Issue 3: Spring 2017

Creative Nonfiction

Momma’s Broom

CL Bledsoe

Lonnie had been attempting the spitball his older brother Keith taught him all afternoon with no luck. Vandale was up to bat–or broom, which is what they were using for a bat–and Shug was playing outfield.

Lonnie squared his shoulders, put on his business face, and let it go. Vandale swung and connected with a crack. The ball soared followed by half the broomstick. Shug went deep for it, ran it down with pounding lungs, and threw it back to Lonnie who ran to tag Vandale, but he was just standing, staring at a Plymouth, easing up the road.

“What’s Judge Foreman doing coming up here?” Shug said. Lonnie watched Vandale and Shug run to the driveway, scattering chickens, as Judge Foreman pulled up and parked. They stood in the swirling dust as the door creaked open and the old man stood and looked at them. He took his hat off and held it in his hands as he stood, as if he were afraid to step away from the open door of the car.

* * *

The Judge took their momma in a room by himself, while Lonnie and the others waited outside. The girls looked worried, which made Lonnie worried.

“What do you think?” he asked Vandale, who was staring down the front door like he thought he could make it cry.

Lonnie nudged his brother who shoved him aside. Inside the house, Momma keened. It cut through the air, up Lonnie’s back. Vandale turned and was gone. Lonnie saw Shug watching their elder brother walking away.

“What is it?” Lonnie asked Shug.

“Keith,” Shug said.

* * *

The elderly lined the porch in rocking chairs, kitchen chairs, whatever they could sit on, canes leaned to the side of several, spit cans in their hands as they stared out over the flat farmland surrounding the house. Inside, the aunts and cousins who’d descended on the house wandered from child to child, worrying each in turn. Ever since Judge Foreman handed the telegram to Momma, Lonnie had stayed by her side. Now, he pushed himself from the wall behind her chair and worked his way through the crowd, looking for Vandale and Shug, the oldest two remaining brothers, but with no luck. He went out to the porch to get clear of it all.

“You going to enlist, son?” The voice belonged to Great Uncle Elijah, a rheumy man who liked to repeat stories from the War of Northern Aggression as though he’d been alive for it. “No, sir. I’m too young.” Lonnie felt flushed when he said it.

“Well, you’ll be old enough soon.” He showed brown, stained teeth.

“Thank you,” Lonnie said because it seemed like the thing to say. He stepped down into the vibrant green of the lawn. Off to the side of the house was the flower garden. He headed to it because nobody else seemed to be there.

It was the one extravagance Momma allowed herself. There were wildflowers she’d cultivated and cuttings from others’ gardens. Lonnie still had the baseball in his pocket. He took it out and gripped it a few times, mimicking spitballs. Keith had been the best pitcher around. And he could run faster than anybody. It didn’t make any sense.

* * *

Lonnie heard some noise on the other side of the garden, something soft and animal-like. When he got closer, he heard a girl’s voice, begging.

“Don’t go. Not yet,” she said.

“I have to.” It was Vandale’s voice. “I have to get those Jap bastards. Besides, it’s too late.”

There was commotion at the house, and when Lonnie turned back to where Vandale had been, he found his older brother standing, angry, hands on hips.

“What are you doing out here, Whistlebritches?” Vandale asked.

“Looking for you,” Lonnie said.

“Looking, huh?” He advanced on Lonnie, who fell back. “Looking at what?” The girl was behind Vandale, fixing her dress. Lonnie couldn’t remember her name, but he’d seen her around, before. There were always girls around Vandale and Shug. And Keith, at least there used to be.

Vandale grabbed Lonnie by the shoulders.

“Lay off!” Lonnie said.

“Van.” The girl’s voice was quiet and pretty.

Vandale’s face went hard and then softened. He released Lonnie and ruffled his hair.

“What’s going on at the house?” the girl asked.

Both boys focused their attention. The judge’s Plymouth was back. When they got a little closer, they could make out the judge with Shug.

“Aw hell,” Vandale said as the two brothers ran for the house.

* * *

When Shug found out Vandale had already enlisted, he’d walked into town to sign up, himself. He’d almost made it, even though he was lying about his age, but Judge Foreman caught him.

“Why in hell do you care?” Shug said to him. Momma walked over and slapped Shug on the mouth.

“You don’t talk to him that way,” she said, tears sliding down her cheeks. Shug sulled up and kept quiet. “I just wish I could’ve stopped Vandale,” Momma said.

“What’s done is done,” Vandale said. Momma glared at him.

“Keith is a hero, Effie,” the judge said. “Vandale’s a good boy. I’m sure he’ll do you proud.”

Vandale nodded thanks to the judge. Shug pushed past them all and threw the screen door open. Lonnie ran after him, keeping pace as his brother stalked up the driveway and beyond, headed who knew where.

