Georgia Writers
Second Annual Members' Anthology
. . .On My Mind
Volume II
A Georgia Writers Anthology
The Anthology is a numbered, limited edition (95 copies),
Each copy is registered to the person who buys it.
It was released at the
Atlanta General Meeting on April 8, 2000.
The meeting was a "signing party" for all whose works are included.
Each anthology was signed by every included author
and is now a GW collectors' item.
Cost is $6 plus $2 S/H.
(There are still a few copies of Volume I available.)
Questions? Anthology@georgiawriters.org
Additional Members Works
Works by the Winners of the 1999 Members' Contest
Poetry
Judge - Dwight HumphriesFirst Place Winner
"Vietnam—A War By Any Other Name"
By Geri Taran
I see them cry.
I hear the voice of the mirror in their words even now,
so long behind the smoke and blood they cannot erase.
I see them touch the cold black marble,
Tracing the letters with fingers that once grasped the comrade
whose waning life they could not keep,
whose name is etched in honor of a sacrifice made by many
for nothing.They marched in cadence, spirited and polished,
making it a grand parade.
Some making the best of their first reluctance,
Some with hearts stopped by fear.
Some embracing a Nutcracker dream of valor,
Others anxious to liberate,
A few eager for blood.
They sang to match the cadences, lusty-voiced and cheerful
before their void departure to a nameless war.Long brilliant arrows searing a deadly path
left the stink of napalm and flesh burned crisp before the screams had died.
Shocked and suffering, newly barren landscapes spread
yellow and dry, yesterday's lush provision already too dim a memory.They told themselves that these were enemies,
not children, women, brothers and friends, but enemies....
alike and malevolent,
unholy and undifferentiated from one another,
different from all they knew to be sacred.Lies to preserve sanity preserved little
save a legacy of grief and shame, anger and madness,
dehumanized boys returned as shattered men.
Callous.
Cowering.
Violent.
Mute.
Miscreant.
Limbless.
Listless.
Scarred beyond repair."War takes its toll," the flippant say.
What war, say I?
Whose enemy was vanquished,
preserving peace for worthy children?
Not mine.There has been only one war from the beginning (that nameless war)
and it rages still, no end in sight...
Second Place
"How Do I Loathe You?"
By Emery Campbell
How do I loathe you? With the laser ray
I'll sear you to the depth the shaft will slice
in long-held beam. Indeed, I'll do it twice
to end your being; what an ideal way!
I loathe you truly. Ever on display,
your visage makes me sick as death, the price
of years in torment. Nothing will suffice
save seeing you cut down; I'll make you pay.I loathe you all the more that you abuse
my core beliefs, deep felt. Defilement blows,
the threats you loose when nether-bound on booze,
your wanton acts base infamy expose.
For tears but never smiles I gladly choose
to fix on your demise--and my repose.
"Just Another Sundayl"By Gigi LaP an
She sat across from him with a
distant stare,
he,
facing her, with a
glacial glareIn an instant I knew
they were married.They seemed so tortured,
and so sad,
like two birds crashing in midair,
left dizzy and encircled
by pulsating flares.The echo of their silences, beating, negating
Understanding,
Their tongues, dormant,
Complacent and stilled
By resentments unknown.Their arms in mid flight,
Broken and unused,
Two bodies, two vessels,
A requiem to love.
Fiction
Judge - Ron Schumacher
First Place
"Rosamunde's Garden"
By Becky Ramsay
Rosamunde wanted this year's garden to look impromptu, flowers that would come back every year without tending, would push their way through the crowd to gain their place in the sun and run wild like little colts.
At the garden center, she went through gardening manuals stacked up along book stands. She studied pictures of immaculate landscaped fields and sculptured shrubbery. But the pictures were too planned for her taste.
She pushed her cart toward the starter trays and stooped to read descriptions on each plastic pick. She wanted varieties for each season, so that there would always be something colorful for Henry to see from the kitchen window, when she was gone.
She hadn't mentioned the steady low-grade fever that had continued over the past three weeks. No use. The cancer was back. But thankfully, she had enough time to plan things for Henry. He'd need some help. She rubbed soil off a white pick and read Bleeding Heart.
She spoke to a long-haired, young girl who was unloading pots of geraniums. "I wonder what has happened to the flowers of my youth. Hollyhocks, sunflowers, and morning glories that trail up white strings."
"I dunno." The girl barely parted her lips when she answered. She shifted trays around to accommodate the potted geraniums.
Rosamunde looked upward from her stoop and stared at the girl's vacuous expression. "Everything is too complicated now," Rosamunde said.
The girl sniffed and flipped her hair behind one shoulder, but it fell forward again to the same place.
Rosamunde knew she was being ignored. She didn't care. She wanted to tell her story about the mailbox garden and no one else was around to listen except the girl.
"The flowers that I put in my mailbox garden were supposed to become giant red plumes, fiery flames. Instead, they look like charred remains of a forest fire. Why, my husband Henry said that in the next wind, he expects they'll roll through the neighborhood like tumbleweed and frighten neighbor cats."
Rosamunde waited for at least a smile, but none came. Teens were an odd bunch these days. So serious.
"There are manuals over there," the bland girl said. "You should maybe read up."
"Ah, fooey, I don't have time for reading."
The girl pushed her cart toward the back without comment.
Rosamunde grabbed the shirt sleeve of a boy in a dirty apron as he hurried past and asked him to direct her to the perennials. There she filled the red wagon with daffodil bulbs for April, hydrangea for May, black-eyed susans and bachelor buttons for June through August, a mum plant for fall and dusty miller for year round. She chose a holly for winter. She pulled the wagon behind her toward the counter and glanced back every few steps to admire the beauty of her plants all bundled together like a buggy full of babies.
"Listen, young man, do you sell that all-in-one soil?"
"No ma'am. We have planting soil for outdoors, potting soil for indoors. For the planting soil, you'll have to mix in your fertilizer and maybe a bloom stimulator. Then you'll want mulch and a package of Gardener's Friend over there."
Rosamunde was annoyed that the clerk had turned gardening into a monumental task. Gardener's Friend?" she said perplexed.
"You know. Ladybugs."
Rosamunde ordered everything the cashier mentioned except the bugs and paid by check. She wheeled the red wagon out to her Volvo, carefully spread newspapers onto the back floor of the car and set the plant pots one against the other, so as to stabilize them during the ride.
