California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Hite, Laura

The C lock  Struck 
Laura Hite 
The room is dark. The l ights are off and the sun is dropping in the 
sky against the wh ite of the wal l .  The sun fal ls, and the room turns 
black. It twists black. Did you hear me? I said it twists black, and my 
m ind twists black with it. I feel it in  round dark eyes that refuse to 
stop. The curtains don't move because there's no wind.  It's hot and 
there's no sound.  I'm sitting here on an old grey sofa watching 
darkness twist on .  A l l  the l ights off. 
I ' m  je l lo head . My m i nd a raspberry mold that sits on Thanksgiv­
ing d inner tables waiting to be digested . Every few moments we 
add more water to my sloshing red pai l .  My brain i s  5 9  celebrati ng 
funerals every weekend, cel l u lar destruction . 
The room grows darker. The l ights off. The room is smal l and gets 
smaller and twists. The old grey couch bleeds styrofoam where 
scissors are stabbed in its stomach.  The chair in the corner l ies 
against its broken leg. A dead plant seeps from the sides of its 
cracked shel l .  The l ights are off and no one who breathes, but me, 
sees or feels .  
B ut the ground was so c lose. I su pposed I was smal l .  Defi n itely 
smal l .  And I laid in the dark t i l l  you hoisted me up .  And we peed on 
a d i rt road, and took shots of vodka and l i me at the bar. Your  
questions flew into an empty cup I ann ih i lated with my fist which 
bled a red entrance star which they stamped on my thigh which I 
washed off during my a . m .  bath . I scrubbed with oatmeal soap. 
Morn ing poked a blunt puncture. I sti l l  cou ldn't stand. I was sure 
my teeth were fal l ing out so I looked in the mi rror. I was too young 
to see you there. 
Across from the old grey couch i s  the m i rror. I can see its length 
from where I sit, and my face in the dark mapped by your  tracks. I 
reach over the arm of the couch, pick up the clock and hurl  it at the 
wal l .  The hardness wh im pers. The hands are dead at one o'clock. 
Your face broken. 
12 
Hite!The Clock Struck 
And we took turns on the nitrous tank.  It was like, I could see my 
face from another point of view: the twisted thick smile, the large 
nose, the face with sunken eyes, and the past, and my face, and my 
eyes, and you ,  and if I cou ld see your face again I'd cut it with a 
knife and pop out molasses-colored eyes like burnt bread stuck in a 
toaster . . .  but I 'm only a worn woman eating the dust of memor­
ies. Licking yel lowed thoughts. 
And the room is always darker. I have a splitting headache. I 
think I 'm atomic. I feel like I 'm going to fal l .  B ut not as bad as 
yesterday. I 'm complacent. They've pl ugged me into a typewriter, 
but what they didn't know is that my parts are defective and my 
warranty expired. I continual ly type periods . . . . .  
Dark-eyed man, I used to own a cel l  of your  company stock, and 
every so often it went off like a slot machine in Vegas and I thought I 
was going to hit the jackpot. B ut it never came. Al l  in my imagina­
tion, perhaps? I lost a l l  my money. 
Now the c lock's broken. I 'm scared. I try to revert to egg form . 
My plates and glasses are a l l  smashed against the wal l  next to the 
mirror.And my stuffed friends are laying all over the floor. Legs and 
arms . . .  black shiny eyes and big smiles looking up at me. I sink in 
their sound. None. 
And the sun fel l  on the afternoon, and on the dry dust of "Ottos. "  
Bikes in grove sat by the door, and shone their bright metal against 
the air and through eyes. Those in leather and jeans h ugged us and 
smiled. Everyone and their family sat in the large field behind 
"Ottos." Me and you held hands and picked yel low and brown 
flowers in the wide but fu l l  round circles within the tal l  grass. Once 
a year as years smoothed by we sat, talked, and laughed till night 
and the grass grew cool .  
Long ago, after you died, I drove plastic shopping carts against 
slowly burning markets and ate hormonal ham on Sunday evenings 
after services I pretended to hear. B ut it doesn't mean that myself 
nor the woman next door, who invites her husband to sleep over 
after U ncle Gary, U ncle Tom, U ncle Steve, Uncle Dick, Uncle 
Bob, and Uncle john have left to watch wide screen football  in the 
local bar, and drin k cocktails with the bubble-mouthed blond who 
sl urps like a guppy, care. Why? Are we supposed to? Am I Am I ?  
I 'm only an old woman o n  an old couch that doesn't move, in a 
room that's twisting a dark shade, which is as dark as Theda Sara's 
lips and your  eyes. And sometimes I wake up screaming, in the 
middle of the night, on the floor. And it's so real .  Like someone's 
next to me. Someone standing and watching. Someone breathing 
. . .  I smel l familiar cologne . . .  not real ly .  B ut sometimes I wish .  
13  
NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
Actual ly, the wal ls are white and mute. They c;:nnot whimper. 
No response, but the sou ndless screams of me sl ightly reverberated 
in my brain . My whimper. 
I've lost control over sequence. I 've lost control over thought. If 
my fangs were longer I'd gouge myself . . .  this . . .  there's . . .  
none . . .  control . . .  I 'm the old woman hid, sometimes knocking 
on the sides of my box, within feeling you r  lips somewhere travel­
ing the width of my stomach, the length of my body,somewhere, 
before. But I 'm alone. They are afraid they may get it. They wil l .  
I want to go to sleep. M y  skin's dry, and it cracks, a n d  it breaks. 
"Good night, Teddy. " His plastic eyes never close. 
1 4  


