# 13 - the Pedestrian Press

The Bicycle Review

Issue #13
15 October, 2011
Photography by Eleanor Leonne Bennett, Original Artworks by Nunzio Barbera
All images Copyright 2011 by Bennett/Barbera

#13 (Pay no more than nothing...)

As those of you who have been following my B.R. Cereal/Twisted Cry for Help "No More Bums" are aware, these have been some trying times for our SF ed. Special thanks go out to M. Daniela Semeco, Benny Murillo, and C.A.P. Gallery, whose computers and housing are making this issue possible. Dog lick them, but seriously...will the day ever come when we don't have to do this "Brought to you by..." stuff any more?

Surely...but as of yet, that day is not in sight.

Issue # 13 features the surrealist/lowbrow/horror antics of Mixed Media Artist Nunzio Barbera and the fine young eye of (15 yrs. old, egads!) UK based Photographer Eleanor Leonne Bennett. As usual the contrast could not be more stark, and we think the two balance each other out very nicely. Edward C. Wells II and Robert Louis Henry return with new work, and we have some great pieces from the Sub-Continent by Deepak Chaswal and Kush Aurora, as well as new Poetry from Australia by A.G. Bennett. Every piece of writing in this issue is a gem tho, so please enjoy it.

Share the Road,

J de Salvo

The Experiment

Of course there’s no pressure, the doctor says, probing my hair with rubbery hands. His eyes squint over his mask. This is entirely voluntary. But should you decide to participate, all I ask is that you report back to me in the morning. Do you understand?

            He fades into my eyelids. The room is dark, except for the blue glow of a blinking 12:00 and the horizontal shine of a streetlight through the blinds. The light makes circles in the water glass and the empty green bottle on my nightstand. There’s thunder like the sky is breaking. I pull the blankets up around me.

            He is back; I am lying in a dentist’s chair, the room blue, him towering over me still talking: And I trust you’re aware of the monetary incentive?

            I turn my head away. Headlights pan left to right, casting lamp-shaped shadows onto the floor before leaving me in the dark again. The windows are ghostly rectangles of gray. I turn over and face the wall, close my eyes again; I feel my thoughts start to detach; the doctor is replaced by the woman I met at his office today, walking toward me, his assistant, maybe. Oh, hello, she says, thank you for being on time. It’s nice to meet you. Are you ready?

            Her eyes are lined with black but otherwise empty. She is wearing a lab coat. She doesn’t wait for me to answer.

Thank you for answering the ad. We need as many volunteers as we can get. She opens the door and stands back, serenely watches a bird fly by. We’re in an airplane. White eyes look expectant. More birds fly.

            Jump, she says.

            A flash of lightning and angry thunder. I turn over again, blue light blinking. The bed seems to stretch halfway across the room, vast and empty like a minefield. It is taunting me: look how much space you have when you have no one to share it with.

The sheets are tangled and the blankets in a big heap around me. Across the room there is a crowd, a party, in my kitchen. There is music and people I don’t recognize. The far wall looks to be on fire. No one notices the smoke crawling across the ceiling.

            I walk in. There is boxed wine and a vat of soup, people talking. They turn when they see me. You came!

            Hello, you came! Thank you!

            I greet them nervously; I don’t know who they are; I have the vague suspicion that if they find out, they’ll be angry. I smile and keep walking, hello, nice to see you too, thank you for coming.

            The crowd parts as I walk through. All these strangers gathered to greet me. Their smiles are maniacal like clowns and I don’t know if they are mocking me. If you’re here to see the doctor he’s not coming, someone says. Yes, I am, I say. Then you need to go to the cellar, he is waiting for you. It is down through the stove. The crowd ends and in front of me is a fire where the stove should be; everyone looks, waiting.

            The fire rages, tall as the ceiling. My face burns.

            There. Noah is waiting for me. His hair falls over his face, over his blue blue eyes. He is wearing his black t-shirt and the firelight dances across it. My heart jumps, I am safe here, something warm swells up inside me.

            The crowd fades behind me. You came. Noah.

He is staring into the fire. He is still; the fire rages; his eyes glint, like ice. He holds a glass of red wine. It’ll be okay, he says without looking at me, it only hurts for a minute. You need to go.

My breath squeezes out of my chest and I feel the fire burn. No, this isn’t right. Not again. My body fills with nausea, like his words are a virus and my cells are rejecting it. Please Noah, don’t do this.

