Slices of Life: Pictures, Portraits, and Profiles

by caitlin macrae

People who don’t know better like to talk about how well you’re doing. Super happy, you know, things are going great with the band, and then of course, there’s the milkmaid. Trapped in my mouth, hot and sticky like summer, the milkmaid. This is the thing nobody plans on when you keep such big secrets, no exit strategy for dealing with the friends you share when things get weird and bad and over. There is no option but to take in all information with a very calm face, secretly suppressing quease. This option involves focusing on neutral images, Scandinavian pastoral scenes with smiling children and placid cows and grass and big wooden milk pails, memories of mom’s old ice cream maker, a huge wooden contraption with a big hand crank used to grind ice and salt and cream into a completely different thing.

And, hell, I bet she comes home at night with sprinkles in her hair, the smell of cream and ice in her whole body, radiating from the inside out, vital organs glittering with colored sugars, a woman born of diabetic dreams and children’s birthday parties. Melting and edible. There is no getting around these thoughts; they are not kind. She is probably kind, kinder than I am. But maybe if she knew what I know she would write her own short stories, with titles like the bookmaker, vague and plotless things about a brittle, glowering girl who should know so much better but can’t turn off the thinking. But maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’s not that kind of girl.

by J.B. Staniforth

A couple of months after September 11th, a young woman who regularly came into the video store distinguished herself by making an impassioned speech to the two of us behind the counter about how menacing Arabs were.

I thought she was Martha Wainwright, because she looked like Martha Wainwright, who lived in town, and why wouldn’t Martha Wainwright rent movies from us? We had a good selection. But I was pretty sure Martha Wainwright wasn’t a paranoid racist.

The woman came in, stopped at the counter, and looked up at a TV that we had playing the eleven o’clock news, which that evening featured an angry mob in Lebanon protesting US action in Afghanistan. She said, “That’s exactly what they’re like: angry, violent. Terrifying. Those people terrify me.”

“Sorry?” I said. “Who are you talking about?”

“You know,” she said. “People over there.”

“Why, isn’t that a racist thing to say!” I said cheerfully.

Her eyes bugged out and she extended her neck towards me. “You think I’m a racist?” she said.

“Sure. I mean, I think what you said was racist, yeah.”

“I’ll have you know,” she started, “that I spent two months travelling in Pakistan, and all of my opinions are based on my own experiences and what I saw. And I saw people who were violent, who hated white people, who couldn’t read, who lived like animals…” You can figure out where she was going with that.

I said, “It must have been exhausting meeting everyone who lives in Pakistan.”

“You know what? I’m not even going to rent a movie tonight.”

“Have a nice night,” I said and waved.

Two weeks later, I was at the grocery store across the street on my evening break. I had a banana and was looking for some cookies when I saw her coming up the aisle toward me.

“You again,” she said.

Without saying anything, I raised the banana, pointed it at her, and said, “Pxauw!”

There was a moment of silence and her mouth dropped open. Then she said, “What the fuck is wrong with you? What was that supposed to mean? Are you out of your mind? How dare you do that to me?”

“It’s a banana,” I said.

She blinked and said nothing.

“Fruit loves you,” I added. She remained silent. I strolled off, whistling.

I’m not saying that’s the sort of thing you should do every day. But I do know that she was always very pleasant to me after that.

by Vanessa Hope

3 Months
It eats time like candy
Lips gleaming with hours
Belching thin, atmospheric serenity

6 Months
It festers in rank foulness
Sweating bugs and yeast
Tubes emerge from its veins
       Every bodily fluid the wrong color

9 Months
With pointed, gluey tongue
It dabs your brain with analgesic

1 Year
Heavy with allegiance
Struggling to see
Where the beast ends
Where you begin

Fever Dream
As did Mr. Hyde
As did the dark villains of the comics
So too shall this younger twin
(Achingly similar to the partner who came before)
Cease to require charity
Not for the struggle in making one
Not for the struggle of being halved

15 Months
Questioning understanding and standing up at all.

by Liz Wyckoff

On our Delta flight from Portland to Atlanta, we all watch a precautionary video. No more flight attendants with poorly-choreographed clicks and tightenings. No oxygen masks held up to the ceiling and dropped dangerously close to passengers’ faces.

Now, we get Katherine Lee: star of Delta’s airline safety video. We get the subtle cups of her cheeks, a finger wag warning us that our “mobile phones and other electronic devices should now be turned … off;” the seductive snap of that cell phone in her well-manicured hand. We get tangerine-colored hair swept across her forehead like a smooth cirrus cloud.

