The Violent Acts of Poets, Part I

They found the body in late March, and from there I suppose it was just a matter of time. Regardless of what you think of cops, it wasn’t too hard to put two and two together. Lily and I disappearing like we did. Even then, without foresight, there was a sort of irony to our adventure. A narcissism, I suppose -- to think we’d get away with it. Such a product of our times. Oh well. Guess everyone is.

Wish I could claim some sort of thematic importance to Durhams Corner, but honestly, it was just where the road ended. A candle that’s got no more wax to burn. No rhyme or reason in such a place.

In a way it makes sense for this story to begin where it ended. Like a snake that eats its tail. The circumstances that led us there seemed almost incidental, so incidental, in fact, that it must have been destiny all along. To this day, I can’t imagine these particular series of events unfolding in any way other than the way they did. I suppose that’s life though, isn’t it? Sometimes I think fate is as indiscriminate and omniscient as God, and then other times I fool myself into thinking they are the same thing.

But I’m getting ahead of myself now.

We did what we did out of love. We did it out of survival. We did it because my father once told me that a woman is to be respected at all costs. We did it because we were young and didn’t know no better.

We always said we never meant to kill those folks. Nobody could ever understand such a sentiment; couldn’t reconcile the action to the consequence. But it was a true statement. We never meant to kill them. Not any of them.

They say everything happens for a reason. Better to talk from the beginning.

                                                                                         ***

Lily Miller. Lord, that girl lit a fire under me. Sitting in the back of Scott Reynold’s truck like that. She was small. Small hips. Small breasts. I’m not a tall man, but we fit together. She felt like the right answer. She had freckles and I had none. She had light brown hair and mine was dark. She had hazel eyes above those few freckles and mine were blue. Are blue. I saw her in the parking lot, and then later that night, I remember, I saw her again out at the bonfire. Few of us carved out a spot in the night, and she was there. Drinking beer. Rubbing bare legs to stay warm. Fine and at home in a lawn chair. And I was staring at her, across the fire, waiting to match eyes and when we did, well, it was like hearing the best song, loud, your face naked to the passing winds of an open car window, telephone poles flitting by.

This was before the realizations of her situation came clear into view. It started as passion, and before it sunk into desperation for the both of us, well, we made sure we fell in love before that happened. Fell in love before we started to need each other. We wanted a solid base, like we were building a house. And sometimes we would talk about building that house on a few acres, far away from her daddy. And the graves of my folks, sitting there like domino fossils in the ground, waiting to be unearthed by some far-off civilization; far away from them.

We should have high-tailed it out of Dodge that first night. We’d already done enough by then. But we didn’t. We parked to do some thinking and while we were thinking the whole wide world blew up.

It was cold that night. I don’t remember the day of the week or nothing like that, only that it was chilly as all hell. I had on my Dad’s old navy-blue mechanic’s jacket. Had his name on it -- Eli. He had blue eyes too, just like me. We were parked in Lily’s car, north off Waterloo Road, listening to the radio whispers of Tulsa. Dark night. Lights of town a few miles west, bouncing off the clouds, making that green glow.

At the time we didn’t know nothing about Macalester Freeman. Nothing about the accident up the road, about the bus that slipped on black ice, went sideways into a ditch, or how that bus was from the state penitentiary and carried in its confines a man such as Freeman. Capable of such violence.

Speaking of that violence, it’s in there, isn’t it? In your gut. In your blood. Maybe I didn’t use to think, but now I do, that it’s born in there. Right along with your fingers. Right along with your lungs.

He came up on us with a rock to bust the window. Went for the driver’s side because he knew someone got to be in that seat, and he was right. It was Lily. The window popped and shattered, and before I could reach he’d pulled her out of the seat. She was screaming and I could hear him beating on her. It sounded like she’d got the hiccups, and in those first moments there were only those sounds as I rounded the corner of the car. Meat packing sounds.

