2007 Poetry and Fiction Winners

published November 7th 2007

Pitting creativity against itself is no easy task, so our judges had quite the job to do. But, they rose to the challenge and selected the best of the best. Join us for our annual reception at Wesley’s on Thursday, November 8 at 6 p.m.

Pour a fresh cup of coffee, get your dictionary and settle into your favorite easy chair. Here are your winners of Toledo City Paper’s Poetry & Fiction Contest 2007.

Academic poetry Winner

Matt McBride

Matt McBride recieved his MFA from Bowling Green State University. He has recently published poems in or has work forthcommoing from "Poet Lorre," "Alice Blue," "Heartlands," "Thieve's Jargon," and "Cranky." Additionally, his chapbook, The Space between Stars, is available from Kent State's Wick poetry press.

Elephant

I wake in your skeleton
holding the fossilized bread
of your teeth.
Everywhere dilapidated console TV's
play classic shows
and the electric gibberish of mice
that aren't really mice
but rather tiny homunculi
running naked through the detritus
whose tinfoil-thin yells
could deafen only ants.
Behind my eyes is static.
Behind my eyes
are two glass bells.
I hold a Polaroid
that won't develop.
I'm learning to play
the unstrung harps
of your ribs.

Academic poetry Runner-up

Renoir Gaither

Renoir Gaither is a librarian at the University of Michigan. His writing is usually tinged with surreal imagery and whimsy. One of the hardest things he’s done this year is write several one-page plays. Also, he constructs sudden fiction of 150 words or less. Yes, “construction” is a useful word, he thinks, when it comes to imaginary thinking.

Molars

Imagine the alpha dog of kitsch nestled above a prim, cucumber lawn. That crackling neon Ajax of a molar marooned outside the dentist's office where, upon entering, you witness the Cliff Note-doting assistant, eyes flitting like a museum guide within spitting distance of a kindergarten class. She cajoles you to endure wheezing vinyl and feisty aquarium fish before the dentist napkins you with family snapshots dry-docked among tony bistros and meandering serif glyphs. The dentist probes, scratches, nudges. Like a midge fly. And suddenly, teeth forget they're teeth. They recall odd facts such as Brutus's wife swallowing hot coals. Or that some wily craftsman used 28,000 teeth to build a spire in China. They remind you that there's an elegance to the story of a manic-depressive farmer who in a frisson of ecstasy tells his wife that he'd become the slope of a knuckleball thrown three decades ago into the soft voice of a woods lit only by the bladder of a saturnine, purple moon. They souse the fact that the inertia of the past rides herd over the heart. One avalanching moment to the next. And you believe them as you do a pot of black-eyed peas or Van Gogh's peasants singing contentedly under twilight's milky propellers. As you know that desire abducts the dreamer.

Academic poetry Honorable Mention

Matt McBride

Salvation Army

Everywhere they lie
like a thousand sets of Russian dolls
haphazard and mismatched
amidst a field of broken televisions.
If anyone remembers
what the war was for
they don't let on.
There's not much to be saved really,
a handful of shells
a vintage dinette set
in good condition,
an electric typewriter.
How do you survive
what you've already lived through?
You can't stay in love forever.
This grubby towel
will make a nice-enough flag.
Someone's got to polish
what's left of the silver;
we can't all be heros.

Academic poetry Honorable Mention

David Pratt

David Pratt is a Master’s student in Popular Culture at BGSU. Originally from Chicago, he moved to Springfield, Ohio in 2002 to attend Wittenberg University. While there, he earned his Bachelor’s degree in English with a Creative Writing certificate and a minor in Music. He teaches an introductory course in cultural studies and is currently working on his thesis, which concerns portrayals of drinking and alcoholism in American media.

December Aubade

On Christmas morning of my eighth year,
my mom gave me a teddy bear.
I looked at her sadly, as if she had taken it away
as soon as she gave it.
I was sure I was too old for a gift like that.

Now, on this steel morning,
curled up against your warmth,
I wake you with a kiss on the neck.
I unwrap you like a Christmas present,
the one I’ve already figured out,
but which brings me the most happiness
because it’s the one I wanted.

The mornings you’re not there are sufferable
because the day is filled with your possibility.
It’s the nights I go to bed alone
that are endless January.

But every morning is your advent,
some are even Christmas,
and I would suffer a million nights of January
for one morning in December
because I will never be too old for you.

Amateur poetry Winner

Toni Arman

Toni Arman lives in Maumee, Ohio. She is the proud mother of 2 high school students, Claire and Paul. Her favorite things are spending time with family, friends and Daisy, her dog, confidant, and daily walking companion. Her hobbies include reading and outdoor activities. She is known for constantly trying to be funny but mostly just cracks herself up.

Haiku I

Here's my resume
Toledo City Paper
Very creative

Haiku II

I'm forty seven
Am willing to work part time
Good sense of humor

Haiku III

Give me a call please
FREE every Wednesday, like you
This is a Haiku

Amateur poetry Runner-up

Jessica Trumbell

Jessica Trumbull is from Woodville, Ohio, where she lives with her parents, Phil and Joyce, and her brother, Ian. She is currently a sophomore English Writing and German double major at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and is a graduate of Maumee Valley Country Day School in Toledo, Ohio. She is also the Assistant News Editor of Denison's weekly newspaper, The Denisonian.

Brain Surgery

My lunch becomes the lining of my throat
as smells of burning tissue fill the air.
Each panting breath outlines a sixteenth note —
I think about the family, their prayers.

The knife removes a piece of paper skin
revealing reddish flesh, the giveaway:
a tumor lies where matter once had been,
this human body's first sign of decay.

The brain is bruised just like a fallen peach;
the damaged dark spots give beneath a touch.
The surgeon tries with tools, but he can't reach.
My hand uses the table as a crutch.

The nurse walks to the window, blinds are drawn;
the light pours in — outside, the world goes on.

Amateur poetry Honorable Mention

Kevin Clark

Kevin Clark is 26 year-old a factory worker from Monroe, Michigan. When not at work, he enjoys writing, spending time with family, and making music with The Homeville Circle. This is his first entry in a poetry contest.

A Dream of Five, Going on Six

My lungs are stuck together
in the stagnant sea of apartment humidity,
Where I impersonate the plastic plants
that hang on the wall,
Just above Mammaw’s dining room window,
Where too the air is still and riddled
with the shame of my childhood headaches.
I see my childhood often while I sleep.
Papaw is a cold body in our living room,
My mother is an angry column of smoke,
Screaming and venting all over me,
Leaving welts and I am in shock.
I am five, going on six.
My life is distortion.
White noise kindergarten static.
I’m six now.
I don’t bother coloring anymore,
Because I will die someday,
I know this.
I will be cold stiff skin,
And they will show my body in a scary church.
And afterwards good Baptist women
will make fried chicken,
While old red-faced men in gray suits
will laugh talking
About weather,
And crops,
And politics,
And I can’t believe that they will care
if I colored between the lines or not.

Amateur poetry Honorable Mention

Margaret A. Weber

Margaret Weber is a retired professional musician who continues to be involved in the Toledo Chorale Society. She has been active in numerous local musical groups over the years. Weber received her B.A. and M.A. in music from the University of Michigan, with which she taught part-time at Mary Manse College (now the Collingwood Arts Center) and the University of Toledo. Poetry has been a long time hobby and passion, resulting in various local publishings over the years. Weber is a member of the Northwest Ohio chapter of the National League of American Pen Women.

Colors

Gray fog
mudspattered halflight
color of wolves.