English

The Clock Struck

Collins, Stephen

On a Tight June Afternoon

Review, Northridge

Deena Metzger: Featuring an Interview and One Work

Burns, Mike

fee l the rhyth m of the 
whee l s ,  th u m pbump 
there i s  a bridge i n  Vallejo 
stretched across 
the fu l l  arm of the east bay 
Mike Burns 
pul led l i ke a th i n  strand of ti nsel at chr istmas, branch to bough . 
the brackish sea that ebbs through these straits 
m i ngles with the water 
of the rock peaks in Desolation, water passed through 
dry cotton plains of Bakersfield and Arvin 
i ts  m urky tidal wash 
carries the brown s i l t  of flooded fields 
and farm yards, top soi l  
of last year's lettuce. 
from above, I peer through the steel g i rders 
taut green cable webbing 
shivers in the northwesterly breeze 
c l inging to the banks away from the tidal reach, fish i ng piers 
cargo wharfs held tight 
by tar soaked p i l i ngs dr iven deep 
the floor boards in my Chevy growl, heavy rumble caught 
in the throat of the ravine 
wel l i ng up out of m ud-brown waters 
sustained in the erector-set-gen ius  of the bridge 
its energy surges through concrete flooring 
as truck and I lurch forward 
thump bumpthump bumpthump bump 
suddenly aware of height, fee l ing the cold water i n  my boots 
I remember washed out trestles 
hovering above the Eel River. 
88 


feel the rhythm of the wheels, thumpbump

Pearson, Marlene

Orange Bags on 
the Freeway #2 
Marlene Pearson 
I told my psychiatr ist I saw 
the orange bags on the freeway again 
through my window which I couldn't open. 
sure it was stuffy inside. but out there 
all those smog-covered people 
in their moving cans 
like a factory conveyer belt: 
were we on our way 
to being sealed shut 
packaged and shipped out? 
would I wake tomorrow morning lined up 
on Gemco's grocery shelves? 
he lit a cigar and nodded. 
he was listening. 
I understood the bags I said. two were clinging 
to a stick in the ground. one was up t ight 
against bending bushes. they wanted 
to get off that freeway. 
to get out of there. 
did they tell you that he asked. 
no of course not, I laughed 
I'm not that stupid. I don't 
hear voices. 
I read their minds. 
26 


Orange Bags on the Freeway #2

Coleman, Bobbie R.

