The Blotter · water, a chance for some to sit and for ... cool fr om the chilled water , the inten...

September 2004www.blotterrag.comEither Two Vast and Trunkless Legs of Stone or a Pair of Ragged Claws

In This Issue: Pretty Pictures by Harvey Mercadoocasio andChip Hildreth. Pretty Words by Jim Penny, Garry Somers, andAnn Meilahn. Plus, Marty Smith’s Paper Cuts and The DreamJournal.

Th e B l o t t e rTh e B l o t t e r

TheB l o t t e r August 2004 page 2

The B l o t t e r i s :Johnny Pence . . . . . J. Ozymandias

PrufrockMartin K. Smith . . . Publisher-at-Large,

Treasurer

J e n n y H a n i v e r . . Pseudonym

James C. Werner .....Minister ofInformation

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A l l c o n t e n t c o p y r i g h t 2 0 0 4by the ar t i s t , not the magazine .

Cover art: detail of In Summer’sWake, by Harvey Mercadoocasio. See

pp. 4-5 for more from this artist.

T h e B l o t t e r i s a p r o d u c t i o n o fT h e B l o t t e r M a g a z i n e , I n c . ,

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This magazine may contain typos or bad words

Items Worth Mentioningfrom the desk of Johnny Pence

Starting with Steve Earle, Ending in InsanityIn an interesting bit of synchronicity—or maybe it’s just that I’m always

thinking about P. B. Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” but either way—I happened to bethinking about the “vast and trunkless legs of stone” in connection with Americajust the other day, before I read Steve Earle’s interview in The Onion AV Club. Healso brought it up. Not to get political or anything, I’m just musing and wonder-ing about little things like American cultural dominance in the future of worldhistory. Will anybody remember Rulon Gardner in ten thousand years? G. W.Bush? Steve Earle?

Did you know Shelley probably wrote that poem in reply to Horace Smith’spoem of the same name, the same year? Or that Osymandias is the Greek namefor Ramses II, and that the ruined statue in question really exists at the complexof Luxor and Karnak? Do you know what you had for dinner on Thursday lastweek? What was the song that Ugly Kid Joe had back in the early ‘90s?

So anyway, about Steve Earle, I bring up the interview because I just didn’twant to put the motto for this month’s issue across the top and have someone say,“Hey, Pence is ripping off Steve Earle by mentioning Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’within 30 days of it appearing in The Onion AV Club.” You know how much Iworry about that sort of thing. But then, who’ll care in ten thousand years?

If you know Steve, tell him I think he’s the man.And if you’re a youngster and wonder what the hell I’m talking about, take

thirty seconds to Google “Ozymandias.” Then set aside six or seven minutes topull up “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (that one is by another poet calledT.S. Eliot), the other little joke/allusion in our motto this month. At that point,if you’ve read them and understand anything from them, and if you also have areasonable grasp of arithmetic (for balancing checkbooks), and understand whyyou’ll never really get your head around quantum mechanics, you might as welldrop out of school.

In fact, if you have those things under your belt, you should erect a big statue,your mug “in a sneer of cold command,” with a motto that says “Look upon myWorks, ye Mighty, and despair!” I think I’m going to do that myself here in a cou-ple weeks if I can get around to it.

I think I’ll pose for the statue with my hair parted behind, eating a peach, andwearing the bottoms of my trousers rolled. At least I’ll dare to eat the peach.

n.b.: The real inscription at the base of the statue for Ramses II says, “King of Kingsam I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpassone of my works.” Meh. Nice vast and trunkless legs of stone, O king of kings.

U-S-A! U-S-A! Rulon Gardner for president!

Thanks AgainI know we already thanked Gripweed Manifold and Stormfront for

playing a benefit show for us, and the Cave for hosting it, but I just got backfrom that show and it was great. So thanks. Again. And I think it helped. Iknow we sold some tickets and T-shirts, so we’ll Count deMoney and see.

We were picking upearly-season sweetpotatoes on the sec-

ond blistering afternoon of a hotterthan normal August in eastern NorthCarolina. 1968, it was. The deep fur-rows of the potato plow bared thecool sand that had not faced this bru-tal sun in well over a year; the brown,damp soil turned quickly to gray, drydirt, pocked with sweet, swollen,orange tuberous roots, occasionalquartz stones, and errant rusted bot-tle caps from hot seasons and thirstydiggers past.

