Winter Quarterly 2008-2009

Thanks to all who entered. We had another wonderful round of stories, from humorous takes on life to dramatic reality to thrilling science fiction and introductions into new, imagined worlds. It was a difficult choice for the readers and the judge. We hope you will enjoy the selections below and please consider sending your work to scratch- where we're itching to find new talent.

The Winner

First place, publication and $150 goes to webassets/PlumEmilyscratchMAY.JPG

Dale Hershman of Miami, Florida

for

Nostalgia

an excerpt from his novel, Influence

Second place goes to

Nico Cassanetti of Palm Beach Gardens, FL

for

Two Pink Lines

Third place goes to

Cynthia Drew of Weaverville, NC

for

Birds of the Buena Vista

______________________________________________

Now for the stories and this quarter's judge.

Judge Amy J. Fetzer said of Dale Hershman's excerpt, Nostalgia,

"His short piece is well written, shows the situation quickly, painting a vivid picture. The internal narrative is realistic and made me feel the character's frustration well. Well done."

Enjoy.

Nostalgia

The only thing about the facility that really bothers me is the smell of piss and antiseptic that washes over my nostrils like acid every time I walk in the door. One time I made the mistake of calling Nostalgia a “facility” in front of the place’s chief administrator, who bruskly informed me that we were, in fact standing in a “community.” I went along with him for the sake of appearances, but anyone who briefly surveys the landscape of broken down human husks will know that each one has sailed to the edge of oblivion alone. There is no community here – while they sit in the same room, each resident is lost in her own private world, mumbling to herself, shrieking incessantly, or just slumped over in a wheelchair, staring blankly into space. There is usually a T.V. on, but this is more for the benefit of the nursing assistants who make sure that the residents of Nostalgia still meet the minimum qualification that the State of Florida considers a revenue producing, live human being. I’ve come here today to visit what is left of my grandmother.

Nostalgia is really just a small part of the Twilight Active Adult Retirement Community. The oldsters are separated into different categories by need. On my way to Nostalgia, I walk through the assisted living section, which consists mostly of a giant living room and dining room. The residents congregate there like children being raised in the same home. Under the watchful eye of Mother Nature and Father Time, the ancient ones circulate at a turtle’s pace, occasionally parking their walkers or wheelchairs to socialize with favorite neighbors or comment on today’s dinner of Salisbury steak and carrots. Occasionally, there will be an entertainer belting out Frank Sinatra tunes over a prerecorded synthesizer beat with the volume level stuck on ten. The residents know that this ain’t Sinatra. The Entertainer knows that this ain’t Vegas. Everyone involved has reached the age of forced compromises and has found that acceptance is just the best route.

In a hallway to the back of the assisted living section , beyond the hair salon and post office, is a stark metallic double door that blemishes the otherwise cheerful façade of the Twilight Active Adult Retirement Community. The double doors are a lone storm cloud blotting out the sun on a warm summer day. This is a portal to another world, a place where beginnings and endings have vanished. A portal to a place where the threads on the fabric of time have been worn down to nothing.

On the wall next to the doors, there is an electronic keypad. I type in a code; with a heavy metallic “thunk” the doors unlock, I push the icy metal with my hands and the door swings open as I enter Nostalgia.

Aside from the stench, the place is spotless. The designers of the facility have made a few sad attempts at disguising the institutional nature of the place, but at the end of the day all hospital like places descend from the same genetic code. Durable grey carpeting, sturdy metallic appliances, and false light dr ain the place of any homey feel. Anyone who visits the facility with regularity will recognize the necessity for locked doors; Alzheimer’s patients wander the hallways on a never ending journey of discovery. Each hallway and nook being a new place, looking to them nothing like the same hall that they have already wandered a thousand times.

Some are intrepid explorers, peering around corners and down hallways with the excitement of a wrinkled Christopher Columbus discovering the New World ten times a day. Others are doomed to live their final years lost in a terrifying labyrinth that is no more than the size of a convenience store. On one of my first trips here, an ancient pile of frail bones and sagging skin had tentatively approached me, her worn face moist with tears. “I’m so lost, can you help me? I can’t find my room, my room.”

Just to my right, less than ten feet from where we were standi ng, was a room with a picture of the luckless woman pasted on the door. It said “Room 14B, reserved for Tilda Goldstein” in clear black letters. “This is your room, Mrs. Goldstein.” I pointed at the door right in front of her.

She shuffled forward, looked at the picture and the door, then slowly turned away, her face collapsing into a scowl as I heard her softly murmur to the next person coming down the hall, “I’m so lost, can you help me? I can’t find my room……..”

The variability of the human mind is what fascinates me. Alzheimer’s patients are mental nudists. As the disease progresses and external layers of the mind are stripped away, the core of the person is what’s left - emotional purity unrestrained by the lifetime of social training that we all endure.

