+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ T M M OOOOO RRRRR PPPPP OOOOO RRRRR EEEEE V V IIIII EEEEE W W MM MM O O R R P P O O R R E V V I E W W H M M M O O RRRR PPPP O O RRRR EEE V V I EEE W W W M M O O R R P O O R R E V V I E WW WW E M M OOOOO R R P OOOOO R R EEEEE V IIIII EEEEE W W +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Volume #5 September 1st, 1998 Issue #3 Established January, 1994 http://morpo.com/ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ CONTENTS FOR VOLUME 5, ISSUE 3 Editor's Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. D. Rummel Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Starkey Travelogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Starkey Paranoias Can Be So Boring . . . . . . . . . . . . Garnet Cowsill I Am Not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cheri Amey Newspapers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cheri Amey untitled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tony Davino Condensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tony Davino untitled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Janet L. Kuypers Two Months in October . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M. A. Katt About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors In Their Own Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor + Poetry Editor Robert Fulkerson The Morpo Staff Kris Kalil Fulkerson rfulk@morpo.com + kalil@morpo.com Submissions Editor Fiction Editor Amy Krobot J.D. Rummel amyk@morpo.com rummel@morpo.com +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ _The Morpo Review_. Volume 5, Issue 3. _The Morpo Review_ is published electronically on a quarterly 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 1998, The Morpo Review. _The Morpo Review_ is published in ASCII and World Wide Web formats. All literary and artistic works are Copyright 1998 by their respective authors and artists. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor's Notes J. D. Rummel Fiction Editor WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS? When I was much younger, I wanted to be an oceanographer. Actually, that was what I told adults who asked me what I wanted to be. Although I had no idea what an oceanographer actually does, it seemed to put an adult name on what I wanted to do. If an adult had taken the time to probe, they’d have found that I just wanted to be a scuba diver, a guy that put on the wet suit and went down into the water. Lots of people do that that aren’t oceanographers. I was fascinated by the sea, or more specifically by anything under the water. I watched any show, true or fiction where men went under the water. I loved to look at pictures of men going down into the sea in ships and in suits. What I most enjoyed was seeing men diving in scenic places like the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. And I didn’t take the sea on it’s own terms, either. Like most folks of this part of the century, I picked and chose the parts of the world that I would endure. For instance, even here in Nebraska the thought of being out in the rough waters of the north Atlantic where the depths plunge you far from the sun makes me shiver, and I wanted little to do with those terrible dark canyons miles under the waves. Yes, I had a lot of books about the ocean, and I picked up quite a bit from the photographs that I loved so much. Therefore, when the novel, Jaws came out, I knew a little more than most folks about sharks. I enjoyed the book. It was one of those that, "you can’t put down." And somewhere in that excitement that fills me when I read something, or see something creative, I wanted to join in. Around the time of the movie, I had an idea: what if Carcharodon megalodon (the prehistoric ancestor of the Great White Shark) appeared in the modern world? I can still see an artist’s rendering of such a gigantic beast drawn to scale with two divers in the foreground for comparison. My mind ran away with a story and I started to write such a tale. I never finished it. I was distracted by all the stuff that grabs a sixteen-year-old and moves his head around preventing focus in any one direction. Nor could I make a case that my telling was very good. At sixteen I was a very poor writer in many respects. So, a year or so ago, I’m browsing at a Walden’s books and I notice a novel called Meg. Something about the catch phrase, "A novel of deep terror" got my attention (somebody in PR earned his dime) and I stopped to read the jacket flap. It was a novel about Carcharodon megalodon, the ancient great white. Twenty years after I had the idea someone finished the job. Two weeks ago, I saw the paperback edition of Meg at Borders and bought it. I’m still