NUMERO DOS

WINTER 1990

TWO DOLLAR$

-
O~6
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 TABLE 071 N'JlIIli'I'IJ
Gina Bergamino
June loth. .. I ••• I , ..
GINA BERGAMINO
A Friend' s Confesoion I ..

October Chill , I

Seventh Avenue ,; I ••• , , , ..

4
Chris Causey
When a stone 1.0 i'd 1~IJit , ..................................... 4
William Doreski Sometimes
Retreat of th ................. ,. It ••••••••••• • .. 9 on a day like today
C,S. Fuqua I want to break out
Another Paron t hi ••••••••••••••••••• It.,. •• • .. 11 and dance across lawns
Alan Goldsmith like a barefoot ball~rina I:!,
An Intorv1ow w .................................... 12 tossing jellybeans to neighbors
singing "I'm in love,
.................. II 11.11 ••••••••••••• I ••••• ' • .. 16 I'm in love."
...................... i ••••••••••• I ••• i .. 17

It Ii" ••••••••••• ..................... .. 18

lUll, II •••••••••••••• t ••••• I •••• •••••• 19

She tells me
••••• II •••••• I" .tt ,t ••••• •••••••·•••• 21 he fills up her body
but leaves her mind empty
ll"~ • It' II I •• , . 21 & someday soon,
silent, the rage
••••••••• i ••• ···,· ..·· ..••••
23 will burst hard
and like a dangerous woman
II' " ,.1 , 33 she'll shout seven dirty words
34 and pull away.
•• I ••• '1'
34
I I , •••••••••••••••••• , •• 1 ••••• • I ......... II
35