"Bugs in a bag. How odd," she said, as she drove toward home.
* * *
She went to the storage shed and gathered garden tools, gloves and straw hat, determined that she'd enjoy working the soil as she had almost every May since 1964, except for that awful year of the cancer and then surgery again last spring. Now her lawn was nearly bare except for spent pine straw around dogwoods and a few bent, brown daffodil leaves.
On her knees in the field, she tilled, sifted, and spread until the ten-foot square space that lay dormant all winter looked ready for planting.
She carved trenches in the loose soil and shook the plants out of their pots. She set the roots in and patted. She worked past lunch stacking river rocks that she and Henry had gathered from a roadside gully back in winter.
Sweat beads formed on her forehead. She felt gloriously happy, almost euphoric, toiling over the garden, a labor of love. Her last mission for dear, sweet Henry.
Finally finished, she turned on the hose and watered. In a month's time, the black-eyes and bachelors would bloom. She wanted Henry and her to enjoy their remaining days together, watch the flowers grow, do simple things that he'd remember long after her own flesh had become an element of soil.
* * *
Henry didn't wait for Rosamunde to flag him toward the storage shed. By the time she turned to wave, he was already halfway to the garden spot. He dragged the old park bench behind him that he stored in winter. He sat it to face the expectant garden, as he had every year, except last spring when Rosamunde was taking her treatments. That spring, he had placed the bench on the front porch and put a wooden bucket of petunias beside it to welcome her home from the hospital.
Once again, they would sit on the bench on Sunday afternoons. They'd sip iced tea and chat about what a perfect day it is. They would admire the colorful flower bed, his wife's pride and joy.
Henry went along with Rosamunde's planting efforts, helped her when she asked, because he knew about the pictures inside her head, the ones that kept his wife chasing after her dream garden year after year.
Now this year, he noticed that she was even more determined to get a garden started, as if she knew her time was limited.
The two stood side by side assessing the floppy green stems and wet leaves perched atop black mounds.
"Pretty soon, Henry, we'll have a lovely floral garden."
"You bet," Henry said.
He wiped a sweat bead off Rosamunde's cheek with his knuckle and gathered up the tools. He took them into the shed. Inside, he noticed a sun ray that streamed through a crack in the roof. It shot down to the dusty floor and pierced the shadows like a shining sword of God. He stared into the platinum light and prayed for Rosamunde's garden to thrive and for her to live long enough to enjoy it. If God loved her the way Henry loved her, flowers would billow and flood the little black square of dirt, colors so brilliant, you'd need sunglasses to look at them.
He looked through the shed door to where Rosamunde sat on the garden bench. He watched her fan herself for a long time. He wanted to make the scene into a lasting picture that would stay in his head, because the doctors had told him at the end of Rosamunde's treatments that her days were numbered, six months to a year.
He had asked the doctors to not tell Rosamunde, and they had honored his request. He figured, why spoil the last year of her life. Better to believe in the future, to look for tomorrow. Besides, he was selfish. He wanted to keep her beautiful smile as long as possible.
Henry straightened himself and wiped his eyes with his knuckles. He held his palm into the sharp streak of light for a minute to see if he could feel its warmth, then went to join his wife on the bench. It was a beautiful day, the kind when the air seemed to be filled with silver, each particle reflecting upon the other, with fragrances of juniper and cedar rising from the sun-warmed ground.
He sat on the bench beside Rosamunde, exhaled hard as he leaned back. She turned and looked at him with a calmness that told Henry she was about to make a tender statement, one that would cause him to have to fight to keep his nerves beneath the surface of his skin, cause him to tighten his lip against a quiver. He wondered what would happen if he couldn't manage both of these.
"I'm calling this garden 'Eternity,'" she said. Her eyes shone with satisfaction. She pointed toward the stacked rock border of the garden. "Think you could carve Eternity into a block of wood and set it in that corner?"
Henry set his eyes on the garden corner and her slender, veined finger. He cleared his throat, but words wouldn't come. He nodded and folded both of her hands into his and rested them on his knee.
Rosamunde and he looked on.
# # #
Second Place
"A Second Job for Saturday"
By Cynthia Newberry Martin
The room is cluttered and cool. No shades are drawn. No lights are on. The gray day outside flows effortlessly through the windows to meld with the gray day inside. Toys and books are scattered on the floor along with plastic bowls and cups with tops. There is a definite smell of burned popcorn.
I am curled up comfortably on the sofa with my grandmother's knit throw covering me, no longer asleep, just barely conscious in this too relaxed and not quite present state. I am so tired. Elizabeth woke up twice during the night for no apparent reason, and Caroline was up this morning at her usual, absurd time of 6:00 a.m. I am exhausted.
"Mommy?"
I can't possibly move. What am I going to do? I open one of my eyes to look at the clock. Four thirty-seven on Saturday afternoon. Three hours and fifty-three minutes until I will have a minute to myself. This is the longest day of the week. How do people take care of children hour after hour, day after day? These are my own children. I love them, but I often wonder why I don't get a second job for Saturday. It would break up the day.
"Mommy?"
I could offer to go in to the museum on Saturdays.
"Mom-mee."
At least tomorrow there is the distraction of church. I will be able to sit in a pew all by myself while the people in the nursery take care of my children. I remember taking them to the service for the first and only time. My mother and I worked ourselves to death. We were constantly trying various seating patterns in an attempt to keep one child asleep and the other quiet and well behaved. Why? The one who was sleeping was getting no benefit from being in church, and the other one could not possibly have noticed anything other than the continuous parade of crayons, markers, coloring books and lifesavers that my mother and I were taking turns pulling out of our pocketbooks. Neither my mother nor I heard a word that was said, and standing up every two minutes was a gigantic pain. I became progressively more tense as the hour advanced.
Why people take little children to a church service more than one time is beyond me. The whole time I felt like I was on display. I could see the headlines: "Mother Becomes Violent While In Church." It would have been so much easier to take care of two children at home. Frustration and anger were not the results I was hoping for after an hour at church.
"Mom-mee."
I sit up and turn on the lamp by the sofa. My eyes close again and as I lay my head back, my body slumps. My hand hits my book. When naptime started, I had wanted to read. I knew I was tired, but I thought I could read for a little while. The minute my body hit the couch, my eyes closed and I was asleep. Ellen Gilchrist's Flights of Angels is not even open face down.
