-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | | | | | o | o | /--\ | | | | | /--\ || | | | |---| | |---- | | | | |---| |---| || \--/ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | \--/ |___|___| | | | | | |__|__| | | | |___| An electronic literary magazine striving for the very best in contemporary fiction, poetry, and essays. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Editor: Sung J. Woo (WHIRLEDS@delphi.com) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- VOLUME II NUMBER 1 JANUARY 1995 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Table of Contents The Real World..........................................................xx _Fiction_ "The Perpetual Temporal Man," by David S. Dadekian......................xx "The Girl Was Six...," by Jamie Hollabaugh..............................xx The Works of Martin Zurla "Fred," a monologue................................................xx "Sandy," a monologue...............................................xx "Fishing," a short story...........................................xx _Poetry_ "After Five at the Office," by Len Edgerly..............................xx "Life, the Universe, and Everything," by Marc A. Leckstein..............xx "XY," by Anthony Fox....................................................xx "Perceptions," by Laura D. Turk.........................................xx -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Whirlwind cannot continue without submissions from established and amateur writers on the net. If you or anyone you know is looking to publish contemporary fiction, poetry, or essays, please don't hesistate to get a copy of the work to us. Mail submissions to: WHIRLEDS@delphi.com. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Whirlwind Vol. 2, No. 1. Whirlwind is published electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the issue remains intact. Copyright (C) 1995, authors. All further rights to stories belong to the authors. Whirlwind is produced using Aldus PageMaker 5.0 and WordPerfect 5.1 on an IBM-compatible computer and is converted into PostScript format for distribution. PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc. For back issue and other info, see our back page. Send questions to: WHIRLEDS@delphi.com. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- THE REAL WORLD Folks, it's been a tough couple of months for me. Frankly, I'm amazed that this issue is out and about. Let me tell you what's been going on (since I'm sure you're all dying to know). The year 1994 has been a very, very busy one for me. I graduated from college this past May; then in August, I went to South Korea to land a job as a conversational English teacher. I returned after two weeks, looked for jobs here in the States, and was, to my surprise, hired. TV Guide offered me a position as a Text Writer for their National Programming Department, so I grabbed it. After the completion of my first week at TV Guide, I pumped out my first blurb -- which also turned out to be my last. That's because I got a more lucrative job offer from IEEE, a name which I'm sure some of you netfolk recognize (for those who do not, it stands for The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). So, for the past month, I've been working as an Assistant Editor for IEEE's Transactions/Journals Department. Because of these massive fluctuations in my life, I was unsure whether I could continue to publish Whirlwind. You know, it seems like I go through this "doubtful phase" before each issue, so maybe it's becoming a ritual more than an actual threat. In any case, my life is settling down somewhat, so at the very least, expect to see the March issue. As for this one, check out some fantastic stuff from Martin Zurla; three of his works are presented in this issue. We also have works from as far as Australia, so please treat yourselves to a global feast of letters. Lastly, there is exciting news I would like to share with you. Stewart O'Nan, who gave us an excerpt from his current novel Kissing the Dead in the premiere issue of Whirlwind, has published his first novel with Doubleday. It is titled Snow Angels, and I urge everyone to read this wonderful book--it's a good, solid work by an established writer. The book's been out since November 1994, so your local bookstore or your library should have a copy of it. That's it. I look forward in seeing you all again in March. Enjoy. Sung J. Woo Editor -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- FICTION -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- THE PERPETUAL TEMPORAL MAN by David S. Dadekian Robert Ford was a perpetual temporal man. He was never sure exactly when it happened to him, though he is fully aware of exactly when it happened. He was twenty-five when he realized he was fifteen when it happened. And he was eighty-two when he died. Every moment in time became available to Robert on the day he turned fifteen, though it took him ten years to realize it. Or maybe he was still fifteen and just wanted to be ten years older. Or maybe he was eighty-two and crazy. Robert Ford didn't move through time. He wasn't a time traveler like he read about in the comic books he kept in his closet, which he immediately realized would become valuable only if he sold them before his thirty-fourth year, when all of the world's reading material -- past and present -- would become universally available. Robert constantly lived in all moments of his life, from fifteen to eighty-two. And when he became aware of his ability, he realized how to use it for his own benefit. At first Robert tried to tell others about his seeming omniscience. But he couldn't do anything to prove he wasn't just a lunatic. If he told someone about a major future event, that would always change the future. And if he tried to prove his ability to someone through some minor example of future-telling, it would be considered coincidence. It took him forever until his best friend Kathy finally believed him. This conversation took place at a diner, roughly during the twenty-fifth year, third month, seventeenth day, and thirteenth hour of Rob's life. "So let me get this straight, Rob," Kathy said. "You're telling me you are living now, a minute from now, ten years from now, ten years ago, and so on?" "Exactly, Kat," replied Robert. "So what I am going to say next?" "It doesn't work that way. I know what you will say next, but as soon as I tell you, you'll change what you are going to say." "O.K. So predict the future." "I can't talk about the future without changing the future," Rob said as he took a sip of his coffee. "So how do you know it's the future?" "Because I'm living in the future, and I saw the change the last time I told someone the future." "Don't you mean you will see the change?" "I try to use the past tense. It makes things easier on my mind. I've already died, but I'm still here with you, and I'm still sitting in World History when I'm a sophomore in high school." "I see how it can get confusing. Stick with the past tense. And tell me about changing the future." "You think I'm crazy!" Rob exclaimed. "Not just yet." "Oh great," Rob said putting his head in his hands. "What?" "My telling you this gets me put away." "I'm still listening to you." "Well listen to this. Do you remember the crash of the space shuttle Challenger?" "The Challenger never crashed, Rob." "Exactly, I did that. I didn't mean to, though I'm not sorry about changing it, so I left it changed." "That's in the past." "Not when I'm fifteen." "Not when you were fifteen you mean?" "Right." "I'm getting confused." Kathy took out a cigarette and lighter. "You're going to die of lung cancer you know." Kathy looked at Rob with her mouth open and put the cigarette down. "I'm sorry, Kathy. I didn't mean that as fact, just as a crack about your smoking." "So how do I die?" "I can't tell you that, it'll change things." "What if you've got this ability so you can change things?" "I've thought of that." "So what about the space shuttle Challenger?" Kathy asked. "When I became aware of my power, I told a science teacher in high school about the Challenger's future problem with the o-rings." "Oh my God!" Kathy said loudly, almost spilling her coffee. "So you remember Mr. Newborn revealing his study of the shuttle program to NASA, and his being awarded a commendation for the probable prevention of a disaster." "Yes! That was you?" "Remember how he always evaded the question of how he knew to examine the o-rings? What was he going to say? One of his students