My grandparents are a perfect example of this process. My grandfather, 14 years my grandmother’s senior, had made a small fortune through his genial nature. One of the family’s prized possessions is a framed full page ad from the 1936 national publication of The Saturday Evening Post. My grandfather is the star of the ad, the man who sold the most Westinghouse refrigerators in the entire United States for 1936. He is a tall handsome man, his hair neatly combed back and parted, a twinkle in his ocean blue eyes. He stands with pride next to one of his Westinghouse fridges. Under him is a huge caption that reads, “Herbert Thomas of Grinsville , Pennsylvania says, ”I make a friend whenever I sell a Westinghouse.” As he sold ever larger, more complicated items, he always operated with a smile, soothing conflicts whenever possible and radiating good cheer and kindness.

In his last 20years, as he began the long, slow march into senility, we were always able to care for him at home due to that sweet nature. Even towards the end, when he had to be bathed by attendants and his ass wiped by strangers, he mostly weathered the storm without yelling and screaming, crying or fusing.

If little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, then the spice rack was empty when my grandmother was born. She flew out of the womb screaming her head off, drove her own parents crazy with her antics, ran off with my grandfather at age 16, and proceeded to slice people to ribbons with her razor tongue during most of her life.

“Apology” was a word in a foreign language to her, and anyone that couldn’t be controlled to her satisfaction was quickly banished from her world. As reason began to escape her grip with the passage of years, she became hyper-aggressive, sometimes hitting, kicking, spitting, and often spewing out a stream of foul mouthed insults that doomed20any effort at home care. After an incident in which she was caught hurling plates off her balcony to attack unwitting pedestrians below, she was sedated and brought to Nostalgia. I believe that she always wanted to hurl those plates. Alzheimer’s finally removed all of the false inhibitions that society had burdened her with over the years. To be honest, I like her better sedated.

As I walk in the door I see her sitting there in her wheelchair. She is wearing a pink coat covered with bright patches of blue and green set like continents in a vast rose colored ocean. Her white hair is cut short but well quaffed, molded by the skillful hands of Twilight’s Senior Styles center. Kmart’s finest fake gold earrings adorn her lobes, the real jewelry left locked in a safety deposit box far from the hands of attendants who could be tempted by greed. Piped in from a time machine guarded somewhere in the facility, Nat King Cole sings, “a cottage for sale…” I plunk down in a plastic covered seat next to her, pushing forward a small black box with the word “Godiva” embossed in gold.

“Happy Birthday, Grandmummy,” I say in what I hope will be a contagiously cheery tone. “Would you like to undo the bow?” I pinch my fingers around one of the satin tips, as if to reminder her that if she doesn’t, I will.

She draws her salt and pepper eyebrows together, narrowing them down into a V of deep concentration, and then she says, “N, N, NO.”

“Alrighty, then, I don’t mind helping you out because it’s your birthday.” I pull apart the bow, rubbing the satiny strands between my thumb and forefinger. With all the treasure lust of a pirate, I lift off the top of the box to reveal a lush reward of chocolates. Roundish black lumps filled with almonds, light brown cubes with sugary innards, chewy morsels ready to be sampled. My hands shiver with possibilities. I pick up the first one and pop it into my mouth, hoping to make a nice example. The flavor explodes in my mouth, sugary delight sticking to my tongue and cheeks. “Hmmm, Grandmummy, tastes good, don’t you want one?”

She looks away, her eyes wandering to some unknowable horizon, leaving me alone with my box of chocolates. I should let this go, just let her float away on the wind. But the salesman in me always wants to try again, and she has been getting too thin lately. I lift the box close to her face, maybe smell will bring some life to those dead neurons?

“Tasty, tasty, caramel, nuts, dark chocolate, what a birthday you’re having! Which one is for you?” Her eyes ratchet down to the box, now just six inches below her mouth. Her lips quiver like jelly, but still remain shut. Maybe she just needs some guidance? I select one from the box for her. After so many years of constantly ordering and commanding, maybe she just got tired. There is a seashell made of peanuts and caramel smothered in rich milk chocolate which I delicately lift to her mouth. How many times did she do this for me?

The seashell makes it as far as her quivering lips and is blocked by teeth that refuse to yield. “Gran, please, do it for me,” I ask in my sweetest tone. She needs to eat. The doctor said she has been losing too much weight. The teeth part and the seashell enters her mouth, the tips of my thumb and forefinger just briefly pushing the seashell on its journey.

