Tuesday, October 04, 2005
A word from S. Morgan, editor
“T H A N K S”
Belle Lettre is rounding its second year
now, and continues to strive to fill a niche in
the vast catalogue of literary outlets that exist.
Ours is a simple cause: to inspire creativity,
discovery and courage through action in all
people - and not just those who consider themselves
writers or artists. I have added to the
disclaimer box below that new, nontraditional and searching artists are encouraged to submit prose (including essays, short stories, reviews etc.), poetry, artwork, comics and photography for possible publication.
There isn’t much that is
more motivating to me
than finishing something
and then seeing it in print,
and I wanted to be able to
share this with others.
Something I’m
exited to announce: you
will now be able to find
Belle Lettre on the shelves
of Mac’s Backs Books on
Coventry - 1820 Coventry
Road, Cleveland Heights
Ohio 44118
ph. 216-321-2665. This establishments have offered to consign a few copies, so be sure to stop by, send your friends and check it out.
In related news, BL as well as many other ‘zines will be on display as part of the Contemporary small-press and Zine Exhibit at Mac’s Backs during October and November. Co-Sponsors: Bottom Dog Press, Inc., deepcleveland llc, Cleveland State University Poetry Center andCSU Library Special Collections, Trinity Cathedral (Euclid Ave.), supported by a grant from the Ohio Humanities Council. This is part of the d.a. levy & the 1960s Literary & Cultural Scene in Cleveland: symposium and celebration. Find out more at deepcleveland.com.
You can sometimes find free copies of BL at Phoenix Coffee 15108 Detroit Avenue Lakewood Oh 44107 216-226-4401 and Arabica University Circle 11300 Juniper Road, Cleveland Ohio 216-791-0300. While I’m plugging all these places, I
should also say that BL is printed at Printing Partners in Lakewood, 13437 Detroit Avenue, 216-221-7117. And thank you to this issue’s writers and artists: Miss Nicka, DMV, and TEA. Thanks to HP for her recipes and Rebecca for the cover photo. Also, a big thank you to Den, for being the first person
added to our donor wall.
Anyway, on to this issue. Except for “Banjo and Belle,” it ended up being very alcoholic. From the essay “Deconstructing a Hangover” to the review of two novels by Florida’s “gonzo” author Tim Dorsey, to a heavy drinking soldier in TEA’s DWIII serial, I guess the spirit of Oktoberfest managed to inspire everyone this season. And who can argue? What better time is there than fall, when the autumn leaves begin to crisp and turn to fire in the dying light, eventually forming a multi-hued carpet that crunches beneath your feet, to sit back and relax with a dark malty brew?
Mermaid Money
By Pippin Peck
Lying in the sand
I scooped it up and cleaned it off
And laid it in my hand.
And as I let it lay there
And pondered what to do
A seagull swooped and scooped it up
And so away it flew.
That is, until I stowed away on the pirate ship and realized it was the most valuable thing I possessed.
I snuck aboard the pirate ship for one reason and one reason only. To get away from the ghost. My friend Celeste and I had been trying to form our own detective agency for a while, but no one wanted to hire to kids to solve mysteries, except, we found, for the undead. See, most adults don’t see ghosts because they don’t believe in them. Most kids don’t tell people they can see ghosts for exactly the same reason. So, when this little girl ghost approached us and told us she needed help getting some people out of her house, we realized that we were the only ones who could help her.
Anyway, to make a long story shorter, we succeeded in helping her scare away the people. But instead of helping her rest in peace, she started haunting us and tried to turn us into ghosts so we’d live with her and keep her company.
4
I tried to tell her that it wasn’t in the contract, but it was no use. Celeste and her family finally had to move away and I, being an orphan, decided to stow away aboard the pirate ship.
5
Once we were out to sea, I came out of hiding and approached the Capitan. I let him know that I was interested in learning how to be a pirate. But unfortunately for me, he said that a pirate’s life was no life for a little girl and that he would rather see me walk the plank than join his crew.
