Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 18 Read online

[Back to Table of Contents]

  Two Notes

  1. LCRW comes out twice a year. Should you wish a third issue, please send us a check for $500. That issue will be the Your-Name-Here Issue. It will also be numbered for our simpler editors.

  2. A new literary award. We believe everyone is special (even those people who don't read—or write for—LCRW, but this award is not for them). Here is the press release: June 2006, Northampton, MA. LCRW and Small Beer announces The Eponymous Award, given to all writers on publication in LCRW of their writing. So, Bob Smith has been awarded the Bob Smith Award for Fiction Writing. Jane Smith has been awarded the Nonfiction Award. D.K. Smith has been awarded the Poetry Award. You get the idea.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Crimson-lady at the Auction, Buying

  Jeannette Westwood

  She was my baby sister. I sold her, two years ago, to a friend. I already had seven younger sisters. Seven is enough, and I like seven better than eight.

  I also wanted to auction off the next littlest, but the others wouldn't agree, even if I mentioned that we might get a brother. I wanted a brother, a boy to talk to, especially if he wasn't related to me. That would have been best.

  This friend I sold my baby sister to at the auction—her name was Lily-white, and she had no sisters. We used to run together, feet slapping on sidewalk. Everyone said we were so fast, so pretty as we ran. When she left, she said that she would love my baby-sister as if she was a real sister.

  I think my baby sister's name was Caramel-honey, but I haven't talked to my friend Lily-white for a long while so I can't remember.

  When it was my turn at the auction, I stepped onto the platform and cradled my sister and bounced her so that she hiccuped and smiled. The crowd sighed. There was an old man who really wanted her, but my friend Lily-white wanted her more, and the old man finally switched from yelling numbers to yelling curses.

  I was relieved; he hadn't seemed like a very nice man, but one of those funny people you sometimes see at auctions. They always end up in jail for something. I think they're called perverts, but I'm not sure. It's not something I can really ask anyone.

  * * * *

  He was my brother. I might have bought him, or maybe not. I'm not sure, I don't really fix all the details about this.

  He was my age, maybe a year older. He had pretty hair, and he liked to run. We raced around the block together, once Lily-white had gone for some other place. He always comes into my life after Lily-white has left, because if he had met Lily-white then he never would have liked me.

  A few years after he became my brother I turned sixteen. We were best friends by then. I told him about how boys still remembered Lily-white and wouldn't notice me, even though people had always said how we were so fast, how we were so pretty.

  We were together one day. All seven sisters had gone to an auction with someone, I wasn't sure who. We were sitting on the couch, legs sprawled on the coffee table. All I could hear was breathing, his and mine, so loud.

  I wondered what kissing was like, sitting next to my brother, alone in the house. I told him this, broke the silence. He laughed. I knew what I wanted to say but I wasn't sure if I really wanted to say it. I forced the words out. My brother agreed, and I practiced. He had done it before, but I hadn't. His lips were soft, and his fingers stroked my neck and face.

  My brother and I enjoyed this practice. We did it often. After a long run, after a short sprint, on rooftops, in auctions, everywhere.

  Sometimes I wondered what Lily-white was doing, but he was so wonderful that I dismissed her. I didn't even want to buy a second brother.

  We loved each other for a while. We lived together above the auction at the cross streets. If we climbed out a window we could twirl and run across rooftops and play kissing games.

  * * * *

  I was myself, Crimson-lady, that runner-girl, that child whom people said had to grow up oh-so-quickly. Lonely too, with seven sisters, but all so young, so cute. If only, people said, if only something else had happened, if only....

  They never finished their sentences, and I never finished them either.

  * * * *

  She was my sister, and she visited me one day so many years later. Her name really was Caramel-honey, and I wanted nothing to do with her. She was Lily-white—Lily-white, my friend who stole everything from me when I was young.

  He was my brother, and he bought me one day. I didn't even know, but he had asked my sisters, so I was sold. He told me that he was afraid I'd leave him, and I told him that I'd never do that. He kissed me then. He didn't know I'd been planning, planning to leave, to look for Lily-white and figure out why she always found love and not me.

