California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Coleman, Bobbie R.

Danny\u27s Birthday

Sandler, Scott

Scott Sandler 
Neighbors 
I guess the most curious thing about him is his eyes. It's the 
only thing Pam and I don't agree upon. The lids go way down. Past 
the pupils-like they're half asleep. So, it's hard to see exactly what 
color they are . I say his eyes are dead like the lids. I think they're 
a cold brown like two dirty pennies. Pam says I'm wrong. She says 
if he looks directly at you, they're like flashbulbs. They take your 
picture. Pam's never seen him late at night but she bet me that they 
glow in the dark. 
The rest of it we both agree on. He sits all day at the bus 
stop outside the Fotomat but he never catches a bus. He wears an 
olive green raincoat and occasionally puts up the hood. He never 
talks. He wears a Swiss watch but he never gives out the time and 
no one asks him for it. 
Pam says maybe he's related to the lady at the Fotomat. 
She's got droopy lids too. "Maybe it's some hereditary thing," she 
says, "only he got the worst of it." Pam dares me to ask her and I 
do. 
The lady stops thumbing through the pictures, turns and 
looks at me like she's insulted. She says she's never seen him 
NEIGHBORS 37 
before. 
I cup my hand around my mouth and whisper to her, 
"Aren't you scared? He's weird. He talks to himself. He looks 
down at his watch all the time. I see his lips move. He looks just 
like he's waiting for a bomb to go off or something." 
She spits as she talks. "Well, maybe I'm a little scared. I 
don't know. I mean, I'm all alone here and who knows what a guy 
will do when he's all junked up." 
"How do you know he's all junked up," I ask her. 
"You can just tell," she says. 
The next day, Pam and I skip Mr. Darnell's Horticulture 
class and we hang out at the old elementary school. At the school, 
I tell Pam the lady's theory and Pam tells me that the lady doesn't 
know what she's talking about. She bites into a peanut-butter­
cream cheese-banana sandwich and says, "You don't really buy 
that crap, do you?" 
"Where do you think he got that watch? You think maybe 
he traded some junk for it." 
"He's not a doper," she says, rolling the sticky pieces of 
banana on her tongue. "Maybe the watch is a present or maybe he 
worlced for it, you don't know." She sounds mad. Pam pulls out a 
twinkie from a brown sack, tears open the plastic with her teeth and 
gives me half. The playground is pretty quiet, except for a bunch 
of kids behind us playing White Duck, Yellow Duck. A kid with 
greasy hair walks around the circle-white duck, white duck, 
yellow duck. He slaps his hand down hard on someone' s head and 
Pam and I watch them chase each other. No one else seems to notice 
us. No one seems to know about this guy either, or at least no one 
else talks about him. I look at Pam and it's like it's our secret. 
He is wearing his hood, even though the sun is out. A girl 
in a plaid skirt and darlc braids sits at the opposite end of the bench 
38 NORTHRIOOE REVIEW 
and is pretending not to notice him. Pam and I sit across the street, 
looking out the Fatburger window and we see he is counting to 
himself. We also notice that he is holding in his hand a grape soda. 
His hands are wrapped tight around the bottle and then he lifts it up 
and swirls it around like a beaker full of chemicals. He lifts it up 
higher and for a minute I think he's making a toast. If his lids open 
up, he can probably see the sun change the purple color into pink. 
Pam is tapping on the tabletop. 
"How do you think he got that soda," I ask Pam. "You think 
he actually got up from that bench and walked all the way down to 
the liquor store by himself." 
"No, he never leaves that spot," Pam says. 
For a moment there is silence, a gap. No one talks. Pam's 
just chewing and I'm looking at her chew. I'm looking at her hair 
and how the sun turns it a burnt orange. I'm looking at the peach 