Kaffeeklatsch 
Bobbie R. Coleman 
Did you watch yesterday 
on the soaps - I had to miss them 
had to take the kids to soccer 
Jeez I hate to miss Ryan's Hope 
I wait all week for . .. anyhow guess who I 
saw at the store she's nice but I 
wish she'd stop associating 
with all those weird people 
not like us bikers and actors because -
hey, what's happening on General Hospital; who's 
doing what to whom and 
Michael will you please calm down! -it's really 
embarrassing to a right-thinking normal person to 
have someone I know be around them 
Pass the cream. 
Well, if you only miss one day 
you really can keep up with the story; 
I don't suppose she'll ever grow up, anyhow 
Doug and Julie had a f ight they're such a nice 
couple why can't people be like that in real 
life; so you saw her at the store huh she 
seems very nice but she never has coffee and 
doesn't like soaps; her husband must be . . .  
and can you imagine what it must do to her kids 
but she never has time for her friends always 
pursuing some dream if she's not careful she may 
find her family doesn't need her anymore like sands 
in the hourglass so go the days of our lives 
Michael stop crying or your mother will give 
you something to cry for 
she really needs to get more involved in her 
fr iends Dammit Michael wet his pants again 
we'd calm her down 
You got any more Oreos? 
27 
Coleman/Kaffeeklatsch 
I know what you mean - and she lets her 
kids argue with her and she't not around them 
enough not like us why I'd die before I leave 
them alone too much with sitters, I mean, I had 
them they're my own precious babies 
Michael shut the fuck up 
she's not nearly as devoted as she 
should be her kids will probably wind up 
on dope or sex or something - oh I almost forgot 
we're out of beer Hubby would kill me if I didn't 
have it waiting for him - they might be perverts 
or axe murderers or bleeding 
hearts; you know what she should do to help her 
restlessness she should have another baby then she 
can stay in touch with home and hearth and be really 
fulfilled and Michael you little shit stop whining or I'm 
gonna bop you one upside the head! 
28 


Kaffeeklatsch

York, Heidi

Don\u27t Worry — We\u27ll Fix It

Reichman, Pam

Ice Cream Will Melt

Malby, Susan

susan malby 
he speaks and her chin 
sets 
automatically 
crystallized 
by years dripping 
hard water 
the cave that once 
was her mouth 
returns his stalagmites 
no comfort in hard p laces 
1 6  
hard places 


