' R E V I E w HAYDEN'S FERRY REVIEW CoordinatingEditor Catherine Houser Fiction Editors Rob Hall Kathleen O'Connor Poetry Editors Lynne Yamaguchi Fletcher Kelly Jane Thomas Faculty Advisors Philip Gerard Alberto Rios HAYDEN'S FERRY REVIEW is published annually. Subscriptions are $4.00 per year. Subscriptions, contributions and correspondence should be sent to HAYDEN'S FERRY REVIEW, Student Publications, Matthews Center, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcomed. Manuscripts will be returned only if accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Copyright reverts to author upon publication. The views expressed herein are those of the authors, not the editors or sponsors. Copyright, 1986, HAYDEN'S FERRY REVIEW. Issue 1 ISSN 0887-5170 Spring, 1986 PREMIER ISSUE They said it couldn't be done. That a handful of writing students couldn't come out of nowhere and with little support and less money create the kind of quality publication you hold in your hands now. And here it is - the premier issue of HAYDEN'S FERRY REVJEW. In September of 1985, a dozen or so writers at Arizona State University were sitting around trying to decide how to go about selecting editors for the as·of-then unnamed literary magazine. Less than nine months later we're in the process of distributing the book and selecting new editors to continue on with the tradition of excellence we have established with this first issue. Extraordinary results don't happen without extraordinary efforts by those involved. Some gave money, some gave their time, some gave their advice and still others physical labor and the use of machinery to allow us to complete our project within our tight deadlines. Unfortunately, all we have to offer at this point is our sincere thanks for helping bring this book into existence. We would first like to thank Jan Kelly for sacrificing the time she could have spent on her novel to work with us on finding the funding for HFR. Also, a big thanks goes to Bruce ltule and SaJima Keegan from Student Publications who supplied the safety net just in case outside funding did fall through and offered us a home for future issues. Of course, these words wouldn't be here were it not for the many people who spent their weekend inputting the contents onto a computer disk for our typesetter. Racking up more than 100 hours at the computers were Jan, Kelly, Lynne, Judy Hopkins, and Terry Cutler. And for proofing copy we had help from Rob, Sheila Beatty and David Nelson. Support and counsel for this project also came from Suzy Krevitsky, Diane Calhoun, Helen Ray, our friends at ASASU Bridget Shelton and Wendy Schwartz, Donna from Impression Makers and Diane Peterson at CodeBusters. We would like to thank Quentin Skaggs for his patience and creativity in coming up with the graphic design for the cover. A big thanks goes to John Kleber for contributing the marvelous cover art, which turned out to be thematically perfect for this issue. With help and guidance from the ASU Development Office and Dennis Eloe, we were able to get a most of the typesetting, printing and paper donated to HFR. To our suppliers, Impression Makers and Reliable Reproductions, we would like to express our most sincere thanks and we hope that, in modest return for your generous contributions, we have produced a book of which we can all be proud. Now, on to the art Catherine Houser Coordinating Editor CONTENTS Fiction Cary Grossman S.P. Stressman Ron Hansen Deanie Fontenot Steve Beatty Cynthia Frederick 7 15 30 50 66 85 Rat Tail In Life as in a Strange Garment The Boogeyman The Last of the Hay Stealing Home Travelling to a Land We Cannot See Poetry Robyn Zappala Stuart C. Brown Beckian Goldberg Helga Kopperl Paul Morris Michael Gude Dean Stover Naomi Wallace Kristen Catalano William Olsen Candace Greenburg Arthur Stone Norman Dubie Brenda Hillman James Cervantes Leilani Jay Rita Dove Jeanine Savard Peggy Shumaker 11 12 13 14 20 21 23 24 26 28 41 44 45 46 48 58 59 61 63 65 79 80 82 83 84 95 97 98 The Hermaphrodite's Wedding Cake To a New Lover In Another Country Grinning Over Break{ast Featured Poet Paris Mr. Lucky's Keeping Warm in New York Salvation Birth The Thing You Love Most The Cargo Cults The Coastwatcher, 1943 Nightcrawlers A Personal Day of Judgment in Norway The Vow Bedtime Story for a Past Lover Eighteen Species of Hummingbirds Waiting for the Days of Grace The Death of Lorca The Train Four O'Clock Fugue Make the Turtle Whole Door Running NterStorm Classicism on the Water Newlywed Wounded Science Interview Jay Boyer 99 A Conversation with Joseph Heller 109 Contributors' Notes Cary Grossman Rat Tail "Shoot," Wanda cried as a stream of blood and intestines poured down the front of her pants. "Cut it too close," said Henry, the man working beside her at the table. "A half inch from the base is fine. They don't care." He watched as she pulled another rat from the box, raised her grimy cleaver and severed the tail. "That's it," he said approvingly. "New here?" "Started yesterday." "You'll get the hang of it." They worked in a huge room. Work tables were lined in rows that seemed to go on forever in any direction you looked. The low cement ceilings sported fans that churned the air ineffectually. It was hot and the air reeked of blood. At each of the wooden worktables two people stood pulling dead rats from tall cardboard boxes, chopping off the tails, and piling the rats on the edge of the table. Boys ran between the tables scooping the de-tailed rats into collection bins. The workers kept the tails; they were paid per tail. The dead rats were packed into the cardboard boxes nose down. They were stiff and their tails stood straight up. When picked up by the tail the rats looked like furry popsicles. "You know, this may sound silly, but I never did ask. Why do we have to cut off the tails?" Wanda said. "Skinning machine won't take them with tails." Henry spoke without looking up, without breaking his rhythm. Wanda marveled at his speed and accuracy. His arms were in constant motion, like parts of a machine. If he ran out of rats I wonder how long he would keep chopping? she thought. "What do they use them for," she said, "the rats?" "We don't ask," Henry replied. He chopped off ten more tails before continuing. "Mink coats, hot dogs ...everyone has his own theory. Better off not to think about it too much. It slows you down." Wanda paused to look around her. Everywhere she looked she saw people hunched intently over the tables, chopping away. Speed was everything. This has got to be about the lowest job there is, she thought. Lowest for men, anyway. Second lowest for women. I'm not /7/ 8/HFR going to let it get to me. I know I don't belong here. Just have to remember that I'm going to keep all my wits and all my fingers. She looked into the box of rats. Still thousands of them. I've been working for an hour and I've hardly made a dent I'll bet his box is half empty at the rate he's going. Ah, I should never have dropped out of grade school. I could have been a stewardess by now. Something. Spilled milk, spilled milk. As she worked she grew so accustomed to the whir of the fans and the steel rainfall of cleavers that she ceased to hear them. A sound broke her self-possessed quiet, however. It was a faint sound muffled and unsteady. Incredibly, in the midst of the workroom tumult, that small, almost inaudible sound disturbed her. She slowed to a stop as she tried to find its source. "Do you hear something?'' she asked Henry. "What?" "I keep hearing this little scratching sound." "Probably a rat in your box." "Live?" said Wanda. "They don't always kill them very well. Sometimes a rat will come to in the box. Happens to me all the time." Wanda listened carefully and found that, indeed, the scratching sound was coming from the bottom of the cardboard box at her ide. "What do we do about it?" Henry's pace slackened. "We get paid per tail." Wanda inhaled sharply. "You mean we're supposed to cut the tail off of a live rat?" "Everyone does. Not our fault it's alive. I'll do it for you if ou don't want to." "No," Wanda said slowly. "If everyone does it I certainly can." he peered into the box, gingerly pulled out a rat, and rapped it on the table a few times to make sure it was dead. As she worked she listened, almost against her will, to the scratching of the live rat hort scratches. Long scratches. It sounds almost like Morse code, she thought. Maybe a rat scratching would make some ords accidentally. I ought to listen just for fun. She tilted her head in the direction of the sound and tried interpreting the rat's scratches as dots and dashes. Dot dash, dot dot dash. Au. Dot dot dot, dot, dash dot dash dot. .. Secours. Au secours. Just nonsense, of course. Funny though, it does sound like code. All the pauses are right. No, just my imagination. Wanda returned to work but again and again found h rself slowing to listen to the rat. This is ridiculous, she thought. I'm losing money Cary Grossman/9 listening to that stupid scratching. I wish it would stop. She reached her foot over and gave the box a rap. The scratching stopped immediately, then broke out again at a frenzied pace. Wanda unconsciously deciphered the scratches. Allo, they said. ''Allo?'' said Wanda, speaking to herself out loud. ''That almost sounds like a word. Allo. Allo." ''Hello to you," said a boy as he scooped up a pile of rats from the table in front of her. Wanda was startled by the boy's unexpe-cted response. She quickly resumed grabbing rats and chopping as the boy moved away. In spite of herself she kept listening to the scratch-es and murrnuring the results. ''Veuillez me dire ou je suis,'' she said. Still just nonsense. Me is a word but I'm sure it was just accidental. It's like they say about a room full of monkeys. If you sat them all down at typewriters, in a thousand years they'd come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Maybe that rat will come up with something nice by accident. Let's see. ''Tout le monde est mort ici. '' No, nothing yet. I think I'm starting to enjoy this game, though. It makes the time pass so much more quickly than it did yesterday. ''Est-ce que vous me comprenez," the rat scratched. There is me again, Wanda thought. That's two me's already. Coincidence. Wouldn't it be strange though, if rats had a language aJItheir own and people just didn't understand it? Every creepy little thing on Earth may be talking its head off yet who would know? But th-en, why would anyone want to talk to a rat anyway? ''Parlez-vous francais." Funny how well spaced the scratches are. There are never long runs of them. They' re spaced out just like they were real words. She hadn't realized how much work she had accomplished. The box was nearly empty. When she reached to pull out another dead rat she saw the live one for the first time. It was sitting up on its haunches in a comer, gazing back at her. Wanda carefully picked up a rat from the other side of the box. The live rat watched her motionlessly then lifted a paw and started to scratch again on the stiff cardboard. ''Qu est·ce que vous faites." Wanda addressed the rat silently. J don't know what I'm doing listening to your dots and dashes as if they meant something. Why are you such a stupid rat? Why don't you climb out of there or chew a hole in the box or something? l don't have many more rats to go before I get to you. ''J' espere que vous ne me f era pas ma).'' That's the trurd me! Maybe there is some kind of a pattern to those scratches. There can't be, can there? What am I thinking? I said I'm not going to let this job get to me and I'm not She reached into the box and tried to grab the live rat but it ran from 10/HFR comer to comer, dodging her hands. She gave up and pulled out the last of the dead rats. "De grace. Je vous en prie." Wanda sighed, then plunged both hands into the box and plucked the live rat up by the tail. She swung it up to the table and chopped off its tail before it had a chance to move. The rat ran screaming over the side of the table. Wanda shook the blood from the pink tail and stuffed it into the bag of tails that hung from her belt RobynZappala The Hermaphrodite's WeddingCake Dressed, I am simple. What am I most conscious of when I walk? My shoulders pressed back like soldiers' or Young girls practicing their posture. At the wedding the bride has no shoes. The groom dances alone, encircled By tall men, clapping their hands fiercely. I drink both champagne and red wine, Standing near a wall of glass. The cake is tiered to the height of a young child. Each morning I choose to be myself or The other; unbalance Grows on me. Knowing that to be alone Is destined, this body too much more than itself. I want to