He still doesn’t look. His eyes are in the shadow of a lock of his hair. He shakes his head and my heart compresses, my lungs fill with smoke, I am choking; my breaths come short and quickly, my stomach is a weight. Noah.

I’m afraid, I tell him, I’m afraid my eyes will melt in the fire, that no one will be down there, that there will be no way back.

He is unperturbed. Feet first, he says matter-of-factly. Besides, the doctor’s there, he’ll help you.

            I am cocooned in sweat. Noah is behind me now. He puts his hand on my back, and my whole body relaxes; I feel his breath on my neck. I can breathe again. He wants me to jump. He says, If it hurts, just wait, and you won’t remember it. My mouth, dry as fire, my hair, soaking wet. I want: his hand on my back, to do what he wants. The fire blazes. His hand doesn’t move. I jump.

I can breathe again when I stand up. The cellar is blue and the edges are in shadow. There is a table filled with papers and bottles, and the chair again, cushioned and adjustable; why does this chair keep coming back? In the doctor’s real office there was just a normal chair, not some reclining dentist chair, there was no procedure, only an interview and a pill--

            You came, says the doctor, Thank you. He is behind the table, snapping his rubber gloves over his wrists, mask hiding any emotion. Thunder rumbles overhead.

            I feel the sweat on my pillow, a sheen of cold slime that is the first thing my mind feels as it surfaces. My arm gropes to the edge of the bed: Noah isn’t there, and my heart drops, like my blood is made of mercury, or ice. The sound of the party above me materializes, low and rumbling. Noah’s voice rises above it—he is there—where is he?

            Snap. The doctor again. On the table, papers and bottles. His mask covers everything except his squinty eyes. He holds a clipboard and a pen over it.

            So how is the experiment going for you? he asks.

            I don’t know, I say. I just fell asleep a minute ago.

            Is it what you thought it was?

            I didn’t think you’d be here. Is that part of it?

            He laughs. Don’t be ridiculous.

            I hear Noah’s laugh upstairs, his flirting laugh; my stomach tightens again.

            What’s the matter? asks the doctor.

            What do you mean? Nothing.

            So how is the experiment going for you? he asks again.

            Noah laughs again, this time accompanied by a female nervous one. I am falling, I cannot breathe, who is he with? What are they talking about?

            I told you, I say, angry, it’s…it’s…

            It’s not what you thought it was?

            I want to get out.

            What’s that? he asks calmly.

            They laugh again in harmony. The laughing comes more quickly now.

            This is…this is not what I thought it would be.

            What did you think it would be?

            Well—I mean—I thought it would be…I thought it would be exciting, like a—an escape--

            An escape? Inside your own head?

            I know—but I thought—please make it stop, I don’t want to be here--

            The pill lasts about eight hours, so you’ll just have to wait till morning.

            Again they laugh, but it gets quieter—are they leaving? Are they going upstairs? My eyes dart toward the fire-door and sweat pours down--

            The doctor sees. Ah, he says.

            What? I demand.

            I’m sorry, he says sadly, I didn’t realize about him. That could make tonight difficult, I’m afraid.

            What are you talking about?

            He sighs. Dreams can be just as painful as reality. They themselves are an illusion, but the feelings, as you know, are very real. I’m sorry.

            I think I’m going to vomit. What do you care? Don’t you just need data?

            Well, yes. I’ll need you to come back when you wake up and answer a few questions.

            The laughing is gone, which is worse than when it was there. Even my eyelids feel nauseous. I am shaking. There is nothing around me to hold onto.

            Please let me out, I beg him.

            I can’t, says the doctor. Nobody can help you here. Just relax. It will be morning soon.

            I don’t want to be down here. I don’t want to be in your experiment, I just want to go to sleep. Please, just let me sleep.

            You are asleep, he says, and he starts to get fuzzy; I see the table with the potions and papers and dream-remembering pills on it; I see the backs of my eyelids. I turn toward the wall. I can’t hear the laughing anymore. Did he take her upstairs? Where is he? Wherever he is, it isn’t him, he’s an illusion, this isn’t the real Noah, or the real doctor--

            Are you sure? he’d asked me today, are you sure you want to do this. Yes I’m sure, I want to get away, see what my dreams are like, I want to see what I forget when I wake up.

