“I hadn’t seen them in forever, and perhaps ever. I mean people change in ten years. Who was I in college? Drunk? That skinny kid, full of bloodlust? Half awake? You ever look back at yourself, maybe after 5 years, and think: ‘Five years ago I was an asshole.’”

            Jim put a cigarette in his mouth and looked across the room. Jasmine was naked on the couch. He looked down at his feet. He was naked except for a pair of off-white briefs that looked deflated. His toes had pink dividers so they didn’t touch. He hadn’t put anything on his nails, but had been curious about how they felt. He liked them and so he had spent the evening fucking Jasmine with the toe dividers in. Jasmine didn’t come. She never did. She wasn’t paid to. She was paid to sit there, and be there.

            Jasmine, who really does not matter, worked for Grapevine Escorts, which was really a phone number in south-Denver that offered New York priced girls with less experience and taste, but out this far west there really was nothing better. They were at least educated, which is why Jim would even want her around.

            Jim does matter. James Andrew Hull. Accountant. A good one at that, worked at Hawthorne & Hubert, until last week, when the IT guy, bastard, ratted him out for a large stash of porn on his work computer.

            “What was I supposed to do? You know how much of a pain in the ass it is to upload to an external hard-drive? Do you?” he said this to Jasmine. She shook her head and then snorted a line of coke off of a DVD case on the bed.

            “Do you?” he asked again.

            “No.” she shook her head and her tits bounced a little bit. They distracted James.

            “Give it here,” he said taking the DVD case and tapping out another pile of coke and arranging it into a neat line with his American Apparel membership card.

            “I wonder if I’ll tell them about it?”

            “Who?” asked Jasmine touching her tits.

            “At the dinner. David’s always an asshole about this kind of stuff.”

            “Don’t tell them then.”

            “Okay.”

            He kissed her on the mouth and then turned the TV on. She left sometime around 2am.

By: Dylan Lenz

The tulips in the corner

with soft pedals, with

       light peach flights, and

rotten bulbs.

And the vase, 

the one that used to hold

every strand

of your interest

Wilts

         In  

the

        slow.

Decline

           of

aging floral arrangements.

By: Dylan Lenz

The English Oak above me was courageous to plant itself so near the slope that broke near its roots, but it was mighty and held fast and grew deep. I was tired and my back was sore so I sat down and made my notes and I ate the food I had packed when the air was still cold before the sun rose. I looked up and in its shade I was content.  

After a time I stood. I walked around the tree and I saw a beaver’s lodge in the water but I could not see the animal itself. A forsythias bloomed down the path and it made the air sweet. A light wind blew. 

I found the lowest branch and it was easy to climb so I made my way upwards. Looking out over the lake and the woods and the dwindling orchards, I could see a storm coming in. The wind was brisk now, but it was warm so I knew I should make my way home before the rain began. The sound of nails being driven made me uneasy and Lydia was waiting for me, but I lingered and I was afraid because it all seemed so fleeting.

From the perspective of a Yellow-rumped warbler.

The promises of a colorful autumn and colorless winter would have kept me north, but the lipless whispers of my mother disenchanted the majesty of such a notion. 

I had envisioned myself sitting before some branch, midday, looking on the stubborn maple as it lost the last of its leaves. I would watch while the last of its fellows departed the rough skin, then ponder the metaphysical world that filled my mind. 

I would wonder if God were present, or just a pleasant ideal put on a shelf until tragedy struck or confidence waned. I would think of my father’s unchallenged conviction, while he fluttered in a fury for us to leave at first frost. 

Perhaps below I could listen to the murmuring questions of Sara’s daughter, as the man and child would rake the fallen blades of the mighty maple, standing above , now devoid its former glory, nonetheless present. 

It is just the same I should keep pondering such, fall is coming and with it the first frost.  I will fly south for winter and  along the way I too will curse my branches for not letting us decide when we should fall. 

By: Dylan Lenz

I came to it because the gold had caught my eye,

I knew it made the air sweet.

I stayed to watch the birds wash in the shallows.

I came for flowers to give to her,

I drank tea and ate honey,

I found fallen feathers,

I rested.

I knew the sun set sometime.

I did not recall when.

I had lost time.

I felt the air grow cold.

I remained.

I longed for her to return.

I slept and then awoke to crickets.

I returned to the house with empty hands.

I left because Lydia called me.