be forgiven by the guests at the wedding. I want to be caressed by a woman dressed in furs Terribly in love with a man who's gone. At night, in bed, my hands wag between My legs. In the dark, I divorce myself. fl]} 12/HFR To A New Lover You have begun to notice the small changes in yourself, the difference I make. Each night you stay longer, noting the moon's blankness on your walk home alone. Three cloudy evenings in a row leave you guessing: when things return to normal, how will you recognize them? You choose your clothes because of how easily they can be removed. You have come up with a dozen ways of getting us into bed; but endlessly I thwart your plans ... This is what I want: that you should open your legs to me, not knowing what to expect. Robyn z.appala/13 In AnotherCountry A girl pretending to read a book watches her roommate undress: hooking her arms back like gull's wings, she unfastens her bra and holds it out for a moment in front of her, then lets it drop. The book the girl is not reading has colored maps of every country: green across the borders, hachures of brown; red for the highest peaks, the sunsets. The roommate struggles into a nightgown entirely too white. She is standing by a window and can see, against the wet outside, a reflection of Isabel studying geography. She promises "If it rains we will sleep late." In a month they will vacation to some foreign country: one afternoon, sitting beneath fruit trees she will remember this evening, when Isabel reached out to extinguish the light, how the curve of her arm tensed her inside. She will remember the long rain that night and compare it to this sun-drenched day, her insides solid again like rewound wires; will extend her arm along Isabel's leg, lifting the skirt lightly, feel the surprise of Isabel's pleasure, press her hand into familiar skin, a bullfighting poster's bright colors echoing until her fingers touch the damp cotton of Isabel's girlish underwear. She will rest, desire invading her like a country exploding red, desire for their empty hotel room, its one large bed, white walls and the smell of oranges. Stuart C. Brown GrinningOver Breakfast Between the place settings, he draws in the cold smears of grease. The waitresses flap about him like crows dusting themselves on a dirt road. He waits for the woman he slept with. With a thumbnail, he sketches a running figure and the lean shapes of deer in flight, a slash of lightning among them. Before she slept, she took a pen, and like a child, traced her hand on his back. Thinking her pleased, he watched her sleep, the blue hand a smudge of ink and sweat on the sheets, while outside he heard the splayed fingers of feeding lizards on the walls, or imagined he heard, until he too, curled as if grasped, fell away into himself, full with the small knowledge of her, of himself, of hands that sweat off in the night, that move across walls, that push egg into one's mouth, that wipe rags over grease on a countertop. Seeing her now, at the door, he imagines their lives like a happy man would, and grins with it. I 14/ S.P. Stressman In Life as in a Strange Garment Under moonlight, his skin is given a new texture. His clothing, the same he has worn for seventy-eight years, this delicate skin of the aged, is transformed by the moon. Now he becomes translucent, pale as porcelain. His exterior is smoothed; his body is made to seem new. No one alive today has ever called him by his first name. "Traynor's in his party hat again." I push aside a pile of fresh linen and see Nurse Voss standing in the doorway. Hands on her hips. Voss is a body language aficionado. Hands on hips equal exasperation. Attendants can't get around Voss with a joke, or a smile. She's too old to be flattered, and not old enough to be grateful for the gesture. Tonight, Voss struts around the wards like a devilish red hen, with her chest thrust out and her short, fat legs bul_gingin white stockings. Her anger stays in her red balloon body, and swells. Swollen, hot, she never pops. Voss counts out loud, until her steam is redistributed. She never shouts at the chinese. Voss doesn't know it, but we call the patients chinese. Of all minorities, they are the least popular among us regular folk. Oh, everyone approves of old people, in theory, but no one wants to find a withered representative sitting in his living room. Voss is worried, tonight. Coming on duty earlier than usual, she caught an attendant watching "Perry Mason" in the rec room, instead of turning the chinese in C ward. The thought of bedsores makes Voss shiver, as if she's never been exposed to them. Voss likes her wards clean, full of white sheets and cans of Lysol. Beds four feet apart. Matching robes for men, matching gowns for women. The smell of decency, wafting through the corridors, overpowering the acrid scent of sweat and urine. So, it makes Voss twitch a little in her starched whites, to look out her office window and see Traynor sitting on the patio with a green St. Patrick's day hat perched on his head. The buckle and sequined clovers sparkle under the patio light. The moonlight. The traffic. The way cars slow to five miles an hour in front of the Home. My arms are full of sheets and pajamas that smell of Clorox. From a [15] 16/HFR B ward window, I can see Traynor. His wheelcha!r is parked on the cold cement, facing the street His bedroom slippers are new. A cousin or niece mails him a new pair three times a year. Does she think he wears holes in them, dancing? Traynor's brown and tan pin-striped pajamas cling to his long, skinny legs. His hard knees jut out His hands are a loose bundle of knotted joints. Maybe they were beautiful, once. Maybenot. The usual grey flannel robe is wrapped around his body. He doesn't pretend to read. He doesn't ask for anything. He just watches. Traffic. He wears wire rimmed glasses. Even when he sleeps. So, I can't say whether or not he sees anything, when the white lights of traffic bounce off the glasses perched on his crooked nose. Nurse Voss can't afford to lose him to pneumonia, so she worries. She paces. She raps the door frame with her knuckles as she passes me. "Going for coffee. Try to get Traynor back inside. Please." Traynor isn't new to the Home. He knows the rules, and how far he can bend them. He has a look the chinese get, after the first three months. They stop looking frightened and betrayed when they figure out where their own beds are, and where they sit in the dining room. Unless they're C ward, and have to be fed. Once they know they are staying on, their eyes stop begging. They get a fixed, hard expression that doesn't tell you anything, doesn't even tell you when they pee on themselves. This hard, inscrutable face is normal for most chinese. But, with Traynor, I think it may be a face superimposed on his own. A yellowwhite, dry mask with spectacles. Somewhere, in there, I think he laughs. I think he laughs, when he wears his hat No one knows where Traynor got his party bonnet. It appeared on his head after dinner, one night last spring. The same night his traffic gazing began. Nurse Voss suspected it came from a garbage can. She wanted to confiscate it, as a health hazard. But Head Nurse, the big super here, was adamant. She believed anything patients became attached to, an~in~ they cared for, could help ease their gradual decline. But it might carry infectious germs," Nurse Voss said, breathing in sh~rt gasps, her face hot pink and shiny . ..Then spray it with Lysol, and give it back to him, Nurse." VYes.Fine. I'll see that it is as dean as possible." oss hopes to be Head Nurse someday, so she can change all the rules a~d run the Home the way she wants. So, she agrees with everything Head Nurse says. S.P.Stressman/17 Next night, Traynor was back on the patio, wearing his hat, ki . . d . th ree ng of Lyso1. H1s mm m e stars. His body parked and forgott be Th en, . wr~pped . m a grey ro .• e moonlight washed his glasses milky white. Lights burned white on the street. The air was full of pollen and humming insects. This was exactly two weeks after the Big Break. Every month, two or three chinese try to escape. We take it for granted. When a patient takes an especially long walk down the green slope to the oleanders that line 64th Way, Head Nurse sends an attendant out in a white van. There are no tall fences here. The average chinese can only walk about half a mile in an hour. We've never lost one. On a Thursday afternoon, while aides collected soiled linen from the wards, Trudi Dexter, a new aide, was left in charge of B ward patients in the rec room.Trudi was breaking Home rules by making a personal phone call. Staff is limited to emergency calls. Trudi's boyfriend, a forty-year-old biker nicknamed Hard Ride,was threatening to leave Trudi for a free-spirited potter living in Tucson. Trudi called this an emergency. She left the rec room in tears, without notifying anyone. By the time Head Nurse discovered that Trudi wasn't at her post, the rec room was almost empty. The only chinese left were four women, wearing matching red and yellow scarves, playing bridge. All afternoon and evening, vans and station wagons rounded the same corners again and again; they cruised alleys and backstreets. Attendants crawled through hedges, peeked over back fences, on overtime pay. It would have been easier, if the chinese had travelled in groups. But they travelled alone. They walked in all directions. From a neighbor's house, it must have looked like a migration, or a pilgrimage to a holy land or sacred oracle. Aged, slow and almost graceful in their persistence, grey-white figures could still be seen after twilight. Moving toward unseen objects of desire. Like sleepwalkers. Old age spilled into backyards, upsetting barbecues and frightening children from their swing sets. Silent or murmuring women, with wisps of hair clinging to their cheeks and brows, tripped over lawn sprinklers and fell into the soft dirt of flower beds. One man was arrested while looking through a kitchen window at a f amity eating dinner. It was well after dark, when all the chinese had been accounted for. All except Traynor. When we found Traynor, he was at the bottom of Coldray Circle. He had wheeled himself the first two blocks, then coasted down the steady decline of 64th Way. He had landed in Coldray Circle, a small 18/HFR cul-de-sac of white houses and palm trees. People were still peeking out from behind curtains and half-opened doors, when we arrived. It must have been odd, seeing Traynor, in his pin-striped pajamas, rolling down 64th, landing with a thud against a green garbage dumpster. A miracle. He hadn't fallen out of his chair. He glasses hung askew, from one ear. He sat before the dumpster, dazed and staring. But, his lips ...They curled into a thin, white wisp of skin. You could call it a smile. Before we pulled away, a large woman ran out of the house directly in front of the dumpster. Rolls of flesh rippled and jumped like jello under her sleeveless shirt and stretchy shorts. "I'm so glad you finally came. I told my husband I knew he was from Oasis Sanctuary when I looked out and saw his pajamas; I knew he wasn't from a family here. So I wanted to call you right up, but Ralph said wait and see. Well, I know from experience you can't leave old people just sitting out in the air, so I called just to be sure, and talked to the nurse in charge up there, and sure enough, that's where he was from. So I told Ralph, and we waited for you guys to show up. Which you did, finally. He must have been there for a couple of hours, at least You ought to take better care of them, even if they aren't going to live much longer. I hate to think of my mother being treated that way, where she is." "We had a few other problems, this evening, ma' am. We had to take care of a little accident." "Well, God." She stepped back and put her hands on her hips, then looked us up and down as we tightened the safety belt on Traynor in the van. "I guess you have priorities. But, what's more important than a human life? You tell me that." And she turned her back to us, ran back to her house, went in and slammed the door. I watched Traynor. I felt a new fascination with this smile of his. He had the look of a pilgrim who has found the holy land. But there was nothing at the bottom of Coldray Circle. He didn't seem to notice that his glasses were crooked. I straightened them for him. His face was still that of a silent dreamer. I never saw him smile again. But, two weeks later the green St Patrick's Day hat appeared on his head, and he has worn it for tr~ffic • . . T , expression· gazing ever smce. Under the yellow moonhght; raynor s less face. Chinese. Nurs_eVoss is back from her break, sashaying