hard places

Duke, Judy

1udy duke 
One-Part Invention 
The Music Building of Cole College is built of precise 
and dust-colored bricks, and it has dignified Iowa for one 
hundred and sixteen years. The seasonal metronome: its 
walls are swathed in brittle leaves, snowdrifts, forsythia, and 
voracious greenery. 
Fall, winter, spring. A beat, and it is early summer. The 
foliage sucks up oxygen, replacing it with vegetative steam. 
The building might as well be packed with leaf mold, hot with 
decomposition. Her door is ajar again. She hopes, with a 
newcomer's optimism, tocoaxthe dead air to life. If he cared 
to, he could tell her it is hopeless. 
Music flows from her studio down the hall to his. There is a 
stack of staved sheets on his desk, straightly aligned as 
dog-eared corners, shredded edges, and coffee-rippled 
blotches allow. So many of the students associate sloppi­
ness with an artistic nature. But he is not grading papers 
from Theory of Contrapuntal Forms I. Instead he throttles a 
coffee mug with both hands, a death-grip. She can't even 
stick to her own damn Romantics. She plays HIS Bach. HIS 
Scarlatti. Katherine Avery is an extraordinary pianist, and 
Michael Owens quite simply detests her for it He hurls the 
mug at the wall; it ricochets and bounces toward the door 
intact. 
"Owens? You all right?" Michael looks up. Smoker hulks 
in the doorway. He is slouched against the jamb, rubbing a 
grey-stubbled jawline with his rawhide thumb. The other 
hand is loosely clasped on the front of a worn leather vest. 
His boots are scuffed a dye-less flesh color. Even his Levis 
are regressing to a natural state, mellowed almost-white 
with the barest grainy suggestion of blue. They mold com­
fortably to his body. 
Smoker nudges the mug with the toe of one scruffy boot. 
" Lost your chops, man - shoulda broke." 
1 7  
Northridge Review 
Michael twists a pencil in his fists, nods to the trumpet 
man, "Smoker." 
Smoker raises lazy eyebrows and dips his head in the 
direction of Katherine's studio. Salt and pepper hair brushes 
his collar. "The lady cooks, and that's a fact." 
Michael pictures her, hard and angular, swaying on the 
piano bench, touched by the same stream of scorching 
dust-motes that batters the potted p lants on the window sill 
into submission. There is a scowl on her mannish young 
face. She is attacking the keyboard with an athletic g race -
all the finesse of a woman bowler- swearing like a teamster 
when displeased with her fingering. 
Michael shudders. This, for music that requires a fine 
opposition of abandon and control: impassioned objec­
tivity. And yet, the phrases flow at Katherine's touch as crys­
talline and pure as thoughts from the mind of God. It is 
intolerable. 
"The music is excellent. It's a fact," M ichael rep lies. Fact: 
he barely knows her. Fact: he longs for the feel of her sur­
prisingly elegant neck under his fingers. The penci l snaps in 
his immaculate, big p ianist's hands. 
Smoker focuses. " Hey, hard day, Owens?" There is an 
edge of curiosity to his fuzzy indifference. 
Michael flings the pencil pieces into the wastebasket. 
Nothing Smoker would understand. On the contrary. Smoker 
has invited Ms. Avery to join the experimental improvisation 
group, OMS: Owens on keyboards and miscellaneous, 
Mason as percussionist, and Smoker on horns. The jazz 
man has it all fig ured. They can change the name to SOMA 
Hah. Any connection between Katherine and euphoria­
nothing could be more ludicrous. Nothing more repugnant. 
His skin crawls. 
He refuses to think of her. It pleases him, this evidence of 
mental discipline. He is p roud of his abil ity to exp unge 
trivialities from consciousness simply by making a rational 
decision to do so. 
1 8  
judy duke 
He eyes Smoker. Even propped against the door-frame, 
Smoker is weaving, his usual nonchalant manner, if poss· 
ible, more pronounced. Approaching unconsciousness. 
"Thought you had a class, Smoker." 
The trumpet man grins. "Yeah - Fundamentals of Jazz 
Technique. At Papa Juan's." 
For an instant, Michael sees "Papa Juan's" in pink neon 
script. A favored spot for faculty gatherings. Smoker's lair. 
Michael shrugs and says, " It's your ass if anyone ever com· 
plains about you holding classes in a bar," and hopes that 
"It's your ass" sounds natural. 
Smoker waves the caution aside. "Kids dig it- they're 
cool." 
"You're crazy," M ichael shakes his head. "I don't know 
how you get away with it." 
But he does know. Smoker is a jazz musician; he's sup­
posed to be crazy- a sometimes messy obligation, to 
Michael's mind. Smoker either disregards or is unaware of 
the untidiness. He has an innate drive to excess anyway. 
And such persistent non-exercise of control intrigues 
Michael. Fascinating to watch, like a tightrope walker. "One 