........................ 35
35
•••••••••••• I ~ ........ I I
I remember when love
36 meant sneaking in the Henning's yard
.... I I I ••••••• · '" 36 rolling in spilled beer and leaves
me wanting only kisses
I 1'1 1'1 ., ••• " I ..
36 you wanting
I II I ••••••••• I •• 37 to get in my blouse
I •• I I •••• I I • , ••• ~ .. 37 with october chill
I •••• I ••••••• ••• .. ••• .. • .. 37 comes hard nipples
the smell of burning oak
Contribu , NoL ••••••• 11.1 •••• I" II iii i ••••••• ••• ...... · .......... 39 and my lips
unsatisfied
Editor: Larry O. Dorin
Art: Caitlin Clifford,
draconian measures, pub. by Zenith D
Francisco, CA 94119. (c) 1990. All ri\1h
upon publication. Send all correspondang
 December. That was my mistake. I should have known that when it's
for Bill time to leave the IS,land, you leave it and don't try to take any
of it with you, like the stone that caught your eye when the sun
How can I explain hit it just right in the shallows. You put it in your pocket and
the moment time stopped take it home and place it on your mantel next to your car keys and
between two streets your phone bill and it looks no different from any other shell or
the moment traffic rock. The lustre is gone.
light changes I stand It had been my third summer on the Island and Alison's first.
there breathless She bartended at The Breakers, and I poured drinks at The Islander.
my stomach tightens to brick I would go and watch her work sometimes when it was crowded there
saying oh my god and I didn't have a shift at my place. She was deft. She was
I can't believe I am athletic and cool and all response' the way she whipped the bottles
here I am now around and sped-poured the drinks--four, five, six at a time--and
make me disappear, then bing on the register, change on the bar, tip in the tip-glass
be invisible and Alison looking into the eye of the next tan customer. She knew
lift me off of t~is point it. She had it down.
right then, right there One night, I found an empty stool at the bar and stayed until
my eyes lifted nearly closing. I ordered fresh squeezed orange juice all night to
to see you. get her attention. She noticed me. People notice me.
"I work at The Islander," I said above the music and the
voices and the energy. "I tend bar. Come by and watch me some
night."
CHRIS CAUSEY "I don't like bars except to work," she said and picked up a
few singles someone left for her. "Too much smoke," she said,
waving her hand back and forth in front of her face. She went to
the register and stuffed the bills in the jar next to it. I could
see her in the mirror, watching me watch the muscles of her calf
move as she went up on her toes.
I kept a strict diet of fruits and whole grains, wisely "Seen you at the Nautilus," she said turning around again,
cutting back while we were on the road, knowing that I wouldn't be
burning as many calories while driving. But Alison, every time we I "You work out pretty hard. I could use a good work out partner,
someone who pushes me."
would stop for gas or to use a restroom or buy a map, Alison would
pick up a bag of potato chips (or a Chocolate bar) and a can of
I We worked
different
out fervidly together, concentrating each day on
body parts: chest, shoulders and triceps on Mondays and
soda. When I offered her a piece of fruit, she suggested I pull off Thursdays, back and biceps on Tuesdays and Fridays, legs on
at the next exit for a slice of pizza or a burger. She would sit Wednesdays and Saturdays. We lifted beyond the point of pain,
in the passenger seat and eat the stuff in a frenzy, like she through the burning sensation of muscle fatigue and into ecstacy.
didn't even enjoy it or taste any of it. She would have chocolate We tore the rich fibers under our skins with zeal, knowing that
allover her fingertips and oil around her mouth from the potato when they re-grew, they would be bigger, shapelier. She would push
chips. me when I thought I did not have any more strength left, when I
When we stopped at restaurants, she would talk to people at couldn't or didn't think I could get the bar off my chest one more
other tables. She would ask them what it was like to live in time. I would do the same for her, whispering commands in her ear,
Mechanicsburg, pennsylvania or Sandusky, Ohio. She would make a telling her she had one more repetition in her, and she did. I was
spectacle sometimes and imitate their accents. She said this was very fit, and so was Alison. We were both cut. Defined. When I held
to reach them. She said she knew how to communicate with all levels of my arm sideways and flexed it in the mirror, I could see the three
people, and she even used those exact words: all levels of people, when she muscles of the tricep. Most people don't even know that there are
three--that the tricep is a tricep because it's actually three
explained it to me.
I met her on the island of Martha's Vineyard in late May. She separate beautiful muscles. And Alison, she had the most developed
had another year at college and I was moving out west to California abdomen I've ever seen on a woman. Her body fat had to be down
at the end of the summer. Labor Day was going to be the end of it below seven percent. She was a sorceress at sex too. Unearthly. She
for us, but her student loan didn't pass, so I offered for her to had recently broken off with a three-and-a-half year boyfriend, and
come out west with me in my VW van, share a room with me in some was well-versed. She didn't want to go back on the pill for me
cool little town out there until her check came through in though. She said she couldn't handle the pill again after being on
it for so long. That was fine. Rubbers would do.
 We were more than midway through Nebraska now, and it was
raining. All it did through the whole state was rain. I couldn't
wait to get to Colorado.
Two hours ago we ate at a truck stop and hadn't spoken since
then. The glare from the rain and the headlights off the slick
highway were getting to my eyes. Even though the driver's seat of
a VW van is higher up than a car's, you still catch road-glare on
a rainy night. I turned my head toward Alison and looked back
quickly at the road before I started in.
"You used to be so cool the way you would sit there and not
say anything. You never said anything, and people thought you were
cool for that. You were a presence." She didn't answer, so I
continued. "It embarrasses me when you start talking to people at
other tables, especially when you use a phoney accent," I said.
"Excuse me for not keeping up my mystique," she said. "Excuse
me for having fun." She reached into her purse and took out a
chocolate bar.
"And that's another thing, you're eating like a fool. What is
it with all of this junk food all of a sudden?"
"Let me drive," she said. "You're tired."
"I'm not tired. Besides, I want to drive when the weather's
like this. I told you the driving rules."
"Well, if you're not tired, you're being a jerk." She glanced
at me sidewards and then looked definitively out the windshield
"Do you know how many bags of potato chips you've eaten since
we left the Island?" I asked.
"Jesus!"
"Seventeen. You've eaten seventeen bags of potato chips since
we left Martha's Vineyard--sour cream and onion, salt and vinegar,
nacho cheese, Hawaiian Kettle, barbecued, unsalted, lightly salted.
Your mouth tastes like them when I kiss you."
"You don't stop to complain."
"And you're getting fat. I can feel it. It's like a little
extra puppy skin allover."
"Jesus, shut up, would you please!"
"Why don't you exercise with me at night? At least I'm trying
to stay fit until we can settle down and find a gym to lift at."
She didn't say anything. She looked down at the candy bar and
started to fiddle with the foil wrapper at the end.
"Why don't you do anything?" I asked. I rubbed at my sore eyes
and then opened them wide and held them that way until they burned.
"Why am I here?" she said. "Why am I going across the country
with this man?"
She started to unwrap the candy bar. Her hands were shaking
some when she put the first piece in her mouth. "M-m-m-m," she
said, and smirked at me with her mouth working the chocolate. At
least she had the composure to smirk. "I'll tell you why I'm here,"
she said. "There's only one fucking reason why I'm here, and that's
because my student loan didn't come through. I wasn't going to go
home, and I wasn't going to stay'on that island and get stuck with
some fisherman for the winter. Don't get a big head. This choice
isn't any better, just different."
I took turns rubbing first one eye then the next. I licked my
index finger, putting some saliva on it, and dabbed some in each
eye. It was something I did when my eyes were tired.
"Okay," I said, "as long as we're on it, that loan thing
doesn't make any sense to me because I know your folks are loaded.
Why not just hit them up for tuition?"
"I wanted to pay for my last year with my own money." She took
another bite of the chocolate bar. -
"That's bullshit," I said. "They cut you off." I rubbed my
eyes again, digging in hard with the side of my hand.
"Don't do that," she said. "I hate it when you rub your eyes
like that. I keep -waiting for one to fallout."
"Don't try and change the subject. They cut you off, didn't
they? Why?"
"If I thought that was something you needed to know, I would
have told you."
I went to rub my eyes again, but stopped. I knew Alison had
Visine in her purse. She used to bring it with her to the beach all
of the time. After workouts, we used to go to the nude beach at
Gayhead, get high, see if any physiques paralleled ours, and talk
about what we would cook for dinner before our bartending shifts:
fresh bluefish filets with whole grain rice and steamed broccoli,
or skinned breast of chicken (broiled) with a garden salad topped
with cracked crab and lemon juice. As we watched the colored sails
of the catamarans and other small craft on the water and listened
to the familiar sound of the lifeguard's whistle, we revelled in
our post-workout soreness, knowing there was only one thing that
felt better, and we always had that to look forward to.
"Can I have the Visine?" I asked. "My eyes are beat."
"I can drive," she said. She reached into her bag and handed
me the familiar squeeze bottle. Some chocolate was smudged on the
label.
I downshifted and pulled the van over onto the shoulder. I
tilted my head back and squeezed a few drops into each eye, letting
some extra run down my cheeks.
"I can guess why they cut you off," I said with my head back
like that. "It's not too difficult to imagine why some rich girl's
parents take her credit cards away or won't pay for school any
longer, but most girls I know aren't dumb enough to let their moms
find out. Or did you tell her?" I held out the Visine for her to
take back from me.
She slapped the bottle from my hand. She didn't say anything
else. My eyes were closed with the drops in, and I imagined her
slumped over in the passenger seat looking at the candy bar wrapper
in her hands.
A flash of light went off in front of me when her fist
connected with the side of my head. Before I could do anything, she
was out the door.
The thing of it was, I really needed her, and I think she
needed me. I just wanted her the way she was back on the Island.
"I'm sorry," I said. I sat there and turned off the headlights. I
shut off the motor and watched the rain run in sheets down the
windshield. I listened to the sound of it, then the noise of an
approaching car. The entire inside of the van lit up and then grew
dark again. For an instant I could see the chocolate bar wrappers
and empty bags of potato chips and the unfolded state maps.
7
 When Alison opened the door, I was nearly asleep. She was
panting, soaked and muddy. poured. I prayed a state trooper wouldn't stop. The rain was
"What have you been doing?" I asked. freezing for September.
She didn't answer. Rain dripped from her wet bangs down When the can was almost empty, I stopped and held it for a
through the mud on her face. She had been running. Her cheeks second. Her feet were up against my shoulders. I had her legs
glowed. She looked at peace with herself. Was it myoId Alison? pinned against my chest with my left forearm, and her arms were
"Do you want to towel off?" I asked. I left my seat, ducking shaking from the strain of holding herself up.
into the back for my travel bag. I took a clean towel from it and "If you're pregnant, we can keep it. You don't have to get an
tossed it to her, still outside the van. abortion this time. We can settle down in California together and
"You'll get sick," I said. you know, have a little family. We can do it. We can do anything."
She caught the towel and held it inside the van so the rain "Just pour, you idiot. Pour!"
wouldn't touch it. She regarded it for a moment and then climbed
in, shutting the door behind her, the van becoming dark again. I
inched my way back to the driver's seat, trying not to touch her WILLIAM DORESKI
as I passed.
"I thought I would make enough money bartending to pay for
school," she said softly. "I really thought I could do it on my
own. II
She started stripping down and toweling herself dry, first her
face and hair, then her shoulders, chest and stomach, then her All day the plumbers thunder
legs. I watched in the rearview mirror. When a car or truck in the kitchen, their wrenches
approached, she was illuminated gradually as the shadows moved so heavy and cruelly sensual
through the van. For a moment she was completely visible and then the sound of them, metal on metal,
covered by darkness again. She was so intent in what she was doing. withers my flesh. In my stUdy,
She was as much alive as I ever had seen her. crouched over useless notes, I marvel
I didn't say anything, but I reached back and touched her and at the retreat of the sexual
then left my seat entirely and crawled into the back with her. Her from my life. Even the memory
skin was still cool from the rain. She wanted to make up too. of my first encounter, in a car
parked on a snowy woods road,
can't stir me to the slightest faith
We usually climax at the same time, so even with a rubber on, in the body's regenerative
it was very wet when we were finished. This time something was force. Instead, I think of the surf
wrong. I could tell. It was too wet. When I pulled out, I saw that at Point Lobos, backpaddling
the rubber had broken and what was left was rolled back. I stayed sea otters, pelicans nodding
calm. I thought for a second about not saying anything. It had been on the bluff conglomerate boulders.
too perfect to ruin this way. It was something that shouldn't be Such innocence can't be preserved
spoiled. except by the coldest act of will,
"Jesus," she said. cryogenic sentiments grieving
"Is there something you can rinse with? Do you have anything for the abstract, heartless future.
like that?" The plumbers rattle the pipes and smoke
"I can't believe this," she said. "I fucking can't believe and speak so loudly their voices
this." stall like old-fashioned biplanes
"We're not too far from a town. I can drive to a pharmacy and in the pointless blue. Too cold
get some spermicide." to walk in the woods and absorb
She tore away from me and started digging in the well in front a heady dose of silence. My books
of the passenger seat. When she came up with a can of Coke and reproaCh me, page after page
stepped back out into the rain with it, I told her I thought that unread, unloved. Noise converges
was an old wives' tale. like an icicle in my heart,
"You idiot, get out here and help me!" She stood next to the real worlds displacing mere imagery,
van, shook up the soda, and started shooting it up herself. "Turn the shock of hardened steel as finely
me over," she yelled. tuned as the poetry of Yeats.
I climbed out of the van with the wet towel Alison used to dry The hands of the plumbers crawl
herself wrapped around me. We fumbled about as I grabbed her ankles like creatures fresh from the sea,
and turned her upside-down. She handed the can up to me, and I their big rubbery faces
completely erasing my own.