  I spent nights with him, running, talking, kissing. Every day he said he loved me and I said the same. I hoped that maybe if I said it enough I could make it true.

  * * * *

  You were one of those many things I bought at the auctions. I told you all this, told you everything, even more than I told my brother. I told you all the possible names of my brother, who I would sell my sisters to, if I could; my theories as to why men stared at me, but not boys.

  You hated listening, but pretended you didn't mind and I believed you. When I found out I cursed you and hated you, but again you convinced me, and again I believed you.

  You were my love, but I couldn't kiss you. You were just never completely there. For a while I used to visit auctions to see if I could find something that would make you completely here, but there wasn't anything and I gave up, but still loved you.

  At night, maybe under a moon and stars, I imagined you as you might have been. I made up a new version of my life, I made up many different versions of my life. Some were dramas, some thrillers, some romances. And others just strange. I like strange, like how I like seven a lot better than eight.

  At night, I created new rules for everything.

  If love could be eaten, I'd marinate chicken with it, have love and avocado sandwiches, carbonate it and drink it like a soda.

  At night, I imagined how Lily-white would transfer her powers to me, and suddenly I'd be just like her except even better. Or I redefined love, redefined how it would be demonstrated and how I would know it was for real.

  At night, I made up an ideal person, how I wanted my love to be for real. I saw later that my ideal love was my ideal slave, so caring, so obedient, interested in everything that interested me and so much more.

  I told you all this, all this imagining. You laughed, but I still dreamed. My brother would roll over next to me in bed and kiss me, and I would embrace him, pretending it was you.

  I came home one day from an auction. I thought my brother was out, so I talked, to myself and to you. I talked about how love was nothing; I had finally thought to look for it at the auctions, but it only came in human containers. Love, I said, was not so wonderful. If I couldn't buy it, it couldn't have much worth.

  I said, I wish you were really here. I know you would be my love.

  My brother heard all this. My brother owned me, and he, the one who had kissed me and said I love you, didn't love me anymore. I laughed when he stalked out from his room because his anger made all my theories of love reality.

  I told my brother this too, and mocked him because I had found out first. I told him I loved you, but that you could never be mine. I told him how I loved to dream of you, how my true love would be.

  My brother slapped me, and took me to an auction.

  * * * *

  I was Crimson-lady, that woman-girl who stood on the auction platform dressed in blood-red silks that streamed in the breeze. I fetched a high price. A young man bought me, staring and mumbling as he took my hand. He said he loved me, had loved me the moment I stepped onto the auction platform. I smiled back at him, but said nothing.

  I kissed my brother good-bye. He kissed me back, and I smiled inside because now he thought he loved me again and wished he had never sold me.

  I left him then, wondering
if my sisters would want to buy me back, and if my buyer would want to sell.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Zines & Bookesque Objects

  For the Clerisy—Good Words for Readers. This zine has been going for years. This issue is Brant's second abcedary. He reads widely and writes about whatever catches his interest—from FHM magazine's Sexiest Women Poll to Oz to Interregional conflict, there's both a lot of good reading and a lot of good direction for future reading. $1?, #67, Letter-sized. c/o Brant Kresovich, PO Box 404, Getzville, NY 14068-0404

  Leeking Ink. This is a zines which illustrates what zines can be. Davida looks back at her first ten years of making zines (she's also responsible for the review zine Xerography Debt) and provides a commentary on each of the previous issues. It's a hugely enjoyable issue and it's also great to read a zine that is ongoing even in the face of big life changes. $2, #30, 1/2-letter. Davida Gypsy Grier, PO Box 11064, Baltimore, MD 21212

  An Inside Job (Dream Comics). Listening to other people's dreams (like the plural or omniscient voice) can be incredibly boring and unpleasant making the listener (or reader) want to gnaw off an appendage—their's or the teller's. Hob's are different. While there's no sense to some of them, most of the tales here are plotted and have a narrative energy to pull the reader through. Beautiful cover and a lovely range of drawing styles within. $4, #3, 1/2-letter. Graphesthesia, PO Box 40697, San Francisco, CA 94140

