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Dan Cafaro
Founder and Publisher
Atticus Books

Radios and Rockets

By Joseph Zeppetello

Father Moran, our principal, was from Queens, so when the Mets won the World Series in 1969 we were excused from class and allowed to go into the cafeteria/auditorium to listen to the last few innings of the last game over the school PA system. I had already been following the game on my General Electric Six Transistor radio leaning my head against my hand to cover the earpiece in my ear. When I first got the radio, I took it apart to count the transistors. There were only five that I could find, and I wrote a letter to GE asking them why I could only find five of the six transistors they claimed were in there, but they never wrote back.

Even Father Moran called them the “miracle Mets” and in a Catholic high school we didn’t take the word “miracle” lightly. It was right up there with a visitation from the Holy Mother herself. This was before she began to appear on grilled cheese sandwiches, and went all eBay on us. It was a half-day holiday, even though some of the teachers complained that they needed to get us ready for exams. We had exams all the time, and piles of homework. Nobody died of overwork; car accidents were another matter altogether. That was the year four seniors died on prom night when their car rammed into a tree on a back road. No one knew it until the next morning when the kids never made it home.

I was a freshman, and didn’t know any seniors, or anyone else. I’d transferred from public school; everyone else in the class had gone through Catholic school from first grade. It was the year I met my buddy, Jimmy Argentina. We met at lunch.

“Sit down.” He motioned me to the seat across from him. “You’re walking around with that tray like you’re lost. You’re making me nervous.”

“Hi,” I said as I sat down.

“I’m Jimmy, Jimmy Argentina. This is Frank Nicholas.” He pointed to a boy sitting next to him, dark like Jimmy, with a round face.

“I’m Bob, Bob Francis.”

“Two first names like me.” Frank spoke up. “Do the nuns get them screwed up sometimes and call you by your last name instead of your first name?”

“I didn’t go to Catholic grammar school, but the teachers used to do that all the time. I think my third-grade teacher still thinks my name is Francis.”

“I know. I had an old nun in second grade who called me Nicky.” He laughed when he said that, dribbling macaroni and cheese on his plate. Jimmy was amused, smiling at us. He seemed to make up his mind that we were going to be friends. Jimmy usually did what he made his mind up to do, so we became friends, and I took the bus to his house that weekend with my model rockets.

When I got to Jimmy’s he was working on his mower. He’d promised his mom he’d mow the lawn, but the mower wouldn’t start.

“The gas is from last year. It might not be any good,” he said, so we walked over to the gas station with a coffee can to get some gas. The fresh gas did the trick, and Jimmy mowed the lawn pretty quickly. Their house was one of the giant Victorians on Elm Street in the heart of town, so the lawn wasn’t very large, and his mother had most of it taken up with a rose garden. We went over to the park to shoot off rockets. He’d brought his along, too. We had about six engines between us. The rockets needed a new engine for each launch; we ignited them with a battery pack. The first one we launched went pretty much straight up, and then landed about the middle of the park. We recovered it, and found that a tail fin had broken off because the parachute got tangled up. So we went back to the launcher and got one of my rockets ready. It had a payload in the nosecone. You unscrewed it, and there was a space about three inches deep that you could put something in. There was an optional camera that fit in the opening that cost a lot more than I could afford. So I usually sent it up empty. As we were getting it ready, Jimmy spotted a small frog. He quickly caught it, and stuffed it in the payload.

“First frog in space,” he said as he put the rocket on the launcher. We did a quick countdown and sent it up. The rocket went a lot higher than the first one, and we could barely see it when the chute came out. We watched it drift out of the park, across the main road, and land on the small field in back of the Historical Society. My dad called them the “Hysterical Society” whenever they sent us a brochure asking for donations. I ran across the road, and found the rocket in a low hanging branch of a maple tree. I climbed the tree and shook the branch until the rocket fell down. Jimmy was there and picked it up. He unscrewed the payload, and the frog crawled out onto his hand. He sat on Jimmy’s hand, looking him in the eye. After a while, he jumped off, and hopped into the brush.

“He’s going to tell his buddies all about it,” Jimmy said. “But they’ll think he’s crazy, and won’t listen. They’ll never believe him.” Then he smiled.

“What are you kids doing there?” An older man came down the back steps of the building.

“Nothing. We just had to get our rocket.” Jimmy held it up.

“I saw you in that tree.” He pointed to me. “You stay out of those trees. You could get hurt.”

“Sorry,” I said. Jimmy gave me a look.

“Well, go on. Get back to the park. This is private property here.” The man shooed us off.

“It’s not private property at all. It belongs to the city. My dad’s on the city council and told me,” Jimmy said to me as we crossed the road. “It used to belong to a couple of sisters. The last one died a few years ago, and left the place to the city because she owed about a hundred years in back taxes. So now we’re stuck with it.”

We used up the rest of the engines; one rocket broke completely in half because the chute melted together. One of mine, a plastic model, slammed nose first into the parking lot; it had been expensive. Jimmy thought it was totally “far out” as he picked up the two pieces and stuck them together.

“No survivors,” he said.

“Shit. That cost me a lot of money.” Since I liked the effect, I again said “shit.” It made me feel grown up. My dad used it all the time.

“I can give you a dollar, just got my allowance. Maybe we can order some more stuff? I’ve got a catalogue in my room.” We had to mail-order the rockets and engines, since the local hobby shop only stocked toy trains and model airplanes, very expensive “adult” toys.

Jimmy had his own room. He had an older brother and sister who had bedrooms at the end of the hall, but both were away at college. My two brothers and I shared a room; we had one set of bunk beds, and a twin bed that my older brother got. Only my sister had her own room. Jimmy had model airplanes suspended from the ceiling, and a Beatles poster on the wall, the one Peter Max made for the Sgt. Pepper’s album. He saw me looking at it.

“My sister gave it to me just before she went to college last year. She loves Ringo. I think they made him a knight or something.”

“They still do that? Like King Arthur?”

“Yeah, except now it is usually if you make a lot of money. You don’t have to do anything hard, like kill a lot of enemies or anything,” Jimmy said as he went through a pile of papers on his desk. “Here it is.” He had the small catalogue published by the rocket company. We opened it on his bed and absorbed the contents. It was more recent than my catalogue, and had some new models. I could tell, because I had pretty much memorized the catalogue I had at home. He took out some paper, and we made a list. We ordered two new rockets, a lot of engines, and some tubes, nosecones, and balsa wood for fins.

“Should we get some of their glue?” Jimmy asked.

“No, I just use Elmer’s glue. It works fine.”

“OK.” I felt a little funny. The order was over $20, a lot more than I ever had to spend. I mumbled something under my breath.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have a total of about $2 to my name.”

“Oh. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just give it to Mom. She’ll send away for it.”

“Really?” My mom would have told me that she needed that much for grocery money. She wouldn’t have been lying either. He put the list on top of his desk.

“Sure. She’ll buy me anything that can be called “educational.” I’m supposed to go to college. You’re going too, right? They like to have all the seniors go to college even if it’s just the local community college.”

“Sure. Of course,” I said. Not having thought about it at all. “I have a couple of years to figure it out. We’re just freshmen.”

