Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 15 Read online

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  Small Beer Press

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  CONTENTS

  Help Wanted

  "Eft” or “Epic"

  Mary

  At the Rue des Boulangers Bridge Café

  FAQ

  The Beard of God

  Crown Prince

  The Half-Sister

  Dear Miss Wonderment

  The Film Column

  Mounds Keep Appearing

  In Kansas

  I Heard That

  Lord Goji's Wedding

  The Life of Saint Serena

  My First Lover

  Secret Histories of Household Objects

  It Tastes Bitter

  Jon Langford, All the Fame of Lofty Deeds

  THE WELL-DRESSED WOLF:

  Dear Aunt Gwenda

  Nicholas

  gray's boadicea: unlikely patron saints, no. 4

  The Truck

  Writers Who Writ Large & Small

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  Gavin J. Grant: Still.

  Kelly Link: Outtern. Tap.

  Jedediah Berry: Intern. Distilled.

  Gwyneth Merner: Intern. Effervescent.

  Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, No.15 January 2005. This zine usually goes out each June and November from Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060 [email protected] www.lcrw.net/lcrw $5 per single issue or $20/4. This time apologies for the recent US election which froze the zine solid. Much chipping and melting has led to the appearance of this in your hands. May the president be similarly chipped away. Contents © the authors. All rights reserved. Submissions, requests for guidelines, &c all good things should be sent to the address above. No SASE: no reply. For external use only. This issue suitable for vegetarians (thanks, Henry) but produced in a facility where nuts, etc. are processed. As ever, thanks. Printed by Quantum Graphix, 2130 Watterson Trail, Louisville, KY 40299 502-493-5933.

  Help Wanted

  Karen Russell

  1. Mer-Girl

  The Mer-girl's dreams are full of salt-diluted longing.

  "Quit thrashing around,” her husband grumbles, poking her awake. “You woke me up again."

  His tongue sea-slugs against hers, an old invertebrate habit. She misses the thrill of those first kisses, back when he filled her lungs with unfamiliar air.

  "You taste like purple smoke,” she whispers, “and interrupted dreams."

  "You taste like toothpaste,” he says, rolling over. “Goodnight."

  Every night, the Mer-girl brushes the sea-foam taste from her tongue. She buffs her scales with loofah until they flake off in iridescent ribbons. She picks tiny starfish and sea lice out of her long hair. Their dessicated bodies line the edge of the enamel tub.

  "Get a haircut,” her husband suggests, watching as she braids dead eels through her ponytail. “And get a real job."

  * * * *

  The Mer-Girl gets a job at Aqua Tots. She teaches babies how to swim. The idea is that the babies will remember the aqueous warmth of the womb, their fetal gill-slits.

  "You'll see, Amanda-Stacie,” the Director smiles. “You've got to start them while they're young, before they forget how to float on their backs."

  The Mer-Girl tries flipping the babies on their backs to test the Director's theory. She can see that the Director has exaggerated these babies’ capabilities.

  At Aqua Tots, there are black babies and white babies and Hilola, a honey-eyed Hawaiian baby. There are fat, taffeta-bright babies, and jaundiced babies that the Mer-girl cradles like sickle moons. All of the babies possess the same aptitude for swimming, which is to say, none at all. The Mer-girl is appalled.

  Recently, Aqua Tots has started offering a service called Drown-Proofing. This involves dunking the babies under the water, again and again, until they learn how to hold their breath. They are slow, sputtering learners.

  When their mothers aren't looking, the Mer-Girl tugs at the webbing of their tiny feet.

  "Kick,” she whispers furiously. “Kick."

  * * * *

  At night, the Mer-girl scans the Classified ads. She works on her resume. She doesn't have many marketable credentials, although she does have an advanced degree. It's a secret education, one her husband knows nothing about. He likes to brag that he reeled her in on the first cast. The Mer-girl lets him. She doesn't mention her diploma from the Undersea School of Seduction. Anyways, it's not like she was a stellar student. The Mer-girl got placed in the Remedial classes.

  "Don't flop right into the boat!” her teachers chided. “Do you want people to think you're some kind of floozy?"