9
 C.S. FUQUA

In gray, wet cold,

she laughs, says
I should do well on the road,
being twelve with no money,
taking only the clothes I'm wearing
and no food, no way to get it
with nothing to offer.
I save my breath,
hang tough in wait
for the moment
when I will possess
the meager requirements to leave.
A week later,
I am running anyway,
but with her,
fleeing instead from him,
to hide for years in the house
of her sister and brother-in-law,
hearing true stories of terror
and infidelity, twisted by time.
She relishes seeing my face redden
with the mention of his name,
the color of my hate
fueling her own fire,
but when childhood rage
fades into midlife pleas
for a truce, for friendship,
she mutters daggers:
Had it not been for you,
I would not have left!
Then she snakes her arms out to me,
sniffling her love,
as if three words
and a few tears
are good enough for
resurrections.

uJAL/ PH \ Ll/ PS

Ir
AlAN GOLDSMITH MT: That was our concern and our goal with this one. It was a
great thing because we found out it's not the room you record
in, like recording in a church, it was the equipment and
learning how to use it. It was how we play live that counted,
not the studio, and I think we overcame our fear of
technology.
Wonderful music is supposed to blow you away. It isn't
background filler, it isn't disposable. It should touch your soul, AG:
at least a little bit. I first heard the cowboy Junkies at 3 a.m. Three days is pretty fast •••
on an Ann Arbor station. I was depressed and here comes the CJ
MT: We had the place for three days and the first day we pretty
version of the Hank Williams classic, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"
and that did it. As music from the heart becomes more and more much recorded all the songs, it was just one of those days.
rare, the Cowboy Junkies are like angels in the night. So I conned The band was playing really well, it was kind of funny. We
my way into an interview with singer/writer Margo Timmins (which went in the second day and didn't know what to do (laughter).
took place via telephone from a Days Inn in Atlanta). Ms. Timmins So we sat down and listened to the tapes to make sure
was quite friendly (I was supposed to talk with her brother everybody was happy with their parts. We did a couple over;
Michael, but the desk clerk gave me the wrong room), and spoke with tried different arrangements.
me before the band soundcheck for their performance that night at AG: So you did just the ten tracks?
the ROXY:
MT: We re-recorded some old stuff from our first album (Whites Off
AG: So you've played AnD Arbor a few times, I know. "Me and the Devil," the Robert Johnson song, and
Earth Now),
"Dead Flowers,"
MT: Yeah, when we first started to tour in the U.S., Ann Arbor was
one of our best places. You have that club, The Blind pig ••• it AG: The last time I saw you, you were still doing both of those
was always a nice club for us. songs.

The new album is out, and it sounds great. Are you happy with MT: "Me and the Devil" is still a big part of our set, and "Dead
AG:
it? Flowers" is one of our encores, but it very rarely makes it
into our main show; it really doesn't fit in with our slower
MT: Thanks, we're really happy with it; it turned out the way we things.
wanted it to, which is always nice. writing it and working on
it was a weird experience after The Trinity Sessions. It was the first AG: One thing I was impressed by is the new album is loaded with
time we've ever done an album we knew people were going to great original tunes. Are you having an easier time writing
actually listen to, critique it and compare it to material?
something •••for the first time that's a strange thing to work
MT: I think Michael and I as a singer/songwriter team have found
under.
a groove, because we know what each other's strengths are and
AG: The studio was Eastern Sound. Tell .e a little about that. we have a lot of faith in each other. By that I mean Michael
writes a song and hands it over to me, he doesn't tell me how
MT: It's a really quiet studio in the middle of Toronto, a place to sing it. I just sort of go and do my thing. It works easily
where Gordon Lightfoot records. It's tiny and intimate. We and it all comes about because we both have so much experience
rented it for three days on a weekend so it was empty. studios now. I have a lot more confidence as a singer and he has more
can get a little crazy during the day. It was a good confidence in me as well. It works out really easy, he feels
experience. Recording there was no pressure, nobody running he can write whatever he wants to write and I have the
capability to sing it.
around.
The one thing I liked about 71u! Caution Hones was you captured the AG: I want to talk to you about your roots, the music you've built
AG: on, the entire cross section of pop history.,.all the good
same kind of "sound" as The Trinity Sessions, but you got a better
quality of tape without losing the aura of the first one ••• stuff like Robert Johnson, Lou keed, Neil Young--the strong
songwriter tradition, Most bands can write maybe one good
song, and that's it. You've written lots of great things and
that's why I've always liked the band.

IL '3
NT: I don't know about other bands, but I think one thing we've
always done with music is listened. Neither Michael nor myself minutes and you're supposed to find some sort of mood. We
have ever been big dance fanatics, so music was always usually have a bad time, but the Letterman thing we played
really nicely.
something to sit back and listen to, I guess. The strong
writers have always been the ones who attracted us. I've AG:
always read lyrics and I read a lot of other things as well. 80 how do you deal with "from olubs in Toronto to oonoert
halls in Japan," as the liner notes say?
80 what literary things? NT: (Laughter) That's pretty Weird, our Far East trip was a real
I've read a Jot of things, anything from the old Russians to TRIP. Everything was so upside-down. The playing to a Japanese
MT: audience that couldn't understand much English or our culture
modern Americans. I've been reading Larry McMurtry lately.
I've just finished The Last Picture Show; we're going to south Texas or where we were from was bizarre •••but they listened, really
and I couldn't go there without reading that (laughter). I really intently to every single word and when they liked
like science fiction, especially fantasy, rather than the something they would clap, become enthusiastic and smile, it
technical stuff, and Michael is the same way. I like a lot of was great. After the American audiences they were the best
we've had.
history. When I went to Italy I was reading The Rise and Fall of Rome
(laughter)--the perfect tour guide. It just depends, AG: How many oities did you play?
AG: Where are you playing on this tour? Larger venues •• ,? NT: Six gigs altogether, three of which were in Tokyo.
MT: Some are the same size because we didn't fill them last time. AG: Did you do any tourist things?
The larger cities like Boston, New York, Chicago, we're doing
two nights. NT: Of course, we were big tourists. We visited the palaces and
Mt. Fuji and all that. It was great. Unfortunately, a lot had
AG: You're in Atlanta now? been bombed so not a lot was left (laughter), but it was
wonderful.
NT: Tonight it's the Roxy •••it's an old cinema. We've been doing
OK here. AG: I want to talk about your influences. What singers do you
listen to?
AG: What about the rest of the south?
NT: It depends on the album. For the slow songs, a lot of Merle
MT: The south has always been a weird place. We've done great in
North and South carolina and here. Florida is very strange, Haggard and his ballads; his ballads are really, really slow.
So I listened to his style and how he used to phrase things •••
there's always been three hundred people (laughter) •••we
played this huge, beautiful theater with three hundred people. he just moans, it's amazing how he can wrap one word around
That's what makes touring so interesting. One night you'll get for three minutes. And I've always listened to Emmylou Harris,
a lot of attention and sellout, and the next city you're she has a really natural tone: it's strong but it comes out
begging for attention. It keeps you honest, that's for sure. like she's breathing, without any effort •••that's something
I wish I could do. For this LP, I listened to a lot of Nanci
Griffith.
AG: 80 it all depends on the airplay you're getting?
It also depends on the university, if there's a strong
AG: s~ is a great album.
MT:
university with a strong college station. And the newspapers NT:
and their attitude, normally if we get enough coverage there I listen to her because her writing is in a real storytelling
will be a good word of mouth. vein. Michael's is that way as well. I was listening to the
way she would present a song •••she's wonderful.
AG: I saw your April David Letterman performance sort of by
AG: You did a patsy Cline cover •••
acoident, and it was a nioe number.
MT: Yes, and I'll probably listen to her more for the next record.
MT: Great. It was one of the best TV things we've ever done in
regards to our playing, for us anyway; it's hard to get a Not that I have a Patsy Cline voice--the thing she does is
groove going, it's OK, they rush you out and you stand there just sing, really sing. She doesn't get involved emotionally
and it's, "NOW PLAY!" You have one song that is cut to three in any way but she's so clear, right on it, every note and
then intentionally off the note. On the next album, the thing

15
 I want to do is sing with a lot more strength--not louder, but
more sure, and Patsy Cline was a singer who knew exactly what soon, anyway. Next,
she wanted to do. he starts rolling around
in the leaves. Are you showing off?
AO: What next? Come on, pal, that's not impressive:
can't you fly? You gray little gopher ••.
NT: After this tour, we're taking six weeks off and then we'll I let him make one last circle
begin writing for the next project. Then in September we'll around his world, guarding his master's land,
be touring with Bruce Hornsby, a series of outdoor gigs, and a star-gazer and an overgrown rodent
during those dates we'll work out the new material to get it exploring their twilight together.
ready for the next album. Then it's home to record again. You proud descendant
of the wolf, the jackal,
AO: Are you happy with RCA? you grOWling manipUlator, filled
with human needl You live a human's life,
NT: It's amazing, a real shock to us, We had all the mythS that knowing the lie, knowing
record companies are out to destroy you •••they said with The you're a hairy reflection, a canine alter ego,
Caution Horses, call us when you're finished. They didn't even here to dress up my loneliness,
show up in the studio. You don't need record company types a shaggy shadow on a sunday night,
watching you in the studio. a companion for the evening Moon Walk •••
MyoId friend has almost outlived his welcome
AO: So what have you been listening to lately? in this life,
exulted by the flowers, a sniffing,
NT: Well, today on the tour bus it was Townes Van Zant all day. twitching pup grown old, beyond his time--
The boys are into a lot of the rap stuff •••when you're called but he looks at me eagerly,
a bitch every five seconds, you get kind of turned off in a private dog heavenl He's tough enough
(laughter). I don't listen to much new stuff. Wbat about you? to be my best friend,
if I was really doing something
AO: I just bougbt the new Lou Reed/John Cale CD. worthwhile: his shadow pauses suddenly
in my moonlight, to mark his territory,
NT: I bought it the other day, and I've only listened to it once. like his owner still filled with the urge to say,
I wasn't really blown away with it. I've gone off on a CD kick this is mine.
but all I seem to buy is old stuff •••