What happened next I’ll never be sure of. I remember seeing his shadow from the light of the moon, and I went for it, and I tackled it. The beast still had on handcuffs, and I remember he ended up on top of me, and he bashed down with his fists balled together, and I remember the metal scraping my throat. There was something wet on my face. Blood or spit. Probably both. He was bigger than me, I remember, but he was handcuffed and I was stronger. I could feel that strength. My strength. I remember getting on top of him and choking him with my left hand while my right crawled like a spider across the red dirt of the road, and I remember the feeling of that rock in my right hand, and I remember the instinctual way it rose up above my head, and I remember the way it went down. Meat packing sounds again. Wet splashing up into my eyes, nose, and mouth. Certainly blood this time. I remember how when I finally made full contact I pinpointed the spot and hit it again and again in the darkness. I can’t remember stopping.

After it was done I went to her and she was bloodied and pulpy. She was having trouble breathing and I cradled her in my arms. Neither of us spoke. We looked to the sky. Listened to the far off rumblings of the highway.

I dragged the body off the road to the ditch that ran perpendicular. Through the ditch I was blocked by a barbed wire fence, but I hopped it in the darkness, tearing the navy blue jacket, and dragged Freeman underneath by his feet. A seclusion of trees offered itself not far from the road, and I left him there and made my way back to the car. Lily was in the front seat, fingering her cell phone nervously. I told her that we needed the police and a hospital, but she shook her head. That road led nowhere. Not after her daddy and what happened in that goddamned trailer.

I opened the door to the passenger side and the overhead light blinked to life and I could see the bruised eye and bloodied nose of her, puffed lips and sniffs like allergies.There was a blanket in the back seat and we slept there, huddled together. Coyotes howled through the busted window and I blinked awake all night, until the pink glow of dawn showed, pregnant with life.

Written by: Logan Theissen
Photograph by: Anna Westbury

Push Yourself

Candace pushed the paint roller up and down the sanded surface that was previously covered in faded paisley wallpaper. Her matte-blue trail stretched from the living room entrance toward the picture window that overlooked the back of the property. It was in front of that same window her mother would sprawl out on a chaise lounge and read novels about war-torn lovers, using the end of each chapter an opportunity to check in on young Candace as she played on the swing her father built her before answering his call of duty.

Candace used to spend hours watching ants march beneath her feet, the rest of her body draped over the wooden plank like a dress hung out to dry. She would make up stories for each the six-legged soldiers, imagining where they were going, what they were doing, and how many children they left behind. She was comforted by the thought of a larger being looking out for her father in the same way she was watching over the platoon of insects.

Candace stopped painting and placed the roller in the pan, resting the handle against one of the cloudy panes of glass. She searched for a place to take a break from her duties, but with all of the furniture either in storage or sold, she had nowhere to sit but the untreated floorboards that were speckled with carpet fragments.

She knelt down until her hands reached the tacky surface beneath her, using her arms as kickstands for her upper body while she extended her legs toward the window. She tapped the platinum ring on her right hand against a stray carpet staple while assessing her progress. The pings of her jewelry were as uniform as the lines of paint along the wall.

After estimating how long it would take her to finish the room, she shifted her weight to her right arm and checked the watch on her left wrist. The beams of light coming through the window bounced off the diamond-accented hands, filling her pupils with explosions of color that were snuffed out once she rolled her eyes.

She stood up and trudged toward the window, each step echoing through the empty room like her shoes were lined with packaging tape. As she reached for the roller, she caught a softened glimpse of the swing dangling on the other side of the glass. The subtle swaying of the unoccupied seat taunted her from across the yard. She disregarded the time on her outstretched wrist and headed for the back door. She pushed opened the creaky screen and tiptoed down the steps, being careful not to disturb any creatures that may be lurking in the shadows beneath the concrete slabs.

Her silence was broken once her right foot crunched the brittle weeds surrounding the base of the steps. The decaying lawn reminded Candace of her mother’s current state of health, reaffirming her decision to move her into a retirement community and sell her childhood home.

Candace crunched across the prickly turf until she was reunited with her Rosebud. She placed her right hand on the plank of wood and pushed down to test its durability, taking the familiar squeak of the screws as permission to climb aboard. She grabbed one of the weathered ropes with each hand and walked forward until the wood rested flush across her flat stomach.