It happens so fast that I can see the blood spurting before I even feel her rancid old teeth tearing into my flesh. For a second, just a split second, my mind leaves my body behind and I see myself sitting in the chair trying to feed my aged grandmother as she pours her heart and soul into biting off my finger. Then my mind snaps back like the rubber band on a slingshot as the pain hits my brain. “ArghgAh! Help!” I feel like an asshole even as I scream for help. I am being assaulted by an eighty-nine year old woman, and I have to scream for help. An eighty-nine year old woman who raised three children, traveled around the world, helped build several million dollar businesses and is now sinking her teeth into my fingers, cracking the finger nails and letting the blood froth out of her mouth, twisting her head back and forth like a hammer head shark.

Two female attendants come running up, resembling elephants thundering on the African Savannah. “Betty! Betty!, what are you doing?”

Now I am out of my chair, desperately trying to kick away. As I try to pull my fingers away, she only clamps on harder like a dog who refuses to let go of her pull toy.

One of the attendants wraps her beefy arms around Betty Thomas, while the other grabs her by the cheeks, trying to unlock her steel jaws. “Mr. Thomas, I have to, I have to!” she screams.

“Fine, arhgh, fine, do it Goddamn it! Fuck!!”

At this point, I can’t feel my fingers at all, if I still have any. Anyhow, I’m thinking of that director, his sallow indifferent face with the wire rim glasses as he said to me, “Mr. Thomas, while I certainly can understand why you would want to spend some special time with your Grandmother on her birthday, I do have to warn you from years of experience that for certain residents of our……community…..it can be…..to be quite frank, sir, dangerous, to go without their daily anti-anxiety medication.”

When he said that, I felt a cold rage welling up inside of me, but I gathered it up and I replied in a frigid tone, “Thank you for your advice, sir, but I am six feet tall, one hundred and eighty pounds, and thirty years old. Mrs. Thomas is five feet tall, ninety five pounds, and turning eighty-nine years old. I feel fairly confident that I can handle one day without any sedative, Sir.” The last word sharpened to a deadly point.

“As you wish, Mr. Thomas, our helpers are always available to facilitate your needs if your should require any assistance.”

Right now one helper has my grandmother in a bear hug on the floor while the other one pulls out a tiny syringe, squirting a few drops of the clear liquid into the air before plunging it into the sagging grey flesh of Betty Thomas’s left buttock. I guess this is why the carpet never gets upgraded in this place.

With a final tug I pull my shredded fingers from her mouth, leaving a finger nail behind. A stream of blood stains her pink jacket and leaves droplets puddling on the floor. Sitting Indian legged on the floor, I’m in shock staring at the throbbing flesh of my fingers. I think back to the beer-soaked memories of my teenage years, of an old song by Nirvana. Curt Cobain singing in his scratchy voice, “It amazes me, the will of instinct.”

In a daze I wonder if Curt ever knew Betty Thomas.

Judge Amy J. Fetzer said of second place winner, Nico Cassanetti's story, Two Pink Lines, "Dead on realism, and the writer's style comes through with a free flowing narrative depicting characters, the uneasiness situation and the consequences."

Please enjoy, Two Pink Lines

I have been standing for approximately eleven minutes outside the Duane Reade on the corner of Essex and Delancy Street, adjacent to the subway stop and a semi-sleazy adult bookstore. Late September in the city is laden with overwhelmed NYU undergraduates, and businessmen with blazers slung over their shoulders, fighting off the last of the summer heat waves. Although it has only been eleven minutes, I feel as though I have been here since the very moment after I drifted off to sleep on the night I decided to sleep with the boy I have been in love with since before I knew what love was. It is as if, in post coital rapture, my soul has drifted out of my body, touching down in front of this specific Duane Reade, and has been waiting for my body to realize what has happened. This takes approximately nine days, seven hours, a subway ride, and eleven minutes.

It was totally unnecessary for me to come into Manhattan to visit a pharmacy when there is a perfectly good local drugstore two blocks from my apartment. When I imagined the elderly Asian women there ringing me up for a home pregnancy test I shuddered. How could I ever buy my toothpaste from her again?

In my deep subconscious I realize I am directly next door to the subway stop he takes to and from work. This same area of my brain secretly wishes he would stop in for a soda or pack of gum while I wait, panicking in silence, in line to pay for the test. This would solve the problem of exactly how I am going to tell him.

The sliding glass panels open, sending gusts of cold air into the thick September heat of the East Village. Scattered customers seem to passively glare as I navigate the aisles with childlike footsteps.

Family planning, family planning, family planning…

I can’t stop repeating the destination in my head, although I feel like I have somehow ended up on the intercom and yelled to all the patrons what it is I am looking for: Pregnant and unwed twenty-something, hoping for a miracle, aisle 4!