We were an invading force, strip-ping the land of the lusciousblue-green vines and occasionalpotato blossoms, leaving in our wakethe naked, drying soil, ripped in rowslong hidden, tangled with withered,stringing vines and yellowing leaves.

The fruits of our labors were linesof wooden crates from Mexico filledwith “Number One Sweet Potatoes”bound for the early market of NorthRaleigh.

There, the going price would betwo, maybe three, times what wewould get next month. The boxeswere arranged in jagged lines alongcorridors in the dusty field, awaitingthe men who would grunt, lift, andstack them on my daddy’s old flat-bed truck with six in-line cylinders,dual rear tires, and a growling bull-gear. The truck was barely able toheave its load through the axle-deepsand of the newly pillaged field.

Six of us worked quietly in barefeet, short pants, thin or no shirts,

and, occasionally, hats. The vapidconversation of the cooler morninghad left with the dew, and now, anhour past lunch, the discussion of thefood that was and the weekend thatwould be had both withered in theunrelenting heat. We went about ourlabor, automatons bent on simple, ifragged, survival, approaching theends of the rows, each in turn, thosein front helping those to the rear, noone getting to far ahead or too farbehind. I was rarely the first or thelast, but usually toward the middle,sometimes helped, sometimes help-ing, always pulling the countlesstubers from the ravaged soil.

The end of each row meant abreak in the shade, a cup of coolwater, a chance for some to sit and forsome to lean, a brief rest in the wel-comed breeze that stirred the shade ofthe wild cherry trees. Our water satin an orange Igloo cooler on a con-crete block under the tallest cherrytree, five gallons, a chunk of blockice, one cup, and six people, fiveblack and one white: me.

I was second in line to drink, andfor the first time in my fifteen years, Ifaced the certain and undeniableprospect of drinking behind the col-oreds. Ahead, a young woman ofabout my age drained the cup, sighedin the lingering pleasure of cold wateron a hot day, and handed the cup, amolded, dimpled smoke-green glassof undistinguished design, to me.

I reached for the wet cup, stillcool from the chilled water, the inten-sity of the moment searing my brain,

August 2004The

B l o t t e rpage 3

The Blotter Dream Journalreal dreams, real weird

I woke up this morning thinking that itwould be a really good idea to geneti-cally engineer butterflies to eat the woodin planted pine trees in a certain patternso that people didn’t have to cut thetrees down with chainsaws. My initialthought was that the butterflies should bebrilliant irridescent indigo and green, butthat seemed a bit showy for such a blue-collar genetically engineered butterfly.Instead, I decided on a matte black withyellow spots and some graphite gray.That was an easier gene sequence tosteal directly from termites, anyhow. Itwas also of some concern that the lum-berjack butterflies might eat into houses,but there was another gene sequencethat might keep them away from housesaltogether. And if not, we could alwayspoison them.

—J.P., Hillsborough

I go out into the front yard of mymother’s house in the dim early morning.Two of my uncle’s brightly colored racecars are parked on the lawn (In reality heused to drive sporty convertible). Mymother and a middle-aged female friendor relative come out of the house in nightgowns and then race loudly down theroad in the race cars. When they comeback in a few minutes the friend says theexhaust pipe has cracked open. Sheparks the damaged car on the frontporch. Now the car has shrunk to thesize of a suitcase and is burning, so I amthinking about maybe dragging it out intothe yard to keep the house from catchingon fire. Suddenly the car is beside me. Ilook up at an unlit street lamp highabove me and the car. Then I look backdown at the car, and up at the lightagain. The bulb is still unlit.

—R.G., Raleigh

I dreamt I saw a statue titled TheGoddess of Flight. It showed a womanin an airline seat, throwing up into abucket.

—anon., DurhamPlease send excerpts from yourdream journals to Jenny at [email protected]. If nothingelse, we love to read them. Wewon’t publish your whole name.

Drinking Waterby Jim Penny

Subscriptionsare only $25and then youdon’t have toread throughthe big pinkadmonitons inCourier New.

burning my soul far beyond anythingthe glaring, scoffing sun, glintingfrom the lip of the cheap five-and-dime glass, could ever do to myshirtless back. White people didn'tdrink after coloreds, an unexplain-able, heretofore immutable, and nowapparently untenable law with me atthe cusp of eternal damnation.