down t_heh~II~ Expecting a subdued Traynor, tucked into his bed. Seeing his empty, she jerks a thumb in the direction of the patio and walks on, S.P. Slressman/19 anxious to get the patients settled down for the night Personally, I don't see any harm in Traynor's vigil. Traffic doesn't stop, cars don't collide, just because he watches, with the same face he wears when he sleeps. I've watched him, sleeping. I know it's only a borrowed face. A chinese face. Tonight, when he's tucked in, will he dream of rolling down a green slope, through the moonlight and the stars, to a white cul-de-sac? In his dream, maybe the van doesn't come to carry him back to the Home. I'd like to know the end of that dream. What happens next? Where in hell would he go? I drop another stack of clean pajamas on an empty bed and go outside to the patio, to collect Traynor. . FEATUREDPOET: BeckianGoldberg Among the poetry manuscripts we read for this issue, the work of one poet in particular excited us so much we decided to feature her. Becle Beatty/69 as he worked his way through the various weight machines. Each working another muscle, stressing the knee in another direction. He was using light weights, three sets of a hundred repetitions. I counted silently with him, watching the sweat pour off his powerful black body as his muscles strained with effort. He began with perfect farm. After fifty or so, he started to breathe heavier, and the movement of the arm of the machine became sloppier, the smooth rhythm of his earlier efforts lost. Around seventy-five, his breathing became grunts, at times accompanied by obscenities, and the movement broke down to a jerk, all rhythm lost. Still he kept on until he completed the set and then he collapsed in a pool of sweat, relaxing briefly before he reached up, pulled out the pin, moved it up a notch, and started the next set. March 15 I remember I'd thought there must have been some mistake when I'd first gotten the call. I made her repeat my name three times, certain she had the wrong person. But she didn't. Laura and Sean were in the emergency ward. An automobile accident, she said. The nurse took me to Laura first. She was in a room on the second floor. They'd given her some Demerol and she was knocked out. According to the nurse, she had only a few minor cuts and bruises. Then we went to the fifth floor: intensive care. But it wasn't Sean I saw there. It was some other boy, too white and fragile to be Sean, whom I saw there hooked up to a bunch of tubes. It was some other boy who lay there in that false sleep that didn't refresh, didn't rejuvenate. Still, I never thought it would happen. If you make it to the hospital in time, make it through the surgery, it isn't supposed to happen. But I should have seen it coming. The signs were all there. I mean, he was definitely on third. And it wasn't the first time. I'd seen him dance off bag and feint toward the plate at least twice in the past couple of days. But the brakes always came on and he'd head back to the bag after the pitch. And so I wasn't too surprised when out of the comer of my eye I saw him start toward the plate again. Only this time he didn't stop. This time it was the real thing. He was going all out. And I wasn't ready. I just watched dumbfounded. The doctors and nurses reacted quickly. They'd practiced this play a thousand times. But even perfect execution can't stop the inevitable. March16 ''At thirty-seven years of age, the percentages conspire against the comeback of Scott Mattison," read the lead sentence in Dicky's 70/HFR column this morning. I didn't read any further. I didn't want to know what percentageswere against me. There'd been too many unfavorable statistics in my life in the last ten months. Sixtypercent of those who enter a coma never regain consciousness. In fami lies wherethe only child dies, fifty-sevenpercent of the parents divorce. Four years ago, it had all seemed so simple. The world was a baseball I could hold in my hand. A fastball I could throw ninety-five miles per hour. A curve I could break over the outside comer of the plate on a full count Statistics didn't matter then. They were like the laws of gravityin space:I was beyond their jurisdiction. ' Chicago Seattle 100 020 130 010 001 - 4 OOx-5 3 3 1 R 4 1 0 ER BB SO 4 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 2 IP 4 H 3 R 1 ER BB SO 1 0 3 3 2 5 1 2 1 1 1 Chicago MattisonL (0-1) Trout Sanderson IP 1 1/3 32/3 Seattle LangstonW (2-0) Barajas Claudill H 6 2 0 3 2 March 17 ''They scratched Stratton again," were the first words I heardas I steppedinto the crowded press box. Not wanting to be drawnintothis particulardiscussion,I stood quietly in the back hoping no onewould notice me. ''I hear he tripped on a sprinkler head while running in the outfield this morning and re-injuredhis knee.'' ''That's not what I heard. I heard they botched the surgeryandthe knee isn't responding." ::word is they're t,ying to trade him." ,,No one's going to buy damaged goods.'' th You never know. There's a lot of teams that could use a heal Y Stratton.'' . ''According to Dr. Moczynski,you won't be able to tell for another SIX months how successful the surgery was. The knee could be as good as ever." ''The knee's gone," Dicky said. ''He'll never be the same." SteueBeatty/7 J "You don't know that" "Statistics show-" Unobserved, I slipped back outside. March 19 "Ever since I was a junior in high school people have told me 1 reminded them of you," Reardon said as we stretched together out in the outfield. It was the first time we'd been alone and had a chance to talk "Oh," I replied, not knowing what to say. "And I hated it" I stopped stretching and turned to look at him. We were doing pretzel stretches for the lower and upper torso and his back was to me. "l didn't want to be like anybody else," he said while continuing to stretch, unaware that I'd stopped. "I wanted to make my own name. So I started to watch you whenever I could. I analyzed your pitching style, memorized your delivery: the height of your leg kick, the length of your stride, the way your foot dragged across the mound on your follow-through. Everything. Even stupid little things like the way you touch your cap with only two fingers. And then l made sure I did it slightly different" l smiled. "But it didn't work I changed everything and they still said I was another Mattison. And then, to top it off, I was drafted by the Cubs. I was so mad I slammed down the phone and swore for fifteen minutes, convinced I'd been cursed to follow you forever. The day l signed my contract, I swore to myself I'd make people forget all about Scott Mattison." . I remained silent, wondering where he was going with this. He was still stretching, looking in the other direction. "And now, after all these years of resenting you, I finally realizedhow much you've helped me." "Oh?" "Your motion. Your mechanics. They're still the basis of my delivery. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here today. I just wanted to let you know, to thank you, I guess. And to apologize for the terrible things I've thought about you." I laughed and he turned around. "Shit, I may even call home and have them pull some of the pins out of the voodoo doll," he added with a grin. We both laughed and headed toward the dugout March22 Max and I went to The Fire House for dinner. We've been eating 72/HFR there for seventeen years, since we were rookies back in '68. Hardly any of the ball players go there anymore. But the steaks are still good, the drinks honest, and there's something to say for tradition. After dinner, we retired to a comer booth in the bar. "So you decided to go back home to the Cubs?' Max said. "Old loyalties die hard," I responded. "It isn't the same as when you and I played there." "So I hear." "It's all bottom line now. They don't care about tradition or loyalty. Hell, they fired Ernie and now they want to put in lights." "It's still home. They just win more now. You ever think of trying something other than baseball?" I asked, lifting my glass to signal the cocktail waitress for another round. "Don't know anything else," Max replied. "All I've ever done is play ball. And besides, Julie and I are used to the life. We like our winters off. How about you? You think of what you're gonna do if-" He stopped, embarrassed at bringing up the forbidden subject. "If I don't make it," I said, completing the sentence. "Yeah, I've thought about it" The cocktail waitress arrived with our drinks. "I called Laura last night" "And." I finished off my old Scotch and set it aside. "She never answered.I tried all night" "Maybe the phone wasn't working or maybe she had to go out of town on business," Max suggested, popping his fingers. Like all catchers, Max's hands weren't pretty. Gnarled fingers pointed in unnatural directions, the result of too many foul tips, too many balls in the dirt, too many of the million and one things that go wrong for a catcher. "I don't think so. I think she was there and knew it was me calling." "That's crazy." I picked up the fresh Scotch and took a long drink, hoping to dissolve the lump forming in my throat It didn't work. "I don't think she wants to talk to me. Before I left, she said she couldn't look at me anymore. Maybe now she can't talk to me either." I drained the Scotch before setting down the glass. "What do you mean she said she couldn't look at you anymore?" "It's my eyes. She says she can't look at me because of my eyes. Saysthey blame her for Sean's death. Judge and jury, she says." ::she needs help," Max said softly. I looked at them in the mirror that night Studied them for twenty minutes," I said. I looked to my Scotch, but it was empty. Steve Beatty/73 "It's not your fault," Max said, putting his hand on my shoulder and signaling for another round. \l e were silent until the cocktail waitress delivered our drinks. 1took a long sip of Scotch, feeling the burn as it went down. "I don't blame her for Sean's death. It was the other guy's fault. He ran the stop sign. Our lawyer wanted to sue, but I said no. It wouldn't bring back Seanand 1didn't think it would be good for Laura to relive it again." I reached for my Scotch, stared at it for a moment, and then slowly rotated my finger along the top of the glass as I continued, "I don't even blame the other guy anymore. I mean it wasn't like he was a drunk driver or something. He just missed the stop sign. Made a mental mistake." I stopped. "Now I don't know. Maybe I should have sued. Maybeit would've proven to Laura that I don't blame her." "It's not your fault," Max said again. "l don't know. I think part of the reason she feels so guilty is because she wasn't hurt more. I know it's terrible, but sometimes I wish she'd broken her leg or something." March23 "It was a last minute thing. Jeff heard about the seminar that afternoon and so we had to rush to get everything done in order to make it I just didn't have to time to call," Laura explained. "What about afterwards?" "We went over to the Hilton for a drink with the buyers from Maxwell's and ended up closing the bar. I was feeling pretty woozy so I just took a room." "What about your partner?" "Jeff wasn't in any condition to drive either. I convinced him he'd better stay over, too." "Oh." "I heard on the radio that Reardon lost today," she said. "Yeah." She waited for me to say more, but I didn't "Areyou pitching tomorrow?" she asked, not giving up. "Supposed to." "Well, I guess I better get back to work. Good luck tomorrow." I said nothing. "Areyou still there?" she asked. I hung up without replying. March 24 "Smackr' There's something soothing about the smack of a baseballinto a catcher's mitt At least, there is for me. It's a sound I've 74/HFR grown up with. A sound of promise. A sound of success. Five minutes of warm-up left so I'm letting it out, working up a sweat. Fastball, fastball. "Smack" "Smack" Curve. "Tooh." Fastball. "Smack" Slider. "Pfft." Change-up. "Plop," the mitt swallowing the sound. Fastball, fastball, fastball. "Smack" "Smack" "Smack" Some days your warm-up tells it all. You can feel the heat on your fastball, the sharp snap on your curve. Hear the wicked hiss of your slider and the mocking laughter of your change-up. The catcher doesn't have to move his mitt. You're in that magical rhythm. And the batters don't have a chance. They just don't know it yet Milwaukee Chicago 000 001 002-3 001 200 03x-6 H R ER BB so 3 2/3 1/3 6 5 0 3 3 0 2 3 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 Chicago IP H R ER BB so Mattison W (1-1) Eckersley Smith 5 31/3 2/3 2 6 0 0 3 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 6 3 1 Milwaukee Haas L (2-1) Cocanower Ladd IP 4 March 26 "Bad breaks. They say they even out The ball takes a bad bounce against you, it'll take a bad bounce against the other guy sometime and even out. But it doesn't work that way. Sure it may even out statistically over a large group of people. But it doesn't even out for the individual. At least, that's what Dicky says." "Dickyf' Max exclaimed. "You've been listening to Dicky?" "I had breakfast with him this morning." "You're kidding?" "N o." "Why? So he could write another article saying you're washed up?'' "I figured he'd know whether it was true or not." "I wouldn't believe anything Dicky said." "His book proves it." "How.?" "Take a look at Honeycutt and Sutcliffe last year. Both pitched well and had about the same ERA. But the Dodgers didn't score any runs Steve for Honeycutt, so he barely breaks .500 and ends up 1o and 9. Meanwhile, Sutcliffe has more runs scored for him than any pitcher in the league. He goes 16 and 1 after coming over to the National League, wins the Cy Young Award and signs a multi•mi.llion doUar contract. Honeycutt doesn't win anything and is lucky if he doesn't 1 take a pay cut And that IJnever even out for Honeycutt.