“Yeah.” He sat in the chair behind his desk. His schoolbooks were in one corner. “You have Father Duane for homeroom?”

“Yeah, that’s all I have him for.”

“Of course. He teaches the B-level history classes. You’re in all A-level, like me.”

“Yeah. We do share a lot of classes.” We shared all of our classes, but French. Jimmy took Spanish. Father Duane was a new priest, very young, so he was given the B and C level history students. The C level was pretty much the whole football team. Father Duane was reputed to have played college football, and the team liked him. He was the team chaplain and went to all the games.

“Jenny Gibbons is probably in your homeroom then.”

“Yeah, she sits behind me. Then Mike Grabbo. They seat us alphabetically.” Jenny was the girl with red-blonde hair and clear blue eyes that all the senior guys wanted to date. Those with cars were always offering her a ride home. She was also a cheerleader for the football team.

“It’s easier for them to take attendance. Jenny was in my class last year.”

“She’s in all my classes.”

“I meant homeroom.”

“Oh.”

“Do you talk to her?”

“A little.” Sure. I had said “hi” to her once before I sat down. It took all my courage.

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Maybe.”

“Give her a note?”

“Sure.” He reached into his desk and pulled out a sealed envelope. “Give this to her on Monday.” The envelope sat on my dresser all day Sunday without either of my brothers bothering me about it, which in itself was a miracle. Even after church when they seemed to find stuff to do to bother me, they were outside playing ball. On Monday, just before the first bell rang, I saw Jenny in her seat.

“Hi.”

“Hi, Bobby,” she said. She was one of those people who always seemed to smile, but her eyes seemed to also know a secret.

“I have a note for you from someone.” I handed her the envelope.

“Is it from Jimmy Argentina?” I nodded. Her blue eyes seemed to flare, and I swear her red hair got a little brighter. She handed it back to me. Then, changing her mind, took it from me, tore it up and threw it in the wastebasket near Father Duane’s desk.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s OK. He gave it to you because you wouldn’t know.” She looked at my face and laughed. I must have looked terrified. She gave me a pat on the shoulder. “I’m not mad at you, Bobby. You’re so funny, listening to a baseball game on your radio during history class.” Again my face was doing something completely out of my control. “You think no one knows? Sister Mary James might be old, but she’s not senile.”

The bell rang and we sat in our assigned seats. Father Duane came in a little late, smelling of cigarettes, scanned the room, and made out the attendance sheet for the day. He then opened a book and began reading. It was entirely likely that if you sat in the wrong seat you would have been marked absent by Father Duane. Jimmy pounced on me during lunch. I had just set my tray down, and hadn’t even pulled out my chair to sit.

“Well?”

“She tore up the note.”

“No.”

“Yes. She tore it up, and didn’t even read it. I’m a little pissed off that you gave it to me.”

“Oooh, what he just said.” Frank said in a low voice.

“Stay out of it, Frankie.” I said. “Jimmy, I don’t want to get in the middle of anything here. I’m the new kid, remember?”

“Yeah.” He smiled a little. “She tore it up?”

“Yep.”

“The bitch.”

“Oooh, what you just said,” Frank almost crooned.

“Shut up, Frank,” Jimmy said. He picked at his lunch, and then made a joke out of it, piling his mashed potatoes on the plate, and setting his hamburger on top, calling it flying saucer. One of the lunchroom attendants gave him a ten-demerit slip for throwing out his food. You got a detention for every fifty demerits. We went outside to get some air before the afternoon classes. Father Moran made it mandatory for us to go outside unless the weather was really bad. He referred to us as “hormones with feet,” and felt we needed to run off some energy before going back to school. We hung out near the parking lot, and some of the older boys smoked cigarettes. I had tried smoking a couple of times, but they made me sick. Jenny was with one of her cheerleader friends in the parking lot, hanging out with some of the senior guys. She made sure she was in Jimmy’s line of sight. After school was dismissed for the day, she got into Tony D’Amato’s Plymouth Roadrunner; his dad owned the local dealership, and he got a new car each year so long as he passed all his classes. She turned her head just as they left the parking lot to make sure Jimmy was looking.

“I think you’d better forget about her,” I said, trying to be helpful. Jimmy was standing next to the school, and his face was tight; he looked a little pale, and then he punched the brick wall of the school. He must have broken his hand. It certainly was bleeding, but he just shoved it into the pocket of his coat, and waited for his bus. He was out of school for a couple of days, came back with his hand bandaged, and never again mentioned Jenny.

We all made it to our senior year and I stayed at Catholic high even though we could barely afford it. That year, my mom got a job on the early shift at a grocery store, and she would drop me off early at school. If it was any compensation to Jimmy, Jenny Gibbons didn’t end up going out with Tony, or anyone. The only thing she seemed to be passionate about was cheerleading, and she never missed a football game. Her parents bought her a little red VW when she turned sixteen, probably as a way to cut down on all the rides she was getting from the older boys. One Monday morning, my mom had inventory duty, so I got there extra early, and the school was open. Usually the doors were locked this early and I had to wait for one of the janitors to let me in. I went to my locker, and then went to my homeroom; we all still had Father Duane for homeroom, figuring I could review my English book for the sample Regents exam this afternoon. Finals were in a couple of weeks. I had been accepted at two colleges, and had chosen the one we could afford.

The classroom lights were out, so I turned them on, and saw Jenny and Father Duane. Actually, Jenny was underneath Father Duane on his desk. They both looked at me, and I looked back; no one said a word; I shut off the lights and went outside, and then I noticed her red VW in the parking lot. For the next two weeks of school when either Jenny or Father Duane caught my eye, I was always the first to look away, as if I had done something terrible. At graduation, she sat next to me, and she chatted with me as if we were old friends, talking more with me than she had in the four years we sat next to each other in homeroom, but certainly not mentioning her love affair with our homeroom teacher.

That summer, Jimmy and I hung out together. We would drift apart after that. He was going to his father’s alma mater, an expensive school out of state. I was going about seventy miles away to a state college.

One day we were sitting on his porch; his mom had made us iced tea. For a couple of months I had wondered if I should tell him what I saw, but he beat me to the punch, as usual.

“Did you hear?” he asked.

“What?”

“Jenny Gibbons and Father Duane got married. He dropped out of the priesthood.”

“Wow!” I said, genuinely surprised. “I had no idea you could leave the priesthood.”

“You can’t,” Jimmy said. “It’s got to be the biggest sin you can commit.”

“No, but it certainly is one of the biggest,” I said, sipping my iced tea.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Zeppetello is the author of the forthcoming title, Daring to Eat a Peach, a novel to be published by Atticus Books in November of 2010. He is the Director of Writing at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and lives in the Catskill Mountains.

**********

Duffy Escapes, Insanity Ensues

Publisher and Editor Threaten Defamation Suit, Author Chortles (Off the Record)

KENSINGTON, MD — Cyrus Duffleman, a fictitious creation and the main character of the forthcoming novel, Fight for Your Long Day, has literally escaped the pages of his book and has become a suspiciously untraceable troll on Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet social networking sites, according to those most closely associated with him.