told him about two years before it happened." "I am overwhelmed if this is completely true." "Apparently you believe me." "How can you be sure?" "I'm not being committed now." "You know I would never commit my best friend." "But if we had stopped this conversation five minutes ago in your life, you would have," Rob picked up Kathy's cigarette and lighter. "So your future still changes?" "Yes," Rob began as he lit the cigarette. "Now I smoke for the rest of my life." "Just from that one?" "If I allow myself to continue the habit. However, I still live until I am eighty-two." Rob put out the cigarette and handed the lighter back to Kathy. "And now?" "Now I have tried a cigarette when I was sixteen, and yet I will still live until I'm eighty-two." "What about suicide?" "I tried to shoot myself when I was forty. The gun wouldn't work at all. Blew my car up when I was forty-three. Lived with third degree burns until I was eighty-two. I changed that future pretty quickly. Like I said changing my life is pretty easy, and I guess since you know about my ability, your life can be pretty malleable from now on too. But changing big events is difficult." "What do you mean?" "In twenty-two years a major software company was integrated into ninety-nine percent of the world's computers. The irate, brilliant, former owner of the company unleashes a virus that virtually immobilizes the planet. I've already tried thousands of different ways to alert people to this guy without making myself look crazy. Unfortunately, nothing has worked so far. I'm working on it now as we speak. I just finished working on getting you to go to the senior prom with me." "We went to the senior prom together." "Exactly." "Robert, that's really creepy." "I haven't really done anything major. Even if we hadn't gone to the prom together, we'd still be sitting here. You just would have gone with Tony Simpson." "Tony Simpson! What was I thinking? He got drunk and puked all over his date." "He would have done the same to you." "Thank you very much, I had a great time with you." "I did it, Kathy." "Did what?" "I just stopped the computer virus, but now another problem's coming up." "Rob, all this is a bit too much for me." "Damn, my stopping the infection leads to a splitting of the world's computer systems. We're completely unprepared when we make contact with life from another planet." "Rob?" "Just a second, Kathy. Sometimes this really taxes my mind." "I'm going, Rob," Kathy gathered her things and took a dollar out of her purse. She put it on the table and stood to leave. "No, wait a minute. I'm sorry, Kathy, I didn't mean to freak you out." "It's O.K., Rob. I'm fine. And don't worry, I'm not going to have you committed. Though you must already know that." "I should have never told you, Kathy. In fact, I'm not going to tell you." ________________________________________ David S. Dadekian's story "It Was a Dimly Lit...," appeared in the May 1994 issue (Vol. 1, No. 2). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- THE GIRL WAS SIX... by Jamie Hollabaugh The girl was six. Snookie. That was her nickname, she got it because of the troublemaking girl on the radio played by Fannie Bryce happened to remind Evelyn's brother of her. Evelyn was tough. She was little compared to many of her classmates, but she had that toughness that just told people to leave her alone. Her grandfather was sitting in the yard, sunning himself in his wheelchair. (Skinny was sitting in the chair in the den, looking blankly out the window. Evelyn called him Skinny because he was so thin. He smiled as he thought of her.) Snookie laughed as she snuck up behind the old man. (Skinny could feel the pressure build in his chest.) She hit him on the back of the head and ran as the old man cried out. (Skinny couldn't utter a whisper as the pain struck him.) His glass eye, the one that covered the empty hole left by the Battle of Antietam was lying on the ground. Snookie laughed with glee as he felt around, confused, looking for the thing. (Skinny reached desparately in his pocket, searching for his nitro glycerin tablets.) The old man, after retrieving his glass eye and putting it safely into place began to chase Snookie, yelling at her "You damn rascal, I'll get you..." (Skinny whispered, "Evelyn." Only to have the word frozen on his lips forever by death.) Snookie was laughing and nearly dancing as her long dark hair flowed behind her. She ran into the house. (Evelyn walked to the window outside.) Snookie peered out the window. (And looked in the window.) She saw her grandfather reaching in his pocket for his handkerchief. (Saw Skinny, hand in pocket, reaching for his nitro glycerin, frozen forever in time.) She was panting and laughing. (She couldn't breathe as she sobbed.) She was screaming in laughter. (At the pain.) I look at my grandmother as she tells me the story of the days when she was young, and playing with her grandfather. She never speaks of the pains in her life, when she found my grandfather dead, only the joy. I can, however, read between the lines. ________________________________________ Jamie Hollabaugh is an eighteen year old college student who enjoys her sometimes melodramatic life. In her senior year of high school, she was given first place nationally in a writing contest. Outside of her writing awards, she was given many music awards for her clarinet playing, which included a scholarship. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- THE WORKS OF MARTIN ZURLA ------------------------- FRED by Martin Zurla AT RISE: It's late at night in some small bar located on the upper West Side of Manhattan. The lights are dim, and the sound of a Charlie Parker record plays from the bar tape machine. Fred is behind the bar cleaing up. There is one last unseen patron having her nightcap. God damnit! Nothin' works in this joint. It's that damn kid of a day bartender that screws everything up. (pause) I go and bring in my own stuff: the stereo, this stupid t.v., my good tapes; all this stuff and he goes and screws it all up. Well, no more. He can shove it 'cause I'm takin' it all back. (pause) You come in here during the day, right? (does not wait for a response) You see any action in here? No action. Ya think the kid was so busy all day that he couldn't breathe. All he's gotta do is watch soap operas and play my tapes. So his old man owns the joint, so big deal. I mean, good Christ, ya think because his old fart of a father owned this dump he'd care a little more, be concerned and all. Don't ya think so? Nah, he don't give a rat's ass. (pause) But I mean, what's right is right. That kid of a day bartender has never come into a messy bar. And I do mean NEVER! A human person can take only so much, have patience for just so long livin' and workin' in squalor, don't ya think. Seven years a five, maybe six nights a week I gotta come into squalor. I come into his mess, clean that, do my shift and gotta start cleaning all over again. That just ain't fair. (pause) Heck, I could work one of those plush, pushy upper East Side dives anytime if I want. But who wants that kinda action? I mean, a person's gotta be nuts to work those joints. What with young kids fallin' all over each other, fallin' all over the bar. Young -- yoyos, or whatever they're called these days -- sittin' for hours in their three piece suits, yellow ties, whatever, clutchin' on to a Diet Coke or a flat gingerale. These young kids -- most of which is probably pullin' in a mill a year, dressed to the balls -- excuse the expression -- dressed ta knock your socks off, flirtin' and tryin' ta pick up some broad from Mineola or Flushing, who probably makes as much if nor more than that poor store manikin from Barney's. It pisses me off to see how these persons act. The older ones, hell, that's their business, but the kids, Christ, you'd never catch no kid a mine in those dumps. And probably, deep down inside their hearts, they don't have any idea why they're in this dump on the East Side in the first place. I know from where I speak on these matters, I been. I seen their action. Enough to know better. A friend a mine works this place on First Avenue in the high seventies, all brass and mirrors this place. You should hear the horror stories he tells. (pause) Yeah, well, I guess not ALL those East Side places is bad. I guess some persons get lonesome and all, need ta meet up with persons a their own ilk. But I mean, who's gonna marry somebody who they find in an East Side singles bar? Ya gotta know why they're there and all. I