I close blinds to keep it out
rush to light all the lamps.
Colors tumble up from rugs
leap off bookshelves.
Ohm, Thank you, Thomas Alva.

I put on my reddest sweater
purple scarf
pour comforting caffine
into this pink cup
and munch bright brown cookies
that come in a yellow box.

Closing a book
I savor its cover
applegreen
color of burgeoning spring.
But, now is the time
to think on what Matisse made
of blue and black papers
with bits of white
and notquitered.

Youth poetry Winner

Acoma Gaither

Acoma Gaither is a 7th grade student who enjoys music, acting and writing. Her favorite U.S. destination is Chicago. Her favorite bicycle model is Schwinn. She would love to live in England. Her tastes in music range from hip-hop to pop to classical. She describes herself as "out-going."

America

America walks on Chuck Taylor's, chewing gum and telling jokes.
America munches on hamburgers, French fries, and fortune cookies.
America swings a fly ball with an aluminum bat.
America bundles under the covers and watches the super bowl
America studies metamorphic rock, Montezuma, and multiplying decimals.
America reads New York Times, and Time Magazine.
On a cold snowy corner America hold up a peace sign.
America shouts My Bad.
With both hands on the wheel, listening to the radio, America wonders how far to the next gas station.

Flash Fiction Winner

Same Old Story Turned Into a Blues - Renoir Gaither

From Four Till Late

Little Choke picked up his guitar and walked to Nell’s. Nell’s house was called Big Teeth. There were big teeth for eating grits. Big teeth for blowing breath into barrel fires. Big teeth for cursing moons. Big teeth for saying, life’ll be better if you try. Big teeth for saying, life ain’t gonna get no better. It was the same old story. Every man whistled it walking down the street. Every woman hung it on her clothesline.

Porkpie Hat

Nell fixes hot tamales just as Little Choke walks in. Redolence of hot comb and tamales tangle like a lonesome word at a birthday party. Nell’s silence morphs into a curb cut: “Why you wear that old porkpie hat?”

Instinctively, Little Choke blurts, “Woman, you must think I’m from Tanganyika, you talk so much. I got this hat from a man down on his luck.”

“Yeah, a snake oil salesman,”

Little Choke studies her, stiffens his lips. “The man asked me to play a song on my guitar. Said he ain’t heard real smoke in your drawers blues since he came to town. So I played. Said all he had to give me was this porkpie hat. If I lose my porkpie hat, you know I’m bound to lose my mind.”

It was the same old story told by a rambling man to a kind-hearted woman in a kitchen about the size of Nell’s.

Ramblin’ on my Mind

Inside the walls of Big Eye’s jook, crickets made love; outside, folks sloughed off evil and concentrated on devilment. Big Eye’s jook was a Higgs Boson, a particle that gives other particles of matter the gift of mass. Anyone or anything floating through Big Eye’s jook took on qualities larger than before it entered. Big Eye once said, “When gin gets to talking it doesn’t much care about the subject of a sentence. But that predicate! Man, it’s a .44 pistol.” A mouthful, Little Choke thought. Somewhere down the line, though, it made sense.

And yet—there was always “somewhere down the line.” In between here and there were lonesome trains and unsteady work and dreams of steady work. Here there was Big Teeth and barrelhouse and eighty-eights belching under some flatulent moon. And down the line the moon was an overturned sack of flour and another chance to play one’s self again.

Bargains to be made, all too often about the same old story.

Me and the Devil Blues, Take 2

Little Choke spit. Indelicately. Indiscreetly. He spit inside a chalk circle labeled “Sinners.” The circle was part of an elaborate cosmology entitled “God’s Plan for Salvation,” drawn in carrot-colored chalk on the sidewalk. The “Saved” and “Sinners” circles nested inside the Terrestrial Kingdom, which itself was sandwiched under Judgment and Resurrection.

“I had an epiphany,” Little Choke told his band mates later at Big Eye’s.

Big Eye said, “Man, ain’t that when some savant writes the longest book ever written in some ratty Chicago boarding house?”

“Not hardly.” Ironing Board Ike ribbed. “It’s more like when you share pine nuts with the devil and forget to change your drawers.”

“Now William Blake here . . .” Pine Tar Thomas interrupted, referring to Little Choke, “put a halo on the head of a sinner.” Pine Tar wanted to memorialize the occasion of Little Choke’s epiphany by gifting him with the name of William Blake.

But it didn’t stick.

Queen of Spades

Scribble in a woman who might tear your reputation down. Scribble her in sitting on a park bench, wearing earplugs, tossing popcorn on the sidewalk. Fill in where the sun bleeds into kernels and there’re no pigeons to feed at her feet. Little Choke says she’s a genius. Pine Tar Thomas toggles some doubts. Nell alleges they’re both crazy.

Little Red Rooster

Big Eye took a red rooster and set him on the counter. Everyone in his jook took it as a sign that Big Eye’d gone crazy. “Coming back from World War I my granddaddy said they brought back a soldier in a cage. A freckled, red-haired kid from a farm the size of clouds. He’d sing to himself day and night. French songs. Shell shocked they called it in those days. Anyway, they had a rooster on that ship. A cook woke up one day and decided to put that rooster in the cage.”

“Aw hush, Big Eye. Ain’t no rooster smart enough to get within twenty feet of no ship,” Ironing Board Ike chuckled before bringing a glass of gin to his lip, slowing growing flat as a bobby pin.

“Naw, you hush. Ya’ll ain’t gon’ let me finish my story?” Big Eye answered like he had a burr under his seat. “That rooster fly around that cage like a bat outta Hades. It had one lazy eye too. Feathers flew everywhere. After a few hours that bird landed right on top of that boy’s head.” Big Eye pointed to the top of his head, grinned, looked incredulously around the room, and fell silent.

“What happened?” Ike spun his glass around once in his palm.

“That soldier boy fell right asleep. Never said a word afterwards, I swear to you.”

“I always heard that when a crazy person sees something crazier he becomes either a saint or a head of state,” Little Choke said. He lied. He hadn’t heard that before. But there was always room in some same old story to improvise.

Big Eye winked at a woman whom he keep telling himself was pretty and said, “He just had a hole in his soul.”

Then he threw a pork rind at the feet of the little red rooster.

Up Jumped the Devil

It wasn’t no crossroads, but it would do. The devil met Little Choke in New York. He walked a few yards behind the most beautiful woman he’d seen up to that period in his life. In those days she was called a “painted woman.” And painted women didn’t need no introductions. You were introduced even before you met them. And you never knew her name, her real name. She was called Peaches or Sugar or any name that would put a diabetic on his deathbed. And the devil was always moping behind. This devil asked Little Choke if he wanted to spend some time with her. The train that would take him to the next hangover left in a few hours. So he took up the offer.

Alone with her Little Choke saw the face of his sister in hers.

“Here take this,” he said, cupping money inside her hand with his fingers still aching from making his guitar talk there was no tomorrows. Except for this, he did not touch her.

Blowing smoke from a self-rolled cigarette, the devil asked him, “Did you enjoy yourself?” Little Choke remembered some lyric from nineteen hundred and thirty eight: “Some people say there’s no blues, but that story’s old and stale.”

The devil wiped his brow and said, “I heard that!”

Kind of Blue

One night when the moon shone through the hickory trees like velvet syrup Nell sang, blacker than blue. “There’s a stone in my belly and it ain’t no child. There’s a stone in my belly shunting down the aisle.” Big Teeth gave what it could—a stove, a bed, a man. It too was tired of giving. “There’s a stone in belly and it ain’t no child.”