“Duffy,” as he is affectionately known by his creator, author Alex Kudera, purports to be an underpaid, overworked educator with an insatiable appetite for fried food and flirtatious coeds. He now has fled his master with the cunning prowess of an intellectual fugitive to become an unpredictable antihero.

“He’s torn asunder and reinvented himself as a virtual monster,” Kudera said. “He’s showing up all over the Web, Facebook fan pages, wall threads, university bulletin boards. There’s even one rumor that has Duffy surfing the Net with the stolen identity of a youtube director. Supposedly he’s been spotted negotiating with some underground indie producer to cut a video.”

Duffy has especially created havoc for the independent publisher that intends to release his book, a novel of satire and suspense, in October. The publisher says Fight for Your Long Day will only come out as planned if “Duffy can be caught and made to understand his limitations.”

“The character is completely out of our control, and potentially dangerous to my company’s bottom line,” said Dan Cafaro, founder and publisher of Atticus Books, the small press that has agreed to publish Kudera’s book. “My attorney is at his wit’s end and says that Duffy’s bizarre online behavior may prove that Atticus is too careless to represent – what a load of bull, eh? With all this brouhaha surrounding Duffy’s whereabouts, we’ll no doubt need to find another lawyer to protect our assets.”

Michael Dylan Welch, editor of the book in which Duffy appears, is exasperated by the circumstances.

“To be frank, he’s become quite a nuisance,” Welch said of the portly adjunct professor from Philadelphia. “We’re doing the best we can to rein in his so-called ‘coming out’ party. But Duffy has told me that his liberation from the staid world of print has him reflecting on the choices he’s made in life and all that he could be doing in the world of animation.”

“I can’t work under these conditions,” Welch added.

One explanation of Duffy’s materialization, though not substantiated, is that he became unstoppable when he caught whiff of the shenanigans pulled off by the film characters portrayed in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. From that moment, Kudera said he lost hold of him.

“It was in the much later stages of the character’s development — after the manuscript was accepted for publication, in fact, that Duffy’s persona began to unravel,” said Kudera, who teaches literature and writing at Clemson University in South Carolina.

One note of great concern for Kudera is the potential structural damages that Duffy could suffer from the trauma of first “escaping and taking pleasure in the illusionary concept of freedom ” — and then being “retained and shackled by the constraints of bound and printed matter.”

“I’ve done everything to warn Duffy of these dangers,” Kudera said. I’ve left numerous messages on his Facebook wall, insisting that his metafictional shenanigans have played out badly too many times before, but he never returns a word. You’d think he didn’t exist until I return the next day and see all his new friends and activity—mafia wars, virtual booze, and his ‘poke’-ing is out of control. And then just yesterday, Cyrus Duffleman defriended me!”

It may seem to the uninitiated that Duffy is attention-starved, but he calls his cyber journey “adventurous” and says he holds this trait with many larger-than-life characters. He recently held a conversation with Atticus Finch on the Atticus Finch Facebook fan page – and called the Harper Lee creation an icon and inspiration “to all living fictional characters who’ve broken free of the cloth binding that imprisons them.”

“Duffy is clearly imitating the actions of Tom Baxter, the ingenuous archaeologist in Woody Allen’s movie,” Kudera said. “As Baxter did on the silver screen, so has Duffy, suddenly looking out from the pages of the book, breaking from the plot, and stepping through to the real world. I’m not sure there is a recourse for that. I feel absolutely Operation Shylocked.”

Cafaro says he believes Kudera’s bafflement with the “twists and turns of Duff’s psychological break” is sincere. But he also thinks Kudera, whom he described as an astute and clever writer, is “well capable of finding a satisfying resolution.”

Duffy, however, has begun to wear as thin on the publisher’s patience as his hairline.

“When I signed Alex to the book contract, I realized he was imaginative and funny, but I had no idea what we’d be up against with this Duffy character,” Cafaro said. “Hopefully, Alex has the charisma to coax this unwieldy lunatic back into the book, so we can put this embarrassing insanity behind us. In the best of all possible worlds — this one and Duffy’s, it would be ideal if we can simply reunite the character to the book’s pages and move forward with the production schedule, as planned.”

Thursday’s Poem: A Train to Ecstasy

Editor’s Note: “Poetry Break with Atticus Books” is an opportunity for readers every Tuesday and Thursday to pause a moment, see the world in a different light, and read a poem aloud. (OK, if you’re in an open-space cubicle, this might be tough – how about whispering it?) Regardless of what you do or don’t do for a living, reading a poem in the middle of a work day is not necessarily unproductive… or weird. On the contrary, it’s liberating… and healthy. Go ahead, give it a try. It’s our little secret.

Students take part in a protest against the results of a parliamentary election in central Chisinau. Photo: REUTERS

A Train to Ecstasy

I have a story to tell,
Only I’m not sure how to tell it.
I’m the lone offspring
Of a Moldovan laborer
And his browbeaten wife,
Part of a sad, forgotten class,
A lowly, welfare case
In a country absent of heart,
Fighting to pass our neighbors.

I only have one mouth to feed,
One mind to destroy,
It’s not a hard life –
I must follow my boyfriend’s lead,
Give him all of my self,
Then everything –
Yes, everything will fall into place.
We’ll be bound
Onto a track of endless money –
On a train to ecstasy.

I’d ask forgiveness for my beliefs,
But I don’t believe in love,
I’d ask forgiveness for my beliefs
But I don’t believe in sin,
I’d ask forgiveness for my beliefs
But I don’t believe in mercy.
I believe in little, really.
I believe in him.

My man sweats,
He earns his keep,
He works a union job,
He smells like grease.
It’s a hard life
For him,
It means long hours,
It’s a hard life
For him,
It means low pay,
It’s a hard life
For him,
It means humility.

But only for now,
Only for now, he says.
No regrets,
Only for now,
Only for now, he says.
He carries on
As best he can.

My man works without complaint,
It’s more than you can say
For the people who pay,
They have no sense of destitution
No way to relate,
Why should they?

I’m a live-in au pair
I’ve traveled far and wide,
To this land of girth,
This land of filth,
This land of expired milk.

Still I don’t know why I’m here,
Except my boyfriend
Tells me to stay
So I listen.

“It’s only business,” he says.
“It’s only business,” he says.
He doesn’t understand.

I hate these spoiled children.

“It’s only business,” he says.
“It’s only business,” he says.
He refuses to hear my side.

I hate my pampered hosts.

This stupid American family,

They are an American travesty.

It’s only business, he says.
It’s only business, he says.
They are the American dream.

~ DC 10/19/07

Post-election dissent in Moldova goes viral on Twitter and Facebook. Photo: Dan Patterson (flickr)

Flash Fiction: The Luis Arcos Bergnes

Editor’s Note: “Timeout for Flash Fiction” is an opportunity for readers to take a break every Monday and Wednesday from their busy day and explore the writings of authors affiliated with Atticus Books. It features short, previously unpublished work, as well as excerpts from forthcoming Atticus novels.