mean, they must be there to meet somebody, and if they're there to meet somebody it means that they ain't met somebody somewhere's else, which means they ain't had all that much luck in that department; findin' other persons which means that there are probably reasons why they ain't met somebody already which necessarily means ta me there's probably somethin' wrong. Ya follow? So, if there's somethin' wrong with them, like maybe they're ugly or somethin', fat or too tall or too short, how can they hope to pawn off their affliction or disability on somebody who's probably got their own problem, especially in a bar. So they couldn't find nobody, say in school, at a dance, wherever, when they was at the age for findin' somebody. Or if they did find somebody and it was the wrong somebody, at least for that time in their lives, so now they're gettin' up there, maybe in their thirties, maybe more, and they still got their affliction, they end up goin' to a bar. They think they can go to an East Side place, a place that peddles more flesh than you can shake a broom handle at, more flesh than booze, with the hopes that maybe, 'cause the lighting is so poor and everybody is gettin' half in the bag and there are nothin' but mirrors all over the joint...99 percent a these places is mirror...they go there with these expectations and all, never stoppin' to think a who they are gonna find. They are gonna find other persons who are just as ugly or just as deformed as themselves, with just as many problems, if not more. And these other persons are also lookin' to pawn themselves off on anybody who wants the takin'. Ya know what I mean? So ya got nothin' but a bunch a defects lookin' to hook up with more defects. That's what so odd about those places, one cripple bumpin' into another cripple, both a whom is pretendin' they ain't cripple, makin' believe they're Fred Astaire or Gingie Rogers, or whoever, anybody but themselves, who they really are. That's the sad part, pretendin' ya somebody ya ain't. And they're only gonna get somebody else who thinks they gotta pretend too. Hell, when the play actin's over, when ya wake up in the mornin', whatta do then? There ain't nothin' wrong with bein' a cripple, or bein' ugly. Hell, I got a bum leg but I ain't goin' around pretendin' it ain't there. Sometimes, maybe it's better to wear your affliction like a medal, ya know, be proud that maybe ya different form all the rest, stand out, ya know. (pause) Sorry 'bout goin' on like this. Had a rough night last night. Seems like lately it's gettin' rougher. Ah, but who needs that kinda talk these days. (pause) Ya must look a little bit like somebody I know. So, what's your opinion a West Side? Ya don't have no opinion? Me, people say I got an opinion on everythin'. Take this jerk of a kid that works days, the one who's old man owns the place, he don't have an opinion on nothin'. Except maybe that he should leave a messy bar. But ask that thickhead about somethin', about anythin', and all he says is, "I don't know". Or, "Who cares". Now that ain't no way to go through life, is it? A person's gotta be able to feel somethin', stick-up for somethin', have ideals and maybe some values thrown in. Ya know, ta have values a what's right and maybe wrong. Don't ya think so? Take my wife...I mean my ex-wife...she had opinions comin' outta her ears. I mean, there wasn't a day that went by when she didn't develop a new opinion 'bout me, a what I did or didn't do. She was full a feelings. I'd pick my nose, she had an opinion. Maybe I didn't agree with all her opinions, but at least she made life interestin'. Sometimes my wife made life so interestin' that all I wanted to do was crawl under a rock and be bored. Life can be just so interestin' 'til it gets to be a pain in the ass. Ya know of what I speak? So I usta tell her, I got my own opinions too. That I got feelin's and all 'bout certain things. Ah, I shouldn't go talkin' 'bout her, especially when she ain't here to defend herself. It ain't good for me to go runnin' people down when they're somewhere's else and not here to speak for themselves. But it's okay to go speakin' 'bout the kid, he wouldn't know how to defend himself even if he were here. I guess he's a good kid at rock bottom. So, 'bout my wife, she was an okay lady after all is said and done. She had her values I guess and I had mine, most of which had to do with how to raise our kid. Yup, now do I look like I had a boy who'd a been thirty-seven years old this year? A course I don't. Well, that's right, I was a child-bride. I reached puberty at about the age a six, maybe seven. No kiddin', I was old for my age. Had to grow up fast in the Bronx. So we had a kid. It was the first time in my life when I didn't have a real opinion on somethin'. It just happened. (pause) Most a the problem with me and the wife was about the kid. If it was a girl, it would been different. She woulda been in charge. But with a son, that's a father's responsibility, right? A son's growin'up is up to the father, a girl's growin' up is up to the mother. It's that simple. My son, he ain't around no more. He got hurt back in sixty-nine and died. (pause) He comes home one day and says right outta the blue that he wants ta join up. I says, join what? The Army, he says. I laughed and told 'em he was too damn young. Said he could join if I signed the papers. When his old lady heard that she went through the roof. She started screamin' that he was bein' a fool, and that I was a bigger fool for even listenin' ta such talk. It took me a hellava long time to calm her down. (pause) Hell, this could be a real nice joint. Ya know how many times I told the old man ta do somethin' ta fix it up? A hundred, maybe more. But no sir, not that cheap son-of-a-bitch. He don't wanna improve nothin', not even his own kid for Christsakes. Hell, if he were my kid, he'd be spendin' his time makin' some kinda contribution. (pause) But he ain't my kid, it's that simple. (pause) I don't know why I'm sayin' all this about his kid, Christ, I went and signed those damn papers so my boy could join up. (pause, then softly) I sent him over there. I mean, hell, he wanted to go and make somethin' of himself. But I did wait 'til he was seventeen. His mom hated me for that, signin' those papers and lettin' 'em go off like that. But ya gotta do what ya believe in, what ya believe is the right thing and all, make decisions in life. I mean, we was at war. I woulda gone ta Korea if I coulda. I wanted. I ustta think that's what a man's suppose ta do, isn't it? If your country calls for help, ya gotta respond to that call, right? I told 'em that he was a real man goin' off like that. Just like so many other guys had done before 'em. So he goes and gets killed like that. So, a lot a other fellas got killed. They sent us a really nice letter and all. Said he died fightin' the enemy, defendin' freedom, a real hero. I was proud. And I believed that for a long time. Right up until Tony Conti came home and I ran into 'em one day in the street. Tony was in the same unit as the kid when they went over there. So I took Tony for a couple a pops, ya know, ta celebrate and all. Well, Tony and me was talkin' and drinkin' and I knew, had this funny feelin' all along about that letter and the way the kid bought it and all. So I up and asked Tony just how it happened. He told me that the kid...that the kid...ah...the kid went and stumbled on somethin' and fell outta a truck and another truck that was followin' ran 'em over, crushed his head with the front wheel. Tony said that they hadn't seen no combat or nothin' like that, just bein' transported from one place to another. A lousy accident. Now ain't that funny. It coulda happened right here on Broadway and 72nd street. (pause) I guess the reason that I'm bringin' all this up ta you is that I've been thinkin' a lot about it lately, especially 'bout the kid bartender and all. Ya gotta talk things out once in awhile, clear up your thinkin', make decisions 'bout doin' certain things, bounce it off other people. And you're one hellava listener. (pause) Maybe I should say somethin' to the kid's old man, make 'em wake the hell up. Tell 'em he should teach his kid somethin'. Before, ya know, brfore it's maybe too late. When he ain't around no more ta talk with, be with. Ta maybe grow up with. Yeah, I should talk to the old man. Yeah, I think I will. FADE TO BLACK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SANDY by Martin Zurla AT RISE: It's a Saturday night, the present. A small, one-bedroom