( / I 
THE
 
GREAT
 
LAKE
 
REVIEW
 
SPRING 1998 
Editor - in - Chief: Jill Chmelko 
Treasurer: Erin McCarthy 
Business Liason: Christina Becallo 
Editorial Staff: Kathryn Lipphardt 
Rasheda O'Neal 
Debbie Leone 
Leigh Laroussini 
Sara Agle 
cover design by Jill Blachura 
This magazine is made possible by funds provided by the Student
 
Association and by the efforts of the students of the State University of
 
New York at Oswego.
 
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
 
Mitchell Printing
 
The talented writers and artists
 
Leigh Wilson and Betsy McTiernan for their continued support
 
And to the staff.. .for putting up with all the chaos
 
Keep the legacy alive, guys - it's all yours now
 
OUR OFFICE:
 
downstairs in the Hewitt Union
 
Room 46
 
MEETINGS:
 
every Tuesday at 6:00p.m.
 
WE ARE NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS FOR 
--FALL 1998-­
Copyright 1998, Great Lake Review 
All rights reserved to authors and artists 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
S First College Boyfriend - Kathleen McKenna 
6 The American Dream in the Form of a Sestina - Melissa Meola 
8 Excessive Musing - D.R.M. 
lS Drowning - Lisa Aliperti 
16 Untitled - Coral Smart 
17.. .The Essence of a Hue - Andrew Otto 
18 Marie - Christina Becallo 
19 A Breed Apart - Scott Williams 
2S Who Had the Strength to Sew Me In - Andrew McIlwraith 
26 Heatwave - Holly Dilatush-Guthrie 
27 monologue from I'll Take the Fall- Benjamin Derby 
29 A Description of Compromise - Alana Smith 
30 And They All Fell Down (excerpt) - Jamie Hutt 
36 No Substitutions - Marion E. Green 
38 Haikus and Senryu - T.J.M./ Anthony Mazzorana Jr./ 
Jill Chmelko 
39 (What is Becoming) Usual Conversation - Jennifer Eighmey 
40 Generational- E.H. Deull 
SO Proving Our Existence - Michelle Carini 
S1...5tars and Stripes Forever - Erin McCarthy 
S3...monologue - Mike Betette 
FIRST COLLEGE BOYFRIEND 
by Kathleen McKenna 
A non-practicing Catholic, his hobbies 
include skipping his medication 
(I should mention he's manic depressive) 
and preaching his rationale for being 
a point blank dick. 'Tm a raw truth kinda guy." 
On occasion, he's likely to pull out 
his camping gear and explain how this 
little trinket strapped to his carburetor 
could enable him to drive for hours 
to some desolate corner of the earth 
and have a baked potato ready 
by the time he got there. This and the 
rest of his multi-functional playthings 
are neatly packed and ready to go 
should he ever feel the need to flee. 
4 5 
THE AMERICAN DREAM IN THE FORM
 
OF A SESTINA
 
by Melissa Meola
 
Go to school, go to college; day after day
 
work your life away. To pay the bills, earn money,
 
bring home the bacon, oops - beans, broken dreams. Work out,
 
work in the office, work in the yard, clean the house, never play,
 
limit your sleep. Don't act like a woman, or a man.
 
He who dies with the most toys wins. Where's the wealth
 
in this? Something more for me, something more in life than wealth
 
to obtain; more than paper to greet me at the end of my day.
 
Anger in the voice that whispers to me goodnight. I pity man ­

mankind-in its veiled shadows of unobtainable peace. "Why,
 
to have money 
is all you need'" And constant stimulation on the tube, playing 
your video games, jerk off to anorexic teenagers, before finding 
yourself out 
on the streets. Out of a job, out of style, outcast, out 
of dreams. Hopes shrouded in grey while all around you screams 
of wealth 
and consume, consume, consume' On the corner a veteran plays 
his sax. Eight fingers roam freely as young boys' hands in 
girls' panties; day 
unto night,into morn,how forlorn he must be when $2.50 is all the money 
he has to buy bread. To be dead must be better than to be a man 
who can no longer be a man. He takes a piss and wonders if he 
is still a man. 
Wonders if hard could replace soft. Oh, a soft touch would work out ­
so long it has been! What cruel fate could deny the unlaid? No money 
can purchase instinct - oh, but it can repress it. No wealth 
can unleash lust-but Disney can buy 42nd Street. Where now to spend 
the day 
with your own hand down your pants playing 
with yourself, flaccid, because for with you there is no one left to play. 
And you curse yourself for being short, fat, bald, pockmarked; a man 
instead of a woman who could have it anytime, anyplace, any day, 
(or so you believe). So you grab your bottle of spirits just to black out, 
block out, forget about all the lies you were fed, the wealth 
of shit you were fed about the American Dream, when you know it all 
amounts to money. 
Money to buy your clothes, food, house, drink, love. Money 
to buy your sex, your forgotten dreams, someone to play 
with the kids while you're out making more money. Sitting in the wealth 
a hundred dead souls have bought, where there once was a man 
now lives an android. Emotionless. Emptiness. The only time out­
side is walking from the house to the car, to the office, to the car. When 
was the last time 
you spent the day playing with the kids in the park? 
Or making love to your wife like a man, eating her out like a man? 
Wrap that money around yourself and fuck your wealth. 
6 7 
EXCESSIVE MUSING 
by D.R.M. 
(for Lena) 
Blood rushes to my head 
as the young woman seats me at a window booth 
in the corner of the restaurant. 
I have to gnaw on my lip when I take the menu,
 
as her hand brushes the back of mine by mistake.
 
I fumble over the few selections
 
as though they were written in Swahili,
 
but she takes my order patiently, looking
 
at me like a woman does when she's been admired
 
all her life for beau ty. As she leaves,
 
a droplet of water winds its way down the window,
 
and I think of the two of us walking in the rain,
 
and how I want her to look at me
 
the way the man on the television looked
 
at the miracle juicer he was selling last night.
 
I imagine she's a romantic, that she
 
listens to Mozart in the evening, and writes poetry, too,
 
that she talks to her plants and wishes on falling stars.
 
I glimpse her behind the counter rinsing out a glass pot,
 
and the dark strand she missed with her hair tie
 
becomes the same one I gently move aside
 
as we kiss on a park bench. If she would give
 
me an opening, I could start a conversation;
 
we could talk about movies over coffee,
 
or read together on a blanket at the beach.
 
An old man seated to my left gives me a wink
 
as though he was a father reassuring his son,
 
when she starts towards us with my order,
 
and I wonder if my face is advertising my thoughts.
 
I sip water from a glass that we might share
 
over a picnic, while she places the food on the table.
 
She hesitates before leaving me, but I can
 
only grin and nod my head in a silent thank you.
 
She's already worn me out, and I don't even know her name.

DROWNING 
by Lisa Aliperti 
let me drown in lengths of silken 
hair forever, 
seeing the world at once through 
brown eyes my own 
and the angled eyes of a man 
let me know what it feels like 
to carry between my legs 
the making of a legend; 
a dynasty of pale faces 
forever framed in the same flowing hair 
what is it
 to be not the flower 
but that which dives in face-first 
with abandon so complete 
it's as if that's all there ever was? 
what is it
 to glance into the mirror 
and see an angled jaw and powerful chest, 
and to touch them knowing 
they are forever mine? 
is this body really mine to hold? 
i let you hold me in such a way 
as to let you become a part of me, 
a part that i want 
that i need 
to grow more alive with every simultaneous breath 
i let you drown me each night 
gasping for air so sweetly 
forgotten 
in the ancient fury of it all, 
and my mind wanders it 
strays to the place where you 
carry me in your two 
strong arms 
and walk on your two 
strong legs; 
carry me to the burning ends of the earth 
and back again, 
in one last 
quivering 
breath ... 
14 15 
THE ESSENCE OF A HUE 
by Andrew Otto 
A hue, a color, a shade; one looks better 
UNTITLED 
by Coral Smart 
I woke up in a chipped ceramic sink
 
in a 12th Street apartment.
 
The heat was penetrating. The sweat bathed the young woman,
 
writhing in the sharp toothed grasp of my father.
 
He tasted Mama's raw flesh with his salacious tongue;
 
he stole my mama's chastity.
 
He was an onanist, and his splatter washed up into Mama, and I
 
was conceived.
 
She didn't know him, but he called her Mary,
 
his gutteral utterings taunting yet cooing
 
as he slipped his tongue between his teeth.
 
His whispers stopped when he saw, somehow,
 
she was not Mary and he slapped her.
 
Mama stumbled down 12th Street, tears
 
trickling down her thigh,
 
and fell into the gutter.
 
When she woke, she limped to her apartment,
 
swollen and bruised- she could not talk.
 
Later that year, Mama bore me, and I first cried
 
in the chipped ceramic sink.
 
Mama would look at me through blackened eyes
 
and offer me a swollen breast.
 
I was born with teeth, and it made her nipples raw.
 
We would sit and stare at the streaked plaster walls
 
and pray God would carry us in a soap-scented breeze
 
to a land of sweet grasses and pomegranates, and we
 
would no longer be hungry. We waited for God to take
 
us, deliver us from ourselves and this wasted life,
 
but he didn't come.
 
