California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Jones, Jordan

jordan jones 
Insomnia 
The furniture is excitable. It lurches 
with a pliant, l iving hum.  
Good poetry 
has handles and it pul ls you along 
I walk through woods along old paths 
branches 
are the great ignorers. 
Windows take on the character of the 
scenery before them. 
Objects don't mind dust 
as much as people do. 
An open jar of peanut 
butter on the table resembles flowers, 
I love its fragrance. 
55 


English

Insomnia

Krichmar, Dmitri

dmitri krichmar 
The Pest 
When asked "How are you," boring people reply with a detailed 
story. lf  you tel l  them to stop by sometime they do. These fol ks take 
everyth ing l iteral ly. 
Eugene was boring. 
Susan and I belonged to a different category. We were cultured, 
social ly useful, and engag ing. 
Though Eugene and I rented flats on the same f loor, the 
lifelines on the palms of our hands were drawn in opposite directions. 
That is why h is  appearance on my thresh hold was unexplai nable. 
It happened on one beautifu l morn ing at 1 0:00 a.m. 
Eugene told me that h is electric shaver was broken. " I  would 
use yours," he said, "but it is not for me to decide." I took h im to the 
bathroom and placed my shaver in  front of h i m. Then I went to the 
kitchen to try to write an essay. The diff icu lty was to try to come up 
with the fi rst phrase. The electric buzz coming from the bathroom 
prevented my every attempt to concentrate. 
Out of frustration I decided to eat. As I was pouri ng coffee, I 
heard Eugene beh ind  me. "Would you l ike some?" I asked . 
. " It  is not my decision," rep l ied my neighbor. I moved a tal l  
ceramic cup and everyth ing e lse on the table c loser to h im .  
He ate qu ickly in  complete si lence. I n  five m inutes he  fin ished 
everyth ing inc lud ing the sugar and bread. Then he picked up the 
newspaper and began to read. Someth ing struck him fu nny, and 
he laug hed. 
I went i nto the l iving room to try to concentrate on my fi rst 
phrase. I could hear h i m  turn ing pages, overturning cups and 
dropping plates on the floor. I did not care about the broken chi na, 
but I was sorry for the ti me wasted so far. 
Eugene felt sorry too. He apolog ized for the broken p lates. I 
said, " It's noth ing." He agreed with me. 
My neig h bor was content. He shaved, ate breakfast, and 
read the newspaper from the beg inn ing to the end. Now he wanted 
to talk. He wanted someone to l i sten to h im .  
And talk  he d id !  I found out  about h is  job and how he lost it, 
the world news report and how to clean Vodka with permanganate 
natr ium. 
At that point, he stopped and l i t  a cigarette. We did not speak. 
59 
I watched the fiery circle move closer and closer to h is  l ips. A 
column of ash was getting longer and longer. Eventually it became 
too long and fel l .  F i rst it fel l  on his shoe and then rolled onto my 
carpet. For a few moments our eyes focused on the g ray ash. 
Eugene got up from the couch and shoved h is  hands in h is  
pockets. H is pants stretched tight across h is  emaciated ass. Now 
he decided to talk about women. 
There were two women in h i s  l i fe. With one he felt good 
either with or without her; the other was bad to be w ith and worse 
to be without. After discussi ng h is  love l ife, he remarked about his 
friends, gossiped about relatives, and on and on and on. 
Susan came home at 5:00. "Good even ing," said Susan. 
"It is !" agreed Eugene. (It certa in ly was a good even i ng!)  
Susan was su rprised at th is strange greeti ng,  the smoke, the 
ashes on the f loor, the broken plates and me in the corner with no 
signs of l i fe. It all looked strange, but Susan was pol ite. 
"What's up?" asked Susan. He started from the beg inn ing .  
He l i ked i t  when people were interested i n  h im ,  but  Susan was 
wearing  an absent-minded mask and did not l isten . Eugene lost 
interest and said, "See you later," and left. I knew he meant what he 
said. 
Eugene left at five. Guests arrived at eight. They were n ice 
people. They d id  not overturn cups, break p lates, and did not talk 
about their relatives. They were talented and u n ique, and had 
orig i nal i deas and good taste. 
Susan entertained the guests with s ing ing,  accompanying 
herself on the grand piano.  She had a beautiful voice, a lmost 
mezzo soprano. 
In the middle of her performance, the phone rang. Someone 
answered and after he h u ng up said, " It was Eugene. He's stay ing 
with you ton ight." 
Our  g uests were not only educated and talented, but they 
were also h uman. They could not possibly have fun when friends 
were in  danger. Each of them tried to come up with the best excu se 
for us, but I d id  not want to l ie  and neither d id Susan. She warned 
me that if Eugene spent one n ight in our apartment, i t  would not be 
easy to get rid of h im .  
We realized that we should keep h im out  at  a l l  costs. Sudden ly, 
the doorbell rang. Susan qu ickly turned off the l ight. Everyone 
became very qu iet. We decided to pretend that we were not at 
home. 
I n  the meantime, Eugene put h is th umb on the buzzer i n  case 
we d id  not hear. This agony lasted a few long m in utes, then it was 
qu iet again .  Everything has its end, even Eugene. 
"He left . . .  " whispered Susan. I peeked outside. Eugene was 
60 
sitting on the floor next to the elevator. He took everything l iteral ly. 
If the owners are not home, they w i l l  come back. H is face was sad 
and su rprised at the same time. Next to h im  was a carton with a 
cake i nside. 
Four hours went by. The room was dark. We were si lent. We 
could hear the refrigerator hum ming in  the kitchen and the t ick 
tack of someone's watch. Susan was sleeping on the sofa. She, 
l i ke an astronaut, could s leep anywhere in and any position under 
any circumstances. 
Others were trying to make use of chairs, armchairs and 
other artic les of furn iture. 
Once again I found myself staring out the window sti l l  search­
ing for  that fi rst phrase for  my essay. But  more than anyth ing else, I 
wanted someone to ask me, "How are you?" Then I could tel l  them 
about myself and my guests who come not to see me, but come to 
my house because they have nowhere else to go. I could tel l  about 
my love that ende_d, and now that it has ended, looks as if it had 
never happened at all . 
However, my guests were people with proper manners. No 
one asked questions. Ahead of us was a long n ig ht, and morn ing 
was far  away. 
Eugene was peaceful ly sleeping by the elevator . . .  
61 