So there I was, miles out to sea, all alone, made to walk the plank. At least I knew how to swim, but I doubted it would make all that much difference. I hit the water with a splash and a cheer from the pirate crew, who were quite drunk and splashed me with rum and wished me well on my way to the underworld.
I thought this was the end of me. I actually began to think that maybe after I died I’d find a way back to shore and spend eternity entertaining the little girl ghost. I got awfully tired as the sun began to set, and wondered if I should just try to go to sleep and peacefully drift under the waters.
Well, imagine my surprise as one of the rays of the setting sun seemed to inch out from the horizon and start swimming towards me! I truly thought my time had come, my brain was starting to imagine things, and I wasn’t long for this world. I watched the ray of light, squinting at the orange sparkle that darted just below the surface of the soft blue waves. A fin broke the surface, and my heart jumped at the thought of being nibbled to death by a shark. I thought I’d better get busy drowning so that I wouldn’t have to feel my kneecaps getting nipped off. Then I saw a pair of hands rise up, then arms, followed by a man’s head and then a long arching golden body.
“Help!” I gurgled, though I’m not sure why.
Something rose against my feet and I felt relief at being able to stop kicking, even for a moment. My legs buckled as the platform rose just to the surface of the water, and I knelt on a rubbery, somewhat slippery dolphin-like tail. In front of my face, the man’s head grinned, and he swept the water around with his hands. It didn’t take long to realize that the man and the tail were connected.
“One rescue at sea!” he chimed, “and unless you have a get-out-of-sea-free card, I think I’ll be taking you down to the Queen to see what kind of creature she’d like to turn you into. You look like you’d make a good seahorse, or maybe a jellyfish.”
I reached into my pockets, knowing they’d be bare of the type of richest that a merman would find valuable. All I had was that one little slice of shell that the crab had dropped, which I held out more as a sort of pathetic admission of defeat than an offering.
However his eyes widened, as though I held a holy relic, and he snatched it from me. “Humans aren’t allowed to have these!”
The merman looked at me sideways.
“You don’t even know do you?” He seemed to
ponder this fact, but then went and told me.
“Every once in a while, a bit of bait does a
favor much beyond his or her size or
standing in life - like the crab who
was able to free a killer whale from a
fisherman’s net by snipping through the
ropes with his sharp claws. I suppose
on land it would be like the story of
the mouse and the lion.
Needless to say, if a brave
sea creature helps out a
merperson, they receive one of
these tokens. They can trade this
in later on if they are threatened
or need help. You are quite lucky,
however you came across it.”
He flipped the coin in the air, and the
remaining sun glinted off its pinky
surface. Though he wore no clothes,
save a bandanna around his bald head,
he did have a satchel slung around his
waist and he slipped the coin inside.
“Well come on then, I won’t deliver you to
the Sea Queen. Hold on just behind my
back fin.” I did as I was told, and we shot
through the ocean like a knife through butter.
As we swam off to adventures unknown, I said a
silent thank you to the little sand crab. I hoped some day I could repay it, or better yet, that its life would be calm and tranquil, and it would never need to use that bit of mermaid money.
The End
THE SHELF
“Florida Roadkill” & ”Torpedo Juice”
By Tim Dorsey
Books
“Florida Roadkill,” by Tim Dorsey, introduces us to Surge and Coleman, a serial killer and drugged out deadbeat respectively, as they chase a suitcase full of money around Florida. “Torpedo Juice” reunites the pair, who again wreck havoc, this time in search of a Mrs. Surge, while traveling to Key West and back.
Imagine a book written by Quinton Tarantino, Hunter S. Thomson, Carl Hiaasen and a much less talented newspaper reporter, and that pretty much sets you up to read Dorsey.
