California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Buchwald, Norman

Norman Buchwald 
Tongues in Earth 
In soft mud, frogs sleep all winter while 
clouds, bruised by sharp winds, surprise 
the earth with lightning. Below, red lava 
cuts through rocks while unaware and asleep, 
the frogs remain in their cool bed. 
Burned by smoke, their eyes open and throats 
burst as soil lifts them into air, scattering 
into shadows, thick in the mist. Spring 
arrives, and in red clay, traces of tongues 
sprout upwards towards the sky. 


English

Tongues in Earth

Licht, Paula

Two Poems: "The Breeder" and "Souvenirs"

Sandler, Scott

Scott Sandler 
The Lobster House 
You are on your third beer and are searching for Orion's belt or 
the Big Dipper and you momentarily forget about your daughter 
who lies in a bunk bed on the bottom deck, beneath the floorboards. 
Her feelings are hurt, her nose is stuffed up with snot and she has 
been crying. You say we'll talk about this in the morning and you 
mean it at the time, but now that you are on your third beer, wrapped 
up in a shawl, the ocean, and the stars, you forget what it was even 
about, little things, and you have no intention of carrying this into 
the morning. 
This wonderful woman, Melanie, the one from the Lobster 
House, hands you your fourth beer and puts her head on your chest. 
She sings you a song that she learned in the first grade. You 
remember the first line only: "Oh, I was born, one night, one mom, 
when the whistles went BOOM, BOOM." You notice how her 
cheeks puff out like a walrus' on the boom, boom part and laugh out 
loud, saying you will have to teach that to your daughter. She says, 
"It's a nonsense song," and takes the bottle from you with her big 
hands and you remember that this was the first thing you noticed 
about her, were those hands, back when you and your daughter first 
started coming to the Lobster House. They were as big as frisbees, 
you thought, and watched as she stuck them into the lobster tank, 
and how the tank itself seemed to light up when she did this. She 
had snatched one lobster up and held it away from her face like 
smelly diapers. "Here you go," she said, lobster juice dripping from 
78 NORTHRIDGEREVIEW 
her big, frisbee hands. Button on her apron said - ASK ME 
ABOUT OUR PEACH PIE. You remember what you did that 
night, how you locked your door and imagined what it would be like 
to rub lobster juice all over her body, and that moment comes back 
to you now that you are on your fourth beer and she is in your lap, 
and you reach under her skirt and say, "I want to get you off." 
Your daughter leans her elbows on the railing, looking out at 
the water, the wind blows her hair back. You put your hands on her 
shoulder and she won't even look at you. What was it you promised 
her? That it would be just the two of you? That you would get her 
one of those neat wristwatches- the kind where you can tell how 
fast you're running and play Asteroids at the same time? You try 
to remember exactly when it was that she stopped talking to you, 
but you are not thinking hard enough, or you figure she has just 
blown this whole thing out of proportion, and you sing her that song 
of Melanie's, thinking that she will enjoy that boom, boom part, but 
no such luck. 
You feel as though you've hit a wall, where neither of you can 
go any further, so you figure well, maybe Melanie can connect, 
maybe she, being a female and a mother of two ofherown, will be 
able to break through somehow. So, she gives it a shot. She says, 
"O.k., I've got something to show you," and balances five stacks of 
nickels on her elbow, lets her arm fall and catches them without 
effort. Your daughter thrusts out her hand and Melanie drops the 
coins in her palm. Your daughter looks Melanie square in the eye 
and says, "O.k., I've got something to show you," and pulls some 
extra coins out of her own pocket, and one-ups her with six. 
Melanie says, "O.k., I've got something to show you," and seven 
stacks of nickels fly throughout the boat, ricochetting off the 
railing, splashing off into the water. Melanie is on her hands and 
knees picking up the coins, and your daughter, believe it or not, is 
smiling. 
You and your daughter have been to the Lobster House so many 
times that when she pulls her homework out at the dinner table it 
doesn't bother you. She says I have to get it done by tomorrow. You 
watch as Melanie turns late customers away, saying, sorry we're 
closed. She puts chairs upside down, on top of tables. Your 
79 
daughter, meanwhile closes her books, kicks off her shoes, leans 
against the wall, and strikes up a conversation with this ugly, blue 
swordfish mounted above the cash register. She says, "You think 
you've got problems?" She says, "What's it like to be shellacked?" 
You sit out on the deck, wrap your shaw 1 around her shoulders 
and kiss her. You say, "A pretty face is like a Melanie." You say 
"A pretty face is like a melon. A mellow knee. Chief Mellow 
Knee." You say, "A pretty face," and put your hand on her breast 
and smile. You say, "Hey kemo-sabe." 
The three of you drink blackberry wine in the back of the 
Lobster House out of jumbo dixie cups ("No way," Melanie says 
that she's going to do anymore dishes) and you bring up the idea of 
taking this cruise. You have the pamphlet you picked up from the 
travel agent folded in your pocket. You are so drunk, you don't 
remember what the pamphlet looks like; you only remember the 
color blue. Melanie says that she was on a boat once. A whole 
bunch of her friends took her whale watching. She brought her two 
children, the twins, along and they both get sea-sick because they 
have identical tummies. She made them both close their eyes and 