The Pest

Mann, Mark

mark mann 
The Burn i ng Monk 
J ust before l u nch the burn ing monk kneels with in  h is smock, 
pu l l s  off his thongs, and nudges them to the side of his mat with h is 
big toe. Patty and I ra are on the couch watching TV. I ra holds the 
bowl out to Patty so she can reach the popcorn. Her face looks 
hazy and b lue i n  the TV l ight. The rubber soles are badly worn from 
the endless walk ing the burn ing monk has undertaken over the 
years. P i lgri mages. I warned h i m  it would come to this. 
"The tenth ann iversary," I ra says. He means the war. 
Patty tugs the blan ket up around her neck and asks I ra if she 
can wear h is  socks, her feet are so cold. She isn't serious. The 
door buzzer buzzes. " I 'd rather watch Spartacus," she says. It's 
Guy and Linda at the door, both wearing hairy gold alpaca sweaters. 
I ra lets them in .  
Guy eyes I ra. 
I ra eyes Guy. 
Guy puts a powerful headlock on I ra for old t ime's sake. For 
the l ife of h im  Ira can't get free. 
Linda says it's n ice out and draws the curtains to let in the 
sun .  There, swimming l i ke a plant on the bottom of the pool th ree 
floors down, is I lene, I ra's Japanese neig h bor with the long perfect 
hair. The burn ing monk nods and gr ins and returns to his mat. I can 
tel l  he's on ly k idding around.  
Patty puts Spartacus on. She is worried for I ra, who can't 
stand it anymore. Guy is h u m ming the " Marsei l la ise." As a counter, 
Linda sings "Waltzing Mati lda." Th is soothes Guy. Then she breaks 
into "Bingo Was His Name-0." Clap. 1 - N -G-0. I ra drops b lue­
faced on the couch next to Patty. 
Guy is sti l l  s ing ing:  "Clap. Clap. Clap-Ciap-0." 
"The slaves are uneasy," Patty says. "They're about to rise 
up." 
The burn ing monk exercising on his mat. l n .  Hale. Ex. Hale. 
ln .  Ex. Hale. Hale. 
"Can't happen without Spartacus," I ra says, panti ng rapid ly. 
"No way." 
The burn ing monk hasn't much Engl ish (a qu ick learner, 
though), so I fi l l  h im i n  on the gaps he hears in the conversation .  
"Th is is h is  best movie," Patty says. Guy and L inda agree. 
63 
"Defin itely in the top five," Linda says. " Either this or The Detective 
or The Harder They Fall." 
"Was he i n  that?" Guy wants to know. 
I ra changes the channel back to the show about the war. 
H u nti ng the tiger. Hau l ing the wounded forgett ing the goners. U n ­
nerved hoardes a t  the embassy gates. The burn ing  monk rises 
from his mat and goes to the window. l pat h is  shoulder, del icately, 
to cheer him. A harnessed woman pul l ing a cart loaded with chi ldren 
passes in the street. One of the ch i ldren has a radio that sings, 
"Two become one, under the bamboo treeeee." 
"Sure he was in that," Linda says. 
Patty goes into the kitchen but forgets what she wants there. 
For a long t ime she stares at the min iatu re-n ineteen-twentyish­
wal l -telephone-magnet stuck on the refrigerator door. Nobody 
calls. She retu rns to the l iv ing room with a bowl of g rapes, red, 
seedful .  I ra sends her back for the sandwiches. "And some n ice 
rice for you," she says, open ing  her hand to the b u rn ing  monk. A 
steaming bowl on the burn ing mon k's mat. 
Linda, who has studied the laws of H istory at Brown, Penn, 
Pitt, and Indiana State, says: "D id you know that near the end of the 
fifteenth century, the endless complaint of the frailty of al l  earth ly 
glory was sung to various melodies." 
I know that. 
During the next seventeen seconds (the span Linda intu itively 
a l lows for th inking on the matter), I have n ineteen thoughts; on 
average, a brand new one every .89 seconds: 
A red movie of a leaping whippet clapping a frisbee in its 
jaws. A black-and-white p icture of Oscar Ravez with upturned 
eyel ids. A fam i ly of sparrows panicking from tree to tree. One pi 
minus three pi is negative two pi .  A f lying raccoon queen wielding 
an alp in ist's two-headed ice axe. Four  identical snowflakes. A 
b lue picture of Long John Si lver. How del ightfu l real ly Patty's tits 
are. Fatty Arbuckle as a featherweight fighti ng for the title. Ooky 
ooky ook. I was framed I tel l  ya framed. A palmful of shaving cream 
peppered with stubble. The Invisible Hand of God. Boiled cabbage 
odor. Li nda's aren't as n ice not nearly. Dotless dice thrown. Our  
bod ies why do we forebear? The artifice of  consciousness. How 
many footbal ls can fit i n  a-
"1 d idn 't know that," Ira says. 
The burn ing monk hasn't touched his rice, not so much as a 
gra in .  Even though it's too pasty for my l i k ing, I pretend it's just 
about the best rice I've ever had-scoop after scoop, sucking my 
f ingers clean of it-hoping my friend wi l l  take up  h is  spoon. 
Patty changes back to Spartacus. Linda has fi n ished all the 
sandwiches and is working on the last grape. With the nai ls of her 
64 
thu m b  and forefinger she catches the seeds i n  her m outh and 
d rops them Into the ashtray from the Tropicana Hotel ,  Las Vegas. 
It's the very end where M rs. Spartacus l i fts up Spartacus Jun ior so 
Spartacus Sen ior  can have a good look. Then she spi rits the infant 
away. M i le after mi le, as far as the eye can see, thousands of extras 
somewhere in the Italian countryside qu ietly bear their crucifixions. 
G uy hu rries i nto the bath room, where he weeps. "I can't help it," he 
says from behind the door. 
It is warm, and the burn ing monk has been exercis ing and 
not touch ing his rice, so Patty mists h im  with the p lant mister. He is 
grateful and smi les, and after Patty mists the African violet plant, 
the spider plant, and the l tttle baby plant without a name card, she 
mists the burning monk again. He says it 's a wonderful i nvention,  
one wonderful th ing.  
Guy emerges from the bathroom with a pair  of enamelled red 
bongoes. He says he found them in the clothes hamper. He squeezes 
them between his knees. He can't resist, for old time's sake: ponk­
poppa-totta-ponk. Ponk. 
I ra changes the channel and turns up  the volume. The burn ing 
monk takes his can by the handle and pats the pocket of his smock 
to make sure that he  has everything he'l l need. He says it's t ime for 
him to go, word has come down, so long, thanks for it al l ,  thanks all 
arou nd. Patty can have his mat, I ra his thongs. Guy and Linda don't 
get anyth ing .  I was afraid of this moment, but I know that what's on  
h is  l ung  is on h is  tongue. The can is heavy for h im-1 offer to  carry 
it but he resists, he can manage. From the landing I watch h i m  
descend, heaving the can along a s  i f  he had a bad h ip. Then I 
fol low h im. 
I lene is towel l ing herself by the pool. When she's dry she 
twists the towel into a turban on  top of her head. The burn ing  monk 
heads for the street, where the people are. Patty and Ira and Guy 
and Linda fol low I lene's example. Soon they're al l  wearing towel 
turbans, too. They wave at I lene from the window, and I lene waves 
back. Linda was right, it is a nice day. On n ice days all th ings open, 
and the burn ing monk finds a n ice l ittle spot in the m iddle of the 
street and sits there, a lovely l ittle l otus, openi ng. 
A halt-ci rc le of warm wet faces. They spi l l  from the sidewalk 
i n  front of the barber shop; SIX CHAIRS NO WAITI NG. I point out to 
I lene that the i ntricacies of the burn ing monk's face are of a l i fel ike 
del icacy. She tel ls  me that a l l  warm th i n gs fall to the cold and 
remembers how when she was a g i rl she used to help her grand­
mother i nto sweaters. "The world has its own i magi nation, don't 
you thi n k?" she says. Then the gasol ine-splash and the f l ick of the 
match. I think  I love you, I lene. 
The fi res flap and pop l ike l ittle flats. The burn ing monk t ips 
65 
and then topples ful ly on h is  side. 
A pickup truck crowded with three men in  green gardener's 
clothes comes to take the body away. The leader recommends a 
period of waiting. 
A boy with a blue rattail combs some of the ashes i nto a cloth 
that he has i roned exclusively for this purpose. 
The men of the truck are ti red of this sort of th ing.  
66 