The Luis Arcos Bergnes

By Howard Waxman

The interior of the Luis Arcos Bergnes was warm and dry. The ship had been a cattle boat but was converted by the Cubans into a floating barracks, with a double layer of bunks in what had been the hold. The men and women had separate areas. I’d thought I’d been in close quarters when I was in basic training but that was spacious compared to this scene. There was hardly any room to stow our gear and most people would end up sleeping with their bags and suitcases.

We finally got to eat some hot food; the women served first and then the men. I don’t remember much more about that first night except saying goodnight to Walter. I probably passed out.

The seas were rough in the North Atlantic and a lot of people were seasick through the first part of the trip. I was one of them. Being seasick on this trip wasn’t such a bad deal. From the time we got on board it seemed like an endless meeting was taking place with everyone trying to shout down everyone else. Whatever the meetings were supposed to be about, they always wound up focusing on a few themes: white guilt, third world leadership, women’s liberation, and evolution versus revolution, that is, whether to wait for the workers or take matters into our own hands.

Everyone was extremely serious about the whole thing, as if they had to come to some decision because tomorrow we were going out to storm the Bastille or the Winter Palace and the day after that we would be in charge so we had better have our act together. I really didn’t know much about the revolutionary movement before I started hanging out in Eddie McWilliams’ house. But there were books about it all over the place and I ate them up. To me they were adventure stories, war stories. Even our own revolution.

I’d sit in a big arm chair in the McWilliams’ library room smoking a joint and reading Lenin and Marx and Mao. There was some Stalin, too, and Ho Chi Minh and the guy from Albania whose name I always forget. And while I was reading, all around me the kids were having their endless arguments about whether we should be focused on educating the working class or moving ahead as a revolutionary cadre to act immediately, and whether whites could only follow the lead of blacks in making a revolution in America, and whether women should be in the forefront.

Did Lenin and Trotsky sound as pompous to the casual listener when they were having their arguments while living like paupers in exile? Did the guard watching over the reading room in the British Library know that the scruffy mountain of unkempt hair who came in every day was Karl fucking Marx who actually was going to change the world? What about the waiters at the posh hotel in London where Ho washed dishes? Did they have any idea that the skinny gook was going to be the father of his country and stop U.S. imperialism dead in its tracks?

Maybe some kid on the Luis Arcos Bergnes was going to be President someday. It didn’t seem possible, but most people listening to Lenin no doubt thought he was just another delusional windbag.

Although I was so sick I mostly wanted to die and be buried at sea, I was glad not to be in the meetings. I knew I would have gotten caught up in the heat of the moment and started spouting a lot of nonsense that I didn’t understand. Not that there were a lot of meetings I could have been in. The blacks had their own meetings and the women had their meetings, and the white men had trouble figuring out where they belonged. What was our common identity except we were white and men and were at fault for everything that was wrong?

Walter wavered between being upset that he wasn’t in any group and being glad that he wasn’t.

“Sometimes I want to shout ‘Enough already!’ but then I think of something I want to say and I have no one to say it to,” he said to me.

“But you’re a white man,” I said. “What could you possibly have to say?”

“Very funny. But, come on, don’t you feel the same way?”

“Sure. But you can’t fight history. And history says it’s their time. If we’re really supposed to follow, then shut up and follow.”

“But when I think they’re wrong—”

“It doesn’t matter. You have to step aside and let people find their way. You know I’m right.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make me like it any better.”

Another benefit of being at the rail was getting to spend time with Avis who was also in the seasick club. The first morning out I met her clinging to the rail as the ship tossed and the wind cut through us like we were naked.

“I hate this,” she said.

“Kind of undermines your image as an authority figure.”

“Fuck you.”

“Think of it as your martyrdom for the cause.”

“You suck.”

“This is what your statue will look like after the revolution, bent over the rail giving it all up so that others may have smooth sailing.”

“I hope you fall overboard.”

“I’ve always gotten seasick. I didn’t even think about it when I decided to come. I guess that’s how dedicated I am.”

“This is my first time on a ship. I’m going to walk home.”

“I used to go out fishing all the time when I was a kid and almost always got seasick. It really pissed me off because no one else in my family did. We all went out on the fishing boats from Sheepshead Bay, my father and grandfather and uncles and cousins, and of the whole gang of us, I was the only one who ever hit the rail. It was a family joke. I was the family joke.”

“Did it ever stop?”

“Yeah, when I stopped going.”

“Too bad.”

“Nah. It wasn’t one of my favorite things to do anyway. I like being warm and dry and going out for blues and flounder was cold and wet. The only part I liked was when the captain would take pity on me and let me hang out on the bridge. Taught me the controls and even let me steer. Took my mind off being sick.”

A really big wave lifted the side of the ship and for a moment we were thrown together. Avis pulled away as soon as she had her balance back.

“The captain says it’ll stop when we get closer to Florida,” she said.

“When is that?”

“Three or four days.”

“We’ll be dead by then.”

“I hope so.”

We both threw up and then went back inside.

“Hey,” I said. “Thanks for letting me come.”

“Don’t fuck up.”

She walked away. I was happy. The ice was broken.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Howard Waxman’s plays include Joan La Poucelle, Punk Rock, Landslide, Knuckle Sandwich, September Walk, and On the Border. He was the Off-Broadway reviewer for Variety and his political column, “Scoundrel Time,” appeared in Lake Champlain Weekly. He recently finished his second novel, Venceremos. Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., he lived in Madison, Wis., San Francisco, Santa Fe, Manhattan, and rural New York State before settling in beautiful Bath, Maine.

Tuesday’s Poem: He wears a red bandanna

Editor’s Note: “Poetry Break with Atticus Books” is an opportunity for readers every Tuesday and Thursday to pause a moment, see the world in a different light, and read a poem aloud. (OK, if you’re in an open-space cubicle, this might be tough – how about whispering it?) Regardless of what you do or don’t do for a living, reading a poem in the middle of a work day is not necessarily unproductive… or weird. On the contrary, it’s liberating… and healthy. Go ahead, give it a try. It’s our little secret.

He wears a red bandanna

He wears a red bandanna
Not to project his fierce independence
Nor as a fashion statement
But simply as a functional headband
To stop the perspiration from entering his eyes.
He wears it as would an athlete
Or a Grateful Dead follower
But mostly he wears it as would a landscaper
Battling the summer heat to pay fall’s tuition.

His girlfriend mechanic wears brown,
Plain brown, a button down shirt with no name
And a pair of workman’s pants.
Her hair greasy and tangled falls limply
Upon broad shoulders. Her complexion oily
But her manner demure and provocative with a smile quick and easy.

Even though he’s the college student,
She’s the one that likes to read.
He can’t step foot in a bookshop without feeling the pit of his stomach gnaw,
The angst of keeping up with studies and equations he has no intention to absorb.

Where he keeps his lips pursed, she inhales.
Where he sees and steps over junk,
She gapes and digs through piles of shoddy clothbound treasures,
With a purpose and pleasure
Unbeknown to a hygienically cautious person of ordinary ilk.

She loves books but she has no interest
In higher education, only tinkering with engines
That baffle many a college graduate.
She loves the smell of old books better than the smell
Of her boyfriend’s cologne.

