Dead Center: The Alumni Issue : simplebooklet.com

3 “We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.” ― Nikki Giovanni This issue is dedicated to hundreds of people. They are the students and their faculty advisors -- who span generations now! -- whose passion, imagination, and commitment has produced, year after year, our beloved literary magazine of Highland Park High School. Every issue of Dead Center has been formatted a little differently -- each editorial team taking the reins and driving a vision that represents them and their moment in history. Some early issues were handwritten in beautiful penmanship; there are typewritten issues; and there are, of course, the contemporary issues made of works that were uploaded into Google Drives to be copied, pasted, and shared. In some years, the staff numbered a couple dozen. In a more recent year, one student -- a single student! (I’m looking at you, Mason!) -- made sure the tradition continued. The DEADication pages speak to concerns of the time, setting each issue as a timepiece in its own right. Some issues are organized by type of work -- the poems sectioned away from the essays, the essays from the prose. (You’ll find in these pages, my formatting is less structured. It’s seeming messiness is the intention -- the beautiful ratatouille we have cooked up here as each alum from across generations, added their words, their art, their wisdom -- coming together as a whole. The unification all HPHS Owls to share their wisdom, mixed as it is, is indeed the message here.) We honor, with this issue, the staffs of the past who embraced us all. No matter what crowd you sat with at lunch (if you had a crowd at all), the opportunity to be a part of the pages, to share your thoughts and creations, was yours, unquestioned. The people at the reins of Dead Center have always offered and continue to offer permission to put on the page in words or in art the thoughts and emotions we often didn’t have the courage to articulate aloud to our friends and family. And this appealed to the athletes, to the Mathletes, to the musicians, to student governors, to the members of the Dungeons & Dragons club, to EVERYONE. So, to those who welcomed us all unconditionally, to the first advisor, Pheme Moughalian, to the current one, Nicole Marionni, to everyone in between, to the staffs who spent late nights pouring over our submissions and creating pages -- developing calluses on your fingers, carpal tunnel in your wrists, and strained, double-vision eyes -- for giving us this gift of expression, we give you these pages in thanks. May the tradition of this incomparable magazine continue.

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4 Last year, under what I recall to be a sunny but tepid-weather sky, I took a seat at a table at the Highland Park Farmers’ Market next to Rob Scott. Rob isn’t an Owl, himself, but he is the parent of three. And as we gossiped about our neighbors (I’m kidding!) and commiserated about the stresses of having teenagers, the discussion turned, serendipitously, to Dead Center. Rob mentioned that Dead Center was faltering. While it may seem overly dramatic to say I felt a palpable hit by this news, I swear, I did. Dead Center, after all, throughout my own four years at HPHS was beloved. That afternoon, Rob and I pondered the roots of students’ troubles. The pandemic, of course, was an obvious culprit. Another, (more enraging than unfortunate) was the dissolving support of creative writing in the curriculum at the high school. We also speculated that, in students’ drive to stand out, get scholarships, build their resumes for the colleges of their choice, Dead Center couldn’t compete against the offerings of other clubs that came with international trips and trophies seemingly more attractive to the eyes of college admissions officers. Dead Center, we concluded, wasn’t sexy enough (my word, not Rob’s) and we needed to do something to add a spit of polish returning its proper shine. Initiating this call to alumni to help us revitalizze Dead Center wasn’t simply about supporting Dead Center, the physical publication. Bigger than that was building a community who could testify to and role model for current and future Owls the importance -- the GIFT! -- of expression through words and art -- the true heart and purpose of Dead Center. We wanted to gather people who could show students that this -- THIS! this incomparable outlet for all that bubbles up within you-- is truly worthy of investing time into (and you don’t even need a passport to participate!). The word I use (ad nauseum, perhaps) to describe Dead Center is ‘formative’. It’s a gift that shapes us in the moment and whose lessons continue to impact our futures. I’m running out of page space here (I could rave on and on), so please excuse the abrupt transition, but I MUST say ‘thank you’ to the team of people that made this possible. Thank you to Rob Scott, the impetus for this all and our students’ greatest advocate for the importance of creative writing; to Marc Pomper who rallied so many people, kept us on tract with ‘check-ins’, and kept his expert financial eye on the process; to Vanessa Daza-Heck whose creativity and supportive energy have permeated every single page here; and to Nicole Marionni who loves Dead Center enough to never give up on it and who I admire for more reasons than there are pages here. Thank you, Owls. Nikki Gonzalez

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5 ABOUT THE COVER: The cover art was designed by HPHS alumni, Russell Mantarro, who returns to his Dead Center duties after having designed the cover art for the 1995 issue. In early brainstorming sessions about a possible theme for the issue, we discussed the current (horrifying) trend towards censorship. Russ’s pixelated owl is a cautionary message to our future Owls; the wisdom, certainly, any artist would offer: Never be silenced. This magazine was conceived to support the Highland Park High School Dead Center, a long-running arts club that has for decades produced an art and literary magazine featuring student work. I hope you have a print copy in your hands and will spend time with each of the contributions of the many Dead Center alumni featured. Each contribution offers one artist’s view of the theme “Wisdom” and each contribution has been sponsored by generous donations to Dead Center. The funds raised have been dedicated to producing the Dead Center Literary Magazine and to making a art-centered field trips and experiences available to all Dead Center students. Starting with these practical goals our purpose grew to a defense of the arts and humanities as a response to our moment in history. This magazine then is also an impassioned plea to maintain the arts and humanities and recognize their centrality to our individual and collective need to find wisdom and meaning in our lives. First, our theme: “Wisdom” was obvious. The Owl is the town mascot and is the embodiment of Athena, goddess of wisdom. And, here we collect works of Dead Center alumni from different times - each offering a particular view of wisdom. In the collection, is a tapestry that might reveal what can be learned in a life and how many journeys can create a wiser community. Included are works of recent Dead Center alumni and those of alumni from decades past. I am a natural scientist. My calling is to observe the world, describe it, analyze it, and understand it. As the years have passed, I have come to know that science is empty without the meaning that the arts and humanities can offer. Neil deGrasse Tyson, a very distinguished advocate of science, observed “In school, rarely do we learn how data become facts, how facts become knowledge, (continued)

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6 and how knowledge becomes wisdom.” This was a very bad take whose essence was captured by the three-word response of Matthew Gabriele, a professor of medieval studies: “Literally, the Humanities”. Indeed, we need the humanities and art – enabled by the exercise of human imagination – to make any sense of our world. The chance to develop this part of our humanity is what Dead Center offers the youth of Highland Park. As we began this project, Ms. Marionni was kind enough to share the archive of past Dead Center Literary Magazines and as she pulled the one from 2004 off the shelf she observed “oh, this was the censored issue, the students had to publish it on their own.” This resonates with our world now as books are banned from schools and libraries. Why was it censored? Perhaps, because there is a gracefully rendered anatomical drawing of a man complete with a penis. Art responds to the times and can communicate across time. Tolkien wrote in his essay “On Fairy Stories”: “When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power-upon one plane; and the desire to wield that power in the world external to our minds awakes. It does not follow that we shall use that power well on any plane. We may put a deadly green upon a man's face and produce a horror; we may make the rare and terrible blue moon to shine; or we may make woods to spring with silver leaves and rams to wear fleeces of gold, and put hot fire into the belly of the cold worm.” Here Tolkien has described the marvelous capacity of human imagination that enriches our lives and lets us make sense of the world. He hearkens to folklore and describes what art can do. This brings us to the rézfaszú bagoly, a symbol for this collection rendered on the cover by Dead Center alumnus Russ Mantarro. One thing leads to another. What happens when you discover some Highland Park Owls were censored for depicting a penis and you google “owl penis”? First, some science, you discover owls don’t have penises. Science tells us this is because a gene turns on a protein Bmp4 (or, bone morphogenetic protein 4) which halts development of the penis. Next, you stumble on the rézfaszú bagoly or “copper-dick owl” and its apparent origin in Transylvanian folklore. Yes, human imagination can give a dickless owl a dick, just as we can “put hot fire in the cold belly of a worm”. (continued)

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7 But, why give an owl a copper penis? It appears the owl represented a learned doctor and the copper-dick a tool for performing an abortion. The copper-dick owl is an abortion doctor. Why Transylvania? Perhaps because of communist era natalist policies banning all contraception. From there the copper-dick owl lore evolves. He becomes a bogeyman to scare children, we get an insult “the copper-dick owl should have taken you”, the internet picks up the thread and he is like the slenderman. And now we have found him in Highland Park and make use of him. I said art responds to the times and our times are grim. I was born in 1972. Roe vs Wade banished the specter of a copper-dick owl and made possible the world I have come to know. This year Roe was overturned and that world is crumbling. Fascism is plainly on the rise in this country. Trans people and the trans community have been targeted for hate and the language is genocidal. Teachers are called “groomers”. School boards have been taken over and books banned, librarians are in the cross-hairs. Our culture is racked by fears and economic insecurity. The arts and humanities are assaulted as trivial and unnecessary. They are marginalized and underfunded. So here is my offering of wisdom. Support art and artists. We need their hope. Their melancholy. Their comfort. Their sense of irony. Expressions of horror. We need their capacity to speak truth. We need their courage. We need their anger. We need a host of copper-dick owls from the imagination. Rob Scott

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8 The very first Dead Center issue contained no editor’s statement as to its purpose. Instead, it kind of left its audience with that ultimate New Jersey statement: ”It is what it is”. But after 45+ years of continuous publication … what is it? So many things. Slices of life for multiple generations. Repositories of hopes, dreams, fears, wishes and distress. Snapshots of lives and times of Highland Park High School students over time. Dead Center, from its onset, has reflected an understanding that everyone has a voice and that every voice has something to say. From Amy Weinberg‘s putting a six pack and a bone into the casket of a dead friend to Lester Gibson’s humble cockroach poem (“Do not kill the roach because he is just moving his antennae to find his way home to eat his food and get to his old grandmother.”) Dead Center has brought insight and understanding. It has opened worlds - both interior and exterior - to one another. In each edition there is a profound sense of community and sharing. A shedding of walls and barriers. An intimacy. This special alumni edition contains the work of some serious writers and creatives. Samuel Freedman and David Kamp are no slouches in the literary world. Laura Zucker is a best-selling author on the craft of song. Cyndi Dawson is a much-published poet and an emerging rockstar. Jonathan Hyman is a photo-documentarian of first rank. But above and (in some ways) beyond that, there are works by less recognized HPHS grads that have chosen to contribute. After all these years, they still have their voices. They still have something to say. And, it turns out, they have ways of saying or showing them that are quite beautiful. Our profound gratitude to Pheme Moughalian and Robert Stevens for creating and supporting a vehicle in which the strands of so many of lives have been woven together. As Dead Centers past and present are gathered, collected and archived, it’s going to be one amazing tapestry of HPHS life, and a fine legacy to be a part of. Our thanks go out to creative and financial contributors past and present. We very much welcome continued financial support of Dead Center publication, archiving, and activities. As Ruth Yeselson, HPHS ‘78, and a spectacular English teacher to thousands, put it, “Pheme Moughalian was the wisdom source. She taught us all that authenticity and surprise and timing and

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9 imagery and the perfect words were everything in poetry”. Pheme’s son David informs us that: Pheme Moughalian was born in 1926 in Jerusalem and lived in five countries before moving to New Jersey; she always felt that everyone’s story, wherever they came from, deserved to be told... “Everyone has something to say,” she often said… So if your story was about 13 different ways of looking at a joint, or skid marks on “tidy-whiteys,” or something more sublime…or less so…it mattered, if that’s what you had to say. I think besides her family, her favorite phrase based on the volume of times I heard it, and the joy I heard in her voice, was “My students…’ My mother started teaching at age 46, and was at HPHS for only 11 years, but there was nothing that brought her more joy than when that new “Poem of the Week” went up in the central hall of HPHS, or when Dead Center came back from the printer. She would be overjoyed, firing up cups of Armenian coffee for everyone and pleased as could be that there are still students and teachers and alumni working at writing, or producing art…with something to say… A word of gratitude as well to Mr. Robert Stevens, who also supported Dead Center from the onset. Mr. Stevens was quite a character. A former Shakespearean actor he never lost his sense of drama or dramatic possibility. He taught classes in Speech and Journalism and devoted himself after hours to the publication of the Highland Fling student newspaper and the production and direction of student plays. Like Pheme, Mr. Stevens taught us to forcefully and proudly present our views, to take in fresh perspectives, to broaden our worlds. Among his teachings, he had us absorb Dylan Thomas (“sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboatbobbing sea”) and Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology in which the dead of a small town reflect on the varied and interconnected lives they led. It was moving and intriguing then. Ever more so now. Marc Pomper

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10 Prose Essays Wisdom -- Jane (Shoehalter) Jeanneteau Confessions of a Double Agent -- David Kamp Birthday Flop -- Jonathan Hyman Snow Friend -- Mason Springer-Lipton My Mother, My Teacher -- Beth Kon Lofting Over Jersey -- Daniel Mont Looking Up at Stars -- Sam Fishkin Empty Nesters -- D. Scott Ilnicky Farewell, My Garment Bag -- Jonah Giacalone Albadome -- Mitchell Orenstein A Suggested Mixtape for Important Moments of Life -- Nikki Gonzalez Monkey Island -- Eric Weltman Why We Play the Blues -- Eli Yamin An Inexhaustive List on What is Love & What Isn’t -- Nikki Gonzalez 12, 13 16, 17 18, 19 22, 23, 24 27, 28, 29 40, 41 46 50, 51 56, 57, 58, 59 61 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67 82 88, 89 91, 92, 93 30, 31, 32, 33 76, 77, 78, 79 84 100, 101 The Vegetal Mirror -- Charlie Scott Murder Hits Home -- Sam Freedman Growing Up with Joe Molly, Joe Polly, Dad, & Jay D. -- Robert Nawy The Graduation Speech I’d Want to Give -- Marc Pomper