Mama died today. As I rode here in a cab from 5th Street, I 
remembered the cold, gouged linoleum and Mama's bruises. 
I didn't remember the violets in the kitchen, or the silvery 
patterns on the wall from the sun. And now I stare 
at the puckered walls of my youth and I wish Mama had lived 
to see a decent apartment. 
That she had learned to love herself. 
to you from the start. Light or dark?
 
Reddish, yellowish, pinkish, brownish
 
or blackish.
 
What's your favorite color? Mankind
 
is stuck on this. What's so important
 
about a shade I'm sorry I seemed to miss.
 
For what's ugly about it or pretty, causes 
people to dislike themselves and by far 
this is a pity. 
Blacker is a slave to the earth, strong 
and dumb, too. Whiter is heavenly, soft 
and ingenious to man. Ignorance makes 
us believe this to be true. 
So you hate me, or you like me, like 
a fad, or a chameleon whose color comes 
and goes. 'Why the color of skin is so 
important, only God knows. Yet still 
the shade of one's skin is powerful enough 
to make us love, prefer, and hate each 
other 'til the point when we're all blue. 
Hmm... this seems like a nicer color, 
the meaning lying within the essence 
of a hue. 
16 17 
MARIE
 
by Chris tina Becallo
 
(for Mary DeFazio)
 
It was the mid 1940's
 
when it was not proper for a woman to
 
divorce her husband,
 
but my grandmother did.
 
A strong-willed woman,
 
courageous in her own right,
 
she refused to tolera te the
 
abuse of Anthony.
 
She was a mother to four girls, and my
 
mother was the baby-

like me.
 
Mom would tell me stories of
 
a woman named Marie
 
whom I could never
 
get to know.
 
Marie worked in a factory
 
sewing by dim light
 
to pay the bills.
 
Her motivation was in the
 
form of her daughters:
 
Angelina, Gloria, Ann and Florence.
 
My mother, Florence, told me
 
how Marie named her-

after a furnace tha t kept them all
 
warm in the New York City winters.
 
Funny how I always assumed it was
 
because of that great Italian city.
 
Marie took care of her girls
 
but never let go of her desire
 
to be social.
 
On Friday and Saturday nights
 
she'd go out with her lady friends
 
or the occasional man,
 
but never let anyone tie her down.
 
A BREED APART 
by Scott Williams 
You know, there are quite a few assholes out there, and 
believe me, I had seen nearly all of them. It actually didn't matter how 
many of them I had dealt with. Everyone of them was basically the 
same idiot. They all asked the same stupid questions, had the same 
stupid complaints, and gave me the same bullshit about the way I 
treated them. What did they expect? Did they expect me to give them 
the benefit of the doubt because they refused to think for themselves? 
They must have walked into the store and thought to themselves, "You 
know what? I'm going to show everyone who works behind the counter 
just how insanely stupid I am!" 
They would pick a video off the shelf and ask me if it 
was any good. As if I had seen every movie in the store. The truth was, I 
had seen virtually every movie in the store, but that didn't mean I 
wanted to talk to morons like them about a movie that any sensible 
person could tell sucks just from looking a t the cover. And besides, they 
shouldn't have gone around asking just anyone about a movie. For all 
they knew, I could have been some dirty piece of white trash working 
this mind-numbing minimum wage job in order to feed my ten children 
while my sister (who also happens to be my wife-to-be) makes arrange­
ments for the whole family to be on the "Jerry Springer Show." 
They would ask me about some movie they had heard 
about, but couldn't remember the title. Most of the time, they didn't 
even know the names of any of the actors in the movie either, which 
made it so much easier for me. They never gave up. They kept on trying 
to describe the movie whether they knew anything constructive about it 
or not. I guess in their minds I wasn't a video store clerk, I was Jo Jo, the 
mind-reading chimp. And while they pinned their hopes on my mind­
reading abilities, I had to stand there guessing and bringing myself down 
to their level. 
All of those mindless clods usually didn't bother me, but 
right then all I wanted was to get through the next twenty minutes so I 
could get my paycheck, get the hell out of there, go home and use my 
hard earned cash to buy a few beers. There was a time when I de­
manded more out of my life, but those days ended when I decided to 
leave my expensive college education unfinished. After that period of 
my life ended, all I really needed was a few beers, David Letterman, and 
a good film. Something those idiots in the store knew nothing about. 
I had chosen a great film for that night. It was called 
"Dog Day Afternoon," which stars a very young Al Pacino and is di­
rected by Sidney Lumet. I had only seen the movie a few times, but it 
still stuck in my mind as one of AI Pacino's best movies. More than a 
few of my professors at school called his performance in the film "the 
18 19 
best of his career." 
Sometimes my girlfriend watched movies with me, but 
it was usually a miserable experience for both of us. All she wanted to 
do was cuddle up next to me, when all I wanted to do was concentrate 
on the action. I would do whatever she wanted to do after the movie, 
but when I was watching a movie, I actually wanted to watch it. I know 
that concept sounds absurd to those people who talk and ask questions 
during a movie, but that's why they're idiots and I'm not. 
Another thing my girlfriend did when we would watch 
films together was tell me how I should go back to finish film school and 
go out to L.A. and become an award-winning director. As if it were just 
that easy. I would go to some producer in L.A. and say, "Hi, I'm Richard 
Harris, and I don't know you, but will you spot me a few million dollars 
so I can make a movie? Qualifications? Well, I have no body of work to 
show you, but my girlfriend really thinks I have a lot of talent." It 
doesn't work that way. vVhy couldn't she just be happy with the way 
things were? I was perfectly content with my life as it was. I didn't need 
a film making career to muss things up. 
As I pondered all of my life's little problems, I noticed a 
man in the store who was trying to go into the adult video room without 
being seen by anyone else in the store. The problem was, he was trying 
so hard to look inconspicuous that he actually drew attention to himself. 
Customers who rent porno movies were always the funniest to watch, 
especially when you knew them and they knew you. Once I waited on 
myoid science teacher while he rented a whole stack of pornos. He 
didn't say a word the whole time. He just stood there with this sullen 
look on his face like I was going to punish him or something. 
People who rent pornos were fun to wait on. On the 
other hand, the man who was approaching the counter was absolutely 
no fun to wait on. I could tell simply from looking at him that he was a 
mindless ball of testosterone. He believed that Jean-Claude Van Damme 
was robbed every year when he was left off the list of Oscar nominations. 
As he made his way towardme, it became increasingly evident that he 
hadn't showered in quite some time. My attention was diverted from his 
ugly, unshaven face by the mere smell of his sweat and pizza-stained 
white T-shirt. In his right hand, he held the same senselessly violent 
action flick that he had watched the week before, only this time it had a 
different name and different actors. 
"Is 'Speed 2' just as good as the original?" he asked me. 
Why would a person like him ask a person like me a question like that? 
We were obviously two different classes of people, so why would he 
have even valued my opinion? 
His lack of common sense deeply upset me, and I found 
myself replying, "Well, let's see, the movie barely has a plot, and there is 
no chemistry between either of the leading roles, but that shouldn't 
matter to a muttering imbecile like yourself." 
The idiot had no idea what I was talking about, but my 
manager, John, overheard what I had said and quickly took notice. He 
pulled me aside and said, "What are you doing, Dick? You can't talk to a 
customer like that!" 
What a jerk John was. He knew I hated it when people 
called me Dick. That pissed me off even more than that foolish customer. 
"Cool your jets, Johrmy boy," I said with an evil grin. 
"Both you and I know that someone as stupid as him doesn't deserve a 
straight answer. What he deserves is to be taken out back and shot. You 
saw what happened. I insulted his intelligence and he was too dumb to 
even realize it. You're the only one who seems broken up about what I 
said to him. Why don't you just go back into your little office, pull 
yourself back together and come back out with my check so I can get the 
hell out of here." 
John glared at me for a few seconds, then turned arolmd 
and started towards his office. I stood there and laughed as he slowly 
walked away from me. He was in his office for about five minutes, then 
he marched back with my check in his hands. He angrily handed me the 
check and spat out, "Don't bother coming in tomorrow, or ever again for 
that matter." 
"Whatever you say, Johrmy," I said with a laugh, already 
halfway out the door. "See you tomorrow." 
I hopped into my rusty red 1989 Cavalier and sped out 
of the lot. I was going to have to hurry if I was going to make it to the 
bank before it closed. I had to turn the radio off when I was halfway 
there because I couldn't stand it anymore. I firmly believe there aren't 
anymore radio stations worth listening to. Everything is so repetitive. 
The last thing I needed on my mind was radio stations, though. My 
attention was supposed to be fixed on getting my sorry self to the bank 
and eventually home. 
I pulled up to the bank and scurried in with plenty of 
time to spare. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but there was an 
armored truck pulling away from the bank as I walked in. I hadn't been 
waiting in the long, crooked line for even five minutes when they busted 
in. They were your average, stereotypical bank robbers. All three of 
them were dressed in black suits with black ski masks. They were toting 
duffel bags, waving their pistols around and screaming at the top of their 
lungs. One of the guys had a pistol that looked just like the one Harvey 
Keitel sported in "Reservoir Dogs," but I really didn't know much about 
guns. 
One of the first things I noticed about the men, before I 
really noticed their appearance, was the fact that the guard in the right 
corner almost got the jump on them. They must not have cased the place 
20 21 
very welL because he was right in plain sight of the masked thieves. 
They told us to get against the wall. We complied and the leader gave us 
some prepared speech about how we wouldn't get hurt if we didn't do 
anything stupid. The whole production was very generic. Once they 
disarmed the security guards and got the crowd under controL they 
started to put spray paint on the lenses of all the surveillance cameras. I 
noticed, however, that they had forgotten to spray the camera in the far 
left corner of the bank. 
I could see these men were not professionals. I knew 
more about bank robberies than they did Simply from all the movies I 
had seen. 1 knew they were too stupid to get away with it, and I didn't 
want to be stuck in the bank all night watching these blundering bandits 
debate about what they were going to do about the hundreds of police 
cars outside. I decided it was time to help out my new misguided 
friends. 
I slowly walked up to the man with the Harvey Keitel 
gun, since he appeared to be the leader. I inched my way towards him so 
as not to get shot. I was about ten feet away from him when he noticed 
me. He quickly pointed his pistol at my chest. 
"Don't move, motherfucker!" he threatened, gesturing 
for me to get back against the wall. 
"I just thought you might want to know some very
 