apartment. Sandy is entertaining a "new" friend. I'm always trying to deal with this...this... (a smile) How do you think I felt when I woke up one day and realized my name was Sandy, Sandy Beaches? Huh? Tell me. No, you don't have to tell me, I know what I felt. I felt absolutely ridiculous. Wouldn't you? Sure you would. My parents had what you might call poetic sensibilities. It wasn't all that bad when I was maybe nine, ten, even into my teens. But, my goodness, I'm a fifty year old woman and I still have that name. Why don't you sit down. (pause) That chair isn't the most comfortable. You'd probably be better on the sofa. (pause) Suit yourself. Anyway, my parents had some sense of humor, right? I always wanted to ask them why they named me that. Never did. Hell, I sure hinted around enough times. I would do things like ask them, "What's in a name," or "a thing by any other name is just any other name," I started bringing home these stray animals just to see what my parents would name them. They came up with things like: our cat was called, Steven; our dog, Phyllis; our bird, who died two days after I brought him home, was called Napoleon. I even brought home a gold fish one day and asked them to name it. They didn't even ask whether it was male or female. They named it, Warren. Warren! Warren was a fish and it had a normal name! I was a human being and was named after a geographic terrain. Thank God our last name wasn't "range," they might have called me "Home On The," -- my father liked westerns -- or thanks be to God it wasn't "Forest," or "Mudd. We did know some people from Framingham, Mass, called Mudd. Ethel and Fenton Mudd. Maybe Sandy Beaches isn't all that bad when compared to Fenton Mudd. But I never had the guts to come right out and ask why they named me what they named me. (pause) You're sure you're comfortable? Something to drink? (pause) Am I hogging the conversation? (the unseen Harry smiles) I know that I can change it. My name, I mean. Make it legally something else. But the thought of doing that always bothered me for some reason. It's like hiding out or something akin to that. A name is a person, right? It kind of defines us in a strange sort of way. (pause) Take your name, for example. Harry. HAA-RRRRRRR-YYYY. Harry! Harry. Harry is a nice name. It doesn't scream out at you. It's just what it is -- Harry. And Harry's a good name for a guy just breaking forty years old. Funny, but some people have to grow into a name. Like seeing a young kid who's called Seymour. It doesn't look right. "Hey Seymour," somebody yells and a small, two foot tall, blond headed kid turns around and says, "Yes, mother. He would never say, Mom, or Mommy. Seymours all say, mother, mother or father. But like Jane, Janes always say -- in a very ladylike way, "Yes, Ma'am, no Ma'am, why yes Sir, why no Sir. And Billys, oh yeah, you can always tell a Billy or a Hank. A Hank would never say, "Mother, would you please pass the butter," or "Why Father, what a nice pipe you're smoking. Hell, Hank would probably say -- no matter how old, "Pass the Goddamn spinach, will ya! or "Move the hell over, buddy. (pause) Sure you're comfortable? You have a nice smile. (pause) You see what I mean, Harry? A name sort of defines who you are. The name Harry kind of defines you. You're not too tall. And you're not too short. In between. And you want to know something else, thinning hair becomes you, is very becoming to a man named Harry. And your hands, they're kind of small, delicate. That'd be the only aspect of you that I would say doesn't really fit. (pause) Harry and Sandy. Sandy and Harry. Kind of has a ring to it, don't you think. Sure you wouldn't like a drink? I think there's vodka. A Diet Coke? (pause) Listen, ah, Harry, I'm really glad I invited you over tonight. Really. You go to that place often? I mean, you hang out at that particular bar? Me, it was my first time. This friend of mine, Crystal -- a girl I work with -- she goes there. Told me I should stop by and check it out. (laughs a little) Never thought I'd ever ask a fellah back to my place. Especially a fellah who ... never mind. So, how do you like my "digs" as they say? It's a real bargain in this day and age. It's truly difficult to find a large studio apartment like this for under a thousand dollars in this day and age. Great location, right? Upper East side is so much nicer than say, the West Side with all those joggers and dog walkers. The only damn thing that's killing this neighborhood are the lousy condos and co-ops. These Godawful real estate people, these developers. All they do is make it ugly. I mean, just how greedy can you get. Oh, that picture there, that's my parents, their fiftieth wedding anniversary. I know, a lot a photographs, right? I guess there's over a hundred in this room along. (pause) I don't know, I guess I just like good memories from when I was small. They help remind me. And my parents, as you can see, were very photogenic. That one is when they were on a trip to Las Vegas. Here they where in Florida -- Disney World. Oh, I guess you guessed that from the large Mickey Mouse guy standing next to them. (another nervous laugh) Can I get you something, a gingerale, something? You're the first fellah I ever had back to my apartment. Most of the time we end up...ah. Geez, never expected to have somebody stop by. Hope you don't mind the mess. Now come on, sit on the sofa. I can see that you're uncomfortable. That's it. Better, right? (pause) So, ah, you sell insurance? Must be...that's right, you don't sell insurance. I get confused. You sell real estate! How could I ever get those two professions mixed up. Oh, by the way, what I said before about developers and all, there are probably a lot of real estate people who truly care. How's business? Must be pretty good in this day and age. Especially in a city like New York. A lot of people. And they all need a place to live. I guess you must feel that you're doing something very important with your life; you know, providing people with shelter and all. Must make you feel good inside. Me, heck, all I do is sell jewelry at Macy's. "Yes Ma'am. "No, Ma'am. " "How about this, Ma'am? Oh darling, it was made for you! Well, one has to do something in life, right? Do something to fill the time. (pause) Mind if I sit next to you? It's the only real comfortable sit in the entire house. (long pause) Listen Harry, why beat around the bush. You mind If I just reach over here and put my hand ... I know it might be acting a little forward and all...but...I never minded a man's penis and... (she watches the unseen Harry stand) Did I say something wrong? You don't have to leave. I'm sorry. I really didn't think it would bother you. Hey wait, I was only joking. The whole thing was a joke. I'm a real comedian. You have to know that about me. Harry? (it's obvious she is now alone) So, ah, it was real nice talking to you. Never even got his last name. Can you imagine that. Any other guy half his age would've jumped at the chance. Maybe I should have eased into it. (pause) Damnit, isn't that the way it's suppose to be done these days! You play hard to get and they never call again. You say, okay, let's do it and they're out of here like a shot from a canon. What's the damn answer! (pause) Maybe I should've worn the other dress; the low cut one. And these flats, should've worn heels. Hell, I thought modern men were suppose to like aggressive women these days. (pause) Maybe he didn't like the way I said his name. (pause) Guess I can't go back to that bar. Harry will certainly fill them in on good old Sandy Beaches, the over-the-hill broad who likes penises. (pause) Oh my God, did I make a fool of myself. (pause) What'd he come back here for: tennis, a little pin the tail on the donkey, scrabble, what! If he wanted something else, why didn't he just say it! He should've been up front, told me right off I was too old, said right away that he wanted a "younger" woman. (she starts to softly cry) This is it. Here it is. Nothing. I have maybe ten, twenty years left before I die and I'm going to spend them alone. That's it. Not a damn thing to do about it. My whole life by myself. Damn. Sandy Beaches, you are a loser, an old lady who'll die and no one will know the difference. Funny in a way. Men. Who do they think they are. And all these photos. Look at them. (she smiles and wipes away the tears. As if she were talking to someone in the room) Remember this picture, that trip we all took to Niagara Falls in fifty-three? What a time. And that