imagine that they belonged to this ocean; they were the dolphins, 
the trout, the hump-backed whales, they were the ocean. She 
learned all about meditation from her first husband, their father, and 
she tells you about how she rubbed their tummies, focused all her 
positive energy in their tummies, and only one of them threw up. 
Maybe it is the wine or maybe it is the way she draws circles in the 
air with her big frisbee hands, but whatever it is, you can't take your 
eyes off her. She says it was a big waste of time anyway, because 
there were no whales that day, even though her friends, who didn't 
like the idea of wasting their money, insisted there were. 
Your daughter has never been on a boat before, but is quick to 
remind you what happened to Gilligan and his friends. She 
recreates the storm that occurs at the beginning of each show by 
shielding her eyes and yelling, "Sploosh." She says that her 
favorite one is where the castaways stumble upon a chest full of 
costumes and movie equipment and go hog-wild. She says that if 
you all go, she wants one of those white hats like Gilligan's got. 
You are the first one to wake up in the morning and you lean 
80 NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
against the railing, watching the sun just hit the ocean and tum it 
into tinfoil. You see quick, darting flashes in the water, and wonder 
if those are fish or not. Your daughter walks right up to your side 
and you wish that she'd put her arm around you or tell you that the 
water looks beautiful or cold or something, but she's standing next 
to you, you can see her freckled face, the tiny puffs of her breath, 
you can hear her blow her nose, and you have to be satisfied with 
that. You almost wish she'd hand you her kleenex as a reminder of 
this moment. Your daughter bounces up and down in her barefeet 
and her LA Rams pajamas and you tell her that she better change 
before she catches cold. As your daughter leaves, Melanie comes 
out, and they both laugh and give each other little pats on the butt, 
as if they were barroom buddies, and you wonder if this has 
something to do with last night when you were stone drunk, and 
Melanie decided to teach your daughter that "boom, boom," song. 
You couldn't hear them, you could just see their puffed out walrus 
cheeks. You could see the stacks of nickels fly into the ocean like 
it was one humongous wishing well. Melanie leans against the 
railing now, and you watch as the wind rolls the hem of her cotton 
skirt around her legs like seaweed. You say, "good morning, 
sleepy-head." 
You are all playing Twister. Your daughter is the designated 
spinner. "Right foot blue," she says and you slide your leg in 
between Melanie's, making her look all out of proportion, the 
three-legged woman. Melanie's really out of it, laughing at 
everything you say, laughing every time your daughter shouts out 
a command- "Right hand yellow," she says and Melanie snorts 
out : "NO WAY," but does it anyway. You are feeling young 
tonight and spread this joy around by letting your daughter finish 
off your beer, without saying anything. She starts on another bottle 
and now your daughter is not even waiting for you to complete your 
moves anymore. She's just whacking at that metal spinner and 
shouting out commands: "right foot red, right hand blue, left hand 
yellow, left foot red." She looks up and Melanie's leg is lifted so 
high, she can see her underwear. You are holding her waist, trying 
to keep her steady. Together you look like the letter Q, but you can't 
hold it too long and soon you topple over. You look up from this 
81 
mat, and your daughter is smiling, the incriminating 
spinner in her hand. Melanie holds her stomach and says, "I don't 
think Twister on a boat is such a smart idea." Then she throws up. 
Your daughter watches Melanie as she prepares the food. She 
is amazed that there are so many ways to serve fish: sauteed in 
butter and garlic, raw, broiled, skewered. Sometimes it comes 
whole: head, tail, and all. But you can always take off the head or 
tail if you want. You can leave in the eyes, or if you so desire, cut 
them out. Melanie does all of this so casually, that she almost seems 
cold-hearted. Your daughter asks her why she can't just leave in the 
eyes, and Melanie says to her, "Honey, a lot of people get spooked 
real easily. They don't want their dinner staring them back," and 
then Melanie goes straight to deboning her salmon, slices it open 
and pulls out pieces as easily as one pulls out coins from their 
pockets. It is too hot in this kitchen for your daughter, so she heads 
off to the front room, to where the cash register and the shellacked 
swordfish are. She focuses all her energy into that swordfish, like 
Melanie had taught her to do. "Pick out one object in the room and 
become that object." And it is working: her back takes on the curve 
of the swordfish, her eyes become black marble, there is a gloss on 
her forehead. It is here, beneath this shellacked swordfish, that she 
comes to realize something, something that she will not be able to 
express to you until she is already a Junior in college and you are 
both stone drunk on beer and blackberry wine: "There are two 
kinds of people in this world," she says, "one who is constantly 
worried about making mistakes: about exposing the film in his 
camera, about overcooking the fish, about losing money through a 
hole in his pocket, about getting holes in his pocket, and there are 
the ones who are perfectly willing to make mistakes, and you know 
what I'm talking about, taking everything so casually that soon 
everything weighs the same and nothing is very important, and it's 
like that fish, shellacked, smoothed over so much, that you almost 
forget it's there." 


