Montclair Write Group Sampler 2016 Page 6

  Leonius wrenched himself away from her grasp. With the prophetess teetering on her knees before the young general, he delivered a fatal stab through her throat.

  Author Bio:

  Brian Montalbano is a Latin teacher with an MA in History and a minor in Classics from Montclair State University. With this background, he intertwined a deep understanding of ancient authors and culture into his historical fiction novel. Brian has had two short stories published in literary magazines: one in No Return, the other in The Bracelet Charm.

  A Work in Progress

  By Keith Biesiada

  Joan was sitting with her needlework when she heard Jed coming down the staircase. He’d be leaving for the office at this time, probably with razor burn on his face. Jed always shaved as if his automobile was parked in a tow-away zone. No doubt he was also wearing his shabbiest attire, just like on any other day. After twenty years of marriage he was still a work in progress. Joan sighed, but maintained concentration on her knitting It would be tragic if she dropped a stitch.

  “Are you really going to go out like that?” she said. “You have nice suits in the closet. You look like you’re going bowling.”

  Joan wasn’t being critical, but knowing the man better than a ball of yarn, she held every expectation that he would take her encouragement the wrong way.

  Jed didn’t make a sound. From habit he stood with his hand on the doorknob and his face contorted into a species of scowl. He was capable of remaining thus for a very long time. Joan knew. That is what her husband always did.

  “I’m not being critical, you realize. I just don’t want you to go out looking like a bum.” She stitched and waited for a response. “Well aren’t you going to say anything?”

  Jed grunted. Then he spoke. “I’m going to work, not to church. I work in a warehouse where I drive a forklift and often get used motor oil on my clothes. After work I am going to a go-go bar to smile at some scantily-clad dancers. I am going to fold a bunch of dollar bills lengthwise and deposit them into the bra or panty of whichever of the girls happens to please me. I am going to drink beer. I am going to drink a lot of beer. Then I am going to get into a fight with one of the other customers. Then I am going to drive home drunk unless I drive into a tree or get pulled over by the police for driving under the influence. I will become belligerent with the officer who will have to subdue me with mace before handcuffing me and afterwards I will spend the night in jail where I will either sleep it off or get into a fight with a cellmate or perhaps both.” He paused to catch his breath.

  “Do you really think I need to wear a suit for all that?”

  Joan went from chain stitching to slip stitching. She said, “If you wear a nice suit to work your boss will eventually notice and eventually you’ll be promoted. If you wear a nice suit to the go-go bar these scantily-clad dancers will smile back at you. They may even forego their tip when it is offered by such a splendid-looking gentleman. If you wear a nice suit to the bar you may not get into a fight because the person with whom you’ve been arguing might think that because you are dressed so splendidly that you probably know karate and if you drive home drunk wearing a nice suit the officer will probably let you off with a warning because you will look so splendid that he might mistake you for somebody important, especially if you have a box of fresh donuts on the passenger seat to offer him some refreshment.”

  Jed released his grip on the doorknob and let his arm hang limp at his side. That is what he always did when Joan was encouraging him. She continued her knitting. He cleared his throat.

  “What if I run into a tree?” he said.

  “Then you’ll look splendid in your coffin wearing your nice suit.”

  Joan hummed and focused on the scarf in progress. After a few moments she heard Jed turn toward the staircase leading to their bedroom. She heard his footfalls as he ascended. After a few minutes she heard him return, just as always. She looked up.

  “Ahh! Now you look nice. Tuck in your collar, the back of your tie is showing.”

  Jed made the adjustment. Joan nodded her approval She smiled. When training one’s husband it was necessary to nod one’s approval and smile at good behavior. Positive reinforcement always worked best.

  “Have fun with your forklift, beer and illicit women,” she said.

  “Yes dear,” he said.

  Joan reapplied herself to her knitting. Jed opened the door and shut it with scarcely a sound.