of these days," Michael tells him, "you're going to self· 
destruct." 
"All the time," Smoker smiles from behind half-closed 
eyes. "I'm a phoenix, man- THAT'S a fundamental jazz 
technique." 
Katherine's music pelts down the hall i n  a crashing run. It 
thins to a trill, skips lightly over an eighth rest, and flowers in 
a final chord sustained, after it dies from the piano wires, in 
walls and bones. The two men are suspended in humming 
silence. Then they hear the faint knock of hollow wood; she 
shuts the lid to keep dust from the keys. 
"'Bout time. You coming, Owens?" Smoker swings towards 
the hall. 
Michael wills his taut muscles to ease. He shifts his 
shoulders under the sticky white shirt and mentally arranges 
1 9  
Northridge Review 
himself for another insipid faculty meeting. Droning details. 
Enforced camaraderie. The thorn in his side. 
He smooths his hand down the nape of his neck. The 
sandy hair is cut close and neat, but a longer wave in front 
has fallen onto his forehead. He can feel it trembling against 
his skin. Years ago, when they first dated, Dottie called the 
effect "boyish." He doesn't push it into place. 
Katherine is ahead of them, almost at the far end of the 
hall already. Her studio is closer to the stairs. She holds her­
self very straight and walks with a long deliberate stride. 
Her skirt is short, inappropriate, and even with the lingering 
California tan, her legs look pale, glowing in the interior 
gloom like the Cheshire-eat's grin. Michael's mouth twists 
in disgust. 
Smoker, head cocked back and to one side, eyes her 
speculatively and says, "Bless her raunchy little soul." 
From the jazz man, it is predictable enough. But the 
comment is unsettling; it prods something terrible that is 
expanding within M ichael. He sneers, "You're crazy. The 
woman has no soul." 
Behind, he hears Dottie Hall's geisha walk, a distant rapid 
pecking of high heels. Ahead, Katherine descends the top 
four stairs in two steps, the play of muscle in thighs and 
calves clear before she disappears down the stairwell. 
Michael frowns. "No mystery. Too hard, too . . .  " He is tempted 
to say "impure." He bites the inside of his lower lip. 
"N ice ass, though," Smoker muses. He is not talking to 
Michael Owens. One knuckle rasps back and forth across 
his chin. "Strong legs." The trumpet player is smirking to 
himself, sunk, no doubt, in some barbarous revery. Michael 
remembers a childish put-down and without thinking mutter� 
"Give it up, Smoker. All your taste is in your mouth." 
The phrase amuses Smoker, who slants him a look and 
chuckles, "Yeah. I can handle that." 
20 
judy duke 
Michael feels ill. It's the heat, the midwestern swelter. 
Summer in the jungle. It is worse this year somehow; 
unreasonably, he burns to Jay that at Katherine's door. 
Rationally, he sees he is undone with the heat. He has been 
walking too fast, which accounts for the blood pounding in 
his head and the smothering shortness of breath. And 
final ly, little as he l ikes to think of it, he's not getting any 
younger. He forces himself to slow down. He saunters. 
Smoker shambles. There is no further conversation as they 
make their way downstairs to the faculty meeting. 
The department chairmanship rotates in three-year terms. 
Currently, the post is held by the " little old lady." Gage, the 
chairman, is not old; he is, in fact, fortyish, of an age with 
Owens and Smoker. Nor is he female - he sports a pencil­
line mustache and a pointed little beard, like a foppish gran­
dee. He IS slight, however, even petite, and fussy. He 
possesses an infinite wardrobe of munchkin three-piece 
suits. 
When Michael enters, Gage is sitting behind a table at the 
front of the staff room. He has doffed the jacket, and his vest 
hangs loose, unbuttoned, a rare lapse of his habitual natti­
ness. But it's hot, and everywhere order melts around the 
edges. 
Michael heads directly for Katherine. He has at his com­
mand an aloof presence almost theatrically imposing. And 
there is his stature as an international authority on Baroque 
tempo conventions. These attributes are drawn about him 
like cassock and alb. 
He stops in front of her and bends, says softly under the 
general chatter, "The Scarlatti this afternoon? Almost 
perfect the last time through." 
"Oh." She hesitates. Smiling warms and softens her face. 
"Thank you." 
"But the Bach - " 
"Yes?" 
21 
Northridge Review 
"Rather overdone." He is polite but firm. "It is not Beethoven, 
you know. One doesn't ATTACK the Iento - it must build. 
The passion is there but hidden. 'Pianissimo,' remember? 
'Dolce,' right? Mysterioso," he throws in  on his own. "The 
sweet, mysterious spiritual tensio n- you need work on 
this." 
She is staring. Kindly, insincerely, he adds, "You' l l  get it 