The Burning Monk

Migliaccio, Janice

janice migliaccio 
Sister 
Your  hair was short-cropped b londe, 
p ix ie cut, 
brown freckles on baby-white skin .  
We stood at Grandma's dormer wi ndow 
spitti ng p lum pits off the roof. 
Thin legs 
matching red shorts 
cheeks stuffed with ammun it ion: 
laughing,  mischievous g i rls. 
Seven years old, and I knew 
al l about protecting you. 
You were five, the baby; 
I was big s ister. 
Bad th ings stayed away from you 
when I was around. 
Grown women now. But 
you r  taste i n  men 
raises big sister in me. 
You throw away your Botticel l i  smi le 
on overg rown boys, 
who wou ldn 't know a tender heart 
from a can of beer. 
If I could interfere, 
I'd take your  man-sized pain 
and throw it, 
l i ke a p lum pit, off the roof. 
We'd laugh as it rolled across sh ingles; 
we'd laugh, 
pain bu ried i n  the cool grass. 
71 


Sister

Hempel, Wes

wes hempel 
Emerg i ng 
What if you seep out of you r  hands 
spread into the drum of the sky 
l ike a Ryder landscape maple, m ist 
and fen nel along the bank lapping 
varnish i n  the room where you sit 
honing verbs i nto l imbs, how 
lambent the waves and d issipating sky 
ign ite in you the dream of s inking 
i nto the body of a carp pin ned in  
mesh, hands grappl ing as you fi l l ip  
violently twist and surge i nto air  
77 