~' ''It happens," M.axallowed~with a shrug. ''Exactly. And that proves it isn't true. AJJthat sbrrf about things evening out is a lie." /v'\axdid.n't reply right away. 'l'ou're not talking about baseball,are you?' he said, at last I looked away. ''We tell ourselves it evens out Otherwise, you drive yourself crazy," /v'\axsaid. I was silent ''You can't bring him back There's no way it can even out'' ''I know," I said ''I know. But I shouldn't have to lose Laura, too." ''You've got to give her time. It takes some people a little longer to come back You just have to hang in there." ''You can only hang on for so long.'' March27 Cleveland Chicago Cleveland Blyleven Comer Waddell L (1-2) Chicago Reardon Brusstar W ( 1·0) Frazier 010 102 001 - 5 000 010 32x - 6 R ER BB SO 1 1 4 1 1 2 1 H R 6 5 -2 2/3 2 4 1 ER BB SO 3 4 5 1/3 0 IP 6 1 1/3 2/3 H 4 3 IP 0 0 2 0 5 0 1 1 1 2 0 0 1 March28 ''Did you see Reardon in the hotel bar last night?'' /v'\axasked. ''No," I replied. ''Looked like he'd lost his best friend.'' ''He had a tough game.'' ''One of the writers was drunk and was riding him.'' 76/HFR "Who?" "I didn't know him." "Oh." "B t nyway he was riding Reardon pretty good and Reardon, he ?" ua , was taking it all right. But his wife, what's her name. "Caro.I" "Yeah Carol she was sitting to the left of Reardon, out of the writer's view, and she ;as boiling. I thought for a minute she was going to pull a Laura." I smiled. "Really?" "She didn't have a pitcher nearby, but if she had .... " We both laughed, remembering back seventeen years when Laura had thrown a pitcher of margaritas in the face of a fan who was riding me. We've laughed about it ever since. April 1 It was in the papers this morning like a bad April Fools' joke. SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - The Chicago Cubs today released veteran outfielder Willie Stratton. Stratton, 30, who suffered tom ligaments in his knee late last season when he crashed into the center field wall, said his knee is stronger than ever and he hopes to catch on with another club. A Cub spokesman said Stratton just didn't fit into their plans this year, but that they wished him the best .... April 3 The phone woke me from my nap. "Hello?" "Surprise, it's me," Laura replied. "What's up?" "Nothing. Just thought I'd call and see how you were doing." "Oh." "The paper and all the sportscasters are saying tomorrow's game wil.',decide whether they keep you or Reardon," Laura said. For once they might be right" 1 th .. ~w em interviewing Reardon and his wife on lV," she said. 1 1 t - JUS wanted you to know that I'll be watching. And rooting for you." 11 !.swallo:ed, surprised at the emotion I felt. "It's good to know." I' • " Well I ve got to be g • ' . omg. m a1ready late for a dinner meeting. t~ ask tfJeff was going along. "I'm glad you called," I said. !,wSoanted am. 1 Steve Beatty/77 April 4 Chicago San Francisco 000 010 000-1 000 000 000-0 Chicago IP Reardon W (2-1) Mattison 5 San Francisco Laskey L (2-2) Minton 4 IP 7 2 H 3 1 R ER BB so 0 0 0 0 3 0 6 4 H 5 0 R ER BB so 1 0 1 0 2 0 4 2 "You looked awful good out there today," Max said, as we sat down at our usual booth. "So did Reardon," I replied. "Yeah, but he's still a kid. You don't keep a kid to be the fifth starter and long reliever. You send him down to Triple A to pitch everyfourth day and bring him back up in May or June." "I hope you're right." "They say anything to you after the game?" "No. But Whitey called." "You're kidding?" Max said, genuinely startled. "No. Said they'd made a mistake in releasing me. Said he'd be interested in signing me if the Cubs don't. Like to see me get number 300 in Busch Stadium." "I don't believe it," Max said. "A general manager actually admitting he screwed up." I smiled. "Maybe things are finally turning around." April 5 "I made it. Jimmie called me into his office this morning to tell me the news." "Congratulations, honey," Laura replied, and I could feel the smile in her voice. "I wish you were here," I said, it slipping out before I'd thought about it. "I'm sorry-" "I didn't mean it that way," I interrupted. "I just wish we could celebrate tonight. But I guess it can wait till Sunday." "You'll be coming home Sunday?" "Yeah, sometime in the afternoon. I'm not sure when, so I'll catch 78/HFR a cab." "Okay," she replied. "How did Reardon take it?" she asked curiously. "He was clearing out his locker when I got back from Jimmie's office. He saw me come in and actually walked over to congratulate me." "Sounds like a nice boy." "He is. I told him not to get down, that if he just hangs in there he'll be back up before the summer's over. April 7 I got home early in the afternoon. The door was locked and Laura didn't answer when I called out her name. I figured she must be upstairs in the bathroom. But she wasn't I found the note on the refrigerator. She said she needed some time alone to straighten things out. Said she was proud of me and would be counting down the victories to 300. Norman Dubie The Train Accident could be a god to little boys. The way they hurt their necks To look through glass down to the twisted Wreckage in the gorge. The conductor Telling the ladies from Jamaica We are one stop from the border. The older Of the two is shocked by a sudden pasture Beside the lake, ice houses Left there for the summer - she says, ..Oh, Chloe, Lookat the shanties; to think there is Such poverty in Maine." She begins To finger the pearls sewn into the shoulder Of her dress; the diamond she's wearing Has the fire of fat in it And then A tunnel, and then more birch~ with the lake again. You smile at me and look across To the girl in black stockings who is asleep, Her lips Moving,her skirt rising with the jumping train. You straighten your blouse. Sharing A thermos of coffee, we have said twice Thatwe'll be late for the station. Beyond the window The day-liliesare a smudged crayon. Who is drowning in the lake? Whose father Is falling on the stairs? Which of us Racingnorth will be truly late?We are All annoyed, stepping out into the rain. 'Thecity that we raced for, racing for its own sake. The girt in black stockings is waking on the corner. She has ruined the hard parallelism of the rain. Shesaid her brother died in the jungle last week. We said, with intonation, what a shame. [79/ BrendaHillman Four O'Clock Fugue Help me find the hidden picture, says Louisa. Brain-tired, halfway through the journey, I advise her Go for the snake beneath the load of hay. The dentist's office, a stagnant pond, has froglike chairs that squat and stare; the other mom has focused on her patent leather shoes, the lamp mirrored there . . . Each cavity you get is one too many, says the solitary poster at the side while a disembodied toothbrush gets the comers of a tooth, and the tube coats it with fluoride ... I've got to make sense of this somehow not Thinking-I, the Modular I that drives through town and has no use for poetry, doing the errands with a roughened edge despite the fugue on Telegraph, fire failing from the bridge, left onto Ashby . . . Louisa starts to laugh, the scrawny aide has called her in; every six months the same technique, don't brush sideways, either up or down. I choose among the things to read: Walter Cronkite on one magazine, a slick tome on avoiding mental illness: Chapter Titles: When to Use Your Brain, Inability to Relax, Persistent Stress so much is hidden and is still close by! The child's little body tilted back in the banana chair ... her picture lies open where she worked: Rumpelstiltskin {BO] Brenda Hillman/BJ and the girl . . . the receptionist hides too, behind the room divider, behind the reminder call she's making, her flat voice peaked with voo-doo. The nouns surround the spinning wh~ gold swirling in the shack of magic life; the girl is tired of this. She wants the dwarf to take it back so she can find the whistle and the fish. JamesCervantes Make the TurtleWhole "There is the sense of neurotic coherence" - Frank O'Hara, "Ode on Causality" When he's sick, she gets sick, but before that, neighbors heard his voice, like the hammers of a dead piano, beating down breath on her, and before that, acacia blossoms floated down the aquaduct, with pink toes dappling them, and hands with cigarettes writing them down, imagining Balzac or Zola fishing with their pinkies, as they did prior to this, two hard at the game, crayons of the past melting in the same bed, where the brass turtle on a square of marble bore its flute and incense and rattled to the edge, useless evermore, though the same had happened in the beginning, when in passion he'd brought down his heel and bled on carpet, turtle-back, and her white calves, then licked them clean and made the turtle whole. [82} Leilani J oor • unn1n It is never when I am fully awake. It is never when she opens the door. The door when she opened it, when the door flew back and the screen sprung open, its dark interior. And the screen door opened smacking the wall of the porch. Then we knew she was ready. Only then when the broad door opened to the full afternoon, hanging like skin on the wound of a dark interior. The dew had gone from the tall grass. But her face when she was running • and the trees billowing in the distant field. We knew she would be ready. The porch from the grass was a wound in the broad day opening, never when she was running away. Her face and hair passed streaming fields. And the screen smacked the wall and the broad door running, fully awake. {83} Rita Dove After Storm Already the desert sky had packed its scarves and gone over the hard blue hills when I awoke, throat raw from the tail end of a dream through which your cough and the smoke of a cigarette sailed. I followed the deep light of the hallway out to where the patjo roof gaped, bamboo shades mocking the palm tree in splintery arpeggios. You stood flicking ash onto the trampled grass. I could smell the rain leaving, the sage enthralled in a bitter virtue for hours. /84} ....... thia Frederick • rave 1n to a annot ee Eripuit coelo fulmen max sceptra tyrannis -Turgot Every evening in summer they'd sit on the veranda in front of the office and read, or watch the last hour of light play across the plains. Tonight, there was a breeze, which quieted the locusts and swept the fine desert dust into the air, reddening the sky as the sun rolled toward the horizon. ''Storrn," Edward said, and he rose from his usual place on the bench and walked across the gravel to the truck to ·roll up the windows. Carolina looked up from her book Immense grey clouds were building in the east, and in the northeast a crimson curtain of virga hung over the mesas. She stood and moved to the steps to watch the vast sky dance over the landscape. The cottonwoods across the highway leaned in crooked old age near the canal and they gave up silky bolls of white strand and seed which waltzed in twos and threes through the September dusk. In the foreground, the neon vacancy sign blazed blue. A dog barked. Days would go by when there would not be a single guest The new four-lane provided a more convenient route and countless two-story motels for truckers and salesmen and vacationing families. Mostly local people - the farmers and the Navajos - used the old highway. Carolina and Edward could often walk for hours down the faded center stripe of the endless asphalt road, encountering no one but the horses, sheep, and cattle which grazed freely and lazily on the sweet grass. It was almost seven and Edward locked the gas pumps and pulled the clanking metal accordian doors across the small garage. She