CHRIS BEDELL
Columnist
Woman after woman lined up and put their heads on the podium and then subsequently lost their heads.
That night when I was back in my bedroom I was restless since the image of the women lining up and then having their heads chopped off still haunted me.
The next morning after my Dad went to work and my Mom went to the market to get groceries, I heard a knock at the front door and I assumed it was Julian.
Boy, was I wrong.
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CHRIS BEDELL
Columnist
Sex outside of marriage just wasn’t frowned upon in Aklava, it was against the law. Hell, it was even punishable by death. Although, teenage girls were sometimes shown mercy. All forms of birth control and abortion were also illegal – usually punished by jail time and sometimes by death when Chieftains wanted to make an example of you.
The sad thing was that even though the law technically applied to everyone, men were usually given a free pass. The double standard against my gender was nervy, although I guess it wasn’t totally surprising.
But where do I, Cecily Jones, fit into this? Well, let’s just say Aklava isn’t the best place for a seventeen year old girl to come of age.
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CHRIS BEDELL
Columnist
While Damien was at the Blue Crest Café out on a date, his mind drifted back to 24 hours earlier when his best friend Andy had called him and told him about the date he had set up for him.
“Hi Damien,” said Andy, while Damien waited for him to get to the point.
“What’s going on?” asked Damien.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“Good, because I already told someone that you would show up at 6:00 p.m. at the Blue Crest Café for a date.”
“YOU DID WHAT?”
“You have to go. Besides I already told the person you would be there,” said Andy.
“Dammit Andy! You know how I avoid relationships at all costs.”
Damien drifted back to reality when Eva asked what he was going to order.
“I have no idea. How about you?” asked Andy.
“I’m not sure either,” answered Eva.
Damien glanced at Eva. She was thin, blonde and seemed slightly above average height for a woman. She didn’t seem to have any nervous habits such as biting her nails, which was good. Maybe she wasn’t a psycho, after all. He could only wonder what she thought of him.
They glanced at the menu and both decided to order Fettuccini Alfredo when the waiter came to take their orders. Unfortunately for them, there was an awkward silence while they waited for their food. But after several minutes Damien decided to be brave and talk.
“I have a confession,” said Damien.
“And what’s that?” wondered Eva.
“The only reason I went out on a date with you is because my friend Andy pressured me. I normally don’t like to date. I just prefer to stay focused on my career ambitions and write my novels,” said Damien.
“That’s right! I forgot that Andy said you were a published novelist,” remarked Eva.
“It’s just that I don’t really see the point of dating if you are just going to set yourself up for disappointment. I mean I can accept that I’m not that good looking but that doesn’t mean I have to endure continued rejection.”
“You’re rather frank aren’t you?”
“Well I don’t really see the point in being phony.”
“Did someone hurt you?” asked Eva.
“What do you think?”
“If it makes you feel better, even I have had my fair share of dating blunders. But what separates people like you from me, is that at the end of the end of the day I have moved on from my past relationships.”
“It’s hard to move on if you never get closure.”
“Fair point.”
Once the food arrived the conversation was actually enjoyable. Damien even found out that Eva was trying to become an actress, but had been unable to launch her career yet.
An hour later, the check had been taken care of and they were about to leave the restaurant when Damien glanced at Eva but was unsure if he should say what he was thinking.
“What is it?” inquired Eva as it became obvious that something was clearly on Damien’s mind.
“Nothing, forget it.”
“Just tell me.”
“I was wondering if you want to go out on another date?”
“Yeah, maybe I would. That actually would be nice.”
Half an hour later as Damien was in his bedroom and was about to fall asleep his phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Andy. I just wanted to know how your date went.”
“It was fine.”
“That’s it? You aren’t going to tell me anything else?”
“Eva seemed really nice. Anyway, maybe I am too cynical about love and relationships, but I would appreciate it if in the future you wouldn’t meddle in my life unless I asked you to.”
“Okay, fine.”
“She agreed to a second date!” blurted Damien.
“That’s wonderful,” remarked Andy.
After Damien hung up the phone once he was done talking to Andy, he began to realize that even though he still had his reservations about dating, it was time for him to step out of his shell and take a chance on the fact that he could possibly fall in love with someone.
After all, Damien was getting pretty tired of the fact that his life felt like a tragedy.
JOHN SAAVEDRA JR.