  At school, they learned how to smile demurely while flinging their bodies against the splintery hulls of ships. The Mer-girl used to get scolded for her bad attitude. When the sailors finally lowered their nets, she'd yawn with disappointment.

  "You're supposed to act surprised,” the teachers lectured, “and helpless.” They made her study goggle-eyed fish for inspiration.

  In the Honors classes, the more accomplished Mer-girls practiced churning their arms in tandem.

  "You must create a coy sea-foam,” the teachers explained, “to cover all of your scaly horror beneath the water."

  All of the students had to memorize the score to the Siren Song. The Mer-girl used to get confused and substitute lyrics from old showtunes. At dusk, they practiced singing it to easy targets: widowed sea kayakers, science teachers on singles cruises. Compositionally, it's not a very impressive piece—although there is one tricky part with a tambourine. But it worked on her husband.

  The Mer-Girl has felt contemptuous of him ever since.

  Even so, she still dreams about the first time she lay splayed out on his boat. Her withered fins twitch at the memory of it. That invisible line, tugging her out of her element. Then the quick ascent through skeins of orange light, bubbles streaming off her skin. Wild-eyed wanting, the joyful writhing on the hook, and that amphibious moment when she first broke the surface of the water. For a moment she swung perfectly suspended, the sun on her face, her torso cleaved by cold water. Back when her whole body was an indecision.

  Throw me back—shallow-gasping in his shadow on the deck—Don't throw me back.

  * * * *

  2. Bat Girl

  The Bat Girl frowns and thinks for a moment, scratching at the membrane between her mammalian wings.

  "I graduated Summa Cum Laude, and I have years of relevant work experience,” she says. “Also, I'm a bat.” She hopes it doesn't come across like she's bragging.

  "Vampire bat?” the interviewer asks warily.

  "No, I'm a pollinator."

  The interviewer nods without looking up, scanning the Bat Girl's application.

  The Bat Girl never went to college. Her references are complete fabrications. There's a honey-suckled stamen caught between her teeth.

  "You're hired,” the interviewer smiles. “When can you start?"

  The Bat Girl works as a marriage counselor at the Caverns of Spousal Reconciliation. They give her one of the large corner caves with stalactite-chandeliers, lit by the dim effulgence of guano. The Bat Girl is the resident Sonar Therapist. She measures the distance between couples by listening to their echoes. The cou
ples bounce accusations off one another—You-never-you-don't-you-can't-you-won't. The stalactites gleam above them like bared fangs. She rocks from the rooftop, eyes shut, and lets the acoustics of anger reverberate through her.

  The Bat Girl has no formal training as a Sonar Therapist, but she has figured out that the actual words don't matter. Her tawny body shivers with their subterranean echoes. They drill into her ears like red-black spikes, a syncopated sadness: You stranger, you charlatan. You don't love me anymore.

  It's exhausting work. Sometimes she wishes she'd taken that job as a silent-movie usher. From nine-to-five, she tries to steer the couples towards each other. She uses her echolocation to alert them to certain obstacles: buried grudges, old flames. She shouts upside-down encouragement from the rafters.

  "Love is work!” she yells. “Fight the currents of discontent! Keep paddling towards each other!"

  Then she watches, helpless, as they capsize on dark waves of sound.

  The Bat Girl declines her colleagues’ insincere invitations to go out for tacos. She doesn't have much in common with the other therapists. The girls in the office all like to get tanked on Coco-tinis, and walk around upright. They split guac and chips, and place bets on which of their male patients will turn out to be bigamists.

  "Gee, no thanks,” the Bat Girl always says. “I brought my lunch.” She points at a sugary bag of peonies, her pink nose twitching.

  During her lunch hour, she spreads her thin wings and goes blind-flying around the empty office. She does solo airsaults, rejoicing in the ultrasonic frequency of solitude. She bathes in the blue sound of her own voice.

  Echo-la-la.

  In the sweet relief of darkness, the Bat Girl sings.

  Today, the Bat Girl still has one appointment before her break. Her eleven o'clock comes in, carrying what appears to be a giant tuna in a honey-blonde wig.