There I stood, cup in hand. There was no visible spit on the

rim, but I had watched those brownlips, heard that soulful sigh, and evenimagined a slight string of spittlespun from lip to glass as she loweredit, closed her eyes, and swallowed thewater that cooled her.

I wonder if she saw, or felt, my

pause. Did the others? Did they feelthe same for having to drink after me?

I held the glass in my right handnot wiping the rim, drew my waterwith the left, raised the cup to myface, gazed at the distorted reflectionof my nose, lips, and tongue, anddrank it all, ignoring the cold chillthat burned my throat.

Was this burning the mutation Ifeared? Was it my soul in flight, flee-ing its soiled and impure vessel? Wasit the end of the life I had known,would I be shunned by friends andrelations, chased by dogs, cast beyondpurgatory now that I was one of thedamned, who had drunk behind thecoloreds?

My throat thawed while the chillspread through my heated innards,bringing a shiver to my spine, and Ihanded the cup to the smiling, oldergentleman behind me.


Jim Penny says, “I am an appliedstatistician for a small certification test-ing company near RTP. In my sparetime, I wander around Raleigh in a kiltspending money I don't have in barsmy mama warned me about. I don'tpick up potatoes any more, but I hadmore spending money when I did.”

CREATIVEMETALSMITHSDon H. Johnson | Kim Maitland117 E. Franklin St., Chapel Hill

919-967-2037 creativemetalsmiths.com


Ernest Hemingway is a fea-ture of the American liter-ary landscape. This is a

simple statement of fact. He’s in thecanon; he’s anthologized and taught;everybody reads him at least once inthe course of a standard education(usually his short story “The Killers”.)There’s not much point anymore inarguing whether he’s a “good” or“bad” writer. People don’t debate onwhether, say, Pilot Mountain is goodor bad—it’s just there.

Hemingway made his early livingas a newspaper correspondent. Evenafter his fiction found success, hecould still be persuaded into occa-sional journalism, despite grumblingson how it distracted him from his“real” work. (Rare is the writer who’llturn down a paying gig.) The piecesin this best-of collection cover hiswhole career, from 1920 to 1956.Almost all are on subjects one associ-ates with Hemingway: war, sport,bullfighting, hunting-and-fishing. Allare in a style I link not just with himbut with a whole Depression-realism,hard-boiled-detective, “the Great Wartrashed our illusions and left us cyni-cal” sensibility. It’s a flat, deadpanvoice uttering short sentences—anewsman’s simple statements of fact—or, if he gets worked up oversomething, a train of short statementscoupled by conjunctions. In the earlypieces it has a kind of rat-tat-tatmonotony like a typewriter or a tele-graph key.

The bull ring or Plaza deToros was a big, tawny brickamphitheatre standing at the endof a street in an open field. Theyellow and red Spanish flag wasfloating over it. Carriages weredriving up and people getting outof buses. There was a great crowdof beggars around the entrance.Men were selling water out of bigterra cotta water bottles. Kidssold fans, canes, roasted saltedalmonds in paper spills, fruit andslabs of ice cream. The crowd wasgay and cheerful but all intent onpushing toward the entrance.Mounted civil guards with patentleather cocked hats and carbinesslung over their backs sat theirhorses like statues, and the crowdflowed through.” (1923)

He could get close to lyrical,though, when writing on somethinghe enjoyed.

Then the heavy rod arc-ingout toward the fish, and the reelin a hand-saw zinging scream, themarlin leaps clear and long, silverin the sun long, round as ahogshead and banded with laven-der stripes and, when he goes intothe water, it throws a column ofspray like a shell lighting….Thenhe comes out again, and the sprayroars, and again, then the line

feels slack and out he burstsheaded across and in, then jumpswildly twice more seeming tohang high and stiff in the airbefore falling to throw the col-umn of water and you can see thehook in his jaw.” (1936)

(This piece also mentions the truestory of an old Cuban who hooked ahumongous marlin, which draggedhim out onto the open ocean. Hespent two days drifting and fightingoff sharks trying to eat his catch—i.e.the gist of Hemingway’s novel TheOld Man and the Sea.)