BERT HUBINGER
Maybe it's just because I'm sad,
but I look at this fat moon rising
and think of it as mine,
my very own orange light
sitting on the Richmond Bridge,
and I walk myoId dog with a torn gray heart,
following my moon through my trees,
the small dog sniffing
at every bush, every shadow on the ground.
So let my orange light fall
on this old terrier; let him drink
my moonshine--it's going to swallow hUn
The floodlit Victorian town glowed
above the rocks, shrouded in mist:
the old McCUllum House, the Seagull Inn,
all the rich wood finish of the tourist trade,
surrounded by all the frogs in the world,
croaking their chorus in a muddy field.
We laughed and danced to the music of millions
and next morning scrambled
through the ultimate breakfast at Cafe BeaujOlais
before hitting the Russian Gorge,
all stinging nettles, newts and salamanders,
all the tenacity of a solitary pine
gripping the headlands, roots hanging out in mid-air.
We toppled over in the light rain,
we un-bushed, we strained, we loved
and always the rocks like the bows of stranded ships
clearing the surf at Pine Beach Cove,
below Jughandle Creek. "Everything smells so green,"

I,

'1
 catherine said. "So naive."
That night at Gregory's, with duck and pepper steak
and a good Pinot Noir, we watched
the old lighthouse cleave the dark
as frogs grunted their love calls--
"like the stock exchange," Catherine said.
The waves exploded against the rocks
as we split the bill atter a silly tight,
Catherine passing out her business cards;
I stormed outside to argue in the fog,
fuming past the great collections of modern kitsch
in the brightly lit store windows,
A small boy with a flashlight
chased down the sounds of frogs.
How could he challenge them?
Those eyes that glittered in the wind,
those fanciful eyes that fancied freedom
from all the ponds of this world.
By midnight Catherine and I were reunited
at the cottage, she so happy to see me,
she only stabbed once, our last flare bursting
over no man's land; idiot, couldn't I see
we were liquidating? How we glared
at the blind moon, running in his wake--
and saw the heart retreat before a glaze of honesty!
That dawn, the frogs moved quickly to the suburbs;
and by early afternoon we were driving south again
with the rain that never ended,
racing ahead of the flood,
chasing the hidden sun that always ran just ahead of us.
ALBERT HUFFSTICKLER
I'll try to get this down, sensing already that I'll fail:
coffee at G.C. Murphy's in the late evening,
sky dark, drizzling rain, drawn in here by a memory,
this place I'd stumble into off the bus from work,
numb, eXhausted, dirty, sight blurred, fuzzy-headed
from the long day at Woodward Furniture Factory
and, before that, Manpower, this when I first got back
to Austin, broke, crashing at Bob Bryant's at first,
then later--after my mother died and the flight home for the
funeral
and my sister laying five hundred dollars on me--
getting a place of my own in a nearby complex.
But this place a focal point then: I always had to stop here
before making it home because the lights and the coffee-smell
were too inviting to walk past. They drew me in like a magnet
I.'
and I'd sit there blurred and fuzzy and sooner or later
Mary Fabian would bring me coffee and I'd drink it and smoke
and look around me like someone awakening from sleep.
And faces would pass before my eyes:
Mary Fabian and Mary salazar, who flirted with me at Woodward's
and Mary Diaz, my foreman, and Roy Guzman, my supervisor,
and Raoul, my buddy, a wetback, no English at all
but we understood each other. And they'd pass before
my stoned gaze while I sat and smoked and sipped my coffee
till my will returned and then home to supper and bed but only
after I'd stopped at G.C. Murphy's.
And now the faces passing before me again
in this new time that draws toward a close,
having just given notice at U.T. where I've worked nearly two
years now
and the work easier than the furniture factory--in a way--
and it's like
a wind blowing through my life now, tugging and Whispering "Gol"
and that's how it will be one day soon: I'll go.
And this here now will be as much a dream
as Mary Fabian and Mary Sala~.r and Roy Guzman and Raoul
and Woodward Furniture and Manpower
and I wouldn't hold on to any of it but still •••
I write this in the bright, fluorescent day of G.C. Murphy'S
with the dark outside and the rain falling to say
that all these things have been (theydw happen)
and now they're gone. And I didn't say it really
(I knew I wouldn't) but I had to try, you see:
it's like shouting into that wind.
PATRICK JENNINGS
In a year's time, the complexion of music retail will have
been permanently altered. This is the year, say the pundits, when
the vinyl LP will vanish, having been rendered sufficiently moot
by the compact disc. They're probably right. The LP is dying by
degrees. Soon, the format that birthed the form (the record album)
that molded our listening patterns most strikingly this century
will be rather casually discarded. Personally, I don't think all
factions have been polled.
The recording industry did not care much about independent
record stores' concerns in the '80s (I know: I've worked in them
continuously throughout the decade). The CD offered an opportunity
to increase list prices (from $8.98 to $16.98), increase sales, and
consequently increase profits.
You may ask yourself, why do CDs cost so much? The public has
stated emphatically on many occasions that it will not tolerate
higher prices on LPs or tapes. As a result, the list price of new
I
release major label albums has not risen a penny over $8.98 since CARLA KANDINSKY
1977 (except in 1982 when select "superstar" releases began"
carrying the "premium" $9.98 list, which has now pervaded to
include, for example, nearly every new release on the Atlantic
Records group).
Do not think though that this means the labels have had to
suffer all the pinges of cost of living increases without product She used her blood for spells
prices increasing. Some of that grief they meted out to retail by along with some stolen item,
raising the cost of albums while keeping the list price stable. a letter, a photo, a cigarette
It's not difficult in this case to see who got the mine, and who butt. Witchcraft is really so
simple she thought, turning in
got the shaft.
But, even after sticking retail with threadbare profit a circle, saying a name, binding
margins, the industry was still in a tailspin. They knew they had some man to her heart, her body.
to be able to raise prices to keep up with inflation, as the other Then they came to her, obedient
entertainment industries (book publishing, filmmaking, live enter- as little pups, docile and
tainment) had been able to do. They needed a new format, with bewildered. But she couldn't
technolOgy so attractive to consumers that they would dig deep for work spells in reverse, so each
it. Finally, after the long hard early '80s, they found it in the month with her flow they all
compact disc. Cheap to make and easy to sell, the CD was an appeared, the numbers increasing,
industry wet dream. Even at nearly double the list price of the LP, the front steps littered with
it quickly became the format choice across the country. roses and candy, the telephone
But while CDs sell like mad, they are not selling to as wide ringing constantly, the neighbors
a group as LPs did, nor to the same group. Those who buy CDs are complaining about the howling of dogs.
generally in a middle-to-high income group. They buy CDs by the
wad, "investing" in them as if they were CD accounts. The increase
in units sold does not, however, reflect the amount of people who
cannot afford CDs, and Who resent that the format of choice is SUSAN LUTHER
being selected by a society of which they are not members.
In the industry's eyes, the LP, as a format used by the lower-
middle to upper-middle classes, is expendable. Let's make that
stronger: they want to blast all the LPs into space in a rocket.
But to those of us who cannot afford to spring $15 for a new
CD album, and who detest the sound quality of the pre-recorded The twisted gold wire inside the circle
cassette, the LP is a warm, affordable friend, especially really of my new antique opal pendant
cheap used LPs that you can get for two or three bucks. (Those of undulates like the twisted metal
us in retail do have it easier; we can buy used CDs for $3 to $6, that roped and strung several fingers, and the neck,
new ones for around ten b~cks). Audiophiles and industry insiders of the grocery-cart man (phenomenon I'd never seen before
notwithstanding, the LP iG loved, desired, and utile. Why can't we in this small city, still
caught between cotton and conglomerate):
have both?
Certainly the CD has not been irrefutably named the champion he had many trinkets. Pieces of string,
of sound quality; it has many detractors. It has its benefits and more bits of wire, old papers, letters
its handicaps (but that's another article). Don't kid yourself that or bills. He had a beard and earrings,
this has anything at all to do wit~ upgrading the form's shoes that matched, plaid shirt and Army pants
technology, except perhaps where ease and convenience come in and his cart parked outside where otherwise
(always a soft spot in the American consumer's heart). No, this is the Toyota might be. He looked tough--I guess
an economic issue, a class war, always has been and will continue he'd have to be--always having to find some new place
to be, and it's certainly not the first time that national or to sleep, or a way to guard the cart. He's the oddest one
corporate economics have left the working class out in the cold. yet in the Krispy Kreme on Saturday night:
Unfortunately, it looks like a war that's already been won.
Soon, Tower Records will be pulling all LPs from its bins; Capitol even on weekends you usually just see
Records and Polygram Records have already begun releasing new surreptitious drunks who maybe think
titles without a vinyl alternative. It seems as if it's too late you'll believe they're sober just because
to stage a revolution. Perhaps all we can do now is wait and cross they're drinking their coffee quietly
our fingers that CD rot turns out to be a reality. and eating jelly doughnuts, the occasional preacher