colored strap that slips off her freckled shoulder. She makes noises 
as she chews. She looks up at me and I've got nothing to say. I come 
up with, "Well, maybe we should meet this guy . . .  say hi, or 
something." 
Pam looks up at me and smiles. 
It was Pam's idea that we write him a letter and she did the 
writing because her printing is better. In the letter we ask him 
questions like what his name is and where he lives. Pam tells me 
she came up with the idea, so I have to give him the letter. I say I 
don't want to. She says one of us has to. 
"What if he's junked up," I say. 
"He's not," she says and hands me the sheet of paper. 
The piece of paper is in my hand, folded up four ways. I 
cross the street. I am hoping that my sweaty palms don't smudge 
NEIGHBORS 39 
the ink and then I say to myself, well, maybe it would be better if 
he can't read it. I edge over to the bench and I see the lady from the 
Fotomat. Her grey head fills up the space in the window and she's 
looking at me. This is the closest I've ever been to this guy. His 
hood is down and I see his matted black hair. I sit down on the bench 
next to him. I see the initials V.I. stitched with light green thread 
in his collar. He's looking down at the sidewalk and the dead lids 
make him look asleep. My heart's beating fast. I ask him for the 
time and he doesn't answer. He just continues to look down at the 
sidewalk. I ask him again if he knows the time. He still doesn't say 
anything, only this time he holds out his arm. I look at the dark 
band, at the Roman Numerals and then I slip the paper in his out­
stretched hand. As he looks up, I look down. Now, I'm like him, 
looking down at the sidewalk. 
This is the exact letter he reads: 
Dear Sir, 
We've noticed you for a long while now 
and we would like to meet you. We were wondering if maybe you 
could tell us your name so we would know what to call you when 
we pass by. We're also curious about if you live around here. 
Maybe we're neighbors. That would be neat. My dad works at the 
Van De Kamps down the street and if you want we could get you 
some free desserts. 
Yours Truly, 
Pam Shatp and 
Joseph McAuley 
I look up at the man and am looking for an expression on 
his face. The man sticks the note in his pocket. 
"My name is Joseph," I say and hold out my hand. 
The man's thin frame bends down and picks up the grape 
soda bottle. He holds his head back and drinks the last few drops 
40 NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
of the, now, hot juice. He coughs and then in a deep hoarse voice 
whispers, "Leave me alone." I look across the street and see Pam 
staring out the Fatburger window. I stand up and slowly cross 
towards her. I hear a rumbling behind me, a screech and when I tum 
around he is gone. The bus is turning down the comer and all I see 
now is the thick cloud of black exhaust fumes. 
Pam's mother honks the hom and I get into the back of the 
Sedan. Pam rides shotgun. Pam doesn't say it, but she hates me. 
She looks at me and in her head she is yelling. She is yelling at me. 
Saying how could you have let him get away. Pam's mother is 
adjusting her rear view mirror and is humming along with the tune 
that is on the radio. It is dark outside and I look up at the moon. It 
crowns the Fotomat, Fatburger and the entire city. When Mrs. 
Sharp pulls out onto the road, the moon follows. The moon turns 
with every tum of the road. It disappears every now and then behind 
a building or a billboard, but it always reappears. 
I picture him. He is on the bus, holding on to the metal bar 
in front of him. He is sitting alone. The bus is fairly empty. He 
looks out the window and behind the blank face and dead lids, he 
is looking at the same moon and for that moment we are connected. 
Pam turns around and says, "Did you at least see what color 
his eyes were?" 
I shrug my shoulders and mouth the word, "No." 
"Whose eyes? " says her mother above the music. 
"No one, " Pam says and turns up the radio. 