His style can make dialoguesound a bit stilted. (This segmentrequires some backstory: in 1956, inAfrica, he and his wife Mary survivedtwo small-plane crashes in the space

August 2004The

B l o t t e rpage 5

Paper CutsBooks You Might Not Have Readby Martin K. Smith

By-Line, Ernest Hemingwayedited by William White / Scribner’s, 1967Subscriptionsare only $25and then youdon’t have toread throughthe big pinkadmonitons inCourier New.


“You’re quite certainthat we haveenough petroleum,

Antic?” Mrs. Arnette said to theman driving the blue Eldorado. Heglanced over at her, using the rearview mirror, but did not respond.This did not faze her in the slight-est—Mrs. Arnette rarely paidattention to those people to whomshe was talking. Her love was theart of the monologue. Soliloquy.

The man behind the wheel,

who had been Mrs. Arnette’s occa-sional driver for many, many years,had developed the ability to tunethe woman out, or rather tune outhis own habit of responding to thethings that she said. He also sup-pressed a smile for her wordselection. She meant “petrol,” ofcourse, and affected this mistakenusage for his sake because shethought it was Continental.

The smile he suppressed wasbalanced by the slight annoyance

of a week. Garbled reports reachingthe outside world said they’d beenkilled, so on returning to civilizationthey got to read their own obituar-ies.)

Miss Mary woke up and said“Haven’t they brought the tea?And what are you reading?”

“Darling,” I said, “I amobserving the early-morning traf-fic of Nairobi and reading anumber of obituaries that camelast night.”

“Darling,” Miss Mary said, “Ireally wish you would not read somany of those obituaries. I thinkit is morbid probably. Anywaywe are not dead and so it is ratheran affectation. We never readother people’s obituaries and I donot really see why we should readour own. Besides it could be badfor you.”

“I quite agree with you,” Isaid. “But it is becoming a vice.”

“Darling,” Miss Mary said,“don’t you think you haveenough vices already?”

The war reportage holds somehistorical interest for its wide range.He covered Greece vs. Turkey in1922, the Spanish Civil War from1937 to ’39, and China underJapanese invasion. He even landedwith Allied forces on D-Day, rightup there in the line of fire. (I was alsointerested to note that in the 1930’she was an isolationist. He saw that asecond World War was coming, butfelt America should steer clear of it ifpossible.)

I confess to skimming throughthe sports stuff, not being a sportskind of guy. And to be honest, noneof the pieces stirred me as much asone might expect from a LiteraryLandmark. That’s one problem withbeing a Literary Landmark: your rep-utation precedes you. His rep was atoughie: that of a butch, strong-silent-type, the kind of man’s man

whom nobody would expect to eventhink about creative writing, but whoup and wrote stuff. I see it as a kindof large shadowy dark thing namedThe Hemingway Mystique, that fol-lowed him around like a haint, andcast a distorting veil between the out-side world and the real person.

I still respect the guy, though(which is why I have refrained fromreferring to him as “Papa” or“Hem”). He saw combat in severalwars; he survived two small-planecrashes, three divorces and a BigLiterary Reputation. His style worksbest in his fiction, where he describesintense and gut-wrenching events inthat flat factual voice, leaving thereaders to color in the emotionsthemselves. So if you haven’t readhim before, go to the novels first—then, if you like his fiction enough,you can come back to these dis-patches.

The ArmadilloBy Garry Somers

Altered ImageHair Designers, Inc.

1113 1/2 Broad StDurham, NC 27705

(919) 286-3732

s a r a j o b e r m a nRCST #190

registered cranioscral therapistby appointment only

919-688-6428 [email protected]

he had for the woman, who for rea-sons surpassing his understandingcalled him Antic, a word for whichhe could not find the associativeetymology, for his name was Sanjiv.He now assumed that she mispro-nounced his name, no, misspoke,out of some unsubtle need to irri-tate.