Godawful motel with the bugs and leaking shower. Remember? Harry and I could've driven up there next year. We'd stay at the same place, remember the time in fifty-three. Oh, and Harry and I would make love twice, maybe three times a day like it was our second honeymoon. And the kids, our kids, would laugh when we told them of our adventure. And that summer we'd go to Disney World, maybe Coral Gardens. And buy that house we always wanted in Vermont. Harry's good that way. Always was a big spender with a huge heart, a giving nature. Harry and Sandy, Sandy and Harry. (pause) I like the way you hold me, Harry. Your arms always feel so good around me, holding me so I don't fall into a million pieces and be blown away by the wind, blown higher and higher 'till Sandy is no more, 'till Sandy is part of the sky, part of the sun, part of everything, part of nothing. Hold me Harry so I don't blow away and disappear. FADE TO BLACK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - FISHING by Martin Zurla There was this murder and my Dad got himself involved. Dad is taking me fishing at the pier. The parking lot is sparse for four in the afternoon on a weekend in early September. Dad tries to get as close to the entrance as possible. He hates walking far, say more than ten feet. He curses as an old man beats him to the nearest parking spot. We park the beat up Chevy twenty feet from the entrance and Dad curses some more. He is big, my Dad, big compared to a small kid like me. I'm short for my age. But I keep my hair long like the older kids. Not that it matters all that much. But I'm cool. Hair done up nice, D.A. tucked clean behind my ears. Dad parks the Chevy and we get out. I'm standing in the asphalt parking lot watching the heat flare up from the bubbling tar and feeling silly. My Keds are melting from the heat. I can smell the burning rubber. Dad opens the trunk and we start to unload our gear. I turn and ask him why he keeps so much junk in the car trunk: two empty grape jelly jars, a broken bedroom clock, some pieces of non-matching floor linoleum, three empty cans of cat food (we never owned a cat), a toy pistol, four dead azalea plants, assorted Christmas decorations, a tube of roll on deodorant, unopened, and, "Ya never know when ya might need somethin', Bobby boy," he answers in a low tone, his scratchy, smoke stained voice bouncing back at me from inside the car trunk. He hands me a fishing rod and reel. Dad's never fished once in his life. We just moved to the Gulf coast of Florida several months ago; his wife, my Mom, has been dead these past two years. We now live in a small silver trailer with huge rust spots. Bought it last month from an old lady who's husband just walked out for a pack of Camels and never came back. I sleep in the kitchen/dinning room/living room area on a pull down sofa. He's in the bedroom five feet away. The northeast finally got to Dad. "Who needs the ice, I ask ya? I sure as hell don't," he said over corn flakes last February in our one bedroom on East 17th Street. The place just reminded him of his wife my Mom, I think. I heard him crying the night he told me we were, "Headin' south, Bobby boy. Headin' to the sun and sand, to the beach parties and palm trees. Goin' ta where a man can spread out, stretch his achin' bones. Listen kid, it's a place where ya can hear _good_ country music and ya don't have ta dress up all the damn time!" I liked the idea of not gettin' dressed up. When we got to sunny Florida after four hundred years on a train that stopped in every one horse town, village, and hamlet this side of the Mississippi, it rained for two days straight and Dad got a job at the Seven/Eleven on 49th Street. I started school and selling papers in the afternoon to help out. "See boy, this present situation of ours is only a temporary affair. Things'll break open for us when these here Floridians realize what they got in me and you." Dad was what one calls an unskilled laborer. Me, I was an unskilled kid with bad feet. The only thing I missed about the northeast was the mountains. The mountains, me, Dad and Ma. We'd take day trips by bus to Bear Mountain, eat Mom's chicken and drink Koolaide. Once, not so long ago, when we where sitting on the red and blue blanket under a big oak, we just finished the food, Dad started drinking coffee from a thermos while Mom was cleaning up, I noticed a look in Dad's pale blue-green eyes, a look I had never since before nor since. Mom reached up and loosened her hair and let it fall to the base of her spin, let it fall and get caught in the mountain breeze and the shallow sun; Mom with her white, ever so clean china doll skin, with cheeks like small Mackintosh apples, a nose thin and straight as an arrow; Mom with her voice like a summer rain kissing a tall sun flower; Mom letting her hair tumble down, its ends lifting, flowing gently with the wind. His eyes looked at his wife, but what they saw deep inside him I don't know. He put his coffee down and took his large callous hand and touched his wife's face. She smiled that smile, a smile so intense, a smile that was a huge searchlight, its beam that had shinned out over my horizon and over Dad's heart. He left his hand touching her face for what seemed like hours. She looked into his eyes, her eyes green with gold specks on the iris rim. She put her hand on his, took it and gently folded her lips into his cigarette-stained hand, those fingers bigger than a hammer, and kissed them again and again. My Mom, his wife, would be cold and in her grave in six months time. But now, now in the land of tangerines and plastic-coated food, I hear, "Watch that ya don't drop that rod inta the Gulf, or you'll go in after it," Dad says sternly, and me knowing full well what an actor he can be. I tell him I'll be careful. Something's wrong. I look at Dad and don't know why I hadn't noticed earlier when we left the trailer. He's standing, in the middle of this smoldering parking lot, the smell of my rubber soles burning in the heat, the sun unrelenting at four in the afternoon, standing there wearing a pair of bright orange polyester Bermuda shorts, a shinny, yellow silk shirt with a thousand Hula dancers in grass skirts prancing across his chest, white socks, and a pair of black steel toed, thick rubber soled Knapp shoes. Dad's always had this thing, this compulsion to fit in, to be one of the fellahs, to be a part of something, never an outsider. He, my Dad, wanted to be accepted that day, to be a full-time, big-time, real-time fishermen. He sees my expression and says it's what all the fishermen are wearing this year, and that it isn't polite to stare. I ask him about the suntan lotion and he says he forgot it in the medicine cabinet. "We'll see if they sell any inside. And besides, real men don't wear suntan lotion." And this said to me by a full grown adult wearing bright orange Bermuda shorts. I told him I don't need any knowing full well that, before that huge red ball in the sky falls behind that postcard horizon, I'll look like a one pound lobster ready for the table and Dad will have to smear Noxema all over my body. Me, with the new rod and reel, Dad with his yellow tackle box with his name stenciled on the top, head up the board walk toward the bait house and the murder. The pier itself lurches out about three hundred yards into the Gulf of Mexico. It's maybe ten feet wide at its thinnest and fifteen at its widest where little covered areas with bright green plastic roofs intrude now and then. The boardwalk starts in the parking lot, slops up and over the beach which lies about ten feet below at the walk's highest point. A family of four sit underneath shading themselves from the sun. The water sloshes up against the pylons. The father drinks wine from a gallon jug, the mother clips her toenails and the two kids throw sand at each other. When the board walk reaches beyond the shoreline, tree-size pylons are sunk deep into the sand and sea shell bottom holding up the major section of the pier. I wonder to myself if I can see Texas or maybe Mexico. A few large steamers sleek and romantic, glide across the horizon. Where are they going and can I go too? Maybe someplace far away with dark skinned women with exposed breasts and tight muscles, endless jet black hair down to their small feet and white toe nails, their bodies moving like some mysterious smoke cloud, like some machine made by someone greater than man, like motion itself timed with the rhythm of the surging, undulating sea, salt and clean, blue and crystal. Dad