California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Mellor, James

102
SCARS
James Mellor
In the realm where art meets sorrow’s touch,
A sculpture stands, a tale so much,
Captured in the lens of time,
A poem unfolds, a rhythm in rhyme.
“Scars,” it whispers through the stone,
A silent symphony, a soul’s deep moan.
Photography’s gaze, a frozen glance,
Each image speaks, a wounded dance.
In statue’s grasp, emotions mold,
A tale of stories, silently told.
Sculpture’s embrace, a cold caress,
Echoing pain, a silent distress.
Painting strokes, a canvas of despair,
Grey and black, the colors wear.
Depression’s hues, a somber cloak,
In every stroke, a soul bespoke.
Wire pouring forth, like rivers of plight,
A flowing current, in the dim light.
Wounds and scars, in blue and red,
A vivid palette, where emotions tread.
Staring at the audience, eyes profound,
Judgment lingers, without a sound.
Mentality etched in every line,
103
Focus sharp, like a needle’s spine.
Abyss void, a blackened stage,
Background draped in sorrow’s cage.
Expression dark, a look so deep,
Into the soul, where shadows creep.
In this gallery of the mind’s abyss,
“Scars” unfurls, a haunting kiss.
Through the lens of art, it pierces far,
A narrative woven, where wounds are scarred.