10 2..1

who strikes up a conversation as soon as you mention
"Florida," the retired security guard
who brings his younger friend every week
to recount to him what Europe was like
during the war, one or two women you don't ask
what they do for a living, the kids in cleats
or Adidas, depending on the season •••
(more convivial than even Shoney's, where the lady
in the booth across from my friend Jane and me two nights ago
broke into our talk to get reassurance that she's right
to tell her fifteen-year-old about the dangers of sex--
even with love--and "stay off pot.")
The man with the cart had coffee too
(maybe he'd wished enough money up
from the Big Spring downtown, caught
in a sunken park between
two banks: on sunny days slung coins flash
like scales tossed
from the City's gold fish). I'd have talked to him
if I hadn't just heard on the news
how the local molester who relished women
with small children whose husbands were at work
had just been caught ••• Instead I listened:
he said things like "More cream, please," and
"got a long way to go."
Since then I've seen him on the streets more than once,
wheeling that buggy--What does he do when the basket gets full?
Sell or bestow its contents at the city dump? Who knows?
Perhaps one day
I'll find an assortment on my doorstep,
old milk)ugs, egg cartons, dish-soap bottles like those
children somewhere make into dolls, plastic mesh
baskets once filled with strawberries, colored stones
and marbles, dimes found outside the Post Office, old
tickets to the show (at this rate it could take forever
to name all the possible junk,
longer at least than I spent in the antique mall
at Five Points, in the historic district East
of Park, spring, courthouse, banks, and defunct
Cotton ROW,
where the first thing I saw was the opal pendant,
where I thought of it all the time I looked
for two candle shelves for Grandma's candelabra
to go on the living-room wall
beside the lithograph of Sussex, while I watched the colors
of the green-and-blue stones bloom through six rooms
of pressed glass, cut crystal, Duncan Phyfe-style couches,
Victorian chairs, old books, starched lace placemats,
belt buckles, dough bowls, bedsteads, china
hair receivers decorated with gold. I told the man
in the shop I have five opal rings already,
two other necklaces, and earrings too.
I think the man with the cart might agree
though, that pendant's one of the best things
I ever bought).
DARLENE MOORE
Nick and I met in a bar on Fairfax near Wilshire. I used to
go there after work to think about the life I was getting ready to
leave behind. I was trying to get used to the idea of being single,
wondering how I was going to do it--how I was going to bring myself
to say good-bye to my family once and for all.
I had no idea where I was going to go--only knew that I had
to leave soon--that I wouldn't be able to take it much longer. I
was working up to it--drinking and watching the people in the bar
--thinking about the different possibilities: the men I could
become involved with, the different ways I could leave:
I thought about doing it with a lot of drama, like during a
party or family gathering: I'd go in my room and pack my things and
walk up to my husband just before I left. with suitcases in my
hands and everybody watching, I'd say to him, "This is it. I can't
take it anymore. I'm leaving."
I also thought about doing it silently, during the day when
no one was home, or I might just do it tearfully, with my immediate
family there--my husband and my two kids--but without the drama.
I carefully planned out each possibility in my head. That
wasn't the first night I'd spent in that bar. I'd been
there many times--went there almost every night during that period
of transition--that time in between when my husband and kids and
I all knew it was over but we still kept our clothes under the same
roof.
We were hesitating--waiting for/dreading the day when Mom
would get crazy enough--hopped-up enough--to find the courage to
come home and pack her things, and most likely never be seen or
heard from again.
You see, we were depending on me to do it--to leave--because
we all knew that my husband would never have the guts to go through
with it (just like we all knew that I'd never have the guts to go
through with the family thing). Somewhere inside of us we knew--
each in his own way--that ending it would be the best thing for
everyone.
I don't have to tell you that those were rough times--all that
knowing, waiting--always surrounded by the background of our house

and routines, the memories we saw in each other's faces of better
times--or what we thought were better times--that flashed before
our eyes like subliminal messages--only for an instant and then
we'd be back in the present, staring at a face overcome by the
breakdown of what we once thought was love, and the knowledge that
those illusions had been destroyed forever.
There was so much tension it was unreal--like the air was
charged with something--like electricity--like part of the volume
was turned up but at the same time something--the visual part of
it maybe--was turned down--muted somehow--and we were all just
going through the motions of daily living. There were some changes
of course--like me going to the bar after work instead of going
home--sometimes staying out all night--but still we went through
the motions--slowly, heavily, like we were all on some powerful
drug that numbed us into automatic pilot. We went through those
motions/movements through the days, the weekends, with a strange
sense of personal distance--like we were all removed from it
somehow--like we were all watching from a great distance.
It's painful, even now, to look back on it all, but at least
--thank God--none of us pretended during that time that everything
was all right. Mostly, we just tried to stay out of each other's
way.
Which is what I was doing when I'd go out at night: I was
staying out of their way--out of my family's way.
The bar was close to where I worked--I was a secretary--and
the people who went there were regular people. It wasn't one of
those L.A. meat markets that people go to all dressed up, trying
hard to sell themselves to someone else: The women sell sex--they
wear expensive, revealing clothes and paint on greasy faces that
start melting a couple of hours into the night, With the men, it's
success. They try to look successful, or at least like they've
still got some chance at success. This place wasn't like that. it
was comfortable--a place where people went after work to unwind--
somewhere my husband would never think to come looking for me. He'd
be more likely to lOOk in the other places, since somehow he'd
convinced himself that what I wanted was the illusion of the
comfort of money. That's how well he didn't know me, or maybe it
was just easier for him to think that it was the money that was
driving me away--I don't know.
Anyway, I'd go to this bar on Fairfax because I could go there
and be myself--and once in a while hook up with someone who was
like me--someone who was trying to work something out.
During that time--except for the people at work, and I wasn't
close with any of them--those men I met in the bar were my only
source of companionship. Needing male companionship was the only
way I still needed people, and in my emptiness and isolation I
clung to that, even if I only followed through with it--actually
going home or to a motel with someone--once in a while.
The night I met Nick, he was there as part of a "spiritual
journey"--those were his words, not mine--during one of his
periodic sojourns to the "other" world--the world across town from
the bus station--that "middle class reality of automatic movement,"
L4
as he calls it--where to him it's all the same: "Some money and a
lot of money," he says, "an honest meat market, a dishonest meat
market-- it's all the same." It's all the same, he says, because
it's a place where life continues to go on as usual, and it doesn't
matter if you're dressed up or not: It's all the same because
everyone is still weakly pretending that everything's all right,
and everything is definitely not all right.
He takes those trips to the other world about once a month.
He told me about it--about this "spiritual journey" thing of
his--the night we met, but it didn't make any sense to me then.
This is how it was that night:
I was in the bar, it was about five-thirty or a quarter to six
in the afternoon. It was sUD1lDer. I was throwing darts with an
airplane pilot from Chicago and his daughter who was only four or
five years younger than me (I was twenty-eight). She was a dancer
--tall and very pretty. I don't remember either of their names.
One of the big basketball games--I think it was basketball--
was playing on the television up in the corner by the ceiling. The
bar was full of excited men.
I saw Nick when he walked in. I watched him while he walked
up to the bar. He was looking all around. He saw me, kept looking
at me and I looked back at him, When the stare finally broke, the
pilot, who couldn't help noticing, looked at me and smiled and
winked. He continued to throw darts while his daughter and I
watched. He was standing directly underneath one of the ceiling
lights, which made it look like he was standing in a spotlight.
The daughter said to me, "Did you see that guy? Did you see
the way he looked at you?" She was smiling While she said it,
friendly.
I looked at my drink and said, "Yes, I saw him."
She said, "He's good looking, but doesn't he look a little
strange to you? Different looking?"
I said, "I don't know, maybe," but as I said it, I thought to
myself that she was right. He did look a little strange, but not
in a bad way.
The pilot threw darts a little while longer, then the three
of us--he and his daughter and I--went up to the bar and ordered
more drinks. I didn't look at Nick, but I felt his eyes on me as
I walked up to the bar. After I sat down I looked at him and he was
staring at me. he didn't look away.
I drank with the pilot. He'd been paying for my drinks since
I got there. He was wearing a white shirt and khaki pants. He was
very clean--had a clean, honest look on his face. He seemed to be
in a lot of pain.
I asked him, "How come you came to L.A.? Is your whole family
here with you?"
He said, "Well, everyone except my wife--me and my five kids
are here."
I thought to myself, Five kids?1 This poor guy's wife left him
alone with five kids! I said, "You can't be serious about that--
about all those kids."
He laughed and pointed to the daughter and said, "She's the
oldest. I don't know what I would've done if it wasn't for her."
The daughter was talking to someone else and made off like she
z..s

