Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 18 Read online

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  Play

  Errant Souls

  This Is the Train the Queen Rides On

  Two Poems

  Diabolique d'amour

  In Ophelia's Garden

  Followed

  Dear Aunt Gwenda:

  Threads

  A Half-Lizard Boy, A Reptile Man, and An Unjaded, Shiny Something

  Two Poems

  A Static of Names

  Son of a Bitch

  The Fabricant of Marvels

  The Juniper Tree

  The Film Column

  Two Notes

  Crimson-lady at the Auction, Buying

  Zines & Bookesque Objects

  At Uncle Ogden's House

  A Message from the Welcomer

  Swimming

  Music I've Been Listening to Lately

  Those Writers

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  Lady Churchill's

  Rosebud Wristlet

  No.18

  cover

  Emily Wilson

  writer types

  Back

  Made by:

  Gavin J. Grant

  Kelly Link

  Jedediah Berry

  Michael Deluca

  Erik Gallant

  Fiction Workshop at Lenoir-Rhyne College, Spring 2006

  Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, No.18 June 2006 (The Ethereal Issue). ISSN 1544-7782 Text in Bodoni Book. Titles in Imprint MT Shadow. Since 1996 LCRW has usually appeared in June and November from Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060 [email protected] lcrw.net/lcrw $5 per single issue or $20/4. Contents © the authors. All rights reserved. Submissions, requests for guidelines, & all good things should be sent to the address above. No SASE: no reply.

  Printed by Paradise Copies, 30 Craft Ave., Northampton, MA 01060 413-585-0414

  Play

  David J. Schwartz

  Amy: Pretend I'm Jack.

  Tommy: I want to be Jack.

  Amy: We're both Jack, and we're going to the giant's house for dinner.

  Tommy: I'm bringing bean soup.

  Amy: Yes, but the rabbits ate all the beans and got tummy aches, so their mother brought them some cats—some cast—

  Tommy: Caster oil?

  Amy: Yes, she gave them that and then she scolded. She said, “You can't eat the beans or you'll end up in a pie."

  Tommy: I'll bring a pie to the giant's house. A baloney pie. But the giant ate it all up and now there's just potato salad.

  Amy: There's deviled eggs, too.

  Tommy: The goose ate the deviled eggs because she said they were hers. And we tried to eat the potato salad to be polite, but it was poison.

  Amy: And the giant started to cry because he's sorry.

  Tommy: He's a baby giant.

  Amy: Yes. And he cries and he cries and the table gets washed away and we have to climb on some stinky cheese so we don't get drowned.

  Tommy: I like cheese.

  Amy: This cheese is really stinky. Nobody likes it except for wolves.

  Tommy: Uh-oh. Now there's a wolf that comes and finds the cheese.

  Amy: Is he a good wolf or a bad wolf?

  Tommy: He's bad. He says he's going to eat the baby, unless if—

  Amy: Unless if we get married. Except we can't because we're both boys.

  Tommy: I'll be the girl. I'm Alice, but I don't wear a dress.

  Amy: OK, we have a wedding, and the wolf says I pronounce you. And then I die.

  Tommy: How did you die?

  Amy: The ring cut my finger. Also, the Queen did it.

  Tommy: OK, I killed the Queen, and she told me there's a magic horse that can find you.

  Amy: I'm in Hell.

  Tommy: Right, but the horse can find you if I feed it lots of mushrooms. So I tell the baby to find mushrooms but not to eat the toadstools because they're poison.

  Amy: I'm having tea with the King of Hell. He's in love with me.

  Tommy: You're married to me. Besides, you're both boys.

  Amy: I know. He's in love with me and he lets me call my parents to tell them I'm dead and don't worry.

  Tommy: Anyways the baby comes back and he ate so many mushrooms that he turned into a horse.

  Amy: Is he still a giant?

  Tommy: No, he's a baby and a horse. I have to carry him and ride him at the same time.

  Amy: Is he fast?

