It's been a wonderful two and a half months since S&V first began, a thought I had while washing dishes. :)
S&V has grown so quickly: sixty-four contributors in the online zine alone since inception.
Beginning today, S&V's new home will be at www.shootsandvines.com. Many thanks to Lynn Alexander for helping through the beginning stages of setting up the new site. I couldn't have done it without her.
New submissions addy: submissions@shootsandvines.com
New info addy: info@shootsandvines.com
New site: www.shootsandvines.com.
On the drop down bar of the new site is a list of all the contributors. Each piece of work has its own page. I hope everyone enjoys the new look, still dark and disparing. :)
Take care and check out the new site. Bookmark it, tell your friends, and keep submitting!
Thanks to everyone for making this such a huge success. I never would have dreamed this zine would hit over 5800 views in less than three months, but I also didn't have any idea how many great writers were still hiding in the underground.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Featured Writer: Julie Buffaloe-Yoder Day 3
Buster Peacock & The House of Many Colors
When the city of Freeville
widened the highway,
they didn’t plow down
a single shingle in
Foxcroft
White Pointe
Golf Crossing.
Instead, they took
Buster Peacock’s land.
A blind old black man
in a felt blue hat
with a sagging shack
on twenty acres of
scrub pine and sand.
That house was old
even in Jim Crow’s day
when Buster carried
his sweet Veleetha
over the threshhold,
felt the angles of her face
the curve of her hips,
a perfect place for babies:
Buster Jr.
Scoochie
Little Toot.
Buster Peacock could feel the color
of four rooms with his fingers, the tips
of his toes—the brown creak and sigh
from tired floorboards at night.
The way the feather bed felt
like cool water blue when
the breeze blew gauze curtains
over Veleetha’s sleeping face.
That little red place in the doorway
where Scoochie bumped his head
when he got so tall, the gold notches
where Buster Jr. carved his name,
the yellow dip in the hallway where
Toot liked to slide in socks.
The silver click of the cuckoo clock
exactly eight steps from a gray hum
from the refrigerator, the green smell
of the breadbox on a hot June day.
The city could not understand
why Buster cried so hard
over a broke down shack.
They gave fair market value.
But they didn’t care that
you can’t place market value
on a breadbox or children
grown or a wife passed on.
The day they moved him
to a retirement home,
the dozer crushed
through his front door.
Buster could feel color
all over again.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Waiting For Mother
Waiting for mother was easier
before autumn crackled in
and ate the days up early.
It was my job to never cry
and light the living room fire.
I was six and alone with wood
and the sharp clear bark of cold.
The wind tip-tapped
the spider crack windows
looking for a place inside
to build its nest.
I knew Mother would come,
she would come home and see
me in the big of the dark,
clumsy with wood and the room
closing its teeth around me--
the naughty buds of fire
refusing to open and grow.
The room smiled pumpkin warm
when I coaxed the fire to raise
its broken, bloody wings.
The branches fluttered shadows
like long lashes on the walls.
Those nights were yellow glad;
I could play and wait, listen
to the purr of wind against the sky.
I liked to watch the moon
scrape across the window.
I liked to tell stories to my dolls,
hold them close to the fire,
watch their smiling faces melt.
And the moon held me.
And the smoke held me.
And the long curly hair
of the shadows held me.
And the moon made me full.
And the fire ate my fever.
And the rise and fall of flames
sang me softly to sleep.
Sometimes when I woke,
the fire left burning sores
on tangled legs of branches.
Sometimes when I woke,
the moon rattled at the window.
The cold was thorny
up and down my back.
The knots in the wood
stared like bad baby eyes,
and the clock was click click
clicking its high heels
in the crying midnight room.
I knew when Mother came home,
she would come, singing red shoes,
the pretty side of her face
an orange fire glow.
She would turn off the bad baby eyes
and the meanness of the moon.
She would listen to the falling leaves
and hear the angel wings with me.
She would fall asleep, and I
would rub her small, soft feet.
I would smell her lemon hair.
I would find her missing slipper.
I would kiss her warming temple,
never ever burn.
Waiting for Mother was easier
before the greedy winter came
and chewed up all the wood.
One night, the wind slapped hard.
I only found the skinny twigs.