She gave the fraying cords a final tug and hopped upward, letting the forces of gravity take hold. The swing’s true age became apparent once the wood stripped from the nails, sending Candace face first into the trail of barren dirt that was formed by the repetitive dragging of tiny feet.

Candace laid still for a moment, waiting for pain to identify any injuries she sustained in the fall. The only sting she felt was coming from the circular indentation around her left ring finger. She lifted her hand to find a crimson insect crushed in the trench of flesh, its jaws clinging to her skin.

She picked up a twig with her right hand and made a tiny groove in the dirt. She then plucked the lifeless ant from her finger and placed it in the hole, covering it with the displaced earth. She patted down the mound with her thumb as a tear fell from her nose, strengthening the bond of the soil.

“You fought bravely, your family will be proud,” she said to the grave.

She sat on her knees, clapped the dirt off her hands, and reached for her phone. There were no signs of damage, but there were three voicemails.

“Hi, Ms. Shruggs. It’s Zach. I feel dumb calling you about this, and I know you have enough to worry about right now, but I’m having a hard time with the Garrison report. If you could give me a call I’d re …”

She deleted the first message.

“Hi again. Just wanted to see if you got my call. I’ve made a little headway on the report, but I could still use a som …”

She deleted the second message.

“Okay, disregard everything I’ve said up until now. I figured it out. The report is almost complete, and I will have it to you first thing tomorrow. Sorry again for disturbing you. Please don’t fire me.”

Candace laughed and saved the third message. Then she composed a text.

See what you’re capable of when you’re left to your own devices? P.S - you’re not fired … yet.

She hit send, put her phone back in her pocket, and got to her feet. She wiped the moisture from her eyes with the back of her sleeve and blinked until the house came into focus. She saw her reflection in the window, standing in the same spot where she waited for her father to return from the war, where she waved for her mother to come give her a push, where she learned what she was capable of when left to her own devices.

Written by: Mark Killian
Photograph by: Anna Westbury

Comeuppance

“When life hands you lemons…” the old man says, offering me a smile as sweet and sugary as the pale yellow liquid he poured into two glasses. He slides one across the table and I notice his eyes crawl across my body, savoring every angle and curve.

Lemons indeed, you sick old perv.

While he mentally undresses me, I glance around the house, taking stock. Obviously a bachelor pad, the place hasn’t seen a woman’s touch in years, if ever. The kitchen is tidy, though outdated. A battered and stained plaid couch dominates the small living room. The only decorative touches are a few pieces of rudimentary taxidermy that hang upon the wood paneled walls. A dim hallway leads to the back of the house. High up in the Hollywood hills, sitting on a piece of land worth millions, it is not what I expected.

“Ahem.” My little cough grabs his attention. Red-faced, his gaze jumps from my tits back to my face.

“Thank you again, for saving me,” I say.

“You’re welcome. It’s a lucky thing I came along when I did. You could have been stuck out there all night. You really should have a spare tire.”

He may be talking about my car, but I can tell that he’s thinking about my ass. These pigs are all the same, let me save this little damsel in distress and I’ll get some.

Well trust me pal, no one is getting lucky here tonight.

I take a sip of the lemonade and put my hand in the pocket of my jacket, feeling reassured by the cool touch of the Walther 9mm that I had retrieved from the glove box before getting into his car.

“You don’t happen to have anything a little harder, would you?” I ask.

My question touches a nerve. His face bunches up and for a moment it looks as if he is going to cry. We stare at each other, the silence as uncomfortable as the plastic chairs we sit in. Finally, he shakes his head.

“I’m sorry dear, but no.” He manages a little smile. “Those days are long past for me.”

He gets up and pours himself another glass of lemonade, gesturing out the window to the sprawling mass of lights that is Los Angeles at night.

“I used to be kind of a big deal down there, producing movies and TV shows and whatnot. I had it all. The money. The fame. The fortune. Surrounded by young, beautiful women like yourself. But I drank it all away.”

He stares down at the lights of the city below.

“I tried the whole sobriety thing down there, but I couldn’t take it. Pardon my language, but that’s a pretty fucked up town. It’s amazing what people will do to each other to get ahead.”

You are preaching to the choir my friend.