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11 Poetry & Lyrics Art & Photography Sifting Sensations: A Poetic Recipe -- Henry Kon Green & Blue Abstract -- Ruth Yeselson The Melody Bar -- Ruth Yeselson To My First Love: LSG (Where Are You?) -- Beth Moroney My Private Valentine -- Beth Moroney New -- Beth Moroney Meta -- Linda Jaeger Ice -- Matthew Steinberger Poems for My Warm & Wise Parents -- Marc Pomper For Tiger -- Nikki Gonzalez Iron the Wrinkles Back On -- Laura Zucker What I Would Have Said -- Laura Zucker The Rhythm of Endings & Beginnings -- Cyndi Dawson Haiku Selection -- Rachel Hyman One YesterYear -- David Pomper Running up the First Hill of Springtime in the Sixth Decade of Life -- David Pomper Murder on South 3rd Ave -- Beth Moroney My Students -- Pheme Moughalian Russ Mantarro Vanessa Daza-Heck Leslie Hollis Barbara DeBaylo Shirley Forer Nikki Gonzalez Charlie Scott Matthew Steinberger Sebastian Gonzalez Judy Weinberg Patrick Indri Joe Campbell Amir Gad 14, 15, 25 17, 83, 89, 98, 99 21 26 27, 28, 29, 52, 80, 81 31, 32, 92, 93, 97 38, 39 42 43, 60 47 48 54, 54, 79, 86 70, 71, 72, 73 20 34 35 36 37 37 38 42 44, 45 49 52 53 68, 69 80, 81 87 87 94, 95, 96 102

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12 I spent the first 17 years of my life in Highland Park. South Adelaide Avenue was the center of my world. It was the backdrop to my childhood and a place where my “me-ness” was conceived and nurtured. When I googled the high school just now, I saw that our feathered mascot is still there. He has undergone a massive makeover since the days when we were students! The new-look owl seems more streetwise than the nerdy bird who sheltered us under his wings. An email from Marc Pomper informed me that Dead Center was not only not dead but thriving. Wow! The idea that in 1977, we pushed a rock that’s still rolling through the years is amazing and reassuring in equal measure. It made me think that even if the old owl looks like he’s had a face lift, his soul is unchanged. Rewind: Staring at the blackboard in algebra class learning how to solve problems was a nightmare for me. I remember desperately asking my parents whether I really needed to know all this in the “grown-up world”. How would I survive if I couldn’t solve problems? “Two students leave school at the same time and travel in opposite directions along the same road. One walks at a rate of 3 mi/h. The other bikes at a rate of 8.5 mi/h. After how long will they be 23 miles apart?” After doing the calculations, using the right formula, you will arrive at the “correct answer”. The problem is solved. My questions about these “problems” were of a different order. Why were these two students travelling in opposite directions on the same road? What did they see while they were out there? What were they looking for? What did they find? When I crossed the hall and entered the Dead Center office, I realized that I wasn’t the only one who wanted to know what happened next to those two wandering students. Where did they wind up? Did they fall in love? Were they kind? We didn’t care how far apart they were. It didn’t matter to us. Fast Forward: Jane (Shoehalter) Jeanneteau

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13 Nearly 18 years ago I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. I underwent chemotherapy and surgery and radiation. When my treatments ended my husband and I decided to take time off and go to a Buddhist monastery for a week-long retreat. I desperately needed some guidance to help me through what was a very frightening and exhausting period. Solutions to my problems were needed. I was very thin and completely bald. After a group meditation, a woman took me aside and asked in a shy and tentative (very Buddhist-y) voice, “Excuse me, can you tell me how to become a lama?” “Er… no,” I answered, “But if you have a few hours, I can tell you all about the side effects of chemotherapy”. I thought that this encounter was hilarious but in fact, it seems that timid, Buddhism-curious woman was onto something. Wisdom is embedded in suffering. It is up to us to recognize it and bring it into the light. The lessons I learned from having cancer, the deep understanding that it gave me about who I am and how strong I am, would never have emerged without the anguish I endured during my various treatments. Wisdom appeared at my door during my divorce too. For many years I stayed in a marriage because I was too frightened to leave. I was chronically unhappy and suffered from a kind of paralysis that kept me frozen. Once again, I was struck by how inextricably linked wisdom and suffering truly are. The lessons I learned from being miserable and numb in fact gave me so much insight into how I function, that for me, the pain was worth the gain. There are no equations for those problems! The things you need to know to understand them cannot be found in a textbook or on the internet. “Two students leave school at the same time and travel in opposite directions along the same road….” Although many things have changed in my life since I left Highland Park, one thing has remained a constant since my Dead Center days. I still write. It is something that has soothed me in my darkest moments and has helped me navigate along that same, well-walked road. Writing is what I turn to when I encounter one of those unsolvable problems. It is a tool that helps me look at things clearly. When I experience a feeling or a situation that gives me joy, or causes pain, I reach for my pen. Writing keeps me connected. It’s what allows me to extract wisdom from the suffering. I still haven’t worked out how far apart those two students are, but I know what I am looking for and I know what I have found.

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16 David Kamp I am perhaps the last person who should be contributing to Dead Center’s special alumni issue. For I was a double agent in the early 1980s: a Dead Center editor who also worked on a guerilla humor publication called The Radical Sheik, which… made fun of Dead Center. Yes, even while I spent my Sundays with a small group of fellow student editors at the home of our esteemed faculty adviser, Alice Moughalian, I was helping produce a parody that took up the entire back page of an issue of The Radical Sheik. The parody’s name? Dead Boring. Oh, the cheek and gumption of smart-ass high-school kids who think they’re clever! We went after Dead Center because we found some of its student contributions hilariously grim or unbearably solemn. I remember one contribution I made to Dead Boring, a poem called “To Emma,” which I shall reproduce in its entirety below, complete with fake author name. TO EMMA O, Emma You’re dead. —C. Olivia Sperrington-Worthspricket Adolescence is a time of emotional volatility: angst, heartbreak, self-hatred, euphoria. Humor, to my Radical Sheik peers and me, acted as a guardrail against these emotions, a way to distance ourselves from the heart-on-sleeve outpourings of our classmates, some of whom wrote uninhibitedly about their periods, their experiences with racism, the deaths of their loved ones, and their existential ruminations about fitting in. But here’s the thing: I was obsessed with Dead Center. I loved it. I am the youngest of three siblings, and as a little kid, I read and re-read my sister and brother’s copies from their junior and senior years until I had them committed to memory. I was more moved than I cared to admit by the darkest entries. There is one, entitled “Harley Davidson Wings,” that stays with me to this day: a young woman’s meditation on a boy named Tommy (her brother, I believe) who died in a motorcycle accident. She writes about finding

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17 his riding gloves, and how she is comforted by knowing that some of his “dust” still resides within them. Years later, I would come to realize that I lacked the bravery to write as honestly as Dead Center’s most memorable contributors. Humor-writing is wonderful and no easy task, but I regret that my own contributions to Dead Center were in general pretty once-over-lightly, maybe even a little… boring. I have been fortunate to make a living professionally as a writer. (A tip of the hat to you, Mrs. Moughalian, for believing in me, and also to my favorite HPHS English teacher, Dr. Robert Knoll.) My portfolio is more like Dead Center’s these days: a mix of humor, serious nonfiction, poetry, and heartfelt essays. It took me, what, thirty-odd years to catch up to what my high-school literary magazine was doing? That, my fellow alumni and current students, is what might be best described as growing up. Though I must admit, I still feel sad about poor Emma. Vanessa Daza-Heck

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18 February 26 Dearest Friend, I hope you had a terrific 2/25. I remain your loyal pen pal and write, as always, to continue our fifty-year ritual of exchanging birthday wishes one way or another. I am facing an insanely busy day today, one which has become way more complex because I am flat on my back, unable to move without excruciating pain. Last night Gail and I went with good friends to eat at a nearby local bar-come-restaurant that has been open in the next town over for more than four decades. This place has gone through numerous owners and re-inventions, and each iteration - whether biker bar or make-believe deli - is rustic and dripping with authenticity. The establishment is situated on a hill on the side of a dark country road and there is no landscaping. While we were there a bunch of snow mobilers rolled in. They’d reached the end of a network of trails in the woods behind the bar, left their “sleds” on the hill above the parking lot and rolled in. One of them had to be carried out, too drunk to pilot her snow machine home. The menu features a few specialties that are both tasty and required eating if one is to be initiated into the culture and considered a local. If you don’t know about this place and its proprietary roast beef sandwich or Wing Wednesday’s, there’s no chance you’re getting elected Highway Superintendent or elevated to the Town Council. The beer is average. Up here in these parts the standard for the care of public spaces is low and a certain amount of personal peril and vehicular mayhem is both expected and accepted. Like most everything up here, this watering hole’s parking lot is badly maintained. Well…, it’s neglected. The temperature the day before was 47 degrees and quite the melt off ensued. The sloped, curved, and pot-holed parking lot and driveway was a mud pit when we arrived amid dropping temps. When we exited three hours and three rounds of breaded and fried bar food later, the newly minted ice in the parking lot was very smooth, ice-skating style. There was no sand, no salt. Just ice. Normally this is manageable and all good with me because, as a long-time resident up here in the Catskill Mountains, I am physically and mentally ready to run the winter gauntlet. This time however, there were multiple factors working against me. Some I was unaware of. Others? Not so much. The newly formed ice had not yet become completely solid inside some of the deep, swampy potholes that dotted the parking lot and road. I was unprepared for and Jonathan Hyman

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19 unaware of, the real and present pothole hazards because: 1. Instead of my usual ice avoidance vigilance, I dropped my guard. I confess to being more focused on answering the self-imposed question as to why I hadn’t exercised the good sense of taking a leak inside before exiting. The urge hit me and therefore, 2. I was engaging in reconnaissance for an outdoor pee across the street from the bar’s parking lot. And, 3. It was very, very dark. (Hey, why spend money lighting a dangerous parking lot if the Town government -- like most towns in the area where I live -- either doesn’t enforce and/or has no laws on the books that require lights in parking lots so people can actually see.) So right by Gail’s car, unseen, I stepped onto what must have been a six-inch-deep icy pothole. Rather than slipping on the ice and flipping up and backwards, my right foot went through the ice and I caught the tip of my boot on the front of this circular crater. I realized in a flash that something was very different. Typically, because I’ve done it, I would have slipped and been airborne, parallel to the ground on a flight backwards to crack the back of my head open. If only. This enemy hazard was located where many of the biggest potholes exist up here in the woods, where the apron of a driveway meets the road. So, the front of this huge country menace flung me forward into the street. I could have given in and simply fallen straight ahead and landed on my knees and palms. But the stubborn athlete in me always insists on not falling. This led to a display of 60-year-old balletic spasms. I gained momentum as my refusal to fall sped up my gyrating attempts to stand tall and balance myself. No stumbling for me. As I grappled with gravity in the middle of a pitch-dark road, a flash of clarity slapped me. At the same time, I was about to ruin my new winter jacket and be hit by the car coming right at me. What now dear Lord? Evolutionary caveman fight or flight instincts kicked in…. mostly fight as I was already in flight. So what’s left of the 16-year old athlete in me screeched at my body, “Judo roll, Judo roll, right now. Please” Down I went, rolling as I landed on my shoulder and elbow, black belt style. At least that’s what my brain reported back. My body reported back different results. It told me: “Pee now." And, “You just broke a couple of ribs.” I popped up off of the road as fast as I could just in time to avoid being run over and uttered to Gail the only thing an embarrassed, macho caveman can say: “God dammit! I never fall.” I found a dark shadow alongside the utility pole where I’d just lost my dignity, disappeared, and peed while checking my jacket for rips and puncture holes. Tank emptied, I fell into the car with a thud and a primal grunt. Happy Birthday to me. Love you, Jonathan

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20 Can cook poem for you Can do wisdom and love too The recipe Boil down life essence Simmer with pleasure and other sensations Spice with love and loathing to taste Let sit for half a lifetime, gradually increasing humility Relish moments, savor chaos, sift mortality Stew with history, contemplation, anticipation, madness Garnish with philosophy or spirits Extract meaning sweeteners Distill oneness Serve hot Voila! … Answers to big questions Where are we? What matters? Who am I? I attempt, but mmm… Pontificate Negate Procrastinate Late At the pond Dipped in toes Poetry deadline Comes and goes I reflect with the water What might have been Had I skipped the recipe And poured myself in Henry Kon

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22 Mason Springer-Lipton I made a friend. I call him my Snow-Friend. I call him that because I can see him when it snows. Snow-Friend plays with me. When I first met Snow-Friend it was a snow day. Mommy had told me in the morning when she woke me up; I was so excited. She helped me yank on my snow pants, put on my gloves, and tucked my ears into my Paw Patrol hat. I asked Mommy to play with me, she said she had work. Daddy had to work too. Outside I was too excited to feel cold. It was snowing, and the whole street and lawn as far as I could see was covered in it, like a fresh top of an ice cream. I walked down the steps, careful not to kick up snow around it. It was so quiet; I could taste the cold on my tongue when I stuck it out. The snow falling from the trees and roofs sounded like whispering. With my gloves I packed together a snowball. But I had no one to throw it at. The other kids at school have awesome snowball fights with each other. They have friends. But they don’t want to be friends with me. They’re mean to me. I stood with the snowball freezing in my hand. I felt sad. I felt lonely. I felt cold. That’s when I met Snow-Friend. I heard snow crunching, soft like a heartbeat. Then in the white I saw him. His footsteps, one and then another, moving across the perfect, ice-cream surface towards me. He had no body, but I could feel him there. (continued)

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23 He was watching me, coming towards me. He wanted to play with me. “Who are you?” I asked. The falling snow whispered louder, into words around my head. A cold gust ticked me under my jacket. “I am your friend.” I played with Snow-Friend all day. He’d chase me through the lawns. He pushed me down the hill on my red sled. He threw snowballs at me, but I could never hit him. He thought that was funny. One time that day Snow-Friend sent a big wind blowing all around; snow swirled around me, and I caught a bunch of snowflakes in my mouth. It was so fun. I felt like I was in a story, like that girly movie Frozen. But Snow-Friend was cool, not like Elsa. Snow-Friend wanted to play with me. When Mommy came out Snow-Friend had to go away. I missed him. I ran around looking for him but couldn’t find him. But Mommy had hot chocolate– with rainbow marshmallows–so I went in. I told Mommy and Daddy about Snow-Friend, but they didn’t believe me. They told me that things seem tricky in the snow, and when it's quiet and still your brain makes things up. But I’ve had dreams before, even nightmares, and I could tell Snow-Friend was real. That night Snow-Friend spoke to me again. I heard him whispering outside my window as I was trying to sleep. “I will make tomorrow another snow day.” He said. “We can play again.” And the next day, just like Snow-Friend said, it was a snow day! But this time I wanted Mommy to see him, so I begged and begged and finally she said yes. I was so excited for her to meet Snow-Friend. Maybe she would let him drink hot chocolate with me. Mommy put on her hat and gloves after she helped me with mine and I brought her outside. She asked where Snow-Friend was and I called out for him. (continued)

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24 Then he was there again, in the street. Mommy didn’t see him at first. But then he walked forward, step-step-stepping across the perfect, white ground. Mommy gasped, then grabbed me harder than she ever has before. She picked me up like I was a baby–I’m not a baby–and she started shouting a lot. Daddy ran over and started shouting too. I couldn’t play with my Snow-Friend any longer, they said. The next day was a school day. They made us watch Frozen. And it didn’t snow again the day after that, and the day after that. It went so long I didn’t think it would ever snow again. The teachers gave me boring homework, the kids at school made fun of me. I ate alone at lunch. But then one day, when Mommy was driving me to school, I looked outside the window and it began to snow. It started snowing really, really hard. It rattled the windows, dinged off the roof, and the wind sounded like it was screaming. Mommy started shouting again, and the car was moving fast and side to side like a roller coaster. The screaming got louder, the world moved faster, and then– It got really quiet. It got really white. And then I was in the road again like at home, and the snow all around me was perfect. It fell slowly–the sky was blank. I didn’t feel cold. And then I saw Snow-Friend, really saw him, and I felt happy. We are going to play forever.