didn't hear but it was obvious by the look on her face that what
he said made her feel good.
I said, "Where's your wife now?"
He laughed again--embarrassed--and said, "Oh, I thought I
already told you: My wife died two and a half months ago. She had
cancer. She was sick for a long time."
I told him I was sorry and we talked about her while we drank.
I didn't particularly want to talk about her--he did--but it seemed
to be doing him good so I was glad to let him talk. I'd ask
questions every once in a while to keep the conversation going.
He was lonely, It was obvious that he needed someone who
wasn't one of his kids to talk to. There was nothing between us.
The daughter was talking to a man on her left. I didn't think
~oo much about it then, but now I realize that she must have been
in a lot of pain too.
Once in a while I'd look over at Nick and he'd either be
talking to Betty the bartender or looking at me.
After about an hour of sitting there--talking and drinking--
the pilot and his daughter got up to throw more darts. It was a
deliberate move: I was grateful for their sensitivity: Timing is
important in certain bar maneuvers.
As soon as they left I looked over at Nick and he was looking
at me., . wrong," he said, "because it's not all circular, and it's not just
It was a few drinks later--for both of us: We were both more
relaxed than when we first saw each other.
He slid over to the stool next to me, where the pilot's
daughter had been sitting, and said, "I guess you know I've been
looking at you since I came in."
I said, "Yes, I know."
He took my hand and shook it and said, "I'm Nick Godward. I
used to be an attorney. Now I'm a prophet."
I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. I said,
"Well, I know some attorneys--I work for attorneys--but I've never
met an attorney who was a prophet."
He smiled and said, "Remember, I said I wed to be an attorney."
I told him my name was Sharon.
He took my hand in his and kissed it and said, "I'm glad to
know you, Sharon." Then he kissed me on the lips--for a long time
--just like that--and there was this long moment of shock and
silence--we were both surprised by what he did--and the drone of
the bar seemed to disappear for a minute: The people were all still
there, but there was no sound--and the two of us just sat there
looking at each other.
Then he said: "would you like to know what I'm doing here?"
I said, "I think I already know."
He laughed and said, "No, I don't think so." Then he said, "Of
course I love to meet women--and that's always nice--but that's
never my primary objective when I come to places like this."
He paused. He was waiting for me to ask him, so I did: "So
what's your 'primary objective' when you come to places like this?"
He said, "I'm here tonight, in this bar in your strange
neighborhood ••• " He drifted for a few seconds, then came back: "I'm
here to observe time and humanity."
I said, "First of all, it's not my neighborhood--I work nearby
but I live in the Valley. And besides, you said you were an
attorney--I mean prophet--not one of those space aliens that people
say come down here to earth all the time to check us out."
He laughed but he didn't say anything. He looked me in the
eyes, then at my body up and down a few times. When his eyes
finally rested on the bartop in front of him, he pointed to the
spot he was looking at and said to me in a serious voice: "Would
you like to know the key to the universe, Sharon?"
As he said that and I was looking at him, I noticed he hadn't
shaved for a couple of days. He had dirt under his fingernails and
his clothes were dirty.
I thought to myself, This guy's really got something wrong
with him, but don't misunderstand me: That didn't turn me off--I
liked it: It was kind of interesting--more interesting than the
pilot, who was nice but there was absolutely no chemistry there--
like I said before, there was nothing between us.
I smiled at Nick and touched his arm and said, "Okay. We're
both drunk, so what the hell? What is it? What's the key to the
universe?"
He said, "The key to the universe is a circle and a line."
I looked at him like he was crazy.
"It's not one or the other--that's where they've got it all
a straight line either." The tone of his voice was very serious,
I didn't get it--had no idea what he was talking about.
"I don't like to think of the symbol for this answer as a
circle with a line drawn through it," he went on, "because that
looks too much like the symbol people use for zero, and I think it
should be more positive than that."
With his finger he first traced a circle with a vertical line
going through it on the bartop (1)--to represent the possible
symbol--and then a circle with a slash going through it--like the
sign for zero--for comparison (2):
(1) (2)
He said, "I like to think of it instead as a circle with a
square around it--like this .•• " and as he said it he pulled a
pencil and small pad filled with notes out of his pocket, and drew
a picture like this:
2-7

I looked at the drawing. I said, "I don't want to upset you
or anything--I know this is important to you--but that's a circle
and a square."
And he said, "I know, but a square is just four lines."
He smiled and pointed at the television up in the corner and
said, "It looks kind of like television."
I said, "Are you trying to tell me that the key to the
universe is a television?"
He said, "No, no--that's not it at all--though the television
can certainly tell you what you need to know ••• if you know how to
use it properly,"
I thought about my kids at home--eating McDonald's, watching
TV--trying to kill time--and I started to feel bad, but then I
looked at Nick and just had to laugh •••• No one I knew well would
be able to see it, but I knew that he was really something special.
He ordered two more drinks. Then he looked at me and said:
"The key to the universe is that you have to consider all
possibilities--not just one way," and he tore the drawing out of
the notepad and handed it to me. "Here," he said, "keep this and
think about it. Look at it sometimes."
We sat talking like that until the bar closed. I didn't even
notice when the pilot and his daughter left. We were the last ones
to leave. We said good night to Betty and stood outside on the
sidewalk at a quarter after two in the morning. We were both too
drunk to even think about driving. We started walking toward
Wilshire.
He said, "What should we do now?"
I told him my office was close by. I said, "We can go there
and sleep a few hours and then go home when we can both drive."
He laughed like I'd said something funny and then he said,
"Isn't that a little strange?" There was a weird sarcasm in his
voice. He said, "I didn't think people were supposed to sleep in
office buildings. I know I never did when I was working."
I didn't know what to say to him. I must have looked at him
like he was crazy again because he looked at me and laughed and
said: "Don't worry. I did other things I wasn't supposed to when
I was working ••• I just never spent the night in the office with a
woman."
It was cold and quiet outside. You could hear the electricity
from the power lines and see the red stop lights flashing in the
mist at the street corner.
I looked up at him and said, "I think it's all right. I've
done it before and it's never been a problem."
Then I thought about it a minute and said, "We're not going
to steal anything, and the guards all know me and they know I'm not
going to do anything stupid--just avoid having an accident. It'll
be all right."
He took my hand, "You don't have to convince me," he said. He
waited, then added: "And you don't have to always be so serious."
We walked down Wilshire Boulevard a few blocks to my office.
The guards let us in the building--no problem--nothing said except
hello and good night. They were as tired as we were. They might
have been drinking themselves. We took the elevator up--the only
one running at that time of night--and walked down a long hallway
to the office.
As I shut the door, he said, "This is pretty nice."
I left the lights off. We stood by the window--the entire wall
was a window--directly behind the reception area. We looked down
ten stories to the street, the cars passing by, out at the lights
of the city.
That night was a turning point in my life.
I'd never gotten into trouble for spending the night there,
but this time I did--it did turn out to be a problem--because once
we got there--after we finished talking and looking out the window
--we made love for a couple of hours. Don't ask me how when we were
both so drunk but we did. We were exhausted by the time we
finished--fell into deep sleep--and suddenly, as though no time at
all had passed, we found ourselves startled awake, half dressed on
the couch in the reception area.
One of the bosses came in at seven in the morning with a
client.
Of course I was fired on the spot. The boss said something
original like, "Sharon, this time you've gone too far," but 1 was
too hung over with sex and alcohol to even begin to think about it.
I don't even remember the client's reaction.
We put the rest of our clothes on and left the office. We
cleaned up in the restrooms and then went to the coffee shop
downstairs to have breakfast.
We were sitting at a small table watching people come in
before work. We talked while middle-aged waitresses called out
breakfast orders in the background.
Nick said to me, "What do you want to do now?" I said, "1
don't know. My last idea didn't turn out too good," and we both
burst out laughing.
He asked me: "Do you have an apartment?"
I said, "I live in a house." I looked at him. "In the Valley,
with my husband."
There was silence, then: "Oh, 1 see."
"I don't really feel like seeing him right now."
"No, I don't either," he said.
Then he said, "I've got a place. It's not much, but you can
29