“Once I wasn’t living inside a bottle I found out that my skin wasn’t thick enough to deal with it. So now, I just want to be left alone up here, living the simple life and communing with nature.”

Communing with nature?

A shudder passes through my body and my eyes are drawn back to the taxidermy that adorns the room. I fixate on the owl that is sitting on a shelf above the TV. His eyes are bright, fierce; not the usual muddied, opaque marbles.

Los Angeles is not the only thing fucked up around here.

“It’s getting late. You can sleep in my bedroom, I’ll take the couch. Don’t worry--we’ll get you fixed up in the morning.”

                                                                                              ***

I almost feel a twinge of guilt as I stand over him, his nostrils flaring with each soft snore. It’s so much easier to dispatch them when they’ve been pawing at me with their lecherous hands. But, decent man or not, he made it too easy, and too worthwhile.

Once I was sure my host had fallen asleep, I had done my recon. The top of his dresser was littered with bank statements, and the plethora of commas and zeros on them was enough to make any girl swoon. I found his wallet and the keys to the Cadillac on the table. Only one thing remained.

Sorry bud, it’s nothing personal, but a girl’s gotta eat.

My finger starts to tighten, taking up what little slack there is in the trigger. I take a deep breath and prepare for the recoil of the silenced handgun.

A piercing shriek cuts through the air behind me. I spin around and the gun jumps in my hand, lodging a bullet in the couch next to the man’s head. He screams and kicks at me and I tumble over the coffee table, ducking just under the owl as it swoops down on me. The pistol flies from my hand and slides across the living room floor. The enraged raptor redirects its attack and lands on my back, beak and talons tearing into my flesh.

I manage to get to my feet and make a break for the door and, owl still in tow, we burst into the cool, quiet California night. I race to the Cadillac, fight free from my tormenter, and slide in, slamming the door on one of the bird’s wings. It thrashes about, struggling to free itself, a writhing, screeching mass of blood and feathers.

I fumble with the key, trying to slip it into the ignition. Out of the corner of my eye I see the man lurch through the door of the house. The car finally starts and I speed up the steep incline of the driveway. Just as I am about to turn onto the road, a hulking black shadow appears in front of me. I slam on the brakes and skid to a stop just as the bear rears up and brings its crushing weight down on the front of the car.

I sit there frozen and watch as more animals: deer, coyote, fox, skunk, raccoon, opossum-- emerge from the shadows and ring the car, their preternatural eyes aglow in the beam of the headlights.

What the fuck?

The car door opens. The owl flaps away and lands on the hood, glaring at me and nursing its injured appendage.The old man raises the gun, my gun. I stare down the barrel, and wait for the light at the end of the tunnel.

Written by: Ben Cook
Photograph by: Anna Westbury

Wasted Youth

I have a disease that some might call a curse. I have never met anyone else with my particular affliction so it must be rather unique. That being said, I have not met everyone, so perhaps it’s not as special as I think. But instead of beating around the bush, I’m going to try my best to explain it in a simple and easily understood manner.

In a way, my physical appearance is not my own. I can choose which clothes to wear, but I cannot control their level of wear. I can choose to cut my hair, but I cannot choose its length and I cannot control its neatness. I am a product of other people’s actions, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. We are all a product of other people’s actions to one degree or another.

I apologize for being so vague, but it’s a difficult proposition to get someone to buy into. I have to walk my way slowly into the pool, instead of jumping right in. The best I can try for is simple and pure honesty. In the most basic terms, I am a mirror to youth’s actions. Does that make sense? Probably not. To be honest, I don’t understand it myself. I see the what, but never the why. And it’s not just youth’s actions either. It just so happens that they are the ones that inflict the most damage.

My physical appearance is linked to the humanity of the society that I am a part of. If you’re familiar with the tale of Dorian Gray then you’re aware of the tenuous link between physical appearance and moral behavior. In the classic novel by Wilde, the protagonist stays young and beautiful while his portrait accumulates his sins and other despicable behaviors. The portrait shows the true nature of the monster.