Emerging

Review, Northridge

richard buller 
An Interview with Ray Bradbury 
Northridge Review: You have been outspoken In your 
advice to aspiring writers. What would you say In this 
respect to readers of the Northridge Review? 
Bradbury: It all depends on what you want from life. Do 
you want a car and a rich apartment and nice clothes? You 
can't have them. Not now, anyway. I took a vow of poverty to 
become a writer. Which means I sold newspapers on a 
street cornerforthree years, from the age of 1 9  to the age of 
about 22, lived at home with my folks, had no car, few 
clothes, and made about ten bucks a week all those years. 
Gradually, I began to sell stories to pulp magazines for 
twenty dollars apiece, and then finally forty dollars apiece. 
All the material you find i n  my books, like The Martian 
Chronicles or The Illustrated Man, was sold to pulp magazines 
for from twenty to eighty dollars a story! 
Is that pain to you? Is that hard? It wasn't for me. I knew 
where I wanted to go. Do you? It wasn't hard for me to give 
things up, for I never wanted a car in the first place. I had had 
too many friends killed by cars. When I was 27 1 was still living 
at home with my folks, to save money, so I could write. Would 
that be pain for you? Not for me. 
I got married when I was 27 and moved into a thirty-dollar­
a-month apartment i n  Venice, California with my wife who 
worked and made about forty dollars a week, while I made 
around 38 dollars a week, selling my stories. We ate hot 
dogs and went to the Penny Arcade nights to have fun. We 
went to cheap movies. And we were in love. And then my 
wife started having babies, which scared the hell out of me, 
for our income was cut in half. But God was watching and 
said, Ray old bean, you're a good chap. I'm going to raise 
your pay to eighty dollars a week And thafs what happened. 
So my pay kept going up, to $1 00 a week by the time I was 
32 and $1 30 a week when I was33. After that, I began to get 
75 
Northridge Review 
screen work on occasion and my income jumped. But you 
can see I got what I wanted gradually. And I got it out of love, 
doing what I wanted to do. 
I guess I can only suggest that you find something that 
you love madly, and do it. And whether it is being a writer, 
actor, painter, or computerologist, as long as you love it, do 
it, do it, do it. Nothing to stop you except fear, and in the 
doing the fear vanishes. To sum it up, if you want to write, if 
you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that 
God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write 
every single day of your l ife. 
I've always been deeply in love with writing. It's never 
been any work or any problem. To those of you who don't 
care enough about writing to write, I just say, cut it out and 
go away and do something else. You've got to find something 
you love that drives you to do it. Otherwise, it's not worth 
doing. If you have to force yourself all the time to do it, you'd 
better f ind another career. 
N. R. :  What is the relationship between reading other 
writers' material and one' s own writing process? 
Bradbury: The more your read, the more ideas explode in 
your head, run riot, beautifully collide so that when you go to 
bed the visions color the ceiling and l ight the walls with 
wonderful discoveries. I fell in love with books with I was five 
or s ix, and I still use l ibraries and bookstores, years later. 
The meat of writing must be found and fed on in every library 
you can jump into and every bookstore you can pole-vault 
through. 
N. R. :  What are your own reading preferences? 
Bradbury: I may start a n ight's read with a James Bond 
novel, move on to Shakespeare, dip into Dylan Thomas, 
make a fast turnabout to Fu Manchu, that great and evil 
Oriental doctor, ancestor of Dr. No, then p ick up Emily 
Dickinson, and end my evening with Ross Macdonald, the 
detective novelist, or Robert Frost. 
76 
richard buller 
N. R.: How would you assess yourself as a writer? 
Bradbury: When I was a boy, I collected Buck Rogers comic 
strips. People made fun, so I tore them up. Later, I said to 
myself, "Whafs this all about? These people are trying to 
starve me. The greatest food in my life, right now, is Buck 
Rogers!" And I started collecting comic strips again. For I 
had the great secret! 
If I had listened to the taste-mongers and critics, I would 
have played a safe game, never jumped the fence, and 
become a nonentity. The fact is plain: I am an amiable 
compost heap. My mind is full of moron plus brilliant trash. I 
learned early that in order to grow myself excellent I had to 
start myself in plain old farmyard manure. From such heaps 
of mediocre or angelic words I fever myself up to grow fine 
stories, or roses, if you prefer. 
I am a junkyard, then, of all the libraries and bookshops I 
ever fell into or leaned upon, and am proud and happy that I 
never developed such a rare taste that I could not go back 
and jog with Tarzan or hit the Yellow Brick Road with 
Dorothy, both characters and their books banned for 50 
years by l ibrarians and educators. 
I have had my own loves, and gone my own way to become 
my own self. 
N. R.: Are many of your ideas taken from real-life? 
Bradbury: All the ideas you find in my books are based 
upon a little piece of something I saw in our society. For 