watched him pick up the bucket and fling that day's water across the drive, and she smiled because her husband was strong, graceful, and handsome. He was the same fine-looking man she had married a /85} 86/HFR dozen years before, in 1930, the day after her eighteenth birthday. ''There hasn't been a car along in hours," he said. ''Get dressed and come with me.'' Edward played piano at the Antelope Bar every Saturday night ''Best not," Carolina said, smoothing her dress over her knees.It was an old calico dress, worn to the softness and color of her skin. ''Could be somebody will come around. Could be a bad storm." He sat down next to her and took her hand and kissed it ''I don't want to go either," he said, and began to unbutton his shirt ''Except Jimmy called this morning and said he might come up and play told me he hocked his motorcycle for a new guitar. He'll have to hitch." She ran her hand up behind his shirt. His back was strong and fine. ''I made up a peach pie for the band." Edward went inside and Carolina watched the lightning. She could feel the rains coming on and the winds growing stronger, redolent of damp earth and creosote. How she loved that smell! She thought of the times she'd helped her father cultivate the garden behind the cafe, how she'd press her face to the soil just to smell it, how she'd taste the soil on a radish pulled from the ground, and then how the water from the hand pump would splash cold over her lips and tongue. A pair of headlights on the highway grew brighter, then the car slowed, turned in, and pulled up to the gasoline pumps. Carolina went inside and took the keys from the hook, then walked over to the shiny black car. The wind was gusting now and the thin fabric of her dress pressed around her legs. A man got out of the car, a tall lean man in a dark suit and felt hat. ''Some storm," he said. ''I need gas." ''You've come to the right place," Carolina said, unlocking the pumps. While she was busy with the nozzle, he tried to raise the hood of his car but could not. ''Need some help?'' she asked. ''Yes," he said, still struggling, ''yes, if you don't mind. This is a new car and ... " ''I'I l check the oil, water, belts ... this country is hell on beIts.'' She found the hatch and raised the rounded hood. 1 He stuck his head under the hood and watched her quick smal • I ''It's h ands at work. The wind was growing fierce and shook the meta • a friend of mine's." nd "She's a beauty." Carolina wiped her hands on a blue rag a slammed the hood. The stormy sky was reflected in the black lacquered curves of the sedan, and in the bluish windows. A few raindrops fell. ''Where are you from?'' she asked. Cynthia Frederlck/87 "California." "Where you headed?" "New Mexico." Toe pump stopped ringing off the gallons with a click "Ha · • II d --,, ve you beend nvmg a ayr"Nine, ten hours." "That's two dollars for the gas. And your ration coupons. You . h, can stay here, g et a 9,,ood rng t s sleep, then go on. You have a ways.Could be a bad storm. He looked out over the darkening sky, and she saw that his eyes were kind and unusually bright blue. Beneath the brim of his hat his face was angular, taut pale skin stretched over prominent bones. 'Yes," he said, "yes, I suppose you're right I am tired. This storm is really something." The rain was falling more steadily. "Well, drive around to room four and I'll get you the key.I can foeyou up some supper in the cafe if you'd like." Edward met Carolina at the door. He smelled of lemon soap, and a freshly laundered white shirt clung lightly to his still-damp skin. "A guest?" he said. "Room four." She smoothed back her husband's wet hair with her palm. "Nice car. Looks new. And expensive." "He seems kind. And handsome. That car has government plates." She smiled and leaned upward and kissed him. "I'll get the pie. Why don't you show him the room?" As Carolina wrapped the pie in waxed paper, she heard the rain fall more heavily against the roof. Out the window, past the blue gingham curtains, she saw lightning pass between clouds and heard the thunder. She remembered the summer storms of her childhood, remembered crawling between her mother and father in their bed beneath the window, the white chiffon curtains waving breezilyabove their heads. The smell of yeast was still on her mother's hands after she put up the nightly dough to rise, and the smell of rosewater was light on her mother's cotton gown (rosewater her only extravagance). She recalled her wonder at her father's slow steady breathing while outside the sky cracked open and the ground benea~ them shrugged. Her mother held her and sometimes they whispered prayers or rhymes or softly sang, and if they woke her father, he never said. Edward came inside, shirt so soaked from the downpour sh~ cou~d seethrough it "Edward," she said, and started to unbutton his shirt and peel it away. 88/HFR •·it'll dry. I've got to go.'' He picked up the pie and kissed Carolinaon the forehead and then left. Through the rusting screen door and sheeting rain. she watched the truck pull away. She ran across the gravel to the room with the porch light glowing and knocked on the window. The door opened. ''Towels," she said ' holding the carefully folded stack against her chest to keep them dry. ··Ah, yes ... towels;' he said. ··come in, come in ... you're soaked." ''This is the worst storm we've had in a long while.'' Room four was always her favorite because it had a small Mexican fireplace put in years before when her mother and father were still alive, for the use of a permanent boarder who could not bear gas or electric heat, an elderly ex-priest who would burn only pinon wood. The room still smelled of cedar. ··1hope the room is okay," she said. Lightning lit the sky blue outside. ··1tis fine. Really very comfortable.'' With his hat off, the thinness of his face was all the more apparent, and the pale blue of his large eyes all the more remarkable. His wide but lean shoulders seemed like nothing more than a wire hanger for his set of clothes. She guessed he was in his late thirties. A thunderclap boomed overhead and they both winced and smiled. ''Worst storm in ages," she said. ··1haven't heard thunder like that since I was a little girl.'' ••'He stole the thunderbolt from heaven, and the scepter from the tyrants.' I don't believe I've ever heard thunder like that.'' ''Are those your words?'' she said, handing him the towels. ''Turgot' s, I think." ''A poet?'' ''A statesman. It's the inscription on Houdon's bust of Benjamin Franklin.'' ''Ah, yes,'' she said, stepping back toward the doorway. She felt the rain wetting the back of her dress. ''I'll be in the cafe if you want some supper." ''Yes. I'm famished. I wouldn't mind a sandwich. Just let me get settled in here.'' She ran back to the main building in the dark pouring rain made worse by gusting winds. When she got inside, her dress was heavy nd with water and it clung to her skin. She went into the bedroom a looked at herself in the oval beveled mirror above the dresser. She was as wet as if she had swum in her clothes· her hair was molded in tiny ' • d ery waves to her face, and she could see the outline of her slip an ev curve of her body beneath the thin calico. She kicked off her shoes and stood in her baref eet. The light on the dresser flickered. Cynthia Frederick/89 She pulled her dress over her head and let it fall damp around her feet, then peeled away the white silk slip and stepped out of her underwear. Thunder shook the house. She went to the closet and pulled out a neatly folded towel and dried herself, then put on another dress, one she had sewn for herself out of pale yellow cotton, and a pair of old white espadrilles. She brushed her hair away from her face withher grandmother's silver-handled brush, and tied it back with an ironed white ribbon. What a strange and troubled man, she thought When she walked through the hallway and through the double curtains into the cafe, she saw him standing at the screen door in the pounding rain, knocking. She hadn't heard him through the storm's noise. She hurried to the door and unlocked it saying, "It slams shut that way,sometimes .. .it locks itself ...and I was in the back changing and didn't hear you standing there ...I'm sorry ...come in ...you're drenched ..." He entered and pulled off his hat, from which the rain·water still dropped, and she took it and hung it on the hat rack in the comer. "Let me take your coat," she said, and saw that he was carrying a small portfolio beneath the lapels of his jacket, trying to keep it dry. She helped him off with his jacket, and hung it next to his hat "Sit down anywhere." "You changed your clothes," he said, and chose a table in the comer by the window, set his portfolio down on the faded blue and white checked tablecloth, and stared out at the road. When she brought him a napkin and silverware and a glass of water, he didn't seem to notice, seemed wrapped up in the view. "You wanted a sandwich?" Carolina said. "Or will you need a menu?'' "A sandwich," he said vacantly. A flash of lightning lit up the window. He looked up at her. "Sliced turkey on wheat?" "Lettuce? Tomato? Mayo?'' "Just mayonnaise." "Just mayo," she said, looking at him looking out the window. "And coffee," he said as she was walking away. "Coff ee." She brought the coffee right away ~nd saw that he _h~.dpull~~ out some papers and was jotting notes WJtha short penctl. Work. she said, moving one of the papers to make room for the cup an~ saucer. "Yes. Research." He pulled the papers together and straightened them in a pile. . . . "Research. Interesting." She smiled. "Your sandwich will be nght up. Do you want the bread toasted?" 90/HFR He was reading and didn't seem to hear her at first. Then he looked up and said, ''No." As she piled the wet slices of turkey onto the bread, she wondered what song Edward was playing, wondered if Jimmy had caught a ride, hoped Edward would bring Jimmy back to stay for a few days so she could listen to him play the guitar while she washed dishes or ironed, listen to him serenade her with his lonesome ballads and amaz.eher with his fancy picking and win her over with his crooked smile. She'd fry him a chicken to take home, and he'd whisper in her ear like he always whispered in her ear before he headed out, ''Marry me," just loud enough for Edward to hear~ Just as Carolina set the plate before him, there was a crack of thunder directly overhead; the lights flickered, then died. ''I'll get a candle," Carolina said. ''They may come back on, but most times it takes hours. I was afraid this might happen.'' ''Candlelight dining," he said when she placed the candle on the table. ''Can I get you anything else?'' ''No," he said, and when she turned to walk away, ''but why don't you sit down? Join me for a while. I've been driving all day and haven't talked to a soul. Unless you're busy .... " She sat down opposite him and looked out the window, resting her chin in her palm. ''Seems the rain has let up some," she said. He took a bite of his sandwich, then said, ''Why don't you make something for yourself? This is very good." ''My husband and I ate supper before he left. I'm fine." ''Where did he go, your husband?'' ''Into town. To the Antelope. Saturday nig-hts he plays there." ''Is he good?'' ''He's very good. Everybody says so. He can play anything. He taught himself, but he studied in Europe.'' ''Is he from around here?'' ''No. I am. I grew up here, was born in this very place. My daddy built this hotel and my momma ran it. They' re gone, both of them, so it'5 mine now. Where are you from?'' ''The East New York." '' Edward was born and raised there. A million light years away from here, he says. I've never been." !he rain a~d wind had all but stopped. "How did you meet?" ·a He and his brother were driving across the country to Californi • They sto~ped here for the night and stayed a few days. I was sixt_ee~~ He was thirty-one. I guess we fell in love. My momma and daddy didn Cynthia Fredenc 9J take well to that He came back through a year later and sta ed H • tt t th F I y . e got I a job ba 1ng co on a e rye p ace. Once he developed muscles and picked up a few honky-tonk tunes on the . some • All th . . piano, my h daddy let me many 1m. at going on thirteen vears a . , go. ave 1 1 h him very muc • How about you? Are you married!' "Yes. I have two children, a boy and a girl, Peter and Toni. You don't have children?'' ''No." She stared at the candle flickering. "What kind of research is that?'' She pointed at the stack of papers on top of the portfolio. "Scientific. I'm a scientist My wife is a biologist We met at Berkeley." ''I'd like to go to college. Would you like some more coffee?