“Yes, ma’am,” was all he said.The Cadillac tore down the

highway, the sage and cactus desertpeeling by to the monotonousthump-thump-thump of old con-crete expansion joints under thethin skin of asphalt. Mrs. Arnettedidn’t notice. She was not con-cerned with the journey, with thethings-between-things. She had aset of rules for those things thatrequired her valuable attention, alist one might say, and ‘out thewindow’ was not on that list. Shesupposed that this might be attrib-uted to her childhood, when herfather would take the family oninterminable vacations. He sawthings that the rest of the familycouldn’t, but this didn’t stop himfrom pointing them out. He wouldentreat his wife and children to“Lookee, Lookee, ya’ll, out the star-board winder!” and when everyonelooked, they were unable to deter-mine what it was he wanted themto notice. It could be a lone scrubpine as often as a longhorn with asix-foot span.

“Petroleum is the true root ofall evil,” Mrs. Arnette said toSanjiv. He didn’t even twitch, shenoted. “As desert people, we bothknow this.” Nothing. So it wasgoing to be one of those days, shethought. A hard nut to crack.

It was Mrs. Arnette’s Eldorado.

Actually, her former husband’s, hispride and joy, Sanjiv understood. Afairly substantial piece of Detroitiron in the two-door coupe style.Terrible fuel economy, but to speakof such things in Texas was tanta-mount to committing a grave sin,like child molesting. Sanjiv chuck-led under his breath, just onehmm-hmm, quietly enough thatthe lady didn’t hear.

Sanjiv, whose full name wasSanjiv Singh Singh, didn’t knowwhy Mr. Arnette had left his wife,although he had his suspicions.Sanjiv’s own estranged wife wassomewhere in the east; that is,North or South Carolina. But heloved it here. Sanjiv found it espe-cially Texan to be driving very faston a long straight two-lane road ina powerful car. If someone comingup behind him wanted to go evenfaster, or if he was that faster carclosing on a slower vehicle, therewere occasional extra wide shoul-ders in the road called CourtesyLanes for the slower automobiles tomove out of the way. Which theyalways did. Sanjiv found thisunlikely behavior in the WilderWest fascinating. His wife, how-ever, had hated living in Texas, anddespite everything he understoodabout American women, he hadbeen unable to convince her to staywith him. A mistake, of course, fortheir marriage to have ever hap-pened—everyone had told him.Marrying for love, Sanjiv knew,had been the real error. And tomarry outside one’s people, also amistake. She had fallen in love withhis surface—his dark skin, hisbeard, his turban. Of such thingsfailures are made. Even when she

had been so enthusiastic in herstudy of Sikh, the precepts of TheGentle and Clear Thinking Swami,he had known in his heart thattheir time was short. Ah, well, hethought for the millionth time.

“Mrs. Arnette, I am not fromthe desert, you know,” he repliedquietly. “Mine are mountain peo-ple.” But she didn’t even look athim, continuing her own one-sidedconversation.

“And this is the great Americandesert, and here we are,” thewoman said. “I believe, however,that God never intended for manto live here. Humans are watercreatures. We require moisture; wecrave it. Look at all of our artwork.The clouds in the sky are represen-tations of the beauty of water.”Mrs. Arnette’s hands fluttered infront of her face like strange butter-flies. Sanjiv’s gaze rested on theolder woman’s eyes, which were ahandsome brown, and large in away that made her seem demure.Her hair was a short and curly gray,but not the gray of old age. Insteadher coif was a shade carefully con-sidered by a team of experts in theknowledge of what attracted, whatsoothed, what seemed both youth-ful and experienced. If she wouldjust keep some of her thoughtsunspoken, Sanjiv thought, shewould be a fine catch, as the ever-practical American idiom stated.

“And still we come to the desertto build our cities. Nineveh,Damascus,” Mrs. Arnette paused.“Samarkand. And Lubbock.” Shepeeked for an instant at the rearview mirror. There it was, theflicker of his eyes at her for thatlast. Got him, she thought.

August 2004The

B l o t t e rpage 7


Harvey MercadoocasioIn feudal Japan, thousands of years ago, in time a of despair and war, there where legends of thecoming of an illustrated monkey, who, with his enchanted brush, would paint images sobeautiful that those who where fighting would gaze upon them and forget all they where fight-ing over, vanquishing the woes of the people, bringing peace and harmony to the land....

www.artologie.org

This page:

Duplicity

Opposite, top down, left to right:In Summer’s Wake,

Neo-American Geisha Study I,Master of None



“All of the world’s great think-ing began in the desert. Egypt. TheJews of Yore. Christianity. Islam.”Mrs. Arnette frowned. “Why doyou suppose that is, Antic?” Thatone was just for fun.

