Blip Reader 2.3
Published by Blip Publishing
The Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 Blip Publishing
Editor & Publisher
Frederick Barthelme
Associate Editors
Jane Armstrong
Kim Herzinger
Gary Percesepe
Meg Pokrass
James Whorton, Jr.
Blip Publishing publishes Blip Magazine as an online quarterly literary magazine and, occasionally during the year, publishes ebook versions of anthologies of work published by the online magazine. Contributions, correspondence, and subscription requests are only accepted electronically and should be addressed to the editors at editors@blipmagazine.net. Manuscripts accepted for publication become the property of Blip Magazine unless otherwise indicated. No manuscripts will be returned. All rights reserved. The views expressed herein are those of the authors, not the publisher, editors or sponsors.
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Editor’s Note
This is the first foray of blipmagazine.net into ebook publishing. We fully expect that we’ve made a dozen or more rookie mistakes in translating the material into ebook format, and for that we apologize and request your kind averting of eyes. We are nonetheless pleased to get this first issue into ebook form and we hope you enjoy reading these short pieces, first collected in our Summer 2011 online issue at www.blipmagazine.net. We thank our authors for their work and our editors, Jane Armstrong and James Whorton, Jr., for reading all the submissions and selecting the ones we have collected here. We hope to do more ebook publishing going forward, and anticipate that we’ll be back with another publication late in the fall. If you’d care to comment on the issue or the ebook or anything else related to same, please contact us at editors@blipmagazine.net. Many thanks.
Alan Michael Parker
Report from the Committee on Town Happiness
We have been thinking more about the air: we are unable to make the air behave, the air will not hold. Despite our referenda; despite the cancellation of the special election, pending official word of the incursion of the edge; despite our official gear; despite our talismans; despite the shocking news we have yet to share; we have been unable to convert the air to anything. There’s so much air! We should be able to do something. After an unprecedented five tied votes, we have given the air a 3.
For once, we might be disillusioned. Possibly even distracted, as L. Amowillis reminded us. Not that the word “fool” was taken personally, once the room was secure.
Really, until the air’s gone, one never knows where it’s been or why. The air’s not like a person. The air apparently has nothing to do with us—unless or until the air disappears, for only then does the prior air seem real. “Breathless,” “panic,” “choke”: only then do certain words apply. But air that disappears—come now. We might as well try to make a field of purple flowers out of air. Not that we are able.
Just look around the room: if a chair were made of air, we’d fall to the floor. If a glass were made of air, we would be thirsty. If a spoon were made of air, our sugar would miss our coffee.
Go ahead, reach up, try visiting the air. We have tried already to fill the sails of our lungs, push off and float. It’s a project for a sub-committee on less of an urgent day—for people who can close their eyes to the solid ever-present. Still we voted, 5–1 (S. Avumito no longer answering the door, L. Vanis not back in time), to send another explorer up in N. Femiz’s balloon. Hot air rising into cooler air, piloted by the plucky R. Delicant. To push off and float. By proxy, with nothing to hold us in, so high, the edge rubbed away.
And then we voted unanimously, 6–0, to emboss our seal upon the bottom of the basket; all who gaze on high will see our full commitment to the air. The words in a circle, because that makes sense: “The Committee on Town Happiness.”
What We Didn’t Anticipate
So many open windows, like mouths for us to feed. Building materials used for other means, the sheen of the macadam, the bright eyes of gals and fellas linking arms, the signifying motley worn by teens, the garbage fire this once not for fun. And who could forget the names of those no longer here—M. Hughes, Q. Alvarez, the Wandlemans, Dr. Hans—but who could invoke them, too, on whose side should we list the missing? The consequences all have consequences: when an orderly doesn’t show, a patient lies strapped and moaning on a gurney, a technician has no one to X-ray, a radiologist has nothing to read, a sister with no word fans a magazine. A nurse sent to fetch the patient from the Lavender wing calls down, empty-handed. Not that the DCS can answer. Inevitably, sure, all such trajectories may be tracked—to arrive right here with us, our responsibility, we the Committee on Town Happiness. Which we might have seen if someone had just said so.