And there, in between condoms and tampons (ironically so, being that using the former or the latter at any time in the past 3 weeks would have taken me right out of this mess) is a slew of different purple, pink and blue rectangular boxes, containing only what could be described as a lower east side crystal ball that would reveal all... just add urine.

Purple seems appealing... I think this, almost out loud,

Not pink for a girl or blue for a boy, just purple. Neutral, happy, purple.

Grabbing the store brand, reasonably priced box off the shelf, I move to the shortest line and pay, not once looking into the eyes of the elderly Indian man at the counter. The wisps of hair around his face are grey, and the skin on his cheekbones sag like the chops of a bulldog. He is wearing thick-rimmed glasses, identical to the ones on the rack to the left of the register. When he takes my money I glance at his hands, ashy and dry, patched with tufts of black hair on the knuckles. I wonder if he has kids, maybe grandchildren, who look at these fingers and dream of a day when they too will have such ancient hands.

A sense of urgency rushes up inside of me.

“Bathroom?,” stuffing my purchase in my purse. I nod in thanks, but I don’t think he cares. He points me in the direction of the back of the store. I walk down the aisle, furthest away from family planning, without a word.

“This can’t be right.” I speak out loud in full voice for the first time all day.

My feet are planted to the floor of the vacant pharmacy bathroom. It seems in the two minutes of waiting, my toes and heals have rooted themselves deeply into the linoleum, leaving me here, looking at these two pink lines forever. I have spent half a dismal paycheck on a home pregnancy test and it isn’t even working. I decide it’s best to go back and buy one of the name brand boxes, so I return to the aisle to find the most expensive, accurate and negative test I can.

I buy three. Purple, Pink and Blue: EPT, First Response, and Clear Blue (not so)

Easy. I grab a bottle of water and pray there was a shift change since my last checkout.

I camp out in the bathroom for almost twenty minutes before I have enough pee and emotional energy to complete all three tests. It only takes about eight of these minutes to realize that it isn’t the shoddy craftsmanship on the part of the generic test makers, and it isn’t the results that are unclear in the pharmacy bathroom. It is the sheer fact that I don’t have a clue how at twenty-three I could ever be someone’s mother. Eight minutes. Just enough time for me to picture myself pushing a stroller with a tiny toddler, swaddled in an old rock band t-shirt and teething voraciously on a guitar capo or CD jewel case.

I float out of my body and observe the scene from inside the bathroom mirror.

Without knowledge of the situation, I appear as nothing more than a young girl, crying over young girl things: Boys, school, curfews. You would never think this pretty young thing is a woman. They don’t tell you in health class that these situations take place long before you ever dreamed they would. I am a fly on the wall, a ghost of myself, haunting the pharmacy bathroom. I am not three minutes past taking a fourth pregnancy test. That can’t be me and I wonder when simplicity abandoned me.

A worn out image of tenth grade chemistry flashes through my mind. He looked handsome even in lab goggles, his piercing white smile burned into my memory alongside the tingly feeling I got when he laid his hand over mine next to an ancient Bunsen burner. I loved him at that moment, and always have. I feel sick, and I feel the flood of tears building on the ledge on my eyelid. Letting the last of my hope slip quietly out from between my parted lips,

“You have to tell him.” My voice echoes off the walls. It feels so loud and unfamiliar that I cover my ears and head, as though the roof will come crashing down on me.

The image of my own reflection pulls me back down from my floating daze and I feel myself coming back into reality. I am not just a pretty young thing anymore; I am a vessel for life, and a tragedy written in the back pages of women’s magazines.

I hang my head and answer no one. “I know...I know.”

* * *

Ten hours and thirty-seven minutes later, I step off the uptown train to meet him at Barrio Chinos on Rivington. It is a little after 9:15 and the hot breath of the city has gone to sleep for the night. A warm breeze sweeps the darkened streets of the village, sending the scent of exhaust and restaurant garbage into my nostrils. The twinkle of embedded, shattered glass that blankets the sidewalk is like a suburban midnight sky. There are no stars in the city, only this glimmering decoy to admire while on guard against muggers and uneven sidewalks. Everything south of 14th Street looks different at night. The dirty streets and old buildings are romanticized into something sacred and elusive. It is a hub for artists and musicians, drunks and vagrants, and fearless youth. Shadowed faces swiftly weaving through life: Chasing their dreams and running from monotony.

It‘s his favorite restaurant in his favorite part of the city. I know that the nine days of silence between us has stripped the idealistic tone of his voice, and left a deep sounding flavor I hardly recognized when I answered the phone this afternoon.

We need to talk.

Four words that out number the sum of eleven years worth of conversation. It is the “rock” and the “hard place”; the relationship pink slip. This makes it that much harder to enter the dark Mexican restaurant.