She likes humidity and often can be found
Under her car in a midafternoon day off, nimbly adjusting this and that
With tools that intimidate many a learned person.

Just to work up a good sweat.
God how she likes to work up a good sweat.

She figures their someday maybe marriage could be perfect
If only he would stop blasting the air conditioner
First thing upon sitting in her car
And if only he’d stop disguising his natural bodily emissions
With a sickeningly sweet toxic lotion.

She prefers his earthy scent when he returns
From a day of mowing and edging lawns.
That’s when she opts to attack him like a rabid creature,
Only then when he stinks like an untamed lusty beast,
Not after he’s masked his smell with bathing soaps that make her gag.

If only he would continue to labor until his back swayed like a hungry mule’s,
If only he would choose to dive into life instead of paddling briskly to make it ashore,
He would make her glisten.

If only he would continue to grunt and gasp for his bread and water,
With the reckless frenzy and panting persistence of a delirious mutt in heat,
Instead of planning oh so deliberately for a future of lassitude
Behind a partitioned desk
In a properly ventilated office,
With clone associates in suit and tie,
Showered and powdered, after hours of primping,
With polished grins and nails –
Perfectly parted hair pieces of Grecian formulas
With not a red bandanna in sight.

If only their summer romance
Could withstand the influence
Of a bitterly arid, unscented corporate world
Where green does not make grass stains on ripped jeans
And green does not ripen the skin under your nails
And green does not fill your eyes moist with rolling pastures of manure.
No, this strain of green makes dreams of ceramic-tiled tubs possible.
This shade of green makes wet and wildly coarse and sticky skin offensive.
This tint of green makes work cerebral and perfunctory, not physical and filthy.

If only he could understand the difference.

The delicate space between the rugged lines

Of musty books with scarred spines and yellowed pages,
Books overflowing with morals and mighty thoughts to lubricate languid souls,
Not lesson plans in dry text with crisp precise lettering
Designed to prepare career-oriented upstarts for a bright future in finance,

If only he could breathe in full
And admire her hard-earned delectable odor

And see the simple pleasure
In a dirty open life.

As opposed to fretting about his balanced checking account and manicured hands.

If only he could strip off the bandanna
When he works like God’s most beautiful creature,
A two-legged lascivious horse,
And sweat freely,

Sweat freely
To cleanse his congested pores

Sweat freely
To purge his burdening guilt

Sweat freely
The beads and bullets
For one needs ammunition
Against the stifling demons
Of clinical surroundings.

Sweat, sweat, sweat it all out
And sop sop sop in the salt of it,
And stomp, stomp, stomp with toes and underarms exposed
In the soothing soil – in the mud – in the fertile marshland of orgasmic release.

If only he could get over himself, she wondered aloud
Before splashing her face
To arouse from a wet dream.

If only he could hug me
Sans the aftershave and deodorant.

If only he could get over
What he perceives
As an uncivilized aroma,

And smell whole,

Smell rank if he must,

But damn it to all perfume,

Smell human.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Cafaro is the founder and publisher of Atticus Books, a small, independent publishing house located in Kensington, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C. Dan is actively seeking manuscripts from authors with distinct voices. If you have poems that you would like considered for the “Poetry Break with Atticus Books” series, please e-mail a query to danc@atticusbooks.net.

Flash Fiction: One Boot

Editor’s Note: “Timeout for Flash Fiction” is an opportunity for readers to take a break every Monday and Wednesday from their busy day and explore the writings of authors affiliated with Atticus Books. It features short, previously unpublished work, as well as excerpts from forthcoming Atticus novels.

One Boot

There’s this guy, David Newman, who creditors keep leaving messages for. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, I guess. The creditors don’t know they have the wrong number and I’m not going to bother telling them. I kind of look forward to coming home from work and seeing the message light lit on the answering machine. Even if it’s not for me, at least I get to hear someone’s voice when I get home. I guess you might think I’m lonely but I’m not, really, just in the need of company. There’s a difference, you know.

Anyhow, this David Newman cat must be in loads of trouble because they call every day, and it’s funny listening to the woman who leaves the message. She started out real polite like, then got nastier and nastier as the weeks moved on. Soon the weeks turned into months and a new woman from the same bank started calling, and it was like the whole thing started over again. Too bad, though. I liked that other woman’s voice better but she probably got sacked or something. Who knows? I thought of calling her myself once but then thought better of it. I was afraid the calls would end and they’re just stupid enough to let them go on forever. You’d think they would understand that maybe the guy gave the wrong number or maybe it got screwed up somehow when somebody typed it in, but no, not once have these bank people even questioned whether or not they have the right number. It’s kind of weird, really. And they keep calling around the same time of the day. So even if I were David Newman, which I’m not, they’d never reach me because that’s the time I’m at Shorty’s.

Shorty’s is a pool hall where I hang out during the day. I don’t play pool much but I enjoy watching the other fellas rack up the balls and pull one over on the visitors. You’d think people would be smarter these days, what, with movies like The Color of Money and Grifters, you know? But nah, there’s always some sucker who comes along and gets hoodwinked into thinking he can beat these hustlers. Of course that’s when I cash in, too. So I’ve made a pretty good living of late – collecting unemployment and piggybacking on these sharp-shooting pool sharks. It’s a great way to afford a warm pretzel and a hot chocolate before I make my way home to listen to the bill collectors hunting down David Newman. I wonder what the guy even looks like.

He’s probably not as handsome as me. I have long brown hair and green eyes, and all the girls – or at least Shorty and her daughter, Scratch, the waitress – tell me that I look like John Cougar Mellencamp. Johnny Cougar, I never even thought he was handsome, really, until Scratch told me I can pass for his twin. Now I’ve got posters of the guy hanging in my apartment. I bought a few of his tapes, too, but I never listen to them. I just keep them out with the covers facing up in case a girl comes over. Then she can see the resemblance and I can tell her that we’re brothers. I can probably even get away with telling her that we’re twins, but I don’t think she’d believe I was really him since I can’t play a lick on the guitar and I haven’t sang since my mother took me Christmas caroling as a boy. I think that’s the best memories I have of my mom, she and I hitting the streets in our best clothes, singing “Silent Night” for tips. It was a good year or two we had there, before the social workers got involved and took my brother and me to a foster home.

I never did care too much for my foster parents. It wasn’t that they were mean or anything. They just thought who they were. I mean, big deal, they were caring for unwanted kids. Nobody deserves a medal for that. And besides, they got paid to do it. Once I found that out, I figured, screw it. I’m a meal ticket is all. Why should I hang around? So I split. I left my brother behind, though. He wasn’t too keen on coming, I don’t think. Plus he was kind of sick and I didn’t want to have to take care of him. He’s a little on the retarded side, and I figured why should I drag him along when all he’s going to want to do is play checkers and listen to baseball on the radio? I needed more in life, so I became a bachelor on the move. A man about town who looks like Johnny Cougar and has women calling and chasing after him.

Scratch sure thinks the world of me. Just ask her. And Shorty has it in for me, too, though she’ll never admit it. She says I’m too young for her and too old for Scratch. I’m 18 and Scratch is 13. I guess Shorty’s 30-something. She looks more like 40-something, but don’t tell her I told you that. She’s an awful nice woman, even if she is a little on the hard side. Scratch is real sweet, though, and I treat her like a sister. Sometimes even more than that.