important information," I said, "like the fact that you guys forgot to
 
spray the camera in the far left corner."
 
He nodded at me, and I could see the disgust in his eyes 
as he motioned for one of his cohorts to spray the neglected camera. 
"Anything else?" he asked. 
"As a matter of fact, yes there is," I said with a smirk. 
"You've put half of the people in the bank in a blind spot. You see?" I 
pointed. "All of those people over there can't be seen by any of you." 
He gestured once again for one of his buddies to rectify 
the situation. "Thank you very much, sir," he said. "You've been a good 
little helper." 
"That's not everything," I interrupted. "Look behind 
you." 
He turned to find one of the security guards reaching 
down to his ankle holster. "Don't even think about it!" the masked man 
threatened. Both the size of his gun and the tone of his voice suggested 
that the guard should do as he was ordered. The guard stopped short of 
his ankle and raised his arms. My new friend ran over to him and took 
the piece away. The robber's choice of words made me laugh a little. 
The thieves quickly went back about their business, 
without my help. The only problem was they kept on making stupid 
mistakes. They couldn't find the keys to the vault. They kept on asking 
the tellers if they had the keys. Did these men know anything about how 
a bank works? They were really starting to get on my nerves. All I 
wanted was to get out of that bank as quickly as possible, and these guys 
kept screwing with my plans. It seemed as if they were trying to hold 
me up. They seemed like they wanted to negotiate with half the cops in 
the city all night. 
I figured I could've pulled this heist off a hell of a lot 
smoother than these guys, so I made a decision. It wasn't a very well 
advised decision, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I 
walked over to my new friend with a big grin. 
He greeted me with a smile. "Hey, look, it's my new 
buddy," he said. "Say, do you have any other little tidbits to share with 
me?" 
"Well, actually, I don't have anything specific to tell you, 
but," I paused, "could you excuse me for a few seconds?" I walked over 
to the manager of the bank, put my left hand on his shoulder, and jabbed 
him square in the jaw with my right. "Hand me the keys, you fucking 
cocksucker," I said with a sly grin. I had been waiting to use those words 
in a real life situation for quite some time. 
The poor man reached into his pocket, pulled out his 
keys and placed them in my hands. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, 
still smarting from the blow to his face. 
I responded with another punch, this time to his stom­
ach. He groaned and fell to the ground. All the while, the thieves 
couldn't stop laughing at my confrontation with the manager. 
I walked back to my buddy and snatched the gun out of 
his hand. I kept on walking towards the vault. Surprisingly, the other 
men didn't shoot me. I think it was because they were laughing too hard 
to aim their guns accurately. I pointed the gun at one of the tellers and 
threw him the keys. "Open the vault, or you're dead," I stated sternly. 
He opened the vault, and I motioned for him to back 
away. I walked into the vault to find myself surrounded by huge blocks 
of hundred dollar bills. The thieves might not have known how to take 
the place down, but they definitely knew when to pull the heist. It all 
made sense when I remembered the armored truck pulling away from 
the bank. They must have made a drop off right before my new friends 
walked through the door. 
The gunless robber walked into the vault and said, 
"Good, it's all here." He threw the duffel bags down in front of me. "Put 
the money in these bags," he demanded, "and give me back my gun." 
"No way," I laughed, "I kind of like this gun. I think I'll 
keep it." 
"Listen buddy," he said, "this is my heist, and that's my 
gun, and you'd better give it back to me or 1'11-" 
"Or you'll what?" I interrupted. "Now you listen, I'm 
the one with the gun, so you're in no position to make demands. I'm 
23 22 
going to finish what you started and you're going to let me. We'd be 
surr6unded by cops if it weren't for me, so you should be thankful that 
I'm willing to lend my services. Don't worry about the money either, I'll 
let you guys have your share after I deduct a small fee for all my hard 
work. Do you understand me?" 
"All right," he said, "I'll agree to those terms, but you 
know what will happen if you screw me over, right?" 
I nodded and he walked out of the vault. I started to 
pack the bags with the money. I swear, there must have been at least ten 
million dollars there. I was barely able to fit all of the money into the 
bags, but somehow I managed. I threw two of the bags through the door 
of the vault where they were quickly picked up by my new associates. I 
strapped the final bag over my shoulder and started out of the vault. 
We quickly made our way out of the bank with the three 
heavy bags strapped on our shoulders. They led me to their car, we 
hopped in and took off. The driver looked back in bewilderment at the 
extra passenger in the car. "Who the hell is this?" he asked. "I don't 
understand, is this a hostage or something?" 
"Yeah," said my robber friend, "that's exactly what we 
have ...a hostage." 
"What?" I asked in disgust. 'Tm the reason you're in 
this car heading away from the bank and not sitting negotiating with the 
police. You owe me. That guard would've killed you if I hadn't told you 
he was going for the ankle holster." 
"Oh yeah, you saved my life," he smiled. "And I do 
owe you. Here." He ripped open one of the duffel bags and reached 
inside. He pulled out a small bundle of hundreds and threw them on my 
lap. 
Before I could respond to his sarcastic offer, he snatched 
the gun from my hands. Before I even knew I had lost it, it was pressed 
against my forehead. The gun felt like it was digging into my brain. I 
felt the panic rush through my body. It started in my heart; a lump 
quickly emerged in my throat, and the fear slowly sent a tingling sensa­
tion down to my fingertips. 
"I wouldn't feel right if I didn't thank you," he said, 
"because we really couldn't have pulled this off without you." 
The bullet went straight through,my head and put a hole 
in the back window. The blood and brains rushed from the two holes in 
my skull and covered the interior of the car. They really didn't pick a 
good place to kill me, since all of the blood made the car look suspicious. 
They opened the door and kicked my body out. I rolled for a good 
twenty feet as they sped away. They were caught thirty minutes later 
after a high-speed pursuit. 
WHO HAD THE STRENGTH TO SEW ME IN 
by Andrew Mdlwraith 
My playroom spector is here,
 
A teasing childhood shadow
 
whispering rhyme and riddle
 
and pulling fine hair from a fair arm.
 
Speech sprays violently
 
from some discreet corner of this place.
 
Battered or only pinched by it,
 
I choke on thought.
 
Forehead scar a hateful symbol
 
of careless question mark placement;
 
I'm stitched to cement walls with twine
 
and sweating with indetermination.
 
Who had the strength to sew me in,
 
The strength and the tender dexterity of grandmothers?
 
And is my will lost
 
in the cracked grey linoleum below me?
 
Or scattered like the toys
 
of a wailing child possessed by tantrum?
 
24 25 
HEATWAVE 
by Holly Dilatush-Guthrie 
(a poem built upon five random words: whir, voice, cloud, 
blackberry, lick) 
A whir of orgasmic bees hover
 
near the blackberry bushes,
 
humming,
 
voicing thrills of discovery.
 
taste those mellow berries
 
in rhythmic
 
licks
 
as a creamy cloud of sherbet
 
dribbles downward
 
and rivulets
 
of sweet desire anticipate your
 
teasing, tantalizing
 
tongue.
 