  “And don’t forget the donuts,” she shouted through the closed door. It would be tragic if he forgot the donuts. Soon her scarf would be complete and it was going to be a splendid one.

  Joan never dropped a stitch.

  PRELUDE: A Selection from NOCTURNE,

  a novel in progress

  by Garlanda Washington

  Within every blink swirls the fate of a universe.

  Open:

  Moon and sun dance in turns

  around waves of air

  over continents of water

  broken by smudges of earth

  from an inferno below;

  a shifting, layered, spinning organism

  breathing instinct, thought,

  us,

  insisting to the never end on our own existence...

  Close:

  A league of cellular nations, or not,

  pulsates red across eyelids

  that sharpen external and announce internal

  through remaining four senses into brain

  that delivers its observations into mind

  that cries its conclusions into soul

  whose universe will soon step forth from its secret depth

  to erase the superficial, exposed…

  Open:

  Soon too swift a creature,

  the organism without continues its breath,

  yet sharpened now by the internal glass,

  puzzle pieces built by puzzle pieces

  weaving size and substance, energy and heart,

  that perceived and still uncaught by the glass,

  a universe of nested universes that breathe and collapse...

  in the space of a blink.

  Blinks upon blinks upon blinks upon blinks...

  Needlessly slipping past our notice, seen with crystal clarity beyond comprehension.

  But to catch one, to hold it... To discover the completion of understanding one's place and not understanding, navigating through the puzzles without fear of sinking, surrendering completely to the soul of another without drowning, following an instinct to a small town around a building presenting a store window to a woman who is you.

  You tempt observation: the loose, embroidered tunic blouse and ankle length skirt flow down slender curves, held down by a shoulder bag slung across your back and hair so translucently white it must be God's gift of silver, falling naturally past the length of your spine.

  The window sees a closer truth in your skin, smooth by youth, a deeper brown by the sun. And do you see the window? Such whole pleasantness in your gaze, yet somehow beyond penetration. It beckons without revealing. What are you thinking? Your mood could hold an eternity.

  Closeopen.

  You, still cocooned in cotton and freedom, yet not quite you: No longer young but younger, the years of your mind have been peeled back.

  While your elder looked through this window, your reflection within it has captured you as it had in the dorm room mirror; but there your gaze retaliated, bitterly tried to sear it into and erase it from a memory that by now usually took it for granted. Suddenly you're wearing clothes you would never dare to wear, draping over a thinness from your dreams. You're struck by an attractiveness that runs contrary to your only believed alternative to yourself. You are...lovely. You possess the beauty of acceptance, as if always there, perfectly comfortable with what the fates have delivered you and enhancing those things with the confidence that you don't need anything else. At any given moment, what you are is enough. This expression live
s on every part of you, not just your face. But it leaves there first, not only because of this unexpected contentment but because you've now taken in the hair, released as a long, mighty river, but completely polluted by the premature gray you prayed would one day flee your life, marking your conquest of it.

  Your rising disgust falters before the realization that your glass specter returns your glare from a window. Outside. Now it is what has replaced your little enclosed space that has you riveted. At least your image is remotely probable; the rest of it is so impossible that disconnection rushes in. Perhaps if you had your elder's sensitivity you would have noticed the elements reshuffling; mere seconds before you had been an element that blended, fused so well into the rest of the world that those closest to your presence were soothed. That one blink shattered it all, leaving in its wake an absence of something not consciously noticed to the point of a physical jolt.

  Without knowing why, bystanders turn towards you.

  They see a woman in a trance. Questions of concern come your way. A tentative touch—it jerks your face towards theirs, so few, yet for you an eternal ocean of storms. Now the odd shift in sounds drift in, and contact is complete. You feel thinner, the loose hair down your back, your skin tingling from the—spring air?