I’m late, ironically, and I can feel him watching me before my hand leaves the door. As our eyes meet I realize I haven’t looked anyone in the eye all day, I smile, or try to, and slip in the seat across from him. His limbs are thin and long, willowy but still masculine. Arms, still golden from the end of summer, with freckles strategically placed by the sun. This time of year his hair is always changing. The strands, like millions of trees that line a rural street, are dying in autumn colors; brown, red, and orangey-yellow, depending on the time of day. It is so strange and wonderful to watch, sometimes you could think the trees are changing with him. Flashing a smile, still piercing and white, brings to my attention the new freckles on his nose. He must be eating lunch in the park again.

“Hey Beautiful” he is genuine, yet I find him terribly condescending.

“Hey Handsome. “ I am genuinely condescending.

He can’t tell though, he is flagging down the waiter to order his drink. He has a way of making girls feel like they are the only person in the room. These damn little tricks only worked on me for the first three or six years. Now I find myself laughing, half amused, half jealous, when I watch him work his magic on the scantily clad, bottle-blonde waifs during last call before the lights come up.

“Senior! Dos grapefruit margaritas por favor!” His Spanglish borders on embarrassing. It occurs to me at this moment that drinking is strictly prohibited while pregnant in any “Good Parenting” magazine. On the other hand, the ominous and seemingly endless conversation that will follow “we need to talk” will require hard liquor...

“Hey! Hello? Where’d you go?” He waves a hand in front of my face and jerks me off my indecisive seesaw.

“Oh...uh...nowhere. Sorry, I....”

SNAP OUT OF IT!!

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” I ask, scouting the food runner with our drinks. I see him weaving through broken dishes to get to us.

“All business, huh?” He answers. Annoyed.

“Huh?”

“Well, I haven’t really seen you much these past few days, I figured we could at least order dinner first, maybe talk about the weather or work or some shit.”

“The weather? Are you kidding me? You ‘need to talk’ about the weather?”

“No...no, I just need to talk... just talk, you know? about...I don’t know...life?”

The drinks arrive. I’m not really listening. Instead I’m sucking down my cocktail, trying not to punch him…or cry. I don’t know why this urge to cry has taken over me; maybe it’s the talking, or maybe it’s the weather.

“You know, ever since that night, I’ve been really distant, and I’ve been doing some thinking—“

I sip continuously on the margarita and stare at him. When did he grow up? I couldn’t help but notice the five o’clock shadow he has acquired somewhere between high school and now. He never used to grow a beard so fast. He still talks with his hands in extravagant motion, but he’s gained intensity in his eyes to get his point across. The blueness of them jump out at me and I wish that my eyes weren’t so brown. I wonder if this baby could have those blue eyes. Talk with their hands, order in spanglish. Maybe they would bite the inside of their checks when they are nervous, like I am now. I watch his hands and smile, imagining him cradling and spinning in circles with a tiny infant, bundled in his arms. My hand slides to my stomach as I push away my empty glass.

“--- it was crazy, and I didn’t mean to -- I mean, we’ve been friends for a long time and--it’s just that lately...I mean this past week you--I---I feel like you checked out or something.”

I feel the tears burning the back of my eyes. My face grows hot with emotion, while the alcohol flushes my cheeks and ears. The waiter has refilled my drink, I gulp in between tiny bites of luke warn tortilla chips. My thirst is unquenchable.

“--You know...we’re not thirteen anymore. We can talk, you know? Just...put it all out there and-- I love you. You know that...I mean, we can get through this--”

“I’m Pregnant.”

Suddenly my train of thought changes and I look to the table. My drink is empty, where is the waiter?

I feel him looking right through me, unmoving, as thoughts and questions barrel through his brain. We are a movie flashback in fast-forward. Everything I remember about him, from a pre-adolescent boy until this very moment, passes through my mind. I count his freckles to keep from breaking the silence.

“You’re ---You’re Pregnant?” He is stammering.

Silence is key here. The less I say, the less I have to explain later.

“You’re Pregnant...Wow...Is it mine?”

So much for silence.

“Is it yours?! Well who else’s would it be, Adam?

“Well what the fuck Caroline! I don’t know what you’re doing, that’s what I’ve been saying to you for the past twenty minutes. And then you lay this on me--”

“Lay this on you? What do you think I’ve been dealing with here? You don’t have a fucking baby inside you. You didn’t spend your entire paycheck on pregnancy tests. You didn’t get fucked and left alone before sunrise--” I am shaking with anger, vibrating the tears out of their ducts and down my magenta cheeks. “--And you definitely didn’t have the person you love--more than anyone--accuse your vagina of having the passenger count of an Amtrak Commuter train!”

Men are always boys in these situations...and boys are always assholes.