BY: Dylan Lenz 

Adelina was still soft though she had hardened since the war had made its way through Palermo and her father had died and her brother had gone off to join the Americans as they made their way north. There had been many offers from many soldiers and there were many nights when she had grown lonesome. Since her husband had died early on in the war, she was inclined to dismiss her upbringing because the idea of God and sovereignty seemed too hard to believe at this time in this place with these people who did not care for her and only cared for her beauty. She had resolved to have no man. She had resolved it though the American’s were persistent in the hospital although most of them were in no shape to make love, especially to Adelina.

McGregor had come to Palermo to help with the reconstruction effort and his shoulders were strong and broad and his back was straight and he stood taller than the other men though there were a few that were greater than his height. His skin was dark from the sun and his hair had lightened since he arrived. He had been wounded while transporting supplies to the front and was taken to the hospital with shrapnel in his left knee and torso. The surgeon could not remove it all so he walked with a limp but was recovering well.

McGregor spoke seldomly but was always surrounded by the other men because they respected him and he sat straight up in his bed, which gave the men a confidence, and Adelina knew they needed confidence. When McGregor spoke he talked at length and was well versed in many topics, but never spoke about the war or about the efforts or the politics of his country. When asked for his opinion he gave it but refused to warrant it further. He smoked cigars and drank scotch that one of the men he had hired from Palermo had brought him. He shared it with the men. He slept with his rifle next to his bed, loaded, and though it made the nurses uneasy they trusted McGregor who would occasionally smile at them and look deep into their eyes when they passed with a bravery the other men had lost.

Adelina was the best of the nurses. She was thin and attractive in a way that was only seen as such in the city, being replaced with fuller cheeks and wider hips the further you went. McGregor loved her when he first saw her, though he never mentioned it and never let himself actually believe it.

The first time they touched McGregor was attempting to change his own dressings but he couldn’t reach far enough around his back and Billings a GI from Chicago was asleep and only Adelina was on call. Her skin was soft and her touch was delicate and she moved with ease and precision. McGregor held her hand firmly. He kissed her. Adelina did not move.

 McGregor led her to the rooftop so they could lookout over the city and see what was left and so they could make love or talk more at length so that he could know Adelina. They did not talk and they did not look out upon the city but instead they held one another like they had not been held in a long time. They kissed and McGregor found that though Adeline had hardened during the war her skin was still soft.

Despite his injuries McGregor was strong and he made love with a skill that he had adapted from summers spent at a lake in Minnesota when he was a younger man. His grip was firm and was confident and he let Adelina know what to do and they were happy for a while.

In the weeks that followed they made love a number of times on the rooftop until Billings made mentioned it to the other men and they called after Adelina as she made her rounds. McGregor put an end to it when he broke Billing’s teeth. A couple days later Billings forgave him because McGregor was brave and handsome and because he was well liked with the other men. The apology was public and Billings shook McGregor’s hand while he stood at a window that looked over the main entrance to the hospital where the freshly wounded would come to be treated and saved.

It was later that week that McGregor’s rifle sounded in the night and Adelina came from one of the other wards with a few of the night nurses to see McGregor shot. Sanderson pointed at Billings who was in his bed. Billings looked at the ceiling.

In the early morning hours the other men of the ward woke quietly and the ones with the strength stood up. They held Billings down and beat him while a towel was stuffed in his mouth and Billings cried out but only Adelina could hear him and she simply turned to look out at the city. When the guards came to take Billings he was dead but they asked no questions and the men said nothing. Adelina left the hospital and made her way to the cathedral and she remembered McGregor.

CHAPTER ONE

Born to nothing we will dream as kings and oh the kingdoms we will build. It was times like these that David Lowe would recall the last words of Harry Bradshaw but it was not the time for memories of better men and simpler times.

He stood before the union offices. The Pacific Shipbuilders inhabited a small corner of the second floor of a building that was not grand, or worth discussing. The union was not trying to impress anyone and that impressed Lowe. Part of him was jealous that the minimalist simplicity was not afforded to men who could command it with the wealth and power they had collected. David Lowe would have been perfectly happy in an old office in an old factory with a single chair for himself so those who met with him would have to walk or stand and not waste his time. After all time was short, and there never seemed to be enough.

David was to meet with Solomon Schule the president of the PSU. David liked Solomon. Once they had been friends. David had been a groomsman, but that was years ago when they were young men and ambitions took them in different directions through different means.