English

Neighbors

Scheibel, Patti

Two Poems: "Submersion" and "Meat"

Hirsch, Adria

Adria Hirsch 
Tuesdays for Zuma 
I want to go back 
to when a fast cool wind 
swept over our 
sunburnt, sea salt 
legs dangling 
like a lazy dog's tongue 
out of the back window 
of your mom's stationwagon. 
Another Tuesday in 
a green ship 
winding down Kanan Canyon 
to stop at the fruit and 
nut stand, 
roll our tongues 
like waves 
over sweet grapes 
and munch peanuts 
with the shells still on. 
I have been feeling 
more like the 
sandcrabs that would 
wriggle over our knuckles, 
our cartwheels­
footprints to handprints 
that went out with 
the fading whitewash. 


Tuesdays for Zuma

Patti Scheibel 
Not Another Apology 
My memory leaked out 
Like oil spots on the road somewhere 
Between Sunset and 3rd. 
Someone must be waiting 
But a woman like me 
Is dangerous behind the wheel; 
I might forget where I'm going, 
I might forget what I'm doing, 
I may drive on 
As far as this road goes 
Never seeing the exits 
Just following those broken yellow lines 
Windows down 
Night air and the 
Steady hum 
Of the engine 
No me 
Just the hum 


Not Another Apology

Skinner, Brian

Saxo p h o n e  
Brian Skinn er 
I n  a dry season 
In a dry city 
Under the s i lence 
of d ry 
wh itewashed skies, 
we l isten 
for the bubb l ing 
of  the saxophone. 
I n  a sound less place 
In  a desert 
that g lares 
In a desert 
that waits, 
its mouth is  a cool 
fountain gush ing; 
we c lose our eyes 
and wash 
our ears in the soft 
swi r l ing waters 
of its song. 
On a dead n ight  
Under dead stars 
we l ie  in the sand 
and d ream 
of underwater worlds 
wi ld and sym phonic 
beneath us, and l isten 
for the bubbl ing 
of  the saxophone. 
71 


Saxophone

Jones, Jordan

I am Aski ng You to Trust 
My Memory-Wheel 
1. 
The i nterior of my ear 
hurts in pulses, memories 
of you r  explanations for lateness, 
each ti me more i nventive. 
jordan jones 
You began with flat ti res and cracked pots, I could bel ieve it .  
Then that stray cat along the shou lder you had to catc h .  
It scratched you .  Where was the scratch ?  Where was the cat? 
Next, I thought, al iens wi l l  be stopping traffic 
for smog i nspections and Rorschach tests. 
2. 
Each t ime you lie you displace me. 
I am a refugee wandering a strange country 
sifting a dark new language. You have your  wheel and clay 
I have the heat of your k i l n .  I w i l l  keep your  letters 
and pottery, the sleek l i nes of you r  flat hands, 
thei r  enthusiasm . Don't worry about my memory 
and don't send me letters when you're gone. 
I m ust be alone in a room with my own wheel 
turn ing a bust of you out of wet fresh memories. 
If you arrive as you are now, not were then, 
even on paper, my fingers may poke through the eyes 
and form a ghoul of you i nstead of who I remember. 
6 


I am Asking You to Trust My Memory-Wheel

Comenas, Cathy

The N ight Agnes Caught F i re 
Cathy Comenas 
After work at the bra factory 
and a blood thick steak 
Agnes and Mari, twins from birth 
sat on yellow vinyl rec l iners 
in front of a black and wh ite Merv G riffin 
Agnes smoked a Marl boro 
complai ned about being thirty, 
the daisies she gave her supervisor Al ice 
wi lting two days later 
and E l ke Sommers' husband 
not letting E lke race the Ital ian G rand Prix 
She talked about how Mari don't need no man 
to take care of her 
Agnes would do that for her 
Mari thought about dying her hair blonde 
los ing weight, how she wi shed she were married 
but couldn't leave Agnes all alone 
and the two Mars bars in the refrigerator 
During a commercial break 
Agnes put on her new pajamas 
wh i le Mari retrieved the Mars bars 
The candy anchored in her stomach 
Agnes lit a Marl boro 
but th is  time her pajamas seemed to explode 
as she jumped u p  from a burning recl i ner 
she screamed that she was on fire 
ran out the front door i nto the street 
Mari beh ind her yel l i ng for help 
she couldn't put her s ister out 
27 