instance, 32 years ago, Senator Joseph McCarthy was 
beginning to make lists of certain books. I didn't like that. I 
don't like it when anyone or any group tells me, "Here's a 
reading list, go read these books- and only these books." 
So I wrote Fahrenheit 45 1. I want us all to move very freely 
through our society and pick up all the information we need 
to make wise decisions. 
77 
Northridge Review 
N. R. : Which of your books are you most fond of? 
Bradbury: Something Wicked This Way Comes is my favorite 
book, for me my most del icious book, because I wrote it with 
one purpose. I wanted you to read it late at night with a 
flashl ight under the covers. If a book isn't that good, it's not 
worth reading. 
N. R. : What is it that you hope your writing career has 
achieved? 
Bradbury: I stared at all the books in my library once and 
said, " My God, if I could once in my l ife write one book that 
would wind up on the shelf there," leaning against Mark 
Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, or ... you name one of your 
own favorite books out of the past. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, to 
mention one of my favorites, the Oz boo ks, Huckleberry 
Finn, Tom Sawyer, Robinson Crusoe, al l  the books of Jules 
Verne. Beautiful books. I've been reading them the last five 
or ten years and they're better today for me than they were 
when I was twelve years o ld. 
If I could only create one book that would finally, at the 
end of my life, live on that shelf with those lovely people. 
They're the people who are going to live. Most of the stuff 
that's read today will fade away, and Alice in Wonderland 
will go on for centuries. I want to be with these heroes of 
mine, Twain and Dickens and Stevenson. 
N. R. :  What are your views of the course that science· 
fiction and fantasy writing has taken since you published 
your first book, Dark Carnival, in 1 947? 
Bradbury: I f  you went into an average library in 1 932, 
1 945, or 1 9 53, you wou ld have found no Edgar Rice 
Burroughs, no L. Frank Baum and no Oz. In 1 958 or 1 962 
you would have found no Asimov, no Heinlein, no Van Vogt, 
no Bradbury! Here and there, perhaps one book or two by 
the above. For the rest, a desert. What were the reasons 
for this? 
78 
.... 
richard buller 
Among librarians and teachers there was then, and there 
still somewhat dimly persists, an idea that only fact matters. 
Fantasy even when it  takes science-fictional forms, which it 
often does, is dangerous. It is escapist. It is day-dreaming. It 
has nothing to do with the world and the world's problems. 
So said the snobs who did not know themselves as snobs. 
However, the children, hungry for ideas and dying of star­
vation, sensed, if they could not say, that fantasy, and its 
robot child science fiction, is not escape at all, but a circling 
of reality to enchant it and make it behave. The children 
guessed, if they did not whisper it, that all science fiction is 
an attempt to solve problems by pretending to look the 
other way. So the children cried, " Enough! Let there be fan­
tasy. Let there be science-fiction light." 
Everywhere we look are problems. And everywhere we 
further deeply look are solutions. The children of men, the 
children of time, how can they not be fascinated with these 
challenges? Science fiction becomes scientific fact. Thus, 
science fiction and its recent history. 
So it seems we are all science-fictional children dreaming 
ourselves into new ways of survival. Instead of putting 
saints' bones by in crystal jars, to be touched by the faithful 
in following centuries, we put by voices and faces, dreams 
and impossible dreams on tape, on records, in books, on TV, 
in films. 
By osmosis, the Industrial Revolution and the Electronic 
and Space Age have finally seeped into the blood, bone, 
marrow, heart, flesh and mind of the young who as teachers 
teach us what we should have known all along. 
N. R.: Then you believe that science fiction actually 
applies more to the present than to the future? 
Bradbury: This literary process can be described as Per­
seus confronted by Medusa Gazing at Medusa's image in 
his bronze shield, pretending to look one way, Perseus 
reaches back over his shoulder and severs Medusa's head. 
So science fiction pretends at futures in order to cure sick 
dogs lying in today's road. 
79 
Northridge Review 
N. R.: What is your opinion of current American fiction 
in general? 
Bradbury: Whenever new, modern, American novels come 
out, I go read Rumpelstiltskin again, because I think the 
modern American novel is bankrupt of imagination, wit, 
style, idea on any level. I am a language person. I've loved 
poetry all my life and my favorite people, whom I visit at the 
library again and again, are William Shakespeare and 
Bernard Shaw, and G.K Chesterton and Loren Eiseley. 
People with ideas. People with images. People with language. 
People who romance me with death, and excitement, and 
make me want to go on living. 
N.R.: What is the role of fantasy in every-day life? 
Bradbury: I happen to believe in fantasy. I happen to 
believe we survive by our wits, by our ability to fantasize, 
and without it we couldn't exist in  the very real world. The 
ability to fantasize helps us make our futures. I don't care 
what you dream; it's honorable if you love it. 
80 