            Well, this is it, he says now. Thank you for participating in this experiment. Your experience is very valuable to us.

            Please. Please, let me out.

            There is nothing to do but wait, he says.




Copyright 2011 by Kimberly Bunker

My Soap Smells Like Dirt

Katie drank her beverage through a bendy-straw, its flexible joint flexed and bent. She wasn’t thinking about a t-shirt with the repeated pattern of a whale on it. It was her t-shirt and it was folded like this: arms in first, then laterally in thirds. It was yellow; was that a weird color for a t-shirt? She didn’t think about it. She was doing something else.

There was a car being driven outside of the place where she was. Cars were not allowed to drive on the inside of buildings. She was eating with chopsticks.

It was a Wednesday and Katie was walking on the sidewalk which was hard and grey. Someone had long ago put their fingers in it when it was turning from liquid to solid. They had written two names with the pictogram of a heart between them. Katie stepped on their names. She was wearing Keds. They were vintage.

Katie saw someone who looked like a chipmunk. Some kind of animal. She thought about escaping to a fortress. Her arms swung limply from her elbows. The shirt she was wearing was long-sleeved and buttoned up the front. It had small daisies all over it. She passed a window that had a neon sign in it. The sign spelled out the word “corona” which was Spanish for crown.

There were shadows of leaves on the ground that Katie walked through and when she reached the traffic signal at the intersection she was bathed in red light. There was a white butterfly flapping and unflapping its wings. She thought about the potentiality of telephone calls. She imagined the radiation of cellular phones beaming out in vibrant red lights like lasers or light sabers. She saw the ten thousand lights of cellular radiation crossing and criss-crossing each other over the globe.

On Saturday, Katie ate a candy bar. She didn’t want to but found herself eating it anyways, the chocolate of it embracing and enveloping her teeth, her tongue, her mouth. There was something wrong with the softness of it. Like it was space food meant for the future and not for her. She tried to swallow the candy bar, but she couldn’t and had to spit it out into a wad of napkin. She felt embarrassed but not unhappy.

Copyright 2011 by Brian Warfield

daily she walked to the rose gardens and when the flowers went away she walked into town

the poor world it’s almost time to start taking our clothes off and this body:
the more clothes I wear, the better it looks

the skirt makes me look fat
and no one is going to buy this skirt because it makes me look fat and I weigh 88 pounds

she wanted a skirt to go with her blouse that she found on the 85% off rack

left the store empty handed: at least I tried things on at least I got the ground work done

her voice muffled
as though her gums, teeth & tongue
were too large

the space between her skinny thighs
was egg shaped
it narrowed as she walked towards the door

Copyright 2011 by Emmalea Russo

Building a Home

I’m building a home in the trees, as far from the ground as I can
I’m whispering aloud in my head and pondering again and again
The home I build will be safe, from worries, from ills, from strife
My home, my world, my trees, with boughs where to rest my self
I’m building a home in some ocean in that cave populated by fish
I’ll swim back and forth in a current, labouring with whom I wish
The toes on my feet will be fins, my nose and my chin bright blue
I’m building my home in the ocean, a home always shiny and new
I’m hiding away in a desert, and I’m hiding from everyone but you
If you search and never find me, I will still look my hardest for you
My desert home will never be lonely: I’m a lizard; scorpion, a snake
I crawl on my belly towards you, my hubris; my pride… my mistake

Copyright 2011 by A.G. Bennett

a Safety Pin, a Bobby Pin, a Key

      “It figures you'd bring me to a church,” she says.

      “It's a chapel,” a bit rickety, a tarp with spray painted, stenciled letters hanging over the entrance. The house of god. The house of oversized promises. “Marriage isn't that different from baptism.”

      She just nods. I unclasp the safety pin she'd used to pierce her lip and take a bobby pin from her hair. I stick the sharp end of the safety pin into the lock, act like I'm going to insert part of the bobby pin, and turn around.

      “They keep a key in that light fixture, could you get it?”

      The tarp says, “Welcome Seniors.” Inside is lines of pews in front of lines of computers, each one hooked up with line upon line of wires networking more lines.

      “They say someone killed themselves here.” First he took the bouquet from the vase, tossed it over his shoulder, and tried to drown himself by inhaling the water through his nose. The vicar or whatever found him wet and on his back, maybe crying a little, and asked him what happened. The man lied. “So nobody wanted to get married here anymore.”