We, the passengers, are a motley crew. Lots of glasses. We chew the ice in our complimentary drinks. I get the sense we’re all playing the game I usually play in tight spaces with strangers. If the plane crash-lands on an uninhabited island, with whom will we make babies to propagate the species? We glance at each other out of the corners of our eyes.

Most of us, I believe, are remembering the video. Her voice echoes in our heads like something a partner once said during sex. “Insert the metal tip into the buckle.” “Adjust the strap so it’s low and tight across your lap.”

Every once in a while, we tune our mini television screens to the program that charts our path across the country. We cruise over the cookie-cutter borders of Nebraska and Kansas and Missouri. Altitude: 37,004 ft. Ground Speed: 943 km/h.

We all want to be somewhere: the place we just left, the place we’re going, or somewhere else altogether.

Later, we watch a beautiful sunrise—the moon hangs pale and white as a clipped fingernail in the sky. About an inch from the horizon, the atmosphere shifts into a deep red, then a brilliant orange, then, finally, the color of the Delta woman’s hair. Tangerine.

We, the passengers, have dull, greasy hair. We lower our window shades and shut our eyes. Thankfully, we’ll be here for a few more hours.

by Kate Axelrod

A few nights ago, three thousand volunteers walked the streets of Manhattan attempting to gather a rough estimate of the island’s homeless population. Dozens of groups canvassed small pockets of the borough, and at one o’clock on a Monday night, the streets were mostly quiet, the city in a rare moment of calm. Taxis glided past on freshly hosed pavement, and doormen lingered beside awnings.

There were of course, some businessmen stumbling from bars and a few women in stilettos heading toward their apartments, who quickly brushed us off. No, they did not have time to answer a few quick questions about their housing situations tonight.

By two AM we spotted a number of people who’d made homes for the night—wrapped in quilts and tucked behind thick constructions of cardboard. An elderly Asian woman with a small wire cart and a swollen lip hurried past us. No, she said, I am not homeless and I cannot talk.

And later, a handful of people who were eager and alert, ready to talk. Two young guys, after having just visited a needle exchange, were heading east to bed down for the night. Their hands were bathed in a film of gravely dirt. They wanted some more information about places to grab a meal or two, maybe take a warm shower.

We were surveying the same area for roughly three hours, weaving in and out of streets and alleyways. An older man kept appearing, almost as though he had been circling the blocks with us. When I finally approached him, he told me emphatically that he was not homeless, that he had a place in Queens. But he held his gaze so long and hard, like perhaps he didn’t want us to leave him or had nowhere to go. We had been told to use our judgment when determining if an individual was homeless, they would not necessarily be forthcoming with the information. And for a moment, I wondered about him. Why had he been moving through the neighborhood so slowly, so cautiously? But really, he could’ve been anyone, lost and lonely, looking for some place to go.

by Ian F. King

If you had to guess what song a crazy person might sing out loud while riding his bike on the avenue outside my apartment (or your apartment, whatever), what would it be? “Mac the Knife”? Maybe some Frank Sinatra, or the Beatles? “It’s Raining Men”? Okay, I know, that’s a fairly random thing to speculate about. The point is that it might never occur to you to think of what songs a crazy person is more likely to sing until you are confronted with a crazy person who sings songs that you never thought a crazy person would. It’s even weirder when those songs are ones that were in heavy rotation in your Discman ten years ago.

I first heard the crazy bike rider singing not long after I moved into my apartment in the summer of 2007. I was sitting in my living room reading, when from outside my window rose a tuneless yodel over the usual low hum of traffic. I swore I recognized the song he was singing and I jumped up to look out the window, just as he was heading out of earshot. Though I only heard the snippet as he rode by, it immediately came to mind: “Photobooth” by Death Cab For Cutie. Not even an album track, but an obscure-ish older EP song from way before they were famous. I dismissed it as random, but over the years I’ve heard that guy out my window, seen him while I was walking down the street, even walked by him in the park, and he’s always riding his bike and singing an indie rock song from the late ’90s. Even tonight, as I laid feverish on my couch trying to watch La Dolce Vita for the second time (I failed again, I should stop trying to watch it only when I am sick), there he went by outside again, singing “Pink Chimneys” by the Promise Ring. Definitely not the first time I’ve heard him sing a Promise Ring song.