English

SCARS

Beck, Anne

Anne Mac Darb! Beck
ESCAPE TO RETURN
Holl! awoke suddenl!, e!es wide o"en, starin# u" at 
the slatted ceilin#. Her arm was cold. She "ulled it back 
underneath her blanket. She la! there for a few moments, 
listenin# to the slee"in# sounds of the others. The heav! 
curtains moved a little in the breeze, allowin# some sunli#ht 
in. The Prefects insisted on leavin# a window o"en, even in 
winter. Fresh air was an aid to #ood slee", the! said. The 
weak, winter sun lit u" the room. It must be ei#ht o’clock, 
she thou#ht, nearl! time to #et u". The #irls sle"t with 
the sun, risin# at dawn and retirin# at dusk. Winter was a 
time to slee" and recu"erate, the Prefects said. She #ot u" 
and ste""in# into her knitted sli""ers walked softl! to the 
window. The view was of the "erimeter wall, the Guardians 
and their do#s "atrollin#. Over the wall, she could $ust 
about see the to"s of trees in the forest. The Guardians 
did not slee" b! the sun but worked in shifts, #uardin# the 
"erimeter, da! and ni#ht. She "ulled back the curtain and 
walked into the washroom. Takin# her wash ba# from the 
shelf allocated to her, she unbuttoned the fla" and took out 
her toothbrush. The bristles were worn and would soon 
need re"lacin#. I#norin# the washin# instructions "oster 
over the sink, she carefull! washed her face and neck – 
the Prefects mi#ht be in the mood toda! to check. As she 
was finishin#, the bell ran#. She could hear her dormitor! 
com"anions movin# about and !awnin#, beds creakin# as 
the! #ot u". On her wa! back, she met Fern and Ash. The! 
mumbled a slee"! #reetin#. She o"ened the locker and took 
128 ANNE MAC DARBY BECK
out her "inafore. It was almost due for washin#, as were 
her ni#ht clothes. She dressed in #re! woollen ti#hts, vest, 
brown "inafore, and cardi#an. She "ut on her sandals and 
brushed her hair. She waited at the door for the others to 
line u" behind her. Ash, of course, was last; she alwa!s was. 
Holl! o"ened the door and led out of dormitor! 4. The #irls 
walked alon# the corridor "ast instructional "osters "inned 
alon# the walls. Girls from other dormitories were also 
comin# out, led b! their Dormitor! Leaders, waitin# for 
dormitor! 4 to "ass before followin# them to the refector!. 
The #irls from dormitor! 4 were first in the %ueue. As 
Dormitor! Leader, Holl! liked to have them all in first. 
The! collected their tra!s and acce"ted food from the 
counter. Dormitor! 7 was on breakfast dut!. The! #ot 
berr! $uice, "orrid#e with hone!, and wholemeal bread 
with a""le s"read. All nine Governors were sittin# at 
their table, checkin# the work "lans for the da! ahead. 
The #irls chorused "ood mornin" as the! "assed their table. 
The Governors smiled and nodded throu#h mouthfuls 
of "orrid#e. It was usuall! the onl! time the #irls saw the 
Governors, as the! s"ent most of the time in their labs.
“The $uice is water!”, Ash said, makin# a face. 
When the! were finished eatin#, the Prefects #ave them 
their duties for the da!. Dormitor! 4 was in the schoolroom. 
Holl! #roaned; she hated the schoolroom. The #irls lined 
u" at the sinks and washed their dishes. Ash was about to 
throw her berr! $uice into the slo" bucket when one of the 
Prefects shouted at her. 
“How dare !ou waste a health! drink! Get back to !our 
table and drink it.”
129ESCAPE TO RETURN
The woman #lared at her. Ash meekl! went back to the 
table and sat down. Holl! washed their dishes and Fern 
dried them. Ash came back with her em"t! cu", and the! 
left for the schoolroom.
Of an! room in the house, the schoolroom walls had 
the most instructional "osters "inned to them. A"art from 
warnin#s about behaviour or "unctualit!, there were lar#e 
"osters on various sub$ects, such as how to #row ve#etables 
and fruits, how to care for animals, and how to make 
"a"er. Holl! had been ill and missed a few classes. The 
door o"ened, and one of the Prefects came in. She walked 
about the room, "lacin# books on each desk. Toda!, the 
lesson was on the basics of bacteria and viruses. The class 
was alread! a few cha"ters into the book, and Holl! found 
it confusin#. She’d fallen so far behind the others. As the 
instruction droned on, her mind drifted. The! hadn’t had 
a free da! in a#es. Winter wore on, and the outside world 
was as dull as inside the house. Sometimes the #re! clouds 
"arted to reveal a little blue, but the sun was rarel! visible. 
Even the "a#es of her book were dull. Holl! found it hard 
to motivate an interest in bacteria that can harm fruit. 
At break, the #irls "icked u" their beakers of milk, "ut 
on their woollen hats and coats, and went outside. 
“The milk’s been watered down too,” Ash said, 
frownin#.
“Drink it,” Holl! warned, “or the Prefects will scold !ou 
a#ain.”
Ash shru##ed.
“It feels like winter will never end. The food is so dull 
130 ANNE MAC DARBY BECK
and there isn’t much of it.”
Holl! felt it necessar! to defend the Prefects. Winter 
was nearl! over; the #rowin# season would soon come and, 
with it, more variet! and colour. The #irls went for a walk. 
The! came to the wall and walked beside it. The! could 
hear the Guardians hi#h above them, talkin# to each other 
as the! "atrolled. The Guardians moved on, and it became 
so %uiet, the! could hear the wind whistlin# throu#h the 
"ine trees on the other side. The! sto""ed to listen. 
“I’d love to #o outside, $ust once,” Ash said. 
“Shush,” Fern warned, lookin# nervousl! about. 
The! linked arms and moved on, comin# to the area 
where the wall ended and a lar#e double fence be#an. 
“I heard some of the Prefects sa! the! have #athered 
