes, you guessed it – weight gain.  You have to love the irony here.  It’s not like we need help gaining weight as we mature and our metabolisms downshift after menopause.  I am dutifully exercising and watching what I eat, as well as how much, and am feeling 100% better and looking fitter and firmer but really, this rule needs to happen – NOW – before I gain another ounce!

Rule 7: When you ask for the curly hair chemo, then you should get curly hair on the regrowth. I spent my entire life begrudging my two brothers their curls, while my hair was stick straight.  That’s another rule that I should have taken care of long ago.  (Did I mention I am the oldest, and had to put up with them both, so they owe me?)

But I digress.  When I heard that many survivors’ hair grows back curly, I saw my chance.  I explicitly requested the curly hair chemo mix from my oncologist, who appraised me with a puzzled look, nodded, and said vaguely, “Aha.”  Now as I examine the current quarter inch regrowth that nominally qualifies as my crowning glory, there is not one curl to be seen.  The hairs are baby soft and delicate, and there are many more silver representatives than before.  What is that all about?  But not a damn one is curly.  So let’s revise this evolving rule: Curly hair chemo, if requested, means you get curly, non-gray, luxuriant tresses as your regrowth, and this goes double if you have two ungrateful brothers who have curly hair and the gall to complain about it in your presence.  Now that’s a kickin’ rule!

In summary, I don’t mean to be a complainer.  But if these rules were effective today, coping with breast cancer surgery and treatment could be rendered significantly more straightforward and certainly less maddening.  Alas, until that time comes, we just have to hunker down and fight our way through it, day by day.  To those untouched by breast cancer I say, good luck, annual mammograms all around, and keep ‘em coming!  And to my brave, survivor sisters: Fight on, Warrior Queens!  We can’t back down now and we can’t let the Evil Breast Cancer win!

 

 

 

Tana Suter is a recent cancer survivor who, fed up with illness memoirs crammed with drama and pathos, used her idle time throughout treatment to document how a serious illness muscled its way into her previously well-organized life.  She is finalizing a book entitled The Menopausal Warrior Queen Slays the Evil Breast Cancer where she collects her non-medical frustrations and observations into a funny, sad and often cranky call-to-arms for warrior queens and those who love them.  Her website, menopausalwarriorqueen.org will go live in May 2009. Suter lives with her husband, Ed, in the picturesque foothills of northern Virginia.