Monologue from I'LL TAKE THE FALL
 
a one act play
 
by Benjamin Derby
 
(RICH is meant to be a totally politically incorrect 
character. In this scene, RICH is trying to convince 
his friend, JIM, who is engaged, that he should not 
get married. JIM has just finished telling RICH that 
his entire view of love is really warped.) 
RICH 
It's not fucked up... it's just that for most people love is 
blind.. .! just choose to keep my eyes open. Women drive 
you nuts ... they drive me nuts ... they drive the entire fucking 
male population crazy. Marriage is an expensive 
ordeal...and a divorce is even worse. Why the hell are you 
willing to put yourself through that? Why put yourself 
through the petty shit women put you through? Get a 
fucking dog; they're cheaper and they're the same damn 
thing as a woman. I mean, you know what I say? Women 
are dogs. Women say men are dogs. Wrong. Men are pigs, 
yes, but women are dogs. I mean, look at them: Entirely 
faithful, waiting for you to come home, willing to do just 
about anything for you...Jim, go.to a pet store. Ask the 
owner to show you a male dog and a bitch. Now I know 
they all look the same in the window, in their cages. They 
look very lonely and pathetic. But ask the pet store owner to 
take them out of the cages and this is what'll happen: He'll 
take the male dog out of the cage and the dog'll just look at 
you and struggle to get back into the cage. Then ask to see a 
bitch. The bitch will walk up to you and beg to be pet, 
stroked and loved. Sound familiar? I know what you're 
thinking: I'm insulting your woman. I'm not insulting your 
woman; I'm stating a true fact of life. All men want are what 
the Germans call 'guddentite' (pronounced "good-an-tight") 
and all women want is someone to cling to. Here's a sce­
nario for you to think about: You come home from work, 
tired. Your dog comes running up to you to lick your face. 
You climb into bed and almost fall asleep... then the dog 
starts barking. You quiet it down by giving it a cookie and 
go back to bed. The dog then jumps on the bed, wanting to 
26 27 
play. You force the dog off the bed and say a forceful "No!" 
Then the dog just whimpers all night. Now here's another 
story, not too different: You come home late to your faithful 
woman, who has stayed up late for you. All you want to do 
is go to bed and sleep. You get oh so comfortable in bed, and 
then she starts talking to you about a) something that you'd 
rather not talk about at one thirty in the morning or b) rather 
not talk about at all for that matter. When you finally make 
it clear to her that you don't want to talk about anything that 
requires any brainwave activity, you get comfortable again. 
Then she strikes again with "Can we cuddle?" and wraps 
her arms around you. You tell her that you just want to get 
some sleep. You think that's it? It's all over? Wrong again. 
This just opens a new bag of fun. She then asks if anything 
is wrong with the relationship. Now, doesn't that sound 
familiar? You want my advice, my friend? Pigs should just 
wallow in their own shit. Who ever saw a pig mate with a 
dog anyway? 
A DESCRIPTION OF COMPROMISE 
by Alana Smith 
and in the twilight
 
there comes the darkness
 
the perfect mixture of strength and calm
 
the two intermingle
 
to soothe the soul
 
hush the world
 
stars that hang sleepily
 
a moon that fades in and out
 
the conquering sun
 
lays down its power to rest
 
2928 
AND THEY ALL FELL DOWN 
(An Excerpt) 
by Jamie Hutt 
I was a "child of the ffiilleniuffi," born in the year 
2000, a time when it was decided that all inequality would 
be wiped from the face of this great country. The idea of a 
"race" was never taught to me, nor the idea of differences. 
Every single one of the people I was in class with or I met 
was exactly the same as me, and I was told never to forget 
that. I was never allowed to read the books that I wanted to 
at school, or even write at all. The school sent home notes 
discouraging my parents from teaching me anything of the 
sort at home, saying it was giving me an "unfair advantage," 
but my parents just threw the letters out and told me to 
write what I wanted. Everyone at school was nice, but 
outside in the world, people were getting angry- more angry 
every day. All of us, even the children, could feel the build­
ing tension; it was getting so thick one could reach out and 
touch it. Of Course, Mom and Dad told me not to worry, and 
I tried not to, but maybe I should have. Maybe then I would 
have been prepared for what happened on the day of my 
tenth birthday, the day the government made that horren­
dous statement for the "equality of all mankind;" the day my
world blew up. 
I slowly rolled out of bed and sat up. Outside, the
 
pounding surf echoed in my ears, echoed through the
 
emptiness inside me. Rebekah, gone, alone and pregnant.
 
My love, my life, on her Own and unprotected in this jungle
 
that was once L.A. My fear for her overwhelmed and
 
disregarded the sorrow I felt, and I knew that I had to start 
out in search of her soon, before she reached the women's 
group and was lost to me forever. That's where she had 
gone, I was sure of it; back to the Raphielites Where she 
could be safe, cared for, fed and well protected, back to a 
group that could give her all the things I tried to give her 
and couldn't. I should have let her go weeks ago; I should 
have helped her go back to them as Soon as she began to fear 
for her life with me, and the life of Our unborn child. But no, 
I had sworn to her that I would feed them, I would protect them. We 
would live together as only a real family could. Foolishness; it had been 
such foolishness, and my own selfish greed. How could I live without her 
love now that I had made her the focus of my life? How could I let her 
walk out of my life when everything that I was, everything that I had, was 
her? Instead, I swore to protect her, to bring her food in plenty, to surround 
our child with love and devotion. I begged her not to leave, and she 
stayed. I knew I had to find her. I had to see the face of my child, to hold 
the small warm body in my arms and know that something in this world 
made a difference- that I had somehow made a difference. 
Throwing my blankets aside, I crawled from beneath the crumbling 
boardwalk that was our home. We had found this little treasure along the 
surf by pure luck, abandoned for its neutrality, which was exactly what we 
needed. Long ago, within the first years of the revolt, the coastline of 
California had been unofficially declared a neutral zone for the masses. It 
became a place of meetings, a place of gatherings and a place where loners 
and stragglers had gone to be safe. Few, if any, communal wars had broken 
out here, and this became the place where each commune sent its infor­
mants to give and receive news travelling across the country. This was 
where I met Rebekah, both of us having been information traders for our 
communes, exchanging food, news, supplies, sexual favors and anything 
else of value between the sections of the city. This is where I had first seen 
her flashing brown eyes, her long braided blond hair, where I had first 
known what it was to love a person without needing them to survive. We 
had talked, first about what we had come for, then about nothing and 
everything in the world. As the age old story goes, I fell in love. Rebekah 
became my whole world; my days became merely passing time until I 
could be in her arms again and feel her loving body pressed against mine. 
The danger of our devotion to one another was acknowledged by us both, 
and yet the power of our emotions let there be no other way. The commu­
nal rules of the city were very clear. Men and women were different in 
make and disposition. Men's communes and women's communes both 
allowed no permanent or affectionate contact between the two. For the 
men, women were made purely for sexual pleasure, either to be traded for 
or taken by force if the situation allowed. For women, men were purely for 
reproductive purposes and served no lasting need. Living in the compre­
hension of these rules, Rebekah and I understood that to survive, our love 
must be kept a secret. We spent hours lying on our backs, gazing at the 
stars and dreaming of a life together in safety, our love for each other 
boldly displayed. We dreamed of a life of balanced, clearly understood and 
30 
31 
accepted inequality among us alt for we had come to love one another for 
the differences we simply could not-and did not- want to hide. 
I knew by the clock on my dresser that it was seventeen minutes 
after one when my mother tore me from my bed that misbegotten night. 
My eyes bleary, I stood still in front of my bed as my mother dressed me 
and talked in a rushed, panicked voice. She kept telling me not to be 
scared, to be very quiet, for we must leave tonight, right now and I mustn't 
cry or complain, she would explain it all later. 
"Susan! Come down right away'" called my father's voice from 
downstairs. There was a sound to it I didn't like. It was the same sound 
that had been on the edge of his voice for several weeks, and had now 
overtaken it entirely. I had never heard my father truly frightened before, 
and for a ten year old, there is nothing more terrifying. 
I could hear the shouting outside, and the sound of things break­
ing. My mother's eyes flashed to my window as she scooped me up. 
Racing down the stairs, she nearly stumbled, but caught herself as a scream 
escaped her throat. 
"David' David, my water broke! Oh God, what do I do?" My 
mother fell to her knees and released me slowly from her arms. My father 
was at her side in an instant, carrying her towards their bedroom. 
"Shh, honey, it'll be all right," my father said in a strained, soothing 
tone. "I promise, it'll be all right." Clinging to my father's leg, I followed 
them into the bedroom, where he lay my mother down. It was then that 
the front door shattered and the sound of angry voices entered our home. 
Our front door had been beautiful, made of stained glass and 
depicting a scene from the Bible. It showed a pair of nude people (which 
had delighted me to no end as a child), a man and a woman, sitting in a 
garden field with all kinds of flowers and fruits. I remember that the 
woman was reaching for an apple and that there was a snake coiled around 
that particular branch. I was always afraid of snakes as a child. 
When the front door broke, my parents both froze. Just for an 
instant, I remember thinking how it looked like something you'd see on the 
Saturday morning cartoons. In a heartbeat, my father was on his feet and 
had me by the shoulders. He stared me straight in the eyes and spoke to 
me with more seriousness than I had ever seen in my father's laughing face 
before. Both his hands and eyes were trembling as he spoke. 
"Son, I want you to listen very closely to me," he said as his voice 
began to crack. "I want you to go down to the garage, out the door and 
into the woodshed behind it. I want you to stay there until I come and get 
you. Do not leave unless I come and get you." His grip on my shoulders 
tightened, and he brought me closer to him. "Do you understand, Issac? 
Do not leave, no matter what happens. Please do this for me son, do this 
for your mother and 1." I nodded my head, my heart hammering in my 
chest. The sounds from downstairs, the yelling and the sound of things 
shattering had reached the living room. My father drew me to him and 
hugged me so tightly I thought my ribs would break. 
"Now go son, and hurry." My mother was writhing on the bed, 
barely supressing screams that were as much out of fear as pain. 
I turned and rushed down the stairs. I could see the flicker of a 
torch from the living room doorway that led to the kitchen. Holding my 
breath, I ran past the door and into the back of our kitchen which led to the
 
stairs to the garage. Out and into the cool air, the door slammed behind me
 
in time for me to hear the voices rising in my wake.
 