“Roadkill” is the first book he wrote, but I actually read “Torpedo Juice” first. It was kinda fun coming in on a story already in progress. I enjoyed the imaginative descriptions of places such as The No Name Pub, a venue named after No Name Key, even though it’s not actually located there. I had no idea what was going on through the first half of the book, but a few choice quotes, such as “there are words that sound like they should be colors, like Cameroon and DiMaggio“ and “Today I built a kiln… where? In my mind!” made it a fun read none the less.
“Roadkill” has more back story, and more descriptions of the many drug concoctions Coleman and another traveling companion, Sharon, revel in. But the interesting thing is that Surge (who at one point kills someone with the launch of the space shuttle and maims someone else with a chainsaw) is fairly straight edge. He drinks water and doesn’t smoke or do drugs, which makes his horrific acts all the more disturbing. His one vice seems to be having violent sex with Sharon from time to time, and rambling on about Florida as a representation of the whole of humankind.
These books were both good summer reads - fluff with an edge. “Roadkill” included other characters in the story, such as “the good guy lawyer” and his high school buddy, as well as a collection of corrupt land developers, gangsters and insurance con artists. But by “Torpedo Juice,” Dorsey just seemed to write for the sake of giving his fans more Surge. Not to say there weren’t other characters in this novel, but they all seemed to take a backseat to the obvious star.
“Angel Dust”
Movie
A very slow but tense modern Japanese mystery. In the crowded subway lines of Tokyo, someone is killing young girls; one dies every Monday at 6:00 p.m. There are hundreds of witnesses, but no one ever sees anything. The only wound found on the bodies is a pinprick. Setsuko, a police psychologist with psychic skills is called in to investigate.
Setsuko’s past and present relationships come together with deadly (and decidedly Freudian) results. A minimal score, dark moody cinematography and a truly confounding mystery intrigue the viewer to keep watching. All plotlines eventually are tied together, but the ending may not be acceptable to those grounded in reality.
| nicka |
DW III - by TEA
The story thus far: Our hero, uh, Hiro and the girl-next-door, Miharu (one of the best fighters in the palace guard,) have been sent on a mission by the king. They are to seek out the evil Baramos, a task that Hiro’s long lost father Ortega failed to achieve. Their first step is to meet their traveling companions.
Chapter 1:
“Let's Get This `Party' Started!”
At first I thought I might have trouble finding out who we were traveling with, but as soon as Miharu and I walked through the door Of Luisa’s Place knew exactly who it was. There was a tall man dressed in the bright crimson uniform of a soldier with a giant battleaxe strapped to his back standing by the bar. He had a beer in each hand and one in front of him, and he was singing very loudly with the other patrons of the bar.
“Are you serious?” Miharu asked.
“He's supposed to be a really great soldier,” I said unconvincingly, remembering what the King's attendant had told me.
We watched him down one, then the other, then the third beer right in a row. And then had the privilege of listening to possibly the loudest belch in history. The other customers roared with laughter.
“It's not even noon,” Miharu muttered.
I snickered. “Come on.”
As we approached the eccentric soldier, he seemed to notice we were heading for him and squinted at me as though he were trying to figure out where he had seen me before.
“Hey! You must be Ortega's son, Hiro. You look just like him!” the man exclaimed as recognition dawned on him.
“Uh… thanks,” I stumbled, taken aback by the overly energetic man. “And you are…?”
“Forgive me! I'm so rude. My name's Watanabe Taro,” Taro apologized shaking my hand vigorously.
“Well, I am Hiro and this is Miharu. She's also coming on this quest.”
“It is GREAT to meet you guys!” Taro beamed.
“Right, well um… shall we be off then?” I suggested.
“Oh yeah, sure,” Taro downed another beer that had suddenly appeared in front of him and threw some coins on the bar. “Keep the change, Buddy!”
Miharu just shook her head at the tipsy soldier. “You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered.
As we stepped outside and headed for the castle gates, I noticed a fat white cat following along side us. I stopped, and the cat stopped.