eventually." He rejects the impulse to pat her head. 
The hurt and confusion in her eyes is gratifying. Then she 
flushes, and her lips and jaw tighten so he knows she is 
angry. He wants to laugh out loud. Both the Bach and 
Scarlatti were so exquisite. He could dance for joy. 
Smoker has taken a seat nearby. He regards Michael with 
bleary intensity. Satisfied, Michael smiles, sits next to Smoker. 
He reserves the empty seat on his other side for Dottie 
Hall. 
When Dottie slips into place he is expansive, generous 
with congratulations: her protege's senior recital was 
"masterful, sensitive." Further, "one is gratefully reminded 
of the versatility of the bassoon, the wide range of literature 
availab le for it" Dottie teaches the double reeds - oboe 
and bassoon. On the whole, interest in double reeds is 
not staggering. 
So her heart-shaped face lights up: young Lillian Gish in 
shy ecstasy. She draws back warily when Smoker leans 
across Michael to remark, "Heard him. The kid's OK" Dottie 
is frightened of Smoker. The p raise, however, so excites 
her that she giggles and winks. Michael cannot imagine 
Katherine giggling. His exultant mood begins to dissolve. 
Gage is tapping his mug of tea with the sugar spoon. " I  
suggest, ladies and gentlemen, that we commence. I'm sure 
none of us wishes this to be an unduly protracted affair." He 
flashes his prim smile. Michael suppresses a grimace. 
Gage is calling for the Official Opening Joke. Smoker 
grunts: he is no longer al lowed to contribute jokes. A 
suitably puerile story is offered by Mason. Michael manu­
factures a courteous titter at the punchline. It will a l l  be 
22 
judy duke 
written into the min utes, including "(Laughter)." Leaning 
forward, he catches Katherine in the corner of his vision. 
She has not bothered to laugh; she's brooding. He could 
dance. 
Gage's voice penetrates his euphoria. It nettles him. 
Lately, something about Gage's precise, urbane manner 
annoys him increasingly. In all fairness, he has found that 
same manner restful and congenial for thirteen years. None­
theless, now it grates. Somehow. 
A window is just beyond Katherine. The view is not sooth­
ing. The building's entire first story is ensnared in ivy which, 
before its annual trim, encroaches even upon the windows. 
Suckers adhere to the glass; the sun beats through translu­
cent young leaves, silhouetting the palmate veins. Under­
water lighting. Stifling. 
" . . .  most recent addition to the staff, having completed 
her first semester at Cole: Ms. Katherine Avery." 
Friendly applause. The most recent staff addition has one 
careless leg slung over the other and a skirt riding two­
thirds of the way up her amber thigh. Pointedly, Michael 
directs his gaze- a calculated blend of scorn and bore­
dom - at her hem. There is a certain grim pleasure in sensing 
her ire, feeling her seethe until suddenly she pulls the skirt 
lower with a defiant jerk Again he ignores her. 
" . . .  establish some guidelines in response to complaints 
about loud music." Not Katherine's practicing, unfor­
tunately. This is the Music Building: someone is always 
practicing or giving a recital; the Opera Workshop has 
begun rehearsals; the Concert Band is polishing a program 
for summer tour; in the music library, the eccentric librarian 
sets the record player's volume at HIGH, playing passages 
for the students, filling in with Cab Calloway- "Minnie the 
Moocher" wails through the corridors daily. No, something 
more flagrant is required to generate complaints. Michael 
looks at Smoker. 
Smoker is slumped in his chair, arms folded and legs 
stretched straight out. He is glaring at Gage. It is Smoker's 
23 
Northridge Review 
intimidating aspect. The room is very quiet. Dottie is fidget­
ing, patently uneasy and fearful of one of Smoker's rages. 
Gage, however, continues placidly outl ining an abstract 
problem and its generalized solution. No names. There is a 
new rule: the huge concert speaker/amplifiers will not be 
moved without prior departmental permission. 
The intention, specific though tacit, is that Dr. Smoker will 
not detail a squad of students to wrestle said equipment 
into his Music Appreciation class, and, most specifically, he 
will not then blast through them, full volume, E. Power Biggs 
on four organs simultaneously, playing Bach's Toccata and 
Fugue in D minor so the walls shake, the windows rattle, and 
people two floors above have difficulty conversing in the 
same room. 
Katherine is making a spectacle of herself. Legs re-crossed, 
head thrown back, she is laughing in the silence. "I'm sorry," 
she chokes to Gage, waving her hand in the air. "Something 
just struck me-." She glances at Smoker, who gives her a 
narrow-eyed scowl ferocious enough to turn a body to 