"Mom-mee."
Sundays became delightful treats when I discovered the church nursery. After I dropped the girls off, I headed for the sanctuary where I immediately, but discreetly, reached into my pocketbook for my book, eager to take advantage of time to myself when I was awake. Somewhere along the way, however, it occurred to me that while I am reading, I am responding to someone else's thoughts and feelings. I don't have to sort out my own thoughts or name my own feelings. I wonder if this is part of my love for reading. Another headline comes to me: "Woman Anesthetized by Books." But reading is good. However, if I read during church, I miss my enforced silent time, the time to allow my own thoughts and feelings to slowly surface within the safety of the time limitations imposed by the sermon and the rituals. So now I try not to read. Still, I always have a book.
"MOMMY!" Caroline screams, and then she creeps into the room.
"Jeez Louise, Caroline, what?"
"I need another piece of paper," she says, coming to stand in front of me.
"'Please could I have another piece of paper?' And I can't believe you woke me up for that. Why don't you get it yourself?"
"Because I want you to."
"I'm trying to rest for a minute. You get it, Caroline."
"Mommy?"
"I will add a quarter to your piggy bank if you get it."
"OK, Mommy. Mommy?"
"Yes, Caroline?"
"I think I hear Elizabeth."
I feel like crying. Why is it I wanted to have children? I manage to raise myself off of the sofa. I grab a handful of M&Ms from the drawer in the kitchen and shove them into my mouth. I walk to the door of Elizabeth's room. Yes, she's awake. I hear her. I know that means I will be able to put her back in bed at 8:30 but I just can't believe naptime is over already.
I hate it when I eat before I'm all the way awake because I just cram, chew and swallow. The M&Ms were in my mouth and down my throat before I knew they were in my hand. I didn't even taste the chocolate. Two hundred calories and eight grams of fat down the drain in about forty-five seconds.
I may actually start crying. What's wrong with me? I am a responsible person. OK. Deep breath. I may fall apart, but I will do what I have to do. Since the baby is playing, I head for the bathroom to try to eke out one more minute of solitude, or maybe I should leave the door open and use the bathroom time as a transition. As I'm going into the bathroom, I hear the telephone. I answer it in my bedroom, sitting on the bed. "Hello?"
"Hey."
"Hi Mark," I say, my upper body falling straight back on the bed. "You're back from the soccer game already?"
"Yea. We beat the stew out of them. I was wondering if you'd like me to pick up one of those pizzas you like, with the feta cheese and sliced tomatoes, for supper? I could get a video for after the girls go to sleep."
One would think I would be grateful for the first opportunity in almost twenty-four hours to speak with a person over the age of five, but I'm not. Why is this?
"Emily?" Apparently I don't realize I'm not speaking. I guess it's true, as one of my old boyfriends was fond of saying, that I am ill-equipped to respond verbally to another intelligent being.
"Mark, that's really nice, but I'm so tired. I just don't think I could do it."
"You don't have to do anything, and I could help you with bedtime."
"Yea, but then you would be here during my time to myself," I think but don't say. Instead, I say, "Mark, I'm just too tired."
"I don't understand how you can be too tired to spend time with me. And besides, you're always too tired," Mark says.
"No, I'm not. I know because even I started wondering if I was tired all of the time. So I decided to keep a journal of when I don't feel tired, and I know that I have already written in it several times."
"Emily, you are so weird. How many different journals does that make now? No, don't answer that." It occurs to me that it might be fun to make a list of all the journals I am writing in.
But I am not to be sidetracked. I say, "From now on, I'd rather you did not accuse me of being tired all the time."
"OK, dear. So how about tonight?"
"Mark, I appreciate ... Could you hold on a minute?" Things are too quiet. Why don't I buy a portable phone for the bedroom? I know why. Because what would I do with this perfectly good one.
There she is. Caroline, female, age 5, hiding to eat chocolate chip cookies. Surely this is not good. She is sitting under the kitchen table with an entire box of Snackwell chocolate chip cookies poured onto the floor. I need to remember to write this down. I could start a journal for each child on "Childhood Incidents Possibly Requiring Future Therapy."
But right now I need to check on Elizabeth, who has apparently found her pacifier and gone back to sleep. Torn between wanting to finish my conversation in peace and wanting to be able to put her back in bed at eight-thirty, I return to the kitchen. I pretend I don't see Caroline as I reach for the portable phone. "Mark?" I'm heading to Elizabeth's room.
"I'm still here. What are you doing?"
"Sorry." I take Elizabeth out of bed and put her on the changing table. "Mark, I appreciate the offer but not tonight." I take off her diaper.
"Emily, I miss you. I hardly ever see you."
"You see me all the time." I can't get the wipe out. There, I have it.
"Seeing you at work or for lunch is not what I mean."
"I know. I don't know why I said that." I wipe her off and reach for a diaper, dropping the phone. "Sorry again. Listen, I feel sure I would miss you too if I ever had enough time for what I have to do and for myself." I can't believe I actually said that.
"What do you mean for yourself?"
Thank goodness he didn't notice that less than overwhelming affirmation of my longing for him. He only focused on the last part. But I swear I am being sincere. I think that I would miss him if my life were not otherwise overflowing. "Look, this is really not a good time." Powder and Velcro and then a million snaps. I hate the snaps.
"I know, I know. Call me if you change your mind," he says.
"I will. Thanks. I love you," I say.
"I love you too. Bye."
"Bye."
I turn off the phone, put it in with the powder. I hope I remember to take it out of here before I put her to bed tonight. Three snaps to go. I take the pacifier out. She is not happy. I pick her up.
OK. I never did get to the bathroom. But there's still Caroline to deal with. I glance at my watch. 5:05. I quickly calculate three hours and twenty-five minutes. Deep breath.
"Caroline?" Nothing. I walk towards the kitchen, carrying Elizabeth on my hips.
"Caroline?" Scrunching noise from under the table. I bend down. The sight of Caroline, propped on her elbows and lying on her stomach in a sea of cookies, breaks through my layers of exhaustion and numbness to reach the warmth underneath. I am overwhelmed.
I manage to fit under the table, and I put Elizabeth right beside me. I hand her back her pacifier so I can concentrate on Caroline.
"What are you doing, Caroline?" I ask.