The Lobster House

Mathews, Alexandra

Alexandra Mathews 
Cats 
Willful and 
quickassed 
they beat carpet 
with their toepads, 
smooth and pinkish, 
one end of the house 
to the other, 
repeatedly racing 
to beat previous times 
set in the inaccuracy 
of their felonious 
brains 
their adolescent disregard 
falls prey to 
serious feline encounter 
where nothing's sacred. 
Their biting 
seems meaner today, 
their teeth bared barer 
they attack 
like the insignificance 
of a fart 
or as reflexively 
bringing louder mews 
of protest, 
breeding harder nips 
of tougher flesh. 
Emerging pre-lotharios 
not even fuck-conscious 
they dance paw to paw 
and sleep cheek to cheek; 
they nuzzle as they dream. 
Now they lie breathless, 
all bones and no battle, 
drained in their 
shared state of oblivion. 
Borderless fur of 
continuous cat, 
these two romp in a 
drearnscape of 
singular meadow, 
entwined, 
indistinguishable. 
47 


Cats

Sandler, David

David Sandler 
The J erseymaid Ritual 
"Can you hear them? Can you hear the elves?" Molly asks as 
she pours more milk into my bowl. I tilt my head and bring my ear 
down to the bowl. I look up at Molly and she senses that I want her 
next to me. Setting the bottled milk on the kitchen table, she sits 
down in the empty chair beside me, pulling her chair close to mine. 
She tucks her hair behind her ear and lowers it to the bowl so that 
her nose is about two inches from mine as she listens. Raising her 
index finger to her lips she lets me know that silence is required if 
the elves are to respond. 
We stare at each other, heads turned sideways hovering over 
the bowl listening for elves. More accurately we are staring into 
one another, our concentration so intense that for that instant we are 
not two people but one being of singular purpose, and I think I know 
what it must feel like to be an identical twin. 
I see my reflection in her blue eyes, a blue that reminds me of 
the hottest part of a flame. Her strawberry blonde hair reaches the 
top of her shoulders. She has a round face with piercing dimples, 
and her wide smile enlarges her freckles and makes her appear as 
if she's blushing. 
In a whispered voice she begins to tell me about the elves. 
"They live in the cereal. Their magical powers are activated by the 
milk, and that makes it possible for them to talk to one another 
without having to rise to the surface of the bowl. They never get old 
and they never die. They stay young forever. They dance and sing 
and play kid's games, games like Chutes and Ladders and Twister. 
Grown-ups don't believe though ... " 
"Why not?" I interrupt her. 
"Because grown-ups can't hear them," she says. 
"Why not?" I ask again. 
57 
"I don't know," she says shrugging her shoulders. The corners 
of her mouth turn slightly upward, and I can tell that she is amused 
by my questions. 
We become silent again until the silence becomes overwhelm-
ing, and then it happens. I hear them. I hear the elves. They are 
talking to one another in a language I cannot understand, but I can 
hear their laughter. Molly, obviously aware of my discovery, 
whispers, "Snap, Crackle," and then sucks in her lips to make a loud 
slurping sound and lets out a shrill "Pop!" that sends us both into 
bursting laughter. She makes me laugh so hard that tears stream 
down my face, and I have to press my thighs together to keep from 
peeing in my pants. She ruffles my hair with her hands and I am 
grinning stupidly from ear to ear. I never tell her how much I like 
it when she ruffles my hair like that, how the sensation of it makes 
me feel warm and special inside. I never tell my sister Molly how 
much I love her. 
"Can you hear them? Can you hear the elves? ... " 
The stewardess tells us to prepare for landing. I push up my 
food tray and put away the playing cards, upset that I have to ruin 
my game of Solitaire. I buckle myself in and glance out the window 
of the plane. From my window seat I can see the LAX landing strip 
through the smog. 
I look around to locate where the emergency gear is, as if in a 
real emergency I could survive a plane crash with an inflatable 
jacket and some choice oxygen. I hate landings. So many things 
can go wrong with a landing. I hate being in the air. But even more, 
I dread the thought of having to land. It is Molly's birthday and I 
am coming home. 
As the plane prepares to land there is a part of me that hopes the 
plane will crash on the runway. Perhaps the drama of it all will force 
mY parents to take notice of me. Leaning back against the seat I pop 
a cassette into my Sony walkman and squeeze the headphones 
tightly against my ears. Closing my eyes, I press play and tum up 
the volume. "Oobladi. Ooblada ... " 
58 NORTHRIDGEREVIEW 
Waiting for Sammy to arrive, Molly plays hopscotch with her 
best friend, Sharon. Sharon is also in the third grade, and they do 
everything together. The squares are drawn onto the sidewalk with 
colored chalk, and small rocks are used as markers. 
Sammy picks Molly up at the corner bus stop which is directly 
in front of our house. Sammy is the school bus driver and he drives 
the Carpenter Elementary School Bus. His name is not really 
Sammy, but he is one of the few black people I have met and I 
confuse him with Sammy Davis Jr. Molly turns bright red the first 
time I call him Sammy and ask him to sing "Candy Man." 
I wait outside with Molly, Sharon, and some of the other kids 
from the neighborhood for the school bus. Even though I am too 
young to ride the bus, mom says I can wait outside with Molly as 
long as I promise not to step off the curb and Molly promises to 
watch over me. 
While Molly is playing hopscotch, I pace back and forth with 
great caution along the sidewalk, pretending that the cracks are 
hair-triggers and that stepping on one would set off the explosives 
that are buried beneath the street. I keep my head down, looking 
towards the ground, trying to keep a steady, sometimes rhythmic 
cadence between the cracks. 
The bus is very loud and nobody has to see the bus to know that 
it is coming. The dusty orange bus pulls up in front of our house. 
The doors pull in and everyone begins climbing the steps and 
heading towards the back. I wave wildly, excited to see Sammy. 
"Hi Sammy," I holler, and Molly rolls her eyes looking to Sammy 
as if to ask for forgiveness for her stupid brother. Sammy smiles at 
Molly and lays his hand on her shoulder. He waves back to me and 
says, "Have a good day, Ace," and then the doors close. 
Molly lowers the window to wave goodbye to me, and tells me 
to have a good day at Kindergarten. The bus takes off and at that 
moment I wish I were on it. As the bus heads down the street, 
Molly's waving hand is still visible in the window. I follow the bus 