  Make Something: An Anthology of Portland Zinesters. This was put together a couple of years ago by the Independent Publishing Resource Center in Portland, OR, but I didn't pick it up until recently at International Books in Chapel Hill, NC. (Great little bookshop, worth dropping by to see the handmade zines—and counter-culture zines and just a few blocks from the Cat's Cradle, a good place to see a show.) It's a wide-ranging anthology of writing, comics, and cut'n'paste stuff. $5, 1/2-letter. POB 12409, Portland, OR 97212 or microcosmpublishing.com

  Nation Full of Caesers by Scott Creney and The Sad Meal: Poems by DJ Dolack. These two issues of the zine are mini-collections of modern poetry published by the EFAI collection which is based in Brooklyn and Asheville and also distributed by blackocean.org. The first is letter, the second is a beautiful little 1/4-letter book. Poetry is hard to review, so go look at the website below and order a few issues. $6, Eye for an Iris #'s 12+15. eyeforaniris.com

  The Giant Squid in Holiday Hijinx. This is an early tip for your 2006 (or, if you read this zine after that date, insert-year-here) Christmas list from the people behind Poor Mojo's Almanac(k). The Giant Squid is Poor Mojo's Dear Aunt Gwenda (among other things) and takes on questions such as: Does Santa exist? Would he burn up in the atmosphere at the speeds he'd have to travel to reach all those kids? Get a copy for any friends with squid or wacky leanings at poormojo.org.

  100 Best Scottish Books of All Time. Start your pub arguments early and often with this near-comprehensive listing of novels, plays, poetry and short story collections. In a nice chance, the books are organized alpha by title. Also includes a second hundred books, short bios of the authors, and many break-out reviews by authors of some of the books they most enjoy. This sent by a friend from the Scottish festival in New York City in April—aka Tartan Day—an amazing event which was invented out of whole (plaid) cloth and is growing every year. See if you can get a copy at list.co.uk

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  At Uncle Ogden's House

  Fred Coppersmith

  There is nothing under the stairs. I don't know why you keep making me repeat myself like this. There are no monsters. There are no bodies. There are no secret passages that lead to long-forgotten corners of the house where we have hidden away Uncle Ogden's magic books. There is nothing but a crate of old plumbing supplies, some dog-eared issues of National Geographic, and a faint but lingering smell, which in its distant youth might have been fondly thought of as mildew.

  There is nothing in the attic. You know why I can't let you go up there. It isn't safe. You could trip. You could fall. You could swallow unhealthy pink specks of insulation. There is nothing secret up there in the dark. There is no pirate's gold, no treasure map, no magic mirror that, should you gaze into it long enough, will reveal your heart's most true and deep desire. There is just the dust, the dark, and some old tax returns from Uncle Ogden, who you know quite well never worked a day of his life in the circus.

  There is nothing out back in the tool shed. There are rusty tools strewn about the floor, that's all. It isn't safe for you to play in there. Besides which, it's cold outside, and you could catch your death. No, not with a net. Uncle Ogden never caught Death with a net. I don't care if that's what he told you. He never kept the Grim Reaper tied up in the tool shed. There wouldn't be enough room. There are no hidden doors, no trolls beneath the floor, no mystic portals leading to another world of strange and secret islands of Uncle Ogden's mad design. There are just the rakes, a shovel, some rusty nails, and a pair of gardening shears that no one can ever seem to pry open.

  There is nothing in the basement. You know perfectly well why we keep that door locked. There are no hidden tunnels beneath the house. There is no broken time machine leaning again the furnace. There are just some books stacked in boxes in a corner, an old computer that never worked, and most of all a missing stair that Uncle Ogden never fixed. Your mother would be quite upset if you ran down there and got yourself hurt. There are no ghosts moaning in the basement, and the knock you heard against the door was just the wind.