One night, through the click of cold,
I filled the fireplace with dolls
and books, pennies, chairs,
stale dry blankets,
And I let the room catch on fire.
Upstairs, on my mattress,
I waited for Mother
to creep up the wooden steps
and tuck me in.
She would come quickly.
She would come warmly.
I knew she would come home
and I would not be alone.
And together we would listen
to the broken goodnight moon,
the glowing wind, and babies
falling from the sky.
When the city of Freeville
widened the highway,
they didn’t plow down
a single shingle in
Foxcroft
White Pointe
Golf Crossing.
Instead, they took
Buster Peacock’s land.
A blind old black man
in a felt blue hat
with a sagging shack
on twenty acres of
scrub pine and sand.
That house was old
even in Jim Crow’s day
when Buster carried
his sweet Veleetha
over the threshhold,
felt the angles of her face
the curve of her hips,
a perfect place for babies:
Buster Jr.
Scoochie
Little Toot.
Buster Peacock could feel the color
of four rooms with his fingers, the tips
of his toes—the brown creak and sigh
from tired floorboards at night.
The way the feather bed felt
like cool water blue when
the breeze blew gauze curtains
over Veleetha’s sleeping face.
That little red place in the doorway
where Scoochie bumped his head
when he got so tall, the gold notches
where Buster Jr. carved his name,
the yellow dip in the hallway where
Toot liked to slide in socks.
The silver click of the cuckoo clock
exactly eight steps from a gray hum
from the refrigerator, the green smell
of the breadbox on a hot June day.
The city could not understand
why Buster cried so hard
over a broke down shack.
They gave fair market value.
But they didn’t care that
you can’t place market value
on a breadbox or children
grown or a wife passed on.
The day they moved him
to a retirement home,
the dozer crushed
through his front door.
Buster could feel color
all over again.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Waiting For Mother
Waiting for mother was easier
before autumn crackled in
and ate the days up early.
It was my job to never cry
and light the living room fire.
I was six and alone with wood
and the sharp clear bark of cold.
The wind tip-tapped
the spider crack windows
looking for a place inside
to build its nest.
I knew Mother would come,
she would come home and see
me in the big of the dark,
clumsy with wood and the room
closing its teeth around me--
the naughty buds of fire
refusing to open and grow.
The room smiled pumpkin warm
when I coaxed the fire to raise
its broken, bloody wings.
The branches fluttered shadows
like long lashes on the walls.
Those nights were yellow glad;
I could play and wait, listen
to the purr of wind against the sky.
I liked to watch the moon
scrape across the window.
I liked to tell stories to my dolls,
hold them close to the fire,
watch their smiling faces melt.
And the moon held me.
And the smoke held me.
And the long curly hair
of the shadows held me.
And the moon made me full.
And the fire ate my fever.
And the rise and fall of flames
sang me softly to sleep.
Sometimes when I woke,
the fire left burning sores
on tangled legs of branches.
Sometimes when I woke,
the moon rattled at the window.
The cold was thorny
up and down my back.
The knots in the wood
stared like bad baby eyes,
and the clock was click click
clicking its high heels
in the crying midnight room.
I knew when Mother came home,
she would come, singing red shoes,
the pretty side of her face
an orange fire glow.
She would turn off the bad baby eyes
and the meanness of the moon.
She would listen to the falling leaves
and hear the angel wings with me.
She would fall asleep, and I
would rub her small, soft feet.
I would smell her lemon hair.
I would find her missing slipper.
I would kiss her warming temple,
never ever burn.
Waiting for Mother was easier
before the greedy winter came
and chewed up all the wood.
One night, the wind slapped hard.
I only found the skinny twigs.
One night, through the click of cold,
I filled the fireplace with dolls
and books, pennies, chairs,
stale dry blankets,
And I let the room catch on fire.
Upstairs, on my mattress,
I waited for Mother
to creep up the wooden steps
and tuck me in.
She would come quickly.
She would come warmly.
I knew she would come home
and I would not be alone.
And together we would listen
to the broken goodnight moon,
the glowing wind, and babies
falling from the sky.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Featured Writer: Julie Buffaloe-Yoder Day 2
Shaqueena, Big and Tall
Shaqueena had the biggest tits
I’ve ever seen, I mean each
of those puppies was the size
of a Rottweiler’s head.