Student Voice Editor
Later – this must’ve been a couple years after because I was wondering how I’d survived and you think about that kind of stuff only after you’ve gotten yourself out of whatever mess you put yourself in – Lily was staring out of a snowy window, naked, when she said something that struck me: “You have no idea how often girls cry in the bathroom.”
I was sitting at my desk, also naked, trying to write a letter, although I can’t remember to whom.
“What do girls cry about?” I asked.
It hadn’t stopped snowing for two days, but we had enough bread, milk and cheese to last us for a while. These were the kind of days where you stopped worrying about the outside and tried to figure out how to put the cork back in the bottle. We were grateful for days like these.
“For example, we just made love and now you’re writing a letter to someone else. I’m going to cry about that,” she said.
I think the problem was that I didn’t understand her. I knew she had this short red hair that she liked to dye the color of fire. There were streaks of orange and blue criss-crossing one another. The flames on her head were hugging.
The way her fiery scalp stood in front of all the snow made the ice within my own body melt. And I guess that’s the point.
Lily made me melt all over the floor.
And now I had made her cry.
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MONIQUE VITCHE
News Editor
I finished organizing the rack of clearance earrings. Then I looked at my watch. It was only 10:30. The store had opened a half hour ago and there were seven hours left of my shift.
It was going to be a long day.
When the store opened a large group of customers rushed inside. It reminded me of Black Friday and – just as on Black Friday – those customers swarmed the women’s shoe department. Nobody wants to buy jewelry on a Tuesday morning; and especially when there isn’t a sale going on (even if this is the Upper East Side).
One of the managers stopped by the department and reminded me to open at least three store accounts today.
Yeah, let me get right on that. It’s not like he would remember whether I promised to or not, anyway. It’s easy for that to happen when you’re 1 of 600 employees in the store. Rather than make a sarcastic comment, I nodded my head.
This was not going to be a good day.
By noon I had transformed the department into a museum. Everything was in its proper place and there was not a speck of dust to be found.
“You look bored,” a customer said to me. It took everything in me not to slap the stupid grin off his face. “Can you tell me where —?” I tuned out after that. It was always the same – “Where’s the bathroom?” (Near the men’s shoe department on level 3) and “Where can I make a payment?” (You can make your payment at any register).
As the day wore on, I found myself making messes just so I would have something to do. I’d “accidentally” knock down a bunch of bracelets or rings – jewelry that cost more than my apartment in Queens.
I should be grateful to have a job in this economy; because not many do. However, like many of those people who are “lucky enough” to have a job, mine is certainly not in my field.
Comedy writers aren’t exactly in high demand. I won’t give my parents the satisfaction, but perhaps they were right when they told me that I was throwing away money for a useless degree.
I placed the last of the Armenta bracelets in the case when someone tapped me on my shoulder. I turned around to see a woman with a floral print dress standing there.
“Could you help me find this necklace?” the woman asked as she pointed to her iPhone.
As I showed her where she could find all of the jewelry Marni makes, I found myself giving away information about my life, where I went to school and what I majored in, and why I was currently here. I braced myself for the backlash I was undoubtedly about to receive upon saying that I wanted to be a comedy writer, but it never came.
“Really,” the woman said both in disbelief and excitement. “This must be your lucky day.”
The woman began to tell me that her husband was looking for a new comedy writer, as one of the writers took a leave of absence.
“It’s a temporary job,” she explained. “However, if they like what you have to contribute then you have a good chance of staying for more than a few months.”
I couldn’t believe it. This was my break. You hear about celebrities getting their big breaks while serving a movie executive lunch or causing a scene at a bank. My head was reeling. For a second, I thought this woman was an imposter but a quick Google search proved that she was who she said she was.
Frantically, I paged a manager.
“What is it?” the annoyed voice said through the phone.
“I quit,” was all I could manage to say before resting the phone on its cradle. I took off my badge, grabbed my things, and raced down the escalators to the ground floor.
I broke out into a sprint down 5th Avenue, running down 86th Street to make it to the subway station on Lexington. I swiped my metro card, pushed through the turnstile, made it to the platform just as the train pulled up. As I stepped into the subway car, a feeling of dread washed over me.
I couldn’t remember if she said I should come to the studio today.
It didn’t matter now, though. I couldn’t go back to the store. I was sick and tired of working a job that didn’t benefit me. I exited the subway car as it stopped at the 59th Street station.
As I walked the four blocks to the studio, I felt my heart begin to race and I couldn’t tell if it was from the running or my anxiety. I got closer and saw a group of people standing in line, waiting to get inside the air conditioned building. I also saw the comedian’s wife.