  "This is my wife,” he sighs, slumping her onto the floor of the cave. “She's depressed. We just moved to the Midwest. I'm an inland sort of man myself, but she's having a hard time adjusting."

  "I am not,” she sighs in a sleep-bubbled voice. “I am a very happy person."

  Then she proceeds to burst into tears.

  The Mer-girl's sadness goes rippling through the cave at disheartening decibels. The Bat Girl gives her a blank, sympathetic smile, devoid of all judgment. Then she uses one clawed toe to scratch off the “Longshot” box on the clipboard suspended from the roof. She hopes her patients don't notice that she's placed her tiny claws over her ears.

  "Oh boo-goddamn-hoo,” her husband growls. “I guess I'm the big villain now for earning us a living? I guess you'd prefer to be hitching rides on manatees, instead of driving our fully automatic family sedan?” The Bat Girl can see that his bald head is sweating. “I guess it's too much to expect you to hold down a part-time, minimum-wage..."

  "I guess I'm having a baby,” the Mer-Girl interrupts. “And I don't want her to grow up marooned in a, a ... shitty suburb of Cheyboygan!"

  The man stares at his wife. The Bat Girl gulps down the momentary silence, filled with guilty relief. She wonders which one of them baby will take after. She rubs her sensitive eyes. When she opens them, she realizes that they are both staring at her, waiting for her assessment.

  "This relationship can work,” the Bat Girl warbles without conviction. “Love is work."

  The Mer-girl gazes up at her with one lidless fish eye. “Then I'd like to use my sick days, please."

  * * * *

  3. Centaur Girl

  The Centaur Girl finds seasonal work at the carnival, giving rides to children. It's a lousy job. They pay her in candied apple cores and bags of stuffing from the glassy-eyed bears. The Centaur Girl gets stuck carrying the fat children, the ones too heavy to ride the Shetland ponies. Her boss, the Carnival Barker, is a diabolical woman named Maisy Dotes. She wears a straw hat and carries a whip. She looks like an old sow, a slobbery ear of corn dangling from her lips.

  "Don't worry,” she reassures the Centaur Girl at the job interview. “The whip's just for show."

  Then she cracks the whip across the Centaur Girl's knuckles, leaving a bright red welt.

  The Centaur Girl has a hard time fitting in at work. The magician's assistants spend their breaks in the trailer, daubing at their pedicures with long rainbow scarves. They look down at her unshod hooves and give her a pained smile. The Shetland ponies won't talk to her. They roll their eyes at her stringy hair. They pass nickering judgment on her horsehide, which tapers into paper-thin skin that hides nothing. They go gamboling around after hours to flirt with the locals, smelling of sweet manure and clover.

  Centaur Girl spends after hours alone in her trailer. She smells like kidsweat, and ineluctable girl.

  During the pony rides, Chumley, Maisy Dotes’ idiot son-in-law leads the Shetlands around a worn dirt track. The Centaur Girl's cheeks burn with shame. She envies the other ponies, who trot after Chumley with a dumb animal loyalty. The Centaur Girl doesn't even like carrots, and she's conscious of the stick. Still, she follows him around. It's just a job, she whistles through gritted teeth.

  Some days, around the forty-fifth revolution, she'll decide that she's in love with Chumley. Her heart swells with a gelded longing as she watches him scratch his human ass. Then, by the time she's made it around the track again, she's fallen back in hate with him. She's not sure why she flip-flops this way. She supposes it's a strategy for passing the time. It beats swatting flies, anyhow.

  The Centaur Girl keeps getting passed over for promotion. Her earnest neighing makes the children snicker. It negates all of her equine pretensions. It's too heartfelt, too human. And she lacks the ponies’ quadruped equilibrium. Her body wobbles gracelessly from the waist up. Whenever her tubby riders dig their sneakers into her flanks, the Centaur Girl stumbles. Her hands are caked with blood, and the orange stubs of losing raffle tickets. Pretzel salt gets in her wounds. If she's in a generous mood, Maisy Dotes will wrap them in gauzy strips of cotton candy.