down the street until it turns the comer leaving a ghost of exhaust 
fumes. As I walk back inside the house I imagine Molly waving to 
me from the bus window all the way to school. 
59 
The plane lowers itself to the runway for a safe landing. 
Passengers get out of their seats, pick out their baggage from the 
baggage overhang, and wait in line to exit the plane. I tum up the 
volume of my walkman. When everyone has left the plane, I am 
still sitting at my window seat; the last occupant on board. 
Sometimes I think I think too much, and other times I know I 
do. It is at these times, when thoughts become overwhelming, that 
I tune out, become numb, refuse to contemplate my present exis-
tence. One way of doing this is to think about Molly. I wonder if 
I could stop thinking of her even if I tried. I am afraid that if I stop 
thinking of her, I will forget what she was like, and then all I will 
have are aging memories based on a single photograph. It's ironic 
how the truly special moments can't be appreciated until some time 
has passed, and once time has passed you can never fully capture 
the same moment twice. 
When I'm not thinking of Molly, I often imagine how my life 
would have turned out under different circumstances. What if I 
were an only child, or the oldest child? What if I had the same 
mother but a different father, or a different mother but the same 
father, or different parents altogether? What ifl had been raised by 
a band of gypsies, or brought up in a traveling carny surrounded by 
side show freaks? What if I were a giant or a hobbit, or a feral child 
living in the jungle? 
I don't want to leave my seat. I am breathing rapidly; my heart 
is beating at a crazed rate. My temples are pulsating and I feel a 
migraine coming on. 
Finally I force myself up from my seat and I retrieve my duffle 
bag from the overhang. Walking down the aisle of the plane, I feel 
like I'm walking in slow motion on a tread mill floor. I walk 
through the terminal and I see my father waiting for me. He looks 
at his wrist watch and extends his arm to show me the time, 
expressing disapproval at my lateness. 
Molly. Sammy doesn't bring Molly home today. I want to 
believe that she just missed her bus, but already my head is dizzy 
with another truth, and I cry. My parents tum towards me and look 
away as I look up, their faces tear-streaked, their eyes full of panic. 
60 NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
"We don't know anything definite yet," they tell me and they 
send me into another room, any other room, because they know that 
as long as I am in the same room with them, they are in the same 
room with something definite. 
I choose to go to Molly's room because that is the only way I 
can think of to feel connected with her. I shut the door behind me 
and stand against it. I slide down to the bedroom floor and strain 
to hear the conversation in the kitchen where the detective stands 
with my parents. At the same time, I want to put my hands over my 
ears. If I can't hear what is being said, then it won't be true. 
Molly has been abducted from school. The detective assigned 
to Molly's case explains that Molly was seen in front of the 
playground being shoved into the back seat of a white cadillac, 
which then sped down the main road. The detective assures my 
parents that he will do everything in his power to find Molly. 
I crack open the door to seem y dad standing in the comer of the 
kitchen with his back turned to us. His back is shaking up and down. 
My mom is pacing the floor, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She 
walks by the kitchen table and knocks over a bottle of milk. The 
bottle falls to the floor and shatters. My dad and the detective tum 
around, startled by the crash, but my mom doesn't seem aware of 
what has happened. On the floor shards of glass are floating in a 
pool of white. 
The detective requests a photograph of Molly to circulate 
around the neighborhood. Dad pulls his wallet out of his pants 
pocket and removes a photograph from its plastic sleeve. The 
photograph is of Molly and me standing in front of our garage, arms 
around each other. Molly has on a pair of canary yellow overalls 
and a white tee shirt; I am wearing brown corduroys and a blue O.P. 
surf shirt. Molly flashes an exaggerated smile for the camera, while 
I squint into the sun. Dad takes a pair of scissors out of a kitchen 
drawer, and before I know it, he takes the scissors to the photograph 
and I am cut out. The detective holds the image of Molly, still in 
my embrace, in his hands. 
I remember how I felt the day of Molly's disappearance, but 
other memories become cloudy, fragmented. I am like a t.v. with 
bad reception. 
61 
We are sitting at the dining room table for the Passover seder. 
Molly sits next to mom, and I sit across from Molly, next to Dad. 
Dad is telling the story of Passover, about the plagues that G-d cast 
upon the Egyptians. Dad says that the Jewish people took the blood 
from the sacrificial lamb and applied the blood to their dam-posts. 
He explains that this was so that the Angel of Death would know 
which houses to pass over in order to kill only the Egyptian first 
born sons. 
I see Molly stirring around uncomfortably in her chair. She 
shakes her legs nervously beneath the table. It feels as if the whole 
room is shaking. 
"I don't understand," she says. "If G-d knows everything then 
why doesn't he know which houses to pass over without us having 
to kill a lamb?" 
"Ours is not to question G-d, Molly. G-d has his reasons for 
everything," dad says not looking up from his haggadah. 
He reads: "Behold the hand of the Eternal will be against the 
cattle that is in the field, against the horses, the donkeys, the camels, 
the oxen and the sheep, a very grievous plague ... " 
Molly interrupts, "But I don't understand," she pleads and her 
voice is shaking as her lips begin to quiver. "Why do the children 
and the animals have to suffer for something they didn't do?'' 
My dad's voice is harsh ashe snaps at my mom, "Will you talk 
to your daughter?" 
My mom moves her seat closer to Molly and gets right up in her 
face and says, "Dear, if you keep talking like this, G-d will cast a 
plague on you!" 
Molly's lips are quivering something awful now, and tears 
stream down her face. She looks in my direction as if asking for 
help. Finally she whines, "But I don't...," and my mom slaps the 
question out of her. Mom slaps her so hard that she leaves a red 
imprint of her hand on Molly's face. Molly turns towards me with 
a glazed look of confusion and fear on her face. Since the day Molly 
was abducted I sometimes see the same expression on my own face 
when I pass a mirror. 
62 NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