“You made it!” she called from the door.
I walked inside and was given instructions on where to go. I found the door that would take me backstage and began walking down a deserted corridor. The writers’ room was supposed to be the seventh door on the right.
As I was looking for the room I heard a voice say, “Hello.” It was a distant voice, but I ignored it. I heard it again and this time it was clearer.
I heard the voice a third time as something touched my arm.
“Are you okay, Miss?”
I looked around and saw that I was still standing behind the counter at Jean-Pierre’s.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “I was just daydreaming.”
JOHN SAAVEDRA JR.
Student Voice Editor
1
The next time you declare that you have something or someone to come home to, I want you to remember that that statement can have both good and bad connotations. It can mean the difference between something that gives you life and something that kills you.
You can be coming home to familiar lips or a bullet in the back.
After the bar, I called my wife.
She’s a tall woman with glasses and a nervous step. My wife always talks to you like she’s scared of something.
You can tell more about what she’s feeling by her forehead than any other human.
It depends how much of it is showing behind her bangs that are as thin as cobwebs. Her forehead is deeply lined with rows of wrinkles that resemble crop lines. It upsets me because she hasn’t aged well.
“Lily,” I said, as her face appeared on the screen. It was wide-eyed, her irises looked pale.
Her face somehow seemed out of focus in the camera, so that the whites of her eyes seemed like dim lights that held the rest of the face together.
Soon the face would melt and become part of the fabric of the universe. That’s what it seemed to be: an endless cycle of man (or woman, in this case) meeting universe.
How many people were stitched into its fabric?
I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be long until she was part of something bigger than our marriage or the groceries or the waiting, that perhaps her wide-eyed expressions were but a symbol of waiting.
Waiting for what?
Waiting to be taken in by the threads of purpose. A man (or woman, in this case) who knows the universe must undoubtedly know his (or her) purpose. I think that things come to those who don’t ask anything.
“James, how’s it going up there?” she asked. “Your calls don’t come in as often anymore. Is something wrong up there?”
She stopped, took a breath, closed her eyes, and then opened them again. Somehow, the lights in her head seemed brighter.
“You would tell me if something were wrong, right?”
“Everything is fine,” I said. “We’re just running some tests on some things.”
“It’s been nine months, James, and that seems to be the same answer every time. You sound like a politician.”
Lily has a sense of humor. Every time she tells a joke, I nod my head to let her know that I understood it was a joke.
I nodded.
“I called your friend Tom at mission control just the other day to see if I could get some information,” Lily said apologetically. “It’d been a month since I last heard from you.”
I sighed.
“I asked you not to do that, Lily.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay, that you weren’t floating around in space somewhere.”
“I’m okay.”
“I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to float around up there. It would be a strange feeling, wouldn’t it? Like when you’re trying to fight sleep and you get the sensation that you’re falling off the bed. I think it would start with a jolt like that, but then you’d get your grounding like anything else.”
“Lily–”
“You know that feeling I get sometimes? The one where I feel like I’m floating within myself? I think it would be something like that. Space, I mean. Only it would be bigger somehow.”
“Lily, I have a lot of work to do,” was all I said. “I should be able to call again in the following weeks.”
“Tom said he wasn’t allowed to talk about whatever you were doing up there, Jim, but he told me it would be a while yet before you came home.”
“There’s still a lot to be done, Lily.”
She thought about this for a moment, biting down on her lower lip, which was not as plump and inviting as it used to be.
“I hope you save the world, James,” she said finally.
“What?”
“I know that whatever you’re doing up there has to do with us. The world. When you breathe the air here, you breathe the time. My lungs tell me it’s almost time for something big to happen. I can almost grab on to its tail when I’m floating inside my own body again,” she said.
“Lily, please.”
She smiled.
“I’ve been seeing Dr. Richter again. For the meds.”
Ever since meeting Dr. Fuller, I’m not sure how to feel about psychiatrists.
“Oh.”
“I promise that I’m clear right now, James. This is me and I’m telling you to come home safe.”
“I will.”
I thought of Hercules slaughtering his wife and children. Maybe we’ll all go mad up here.
What is that common theme in Greek tragedy?
The hero that never returns?
2
Space smells like burnt steak or gunpowder or metal…or raspberries.
That’s what Lily says.
JOE CASTILLO
Photo Editor
This was how I began that spring semester: mass consumption, the recitation of poetry, and a mooning…
It was my first semester legally living on campus.