“Is that cat following us?” I started to ask Miharu but was interrupted by a loud meow. The cat started to waddle towards the Inn. She looked back at me once, meowed again, and continued on to the Inn door where she waited impatiently for the humans to come and let her in.
I looked at the others and shrugged. I led the way to the Inn; as we approached the cat cried even louder as if to yell at us for making her wait. I pushed the door open and followed the cat inside. She immediately trotted into the dinning room and over to the fireplace where another cat, this one skinny and black was lying comfortably. I could only see one person in the room who could be their owner.
She was a wizard. She sat alone at the table closest to the fireplace with a cup of tea and a six-foot tall staff leaning against the wall next to her. Her hair was long and black, and she wore billowing robes. When the white cat came in, the woman looked up at me. Her skin was so creamy white it looked like porcelain. But it was her eyes that really stood out. They were as deep and soulful as any magic users’, but they were the most delicate shade of lavender. In the flicker of the firelight, they seemed to glow.
We all just sort of stood there not knowing what to do or say, when she stood and walked (more like floated) up to me.
“My name is Yamashita Kumiko, and I’d like to come with you,” she stated simply.
“What? How do you know where we're going?” I stammered.
“And why do you want to come with us?” Miharu added.
“I have ways of discovering information,” she told me. “And I have my reasons for wanting to join you,” she replied cryptically to Miharu. “I am on the same quest as you and would like to join your party. My magic can be very helpful to you.”
“But how do we know we can trust you?” Miharu protested. “We don't even know you.”
“I don't expect you to trust me. Because you won't know me. I like to keep my life private. But I'm either going to join your party, or I'm going to follow you and let you do all the work. I think you'd benefit from my joining you,” Kumiko answered coolly.
Miharu frowned a bit but didn't persist as her attention was drawn by Taro, who was ordering another pint. She sighed and went to intervene. “This is all you,” she told me.
I didn't know what to do. All I knew was that Kumiko was burning a hole in me with her eyes and I couldn't think. There was something about her that I couldn't quite figure out. And I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Still, she seemed sincere, and a wizard would be very valuable to have along.
“Well, are you ready?” I conceded. “We were just leaving.”
“Yes, I'm ready,” Kumiko said, scooping a small pack that she slung on her back.
“So, um, my name's…” I started but she cut me off.
“I know who you all are. Shall we?” and she started swiftly towards the door. The cats rose and followed her out.
I felt a little disoriented by the whole confrontation, but I just shrugged at Miharu's quizzical look and followed Kumiko out the door. Miharu followed dragging Taro behind her.
“Just one for the road!” he begged.
To Be Continued… Chapter 2:
“On The Road Again For The First Time”
A BRAVE NEW WORLD”
Recipe from HP
FOR THE TRADITIONALIST:
HAPPY TURKEY DAY -
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Thaw a frozen turkey as per directions on the wrapper. Remove bird from the wrapping, remove innards from bird including the nasty plastic bag and brutal wire stays. Rinse bird inside and out thoroughly, really you can’t rinse it enough. Birds are dirty! Place bird in large roaster or deep pan.
DRESSING
2 bags bread crumbs or cubes
Medium onion, chopped in ½” chunks
2 stalks celery
1 cup coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley
¼ cup melted butter
¼ - ½ cup warm water or chicken broth
Mix dressing ingredients in large bowl, mix in butter then add warm water/broth and mix until bread becomes very moist.
STUFFING THE BIRD
Fill bird with dressing until he or she feels full. Bind up all “openings” with trussing pins and heavy thread or cotton string. (DO NOT USE BLUE RIBBON OR YARN, See Brigitte Jones Diary.
PREPARING TO ROAST
Rub outside of carcass with liberal amount of Crisco, salt and pepper. OPTIONAL: Put 1 can chicken broth in bottom of roaster for steam cooking. Place roaster in oven at 325 degrees & cook for 6 hours. After 6 hours, dressing should be 165 degrees w/ cooking thermometer.