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27 It was in the wake of my mother’s death that I paused to fully see her for the first time. And she took my breath away. She lived in a way that religion, in its purest form, points us to. Simple, joyful, and giving. Before I go on, I want to ground what I’m saying. She wasn’t perfect. We didn’t always agree. Sometimes I was very angry with her. I think she made mistakes in her life. But that is noise, the unavoidable mess of being alive and in relationship with others. But beneath that noise, who was she? My mother was not fully of this world. She was awake. She lived her life connected to things that matter, and unconcerned with the rest. She understood that these petty concerns and disagreements that fill our lives are traps. She opened our eyes to paths around them, pointed us to choices that helped us live in a way that better honored the miracle of being alive, acknowledged life’s impermanence, and accepted human imperfection. I have wondered if surviving the war gave her this perspective. She was born in Warsaw, Poland, and lived through WWII as a child, though her parents and brother did not. She endured the unimaginable. So, what exactly do I see in her? An absolute lack of pettiness. Maybe an abundance of forgiveness is better, because pettiness often implies lack of forgiveness for unintentional offenses committed by others. So often, the offenses stem from the offender’s own scars or lack of awareness. So many times she told me: “Forget it, Beth. It doesn’t matter.” She wasn’t being dismissive. She was trying to convey compassion, understanding. And when I was able Beth Kon (continued) Shirley Forer

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28 to let go of my reactivity and follow her advice, I came to know the power, lightness, and freedom of letting go and moving on. Generosity of spirit. Anyone who knew my mother, knew that NOTHING pleased her more than to be able to make another person happy. My favorite story is the time I came to visit, and in the morning found her wearing silly purple Winnie the Pooh pajamas, covered with images of Pooh, Eeyore, and Piglet. She looked adorable. “Mom, your pajamas are beautiful! Lissa would love them!” I told her. Her face brightened, eyes widened. Her thinking was clear - she would give her pajamas to Lissa. “No, no, no!”, I said. “I just meant that Lissa would love to see her Grandma in purple Winnie the Pooh pajamas”. My mother was the poster child for the phrase “She’ll give you the shirt off her back”. Lack of materialism. One could argue against this, because my mother had been a major shopper, but everything she bought cost less than twenty-five cents. She was a garage sale addict, but it served her generosity. She loved to find what we needed and come bearing gifts, to make us smile. I looked in her closet after her death. There they were - her worn, simple sweaters, blouses. Clean, orderly, smelling fresh from the backyard clothesline. She just didn’t care about “things” the way most of us do. Joy. She loved to laugh. I only recently realized what a gift this was. She infused my spirit with happiness by example. She loved to joke, play, take us to the park, through the reeds to play in the old boat graveyard. Years later, with her grandkids, it was the same. She’d give my babies a dip in the pool she devised by filling a sled with water, to play her games: ciuciubabka, drunkards, cheater, twenty-one, hide-and-seek. My kids seriously LIT UP whenever Grandma was coming to visit. Party time. I think she loved kids and dogs best because, of all the world’s creatures, they live closest to joy. Sometimes, after a visit to my rural home, she’d dig up and go home with ferns, a pine tree sapling, a baby (continued) Shirley Forer

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29 lilac bush, and transplant them in her yard. That pine tree grew to be a monster. Only my mama. Determination and optimism. My mother always found a way. She faced many challenges and never gave up. She lost her sight and hearing, and, with the help of her beloved Edward, she made it work. She always saw the positive side - how lucky she was to have studied touch-typing, given that she was losing her vision. How amazing her enlarger was, closed caption telephone, hearing aids. How lucky! Even when things got so hard in the end, she was still lucky. Others had suffered so much more. Connection. She was so real. She loved to know what was really going on with me. Towards the end, it was hard for her to read the closed caption of our conversations, but I still felt how she loved when it got real, when I shared details of my life, my kids’ lives, my philosophical thoughts, when I told her what was really going on. She was always there. I grew to love this, and haven’t found it in many people. But with my mama, I could always go straight to real and tell her what was inside. Realism. Strength. Bravery. Fearlessness. Hard work. Pure intelligence. The words come too fast. Watching her grow old, nearing death, I was repeatedly awed by her intelligence. She got it. “Beth, this is what it means to get old”, she said. “That’s life.” Wide-eyed realism. My mother never gave up. What an amazing, impossible set of gifts. What more could I ask? Whatever petty issues we had were just that. What mattered, she gave in abundance. I cannot possibly express my abiding love. It is beyond words. In the days following her death, I was on my knees, offering my love and boundless gratitude for all she had given me. And so grateful that she lived long enough for me to understand, and to tell her exactly what she meant to me. Shirley Forer

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30 Charlie Scott Rainer Maria Rilke’s brief poems “Blue Hydrangea” [Blaue Hortensie] and “Opium Poppy” [Schlaf-Mohn] witness a complication of visualization through the motif of the mirror. In “Blue Hydrangea,” the mirror appears twice—in Line 4, “only mirrored from far away. [nur von ferne spiegln]” and in Line 5, “In their mirror it is vague and tear-stained, [Sie spiegeln es verweint und ungenau]”—and performs a mediating role between the flower and perception. So too does the mirror appear in “Opium Poppy,” but only once, in Line 3’s “found the love of young mirror-images, [die Liebe fanden junger Spiegelungen]” where the mirror mediates in a similar fashion. In both cases, however, this mediation complicates visualization. In “Blue Hydrangea,” the mirror distorts the image of the hydrangea to the point of disintegration, and in “Opium Poppy” the mirror-image engenders an explosion of dreams that choke out the poppy. These complications depart from the mirror in opposite directions, “Blue Hydrangea” entertaining the alienation of the flower from itself in the mirror and “Opium Poppy” entertaining the excess of imagery caused by its mirror images. In their distortions, the flowers in question become anything but flowers. The mirror in “Blue Hydrangea” begins its meditating function in Line 2, where it declares that the flowered umbels’ “blue is not their own [ein Blau nicht auf sich tragen]” but is only mirrored. The mirror from the beginning plays a paradoxical role. The hydrangea’s essential “blue” can only be accessed through the mirror, yet this access is far from the flower itself. This distance threatens the flower. The blueness can no longer belong to the flower; the hydrangea neither wears [trägt] nor carries [trägt sich] the color. This alienation is reflected and intensified by the language in Line 6. The hydrangea’s blue is “vague and tear-stained,/as if deep down they wished to lose it; [als wollten sie es wiederum verlieren]” (en 5-6, de 6); the color, reflected by the mirror, no longer belongs to the flower. Figuratively, it is not so much that the flower is giving away its color as much as it is losing its grasp on color altogether. The colors run; “as with blue writing paper [in alten blauen Briefpapieren]/there is yellow in them, violet and gray;” (en 7-8, de 7). The hydrangea’s color is dis-integrating, appearing tear-stained [verweint] in the mirror, as if the hydrangea itself has been weeping, the water separating the colors of blue into its constituent yellow, violet, and gray—the tears leaving the hydrangea “washed out [Verwaschenes]” (en, de 9). As the poem continues down this line, the mournful-nostalgic effect of the language (continued)

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31 (continued) reaches its height, the hydrangea’s vitality draining as it disintegrates. A simile is made to a “child’s pinafore [Kinderschürze]” (en, de 9) to analogize the hydrangea’s imprecise grasp on itself to aging. In the same way that the flower no longer wears [trägt] its own color, the pinafore belongs to a collection of “no longer worn things [Nichtmehrgetragnes]” (en, de 10). The flower ages, turning gray, disintegrating its youthful, vital blue into foreign colors. With the disappearance of the hydrangea’s essential color, visualization is problematized. The vegetal mirror needed to capture the color of the hydrangea and mediate between our eyes and its essential blueness ultimately distorts the image. The vagueness of the reflection, which makes the flower appear a stranger clad in all the wrong colors, brings it to tears as the colors run. It becomes questionable whether it is ever possible to ascertain the hydrangea as a hydrangea since the vegetal mirror reflecting it back at us renders the hydrangea anything but. We see the flower and we feel “a small life’s shortness” (11) first and foremost, but not the brilliance of the hydrangea. We take the hydrangea to be something else, a symbol for our own aging, as the distorted image of “hydrangea” is no longer recognizable as a flower. “Opium Poppy” witnesses a parallel distortion. Perception and visualization are already at play in the first line—“Apart in the garden blooms the evil sleep [Abseits im Garten blüht der böse Schlaf]”—setting the stage for the appearance of dreams [Träume] in Line 5. The dream is already “taking root,” so to speak, in this very first line, blooming [blüht] in a garden. The figuration of a blooming sleep indicates that the poem is already asleep, already in a dream, in the sense that a literal Nikki Gonzalez

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32 reading of the poem is traditionally impossible; sleep does not bloom. There is therefore something vegetal already about the figural language at play, even before the mirror makes an appearance where the visual imagery of the dream is poised to overwhelm our perception. The mirror images [Spiegelungen] appear in Line 3, found by “those who have secretly entered [die heimlich eingedrungen]” the garden. Another complication makes an appearance—the mirror images are described as “willing, open, and concave [die willig waren, offen und konkav]” (en, de 4) to those who secretly entered the garden, despite the transgressively secretive [heimlich] nature of this entrance. How does one force their way [dringt ein] into a place that is already willing and open? There is nothing to force open; rather, the concavity of these mirror images opens up an overwhelming torrent of dreams that “step out [auftraten]” of the mirror and then tread upon [treten auf] the garden. This engenders yet another paradox, wherein the blooming of sleep bears fruit so enormous, the dreams “with excited masks [mit aufgetreten Masken]” that it walks all over the garden, choking out the plants that bore it. The vegetal excess threatens the plant itself, the mirror-flower. The mirror of “Opium Poppy,” then, is in a similar paradoxical position of mediation as that of “Blue Hydrangea.” The mirror is indispensable to the identity of the flower, the garden’s “evil sleep,” in the sense that the evil sleep blooms into dreams made possible only as mirror images of reality. Yet the mirror also threatens the poppy, figuratively and literally. (continued) Nikki Gonzalez

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33 In the case of the latter, the poppy is literally killed and imbibed, its ingestion bringing one into the dreams of morphine’s evil sleep. In the case of the former, the images that step out from the garden’s flower-mirror walk all over it—the excess growth of these evil dreams choke the poppy out. These images, furthermore, are anthropomorphized—“striding more colossal in the buskin [riesiger durch die Kothurne]”—as walking and wearing buskin boots. This anthropomorphization distorts the poppy, not unlike the simile of the pinafore in “Blue Hydrangea.” In each case, the figural language indispensable to the description of the flower, rooted originally in the mirror, causes us to mistake the flower in question for something else; the hydrangea becomes a figuration of aging and the poppy a dreamlike parade of people. These transformations are preserved in the final lines of the poems. “Blue Hydrangea” concludes with an abruptness that interrupts the interlude brought on by the simile of the pinafore, where “suddenly the blue seems to revive [verneuen]/in one of the umbels, and one sees/a touching blue’s rejoicing in green.” This restoring [verneuen] of the hydrangea’s vitality ostensibly breaks the spell of the simile and frees the hydrangea from the poem’s mistaking it for something else. The tears of the hydrangea’s umbels, which first caused the blue to disintegrate, touch the “dried up, dull, and rough” green of the leaves, a green “like the last green in the paint pots.” (1-2). In truth, the revival at play is not so much that of the umbels but of the leaves—the blue only seems to revive [schient das Blau sich zu verneuen]. There is, once again, a failure of visualization in overcorrection. Whereas previously the flower was overdetermined by the simile of the pinafore, essentially old, it is now overdetermined by the simile of the last green in the paint pots, essentially infinitely revivable, as if the hydrangea’s youth could always be restored, like watercolor paints, with an excess of water. The visualization of the hydrangea can never be just the hydrangea, just a flower, whose age or revivability is entirely contingent. “Opium Poppy,” similarly, concludes with lines that reference the physicality of the poppy itself couched in figuration, “flinging open frayed calyxes/that feverishly surround the poppy cup [gefranste Kelche auseinanderschlagend,/die fieberhaft das Mohngefäß umgeben]” (en, de 11-12). Whereas “Blue Hydrangea” swings from one overdetermination to another, leaving the hydrangea lost somewhere in between the two, “Opium Poppy” refuses to liberate the poppy from the figurative language of opium. The calyxes surround the poppy only feverishly [fieberhaft], a self-fever of the evil sleep, like the feverish dreams that stepped out of the young mirror-images only one stanza prior. In the final analysis, neither flower is allowed to be just a flower. The vegetal mirror, the mediation of the plant and visualization, inevitably distorts both hydrangea and poppy. The flower is always lost, always mistaken for something else—be it a pinafore, the greying of age, a small life’s shortness, buskin boots, or a fever dream.