Even us straight girls
couldn’t help but stare
at them in gym class.
Soapy globes in the shower,
suntanned worlds unknown,
Shaqueena had the power
of a woman in eighth grade.
Those glamorous glands
didn’t slow Shaqueena down.
She didn’t try to stop them
with eighteen-hour harnesses
or hide them behind books.
She put them out there, honey,
for all the small girls to see.
Goddess of the braless,
large dark nipples peeking
through thin white lace.
Bouncing on the playground,
they’d hit us in the face.
We memorized her mammaries,
worshipped her jiggling temples,
wrote poems about them,
gave both of them names.
We were jealous as hell.
Shaqueena, Queen of Meat.
Sturdy, curvy, proud, loud.
When God was passing out
boobs in the lunch room,
Shaqueena took all the trays
and ran away, laughing.
__________________________________________________________
Washing Away
That old shell of a building used to be
where Jeeter Davis picked the blues,
while us girls picked the sweet meat
of blue crabs to sell for market price.
We worked with red bandanas
on our heads, and boys on our minds.
Our squeaking rubber gloves
on warm, wet wood kept time.
The mockingbirds sounded
like little boats chewing foam.
The shush of shovels in crushed ice
meant supper would be on the table
for at least another season.
Our fathers were worn out
after a good night’s catch,
their boats heavy with a living.
But they kept us full
of their stories, oh Lord, that day
Jeeter Davis sang the one about
the cheating wife and the clam bed,
we thought we would die laughing.
Now there’s a big, black boot,
some old net that needs mending,
and an upside down crab pot
floating in the tide.
There’s a rotten crate
with SHRIMP stenciled
on its side, the letters R, M, P
almost faded away.
There’s a mossy brown stump
where the oyster bed was,
the handle of a shovel,
and two rusty pennies, heads up,
lying in the mud.
There’s our old crab house
creaking in the breeze, and inside,
the briny smell still echoes
like Jeeter Davis’ cold, steel blues
sliding off the walls.
There’s glass that snaps underfoot,
three rubber gloves, a pink hair brush,
a radio that might still work,
and a guitar pick crusted with scales
stuck in a crack in the ice room door.
There’s half a receipt book,
and compliments
of Bell-Munden Funeral Home,
there’s an unmarked calendar
still opened to the year
when we lost our soul.
Across the bay,
there’s a healthy row
of condominiums growing.
They call it Fisherman’s Ridge.
There’s a billboard that has
a happy family on it.
They’re not from around here.
There’s a cartoon picture
of a boat and a shrimper
hauling in his heavy nets.
He’s bathed in light and way
too clean to be working.
They tell us maybe
we can get big tips over there
if we entertain the tourists
with our watermen’s accents
or serve imported crabs
in the restaurant
or mop their pretty floors.
So shiny, so bright,
like the Whore of Babylon
like a brand new bay.
God help us.
We’re all washing
We’re all washing away.
Shaqueena had the biggest tits
I’ve ever seen, I mean each
of those puppies was the size
of a Rottweiler’s head.
Even us straight girls
couldn’t help but stare
at them in gym class.
Soapy globes in the shower,
suntanned worlds unknown,
Shaqueena had the power
of a woman in eighth grade.
Those glamorous glands
didn’t slow Shaqueena down.
She didn’t try to stop them
with eighteen-hour harnesses
or hide them behind books.
She put them out there, honey,
for all the small girls to see.
Goddess of the braless,
large dark nipples peeking
through thin white lace.
Bouncing on the playground,
they’d hit us in the face.
We memorized her mammaries,
worshipped her jiggling temples,
wrote poems about them,
gave both of them names.
We were jealous as hell.
Shaqueena, Queen of Meat.
Sturdy, curvy, proud, loud.
When God was passing out
boobs in the lunch room,
Shaqueena took all the trays
and ran away, laughing.
__________________________________________________________
Washing Away
That old shell of a building used to be
where Jeeter Davis picked the blues,
while us girls picked the sweet meat
of blue crabs to sell for market price.
We worked with red bandanas
on our heads, and boys on our minds.
Our squeaking rubber gloves
on warm, wet wood kept time.
The mockingbirds sounded
like little boats chewing foam.