"Nothing," she answers.
"You look like you're having fun," I say.
"I am. You can go now, Mommy."
"I want to stay here with you."
"Don't you want to go give Elizabeth a drink of juice?" Caroline suggests as she tries to wipe some cookie crumbs off her elbow.
"No, she seems fine to me," I say.
After a moment of reflection, Caroline asks, "Do you like chocolate chip cookies?"
"I do," I tell her.
"I do too," she offers.
"What else do you like?" I ask.
"I like it when you are not tired," she tells me.
"I do too," I offer.
"You know what else I like?"
"What, Mommy?"
"I like you," I say sincerely.
"I like you too, Mommy," she says, hesitating a moment before continuing. Then she looks straight at me and says, "Well, do you want just one chocolate chip cookie?"
Now, I think to myself, this is why I don't have a second job for Saturday.
# # #
Third Place
"Last Train Home"
By Daune Kramer
Joe Sample hurried down the escalator that led to the train platform at Peachtree Center MARTA station. The station was almost deserted, because it was nearly eight o'clock in the evening, and he encountered few people in the station to slow him down.
He leaned against the concrete support beam, tried to catch his breath, and stared at the jagged black rock that made the walls of the cavernous train station, cut under the towering Peachtree Center in downtown Atlanta. The cool concrete felt good. Tension seeped out of his head and into the beam.
Fifteen other people, scattered around the platform, all looked tired. Like Joe, all seemed dazed, only vaguely aware of each other. Their attitudes were typical of late Friday evening commuters; they weren't rude to one another, they merely respected their desires to be left alone. For four years, Sample toiled, working late every night for the same company, doing the same thankless job.
For four years, he never saw the sun during the week, except in the hall window outside his cubicle at Southern Indemnity. Sixty hours a week he spent crunching numbers as an accountant. That was all going to change. Very soon.
A man rode the escalator down the stairs to Sample's right, looked at Sample and smiled without showing his teeth; his mouth just curled up at the sides.
Sample nodded.
"Nice night, isn't it?" the man asked.
"Uh-huh." Didn't this man know the rules. You don't talk to anyone on the MARTA.
The man extended his hand to Sample. "Sean O'Brien, nice to meet you."
Sample hesitated. "Sample. Joe Sample." Sample shook his hand.
Sean stood and patted Sample on the shoulder. "Nice meeting you. See you around."
Sample didn't say a word.
Less than a minute later, Sample heard the whistle of the train and felt the rumble in the station. He stood, checked his coat pocket, and removed a CD.
Seated on the train, Sample turned his attention from the window to the aisle and made eye contact with Sean as he walked down the center. Sean nodded and walked toward Sample.
Sample turned his head toward the window and rolled his eyes, trying to ignore Sean, hoping he would go away.
To Sample's dismay, Sean sat down next to him and slouched in the seat.
"So, Joe, what business are you in?" Sean asked.
"I'm an accountant," Sample said.
"Really? CPA?"
"Yes, for four years now."
"What firm?"
"Southern Indemnity," Sample said. "I work in the controller's section."
"They treat you pretty well over there?"
"Well . . ."
"I'm sure it doesn't always seem like it. Especially at eight on a Friday night and you're just on your way home. It's pretty much a grind, isn't it?"
"It really is."
"And sometimes it just doesn't seem worthwhile?"
"Not always. It's just a grind."
"I watched my father toil for years in the Bethlehem Steel corporate office. You know, just when he was about ready to quit, give up, something strange happened."
"What?" Sample asked.
"He was promoted for his hard work. He'd thought he was unappreciated. He almost left the company. He was in the accounting, just like you. He had an offer from another steel company in Pittsburgh. He almost took it."
"Why didn't he?" Sample shifted in his seat.
"The president of the company happened to walk by his office one night when he was working late. He told my father that his dedication to the company was admirable, even though it might have seemed to him that he was going nowhere. He said the company was often so busy that hard work was not rewarded. My father went home that night and called the steel company in Pittsburgh and told them he wasn't interested."
"It was fortunate that he didn't take that job."
"It's more than that," Sean said. "Two months later, that other steel company went out of business."
"Interesting."
"It just goes to show that a simple event can change the course of someone's life, either for positive or negative."
Sample thought of the stroke of luck that brought the CD across his desk. The access codes for Southern Indemnity's numbered bank accounts would allow the bearer to have complete control over hundreds of millions of dollars.
The company controller had asked him to take care of wiring money to the numbered accounts. The CD contained the necessary access codes in an encrypted file.
When everyone left the office, Sample had taken the CD to the multi-media lab and burned another copy.
The young woman in front of Sean and Joe turned her head slightly and smiled. "Excuse me, Ma'am," Sean said.
"Yes?" She wore medical scrubs underneath her overcoat.
"What's your name?" Sean asked.
"Allison."
"Allison, this is my new friend, Joe, and my name is Sean." Both men shook her hand.
"Are you in the medical field?"
"Yes." She touched her chest. "I work in a research laboratory. We study infectious diseases."
"Oh," Sean leaned over to Sample and stage-whispered, "Maybe we shouldn't have shaken her hand."
They all laughed.
"So, Joe," she said, "you made a new friend on the train tonight?"
"Yes, and it surprises me." Sample looked at Sean. "It just isn't done."
"But, why not?" she asked. "This isn't New York; this is the South."
"So, Joe," Sean said. "You didn't want to talk with me? It had to be more than tradition. You seemed bothered by something."
"I have a lot on my mind." "Maybe it would help if you talked about it with us," Sean suggested.
"Sure, Joe." Allison moved forward. "We may be able to help."
Sample paused for a moment. As long as he chose his words carefully. "That story about your father reminded me of my situation. Except my company doesn't take the time to tell me if I'm doing a good job."
"That's the way things work, these days," Allison said. "You're just a body to them. They can find a dozen more to replace you."
"Is it like that also where you work?" Sample asked Allison.
"Yes, it's cutthroat. Your section is competing with all the other sections. There's only so much funding to go around. Sometimes other groups have tampered with our research, just to slow us down . It doesn't matter that what we're doing is important and could save lives."
"That's nasty," Sean said. "Why do you keep doing it?"
"Because we could find something that would save lives. I stay because I feel good about what I'm doing." She looked at Sample. "Don't you ever feel that way, Joe?"