  Tommy: He's really fast, and he makes snorty noises. He takes us to the underworld. There's a cat that guards the underworld.

  Amy: It's a dog.

  Tommy: It's a cat and a dog and a pig in one animal, and the cat and the dog fight all the time, and the pig eats everything. He eats the horse, but me and the baby get past him.

  Amy: The King of Hell wants me to torture, but I said I won't.

  Tommy: Who does he want you to torture?

  Amy: The Pope. But I said I won't because of morals.

  Tommy: What's morals?

  Amy: It's little people that talk in your ears and tell you what to do. Like Bugs Bunny.

  Tommy: OK. I'm in Hell, and I find you, but there's a monster.

  Amy: Is it scary?

  Tommy: It's a dragon with red teeth from all the blood. The blood's because he didn't brush good and his gums fell out.

  Amy: He wants to eat the baby.

  Tommy: Yes, but the baby tells me how to kill it. With poison. Now you can come home.

  Amy: I want a divorce. I'm in love with the King of Hell.

  Tommy: What about our baby?

  Amy: I don't like the baby. You're the mom.

  Tommy: OK, we're divorced. I'll marry the Wolf.

  Amy: We'll have a double wedding. The baby does the ceremony. I'm the King's husband and you're the Wolf's wife and we live across the street.

  Tommy: Across the river. We live in a castle and you live in a castle.

  Amy: But you can't come over because the King thinks the Wolf is a blowhard.

  Tommy: I can't come over because the Wolf won't let me leave. He goes out every day to hunt rabbits and locks the castle behind him.

  Amy: All the doors inside are locked, too.

  Tommy: No, just this one closet.

  Amy: I'm coming over for a visit. I knock on the door.

  Tommy: I can't hear you because we're in the attic. The baby knows how to pick locks and he opens the closet and there's seven dead grandmas in there. The Wolf poisoned them all.

  Amy: Oh, no.

  Tommy: There's Grandma Rabbit and Grandma Horse and Grandma Ostrich and Ugly Grandma and Fat Grandma and Grandma Mushroom.

  Amy: That's only six.

  Tommy: I know. There's Hairy Grandma, too. She has so much hair that she used to knit tomato blankets out of it.

  Amy: Throw down the hair!

  Tommy: I know. The baby cuts off Hairy Grandma's hair and ties it to the doorknob and lowers it out the window and he climbs down first. I'm coming down after, but you have to promise not to look up my dress.

  Amy: You said you wouldn't wear dresses.

  Tommy: The Wolf made me. You have to promise.

  Amy: I promise.

  Tom
my: OK, I made it down.

  Amy: Let's hold hands. I don't like the King of Hell anymore. All his friends are dead.

  Tommy: Uh oh, the Wolf came back and ate the baby.

  Amy: Oh, no!

  Tommy: I thought you didn't like the baby!

  Amy: Is the Wolf going to eat us now?

  Tommy: He can't because the baby was poison and he grew into a giant again. The Wolf died.

  Amy: Let's be friends.

  Tommy: OK, but next time I want to be the boy.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Errant Souls

  John Schoffstall

  "Don't play outside on windy days,” Jorge's father said. “Your soul might blow right out of your body."

  But youth is careless, and Jorge was young, so it happened that one dreary evening in November, in the raw, wet time when the etheric winds howl across the heath, Jorge felt his soul tear loose from his flesh.

  Jorge's soul welled up in his throat, ballooning like a spinnaker, choking him, filling his mouth so that he couldn't breathe or speak. It squeezed out of every opening in his frame, through his nostrils, his ears, his sex, blinding and burning him, until he thought he would suffocate. He flapped his hands helplessly and hopped up and down. Tears sprang from his eyes.