Hellhound on My Heels

“Mister Devil,” Little Choke said, “Mister Devil, you took my woman with a tumor and I’ve been mighty sad. Took my woman with a tumor and I been real sad. But the ending ain’t been written yet and I’m gonna sing it through. Hellhounds on my heels and I’m so blue.” It was the same old story turned into news.

Flash Fiction Runner-up

Erin E. Keaton

Erin E. Keaton is a nice girl who was born in Millbury, Ohio in 1983. She is grown, but when she is more so, she would like to be a writer, and she would like to continue to have an interesting life.

Like if a bird knew you were gonna die

This could happen to anybody including yourself. You are in a good mood something good has happened you have enrolled in school or did something you wanted to do perfectly, or you are not pregnant. Or, you are but probably not because in this story you will be smoking and that is not a thing you do while with child. You feel so successful because of this thing you have done and so you decide to waste gas money and go for a drive. You get into your car and you buckle your seatbelt and you take the highway to country roads and the moment you get to the first long country road you know of with no stop signs you turn onto it and press your tape player “on” because it had previously been “off.” You light a cigarette and proceed destinationless, just cruising, and then of course, you run out of gas in the middle of a field because you were driving around for 40 miles looking for a good place to drive.

Scenario: You are in the middle of a field with no phone reception and many cassette tapes. It is warm out, it will be warm that night, there are no cars around, you have a peach a sandwich and two vitamins, and 1/3 pack of camel lights in your car, and it’s dusk, and you don’t feel like talking to anyone. You are going to sleep in your car.

You wake up and get out of your car and it is early so the sun is still red. You look up at the beaconless sky and there are Northern Harrier Hawks circling directly above your head. You know from reading a book that Northern Harrier Hawks are cousins of Turkey Vultures and that they have the same natural inclination to eat dead things. There must be something dead nearby.

You walk up the road and reach a house after traveling just over a mile. They provide you with a large gas can that at present is holding about 2 gallons, which will be enough to make it back to town if you don’t spill it all over yourself, and taking into consideration that you will have to back track to deliver the can to the original owners. On the walk back to your car with the gas can you look to your right and into a field and as you look large black birds landing, and upon landing cawing at you. You have always thought of black birds only as protectors, good omens, but recently you have begun to believe they are protectors warning of danger.

You reach your car and pour gasoline into the tank without spilling on yourself and only losing a few drops to faulty design. You get back into your car, drive to the home of the persons you borrowed the gas can from and deliver it. You drive back into town, stop for gas, stop for coffee, and begin home. Your father calls to tell you your nephew has a football game. He is five, so it will be small and adorable. You do not have to work this evening, so you decide to take a nap, get cute, then go to the football game with your boyfriend. You reach your house and park your car. You run towards the wooden steps leading to your apartment. You are so excited to get started on the day that you forget to ascend the steps gingerly, and instead bound them. They are made of thin wood, pieces barely nailed to each other. You forget that on the second landing the first step is loose. When you step wrong and the board flies forward, you forget to lean into the house instead of the cement sidewalk below.

After you hit the ground, and after part of the stairs fall on you, and after the shock but during the calm of the knowing-your-not-going-to-make-it, you just watch the sky. Northern Harrier Hawks circle the sun.

Flash Fiction Honorable Mention

Micah Joel White

Certain

Coming from a long tradition of farmers and bounty hunters, all of which incestually procreated over the course of a few centuries, Micah Joel White has acquried some serious developmental issues. These include, but are not limited to, body odor, swearing, talking to himself about the possibility of pursuing a television commercial voice-over career, and perpetual gas. He would like to thank you or not making fun of his writing.

Tonight I worked on my derivatives and then played with tiny plastic dinosaurs. “Your brother will be home soon,” said Mom. “Tidy up, please.” I couldn’t help it and allowed a grimace to unfold. She knows I loathe that word. Tidy. It sounds so childish. With a sweeping arc of modest arm, I raked a herd of Stegosauri off of the deep mahogany table into the safety net I created for them in my lap.

When Dad arrived home from church with the “birthday boy” – a title Aaron was given throughout the day, which, being thirteen now, hardly places him into the “boy” demographic – he and Aaron walked behind me to fuss my hair and rounded the kitchen table to their seats. Birthday boy? Just two months prior, I lacked double-digit repute. We can’t both be boys, brother. Mom carried over a steaming plate of some legume muddle before she quickly pecked Dad’s lips and sat. We all held hands. Dad, Aaron, and Mom, with eyes closed, bowed their heads.

The three softly whispered a hushed Amen in alarming unison, and I released my parents’ clammy hands to fumble in my pocket. My finger ran along the synthetic scales of a miniature Diplodocus, and, as Dad closed his lips over his first morsel of brisket – Aaron’s favorite - I looked up at him and spoke.

- Well, he took two of everything. Even dinosaurs.

- That’s completely implausible, Dad. Just think of logistics.

- I know it seems hard to grasp for you right now. But He makes the impossible possible.

- We’re talking basic fundamentals of physics here, Dad.

- Carolyn, he’s ten, for Christ’s sake. What is that kook doctor giving him at those sessions? Math lessons, okay. Piano, fine. But…

- Dad, I just don’t think it seems believable. There would be no way to accommodate even two of any dinosaur, let alone two of all of them. Why is your face so red? Look, I’m just saying…

- I’m sure he only took two of the most basic kind, and the rest mated to form the different species.

- There are over 151,000 species of the beetle, Dad. Please.

-

- Dad, I wish you could see. Just look at the beetle.

Aaron said that his birthday was ruined. He actually referred to me as an asshole. In front of Dad and Mom, even! I’ve never heard any boy speak like that. Mom busied herself with her head down in front of a foaming sink, never glancing over her shoulder at the three of us, while spatulas and saucers and silver clanged in an endless, soapy cacophony. Dad swore like those I overhear him watch on television, his mouth an assortment of obscene memories, his skin a glinting bed of coals, angry at its own confusion.

A threadlike slice of delicate light from the lamppost outside weaves through the folds of my curtains as I lie on my back and stare at the illuminated constellations that line my bedroom ceiling. Their luminescence, kindled by electricity, will always burn at my command; their points, inches apart on the moonlit ceiling, bring their complex and incomplete realities closer to my face.

The ceiling’s last burning star finally fizzles and I wake in the semi-darkness, as a deft bulk passes through the street’s streaming lamplight. Footsteps crunch past my window. I peek through the curtains to see Dad advance towards the alley behind our house. The floorboards lament my steps as I quietly tiptoe down the hallway. By the silent foyer, I pause in front of Jesus, nailed and battered upon two coarse planks on the wall. I stare interrogatively, and ask him to meet my eyes. His bleeding, thorny head doesn’t rise, but hangs low, and I quickly move away toward the back door to pull apart its shade. The dark alley rattles with dull thuds, and I see him, half-masked in onerous shadow, stand above my dinosaurs, splayed together on the cold pavement. He looks back toward the house, and I quickly pull my window’s protective shade over my face. I only gain the courage to look when I hear his sobs and the crunch of prehistoric skin under his heavy, certain boots.

Flash Fiction Honorable Mention

Sara Dobie

Sara Dobie is a publicist for Tree Town Promotions LLC in Perrysburg, Ohio. In her spare time, she watches horror movies, drinks red wine, and roots for the Steelers.

Morning Sickness

Water. Damn it, I need water.