  What has happened now fully burrows into your mind.

  no

  Uncontrollable denial shakes your head, trembles your body. More people reaching out to you, no, no, no touch—

  Bodies talking to their hands? Monster vans? Sacks for clothes? Tone deaf music? A whole world just within the realm of strange, just outside the periphery of normalcy whizzing by, growing aware of your chaotic flight. Stop crashing into people, narrowly skirting traffic. Walk!

  So near control when your name looms up from behind and sears your shoulder. A male voice. More? You already feel everything wrong. Don't turn around. Walk. Disappear. You're good at that. Blend in. Lose him. Focus on the only familiar thing in the sky, its round and yellow warmth shining in your eyes.

  Your name is gaining. Chasing you— Why? What did you do? Force the voice away, but where the hell are you going? Desperation is clouding your judgment, sailing you again toward some oblivion.

  And that voice sticking to you like gum on your shoe. Alone, alone, leave me alone! you wail inside. Your clothing tangles about your limbs, your shoulder bag keeps slamming into your gut, and this hair won't stop whipping around your head like some demonic quicksilver nebula, blinding, blinding, blinding you.

  Wait—a hope through the strands: a black ironwork bridge. It has to be a mirage, it's too familiar. The voice is gone, perhaps imagined. Perhaps the hope is real. Slowing to a frantic trot, muffling hysterical sobs, you reach the underbelly, a fugitive craving its grand old shadows. Real. Breathe. A little. While your footsteps echo eerily in the cool dark, conjuring Rod Serling standing in that way of his somewhere amidst the black corners silently laughing at you.

  If I can just get a bit further, I can collect my damn mind, loops over and over in your skull. I'll be safe.

  You're nearly tackled from behind.

  A scream escapes. But not you, wrenching up from your knees in the vise of arms while your name penetrates your ear, a deep, endless loop wrestling your own mental one to victory:

  "Stop! It's me, Jenni, it's me! Stop! Listen to me! Listen to me! Jenni! Jenni!"

  The voice...is his? You squirm around to face it.

  "...V-Vincent...?"

  Tall, pale white skin, mousy blond hair, clear blue eyes. Vincent. And yet not quite. What was yesterday a dashingly boyish face, so full of promise and roadblocks, seems today tender concern and a grateful smile beneath closely cropped facial hair too long to be his occasional sloppy stubble.

  His bear hug relaxes somewhat. The face says in Vincent's deep Virginian twang: "That's right. It's Vincent. It's me, Vincent."

  To stay or to recoil—so many emotions entangled in this person, if it is him. This image is offering you safety...betraying a suppressed urge to calm you with—kisses? You have finally lost it.

  "Everything's going to be all right. I know, Jennifer, I know what's happening..."

  And you begin to feel a connecting given off by his now more comforting embrace. You sag into it, clinging to his chest, choosing, for now, to believe in the familiar. Closeopencloseopencloseopen...universes spill down your face as he strokes your new tentacles from it. You shut your eyes to the insanity and the embarrassment, but not before seeing one last odd image of Vincent's own welling eyes.

  It's going to be okay," he is whispering. "You're safe now. I won't let anyone hurt you. You're safe..."

  Author bio

  Garlanda Washington is a founding member of the Write Group, at whose Open Mics and other venues she has read from this work.

  Who’s Behind the Door?

  By Marcia Mickley

  In fourth grade I read a story “The Lady or the Tiger” about a barbaric king who forced prisoners to decide their own fate by choosing an arena door with rooms containing either a beautiful lady or a hungry tiger. In the story, crowds cheered, getting their entertainment from the spectacle and uncertainty of the prisoner’s choice.

  Later that month, stopping before I went inside our apartment, I thought about that story, worried about who waited. Forcing myself to go inside, I felt like I was living that tale. Would Mom act like the lady or the tiger, be soft-spoken and loving or would she be out-of-control and ranting? Butterflies flitted in my stomach as I opened the door.