reading it, and I must say, I don’t think it’s very good. Before you think I’m bitter or jealous, let me assure you I’m not. I respect people who put their backs into any worthy effort, even if I’m not fond of the final result. As Truman Capote once wrote, "It takes as much energy to write a bad novel as it does a good one." Nor do I think Meg is a numbingly bad book--it’s not--it just reads very unevenly, with phrases and images that are so deeply buried in our experience that the author probably doesn’t realize how trite he is being. Anyone who writes a lot can read something and tell where pieces have been stitched in, where phrases have been dropped or revised (read John Grisham’s A Time to Kill to see a very obvious first novel—a good one, but a Frankenstein of patched together paragraphs in some spots). What really matters here is, the author of Meg did the work, I didn’t. Whatever I say about the novel (the cover listed great reviews), the man did what he set out to do. I let the idea go. When I didn’t follow the idea to whatever place my resources would have taken me, it went back to whatever place ideas wait for us, and waited for someone more worthy--someone who would do the work. This isn’t the first time. I have lots of ideas, some of them are pretty good, and some probably aren’t. Many years ago I had an idea about a hit man who goes to his high school reunion. Instead of working on that idea, I concentrated on paying the bills, but I also watched too much television. Because of those priorities, someone wrote an excellent movie called Gross Point Blank and I didn’t. None of this is intended to state categorically that just because I had the same idea as someone else, or in some cases had it first, that I would have carried it off as well. A good idea still needs lots of work before it is a good story, poem or picture, but it all starts with an idea. Even today I find lots of excuses to not do the work. This column was put off in favor of writing letters, spending time with my girlfriend, reading lots of technical crap for work, watching way too much t.v. , all the distractions that grab my almost-forty head and shake it about, inhibiting focus. I say inhibit, because I’m not sixteen anymore and the agency that prevents me from doing anything is my own self. I run my life. I choose where I spend my time. For every good choice like spending time with my love, I sometimes make inferior choices like watching Embrace of the Vampire on "Monstervision." I now understand more clearly that I will die someday and that each day I don’t spend writing is a day I will never get back. My days are much shorter now than when I was sixteen and quite a spendthrift with my time. I didn’t know how quickly the days fade, and I wish that I had a few thousand of those hours back. Amy, my girl, says that my stories all have morals, and she’s right. Here’s the moral for this column: Ideas only belong to us for a short time, then they move on. If you have an idea, work on it. If you don’t, someone will—I guarantee it. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Insurance by David Starkey From my window I can see the pastel post-modern corporate headquarters of Wang International, and the houses of poor Mexican families across the street. I'm an insurance man. Nights, I have scrutinized the Labor Code, but the thrill of the business world didn't last long. I can't sit still for five minutes together, but I am rooted in this life by what must pass anywhere for plenty. The typewriter worries me on weekends. My rural university's required poetry course was taught by a man who had published in all the best reviews for thirteen years and had one thin collection to show for it. In class his skeletal hands trembled as he scanned Rape of the Lock on the blackboard. He stuttered when replying to our stupid questions, yet a more world-weary doodler was never found in all the 18th century. A nervous sort, he might be an artist, but he would never be much of a breadwinner. The cover of his book showed a Rococo clock-- Cupid fingering Psyche's chin inattentively. The light shifts. I clasp my hands and wait for the self-destructiveness to pass. It always does, then I remember I have food and warmth, and, somewhere, friends. We each shelter our interests as best we can. Down on the street, the homeless shriek and push their shopping carts to the sea. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Travelogue by David Starkey When I was young, I'd stay awake The night before we were to fly. I studied maps with a penlight, Plotting the likely route we'd taken, Charting the details of our flight. But when the plane had cleared the ground, I'd drowse until the journey's end. I never cared for what occurred Beyond imagination's bounds: My dreams expired just when they stirred. So now I never fly at all; I know too well how the land lies. Instead, I hunker in my dreams And learn where dusk becomes nightfall And blur the sense of "is" and "seems." +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Paranoias Can Be So Boring by Garnet Cowsill I dreamed you threw me an elegant, surprise dinner party. Yet, a delicate guilt necklaced your head with the weight of a jungle vine. Your dark eyes were smoky and decadent. But your meal was simply sublime: salty, spiced bisques plus three racks of roast lamb served with jug after jug of red wine. And I was so proud of you. Until a man spoke looking every rib the emaciated rabbi of my poor, dead father. His words were splintering -- almost wooden, "Jesus H. Christ, look at that! Someone's put blood in his pudding." It was true. I dragged my eyes from your pagan mouth to the silvery-rimmed servings you'd set, three times ten before me, amid glorious crucifixions, candles and goblets, so your guests' benedictions wouldn't bore me. And I saw: (He was quite right. The Old Man's eye for detail sparked until it was blazing.) Even though it looked absolutely edible, tarring droplets of blood sprinkled your pudding, like raisin. Well, of course, news of your purgative spread quickly, sickening those still feasting. The devout backed up and bowed out, to eat deli on olive-mount heights. Since then my dreams have become rather kosher, so I've taken a vow to go sleeplessly celibate most nights. This morning I genuflected, showered and shaved. Then, affecting a carpenter-like scrawl to properly sculpt my chiseling piety in hopes you'd still be saved, I soaped this message across our bathroom mirror: When you think I'm sleeping I'm really pretending, so quit doing those things that you shouldn't. Stop scoring me, boring me, pumping and draining. Stop mining my blood for your pudding. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ I Am Not by Cheri Amey I Am Not a child I am not crying in the dark room pigtails bangs cut short straight across my forehead wild black eyebrows like twin tepees always a surprise when I look in the mirror I am not a small girl with blue eyes reddened from crying and stuffed nose and hiccups and sadness and sorrow I am not crying I am not crying I am not. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Newspapers by Cheri Amey My sister & I used old dried out paintbrushes and white-wash on the walls of the tiny building behind our rented house we swept out chicken droppings we cleaned windows thick with grime we were 10 and 9 years old our young hearts already leading us to freedom I found mine stuffed in cracks between the boards of the walls in that one-room hideaway old newspapers yellow and brittle I carefully pried them out & opened them slowly holding my breath to prevent them from tearing, my keen interest in reading, my fascination with the past connected to those wrinkled charming news papers. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ untitled by Tony Davino I met Vermont with Fall in her eyes She'd sit behind glass and watch the leaves, delighted by their flip, or lazy drift by the way the wind would be betrayed. She'd collect them to her breast like spiked kerchief reds and golds, brighter than wonder. By days end they'd have curled upon themselves, leathern and mottled. By days end she knew: they were brilliant only on the side toward the sun. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Condensation by Tony Davino drawn by the storm, she presses to the window. reflection obscured, a fog of sweet coffee sweat. a symmetry of winds. cool, damp traces. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ untitled by Janet L. Kuypers you actually do make me wanna shout. And if I didn’t know better, I’d say that I have the capacity to make you scream a little, too. You told me that you have good hands. I believed you, but I didn’t realize how good they were until you showed me. You know, I’m not so bad myself. Show me how good you are again. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Two Months in October by M. A. Katt Rain ran down the window of the bus as Gene stared out at the lights of approaching cars. The white beams fanned out and highlighted the night-time rain. The wet glass became a poor mirror, reflecting his features back at him darkly. He saw the gold earring, and the lean features of his tanned face were distinct, but his curly black hair vanished in the shadowy water that rolled down on the other side of the glass. Much of him seemed swallowed in shadows. He felt several days worth of stubble as he touched his chin. His mouth was sticky and there was a cruddy sensation on his teeth. His eyes felt raw and dry. He wanted to take a hot shower, a shower with lots of steam in a dark room. He cocked his head at an angle, craning to look up at the night sky. Somewhere above him were stars, but he couldn't see them. At first he thought it was his poor vantage point, then he observed the rain once more, and realized how foolish it was to look for starlight in a storm. As he shifted his weight he felt the numb tingling in his buttocks and a dull ache around his tailbone. He truly hated riding on the bus. He hated the smell of disinfectant back in the toilet, and the way heat from the engine rose up between his legs when he could no longer ignore the need to sit in there. He hated to be rocked back and forth and hear things sloshing below. And he tired of the people who rode with him. For most of the day he sat with a fat man whose scent suggested he was too wide to reach back and sufficiently wipe himself. Gene had ridden with his face buried against the slim, fresh air duct for 300 miles. The stinky man had gotten off and was replaced by an older, thinner fellow who tapped away at a laptop computer. He wasn't so bad. He watched unattended children that were bouncing around the aisles. They screamed and cried in such an unrestrained fashion that Gene envisioned their parents abandoning them on the bus and sighing with relief as the highway forever took them away. One boy, maybe seven or eight years old, fired a noisy plastic pistol at Gene. In wash-faded letters on his t-shirt were the words: Shit Happens. Mainly Gene hated the bus because he couldn't sleep. It was hard enough lately even when he was comfortable, but here it was impossible. He wanted a long sleep. He wanted oblivion. Gene looked at the magazine rolled in his lap. It contained tales of men kayaking down white water, camping in tropical rain forests, climbing sheer stone walls. It said nothing about men who just quit and moved on. "Well, that's that," said the fellow beside him. He was heavier than Gene, and probably twenty years older as well. Gene looked over at him as he began to collapse the computer. The man smiled and Gene noticed how his glasses sat at an angle on his head. "Hello," the man said, and extended his open hand. Gene took it and felt a squeeze. "Good grip," the man said, his eyes seemed to linger over the callouses on Gene's hands, "Construction?" he asked. "Some. Mainly I turn wrenches." His voice rasped and caught on the words. "How about a soda? Long rides dry you out." Without waiting for a reply the man began to dig in a bag at his feet. "Sorry, all I've got is diet." He pulled up a can and offered it. Gene accepted uncertainly, "Uh, sure. Thanks. What do I owe you?" The man made a waving gesture, "Ahh, don't worry." Gene opened the can and watched a thin mist spurt out. "Name's Walt. Walt Cobol, like the computer language. You?" "Gene Severin." Gene took a long drink from the can. It tasted wet and fresh. "I don't think I've ever seen one of those on the bus before," Gene said, pointing at the computer. "Yeah, and they don't last on long rides, either. But when was the last time you read about a bus falling out of the sky killing everybody on board?" "Don't like to fly?" Gene asked. "Nosir," Walt said, making the sentence one word. "And I do love the open road." Behind them, what Gene imagined as the largest radio on earth blared to life and the bus was filled with popping noises, thumping bass, and a sing-song reading of poetic lines. Gene made a face, "I hate rap music," he said to Walt. "Never listen to it. But I try not to reject something till I've spent some time with it. Sometimes if you're open, you can learn from the strangest places." Thank you for cramming your taste down my throat, would have been Penny's reaction to the music. And Gene pushed her voice outside his head. "Well, I know your name and that you don't like rap music. Where're you from?" Walt asked. "San Ramone, lower coast of California." "Where're you headed?" Gene made a smacking sound as he let the soda run past his lips. "To a town called Coop--in Nebraska." Walt nodded, "Family?" Gene shook his head, "Job. Friend of mine runs a shop, repairs machinery." "What do you do?" Walt asked. "I do it all. I can run 'bout any rig an' I can keep 'em running, too." Walt nodded his head in an exaggerated bobbing motion, "Work should be plentiful for a man with your qualifications. Why work so far from home?" Penny bubbled to mind for just a second, but Gene pushed her back inside. He shrugged, then spoke, "I just like to travel. I felt like it was time for a change." Time to get out, he heard inside himself. Run away. Gene made a sniffing noise, "Where're you headed?" he asked. Walt pushed his glasses up on his nose, "Des Moines. Going