"That was from the stairs! Go, you damn foot find out what's 
upstairs. Fuckin' rich man gonna die tonight!" 
There was the shuffle of feet, the scramble up the stairs, and then I 
was outside. The woodshed was cold, the dust and wood chips hard 
beneath my socked feet. Ilay in the corner, my breath coming in gasps, 
listening to the screams that came from my parents' bedroom. My father 
died quickly; I heard the gunshot. My mother's screams went well into the 
night, dying shortly before they began to burn my house. A while after the 
burning had begun, and after I heard the mob move off, I passed out. The 
dreams I had that night were unlike any other I've had, filled with sound 
and light, vivid in their pictures even today, eleven years later. I dreamt of 
Dante Alegari, I dreamt of the levels of hell and how I wished I were that 
lucky. I dreamt of the punishment I would receive for my cowardice when 
I was at last removed from this horror. 
I awoke that morning to the smell of burnt wood, a smell of 
undirected nostalgia from somewhere in my childhood. Sick to my stom­
ach with fear, I crept slowly from the woodshed and gazed on what was 
once my house. The entire structure had not been destroyed, but the house 
was gutted. Glass lay all over the ground, and smoke still leaked from the 
blackened window frames. My mind completely blank, I walked slowly 
out from behind the house and toward the small playground my father had 
built for me years ago. My swingset was completely intact, and I sat on the 
swing, my feet scuffing the sand below them, and let my mind disappear. 
How long I was sitting there I don't know, but the voices were very 
close by the time I bothered to notice them. The sound of men talking and 
laughing was coming from the front of what used to be my house. I knew I 
should run, or at least try to hide, but nothing in me was working. 
They were behind the house, just yards from me, when I lifted my 
32 
33 
head to see who at last would remove me from this pain. Upon my move­
ment, the party, which consisted of about five men, stopped and stared at 
me for a moment. Then a loud and racous voice broke from the one in 
front, a voice half surprised and half laughing. 
"Well boys! What do we have here?" He came forward with 
great, powerful strides, the other men lingering behind. He turned and 
laughed at them. "Come now gentlemen, after the shit we went through 
last night, I can't believe you won't approach a little boy, no matter how 
dangerous he appears!" With another laugh, he turned and walked up to 
me. 
He was a big man, far larger than my father, with wide shoulders 
and a large frame. His hair was a dirty red, as was the bushy beard that 
covered most of his face. Even in my fear I thought of Paul Bunyan and 
almost smiled as the huge man approached me. 
I cringed for the blow, my eyes closed tight, my body tense, and 
nearly peed my pants when instead of a hard fist, I was assulted my a loud 
disbelieving laugh. I opened my eyes and looked up to the large face 
looming above me. A smile played on his lips and twinkled in his blue 
eyes. Getting down on one knee, he stuck his hand out to me, big and hard 
and calloused. 
"Name's Darmy McGarthy, and who might you be little man?" 
I just stared at him for a moment, and felt the shame overtake me 
as tears welled in my eyes. 
"Oh son, take it easy," he said as the smile melted from his face and 
was replaced by a look of sympathy. "Is this your house?" he asked, 
gesturing over his shoulder to the burned wreck. I nodded, my head 
down, tears rolling down my cheeks. 
One of the men behind him called out, "Ain't that the Farworthy 
house?" 
"You the little Farworthy boy?" Darmy asked, his face confused. I 
nodded, and he put his finger under my chin, lifting my face. "And what's 
your name, son?" 
"Issac, Issac Farworthy," I said, looking in fear and awe into his big 
blue eyes. 
"And your daddy's the one who owns Farworthy Incorporated?" I 
nodded again and he shook his head. "Shit son, why didn't you and your 
family take off outta here with the rest of the rich folks? Go to Australia or 
Europe? Your mom and dad had to know what was going on." 
"1, I don't kno--, my mom, she was gorma have, I mean, she was 
pregnant and--" r stammered. "But it wasn't her fault, I mean, she couldn't 
help it and, my dad said it was too dangerous and--" 
"Shhh son, it wasn't anybody's fault, I know," he said and took me 
by the shoulders as I lept off the swing. "Wasn't anybody's fault but them 
dumb niggers running reckless and pissed all over the city. Now you gotta 
come with us, 'cuz there isn't no way you'll make it on your own out there. 
There ain't no law left to protect poor little rich boys like you." He stood 
up and looked down at me. "Now you gotta be a man, though; we can't 
have any baggage, so you gotta learn to survive like we've been doing for 
the past month. You ready for that, son?" 
I looked up at this man in awe. What did this mean? What was 
my life going to be like and how was I supposed to live up to what he was 
asking? Little did I know that in the months and years that passed, I would 
learn more about life, love, and the nature of the human spirit than any 
book could ever teach me. 
3534 
NO SUBSTITUTIONS 
by Marion E. Green 
(There is a counter center stage and at the end of the counter on the 
left is a deli cooler. Stage right has a large blackboard sign stating "Today's 
Special: Ham and American Cheese on Rye, New England Clam Chowder, 
medium Coke, $4.95. In large letters NO SUBSTITUTIONS. A CLERK is 
behind the counter and a CUSTOMER is in front of the counter.) 
CUSTOMER 
I have a list in my pocketbook. ..here...somewhere. Here it is ...No.. .That's 
not iLl can't find iLOh, well. I want five takeouts ...all the special. I'm 
glad you have the same specials on the same day of the week, otherwise it 
would throw our department into total chaos... not that it isn't already. But 
that's another story. 
You're new here, aren't you? Well, I'm not surprised ... the other clerk was a 
real bitch, if you know what I mean. She was so insistent on specials being 
exact and all that. Just like my boss. His rules are NOT made to be broken. 
Yeah righLgive me a break. But, I suppose that's an authority thing, if you 
know what I mean. 
On the first order, instead of medium Coke, Shelly will have milk. She's 
going to have another baby and she really should have milk instead of 
Coke. She almost died having the last baby and now she's having another 
one. But, that's another...Wait, where are you going? 
(The CLERK goes off stage and returns with her BOSS, who just 
throws his arms up and shakes his head yes and leaves.) 
Oh, you don't have to ask him, he doesn't mind substitutions at all. 
On the second order, instead of American cheese, make that Swiss because 
Harriette really hates your American cheese. The deli down the street has 
much better American cheese. Maybe you could find out where they get 
their cheese from ...and order from that place...because to be perfectly 
honest your cheeses....and also cold cuts aren't the greatest. ..but prices are 
o.k. 
On the next order, instead of New England Clam Chowder, make it chicken 
noodle. Alice gets the hives when she eats seafood. She just puffs right up. 
Now, you wouldn't want her death on your hands. Of course, you 
wouldn't, dear. 
On the next order, roast beef instead of ham. Ida's Jewish, can't eat ham. 
Her husband is a gentile...so maybe she can eat ham...but it's better to be 
safe than sorry. ..you don't mind making a substitution for Ida, nOW do you 
dear? ..Of course not. 
(Several other CUSTOMERS have been coming in
 
and the line is getting longer and longer.)
 
Now my order, I want the special exactly as it is...except instead of ham and 
cheese... turkey and lettuce...on a hard roll...instead of rye ...and .. .instead of a 
medium Coke...a large iced tea...with lemon, of course ...and instead of 
soup ...a slice of apple pie...and could you put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in 
a separate container? ..wouldn't want that pie to get soggy. 
(The CUSTOMER pays for the orders and starts to leave.) 
I'll see you tomorrow, dearie. 
(Black.) 
36 
37 
HAIKU 
by T.J.M. 
The leaves are restless
 
shifting in the late fall wind
 
with every footstep.
 
HAIKU
 
by Anthony Mazzorana Jr.
 
Lake Ontario
 
swims softly within herself
 
and warns of winter.
 
HAIKU #1
 
by Jill Chmelko
 
Winter whispers a
 
calm reminder to the lone
 
pine in the distance.
 