“My name is Sanjiv, ma’am,”Sanjiv said, caught off guard. Hebit his tongue. Difficult woman.Didn’t she know about Buddhism,or…

“What about the…”“Hin-doos? Right. I suppose

there are exceptions to every rule,”she said. “But that’s beside thepoint. Let’s stick with thoseMuslims. Can you please explain tome your idea of Heaven? What canyou be thinking when you believethat paradise is a land with ninety-five beautiful young virgins at yourbeck and call? What normal adultman wants a plethora of simperingteenagers wandering around, with-out the slightest bit of sexualexperience?” Mrs. Arnette said,leaning back in her seat, clearly ona roll. “It’s like you men have noimagination. Are these real women,or just ethereal figments of thedearly departed? Who are these vir-gins? What happens after you havesex with them in the air-condi-

tioned tents of Paradise? Do theyget to leave? Or is their deflower-ment erased overnight? Is spendingeternity in Paradise with some dys-functional dead man punishment?Isn’t spending life with them pun-ishment enough?” Stopping to takea breath, she rolled her eyes in thedirection of the rear-view mirrorfor emphasis.

This was too much, thoughtSanjiv. He felt his hands squeezethe steering wheel.

“Mrs. Arnette, I am notMuslim,” said the man. “I am Sikh.We have talked about this before.”It was too late. She had gotten hisgoat—another fine Americanidiom.

“Of course. My mistake,” thewoman said.

Sanjiv flipped the switch on thedashboard to illuminate the bigCadillac’s headlights. Daylight wascollapsing with the rapidity onefound only in the desert. There wasa scuttering in the road out in frontof the reach of his headlight’sbeam. He shifted his foot over tothe brake pedal and pressed down,but the heavy vehicle rolled all ofits weight up into its shoulders andpushed back against the brake.

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Armadillo, he thought, attemptingto steer the Eldorado safely over thetop of the little armor-plated crea-ture. But the animal wasn’tcooperating and ducked-and-weaved as if it were trying tocommit suicide under his carwheels. He swerved.

Ba-dump! “We’re going too fast, Antic,”

Mrs. Arnette said.“Mrs. Arnette, we struck an

animal,” Sanjiv replied. “Stop the car,” she said.

“Please.” Off guard again, Sanjivbrought the boat coasting to a stop.

“What was it?” Mrs. Arnetteasked.

“An armadillo, ma’am,” Sanjivsaid. He began to explain, but Mrs.Arnette cut him off.

“Go back and see if it is OK.” “Ma’am, we ran it over,” Sanjiv

said. “Surely, if it is not dead itsoon will be.” He felt his shouldersrise in a slow shrug.

“Go look, please, Antic,” Mrs.Arnette, her tone half order andhalf plaintive. Disarmed, the driverput the car in Park and flipped onthe hazard lights. Opening thedoor to ping-ping-ping, he steppedout and marched back up the gritty

side of the road. Flashlight, hechastised himself, but didn’t goback to the Eldorado to retrieve it.The twilight would have to beenough for him to see what hemust.

The animal lay broken on itsside, its two uppermost legs pawingat the night air. Strange lookingthing, Sanjiv thought. As if madeby an alien god, rather than anEarthly one. He imagined that itwas evidence of the—validity—ofother ways of thinking. Thearmadillo was indeed going to die.If not by the force of the collisionwith the Cadillac, then certainlyfrom the other creatures of thenight, those that hungered andhunted.

He felt rather than heard Mrs.Arnette come up behind him. Hestartled, for she never got out ofthe car between beginning and endpoints of any of their journeys. Notto use the facilities, nor to get a softdrink or something sweet. Enteringor exiting the rear seat of a coupeinvolved wrestling the front seatbelt shoulder strap out of the wayand some amount of crawling, andwhile Sanjiv had yet to give Mrs.Arnette a boost, it was a distinct

future possibility. So the back seatwas her throne. Now, standing, hewas a head taller than she was. Hetilted towards her for a moment.

“Bring it back to the car, Antic,and put it in the trunk,” Mrs.Arnette requested.