to see my grandson. Just turned six. Wanna see 'im?" Gene smiled and nodded, "Sure." The older man produced a wallet with a large plastic fanfold of photos. He pointed at various snapshots, identifying lots of people that Gene had never seen before. Walt indicated one plain woman as his daughter. She still lived with him and he wanted to get her married and out of the house. Gene noticed one set of pictures that were side-by-side. Each contained a woman. One looked like a professional effort with an attractive woman posing with unnatural illumination behind her head. Next to that was a picture of a woman in a hospital bed with a much younger Walt beside her. Gene felt compelled to ask about that one. "Is that you?" Gene asked. Walt's head bobbed in acknowledgement, "Yeah, that's me and Marilyn. Marilyn was my first wife. Mike's mother. It's Mike's family I'm going to see." "What happened?" Gene said. Then wincing, he added, "Hey, I'm sorry, it's none of my business." Walt shook his head, and waved his hand in dismissal, "No, don't worry. I don't mind." He inhaled and his nostrils whistled a little. "Cancer. She never had a chance. Hell, cure is what did this to her," he pointed at the picture containing the hospital bed, then back to the other. "Hard to believe they're the same person, isn't it?" Gene compared the two images. "That's a shame." He paused for a moment then added, "She was pretty." "Yeah, she had a good heart too. She taught me a hell of a lot," Walt stated. "Lovin' somebody who's sick--that's a hard walk." Gene shifted, suddenly needing to get more comfortable. The bus shuddered and slowed down, they rocked in their seats as the bus turned. The driver announced a dinner stop. "You feel like some supper with an ex-insurance salesman?" Walt asked. Gene smiled, "Long as it's ex," he replied. _________________________________________________________________ Gene and Walt walked quickly through the misting rain. The smell of diesel exhaust fumes curdled the air, and the loud motor prevented them from hearing the crunch of the wet gravel under their feet. Gene saw his own breath and noticed that Walt was colored red by the glow of a large neon beer sign. People got off the bus and shuffled in the mist. They walked toward an aluminum building skirted by a wooden porch. The building was divided into two sections. Loud music poured out of one side. Suspended over the door was the name D.T's in flickering bulbs that were supposed to give the illusion of motion. "D.T.'s?" said Gene. "Great name for a bar." Walt laughed, "Hell, it's probably the owner's initials." The bus passengers entered the other half of the structure, which had the name Little Bandit Cafe painted on the only picture window. Drawn beside the letters was a dwarf cowboy figure with enormous pistols. Inside, Gene noticed the big-screen T.V. in the corner. Client Eastwood's face was huge and the color of his skin was too red and full of lines. They sat down at the counter and perused the menu hanging in plastic letters on a white and blue Pepsi sign. Virtually everything was barbecued. "Looks like we're gonna have barbecue," Gene said. Walt gave his exaggerated bob in agreement. "Bus driver usually has a deal cut with the owner's of these places so he can get something on the side." They ordered two combination plates. Walt asked for the Hotter 'n Hell sauce, while Gene settled on the mild. "I never liked hot sauce until Marilyn got me to eat Indian food. Lord, those people have some hot grub! You ever have any?" Walt asked. Gene shook his head. "No. Hottest thing I ever had was when I was in the Navy. Ate at a place in Thailand. Had some little pepper that 'bout put me in the hospital. Funny thing was, it wasn't on my plate, it was in a buddy's food and he had me try it." Walt laughed. "Price for adventure. Maybe find something wonderful, maybe get burned. I lived a hell of lot with her--Marilyn I mean. Y'know I never would have tried Indian food if Marilyn hadn't loved it. I took her to some place fancy on a date, because I wanted to impress her." "Did it work?" "She married me." "Must have been good food." Walt laughed--an asthmatic kind of sound--and said, "Hell, that's funny! 