I want to throw a drink at him and storm off in a strong wave of feminism, but instead I hang my head and cry into my watered down, salt-rimmed tumbler. He has gone silent, and without looking I imagine his hands clasped between his shaking knees under the table. He never means to make me cry.

“I’m sorry, I just....I just don’t know what to say here. I mean, shit, the test can be wrong, right?

“Three. Can three tests be wrong?” My face is wet with crying.

“Well, maybe you should see your doctor. Maybe you were just so upset you did it wrong or something.” He is grasping at straws. He means well. He always does.

He holds my gaze and we sit there for what feels like an eternity. I don’t want to leave this moment, it is the first time all day that I feel safe, and even though I know it is fleeting fantasy, I let it overtake me and carry me out of the disaster I have been walking through all day. Trays crash; people laugh, drink and eat around us. The sidewalk outside glimmers on while I sit with the shitty hand life dealt me, holding on to whatever bit of childhood I have left. I think of times where this was all I ever wanted: Me. Him. And a silent player, a piece of the puzzle named family.

“I’ll do whatever you need me to. I mean, whatever you think is best-- whatever you want....okay?”

At that moment, I feel a light hand touch five fingers to my belly, and I see his two blue eyes glaze over in glossy wet tears. Even though his touch is warm I feel like five icicles have punctured my abdomen, injecting icy fluid into my spine. I grab them, and being to speak, but my words are lost in clinking glasses and unanswered questions. This is not how it was supposed to be. This is not it at all.

We never order dinner. Leaving our table, bellies empty and heads full of all the things we would never say. We ride the train and walk the streets of Brooklyn, still gripping silently to each other’s hands. The sidewalks of the Burrough are lackluster in comparison to the sparkle of Manhattan, but they were wider and quieter, easing me back into a sense of home. Entering my deserted apartment, the darkness broken up by restless streetlamps breaking through cracked Venetian blinds, I ignore the fact that we have not spoken since we left the East Village. As the front door closes, our silhouettes are lost in blackness; no lustful glances or wandering hands, just our two bodies clinging to each other, to our unknown fates, and to dreams of days when it wasn’t all so scary. And as the lights dim on a quiet street, I lose a final puerile tear on a light-striped pillowcase. Tonight we are bound by more than eleven autumns, or by tangled bed sheets on the last night of a New York summer. He is no longer a boy in lab goggles and I am not just a pretty young thing. Tonight we are a family, and tomorrow is yet to be determined.

Judge Amy J. Fetzer said of third place winner, Cynthia Drew's piece, Birds of the Buena Vista, "The work shows a definite author voice and style. The writer can turn a phrase with a spin that's unexpected."

Birds of the Buena Vista

During summer months they drift with the on-shore breezes across the Golden Gate Bridge , up from the wharves and the cable-car turnarounds, down from the squares – Union and Ghirardelli, or ascend from their Alcatraz excursions to perch at the Buena Vista . These migratory souls drink their Irish coffees while the natives circle, waiting. And when the rains begin they depart for their origins, south and east, and the locals can recoup the place.

But as if those fluid words, Buena Vista , are burdensome, the name once more becomes the palpable caw BV, a territorial mark of custody. Their corner of North Beach , costly and comfortable, habitual home for flush nighthawks.

At first, Charlotte only spent time at the Buena Vista whenever someone else was buying, usually a traveling man or a conventioneer. Attracting a drink was easy, it was all in the strut.

The BV was Charlotte ’s fix for a disagreeable job with Sweeney Imports across the street, next to the Cannery, and living in a converted garage up the hill, four walls surrounding a space scarcely larger than a hotel room. Nearly six feet tall, six-two in heels, Charlotte was intended for wide hallways and lofty ceilings. This was cheap sanctuary, Murphy-bed urban, but she was in the city and that was key.

All through the miasma of February the town hadn’t seen much daylight. The brood at the Buena Vista that night was drunk as though they’d been there since November: sodden, and buggy with confinement. It was a Thursday. Charlotte came in with Mary Ann Fowler, who was footing the tab before the two of them leaned into a saturated commute. Mary Ann was a rucked-up alcoholic from The Avenues, an indulgent brunette, casual with her earnings from the import house where both women worked and alimony from her various husbands. They settled at a table, defending all and naught while they drank. Mary Ann slugged two gins and had just bought a third when she waved at someone across the room. Charlotte looked up from her vodka and said, “Holy Christ.”

“Not really,” Mary Ann said, “my son, Bill. You should get to know him, he’s tall. God, look at him, how gorgeous.” He was six-five, square jawed and square shouldered. He had dark hair with an uncontrolled forelock. His wide set blue eyes skimmed the room and he spoke with a timbre that put a quiver in Charlotte . She wove swizzle sticks, amused that her side-kick was Bill Fowler’s mother, a wonder up there with the swallows returning to Capistrano. Bill took a seat just as Mary Ann stood. She brushed the lock of hair out of his face, swigged the last of her gin and shambled unevenly out the door.