IF IT IS, THE BIRD IS DONE.
If it isn’t 165 degrees, you’re toast, but the bird is not. Cook for 30 addt’l minutes and check dressing temperature again. Keep cooking and checking until dressing is 165 degrees
VOILA! THE BIRD, SHE’S COOKED!
CARVING AND SERVING THE BIRD
Remove dressing from the carcass, set aside. Place the bird on a carving platter.
OPTION 1
Take bird and carving platter to the table and carve bird a la Bill Cosby. That is, in front of all your guests. Great method if you like performance art or you actually know how to carve a roasted turkey without half of it ending up on the floor.
OPTION 2
Carve bird in kitchen and arrange bird pieces on a platter for serving. This method works well if you have squeamish guests. I have seen people faint at the sight of a carcass being hacked to pieces.
A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION
Even if you don’t have pets or other wildlife roaming your house, do not leave the cooked, beautiful bird unattended. It may just fly away. (Remember “A Christmas Story”? rackafrasing Bumpus’s!) If you do have pets, give the little critter a taste or two. Especially kittens, they are nice and deserve some lovin’ ..
NOW, SIT BACK, CHOW DOWN AND ENJOY THE FRUITS OF YOU LABOR.
The Puritan pilgrims (a protestant group protesting Roman Catholic influences in the Church of England) moved to the New World ill-equipped for the rigors of life in the wilderness. Many of them were city-bred and could not see the invisible feast all around them - seafood, fish, wildfowl, game, roots, seeds and berries. Without the help offered to those early colonists by Squanto (of the indigenous Pautuxet tribe), and Chief Massasoit of the neighboring Wampanoags, Thanksgiving, our most American holiday, might not be celebrated today.
- From “Spirit of the Harvest - North American Indian Cooking” - a great read if you are interested in indigenous food.
WILD MUSHROOM STUFFING
1½ cups chopped celery with leaves
3/3 cup finely chopped onion
2 cups mixed mushrooms (shitake, oyster, creminci)
½ cup margarine or butter
9 cups soft bread cubes
1-teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons ground sage
1-teaspoon thyme
1-teaspoon black pepper
Sautee celery, onion and mushrooms in the margarine until celery is tender. Remove from heat. Stir in remaining ingredients. Add water or vegetable broth till mix is moist. Place in an ungreased 2-quart casserole. Cover and bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes.
MASH POTATOES
2-3 white potatoes, sliced or quartered
2 red potatoes cut up into quarters
1/2 carrot, sliced
Boil in water until tender enough to mash. Drain. Mash and add:
1/4 C. cottage cheese.
1 T. olive oil
Handful fresh, smashed basil
(sort of a quickie pesto).
Mix and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Then dotted with butter and garnish with crumbled goat cheese (yes, used three kinds of cheese - but it’s so goooood!!!!).
MOM’S NO- CRUMBLE CORNBREAD
1 C. sifted flour
¼ C. sugar
4 t. baking powder
¾ t. salt
1 C. yellow cornmeal
2 eggs
1 C. milk
¼ soft shortening or oil
Preheat oven to 425. Grease a 9x9x2 pan. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir in cornmeal. In a small bowl, beet eggs with fork, add milk and shortening. Add this mixture all at once to the cornmeal mixture. Stir until just moistened. Batter will be lumpy. Pour into pan and bake 20-25 minutes. Serve hot.
WILSON’S DAD’S
KANSAS CITY FUDGE CAKE
¾ C. sugar
½ C. milk
1 T. butter or margarine
1 C. flour
1 ½ T. cocoa
1 t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
½ C. sugar
½ C. brown sugar
¼ C. cocoa
1 ¼ C. boiling water
After Dave Savior broke up with me (by more or less telling me that we had never really been together in the first place), Kianti made me put on my old pair of knee-high shitkicker boots and took me out carousing the night away in true single white modern feminist fashion. Imported cigarettes? Check. Hard liquor shots? Check. Ignore all men? Well, I did. Kianti yelled at one guy, spit on another ones hush puppies and got banned from yet another bar in town after throwing her drink on some dick that made fun of her haircut. I don’t think it was so much the drink throwing as the fact that she threatened to light him on fire like a freaking flambé.