'Musta been good food.' That's good!" A skinny boy behind the counter brought the drinks they had ordered. Walt took a drink from his coffee and asked, "Are you married?" Gene replied, "No." "Engaged? Seein' someone?" "You aren't going to fix me up with your daughter are you?" Walt laughed again, "No, I was just remembering when I had to go on the road to earn a living," he spoke into his coffee cup. "Hell, Marilyn was the reason I hit it big in insurance. I knew she wouldn't stay with a bum. Anyway, I wondered if you were in anything serious. Lotta women wouldn't let their man go away for long periods. Marilyn was an exception. She knew I had to travel when I was starting out. Yep, I found the exception." He drank some more coffee gave out a swallowing sound then continued, "but our time was short. Damn glad I knew her though. Damn glad. I owe that woman so much. Without her..." he didn't finish, and the expression seemed to drain from his face. "Sorry, sometimes you gotta smack me when I get goin'." Gene made a crooked smile and took another drink, "No, I'm on my own." Then he added, and his voice was sadder than he wanted to sound, "I was with a woman for a long time, but it didn't work." Walt released his all-purpose bobbing nod once more. "That's a pity, everybody needs someone. But things happen the way they're supposed to." It surprised Gene as he heard his own voice start to explain, "I can't imagine this is how it's supposed to be. She got sick. Some kind of disease in the muscles. It put her in a wheelchair. Tears her up with pain that bends her in knots. She'll sleep whole days away sometimes. She spends a lot of her time doing pain killers or trying new drugs." As he spoke, he felt like a third party, watching words spill out of his mouth. Walt shook his head, "It's not fair, I agree, but, you ever wonder why we think it should be?" He stared at the white coffee mug. "How long were you with her?" "Five years. The last three she got the disease and it just went down the toilet." The skinny boy brought two plates heaped with steaming red sauce and set them down. Walt took a bite from his and made a face like a dog rejecting something. "It's just got a lot of tabasco sauce in it. How's yours?" Gene absently sampled the backrib and shrugged. "How'd you meet her?" Walt asked. "Her name was Penny. She used to bring her car into a shop where I worked. She'd always ask for me. We ended up talking a lot. I asked her out and when she said 'yes'... From the first time we talked I wanted to know her better. She changed my life." Walt smiled, "Oh yeah, they do that, don't they? Marilyn turned me around, all right. Got inside me. That's what makes losin' them so hard. You give a piece of yourself and you lose that piece when they go." Gene continued, it felt so good to tell someone, "She was the most alive person I'd ever met. She was always on the go, never slowing down. And god she was tough. She grew up real hard; I mean she saw some stuff that just to hear would turn your hair white. Her whole life seemed like one bad break after another." Walt sawed at his food as he spoke, "You were married?" Gene shook his head and pushed some potato salad around his plate, "No, I asked her, but she didn't want any paperwork. Guess it was a good thing when I look at it now." Walt made a humming sound that indicated understanding. Gene turned the ice in his glass with the straw, "One night, we'd been together a few months, we sat out on the fire escape staring up at the stars, and I told her how I wanted to be someplace she could feel safe, no matter what. I meant it, I really did." "Yeah, when you're holdin' someone who makes you feel that way... Well, sometimes you buy things you can't pay for." He didn't elaborate, he just smiled, pulling wads of napkins from the counter dispenser and wiping the red sauce that had gathered on his cheeks and fingertips. "So, how long ago did you break-up with her?" Gene's voice was small, "Two weeks ago. She called me into the living room and kicked me out, said she felt like I couldn't cut it, and she turned me loose. She said she regretted ever being involved with me. And I didn't fight. I just said, 'okay,'" Walt said, "Because you wanted out." "Yeah," the word fell out of his mouth and landed with a thud between them. He took a drink from the glass of soda. "This is turning into the longest month of my life." Walt's eyes narrowed and he took a deep breath that resembled a sigh. He didn't nod, and his voice was hushed. "I know. You can't sleep; nothing seems like it'll ever be good again." Walt's head bobbed slowly now, "You woulda' stayed because you promised, but when she gave you an out you took it." Gene squirmed in his seat. "I mean...I told her I loved her, that I wanted to be her shelter, how I wanted to be her hero. We had a deal." His voice dropped off and he looked around the room, "I'm not the man I wanted to be. I'm no hero." Walt took off his glasses and folded them together and apart several times, before he spoke, "When Marilyn died I felt the same way." He stopped as the counterboy refilled his cup from a steaming glass pot. When the boy left, he said, "Y'see, I was glad she died," he said the words like he had to push them out of his mouth. He didn't look at Gene as he continued, "I don't mean