* * *

They followed the road along the levee until it turned toward Wittsburg. Shug left the road and veered west to pace the railroad tracks.

“Reckon Van’ll be a pilot?” Lonnie said.

“Bug off,” Shug said.

“You want to be a pilot or infantry?” Lonnie continued, undaunted. “I bet Van could be an officer.”

“Officer School?” Shug finally said. “You take Van for some kind of fruit?”

“No, I just mean he could make good, you know.”

Shug turned on Lonnie. “Say, what are you following me for, huh? I ain’t heading to the Five & Dime.”

“I know. You’re going to hop a train into Memphis so you can enlist, there, where nobody knows you.”

That shut him up for a second.

“You figuring to stop me?” Shug said.

“Guess so,” Lonnie said. “Maybe we could go see a picture show or something. I got a nickel.”

Shug laughed. “Go home and play stickball, kid.”

“He was my brother too.”

Shug narrowed his eyes, but when Lonnie made no move to leave, Shug finally gave up and started walking again.

* * *

The land they passed was all cotton fields and dirt roads. The boys passed black field hands, mostly, with the occasional white one mixed in. There were more white farmers as they neared town. The sun sat high above them as Shug led his brother to the freight yards.

“It’s just two months,” Lonnie pointed out. When Shug didn’t respond, Lonnie added. “Unless you’re scared Van’ll have them all licked by then.”

Lonnie was on the ground before he realized it with Shug on top of him, swinging again and again. He could hear the thuds as his brother connected, but he couldn’t feel them. He’d entered some other place, and it was only when some railroad workers saw the boys and pulled Shug off, that Lonnie started to register what was happening. Even then, what he noticed first were his brother’s tears. He’d never seen any of his brothers cry, least of all Shug. It scared him. He tried to sit up, but felt an aching pain and realized one of his eyes was swollen shut.

The men had a hold of Shug, but Lonnie managed to get to his feet and wheeze at them.

“Let him go,” he said on the third try. “I was asking for it.”

“Hell, he’s twice as big as you!” One said.

“He’s my brother,” Lonnie said. He went to Shug, doubled over. Shug put an arm around him and helped him back up the road, towards home.

“Guess I did stop you,” Lonnie said as they entered their yard.

Shug laughed. Lonnie tried to, but it made him spit blood.

Shug bent and picked up the pieces of the broom. He examined the broken stick and tossed the pieces far into the yard. The two boys looked after it. “I can still go tomorrow,” Shug said.

“Yeah,” Lonnie said. He drew a deep breath that made his chest rattle. “Reckon so.”

Shug climbed onto the porch. A moment later, his brother followed him.

CL Bledsoe is the assistant editor for The Dead Mule and author of fifteen books, most recently the poetry collections Trashcans in Love and King of Loneliness and the flash collection Ray's Sea World. He lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

Jane Doe

Austin Eichelberger

1. The shallow hole is dug surprisingly close to the house despite the nearby woods, unlike most places bodies are found, which are marked by several things: soft soil, lots of trees for coverage, abandoned buildings, wildlife to eat remains, and no people for as far as possible. 2. As far as possible, it seems, even the remotest areas have been utilized for violence—one park ranger found a thumb nailed to a tree, another a nude corpse 70 miles from any road—meaning that really, though maybe not plausibly, bodies can be found just about anywhere. 3. Found just about anywhere well-populated, a dead body causes an anxious stir and everyone panics, but out in the country—where rural boogeymen still sing from the trees at night—no one talks about a body too much unless it was a friend or relative. 4. A friend or relative is almost always behind it—just like poisoned candy and deep-set psychological issues—but most of them never get picked up because once the victim is dead, who's to say what happened? 5. What happened here, though, is still being debated: the hole was only half-filled with soil, fingertips still visible, but also seems full to overflowing with something else: delirious ennui, predatory desperation, maybe a former lover's good luck and hope? 6. Good luck and hope never seem to be reliable enough to use as tools to get away with murder, especially now that forensic testing—white lab coats and petri dishes, trace samples and DNA swabs—is the first thing anyone does. 7. The first thing anyone does when they find a body is try to find ways to believe the body isn't really dead—even if it's cold and buried, even if they don't know the victim, have no ties whatsoever to whatever-the-fuck happened. 8. “Whatever the fuck happened depends on your perspective,” the lieutenant keeps saying, but everyone agrees this half-filled hole feels like a crime interrupted, like a gun left by the bed for self-defense used to take out the owners of the house or a sentence so lyrical and winding that halfway through, it simply unravels. 9. Halfway through it simply unravels, most detectives say, the best thread they had, the only one that clearly pointed to a believable killer, that explained what was happening on the night in question or before the gun was pulled out. 10. Before the gun was pulled out, the hole really did seem shallow, barely ankle-deep, but the moon through the clouds glinting off the long barrels made the hole grow so dark, the ground beneath it opening up, deep with shadow. 11. With shadow from cloud-cover blanketing the road, cut through only by headlights on the way to his place outside the suburbs, she had watched the city lights recede in the side mirror and told herself the night had been fun: a quiet date with an old flame from high school, the one who had hopefully grown out of being a little too rough during sex, who was still so handsome and acted so sweet in public. 12. Sweet in public but impatient and unapologetic afterward, some killers sexually assault their victims before yanking them outside, standing them at the edge of a hollow patch of earth stretched open like a ravenous waiting mouth, flashlight aimed at the victim's eyes to disorient. 13. To disorient the police, some killers take the victim's ID and plant false clues, little indicators that lead nowhere to make sure they have time to leave town, to sever ties—one last fuck, a final meal with a buddy—to pack their shit and hotwire a new car so they're as far away as they can manage to be when the body gets discovered, when all their accomplishments and mistakes are suddenly naked before the police. 14. Naked before the police—her arm still over her eyes like when she blocked the flashlight's glare, fell backward as screaming flames burrowed into her chest, her bare back and limbs smacking the dirt heavily—she tries to point the officers' stoic glances in the direction he drove off, to spit his name like she used to when he dumped her in high school, to cover her gaping breasts and the little bit of blood from his bedroom, to tell them her worried mother's phone number, to promise that she's nothing like the girl they must think: another case gone cold in a shallow hole.