Just today I was throwing snowballs at her. She was walking back from school and I was coming back from Shorty’s. She laughed at me because she said I didn’t know how to dress for the cold. I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans and canvas sneakers, just like I always do, no matter what time of year it is. If it gets cold, like it did today, I put on my dungaree jacket and a pair of batting gloves clipped at the fingertips. I sure like throwing snowballs with them gloves on. They’re good for gripping.

Anyhow, after I caught up to Scratch and her friend walking, she told me I should get a different pair of shoes for this weather. She can’t understand how my feet don’t freeze, she said. Especially when it’s wet like it’s been this winter in Baltimore.

I don’t mind walking in the cold, I told her.

I’m going to buy you a pair of boots, she said.

I don’t want boots, I told her. I’ve got my own.

Why don’t you ever wear them? she asked.

‘Cause they’re my mom’s, I said.

Your mom’s? she asked.

Yeah, I said. My mom’s.

That was about the drift of our conversation before we reached Shorty’s where I had just come from. I didn’t have any money to hang around, so I left. Even though I really wanted to stay.

On the way home, I felt bad because I wanted to tell Scratch the story behind the boots. You see, when the foster people came to take my brother and me, they let us grab some things that were important to us. My mom was so stoned, she couldn’t even stand, no less hug us, but I can remember how she tried. Anyhow, I grabbed the pair of boots she always wore when we would go Christmas caroling. I wanted them to remember her by. Only problem is, I must have dropped a boot on the move ’cause I only have one in my closet. One boot is all, sort of cream-colored with white fur inside and a black sole. It doesn’t fit me, not even close, but I’ll never throw that boot out. Only wish I could find a match.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Cafaro is the founder and publisher of Atticus Books, a small, independent publishing house located in Kensington, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C. Dan is actively seeking manuscripts from authors with distinct voices. If you have stories that you would like considered for the “Timeout for Flash Fiction” series, please e-mail a query to danc@atticusbooks.net.

Rascally Remainders Rock Out the 9:30 Club

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Despite rumors to the contrary, famous authors are people, too. And like regular people, they need to occasionally decompress, i.e., let loose, go wild, let their freak flags fly, get silly, let their hair down. Some introspective, best-selling authors might prefer to let down their hair in a controlled environment, away from the spotlight, behind closed doors, alone. These authors wouldn’t cut it with The Rock Bottom Remainders. The Remainders are a ragtag band of well-known literary rascals who defiantly (grammarians, be damned) let their hair down in the public eye. And they live to embellish about it afterwards, amid a bar room of ordinary folks, with nary a rotten tomato in sight.

The Remainders, as unique and energetic a stage act as any garage band you’d ever pay good money to see, also happen to be famous enough (at least in book-loving circles) to name drop: Dave Barry on lead guitar, Amy Tan on vocals, Mitch Albom on keyboards, Scott Turow on vocals, Greg Iles on lead guitar, Kathi Kamen Goldmark on vocals, James McBride on saxophone, Ridley Pearson on bass, and Roy Blount Jr. (self-proclaimed crowd pleaser, complete with Uncle Sam top hat).

For those counting at home, these literary lions of rock have published more than 150 titles, sold more than 150 million books, and been translated into more than 25 languages.

What’s more, they know how to exhibit wads of charm and contagious fun on stage, all while raising funds for charity and putting aside their gift to leak supreme on paper for joyful sounds often recognizable as sing-a-long music.

In their 18 years of existence, The Remainders have raised close to $2 million dollars for charity through concert tours. The group first performed at the 1992 American Booksellers Association convention in Anaheim. In addition to the literary band members, rock legends such as Bruce Springsteen and the late Warren Zevon have done guest appearances.

For a band that hails itself as “not as bad as you would expect,” these “geniuses of the pen,” as master of ceremony Blount, Jr., introduced them on Wednesday night, gave their best impression of a lighthearted Spinal Tap meets The Monkees – with props, costumes and rhythm to boot – at the 9:30 club on 9th and V streets. Some of the night’s more memorable performances included a Blonde-wigged Amy Tan singing “One Way or Another” and a boyish-looking Mitch Albom channeling Davy Jones in “I’m a Believer.” Albom later came out dressed like Elvis Presley. He did all in his power to gyrate like the King and surprised the audience with a quick strip to a new, hideous costume.

Greg Iles, a No. 1 New York Times best-selling author, showed his musical chops on an original 12-bar blues number called “Big Best Seller Blues.” Iles deadpanned that “Faulkner’s a punk” in one verse, poked fun at Tom Clancy and James Patterson, and joined his band mates with the closing boisterous crescendo, “All you critics, kiss my ass.”

Mystery suspense novelist Scott Turow appeared to really enjoy dancing to the beat and hamming it up for the cameras. Toward the end of the 95-minute show, he brought his daughters to the stage for a spirited version of “Wild Thing.” Turow has said in the past that he’s the least talented, musically, of the band members and he’s simply “out there as a sight gag and living proof that The Remainders don’t take themselves too seriously.”

Roger McGuinn, a founding member of The Byrds, made a very special guest appearance and joined The Remainders for five of their roughly 22 entertaining songs. McGuinn pleased the packed house with tender renditions of The Byrds trademark covers, “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “My Back Pages,” and “You Ain’t Going Nowhere,” all written by Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There is a Season),” as well as the 1965 Byrds original, “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better.” Crime fiction novelist and part-time bassist Ridley Pearson filled a tall order by accompanying McGuinn on “You Ain’t Going Nowhere,” and did a fine job singing alternate verses. Humorist Dave Barry also held his own on rhythm guitar, following McGuinn’s 12-string Rickenbacker lead.

Kathi Kamen Goldmark, who founded The Remainders, playfully turned a few select puns in what appeared to be an original or a spoof on an oldie, “She never said, ‘between you and I’ ” with a suitable punch line: “Frankly I’m not interested in men who split their infinitives.”

Kathi entertainingly danced and cavorted on stage with her husband, Sam Barry, Dave Barry’s brother, who happens to blow a mean harp. Sam Barry is the author of the humorous book, How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons (Gibbs Smith Publisher, 2009) and co-author with his wife, Kathi, of Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now (Adams Media, May 2010).

For The Remanders, this was the second consecutive night of consorting with citizens of the nation’s capital. On Tuesday, they participated in a far-ranging conversation hosted by veteran newsman Sam Donaldson at the Harman Center for the Arts. Barry, in his inimitable way, discussed how he managed to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Proceeds from the 2010 Wordstock Tour support World Vision, a non-profit providing ongoing relief in Haiti; as well as local organizations including the America‟s Promise Alliance; the Free Library of Philadelphia; and New York City‟s 92nd Street Y. In addition to underwriting the tour, the Pearson Foundation is donating five new children’s books for each ticket sold to public schools in each tour city in the four-city east-coast concert series (Washington, D.C., on 4/21, Philadelphia on 4/22, New York on 4/23 and Boston on 4/24).