· ''Yes, please. May I smoke?'' "Feel free." She brought the coffee pot back and a cup and saucer for herself. As she walked across the room, she saw him strike a match and light his pipe and the tobacco glowed red in the bowl. ''What are you working on right now?'' she said. ''Thunderbolts.'' ''Thunderbolts?'' He looked at her and smiled and shook his head. Then he looked out the window and said, ''Never mind. It's not something I can talk about'' ''Then how about a piece of homemade peach pie? I grew the peaches on my own tree in the yard out back." She waited, and when he didn't seem to have heard her, she reached across the table and touched his hand. ''Yes'' he said, startled. ''Homemade peach pie.'' ' '' She brought back two slices and two f arks and another candle. I don't think the lights will come back on, at least for tonight'' He lit the second candle for her. ''Why don't you go to college if you want to? This pie is really delicious.'' ''I've got this place to care for." ''But you've lived here your whole life? Don't you ever get away, travel?'' ''I've never been outside the state." ''Do you want to go?'' She looked up at him and his eyes looked even paler blue in candlelight ''To see the world?'' "To see the world." . uldn't ''The world isn't such a pretty place right now. Besides, 1co ever leave this place.'' 92/HFR "You are happy, aren't you," he said. "Yes." It was all very simple to her. "More pie?" He shook his head, so she stood and cleared away the dishes onto a tray and carried them into the kitchen. Out the kitchen window she watched the storm move away from them, the lightning now streaking through the rain to the ground, tearing the sky in half. From the window, out across the desert, the view was uninterrupted. There was room enough for storms here. "Can I help?" he asked from behind her. "Heavens no," she said, hands immersed in the soapy water. "Well, I can't work without the light and I've never washed dishes in the dark and I thought. ..." He suddenly seemed shy and awkward. She rinsed her hands, and when she turned to look at him as she dried her hands on the dish towel, she saw him standing against the door frame, tall and lanky, arms crossed over his chest, one hand holding the pipe, one foot crossed over the other, in the grey light "Aren't you happy?" she asked, not really knowing why she asked. She turned and picked up a plate and began to dry it. She felt his lovely eyes looking at her back "Birds are happy," he said. "Children are happy. The Japanese are happy. They are a peaceful people by nature. I suppose I'm happy. I love my family. I'm just tired, I guess." He was standing behind her now, whispering. She could feel his breath against the still-damp tendrils of hair on the back of her neck. Then the headlights cut across the dark rooms through the front windows and there was the sound of two doors closing; Edward was home and he had brought Jimmy with him. Carolina turned and looked up at the man as she untied and pulled the white cotton apron up over her head. "It's my husband," she said, dropping the apron onto the floor at his feet. "Carolinar· Edward shouted as he came in through the front door. He was carrying a flashlight and the beam from it flickered around the room. "Edward, is that Jimmy with you?" She smiled at the guest, then ;oved awkwardly around him into the office. Her husband and st im~y ood in the doorway, arms over each other's shoulders, smelling of beer. "Lights went out" she said then she hugged Jimmy wa.~ Iy. "I s th1•s an army uniform 'you have on?" ' ..~h, sweet Carolina," Jimmy said into her hair. . Jimmy's gone and done it," Edward said stepping away from his fnend and sh· • th fl ' " .. ,, mmg e ashlight on him. "They've signed him up. Oh no, Carolina said, "Not the army .... " Cynthia Frederick/93 "They found me out," Jimmy said laughing. "It's off to Gay Paree with me for wine, women, and country." "When.?" "Tomorrow morning. Edward's taking me to the airport." "Storm's passed," Edward said. "Looks like a nice night I'm glad the power went out. I'm glad they closed up the Antelope. I'm glad we're all together. Let's sit outside a while." And so the three of them did. Jimmy played his new guitar and sang his lonesome songs and they looked up at the sky, now clearing enough to reveal a quarter moon and a universe of stars. How rich the damp earth smelled! Carolina walked over to room four and knocked on the door. "You slipped out. Would you like to join us?" she asked him. "No," he said. "Thank you, but no." He smiled gently. "Does the music bother you?" "Oh, no .. .it's lovely. I've been listening. But I think I'll tum in now." "Okay." Carolina stepped back one step, out of the candlelight coming from the room. "Then I guess I'll see you in the morning." "Yes. Goodnight. Thank you." "Goodnight" From the veranda she could see the faint glowing of the candles behind the curtains, and once she thought she saw the shadow of a man lingering there. When Jimmy put down his guitar, Edward went inside and played the piano and became lost in it after awhile. Carolina and Jimmy sat on the steps and listened to the perfect silence of the rain-washed desert as it carried away the music. "I'm going in," she said, and rose. The moon was sinking into the west Everything else was still. "See you in the morning," Jimmy answered, and stayed seated on the steps, looking up at the sky. "You two really have it made here." "v ., 1es. Carolina went inside, undressed, and stepped into the shower. It was well past midnight. The hot water felt good on her skin, and the darkness around her felt mysterious and somehow comforting. She could hear the piano. In the morning, the storm would be forgotten. In the morning, ~e sun would explode over the empty plains. In the morning, the man m room four would get into his car and drive further on down the road toward the blazing sun and the light from it would pierc~ those transparent blue eyes. In the morning, Jimmy would fly blindly to Paris, never to return. In the morning, Edward would unlock the pumps and pull open the garage door as he always did, as he always 94/HFR did. In the morning, she would rise and go to the guest room and peel the sheets away from the bed and gather up the towels and launder them and hang them like white flags on the clothesline in the sharp autumn air. In the morning, the locusts would resume their shrill song. She dried herself and put on her cotton gown and slipped into bed. Edward came in after a while and woke her with his fine gentle hands and his soft mouth and there, under the sheets, they let the shimmering moment turn love into sweet ardor and back into love again, arcing them tenderly upward away from the cruel and beautiful earth, and setting them back down again. Jeanine Savard Classicismon the Water He hasn't touched a drop in years And thinks his whole life Has been caught by a fierce Belatedness - a dream, on the other hand ' That reels on without him Ever catching up. As he stands On the shore of the lake, Squeezing our names between his hands, More like bird-call Than a real desire to join us, I'm sure, this night, he'd understand The intersection of lights across the sky And in the water, our lives Never belonging Only to themselves - The way Our rowboat angles, advancing for the idea. I'm shaken by the eagerness Already draining from his face As he bends the boat down, climbing Into the middle seat He says, Why not While we watch the radiant spin Of the oars and stars. He suggests A race to the island and back, A panic-run for tomorrow When each of us in our own boats Would meet and gather at the landing. I ask him if he's ever dreamed The same dream twice but he says, Impossible. My husband reminds him Of the elements in dreams we share: a bird Flying out of a linden into another, or The birches we bum In our separate houses, their smoke Intercepting the moonlight in rooms /95] 96/HFR Far awayand near as we are now To scraping this boat against the sandy bottom. He laughs and thinks we have it all Confused,that truth is in watching The separatenessof things, a snail From a frog, and the distance We're removed or Set back from fleshy progress. PeggyShumaker Newlywed It was the morning VIXen broke through the fence - ·shouldered over the splintered cedar she'd clawed loose and bolted down the arroyo and into the cholla. My mouth had dried in the night My tongue reached for the comers, smaller now and hard, and tried to moisten them. I was ashamed how I might smell to you, though you were happy to see me then in the first light. Later, this would not be so. I let you watch me sleep. I was still lost in the dream of adobe houses melting without roofs - filling up with a wide-open blank white sky. The tabula rasa smothering all the world. I shuddered, jerking fully to sleep, and you understood that as a sign of my waking, and laid a hand on my waist. You wore on the back of your hand a rare-but-serviceable leather. I held my mouth to your broken places. When I rose to wash the tight dried smears from my thighs, you found her whimpering at the sliding door, her prodigal muzzle bearded with fine white spines. {97) 98/HFR • c1ence I had gone away from you by then, so you took a room with nothing in it to remind you, a room overlooking an iced-over field with nothing in it, overlooking the experimental farms where cows with windows healed over in their left sides low, and behold gurgled complacently, chewing over pressed sawdust and fish trash, trying to draw some small nourishment, staining their palm-wide scooped tongues on the mineral blocks. It was your job to see that they never lay down. The experiment depended on balance, clean glass, unrestricted vision. Your grant specified a hankering for new info on the inner workings, revelations involuntary in nature. The plastic cud slid over and back pretty much as you'd predicted. Stainless barriers kept the impression of your hands sterile and whole until the seal-eyed washwoman flipped them away under her rag, and you stood cow-like in relief. / know what I know, you told yourself, and it was almost more than you could stand. A Conversation with Joseph Heller The discussion which follows between Joseph Heller, myself, and some twenty to thirty students took place at Arizona State University on March 9, 1984. Heller had given a reading on the evening of March 8 and I'd interoiewed him as panof the program. f d intentionally avoided questions having to do with the process of his writing, pref eTTing to let our creative writing students ask such questions. Hel.ler s latest novel, GOD KNOWS,was only recently completed and the process of writing was fresh in his mind. The previous 1 evening was the first time that he d read from the novel publicly, and, surely more to the point, the first public reading of any of his work for nearly five years. Much of the novel had been written while he was recovering from Guillain-Barre syndrome. Heller was stricken with Guillain-Bane syndrome in the winter of 1981. Little is known about the disease, save that it invades the neroous system when the body's immune defenses backfire, that it's rarely fatal, and that it's almost al ways horrific. It strikes without warning and leaves much of the body paralyzed. Recovery is almost certai~ though it can take months onto years; and aft.er a costly hospital stay and extensive physical therapy, Heller s recovery was nearly complete. During the interview fallowing the reading, I mentioned to him that his characters seem to learn from their experiences only once they've con{ronted their own mortality and I asked him what he'd learned from being confronted with his. ''Guillain-Barre?'