There’s a dull thudding in my head and cotton in my mouth. My lungs feel full of nicotine cobwebs, and there’s a party in my nose, full of smokers and drinkers pulsating to the rhythm of the pulse in my head. The entire right nostril is plugged by the dry green remnants of last night, so I roll onto my left side. My tongue feels swollen—like a fat person wedged into a coach class airplane seat. It’s a dried out sponge, left on the kitchen counter and used as an ashtray. Did I mention my stomach is upset? Not in the sick sense, but in the really pissed off sense. It bubbles and boils, churns and burns. I think it wants to dump me. Our relationship has been on the rocks ever since Mr. Dining Hall came into my life, and Mr. Natural Light hasn’t helped. My ankles throb. They feel two sizes too big—once again, I’m retaining water like a damn pregnant woman. I rub my pink eyes. I probably look like a raccoon from all the old makeup. However, I was too busy being drunk last night to consider personal hygiene. Washing does enter my mind, but I’m still submerged in an ocean of old beer.

Shit, who’s talking? I hear voices, but I know damn well no one is home but me. Did I forget to lock my door last night? Fuck, is there some dark stranger discussing the government structure of Afghanistan on my telephone? My eyes pop open. Ouch. Wow, that hurts. It’s a good thing it’s raining outside my window, or I may have been struck blind. The voice continues in the background, and finally, my eyes focus.

Oh, right. I forgot to turn off the television. I grope for the remote, but the sudden movement was in poor judgment. The room spins. It does that lurching ferris wheel thing, and I’m scared of falling off the ride. I give in to the invisible metal swings and hold on for dear life. What’s happening? Is there an elephant on my head? I can barely hold it up. I don’t think I slept with Dumbo last night, but then again, maybe I do remember seeing pink elephants.

The TV turns off with a fuzzy static click, and I throw the remote on my roommate’s empty bed. Pleased by the pressure of silence, I fall back on my pillow. I sink heavily, and fabric envelops every inch of my pounding skull.

Foggy images flash through my mind like unfocused slides at a family function. Towers of empty Natural Light. The fiery glow of a discarded cigarette butt. Aladdin on the television, and Mr. Clean singing along. Cicero breathing through his parted lips, and was that a new tattoo?

I look to my right. Garfield’s alarm-clock face smiles the time. How can he possibly be happy at this horrendous hour? Wait, it’s noon. Noon? What time did I get home last night? Five? Six? How did I get home last night? Car? Bus? Alien spacecraft? The rusty gears in my hazy head squeak as they kick into high gear.

Oh, I remember now. That guy walked me home. He was sweet—kind of goofy looking, but sweet. I turn over onto my side in bed. My pillow smells like drool and cigarettes. It’s a permeating odor that fills every corner of the room and threatens to float out onto College Green. I can smell myself, as well, and it’s unfortunate, not to mention embarrassing. I ponder a shower, but then again, I can’t move. I’m being crushed by the poltergeist called Hangover. I reach to my bedside table and scoop my half-empty water bottle into my hands. The water feels good, and my gulps are thunderous. They shake the walls—wake the neighbors, 6.6 on the Richter scale—but I don’t care because I feel like shit. Maybe I should change my lifestyle. I won’t drink so much next time, and I won’t eat at four o’clock in the morning after drinking twelve beers. I’ll quit smoking and having random hook-ups in hallways. Okay, sure, maybe when Rosie O’Donnell is president.

Then, suddenly, it dawns on me. This is no normal hung-over Sunday. This is Easter— a day when I’m supposed to be back home, finding plastic, colored eggs with seventy-nine-cent lottery tickets inside. Instead, here I am, feeling like shit, all alone. I decide to pray. It’s one of those desperate, panicked discussions. Thanks for dying for my sins, Jesus. Thanks for beautiful creations like H20 and aspirin. Don’t let me go crazy. Just let me make it through another week. And could you possibly do something about the hammer in my head? I close my eyes. Maybe I should go back to sleep, because damn it, I can’t fucking believe I’m alone on Easter.

Short Story Winner

Carolyn Maloney

Carolyn Maloney graduated in 2004 from Central Catholic High School. She is currently a senior at The Ohio State University, majoring in Communications.

Encounters

There was an old lady who lived with a Shoe. Actually, it was more of a sandal, I guess, and it was about the size of Kujo, my mother’s grossly overfed pet raccoon. It was mounted on the log above our fireplace that served as our mantle. It was placed inside a homemade display case loosely constructed from popsicle sticks (still slightly colored by stains of cherry, lemon-lime, orange, or grape) and glass rectangles stolen from old frames whose pictures had already spent their thousand words. The Shoe served as a constant reminder of my mother’s madness.

She wore dresses every day, the kind of dresses Kindergarten teachers wear, made of denim, plaid, or floral patterns otherwise found only on comforters at cheap hotels. I was positive she stole her hat from Indiana Jones but didn’t want him to find out, which is why she had to pin a plastic daisy to the front of it. Her combat boots were always laced halfway up her shins so that they were constantly sticking their tongues out at me. It wasn’t just my mother’s boots that stuck their tongues out at me. Apparently that is an automatic reaction when kids find out that your mother is the Founder and President of the Believers of Bigfoot Wednesday Afternoon Club.

I used to make sure that I wore my G.I. Joe pajamas to bed on Tuesday nights so that when the Wednesday Afternoon Club arrived at our log cabin of a house, I would be wearing my only camouflage outfit and could spy on them from the shadows beneath our kitchen table. Watching a BOBWAC meeting was like watching kids describe a Magic- Eye puzzle -- everyone could see the hidden picture, but each description of that picture was just a little different. From my secret lair I became familiar with all of the members.

Gloria was a psychic who ran an antique shop on Devil’s Lake. Gloria’s encounter with Bigfoot dated back to her days as a strawberry-blonde, before the painted letters on her antiwar tee-shirts became faded and crumbled to the partial words they became. Her dead dogs, Bob and Dylan, had told her in a dream where she would find Bigfoot. She said Bigfoot was “a giant shadowy figure with an athletic build and oversized bright red hands and feet” who moved quickly and gracefully through the woods. The way she described him made Bigfoot sound remarkably like Muhammad Ali wearing clown shoes.

Earl was a woodsman and wanted everyone to know it. He dressed as if he had mugged Elmer Fudd and stolen his clothes. I don’t think I ever saw Earl without his neon orange hunting vest. Earl had encountered Bigfoot on a hunting expedition and “coulda shot him, but let him get away.” Apparently it was against some secret hunter’s code to kill a legend. The day after Earl’s encounter, he invested in tranquilizers and began preparing for his next encounter by using squirrels and birds as target practice, shooting at them from “Home Base,” or a tree fort he built in his backyard.

Wade was an expert in crypto-zoology, or the study of animals whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated. I didn’t know what crypto-zoologists were supposed to look like, but Wade looked like a museum tour-guide. He owned more Hawaiian shirts than any man has a right to own, and wore cargo shorts with pockets filled with more trinkets than my kleptomaniac grandmother’s purse. Wade was responsible for The Shoe that was on our mantle. He said it was “about a size 24 in men’s shoes” and that “it must not have provided the proper support for the unique shape of a Sasquatch foot, and was therefore discarded. It was his most prized possession, but he wanted to share it with other believers, and so, he gave it to my mother in the BOBWAC Christmas exchange. Wade had never actually seen Bigfoot, but brought articles from his collection of evidence every week as if he were responsible for the show-and-tell portion of their meetings. Wade brought everything from plaster castings of anatomically accurate foot prints, to patches of hair whose pattern of follicles “could only be scientifically explained as that of a Sasquatch.”

My mother, Arlene, had seen Bigfoot during the time in her life when her stomach was swelled to the size of a watermelon and she was eating peanut-butter and pickle-chip sandwiches for lunch every day. My father had disappeared about six months prior to her encounter, on the day he found out that I was on the way.