An Interview with Ray Bradbury

Martin, Paul

Daddy\u27s Home

Wolfe, Jennifer

Jennifer Wolfe 
Love Poem 
I want to move to New York with you 
for the summer, I want to explore you, 
to explore this fascination with your 
lardy flesh; sit on a fire escape in 
lower Manhattan sweating humidly 
my cotton shift sticking to my thighs, 
crawling up the crack of my ass. I want to 
watch you walk through the door of our crowded 
apartment still angry from a day of 
blaring horns, other people's sweat and 
vinyl seats and see the relief cascade 
over your face that it is me here, not 
a stranger who wants nothing from you but 
transportation, me and I want every-
thing, even the things you've forgotten. 


Love Poem

Scheibel, Patti

Patti Scheibel 
There in Front of the Window 
I threw my sister's clothes out the window while she was taking 
a shower. Now she stands naked in front of the open window 
looking down at her clothes scattered across the parking lot. It's a 
hot bleached white day; the kind where even inhaling seems like too 
much work. She stands framed in the window like a picture in the 
museum, faded in the heat, dripping and glistening in the light, 
oblivious to her own exposure. 
She will not move from there. She will stand there until gravity 
forces me to run downstairs and gather up her clothes into a big dirty 
bundle. I will carry it up to her and she won't say a word. She'll 
just look at me. She will put her clothes into the hamper because 
they touched the asphalt and shards of broken glass may have 
woven their way into the fabric. Then she will rummage through 
my cluttered closet for something to wear, peering at each item as 
though she can't bear the touch of material against her skin. She 
will put on the least offensive thing she can find, probably shorts 
and a t-shirt. After that she will hurt me in some way. I won't bother 
to run away or hide. She would wait for me if necessary. 
I know this as a fact, the same way I know that I will continue 
to throw her clothes out the window for as long as we live together, 
barring bodily disablement. This scene will repeat itself over and 
over again until one of three things happen: 
1) I will stop throwing her clothes out the window. Some things 
are addictive, after awhile you simply lose control. Watching her 
clothes flutter down from our second window is addictive. This is 
the least likely alternative. 
2) She will beat me into a pulp. One day she will get lost in her 
74 NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
anger and she won't stop even if I scream. As long as she and her 
boyfriend are getting along alright, she hasn' t had to work overtime 
and Dad hasn't called to ask if we've seen Mom lately, I don' t have 
to worry. The odds are against me though. 
3) Someday I will resist  gravity and I won't run downstairs to 
gather up her clothes. She will stand there, window flung open, 
slowly hunching over as time passes and her bones become brittle. 
Long after her clothes have decayed in the parking lot she wil l  still 
be there, gray and shriveled. Eventually she'll die, her naked body 
mummified in the heat there in front of the window like Stone­
henge. 