· he said. ··c,oowants us to have better medical coverage.,, -JB. Who do you enjoy reading? I enjoy reading lessand lessbecausewhen I'm working I'm too tired to read most of the time. I work all day long. I mean writing a novel is just like my job. And I'm thinking about it all the time - what do I think /99} 100/HFR of the writing I did this morning? What am I going to do with it when I get back to it? My mind is always going over it when I'm writing; and when I do start to read, it's usually late in the evening when I'm getting tired. And often I know less about contemporary literature than I used to when I wasn't writing all the time. There are many books that I want to read again. And there are new novels that come out, they might be very good, but if I start to read and I feel that they' re not going to stimulate me, that they don't coincide with something I can do, then I generally don't get through them. And the ones I don't get through are probably among the best American novels. They' re very good, better than I can be. But there's nothing in there I can use that coincides with what I know and do. Bernard Malamud I've read. I'm thinking now about the time of GOOD AS GOLD. He has works with diction that coincide very well with the language in the one I wrote. Saul Bellow. Others, John Updike, Cheever, are better and more competent novelists than I am, but theyre not novelists I prefer. I like novels that have a kind of craziness to them. Really. Kafka, now Kafka was crazy. James Joyce. Joyce was disciplined, but he was a lunatic. Have you ever read Richard Ellman's biography of him? It's one of the funniest books in the world. And even books I don't understand, like GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Pynchon. I can't really get close to it, but I'd rather read a book like that than - there's an obscurity there, an irrationality, that keeps me reading, that I guess I like as a reader. That's why I like Kafka too. I'm not saying I'm not open to reading other people. At a certain point I'd read every book that was published that was praised in a review or somewhere else. But I think it's very hard to be writing all the time and to read the books that everyone else seems to be reading. I mean you probably ought to be reading a book of essays history, psychology. That's probably more useful to you. How do you get your ideas? I don't know, I really don't. I just get them. And then I write them down pretty often. I try to keep track. Do youjot downideasfor future books? No. I just jot down things for the book I'm working on at the moment. I carry note cards and things while I'm working. I have tot because at the pace I write it may not be until two or three years later 1hat I will get to that part of the book. My mind looks that far ahead, but Jay Boyer/JO/ I never look ahead to the novel that will follow. I never work on more than one novel at a time. Do you work from an outline? Yes. On CATCH-22? I had several outlines fQr CATCH-22! I had it all planned. One had characters listed. One had episodes. Even so, the chronology of CATCH-22 - I wanted to be sure I avoided unintentional anachronism, for instance. Now I did put some anachronisms in CATCH-22 on purpose. Major Major. The IBM that made him a major. But I wanted to avoid unintentional anachronisms. I tried to make everythingpossible. The novel I've just completed, GOD KNOWS, is just fille.d with anachronisms. I tJy to keep track of them and that's pretty hard. Do you do repeated drafts if you're uncomfortablewith what you'vewritten? I can't go ahead knowing I'm going to rewrite something. If something' snot right I've got to go back. I can't go ahead.That's what takes me so long. I've never done more than one draft of a novel. It's just the way I work. Whereas other writers I know, maybe they sit down and write a first draft very quickly. But me, in the worst stages, if I'm handwriting, if I want to correct a word, I go back and rewritethe whole page just to change a word. And one of the reasonsI stopped working on a typewriter is that I make typing errors. I'd retype a page and because I'm not a good typist I'd hit the wrong key when I was doing a page over and if I tried to eraseand I left a smudge I'd haveto start over • again. I know that's a rotten way to work. But it's also true of me that once I get past the middle of a book I can write as rapidly as anybody in the world. I do a lot less rewriting then. The first half of my books tends to move very slowly for me. Theyre crammed with details and I'm very careful with what I'm doing and I go back and go back. But the last half or third, usually I make very few changes. I didn't make many with GOD KNOWS. When I started writing novels I wasn't very sure of myself, but I think I know enough by now about what I can do, and what I can't so well. With the first three books I was discovering things about writing a novel. CATCH-22 I thought was going to be short - when I began; SOMETHING HAPPENED couldn't get beyond thirty pages.I thought I'd have to struggle to find ways to make it long enough. And then I 102/HFR started finding things that I knew I'd have to elaborate on. How do you know when you're through with a novel like CATCH-22? J know when I'm done because I usually have the last paragraph of the last chapter written before I start writing the second chapter. And to me it's like, okay, this is where I'm beginning; I want to get to this line, or to this paragraph. And I think about it in the same way I'd think about getting to San Francisco. It's true. I had the last line and the last paragraph of CATCH-22. In SOMETHING HAPPENED I had it down the same day I had the opening line. Those were changed. I had to; I'd rearranged a lot of things. But they gave me a place to begin and work toward. In GOOD AS GOLD, I had that last paragraph down and I had the last line of GOD KNOWS a year or two ago. And so I just try to keep getting the manuscript to the point where the last line makes sense. Before I begin writing a novel I've got to know the end. Before I'll start the writing of it I'll put things down on index cards and notebooks, and I'll give a lot of thought to, number one, if there's a novel in it, and two, a novel I can write. I have to convince myself of that before I can goon. In much of my work - with the exception of GOOD AS GOLD the story takes place retrospectively. The person telling the book has to know how things are going to tum out in order to be a credible narrator. The chronology, the presentation of episodes, foreshadowing, and such things, depend upon that. But that's me. Don't follow me. I think it's a mistake, though - I remember hearing once that Philip Roth had two short stories that weren't quite working so he put them together and came up with a novel. There's another story - I'm not sure I believe it: I mean, Faulkner told so many lies - about THE SOUND AND THE FURY, which is one of my favorite novels. It began as a short story, just a chapter with Benjy, and he finished that story and thought it wasn't clear enough. Anyway, as I say, I don't believe it. He may think he did it that way. It doesn'tfollowthat becauseyou knowhowa bookwillendthat 5t the endingwill be easyto write. CATCH-22, for example.The la hundredpagesor so readas if theywereverydifficultforyou. Everything' s hard to write. I had the last few pages, or maybe ~e whole last chapter. I guess I had the idea, the disputation~, the ethica: arguments that take place between Yossarian and MaJor Danby. Jay Boyer/ 103 kn w C11l that; i'lnd I had th knlf come down and he jumped and so n. l3ut 0 -ltlnu t that wa. v ry hard. In fact, It was one of the few times I ~nt l'\h nd. N w mayb two or three chapters before that last one, I ju~t uld n t pI c)ed.So I skipped two chapters, because in terms of th - ullln I Im w what chapters I had left to do. And my mind worked, I nt ah ~d. And th- n I went back to the other two. Sine CATCH-22 doesn'tfollowa conventional narrativeline,did you havetroubleselllngIt to a publisher'? N . And I k p running Into people who have heard or read about h w hard It was for me. Somebody at UCLA was telling his students that th reas n It was called CATCH-22 was because it had been j t tw nty-one times. What happened was that I wrote the first hapt r of the book and by that time I had a literary agent. There were publi ntlons - It was possible to publish chapters of your novel then and I gave it to him and that's what we did. It appeared about a year lat r, NEW WORLD WRITING #7. That must have been 1955. And then I received letters from editors of about five book publishing companies saying they'd read that chapter and they'd like to see more. I had about two-hundred-and-fiftypages typewritten and I gave that to the agent and he sent that to the publishers. Simon & Schuster gave me a publishing contract. So I had no trouble getting it published and I knew as I was writing that in all probability it would be published. And that's one of the reasons I could spend so much time on it. I knew I had a publisher who thought it was going to be an important book and he didn't give me a lot of deadlines. But lsn't It true that by 1960 you were gettingpressurefrom Simon & Schuster to finish the manuscript'? No. There was no pressure whatsoever. I missed the deadline by maybe two or three years and they never bothered me. And one reason for that - you see, I fell into the habit early: whenever I completed a section, I would send it to the editor so he knew I was writing. The advance was very small in terms of a publishing contract. It was fifteen-hundred dollars. Seven-fifty on signing; seven-fifty upon completion. And since I was working in advertising by day and doing pretty well financially, it wasn't the money that was important to me. It might have been difficult to get it published. I was lucky. I mean, I had a good agent who knew a good editor at that time. And also, that was a time when literature was opening up. J04/HFR When was it finally published? It was published in 1961 and two or three years before that th were a spate of novels that appeared that were trying something nere and were successes - widely read. GINGER MAN was one. ON~~ ROAD was another one. Pynchon's V was being written. It came out a year after CATCH-22. for some reason I can't define there were all these novels being published and read. Bob Dylan was writing lyrics that were not - Ijust knew the time was right. The problem since then for people with novels they've written is that they're told, 'this is too much like CATCH-22,even though the war's a different one.' Or, 'it's too much like what Kurt Vonnegut's done, even though the quality of the novel might be better.' There's no need for another CATCH-22 or there's no need for another GRAVITY'S RAINBOW. Whendid CATCH-22 become a best-seller? CATCH-22wasn't a success in hardcover, of course, not a big success, and if it was published today it would probably have a hard time getting into paperback Even then I think I only got thirtythousand dollars. It was very small. I got the offer right after it received a very good review in NEWSWEEK in 1962. Thirty-thousand dollars wasn't such a big price to pay for paperback But I was lucky. It wasn't really a huge financial success until it was out of hardcover. But at that time a paperback company could take a chance and offer between sixteen and thirty-thousand dollars. It's harder to get books published now than it was in 1958 and 1961, because of financial conditions. Paperback companies back then would almost definitely buy the rights to any book, regardless of whether it was best-seller or not. But now, they'll only publish commercial novels or books that were best-sellers in hardcover. And that will be even more true five years from now. So, quality novels are likely to have a rougher time than I had with CATCH-22. Howwouldyou describeyour writing? th . Well, I don't write realistic books. I write books out of e imagination. When I say 'realistic' I don't mean I don't use reality.I'm saying • rea1· ' rta· lyl 10 ism as a way of describing an approach, because ce try to deal with reality. TI_1e idea's what's important to me. The content. But not so muc~, oh, characterization,' as it might be for another method. 1 don t characterizevery fully. And I'm always amazed when people come up Jay Boyer/105 to me and men~on one of my characters and say,1know that fellow or That character s my roommate, or My roommate is Mil Mi d' _ . . o n er binder. If you start exammmg one of my novels and com th . 1 l't , pare em with conventiona I erature, you II see that they're really not threedimensional characters. They have a couple of eccentri ·ti f . d th , c1 es o speech or behavior an at s pretty much all they have. CATCH-22: I have no idea who Yossarian is. I don't know what city he's from, I don't know if he went to college, I don't know if his parents are alive, I don't kn~w what ther were like, I don't know if he had any brothers, had any sisters, I don t even know what his face looks like. None of that information is given to you, and yet nobody seems to realizethat. They seem to have a picture of him. Butyourcharactersare drawnbroadlyenoughsothatreaderscan projectan image onto them. Well sure, yes. I could have done more with - Colonel Cathcart is one, and Chaplain Tappman is another that's more fully described in the book. And they' re not too bad. In the second book, SOMETHING HAPPENED, you get an awful lot about Bob Slocum. And this new one, GOD KNOWS, is also a first-person monologue. But what you get is not so much what they look like or where they come from, but what preys on their mind, the relative way they think about things. But as for creating a biography of each character, you know, what they were like as children and so forth, well, I don't know. I'd say, Your guess is as good as mine. I just become used to them as I write. And so long as it makes for credible and consistent behavior, then I'm satisfied. But don't imitate me. You have to have a mind as twisted as mine to write like this. Do you think you'vealreadywrittenyourbest book? I don't know. I don't know how to answer something like that. If y~u mean do I think the book I'll write next will be better than the earlier ones, it's hard to think in those terms. A book like SOMETHING HAPPENED was a much more difficult book for me to do than any of the others, more dangerous, you might say: to write a ?