SENRYU#l 
by Jill Chmelko 
She surrendered the seed 
she held tightly to the 
depths of the hard earth. 
(WHAT IS BECOMING) 
USUAL CONVERSATION 
by Jennifer Eighmey 
The deal was that you allow yourself 
to reason beyond all of the misconceptions, 
while I spoke with such exaustion of things 
you believe exist beyond control. 
There is explanation for this frustration: 
I am on the road leading past you, 
each of my steps existing for painful dilemmas 
not extinguished because of ignorance. 
Bristles mark the way you disregard 
my resistance of your materialism. 
Why is it naive for me to say, at a table full of peers, 
that I was created to do something 
more than merely vegetate and attend lecture? 
That I need to run from this protection and 
immerse myself in the actions 
of eliminating these images that I've so far 
only learned in bits and pieces 
exist beyond this college town of bars and grocery stores? 
Basically, what I was told at dinner tonight was 
not to worry so much about these things, 
that we exist for ourselves only. 
After all of the straining and absolute sincerity 
that poured from me tonight 
we rose to clear our plates 
just as on every previous Thursday and 
began mental preparation for the next day's schedule. 
The difference for me was that 
my food didn't sit right and I only felt compelled 
to prepare for tomorrow's dinner conversation. 
38 
39 
GENERATIONAL 
(An Excerpt) 
by E.B. Deull 
Unwrap the wax paper, find a spoon, spark the lighter and 
watch my life boil away in tiny brown bubbles. The needle is sharp and 
gives me what I need, the slack from the tourniquet feels natural, like a 
third arm or a crutch. The shattered mirror on the wall presents me with 
my ghost. My skin is stretched taut across my skeleton, my veins are 
collapsed from being punctured again and again, in sickness and in health. 
I look like one of those Ethiopian kids who can hide your conscience for 
only eight cents a day; but I'm not an Ethiopian, I'm not that lucky 
I'm a junkie. 
I'm a desperate junkie, afraid of the millenium, living in 
my memories of a time when this tenement was the center of a scene 
without a center. A time when my name was Poet and I walked with Jesus. 
A time when this mirror was whole. A time not long ago, but a life away 
I came to New York to discover myself; I found St. Mark's 
instead. When Jesus and I came here, his name was Joseph and mine was 
Peter. We came to New York because college was a big fucking lie, and 
Greyhound was having a two for one sale on tickets that week. 
Our first week was spent in a shabby motel in Queens that 
hadn't had a name since the paint on the sign had faded beyond recogni­
tion. We were philosophers then. We would stay up drinking cheap vodka 
and subject everything to the tenacious width of our gaping minds. Reli­
gion, our peers, culture, nothing was safe from our drunken rants. When 
the vodka started to taste like water, I would retreat to the bed and pour 
forth grand poetry while Jesus did charcoal sketches of a future past. 
That first week was a waking dream; it was the lifestyle we 
had come looking for. Our minds were full of the collective unconscious­
ness that real thought dwells in. We really thought everything was going 
to be okay; it was as if we expected the ghosts of Kerouac and Ginsberg to 
come knocking and sweep us into the world which we were so covertly 
desperate for. We didn't know that people who go searching for ghosts 
often become them. 
Money started to get thin and we realized we were going 
to have to get jobs and find a more permanent place to live. After some 
reality-altering job hunting, I found a job washing dishes at Di'Mico's 
Restaurant on Gulliver Street in Brooklyn. Papa Di'Mico was a glutton­
ously large Italian in his late fifties who recognized me for the romantic 
dolt that I was and took some pity on me. "r give you a place to live, eh?" 
was the first thing he said after hiring me. He talked with his entire body, 
and from far off would have resembled a really bad mime. He owned the 
apartments behind the restaurant and was willing to rent me on the condi­
tion that I never bring any whores up there. "I have one rule," he said. 
"No whores, eh?" Everything he said sounded like a question because of 
the "eh" he always ended with. "They're filthy and no good, liars all of 
them, eh?" I told him I had no money for whores and very little for the 
apartment. "Don't a worry," he said, putting his beefy arm around me like 
I was a lodge brother, "r take a little bit out of your paycheck each week, 
that way you get most of the rent paid right away" I told him that would 
be fine and asked if I was allowed to have a roommate. He replied with a 
raised eyebrow. "You got a wife? A girlfriend, eh?" I told him about Jesus 
and he gave me a funny look. "You a fag, eh?" I acted shocked and 
vehemently denied the question, which seemed to satisfy him. "Fine," he 
said. "You tell your friend no whores either, capeech?" I agreed and it was 
all set. r was to start the next day at ten in the morning, and I could move 
in after my shift was over at five. 
r could smell pot coming from our room when r got back to 
the motel. I hoped this meant that Jesus had found a job and was celebrat­
ing with a few bowls, but I was not surprised when he told me otherwise. 
"r went to six coffeeshops, three restaurants, and two bookstores. Nobody 
even gave me a second look." That made him sound pathetic, and I 
snapped, "Maybe if you clean yourself up a bit you could get a fucking 
job." Jesus had shoulder length brown hair and a thick beard to match. 
This, along with his aquiline nose, made him look much like a shaggy 
eagle, except eagles are strong and proud. Jesus was thin and gaunt. The 
moonlight through the window made him look like a man dying of AIDS. 
40 
41 
Jesus just turned back to his pipe; the flame from the lighter made 
the shadows dance on his face like tiny demons. 1apologized and took a 
hit. Three more made me feel pretty good so 1apologized again and told 
him it was okay because I had found a job and an apartment. This raised 
morale a bit and we toasted our future luck with the rest of the vodka. 1 
went to bed in a drastically altered state and had a strange dream in which 
my veins glowed and 1recited poetry to a body of mist while Jesus was 
being chased by a gang of albinos wearing masks. 
The next day went smoothly. Oishwashing is an easy job and 1am 
the quiet type, so it went off without a hitch. Moving in was easy because 
we only had our bags and a couple of blankets that Jesus had picked up at 
the Salvation Army while 1was at work. That night we ate leftovers that 
Papa Oi'Mico had given me. "Just until you get a few paychecks under 
your belt, eh?" he told me as he stuffed the styrofoam package in my arms 
with a wink. After dinner we smoked what was left of the marijuana Jesus 
had brought. Jesus promised to look for a job while 1was at work tomor­
row. 
And so life went; New York became routine. Every day 1 went to 
work and Jesus went job-hunting. Every night 1cam home with leftovers 
to find Jesus lying in bed, smoking a Cigarette, still unemployed, but always 
with something to ensure that we would not be sober that night. At first it 
was a bottle of vodka or a dimebag of weed. Soon he began to bring home 
new things: Benzedrine, mescaline; he said he was bored with the weed 
high. One day he won fifty dollars on a lottery scratch-off; we had 
'shrooms on our pizza that night. We were almost never sober. 1had long 
forgotten why we came to New York, why we were just there. Jesus 
stopped drawing and 1stopped writing. No longer philosophers, we just
got high. 
Jesus was squandering Our saVings on drugs and 1didn't care. We 
both looked like hell from liVing on a diet composed primarily of drugs 
and alcohol, with a daily meal of leftover pasta or pizza to break the 
monotonous stupor. Everything looked gray to me. The sky was the same 
color as the sidewalk, which was nearly the same color as my skin. 1had a 
constant feeling of mild claustrophobia. 
One night 1came home and Jesus wasn't there. 1realized that this
 