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34 Ruth Yeselson Dearest Students I’m so glad you own cell phones when I think of you blowing out tires navigating after hours dialing friends grownups 911 plowing into snow banks drinking vaping hooking up at awkward parties but still checking in with mom pop uncle sister someone designating a driver minding curfews trackable and yet this painting No. 17 Green and Blue Abstract by Mark Rothko speaks to me of alighting from a bus an empty crossroad duffle bag unslung dusk gathering the sussurating sand no parent no buddies no information no alternate plan buildings streetlights no tiktok instagram twitter gps thing car person tree photo message map until one dusty car tootling over silent dunes restarted the spinning clock and I’m glad so glad I owned no cell phone unreachable in the line of night falling for 10 minutes or 12 or 17 entirely alone no me no time no words only the blue horizon and the abstract space

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35 for Deko Saturday nights at the Melody Bar we’re dancing on a rickety table grinding and breaking off the Jersey shore all about us swirls an abattoir of spilled sweat beer and insatiable trolling bodies at the Melody Bar we hop up to get outta the press there both of us short and neither one able to beat the riptides off the Jersey shore and fix our feet in that 2x2 square trusting drunkard’s luck to keep us stable rolling in the heat at the Melody Bar riding the crest lifting off the radar onrushing suspended unavailable as dolphins breaching off the Jersey shore we kiss it’s not foreplay we just blur the motion our mouths one salt amenable to ekstasis at the Melody Bar way out past the buoys off the Jersey Shore Ruth Yeselson

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36 I have looked under the bed, Linens crumpled from another sleepless night. Poked in drawers, musty boxes in the basement, Attic chests . . . But I can’t find you. There are letters, scented and crinkled, Written on stationery you stole from your sister, the friend who introduced us . . . They tell tales of school papers to write, Ogre professors and friends long forgotten . . . But I can’t find you. I look to the sky, blue and cloudless The air hints of spring but no buds yet. You are not in the garden or garage Like the mystical grail, you are hiding in my history Where the only place we can meet is in my sleepless dreams. Beth Moroney Beth Moroney

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37 Beth Moroney The bar is busy. A woman with dreads plays An electric piano Background music. Couple drift Ladies in red For, it's Valentines Day. They wait for tables Want for love. My husband, hand gently placed Low on my back Is the pillar on which I lean. I love him intensely. I swell with it, My heart heats with it. Then I see him, An old friend, almost lover Dining alone at the bar. Cutting carefully into chicken, Chewing contemplatively As if watching the bartender Shake a tumbler is so important. My emotions tumble I am glad to see him. I am sad to see him. His eye catches mine. A moment remembered Tossed like a pebble in the tide The moment disappears Beneath the wave. With a smile I send him A private Valentine. The rush, the blood Runs to my face. Phone rings. It's you, who Have come into My life Like a rushing River. You Flood my banks. My heart fills with joy When I hear Your voice. Each time I am surprised. You surprise me. Delight me. I wonder, am I Misreading, but the signals of the ancient dance are familiar. We are new, but I have not forgotten How it feels The rush My heart. It floods It fills It feels New

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40 It’s the summer of 1977, and Billy Rogers is spending most of it hanging out with his pot smoking, Frisbee playing friends, working at the local supermarket, and trying to avoid his family. Most of all, he is trying to avoid his crazy younger sister, Justine, who has spent much of her childhood bouncing in and out of mental hospitals. She embarrasses Billy, strains her parents’ marriage, and basically makes family life a living hell. Worst of all, she is coming to the high school next year, which Billy is sure will completely ruin his life. At least the summer has potential. His gang is plotting a stunt that will create a “legacy” for his class, he goes on a wild excursion to the Jersey Shore, and finally has a chance to get close to the girl of his dreams. Meanwhile he keeps his other world – of family therapy sessions and violent emotional outbursts – hidden from view. Here is a short excerpt from the book, after Billy finds his sister after she has tried to kill herself that summer. “Damn her!” Billy cried. “To hell with you, Justine! To God damned hell with you!” His body burned with energy. He strode around the house from one room to the next, walking so quickly he ran into the walls. Tears streamed down his face; his hands were clenched so hard his fingers ached. “God fucking damn her!” He thought his eyeballs would pop out from the pressure in his skull. It was like being on speed, or something. It was all he could do to hold himself together. He paced. He swore. He made quick jabs in the air with his fists. First a right, then a left, then an uppercut. He whirled about and went into Justine’s room, hurling stuffed animals everywhere, kicking the bed. “You son of a bitch!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. He pounded the door and then gave it a sharp kick and punched it full on, splintering the wood and cutting a gash across his knuckles. “Yeah, well fuck you!” He grabbed a teddy bear and started twisting it and yanking at it, desperately trying to tear off a limb or a head or anything. He couldn’t and it only added to his efforts and his frustration. “Stupid God damn bear!” A vision of her cold, nearly lifeless body appeared on the floor in front of him. He hurled the bear at it, and fought against crying. “Fuck you!” Billy ran from the room tugging at his hair. He didn’t know which way to turn. It was as if he was in some awful fun house maze with mirrors and fake doors and a big, eerie looking clown Daniel Mont

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41 laughing at him. It was Justine. She had white paint on and thick red lips and a stupid clown nose and darkly made-up eyes and a hideous grin. She was laughing a mechanical laugh. “Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. Bye-bye Billy”, she said. “Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. You’re next!” “Well, fuck you!” he screamed. She was dead. No, she wasn’t dead. He had thought she was dead. And she just lay there waiting for him to find her. How dare she? OK, she was sad. OK, she had been stood up, humiliated. OK, she had no friends. But she was thirteen, for God’s sake. Ending it is better? How could it be better? And how could she let him find her? And what about their mom and dad? They’d have to live with that. Didn’t she realize that? Didn’t she care about them? Didn’t she think about anybody but her own damned self? He had thought she was dead. Just a lump of flesh on the floor. And he was alone with her. Alone with her dead, dead body. “Yuk. Yuk. Yuk, Billy-boy.” “Shut up!” Suddenly he was violently ill. He ran into the bathroom and heaved into the toilet. His gut wrenched like a corkscrew was being driven through it. The bathroom seemed small. Too small. ‘Like a coffin?’ he thought. “Damn!” he yelled at himself. “You’re sick!” He was afraid. He was so afraid. The room spun. The walls expanded and contracted like they were breathing, and he couldn’t find the door. “Let me out!” he screamed. He collapsed in the corner, sobbing. His heart sounded like a railway car careening down the tracks. “Please, God. Please, God. Please, God,” he muttered quickly underneath his breath. “I don’t want to die. Please, God. Please, God.” Then all at once he stopped muttering and screamed, “Shit! Damn you! Damn you, Justine!” By force of will he leapt up and sprang from the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. “I can’t believe her,” he said. “I can’t believe that spoiled, selfish, self-centered little bitch.” He leaned against the kitchen counter in order to catch his breath. As he grew a little calmer, he noticed the searing pain across his knuckles where he had gashed himself. ‘The hell with it,’ he thought. He had to get out of the house, away from her room, that floor, and those stupid Carly Simon albums. He exited through the front door and started walking at a rapid pace towards downtown. He didn’t know if he wanted to run into anyone. He’d leave that to fate. He would just walk. Walk. Yeah, he would just walk downtown where there were other people. People doing things. His heart actually slowed and his breathing became steadier.

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45 With Dad it was always The Basement. His study of cinder blocks and wood-paneled walls, covered in birthday cards (Magic Marker pictures and rhymes on construction paper), family photos, cartoons, kids' works of art, and, of course, The Books. Shelves and shelves of books. Works on and of Churchill and FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, the great elections, his beloved de Tocqueville and Shakespeare. The mellifluous James Macgregor Burns. And the pipes. A whole carousel of pipes. My favorite, the white ceramic turban-headed face, gradually turning sepia with use. In The Basement we could talk uninterrupted without distraction, the cool musty basement air countered by Borkhum Riff tobacco and the glowing red foot furnace. Busy man my father. Always typing. Articles, journals, books. "It's publish or perish", read the New Yorker cartoon on the wall, with a blindfolded man set before a firing squad, "and he hasn't published". But there was always time. Never an "I'm busy", or a "can we do this in five minutes?" You didn't interrupt often, but when you did, there was always a reference, a great quote, an analogy, a story from the past. As I grew older, my friends would sometimes laugh at Dad. His big ears, his huge strides, his lazy eye. I never saw that.

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46 I walked further into the park to get away from the street and the apartment buildings. All those bright windows make it hard to see the stars. To get away from the cars and sirens and people walking by talking on phones about their day--so much happening right now, all at once, and nearby--obscures my memories. Or does the noise stir them up? A different night sky, another park, friends I’ve not visited lately. Anyway, I was distracted. I lost track of time. I headed home and didn’t see it. Astronomers said the green comet hasn’t come by since we spent our evenings hidden in caves scratching about our days on the walls. Perhaps then it, too, lost track of time and is heading home. So many things have changed, my friend, I can’t find enough space, or time, or words to tell you. Maybe, it was enough that I stopped for a moment and stared up. Standing there under the light, could you see me? Sam Fishkin

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49 Hey P. The two old men were at Donaldson Park today. You know the ones I mean, with the three dogs between them? That gray Subaru pulled up, too, parking right into the same spot as always, the man in sweatpants that runs in one direction while his wife walks in the other. (He says hi to me now, you know.) They were there. All the regulars were: the gardeners behind their fences tending to the future and the past; the crew teams on the river, some man with a megaphone alternating between encouraging and disparaging shouts in a boat motoring alongside (I like the way the waves lap up to the shore after they pass); and that man who drives that boat of a car in slow circles around the park and stops in a lot for a bit and then drives some more and then stops in another lot and then drives some more and so on and so on (and so on) but never getting out until, finally, he steers his big boat of a car back up the hill and out of the park. He was there and he did that again, too. But I didn’t have to move out of the way of your bicycle today. (I never learned to ride a bike without gripping tight to the handlebars.) And when I looped around to the bench it was empty. Tiger wasn’t in its shade. Funny thing is – and when I say funny I really mean it in the sad coincidental way – I think Tiger was just starting to warm to me. I think he was starting to believe I could become a regular fixture in his life and that would be okay and even more than okay, that would be nice. It would be wanted. He’s a lot like me, you see, in that we both are slow to warm to people. We need patience, we need persistence. From Grant Ave to Bourbon Street and all the travels in between, I know you’ll take good care of him, take him for loops around that new park but maybe early in the day or later in the evening when the NOLA heat won’t be another coat he needs to wear. I’m thinking he shouldn’t have left Highland Park. It’s hard and easy, both, to leave this town. I’m thinking the best parks, the best smells, the best friends are here for him. But. But anyway. Do me a favor, will you? Lift up the flap of his ear and whisper some words to him. Tell him he’s a good boy. Tell him I see his beauty. And then give him a scratch right behind the ear exactly how he likes it the best, how he deserves. Nikki Gonzalez

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50 In the waning weeks of the summer of 2016, it was beginning to sink in for both of us that we would soon be empty nesters. Our youngest, Malcolm, had been shining in his starring role as only child since his sister left for college two years earlier. Helen and I were looking forward to the next phase of our lives, but our time alone with Malcolm had been special. That summer Malcolm followed in his older brother’s footsteps and worked in the warehouse of our family business. It was a little tougher motivating Malcolm to come into work until we agreed to hire his buddy Jack to join him. The two of them successfully tackled several large projects, but more importantly they entertained the rest of the team and made life at Haberdasher more fun for everyone. Malcolm was always our chef, but that summer he experimented with being a vegetarian and many nights after a long day at the office (for all of us) he’d whip us up something yummy - cauliflower tacos or jackfruit BBQ for dinner. The three of us got into a lazy rhythm during the evenings and on weekends. But we knew he would soon be headed to the University of Virginia. We couldn’t be more proud to have our second child attend the university where Helen and I had met in ‘83 when we were not much older than he was. It was a great fit for Malcolm, and we knew he would thrive there. It was an environment that would be both exciting and challenging, but as a 4th generation Wahoo growing up only an hour away, he would feel at home and comfortable too. Still, we worried. Had we told him everything he would need to know to be safe and successful in the world? Had he been paying attention? There were goofy signs that maybe he had been. He mentioned to me that I always raised my arm, fist-pump-style, for photos and that when agreeing to something, I would always say “yeah, heck yeah” – and not just sometimes. Every time. So maybe there was hope. Maybe some common sense and D. Scott Ilnicky

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51 parental advice had crept into his still-developing brain via osmosis. It didn’t matter - move in day was fast approaching. It arrived like any other day. We packed up the car and moved Malcolm to Charlottesville. Move-in day is as exciting for the parents as it is for the new 1st years (UVA lingo) and the Grounds (more UVA lingo) were buzzing. Malcolm would be living in Kent, one of the old dorms, a stone’s throw from where Helen and her best friend from high school shared a room in the fall of ’80. Malcolm had chosen the lottery route for his new roommate. So, for the next nine months he would be sharing this small un-air-conditioned space with a young stranger he had just met. No worries though. He had a couple of old friends two floors above him and others scattered around the dorms. His experience would be much like his mom’s and older brother’s. They both knew plenty of people when they arrived. It would be much different than my own, though. I arrived knowing exactly no one and had never even toured the school. Malcolm’s familiarity with his surroundings gave us some comfort. Still, we wanted to linger. Malcolm, however, was eager to get started in his new life and was anxious for us to hit 64 East back to Richmond. We understood and gave our last hugs and shed a few tears and were on our way. The ride back to Richmond was quiet. Helen and I were both lost in our own thoughts. I knew Malcolm would be fine - but would we? When we pulled up to our house there was a UVA flag hanging from our flagpole. Our brand-new neighbors had hung it and left us a note that read simply - “Welcome to the empty nester club!” I felt better already. Later that evening we went to the movies and skipped dinner (because we could now - we were on our own). We went to bed much earlier than usual that night. It was nice not having to wait up until all hours of the night for someone to get home. We’d done the best we could with what we had. And yes, we were going to survive we assured each other as we drifted off to sleep. Malcolm is now an architect living in Brooklyn a few blocks from his older brother Henry and about a 20-minute walk from his sister, Caroline. Helen and I are now “long distance nesting” (a term we think we coined) from Richmond, VA.