We clomped back to her place as the night wound to a close. “Stay here,” she commanded, but I needed home. In case I was destined for a killer hangover the next morning I wanted to be in the comfort of my own surroundings, with my own remedies close at hand. Plus, her place kind of scared me. It wasn’t actually her house; she lived with this really old decrepit man named Daniel who let her stay for free as long as she kept him company and did his shopping for him. At least that was the story this week.
I left my car there, and strode down the street in my big powerful man-stomping boots. This mode of transport, while making me feel large and in charge, took a lot out of me. At one point, I paused in the doorway of a small pet salon, just to make sure my head hadn’t spun off. It was closed of course, but in the window frisked two cats, a large gray lump of a tabby, and a younger, lithe black puss. A sign in the window, when it came into focus, read, “Shelter Cats for Adoption.”
“You’re good kitties aren’t you? Don’t worry,” I bubbled at them through the window, “I’ll come get you tomorrow. No boyfriend, need cats.”
****
I will not miss his smell. He smelled like elephants all the time. Not a nice barn-y smell. Not like hay or even like animals. He smelled like dung.
The breakup of the romance, if you could call it that, didn’t happen all at once. And maybe he was right. Thinking back, we never did really declare ourselves “together” or “an item”. It seemed weird to me at the time how we just merged, but I just assumed that was the way it was suppose to happen, and my past relationships had been the ones in the wrong. We started hanging out at a fundraiser at the Onami Zoo where we both worked - where we still work - he in the elephant house, I in the offices. He was hilarious, sarcastically cutting, and took lip nor shit from anyone. I wanted to be like that, and thought if we hung out, some of his wit would rub off on me.
Dave “My” Savior I called him. The thought made my bile rise. I sprawled on the floor, a sick bad-breath taste in my throat, my head swimming with an unpleasant dizziness. The floor was rough on my cheek and smelled of carpet freshener and socks. I moaned with embarrassment and self-loathing, and though there was no one else in the apartment, I felt a figure standing over me, head shaking back and forth with utter disgust.
“How long have you been there?” it asked.
“I-uh-no, time to get up?”
“You are getting carpet marks on your face.”
“So?”
“You shouldn’t have eaten that garlic bread at the last bar.”
I felt the call of the porcelain god again and crawled to the bathroom. The phone rang, shattering my thoughts with its cricket like trill. I waited for the machine to pick up.
“You have reached this answering machine by dialing the phone. Good for you! If you‘d like to leave a message for Shannon, press one. If you’d rather leave one for Dave, press two because neither of us seems to be able to talk right now. Bye!”
“You get up and change that machine right now. Hey,” it was Kianti. “Pick up. I know you’re there. I’m just going to talk until I use up all your tape so you better drag your sorry ass to the phone. Anyway, so I was talking to this lady Shirley that Daniel knows and she said that the “nation under God” part wasn’t even in the pledge of allegiance until they added it in the fucking fifties. Did you know that? I can’t say that stuff on the air because they beep it out. Well, no they wouldn’t since I run the whole thing myself. Ah the joys of college radio. You should save this tape and maybe I’ll play it on the air anyway. But the station would get fined by the FCC and I’d be off the air and then what would you listen to on your way to hell hu?”