      We sit as far away from the altar as possible. I'm thinking about how the Baptists would call these the seats for the backsliders. How typical of us to avoid the foot of god, I guess. She's waiting for a computer to boot.

      The pulpit and the piano are the only things missing. There's even rice all over the floor, a little stand for a guest book, and somewhat random half-pillars for photographers to use as focal points. “Is the picture of the half-pillar, the garb, or the oversized promises?”

      She looks at me briefly, curiously.

      “They say he did eventually drown himself,” by filling up the bathroom sink and dropping the toilet lid on his head as he held it under the water.

      She's showing me nine manuscripts. “I wrote them all back to back, only getting up to make tea.”

      “Did you write them on the can or something?”

      She gives a sour face and starts to read.

      “I guess that's your truck?” It might be six in the morning when the door is opened. He reminds me of a kindergarten teacher.

      I nod and hold up the chapel key. He takes it gently, barely waves a finger at us, and points at the little table for the guest book. There's a wicker basket on it.

      Play one of the hymns that really get Charlotte going. If she's a'wooin' and a'hootin' and the spirit is spry and bouncing hither and thither from one lonely soul to the next then they'll be inspired by the spectre to tithe.

      The man has finished giving us a lecture, and I'm looking at my friend for an explanation. She shrugs and continues to read.

      The sunlight hums behind the dusty stained glass, and senior citizens are starting to trickle in. I know one of them; he frequented the Food Ministry when I was a volunteer. He always blew kisses to the underage girls, which his wife didn't like much. He has on headphones, but I hear moaning and “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me god dammit!” coming from the speakers in front of him.

Copyright 2011 by Robert Louis Henry

Shoes

I got some brand new shoes,
too white,
too bright.
They’ve hardly been anywhere

Copyright 2011 by Katherine Setzer

The Rider (A B. R. Cereal)

Umbrella left from a suburban home on May 2nd, 2010 in the hand of a thirty-two year old Writer. The trip was one that would take Umbrella over one thousand miles in six days. This is a brief account of that trip.

“Is my umbrella still here?”, Writer asked Father.
“The only umbrellas here are by the front door.” Father replied.
“I saw some there, but I wasn't certain if you had mailed mine, when that was discussed some time ago. I'll look.”

Writer walked to the front door and lifted an umbrella that was draped in a black sleeve. He parted the velcro at the connection and folded the flap back. The silver, reflective flaps of Umbrella were revealed. Each was smoothly flapped over the next in the same fashion that they had been carefully twisted into years and years before, when Umbrella was last put away.

“It may rain in some of the places that I am passing through. The forecasts call for twenty-percent in some places.” Writer states returning to the room where Father sits. “And it is a sun umbrella too.”
“I thought it might be there.” Father replies.
“So, I looked at the schedule and I should be back Thursday night or Friday morning. It will depend on whether I can catch a bus out of Galveston after the reading is over.” Writer smiles. “I leave tomorrow.”
“Be careful.” Father says.
“I will. Thanks.” Writer walks out of the room and finishes his packing. Clothes, tooth brush, books, etcetera.

Writer wakes early and collects the things he will take. He smiles and says good-bye to Father who asks him to watch something on the television before he leaves. He watches and then walks to the door. He lifts Umbrella in his hand and walks out the door.

Umbrella swings a bit in his left hand as he walks up the hill that leads out of the court that Father lives on. The small arms that extend and push the fabric out are can be felt in the grip of Writer's left hand. He rolls Umbrella a bit in his hand in an attempt to find a position that might be comfortable and ensure no damage.

He walks down the road that he has walked many times before. He has walked the road with Umbrella open and with Umbrella closed. He has carried Umbrella in ways similar to the way he is carrying Umbrella now, with his arm down, resting and swinging slightly. He has also walked down this street twirling Umbrella between his fingers. Each time was slightly different. Umbrella changed during that time. There were times that he would twirl Umbrella and Umbrella would fall. The tip of Umbrella was broken and finally fell off. Umbrella continued to work though. Just by the handle, Umbrella has a plastic rim that is made to hold the tips of the tiny arms in a circle when Umbrella is closed. It is cracked now.