The Night Agnes Caught Fire

Review, Northridge

Kem Nunn: 
An Interview 
Mona Houghton 
K
ern Nunn is a young writer whose novel, Tapping the 
Source, published in 1984, was nominated for the 
American Book Award, best first novel. He holds a 
Masters of Fine Arts from the University of California, Irvine. 
He has also taught creative writing at that same university. 
Currently Kern Nunn is working full time on his second novel. 
15 
Houghton/Kern Nunn: An Interview 
Northridge Review: In Tapping the Source you accurately 
capture a certain Southern California essence. Are you from 
here? 
Kern Nunn: I grew up out in Claremont, but I've been living 
in Huntington Beach for the last couple of years and in this 
immediate area, counting off a year in New York, for the last 
ten years. 
NR: You were raised with television and fUm. Do you think 
this has affected your writing style? 
KN: Everyone has to be affected by the mass media these 
days. In a way I view it as an updated version of the oral 
tradition when people sat around and told stories to each other. 
Television and movies have filled that void. Watching them is 
one way we pick up on story now. 
NR: Do you think movies and television affect your writing 
style - the visual aspects of1.t? / 
KN: I don't know. I get asked that a lot. It's hard to dissect 
one's writing on that level - in terms of what has influenced 
what. I like movies, but I like..fo read too. 
NR: In the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Carolyn See said 
your "parents" include Hammett, Chandler, and James Cain. 
Did they play a big part in your development as a writer? 
KN: I like Chandler and Hammett, and James M. Cain to a 
lesser degree. But the book that has made a big difference to 
me is Dog Soldiers, by Robert Stone. It's a book that is not 
squarely in a genre and yet when you read it you can't help 
but hear the voices of Chandler and Hammett and some of 
those people kicking around in there. It is a hard boiled novel 
with a fast paced plot, yet it is a novel of ideas at the same 
time. When I read Dog Soldiers I was impressed by that par­
ticular combination. What I am getting at is, Tapping the Source 
does owe something to the Chandler/Hammett genre, in terms 
of its shape and structure, but, like Dog Soldiers, it, too, is a 
book of ideas. I did not sit down and think - I want to write 
a mystery in the tradition of Chandler, no, I didn't do that. I 
was more interested in doing a novel in the slightly nearer 
tradition of the California hard boiled novels - like Dog Soldiers 
or another book called Cutter and Bone, by Newton Thornburg. 
NR: Do you have any writing rituals? 
16 
NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
KN: I am a believer in sitting down at the same time each day. 
NR: Which is what time? 
KN: Usually in the late morning. I like to work in the middle 
of the day. 
NR: For hours and hours? 
KN: I rarely work for more than two hours at a time. I might 
sit down late in the day for another one or two hours. It depends. 
Certain stages of a book lend themselves to longer work periods. 
Other stages tend to burn you out in an hour. 
NR: Did Tapping the Source start out as a plot or as a character 
or characters? 
KN: It started out in three different places at once, really. One 
day I was sitting in Oakley Hall's office and he said he heard 
something that might interest me, and he went on to tell me a 
story about these guys and a girl who get caught smuggling 
drugs across the Mexican border and the guys end up giving 
the girl to the cops in exchange for their freedom. So, I had 
this set up in mind. At the same time I ran into this young 
jailbird of a kid on a construction job I was on. He had just 
gotten out of jail. He was about seventeen or eighteen years 
old. Anyway, he had been living at the beach with this middle 
aged, drug dealing, biker guy who liked to get laid by young 
girls. The kid's job was to hang out at the pier and pick up girls 
and bring them back to the apartment. The biker supported 
him for doing this. If the jailbird kid failed to bring girls home, 
no matter the reason, the biker would punch him out. So this 
story was kicking around in my head along with the Mexico 
connection. Then I started to think about what would happen 