just that her suffering was over, I mean I wanted out and her passing turned me loose." He straightened on the stool and spoke some more, in the voice of someone striving to be perfectly clear. "After all she had done for me, I still felt trapped by her sickness. That cancer took away someone I loved before they ever died." He shook his head as if to shake the memories away. "When you take away a person's right to hold down food, when goin' to the bathroom by yourself becomes a treat, it's no wonder they become somebody else. Like you said, her whole world changed, so she changed with it." Walt shifted somemore on the stool, "I felt real bad, and I was angry that I couldn't help her, but I was more angry that I was glad..." He closed his eyes and held them shut for an instant, then he said, "I don't understand it to this day. But I think maybe we all get to find out how dirty we can be." Gene looked at him and said, "I keep thinking that maybe she told me to get out because she loved me, and maybe she thought she was doing me a favor." Walt took a drink and made a face that said coffee and barbecue didn't mix, then he said, "Maybe. It's hard to hear, but maybe your time together was just up. Everything ends." The counterboy returned again, "Can I get you fellas anything el..." he halted and stared past them. "Oh shoot, this is it! My favorite part." He extended his hands palms out in a gesture commanding quiet and gazed at the big screen in the corner. Gene and Walt revolved on their stools to watch, and Clint Eastwood squinted back at them. A breeze blew across his too-red features as he spoke. "Man's gotta know his limitations," he told them in his lethal whisper. Gene turned around and picked up the little green slip with the dinner charge on it. "Geez! Look at this!" he said. Walt took in the figures scrawled on the ticket, "No wonder they call this place the Little Bandit," he replied. At 1:38 a.m. Gene took his bag from underneath the seat and got out. He stepped lightly over Walt who slept quite well on the bus. The night was dipped in shades of blue that reflected on the wet streets of Coop. Gene could see the plume of his foggy breath in the tungsten streetlight. For a moment he watched it curl away to nothing. He heard the bus's air brakes hiss in the distance as he walked toward the hotel. Even the brake sounds made him think of Penny. He remembered arguing with her about slowing down her then-busy life long enough for him to put brakes on her car. She had replied, "Bad brakes aren't going to stop me." He smiled as he thought of it. Her words were a part of him. He should not shut them out. If he shut out the pain, he lost the good things as well. He took a chance five years ago, and this pain was part of the risk, part of the real bargain he had struck with Penny. He checked into a small, steam-heated room with furniture from some black and white movie. He opened the window and listened to the utter lack of sound outside. He took a shower with lots of steam, and when he was finished he put on his robe and propped his feet on the window sill and stared outside. For a time he thought about how long the month seemed, and he wondered when it would end. Finally, his eyes began to close, and the last thing he saw between his bare feet was a thunderhead slowly receding, creeping away with violent flashes of lightning. The clouds pulled back, hinting of a canopy of stars vast and wide. For a while, the storm was gone. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ about the authors ** Cheri Amey ( cheri@innercite.com ) "I have work appearing in Kudzu and Gravity: A Journal of On-line Writing. I love the song in poetry, the rhythm, the precise pronunciation of each word. Some poets who wake me up: Francisco X. Alarcon, Lyn Lifshin, Mary Mackey, Robert Lax." ** Garnet Cowsill ( magician@iaw.on.ca ) Garnet Cowsill has written three novels and is currently working on his fourth book of poetry. A former journalist, he left a 25-year career in the newspaper industry to begin his own company as a communications consultant. He lives with his wife and two children in the Canadian shadows of the big, railed bridge, rusting at Buffalo, N. Y. When not working, reading, eating or sleeping, he writes. ** Tony Davino ( ragna.rok@mci2000.com ) "I've recently moved to Seattle from Colorado, turned 30, and gained my first driver's license. I graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder, where I studied creative writing with Lorna Dee Cervantes, Ed Dorn, and Marilyn Krysl. I've been married, divorced, and published several times (I've achieved double digits, of late)." ** M. A. Katt ( editors@morpo.com [will be forwarded to M. A. Katt] ) M. A. Katt has a mercurial temper, has been known