heads for the bait house with me pulling up my pants and following, the rod and reel slipping and hitting the tattered, weather beaten boards. I want to curse but I'm not old enough. Maybe next month. Dad walks up to a glass counter that displays all sorts of hooks, fish line, knives-things I'd never seen before-sinkers and floaters, bobbers and tin fish made to fool the real thing, small nets to catch something the size of an adult gold fish, a thing with claws, weights made of lead with holes, paper towels, a thing to take the hooks from the fish's mouth. Dad smiles his 'howdy and how are ya today' smile. The thin man behind the counter grunts. Dad says, "What did ya say, ma friend?" and I knew in an instant that this man was anything but my Dad's friend. He grunts about the same again. "Oh, yeah, sure," Dad grins that 'what the hell is going on' grin. The thin man turns in slow motion and grabs a huge strainer, dips it in a large water trough. I think I hear small voices screaming. The man comes up with a stack of live shrimp, each one no bigger than my pinkie. He opens a white cardboard container like the ones you get Chinese take-out in, dumps the unsuspecting shrimp in, places it on a scale that couldn't weight a truck and says, "That'll be fifty cents." Dad says sure, like he agrees with the man, reaches in his pocket and pulls out two quarters, a dime, a nickel, and some pennies. He pays the man and holds on to the carton. The man behind the counter takes a long look at Dad and his Hawaiian shirt and smiles. My embarrassment is beginning to increase. Dad looks like a small, round Chinaman delivering a portion of Moo Goo Gai Pan or steamed vegetables. Dad says nothing, looks at me, smiles and is about to head out toward the pier when he sees a group of three huge men looking more like lumberjacks than fisherman standing by the soda machine; their beards long and curly, strange particles of food popping out. They lean in toward one another and giggle in their husky, beer belly voices, their eyes glancing to the side at Dad. Can a kid hate his own father because of a pair of orange polyester Bermuda shorts? I was feeling that it could be a definite possibility. All I wanted was to be a shrimp swimming mindlessly in the mildewed trough, or back on Second Avenue picking up Coke bottles. Dad moves over to the group of men with the husky voices, "So guys, how they runnin' today?" I never knew my Dad from New York City had a southern drawl. I was learning more and more about my Dad who looked like he belonged in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade rather than in a small, white washed bait house somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. The husky voiced men grunt something and Dad smiles and slaps one of them on the back. My eyes automatically slam shut fearing the sight of my Dad's brains decorating the four clapboard walls of the bait house. When I open them to a squint, Dad is tugging on my shirt sleeve with, "Come on boy, let's do some serious fishin'." I was stunned into silence. Had he, my Dad, been accepted by these foreigners? Had they given him their approval? I held onto my new K-Mart rod and reel for dear life and followed him out into the blazing southern sun expecting a harpoon to come bursting through our chests. Nothing happened and the patient fish were waiting. There was something exotic about the sun, the mellow water lapping against the pier, the smells of the salt breeze and flapping fish, the comical sounds of the gulls gawking. Heading out over the creaking boards toward the distant horizon and the end of the pier, I hear some voices from behind me. A group of children are splashing in the low surf, gaily colored rubber rafts bobbing off the white caps, water glistening, speckled bright and sharp from the slanting sun. An old couple hold hands under a peach-colored umbrella. A handsome man looking much like an airline pilot sits alone sipping a drink, his eyes looking beyond the natural horizon to places he knew years before. We pass a tall, thin man, his overalls covered in sticky blood, cleaning a fish. Chop and the head comes off. He tosses it over the side to a flock of waiting gulls. The huge gray birds snap and peck at each other. During the fight and confusion, a small, black crane swoops down under the gulls very beaks and steals the fish head. The gulls go berserk. I can see the fish head sticking in the crane's long, slender throat. He'll surely gag to death, I think to myself. Dad reads my mind. "It'll dissolve. Those little suckers can take a full grown fish in one gulp. Read that in one of your Mom's _National Geographics_." I feel better. We find a spot and set down our gear on a bench. While Dad fumbles with opening his tackle box and putting hooks on our line, I half watch him and half the other people on the pier. The first thing that grabs my attention are the teenage girls, all about sixteen or so. They're giggling and hovering around a group of hardened boys about the same age. The boys are being heroic popping their sand colored hair back, their eyes eager, shirtless skin soaking up the blazing sun. They pass out dripping cans of Old Milwaukee from a large crate, baloney sandwiches squeezed to death, mayonnaise oozing from the wax paper. A feeling over takes me, a strange sense of the future. "My future?" I whisper to myself. The feeling, the awful feeling that some of these boys of summer, golden brown, now sixteen in nineteen fifty-nine, their high school rings dangling on some girl's neck, car club jackets spanking new and crisp, will some day put their club jackets in the attic smothered in white crystal moth balls and head out to die on some other planet in someone else's nightmare, in a jungle slashed by rice paddies and straw huts, waking maybe one morning to find themselves lying in a pool of stench, maybe blood you can see spilling, oozing from the hole that brings the world's putrid yesterdays tumbling inside your belly. And they'll remember as they lay dying wondering why, and seeing the face of the girl who has forgotten where she ever put his high school ring; the girl who might find it years later when she's a woman and her kids ask her where that ring came from and she'll, in an instant see like a freeze frame, the young boy's face lit by the dashboard light as she feels him inside her, hurting her, bursting her liquid, her youthful purity, the radio wafting the Five Satins In The Still Of The Night, the young boy's eyes glaring from the dull dashboard light, his iris ablaze with passion, with power, yet a little sadder now, confused and she can't, for the life of her, remember his name. And the same boy's Mom will be cleaning out the attic one fall day as the crisp, bone chilling air clips the brown leaves from the elm out back and she'll find the jacket, its satin material reeking of motor oil and moth balls, slowly hold it close to her frail, bird-like chest and let a small shallow tear fill her eyes, feel it glide down her deeply lined cheek; touch her short cropped gray hair and remember the day the nurse brought in this small bundle, her husband, its father joking about how ugly new born babies are. She'll give it a name making it more than an it. And that same name she'll whisper now in the attic to the rafters and the winter coats that need airing, the clothes she came to take downstairs, downstairs where the boy's room stays empty, mellow memories of laughter and dirty day dreams with its walls still holding football banners and a life size color photo of Stan Musial. She hears her voice say the young boy's name and notices that there's something hollow about it, vacant, distant. "My future?" I wonder again, this time louder. "What'd ya say, Bobby Boy?" my Dad asks. "Nothin'." is all I can think of. I watch as the bad boys chug-a-lug their tepid beer and the girls squirm, panties moist from their thoughts, their wishes so youthful now. "See, Bobby," as Dad holds up the fish line and hook, his hands cut open like raw meat from the razor-like line. He opens his tackle box, lifts up the top tray, takes out a liverwurst sandwich on Wonder bread and hands me half. "Want a Coke?" he asks. I nod okay. He takes out some coins from his bulging pockets and I wonder why he keeps his pockets like his car trunk-filled with all sorts of junk. I don't ask but take the dime and Indian head nickel he gives me. "Ya want one?" I ask. "Nah," and I'm off toward the bait house. The smells smack me in the face, my head reeling almost knocking