Remainders Song List (mostly complete)
The House is Rockin’
Paperback Writer
One Way or Another – Amy Tan as Blondie on lead vocals
I’m a Believer – Mitch Albom as Davy Jones on lead vocals
Hey Baby (I Want to Know If You’ll Be My Girl)
Da Doo Ron Ron
Mr. Tambourine Man
Turn! Turn! Turn!
My Back Pages
634-5789
In the Midnight Hour
Who Cares?
Love Me and Jailhouse Rock – Mitch Albom as Elvis Presley on lead vocals
Big Bestseller Blues – Greg Ives on lead vocals and guitar
Leader of the Pack – Amy Tan on lead vocals
She Never Said “Between You and I”
I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better
You Ain’t Going Nowhere
Wild Thing
Gloria

A Deafening Moment

Editor’s Note: “Poetry Break with Atticus Books” is an opportunity for readers every Tuesday and Thursday to pause a moment, see the world in a different light, and read a poem aloud. (OK, if you’re in an open-space cubicle, this might be tough – how about whispering it?) Regardless of what you do or don’t do for a living, reading a poem in the middle of a work day is not necessarily unproductive… or weird. On the contrary, it’s liberating… and healthy. Go ahead, give it a try. It’s our little secret.

Picture taken inside of Levari's Farm Market in Buena, N.J.

Prologue
I wrote this poem on July 4, 1997, after taking part in and observing a traditional barbecue at the New Jersey shore. I remember writing it as you would a stream of consciousness rant. As even a casual sports fan may recall, there was an infamous boxing event around that time, a rematch originally billed with a promotional wink (knowingly or not) to William Faulkner as “The Sound and The Fury.” (Shortly thereafter the World Boxing Association spectacle was to be remembered as “The Bite Fight.”). It featured a clash of pugilistic warriors: a first-class heavyweight titan and a modern-day villain, a ravenous ring thug who shares his name with a chicken manufacturer. In a frenzied, circus-like ending that would cause a Hollywood producer to preen, the villain bit off a piece of the champ’s ear and modern civilization is still shaking its collective head and reeling from the consequences.

A Deafening Moment

As I bite into my
Ear of corn
With the surf crashing
On Long Beach Island,

And I bite into my conscious rage
With firecrackers booming
In a mental slapstick routine
Of independence observed,

And I bite into the flying burritos of angst and shame harmonized
With bikini-clad American flags slopping up poisonous lotion
While bow-legged pale piranhas munch on their lunches and fantasize,

And I bite into an exhilarating breeze of pretension reduced to fisticuffs,
Exorcized by the spirit of the sea’s therapeutic contents,
With scavengers overhead lining up their next fateful victim,

And I bite into a fury of foolish sundries rattling the concaves of my inner sanctum,
Salivating with delight at the fleeting embrace of peace and prosperity,
Winding delicately around a flag pole,
Waving riotously at stoned spectators,
And winking snidely at their rituals.

As I bite into my half ear of corn
Like a prizefighter who has lost his senses,
Who has found the task of civility unnerving,
Tedious,
Taxing.

As I bite into my half ear of sweet Jersey corn,
I realize that residing in a shore house
With a sweeping ocean view from a wraparound cedar deck
Even if it’s just for a week
Is a world better
Than habituating the rich muscular body of a mentally deficient savage,
A loose jowl of lunacy,
A mad dog drooling and foaming capitalism,
Capsized by a preposterous payday,
Shaking and bobbing his thick head furiously,
A gyrating short jabbing jaw of jealousy
Ripping the cork from dignified composure,
And spitting it into the faces of overstuffed pseudo-Romans
In an arena of green filth and sinister applause.

As I bite into my half ear of corn
On Fourth of July,
A holiday I was taught
To respect and revere
For its historical significance,
A Time to reflect humbly on the valor and selflessness of past generations,
I acknowledge my solitary glimpse
At the fruitful results of war
For freedom’s sake
Over the ugly reality of being stuck
Sticking out my chin, rubbing elbows and exchanging blows
With a greed bleeding abrasive broker
On a noise-polluted stock exchange floor
Who panics at the sudden rise in interest rates
Because the price of pig ears has just fallen to a new all-time low.

As I bite into this sweaty indifferent ear,
I study the fragmented kernels closely
And see how each one I so unceremoniously pluck with my teeth
Creates a ditch in the surface,
Divisions that leave the cob a shadow of its self,
A tattered piece of its better whole,
Making me wonder
Why we all so often
Screw up a good thing
Such as a sporting event,
A relationship
Or a country.
- DC 7/4/97

The Sacrament

Editor’s Note: “Timeout for Flash Fiction” is an opportunity for readers every Monday and Wednesday to take a break from their busy day and explore the writings of authors affiliated with Atticus Books. It features short, previously unpublished work, as well as excerpts from forthcoming Atticus novels.

The Sacrament

By Joseph Zeppetello

I come from a family of religious fanatics, although I never really noticed. The religion thing never quite took with me. As I grew up, though, I thought it was normal for people to have a St. Christopher’s medal hanging from the rear view mirror, and a plastic sacred heart of Jesus on the dashboard. The way my father drove, you could tell he put a lot of faith in their protective ability. Likewise, I thought nothing of the crucifix in every room, and the one in the living room with a bottle of holy water for a quickie Baptism, and holy oil and a cloth so, in a pinch, anyone could give the sacrament of Extreme Unction. Of course, if you had the good fortune to choke to death on a fishbone when a priest was visiting, all of the tools would be on hand to perform a real top-notch sacrament. In fact, some local priests of the old school could probably send Hitler himself through the Pearly Gates like a slap shot with the right crucifix and the proper holy oil. It was not up to them if he stayed there, though; they would be sure to make that point

We were told to practice the Act of Contrition just in case we were called upon in an emergency to perform one for a dying person. We also practiced the quickie version of a Baptism, just in case a baby happened to be born in the house, or a heathen – or better yet, a Protestant – had a deathbed conversion. Of course, our performance of these sacraments was a last resort. It was always preferable to have a priest do them. It was not until college that any real questions arose. It was like Descartes suddenly “discovering” that he believed in God, only in reverse.

I’m still hopeful about the God thing, but not always, and certainly not every day. This was one of those unhopeful days. I was heading for work one morning when I saw a guy on the side of the road. I never usually even notice hitch hikers, but since it was raining, I picked him up.

I immediately regretted it, as I looked in the rearview mirror, thinking, “My God, what the hell did I stop for? That guy is a bum!” He looked like he had not lived under a roof for quite some time.

When he opens the door, a gust of wind blows rain straight into the car. It sprays over my face. I wipe my face with a tissue, and clean my glasses so I can see.

“Thank you, my man.” He says it like some angel from the sixties, a left over hippy.

“Where’re you going? I’m not going too far,” I say and notice the guy looks white as a fish belly. It’s the end of summer and we are all tanned to the hilt in spite of all that stuff about skin cancer.

“Heading for Tennessee, Nashville,” he says.

“Hell, I’m just going down the turnpike about thirty miles,” I say.

“That’s fine, anything to get me out of this rain.” He pulls out a cigarette.