enou#h stone from the new fields to extend the wall next 
winter, after the #rowin# season,” Fern said. 
The! went u" to the wire and "eered out. The "ine 
forest #rew ri#ht to the outside wire. However, the Prefects, 
with lon#-handled cutters, had cut awa! an! branches too 
close to the fence. 
“What harm would it be, $ust to #o out for a few hours?” 
Ash asked. 
The other two looked at each other. 
“I’m so fed u", I $ust want to #o out and see somethin# 
di&erent,” Ash said wistfull!, “it must be lovel! in the 
forest.”
The! were silent. Holl! knew this was what the! were 
all thinkin#. What harm would it do? However, the wall 
131ESCAPE TO RETURN
and fence were "atrolled b! the Guardians. The wall was 
im"ossible to climb, and the fence was secure. 
“It’s im"ossible,” she said aloud, “there is no wa! out, 
certainl! not over the wall. The fence is also secure.”
Ash took both their arms and "ulled them towards her.
“I mi#ht know of a weakness in the fence!” She 
whis"ered.
The bell ran# for the end of break. The #irls ran back 
towards the house and returned to the schoolroom. 
As soon as lessons were over, and the #irls had thanked 
the Prefect, the! filed %uietl! out of the schoolroom and 
returned to dormitor! 4. The dormitor! was em"t!, so the! 
sat on Holl!’s bed. She and Fern said nothin#, but Ash 
looked sl!l! at each of them in turn.
“Don’t !ou want to see where the weakness is in the 
fence?”
Holl! moved uneasil!. She knew she should re"ort Ash 
to the Prefects for a talk such as this. Still, she was curious. 
It would do no harm to $ust #o and see. If there reall! was a 
weakness, she could re"ort it to the Prefects, after the three 
of them had #otten out and come back in a#ain. 
Ash walked between Holl! and Fern, linkin# their 
arms as if the! were out for a stroll before dark. The! 
walked alon# the wall until the! came to the fence. The! 
walked "ast the #reenhouses and the animal "ens, "ast the 
"lou#hed fields. Holl! be#an to #et anno!ed. 
132 ANNE MAC DARBY BECK
“Where is this so-called weakness, Ash?” She asked.
Ash $erked both their arms.
“Patience is a #reat virtue, as Prefect Electra kee"s 
sa!in#,” Ash said, smu#l!.
The! walked on. Ash suddenl! sto""ed and looked 
back. Then she "ointed towards the fence.
“Over here,” she whis"ered.
The three #irls cre"t forward.
“Look!” Ash whis"ered, "ointin#.
Holl! and Fern #azed at the inner fence, at the small 
s"ace between, no wider than their shoulders, and the outer 
fence. She was about to scorn Ash for brin#in# them on a 
useless errand when she saw the hole under the outer fence. 
It looked like a wild animal had been di##in#. It must have 
been %uite a bi# animal because the hole was wide enou#h 
for them to "ush throu#h, with di'cult! certainl!, but it 
was "ossible. However, there remained the inner fence. She 
voiced her doubts, but Ash was undaunted.
“We could do the same,” she said, “di# a hole on our side. 
We could do it in our s"are time from duties. It wouldn’t 
take us lon#.”
She was "antin# with excitement. Holl! thou#ht about 
it. This area of the #rounds was %uiet at this time of !ear. 
The winter cro" was in, and it was too earl! for the s"rin# 
"lantin# to be#in. The! could not do it with their hands; 
the #round was too hard. 
“We would need to somehow #et #ardenin# trowels,” 
she said.
133ESCAPE TO RETURN
Ash #rabbed her arm, her e!es shinin# wildl!.
“Next time we’re on #reenhouse dut!,” she said, “we 
could #et one then.”
Holl! was still unsure, and her thou#hts swun# wildl! 
from caution to lon#in#. It would be wonderful to walk in 
the woods, see a little of the world outside the wall. Perha"s 
it wasn’t all forest. The Prefects and Governors had no 
interest in an!thin# outside the wall. All the! cared about 
was findin# new wa!s to #row food and build u" the herd. 
Fern said little. Holl! could see she was fri#htened, but she 
would be led b! her two friends. 
It was several da!s before dormitor! 4 was on 
#reenhouse dut!. The! tended seed "lants and hel"ed mend 
the #reenhouse wall. It was #oin# to be u" to her and Ash 
to take the trowels. When the! were almost finished work, 
Holl! sli""ed a trowel into the "ocket of her "inafore. If she 
was s"otted, she was #oin# to sa! she stored it there while 
workin# and for#ot to "ut it back in the toolbox. Several 
da!s later, there was still no u"roar about the trowel, so 
the! knew it had not been missed. On their next dut!, Ash 
came awa! with one in her "ocket. She wanted to tr! for a 
third, but Holl! said that was too much; someone would 
notice three missin# trowels. The! were luck! to have 
#otten awa! with two. 
At dusk one evenin#, all three sli""ed awa! durin# free 
time and went back to the fence. The hole on the outside 
was a bit bi##er, the! thou#ht. Holl! and Ash be#an to di# 
134 ANNE MAC DARBY BECK
with Fern standin# #uard. It took more evenin#s than the! 
had ex"ected to make a hole bi# enou#h for them to crawl 
throu#h.
“Tomorrow ni#ht,” Ash said, her e!es bri#ht, “we’ll #o 
out. There will be a full moon. I heard Prefect Ariadne sa! 
it was #oin# to be the first clear ni#ht in a#es, so we won’t 
even need a lantern.”
The followin# ni#ht, the! waited for the others to fall 
aslee". Holl! must have dozed o& because she suddenl! felt 
Ash shakin# her. She cre"t out of bed, tr!in# to let it creak 
as little as "ossible. The! had all #otten into bed earl!, full! 
dressed. Takin# their hats and coats, the! cre"t out of the 
dormitor!. The! had decided to #o out one of the side doors, 
as the main door was o""osite the #reat wall door where 