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52 This old face Has seen a few days of blazing red joy and days of blue Every line etched in deep by sand that slipped through, not mine to keep We are tidy Daffodils in the careful gardens we all till But when Clover muscles through The soft green tangle makes the garden new Life is a chaos-colored tapestry Upside down, inside out Impermanent, imperfect A wild untidy thing And I’ll take my life, iron the wrinkles back in Fear of falling keeps you small Not steady, just still Shrinking from risk, what did I miss Have I really lived at all? There are times I will regret Places unseen, friends not met Next time around I hope I fly I hope I live deep, and wide, and high and weave a chaos-colored tapestry Upside down, inside out Impermanent, imperfect A wild untidy thing I’ll live my life, and leave the wrinkles in Laura Zucker Shirley Forer

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53 Laura Zucker If I ever – I would never – I could only – If I tried – What if I had been – If I were all in – How would it even - How could I decide – What I would have said I would have left the hopeless tangle of the words in my head And spoken with my heart instead And spoken with my heart instead There was a time when – I didn’t know then – If there was one thing – If I could find– If I thought you – If it was true – Would I still have – Why did I – What I could have said I could have left the hopeless tangle of the words in my head And spoken with my heart instead And spoken with my heart instead Worlds collide, hopes wake Words fail, hearts break Is it too late What I should have said I should have left the hopeless tangle of the words in my head And spoken with my heart instead And spoken with my heart instead

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56 The plan was to buy just one custom suit while in Hong Kong. But the charming proprietor of the Kowloon tailor shop was so flattering that it didn’t seem like such a bad idea at the time to buy two, three, or more, even though it meant maxing out his credit cards. And having recently been transferred to the North America sales region, this was to be his last business trip to Asia and he didn’t know when, if ever, he would return. Goodman had an immediate issue to deal with: his old garment bag would not accommodate the three suits he came with as well as the three new ones he had just purchased. So, on the way back to the hotel, he stopped at a nearby discount luggage store and bought a brand new one that he hoped would expand enough to fit all the suits and the other accessories he needed to pack. Back in his hotel room, he laid out the three new suits side by side on the bed and examined each one carefully hoping to be reminded of what could have possessed him at the time to buy it. The longer he stared, the worse they looked and the greater the fool he felt. He didn’t have much time to cerebrate on his lack of judgment as checkout time was rapidly approaching and he hadn’t even begun to pack. After haphazardly emptying the contents of his old garment bag on the bed, he folded it in half lengthwise and rudely tossed it to a corner of the room where it lay in a tattered, blue heap. The old bag was strong and durable, but heavy, with its steel frame and thick, woven wool construction. And in its tenth year of service, was quite torn, stained and patched. Still, it had a certain dignity, “wabi” as the Japanese might say, and though it had served Goodman well for years, it would have to be left in Hong Kong. The new garment bag was a marvel of modern luggage technology made with microfiber fabric over a lightweight aluminum frame. So many zippered compartments were built into the bag that it appeared to violate basic rules of three-dimensional geometry. Now it was time to get busy. Goodman laid the new garment bag on the bed and studied at length the confusing array of zippers looking for the key one that would open the main compartment. He scratched his head. “The guy who designed this thing probably won a Nobel prize in mathematics,” he muttered to himself, and at last discovered the critical zipper. Jonah Giacalone (continued)

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57 “Looks pretty puzzling,” the Old Garment Bag opined. “You gonna use that thing for the old suits or the new ones?” “Both. The guy in the store said I could fit all six suits but, it looks like it might be pretty tight.” “Fortunately, if the new bag can’t handle it all you still have me, right?” the Old Garment Bag offered. “Sorry, old friend, you know I can’t take you and the new bag. These suits weren’t cheap and I have no intention of paying duty. Can you imagine how it would look if I went through customs with two full garment bags? I might as well just wear a sign around my neck that says ‘American suit smuggler’.” With the satisfaction of having solved a challenging puzzle, Goodman opened the main compartment of the new bag and laid-in the first suit. “So, that’s how they do it. It unfolds side-to-side instead of top-to-bottom.” “Yeah, that’s pretty clever,” the Old Garment Bag agreed. “I guess they just never thought of doing things that way back in the day.” Goodman positioned another suit in the new garment bag folding the sleeves snugly inside the frame. “I know what you mean about getting through customs,” said The Old Garment Bag. “Remember our first trip here? You bought a set of those little figurines for your old man, you know, with the anatomically correct genitals so you could couple the man and woman dolls in all kinds of positions. Remember that?” Goodman chuckled but kept packing. “And, and, remember when that female customs agent ordered you to open your luggage and started going through your stuff? You were sweatin’ bullets ’cause she was close to finding those custom shirts, remember? Then she opened the tissue paper wrapping with the sex dolls inside and she freaked!” Goodman paused and laughed. “Yeah, she thought I was smuggling jewelry but when she found the dolls, she just told me to pack up and split. Dodged a bullet there, eh?” “We sure had some moments. Remember that time in Tokyo? We didn’t have anything to declare but we had just come non-stop from New York and you were really beat. The bags were totally stuffed. You had me draped over one shoulder, your computer over your other shoulder (continued)

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58 and I know you were schlepping at least one other suitcase, maybe it was your briefcase? Anyway, the line at Tokyo customs is moving really slow ‘cause the agent’s opening up everybody’s bag, checking every one. Your patience is gone but you figure the best thing to do is just get it over with so you lift me on the counter and start to open the zipper when the customs guy notices the camera around your neck…” Goodman finishes, “and he says ‘ah, Nee-kon’ and waves me through! What a break! I guess he figured I was a good consumer of Japanese merchandise and deserved a pass.” Both laughed. “Speaking of close calls, how about Paris?” “Paris?” Goodman asked. “You can’t forget Paris! You just landed at Charles De Gaulle and you couldn’t find your ride to the hotel so you go to call the office back in Luxembourg. You only had a few coins, so you went looking for some place where you could change some Belgian Francs for a few French ones. But nobody spoke any English so you left me on a seat and started looking all over the airport for change.” Goodman smiled and recalled, “’Parlez vous Englais?’ I kept asking but they all just shrugged or shook their heads. I was so pissed off. Then I finally find a foreign exchange bank, got a few Francs…” The Old Garment Bag finished, “…and came back to find me but I was gone, in the custody of the Gendarmes!” Goodman laughed, “Yeah, they thought you were a bomb or something. I was lucky to get you back, too. I kept yelling at them that they had my bag but I guess they didn’t speak much English either, damned Frogs!” Goodman placed the last suit in the new bag and folded the halves together “Hope you left room for the shoes and shaving case.” “Not a problem. Check these pockets out. Never fit, you think, but, voila, like magic it expands!” “That’s amazing. I’m really happy for you,” the Old Garment Bag said sadly. “And you’d be amazed how little I paid for this thing. How much do you think I paid?” “Amaze me.” The Old Garment Bag replied. “Well, it was a lot less than I paid for you, that’s for sure.” (continued)

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59 “Correct me if I’m mistaken, boss, but wasn’t luggage your birthday present from your folks before your first trip?” Goodman stopped squeezing the new garment bag together and thought about the day when his parents surprised him for his twenty-fifth birthday and presented him with three beautifully wrapped packages containing a shoulder bag, a suitcase and a garment bag. All three were made with heavy woven blue fabric and strong brass zippers. He remembered that it was the only time he had seen his mother and father together and smiling since they divorced when he was a teenager. He remembered how his father grinned from ear to ear as he tore the wrapping away revealing the much-needed luggage. It was just simple luggage but Goodman had never been so happy to receive such birthday presents from his parents and they too were authentically moved by his sincere appreciation. “Yeah, so what’s the point?” Goodman asked coldly. “Nothing, just figured you got a good deal either way, that’s all. But don’t sweat it, boss. We had some times together but I’m just a worn-out garment bag and you got bigger things to think about. Don’t worry about me. Maybe somebody will see me in the trash and take me home. Maybe somebody has another blue cloth bag and figures I would make a good match for it, right?” “Look, I’d like to take you but it just wouldn’t work, it would be crazy!” “Of course, don’t give it another thought. Happy landings. Have a good life.” The doorbell chimed. “Bellboy’s here,” Goodman said solemnly, “time to go.” The bellboy began loading Goodman’s bags on the cart with great spatial precision but before placing the old garment bag on the cart Goodman instructed “Not that one,” and he let it drop back to the corner. Goodman did a final visual check of the room, stared momentarily at the Old Garment Bag, switched off the light, and closed the door behind him. A few minutes passed before the maid came in, turned on the radio and began her methodical room preparation routine. With the water still running in the bathroom she patrolled the rest of the room and found the old garment bag at the foot of the bed. She lifted it off the floor by its top handle and let it unfold. Goodman burst back into the room and snatched the Old Garment Bag. “I forgot to take this,” he said to the maid.

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61 Back in the day, when men were still brave and reckless and some women too and Richard Nixon and the hippies had nearly faded from the rear view mirror of Herbert’s TR-6, and before the advent of phones, there was the Albadome. A beacon of madness, of folly seated elegantly atop the school calling to the bored and drunken savants of many a dull New Jersey night. Beckoning the daring and worldly among us to seek the unique wisdom that might be reached from its auspicious heights. A collective ritual, Doming was an obscure technique, held by certain masters, and doled out solemnly to fools, of climbing brick walls in teams, hanging and jumping from great heights, scattering at the first sign of danger, and of silence. A badge of honor that could never be sewn on a Boy Scout uniform. Even for Eagle Scouts. But what could one see from the Dome? That is, besides copious bird shit, pigeon corpses, and the dull glow of cigarette butts? Besides the sylvan fields, the home of many a losing football team, the place where pep rallies came to die? Besides a low slung yet victorious crew of friends and strangers mumbling in the dark? Those we knew and those we thought we knew? There was nothing. Just a few lost souls seeking an escape hatch to take us elsewhere in life. Promises. The Albadome was inhabited by emptiness. A mirage of sophistication atop a child’s palace, as badly out of place and time as those who sought its mystique. We could not see far enough from there. Mitchell Orenstein

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62 For the big as well as the small moments in life, music is there, underscoring each emotion felt; imprinting the time into the stores of our memories like the cutting grooves of a vinyl. Listen for the music. Listen for the soundtrack of sounds and lyrics that, on replay, will coax back the people, the sentiments (magic or horror or somewhere on the spectrum they may be), and the details of each of your life’s achievements. Need some? I’ve got you covered. Tiffany - I Think We’re Alone Now For that moment when, even though it’s not your birthday party being hosted at the roller rink and even though it’s not you that Skeeto the Skateasaurus pulls out to the center of the glossy wooden floor to fuss over, you’re still vibin’ in your own pair of skates that glitter while everyone else’s are a puke brown color rental pair and when this song plays, you know you’re skating better than anyone else. Like you’re flying. Like you’re magic. Like you’re an angel. And when she hits that chorus, you might even pull a 180 and skate backward for a bit ‘cause that’s how rad you are. Tina Turner - Big Wheels For that moment when you’re sitting shotgun in the car with your dad who’s driving you home from your softball game that he coached and he’s feeling happy ‘cause the team did good this time (finally) and the windows are down and he’s singing loud into the green Spring air along with Tina and drumming his fingers on the wheel so that his ring clacks to the beat and his foot’s probably tapping along, too, all wrapped up in those Kangaroo shoes with the Velcro and you want to be embarrassed because, damn, Dad, you’re so embarrassing, but his big goofy grin is just radiating so much that you can’t help but smile, too. And maybe even sing along. D’Angelo - Jonz in my Bonz For that moment when he’s sitting on your bed, the first boy you’ve ever had in your room (and it’s the one you’ve always wanted to be there and he finally broke up with his girlfriend) and you’ve got to look cool even if you feel like a complete dweeb (‘cause you are, truly, you are), you pop in this CD, hoping that some of D’Angelo’s smooth will be associated with you. (And it will. Even decades later, he’ll think of you with every mention of D’Angelo.) Stone Roses (the self-entitled album, in entirety) For that moment when you fall so damn hard in love with someone just in passing because they are so quietly beautiful, it’s an energy like you’ve never felt before and you realize you need it and you’ll do anything to be in their orbit and so you’re magnetically pulled around to follow them. In Nikki Gonzalez (continued)

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63 your stealthy, heart-driven pursuit, you’ll notice a patch on his bag. Stone Roses. And even though you have no idea what kind of music that even is, that night, you’ll insist that your dad drive you to the CD store where you’ll buy it, then beeline to your room as soon as you get home, and play it on repeat until you have memorized every word and feel him and his blue eyes -- oh, those blue eyes! -- watching you with every playback. Ani DiFranco - Both Hands For that moment when you’re at his apartment that he shares with his older brother, just a couple of small rooms that are stale with smoke and strewn with clothes and papers and cans, and he puts on her first album before leading you to his mattress on the floor but before he can lay you down, you pull at his arm, you resist for a moment so you can ask, “Who IS this?” and you’ll discover that evening that you really don’t like the way smokey kisses taste but that you love Ani. You’ll revisit this album again a year later when you terminate a pregnancy and you need to remind yourself that it’s nobody’s damn business why you had to because the choice is yours alone. MC Solaar - La Belle et Le Bad Boy For that moment when you’re walking in Monet’s gardens and you’re wearing pink and his hair is green and he smiles at you, on the bridge, across the lily pads. Nine Inch Nails - Hurt (but only the last 30 seconds or so of the song) In this moment, as you start to wake, the sky is making his room glow a blue like a sapphire jewel and you slowly, sleepily come to the realization that it’s late, that you should have been home hours ago, but his arms are still wrapped around you and his breath is tickling your neck as he snores gently against you and Trent Reznor has already finished singing and it’s just the hypnotic hum at the end of the song playing now, a hum that reminds you of (continued)

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64 something you can’t quite put your finger on, but it keeps you there, not wanting the moment to slip away, and so you let him sleep, you stay tucked in his arms no matter the consequences that will surely come. Rihanna - Love on the Brain For that moment when you’re reflecting on that love that you know was bad for you. I mean so, so, so very bad for you, but you still kinda long for it and sometimes, in fleeting moments, you want to be back there because the good was so, so, so very good, but you know it shouldn’t be like that with all the ups and downs, with all the inconsistency and unpredictables; you know it can’t last like that; you know that no one comes out surviving that feeling like a whole person anymore. Stone Temple Pilots - Slither For that moment, that impetus of a moment, when a note slides under your dorm room door, hitting the leg of your roommate who’s on the floor at the time doing some yoga and she picks it up and unfolds it and laughs to say, “It’s for you” and you read it and it’s from the guy in your Philosophy class who looks like Scott Weiland at his sexiest and, in the note, he tells you in a really sort of unpoetic way that you’re willing to look past for the moment that he likes you, that he has his eyes on you. Soon after you’ll be making out with the Scott Weiland doppleganger on your bed just below all the photos of your boyfriend that are taped to your wall and you’ll understand that you don’t want to be with him – he’s failing Philosophy, for fuck sake, and that’s a really easy course and how are you ever going to have meaningful conversations which is important to you, if he can’t even grasp a little Heidegger – but you also realize that you don’t want to be with your boyfriend anymore either and you needed that note, you needed these kisses, you needed Scott Weiland to be able to tell him so. Carl Orff - O Fortuna For that moment when you’re Spring cleaning your apartment in the inner city and you open your windows and blast some classical music because, at this point in your life, you’re so fucking arrogant with naivety that you think you’re treating your ‘hood to some culture when what you don’t realize, and what you’ll only come to realize years down the road, is that there’s so much beautiful culture there already, they were teaching you the whole time while you had your eyes and ears plugged; your too-loud music was blocking all the lessons out. (continued)