Midway through the fall, my best friend’s roommate dropped out and I began essentially squatting in his dorm room. No more waiting to sober up before driving home at three in the morning only to have to drive back by eleven the next day. No more girls’ roommates getting in the way.
And no more nights spent home by six watching television and eating Oreos by myself. I had a place to crash now.
I liked it so much I spent the winter convincing my mother to pony up for me to move on to campus. She obliged and got me towels and soap for Christmas to complement the rest of the motherly-love-filled hygiene kit that she sent me off to school with. I packed the car and off I went.
Arriving a little past noon, I lugged my bulging floral print suitcase into my room.
I had just finished putting the sheets on my bed when my roommate, Mike, and his folks arrived.
We politely greeted each other and I offered to help with his bags. Mike and I moved his junk in and went back for the fridge. It was a trick; it didn’t fit through the window, but the stairs to the door were, well, stairs.
We had to lug the damn thing up two flights. We got it in and unboxed the little bugger, all clean white interior, not stains from fruit punch or the smell of old milk or new cheese.
Now for that miscellaneous grocery bag of stuff from last semester: my mug, assorted office supplies, a Frisbee, and hey, what do we have here — a single beer from some Philadelphia micro-brewery.
The fridge is still warm, whatever shall I do? Eureka! The Canadian Cooler.
Mike’s father looked oddly at me and asked why I was filling a bag with snow. I exuberantly responded that I was going to chill my beer Canadian style, proud of my idea. He laughed and slapped my shoulder saying good thinking.
Thirty minutes later, all my junk was stored, clothes in drawers and hanging in the closet, shoes under the bed, and my reward was cold.
I rummaged through my assorted office supplies in search of a bottle opener.
Shoop! the seal had been lifted and that wonderful hoppy aroma filled my nose as I took the first sip of the first beer of my first semester living on campus. The night only got better from there.
Sitting in my garbage-picked wooden chair with my feet on our hard stolen coffee table, I took little sips of my beer, enjoying each one, when my friends John and Kelly knocked at my door. It was about six or so in the afternoon and we sat around and caught up on winter break bull for a while. Somehow two hours went by and we grew hungry.
“I’ve got my car here, let’s go to the diner,” Kelly said.
We ate waffles, drank coffee and milkshakes. Then we left with no particular place to go. We strolled out into the parking lot, almost to the car, but Mike had already hopped the chain-link fence between the diner and the movie theater. We walked over, but there was nothing playing at 9:45 on a Sunday night.
We meandered up the main street with no intention at first, but soon began scanning for an open liquor store.
Closed, closed, what the hell kind of college town is this, closed.
Finally, four blocks up, there it was: the soft glow of neon beer signs and light reflected from bottles in the window. The lights were on. We ducked into the alley between it and a large windowed eatery.
There was an elderly couple and their son finishing their dessert and coffee in the alley side window. We must have looked like criminals all huddled in the alley like that.
I dug in my pockets for my fake ID and went in search of cheap booze. Vodka? Whiskey? I’ve only got twenty-two bucks and change, ah, rum, barely even need a chaser, perfect. The clerk didn’t ask for my ID. I was a little disappointed, it’s a really good fake, but now I’ve got rum.
I returned to the alley to find my friends quarreling. I asked what was up and Mike told me he was willing to pay ten bucks to see someone moon the old couple. I smirked and John jumped on the bet. He was nervous, just exposed a little butt crack and thought that was worth ten bucks. I shook my head and handed off the rum.
I dropped my trousers and pressed ham to the window, knocked on the glass, gave them a wiggle and ran off down the alley as I pulled up my pants.
We laughed and laughed and Mike gave me his ten dollars as we walked back to the car. I kept asking what their faces looked like, but no one could describe what I could only imagine to be shock and disgust with an odd stroke of humor.
We finished the 32 oz. bottle within the hour and went in search of more liquor. John had a bottle of wine in his room, but no corkscrew. I had a Bowie knife, but not the fine motor skills to use it. Mike, being the sober sally of the bunch, took the knife for my own safety. We went to John’s room with empty cups in hand hoping to refill them. Along the way, we picked up some other drunkards.
We got the bottle from beneath his bed and Mike forced the cork through with the knife. A 2008 Zinfandel, we filled our glasses and…shit she’s got the knife.
“This thing isn’t sharp,” as she took it to her bare calf. Just a soft run of the blade would’ve done it, but she applied pressure. The blood ran down to her sock and she began laughing. I grabbed the blade from her and Mike took it from me.