“Oh, ma’am. This is a bad idea,I think,” he said. He touched theside of his turban for a second,without knowing why.

“We cannot leave the creaturehere on the road. It isn’t right,” shesaid. “You will pick it up and placeit in our trunk and we will bring itwith us.”

“Mrs. Arnette. It will not live.It has been crushed under ourwheel,” Sanjiv protested softly.

“Antic, I know the animal isgoing to die. I just don’t want it todie here. It was our fault,” she said,her voice steady and unnerving.Sanjiv inhaled and tried a differenttack.

“Mrs. Arnette. A wounded ani-mal is an unclean animal. Rituallyunclean. It is against my—faith—to pick it up,” he said. He felt amomentum growing. “Among mypeople, the butchering of animals ishandled by special people who dothat sort of thing.” Well, hethought, it is only partly a lie.

“You have to put it in the trunkof the automobile,” she repeated.

“I cannot. I would, but I can-not,” he lied again. He heard thewoman sigh, and knew that themoment had passed.

Mrs. Arnette stood there, look-ing down at the dying animal inthe dying light.

“You Arabs, you have so manyrules for things that make lifenearly impossible,” she said. Sanjiv

August 2004The

B l o t t e rpage 11


August 2004The


“Most of these images were taken in light rain or immediately following a storm when the sun came right out. Though onehas survived for months in the same spot, most lasted only a minute or two... especially in traffic. None of them were setup, I shot 'em where I found 'em.“I have increased the contrast in all of these images to emphasize the sharp transitions in color. In some images I'vereplaced the specular white with black which brings out the subtlety and variety in color. They all have been sharpened abit; I sharpen all digital images before printing. Other than that, no enhancement or effect or color has been added, theseare pretty much the colors and forms I saw when I shot them. “I view myself not as an artist but an engineer of light and static images. I'm a commercial photographer, a digital retouch-er and a photo restorator.”�Chip Hildreth is co-owner of Alphabirds Creative Services, Hillsborough, NC


almost rose to the bait—lovely idiom—but he bit the inside of his cheek hard,wincing from the pain. “I’ve had thisidea for some time now. How to stopthe troubles with all of you in theMiddle East. We take all of thosePalestinians and get them all together.Tell them all it’s a one-time offer.”

Sanjiv sighed quietly. He’d heardthis one before. Mrs. Arnette elaborated.

“Move them all, lock stock and bar-rel, to West Texas. We clear all of thefolks in West Texas out first, of course.Tell the Palestinians they get all of thatdesert, all the roads and phone-lines andhouses free-and-clear as part of the deal.They get the whole city of Lubbock fortheir very own. In a couple of yearsthey’re allowed to decide if they want tojoin the United States as a common-wealth or protectorate or what-have-you. In the mean time, there’s noneed for them to have an army, they canbuild their own mosques as they please,and there’s no more fighting with theIsraelites. Everyone wins.” Sanjiv couldhear the hands-on-your-hips satisfactionin Mrs. Arnette’s voice.

“What’s so great about Lubbock?”he asked.

“It’s the birthplace of Buddy Holly,”Mrs. Arnette said.

“What happens to all of the peoplein West Texas?” Sanjiv asked.

“Well. I thought that it was proba-bly just-desserts to send them all toPalestine—that would teach everyonethere a lesson or two. But that justmakes a whole new soup-sandwich, Isuspect. So we’d have to absorb themhere in the hill country. Like refugees.”Still, that satisfied voice.

The night had settled around them.Along with the idling hum of theEldorado in the distance, the scrit ofcicadas and chirrup of crickets joined inphilharmonic song.

“Good idea, ma’am,” Sanjiv said ina near whisper.

At that moment, the armadillochose to die. His armored claw-feetscrabbled in the roadside dust for a sec-ond and then stopped. Mrs. Arnetteand Sanjiv looked down, but there wasalmost nothing to see on the groundunder the darkness of a moonless Texassky.

“Damn,” she said under her breath.“We should go, ma’am,” Sanjiv

said, and without further coaxing thetwo walked back to the car. The manheld the door, and Mrs. Arnette swiftlysettled herself under the dome light thatthe fewest number of moths and suchmight enter the Cadillac. Sanjiv took hisplace behind the wheel. He pulled ontothe empty road and accelerated tonight-cruising speed. The car was quietexcept for the hum of well-tuned com-bustion.