  Then, pop! his soul tore free. He glimpsed it momentarily in the near-darkness, a thing pale and translucent. Caught by the wind, in an instant Jorge's soul was carried away, cartwheeling over and over like a pillowcase blown off a clothesline. It caught on a bramble, then on a fence, but broke free each time, until it was lost in the dimness of the approaching night. The cold etheric wind that blows out of the lonely places between the stars tore through Jorge's flesh like a hagfish boring through the body of a cod.

  Jorge ran back to his house and threw open the door, yelling, “Father! Father!"

  Father understood immediately what had happened. “What were you doing outside?” he demanded.

  "Father, my soul is gone, the wind blew it away!"

  "What were you doing outside, when I told you not to go?"

  "Father!"

  "Which way did the wind take it?” Father asked.

  "Toward the wood,” Jorge said.

  Jorge's father put on his long leather coat and took his blunderbuss from above the mantle. He slung a powder flask over his shoulder, and hung a carbide lamp made of iron around his neck. “We will get it back,” he said.

  "Father, what is the gun for?” Jorge asked. His father did not reply. “Father, please don't hurt it,” Jorge said.

  "Why do you care if it is hurt?” his father asked. “A soulless boy cannot love anything, or care for anything."

  They walked east towards the town of Abalia, on the muddy road that passes by the cathedral and the factory. Father walked with determination, his boots squeaking in the mud. He shoved his lagging son forward with the flat of his hand, so that Jorge stumbled several times.

  South of the cathedral and the road, a weedy track entered the wood. Father's carbide lantern swung as he walked. Its light, pale and flickering, multiplied the trees a thousand-fold and made them seem to move. Leaf mould covered the path, releasing the sulfury stench of decay as their boots sank into it.

  Deep in the wood, dense trees stopped the wind and the air was quiet. In an open space they came upon a ruin, tumbled marble columns, broken blocks of pediment and entablature half sunken in moss and weeds. Nave and naos were open to the starry sky; grass forced its way up through their stones. Over this midden a flock of ghostly souls floated and danced. Some chanted thin, mathematical melodies that sounded to Jorge like the clicking of a train's wheels over railroad track. Others engaged in games too complex for him to fathom. Jorge saw his own soul there: its haughty features resembled his. His father approached Jorge's soul, readying his blunderbuss. “Return to my son,” Father said. “You should never have parted from him. Neither of you can survive alone."

  "I am content here,” Jorge's soul said. Its voice was a whisper, an echo, the buzzing of cicadas. “Death is preferable to being joined with Jorge again. I never liked him."

  Father raised the blunderbuss to his shoulder. Jorge heard the click of the sear and the tumbler, and his throat tightened. “Return to my son now,” Father said, “or I will return you to my son's flesh by force."

  Jorge grabbed his father's arm. “No, Father,” he said. “Please don't."

  "You cannot live without a soul, son,” Father said. He lowered his gun. For the first time his voice softened. “Look there. That's the soul of Vinne Grabbe, who drank, and beat his wife, and lost his employment at the factory. These things loosen a man's soul from his frame. Vinne Grabbe was sent to Houses of Correction after he broke a man's skull in a fight. When they released him, he wandered outside in the wind, and his soul blew away. He died of a fever. Do you see how thin his soul has become? It will disappear soon. And look there: that is the soul of Ivy Tabi. She foolishly went out on the heath when the wind was high, and her soul was torn out of her body. Afterwards, she threw herself off the cathedral tower."

  Jorge stared at the soul of Ivy Tabi, who had been just fourteen years old, as he was now. He shivered, but said nothing. Father raised the blunderbuss again. “Join again with my son,” he said to Jorge's soul, “or I will fire, and you will be injured, and I will stuff you back into my son's mouth."

  "I care not,” said the soul.

  Jorge saw his father's finger tighten on the trigger. He leaped, grabbed the gun, and forced the muzzle down. It went off with a roar which deafened him, and the hot blast of black powder from the pan and the touchhole burned his cheek. The shot went harmlessly into the ground. Jorge's soul looked on impassively.