was the first time 1had actually noticed something in days. After a minute
 
1fell back into myself, sat down, and began to eat the leftovers. 1was just
 
about to put them away when Jesus burst in, more energetic that 1 had seen
 
him in months. 
"I know what I've been missing," he belted out. 1 told him to shut 
the fuck up and sit down because he was freaking me out; he looked like a 
sickly Aborigine high on peyote root. "No/' he grabbed me hard on the 
shoulders. His mad pupils held me and 1could almost trace the red and 
purple bloodshot lines back into his mushy brain, sharp as a distant thorn, 
twice as wild. "We need music!" he shouted, and for once he made sense. 
We had no CO player, cassette player, eight track, nothing. The only music 
1ever heard was in the kitchen at work and that was only bad muzak 
versions of songs like "Spill the Wine" and "Muskrat Love." 
Apparently he had met a street punk named Nothing in his quest 
for mescaline that day. He said Nothing had taken a liking to him because 
his long hair and brown beard made him look like Jesus, so that's what he 
called him. 
1had to interrupt, "So you're Jesus now, huh?" 
He thought for a second before responding. "Yeah 1guess, but 
only to Nothing. 1kind of like it though. Anyway, Nothing told me about 
a punk show tonight at some club called the Monastery over in St. Mark's. 
He said he can get us in free. I think we should go." He stared at me with 
those eager eyes, hungry, threatening to pull me back into his frantic brain 
again, and for the second time in the same day, he made sense. 
We popped the mescaline tablets before catching the subway to St. 
Mark's. Watching the world fly past from a subway window is a unique 
experience on a mescaline high. Jesus even looked slightly alive, like a 
skeleton on speed. 
The St. Mark's district was not the best area of New York; it was 
one of those places that feels inherently bad, but makes you question your 
better instincts by drawing you back again and again. St. Mark's thrives on 
the filth of human nature and is therefore one of the more interesting parts 
of New York. 
The subway opened up and St. Mark's spread out before us. It was 
late and the streets looked like a post-apocalyptic wonderland slimed with 
sleaze. The wind picked up and garbage flapped around like entrails in a 
brisk wind. Whores and all manner of vermin passed us by. Jesus looked 
at me and smiled. It struck me that he looked like he belonged in this 
perverted Araby, and that I didn't feel at all out of place. 
I heard the Monastery three blocks before I saw it. It was a two 
story building painted black and plastered with all manner of graffiti and 
concert flyers. The people hanging outside looked like they had been 
warped in from a Sex Pistols concert. They didn't have hair, they had 
plumage. Red, green, purple, spiked out in every direction; they looked 
like angry peacocks. 
I was about to ask Jesus which one of these fallen angels was 
Nothing when a slurred yell cut me off. "Jesus, Jesus, my fucking savior." I 
followed the voice back to a short punk playfully accosting Jesus. Nothing 
42 
43 
was short, about five feet four inches, with a pale complexion that made 
him look like a little boy who had been kept in a dark room all his life. He 
had a black mohawk, cropped short and the word "UNITY" tattooed on the 
side of his head. Like all the other punks, Nothing wore black pants and 
black Doc Martens with white laces. His coat was a black, hooded, Zipper 
sweatshirt littered with patches and safety pins. 
Nothing laughed when Jesus introduced me. "Peter," he shrieked, 
"your name can't be Peter." I asked him why and he looked at me like I 
had just asked what two plus two was. "It just can't. My name is Nothing, 
your friend Joseph is Jesus. You need a street name." 
He told me not to worry, I would have one Soon enough, and he 
led us to an alley behind the club. Neither Jesus or I knew it at the time, 
but we were about to find existence. 
The alley reeked of stale beer, stale urine, and bad intentions. It 
smelled like St. Mark's. One of the larger punks had a woman bent over a 
garbage can. His jacket had a large American flag on the back emblazoned 
over with a dollar sign and a cross. The word "Sellvation" was embroi­
dered underneath the flag, with the "5" cleverly disguised as a dollar sign. 
He was sweating terribly and he grunted as his nostrils flared out with 
every depreciating thrust. The woman's leather skirt was hiked up around 
her waist, and she was exceptionally beautiful, even with her face shoved 
in a pile of garbage. Her skin was lily white and as delicate as a fragile
 
wing. Her white blouse and shimmering silver hair billowed out with
 
every violent jerk of the man's pelvis. She screamed out Jesus' name in
 
desperation and I didn't know whether to laugh at the irony or cry at the
 
hope within. 
The whole scene made me feel ill. I asked Jesus what the fuck we
 
were doing in this alley. He told me just to wait because he had a surprise
 
for me. Finally we stopped and Nothing pulled out two needles and a
 
small bag from his coat, his face contorted into a seductively trashy grin.
 
Jesus grabbed me with those mad eyes. "I got us some heroin," he said.
 
Heroin. The word hit me with the worrisome weight of hope 
behind it. Morals from another time threatened to creep back into my 
mind, but I saw no future and shut them out. Nothing had already tied off 
Jesus and was tapping around for a vein. I watched Jesus' eyes roll back 
into his head and come back different. They were no longer mad, but 
leaked with a wisdom r hadn't seen since Our first week in New York. 
Jesus slumped back against the wall; it was my turn. Nothing tied 
me off and my veins immediately began to reach for the needle. Nothing 
welcomed me with a knOWing wink as I watched the needle penetrate me. 
Wave after wave of euphoria engulfed me. I was falling into 
something that doesn't exist in the physical world. My mind became me 
and for a brief moment, my body didn't exist. My first thought was that if I 
could feel like this all the time, the world would be a wonderful place. 
Nothing eased me back against the wall; Jesus looked at me and saw that it 
was good. 
I don't know how long I stayed in the alley. When I became aware 
of my surroundings Jesus and Nothing were gone, the music from the 
Monastery still pounding. I felt like I was floating, and I wanted to explore 
the world. Everything fascinated me, the garbage of the alley fascinated 
me, the dead girl in the leather skirt looked like a young angel to me. I felt 
curious and wise at the same time. Like a grand poet I started speaking my 
thoughts aloud, dictating my poem to the brewing subconsciousness in the 
underbelly of St. Mark's. 
The music pulled me from the filth into the club, which was stuffed 
full. It was like some sort of demented petting zoo, full of angry peacocks 
and leather girls. The place was blissful to me, people and broken glass 
everywhere. I continued my poem, pierced faces and painted hearts 
peering back at me, in time with the urgent music. The music infused me, 
fed my poetry and sent me flying. The band was playing an old Operation 
Ivy song. The lyrics are still etched in my memory to this day: 
"I always looked up to the ones who walked away. 
Choosing themselves over preset ways 
of looking at a future that had no room for the 
questions they lived for. 
Always knew I could never walk away myself. 
My self-worth was beyond any help. 
And I didn't care to test it against the rejection 
I had seen before. 
But those I loved so much, they underwent this change. 
They're working forty hours, they got caught up in the game. 
Like junkies running dry, the vulnerability. 
Like junkies running dry, they're always there on time. 
Like junkies running dry, we're never statisfied 
like junkies running dry." 
The sight of Jesus getting beat by six large lunks with bold black 
X's tattooed on their hands wrested my mind from the lyrics. Trying to get 
to Jesus was like swimming through a sea of free floating cinderblocks. I 
was so high I could barely stay on my feet. It occurred to me that I had no 
idea what I was going to do once I reached Jesus. I was certainly in no 
condition to fight and wouldn't have been able to help much even if I was 
sober. I was as a frail as Jesus. I didn't feel qUite as helpless when I saw 
Nothing and a few of his comrades running to the defense of their newly­
dubbed messiah. I broke into a clumsy, jerky run of a man on heroin and 
tried to 
44 
45 
drag Jesus out. All the effort got me was a chain to the head. 
I woke up next to Jesus on the damp floor of an abandoned tene­
ment. He was unconscious; his chest and arms were covered with cuts and 
bruises and his face looked like Sylvester Stallone's at the end of Rocky II. I 
tried to wake him, but he was cold. I heard footsteps behind me, then a 
voice. "Leave him alone, Poet. It'll be a while before he gets up after the 
beating he took." I turned and saw Nothing. His tough, street punk 
persona didn't allow him room for pain. 
"What did you call me?" I asked. I thought I heard him call me 
Poet; but no one had ever called me that before. 
"I called you Poet," he said. "That's your street name now because 
you were moaning poetry all last night. Now let's go get some food." 
So now my name was Poet. I didn't think about it at the time, but 
it really stuck. No one has called me Peter since that day. 
We returned to find Jesus awake and pacing the room like an 
interrogator. "Where the hell have you guys been?" he asked. "It's a good 
thing you came back now. I was just about to leave to get some food. I'm 
starving." I tossed him half the sub we had saved for him and he paced 
and ate like some kind of paranoid feline. He was in remarkably high 
spirits for a man who had just been beaten into a purple mess; he seemed 
more alive than he had been in months. He went on and on about heroin. 
"We've got to get more heroin. I felt like a fucking god last night." His 
eyes flashed with excitement, a paradox to the weariness of his face. 
"Peter," he spoke my name for the last time. "Didn't that stuff make you 
feel great?" I smiled at his excitement, 
"My name is Poet now, Jesus." He gave me a quizzical look, 
;'Poet, Poet." He repeated my name over and over, "I like it." 
A look of remembrance came over his face and he asked Nothing 
why those guys had beaten him up last night. I echoed his curiosity, "Yeah, 
what the fuck was that all about?" Nothing told us that they were straight 
edge punks and they beat on Jesus because his hair was long and his brown 
beard made him look like a hippie. 
"St. Mark's punks hate hippies," he explained. I suggested that 
maybe Jesus should cut his hair and shave so he wouldn't have to worry
about getting beat again. 
"Hell no," he leered, "I wouldn't do it to get a job and I won't do it
now." 
Get a job. Those three words reminded me that I was supposed to 
have been at work that morning. I was about seven hours late. I cursed and 
told Nothing and Jesus that I had to get back to Brooklyn. Jesus said he 
was going to get some heroin and to meet him at the Monastery that night. 
The subway ride back was a nervous one, I didn't want to lose my 
job because if I lost my job, my cash flow and apartment went with it. 
I found Papa Di'Maco in the back room of the restaurant, checking 
the books. When he saw me, his face turned bright red and his breathing 
grew heavy. He looked suspiciously like an obscenely large tomato with a 
mustache. 
"Where the fuck have you been?" he bellowed. "You just decide 
not to show up to work today, you loser?" I tried to explain that I had been 
beaten up and was unconscious for most of the day, but he was not in any 
mood to listen to me. He fired me and said he wanted me out of the 
apartment that night or I would spend another day unconscious. 
That was the last thing I wanted, so I left to pack up our stuff. That 
was an easy task, since all we had between us were some clothes, a few 
blankets, and my journal. I was about to leave when an idea struck me. I 
took twenty bucks from our stash and went off to find a whore, just to spite 
that fat bastard. 
The whore tried to get more money out of me. She said she would 
do anything I wanted. I asked her if she had any heroin. When she said no 
I kicked her out and left to catch the subway back to St. Mark's. I knew 
what I wanted, I did't know that I was on my way home. 
St. Mark's seemed much less vile upon my second visit; I even felt 
a shudder of relief as the streets rose steadily from the mouth of the sub­
way, engulfing one of their own. I had a short walk from the subway to the 
Monastery, which was on the corner of 99th and Martyr. It was early, so the 
club was virtually empty inside and out. I went around to the back alley to 
see if Jesus was there. All I found was the body of the girl we had seen 
being raped the night before. Anything of even remote value that she may 
have been wearing was long gone by now, and her face was being gnawed 
by rats and other alleyway scavengers. Even with her essence being eaten 
slowly away, she still eminated a pale beauty, and a small part of me 
mourned for the world. 
I left the alley to check the abandoned tenement where we had 
slept the night before. The punks called it the Warehouse for some reason I 
could never discern. The Warehouse looked like most buildings in St. 
Mark's, splattered with graffiti, old flyers and posters, and just generally 
dilapidated and disgusting. I opened the front door to the staircase staring 
me down; hearing voices from the second floor, I headed up. 
The second floor of the Warehouse is a huge open area about fifty 
by one hundred feet. It had once been divided into separate apartments by 
walls, but those had been knocked down ages ago, as had most other clues 
that would suggest that this junkie gymnasium had once housed apart­
ments. The only thing left from those far off days was a large mirror framed 
in a gilded faux gold that was hanging at the far end of the room, serving 
46 
47 
as a beacon to its star-crossed subjects. 
The second floor was an orgy of people, drugs, hopes, dreams and 
failures. The large punk with the $eIlvation jacket was there, the singer and 
guitarist from the band who had played the Monastery the night before. 
Everyone was there, white, black, female, male, users and pushers. The 
second floor of the Warehouse was a world unto itself. The room was 
cramped, but people still managed to segregate themselves. The pushers 
stayed in one corner, the whores in another. A small section against the 
wall was dubbed "the nursery;" this is where the youngest and newest of 
the flock stood. One kid in the nursery caught my eye right away; he stuck 
out like an X. He had on baggy jeans, Airwalk sneakers, and a Nirvana 
shirt. The sides of his head were shaved and he kept the top pulled back 
into a ponytail that fell to the base of his neck. He was a white male 
somewhere between the ages of 15 and 21. He looked lost, like he had no 
idea of who or where he was. 
Finally, I saw Jesus. He was sitting on a freestanding concrete 
staircase of three steps, talking to Nothing. The gilded mirror hung directly 
behind him, and I could see the entire congregation reflected as I ap­
proached him. 
The staircase was the throne of the second floor; it was the gather­
ing place of the Elders, the old school punks who had managed to survive 
St. Mark's. Nothing was an Elder- he had been at St. Mark's since '91. 
Nothing had taken a strong liking to Jesus, so we got to hang out by the 
stairs, quite an honor for a couple of newbies like us. 
Jesus gave me a smile when he saw our bags under my arm. "Got 
fired, huh?" He didn't seem upset in the least. 
"Yeah," I answered. "And kicked out of the apartment." 
Jesus said that it was okay because Nothing was going to let us 
sleep on the third floor where he stayed with his friends. I thanked Noth­
ing for letting us crash; that was one worry out of the way. He responded 
with another welcoming wink and introduced me to his friends. 
These were the Elders, and they were all junkies. They didn't 
remember ever being anything else. They were classic street punks, black 
boots, black or tartan pants, piercings filled with safety pins, and hair in 
every offensively bright color imaginable. Their names echoed their 
features. They were called Void, Wreckage, Stunt, Tread, and a frighten­
ingly sickly one named Patch. I asked Nothing what was wrong with 
Patch, and again he looked at me like I had just asked him what two plus 
two was. "He hasn't had a hit in days," he patiently responded. "He's 
been on H for years now and the withdrawl is making him sick." 
I must have looked unnerved because Jesus patted me on the 
shoulder and said "C'mon, I know what will make you feel better." 
r followed him and Nothing up to the third floor. Nothing took out 
a needle and began to sharpen it on the rough side of a matchbox. I 
watched him and waited like a child on Christmas Eve. I don't remember 
the feeling of that second fix. Heroin is like sex that way; you always 
remember the first time, the rest just blurs together. 
48 
49 
PROVING OUR EXISTENCE
 