come over and rest, clean up •..get your thoughts together if you
want."
We finished eating and went out into the daylight. We walked
a few blocks toward my car, then he asked me: "Do you need anything
out of your car?" I said no. "Then let's just take mine," he said.
"We'll leave yours here for now and both go in mine."
He had an old faded light blue piCk-Up truck with a parking
ticket on the windshield. He took the ticket and stuffed it into
my blouse.
We drove down Sixth street and stopped at a liquor store near
Vermont and picked up beer and whiskey. We were silent--smoking
cigarettes and listening to the radio as we drove across town.
We parked in a lot somewhere near the bus station. I looked
around, a little surprised at where we were. I thought about my
house and family and smiled. I looked at Nick and he smiled back
and shrugged his shoulders.
Of course I didn't understand it all the way I do now, but
looking around as I sat there in the truck with him, I did have a
strong sense of where I was and what was happening. The feelings
--from everywhere--were so strong it would have been impossible not
to feel something. But even though I was harder then than I'd ever
been before, I was still very naive and there was a lot I missed.
Now I know very clearly--from passing by and watching and
thinking about it every day--that where we are while we're going
through all this--what Nick calls "spiritual"--that where we are
right now is a good place for us to be. We're near the bus station
--which is a sign of hope--a reminder that things--that everything
--can go either way. Because the bus station is both the beginning
and the end of the city all at once--the mouth and asshole that
receives new flesh and blood--new hopes and dreams--many times a
day. It pushes out/throws up the rejects and failures just as many
times a day--just as indiscriminately--with the same indifference
as the drunks throwing up outside--not knowing or caring whether
it's the last bottle or the last meal that's coming up--only that
they're making room for more. This is especially true for cities
like New York and Los Angeles--especially Los Angeles because of
the movies.
Back on that first day, in the truck with Nick, I just sat
there and looked around for a while. Then we got out. He opened up
the hood and took out the battery. We walked a couple @f blocks,
then up two flights of stairs to his place--this place--him
carrying the battery, which he set down just inside the door, and
me carrying a brown paper bag filled with Jack Daniels and beer.
That was a year ago. I've been with him ever since. We never
did go back to get my car.
Now he's away in the other world again. Like I said before,
he does that every so often, and sometimes I go with him, but he
felt like this time he needed to go alone.
I know what you're thinking, and no, he didn't want to go
alone so he could be with another woman--I don't think he's got
30
other women on his mind right now. He just felt that this time it
would be better for him to go alone.
I sit here thinking about the last time we were together.
He knows everything there is to know about me sexually. He
says things to me about it--about what I feel down there--that I'm
sorry--but my make-up--my background won't allow me to repeat those
things to you here in this way.
I can go back into my memory, into the near past, and sneak
into that last time together--those few days that have to hold us
until the next time. I place myself there like a fly on the wall-
-like a point of consciousness that's just a piece of dirt or part
of the shadow of a piece of furniture that's stuck up there on the
wall--watching us like a Peeping Tom peering into windows that
people forgot to make sure were completely closed and covered
before they started doing it.
There we were. On the couch.
He was on top of me, I was on top of him, we were next to each
other. We were making love. Both of us still had most of our
clothes on--we couldn't wait to get completely undressed.
We'd been drinking,
We'd been anxious to do it--started feeling it when we were
at the bar--something someone said--someone who was part of a
couple sitting near us--that made us start to feel like we needed
to be alone together So we finished our drinks quickly and hurried
home, We ran upstairs and opened/took down/off Whatever clothing
we had to in order to do it.
We finished, then he pulled out and rolled over so that he was
sitting on the couch. He looked straight ahead at the blank wall
while I looked up at a corner of the ceiling.
I was lying with my back against the arm of the COUCh, my
skirt still up, blouse half open, legs touching his.
He got up, went to the bathroom. I heard water running. He had
the door closed. I looked at the door, from the COUCh, and thought
of him standing there, on the other side of the door, at the sink,
washing his face. Washing the rest of himself.
He came out of the bathroom with a hot towel in his hands. He
walked over to me, helped me clean up--kissed me--very wet kisses
all over--then got up and went into the kitchen.
He came back with two drinks and sat next to me. He touched
his glass to mine.
I smiled at him, drank it down quickly, like I planned on
drinking down, with one or two or three big swallows, what I knew
he'd have saved up for me in the next half hour or so.
He knew what I was thinking. He looked at me, smiled--reached
over and touched me there.
Then he got up to do something, or get something, but he
seemed to forget what it was and came back to the couch and we did
it again.
It's incredible how he drinks so much and still has such a
strong sex drive.
I've asked him about it, and he says intoxication is a
positive thing.
He says all of God's creatures have ways of getting high--and
that's just how he says it: "All God's creatures have ways of

getting high." He says it's a "cosmic safety measure"--that those
substances were put on the earth to protect us from ourselves--like
medicine for our minds.
I tend to go along with that.
Because what better time to take that medicine than during the
disintegration of humanity as we now know it? This time which has
been going on for a long time: Then we're crossing over into
another way of being--new ways of thinking--and technology that for
some reason seems to be driving people crazy.
I'll say it for Nick and I'll say it for myself:
Everybody in the country's getting high on something--from all
walks of life--taking drugs or drinking, or becoming addicted to
causes--whatever--whatever suits their particular make-up.
Doesn't that tell you something?
Can you blame them?
Just pick up a newspaper. Look around you: The world is a very
crazy place. A lot of bizarre things are happening here.
Yesterday there was this story in the paper about a woman who
fell in love with a man who threw acid in her face and scarred and
blinded her because she rejected him. He was rich. He pleaded
relentlessly for her forgiveness--from prison--in TV interviews,
newspaper ads he took out, letters he wrote. He said he loved her
more than anything and that he was sorry. He begged her to please
forgive him. She fell in love with him and they were married while
he was still in prison. I think he's out now, or will be soon--I
don't remember. I know they're both going to be on TV soon.
There are weird things like that--people maiming/killing/
hurting not only strangers, but people they love--every day.
Some people say human beings have been like that--have had
that element of twistedness--throughout time, and that may be true
to some extent, except that now we have the added dimension of not
only destroying ourselves, but we're also destroying the earth in
the process. And no one seems to get it: If there's no earth to
live on, what are we going to do? I ask myself how people can be
so selfish and live their own lives without ever looking beyond
themselves to the lives of others.
Then I think about how hard it is to find any meaning, and it
can be pretty hopeless sometimes because it seems like people have
always had this problem with finding meaning. When I think about
the things I learned in school and try to think about some good
time in our existence--human existence--I can't think of any time
in history that we can look back on with total pride and self-
respect: It's like we're demoralized--repeating the same mistakes
over and over--each time in bigger, more aggressive ways.
Nick says to me when we're drinking, when we're laughing: "Why
experience it sober when you don't have to?"
And I have to say--once again--that I agree with him.
Getting high doesn't always mean you're "hiding" from reality.
It can mean that, which I think is all right--understandable--given
the state of the world--I do it myself sometimes--but often people
do it to see things differently.
You can use intoxication to see the things you might not
otherwise be able to see--or to block out what you don't want to
32..
see--like the true character of the friend you're talking to--the
one you pour your heart out to in your most vulnerable moments--
their character, which of course can be good or bad, or the way
things are in general--the things you see and hear about every day.
You may not be able to controlffie world, but you can control
~ world, at least some of the time. That's why I sit here and
drink and watch television. I've got the original drawing Nick gave
me the night we met--of the circle and the square. I've got it on
the bed beside me. I look at it sometimes during the commercials.
I always keep it with me, even if it's just in my purse or in a
pocket and I don't look at it.
I sit here and drink and watch television--and wait for Nick
--because those are the things I do best now. Those are the things
that I can do well, and knowing that makes _AH@_AH= feel confident:
For the first time ever, I feel like I've got some control over my
life.
I've got the TV tuned in to a local station. I'm watching an
old movie--an old movie and the commercials that come on every five
minutes or so.
There's a commercial for Cal Worthington. Tonight his "dog
spot" is a big cat of some kind. Maybe it's a panther.
Now there's an ad for an auto parts store. They're talking to
customers--they've been doing it all night: They ask this fat
middle-aged woman in a loose-fitting print dress, "How'd you hear
about us, Ma'am?" She says, "My neighbor told me to come here
because you fellas have the best prices," and as she's saying it,
I see there's this guy in the background that looks like Nick •••IT
IS NICK! And he's got a new battery for the truck! Now they're
going up to him, asking him: "How did you hear about us, Sir?" And
I'm so excited--I can't believe it--and I'm touching the drawing,
drinking my drink, and looking at the TV screen and he's saying:
"On TV. I heard about you guys from your ad on TV."
ROBERT NAGLER
The pile of donkey heads is very large, There is not enough
leather on them to make processing Worthwhile, explains the
guide.
He points at a skinner. The workman's knife moves so fast
it is impossible to trace the sequence of action.
The tourists hold the bundle of mint (given to them at the
beginning of the tour) to their noses and listen dutifully.
This is the Third World, they think, this is the Third
World.
As they leave the damp stench of the tannery, a mob of and will be survived
vendors, waving leather goods, descends on them, shouting. by 302,000,000,000 Tuesdays .••
according to Channel 39.