The Girl From Coral (Notes)

Austin Eichelberger

1. Whenever this One Guy comes through Alexis's checkout line in the Phoenix, Arizona Whole Foods, she can't help but imagine his tongue (flat and profound) positioned just below her belly button, skating along her clavicle, or their bodies emanating heat like stretches of road in the desert outside, hazing over imperfections and giving them each a flushed glow. Each time, just after she blushes when she first spies him, she can feel light-headed lust like slow smoke under her skin, seeping out the way she has seen coral (when scuba diving with her estranged father on vacations paid for by his guilt) release great silky clouds of eggs and sperm, surrounding her in ribbons of mist made of her attraction to this One Guy.

Coral is a simple animal, much like her desire for him: inspired by his narrow but muscular shoulders, the shapes in his curly auburn hair, face dappled with light freckles, lines of musculature drawn across his calves, the in-between-green-and-blue color of his eyes. She has paid such careful attention when he stands before her, absently tapping buttons after swiping his credit card or scooping his purchases into his eco-friendly grocery bag, that she knows what he'll buy to some degree based on the time of day he comes in: always apples (braeburns or pink ladies or Fujis), in the mornings a protein bar, most times at least one of those nasty Kombucha drinks, in the afternoon a large bag of chips, either hummus or salsa, and maybe a vegetarian frozen pizza, which always makes Alexis wonder—as she watches him leave, her head clearing like warm salty waters as the tide moves in—if all that is for him.

2. A New Mexican tourist has just smiled as she told Alexis about the bright red and soft pink coral in her silver rings and thick bracelets—"Coral are like us: what's left of the dead stacked into foundations for the living. One of the sacred gifts my pueblo received.”—and Alexis is twisting the ring of turquoise and coral that she got in her Gram's will, thinking of the mesas outside Gram's house and the Rio Grande flowing about a mile off, but then forgets the whole vast landscape when the One Guy is suddenly in front of her in a tank top—his arms looking especially solid and soft at the same time—looking right in her eyes and saying, “I like when you're working, Alexis. I try to always come through your line.”
A dizziness (like rising too quickly with a scuba tank or when she bums cigarettes while drinking) overtakes Alexis and her lungs feel a bit smaller than before as she pushes his items across the scanner and says, “Thanks. Nice seeing you. Too.”
He chuckles, lifts the pasta and tomatoes into his bag as she tries to conjure anything else to say, anything to prove that he just surprised her, that's all.
He slips his sunglasses over his eyes. “Well, have a good one.” Then he is gone and Alexis is still just trying to breathe (spinning her ring twice as quick as before), feeling like when a sudden tropical storm takes out years of diligent growth in a single unexpected wave.

3. All that evening until she closes out her register, she replays their latest interaction in her head, her legs still a little trembly as she sculpts what will surely be perfect replies for next time. She pictures the One Guy laughing like she knows he's not in a while, eyes wide as he's taken comfortably aback by Alexis's sudden confidence, her sense of humor, the way she plays right into his hand. His reaction (she knows) will be perfect, but she has to give herself the right self-image to pull it off, has to convince herself that she can put a hand on her hip and a smirk on her lips just right so that her One Guy never even realizes it wasn't natural—because if she doesn't believe it, how will he?