by Michelle Carini
 
(for A.)
 
tiny purple blotches 
burst through the 
paste of my skin 
lingering marks 
perfectly shaped 
lining my arm 
lingering on my hip 
caressing my leg 
shapes that appeared
 
strangely formed to me
 
at first
 
now I slowly realize
 
placing my palm 
firmly down 
Over them 
I can see 
the outline 
of your 
hand. 
STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER 
by Erin McCarthy 
I'm running for president
 
I see the plight of the cynical
 
I see the slow asphyxiation of the apathetic;
 
their cries for the sunshine and the chipmunks,
 
the moondrops and the chain linked fences 
to cut through the gray of their 
perpetual hindsight 
and lead them to greener pastures 
their cries for "honesty in leadership" 
manna from hea ven 
packed neatly
 
into microwave dinners.
 
So I'm running for president.
 
Give me a button, a clipboard, and a tie,
 
and I'm off.
 
Seeking Truth,
 
Seeking Truth
 
Seeking...Votes.
 
Votes to feed, to satiate 
the beast of progression, 
of transgression. 
A fence rider am 1, 
riding that fence of mediation 
walking that line of inaction 
avoiding reaction
 
causing retro-action
 
and with retrospection
 
taking the gratification
 
of today
 
as recompense
 
for the selling
 
of tomorrow.
 
I don't want to digress,
 
I want to regress.
 
Take off the layers.
 
Strip me clean...
 
50 
51 
'Cause I'm runing for president. 
And I'll see your dreams in your eyes 
and call them mine 
use your fears to shepard you. 
And I'll see your faces melt together 
into platforms and factions 
And r will call you America 
And I will call you my people 
r will give you war as unifier 
and peace as rhetoric. 
UNTITLED 
by Mike Betette 
(monologue) 
[BILL stands alone on stage, he begins with an angry, almost snobby tone. 
(This monologue is meant to stand alone, not part of a play.)] 
BILL 
So ... (beat) I hope you appreciate this suicide mission I'm on here. 
Not that I have a death wish or anything, but I was - AM pretty much 
written into this situation, literally. And this is only a monologue. A mono­
logue only lasts about, what, five minutes or something like that? Probably 
less. Not nearly a lifetime. And of course, when the monologue ends, I'm 
dead. Yup, dead. That's it. I'm nothing more than an incarnation of the 
author. I am only a character. My purpose could be for a few bullshit 
reasons. Maybe to try and make a "point," which of course is overstated, 
useless and cliche. To give some lousy actor a job acting lousy in some 
overbudgeted movie, or maybe so the author can go to a party after a 
reading of this, after I'm dead of course, slurp down a few Tom Collins, and 
get some insincere praise, using as much modesty as he feels appropriate. 
And then try his ass off to get laid. My life, however, is insignificant and 
fucking worthless. I don't even have a real personality. Just the few tidbits 
of life you can drag out of this rant. No dad, no mom, no home or memo­
ries, or even anybody to talk to. A damn monologue, not even a short 
scene. I don't get to be Romeo or be a surley fuckin' real estate salesman. 
The monologue, the loneliest of all writings. (getting sad, long pause, he 
starts to break down) Shit man, I don't wanna die. I know I don't really 
have anything anyways, but I don't want it to end. What did I do to 
deserve this? What can I do to stop it? I'm sorry, Mr. Playwright, sir! I'm 
sorry. Why do you have to use me to get out your frustrations? (beat) And 
what's going to happen to me? Will I even know when it's over? (beat, 
getting angry) And by the way, thank you very much for sitting there 
watching my imminent end! Just waiting for my death! (clapping loud and 
hard, speaking in an English accent) 'Yeah! Woo hoo, nice life! I had crappy 
seats and the theater was a bit hot, but watching you die was a joy' (claps 
as hard as possible) Yeah! Jolly good show!' I guess I shouldn't even care, 
right? Happy I was given life at all. But a life that's not even mine. All 
written, predetermined. Born one late night at a keyboard as Ramen 
noodles were spilled all over the outline that is my life. Came to being 
52 
53 
because there was nothing on TV. Damnit! You know what? That's all 1, lor 
this thing on stage, guesses. Shit. (trying to accept it) Well, thanks for 
listening. Thank you, maybe I'll be back someday. Ok, well, (beat) yup, 
good- (beat) good-bye. (begins clapping softly as lights go down, and 
cries.) 
S4 
SS 
I 
glrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrlgrlglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglr 
, 
TO CHRISTINA AND RASHEDA: 
THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HELP - GOOD LUCK 
IN YOUR FUTURE ENDEAVORS 
TO ERIN, KATHY, DEBBIE, LEIGH AND SARA: 
THANK YOU AND GOOD LUCK NEXT YEAR - SEND 
ME A COpy IN BOSTON! 
WELL, IT'S BEEN EDUCATIONAL, KIDS, BUT••••• 
nM 
DUTTn 
HERE!!!! !! 
-jill 
glrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglrglr 
56