  Today, she is staunching a spot of blood on her right flank with a strawberry ice cream cone. Little pink and red droplets dot the ground. When she looks up, she sees that there's been some kind of hold up in the pony ride. A Mer-girl is standing in line, arguing with Chumley. The Mer-girl is holding a plastic bag with a goldfish, the kind you win at the Dunk-a-Lunk. Both she and the goldfish look intensely unhappy.

  "I took the day off work,” she says. “Please, let me on. I'll take my chances. I just want to go for a ride."

  "Sorry, lady, no dice.” Chumley shakes a fat finger at her belly, which billows out over her tail. “Pregnant women and people with spinal injuries aren't allowed on the ponies.” He points at a cardboard cut-out of an impish boy next to the CAUTION sign. “'Sides, you must be this human to ride."

  The Centaur Girl gives her a sympathetic shrug, but the Mer-Girl doesn't see it. She is already taking mincing steps towards the parking lot, standing on the tips of her fins. The Centaur Girl wonders where the Mer-Girl works. She wonders if she'll take a seaside maternity leave. The Centaur Girl feels a sharp stab of envy in her own empty gut. The Vet has confirmed that she's as sterile as a mule. She'd be curious to know what mystery is incubating inside the Mer-girl's womb.

  After the fairgrounds close, the Centaur Girl always lingers. She pretends to sweep up the colorful balloon scraps with her tail. The other carnies trickle out one by one:

  "Bye Centaur Girl!” says the Singer of Unsung Songs.

  "Bye, Centaur Girl!” says the Human Candle.

  "Bye Centaur Girl” until she is nearly bursting with impatience.

  Then she goes clip-clopping down the empty boardwalk to the dark, motionless Merry-go-Round. She trots in slow circles beneath the unlit bulbs, her tail swishing merrily. The Centaur Girl nuzzles the painted lions and the ceramic swans. She bobs up and down for effect. Sometimes she stamps her feet, and sometimes she claps her hands. She whinnies unconvincingly in the half-light of dusk.

  *
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  4. Girl-girl

  Child labor laws prevent her from finding an occupation. In the economy of the womb, her eyes are shut in a dreamless sleep. Her body is an indecision. She's still floating on her back, unemployed.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  "Eft” or “Epic"

  Sarah Micklem

  An extant fragment of The Lay of Roebland, translated by Dr. Simone Menthaler, with annotations by the translator.

  Dobe evek y

  An nolish bren o toft

  Ovan ekven oblish

  Y ony spen e stoft

  The warrior1 smiled at2 her3

  She bade him step over the threshold

  And under the lintel4

  Her eyes cast downward5

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  1. Dobe: a warrior who supplies his own equipage but has pledged fealty to a greater lord in a time of need. The word is in the active modality, indicating he is armed and armored. In context with the subsequent word I suggest he is wearing a half helmet which conceals his eyes, such as the one recently excavated near Darvon.

  2. Evek: a smile where the muscles around the eyes are not tightened as they are in most kinds of smiles; the lips curve without baring the teeth. This smile has no humor in it, but rather menace and possibly mendacity. If one agrees, however, that the warrior is wearing a helmet and therefore the eyes are not visible, one might conclude, as I do, that the smile is one of suppressed and dangerous excitement. It is inexact to translate this phrase as “he smiled at her” because the preposition folded into evek should be rendered as something more aggressive. I failed to find an English equivalent that did not sound absurd.

  3. Y: the pronoun for a beautiful woman of marriagable age who is nevertheless not yet married.

  4. “Over the threshold and under the lintel” is clearly a metaphor for marriage or sex. The Roeblish feminist Any Bevek has argued at length that this fragment describes a rape. I feel there is little evidence in the context to support her conclusion. See note 5.

  5. Ony spen e toft: I've translated this as “eyes cast downward,” but it would be a more accurate (though unfelicitous) translation to say that the young woman who is yet unmarried takes a step aside, bends her stiff neck, and looks at the floor somewhat near the feet of the warrior. She keeps her face still but nevertheless her downcast eyes show not only modesty but fear. Here Bevek diverges from others, interpreting this as the maiden's fear for her safety, whereas most students of the epic, including myself, read it as a stimulating, anticipatory fear.