stone. It merely sets her off again. She claps one hand over 
her mouth. 
Beside Michael, Dottie is rigid, waiting for the explosion. 
He is angered to find her timidity lacking in charm, then 
wonders what would make Katherine afraid. Which only 
angers him the more. 
On the other side, Smoker squirms in his seat, then mum­
bles, "Shit," and begins to snicker. 
Katherine and Smoker are laughing. Almost everyone 
laughs. Apprehension is washed out of the room in a flood of 
good humor. Not laughing are Michael, who coils inside 
himself, and Gage, who is waiting with a patient, pursed 
smile for order to be restored. 
Someone has a key. There is a key in Michael's back, and 
he is being wound tighter and tighter. He has hit upon Gage's 
flaw: that damned ever-lasting composure. He longs to shake 
the man until his tiny neck snaps, bellow in his prissy face, 
"For God's sake, be a human being!" 
24 
judy duke 
"Bloody pompous little prick," he hisses beneath his 
breath. 
"WHAT did you say?" Dottie is goggle-eyed, has her chin 
tucked back into her neck Abruptly, Michael is ashamed of 
his disloyalty. There is no rational basis for his agitation. It 
does not exist. Nor does the formless threat he has fancied 
prowling within and without. He will not allow it to exist. 
Dottie is ideal. Delicate, feminine. Soft and rounded, with 
no hard edges. That much he did discover before they 
mutually consigned their relationship to a platonic plateau. 
Like himself, Dottie prefers to deal on an intellectual level. 
Coarseness alarms her. 
The choral director has the floor and is whining on about 
the problems involved in this summer's Opera Workshop 
production, Gianni Schicci. At least Verdi, the lucky dog, 
hadn't had to deal with amateurs. The student lead, for 
example, is unsatisfactory: too stiffly self-contained, insuf­
ficiently roguish to sing the con-man title role. 
"Do you sing, Dr. Smoker?," chirps Katherine. There is 
some laughter. Michael is in control; he does not react. 
Smoker grunts, but it is a mock glare he sends her. For all his 
often surly approach, Smoker loves women. He has married 
several. 
The orchestra director, also involved in the opera, backs 
up the choral director, attempting a duet. Suavely, Gage de­
rails them both, appointing them the Gianni Schicci Com­
mittee, meeting times to be arranged. It's almost finished. 
Thank God. 
And Gage .. . Gage is not a bad sort, not bad at all. Perhaps 
the responsibilities of being chairman emphasize his least 
attractive qualities. Or maybe the poor little jerk is having a 
mid-life crisis. Definitely Michael has been too much on 
edge. At any rate, he now wishes nothing so much as to be 
done with it. Escape. 
Dottie clutches at his sleeve. Behind her hand, she whis­
pers, "The parking spaces." 
"What?," asks Michael. 
25 
Northridge Review 
"The parking spaces: they're too small. You promised 
you'd say something." 
Michael sighs. He faces her and tilts an eyebrow. "Dot, I 
want to go home. The parking-space question will keep. It's 
hardly worth making a big to-do over, is it?" 
Gage is declaring the meeting adjourned. 
"Christ," says Smoker. 
Dottie is piqued. "No," she says, "a big to-do is unnecessary. 
It's really very easy: just get them to paint the lines farther 
apart Nothing could be simpler- provided someone raises 
the issue." 
Smoker has wandered over to talk with Katherine. 
"Perhaps," Michael says to Dottie, "you'll get a chance to 
bring it up at the next meeting." Soft and round and bewildered, 
she stands pouting at him. 
A heavy hand claps him on the shoulder. "Papa Juan's, 
man. Let's hit it." 
Michael laughs and shakes his head. "Duty calls, Smoker. 
While you're lighting up the night in a blaze of glory, I shall 
be home slaving away, correcting papers and catching up 
on my reading. Frankly, I can hardly wait." 
"Who's going?," Dottie inquires of the jazz man. 
"Just us cool people, baby." Smoker grins at her expres­
sion. He is in a manic phase. Up from the ashes and ready to 
fly. "Katherine's gonna stop by in a while." He turns to 
Michael. "It's about SOMA, Owens. We're having, like, an 
informal planning session. You gotta be there, man." 
Michael is off-balance. If he doesn't show up, she will 
think she affected his decision. Yet he wants to go home. 
Tangential considerations radiate out in all directions; the 
complexity of his needs is unfathomable. Somehow. Some­
one has the key. 
Id ly, he looks to the strangled window. If they don't clip it 
soon, he will personally begin ripping the ivy away with his 
bare hands. 
"All right, Smoker," he says. "Papa Juan's." One thing is 
clear: it is imperative he be there to display the extent of his 
Indifference. N o  mystery there. 
---
26 


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