Guardians "atrolled most often. When Holl! o"ened the 
door, she was sur"rised at how bri#ht it was. The full moon 
hun# in the sk! over them, its disk blindin#l! bri#ht. It was 
so bri#ht, Holl! felt she could read a book if she had one 
with her.
The! cre"t %uietl! awa! from the main house and 
throu#h the animal "ens, "ast the #reenhouses. Suddenl!, 
a cow mooed loudl!. Holl! sto""ed so suddenl! that Fern 
almost ran into her. She could hear Fern’s fri#htened, 
wheez! breathin#. The! moved silentl! on until the! came 
to the fence. The! brushed awa! twi#s and leaves that the! 
had used to cover the hole. All three knelt in front of it, 
hesitatin#.
“I’ll #o first, “Ash said, “tr! to hold u" the wire.”
The other two held u" the wire while Ash wri##led 
underneath and throu#h the hole. The wire cau#ht on her 
135ESCAPE TO RETURN
coat twice, but she #ot throu#h into the middle "art of the 
fence. Holl! turned to Fern.
“You #o next while I hold u" the wire. Then I’ll follow.”
But Fern "ulled back, the moon reflected in her round, 
fri#htened e!es.
“I’m not #oin#,” she said, “I don’t want to #o.”
Holl! could see she was almost in tears. Ash hissed at 
her from inside the fence.
“Don’t be such a bab!,” she s"at, “we’re doin# this 
to#ether. Holl!, "ush her throu#h.”
But Fern "ulled back, read!, Holl! felt, to run.
“I’m not #oin#,” she said, throu#h #ritted teeth, “!ou 
can’t make me.”
Ash rattled the wire an#ril!, but Holl! held u" her hand.
“There’s no "oint forcin# her,” she said.
She turned to Fern.
“You kee" watch,” she said, “cover the hole with twi#s 
and hel" us back in when we return. Kee" out of si#ht of 
the Guardians.”
She could see the relief on Fern’s face as the #irl nodded. 
She hel"ed Holl! throu#h and be#an coverin# u" the 
disturbed #round. Ash was alread! throu#h the other hole 
and hel"ed Holl! out. The! looked back at Fern, who held 
u" her hand and waved. Ash snorted and turned towards 
the forest. The! walked on a short distance and sto""ed. 
Moonli#ht came throu#h the trees in shafts, and their dark 
trunks led, one after the other, into darkness.
“Come on,” Ash said, “this looks like a trail wild 
136 ANNE MAC DARBY BECK
animals have made.”
She walked forward, her feet crunchin# on "ine needles. 
Holl! hesitated.
“Will we be able to find our wa! back?” She asked.
Ash lau#hed.
“Of course we will. All we need to do is come back the 
wa! we came. If we don’t find the hole ri#ht awa!, we can 
$ust follow the fence until we find it.”
The! walked on, Ash leadin# the wa!, zi#za##in# 
throu#h the trees. Holl! doubted it was reall! a "ath the! 
were followin# until the! came to a stream. As the! sto""ed, 
somethin# s"lashed into the water and made Holl! $um". 
Ash lau#hed.
“This must be the stream that runs throu#h our land,” 
she said.
The moon shone throu#h a break in the trees over the 
stream. The! sat down on a rock and watched the moonli#ht 
dance on the runnin# water. A few clouds drifted across 
the face of the moon. Ash #ot u" and be#an crossin# the 
stream, $um"in# over stones so as not to #et her feet wet. 
“Let’s #o on,” she said. She vanished from si#ht and 
then called back, “There’s a clearin#!”
Holl! stood u" and be#an to follow, $um"in# over the 
stones and climbin# u" the bank, when she heard a shout. 
She froze, then ran forward, almost crashin# into Ash, who 
was runnin# back.
“Somethin#’s out there, in the clearin#,” Ash "anted, her 
braver! suddenl! desertin# her. The #irls stood and listened. 
137ESCAPE TO RETURN
The! heard a sound—a rustlin# of the "ine needles as if 
somethin# bi# was movin# towards them. Then suddenl! 
the! heard a snort, like heav! breath blown throu#h bi# 
nostrils. The! turned to#ether and ran back throu#h the 
stream. The! ran, sometimes tri""in# and almost fallin#, 
onl! sto""in# when their sides be#an to ache. The! stood 
to#ether, "antin# and listenin#. Somethin# fluttered in the 
branches above them. Suddenl!, back alon# the "ath, the! 
heard a screech. The! turned and ran a#ain.
“We should be at the fence b! now,” Holl! called.
The! sto""ed and looked about with no idea where the! 
were or how far from the fence. Ash #rabbed Holl!’s arm 
and "ulled her on until, suddenl!, the! came out throu#h 
the trees and almost collided with the fence. However, it 
was not the "lace where the! had entered the forest. Ash 
#rabbed and shook the fence.
“We $ust follow the fence, as !ou said, and we’ll come to 
the hole,” Holl! "anted.
The! walked %uickl! alon# b! the fence when suddenl!, 
lantern li#ht a""eared, and the! could hear voices.
“Oh no, we’ve been missed,” Ash moaned.
She sto""ed suddenl! and looked back into the woods.
“I think I can hear it,” she said.
She be#an ban#in# on the fence.
“What are !ou doin#,” Holl! hissed, "ullin# her awa!.
“It doesn’t matter if the! know we’re missin#. We have 
to #et back in.”
Suddenl!, the! found the hole under the fence. Fern was 
138 ANNE MAC DARBY BECK
not on the other side, but Ash threw herself on the #round 
and be#an "ushin# herself under the wire. But suddenl!, 
Guardians a""eared at the fence and be#an "ushin# rods 
throu#h the inner fence, beatin# Ash back. Ash screamed.
“It’s me. It’s Ash, let me in!”
But the! continued beatin# her back. Ash screamed and 
screamed, while on the outside, Holl! looked on in horror. 
“Get back,” the Guardians shouted, “!ou can’t come back 
in.”
Ash had to dra# herself backwards, tears runnin# down 
her face. She and Holl! stood starin# at the Guardians, 
who were hastil! re"airin# the fence on the inside. The #irls 
stared at the fence, stunned with terror, while behind them 
the noise #rew louder.