4. That night in her bed (nude because this fucking heat!) she watches headlights draw stripes along the ceiling and thinks of his lean body and almost-well-kept beard, the few light hairs peeking from his shirt collar, the ways she will impress him the next time he appears before her, bright as the desert sun. When her hands slide where his would go, she can suddenly see him more clearly than before, reaching out for her—his hair floating like he's underwater, crowned by small shells and pale crab claws long abandoned, and he's whispering to her like a bubbling spring—then pulling her by the hand: out the door and across the scrubby plains and rough mountains to the closest body of water, where it looks like back home, mesas like outside her old front door, a river beside.
Then Alexis sees herself, fertile as a reef: a school of little silver fish appear from behind her back as brittle stars and sea fans reach from her hair, soft anemones sprout from her hips, an eel snakes out of the cave of her loosely-held fist and bright coral branches from her elbow, thighs, the wrist of the hand still held in his.

5. But a few days later—after noticing that One Guy in the dry goods aisle with a girl she has not seen before who is definitely not his sister—Alexis decides that she likes the fact that coral is of all things immobile, could not pursue even if it wanted to, and seems to simply ignore mating but for the time and place when the seething clouds appear and collide, their substance coming together (a sweaty, cursing fuck in the backseat of his car or the community room on her break a few weeks later that neither of them could have planned for) only to then disappear with the tides like they had never even spoken, the singular proof of their union an anchoring polyp, swelling shoals, the layering bones of blossoms once met.

Austin Eichelberger is a native Virginian who teaches as much English and writing as he can manage in sunny New Mexico. Over sixty of his stories have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Eclectic Flash and Nanoism. More of his writing lives at austineichelberger.com.

Elastic

Darnell Arnoult

April was born in the month of her name. Perhaps that was the exponential factor. She had grown into a willowy girl. Her dresses draped from her shoulders. Her scrawny legs were cartoonlike in the clunky saddle oxfords her mother made her wear. “Good for your feet,” her mother said. With the heavy weight of black and white, the red sole, her feet felt like pendulums as they swung across the living room floor or up the sidewalk or down the hall at Wide Spot Elementary. It gave young April momentum, like her gyroscope. If she wanted to change directions, she simply banked her foot in a new direction. Eventually, the leather upper softened and shaped itself to her feet. The white scuffed, and her toes got too tight at the ends. Then she slipped herself into the new pair her mother gave her and started again.

One day, April felt imbalance. She needed her arms across her chest or a pillow in her lap, something she could hug and hide against. Her center of gravity had shifted. Her father didn’t notice, but her mother pulled her aside one night after dinner, held April’s hands out away from her body and said, “Oh my.” Early the next morning April’s mother took April to the department store downtown. A tall woman with red hair fitted April with a training bra.

“What am I training for?” April asked her mother as they stepped onto the department store elevator. Her mother clutched the bag with three other training bras just like the one April had kept on in the dressing room, looked at the elevator operator, a tall man in a suit with lots of brass buttons and wearing a round box for a hat, and said, “Ground floor please.”

Before long, not a single sweater in April’s closet was elastic enough to button at her bosom, not even the pink sweater with mother-of-pearl buttons she received on her thirteenth birthday. In what seemed like a short season of bees and honey and birdsong, April had blossomed, as her mother called it. And yet, April was not comfortable being a blossoming flower. She would rather have been inorganic—a pale pebble, a glinting chunk of gravel, a thimble full of golden sand. Instead she was bursting open, not even like a flower, but like an October bean, speckled and rubbery. A bean pod, swollen and shrunken all at the same time. Paper-thin skin stretched to breaking, while the sphere of bean only grew rounder, fuller, weightier.

April’s breasts began to enter the room ahead of her. Her mother was forever standing in front of her, getting between her and other people, such as the priest at St. Mary’s, the bag boy at Kroger’s, or the long line of servers at K&W Cafeteria. April’s mother chose everything from seven-layer salad all the way to lemon chess pie for the girl. April longed for chocolate chiffon as she peeked past her mother’s shoulder, but it was always lemon chess.

Soon April’s shoulders curved and her back bowed and cupped the weight of her globed chest, and her feet, what she could see of them, finally in black ballerina pumps, her mother’s sweet-sixteen gift, became her view of the world. As her feet swung out in front of her, now always following behind someone else, the low-slung vamps of the black flats revealed cleavage leaking down even between her toes.

April’s arms, so often folded across her body, became a gate that seldom opened, and April became a closed garden gone to seed. Her feet fell behind. More and more April slept in the shape of a child in a womb. Her words became unintelligible and far away. She disappeared, a syllable here, a vowel there, one atom here, two molecules there, until there nothing was left of her even to hide. Only traces of her chemical remains and a set of pearly pink buttons from a sweater she’d tried to fasten years and years before.

Darnell Arnoult is writer-in-residence at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN where she directs the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival and is executive editor of the online journal drafthorse: a lit journal of work and no work. She is the author of the novel Sufficient Grace and the poetry collections What Travels With Us and Galaxie Wagon.