The photograph of Molly appears on the back of a Carnation 
milk carton. Soon after that my mom stops buying milk from glass 
bottles, and only buys the milk that comes in cartons at the grocery 
store. The photo of Molly is grainy, black and white. Above the 
picture the caption reads: "Have you seen this child?" and below 
the picture a toll free number is given to call. Mom bought ten 
cartons of milk the first morning that the photograph appeared on 
the carton. 
I remove the scissors from the kitchen drawer and cut the 
photograph of Molly from the carton. I fmd myself cutting the 
photographs of all the missing children from the backs of the 
cartons. 
I am the detective from the Carnation Detective Agency. My 
H.Q. is at home in my bedroom and I work undercover. I hide the 
photographs of the missing children in an old shoe box, which I tuck 
underneath my bed with my coloring books. I search everywhere 
for the missing children. I search in grocery stores, restaurants, and 
the shopping malls. I can't fmd the children anywhere, and in the 
back of my mind, I often wonder if they are all together like the Lost 
Boys of Never Never Land, and a part of me is envious. 
I start riding the Carpenter Elementary School bus. Sammy 
doesn't drive the bus anymore. The driver is some old lady who 
dyes her hair a different color every other week. I walk towards the 
back of the bus and sit alone by the window. The boys, who are 
sitting around me, are looking through their baseball cards, talking 
trades and swaps. I take out the shoe box with the photographs of 
the missing children from my pack and I begin looking through 
them, strategically planning out the best way to conduct my search. 
One of the boys comes up to me and asks me ifl wantto trade cards. 
I tell him that I can't, and he gives me a puzzled look and returns 
to his seat. I don't bother trying to explain to him; he would never 
understand. No one could. 
I am standing on the step ladder in the kitchen, twisting crepe 
paper and taping it to the ceiling. All day, in preparation for this 
birthday party, I have been blowing up balloons, putting bows on 
63 
all the stuffed animals that can't be wrapped, and rewrapping 
presents that have accumulated over the years. 
The photograph of Molly, in her canary yellow overalls, is 
situated in the center of the table like a shrine, and is surrounded by 
gardenias that my mother has brought in from the garden. My 
parents have distorted the photograph, and I can't help thinking that 
there is something about these parties that, like the photograph, are 
not honest. 
I don't know why I keep coming back year after year to 
celebrate Molly's birthday. At first I thought my parents celebrated 
her birthday out of some sense of hope that Molly would return. 
And if she had returned on her birthday, then she would see thatthey 
hadn't forgotten her. 
Eventually, I begin to realize what this birthday really is: an 
annual funeral. And like any funeral, it is not for the dead but for 
the living, not for Molly but for my parents. My mother and father 
need to convince themselves that they are good parents, that they 
were good parents to Molly when she was at home and this is how 
they prove this to themselves. 
Father brings in the familiar chocolate cake, with the red script 
that reads: "Happy Birthday Molly." Nine candles are lit around 
the border for the nine years of age she would have been before she 
was taken away from us. We sing 'Happy Birthday' and let the 
candles bum themselves out. We tum our chairs around, like we 
always do, to face the door and sit in silence waiting for Molly to 
walk into the room. 
"I wonder if Sharon will come by?" my mom asks no one in 
particular. 
"Mother," I say. "Sharon hasn't been around for the past fifteen 
years." But she is oblivious to what I am trying to tell her, and she 
looks back at the door. 
The silence is too much. I can't take the smothering silence a 
moment longer. I'm tired. I'm tired of sitting her waiting vigil. 
I tum around and see, lying on the chair next to mine, the old 
shoe box with the photographs of the missing children, and I 
wonder who took the box out from under my bed. I open up the shoe 
box and inside I am surprised to find brand new black tap shoes. I 
look curiously at the tap shoes and put them on my feet. The fit is 
64 NORTHRIIXJE REVffiW 
perfect and I now know what I must do. I get up and stand in front 
of my parents. The music starts and I begin to tap. 
BOOM BOOM CHAKA LAKA LAKA BOOM 
I tap and tap, brushing foot back and forth, shuffling my feet, 
stepping right, left, right, left. My feet are tapping out rhythm to the 
music. I am tapping fifty taps in five seconds. Hop, shuffle, hop, 
shuffle, heel, slap, shuffle, tap, tap, tap. 
BOOM BOOM CHAKA LAKA BOOM BOOM 
My parents still don't notice me. They stare right through me. 
I jump up on the kitchen table in front of them. I begin doing 
forward flips, backward flips, cartwheels, somersaults, and I come 
out tapping. I reach into my pants pocket and fmd it full of sand. 
I sprinkle the sand onto the table and begin tapping out a soft shoe. 
Slide, slide, shuffle, shuffle, slide. My dad reaches across the table 
and plucks the photograph from the center of the table which is now 
beside my moving feet; it seems as though he is going to reach right 
through me. I am swinging my arms frantically, and I have broken 
into a sweat. I throw myself down on my knees and slide the 
distance of the table, through the sand and the gardenias and the 
birthday cake, with my arms extended out. And that's when the 
music stops, and the dance is over. 
I look to my parents and they are silent. They don't seem to see 
me. All of a sudden, I hear faint clapping from behind me. I tum 
around towards the direction of the door, and I am staring into total 
darkness. 
"They can't hear you," Molly says emerging from the darkness 
dressed in her canary yellow overalls and white tee shirt. I see my 
reflection in her blue eyes, and her strawberry-blonde hair covers 
her ears. She is just as I remember her. 
"They never get old and they never die," I say. "They stay 
young forever. Grown-ups don't believe though ... " 
"Why not?" she interrupts me. 
"Because grown-ups can't hear?'' I answer. 
"Why not?" she asks again. 
"Because they don't take the time to listen," I tell her, and then 
65 
we both burst out laughing. We laugh so hard that tears stream 
down our faces, and our laughter echoes throughout the house. 
She ruffles my hair with her hand and I am grinning stupidly 
from ear to ear. 
"I like it when you ruffle my hair like that," I tell her. 
"I know," Molly says. 
I embrace my sister, and we are frozen in the moment. 
"I love you Molly," I whisper in her ear, and she pulls me closer 
to her. 