"Well, I doubt what I do will save anybody's life."
"I mean, don't you feel good about what you've accomplished?"
"Now, that you mention it, I do. When we publish our monthlies, I see that most of the work in that book was mine."
"Let me ask you this, Allison," Sean said. "Have you ever consider sabotaging another group's work? Honestly."
"I don't think I ever would, but it's crossed my mind."
"So, Joe, your turn," Sean said. "My turn with what?" "Same question, but it wouldn't be the same situation with your job. Let's see. You don't deal with cash, and using office supplies for your personal use is just too petty for you. What if you had access to your company's bank account? You could transfer millions into your account. What would you do?"
Sample's heart pounded in his throat, the acid from his stomach churning. "I don't know."
"It's pretty mind boggling, isn't it?" Sean said. "That's a tough one, Joe," Allison said. "Much harder than mine."
Sample waved his hands. "I mean, granted, I wouldn't do it."
"I understand that," Sean said, "but would you think about it?"
"I probably would have a sleepless night or two." Sample looked around. "Even now, my mind is racing with the possibilities. I could be rich, could have everything I wanted."
"And you'd be fugitive for the rest of your life."
"That's the downside."
"Let's say it was even easier than that," Sean said. "Let's say that the bank account had billions of dollars in it. You could sit in your office at work and transfer only one million into your account. Might be quite a long time before anyone even noticed it."
"I still don't know if I could go through with it, even if I knew I wouldn't get caught. I just don't know if I could." "Even though the company's treated you badly all these years?"
"I don't think so. It's just that sometimes . . ."
"What?" Allison asked.
"Sometimes, I've been so down about everything, so depressed, I've considered doing something like that."
"You know, Joe, I think that's very admirable," Sean said.
"What? It's admirable that I've thought about whether I would steal from my own company?"
"No, most people would have blown that question off. You answered it honestly. You've thought about it, like most people would have. But you're an honest man, a good man. Your company is lucky to have you. If they don't realize it, shame on them."
"Thanks." Sample tugged at his tie.
The remaining handful of people collected their belongings as the train came to a halt. When the passengers stepped onto the platform at Dunwoody Station, they turned up their collars and buttoned their coats against the fall breeze.
Sean, Allison, and Sample walked down the steps to the main level. At the turnstiles, they stopped and looked at one another. "Is anyone doing anything for dinner?"
Allison asked. "As enjoyable as that may sound," Sean said, "I must get home to my wife. It was a pleasure meeting you both. I hope to see you again soon."
"How about you, Joe?" she asked.
"I think I'd like that," Sample said with smile. "Sean, it's been a pleasure."
The two men shook hands.
Allison and Sample turned, exited through the turnstiles, and walked toward the parking garage. Sean watched. Right before they walked out the door to the station, Sample stopped, reached into his pocket, and removed a CD. He looked at it a moment, as if contemplating something, then took it in both hands and broke it. He threw the splintered pieces into the large trash receptacle.Sample joined Allison, who asked him a question. He answered. She cocked her head, grinned, and looked at him as if he were crazy. The two walked out the door.
Sean smiled. He sat down at the nearest bench and pulled a cellular phone from his pocket. "Yeah, this is Sean," he said. "I tailed your boy all the way home. Spoke with him, and watched him. No, he had no intention of using it for anything other than what you asked. Well, Sir, I believe Mr. Sample will make a fine controller, I don't think you'll be disappointed."
Sean pressed the "End" button and couldn't suppress a smile. He brought up another number and waited.
"Honey, I'm at the station, I'll be home in ten minutes. See you then."
Nonfiction
Judge - Sam Harrison
First Place
"We Never Give Up"
By Becky RamsayMom turned eighty-one this week. She has vacated senior living apartments. After eight years in death's waiting room, as she calls it, she opted for a bright, city high rise in the heart of Atlanta.
I'm on my way to her new place. I match Mom's mood today, light and free, as if we both changed our fate, or at least delayed it through the act of relocation.
Mom is five-feet tall, blond and feisty. She spends eight percent of her annual retirement income to cover her gray. She enjoys banter with her gay hairstylist, masks her pleasure when he says to her, "I love your hair texture. It's a stylist's dream!" And she replies, "It's my fifty dollars that you love, and it's more than I can afford."
She put senior living behind her because she grew weary of neutrals--chrome hand rails along industrial-beige corridors-dusty, plastic Ficus trees at the end of each hall. She was fed up with daily announcements, intrusions projected through a blaring speaker into her kitchen. The vegetable truck is here . . . elevators down from one until three . . . inspection tomorrow." This invasion drove her out.
Mom's articulate Kentucky drawl sounds argumentative under normal circumstances, becomes more vigorous when she is annoyed.
"Oh Lord," she said, as we once walked past a prayer service in the auditorium. A visiting minister loudly warned sinners to repent. Mom looked to the ceiling and protested loud enough, so that passersby would hear. "Those old preachers come in here harping about sin. Sin, my foot. People here are too old for that." She lowered her voice, but not enough. "To hear these old biddies tell it, Jim and I are sinnin' every night. I don't care. Let 'em think it."
Jim was, until she moved away, her in-house lunch companion. The extent of their conversation was about the disgusting food and living conditions. She doubts that he'll venture out to visit her new home.
He is one of few men who reside in the senior complex. Most made early departure, bypassed the decrepit part, left their widows to stumble through latter days spitting at each other. The widows and divorcees wear their bitterness like a badge pinned to their rustling warm-up jackets. They wear pro running shoes, Nike Sports, for marathons to the cafeteria or for sidewalk sprints to K-Mart.
On one of my recent visits, two women, both hump-shouldered from osteoporosis, loitered at the security desk. They fingered lost and found earrings on the counter and watched a young man sign in. One of the women asked him whom he was going to visit. The other asked what was in the gift box he carried.
When Mom walked past in ivory shoes, skirt above her knees, a bright rose blazer, the big-nosed lady sniffed loudly. "I don't wear high heels anymore," she said.
A woman whose name I knew to be Evelyn added, "Or short skirts, either." They both dropped their chins, strained to get a better look above their trifocals.
Mom remarked in her drawl. "Look at them with their feeble comments, nosy old busy bodies. Why don't they all go on and die. It's what they're waitin' for anyway."
The more affecting the scene, the more vicious Mom becomes, as if senility or debility are insults directed at her.