David opened the glass door and took the stairwell on his right. The stairs smelled of cigarette smoke. He liked that. There was a certain honesty about the stairs and the fact that their simplicity made them timeless. There are things you can’t change, and things you can’t make better. Thought David. Things like shoelaces. No matter how hard you tried shoelaces would always be around. Same for ships. The world will always need ships and shipbuilders and shipbuilders will always need men and Solomon had the men David needed.

When David came to the door of the office he paused a moment and checked his watch. He was twenty minutes early. He entered.

“David Lowe to see Solomon Schule,” he said to the woman behind the desk.

“He’ll be a few more minutes Mr. Lowe,” said the woman, she said it flatly but David could detect a touch of reproach. He nodded and took a seat near the door and waited quietly. The window across from where he sat reflected his image just enough that he could make out how he looked. His shoulders were broad and filled his suit nicely. His hair had bleached out slightly over the summer and turned a coppered blond that was done up with ease to look as if it formed naturally. Lowe’s face was attractive enough, with masculine features that made him look older than he was as a young man, and younger now. His eyes had sunken slightly and circles formed under them so that in the half light of his office when he worked late he seemed haunted.

David pulled his eyes from the window and looked about the office. He had not seen it in a number of years since he had fired a large number of workers from Pacific and ended up dissolving his contract with the union. The men who came back were not unionized and their wages were cut. That was when Solomon Shule had also dissolved their friendship. Lowe had liked Shule enough to offer him steady work as a Vice-president of labor for Trans-Pacific Shipping and with it a nice office and competitive salary that was more than the union could offer. Shule was an idealist. He stayed with the Union. Lowe liked him all the more for that and regreeted that he had lost one of the few people he could call in the middle of the night to run his ideas past. If David was in Shule’s position he might have done the same thing.

The walls were aquamarine and starting to show their age. At onetime the building had been new, the culmination of enterprise and labor to a polished final product. In its time it had been an expensive place to lease but with the loss of production the service of the doctors and lawyers moved on as well. The building was not meant to impress the men who came here. The men who were shipbuilders were not rich men, and they were not proud men. They were workers men like David had been who would sit on an I beam forty feet in the air without a harness to weld rivets to steel. They were worth every penny that Trans-Pacific Shipping had cut from their wages but the economy tanked and David couldn’t help that.

Lowe looked across the office at a painting of a sailboat on an inlet. It was a watercolor and the ship was just a pair of black sails against the light blue water surrounded by mountains. The boat reminded David of the first one he built years ago with Harry Bradshaw, when it was appropriate to dream of better times and better men.

As a boy, the lake house seemed like a foreign shore though it was only at the end of the street. The Bradshaw’s who lived there seldom poke with the neighbors but from time to time were known to ask if their guests could park along the lesser yards at their annual Labor Day event. The neighbors would let them and offered a good-mannered exchange and then the Bradshaw’s would retreat to the city and not be seen again until the following summer when they returned to the lake house.

David lived with his mother on the small farm at the end of Franklin Rd. The farm was twelve miles out of town under the foothills where the end of the lake met one of the creeks that fed it. His mother had inherited it when her father died and they moved back to Washington from Portland. Colleen had refused to sell the farm and instead hired a few men to help seed and harvest and had David help her with the day-to-day chores. One of the hired men, Carl had stayed on after the last season had ended. Colleen would smoke and drink with him late in the night and then they would make for the bedroom where David could hear. In the summer on these nights Daivd would sneak out of the house and sleep on the couch on the porch. There was a bug light on the other end so the insects did not cause him much trouble and the hot air made it easy to sleep. 

The Worker

            It was November and ice formed small circles at the base of each of the posts on the dock and the men’s breath hung heavy a moment before it disappeared. The five sat smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee from tin thermoses that warmed their hands as they stood arm-to-arm watching as the lake pitched slowly back and forth and mostly they were silent and content with the occasional nod to look out at something on the water. They had five minutes left before they had to return to work.

            “God, I wish I could live here,” said the first man.

            The others nodded.

            “What do you think a place like this costs?” asked another.

            “More than you’ll ever see,” said the first.

            The others smiled.

            “What does he do?” asked one of the men lighting a new cigarette.  

“Inherited it, probably,” said the first.

            “No, he’s big in Seattle, started at a company at twenty, owned them at twenty-five,” said another.

            “Yeah, but his parents got him the job,” said the first.

            “Nope, grew up in Ohio on a dirt farm. Moved west with two-hundred dollars, before the bus ticket.”

            “How do you know?”

            “Asked him.”