The Jerseymaid Ritual

Schulz, Hart

Hart Schulz 
Driving Home Alone 
"the stars trembled like a telescope in an earthquake" 
- Richard Brautigan 
Driving Home Alone came out struggling to be a poem. But 
who can ever say what will really happen? What he got was a sharp 
slap in the ass to set him right. So Driving Home Alone started out 
to be a crusty, grumpy character. He had to learn the resignation 
that living brings. Now he's alright. 
I first met Driving Home Alone on the highway stuck in a 
canyon between the towns ofWalker and Bridgeport. He had been 
walking on the road out of Walker and was heading for the bridge 
in Bridgeport. The little bridge over water flowing like a strap of 
leather with silver studs. It was June and snow was folding over, 
turning brown, and dying. Snow was running down mountains like 
naked Indians. 
I decided to name Driving Home Alone Lee Melon after my old 
friend Richard Brautigan, the famous writer whom I met in a 
market in San Jose in 1966. He made a thumbs-up gesture with his 
fist. Then he said, "excuse me" and angled by me toward Canned 
Foods. This was the only conversation we ever had. But we 
became the best of friends. I wonder if the old Trout Fisherman 
appreciated the irony of angling by me. So I named Driving Home 
Alone Lee Melon after Brautigan' s character all bundled up inside 
a book I had been reading in the back of the truck. Lee Melon was 
a dead man stuck between the pages of an out-of-print-of-print 
book. If the police had pulled me over, they would have found the 
dead body in the back of my truck. 
74 NORTHRIIXJE REVIEW 
"May I see your license, sir?" Then they would look in the bed 
and see the book and the dead body of Lee Melon. They would look 
at Lee Melon like people look at bums in bus stations. 
I could have dropped the book in the snow and it would have 
buried itself in the heat of Lee Melon's passion like a fiery casket. 
I think Brautigan was a visionary writer because he made that 
thumbs-up gesture in San Jose in 1966. So I named Driving Home 
Alone after the dead and buried and out-of-print Lee Melon. 
Just past the town of Lee Vining 8 cinder cones came up in our 
window and looked inside. This is volcano country, I told Driving 
Home Alone, and I told him my story about how Mammoth 
Mountain would blow up like St. Helen's and it wouldn't matterif 
you skied ornot. Nothing would matter forthatmatter. But Driving 
Home Alone would have none of it and just stared with an eyeless 
look on his face. For a guy who never says anything, he sure knows 
a lot. The kind of guy where if he did finally say something you'd 
probably say, "What do you mean by that, Driving Home Alone?" 
For a guy who doesn't say anything, you have to hand it to him. 
When you're pulling at your head and screaming, "I just wish this 
fucking road would slow down under my wheels!" you'd look over 
to your side and there'd be Driving Home Alone. 
The best part about the trip was stopping along the way at 
Convict Lake. There we were, me and Driving Home Alone, 
standing on a log looking over Convict Lake in the High Sierra. 
"Look, there's Driving Home Alone and another guy," Convict 
Lake might have whispered between little lines of wind waves. We 
looked just like a photograph at my girlfriend's house. The 
photograph doesn't fit in the little brass frame on top of the 
refrigerator. When I go over there on tuesday it looks matted with 
corrugated cardboard on the bottom and on one side. Then on 
thursday the matting has moved to the top and the other side. The 
picture is too small and the frame is too big. It is a photograph of 
her and her husband at Convict Lake, but she says it's not Convict 
Lake. Sometime between tuesday and thursday the two of them 
step sideways and down like they are dancing very, very slowly. 
Her husband is in fact a convict. Or he would have been if he had 
gone to jail for growing pot in his bedroom. The police received an 
75 
anonymous phone tip and busted him, almost making him a 
convict. The lake is mountain water imprisoned by the Ice Age. 
It wouldn't surprise us if it wasn't Driving Home Alone who 
placed the call. 
"Hello, police? This is an anonymous call 
on the Neighborhood-Watch-Watts line." 
"Yes?" 
"There's a man growing pot in his bedroom, a 
husband." 
"Thank you, sir. We'll get on it right away." 
When we got down to the desert it rained cats and dogs. The 
cats would hit first and just sit there dazed and purring in the carpet 
of sand. Then the dogs would hit and the cats would come to and 
there'd be a frenzy of cats and dogs two feet off the ground, a ball 
that would explode and disappear in the desert heat. Without 
leaving a trace. The heat had come to the party early and was just 
standing around like a rude relative and feasting on cat and dog hors 
d'oeuvres. The heat spit out some left-over fur all over the gravity-
stricken carpet and it shimmered like a mirage. The sand is a 
prisoner of gravity, filling the place with convicts. The desert was 
ready for summer but summer was busy chasing brown Indians out 
of the mountains. 
**** 
We slept in the back of the truck in the desert and watched my 
little portable black and white TV and a Joshua tree behind it. The 
Joshua entertained us during commercials, waving at me and 
Dxiving Home Alone with many of its furry hands. The rain 
stopped and the moon was gathering up evidence of the sun. Every 
time Driving Home Alone rolled over the moon bounced like a 
tctherball. By the next morning the moon had gathered so much 
76 NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
evidence that me and Driving Home Alone could be sure the sun 
was real. Case closed. 
When we finally got home over the hill and into the San 
Fernando Valley, the stars trembled like a mirror in a thunderstonn. 
Each star representing a coincidence. 
Lee Melon/Lee Vining 
Cinder conesN olcano Story 
Convict Lake/Pot Growing Convict 
The book in the back/The fact that Driving Home Alone 
of the truck turned out to be a story 
Even though I'd named Driving Home Alone Lee Melon, I hadn't 
once called him Lee Melon. The pages of the book wiggled and 
bent up at the edges in the back of the truck. They looked as 
weathered as the face of Richard Brautigan in 1966. Lee Melon is 
dead. So is Richard Brautigan. And I had to resign myself to the 
fact that Lee Melon and Driving Home Alone really are the same 
person. That if me and Lee Melon and Richard Brautigan and 
Driving Home Alone were sitting around a campfire at night in the 
desert, there'd only be three guys there. 
Maybe even two. Or one. 