  No, you cannot go to the moon. Now you are just being difficult. Only astronauts can go to the moon. Uncle Ogden was never an astronaut. There is no rocket ship buried beneath the back lawn, and there is no alien plot to keep you locked inside the house all day. I cannot help it that it is cold outside. Your mother promised us you would behave. The moon is made out of rock, not cheese, and it is a hard, dead, gray and lonely place. Is that really where you want to go?

  Well I don't care. Uncle Ogden lied when he said he could draw you a map. He's never even been out of town. If you can't play quietly, then maybe you should go do your homework. Algebra isn't going to figure itself out, you know. Anyway, it's almost five o'clock and time for dinner. Once Uncle Ogden finishes building his robot army and chases down the last of the Martian ghosts that got loose last week when the sink exploded, we can all just—

  What? Oh, don't look so surprised. You never asked me if there was anything happening in the kitchen.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  A Message from the Welcomer

  Michael Emmons

  Welcome, wayfarer. We hope you enjoy your stay in our lands. Whether you remain for a few moments or for the rest of your life, to help you adjust to life among our tribe, I have prepared the following guide to our history and customs. Please refer back to it as needed.

  * * * *

  Many foreigners call my tribe the Bird-Eaters, among other indelicate epithets. We call such foreigners the Fools. Among ourselves, we are simply the tribe, or, since we walk in the day as animals and birds walk in the night, we are the Day.

  * * * *

  Every member of the Day follows a calling, a compulsion unshakable. Before I became the Welcomer, I was a mountain tamer. I drove a silver-plated sports utility vehicle to the tops of mountains and monoliths to tame their wildness, to render them impotent.

  Since my mother's death, my father has worked as a circle artist. He has spent every day of his adult life blindfolded, lying on his side in city squares with a chunk of charcoal in his hand, drawing perfect circles within perfect circles, his arm barely moving, his concentration adamantine. In this way he shows us perfection; he hallows our tribe.

  My mother was a raincatcher. When I was seven, a troupe of Fool skeptics came to disparage the exercises she performed to increase her yield of water. She challenged one of them to a contest—the foreigner would stand in a storm with her jug aloft and unmoving, while my mother ran and leapt, smelling the ions in the air, the algae in the rain,
thrusting her jeroboam skyward. By the time the Fool had filled her first jug, my mother had begun to fill her fifth.

  * * * *

  In my tribe we eat every bird we can charm from its daytime sleep, except for ravens. Ravens eat the eyes of other birds. Ravens learn the secrets of the other birds that way, they swallow the memories of flight and squabble written on the undersides. If we ate ravens, we would learn the other birds’ secrets, and they would never forgive us.

  * * * *

  In our tribe, nothing is more beautiful than the golden coil of a French horn. Nothing is more hideous than a radio tower on a hill, its red cyclopean eye scarring the serenity of the night, undoing its meaning. If the night is meaningless, the Day is irrelevant. And if you are carrying either object with you, keep it out of sight. I would not have my people overcome.

  * * * *

  My tribe loves some games: footraces, Mumble-dee-peg, Ringolevio, and horseshoes. Our least favorite game is Truth-or-Dare—our secrets are our own. We hate Lite-Brite and soccer. Etch-a-Sketch is an abomination; it is impossible to use it to create a perfect circle. Twister is too important to be played for simple amusement; it should be played only after political debates, to ensure amity between both sides. We are a hands-and-arms, legs-and-feet people.

  * * * *

  A house is a part of a person's body here, an enormous, immobile skull. The windows are the eyes, the door the mouth. One should never have light shining through the windows, as it suggests rage within the house and within the mind of its owner. And one should never exit the house improperly dressed; it makes a curse of you, it is the ethical equivalent of screaming obscenities into baby carriages. The windsocks that hang from either side of every house are the ears—avoid gossip, for your words will be stored in the tunnels and whorls of your enemies’ windsocks, and later used against you.

  * * * *

  My people's favorite writer is Mickey Spillane. You call him hard-boiled, we call him zero-gravity. You call him pulp, we call him a burning kite. You call him antiquated, we call him the poetry sung by the soldiers who fight at the world's ending. We consider Shakespeare to be a fine stylist, but he means far too much to you to mean anything to us.