me in the Gulf of Mexico: the kicking fish in their white buckets, the sandwiches and beer, the sand and salt, the clouds and the magic sun, the pier itself, the very fabric of the worn, tattered seams splitting, the worms working their way through the splinters, the nails rusted to almost nothing. Music springs from the beach. A portable radio is playing "Where are you Little Star," and some kids run through the surf laughing. A woman bends over and picks up a sea shell and holds it to her ear. A single engine piper cub glides overhead. I think I hear someone crying. I look back toward my Dad. He's still fumbling with his rod and reel trying to get the small shrimp on his large hook. Somehow he looks different, smaller, older. I turn and walk into the bait house. A teenage couple stand in a corner near the candy machine. He whispers something in her ear and she smiles. She kisses him like a cousin kisses her aunt. He touches her waist and she puts her hand on his like a trap door. I walk over to the soda machine and start to lift my coins when I see the price: twenty-five cents. I freeze in place. I have fifteen cents. With the two coins back in my pocket, I head out to the sun and Dad. Dad's line is dangling over the railing, his back hunched, arms tense when I walk up behind him. He turns his face towards me and smiles. I smile back. He faces the water. "Where's your soda?" "Ah, had some water instead. Here." I hand him the two coins and he looks into my eyes. I smile, but I'm a lousy actor. "Why don't you hold onto the money. Ya might get thirsty later." I know he knows that the soda is twenty-five cents. And he knows that I know he doesn't have the extra dime and I lied so he wouldn't be embarrassed, but I know he's embarrassed and he knows that I know it. We both look out across the green deep and I ask him how it's goin'. He doesn't hear me, his eyes are looking inside himself now. I notice a young mother and her six year old daughter walking up the pier. The mother is beautiful, the little girl a mirror image of her Mom. The child wears two Mini Mouse berates in her golden brown hair, hair as fine as silk, bright as the sun itself. The teenagers are getting louder but Dad can't hear them either. The sun is burning a hole in my head. I feel my skin hardening, cracking from the dryness. My mind wanders as the teenage girls giggle and bend over. And the girls of summer, hot and sticky, short-shorts tightly pressing their round thighs, playing neatly on the rims of flesh bursting my imagination, throwing me into a beyond place, nowhere I've ever been -- the sun's heat pounding, rounding my brain to feel something deep inside, deep inside. The boys pass around a pack of Lucky Strikes, their belt buckles reflecting in the sun, engineer boots spanking, new heels dug in, tattoos of eagles and bleeding hearts, skulls, and Mom plaster their arms like billboards. And the girls of summer in fifty-nine, smoldering in their tight short-shorts, hips hugging the railing, tough faces, eyes hard drawing deep drags on their Kent cigarettes. My eyes strain, squinting from the sun, the afternoon heat and the smell of my loins, fondling my rod and reel like some precious thing from another world. And from the beach, a portable radio blares Bill Haley and the Comets. The girls dressed in strapless shoulders and short-shorts looking like gasoline pumps with their hoses hot and squirting fire, their hands flicking fast back and forth, their rubber skin encased in red and yellow cotton, eyes made up like the Long Ranger, dark green holes, thick black lashes fluttering, flab wrapped round in billowing profusion; crab apple breasts cupped not too neatly in mini-mini halters pumping hard on a young boy's endless imagination. I start to ache. One girl with lips red as the fires of damnation; demon-like she puckers pleasure beyond my wildest, a white Cadillac Eldorado on her mind, sleek skirted Chevies, canvas top down cursing Main Street, mercilessly squeezes her boyfriend's arm. Another thinner, tougher looking with almond eyes, hair black as coal all her furnaces aglow with lush smells, sits with her legs open. Good God, I can't take anymore. I turn to face the Gulf but, like a magnet, I'm drawn back to the still frame of the legs beckoning. And all the while I think -- these are girls I would never date once I grew up, yet girls that would haunt me constantly, forever filling me with such tingling, the thought of their peach fur skin thrilling me. And me picturing myself as I watch these girls; myself dark tanned, leather tough by the white sand and melting sun, cutoff shorts and Foster Grants-I always picture myself in sun glasses being sharp as a tack, talking dirty, muscles snapping, hands moving like ice, crisp and true. I smile at the girls as they eye my six feet up and down. I smile back with a rough expression letting them know who's boss. They squirm in their imaginations of me lying taut on top of them, our bodies moving with the in and out surf. I notice the man who looks like an airline pilot sitting on one of the benches. He talks to the young mother and her little girl; all smiling as the mother bursts out laughing, her voice chilling the sky and my skin. The pilot touches the little girl's hair, golden brown, and all three laugh at some intimate joke. They, all three, could be the picture of the happy American family vacationing in the land of oranges and sea shells. But something stirs inside me. I'm frightened and am not sure why. I take my rod and reel and drop the line, shrimp dangling, squirming, into the warm Gulf. Dad shows me how to hold the rod, release the catch, take up the slack, then click the catch back again. We lean against the railing and look out beyond our own thoughts at the pencil-like horizon and Texas, maybe Mexico. The airplane pilot is still talking to the young mother and her small daughter. There's something about the three of them that strikes me as odd. The handsome man seems to be paying more attention to the daughter than the pretty mother. The mother walks over to the group of giggling teenagers and asks them for a smoke. The boys are eager and fumble for their packs stuck in the t-shirt sleeves. The mother is lit and takes a deep drag on the Lucky. She looks like a professional smoker. She reaches over and takes a can of Old Milwaukee from one of the boys and chug-a-lugs the entire can. She looks like a professional beer drinker. Her eyes snap onto one if the older looking boys. Some of the teenage girls whisper to each other and frown. The boy is not dumb. He likes to be looked at. He seems to get taller. I notice that he has arched his body slightly and is on his toes. She smiles a smile that says more than hello. He smiles back. I take a quick look at the airplane pilot. He is now stroking the little girl's hair. The little girl seems confused and somewhat embarrassed, certainly uncomfortable. Someone whacks me in the arm. I turn quickly to see my Dad's face, a smile a mile long from ear to ear. He nods his head to the side. I follow his eyes. There, coming down the board walk, rod and reel in toe, tackle box and water bucket dragging behind, is a short, squat man dressed just like Dad. He smiles at the sun and sea breeze. My eyes are like silver dollars. The man approaches us, stops, looks at Dad and says, "Great outfit, buddy." and moves on toward the end of the pier. Dad makes a humph sound like he was some fashion mogul and sits with total self-indulgence, his rod cast out into the green. Loud laughter from the group of teenagers and the young mother gets my attention. She's chugging another beer and the boys applaud and the teenage girls sneer. Off to the side, the little girl wants to call out to her mother but says nothing. The airplane pilot whispers something in the child's ear and the child frowns. The young mother is drinking more and more. One of the boys has his arm around her. The teenage girls are now sitting on a bench, coats wrapped around them, shivering from the mounting easterly, their eyes hallow looking down at the planking floor, all looking into the fiery green sea, all the time wishing the young mother with the golden child was down there prancing and primping with the fishes, not their boy friends of summer. The other boys are talking about cars and who's got the fastest roadster shinning bright, glittering flat heads, tight torque. All of a sudden I notice that the sun has gone down disappeared like some ghost. I look over at my Dad who was looking into the