Writer thinks on this and it seems for a moment that perhaps that crack is not as bad as it once seemed. The sleeve works to hold the arms and flaps in place though. That may be the reason that the rim is holding its shape much better than it seemed to once, Writer reflects. He smiles and presses the cross-walk button at the intersection with another street.

Umbrella hangs there in his hand perpendicular to his body, and the light changes. He crosses and walks on through a parking lot and down another street. Despite Writer's grasp, fresh air is flowing down through the sleeve. The flaps open and close. Umbrella has not been in these conditions for sometime. Writer did not open Umbrella before leaving, so he does not have a complete understanding of Umbrella's condition. He can not know if there is damage that fresh, flowing air will exacerbate. In this way he has had no regard for the safety of Umbrella. If he were to unsheathe Umbrella and loose the strap and press the button. Umbrella would fly into position as best as the conditions of its components may guide it. In this way Umbrella is at akimbo waiting to protect Writer.

They cross a bridge that spans the air above an interstate. By now Umbrella has again become familiar in the hands of Writer. He switches Umbrella from one hand to another. There is still a certain weight to Umbrella on his arms though. This two will become a negligible reality of carrying Umbrella in the course of the six days.

In the small southern bus station Writer notes the filth and the smell as he walks toward the counter. He procures the first of many tickets that will be used in the course of this leg of the reading tour. He sits at the end of a bench. Umbrella is the farthest away of the things he has brought, sitting on the other side of Writer's pack. People come and go congregating at the end of the bench. The reality of the place can be heard in the voices. The words like images and the inflections like smells. Some wait for the attendant others mill and talk. Someone gets up and leaves on a bus. The time for Writer's departure grows closer, and he moves the ensemble to a bench more directly in front of the departure gate.

Again Writer and Umbrella take point at either extremity of the encampment. At the inner space is the single bag that carries everything: laptop, books, identification, money, money cards, clothes, bus pass.

In the walking, Writer became sweaty. As the departure time grows nearer he collects the group and moves to the bathroom to wash. The soap is mild and fragrant. He smiles as he washes and rinses his body. While looking at Umbrella and washing himself, he might have thought to thoroughly wash Umbrella at some points as well. There will be a number of times later in the course of this that he will use the tip of Umbrella to poke at and otherwise investigate some of the many things that interest him but also repulse or frighten him.

Again, he collects the group and moves to an unoccupied seat closest to the designated boarding gate for his departure. The scheduled departure time is now only minutes away. There is no bus at the gate though. Writer frowns and moves back to the counter. He has taken to resting his hand palm-down on the handle of Umbrella, and he does this now as he stands at the counter.

The bus will be thirty minutes late he is told. He turns and again takes the closest available seat. Umbrella is notably untouched by the walk and the time. Writer takes a drink from his water-bottle. A bus pulls up some twenty minutes later, and many people begin to board. Writer, collecting the group, moves to the bus and holds out the ticket. The driver verifies the destination, then Writer takes a seat just behind the driver's.

The bag is placed in the seat by the window, Writer sits in the seat by the aisle. Umbrella is placed reclining against the seat with the bag, with its tip to the floor. The bus moves back away from the station with the rocking motion that is caused by the humps of secured chocks in this terminal. The motion is akin to a large vessel on water. As the vessel moves forward Umbrella begins to move forward. As an oar slices water, Umbrella slices air, sliding forward and across the edge of the seat, the fibers of the seat and the micro-dents of Umbrella's sleeve making a gigglish love.

Copyright 2011 by Edward C. Wells II

To be continued...

.

Inis Meain

pale earth corrected
through pilgrimage traipsed
by jennet or boat
from shoreline to field
seaweed to furrow
‘til silt becomes soil
black with the hope
no seed planted here
again cries hunger

Copyright 2011 by Amanda Bales

Mermaids’ Song

We who live underwater
Do bubble, breathing
Slightly, in wisecracks, above

Where by the stones
The boys sit smoking idly
Talking of ‘girls’ and ‘love’

And let down a question
Mark at the end of their
Fishing line

As one says to another,
“I gave old Marie such a line
I know by tomorrow she’s gonna be mine!”