if the girl who disappeared in Mexico had a brother who found 
out she'd gone south and had never come back What would 
he do about it? I had been looking for a way to write about 
Southern California and the surfing scene in a way that hadn't 
been done before. These ideas began to take shape together. 
So, I guess you could say it was a combination of both plot 
and character. 
NR: What do you think of plot - as a novelist? What role 
does it play in your writing? 
KN: I think of plot as metaphor. 
17 
Houghton/Kern Nunn: An lnteruiew 
NR: What about style? What is your advice to beginning writers 
on this subject? 
KN: Do it the way it feels right. I don't have any elaborate 
theories on the subject. I just try to hit something that feels right. 
NR: Are you conscious of that thing you are trying to hit? 
KN: Basically when I write all I am conscious of is a certain 
rhythm, a certain flow. I've heard other people say much more 
academic things about how they structure their sentences. I 
have to admit that l only have a certain rhythm in mind and I 
work (or that rhythm and if it seems like I'm on . . .  fine. I don't 
dissect the language much more than that. 
NR: Your title, Tapping the Source, promises such romance. 
Why did you suddenly relate it to drugs? Why did you sully 
the romantic image? 
KN: I like the reverberations I found in the triple meaning. I 
think within the fictional world of the novel it still has a romantic 
significance. Ike does fall in love with the ocean and with com­
muning with nature. And then you find out that Hound and 
Preston attached themselves to the saying because it was an 
"in" joke, because it had a drug significance. Then there is also 
the idea kicking around in there somewhere that the source is 
'self' in some way, that people choose themselves, for the good 
or for the bad. This is what Ike finally grasps - this idea of 
choice. 
NR: Hound Adams. There is some truth to his view of the 
world and of morality, yet he is such a villian. How do you 
resolve this kind of character? 
KN: Well, he's also not much of a thinker. He's this guy who 
mouths a lot of ideas he's heard, but really has no ideas of his 
own. He's like a guy who has read a lot of Carlos Castaneda. 
He Is smart enough to know there should be just enough truth 
in his philosophic mutterlngs in order for him to be seductive 
to the people he wants to attract. Yet, when examined, none 
of it is reaJly accurate. He is always saying people make their 
own truth, and people choose their own values for good or for 
evil, which is true up to a point. But then Hound is connected 
to Milo Trax who in turn is connected to people who kill other 
people. We all know that isn ' t  right, no matter what you say 
about good and evil being different sides of the same coin, or 
18 
NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
about a person being able to choose his own values. There are 
certain places where the line is drawn. 
NR: Why did you choose to allow Hound to be so appealing? 
KN: When you write I think the more you get into characters 
the more you try to find reasons for liking them yourself. And 
so I like to think, in spite of Hound's big sin and all that he has 
become involved in, that there are still vestiges of the man he 
should have been. That is why Hound is still courageous. 
NR: Why is Hound Adams celibate? 
KN: I like the moment when Michelle tells Ike she hasn't been 
getting in on with Hound. Because Ike is still in doubt as to 
who Hound is, this confuses the issue even further. So, I like 
it for that reason in terms of the nuts and bolts of putting the 
story together. And later, there is a hint that Milo and Hound 
might be homosexuals, which I thought of, on Hound's part 
anyway, as part of his trying to thwart convention, a Castaneda 
sort of thing. To become a man of wisdom, you have to unlearn 
conventional things, and one of the ways you unlearn them is 
to participate in various rights of passage. 
NR: Does Hound believe he is becoming wiser or does he 
know he is a very evil man? 
KN: Hound has really gone crazy. There are times when he 
believes his own rap. There are other times when he sees 
himself as real screwed up. 
NR: So many sexual issues in the novel are dealt with even­
handedly and without judgement - Gordon coming on to his 