The shush of shovels in crushed ice
meant supper would be on the table
for at least another season.
Our fathers were worn out
after a good night’s catch,
their boats heavy with a living.
But they kept us full
of their stories, oh Lord, that day
Jeeter Davis sang the one about
the cheating wife and the clam bed,
we thought we would die laughing.
Now there’s a big, black boot,
some old net that needs mending,
and an upside down crab pot
floating in the tide.
There’s a rotten crate
with SHRIMP stenciled
on its side, the letters R, M, P
almost faded away.
There’s a mossy brown stump
where the oyster bed was,
the handle of a shovel,
and two rusty pennies, heads up,
lying in the mud.
There’s our old crab house
creaking in the breeze, and inside,
the briny smell still echoes
like Jeeter Davis’ cold, steel blues
sliding off the walls.
There’s glass that snaps underfoot,
three rubber gloves, a pink hair brush,
a radio that might still work,
and a guitar pick crusted with scales
stuck in a crack in the ice room door.
There’s half a receipt book,
and compliments
of Bell-Munden Funeral Home,
there’s an unmarked calendar
still opened to the year
when we lost our soul.
Across the bay,
there’s a healthy row
of condominiums growing.
They call it Fisherman’s Ridge.
There’s a billboard that has
a happy family on it.
They’re not from around here.
There’s a cartoon picture
of a boat and a shrimper
hauling in his heavy nets.
He’s bathed in light and way
too clean to be working.
They tell us maybe
we can get big tips over there
if we entertain the tourists
with our watermen’s accents
or serve imported crabs
in the restaurant
or mop their pretty floors.
So shiny, so bright,
like the Whore of Babylon
like a brand new bay.
God help us.
We’re all washing
We’re all washing away.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Featured Writer: Julie Buffaloe-Yoder Day 1
Aunt Aggie and The Alligators
Aunt Aggie never had babies.
She had alligators
that floated under leaf wet logs.
She had a mud brushed shack
beside a slow moving river
downwind of Ocketawna Swamp.
She had boxes of fossils
on her kitchen counters.
Six foot long rattlesnake skins
hung as decorations
on her front porch.
Half Cherokee, half Irish,
Aunt Aggie had one brown eye
and one blue; she had two
bright silver braids that swung
past her ass when she danced.
Aunt Aggie smelled like cypress,
muddy boots and fresh mint tea.
Her hands were as loving tough
as summer collard leaves.
Aunt Aggie had no neighbors.
She had a Smith and Wesson
and ninety six root thick acres.
She had record breaking reptiles
who turned over her trash barrel
in the lapping heat
of those thick cricket nights.
She had the faded yellow skies
of August hurricanes,
not too many water bugs,
mildewed faces growing
on her window screens,
and every knick knack
Woolworth’s ever sold.
Each spring at dawn on the edge
of the riverbank, Aunt Aggie threw
leftovers, buckets of fish guts,
and rotten fruit in mossy holes
where the gators waited
for her to call them by name:
Miss Eula Belle!
Matthew-Mark-Luke and John!
Josiah Ezekiel Twain!
Old Slow Moon!
Little Bitty!
During mating season she crouched
waist deep in swamp to watch
the big ones make the water dance;
kept a two-by-four held tight in case
the young ones should try to get fresh.
Aunt Aggie had a fit that stormy day
when relatives explained the papers
that came in the mail from The State:
Eminent Domain.
They said maybe she should take
the money they offered.
Find a nice retirement home.
Everybody thought Aunt Aggie
would shoot the lawyers
and the politicians
and the real estate developers
and the police in their fat heads.
Instead, she cut all her silver hair
and let it float down the river
with the moon of the green corn.
They found Aunt Aggie the next week
curled up and brown on her porch.
The biggest gator next to her, eating
fish heads, bread and moldy cheese.
Aunt Aggie’s last supper
before her babies were put to sleep.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Snake Handling
They call him Rattlesnake,
a row of diamonds
sliced across his back
in a bar room brawl.
All the girls say he is
the best thing to curl up
on their hot back porches
since before the devil’s fall.
They say he’s so pretty
like slant-eyed danger
wrapped in gold-brown skin,
muscles the size of sin—
he smells like a man, damnit.