            One of the five who’s face was young and full and who’s hands were calloused and cut looked at his watch and drank the rest of his cup and began to walk back to the end of the dock.

            “You coming?” he asked.

            “Soon,” said the first. The others nodded and smoked.

            At the house an older man with thick wrists and broad shoulders threw scraps of wood into a bin on the drive. He did not stop to look at the young man who had begun to help. A few moments passed and the old man tried to drag a large beam but could not move it more than a few feet. The young man stood at one end and together they lifted the beam in and the older man nodded and the younger man said nothing and went back to finished the work he had started before he took his break. When the others returned form the dock the older man stopped and looked at his watch and shook his head and then carried on. They did not look at him.            

            At the end of the day the men packed to leave.

            “What a day,” said the first.

            “Yep,” said another.

            “You coming?” asked first to the young man who was hammering still.

            “ After this.”

            “You know he doesn’t pay overtime?”

            “I know.”

            “Suit yourself. See you Monday.”

            An hour passed and his shoulders were sore and his neck was tired and his thumb bled from a bad swing and still he hammered the wall. From the other room the old man who owned the house still hammered and it filled the lake house with sharp bursts that dulled in to echo. Another hour passed and the young man had finished his wall and began to pack to leave and still the other hammer rang.

            “Are you going to leave?” asked the young man from the doorway.

            “After this wall is up,” said the old man.

            The young man picked up his hammer and held the other end of the board straight while the old man hammered nails in single swings.

            When the wall was finished they set down their hammers and stood before it and it was straight and perfect and strong and their arms were sore and their mouths were dry. Though they ached they were finished and finally they were content and they were free.

At three in the morning I hear him coughing. I get up and go to the other room. He is lying on the bed I used to sleep in. A white sheet thrown over top of him are a swill of white arcs that crumple with his legs. The sheet is transparent almost, soaked in the sweat that delicately covers his brow. He coughs again and again and I go to him. He’s asleep still.

His face is unshaven. White stubble covers his chin with bits of black and dark brown thrown haphazardly from spot to spot. His eyes are closed tight and make the deep wrinkles at the corner. I take the mask from the side table and lift his head to slide it on. I turn the oxygen on. His chest clams to a smoother rhythm and I get up to leave the room.

“Thank you David,” he says as I leave.

I go back to my grandfathers bedroom and look at Sara who is also asleep. She’s pregnant and sleeping on her left side in the middle of the bed. I go to the window and look out of it.

It’s December in Washington State. We’re an hour from Grand Coulee, past the mountains where the hills roll for miles toward Reardan and then Spokane. The flatland on nights like tonight, when a soft wind comes up and the last of the moon is being covered by the delicate lace of the clouds, I feel at ease. It’s quite, and it makes me glad we moved out West.

I am a liar. If I told you my name was David Miller I would be lying. I am David Lowe. My grandfather was Arthur Lowe and he was a liar. My farther was Jesse Miller and he was a liar, though I only spoke with him a handful of times and I can’t recall if he ever lied to my face. I am David Lowe because my mother gave me her name when I was born. She was a liar too.

            I am awake and it is 3:43am and I need to be up at 6:15am at the latest so I can catch the train into Chicago so I can meet with Hank Gordon. He wants to see if I’m a good fit for the public relations department for his firm. They are venture capitalists. I can’t sleep.

            I stand and look out the window of our apartment. I hear Sara breathing quietly behind me on the bed. I turn my neck and see her laying across the twin mattress with her bark hair thrown over the pillow case creating a sharp contrast of thin strands that move as she breaths. She’s peaceful and she always can sleep so easily. I turn back to the window.

            I think about the ground below. Directly under the bedroom window is a rosebush in a potted plant that is starting to turn brown at the end of it’s leafs. It’s September and the ground would be cold if I pushed my torso a little further out the window and let go of the windowsill. I don’t think it would hurt if I fell out, maybe I’d get a broken collarbone if I landed on my shoulder, perhaps a twisted ankle. I would not die if I fell out the window, at least I don’t think someone can die from falling from the first floor.

            I get away from the window and go back to bed. Sara has one leg up and the other spread out above the covers. I lay on my side next to her and warm my hand by placing it in my arm then move it between her thighs. She is thin and tall and even more beautiful when she sleeps. I move my hand to her stomach and pull her closer to me and wrap myself into her. She turns and pushes her face into my chest. I still can’t sleep.