When I outgrew my pajamas and started kindergarten, I also outgrew my affection for the members of BOBWAC, and started passionately hating Bigfoot. Rumors of my mother’s love affair with Bigfoot had come to Forestview Elementary School before I did. Having Bigfoot for a father wasn’t easy. My encounters at school were nothing to report to BOBWAC-- my encounters were with smaller but much more savage beasts.

It was as if I came to school each day wearing one of those blue and white name tags that begin with “Hello my name is…” filled in with “The Bigfoot Freak Lady’s Son,” in sloppy black Sharpie. I was embarrassed by my mother and made her drop me off a block away from school. At lunch, I sat alone. For gym class, I checked my athletic abilities at the locker-room door. I did not want to re-live the awful day that I had won a game of dodge ball and then overheard my classmates complaining that my victory stemmed from the unfair advantage of having Sasquatch genes. During recess, I avoided the playground sand at all costs. I pretended it was quicksand. I did not dare leave a footprint that could have been misconstrued as larger than average. My report cards always had checkmarks beside the boxes “Does not participate in group activities,” and “Works poorly with others.”

After I graduated elementary school, I was determined to make people see another side of my mother. I loved my mother and even enjoyed some of her eccentricities. When we were alone she would tell me about her encounter, and I loved to watch the animation in her eyes when she talked about how it felt to be one of the select few Bigfoot had chosen to reveal himself to. When I asked her about my father she would say “He just didn’t know how much he would love you.” But I still couldn’t understand her absurd loyalty to the oddballs of BOBWAC or why she was bound and determined to pass on to me all the ridicule she endured by serving as high priestess for a collection of societal misfits.

At the start of middle-school, I had no idea that my half-empty glass was about to overflow. The first day, in health class, we learned we were going to be experiencing “the four growths.” We were expected to grow:

• a larger appetite
• larger muscles
• taller
• more hair.

The son of a Sasquatch is as sensitive to hair growth as lactose intolerants are to milkshakes.

Immediately following the three o’clock bell, I rushed home to scour my prepubescent body for hairs previously unaccounted for. I carefully scanned each crevice of my body starting with my toes and working my way up. The hairs on my legs were still the same soft, fuzzy, peach hairs I had always remembered having, my pale stomach was as bare as the oak dresser that had once belonged to my father, and my arm hair showed no sign of new growth. I had almost passed inspection when something in the mirror caught my eye. Right smack-dab between my eyes grew the single most hideous hair that had ever existed. That hair was as thick as horse-hair, and twisted and turned in such an unruly fashion that it took on a life of its own.

I could have shaved it, but I had heard somewhere that this only made hairs grow thicker, and quicker than before. I could have plucked it, but I did not want to risk there being another hair just like it lurking in the follicle next-door. I decided not to take any chances.

I put on my faded blue baseball cap to hide the hideous beast in the shadows of the bill and headed to the closest Rite-Aid. After some initial confusion I found the right aisle and I settled on a kit in a green and yellow box. It came with a handy, finger-sized applicator and promised to “melt your problems away.” The kit cost an extra dollar but this was no time for false economies.

I raced home. Moving quickly, I tore open the package, placed the lump of red wax in a pot on our stove, and watched impatiently as the lump slowly melted into a red sea of lava. The lava simmered at first, and then started to look as if a kid had inserted a straw and was blowing bubbles. I was finally ready to melt my problems away. I dipped the applicator into the tiny, bubbling volcano and in one quick motion applied a glob of molten wax to the space between my eyebrows.

The pain was a complete surprise and produced in an instant what would have seemed impossible just a moment before: second thoughts. I dug my fingers into my face in a desperate attempt to stop the branding, but the process was irreversible. And once my scalded skin was exposed to the air, it began to puss and boil simultaneously, like baking soda dropped into vinegar.

When I looked in the mirror, all I could see at first was the ugliness of my battle-wound. And then I saw my eyes, and in them, I saw my mothers. At that moment I came to the realization that this branding was her fault. If she were normal, she would have taken up a normal hobby like knitting, or bowling, instead of obsessing over a Sasquatch. We would never have had a giant shoe on our mantle. And so, possessed by adrenaline, I made a move for that goddamn Shoe. My hands lifted themselves up and I let my fingers curl around popsicle sticks and glass. I slowly lifted the make-shift display case over my head, and after a quick snap forward, the box hit the hardwood and shattered. God did it feel good. My eyes were drawn to something amongst the rubble. Glued to the base of the shattered box was a weathered black-and-white photo of my mother and the man who had stolen my smile. I had never seen a picture of my father before. He sort of looked like the man at the Ford dealership. His dark hair was slicked back with so much gel that you could see just where his comb had been, and his collared shirt was unbuttoned just enough to expose a chain necklace entangled in the Chia-Pet growing out of his chest. There was nothing special about the way he looked. Except his feet. His feet were noticeably tiny and disproportional to his husky frame.

I have no idea how long she was standing there, but when I saw her reddened eyes, her tears became contagious. She sat down on the couch and patted the cushion next to her. When I sat down, she took the picture from my clammy hands and stared at it, saying nothing, for what seemed to be a long time. She then looked me right in the eyes and recited those familiar words, “He just didn’t know how much he would love you.”

At school, when I encountered my peers, they predictably wanted to know the story behind the scrape between my eyes. The only explanation I gave them was that I had done something stupid and my father had taught me a lesson.

I suppose that was the day I started to understand my mother. The day I stopped hating Bigfoot. I finally saw what Bigfoot had to offer my mother -- something my father had not – the hope that she might see him again.

Short Story Runner-up

Lauren Smith

Lauren Smith moved to Toledo in August of 2007, and she loves her new hometown. Originally from Philadelphia, she has also lived in Boston and Miami, FL. She is a writing instructor at the University of Toledo and a lifelong word junkie.

Butterflies

Kathleen’s summer job worried her. It was early spring, but teachers liked to plan.

She had received a prestigious three-week appointment, a course for gifted children titled “Whodunit? Contemporary Mysteries and Crime Fiction.” She had stumbled into the course, having originally applied for “Jane Austen and Film.” But out of all the candidates, only she had recognized the name Irene Adler. Adler was first woman ever to outwit Sherlock Holmes. The program director had been impressed.

Since Kathleen’s knowledge of new mystery writing was scant, on a Sunday afternoon she bicycled to the public library. She combed the stacks on the second floor, which is where the mystery stories hid. What to assign?

Hoping to find exciting content, she pulled the most recent Best American collection from the shelf. It was exciting all right. She found crime, sex, and sex crimes. Gone was the delicacy of slipping arsenic into someone’s afternoon tea. Gone was the elegant restraint of a much-despised heiress vanishing off the cliff of a seaside resort. Instead, on the very first page of a story, one author mentioned panty sniffing. Another placed his seedy characters on a crack cocaine diet. And yet another bestowed upon her fourteen year-old heroine a demon lover of twenty-three. He was a cop who pretended to arrest her for skipping school, handcuffs and all.

Scary? Kinky? Fun to read? Maybe a little, Kathleen supposed, shifting her posture in a torn upholstery chair in the reading room. But healthy brain food for a group of prep-school adolescents? Absolutely not. Perplexed, she decided to take a quick break.

She exited the building and reentered the open sunlight of the street. Sitting midway down the front steps, she continued thinking about her problem. She needed stories that exposed only the subtlest and most exquisite manifestations of evil. In tales like that, a misdeed is tiny, like a butterfly. It flies around unseen until somebody comes along and turns a scrupulous eye on it. The eye might not even be that scrupulous; all it had to do was look in the right way at the right time.