My condition is in some ways the opposite. My physical appearance has been broken and twisted for years now, and will only continue to get worse as people’s behavior toward me slides further into contempt. I once met a child who asked why I was so ugly. When I tried to explain my situation, he could not grasp it. So I had to simplify as best I knew how. I had to discard my own pity, and tell this innocent child what exactly was “wrong” with me.

“Every time someone is mean to me,” I began, “I get uglier.”

The boy dipped his head to the side, a weak neck, as if he was examining a painting.

“People must always be mean to you,” he said.

I nodded. I wanted to tell this boy about my pain. I wanted to tell him how it all began. The reason was unknown then and it is unknown now. I wanted to tell the boy that I was once young and beautiful, and that I treated people poorly. I was lost in my own vanity and one night in a storm, a man came to my door for assistance. Like any fairy tale, I turned him away. Fairy tales are for children. In the nights following, the process began. Harsh words took on a new meaning. My hair began to fall out and my face began to stretch. I became ghoulish almost over night, and that was only the beginning. Lastly, I wanted to tell the boy about my fear and anger in the early days, but how a resignation and beauty fell upon the whole thing. A sort of irony that can only be laughed at.

But the mother pulled the boy away from me before I could say anything. As she dragged him down the sidewalk he kept looking at me, and I at him. She glanced back frightfully, and I don’t blame her. A beggar, a vagabond, a drunk (though I haven’t had a drink in years), a hobo; you would be best advised to stay away.

That brings us to the present. That brings us to the nasty powers of youth. That brings us to the tears I shed as they danced on the ashes of my Oklahoma xanadu.

The house, my home, had been abandoned for some time. I was born in Oklahoma and I made my way back there, north of the city. The land was polka-dotted with houses and suburban compounds. There was a grid of roads running north, south, east, and west with stop signs at all mile intersections. But if you went a bit further north, where the pavement ended and the road fell into disrepair and dirt, nearly a mile off the road surrounded by felled mesquite trees and overgrown high grass, piles of dead things home to snakes and rats, you’d find my lodgings.

The youth in the area, boys in cowboy hats impressing pretty young girls with their courage and cockiness, found the house. Many Friday and Saturday nights, I would sit in the underbrush and watch them break the windows, rip up the floors, piss on the walls; all by the faint light of their cell phones. Sometimes they would come in with spray paint and graffiti the walls that still stood. The roof caved in one year after a rain so I could always see the stars at night, which was an unexpected gift.

And then, on a summer night, they burned her down simply because they could. Because they were young and why not? They wanted to see her burn. How could they know what it meant to someone like me? Why would they care?

I was lucky to get out of there at all, and managed to escape just in time and take up my usual view in the trees. I shed tears as they laughed, drunk on booze. And then the fire took over faster than I would have thought possible, faster than they thought possible, and before they knew what they had done they had escaped and left her torched and burning.

I fell asleep not caring if the flames overtook me in the night. I had practiced as much patience as I knew how, but I was done with all that. I had enough viciousness for a lifetime and wanted no more.

In the morning, the fireman must have thought I was dead. When he rolled me over and looked upon my face, he must have thought I was burned. But the fire had not done me in, and they loaded me into a truck to take me to the hospital, and that is where I tell you my tale now, from a bed in a white room covered in bandages. The doctors come, but they don’t know what to say, so they simply hold me here. Out of sight, out of mind.

As they drove me away, I glanced out the truck window for one last look at the remains of the house, all gray and smoking.

“Thank God no one was hurt,” said the fireman to no one in particular.

I wanted to reply, but had nothing left to say. He was very young and couldn’t have heard me anyway.

Written by: Logan Theissen
Photograph by: Anna Westbury

When Hammers Swing

If you happened to need a detailed map of the Lunder’s backyard and the woods surrounding it, all you would have to do is ask their youngest son, Jeremy. He was meticulous, exploring every iota of land within a quarter-mile radius behind their home. Jeremy was a gypsy when it came to his outside adventures, never playing in one location for more than a few days.

Jeremy’s current obsession was an abandoned set of railroad tracks situated behind his house. To an adult, it looked like an eyesore, because it was where people living in the country came to illegally dump unwanted household appliances. But to Jeremy it was a world of possibilities: shoes that would let him jump like a grasshopper, a flying bicycle, a refrigerator that would teleport him to other planets. The things he imagined himself inventing!