Escape to Return

Mina Vasquez

Killing Moon

A permutation in a finite symmetric group on a set of ordered elements has a descent at the i-th index if the permutation value at the i-th index is greater than the permutation value that follows. The descent set of a permutation is the set of all indices where the permutation has a descent. Each finite symmetric group can be partitioned by descent sets. In this paper we study the Hamming metric and the L-infinity metric on the sets of permutations that share the same descent set for all nonempty descent sets to determine the maximum possible value that these metrics can achieve when restricted to these subsets.


Diaz-Lopez, Alexander

Haymaker, Kathryn

McGarry, Colin

McMahon, Dylan

Metrics on Permutations With the Same Descent Set

Sigman, Barbara

brushfires, September \u2788

Wood, Eve E.M.

Eve E.M. Wood 
Root 
Nothing grows except a root 
crusted over, 
breathing slowly. 
A woman holds it like her child 
then casts it out like the wind. 
She says the root is rotting. 
She says the sun must shine upon its head 
near a clear falling stream 
somewhere far off 
along a rock path not made for her feet. 
But the root did not grow in the earth. 
The root, covered with her skin 
is alive in her palm. 
The root is immobile. 
I say the root is her own 
until it slips between her fingers 
into the earth. 


Root

Etter, Carrie

Carrie Etter 
Photograph of a Man 
and a woman, who is not captured 
here as a woman but the blue heron 
or a brass coatrack. 
There is nothing about her 
to claim femininity for that 
tight stance, pursed lips, 
graying hair in its own yoke. 
There is nothing here that defines 
for fear of iconoclasm that defies 
any title of subservience. 
That would keep him from canying 
tills picture in his wallet for show. 