As she mused, she noticed another woman half-sitting, half-reclining on a nearby bench. She was one of those people that others inevitably couldn’t stop looking at. “Hello there,” the woman unexpectedly called out. Without warning, she walked up to Kathleen and sat next to her. She lit a cigarette. Among all the people milling about, why had she selected Kathleen to accost? Had she noticed her looking?

After a few minutes of weather talk, it became apparent to Kathleen that she was stable enough, just excessively social. Kathleen was too shy to disengage; she had never been good at handling situations like this.

“My sixteen year-old daughter just had her junior prom,” the smoking woman shared, smiling. “Everything went well, thankfully. Her date behaved himself.” She pulled out another cigarette and offered it to Kathleen, who nervously shook her head. “I had to practically force her to go to the salon. She wanted to do her hair herself! Can you imagine? Oh, no, I said. I thought it was important for her to know how to prepare for a formal event.” She continued to smile, but she paused and looked away from Kathleen, perhaps contemplating others rituals of femininity. Then she looked back, and Kathleen’s heart sank. She had been hoping to make her departure during this small disconnection. She didn’t have any children, but the woman didn’t know that; she hadn’t asked. She hadn’t asked Kathleen anything.

“Did you send your daughter to your own hairdresser?” she asked lamely.

The woman chuckled. “Me? I go to the barber shop.”

This made sense; her wiry amber hair stood out only about a centimeter from her head. Luckily, her pretty face could withstand such an austere style. Kathleen estimated she was about 35. She watched her grasp her cigarette firmly in her left hand. With her right, she fastidiously adjusted the white ribbon of her espadrille sandal.

Kathleen was wondering if the woman’s feet were cold when suddenly she blurted out, “My husband’s not the father of my daughter. He’s twice my age, and I met him in the grocery store. He owns a jewelry business, and he takes care of me.”

This confession floored Kathleen, but she tried not to show it. Instead, she focused on her anonymous friend’s diamond earrings, her gold tennis bracelet, her emerald ring. She must not have meant the kind of caretaking that involved chicken soup.

“I was just going to mention how beautiful your ring is,” she stammered.

The woman either didn’t hear her or chose to ignore the compliment. “I hate sleeping with him. He’s disgusting. He repulses me. I have to drink whiskey just to get through it.”

Kathleen wished she hadn’t been in such a hurry to leave the reading room. This woman had burdened her with a dark intimacy that she saw no easy way of escaping. But while part of her certainly longed to go back to the panty sniffers, another, deeper part quietly desired to hear more.

“Have you considered getting a divorce?” she inquired gingerly.

The stranger took another drag and watched a thick clump of children push their way through the library’s wide gray doors. “That would just be cruel to do now,” she answered. As she spoke, a spindly thread of compassion wove its way into her voice although the flat expression of her hazel eyes did not change. “He’s an old man, and he’s on dialysis. He doesn’t have much time left. What good would it do any of us to leave him now?”

Kathleen remained silent and leaned back on the steps. She held a discovery in her lap like an infant.

One can best catch butterflies in the daylight.

Short Story Honorable Mention

Molly Derse

Molly Derse is a Sylvania native, but is currently completing her final semester at University of Wisconsin-Madison while studying development and Swahili in Kenya. She interns on the coast in Mombasa with a nonprofit providing legal aide and empowerment to Kenyan women. Her quote: "I think there was a mosquito in my mosquito net last night — those anti-malarials had better be working their magic...'" (Yikes! Good luck, Molly!).

Davis: The Unwilling Amputee

I hate vegetables, but I let my friend Yara talk me into eating these radishes last night. She works on an organic farm and told me since they don't use pesticides the food's better for you. That morning I had woken up to an empty kitchen. I ended up eating stale herb croutons for brunch. After eating, I put on a collared shirt, the one with the pit stain on the left side that I wore yesterday. Just my left armpit sweats, I think it's genetic.

There's a grocery store six blocks away so I sat down on my couch with a pen and a notepad that I took from work. After scrawling popsicles on the first line I fell asleep. My side was pulsing with a jabbing pain when I woke up three hours later. My first thought was that my kidneys had shut down or exploded. But after I sat up and felt my right side I found that I had just napped on my pen. It was in my side a good two inches and when I took it out it made a sucking sound. I made for the kitchen sink and mopped up the steady stream of blood with a crusty dish-scrubber. After the sponge touched my skin it got soft with blood. Band-aides are expensive so I tore off a piece of the crouton box and taped it over my wound like they probably did during the Civil War; you know, making do with what you've got and scrounging for supplies.

It was afternoon, so I decided it was too late to go grocery shopping. I called Yara up and invited her over for dinner. She's nice to look at and she doesn't believe in arriving anywhere empty-handed, so I assumed she'd bring food. "I'm kinda running low on food, but you should come over for dinner," I told her on the phone. We decided on five o'clock, she thought seven would be better, but my stomach was already growling.

I sat back on the couch to wait and for the next two hours I read an article on the ten least intelligent breeds of dog. It wasn't very surprising that most little dogs made the list, although it was sad that labradors didn't show up because I know they are stupid. My phone rang and it was Yara. She said, "I'm at the door," and I said, "Why are you calling me when you can buzz for free?" Yara wasn't too happy with that response and shouted back, "Your buzzer's broken!" We each hung up and I walked downstairs to let her in because the buzzer didn't work when I tried it. She had a canvas bag of groceries over her shoulder when I opened the door. I tried to smile and even offered to carry the bag, but she just shrugged past me into the entrance.

"Your place is a mess Davis," was the first thing she said when we got upstairs.

"Yeah, I've been sorta busy," I answered eyeing the bag of groceries. "What do you want for dinner?"

She glared knowingly, "You don't have any food, do you?"

I told her I had a couple of croutons left. With a defeated look she began emptying the contents of the bag on the kitchen counter. I sat down at the table and watched her. I don't think women should have to cook for men, but Yara seems to like entertaining so I didn't feel bad about not helping. After a couple of minutes she forgot she was annoyed with me and started getting excited about the meal. She eagerly held up a handful of veiny, red toes and brought them over to me. I knew where she worked so I assumed they were organic toes. When I told her this she shook her head giggling, "They're not toes, they're radishes. Try one." I remembered she was a vegetarian and was glad that she hadn't taken offense. I tried one and it tasted like hard styrofoam but I smiled. Yara said, "They look strange because we don't pump them full of chemicals and force them to be perfectly round and flush. You're perfect just as you are," she added in a soothing voice to the fistful of toes. I usually don't like baby-talk, but it was oddly comforting when Yara did it.

She made soup with parsley and these green beans that turned into balls of starch when you tried to chew them. She even put my croutons in a bowl in the center of the table so we could drop them into the soup. It wasn't very good but I was hungry so I ate three servings of it. Yara assumed I liked her cooking and was immensely pleased. The radishes sat on the counter unused because Yara had decided they weren't fully grown and would be too bitter for the soup.

After dinner she went to the sink to do the dishes and picked up the sponge I had used earlier to wash my wound, I saw her pick it up and said, "You better not use that, I don't think it's clean." So she just dropped it back on the edge of the sink, left the dishes, and came back to the table. I started telling her about the article with the dogs, but when I mentioned the words "chow chow," she instinctively said, "Awww," with this pouting face, so I quickly changed the subject to what color she thought I should paint my walls.