Last Monday, I arrived to take her out for her favorite fast foods chili. We were in the lobby of her residence near the main entrance. A gnarled, bony woman brushed my fingers, barely a breeze to stir the fine hairs on my hand. Her voice was as frail as her touch. She wore large plastic beads over her '96 Olympics sweatshirt. Her pink scalp showed through wispy, white hair.
"What day is it, deary?" she asked. Her eyes focused on mine, yet only fragments of her were present.
Before I could answer, Mom snorted. "Ignore her," she said. "She doesn't even know what month it is, much less what day."
She stomped across the rubber mat that opened the automatic door and brushed her sleeve hard, as if to rid herself of the last remnants of decrepitude.
"My God, I'm glad to be getting out of this place," she said.
I told my sister that, around Mom, I felt like an antacid, an Alka Seltzer, here solely to dissipate her noxious vapors.
* * *
Now she resides in the elegant high rise and no longer must suffer to watch the elderly scoot about in walkers. She no longer will hear sirens wind down at the automatic entry doors and witness hushed conversations about who went out on the stretcher.
At ten thirty, I enter the hotel-like lobby of the modern dwelling. A perky, young concierge announces my arrival by phoning Mom's quarters on the nineteenth floor, fourth down from the Penthouse level.
I take the center of three elevators to her floor, step into a graceful foyer and to my left enter a cul de sac of enameled doors, brass numbers over each door. I knock on 1911 and hear a grunt and shuffle inside.
In case her good humor has changed since our morning phone conversation, which so often happens, I humor her with my snobbish greeting, like that of British royalty, appropriate for the polish of her new home. "Hell-eo, Mutha'. I brot tea and sce-ones." She laughs and lets me in.
I breeze through a narrow walkway of plush gray carpet from dining area to living room. "Your quah-tahs are divine, dah-ling."
"Well," she says, "not everything is perfect here."
I drop the British act. "Really?" I say.
"The water ain't warm," she says, "and the button on the air conditioner don't work. It's a long way to walk from the bathroom to the kitchen, but I guess I'll get used to it."
"It will take time to adjust," I say.
She fidgets with the clutter of antique carnival glass stacked on the dining room table. She moves plates from one side to the other, causing a clatter.
"Could you help me find the room where I take trash," she asks. "When I asked a concierge where it was, he had his hand out for a tip. I told him I wasn't rich and just left him standing. Well, he hasn't spoken since." She grins, proud of her boldness.
She is quickly building a new list of complaints.
All is not paradise in the fancy high rise. I am not surprised.
We walk down the quiet hall in search of the door that will be marked "Disposal."
"I haven't seen anybody on this floor since I moved in," she says. "I don't know if I can get used to the quietness."
I drop her box of discarded trinkets into the trash bin. She will have to adapt. She signed a one-year lease.
We return to her apartment. I hang her lighthouse picture and tuck her new, blue floral sheets around the mattress. I unpack and put away her sunflower dishes, making sure that she can reach everything easily without climbing.
I tell myself that she will live into her nineties, that we'll have our familiar times together for at least ten more years, a long time yet before she's gone. I cannot think otherwise.
I have a black and white photograph, aged to a sepia tone, of my mother walking in the park with all five children, our hands linked like a chain. It is 1949. She carries my baby sister on her hip. She smiles into the sun, and we are safe and happy in her care.
In her good times, she raves about my smile, faithfully praises my artwork and stories. She says I'm a sweet daughter and she's lucky to have her dear children. Pain passes across her hazel eyes like a fleeting ghost, and comes fresh every day to remind her that she has outlived one of her children by twelve years. She cannot fathom the idea of repeating such a loss, as I cannot conceive of the day when I will no longer talk and laugh with Mom.
I give silky, plush gifts to her for special occasions, satin, perfumed creams, and bone china, because femininity is her true nature, the essence beneath the cover. She is a vital spirit that fills volumes of my life.
When she's gone, my sister, my brothers and I will reminisce about her outspoken nature. I will keep the black and white picture on a shelf in my bathroom, so that when I begin and end my day, I will see the radiant young face of my mother smiling into the sun.
My work done, Mom and I wait at the bronze reflective elevator door. She stares into it, studies how she fits into the luxurious background. Behind her, brass and crystal teardrop sconces adorn an ivory linen wall. An oriental flower arrangement is centered on an antique Biedermeier sideboard. She is pleased at how she blends with the classic beauty that she has missed for so long.
"It's nice here," she says.
I wonder, as I stand there with Mom, how it feels to be eighty-one. I wonder if she will go back to the retirement complex eventually, after she tires of preparing her own meals three times a day and has had enough solitude on the nineteenth floor, where the only sounds are elevator doors sliding open and closed.
If she decides to move back next year when her lease is up at the fancy tower, we will load the moving truck with her furniture, put our mother's life into place once again.
We will not complain. I will continue to entertain her with my stories and puns in hopes of making her happier, and will temper her spunky behavior, coax her to be kinder. My sister will send greeting cards, the extra big kind with endearing verses and embossed pictures of tea cups and flower vases. Cards that say "I love you," in a sweet, poetic style. My brother will treat her to brunch at posh hotels and will present small gifts of cash.
We will do these acts of kindness in spite of her faults, in spite of our little grudges, because she's our mother, the one to whom we are forever bound. For this reason, we will never give up.
# # #
Second Place
"Mr. Monkey and the Summer Kids"
By Barbara Jones
Winters on the peninsula were long, cold and isolated. The only other occupied house, at the land end of the peninsula, belonged to the old wood chopper's widow. My two brothers, two sisters and I would wave at her as she chopped and stacked wood at the side of her crumbling cottage, but we always ran giggling for home when she beckoned us closer. We had all heard, and fostered, the rumors that the old woodchopper himself was buried beneath the ever increasing pile of logs. The only other people seen in our neighborhood during the winter were the mailman, milkman and bread man. We took our own trash to the dump after church on Sundays.
School, or getting to school occupied most of our time, as Mother had to row us across the channel to the mainland, where every weekday morning, we walked a mile in finger-freezing cold to Toepper's tiny grocery store to await the 45-minute ride on the school bus. In the afternoon, the process was reversed, with a stop at the grocery store for a piece of penny candy for the long walk back to the boat dock where Mom and at least two dogs were waiting. After we arrived home, Mom served us cocoa by the fireplace where we thawed out our winter-weary bodies, dreamed of spring, and planned our revenge on the summer kids.