“Open a window, this is my wife’s car, she hates smoke.” He nods and opens the window a crack so as not to let in too much rain. The cigarette smoke hangs in the air and smells good to me, even though I quit ten years ago; they still sometimes smell good.

“Yeah,” he said, as if I asked him a question, which I didn’t. “Going to Nashville, me and some bro’s going to make an album.” He takes a long pull on his cigarette.

“You a musician?”

“Yeah, write songs too; got a lot in here.” He pats the dirty blue knapsack he has sitting in his lap. “Bro’s were supposed to send me some money, but they didn’t get around to it, been in Nashville too long, place has gone to shit, they’ve gone to shit.” He stops talking and looks around at the car, leather interior, cruise, A/C, power windows, a real yuppie-mobile. I tell him we got a deal on a demo, don’t know why I’m embarrassed. He nods.

“Old lady took my wheels.”

“She in Nashville, too?”

“No.” He pauses, and rolls down the window a little more, flicks out the cigarette, and puts the window all the way up. “I got a kid, too. She’s with her old lady. Want to see a picture?” I nod; he opens the knapsack; I see bundles of notebooks, the type with the black and white flecked cardboard cover, where you can’t rip the pages out without the whole thing coming apart. He digs out an old leather-bound case and shows me a picture of a real cute little girl. It’s stuck in a plastic envelope and looks maybe like it was cut from a magazine. I nod.

“She’s real cute.” Then he shows me a picture of a very pretty woman.

“My wife.” He says. But this picture too looks like it was cut out of a magazine, too slick for a real portrait.

“Where are you from?” I ask.

“Been upstate a few years.”

“Leaving before the winter?”

“Damn straight.”

Even though he didn’t look the criminal type, I am suddenly nervous and push the car up to seventy-five, eighty.

“Slept last night at a campground, back is sore as hell.” He reaches behind and rubs his lower back.

“The KOA off route 212?”

“Yeah.”

“I live near there.” Then, with a hint of paranoia, I add, “Actually a few miles away.” He is not listening, but turns up the radio. It’s an old country hit.

“Groovy song,” he says.

I haven’t heard that expression in years but he says it and coming from him, it sounds OK. I have the feeling it would sound pretty stupid if I had said it.

“Yeah. Tired of the northern winters.” He begins again as if I’d just asked him a question. “Too damn cold for me.”

“Got to start getting firewood, saves on fuel oil.”

“I cut a lot of wood up north. They had us do a lot of that. Liked to keep us busy.”

“It’s a lot of work cutting firewood,” I say.

“No one knows how to work anymore. They just know how to steal from someone else. Steal and get away with it. Selfish, conceited snobs.”

“Some people work.”

“A few. The rest are along for a free ride. They don’t know how to do it themselves, so they steal, only it’s legal. They are so screwed up that they don’t even know they are stealing.”

This guy is really out there, I think to myself and check the speedometer.

“There are a lot of scumbags in the world. Most people are scum, can’t think for themselves, or do anything new or creative, so they hang around people who can, so they can steal from them.”

“Oh, I don’t know if that’s true.” I realize I shouldn’t have said this; he starts to shout, his voice booming around the plush interior of the car. I am amazed, flabbergasted, an angry young man; wow.

“When Vietnam was on, they were all afraid of getting their asses shot off so everybody marched, and got involved. After ‘Nam was over though nobody gave a shit anymore, everybody went to law school and got a license to steal.”

“Now wait a minute! I marched in those demonstrations because I was against the war, not to save my ass.”

“Really.” He looks at me; I know I sound stupid, but I can’t stop. I say how I marched on Washington, and how I still give money to Oxfam and half a dozen wilderness societies, and how my wife, Sherry, marches against the pro life demonstrations and volunteers her time at planned parenthood. But he just looks at me, and it all sounds so stupid.

“Yeah.” He waves his hand, reaches for his cigarettes, decides against it, and leaves them in his pocket. “My bro’s really screwed up this time; they were supposed to send me bus fare. Knew I would be needin’ it too. I wrote them a letter. I’ve been writing a lot of letters the past few years. No one answers them though.”

“Well, maybe they just didn’t have the cash.”

“They have it. Believe me they have it; like I said, they’ve been in Nashville too long. They are past caring about me, or anyone. Greed is a bad thing.” He looks out the window. “Why should they be any different,” he says to the outside.

I wanted to ask him some more about where he’d been, where he’d written his ”bro’s” from, but he seemed content to mumble at the passing landscape.

“You know, like Woodstock?” he says all of the sudden, answering a question that hasn’t been asked. Talking to him is sort of like Jeopardy in reverse; only he is the only one hearing the answers. “All those people putting out music for free, people dancing and singing, getting stoned. Then it all went to shit. All you see now are nude pictures of people in a pond. It was free love, not a perverted orgy. True love, for a moment.”

“The Who got paid twelve thousand dollars to play,” I say, showing that I know about Woodstock, too, maybe more than he does. “Yeah, I think everyone who performed got paid.”

“Fuck The Who,” he says. “Bunch of British snobs, not real music anyway. Only real music nowadays is country; that’s why I’m going to Nashville. Country and blues.”

“Think so?” I say, not really wanting to continue this conversation, looking for my exit.

“Yeah, real music has guts, balls. It’s art; anything else is garbage.”

“Art? You mean, like Hendrix?”

“Yeah.” He lights up. “Hendrix was there, he was in tune like God almost. He imitated God. You can’t do better than that.”

I feel satisfied finally proving I’m still hip, pleased that there is something this guy isn’t upset with.

“But those bastards killed him.”

“Who?”

”The record companies; wanted too much from him, burnt him out just like Janis and Jim Morrison.”

“Some people think that they did it to themselves – self-destructive.”

“No way!” he shouts, voice ringing in the car. “They were full of life. They had arrived. They had gone though that wall that separates, and been on the other side.” He sat back in the seat and sighed. “Either you understand or you don’t, I guess.” Then he lunged forward straining against the shoulder harness. “They were there; why would they kill themselves? Doesn’t make sense. It was the damn producers, the record companies, maybe even the government. They knew too much, knew the deal; government doesn’t like that, so they had them killed, just like they killed Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. They knew, they understood. The whole thing is about love. The government doesn’t like that, doesn’t understand that. We live in evil times.”

He wound down again, looking out the window, mumbling at the guardrail. He was suddenly quiet, his shoulders slumped, stringy hair hung down and rested on his shoulders.

Tiny beads of sweat broke out on his forehead, and then began rolling down from his temples, like drops of blood; he’s suddenly resigned. “You’re OK, man,” he says abruptly. “You’re in the right place. Gave me a ride, didn’t you?” We reach the exit. I pull over and put on the flashers. He tucks the notebooks back into his knapsack.

The rain has let up. He gets out of the car, but before he goes, I give him a twenty-dollar bill. He looks embarrassed, but takes it after I insist. I want him gone; you bet I want him gone. I want to buy my freedom-forgiveness. I want to buy my freedom from him.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Zeppetello is the author of the forthcoming title, Daring to Eat a Peach, a novel to be published by Atticus Books in November of 2010. He is the Director of Writing at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and lives in the Catskill Mountains.