Yara decided my kitchen should be yellow and my living room should be periwinkle blue. It was late enough and she wasn't making any move to leave so I thought I had a good chance of sleeping with her. I asked her what color my bedroom should be, but as we neared the door I remembered my sheets hadn't been washed in a few months. I moved in front of her and closed the door before she could see in and said, "Why don't we just go to the couch?" I assume she's been lonely lately because she didn't protest and ended up staying the night.

Later on we both fell asleep on the couch. I had been lying on my wound side for awhile, but the pain kept waking me up so I eventually moved onto my other side so the wound could breathe better. I had a dream that night that I was a toe on a soldier's foot in the Confederate Army. The soldier went to bed with me peeking out of his outdoor tent and a wild dog came up and bit me off. I didn't put up much of a fight because I was a gangrene toe and starting to decompose anyways. The dog took me into a forest, but before he could eat me he died of infection, probably a side effect of the impending gangrene. I fell out of his mouth and lay on the forest floor for days and I felt really lonely.

I woke up today and my side was throbbing more than it had the day before. I felt for my bandage but it wasn't there. In place of it was one of those radish toes. I pulled it out and it made a sucking sound, like the pen had. I looked around and seeing that the canvas bag was gone I realized Yara must have left. I felt bad that she hadn't said good-bye, but I understood how she must be feeling, like a toe abandoned in the forest, very lonely.

Short Story Honorable Mention

Jessica Trumbull

Angela

I idolized my sister Angela from the start, before any boy would ever think to look twice at her. Sometimes I dreamed that we were really the same person, that there was hope for me yet. It all seemed so simple: we had the same straight brown hair that wouldn’t curl no matter how long we left our hair spiraled around the curling iron, the same pea-green eyes, the same sharp nose, the same full lips surrounding perfectly straight teeth. We even liked the same things. We would spend hours in her bedroom playing with our Barbies and Littlest Pet Shop toys, and we loved to curl up on the couch and watch Mrs. Doubtfire together, even though we knew it’d usually end up with her holding me as we cried at the end, because we both knew all too well what divorce was like. There was hope for me, I thought, and I held onto this as tightly as I did her hand.

Though I told myself it was possible, as we grew up our four-year age difference became more prominent. It started with the day her breasts developed. It was like they’d grown overnight; one morning at the breakfast table we suddenly noticed that she had two boobs the size of sugared grapefruits stretching the fabric of her nightshirt. In eighth grade she joined the field hockey team and lost all of her baby fat in that one season, while I wished I could just get rid of mine. Then, for her fourteenth birthday, Mom gave in and bought her makeup. Of course I then asked for makeup for my own birthday that was only a few months away, but Mom said that I was too young for eyeliner and lipstick. My tenth birthday came and went, and the only thing that satisfied my craving for adulthood was sitting on the toilet seat while Angela got ready for school, watching her slender fingers apply jet-black mascara to her long eyelashes. This lasted for a while, but then later on it was like she forgot we were ever friends, and she wouldn’t let me be a part of her morning routine – or, really, any routine – anymore. She came to represent for me all things strange and forbidden, and my only-child friends never understood this.

Mom let Angela have her first real co-ed party the following year. It was for her fifteenth birthday, and I watched excitedly as she went through her yearbook, writing on a piece of notebook paper who she wanted to invite. I got a juice box out of the fridge and sat across from her, sucking on the straw, and I waited a few minutes before asking her, “Can I come, too?”

“Silly, you live here,” she said, not even glancing up at me as she continued scribbling down names.

“I mean, can I hang out with you and your friends?”

This made her stop and raise her eyes to mine. “No. There’ll be boys, and I can’t have you running around like a crazy person when they’re here. You’ll make me look bad.”

I was confused. Who cared about boys? I just wanted to sit with her and her girlfriends on the couch and listen to them talk about makeup and Gwen Stefani. I wouldn’t even say a word; I just wanted to hear what they talk about, learn what they know.

“I’m asking Mom,” I shot back. Angela just ignored me. I was trying to talk tough, but I knew Mom would never let her impressionable youngest daughter hang out with high-school freshmen. Besides, once Dad left and Mom started working two jobs, it seemed as though she only had the capacity to focus on one kid at a time, and I was obviously not going to be the main event this time around. I tried to imagine what she’d say, her reasons why I couldn’t even step into the same room as them: You’re too young, you have to go to bed early for your piano lesson tomorrow morning, the movie they’re watching isn’t appropriate for your eyes, let Angela have her fun, you’ll have your own party someday. I rested my chin on my folded arms and watched Angela get out the phonebook to start calling her friends.

Mom made spaghetti for dinner that night, Angela’s and my favorite. Mom was asking her what kind of pop her friends might like while Angela was shaking her head and telling her it didn’t matter, and I couldn’t hold back a second longer. In the middle of their argument, I interjected, “Mom, can I hang out with everyone, too? Please?”

They both stopped talking to turn and look at me, and Mom put her fork down.

“Honey,” she said to me, “I’m sorry. This is Angela’s party, and I think we just need to let her have fun with it.” Angela sat there in her seat, smugly smiling at me, which infuriated me.

“But I’m her sister,” I replied, not understanding. I was her flesh and blood. We were sisters. I’d been allowed to her birthday parties before. I didn’t see why this one was any different, and why I couldn’t be a part of my own sister’s birthday – and, more importantly, her social life – was beyond me.

“Abby, the answer is no,” Mom said firmly, and I knew from her tone that I’d be pushing it if I asked her again.

“It’s not fair,” I cried. But the world is infinitely unfair when you’re young, and on the night of Angela’s party, sister or not, I found myself lying awake in my bed listening to the Third Eye Blind riffs from the downstairs stereo, trying to ignore the occasional eruptions of high-pitched girl giggles and the deeper laughs of the boys. I waited until I heard the front door close behind the last departing guest before falling asleep.

A week after I turned eleven, I was in the living room watching Pop-Up Video on VH-1 with Angela, who was the babysitter while Mom was at work. After No Doubt, Alanis Morissette, and – my personal favorite – Backstreet Boys music videos, Angela suddenly switched off the TV and looked at me, grinning. “Want me to give you a makeover?”

I couldn’t believe my ears – for the past year or so it had been a rarity for Angela to let me even lay eyes on anything she owned, let alone her precious makeup. I nodded, eyes wide, and she said, “Good. Go upstairs and get my box of makeup from off my dresser. We’ll do it right here.”

I took the stairs two at a time, bounding through the hallway and throwing open Angela’s bedroom door. I grabbed the pink box of treasures and was just about to race back down the stairs when I noticed a piece of paper sticking out from underneath her pillow. Curious, I gently set the box down on the floor and tiptoed over to her bed, taking the piece of paper into my hands and unfolding it.

It was a letter, written to “Dearest Angela.” I never knew people even called each other something as silly-sounding as “dearest,” so my interest was already piqued. I kept reading. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Come to my house on Friday night. My parents are going to be gone and I’m having a huge party. I can’t wait to have my arms around you again. Love, Joey.” I recognized the name immediately – just the other day I’d overheard Angela telling her friend on the phone how she thought Joey Carrabba, a senior whose locker was close to hers, was soooooo totally cute. And then it dawned on me: Angela had a boyfriend. A much older boyfriend. And if she was tucking the proof under her pillow like that, it was definitely something Mom didn’t know about.

Suddenly I heard her footsteps on the stairs, and she was calling my name. “Abby, why are you taking so long? You didn’t break anything, did you?” I tried to quickly fold the letter back up, but I couldn’t remember how it had been folded in the first place and before I knew it, Angela was standing in the doorway, looking at me as I stood there, frozen and trembling, holding her love letter.