to bite friends, and loves to sleep on the sofa. ** Janet L. Kuypers ( ccandd96@aol.com ) Since she got so fed up with her job as the art director for a publishing company that she wanted to wear postal blue and take out a few incompetents, Janet Kuypers, to relieve the stress: 1. vents her twenty-something angst musically with an acoustic band composed of her and two guys who like to get drunk a lot (the band's called "Mom's Favorite Vase"), 2. writes so much that she irritates editors enough to get her published over 2,050 times for writing or over 190 times for art work, 3. writes so much that in order to make her feel like a big shot gets five books published, "Hope Chest in the Attic," "The Window," "Close Cover Before Striking," "(woman.)," and "Contents Under Pressure," 4. gets tired of thinking about her own pathetic life, so edits the literary magazine "Children, Churches and Daddies" so she can read other people's depressing stories, or 5. all of the above. When doing all of that didn't work, Janet decided to quit her job and travel around the United States and Europe, writing travel journals and starting her first novel. Poetry Page - http://members.aol.com/jkuypers22/poetry/kuypers.htm Scars Publications Site - http://members.aol.com/scarspub/scars.html ** David Starkey ( dms1@noctrl.edu ) David Starkey teaches creative writing at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. More than 200 of his poems have appeared in print journals. His poetry on the web has appeared or is forthcoming in Conspire, Crania, Eclectica, Gravity, Nieve Roja Review, Panic Attack, PoetryNow, Recursive Angel, and Zuzu's Petals Literary Quarterly. Starkey's Book of States. Boson Books - http://www.cmonline.com/boson/starkey.html +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ in their own words ** Insurance by David Starkey "Insurance" is an early poem, written before I became a part of academia, when I was still struggling with questions of identity: Who is the true poet? What is a genuine poem? ** Travelogue by David Starkey "Travelogue" looks at a few childhood symptoms of what has become my lifelong obssession with travel. ** Paranoias Can Be So Boring by Garnet Cowsill I was exploring a piece sympathetic to Judas Iscariot, when I had a vivid dream one night in which my wife threw me a lavish dinner party. I don’t often remember dreams. I started to write it down — obviously Iscariot was more pervasive. ** I Am Not and Newspapers by Cheri Amey "The pieces are both based on work I've been doing from a similar era as a way of remembering where I've been. My sister and I have different memories of the same episodes, and it's interesting to share these with her." ** Condensation and untitled by Tony Davino "I've always believed in a concision of imagery, and Condensation is an attempt to achieve that sparse exactitude. Both poems use a very common language in an attempt to convey the 'real- world' nature of the experience upon which they're based. They're snapshots, really, and should be that accessible." ** Two Months in October by M. A. Katt "The story was born as I watched two friends struggle to hold together a relationship when one was clearly losing her physical health. As my friend's health faded she became someone else to some degree, and I truly believed my other friend needed to get out, but that feeling may have been my own fears surfacing more than an objective opinion." +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ SUBSCRIBE TO _THE MORPO REVIEW_ We offer two types of subscriptions to The Morpo Review: = ASCII subscription You will receive the full ASCII text of TMR delivered to your electronic mailbox when the issue is published. = Notification subscription You will receive only a small note in e-mail when the issue is published detailing where you can obtain a copy of the issue. 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Reach all the editors at once http://morpo.com/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Morpo Review Website +--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -+ SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR TMR To receive the current submission guidelines for _The Morpo Review_, send a message to guidelines@morpo.com and you will receive an automated response with the most current set of guidelines. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -+ Our next issue will be published December 1st, 1998. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NewHoo Web Directory -- built by an army of volunteer editors *** Now the 4th largest human-edited directory of the Web! *** http://www.NewHoo.com/ "HUMANS do it better" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Visit us online at http://morpo.com/