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65 Airplane - Jamestown Revival For those moments of dive bar magic where grit is glitter; where the smoke swirls are the charm that pulls you off of your stool to the floor that’s smooth with spills from beers held high in shaky hands; where the squeals of the microphone are incantations; where when you buy a shot of whiskey and hand directly it to the band, they’ll sing a song right at you, taking you to California or Austin or anywhere but here. Jack Johnson - Upside Down / Banana Pancakes For that moment when you’re holding your baby in your arms the night before his surgery is scheduled and you know he’s in pain and you know he’s hungry, too, but you can’t feed him because he has to fast before the anesthesia and you’re trying to distract him from it all and you’re trying to hold it all together, yourself, and not let your heart explode in front of him into millions of pieces like it’s threatening too, you put on these songs as videos and sing to him and breathe if only for a moment as he stops crying and smiles. Kae Tempest - Let Them Eat Chaos For that moment, at 2:09 every afternoon when he calls you because that’s your time together and no matter what else is going on, you’ll answer and you’ll probably have to turn down the volume to talk properly but first you’ll let him hear that it’s playing because he gifted this music to you because he knows you, he knew you would love it as you do, he knew it would ignite something in you and he wants so badly to be the spark that charges you. He likes the way he can make you come alive. It fuels his ego. And you? You just love being loved. RTJ - Blockbuster Night Part 1 For that moment when the kids are all off at school and it’s just you in the car and it’s warm enough outside that you don’t need the A/C but you can roll down the windows and you can pretend you’re driving something cooler than a minivan and sing all of the words into the wind as loud as you possibly can ‘cause you know all of the lyrics and how many times have you hung out with Killer Mike and El-P? and drive like you’re a badass motherfucking racecar driver down the highway to Target ‘cause your kid’s out of deodorant. Greentea Peng - Mr. Sun For that moment when BBC Radio plays a new artist and, despite every impression someone might make of him, he really does have a keen sense for the coolest music and he texts you excitedly about it to Turn it on! Listen now! Listen, listen, listen! Do you love it?! And you’ll forever after refer to him as your Mr. Sun, even after he has set. Labrinth - Jealous For that moment that you can’t talk about yet because it’s still playing out, the ending’s not clear because he is still trying to find his words and because he is afraid to formulate ones of his own. He picks the songs he sings to you because they are as close to what he’s feeling. And after he returns the guitar to its case in the corner of the room, he likes to take you in his arms and he whispers things into your ear but he nestles so close against your skin and he’s so quiet (continued)

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66 with those words, that you often only catch glimpses. You hear ‘love’ in there, you’re certain of it but then maybe ‘God’, too, and you just can’t figure out how those would go together. You send him home, even with a little push, back to his family. He tells you with his eyes, but not with his words (because they still won’t come), that he wants you to ask him to stay. Instead, you make a shooing motion with your hand and turn around. And the next time that he tries to sing you a song you tell him, straight out with clear words of your own, that you don’t want to hear it. Gorillaz - 19-2000 / Rhinestone Eyes For that moment you’re at a concert with your son who’s grown so healthy and strong that he’s been taller than you for years now and you’re deep in the pit, shoulder to shoulder with strangers who are swaying and bopping and thrashing along with you, the collective heat of their bodies like an aura of energy in a cloud, when a man leans into you for too long and his hands travel along your body and rest on it for too long, you turn and shove him -- HARD -- and the asshole is smart enough to walk away but your son tells you, “If he comes back, I’m ready for him” and you can just fall back into the moment, fall back into singing and dancing again, knowing you’re totally protected and loved. Cigarettes After Sex - Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby For that moment you need to say goodbye and you’re both thinking of (but not saying) Lost in Translation because even though you’ve agreed it's not the favorite favorite of you both, it’s the one that describes what this is the best, as you’ve both achingly joked. And as he goes one way and you go the other, you know you are both thinking of your actual favorite favorite – the bridge scene from Killing Eve and you want to turn around, you really do, but it will hurt if you do and he doesn’t but your brain is screaming at you, turn, turn, turn, dammit! and you do, because how could you not?, and you find that he already had and was waiting for you, smiling that big old, goofy smile. Soundtrack to a Marcel Pagnol movie (it doesn’t matter which one) For that moment, just a temporary moment, no longer than the span of a movie, really, when you’re dreaming of and planning travels together (by train and not by, as he’d prefer, cruises because he knows being lost at sea is one of your most dreaded scenarios) and sharing poetry with each other or checking Tesla stocks or watching movies he borrows from the library and cuddling together (what do we do about the dogs and cats?) and the tea he ordered special for you as a gift (even if he’s stoic about it) is almost at the perfect near-burning temperature. But when the song finishes, you realize you’re fine with that and you’re really not interested in hearing it again because shopping for blueberries that are on sale makes you feel old and talking in French makes your throat sore. St. Paul and the Broken Bones For that moment that you put on your cutest little summer dress and pair it with your Le Chemeaux boots and stand in the mud that just keeps getting muddier as the rain falls and you’ll be brave enough to begin to sway a little and then a little braver still to dance a little and then you’ll do something that’s really, really so brave that security will have a word with you, but it (continued)

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67 doesn’t matter, you can do it all because he’s there with you and you know he will always be there for you, from state to state, from country to country, from year to year to be your dance partner, to bail you out, to make you brave. Big Daddy Kane - Ain’t No Half Steppin’ AND Rage Against the Machine - Rodeo AND (played back to back) RATM - Freedom AND J. Balvin - Mi Gente AND Ghost of Paul Revere - Little Bird AND Bone Thugs n Harmony – Thuggish Ruggish Bone AND Nikki Lane - Look Away AND Kid Cudi - Erase Me AND Miley Cyrus - Jolene (live version) AND Mike Dougherty - I Hear the Bells AND Ice Cube - It Was a Good Day AND Pete Molinari - Tomorrow is a Long Time AND Mac Miller - Self Care AND Frank Ocean – Thinkin Bout You For that moment when it’s summertime and you’re on your porch and you’ve got courses to script for a semester that starts in just a few weeks, but the iced tea is fresh and the burn of the sun on your skin hurts just enough to feel nice and some kids bike past your house laughing the whole way down the street ‘cause that’s how it feels when you don’t have a care in the world and you want that, too, so you put on this song and sing along ‘cause you know all the words and you sing loud even if the neighbors hear because the Vitamin D of the summer sun is fueling you mad. And what is this time but yours, anyway? Rema - Calm Down For that moment when you’re with your daughter, the one that’s never been easy, and you’re walking around the mall and she’s in a rare good mood and this song is piping over the racks of cropped tops and sequined pants and you say to her, “I hate this song so much” and so she, just to tease you, starts singing it very loud, very off key, and very in your face and she’s smiling so big, a smile that’s so, so beautiful, and, for this moment, she’s not shy of people seeing her and, for this moment, she’s being vulnerable with you, and in this moment she’s telling you that, as hard as she is, she will always be there for you and you know that’s all you’ll ever need; the rest of the world can just melt away and even though you hate this song -- I mean, you really, really HATE this song -- , it’s actually your favorite of them all.

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68 Woke up with rain drumming an end of year beat. You know that sound. It’s the rhythm of endings and beginnings. Three cats and one pup ran into the door for breakfast, reminding me I began 2018 watching my dog of 15 years waste away and ended it with four spirits I couldn’t have imagined in that new year. Nor the grief I would experience or the joy to come. But as you well know, every joy is a price to pay in life. Am I being pessimistic? No. Because how would one know joy unless one experienced its opposite?! We live in a myth of ‘finding peace’ or ‘bliss’. I believe we find it in moments. It isn’t a destination you arrive at and suddenly only those feel-good moments exist. Life is life. People get sick. They die. Bills still come in the mail. Politics, relationships, death… daily life. It’s the moments of a baby sleeping soundly, a cat purring, a puppy playing with a toy and bringing it to you. A lover’s breath, a new song being born, the first snowflake. Those are bliss moments and, as fleeting as they are, you can always recall them once your mind has experienced them. But thank death and politics and chaos for allowing you to. Without them you’d never have known the difference nor appreciated it. Life hands us gifts even when we don’t know it is. Life hands us strength even when we feel very weak. Life hands us heartache and failure to remind us what love and success feels like. And as far as answers to all these myriads of mysteries go, don’t keep looking. You won’t find it. You won’t learn anything more in a book except what the writer believes although I think reading books could trigger your own thoughts. You won’t be enlightened by any human being other than yourself because what penetrates your own mind is only what you choose to embrace. Cults only entrap those who want entrapment in the first place. Even my words here are my own thoughts so if you are reading these, here is what I think the big mountaintop of enlightenment is. It’s this. Exactly what you are doing right now. What you did yesterday. What you will do in one minute. It’s the sun coming up or the clouds hiding it. Cyndi Dawson

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74 Sam Freedman A version of this article appears in print in The New York Times on May 31, 1987, Section 6, Page 20 of the National edition with the headline: MURDER HITS HOME. DURING THE YEARS when I lived many miles from my hometown of Highland Park, N.J., I generally visited once around Thanksgiving and once during the summer, when the most wonderful listlessness settled over the place. I would often go walking in the warm darkness after dinner, passing familiar places and asserting a claim on each one: Here lived the best tippers on my paper route; there, the parents who let us high-school kids drink beer in the basement; further on, the girl I made out with as John Lennon records spun. I could actually wander barefoot down the middle of any street at night, secure that nothing would disturb the comfort and the order. How strange, then, how terrible and strange, to find myself in a business suit on a sultry May night, far back in the queue waiting to view the body of my high school's principal, who had been stabbed to death in his own kitchen. You may remember the case, because it was tawdry enough to earn its moment of media notoriety: Shortly after 2 A.M. on May 9, William H. Donahue awakens to his daughter's screams. She is just back from a date and her ex-boyfriend, who had been waiting and watching, has forced open the back door of the house and is attacking her. Donahue races downstairs and tries to free his daughter. In the scuffle, the ex-boyfriend plants his hunting knife in the principal's back. Four hours later, after slashing his wrists in an attempt at suicide, the young man turns himself in to the police. For almost everyone outside Highland Park, the story ended there, to be supplanted by something about Donna Rice or Marla Hanson or, as it was on one television newscast, a 10-year-old boy in Texas who shot both of his parents on Mother's Day. The titillation machine grinds on, another grisly image flickers and disappears. ''It's just the same old insanity parade,'' one of my high-school teachers said as we drove to Bill Donahue's burial. ''Until it hits home.'' This one did hit home, quite literally. It challenged some cherished assumptions about the town where I was born and raised, and also about myself, the dispassionate reporter of other people's tragedies. Highland Park was hardly an oasis of the placid life, but nothing before the Donahue (continued)

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75 murder ever felt so invasive, so incongruous, so fundamentally wrong. Highland Park suddenly seemed like Lumberton, the fictive setting of David Lynch's macabre, disturbing film ''Blue Velvet,'' where an All-American boy finds a severed ear in the grass one sunny afternoon and traces it to a pure, true evil. And instead of arriving at the answers, instead of telling my editors and readers What It All Means, as it has been so easy to do when writing about someone else's hometown, I could only ask the standard questions: Why him? Why here? SURE, HIGHLAND Park is by definition a suburb - a town of 13,396 some 35 miles southwest of New York - but it always struck me as something quite apart from the suburbs I had covered for newspapers in Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey. Those were deracinated collections of tract houses and shopping malls, with fathers on the commuter-train platform each morning and whole families that would pack up and vanish without warning for a cheaper garden apartment somewhere down the road. In towns like that, it was smug to think, you almost expect things to fall apart. But Highland Park was stable and self-contained, cultured and intellectual: ''Our Town'' re-imagined by Irving Howe. One high school served the entire town, and you made friends for a lifetime before you left it. Nothing much changed on the main street, Raritan Avenue, except a drugstore expanding or a bicycle shop becoming a tanning salon. Our parents' social rituals included the classical music series at nearby Rutgers University and benefit cocktail parties for the McGovern Presidential campaign. News and gossip were spread by the Sunday morning mob at Tabatchnick's deli. Of course, there was more to Highland Park than kids winning National Merit Scholarships and spouting iambic pentameter with preternatural ease in the high school's annual Shakespeare production. A couple of my high-school classmates became small-time criminals; one of my friends regularly combs the local newspaper's police reports for the Class of 1973's latest arrest for burglary, weapons possession or indecent exposure. We all love retelling the story of the Highland Park boy, a few years our senior, killed drag-racing his uncle on a $50 bet. We embrace this picaresque history, proof we didn't grow up in some sheltered, wimpy world. These days, the sentiment sounds naive. Even the few previous murders in Highland Park did not register as Donahue's did. When I was 10, the mother and daughter across the street were stabbed to death one Saturday afternoon, their killer never found. I remember the police talking to my mother and father, and I remember the new words and phrases they added to my vocabulary - ''vestibule,'' ''puncture wound,'' ''jugular vein.'' More than a decade later, the woman who owned a jewelry store on Raritan Avenue was shot in her home in midday. These events shocked us, but the shared presumption was that outsiders had committed them. (continued)