  Relief! Mom is warm and loving. We talk about my day and about school. Ten minutes later, without warning, she turned into the fierce hungry tiger, yelling about how bad I am. Why did she switch? I never knew. Mom got vicious, pouncing on my words, saying, “You’re a bad daughter because…” I wondered if she, like the king in the story, was getting her entertainment watching me squirm.

  In the story the prisoner is all alone, that’s how I felt. My father and brothers stayed away from the kitchen and my mother’s attention. I thought they enjoyed the focus on me, not them.

  By the time I was 12 years old, I was uncertain how I could achieve harmony with her. Mom made rules and punishments and then changed them. When I asked if I could walk to Fordham Road she answered “Of course not.” I was confused. She let me walk there yesterday. She screamed about how irresponsible and inconsiderate I was. Then, she became the caring lady again, “Yes. Go! I know it’s important to you.”

  I hardly ever saw the lady during my teenage years. Mom usually acted like the hungry tiger, pacing around the apartment, ready to pounce if I tried to leave her. “You don’t appreciate all that I do for you. Why aren’t you saying home with your best friend? Me.” Saying anything would get me verbally attacked.

  I didn’t realize that I was learning to distrust. Whenever people were nice I expected them to become nasty. My life felt changeable and inconsistent, like shifting sand. I worked hard at becoming more instinctive and insightful, trying to guess other people’s thoughts and motivations from their words and body movements. Guessing wrong about people or situations caused me to mentally beat myself. I’d go home and try extra hard to forecast my mother’s mood, hoping for gentleness. I often guessed wrong. How could I be so naïve, expecting Mom to be kind to me?

  Living with uncertainty forced me to grow stronger. Learning to be intuitive, picking up unspoken prompts, helped in all aspects of my life; I became more aware, more able to read situations and people. Besides learning to be intuitive, I’ve had to work on trusting and believing that kindness doesn’t always change to cruelty and that loyalty exists.

  Even though the lady disappeared when I was a teenager, I still craved love and encouragement, something the tiger didn’t give. It’s been on-going, trying to become skilled at loving and encouraging myself.

  I’ve acknowledged my own hungry tiger, but learned rein it in. These days I continue to work hard to act like gracious
lady.

  Memoir

  (back to the Table of Contents)

  To Love Imperfectly

  By Cindy Pereira

  For many years I roamed the earth uncertain about whether I could love well enough, strong enough, and wisely enough to parent. You see, the parents I had met (my own and my parents’ parents) were so lost in their own opus that parenting seemed an art, and they seemed not to feel artistic enough to even try. I guess they just didn’t know how at the time.

  I never met anyone like my mother Irene. From the spray that turned her hair into a veritable bomb shelter, to the bright lipstick that mysteriously did not come off when she ate, to the way she covered the scar on her lip with her hand when she smiled or wore gypsy skirts to cover her ankles, and sunglasses (indoors and out) to hide her wrinkles, she was, let’s say, unique—and certainly self-conscious.

  Our needs were often at odds. I wanted someone to walk me to school, but she hid in the window and watched me walk down the street alone until I disappeared from sight. I wanted three meals a day; she gave me one, and told me to consider myself lucky. I wanted a dad but mine finally gave up on us and new fathers were not easy to come by. I wanted a sleepover but we had but one bed, plus Irene couldn’t be seen in curlers and a nightgown by anyone. I wanted to go to high school; she thought education was overrated, particularly if you had to purchase the textbooks.

  She had a twisted and relative sense of morality, and there was no keeping up with the latest moral standard. So I didn’t like her very much. She was awfully imperfect.

  But something happened growing up amidst the moral relativity that made me reclassify virtuous behavior. I stopped seeing things as black and white and I quickly realized we are all far from perfect. I now define virtuous behavior as being the best one can offer the world at a given time.

  When I did finally parent, I also learned quickly that hindsight is the nearest to clarity we can hope to achieve, and that our kids believe they have the foresight we invariably lack.