Driving Home Alone

Rivera, Andrew

52 NORTIIRIDGE REVIEW 
Andrew Rivera 
When Morning Comes 
It was the crying that finally woke John. Not because of the 
noise, he could barely hear it, but because of its difference. It was 
crying unlike anything he'd ever heard before, not the angry 
sobbing that Mary used when she was too upset to speak, or the 
anguished wailing she used to denote sorrow. It was quiet, resigned 
and tired, and it was the closest thing to weeping that John had ever 
heard. 
The noise had slowly seeped into his head, and before he knew 
it John was wide awake, moving his leg into Mary's part of the bed 
to be sure she wasn't there. It was a pointless movement, done 
mostly out of habit. The noise was coming out of the empty 
bedroom. 
This surprised John. Before when their child had cried, it was 
not his screaming that had awakened John, but Mary's movement 
as she got out of bed to comfort him. That night, however, things 
had worked in the opposite manner, and he had slept as Mary crept 
out of bed, only to have her weeping wake him. For a moment John 
wondered what he should do. Should he go to her, or should he roll 
over and go back to sleep? If he went to her he would be unable to 
do anything constructive, he knew that, and would end up standing 
over her, watching her, and he had to go to work in the morning. She 
knew that. The clock by the bed read two a.m. After a few moments 
he rose and shivered, then picked up a pair of shorts and a t-shirt 
from the floor and put them on. 
All this time the quiet crying had kept on. John followed the 
noise, through the door of their bedroom, down the short hallway 
towards the empty bedroom. It was a slightly chilly, fall night, and 
as he walked down the moon-lit hallway he was gratefully aware of 
the deep-pile carpet. Mary had insisted on it, and though he had 
53 
been sorry to see the wood floors go, he had to admit that the carpet 
was wanner. He also knew that it masked the sound of his feet, and 
he cleared his throat to let Mary know he was coming. The quiet 
noise stayed quiet, even as he moved closer to the source. 
At the door John paused and cleared his throat again, but Mary 
didn't seem to notice. She was sitting on the floor with her knees 
drawn up to her chin, her anns clasped around her legs, her t-shirt 
pulled over the top of her knees and her face down. John stood for 
a moment, uncertain of what to do, then walked quietly into the 
room, ducking under a Sesame Street mobile as he did so. Mary still 
didn't look up, she just kept on crying quietly, and John stood over 
her, still unsure of what to do. For a moment he felt as if he were 
pulling away from her, from himself, and he noticed the way her 
shoulder blades stood up under the thin t -shirt, the way her hair 
curled at the back of her neck, and it seemed to him as if she were 
someone that he didn't know, let alone the woman he'd made a child 
with. 
Much later John would remember that moment, that fleeting 
vision of Mary as a stranger, as the moment at which he realized that 
he didn 'tlove her. It wasn't that he didn't care about her, he did, but 
he didn't love her, and caring is nothing like loving. He wouldn't 
remember it as the moment love had died, simply as the moment he 
realized it was gone. And though he would go on living with her, 
making love to her, caring for her, he would never forget that 
moment. 
"Love," he told his brother, once, years later, while they were 
drunk. "Love is like a child." He paused, partially out of shame, and 
partially to be sure of what he was saying. "As soon as it is born, 
it begins to die." John finnly believed this, and he loved his brother, 
and everyone else in the bar, as he said it. 
Mary's shoulders shook with the quiet power of her sobs, and 
John reached down and began to pat her softly on the back. For a 
while Mary continued to cry, and John continued to pat, and Mary's 
crying got quieter, and softer, until the only way that John could tell 
she was still crying was through the vibration of her back. Finally 
even that stopped, and John turned his pat into a small circle that 
54 NORTIIRIDGE REVIEW 
encompassed the area between her shoulder blades. 
"I didn't mean to wake you," she said. 
"I know," John said, and below them they heard the refrigerator 