Charlotte sat dumbstruck, straining against three vodkas to collect her tangled wits. She stared at Bill’s left shoulder and then outside, watching the rain roll off the awning to pool on the sidewalk. A red-headed man with an overhang of a nose came by, a friend of Bill’s, with a companion; a small, overwhelmingly attractive woman with feathery hair. He introduced her as Robin, his name was Jay, they all laughed about that. Jay and Robin pulled chairs over from other tables and sat. Robin smiled across the table, curious. “ Charlotte –,” Charlotte smirked, “– Crain.”

The flock at the BV swelled and the noise built, clamor screaking off the walls. A rumble surged like the wind in Charlotte ’s ears from high blood pressure and blood-alcohol. Jay, Robin and Bill chattered in a lively tenor and laughed in bright peals while Charlotte attempted to make out their conversation. They ordered and drank, ordered and drank. Her hands and feet grew clumsy, mascara speckled under her eyes.

Late in the evening the four of them left the BV to go somewhere, anywhere, needing a change. They felt no particular duty to food but were certain they wanted more to drink. Beneath the dripping awning outside they waited pointlessly for the downpour to stop, then pushed open umbrellas and walked, waddling with drunkard’s feet. Their words hung in the fog, street lamps illuminated airborne wings of rain.

Three blocks further into North Beach and up two floors they came to Jay’s place, huddled under the eaves of the building. The rooms had wood floors and high ceilings, there was a cold fireplace and a harsh overhead. Charlotte collapsed, shivering, into a brown sofa and Robin sat burrowed with her feet under cushions of an overstuffed chair. They drank wine. Jay and Bill talked about their days as radio jocks. Wacky tales of drugs, sex and depraved broadcasting. They all laughed. Jay and Bill retold the same stories better and they all laughed harder. Men’s reminiscences. Charlotte studied Jay, bulky and graceless, his licks of red hair and brash manner, then looked at Bill Fowler, comfortable in his lovely body. He was predictable, she thought, self-absorbed, reserved.

They ran out of wine and switched to beer. Jay dug out his radio tapes, air checks. He pulled tapes off the shelf to loop into an old reel-to-reel recorder, and they listened and hooted and drank until Charlotte knew she should leave before she passed out or threw up on Jay’s brown sofa.

Bill found her in the hallway retrieving her coat and umbrella. “Wait,” he said. “Come in here.” The room was chilly and contained only a double bed splayed under another blazing overhead bulb. He closed the door and began absentmindedly unzipping her skirt, unhooking her bra, never pausing to embrace her. Charlotte began removing his clothes, her hands trembling with cold and longing, the light burning a surreal image of Bill’s fine, slender body into her wobbly brain. He turned off the merciless overhead and they fumbled as two people will in their first effort together; oversized nocturnal creatures whose intimacy was reduced to narrow moves by torpor, unfamiliarity and the size of the mattress. But there was nothing about Bill’s faculty or ardor, no veiled lust revealed beneath his unruffled surface or discovery of a tremendous pleasure that impressed Charlotte . Plainly he expected accolade, though she said nothing. This was an imagined obligation to Mary Ann, to Jay and Robin, to all of those who saw them leave the BV together. They were drunk, fulfilling expectations, a duty; a useful biological act. Not for ten years had Charlotte dived so gracelessly into instinct with a near stranger. Grasping the edge of the mattress she slept. Before daybreak her dreams hovered somewhere in that swamp between flights of desire and a muzzy, restless reality.

She woke just after dawn, close to seven, dressed, paused to hold back a ruinous hangover, left her number and crept into another bleak February day. Picked her way down the hill to her small sanctuary to wash away the night and shore up her rectitude, no honor left in yesterday’s clothes.

At five that afternoon Mary Ann strolled by Charlotte ’s desk. “I hear you two uh, got together last night.”

Charlotte glanced sideways, from under her hair. “Yeah, and I’m not moving too fast today. We got awfully drunk, didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

“Lucky girl, good for you. Did you ever see such a body on a guy? That must’ve been the time of your life, last night, wish I could’ve been there.”

“Glad you weren’t, it would’ve been crowded. I was surprised when you left the BV so suddenly.”

“Bill seems really fond of you,” she said, “I’m sure he’ll call. If I talk to him again, I’ll be sure to tell him you said ‘hi’.”

Friday evening Charlotte left work and went straight home, anxious for refuge, still hung over. She nibbled at dinner, then slept, swaddled in a void unbroken by phone calls.