Had we received false data? Secretly, our latest numbers were less enthusiastic: Morale, 2; Spunk, 2, etc. Even with judicious replacement of “lost funds.” Surprise, 2; Market Value, 1.
Love was not enough. Love and fear were not enough. Love and fear and anticipation were not enough. Given the time of day, the commitment to prior customers, the mood of the crowd, the objects thrown. Love and fear and anticipation and reason were not enough. Love and fear and anticipation and reason and beneficence were not enough. Sharing alone was not enough. Happiness was not enough—though we remain enough, in our private feeling places, where it counts, special to those who know. Those who recognize each other with just the tiniest of signals.
The Party
Fun was Job One for all costumed children under the age of ten. Who doesn’t love the kids all dressed like dragonflies, their bodices bejeweled? There they ran, jiggling their little wings. There and back, a happy, seasonal theme. That was the plan, the Town Square turned into a party—far from thoughts of N. Femiz, or anything that flies at night. With prizes spun from dreams, 50% off with the purchase of any full-price item. With an inflatable trampoline, the grt-grt-grt-grt of the generator, the muscular cables snaking through the grass. We were told the machinery would be unobtrusive, and the noise was probably okay. Not that anyone stopped to read the safety cones, the legal language carefully penned on stickers near the base.
When a person’s young, a circle’s much more fun to run. Counter-clockwise! We could see the restraint with which the organizers organized the dragonfliers, how passion had to yield to self-control. These were junior party planners, in our stead, learning to understand—like a mini, practice Committee all their own. M. Akiwara should take note, chided V. Gurozcki tellingly, imitating M. Akiwara dead-to-rights: See!
In case of accident, throw a party, sure—in the event of misperceptions, have a bright and cheery moment. A Committee does what everyone expects and more.
It wasn’t a “stampede.” Just a little running, encouraged by the junior party planners who had made the small mistake of congregating in a corner by themselves, with no one in the middle of all that happiness, with so much happiness it was bound to spill into the streets, who could blame the under-tens. Even the shopkeepers understood, their bills submitted later. Triplicate, fine print, indemnity clauses, smiles—we helped the junior party planners learn what to learn, that a party’s fun for all.
Reading Through the Minutes
There was a kind of beauty, yes, the numbers all agreed. In the aggregate, considering the metrics, derivatives begetting theories, the odd vote tabled for a lack of a quorum. When were we present enough to decide we had too few people present to decide? Once, in a giddy mood, M. Hughes apparently brought forth a motion to open the wooden shutters in the old Committee room, to greet the filibustering moon. In those days, every party was remarkable for “heavy appetizers.” Someone must have had a concern, a catering firm privately run by an aproned aunt who liked to work with pastry dough. So many secret appointees, sometimes in the same family.
At first, Dr. Hans appeared so innocent—until the third question in the series. Follow his train of thought and be derailed. Sure, he played the ethicist, abstained on principle whenever medical issues arose. In retrospect, we know that affability makes for power, cheeriness becomes a mandate, an upset stomach can be timed.
Of course, the dear doctor never supported awarding a 4 without a recess first, the standard yummies bubbling on the side table, the same old chafing dish—a large man feigning appetites. Time for a quick smoke and a hasty gargle, gazes met in the Men’s Room mirror, deals indubitably struck with a nod while washing hands. And then a friendly amendment not so friendly, a rider attached as a prophecy.
But nothing has come true, so say the minutes, there will always be more minutes, every vote may be out-voted. History is what we must decide on next, reading through. Granted, he offered a certain kind of vision, but what could have been the motives of the charmingly cantankerous, the gruff curmudgeon, blusteringly sincere?
That Dr. Hans has left us to decide seems the most suspicious act of all.