teenage niece, Ike's incestuous tendencies, Ike's total immor­
ality and infidelity - that I must admit I was taken aback by 
Ike's very callus and puritanical view of the young women he 
procures for Hound Adams. Why does he view them so harshly? 
KN: I think that connects to the 'coming of age' issue in the 
novel. How to conduct yourself in the world, and more speci­
fically, how to conduct yourself sexually, is one of the things 
you have to figure out at some point. Ike has come out of a 
background where he has no experience with people. He's 
only had his grandmother who preached the puritanical line to 
him. When he lands in Huntington Beach and there are people 
in his life for the first time, he has to interact with these people 
and try and figure out what to make of it all. 
19 
Houghton/Kern Nunn: An Interview 
NR: But why does he judge the women so harshly? 
KN: Well, he eventually judges himself harshly too. Before, he 
had romanticized sex. All of a sudden he's around these girls 
who make a joke about the romanticism. Ike finds himself with 
these people who are screwing one another for all the wrong 
reasons. He is torn. There used to be something romantic about 
it and now there isn't. 
NR: Ike becomes very jaded in the story. Does he, or can he, 
redeem himself? 
KN: I like to believe in a world where redemption is at least 
possible. Redemption through love. So the answer is yes. He 
is a redeemed person. He has come of age. 
NR: Why did you stop short of showing us exactly what Hound 
does with the porno films? 
KN: If I had it all to do over again I might even cut some of 
that out. The idea I was working with, in terms of plot, is Milo's 
story. I've thought about it since and have come to the conclu­
sion that I wouldn't  have Hound making the porno movies. It 
seems corny to me now. 
NR: I didn't think it was corny. It was disconcerting that Ike 
never reacted to being in them. 
KN: Well, you see, I wanted a certain amount of open-ended­
ness in the story, a certain amount of ambiguity in the end of 
the book. The classic detective novel ends when the detective 
tells everyone what happened. Basically, I didn't want one 
character in Tapping the Source saying - now here's what 
happened. Instead, I wanted certain issues to remain unresol­
ved, to let some things stay in the air. My original intention was 
to leave it more open-ended than it is, but my editor said I had 
to satisfy reader expectation. 
NR: Speaking of reader expectation, does Hound die in the 
end? 
KN: Yes. I figured Preston blew everyone off - a convenient 
way to end a book. 
NR: In your novel the idea of "paying back favors" is a strong 
theme. Do you think people pay back favors in order to make 
20 
NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
themselves feel good or because one must do what must be 
done, as in Preston's case? 
KN: Dick Blackburn, who did a piece on the book for L.A. 
Style, noticed that the romanticism of the book came out of 
the western tradition rather than the "Chandleresqueness" of 
the Californian novel. That was the first time anyone mentioned 
that but I think it is there. It is some of the source. If Chandler 
and Hammett were influential in the shape of the novel, then 
I think some of those Sam Peckinpah films, like Ride the High 
Country and The Wild Bunch, also influenced me a lot. The 
plots in those films revolve around the western tradition of strict 
codes. You owe someone, you pay them back. 
NR: Hound has perverted that. 
KN: Yes, overall, but still, he opens the gate for Preston and 
Ike that night at the ranch because he owes Preston one. 
NR: What about Preston? 
KN: Preston has pronounced judgement on the whole scene. 
It is all rotten. 
NR: Including himself. 
KN: Yeah- including himself. 
NR: You are so explicit in your descriptions, at grabbing hold 
of the action and diving the reader Into it headfirst. Why didn't 
you take your audience through the scene where he Samoans 
torture Preston? 
KN: That is a funny kind of choice you make as a writer. You've 
got the chance for another action scene, or you have the chance 
for a dramatic moment. In the case with the Samoans I went 
for the dramatic moment, hoping it would be a dramatic 
moment for the reader as well. I wanted the reader to be with 
Ike when he is in the hospital and he looks down the corridor 