Saturday morning she awoke clear-headed, despite the ubiquitous fog outside. There was something buoyant to a weekend free from captivity. That Bill had not called occurred to her mid-afternoon like a stomach cramp, while she stood at the laundry. When she returned home there was a message on her machine, not from Bill, but from a research firm in the Cannery, asking her to talk about a job. Even the thought of escaping her dreary position at the import house barely obscured an inexplicable, rising ache about Bill. Hope faded, reprisal took its place. Bill deserved to know she wasn’t interested, but not until he was interested in her. She could be as aloof as he was, as unattainable. Sunday morning she felt compelled to linger near the phone, unable to leave. By that evening the confusion and indignity were painful.

At lunch on Monday she went for the interview at the Cannery. Charlotte returned to her desk to find Mary Ann tucking paper into a file folder.

Mary Ann looked up, flipped the file closed. “Did he call?”

“Nope.” Charlotte tossed a sandwich bag onto her desk, tucked her handbag away.

“Huh. I’ve been trying to reach him myself, I guess he’s out of town. He does that, he tries to escape, he hides from me, but I find him. Tell him hello from you or something?”

Mary Ann’s words seemed peculiar, an indistinct tongue. “Sure,” Charlotte said, unwrapping her sandwich, “or something.”

On Wednesday the people from the research firm in the Cannery called, asking Charlotte to meet with them at the BV after work. They sat drinking weak drinks while they talked salary. What they offered was twice what she made, but still disappointing. She’d hoped for more, they held fast. She was bad at these exercises and avoided confrontation.

Bill came in early that evening, his arms encircling small, beautiful Robin, with her smooth tan skin, graceful neck and large brown eyes. They sat across the room, Bill facing Charlotte but staring at Robin, stroking her hand, newly infatuated.

Seeing Bill and Robin paired, Charlotte felt discarded. The dull thud in her stomach diminished her enthusiasm for this conversation about salary. It was all she needed to relent, she accepted their job offer. Charlotte was her own albatross.

She left Sweeney Imports at the end of the month for her new position in the Cannery, interesting work with some travel. Now she ate lunch at the BV regularly, drank there often. She came to know the bartenders, Martin and Woody.

Charlotte moved to new digs in North Beach , still within range of the BV. This place was larger, chic, had a view of the bay. She was preoccupied with the move and immersed in her job, until the jetsam of Bill and Robin and Mary Ann was swept away.

On a Tuesday night in April Charlotte’s phone rang. When she answered, a deep voice said, “It’s Bill Fowler.”

Charlotte tried to be nonchalant, but there was a flutter in her stomach and a beat in her chest that wasn’t there before. “Hi. Well, hi. How’ve you – “

“Look, I don’t appreciate the game you’re playing, here,” he railed, “cut it out.” He was slurring his words, she could hear Mary Ann screech and laugh in the wake of his rant.

“What’s that? What are you saying?”

“Stop sending me messages. Can it. Comprehendé?”

“I haven’t been sending messages, Bill, that’s not my style. I wouldn’t – I’m sorry, I don’t under –”

“Like hell you don’t. My mother just handed me one – "From the Desk of Charlotte Crain, Sweeney Imports," it says. Starts out, ‘My Darling Bill.’”

Charlotte caught her breath as she heard Mary Ann whoop in the background.

“Hey,” Bill said, “you were a piece of tail. Give it up. Leave me alone.”

Charlotte dropped the phone back in the cradle, but she understood she’d been gulled. Mary Ann was procuring for her son. Bill’s intention was never more than a lark. She’d been delivered, unwitting prey.

That was twenty years ago. Charlotte had been gone from San Francisco for eighteen now, lived in Chicago , hadn’t been back.

She’d come to town for a conference. Twitchy by the second evening, she stood at her hotel window looking out, the persistent rain obscuring her view of the city. In the downpour she took a cab to the BV; the car flew past her old garage apartment, dark and snug in the pitch of the hill.

Charlotte sat at the bar. She looked around and remembered, gazed at the table where the four of them had roosted that night Little had changed in the room itself, only in what she’d become, where she’d been since then. Life shaped by decisions, hers and those made around her, some better than others. Aware that now she was the flush nighthawk, Charlotte wondered if she’d grown wiser or just more experienced.

The bar was quiet. She asked for a draft and handed her credit card to the bartender. He was an interesting looking man, with licks of grey hair and a pleasant face, an overhang of a nose. She asked about Martin and Woody, if they were still around.

The bartender studied Charlotte . “No,” he said, “I’d sure remember those names. You’ve been here before, though, I believe.” He looked at the name on her credit card as he handed it back to her, “I remember your face.” He smiled and held out his hand. “My name is Bill.”

Many thanks go to the Winter Quarterly Judge, Amy J. Fetzer.