  "Idiot boy,” his father said. He raised his right hand, and Jorge believed Father was going to strike him. But then Father recovered himself, and his hand fell. “Do what you please,” he said. “I have done all that is required of me, and I'm done with you.” He tramped off, away from the ruin, leaving Jorge in starlight with only the souls.

  Jorge said to his soul, “I saved you."

  His soul said, “You did that for yourself, not for me."

  Jorge made his way home by starlight. His footstep was light, and he whistled tunelessly as he walked, quitting only when he approached his house. It was dark inside, his father was abed. He went to his own room, undressed, and crept beneath the cold sheets. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt free. His body felt weightless, and his world full of possibilities. His soul had been something stolid and heavy, a thing of dull piety like his father's, critical and aloof. Now he was free of it. He could do anything. What would he do?

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  Each morning the children marched in single file to school over the lumpy cobblestone streets of Abalia, a hundred boys in gray flannel uniforms, a hundred girls in gray pinafores and starched shirtwaists. One morning, a few days after he lost his soul, Jorge said, “I'm going,” to the boy in front of him, and walked away.

  He wandered the streets of the city for the rest of day. It was more dreary than he remembered: endless narrow alleys that smelled of tobacco smoke and cooked cabbage, dingy stone buildings with mansard roofs that cut off the light, turning every street into a dim slot canyon, making it dusk when it should have been day. He came across a lonely little park with a pond, in which black swans swam listlessly and pecked at each other. Playing hooky, he thought, ought to be more pleasurable.

  He had little appetite, but he was bored, so he bought food from stores anyway, until he realized that it was easier to steal it. Jorge was agile and fast on his feet, and shopkeepers rarely chased him far for the theft of a sweetmeat or a piece of fruit. But in the late afternoon, as the setting sun stained the buildings and streets blood red, the provost marshal and his men saw him and gave chase. When they caught him, the provost's men beat him with their truncheons. They tied his wrists and hobbled his feet, and made him stumble behind the provost's horse all the way back to Jorge's home. Th
ere they called for Jorge's father to come out. When he did, they beat him, too, for having such a feckless and thieving son.

  When they had gone, and his father had recovered a little, he beat Jorge himself with a switch, cursing him all the time.

  Jorge lay in bed that night. Every movement hurt, so he lay perfectly still. Although he was in pain, the beatings meant nothing to him. Pain as punishment is intended to instill fear, but Jorge was beyond fear.

  He would go to classes at the Institute tomorrow. He would not steal again. But these resolves had nothing to do with the beatings. Contrary to his expectations, he had not enjoyed his day of freedom, or the stolen snacks. Jorge found himself beyond fear, but also beyond joy.

  He had not anticipated this. He thought, and thought, and realized that he could not think of anything that would give him pleasure. Not food, nor exercise, nor reading books, nor the warmth of a fire, nor the company of his friends. Jorge could do anything he pleased. But there was nothing he wanted to do.

  Every day at the Institute Jorge received instruction with Abalia's other boys and girls. They sat ranked by age on oak benches, in a hall three stories high where every voice echoed. Hamartiology, Apologetics, Eschatology, Rhetoric, and Polemics were their daily course of study. These subjects flowed together in Jorge's mind like rivers of gray mud. At lunchtime he had no appetite, and frequently gave his food away. During exercise periods he participated as little as the instructors would allow. He never studied. He failed tests. The superintendent of the Institute called Jorge to his office and scolded him, but Jorge paid no attention. He was adrift in a passionless void, untouchable, isolate.

  During mass each Sunday, Jorge stood in line to receive the Host, listening to the crowd cough and gossip while they waited. When it was his turn, he briefly went down on one knee, and the cassocked priest laid on his tongue a sliver of flesh, the body of his Savior. It tasted like raw meat, blood, and fat. For a few minutes, until he chewed and swallowed it, it connected Jorge to the Godhead.

  God and Jorge never had anything to say to one another. Their mystical communion mediated by the scrap of host was more of a mutual embarrassment than anything.

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