Copyright 2011 by Kush Arora

Upon The Cross

high above
upon the cross
as he was about to die
he shouted
you mother fuckers
I forgive you
the multitude wailed and sang
Ode to Joy
the roaring of heaven

Copyright 2011 by Suchoon Mo

Mustard and the Married Girl

Ate the best whole seed mustard I’d ever tasted on good brown rye. Mozzarella and ham. Bought Belgian Chocolate ice cream at the market. Ate it, and eating it, lost a game of chess.
And while I lost, knew I had not treated myself so gently – so generously.
Not any Saturday I’d seen.
Not in years.
Not ever.

And afterwards saw she’d died – her brown hair black. The library’s sweet-fat spring-pig poet-woman was MARRIED!
And I hadn’t known.
And saw her GOOD wide-hips round-bellied with child.

The thin man’s diamond heavy on her hand.

Copyright 2011 by Steven McClain

BAD THEFT

My bike was stolen tonight
My steady ride since 1975
Taken away
With just a cut lock in its place
A business card for the crook
The bum who took it away.

Copyright 2011 by Alan S. Kleiman

Matchbox

Some sticks
are coming
out of the
matchbox
to urinate
on the mountain
of colourful garbage
dumped by a municipality van.

Copyright 2011 by Deepak Chaswal

Achill(es) Island

shredded tendon fuselage
rains petrol on children
who next day mimic pilots
with goggle bits, propeller slice,
shin bone powdered seatbelt

farmed hands gather what they can
of the hero’s last flight

no champion could survive
a fall from such great height

Copyright 2011 by Amanda Bales

Dinner with Marilyn

Vera and Art lived with Art’s mother Ivy since they were married twenty years ago. Vera was twenty, and Art was thirty when he proposed. They moved in with Ivy soon after the marriage because they had money problems. She owned an enormous run-down house with four floors and thirteen bedrooms, and the couple had the third floor with a few bedrooms. Ivy lived her life on the first floor without interference from Vera and Art, except when they entered or left the house, or when Art needed money. The wiry 85-year-old woman, who wore different colored wigs seven days a week, disapproved of their marriage from the beginning.

Vera never had children. A new doctor asked if she had problems down there, and Vera was surprised. She said she didn’t think so, and he said, “Well, not everyone wants children.”

She told him she’d like to have kids, but it never happened to her and Art, and nobody thought to make it happen.

He looked uncomfortable. “You don’t have a lot of time,” he said, “you’re almost forty. You better see a specialist.”

Now, Vera wanted to have a child.

A woman specialist told her she could help her, and the doctor’s financial counselor told Vera about the prices for things the doctor could do to try to get her a baby. Some of those treatments cost almost as much as Vera made in a year as a cashier at Shop On. The counselor gave Vera the list of prices for making a baby, and told her to go home and talk about this with Art.


Art met Vera at the town’s Shop On supermarket. Vera was a cashier in high school, and after she graduated she stayed there because she didn’t know what to do next. People put food on her runway belt, and she felt occupied searching for price tags and
punching keys on the cash register. She remembered the day Art appeared at her checkout and, at the last minute before she totaled his order, added a little two-dollar booklet about using astrology in business and love. Vera said he picked it up just in time. He said that’s because he’s bold like a Leo, and asked her to go to the movies with him.
Vera said yes after about a minute, and Art said that was when the heavens opened for him.
In their early days, it was a desperate time for Vera and Art when she was laid off her cashier job at the supermarket. He thought he could earn double her salary by picking mushrooms in the local parks and selling them to restaurant owners. The business people viewed the fungi Art displayed unwashed in a rough-hewn basket with suspicion.

Art held his nose, and mimicked the cooks. “There are many kinds of mushrooms sir, how can I be sure yours are safe?” One sympathetic Italian purchased a pound of the furry sprouts, but this wasn’t enough to be a business. Fortunately, Vera got a job at another supermarket.

Art’s grandfather, an aggressively frugal and distracted man, died before Art met Vera, and Ivy got the house and some money. Very little in the home had been updated, painted, repaired or maintained in the past fifty years. The home’s appearance and functionality dated to the turn of the last century. Phone lines and wires of the house intercom system were woven together like an abandoned craft project hanging from the tops of interior walls. The original cast iron stove sat in the middle of the kitchen crowding out space where there could have been a table and chairs. Holes in window screens were open doors for mosquitoes in the summer.