Like-minded Individuals
Pursuant to the recent Cancellation Edict, which supersedes the codicil to the Spirited Township Declaration, all like-minded individuals shall be self-identified. Privatization of well-regarded feelings no longer shall apply. When in a “time of challenge,” when hours pass like minutes and minutes pass like hours, gatherings formerly considered excessive shall be monitored by all like-minded individuals. Neither in uniform nor by virtue of color-coordinated hats and notebooks. Be known for goodness shared. Carry a cup of joy.
On Mondays, like-minded individuals will be welcome at the Pick ‘n Pull (formerly known as the Gravy Boat, until the incident in question). A free salad next time, with every regular-sized slice of pie. All along the far wall, with access to the fire door, the scraping of chairs shushed, be quiet, please. On Wednesdays, like-minded individuals will qualify for a free oil change at Tucker’s, so long as they are willing to wait. In the room next to the air re-fresheners, where the bottled water gurgles upside down in the dispenser. Perhaps it would be best not to mention the condition of the upholstery; there are reports that Tucker’s doing what he can.
Here is the plan: to spread happiness. If an ordinary day is a happy day, a happy day becomes more special. “Infiltrate” is not a word we use. Even if we gather later, underneath the overpass, the occasional illegible graffito sprayed for show, to leave in twos and threes as a mark of prudence seems a reasonable interpretation of the unwritten rules; to keep all torches ready, and unlighted to the last. Note that no official approbation shall be forthcoming from the Committee; note that “disavowal” might be language deemed excessive. Still, like-minded individuals will understand. They shall recognize the moment when action needs to supersede self-control. We encourage generally all such broad-based feelings of community.
Alan Michael Parker is a novelist and poet, the author of eleven books including the recently published novel, Whale Man (WordFarm), and the forthcoming collection of poems, Long Division (Tupelo, 2012); new work may be found in Mid-American Review, Pleiades, Sub-Tropics, and elsewhere, and in the forthcoming editions of the Pushcart Prize as well as Best American Poetry, 2011. He teaches at Davidson College, where he directs the program in creative writing, and in the Queens University low-residency M.F.A. program.
Alan Rossi
Neighbors
A Japanese man came to the end of the block to work on the rail yard gate. People crossed the tracks, came over the gate from another, worse neighborhood. I didn’t care, but the Japanese man added fencing, barbed wire. The people who crossed tore down his work. They tore it down and he built it up again. He may have worked for the rail yard. He wanted to keep certain people out.
He had a daughter in high school who sometimes helped him. She had very long and very black hair, which made it appear her skin had never seen the sun. She wore shorts, her legs long and smooth down into tennis shoes, sockless. Her Achilles were pronounced, beautifully taut and stretched up to her lower legs and into calves. When he asked, she carried his toolbox or held gate wire in place. He hammered and sweated while she sat clean and shaded beneath trees.
He had an admirable yard, a very fine chinaberry tree. Some days his daughter sat on the lawn in a bathing suit, reading or tapping on her phone, always in the shade.
I could see with binoculars.
I went out when they were repairing the gate. He was arranging looped, circular barbed wire. His arms worked, muscles and veins popping. His hands were rough and when I came out and we shook, his hand was like rough, hard wood.
There was more fencing than I had ever seen, but still they came through. They came through the woods now, nowhere near the gate. He was extending the fencing through the woods.
There’s nothing to do, he said, in broken English. I’m feel defeated.
His daughter sat on the bed of the truck, watching us. Her legs dangled and her shoeless feet moved in circles. Her toes were small and painted bright red, doing pleasant dips in the air, as if dipping in water. When I looked at her, she got still and kept her eyes on her feet. Have you tried No Trespassing signs? I said. Signage helps.
This type people don’t care about signs, he said. They don’t know neighboring.
We extended fencing to a large tree, putting in new poles. It took the afternoon. On the tracks, train cars screeched, rocked, then halted. The Japanese man’s daughter jumped once, a train car crashing into place. She watched us. Once, I needed the sledgehammer, and she brought it. She leaned with its weight and could not lift it toward me. Her wrists were slender. I touched her wrist when I took the hammer and she laughed and said it was heavy and went back to swinging her legs off the end of truck, her eyes lifting up to me then away.