I heard her pause, no doubt to inhale cigarette smoke. Her slow rambling made me smile. “Why do people insist on decrying modern society and referring to the past as the good ol’ times? Why is nostalgia so blind? I was talking to Shirley about lard sandwiches. Can you imagine? Lard sandwiches.” I didn’t want to imagine, and I started to crawl back to the living room. “The past is like nature. People have this preconceived notion that nature is some wonderful Disney movie where the squirrels frolic and the birds do nothing but twitter and eat seeds all day. We caught some of this PBS special about a primitive island where these birds get all tangled in the spiny branches of these trees, and the trees actually kill them while trying to attach seed pods to them. God this is a long tape.” “Machines don’t use tape anymore,” I finally reached the phone.
“Mine does. I called earlier but you didn’t answer. Are you hung over?”
“No, I was just sleeping late.”
“Do you want me to come over? I know you’re still torn up about that jackass Dave.”
“He is a jackass.”
“He’s a fucker. I’m coming over.”
I began to feel better at the though, and after a shower, I really was fine. My stomach was still churning, so I threw a few antacids at it. I sucked on them as I dressed.
****
Kiante and I sat on the floor of my apartment. There wasn’t much going on in the place with Dave’s stuff all moved out. Second floor of a three floor apartment building, ratty stinky tan carpet, some family photos hung carefully on nails with a few noticeable gaps where I’d taken down photos of him. No boy-clothes, no boy-bathroom gear, no huge hulking stereo system, just my little TV / VCR combo that I’d had since I left college five years previous.
I was digging though a shoebox of very painful papers. Journals and notes and letters that Dave and I had exchanged or little things I had written down that now documented the inevitable collapse of our relationship.
“Listen to this - from my journal. ‘I only want not to be a bother to him. He only wants to upset me like a glass of water. And I’ll take it all like and old whipped horse because I fucking love him so fucking much. I want him to tell me how to act so that I can make him happy.’ ”
I looked over at Kianti, who squinted at me. “I kind of want to hit you right now,” she said. “That is awful. How could you say that?”
“Well, I didn’t say it, I wrote it. I felt it, that’s for sure. I still feel that way.”
Kianti reached out and did hit me, then stood up and went to the window. “So what do you want to do? Do you want to burn all that stuff? Do you want to burn it on his lawn?”
I clutched the shoebox. “No, that always ends badly, like that lady ranger who burned up half of California after she started a wildfire by burning her boyfriend’s old photo.”
“I think it was Wyoming but yeah, I guess you’re right. But you can’t read them any more; it’s not good for you.”
“Here’s one from him: ’I felt at times you were intruding on my life.’ Uh, hello, you came to me, buddy!”
“Whatever, “she looked around. “You know what you need is a pet. This place is perfect for a pet. You have tons of room and…”
“Hey!” I brightened, “I met some cats last night!”
“’Cats.’ What the hell are you now, a beatnik?”
“No, kitty cats, and I told them I’d go get them today.” In a fit of spontaneity I said, “Let’s go get me a cat!”I stood up and wobbled a bit, the shoebox tumbling from my hands to spill its contents onto the floor. I started to reach down to right it, when Kianti kicked it across the floor. Her boot crumpled the side of the box and sent the letters
“What did you do that for?”
Valentines, birthday cards, and even a few notes that he’d just left on my car windshield with “See you tonight” scribbled across it in his crappy handwriting lay there like little naked corpses. Kianti picked one up. “I didn’t know he wrote you poems.”
Upon the smooth, warm snow of your skin
The prick of Sleeping Beauty’s spinning wheel
Makes woodland creatures flee.
I am the woodchopper come to save you,
Not the prince.
I will free you,
And place my own heart in the queen’s box. “
“He wrote poetry like Ed Wood made films,” I said. “’I’ll cut out my heart and present it to you in a basket adorned with kisses from my lips, which I have also cut off.’ Stuff like that. He was just making fun of me.”
I plucked the poem from her grasp, folded it and slipped it into my shirt pocket. In one smooth movement, she removed it again and stuffed it into the back pocket of her jeans, then quickly exited the apartment.
I glanced at the mess on the floor, then followed after her. “You’d better not read that on the air,” I called, shutting the door behind me.