Photograph of a Man

Loren, Davi

Three Poems: "Stopping with Nana" "Theropods" and "Three Views of a Painting: \u27Madame Cezanne in the Conservatory\u27 c. 1890"

Schulz, Hart

Hart Schulz 
The Purple Distance 
At noon the guards go through the door and behind the wall. It 
is wbeo the sun is hottest and when El Paso in the distance is 
reduced to a mum1ur in the dry air. TI1e man watched anxiously as 
the last Amelican disappeared through the little door. The green 
shirt with its emblem, its official star, made an imprint on the man's 
mind. He did not fear it exactly, but it had an effect, What he did 
tear was the wall itself. Forty feet high or more, it makes up one side 
of the quadrangle-the inte.mment lot. That day the Mexicans 
played soccer in their boots, better for river mud, and in their dark, 
plaid flannel shirts and cheap American jeans. The other three sides 
of the lot are bound by chain link fencing, also forty feet high, with 
round supports at ten foot intervals parallel to the hard 
ground. All around at the top of the fence and running flush against 
the brick wall are coils of barbed wire. It is not a high security lot; 
in fact, that very night the green vans would come through the 
swinging gate at the opposite end of the wall to take the men back. 
A younger man perhaps would have little trouble scaling the chain 
links, at least until he reached the coils at the top. But this man was 
not so young. He was at the age where he would do better to simply 
enjoy the view southward through a small rise of dust, to watch the 
stubborn, stiff sage cut the wind there. He would do better to wait 
at his destiny. 
Instead the man had made a mental note of the missing bricks 
high up on the wall just where it joined the fence, just at the level 
52 NORTHRIDGE RilVIBW 
of the barbed wire. When at noon the last officer left for lunch, the 
man began up the fence using the small diamond links for footholds 
and bandholds. The man had no emotion sjnce something like this 
was what he had expected he would have to do. When he reached 
the third support bar he rested his feet there, kept one hand clawed 
on the chain link and let the other support him against the wall. Just 
over his head were the missing bricks that would allow him to 
sidestep the coils. These look like notches for guns in a tall fort. 
Younger men had finally noticed him from below and laughed. He 
was a ridiculous spider where the wall met the fence thirty feet 
above their soccer game. He rested for what could have been ten 
minutes, then noticed in the purple distance the lazy Rio Grande, 
shallow, motionJess and in-between America and Mexico. 
From the top he could see behind the wall the corrugated 
aluminum buildings in the desert and the green trucks, and, on the 
side from which he had come. the game and its small plumes of dust 
lifting from heels. He t11ought for a moment that he had never seen 
any collection of ants that were not moving. Was it possible for 
living ants not to move? But having already rested on a lower rung, 
he would not allow himself further luxury of revelation. A star of 
reflected sunshine blazed from the officers' building and another 
from the silvery hub of a wheel. Having put a foot in each of two 
holes in the wall there, he was able to pull himself to the top of the 
wall, despite a moment when his belly stalled him precariously on 
the edge of the wall. He was no young man. He could crawl at best 
on the narrow walkway, the width onJy of a hearth-sized brick! 
Thus he avoided the spiral of barbs. He had anticipated all this, so 
he was consumed less by fear than by the ache in his shoulders 
suppmting his weight on the way down. Then again as he staggered 
across the looser sand outside the perimeter he became aware of his 
fatigue. His heels stuck in the sand and pulled back against his 
calves. Behind him was no cheerjng, and though the players had 
witnessed his demonstration, he had become no hero, and their 
gan1e continued. 
*** 
Between the town and Lhe intemrnent are several junkyards, 
entanglements of dusty old cars. The man, wearied from his escape, 
THE PURPLE DISTANCE 53 
made his way from one to another. He reached through their 
driver's-side windows and down under their dash boards into webs 
of frayed wires. This he knew was a game of chance, but he had 
calculated the odds of finding a car he could start. He expected his 
own fatigue too. 
,Jtwas dusk, and behind him floodlights had been turned on in 
the intemment. Once as a child in Mexico, he had walked through 
the desert at night to a circus, its lighted cages a beacon in the 
blackening horizon. lts exotic possibilities were protected from 
small, barefoot boys by the hiss of rattlesnakes. There are few times 
when boys are braver than men, but that had been one of them. The 
man climbed up onto a pile of scrap metal and bound down into a 
plot ofloose sand. A SUipiised rattler whirled for cover to an old 
refrigerator there. Its colorless door hung doubled over on one 
rustedhinge,andinsidetheremnantsofwire-grateshelvingguarded 
the snake. The snake must have seen all the world outside as framed 
by the opening of the refrigerator and obstructed by the doubled-
over door. And the sifted light of stars must have flooded the 
junk yard scene-with its heavy, awkward man in the deep sand. 
For a moment the man noticed the snake, but he had no notion of 
avoiding it, nor of confronting it. Instead he twisted together the 
jgnition wires of old cars into the night. Finally he came upon a big, 
black Plymouth, its outline faded into the darkness. The Plymouth 
jumped when he hot-wired it, and its treadless tires jerked the big 
cat· fTom a sandy bed. A cooler, moister wind came up from the 
south with the smell of Mexico and the promise of rain. 
The road felt flatter and smoother than he had expected. He 
drove nort11 and west and slept in the back seat in Las Cmces in the 
parking lot behind a 7-11 store. The clerk gave the tired man some 
Hostess cup cakes. The next day he drove all the way to Sacra-
mento. 