We took the remains of the bottle for a walk.
We stumbled down the path, skulked around behind the biggest building on campus. We went up the stairs, down the hall and out the entrance to the balcony.
Once out the window, we paced around and drank our wine. We waxed intellectual about poetry and took turns reciting some of our favorites. I brought some Whitman, “O Captain! My Captain!” and “O Me! O Life!”
John told us some Billy Collins and Mike a little Emily Dickinson. Kelly and I recited Shakespeare together and I misquoted some Byron.
We parted ways for the evening leaving just an empty wine bottle on the windowsill, the only physical evidence of my first night as a resident.
JOHN SAAVEDRA JR.
Student Voice Editor
Tiffany was late.
I remember specifically because of how frightened I was outside of the train station when the man asked me to get in the car. He wore a brown fedora that drooped because of the weight of the rain on the brim.
“Well?” he asked. “Well?”
“Do I know you?” I asked, leaning forward on the bench, gripping the umbrella tighter, the rain splattering.
“I’m Tiffany’s father. Will you just get in?” He slapped the car door with his hand.
I sighed, picked up my bag, and got in.
“Cigarette?” he asked, holding out a pack of lights. I’d picked up the habit from Tiffany, but we only smoked regulars.
I figure we have a good 20 years before we have to start smoking the light stuff, she had said in her car, as she lit one. A car almost hit us that day. She rolled the wheel hard to the right and the other car cried on the road like an elephant. Tiffany had laughed, “Shit, well.”
“I’m okay,” I said.
He pushed down on the pedal and looked over at my bag. I was holding on to it.
“You have chocolates in there?” he asked.
“What?”
“Chocolates. You bring them for Tiffany, no?”
“Oh.”
When Tiffany spoke of her father, she usually asked for another cup of coffee and then another. Or sometimes she’d just excuse herself to the bathroom because she needed to look in a mirror.
The first time I asked her what her father did for a living, she shook her head quickly and said, “You know, there’re just some things I don’t like to talk about, okay?” Then she asked for another cup of coffee.
“So let’s see them,” he said.
He kept me in his gaze for a moment and then turned back to the road.
I unzipped my bag and pulled out the heart-shaped box of chocolates. I took the lid off and ripped off the plastic covering that kept the chocolates fresh.
“So what do you have for us, Johnny?” the man asked, a smirk on his face.
I held the box out and he grabbed a chocolate at random, keeping his eyes on the road. He chewed for a second and took a puff of his cigarette.
“Truffles. Not that coconut crap from last time. You’ve done good, kid.”
I looked out the window at the amber street lights, at the dark patches of wheat fields where vicious people must sleep and stalk and love.
“What’s this about?” I asked. “Where’s Tiffany?”
The man sighed.
“There’s been an accident.”
That night, I got to know people in a lot of different ways. Here was a man about to lose his daughter.
***
Tiffany was a little older than me and sometimes we went on these walks and we talked about suicide or our unexpected deaths. We were both in a really bad place for a long time.
“I kind of just want to be on the road one night and have someone hit me, you know? Just kind of become one with the windshield glass and let the inertia take me,” she said, as we walked in a park full of leafless trees.
“Is that ideal?” I asked her.
I like to paint pictures in my head. Surprise endings can be beautiful things to think about. I thought of Tiffany floating like a feather into the night sky.
Sometimes I like to think about what someone else’s death will mean to me. What I’ve come up with after all these years of thinking is that if I start crying about it that means I love you.
“Well, what way do you want to go?” she asked me. We were almost back to the car.
“Some way I won’t know about it or understand it’s happening,” I said.
There’s no way to understand the way the body transcends its physical form until you’re there looking at what it’s like to have your eyes closed. Cameras don’t get it right and sometimes I stand in front of a mirror with my eyes shut because maybe, just maybe…
***
Tiffany’s father liked to drink. She had told me that much.
The water flowed down the windshield and the whiskey snaked its way down his throat and into his fat belly.
“A hit?” he asked me, as we drove.
I kept asking, “What happened?”
He asked me for another chocolate.
When we got to the house, all the lights were on, including the unnecessary ones, like the ones to the attic.
“The light bill, goddammit,” he shouted. “I keep telling her the light bill.”
His wife was at the hospital looking over their daughter.
I learned later that Tiffany arrived to the emergency room with a sheet over her face and that her mother was the one lying in a hospital bed full of tranquilizers.