She marched over to me and glared at me, and for the first time ever I saw her face as ugly, her lips curled and eyebrows furrowed in anger. “You read this?” she asked incredulously, ripping it from my hands. I bit my lip and nodded, feeling my face turn red as tears formed in my eyes. “What, you think that because we’re sisters, you can just go through my stuff?” She started pacing back and forth in front of me like a lion about to go in for the kill. Her eyes never left mine. “Damn it. If you even ruin this for me, Abby, I swear to God…”

“I’m sorry,” I choked out. She looked down at Joey’s letter and folded it back up and placed it under her pillow, then sat on her bed.

“Get out of my room.”

I stood still a few seconds longer, trying to figure out the best way to ask her if I was still getting my makeover. “But – ”

“Go!” she yelled, and I fled out of her bedroom and into my own, throwing myself onto my bed and crying like a baby, unsure of whether I was upset because I’d broken my sister’s trust or because it felt like I’d never get to use makeup as long as I lived. Angela slammed her bedroom door shut, and though later she sat across from me at the dinner table, she didn’t look at me or talk to me for the rest of the night.

Friday night rolled around, and I was sitting on my bed reading a Babysitters’ Club book. Angela hadn’t left her room for two hours, but I could hear her singing along to her Ace of Base album. I walked up to her closed door and stood there for a second, picturing her with her hairbrush at her lips, singing into it like a microphone as she got her hair ready for her date with Joey. I hesitantly knocked, and I heard her singing cease and her footsteps come closer. She opened the door and looked down at me.

“What do you want?” she asked.

She looked gorgeous. It was obvious that she had perfected the use of makeup; she made it seem like an art. She was wearing jeans and a spring-green blouse that color-coordinated with her eyes and accentuated her cleavage, but somehow she still looked innocent. This confused me at the time, but I found out later that boys kind of like innocent.

I admired her so much that she made me nervous, standing there in all her beauty, so I stared at my feet instead of her. “I just wanted to tell you that I hope you have a good time tonight.”

I snuck a peak up at her then to see what her response to my peace offering would be. Her face held its sullen expression, but I noticed her eyes soften so subtly that I almost missed it entirely. “Thanks,” she replied. She shut the door, and I stood there for another moment before heading back to my room.

Less than an hour later, I heard her bedroom door close and she clicked down the stairs in her kitten heels. Headlights from a car outside our house were shining through my bedroom window, and I ran over for a closer look. I could barely see the guy in the driver’s seat, who I could only assume was Joey, but from where I was I supposed he looked like a decent guy, the kind of guy who partied every once in a while but still got good grades and spent at least half an hour a day in the library studying for his biology exam. I could see him tapping the steering wheel nervously with his thumbs, and in that moment, I decided that I liked him.

Mom asked Angela where she was going, and of course she had an excuse prepared – Mom would never have let her fifteen-year-old daughter go to a high-school party like this, regardless of whether or not the parents were there. I tiptoed down the stairs as quickly as possible and sat on the bottom step to better hear what her prepared excuse would be.

“I’m going to the football game, Mom,” she said. It was flawless. Except –

“What about your homework?”

“It’s all done,” she said. “Besides, it’s just Friday night. I have all weekend.”

“But you told me just a week ago that you hated football games.” Even I remembered this conversation; it was over dinner, and Angela was telling us all how she thought cheerleaders were a crude and unnecessary addition to an already violent and socially unacceptable sport. Mom was about to find her out, and now even I was getting nervous.

Angela didn’t know what to say. “Well, my friends are going,” she stuttered. She was losing confidence. “They wanted me to go, too.”

“Well, you obviously can’t get there on your own, and my car’s almost out of gas. Besides, you haven’t mentioned anything about any football game to me until just now. Why didn’t you bring it up a few days ago?”

Angela was out of lies; I had to do something. I jumped up and said, “She did, Mom.”

Mom put her hands on her hips and stared at me. “What? I don’t remember this at all.” Angela was looking at me with wide, hopeful eyes.

“She totally told you about it two nights ago at dinner. Remember? You were passing out the broccoli and she told you about it and you said yes.” I’d never lied to my mother’s face before, but I owed Angela big-time, and I was sure Mom was stretched thin enough with everything else going on that she’d figure it had just slipped her mind.

“Oh… yes, I guess I remember now.” Mom turned to look at Angela, who had the most relieved expression on her face. “All right, I guess we’ll see you later, Angela.”

“Bye, Mom. Bye, Abby,” Angela said, opening the door and getting out of the house as quickly as possible. I hurried back up to my room and looked out the window to see her jump into the car and kiss Joey on the cheek before he drove them down the street and out of our development. Satisfied, I crawled into bed and went to sleep.

I awoke some time later to someone getting into my bed. I sat up straight, startled, but my eyes were adjusted to the dark just enough for me to recognize Angela’s eyes.

“Hey,” she whispered, throwing the covers back over us.

“Hey,” I whispered back. “How was your night?”

“Good.” She sighed, and her breath smelled like beer, like Dad’s did when he’d come home from the bar. It scared me a little, but I let her rest her head on my shoulder and snuggle into me anyway.

We were quiet for a minute, long enough for me to gather up enough guts to ask her if she and Joey had ever kissed before.

“Yeah,” she said, and I could hear her smiling. “Yeah, we have.”

“Is he a good kisser?”

She turned over to face me, propping herself up on her elbows. “Well,” she said, “I’m not an expert or anything, but sometimes they’re really sloppy.” We both giggled, and I rolled over and went back to sleep.

The Judges

Tom Barden is professor of English and director of the University Honors Program at the University of Toledo. He teaches literature, folklore, and American studies. His research area is American folklore and literature, especially John Steinbeck and writers of the Vietnam War. His books include Weevils in the Wheat, The Travels of Peter Woodhouse, Virginia Folk Legends, and, his latest, co-authored with John A. Ahern, Hungarian American Toledo. He has conducted folklore field research in Virginia, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Wales (UK), where he was a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in 1993-94.

Karen Craigo is poetry editor and editor-in-chief of Bowling Green State University's national literary journal Mid-American Review. A poet herself, she is the author of a chapbook, Stone for an Eye (Kent State/Wick, 2004), and her work has appeared in such magazines as Poetry, Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, and numerous others. She is a two-time recipient of Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowships, and she is a former fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She teaches composition and creative writing at BGSU, and also coordinates Winter Wheat: The Mid-American Review Festival of Writing.

Michael Czyzniejewski teaches at Bowling Green State University, where he also serves as editor-in-chief of _Mid-American Review_. His collection of stories, _Elephants in Our Bedroom_, is forthcoming from Dzanc Books.

John Dorsey is the author of several books of poetry including "Teaching The Dead To Sing:The Outlaw's Prayer" Rose of Sharon Press, 2006 and the forthcoming "Holy Toledo The Sonnet River Volume: New & Selected Poems" Primary Reader, 2008. His poetry has been published in a number of different countries. He can be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

Imani Lateef, poet and graphic artist, is Toledo, Ohio's self-proclaimed Hype Man. Whether its through his high energy hip-hop showcases or the weekly Hylife Poetry night at Club Prestige, Imani is determined to put the Glass City on the map. contact: revengethehype.com, hylifepoetry.com

Joel Lipman’s current publication of poems is the limited edition, Ransom Notes [Obscure Publications, 2006]. During May and June 2006, Milwaukee’s Woodland Pattern Literary Center Gallery mounted a solo exhibition of his visual poems and mail art. Joel is a Professor of Art & English at the University of Toledo, is married to Cynthia [Landrum] and father to Jesse, Samantha and Eli.