This laying on of hands
fathers do not understand,
this power to tread through
tall grass, groping under
the dark side of logs,
searching for an answer.
When they dare to hold him,
they shed their old souls
and are born again
beneath a thrill of stars,
dancing to the rhythm
of the rock of ages.
Speaking unknown tongues,
that ticking crescendo
of dry pinestraw is alive
like tambourines of fire.
Like strychnine shooting
through a country girl’s veins.
The sting might not kill
but it makes them feel
like it will, and even if
they swell, they don’t
give a damn—they say
it’s better than Heaven.
I've had work published in Side of Grits, storySouth, Clapboard House, The Wilmington Review, A Carolina Literary Companion, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Grain, and Pemmican.
Aunt Aggie never had babies.
She had alligators
that floated under leaf wet logs.
She had a mud brushed shack
beside a slow moving river
downwind of Ocketawna Swamp.
She had boxes of fossils
on her kitchen counters.
Six foot long rattlesnake skins
hung as decorations
on her front porch.
Half Cherokee, half Irish,
Aunt Aggie had one brown eye
and one blue; she had two
bright silver braids that swung
past her ass when she danced.
Aunt Aggie smelled like cypress,
muddy boots and fresh mint tea.
Her hands were as loving tough
as summer collard leaves.
Aunt Aggie had no neighbors.
She had a Smith and Wesson
and ninety six root thick acres.
She had record breaking reptiles
who turned over her trash barrel
in the lapping heat
of those thick cricket nights.
She had the faded yellow skies
of August hurricanes,
not too many water bugs,
mildewed faces growing
on her window screens,
and every knick knack
Woolworth’s ever sold.
Each spring at dawn on the edge
of the riverbank, Aunt Aggie threw
leftovers, buckets of fish guts,
and rotten fruit in mossy holes
where the gators waited
for her to call them by name:
Miss Eula Belle!
Matthew-Mark-Luke and John!
Josiah Ezekiel Twain!
Old Slow Moon!
Little Bitty!
During mating season she crouched
waist deep in swamp to watch
the big ones make the water dance;
kept a two-by-four held tight in case
the young ones should try to get fresh.
Aunt Aggie had a fit that stormy day
when relatives explained the papers
that came in the mail from The State:
Eminent Domain.
They said maybe she should take
the money they offered.
Find a nice retirement home.
Everybody thought Aunt Aggie
would shoot the lawyers
and the politicians
and the real estate developers
and the police in their fat heads.
Instead, she cut all her silver hair
and let it float down the river
with the moon of the green corn.
They found Aunt Aggie the next week
curled up and brown on her porch.
The biggest gator next to her, eating
fish heads, bread and moldy cheese.
Aunt Aggie’s last supper
before her babies were put to sleep.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Snake Handling
They call him Rattlesnake,
a row of diamonds
sliced across his back
in a bar room brawl.
All the girls say he is
the best thing to curl up
on their hot back porches
since before the devil’s fall.
They say he’s so pretty
like slant-eyed danger
wrapped in gold-brown skin,
muscles the size of sin—
he smells like a man, damnit.
This laying on of hands
fathers do not understand,
this power to tread through
tall grass, groping under
the dark side of logs,
searching for an answer.
When they dare to hold him,
they shed their old souls
and are born again
beneath a thrill of stars,
dancing to the rhythm
of the rock of ages.
Speaking unknown tongues,
that ticking crescendo
of dry pinestraw is alive
like tambourines of fire.
Like strychnine shooting
through a country girl’s veins.
The sting might not kill
but it makes them feel
like it will, and even if
they swell, they don’t
give a damn—they say
it’s better than Heaven.
I've had work published in Side of Grits, storySouth, Clapboard House, The Wilmington Review, A Carolina Literary Companion, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Grain, and Pemmican.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
When the Wolves Came Down the Mountain by Jason Michel
When the wolves came down the mountain, we rang the bells and took turns throwing rocks at the damned wild hounds. All teeth and eyes. There seemed to be no rhyme nor reason to it all, ‘cept they wanted our blood split from open wounds onto the female earth’s holy gash.
And we damn well wanted theirs.