°°k w~ere virtually nothing happens yet still try to hold the reader s attention. nd That's harder to write than GOOD AS GOLD, where a lot depe s on humor - because humor for me is easy. f the t O CATCH-22 was easy - easier. It was a satire and ~oS f • I book m terms o ry objects of satire - it's actually a very conventiona I writing a ve h morality, I see now. But at the time I thoug t was 106/HFR . ti. book that made fun of all these sacrosanct things; but in 1 c ,conocas terms of its morality, it's fairly safe. ' '. L k I ess I don't know what a best book 1s.There are so many 00 •a ~ typegu s of literature, and all of them valid. Plays, novels, and all d 11,eren th . . ty T 1 of them trying to make a point about elf soc1e • o stoy was an example of that, Proust, Baudelaire, Shakespeare. None of Shakespeare's plays are about his_ow:" time, though. We ~eally know nothing about Elizabethan society m terms of what we seem the plays. It seems to me that the real test of prose style is that any sentence of a good novel should be unique and distinct from any other sentence anyone else has ever written. I know that's a hard test, but among the people who come to mind who'd pass it would be Hemingway, John Cheever in his late stories and novels, Richard Brautigan, Michael Herr in DISPATCHES, his recent book on Vietnam, Tom Wolfe and THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST. One sentence in any of these books immediately identifies the author. Do you think your own works would pass the test? No, they wouldn't. And I also don't believe that you really mean what you're saying to the extent that you're saying it I can take many sentences out of Hemingway that could have been written by another writer. I can find sentences in Cheever that could have been written by Hemingway. Certain books do rely heavily upon style, but language is only one part of that. Elements - attitude, values, a stance taken by the author, all that's part of it, too. You mentioned Hemingway and there's no better example of how important attitude can be. People recognize Hemingway by his values or attitudes as much as they would by his sentence style - which changed, by the way. The Hemingway sentence style is not the same Hemingway in FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS as it is in "Big Two-Hearted River." I al_sohave misgivings - it seems to me that language may be of less •~portance to the novel than we seem to think. Many good novehstsare not necessarily good writers, and I think of myself as one of ~-em. I don't think I'm as good with language, that I have the same fac,bo/, as John Cheever or John Updike. But Theodore Dreiser wasn ta master of language either. He'd be characterized as being vderybad with prose. It's the character you read for in Dreiser, the rama. Eugene O'Neill nd r~ T ~my mi there's not one novel in a dozen that can stand a test I t e that.You have to look at all the things about it, all the elements oge er. In some, language is very important. But if you're going to Jay Boyer/107 single out one element, why language in the first place? Why not say the most important thing in Hemingway is what he left out? What Hemingway leaves out would be enough to make dozens of novels. In Updike, the Rabbit books, there's still an interest in prose, but there's an emphasis too on character and character development In CATCH22, my attitude toward the subject, the government, might be the most important thing. I don't know: that's hard for me to judge. But things like vocabulary, and chronology and so forth are really only important insofar as they make that attitude clear. A better test might be what's special about a novel, what makes it most difficult to imitate. I'm disagreeing with you, but I'm not criticizing. We all have our ideas of what a novel should be and how to judge one, what we like to read. And there are remarkable novels by fine prose stylists: Proust, Joyce, Mann. But they're not very easy. You're not watching a 1V show. There's something very special in them, but they' re slow and they take a certain amount of commitment I'd always preferred a more rapidly moving book. You know I could not enjoy reading Dickens until I was fifty or fifty-five. The same thing with Jane Austen. Now they're two of my favorite authors. And Mann. He has an enormous mentality, and the Germans will tell you he's a very humorous writer. That's right They think he's funny. No, Ijust can't agree with you. In fact, I think what you've said about Hemingway is one of the things that made people tire of him. Do you teach writing or give writing workshops? I did teach writing. I wasn't very good at it I taught writing at City College in New York for four years, but I didn't like it very much. When I was at Berkeley for one week at a writer's conference - but that wasn't really 'teaching' fiction writing: I had submitted to me in advance the work of the students assigned to me. The big advantage to me of taking a creative writing course in college is that it will encourage you to write. l mean it lends the same credibility to the writing of fiction as to any other subject you might take. And too it establishes an atmosphere in which you can develop, and which you can find a place for airing your work. As for workshops, I don't think 1know what a workshop is supposed to be. I mean, I know people go to workshops at Breadloaf or someplace - I don't know how long they last, but my feeling is that if they don't last three weeks the benefits from them aren't very much. 108/HFR Do you find writing a chore'? It's not easy. But it's exciting, it's stimulating. If it were easy I wouldn't want to do it I could probably write a television situation comedy very easily. I could probably write movie scripts very easily. But because it would be so easy, after a while I wouldn't be able to do it very well at all. For the first year or two I'd probably be very good at any of them. But it wouldn't engage my interest because it's too easy. A chore? I write novels because novels are my choice. It's stimulating: that's what I want to do. But it's hard, it's irritating, it makes you unpleasant, it makes it hard to be with people and hard for people to be with you. Particularly me. I can be sitting with somebody and there'll be a lull and I'll start thinking about my book and suddenly I'll be impatient to get the conversation over with. And the person has no way of knowing that's what's just happened; that I've gone back to work in my head. But I write novels because I want to. I mean, I think people can enjoy their work and still take their work seriously. But they can only take it seriously if it isn't easy. CONTRIBCJTORS'NOTES Steve Beatty is a graduate student in English at Arizona State University and also has an M.B.A. He and his wife Stacy live in Tempe, Ariz. This is his first published story. Jay Boyer is an associate professor of English at Arizona State University. He teaches film and American literature. He received his Ph.D. at the State University of New York-Buffalo. Stuart C. Brown is an ex-Army brat who is simultaneously completing his M.F.A. and working toward his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona. Kristen Catalano attends the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa. Originally from Connecticut, she now considers Saratoga Springs, N.Y., home. This is her first publication. James Cervantes is author of THE YEAR IS APPROACHING SNOW. He presently teaches at Northern Arizona University. Rita Dove's first book of short fiction, FIFTH SUNDAY, has just been published by the University of Kentucky. Her poetry has earned her fellowships from the N.EA. and the Guggenheim Foundation. Norman Dubie' s new book, THE SPRING HOUSE, has just been published by W.W. Norton. His SELECTED AND NEW POEMS is available from the same publisher. Deanie Fontenot earned her M.F A. from McNeese State University. Her fiction has appeared in MINOTAUR. She is currently at work on a novel. Cynthia Frederick lives and writes in Mesa, Arizona. Beckian Goldberg has an M.A. in English from Arizona State University and an M.F A from Vermont College. She is presently working with the Arizona Artists~in-Education Program. I 109/ JJO/HFR Candace Greenburg lives in Tucson, Ariz. and ~II be working with the A • ona Commission on the Arts in the fall of 86. She currently has w::k appearing in OXFORD POETRY in England. CaryGrossmanis a cartoonist and painter living in the Phoenix area. He has a novel in the works. Michael Gude received an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. His poems have appeared in NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW and MINNESOTA MONTHLY. He is working toward a Ph.D. in Creative Writing. Ron Hansen is the author of DESPERADOES and THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD. BrendaHillman's first fuJl-lengthcoJlection of poetry, WHITE DRESS, was published last year by Wesleyan University. She teaches at the Uni~tsity of California-Irvine. LeilaniJayhas published original work in PEAKS, PORCHand TOPO, and Spanish translations in PRISM INTERNATIONAL She recently edited the biographies for THE CRITICS. John Klebercalls himself a "colorist," and his powerful images hang in Midwestern galleries, as well as throughout the Southwest He is currently working with monotypes at Sette Publishing and is moving toward using more subtle colors. Helga Kopperl is a performance poet who works with musicians and dancers.A native of Montreal, she lives in New York City. A collection of her poetry will be published by Warthog Press in 1987. Paul Mo~s works in advertising. His translations of Johannes B~browski are appearing in TRANSLATION. He lives in Tempe, Arizona, and is over six feet tall. Wi:am Olsen'swork has won a YMHA/The Nation Discovery Award ~~T~~~c:demy of American Poets prizes and has appeared in journals. EVIEW, CRAZYHORSE, THE NATION, and other Contributors/ 111 Jeanine Savard has recently published poems in AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW, POETRY NORTHWEST, CUTBANK and QUARTERLY WEST. She lives in Tempe, Arizona Peggy Shumaker' s book ESPERANZA'S HAIR was published by the University of Alabama last year. She is now teaching at the University of Alaska and putting together a second book of poetry. Arthur Stone is a student in the M.FA program at Vermont College. His poems have appeared in A VENUE and GREEN MOUNTAIN REVIEW. He teaches for the Community College of Vermol')t Dean Stover is the first graduate of Arizona State University's M.F A writing program. He lives among the orange blossoms in Tempe, Arizona, and is actively seeking a teaching position in creative writing. S.P. Stressman is an editor working in Phoenix, Arizona. Her work has appeared in PULPSMITH, and other literary journals. She has received two Swarthout Awards for fiction at Arizona State University. Naomi Wallaceis an M.F.A candidate in the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa. She has lived half her life in Holland. Her poems have appeared in NEW LETTERS and WINTERS. Robyn Zappala is currently an M.F.A candidate at Arizona State University, though her accent comes from Methuen, Mass. This is her first national publication. We wish to thank the following for their generous support. Without their help this issue would not have been possible. The Impression Makers Printing Reliable Reproductions, Inc. Arizona State University Student Publications Associated Students of Arizona State University An Anonymous Private Donor John Kleber Steve Beatty Jay Boyer Stuart C. Brown Kristen Catalano James Cervantes Rita Dove Norman Dubie Deanie Fontenot Cynthia Frederick Beckian Goldberg Candace Greenburg Cary Grossman Michael Gude Ron Hansen Brenda Hillman Leilani Jay Helga Kopper! Paul Morris William Olsen Jeanine Savard Peggy Shumaker Arthur Stone Dean Stover S.P. Stressman Naomi Wallace Robyn Zappala The cover art is an untitled, 30" x 40" monotype by artist John Kleber. $4.00 ISSN 0887-5170