That’s when it finally clicked. People like me think that indie rock—because it is, or at least was, supposed to be sort of under the radar—would only be the realm of sane people who might consciously go to the trouble of finding music that was more difficult to hear or get a hold of than popular music that is readily available. Because crazy people just listen to the radio and don’t have discerning musical tastes? That’s what I thought, apparently. Somehow, I have been under the impression that the music of my teenage years was, and is, only appealing to non-crazies. You might think the bike rider I’m talking about is just “eccentric,” but I assure you, people that warble loudly like that in public consistently are voluntarily handing over their sanity cards. What I should be most thankful for is that I’ve been forced to confront this stereotype of mine head on, and see that people of all walks of mental stability can like cuddly sweater boy guitar bands of the 1990s. Either that, or I’m crazy, too.

Epilogue: Ian was still sick the next day and finally managed to make it through La Dolce Vita. He wonders what the hell that girl is saying to Marcello at the end. He’ll give an extra special George Washington medallion to whomever can come up with the best answer.

by Liz Mathews

You could say morale is low. Variations on the phrase, “I have to get out of this place because it’s eating my soul,” are commonly heard at my second job, where I have the opportunity to work two shifts per week to add padding to my income. Coworkers commonly call out, others have ulcers, and still others are constantly muttering appalling things about customers under their breaths.

Kenneth does not work at our store. Kenneth has probably never worked at our store. But Kenneth has worked for our same company since 1989, and he has never missed a single one of those days. For twenty years, Kenneth has not been ill. Kenneth has not been hungover. Kenneth has not had a family emergency. Kenneth has not felt too depressed to get out of bed. Kenneth has not pretended to be sick so he can go to a movie instead. Kenneth claims that guilt spurs him to go to work, and plays a large part in his perfect attendance because he doesn’t want his absence to burden the people he works with. He would rather be useful, he says, instead of sitting at home and thinking about all the others having to carry on without him.

From the standpoint of our company, Kenneth should be an inspiration to the rest of us, one who we should all strive to emulate.

But at my store, at least, Kenneth’s story had the opposite effect. “Did you read about that shmuck who’s been here for twenty years?” my supervisor asked as I clocked in on the day Kenneth’s story broke. He pulled me to the nearest computer, and called up Kenneth’s article. “Never missed a goddam day. What the fuck.” He gave the computer monitor a solid flick with his index finger.

This display of bravado drew a crowd of coworkers.

“There’s got to be something wrong with that guy, Kenneth.”

“Wow. That is so depressing.”

“I wonder what they gave him. Like a bonus or anything?”

“Not like he’d use any extra vacation days.”

‘He’s not even a manager—just a lead! ‘This is a great place to craft a career,’ my ass! Dude hasn’t moved up at all!”

“What’s wrong with him! We should call that store—see if they gave him anything.”

“We should track him down and punch him in the face, is what we should do; see if he goes to work then. Maybe kick him a few times, give him a reason to use his sick leave.”

On that note, we dispersed.

But for the rest of the evening, Kenneth hovered at the back of our minds, his twenty years of perfect attendance flashing like a strobe light behind our eyeballs. But none of us did our work any better or more efficiently. It’s possible we did an even worse job that evening, to prove a point.

If we were not who we are at my store, Kenneth might be an inspiration. But as it is, you could say morale is low.

by Rose Annis

The only reason I ever talked to Bob was because he said he was going to drown those kittens. He already had captured three and he promised that as soon as he found all five, he would tie them in a bag and throw them in the river—the French Broad—it was just the other side of the highway. Those small mewling faces had an expiration date. I wrote down in my day planner “save kittens” as if I had something better to do.

“Bob”, I said. “This isn’t a just add water situation.”

Bob listened to Alex Jones every night and slept in a bus, a bus that had its front seat carved out and refashioned into a toilet. We met because I was living on what used to be his land. He had sold it six months previous to my friend Chad for 10,000 dollars in silver. Bob didn’t believe in banks. Or the government, or shirts apparently. He burned his social security card back in 1987 and still wandered our side of the mountain like it was his.

He called me Wendy. As in Wendy Darling. From Peter Pan. I told him I wasn’t maternal enough. He told me I reminded him of his daughter. He told all the girls that. A few times he tried to teach me to play horseshoes, but he would always stand too close to the stake, and we lived on a slope. The only direction the horseshoes would tumble was down.

Every few weeks Bob would say something about Jesus, or pussy, or the New World Order, and he would be banned from the property. Days would pass and we would forget that he was out there. Occasionally the putt-putt growl of his motor scooter could be heard out on the gravel road, and we would be satisfied that he hadn’t thrown himself into the river along with those kittens.

by Kiersten Tarr

Upstairs, standing in front of the window in what used to be the guest room but is now my bedroom, I’m painting “dark umber” mascara onto my eyelashes with the aid of a small handheld mirror. Between strokes, I glance up through the trees at the sky. It looks hazy, like there are lots of thin clouds everywhere, but there must be a break in them someplace, because there is bright sunlight kissing the driveway below.