An aged Scotsman stood next to me, the one we called Ancient Mac Cock on account of his obsession with his withered mediocre genitalia, and launched a large stone that misfired and smashed the dull stained glass window that showed Christ’s crucifixion on the grim, hunched-over Presbyterian church. When the realization of the consequences of his wayward action hit him, he turned to me and whispered, “Might wake th’ ol’ bastard up fer once, hey lad …”
As I brought down a rock and cracked open the skull of one of the beautiful creatures, watching its pale blue eyes become shot with spilled scarlet ink and its grey purple cerebral mass seep through its ears, I noticed a little girl squatting over the dismembered stomach of a lupe and pissing all over its entrails, washing the blood away. Then I knew I was nothing more than a cell in a gigantic beast that went on forever and forever. The question was whether I was a virus or part of the immune system. As I looked around at the carnage and the numbers of the dead on both sides, I glimpsed the answer and prepared for tomorrow.
Jason Michel has been turned on, tripped up and stumbled over all around the world on an eleven year(so far)self imposed exile. He now lives in France.
He has recently published his first novel “Confessions of a Black Dog” at lulu.com and has had work published in various print and online magazines.
His work can be seen at http://beatendog.blogspot.com/
And we damn well wanted theirs.
An aged Scotsman stood next to me, the one we called Ancient Mac Cock on account of his obsession with his withered mediocre genitalia, and launched a large stone that misfired and smashed the dull stained glass window that showed Christ’s crucifixion on the grim, hunched-over Presbyterian church. When the realization of the consequences of his wayward action hit him, he turned to me and whispered, “Might wake th’ ol’ bastard up fer once, hey lad …”
As I brought down a rock and cracked open the skull of one of the beautiful creatures, watching its pale blue eyes become shot with spilled scarlet ink and its grey purple cerebral mass seep through its ears, I noticed a little girl squatting over the dismembered stomach of a lupe and pissing all over its entrails, washing the blood away. Then I knew I was nothing more than a cell in a gigantic beast that went on forever and forever. The question was whether I was a virus or part of the immune system. As I looked around at the carnage and the numbers of the dead on both sides, I glimpsed the answer and prepared for tomorrow.
Jason Michel has been turned on, tripped up and stumbled over all around the world on an eleven year(so far)self imposed exile. He now lives in France.
He has recently published his first novel “Confessions of a Black Dog” at lulu.com and has had work published in various print and online magazines.
His work can be seen at http://beatendog.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Todd Among the Nightingales by Mikael Covey
Todd meanders down the street, scrawny, pot-bellied; I see he’s lost most of his hair now. Comes over to the guys outside the half-way house with a big smile on his face. They’re sitting there smoking cigarettes watching the grass grow, whatever. Friends of his, I guess.
I’m making a delivery, dropping off a package. “He was one of the Chicago Seven” I tell ‘em. Todd smiles, starts recounting the names “Abby Hoffman, Jerry Rubin...” Yeah, and Todd Obermeyer.
We used to talk about it, back when I was his caseworker, as if that’s all there was. Paging through the high school yearbook, pictures in black and white. Pretty girls in pep club outfits, Pierpoint Rustlerettes 1967.
Todd looks at the pictures objectively, distantly; tells me how shy and dysfunctional he was in school; even though his folks had money. A scrawny little mouse with droopy eyes and big ears, short hair cut. Like none of that ever mattered anyway. “I’m forty-eight years old y’know.”
Then in college, somehow in a fraternity, in with the bright young going somewhere crowd. The cusp of future leaders. Chicago ’68, when he had the breakdown. They brought him back from Canada, put him in the hospital for twenty years. Ten more after that on the outside, still that’s all there ever was.
Lives alone in a spotlessly clean apartment, government funded. Everything neat and orderly, very nice. “I got no food” he says, objectively, not that it matters. Just something to talk about, making conversation. We have to meet, we have to talk. What else is there to say.
First of the month his check comes in. The vultures swoop down and take it away. Tougher needier mental patients who prey on the weaker ones. Borrow things, like your money. “They talk me into it” he says “what can I do? He says he’ll pay me back, and he never does. Next time I’m gonna just tell him no.”
Aint gonna happen. I’d like to see Todd get really angry about it, just to see how far he’d go before he’d back down. Like a couple of pomeranians fighting each other. Or maybe that’s how we all are when you think about it.