briny, still tightly clutching his rod and reel. I turn back to look at the teenagers and the young mother. She is gone, disappeared like the sun. It was starting to get cold, my bones rattled from the chilling breeze. A quiet descends upon the pier. It is an eerie stillness. The only sound is the water gently slapping against the pylons. Then, suddenly out of the dark, out of the dank, black darkness, a voice screams, screams a sound so hideous, from such an inner depth. I quickly spin toward it. And there, standing at the edge of the water, standing deep in the wet sand is the young mother -- a snap shot black and white frozen for ever and ever. In her arms is the lifeless form of her daughter, her young hair, once golden and bright, now cruelly matted to her bleeding skull. "Look," someone shouts. We all turn. There he is, the tall, neatly trimmed pilot running like hell down the beach, running away. "He's getting away," I shout at the top of my lungs. And than, like in a dream, in slow motion, my Dad throws down his rod and reel, screaming, "NOOOOOOOO!!!!" And, with one lunge, leaps from the pier into the water. He swims so fast, faster than I had ever seen anyone swim. Like a shark, a bullet streaking through the wet towards the fleeing pilot. The young mother's wailing bounces from the black stars above and comes crashing down, back to earth, to my ears, my soul. And in another flash, Dad is now on the shoreline running like hell. The murderer is slowing, his breath spent. Dad is on him, a full-body tackle. They're both down in the sand, arms and fists flailing. My father is screaming into the killer's face, spiting each word as if they were knives slicing, cutting into the man. Later, after they had pull my Dad from the killer, thank him and take the battered and beaten criminal away, we walk alone along the beach, our heads deeply bent. I could see the glimmer of blood dripping from his nose, his left eye was nearly shut from the swelling. "So...ah...yeah..." I just couldn't find the words to say, the way to express myself. I kicked the sand a couple of times. We don't say a word about what happened. We walk for hours as I think to myself I have never, ever felt such deep love, is my small heart so full with such a true and honest caring as I do for my father today, the day he took me fishing. ________________________________________ Martin Zurla is the founder and Artistic Director of the Raft Theatre (Theatre Row, NYC). His stage play, _Old Friends_, won the Forest A. Roberts Playwrights Award; his play, _February, the Present_, won the Stanley Drama Award. Mr. Zurla's plays won the Colorado University Playwrights Competition for two consecutive years (1985 and 1986). Plus numerous other theatrical awards, Mr. Zurla was twice awarded the prestigious Theatre of Renewal Awards for his "Resplendent contribution to the development of American Theatre." Mr. Zurla recently had a series of one act plays published by Open Passages of NYC, _Aftermath: The Vietnam Experience_. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- POETRY -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- AFTER FIVE AT THE OFFICE by Len Edgerly mechanical flatulence the sound of a Harley outside my office window smooth optical whir of computer parts chipmunk sounds from the hard drive digesting a long file downloading from America Online in little gulps like a bird feeding from a modem purr of the Laserwriter revealed in the after-five emptiness of the company I make leather squeaks with my boot against the swivel chair secret smooth fan inside the Power Macintosh humming the almost note of pale music now heard now seen these quiet sentinels at the rest of the day beneath whispering their mechanical murmurs of perception ________________________________________ Len Edgerly has poetry published or forthcoming in _High Plains Literary Review_, _Owen Wister Review_, _Amelia_, _The Morpo Review_, and in a chapbook, _Disputed Territory_. A member of the Western States Arts Federation Board of Trustees and the Wyoming Arts Council, he makes his living as a natural gas company executive in Casper, Wyoming. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING by Marc A. Leckstein Life, the Universe, and Everything. Why do these things mean so much to me? I know that I am nothing but a man. My thoughts should be of current plans. Instead, my mind is out there wandering. It spends all its time wondering: Will I live or will I die? Will I love or will I cry? Will I learn the truth of life? Will that girl become my wife? Is my job what I envisioned? Did I ask for this division? Is there a God, is there a Devil? Must I live up to one of their levels? Why am I confused? Why should I care? Why did I write this poem? Is it too bare? Does it show my naked heart? Will it act to tear me apart? Life, the Universe, and Everything Why do these things mean so such to me? I know that I am nothing but a man. Still, I need an answer to the plan. I must find the blueprint to my soul, Discover the truth behind it all. I need to know the best I can, What it means to be human. ________________________________________ Marc A. Leckstein is a student at Monmouth College who aspires to work in politics. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- XY by Anthony Fox The mystery of a man the child, the killer the hidden woman The real man behind the social perception Who I should be what I should see and in some dark hidden closet, away from judging eyes, the real man sits with dried up tits an X instead of a Y ________________________________________ By Anthony Fox . -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- PERCEPTIONS by Laura D. Turk in my dreams I am one of two lovers gazing into each others' eyes at a candlelight dinner just for two. one of two lovers staying up half the night discussing every little thing under the sun. one of two lovers sitting lazily on the lawn exchanging tender kisses and quiet promises. one of two lovers lying on a beach awakening each others' bodies with soft caressess. the reality is our dining is shared by noisy children who crowd our table pushing and shoving. we both work hard and need our sleep and talk centers mostly around pragmatic things. there's no time for laziness and kisses are mostly hello and goodbye and promises shattered. usually his caresses mean he wants sex; we're no longer lovers just bed partners. I wonder why reality falls so far short of our dreams. ________________________________________ Laura D. Turk <100335.3650@compuserve.com> was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA. She has lived in Germany for the last ten years, first as a military wife, and now as a civilian employee of the U.S. government. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- OTHER MAGAZINES ON THE NET -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- _InterText_, a bi-monthly magazine publishing fiction of all types, edited by Jason Snell. Back issues are available at ftp.etext.org, under the /intertext directory. ___ _Quanta_, a science fiction magazine. Each issue contains fiction by amateur authors and is published in ASCII and PostScript formats. Back issues of Quanta are available from export.acs.cmu.edu in the pub/quanta directory. ___ _Fiction-Online_ considers submissions of poetry, short-shorts, short stories, and short plays. Mainstream and science fiction are the preferred genres. Submissions should be made to the subscription address, ngwazi@clark.net. Back issues may be obtained by anonymous FTP from ftp.etext.org or at gopher.cic.net. ___ _Angst_ publishes prose, poetry, prose poetry, and postcard stories. They also highlight other experimental forms of prose and poetry. Back issues are available through anonymous FTP at ftp.etext.org. E-mail uh186@freenet.victoria. bc.ca for info. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- BACK ISSUES Back issues are available at ftp.etext.org via anonymous FTP/Gopher under the directory /pub/Zines/Whirlwind SUBSCRIPTION If you wish to be on the Whirlwind mailing list, all you need to do is send a message to WHIRLEDS@delphi.com with the subject of the message "SUBSCRIBE WHIRLWIND" and nothing else in the body of the message. FURTHER QUESTIONS If you have any other questions, you can reach us at WHIRLEDS@delphi.com. Whirlwind apologizes for any errors in this issue. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- That's it! Thank you for reading. NEXT ISSUE OF WHIRLWIND: MARCH 1995 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-