My mother knocks on the door, then opens it a few inches without waiting for an answer.

“I need you to call Grandma and Grandpa before they head over to Jeanne’s.” (Jeanne is her half-sister.)

“I’m half-dressed,” I complain, gesturing to myself in sweatpants and bra, hair wet, mascara wand in hand. She looks me over from the doorway.

“Well, you don’t have to do it now, but if it isn’t soon, you’ll miss them.”

Realizing from her tone that this means I will have to either expedite my primping, make the phone call now, or catch hell, I opt to throw on a t-shirt and trek downstairs with my damp locks and lopsided eyelash thickness. There is a phone in my room, but it’s analog and actually tethered to its cradle, so down the stairs I go.

This is my annual holiday duty—not going to midnight mass, not helping roast or baste or dice anything, not licking envelopes for a few hundred cards featuring a glossy portrait of us wearing matching Santa hats—no, it’s my designated task to call my mother’s parents and make all of the initial small talk so that she can spend as little time as possible on the phone with them, and also just in case her stepfather answers instead of my grandma. I am the ritual sacrifice, the slaughtered innocent, the tender, tasty lamb. I go along with it because I’m grateful I wasn’t raised in the style practiced by my grandparents on their four kids. Running interference is an unspoken thank-you-for-not-doing-that-to-me to my mother.

As I listen to the line ringing, I recall an anecdote my mother told me after I moved to New York two Springs ago. Her stepfather told her that “no daughter of his” would ever be allowed to move to such a place, a filthy hole full of “weirdos.” Weirdos was code for the big bad Other, which for him includes queers, liberal idiots, illegals, and anyone the girls from Prussian Blue wouldn’t date. In turn, I am reminded of the last Christmas we spent with them, at which the most enthusiastic dinnertime conversation was about why it was okay for us to use the n-word. (Because “they” call each other that.)

After several rings there is a short pause before the recording of my grandmother’s very faint voice begins to play. I feel my face tighten into a smile that no one will see, necessary for getting my voice into character.

“Hi, Merry Christmas! It’s your granddaughter! You must’ve left for Jeanne’s by now, so, sorry we missed you, but we hope you’re having a nice time over there, and we’ll talk to you soon. Bye bye!”

As the sigh of relief I’m heaving begins to escape my lips, I turn to find my mother standing behind me holding up her address book, open to the J’s. We exchange wry smiles as I start dialing, and no explanation is needed. Just in case Jeanne picks up.

by Naomi Solomon

The saint—Saint Thomas Aquinas, I believe—is still there on the side of the building, hovering on a small concrete platform just above the third floor, looking out onto a dull strip of Fourth Avenue: a fenced-off lot under construction, a fast food Chinese restaurant, dirty snow, parked cars. Or would be looking out onto, if not for the box he has been in since the vacant St. Thomas Aquinas School became the new P.S. 124 in September.

The conversion seemed frantic after years of silence. (Granted, it took me a while to notice the silence: I work less than a block from the school, and walked by it at least twice a day for over a year before I realized that there were never any school buses, never any kids coming and going, that the giant area of scratched-away paint on the front door that sometimes looked to me like a hunched-over alien and sometimes like a baby with a balloon never grew more chipped. That the same brown-and-tan tweed couch cushion that someone had, at some point in time, tossed over the fence was always sitting there moldering in the same corner of the schoolyard, surrounded by weeds growing completely undisturbed between cracks in the pavement.)

At first I couldn’t tell if the school was being torn down or fixed up. Construction workers filled the yard with dumpsters, and filled the dumpsters with a rubble of plaster, scratched chalkboards, and rusty-looking electrical equipment. Open windows revealed mangled lighting fixtures and heaps of dirty classroom furniture. Then they set up a little booth for a security guard at the school gate, and the alien/baby-with-balloons disappeared under a fresh coat of paint—red this time—and one day I walked by and the yard was paved, and a man in an orange vest was tracing out a four-square court in chalk.

Lastly, just a week or two before Labor Day, bright plastic signs announcing the building as a public elementary school went up over St. Thomas’s name set in concrete over the doorways, and wooden panels painted brown went up around the statue of the saint himself. The transformation is strangely temporary, as if the Department of Education is prepared to hand the school back at any time, put uniforms on the kids and take evolution out of the textbooks. Tear down the signs, let the saint out of his box, and return to the way it must have been before the paint on the door chipped away.