and he sees Barbara and these bikers and he and the reader 
both think at the same time - oh no, something terrible has 
happened. It is a decision. You skip the event so you can have 
the moment of realization, on the part of the character and the 
reader. 
NR: Did you ever write the scene, just to see it? 
21 
Houghton/Kern Nunn: An Interview 
KN: No. I pretty much knew how I wanted it to work. 
NR: You paint a bleak picture of the 'family. ' Does this have 
to do with your vision of California or of the condition of the 
American family? 
KN: Mine is a bleak vision in general. The family gets sucked 
into that. I tend to see it as a fallen world, a world without 
grace. Maybe redemption is possible through love in some way, 
maybe grace is possible. Maybe it can be realized, but it cannot 
be taken for granted. 
NR: All the kids in your book have been victimized by their 
parents. 
KN: I wasn't consciously thinking of making a statement about 
family. Rather, I wanted the core of the book to reflect my own 
vision. 
NR: However Barbara, Michelle and Ike all go back to their 
families, to recuperate, despite the abuse that drove them from 
these homes. 
KN: That is true. 
NR: What about evil? 
KN: I think there is a fundamentalist point of view - Ike's 
grandmother is the spokeswoman for it - which identifies cer­
tain things as being evil. If you have an incestuous relationship, 
or even incestuous thoughts, you are evil. For Ike, Hound's 
vision plays against this because Hound says that's bulls hit. If 
you want to have an incestuous relationship, and you both 
have a good time with it, then what's wrong with it? And what 
Ike has to begin to see is that, in this instance, maybe Hound 
is closer to the truth than the grandmother. But Hound might 
take some girl out and cut her throat and, because it happened, 
well, she must have wanted it to. It was her karma. Finally Ike 
begins to see that people must operate under a situation ethics. 
For Ike there is his grandmother on one end of the spectrum 
and Hound at the other. 
NR: Where does Preston fit into this scheme? 
KN: Preston is between Ike and the grandmother. He is con­
vinced redemption is not possible for himself. 
22 
NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
NR: Why does he think that? 
KN: Because he cannot forgive himself for the fact that Janet 
Adams died. He holds himself responsible. He was a golden 
boy type. He had charisma. But he couldn't live with the fact 
that someone had died. That was unacceptable to him. 
NR: Did he do what his preacher-father would have wanted 
him to do? 
KN: Yeah, essentially. He passed judgement on himself, and 
his life since then has been an extended suicide. 
NR: You have used tattoos repeatedly and symbolically. I'm 
intrigued by tattoos myself. What do they mean to you? 
KN: Preston afflicts himself with tattoos. Ike does it for the same 
reason. They consciously deface themselves. They have that 
same meaning to me. I also like the idea that Ike takes his place 
in a certain echelon of society, among the poor white trash to 
which he belongs by birth. He claims his birthright by getting 
a really big, dumb tattoo. 
NR: Do you have a tattoo? 
KN: No. But I've come close a couple of times in the past, 
when I'd had too much to drink. 
NR: If you did have a tattoo what would it be? 
KN: I don't know. At this point I like to think that I would never 
get one, but if I did, it would be for similar reasons as Ike's. 
NR: The climax, in action and plot, is an occult gathering of 
very rich and amoral people. Are you making a point about 
decadence? 
KN: It was basically a case of trying to figure out what could 
be really evil. And the idea of people being killed ritualistically 
seems to me to be the worst. 
NR: Was it a comment on wealth or the wealthy at all? 
KN: Not really. What I wanted was something terribly bad. The 
occult seemed believable. I've read things that indicate this sort 
of thing goes on in those kinds of places. 
23 


Kem Nunn: An Interview

The Way Home 
Drunk again 
on my way home 
her face spins in car wheels 
as night turns to morning 
a light rain makes the air ripple 
I think it's her 
so I slide the bus window open 
stick my face out 
and catch her 
on my tongue. 


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