The Purple Distance

Wolfe, Jennifer

J enif.f'er Wolfe 
Pincushion 
They walk into the alley, his arm around her neck, elbow 
pointed forward, his other a 1m poised distinct! y at her side, glinting, 
dangerous. Their shu fOe, their awkward dance into the murk of the 
alley tell exactly what will happen. The way her feet move, stumble 
and step, unfold the scene faster than it can unfold itself. There is 
a noise and she is down, with a thick hand on her mouth. 
I ran into the alley 
Let me tell you about alleys. People keep trash in them, other 
people sleep in them, dogs piss in them; they are used as shortcuts, 
or they are blind; it is always night time in an alley; when I walk 
through one, my nostlils flare. Wherever you go you will find one 
and it will be the same as the last one you were in. This could be 
anywhere. 
I walk into the alley with you and know that something is 
wrong. I don't know what it is yet but I know it's bad, I already 
know that it's the worst thing I'll ever have to see, and then 
something clicks and I cry out. 
What about the girl with the hand on hermouth? She is still and 
small as a cat. The man and her Judas feet keep on unfolding: soon 
his pants are unfolded, then her dress, and then her legs and soon the 
PINCUSHION 63 
whole damn thing is just aU unfolded and laying out there, left tor 
anybody to see. 
and let one huge flying kick sink into his ribs and lift him, lift him 
off and up and over where he landed with a thud, with a great 
satisfying grunt. I stood there, watching him stand up, reach into 
his pocket and show me the most beautiful knife I had ever seen; the 
only one ever meant special, just for me. I told him that 1 was a 
pincushion, that his gorgeous knife couldn't hurt me and then I 
kicked the thing out of his hand; told him to zip up his fly and 
kicked, hard. Now I had the knife and I showed it to him, asked !rim 
if he was a pincushion. Kicked some more. 
You're going tojail,Isaid. You're going to jail because! saw what 
you did and I'm telling. You '11 go to jail and they '11 find out what 
you did and one night they will line up around you and rip you apatt 
and no one will save you. 
I said, You're going to jaiL 
and kicked. 
Until he was unconscious and the police came and pulled me off of 
him. 
Even as I am crying out, I run into the alley, shouting for you 
to call the police, andletoutone huge flying kick. I pick her up and 
carry her off to the side. She weighs as much as a cat. I pull her dress 
down and put my coat around her shoulders. We throw her 
underwear away, Which are ripped. So is her dress. She is all blood 
and snot and vomit. I hold her like a cat and croon over her smalJ 
body, her hair, her face. I tell her that she is beautiful, so beautiful 
and brave, and I'll always love her and nothing will ever hurt her 
again. We cry together like ancient sisters; unceasing and locked 
together forever. 
The police come and try to fold everything back up. They pour 
the unconscious man into the back of their car and slowly walk 
toward the sobbing woman, pulling coaxingly along the edges of 
the whole scene. 
64 NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
I don 'tknow what happens later. The police come and separate 
me from the girl and you take me home and 1 take a bath and go to 
sleep. Or maybe I have to go down to the station and explain why 
I kicked the shit out of this· guy and they will give me cigarettes and 
shake their heads. I could ride in the back of the police car with the 
girl, all the way to the hospital, and hold her hand while she is on 
the examining table and shout at the doctors when she cries out. I 
probably never leave the alley again, become locked in a place 
where there is only holding and crying; never ending and never 
moving on. 


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