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76 Bill Donahue's murder allowed no such solace. Everything happened and everyone lived within the bell jar of Highland Park. The victim, a lifetime resident, had spent 31 years in the high school as history teacher, guidance counselor and, finally, principal. The suspect had been one of his students. The suspect's mother works as a secretary for the town's police detectives. Donahue's next-door neighbor, to whom his daughter ran crying, ''He killed my father!,'' was his old teaching pal. The county prosecutor overseeing the case belongs to one of the prominent families in town. THEN THERE WAS Donahue himself. ''A conciliator,'' one friend of mine said. ''The guy you always wanted for your guidance counselor,'' said another. A third remembered Donahue as his Little League coach, a fourth as the man sitting on the front porch at night, calling out greetings to his students by name. I first met Donahue as a freshman who often got kicked out of World Civilizations class for my uninvited sarcastic commentary. The teacher would exile me to the history department office for the rest of the period, and, as it happened, Donahue had that period free. So we would talk and, without seeming to side against me, he would suggest that there were some decided advantages to staying in class. I later had Donahue for a course he designed in sociology, and, as an alumnus, I worked with him only last spring on a commemorative luncheon for the retiring English teacher who had been my mentor. It was enough contact with Donahue to know that, if he was not the most innovative educator around, he was among the most compassionate. Perhaps, some people suggested after his murder, too much so. Maybe Donahue, even after fighting in the Korean War and spending his adult life in public education, did not sufficiently appreciate the evil around, did not notice the severed ear in the grass. The young man accused of his killing, one teacher told me, had been one of Donahue's reclamation projects. ''Without Bill,'' she said, ''he never would've graduated.'' The local newspaper, The Home News of New Brunswick, reported that after the suspect had been arrested for brandishing a shotgun at Donahue's daughter on Valentine's Day, the family indicated to the court authorities that they preferred the young man receive counseling instead of a jail term. That sounds perfectly in character for Bill Donahue. He suffered the consequences of trusting the good in his fellows, and, with his loss, so did the rest of us in Highland Park. We grieve for him, and we grieve for our own illusions. Maybe that explains the remarkable scene I encountered two nights after the murder. Donahue's body had been placed in the high-school gymnasium for viewing. The line of mourners, four-abreast, stretched for nearly a half-mile, from the gym through the lobby, up North Fifth Avenue and around the corner onto Montgomery Street. As some sobbed or said the rosary and then departed, still more streamed toward the high school in their best clothes, the way people (continued)

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77 normally do only on graduation night, replenishing the line. Over the evening, 5,000 people must have paid their respects, this in a town of 13,000. I found myself next to Irene Gilman, a favorite English teacher of mine, and Carole Eichenbaum, who had joined the English department since my graduation. Carole had spent the weekend in the high school, which had been kept open for a kind of massive, spontaneous shiva, the communal mourning rite of Judaism. ''We had class today, but I had nothing left to give,'' she was saying. ''All we did was cry all day. Social workers telling us how to deal with grieving. I told them to go home. We know all there is by now.'' Then Carole leaned on her friend, and Irene began slowly massaging her temples. Jonathan Hyman, a painter who lives in Manhattan, joined our group. Like me, Jon had found that the children of Highland Park clung to each other and to their shared past in a way childhood friends from other places did not. ''I could look at those windows and know who was in every classroom,'' Jon said as the line slowly passed the science wing of the school. ''My friends in New York are amazed. I tell them my six best friends in high school are still my six best friends, and they would do anything for me. Other people, it's more like they're proud to say, 'I'm not friendly with anyone from high school.' '' As we passed through the gym and back out of the school, several images stayed with me. There were the opened tissue boxes, sitting atop a cardboard carton at the entrance to the gym. There were the signs in the hallway for class rings and the upcoming ''Senior Soiree.'' There was, of course, the sound of crying and the sight of the First Aid Squad helping a few people, wobbly and red-eyed, back to their cars. Several hundred moved to the front lawn of the school for a candlelight service the students had organized. About 100 feet above us loomed the high school's peaked, white dome, that ridiculous dome. When the school was being built about 50 years ago, the story goes, the architect gave the Board of Education the choice of spending money on an indoor swimming pool or a dome. The board went with the affectation, and added to it a clock with Roman numerals that has never once told the correct time. This night, it was three hours slow. But somehow the architecture that otherwise seemed pretentious conferred the correct dignity on this occasion. The high-school choir sang, and even from nearby their voices sounded faint and distant, all piping sopranos because teen-age boys think choir is for sissies. Then Austin Gumbs, the principal when I was in school and recently retired as Superintendent of Schools, spoke of lighting the candles of hope and remembrance, and of hanging onto the flame as our tribute to Bill Donahue. (continued)

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78 I felt silly carrying a candle three blocks home, cupping my hand to protect the flame. This, after all, is the sort of gesture a detached journalist employs as a folksy detail in an article but secretly considers irremediably corny, or maybe just too intimate. I felt that way until I saw a candle burning on someone's porch, and two more in the car that drove past as I climbed the front steps of my father's house, warm wax all over my fingers. THE NEXT MORNING, the Church of Saint Paul the Apostle filled to capacity a half-hour before the funeral. The rest of us, and there were several hundred, gathered in the street outside. For some reason, the service could not be amplified outside the church, so we simply stood and waited. Now and then, a couple of high-school girls would start to cry, crumpling into one another's arms. And then the photographers and camera crews would descend, shutters snapping from two feet away. One of them, I noticed, managed to shoot with a lit cigarette still in his focusing hand. I remember thinking: This is not journalism; this is stealing souls. But while I could condemn them, I could not disown them, because in a sense they were my blood relations. I had been there, too, in Piscataway, N.J., and Bensenville, Ill., and Newtown, Conn., scavenging for ''good copy'' in the aftermath of some catastrophe, wearing a somber, trustworthy face for the interviews, then cresting on adrenalin as I wrote, wondering whether the story would make Page One. Even though I was in Highland Park as a civilian only, the notebook that I had tucked inside my vest pocket out of habit felt more like the microphone taped to an informer's chest. The pallbearers emerged and the funeral procession moved to a cemetery a few miles away. The ceremony was brief, the mourners already cried out. ''You going back to school?'' Irene Gilman asked another teacher. ''Are you kidding?'' she answered. ''I'm going home to get drunk.'' They laughed a weary laugh together. School had been canceled for the day, but Irene was going in to work with the staff of the high-school paper, the Highland Fling. They were producing a special issue, and the dummy sheet for the front page already bore this direction to the print shop: In Memoriam William H. Donahue 1932-1987 Two of the editors mulled the wording of the obituary. Several others read through the tributes to Donahue that had been offered without prompting by his former students. Many of these pieces spoke directly to the dead man, and in their very ineloquence they achieved an eloquence any orator, any author would envy: ''I remember you laughing and smiling.'' And: ''I remember your voice over the loudspeaker in the morning saying, 'Learn something today.' '' And: ''We were all so glad that Mr. Donahue was able to go with us on the senior trip. He would be our father for the next four days.'' (continued)

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79 And: ''I'm truly gonna miss him, especially him telling me to get out of the halls. I'll miss you, Mr. D.'' Looking at the Fling staff, I saw myself 14 years ago, editor in chief of the paper. Why does anyone choose journalism? Perhaps the voyeurism is part of the attraction, but it is also the part that makes reporters quit. Like the kids who had penned the testimonials, like the classmates who were choosing the best for publication in the Fling, I suppose I believed that in writing one could approach understanding. I had seen my hometown draw together and give succor in other tragedies, but never on the scale of these few days. An assault on community had been transformed into an affirmation of community. When I explain to friends from other places what happened in my hometown this past week, I tell them about the knife and the blood, because that is unavoidable. But I always end by telling them about the candles. Joe Campbell

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82 Eric Weltman “Samantha.” Had it been a dream? It was the last moment he had seen her. It was time to say goodbye, had been for years. All that connected them now was paper, letters, sentences, words, habits, memories. He might have scripted their separation, but the anguish he felt was real. And so was the island. It was weird, too strange for him to have imagined it. And it was a secret, sequestered in a small pond in the center of the zoo, encircled by a curtain of trees. She showed him the island their final time together. An anthropology student, she was spending the summer interning at the National Zoo. The island, Samantha said, housed a secret project. On the island lived a monkey. He stumbled out of bed, feeling hot, sticky. Is this freedom? he mused miserably. His room was dirty, he was dirty. He was a writer, a failure. “Samantha, what now?” he muttered, massaging his temples as if trying to stimulate his imagination, but releasing no pearls of wisdom, just cliches. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left but booze,” he laughed, though he had long ago recognized the brutal difference between being clever and creative. He glared mournfully at his desk, where pages lay scattered, naked except for a title, “Portrait of the Artist as a Young”. He had also scribbled another title: “The Monkey and the Ex-Girlfriend”. The monkey lived alone. It had no direct contact with humans. Its food was delivered by a pulley. The monkey had to leap into the air to grab it. Samantha explained that they were training the monkey to be returned to the wild. “No monkey is an island unto himself,” he had joked. Now he looked out the window, thinking – hoping – that he was too young to be a failure. This felt like the moment for a sob, but he wondered, If a man cries alone in an apartment, does anyone hear it? Jolted by a desperate desire for a dramatic gesture, he flung open the window and screamed. “I am the monkey! See me! Feed me! But don’t send me home!” Most of the people walking by ignored him. But one woman applauded. It was Samantha. Just kidding. It wasn’t Samantha. It was a random woman who thought he was bananas.

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84 Growing up with the charisma of Joe Malatesta, my Pop Warner (Jr. high school) Football coach and the role model of Joe Policastro, my Dad, “Dr. Nawy”, had quite a hurdle to get on my radar screen. Especially since he was a first-generation immigrant, who, other than an occasional swim and a few fishing trips, had never played a second of a sport. The Molly, Polly influences were foundational in that Molly was focused on “believing in yourself “and that “Bobby – you can do it”. And, back in the 70’s, it was rare for a male figure to take blame or any self-deprecation, so, hearing Polly say “Jeez….I was wrong”, and that being ok, was a tidal shift. As for Jay, well, he initially wasn’t a fan of the Pop Warner fanfare and seemed to hold that as unfavorable when I came up to varsity. This gave me insight at a young age, as to how a person in charge can rule who comes first. When I finally got to my senior year and then college, my Dad who was Chairman of the Civil Engineering Department at Rutgers came up with the invention of a concrete canoe! My friends and I periodically would vocalize “cement canoooooo””, which was good for a short laugh in wasteland days. He passed away this past year at age 96, a life long lived. I did enroll in civil engineering after a jock high school life, and it helped to finally get some home acceptance where studies were what counted - as opposed to state football championships. The irony was his “concrete canoe” then became an annual athletic event in the form of a college race in concrete canoes down the Raritan River with Princeton versus Rutgers and others. Gave the theme song “Upstream Down Stream” on the banks of the Raritan some newfound flavor. Robert Nawy

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88 When your baby left you, you need the blues. When you can’t get satisfied, you need the blues. When the one you love takes up with someone else, you need the blues. And when you feel you’ve been mistreated, you have got to have the blues. The blues is bad. Playing the blues is good. It relieves suffering and pain. Maybe for just a while, but then again, that’s life, right? Each moment gives away to the next maintaining an ongoing state of impermanence. And yet, plugging into the blues by playing it and listening to it with friends, connects you with something eternal and real. The blues is a real as real can be. Created in the rural Southern United States by formerly enslaved African Americans enduring ongoing acts of arbitrary and calculated violence, emotional abuse and material deprivation by a system of preference based on white supremacy; the blues addresses fear. The blues is true. No sugar coating. If you are lonely you sing “yes I’m lonely—“ owning it—admitting weakness and vulnerability and through this process revealing your own truth. The blues fosters a way of being that accepts reality—the bitter and the sweet—but is not overly attached to it. As long as there is a way to play the blues, there is hope and a pathway to fellowship, community and ultimately—love. Today, the feeling of the blues is all around us. Conflicts around power, money and the way we treat each other shake our societies to their core. And there in the background is blues music, humbly forming the foundation for popular music all over the globe. The blues made jazz, rock and roll, R & B, and hip-hop. The blues combines east and west, rich and poor, black and white to make a musical form that offers an intoxicating mix of freely expressive singing, steady polyrhythm spiced with syncopation and personal story telling. The blues invites you to holler, cry, scream and moan as needed. The blues invites the audience to respond and co-sign its themes in real time thereby creating a call and response circle of repair. The blues is older than all of us and will still be here when we are gone. We can find the recordings of its great pioneers with the touch of a button, the click of a mouse. Have you heard B.B. King’s “Three O’ Clock in the Morning,” lately? How about Bessie Smith’s Eli Yamin

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89 “Backwater Blues,” or Robert Johnson’s “Come On In My Kitchen”? Each are masterpieces of human expression. For musicians, these recordings contain the keys to language of the soul. Getting to know the work of Memphis Minnie, Leroy Carr, Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins, Dinah Washington and Joe Williams opens doors. It has taken me literally around the world. Listen to “Midnight Moan” from Howlin’ Wolf. Your molecules will be rearranged. Musicians--Let’s play more blues to repair, to heal, to transform. Listeners-let’s be honest and be together with the blues. More blues for a more better world. Vanessa Daza-Heck

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90 1. If you say to me, in explaining your relationship, “I feel like I'm walking on eggshells all the time”, I’ll tell you that is not love. 2. If someone says the above about you, it’s not love. 3. If you’re not allowed to speak words of your own choosing and with your own voice, it is not love. 4. If you don’t feel confident enough to let someone else speak words for themselves, for fear a truth you don’t want to hear will spill out, it’s not love either. 5. If you tell them, “I’m cuddling with my dog right now” and they say, “lucky dog”, it’s love. 6. If you are forced to sacrifice your happiness and they’re okay with that, this is also not love. 7. If you are both white sugar kind of people but, one day, you inexplicably find Stevia in your cupboard, you should probably ask some questions about who exactly is having their morning coffee at your place, because this might not be love. 8. If you pick getting cars and houses over getting respect, it’s not love (and you’ve got a problem). 9. If (speaking of cars) you need to buy a new car because the old one reminds you of all of the things you know they did and think they probably did with that other person in it, it’s not love. 10. If you can’t go to certain parks or restaurants or cities or work offices or rooms in your home because you know they’ve been there with someone else and that hurts so damn much, it’s time to love yourself better. 11. If they wait around for you for 45 minutes instead of going home and they’ve got their guitar (even if they pretend it’s all happy happenstance) and they offer to play a song for you, it could be love. 12. If they play a song with lyrics that is dripping with longing, a song about aching to be with someone, it might be love. 13. If they look you directly in the eyes while singing the song with these lyrics to you and get a little red in the cheeks when they finish and you walk towards them, it’s definitely love. 14. If they say all they want to do is just hold you some more, it’s love. 15. If they knock you down to the ground, it’s not love. 16. If they come running, as fast as they possibly can, prepared to knock someone else down to the ground to protect you, it’s love. 17. If someone offers money to someone else to hurt you (and not just physically), man, Nikki Gonzalez (continued)