Of the five businesses located on Route 1 in '44, only one

is left: Jimmy John's.
Eve is perfect--
Jimmy John sold hot dogs and root beer from a stand he twelve years old,
packed away at night in the trunk of his coupe. He worked near blind,
hard, saved harder, stayed out of trouble, stayed in luck. shedding daily.
Doing no wrong,
OVer the years Jimmy John's has prospered: the rest, folded. she destroys the new rug.

He enumerates the dead businesses, the dead faces of Snarling when disturbed,
their owners. Each one lives again in detailed failure. He chewing my Hieronymus Bosch,
has a brass plaque with their names on it for all to see. eating last night's garbage •••
never listening.
"And the 'Carpet Barn' across the street burned down last I love her so.
week," notes Jimmy John.
In the garden
hiding her bone
not noticing
WILLIAM E. PASSERA the apple hanging low
she pees on the tree,
perfectly.

Joseph Bonano, WALT PHILLIPS

we have a lot in common--
both waiting to die.
You with emphysema,
grasping for breath,
me,
with only tomorrows it was her last day on this job
that take care of themselves, she was leaving
to start her own business
Together it would soon be obvious
we watch the days go by.,. she hadn't been key to anything here
Joe B. and it would also quickly be clear
sitting on his porCh, the world wasn't waiting for her business
waving ••• she would become that rarity:
me running, one stranded and aware of it
saying hell-o as I pass.

Not so bad, though,

My friend has raised a fine family,
leaving three healthy sons
and two married daughters. she threw out all his pastries
I read the papers, and candies
watch lots of T.V., and crunchy things like chips and pretzels

34

and installed a bunch of
fruits and vegetables
and stubb sat there scowling
of getting so healthy
he might have to start
explaining himself more
As a boy his exultations
had jockeyed high wave crests:
at the idea but now in old age he's drawn
toward the worn, battered sides
of a cliff charged with its suffering
of huge green rages.

all the beautiful girls

in the university library She gloats on the refusal of a stone
all the dead books to compromise,
the young know that words its wet black "no" under rain.
don't say much
unless feeling gets involved a lot She likes weather for its own sake:
as an old man passes . fog trailing filaments
dry as most books of a spider spinning--as well as
young men stop at sociable tables branch-cracking gusts.
where they proceed to read
the girls She dotes on the fantastic facts
of Maori tattoos, totem poles,

c~~~u.f. baby turtles rushing to dive

into a never-known sea.
O~ 4e ~C)W\t' O~ ~itJ'(y Snug in her neat shell,
he looked into the computer she's self-contained
studied the dancing symbols as a boxed egg.
technology had come quite a long way
but so had nonsense
henry david thoreau
had spoken of improved means STACEY SOLLFREY
to unimproved ends
long before anybody
had thought of putting
man's sillinesses
and meannesses
into electric green if "she" sees a flower standing straight here
then this is me telling you where to stick it
in case I don't laugh
and thorns never prick
ROSE ROSBERG

To ro~rdf~'tS pullies close curtains of orchestral maneuvers

This old man's griefs, hates with the come-hither hula
are packed into harsh-ridged skin, of spines pushing the backs of women
that stand with hands to hips
mirror of weather-broken surface showing us the chin that points our eyes
in sea cliff above. into furthering the paths where breasts hang

37
 GINA BERGAKINO recently rocoived
Foundation supporting the writin
CHRIS CAUSEY was born and raised-in Boholl
lives in San Francisco ... CAITLIN OLI~~ORD
quite-famous source, "a inigma", hor work ha.
of dm editor L.O.D.'s tirst 0010 oa.sotto rolwuuw,
Punishment •.. WILLIAN DORE8XI haa reoontly publish
Literary Reyiew, Fine Madnoss, Hind, and ao~, hi
_e_
forthcoming from the University of "i
is a full-time freelance writor. JPBS Radio, M
regularly airs his poetry and fiotion, and
appear in the mass-market anthology, Shock Troatmont
GOLDSMITH 1 ives in Ann Arbor, Miohigan, whe: ..
employee of the Veterans Adminiotration Modi
freelances for The (Detroit) Motro TimaQ and currant
BERT HUBINGER grew up in Miami, graduated trom Oartm
lived in California tor about tittoon yoare. Ho ie an advertioing
copywri ter for AAA ••. ALBERT HUI'1'8TIOkLI!IR'. book of pooms, Walking
Wounded, won the 1989 Austin Book Award •.• PATRICk JENNINGS was
born and raised in Gary, Indiana. He reoeived his undergraduate
degree in fine art photography trom Arizona State University, and
currently is enrolled in the graduate film program at San Francisco
State ••• CARLA ICANDINSkY is "living in the smallest studio
apartment in Berkeley" and borrowing her neighbor's cat to act as
"" her familiar. Her latest colleotion
SUSAN LUTHER lives in Huntsville,
of poetry is Time of Wings •••
Alabama, but being a perpetual
victim of wanderlust, has travelled allover ••• PAUL MARTZ plays
drums and, for a living, does oomputer stutf (these days in Salt
Lake City) • •• DARLENE MOORE lives in San Francisco. She is
currently working on a novel ••• In addition to poetry, ROBERT
NAGLER has published computer software and scientific abstracts,
mainly in the area of cognitive rehabilitation. He is the editor
of ~, an invitational-basis poetry journal, and ~, a journal
of experimental literature and the magnetic media ••• The son of
a musician and a singer, WILLIAK E. PASSERA was born in New
Orleans. He moved to New York City in 1981, pursuing a career in
painting; after six years attempting to sell his work, he took a
job in the city school system as a substitute teacher, where he
began writing poetry .•. Guillotine Press is publishing a book on
WALT PHILLIPS' thirty-plus years as a small press figure ••• ROSE
ROSBERG's book of poems is called Trips--wi thout LSD. She is
interested in the occult, and employed as a librarian ••• STACEY
SOLLFREY sent me this note: "1'm typing this real fast before/
going out to take a walk with my fiance/ after having our day of
lounging around/ being intermittently disrupted by/ partial
decisions forming permanent agreements while shopping/ for kitchen
wallpaper and by experiencing that little/ surprised feeling when
you get home and talk about while seeing/ how nice everything will
look" •••.

~
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