During his first trip, he surveyed the area, bouncing from the rusted-out stove to a refrigerator that sat askew, just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. A few feet over laid a microwave and a window AC unit. There were more treasures littered all over the place, of course. These were merely the highlights of the inventory.

Jeremy didn’t know if it was intentional or not, but these appliances were arranged as though they sat in some sort of invisible kitchen. Was it possible there were people who lived in this area and at night they came out and plugged the appliances into the trees to cook delicious feasts for themselves and their opossum neighbors? The thoughts that crossed Jeremy’s mind!

Today was Jeremy’s third trip to the abandoned railroad tracks. This time he remembered to bring a hammer. He intended to use it to pry apart old railroad ties so he could capture a lizard hiding inside. His success was limited. Even though he was able to wedge the claw of the hammer into one of the many grooves, his little arms weren’t strong enough to pry the old wood apart. He stuck to the low-hanging fruit and split apart the little slivers at the top, but it was useless; that wasn’t where the lizards hung out. And if he did manage to get lucky and spot one, there was no point in chasing after it. The suckers were fast, darting off and juking wildly to the left or right just when Jeremy thought he had one cornered.

Frustrated and growing bored of lizard hunting, Jeremy decided to dissect some of the kitchen appliances. He’d long forgotten his story about the people who lived in the woods and how they might need a working stove or refrigerator later that evening. A hammer in the hand of a little boy will forever trump the needs of invisible strangers.

There wasn’t much damage he could inflict on the stove, other than a few dents and dings on its rusty side panels. It was the same frustrating story for the refrigerator. He managed to work over the microwave a little, but it was stubborn. The window on its door wasn’t glass, but some sort of plastic Jeremy classified as indestructible.

As Jeremy wondered if he should have brought a screwdriver instead of a hammer, he spotted a TV off in the distance. It was the mother lode of discoveries, the kind of score every eight-year-old boy wielding a hammer hopes to find. It had a humongous glass screen, and Jeremy was determined to find out what was on the other side.

He sized up the TV as though it were a boxing opponent and took a swing at the glass. Despite being a direct hit, the hammer bounced off the screen as if it were made of rubber, almost causing Jeremy to drop it. He took another swing and got the same result. After several more swings, a crack appeared, but it was so thin it could almost have been mistaken for a strand of hair. So far, the TV was turning out to be as much of a disappointment as all the other appliances. In Jeremy’s mind, it should have only taken one blow for the entire thing to shatter the way a window does after Jean-Claude Van Damme roundhouses a bad guy through it. Maybe I should have brought Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jeremy sniggered to himself.

After five minutes of working the TV over with the hammer, Jeremy decided to take a break. The tube was close to breaking, but he was sweating and out of breath. After a few moments, an imaginary steam whistle sounded and Jeremy slapped his hands on his thighs, picked up his hammer and stood up. “Alright boys! Back to work!” he said to himself.

With two more swings, Jeremy managed to bust open the TV’s screen. It didn’t shatter and fall as one broken sheet like he’d wanted. The hole he made was only the size of a nickel. The success hadn’t been gratuitous, but it was a success, and he would take it. As he chipped away at the hole, it quickly turned into an opening the size of a coffee can. He gathered all the strength he had and swung as hard as he could. He hoped he would be able to shatter at least one half of the remaining glass, but instead, he completely missed and the hammer plunged right into the hole he’d already made. As it did, the top of his thumb caught on a piece of the jagged glass which gouged out a chunk of his flesh. He was amazed at how little such a wound actually hurt.

At first, the blood slowly worked its way out of the spot the flesh had been only moments prior. It was like a snake sleepily emerging from a hole until it began pouring out and painting his suntanned hand. The sudden appearance of so much blood opened Jeremy’s eyes: the small wound hurt more than anything he had ever experienced before. As he frantically pedaled back home to his mom, somewhere near a TV with a broken screen, laid a hammer forgotten to the rest of the world.

Written by: Michael Williams
Photograph by: Anna Westbury