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91 oh man, that’s not love at all. (And if you still stay with them, I mean, dude, wtf?) 18. If you have to give up your passions for them, it’s not love. 19. If you are kept on a leash (and you’re not a dog), it’s not love. I mean metaphorically here. 20. If they monitor your text messages, your phone calls, your emails, your social media accounts, it’s not love. 21. If they show up to your work, your gym, outside of your home, and even to your kids’ events unannounced and often, this is not love. And do make your local police aware that this happens. 22. If, when you’re walking together hand-in-hand and strangers passing by can feel the energy that the two of you radiate so strongly that they HAVE to acknowledge it and want to be a part of it so they blurt out things like “oooh, sooooo romantic!”, it’s love. 23. If, when you’re walking together hand-in-hand, strangers passing by turn nostalgic, feeling what you have and missing what they once had that felt like that so they feel compelled to share their own story of love with you, be assured, it’s love. 24. If, in sharing stories and ideas with them, hours feel like minutes and you’re not even close to finished as the sun begins to set and you’re both craving for more time, it’s love. 25. If they buy you a first edition copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning poems while across the pond because they are thinking of you, it might be love. 26. If, along with the poetry book, there are also many, many bars of Cadbury chocolate “to last you through the year”, oh, this might certainly be love. 27. If, tucked amongst the pages of “Sonnets From the Portuguese”, there is a folded paper that, when opened, reveals a handwritten poem they wrote for you that they don’t tell you was there but let you happen upon as a surprise, it is, without a doubt, love. 28. If police have to be involved in your relationship, it’s not love. (Even if it’s been expunged.) 29. If you find yourself ordering books on Amazon like “Divorced Life for Dummies” in preparation of what you feel is coming, maybe love isn’t there anymore and it’s good to be ready. 30. If you are ordering these books on your shared account in the hopes that they will see it and feel some sympathy or regret, you’re playing stupid games and there’s no love in that. 31. If they see you ordering these books and they tell someone else about it and, when they do, they roll their eyes and laugh at you, oh dear, please want better for yourself than that. That’s (continued)

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92 not just unkind; it’s unloving. 32. If they email you a survey that they’ve created full of questions so they could learn more about you, what you love, what you don’t love, they might be thinking about love. 33. If one of the questions on the survey is “what body harness material do you prefer?”, they might be thinking about something other than love. 34. If they whisper to you over the phone, late at night, “Can I lick your face?”, well, to be honest, I just don’t know about that one. I’m going to need more information. 35. If they install cameras around your home because they are trying to catch you sneaking someone else in, that’s not love. 36. If you turn off the cameras so you can sneak someone in while they are away, that’s not love. 37. If their text messages to you never ask about you as a person and only about you as a body, it’s not love. 38. If they feel so comfortable with you they do a silly little dance on a busy city corner or giggle a silly sounding giggle unabashed, it’s love. 39. If they take away the things that you love out of jealousy, it’s not love. 40. If, upon awakening, you think of them and feel a flurry of tickles ripple through your body because you are so excited about all of the new things you will learn and experience with them today, that’s love. 41. If, conversely, you wake in the morning and feel a sense of dread because your day with them has become so drab and humdrum, an uninspiring routine, that’s love that has snuck out of the room. You might be able to coax it to return. But maybe not. 42. If they build you up, make you feel wonderful, but then knock you down only so they can do this again and again, that’s not love and, actually, that’s really fucking abusive. 43. If they challenge you to strive for the things that you love and they simply glow at your side with every achievement you make on your own, that’s love. 44. Let me reiterate this one again because it’s really damn important: If they (continued)

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93 keep you from the things that you love, if they keep you from being the best that you can be because they are jealous or fearful or because they say all of your attention should only be on them, send them packing ASAP because it’s not love. Not at all. 45. If their love spreads beyond you and to all the things that you care about and to all the people that you love, too, that’s really real love. Let me give an example: If you show them a memorial for your family member and they tell you that they’re going to visit it and say a little prayer, and they actually do this, even now, even without you knowing it, it’s because they love you. 46. Relatedly, if they share with you a song that their own child created, a composition saturated in passion and artistry, and they write along with it, “Doesn’t this sound like us?”, that is one of the most profound indications of love imaginable. No one shares their child’s gifts without deep trust and connection. They’d have to be a real fucking monster to use something so magically special so lightly for their own games, like it’s so easy. (See forthcoming article, “An Inexhaustive List of the Warning Signs of Love Bombing”.) 47. If they spoon up close to you and start to scratch the lengths of your body in a hard-soft-hard-soft oh-so-sensual way and they do this for over an hour even if the phone rings (they ignore it) and even if there’s work to be done (they put it off) and they whisper into your ear, “I love to scratch you, it’s my favorite thing” and they don’t ask for anything in return, this is beautiful love. Cherish it. And do, indeed, do something in return because love should be a two-way street. 48. If shit goes down -- any sort of shit -- and you pick up the phone because you need help and you don’t even have to consciously think about it, your fingers automatically know to call them in just the same way as their fingers call for you, it’s love. ** A FINAL TEST ** Look into their eyes. Even hold their face in your hands as you do this. Imagine them old. Imagine them feeble. Imagine spoon feeding them chocolate pudding and some of that pudding slipping out of the corner of their mouth and sliding down towards their chin in a slow, shiny, brown glob that, let’s be honest here, looks like warm shit. Sit with this image; picture it well. And then, consider your reaction and do be honest here. Do you: 1. Feel repulsed or 2. Feel your heart swell and you say, “Here, Honey, let me help you with that” and wipe them clean and maybe even kiss the spot? You know which is which.

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94 Beth Moroney And sometimes the screams that I never heard Shatter my dreams And I fear every word. “Please, please, oh please, throw down the knife. Don't kill my child, Please spare her life.” Who could have known that cold winter day that death would come visiting Ann and her Mae? On quiet Third Avenue the thief of life came, and cut with his knife their jugular veins. In daylight so broad Anyone could have seen The face of the killer Determined and mean. Up from the bridge o'er the river I'd walked, and with my best friend, 'bout the Beatles we talked. Who was the cutest, Was it Ringo or John, When a dark man brushed by us, Tall, cruel, and wan. As I unlocked the door to our cold, empty home, Shivers ran through me My heart turned to stone. “That man,” I said to my girlfriend so dear, “As he ran past me I got a feeling quite queer.” “Look at my arms,” Was my girlfriend's reply, Goosebumps rose on them from the man who'd rushed by. FROM BETH: The Rubenstein murders occurred in February 1965. We lived across the street from the Rubensteins and I was very close with their son, Elihu. I was a sophomore in High School at the time of the killings. Mrs. Rubenstein and her 11 year old daughter were stabbed to death on a Saturday afternoon in nice, safe, HP. It was quite a devastating experience and unfolded on the Dakelman family lawn that afternoon. It was horrific. I did see the killer, just as described in the poem. He was never caught, but a year and a half later he killed another little girl in Elizabeth, also a Rubenstein, who had lived on South 4th Ave. in HP. Her grandfather had allegedly been in the Russian mob so the theory is that the first murder was mistaken identity. (continued)

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95 Evil brushed by us, So close and so keen, that 30 years later His eyes haunt my dreams. A short while later a white ambulance came to the house cross the street its grim cargo to claim. One had discovered What lay near the door Two bodies were sprawled, Crimson with gore. Brakes shrieked from a car and startled the crowd. The father heard words, Then screamed awful and loud. “My God! My God! She was my wife! Who is the demon Who's taken her life?” No word of the child From his lips fell So the crowd did not know She'd answered death's knell. Just moments later The one son arrived, The boy's face bewildered, “What's happened?” he cried. I stood on my porch As near me he drew, But I could not confirm What he already knew. Police soon did swarm the desolate street, But the killer'd been clever, astonishingly neat. Through the bushes they combed Looking for clues, Perhaps a knife, The prints from his shoes? But nothing was found, Not a print or a knife, The community was shattered By the taking of life. Doors once left unlocked Were suddenly barred and even old friends grew suspicious and hard. (continued) Photo Credits: The Central Jersey Home News, 14 Feb, 1965, Page 1

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96 A community rocked By violence mean Would never recover From this horrible scene. Bitter winds swept through the solemn, stunned crowd. Shock ate at our hearts, For two in their shrouds. Eerily, eerily there were no wails, Just rivers of tear hidden by veils. And where is he now, the mysterious villain? Does he still do it? Does murder still thrill him? Does he hear late at night those horrible screams, Does he fear his damnation, Does it shatter his dreams? And why? Why? WHy? WHY? I don't understand Why bones rest in graves, but he roams the land. No man has had justice brought for this crime and memories have dimmed with the passage of time. Soon few will remember that terrible day When two innocent lives were stolen away. So night after night I query of God to punish the killer and punish him hard. In my heart I believe that justice is might, but 'til the killer is caught, I'll hear screams in the night. Photo Credits: The Daily Mail, 9 March, 2016

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100 Just an old sentimental fool when it comes to this place. Just an old fart standing before you moving back and forth in time, full of stories, memories. In the midst of spirits who once walked these halls and played these fields. Local heroes. My heroes. A rare few have been formally memorialized – the Jay Dakelman, Bus Lepine and Joe Policastro fields, the Robert Stevens Auditorium, the Maude Stockman Gym. But most live only in the hearts of their families, friends and classmates. I wish you could have known the wonder of our coming of age together. The drama. The fun we had. For these are hallowed halls… …With some truly fine teachers that left us wiser and curious to know more. “Slow back crow black fishing boat bobbing sea”. Thank you, Mr Stevens. A tray of cows brains in vinegar. Thank you, Mrs. Moughalian. Jung’s masks. Thank you, Ms Gilman. The pain of deer in the wild. Thank you, Mrs. Williams. The power of Handel. Thank you, Mrs. Bloom. Waves and sounds and tales of Danny Kaye. Thank you, Mr Landrum. Seas of knowledge, Joyce, Existentialism, Deniro, The APES of AP English. Thank you, Mr. Knoll., “Please Remember Ignorance Destroys Everything!…P-R-I-D-E!”. Thank you, principal Austin Gumbs. …With a stage where Conrad Atkinson’s Deputy Dan died an outrageous death, Debbie Kirsch recovered from tragedy, Jerry Levine wowed and wowed again, Robbie Edenzon sang “like a bluebird”, Laurie Glitzer enchanted, Debbie Rimmer was a ray of sunshine, Larry Harris a paizan extraordinaire, Robert Landrum philosophized, John Chapman and Mindy Klaus founded our nation, and so many more played their parts. “There are no small parts, only small actors”, said Bob Stevens. You best believe it. …With airwaves where Jonah and Jon Schwartz ruled the roost. Where Kenny, Jimmy A., Stereos Johnson, Willie Garson, Siobhan Darrow got their wings. Home of the 20 minute bone break. “Did somebody say Whipping Post”? The Dead at Englishtown. RFK Stadium and the Stones. Robin Trower at the Garden. Kool Jazz. Bowie. Floyd. Clapton. Yes. The Doors and Jeff Beck tapes from the library. Muddy Waters and The Blues. Dylan. Neil. Patti. Joni. Jean-Luc Ponty. Renaissance. …With fields where Jay drove the boys to excellence - the mighty, mighty Owls punching way above weight, with speed, preparation and intelligence - and for a few years there, Felix Lee. Nawy to Reese 1 or 2, Figg up the middle. Paul Waller’s neck. Solid D. “Beat, beat Metuchen”…and just about anyone else. And the band played on. …With a gym that housed Jerome White’s pull-up jumper. Head down, stop on a dime, swish. Where Ray Harrison flexed and strained and pinned. Where Cyndi vaulted to the sky and hit Marc Pomper

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101 the uneven bars full power. Where the Williams sisters flew. With a park where Robert Marshall dribbled all the way into goal. Where Danny Alsofrom charged like a mad elephant. Where Ross shone like gold soaring for headers. And it was a more than that. More than just a shared high school experience. This was a small town where we knew one another from grade school or kindergarten or even nursery school. Our families went way back - your brother might know my sister, your mom chat with mine at the supermarket. Your Dad coach my team. We hung for years at the pool. High school just brought things to a head. Before all that it was … …Summers at Lafayette playground. The Assini brothers lining us against the wall for dodgeball with a hardball. Baseball cards in the “dugout”. “Leaners”. Stickball for as long as there was a drop of sun. Mike Jiminez’s perfect mitt. Bobby Allessi’s awesome kickoff. Cipot - hitting it not onto the roof, but over. …The Avenue, with bagels and lox at Tabachnicks. Salmon wings. “Everyone gets their own knife at the Hyman’s you know”. Cohen’s Knishes and hot dogs. Tessie’s and the best cheesesteak ever assembled (maybe it was the mayo?). Joey R. banging on a pinball machine, a baby in a milk crate by his side. A buttered corn muffin and coffee or tea at Pennies. Picking up the paper at the 3rd Avenue Sweet Shop. Ronnie Palladino, tales of “The Finger Bowl”, Playboys strewn around the barbershop. Man talk. Getting deep at the Titles Unlimited Bookstore. Carob coated nuts at the Magic Bee. …Jimmy and Donnie Bell in the big laundry truck after practice. Jeff Hammond plunking Sock as he takes one for the team. Mr. Mal and Dragging our soaking bodies back top the hill. Mr Figg and Mr. Raspa and what hard-nosed feels like. The joy of being a team. Cinci Powell trucking the soccer squad out of town, hams pressed hard on the side windows of a mint green station wagon. …Girls and strobe lights and wrestling upstairs like frisky kittens. The orange dance. Front seat-make out sessions and walks on bright cold winter nights. Candlelit rooms. Heartache and heartbreak. Torn jeans and cigarette lounges. Bong juice. Discovery. Tequilla sunrises. Yim Yam Big Jam Post 88. Rocky Horror steals our Saturday nights. The Hard Guys. The Buffster Brothers. Ultimate frisbee in headbands and bare feet. Soccer in tights. The graveyard van. The Satire pie. Yeah, I’m just getting started. I could drone on and on…So… High school. Graduation. Take a moment. Breathe this day in. Breathe in the years gone by, and take a deep breath for the years to come. For the rest of your lives few people will know you as well as the people who now surround you. As classmates, teammates, bandmates, soulmates. As family. This stuff can last and last if you let it. May you make yourselves, and your families, and, yes - this town - proud. All the very best to you. GO OWLS!