Mrs. Arnette could not let such amoment lie fallow.

“Antic, what do your people permitheaven to be for your women?” sheasked. “Ninety-Five pairs of ManoloBlaniks?” In the dark of the back seat,Sanjiv could not see Mrs. Arnette’s hintof a sly smile.


Garry Somers is freakin’ alwaysin this magazine, but usually withpoems. In fact, this is the first one hedidn’t throw out. He wants to givesome credit to a clever neice whohelped him edit this piece while theywere on family vacation at Edisto.

Ann Meilahn (next page) is atheatre scenic designer who workswith Autistic kids and waitresseson the side to pay those lousy bills.Her emblem in life is the phoenix.Go figure.


August 2004The


festival details at grassrootsfest.org

The Blotter Magazine isgiving away ten day

passes to the

GrassRoots FestivalSilk Hope, NC.,October 7-10.

All tickets are good anyday of the festival.

Check out Blotterrag.comand purchase a $2 “virtual

raffle ticket” securelythrough PayPal. Doubleyour chances to win by

purchasing a subscriptionto The Blotter.

Chances of winning depend on number ofentries. Winner chosen at random from allentries recieved. Online “virtual raffle” salesare the only eligible entries. Contest ends atmidnight, July 23. Winner chosen by noonon July 24 and will be notified by e-mail.Tickets will be mailed to the address provid-ed. Contest is open to everybody over 18,but Marty, John, and Jenny will not enter.

Win 10Tickets to theShakori HillsGrassrootsFestival!

The Birdby Ann Meilahn

As the bird flew over her head, she watched its wings bleeding a fireof ruby-orange blood that glistened in the haste of travel. Althoughhigh in the stars, she could see into its eyes and feel its touch of

truth and blessing. Suddenly, a magnificent display of swoops and shuffles provided her with

a settled slice of rice paper in her hand. She looked down and saw it, notunderstanding how she could have received something, without feeling atwinge in the breathless scent of night. The creature was gone, and the dark-ness was evermore silent and thick with cowardice than before this moment.

The plastic lawn chair in which she sat was the only light in the seemingdistance, its white gloss radiating a gloom of heaven and a forebodance ofdiscovery. Even as she looked at the letters, she could not read them in herown eyes. She pretended to be that bird, looming, stalking the wordsfrom above.

The peace she felt as a being with wings was foreign to anything she’dhailed before in life, and the taste of tranquility was so delicious as to promotea desire never to return to her body again. The air above was cool, preciousnext to her skin, her pores like glitter on the brunt of steel. Her feet felt thedeliciousness of the dewed grass, the after-rain mud crawling sweetlybetween her toes. Yet in her mind’s eye, it was not earth, but air that cuddledher pinkies.

This bird she became softly fell over the breast of the woman she was. Itsettled its glance on the tip of the page, awaiting her fortitude with extraordinarysummons. The breeze rustled the old-fashioned cotton nightgown of her youth.It still fit her demure frame, and those ruffles flitted close to her skin. The lifebetween her legs came awake in anticipation. She didn’t feel she could everpossibly be ready to read the fortune entombed in this message, even as sheknew the love and heart of her would be forever changed from the soul of its text.

She sat, listening to the silence of the night, unable to tear lovely greenamber eyes off the edge between word and air. She was too trepid to lookat the flatness of the sheet for fear the corner of her soul window may revealsomething she was not ready to see. Or feel. Or fear. She did not know howto distinguish these emotions from each other and she felt the strong womanin her rise up from her core in response.

The dominance of this side of her boasted the strength of agility in cir-cumstance and the disposition to success. In diminished certitudes, herrescuer was the warrior who could ward off evils from which she could notprotect herself. Tonight her soldier arrived, as if on the wings of a bird, to beher safety. She came to force the openness of understanding into the light.

This wild woman inside her invoked all the strength she’d ever grown orknown. In preparation she felt the cavity of her earthy carcass filling with thelife of pure energy and goodness and hope. She felt it arrive at the same timeas her eye slid slightly down and processed that first word, the only word, heressence needed, for freedom:

Create.


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