There in Front of the Window

Siewert, Ken

Ken Siewert 
Just Around the Corner Down the Hall 
One day the man will lookback to this young boy, who bounces 
a red rubber ball around and around, and he will wonder. He will 
remember, among other things, counting, but will not remember 
who it was that had taught him his simple numbers. Maybe it was 
his mother, he will think, or his father, or maybe it was the old 
German woman who sits in the front room of that Portland house, 
her bathrobe tied with a piece of cord about her waist, and making 
herself ready for bed. 
He stares at the ball that rests upon the palm of his hand. 
"Five," he says. 
He knows the ball well. It is made of hard spongy rubber 
painted slick fire engine red, but it has seen so much use that the 
surface is cracking and flaking away. Each time he bounces the ball 
it strikes the floor with a solid slap and then he takes a step and 
counts. He loves numbers, so precise, so orderly. 
"Six," he says, and the old woman sits in the front room on a 
faded over-stuffed couch and strokes her long grey hair with an 
ivory handled brush. 
He bounces the ball from the front room into the hallway, down 
the hall, through the kitchen and then back into the front room. 
Each time he enters the living room he calls out a number keeping 
track of his passage. His goal has always been one hundred. When 
he reaches one hundred he will start over again and it will not be 
WST AROUND THE CORNERDOWNTHE HALL 95 
until much later that the man, who was this young boy, will know 
that here began a pattern. In his mind, he will return to this house 
time and time again, but the answers that he seeks are muted. The 
man will know that somehow this old woman sits at the apex of his 
mystery and he will want to know about her. He will think that the 
answers may lie
· 
in the memory of simple things. He would ask of 
the old woman, if he could, what is the color of your eyes, or why 
is your hair so long and what does it feel like to touch, to glide the 
brush through the liquid strands of silk. 
Briefly, ever so briefly, he will think of another woman. A 
woman with long brown hair and he will remember her hair drifting 
and floating in the wind, catching at her eyelashes and tangling 
within her smile. He will remember how her hair caught in his own 
smile, held fast at the comers of her lips and sticking to the 
moistness of his tongue. 
"Seven," he says, and he quickens his pace as he starts down the 
long hallway, afraid that the ball may slip from his control and 
become lost in the dark. He moves toward the light of the kitchen 
and the sweet smell of her homemade bread and then, there she is 
again in the front room. 
"Eight," he says, and each time he enters the room and blurts 
out a number it startles the old German woman. She pauses for a 
moment breaking the rhythmic brush of her hair. Her head is tilted 
at an angle as if listening for some sound. 
"I want to know," he says. 
"What?" she says. 
"When will he be back?" 
"Tomorrow," she says. 
"Nine," he says, and it will take him thirty-seven steps to 
complete his circle, sometimes thirty-nine, and now and then, his 
numbers become confused. It angers him when he loses count so 
he yells louder and louder as he enters the living room hoping that 
his cadence will resound again in his head as he completes his next 
passage, but there are always the distractions. There is a fear in the 
long hallway, the sweet smell of bread in the kitchen and then the 
front room, filled with things to catch the eye, the frreplace and fire, 
96 NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
the dolls that line the mantle all richly dressed in brightly colored 
crocheted clothes, her swaying back and forth as she strokes her 
hair, and then the pictures. He knows each person in each picture 
arranged upon the wall. She said that he is the spitting image of one 
man who hangs motionless, suspended, but then he knows the 
picture looks nothing like his father. 
"When will he be back?" he says. 
"Tomorrow," she says. 
"Ten," he says, and somewhere below the sound of her words, 
he believes he detects a lie, for he thinks she said the very same thing 
yesterday and the day before. 
As he turns the comer and starts down the hall, he thinks about 
that morning, how he and his father had walked hand in hand in the 
alleyway, scuffing the frost from the grass, leaving footprints on the 
cold ground. He tries to remember exactly, every detail so that he 
will keep it right. 
His father stands over him pointing to the back door. His breath 
is puffs of fog in the morning air. 
"That is your grandmother's  house," his father says, "go there, 
knock on her door. Tell her who you are." 
"Aren't you coming?" 
"Tell her I will be by later," his father says. 
"Eleven," he says, and as he starts down the hall he thinks about 
the first time he saw her face and tries to remember exactly what it 
was that he felt. 
His knuckles are timid on the door and he is shy in introducing 
himself. She bends down, her face in front of his, her strong hands 
upon his shoulders and when she understands, he watches her eyes 
as her gaze looks beyond him and searches up and down the alley. 
"Twelve," he says, and as he starts down tbe hall way he thinks 
of another house with a heavy door and his mother standing at an 
ironing board staring out the window. 