After the season finished and the crops were done and his father had paid him his share Arthur moved west with Cathy to work on the Grand Coulee dam in Washington state. They lived in Grand Coulee initially in a house that looked over the gully of the dam.

Arthur liked to look out at the dam. It was a simple gray wall that plunged into the sky and at it’s lip held back an ocean. Across the brim were lights that dotted the roadway that ran over the top of the structure. Gulls and the occasional hawk would swing across the gray wall like brushstrokes across a canvas. Every hundred or so feet a stream would erupt and throw a thin trail of water into the meager Columbia river. Before the dam it had been mighty and relentless, but now it had slowed to a meager remnant of its former self. 

Arthur found meaning in his work running the night shift maintenance of the turbines that turned inside the manmade mountain. He liked feeling as thought he was a part of something larger than himself like he had in Duluth. He also liked the constant roar of the water that became a silent comfort the longer he lingered in the dam. He liked that Cathy was happy as well.

Cathy had enjoyed their marriage. Arthur doted on her more than her father had doted on her mother which Cathy perceived as one of her few successes. She was happy to have a man like her father, who paid the bills and spoke to her when he came home, but at the same time contained a masculine reserve to not indulge in the pettiness of her day to day quarrels with the other wives on the street.

            Cathy had managed to make a name for herself early on when they first arrived in October. Arthur had received a photo of the company house that they would stay in before they took the train from Fargo to Spokane and Cathy had been busy making arrangements for the place before they arrived. When they finally did make it to Grand Coulee she met with a seamstress that she had already been in contact with, and had new drapes put in the house. Arthur had given her an allowance to keep her busy over the winter.

            It was the seamstress, Muriel Andersen that introduced Cathy to the other women of Grand Coulee. Muriel was the wife of Hank Andersen a company foreman and had marginal power in the group, but enough standing to take part. As the wife of one of the engineers Cathy was given a sort of priority many of the hourly laborers wives were not. The wives of the executives and the men with educations met at the Blatchford Hotel conference room every Thursday and played cards and planned the social calendar for the utility company as well as indulged in a healthy amount of gossip.

            Helen Jackson was originally from Texas and had moved with her husband and two young sons to the dam when her husband took began to run the utility companies interests in Washington from a small office in town. They were from Houston and she possessed an instantaneous air of superiority that most of the Midwestern middle-class women could not comprehend beyond the fact that it seemed to make her the best leader of the social group. She liked Cathy.

            “Where are you and your husband from?” asked Helen, in a soft drawl that was both refined and rural and seemed almost put on. Cathy had not encountered many southerners in Fargo and was pleased to be speaking with such a character.

            “Fargo, North Dakota,” said Cathy. Helen was taller than her with long blond hair that seemed to have a natural curl and hung halfway down her back. Cathy could not quite place her age, she would have been in her mid-twenties or mid-thirties but didn’t look a day over twenty-four. Cathy would have been more accustomed to seeing her in a beauty pageant in a gown rather than in a sundress with a gimlet in her hand.

            “You, know I’ve never been to North Dakota. I’ve seen Chicago, is it at all similar?” asked Helen.

            “Not really, it’s mostly farms,” said Cathy.

            “Ah, well my husband had mentioned you were from the Chicago area but he must have been wrong.”

            “Arthur studied there at the University,” said Cathy wishing she had been to Chicago so Helen would find her interesting. She wanted to tell a joke or a story but had none. She wanted to keep Helen next to her so she wouldn’t seem so alone in the room.

            “Ah, that must be it.” Helen paused a moment then thought of a new conversation to have that Cathy would be able to contribute to. 

“Your husband is quite the charmer I hear. And handsome too, have you two been married long?” asked Helen.

            “A few months only, though we’ve known each other for years. Have you met him?”

            Muriel came up to them and nudged Cathy.

            “Cath, we gotta go, the babysitter says my kids actin’ up.”

            “Okay,” said Cathy looking at Helen again for a sort of reaffirmation.

            “We I’ll need to have you and your husband over for dinner sometime,” said Helen.

            “Yes, we’d like that. Or for you to come to our house, Muriel just made us drapes,” said Cathy.

            “That sounds wonderful,” said Helen turning and commanding another conversation.

            In the car ride back to Muriel’s Cathy talked about the day.

            “I really like that Helen Jackson. She’s so nice and kind, like a movie star.”

            “She’s alright,” said Muriel. “I’ve never had a run in with her though.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “She likes to get what she wants. Let’s put it that way.”