Take him to the food pantry where people donate food so that others who don’t have any can come get some. Todd’s very picky. “Do you have...” this, that, the other, like we’re at the supermarket, anything you want. I’m embarrassed. This is free food Todd, just take what the lady gives you, okay? Asks if he can come back every month, his problems would all be solved.
I like Todd, he’s so different from what you’d think a schizophrenic would be. So quiet calm peaceful. That slight smile, like things are amusing to him, or beyond his control. Always so friendly, gentle, dignified in his own way. A pleasure to visit with him, to escape from the constant tension and stress of the job. Just to sit here in this spotlessly clean apartment, reminisce about old days.
When I get to know him better, he confides in me a bit. The color coded signals God uses to tell him things. He saw a man on tv wearing a blue suit. Blue means royalty, that was a good man. Something yellow in a magazine would be a warning. Don’t go out today. Orange is even more dangerous.
That was years ago. I’m surprised he’s made it this far. But I like Todd, I’m happy to see him. Later run across him meandering down the street, big fleshy bulge on the side of his neck. “Todd, how you doing?” “Well...I got cancer. Of the lymph nodes, I guess. They’re giving me chemo... I’m fifty-eight years old, y’know.”
I’m making a delivery, dropping off a package. “He was one of the Chicago Seven” I tell ‘em. Todd smiles, starts recounting the names “Abby Hoffman, Jerry Rubin...” Yeah, and Todd Obermeyer.
We used to talk about it, back when I was his caseworker, as if that’s all there was. Paging through the high school yearbook, pictures in black and white. Pretty girls in pep club outfits, Pierpoint Rustlerettes 1967.
Todd looks at the pictures objectively, distantly; tells me how shy and dysfunctional he was in school; even though his folks had money. A scrawny little mouse with droopy eyes and big ears, short hair cut. Like none of that ever mattered anyway. “I’m forty-eight years old y’know.”
Then in college, somehow in a fraternity, in with the bright young going somewhere crowd. The cusp of future leaders. Chicago ’68, when he had the breakdown. They brought him back from Canada, put him in the hospital for twenty years. Ten more after that on the outside, still that’s all there ever was.
Lives alone in a spotlessly clean apartment, government funded. Everything neat and orderly, very nice. “I got no food” he says, objectively, not that it matters. Just something to talk about, making conversation. We have to meet, we have to talk. What else is there to say.
First of the month his check comes in. The vultures swoop down and take it away. Tougher needier mental patients who prey on the weaker ones. Borrow things, like your money. “They talk me into it” he says “what can I do? He says he’ll pay me back, and he never does. Next time I’m gonna just tell him no.”
Aint gonna happen. I’d like to see Todd get really angry about it, just to see how far he’d go before he’d back down. Like a couple of pomeranians fighting each other. Or maybe that’s how we all are when you think about it.
Take him to the food pantry where people donate food so that others who don’t have any can come get some. Todd’s very picky. “Do you have...” this, that, the other, like we’re at the supermarket, anything you want. I’m embarrassed. This is free food Todd, just take what the lady gives you, okay? Asks if he can come back every month, his problems would all be solved.
I like Todd, he’s so different from what you’d think a schizophrenic would be. So quiet calm peaceful. That slight smile, like things are amusing to him, or beyond his control. Always so friendly, gentle, dignified in his own way. A pleasure to visit with him, to escape from the constant tension and stress of the job. Just to sit here in this spotlessly clean apartment, reminisce about old days.
When I get to know him better, he confides in me a bit. The color coded signals God uses to tell him things. He saw a man on tv wearing a blue suit. Blue means royalty, that was a good man. Something yellow in a magazine would be a warning. Don’t go out today. Orange is even more dangerous.
That was years ago. I’m surprised he’s made it this far. But I like Todd, I’m happy to see him. Later run across him meandering down the street, big fleshy bulge on the side of his neck. “Todd, how you doing?” “Well...I got cancer. Of the lymph nodes, I guess. They’re giving me chemo... I’m fifty-eight years old, y’know.”
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Photography by Jeff Crouch
Remains Day
Sense of Play
Myopia
Jeff Crouch is an internet artist in Grand Prairie, Texas. Google him.
Sense of Play
Myopia
Jeff Crouch is an internet artist in Grand Prairie, Texas. Google him.
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