He listens to the snap of his mother's gum and the hiss of her 
iron as he mimics her actions with a handkerchief and a heavy book 
on the coffee table. Already her face is vague as iflost in the steam 
that rises from his father's shirt draped so precariously. 
"Ghosts in the hallway," he says. 
JUST AROUND THE CORNER DOWN THE HALL 97 
"What?" she says. 
"Ghosts." 
"Nonsense," she says. 
"Thirteen," he says. 
She takes up his hand and he feels a slight shudder run through 
her body as they start down the hall. "It 's  time for sleep," she says. 
She will go to bed each night, with her hair loose, free, and in 
the morning he will watch as she sits in front of the mirror and braids 
it, wraps it round and round in a bun, and pins it to the top of her head 
and it will not be until much later that the man, who was this young 
boy, will look back into that Portland house and try to understand. 
Something was left behind, discarded, dropped slowly in the rooms 
of that Portland house. Now and then he will walk in the footsteps 
of that young boy collecting the scraps of memory that will help him 
piece it together. 
Briefly, ever so briefly, he will think of another young boy and 
how this child has the color of his own eyes and the cleft of his own 
chin, but the thick straight brown hair of the boy's mother. He will 
wonder what toys and thoughts occupy that child's time. 
They sit at the breakfast table. She had broken her ann a year 
ago and the doctor had made her buy the red rubber ball. The ball 
is firmly in her left hand and her tea cup in her right. He eyes the 
ball as she squeezes and releases it over and over again, the cracks 
appearing and disappearing with each compression. Now and then 
she will glance at the clock. She reads her fortune in the bits of tea 
leaves that have collected in patterns and flecks. 
"Read mine," he says. 
She looks to the tiny scraps of leaves stuck to the side of his 
porcelain mug and talks about money, mail and strangers. 
"And my father?" he says. 
"Nothing," she says. 
He takes his cup and pours a few drops of tea and swishes it 
around and around. "Again," he says. 
She lays the ball on the white table cloth and takes up his cup 
with both hands. For a long time she sits silent and then, "Tomor­
row," she says. "Tomorrow." 
98 NORTHRIDGE REVIEW 
He takes the ball from the table and begins bouncing and 
counting, that solid thump echoing in the hall way. She moves to the 
rocking chair and her knitting, occasionally muttering as she drops 
a stitch. 
"One," he says, and there is the darkness and the fear, then the 
smell of bread. 
"Two," he says, and there are the bright dolls, the creak of her 
chair and ticking of her needles. 
He thinks, if only he could be sure, the footprints, his father in 
the fog with the morning sun at his back, too bright to see his face, 
the hand pointing the way, the door, her fleeting glance, and lips 
that seem to move oddly. "Tomorrow," they say. 
"Three," he says, and there are the dolls, the ticking needles, the 
hallway with dark wooden floors, spaces between the boards and 
dust trapped within the cracks, and then the kitchen with yellowed 
linoleum, the smell of bread, and the morning tea cups. 
"Get it right," he says. 
"What?" 
"Four," he says. 
Today he is particularly unhappy. She doesn't know that each 
morning while she bathes, he slips out the back door and through 
the iron gate and checks in the alleyway for footprints in the frost. 
He checks for the tracks of a man who might pace at night too timid 
to knock upon the door. This morning there was no frost, only dew, 
and even though he examined his own steps there was no way to be 
certain whether his father had been there or not. 
"Five," he says, and the door bell rings. 
She opens the door and a man looms in the threshold. He cannot 
see the man's face so he squints into the sunlight pouring through 
the doorway and holds his breath. 
"These are for you," a man says. 
"For me?" she says. 
"Six," the boy says. 
He watches as a man rolls in three large cardboard tubs and she 
opens each one and looks inside. 
"Come see," she says. 
JUST AROUND THE CORNER DOWNTHE HALL 99 
Each one is neatly packed with his clothes, his toys. They are 
oddly familiar, but the smell of them is not quite right and the toys 
are not as colorful as he remembers. 
"They are not mine," he says. 
"What?" she says. 
"When?" he says. 
She sits back in her chair and takes up her knitting. He listens 
to the sound of her rocking and the ticking of her needles. "Tomor­
row," she says. 
"You lie," he says. 
"What?" 
"Seven," he says, and the circling will continue and one day the 
man will look back on this young boy and wonder what feeling lies 
just below the memory of that dull echoing sound from the red 
rubber ball. He will wonder, among other things, how many times 
he has walked a pattern and arranged people to fit his simple play. 
How many times has he tried this or that, until now his hallway is 
filled with ghosts, specter behind specter, their features blurred, 
bleeding one through another. He will wonder what his intentions 
were when he first picked up that ball and took that initial step? Was 
it meant to be one step from or one step toward that old German 
woman who sits in the front room of that Portland house, brushing 
her hair and making herself ready for bed? 


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