begin to hum. It must be early, he thought, and then wondered why. 
"I just woke up, and I felt like coming inhere," she said, without 
moving from the position she was in. "I don't know why." She 
sniffed and looked around. John pulled off his t-shirt and handed it 
to her, and she blew her nose. He was grateful that she had moved. 
"Do you miss him?" he asked. 
"All the time," she said, and she lowered her head back onto her 
knees. "For a while I used to wake up and think I heard him crying, 
and before I remembered I'd be half-way out of bed. But then I just 
went back to sleep. This was the first time I came in here." 
"And you saw the crib?" John said, trying to be helpful. Mary 
had been the one that found him, while he'd been at work, and John 
had always felt a little bit guilty about that. He also felt guilty, and 
a little bit oafish, about how quickly he'd gotten over the loss. 
"Yes," she said. 
"And you cried." 
"No," she said. "I mean, I cried when I saw the crib, but it wasn't 
because of the crib. I cried because I felt nothing." 
"I don't understand," John said, and he stopped circling Mary's 
back. He half expected her to reach back and grab his hand, but 
when she didn't he stood up straight and wrapped his arms around 
himself. 
"I just felt so empty," she said, not moving. "I cried because I 
knew it was just going to go on, and I'm going to become my 
mother, and you're going to become your father, and our children, 
if we have more, are going to become us. That's why I cried." 
John didn't say anything. He walked to the window and looked 
at the backyard. There was a single tree, and John had held Todd 
at that same window and had pointed at the tree, promising to build 
him a tree-house. It was a big tree, and it would have held a good-
sized tree-house. 
"I'll be all right in the morning," Mary said from behind him. 
John still didn't move. He heard Mary rise, heard her knee-
joints crack, and heard her pad quietly behind him. 
"It will be all right in the morning," he said. 


When Morning Comes

Frickman, Jennifer

56 
Saints Poem 
For twenty cents, 
lady saints trapped on holy cards 
roll their eyes to the finnament. 
Everywhere, the sunset 
a pale stream oflight 
squeezed between grey clouds. 
Saint Lucy holds her eyes on a dish, 
Jennifer Frickman 
Saint Agatha proffers her breast on a platter, 
Saint Cecilia holds frozen fingers 
over a phantom keyboard. 
We expect so much from saints: 
Women must be cunning, renewable virgins, 
men, willing, human sacrifices. 
We expect our saints to hang forever 
in gold edged, Victorian picture planes. 
Mary, mother of Jesus, eternally mournful, 
never thought she'd see him crucified so many times. 
What kind of loving God expects 
any mother to put up with that ? 
Believers want blood. 
Parochial school girls eye St. Sebastian cautiously. 
Torn between two trees, his attenuated 
limbs ooze blood from tiny wounds. 
Arrows draw the viewer back again and 
again to plump, sweating limbs: 
to perfect classical proportions 
confined by strained rope. 
We expect so much from saints. 
Within their tortured expressions 
lie the fettered hopes of multitudes. 
For twenty cents the pictorial essence 
of Christianity can be possessed 
by any school child. 
Role models don't come easily these days. 
Twenty cents, 
not a lot to pay for a martyr. 


Saints Poem

Wood, Eve E.M.

Two Poems: "The Relationship" and "Upon Reading Thomas Mann\u27s Death in Venice"

Allen, Blair H.

28 
Blair H. Allen 
When Visions Boil Away to Residue 
Alchemist of current alann 
You scramble 
At the orders of calendars 
Quicken to clocks 
Tick -talking blur of hands 
Stirring hours 
Days as if in cauldrons of questions 
Boiling centuries 
Pour in the pyramids of El Giza 
Pour in the Taj Mahal 
Pour in the gardens 
Hanging with the condemned in Babylon 
Pour in the crumbling 
Acropolis of our ancient souls 
Pour in the ruins of Rome 
And Stonehenge 
Pour in the giant Buddha 
Statues of Asia 
Pour in Shinto temples too 
Pour in the resonance of temple bells 
Twilight swelling with incense 
White gold swallowing turquoise sky 
The cauldron empties its dust 
Reflects desert mirage 
Thrusting steel and glass towers 
In modem cities 


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