We didn't dislike the summer kids; we admired and envied them. Their clothes were purchased from a store--not picked out from the Sear's catalog. Their hair was cut by a barber. They were cool. The problem was, they knew it; and they rubbed it in. They arrived every year at the end of June, after school was dismissed in the city. They filled the cottages left vacant and lonely all winter with laughing and shouting and "those words" that city kids knew and our mother washed our mouths out with soap for repeating. They called us hicks and showed off new transistor radios. Jimmy Baron made fun of our three-legged dog. His sister Valerie told us we had freckles because our mom drank rusty water while she was pregnant. His older sister, Sandy, told us what pregnant meant. We worshiped them. If we could, somehow, figure out a way to impress them, then we too would be cool.
My older sister, Mary Ann found the advertisement for the monkey in the back of a magazine. The illustration showed a Lilliputian monkey peering plaintively at the reader from the inside of a teacup- "The World's Smallest Monkey. FREE. Write for details." This was it. This was how we would dazzle the summer kids. While our parents slept in on a chilly Saturday morning in late October, we five children planned a circus. We decided to keep our plan a secret from our parents until the monkey arrived. They would be so surprised. Mary Ann carefully wrote to the company in the ad and told them not to bother with more details, just send us the monkey, thank you.
The five of us dressed and walked down to the gravel road to wait for the mailman. After entrusting him with our letter, we explained that we would soon be getting a package with breathing holes in it. We pleaded that he not deliver the parcel on a school day, but wait until a Saturday when we could meet his truck. We also asked that he shove a banana and some water through the holes and keep the box warm. He smiled and winked at us and promised to keep an eye out for our surprise.Our walks to and from the bus stop seemed much shorter that winter. Clouds of frosty breath swirled around us as we competed to have our ideas heard. We spent one whole week arguing about a name, reluctantly agreeing to call him Mr. Monkey so that Judy, the youngest, would stop crying. Judy also wanted the monkey to be dressed in her baby doll's clothes but the boys, Jeff and Greg, would have no part of that; although they did agree that a costume of some sort would be necessary. Every day we chattered about the monkey. Every Saturday, in sunshine or snowstorm, we stood outside and waited for the mailman. And then the letter came.
The "more details" letter informed us that we were "one step closer" to amazing our friends and family with this "oddity of nature." All we had to do now was send $6.95 and a photograph of a loved one . The monkey company would tint the picture in "realistic colors and flesh tones" (these were the olden days before color photography). Disappointed, but undaunted, the five of us raided our piggy banks and snuck a wedding picture of Mom and Dad from their album. The mailman promised to change our nickels and dimes into a money order to send along with our photo.
Now that we had sent money, we were confident that our free monkey would arrive soon. Jeff and Greg built a doll-house sized castle out of twigs. Judy donated a doll bed. Mary Ann practiced her ringmaster's spiel. I cut up and lettered colored construction paper to make tickets to the Big Top. And every Saturday we met the mail truck.
Winter snow melted into spring mud. We were getting nervous. We needed time to train Mr. Monkey before the summer kids showed up with something new and neat to rub into our faces. "I've got a package for you," the mailman shouted as he pulled up. Our hearts stopped, then broke. There were no holes in the box. It contained the wedding picture we had sent, with our parents now orange-faced with apple-red lips and Crayola-blue eyes. It also contained a letter and ten packets of sales material. All we had to do now, the monkey people told us, was have ten of our friends send $6.95 and pictures of their loved ones . . .
My father tried to explain to us about advertising gimmicks and fine print. We only knew that grownups had lied to us. Dad tried to make it up to us by buying a dwarf rabbit to live in Mr. Monkey's twig castle, and by de-scenting two baby skunks he found under the house; but you can't teach a rabbit to ride on a dog's back, and you can't give back lost innocence.
The summer kids arrived as usual that June, and we were glad to see them, but, boy, if we'd had Mr. Monkey...
Third Place
"The Greatest Christmas Gift"
By Bobbie Christmas
"Who wants a roller coaster ride?" my brother called.
"I do, I do." I tripped out the screen door and climbed into Barry's waiting wheel barrow. Around the yard, over and through piles of fallen leaves, he pushed me, running as fast as his blue-jeaned legs allowed. I squealed with delight when he dumped me into a mountain of multicolored leaves.
My seven-year-old sister climbed aboard. From the sidelines, my other sister and I clapped our hands and encouraged Sandy and Barry to go faster, faster, wilder and farther. Laughter filled our backyard, as it always did when I played with my brother and sisters.
Autumn in South Carolina afforded children the perfect opportunity to explore nature and enjoy life, and my family took full advantage of every opportunity for joy and togetherness. A few weeks earlier, we had carefully harvested the only plum on our fruit tree. We carved it into six equal pieces: one for each child and two for my parents. No treat ever tasted so good, except, perhaps the tea-mikee-tea Dad mixed on Sunday mornings or the oranges Santa left in our stockings. I looked forward to the holidays, when family and friends filled our house and opened mounds of handmade gifts. When I was five, though, October felt years away from December.
November sent us inside, where we lit fires in the hearth and took turns shaking baskets of popcorn until the kernels burst. The aroma filled all the rooms of our house. I eagerly awaited the time when Dad would bring home a tree. I knew Mother would give each of us kids a big needle and a ball of yarn. We would sing off-key and string up white puffs of popcorn with red cranberries. I could almost smell the mucilage we smeared on the construction paper to form red and green chains for our Christmas tree.
In a family our size, everything turned into a project of gigantic proportions, but most of our endeavors worked smoothly. My eleven-year-old brother and thirteen-year-old sister took care of my other sister and me as often as my parents did. Dad regularly read bedtime stories to us younger children, and when Dad left town, my sister, barely a teenager herself, told us stories in his stead. When Mother felt bad, left town with Dad or slept late, my brother played with us with such enthusiasm we never realized he had been charged with baby-sitting.
Mother slept late often, that fall, and she grew fatter than I had ever seen her. One morning I climbed into her bed. "C'mon, get up," I pleaded.
She rolled over and rubbed her swollen belly. "Dear, if you'll let me sleep, I promise I'll do something wonderful for you." "What? Tell me!" I jumped up and down on the mattress, enjoying the squeaks. "Please! Stop! Leave me alone, and I'll bring you a baby." I leaned over and squinted into her sleepy eyes. "A baby? Really? When? What kind? Just for me?"
"So many questions. I'm not sure when. Soon. A few more weeks. And we won't know what kind, until it arrives. What would you like?" "A boy. I'd like a baby boy."
"I'll do my best. Now please go downstairs and be quiet." Toward the end of November, Mother fulfilled her promise. She arrived home from the hospital, sat me down and handed me a new baby. "His name is Richard," she said, "and he belongs to you."
What an honor! None of my friends had a baby of their own.
Every time I walked by Richie's crib, I stared at his wrinkled little face or played with his tiny fingers. I cherished my baby and even dreamed of him at night. When he was awake, he gurgled to me, and I sang to him. I entertained him with stories, and I told him I loved him. I could barely lift him, but I learned to change his diapers, with a great deal of guidance and assistance from Mother.
Richard had been home but a few weeks, though, when he developed a croupy cough. I dreaded the sound of his shallow breaths and the sight of his runny nose.
One morning I found his crib cold and empty. Panic-stricken, I ran into my older sister's room, screaming that someone had stolen my baby. My sister rocked me in her arms and explained that Richie had gone to the hospital to get well, but he would be home again, soon.
Our routines changed. My older sister cooked our meals, night after night, while Mother and Dad spent endless hours at the hospital, keeping vigil over the infant with pneumonia. I overheard whispered conversations with ominous phrases such as "hopeless," "pitiful," "dying," "so young."
I woke Mother one morning. "Okay," I told her, "Richie's been gone long enough. You can bring him home, now."
Mother shook her head. "Not yet. Not yet." She rose, dressed wearily and left again for the hospital.
One windy December night, my father gathered us kids into the toasty living room. We sat around in a semicircle the way we often sat when the family played "musical instruments." Dad sat on the piano bench as usual, but he faced us, not the keyboard. We kids sat empty-handed, instead of holding wooden spoons and kitchen pots.
"We've got to tighten our belts," Dad announced.
I thought of the sashes on the dresses Mother sewed for me. I foresaw no problem with tying them a little tighter. I listened on, to gather more information.
I'd never seen my father cry before, but as he spoke, tears filled his eyes. "If your baby brother lives," Daddy said, "that'll be Christmas enough. Don't expect any presents, this year. We should all be happy for what we have and pray that Richard comes home soon, strong and healthy."
I'd never heard my father mention prayer before, either.
At age five, I simply could not comprehend what my father tried to tell us. I missed my baby terribly, but the thought of the upcoming holidays cheered me a little. How could my brother's illness affect Christmas? Santa Claus always filled our socks with apples, oranges and walnuts. Nothing could change that.
Richard's hospitalization changed many things, though. Our traditions halted. Dad did not bring home a tree. We ate the popcorn, instead of making strands for a nonexistent tree.
In previous years, Mother had spent months at her sewing machine or with crochet hooks. She sewed dresses and shirts, and she crocheted sweaters, shawls and plush toys. That year, she never sat at the sewing machine. Every night, we kids ate simple meals, unlike the tummy-expanding meals Mother usually cooked. Dinner conversation contained a few chuckles, but nothing like the raucous laughter we enjoyed when the whole family gathered together.
Even Sunday mornings grew dull, unlike prior Sundays, when Dad arose before the rest of us and went down into the kitchen to cook pancakes, oatmeal, French toast, scrambled eggs or waffles. The smells that wafted up the stairs might have been enough to rouse us, but to ensure we were wide awake to enjoy his efforts, Dad always put circus music on the record player, turned it up full blast and rocked us out of bed to the strains of John Philip Sousa leading ooompa-pa marches through the house.
"Children of all ages," the ringmaster announced, and we popped out of our rooms, our mouths watering like Pavlov's dogs, ready to attack whatever Dad had prepared in the kitchen. Beside each plate, Dad always set a cup of steaming tea-mikee-tea, a mixture of hot water, milk and sugar. In 1949, we knew coffee would stunt our growth. Daddy's tea-mikee-tea gave us children a hot beverage to drink, so we could feel like adults.
With Richard in the hospital, though, we youngsters ate cold cereal and cold milk, and we all looked at each other, helpless. The days and weeks dragged on, until I grew fearful to ask about my baby. Nobody brought up his name anymore, and instead of laughter, silence floated through the house.
# # #
The phone rang Christmas morning. Dad jumped out of his warm bed and raced downstairs. "What? He's all right?" he shouted. My father always bellowed into the telephone, to ensure his voice traveled the distance to the other end.
He hung up and called upstairs.
"The hospital said Richard can come home!"
"Thank God!" Mother rolled from under the covers and slipped into street shoes. She pulled a coat over her nightgown. "Let's go," she told him. Before Mother closed the back door, she called out,
"Barry, you're in charge of the children."From the upstairs window, I watched my parents scuttling out to the car, still in their bedclothes. I had never seen them so happy. I turned back, full of joy. What a wonderful day! My baby would soon be back home, and my Christmas goodies waited below. The night before, with Mother and Dad still at the hospital, we kids had ritualistically hung stockings. We stuffed a name in the top of each sock, to let Santa know which one belonged to which child. We had no tree and no presents, and I had come to accept the reason. Regardless, I turned to Santa to take care of the rest of our Christmas.
I skipped downstairs. Excitement and the cool air made me shiver as I ran, and all aglow, I slid into the living room.
I gasped in disbelief. The socks hung exactly as we had left them, lifeless and empty.
Behind me, I heard footsteps. I turned to find my older brother, also still in pajamas. I grabbed his flannel sleeve.
"There's nothing there," I sobbed.
He hugged me and looked over my shoulder at the mantel.
"Did you look closely?"I pressed into his shoulder. "I didn't have to. I could see from here."
"Well, look." He released me, walked to the fireplace, reached over the hearth and pulled down a note. I sniffed."What does it say?"
He read to himself and nodded.
I walked closer, curious. He pointed to lettering that looked suspiciously like his own handwriting."This explains everything."
"What?" I asked through tears.
Barry cleared his throat, stood straight and spoke in as strong a voice as an eleven-year-old could muster.
"It says right here, 'These stockings may look empty, but they're really filled with love.'"
# # #