Ivy didn’t think there was enough money to update the house, or do any more than the most essential repairs. She and Art even debated whether they needed a hot water heater when the old one burst. Vera went along with Ivy’s style of living, and Art, for the most part, kept busy with his “pursuits,” as Ivy termed his on again off again ventures. If he wasn’t involved in some kind of project, he was begging Ivy for some money to start up a venture.

Now, Vera wants Art to focus on having a baby. She decided to talk to Art over the small card table that served as their dinner table on the third floor. “The doctor says it’s going to cost money Art, lots of money.”

He squirmed. “Don’t they have financial aid for people who want to have kids but need to have a doctor help them do it?”

“I gave you all the papers she gave me Art.” She sighed deeply. “The finance lady said maybe there’s someone we know who could lend us the money. She said some people take out a mortgage if they have a house with some money in it.”

Their eyes met across the table.

“If you’re thinking Mom will help us, it could be hard…”

“ This isn’t a house repair or one of your ideas, Art. It’s a baby we’re talking about, our baby.” She added, “It would be her grand-child after all, I mean, why wouldn’t she want that?”

Art and Vera agreed to talk to Ivy about what the doctor told Vera, in spite of Art’s doubts about his mother’s opinion. Art knew his mother disapproved of kids, at least for him and Vera.

Ivy said it was just as well he and Vera didn’t have a child because it would be doomed for the poorhouse, or the state mental hospital. Ivy shook her head and clucked her tongue. “I can’t understand why the boy can’t do something with his life that earns money.” Ivy added Art was spoiled like milk left outside in the sun all day.

He told his mother she was being unkind. And, he said Vera hadn’t had the same opportunities as other people. Ivy chuckled, and said one plus one equals two, and it was just like him to forget his math.

Art had ideas, but they never turned a profit, or he’d lose interest in them. His inspirations came infrequently. The basement is filled with the detritus of his unfocused yearnings. He imported hundreds of shallow, pockmarked clay pots from Colombia with multiple spouts of uncertain purpose. He wanted to market these squat pots to North Americans as the only authentic way to make their own cheese. The pots are stacked in one of the basement’s many rooms, dusty and filled with spiders, dead and alive, and the remains of their prey.

The next morning, Ivy was sitting in her grandfather’s old wicker lounge chair in her sun porch. The sun was shining on her wizened face, and today’s wig, a dirty blond bob, was slightly askew.

    “Mom,” said Art.
    The old woman looked at him.

“We want to have a baby, but we need money for the doctor to help us do it,” he said. His hands felt cold in his pockets.

“Well Art, first you have to make the baby, and then you get the doctor to help you,” Ivy said. She tilted her head back, and laughed loudly, a deep, throaty burst of noise.

    “Ivy please,” said Vera. “I need the doctor to help me make the baby. That is the problem…” She could feel the tears erupting from her eyes, and spilling over her face. She let them fall this time.
    Ivy asked, “How much money do you think it costs?” It was the same question she always asked Art when he wanted her money for one of his business ventures.
    “Mom, this is different,” he said, “this is important.” He wiped Vera’s face with his sleeve, and put his arm around her.
    Ivy looked at her son and daughter-in-law. “I don’t have money to spare for things, you know that. You both know that.”
    “You could sell the house Mom,” said Art. “We could take the money…”
    “For sale…the house, my house, up for sale?”
    Art said, “It would be better for you anyway, Mom. You’d get a lot of money from someone who can afford to keep this place going. You could get another place that’s nicer, but maybe smaller. And, you’d have a grand-child.” He smiled and knelt beside his mother. “We’d all be together in a cozier place, the perfect family.”

Vera was thinking of baby names while Art was talking to his mother. She heard him mention a cozier place, and realized he was talking about living there with Ivy. “Art,” she said, kicking his leg softly from behind. “Art wait…”

“This is a scheme that might work Art,” said his mother. “And you know why?” She waited for him to answer, but he didn’t. “Because I can’t argue with a live buyer signing on the dotted line and handing over a big fat check for this place. You do that Art. Get me money to spare, and I’ll help you with your doctor bills.”

    Vera and Art went back upstairs to their kitchen card table to talk about Ivy’s challenge.
    “Art, I don’t want to live with Ivy in a smaller house if we have a baby. I don’t want to live in a small place with Ivy even if we don’t have a baby,” she said. “I can’t do it Art. It has to be different. It’s different now.”
    “Let’s put the house up for sale and see what happens,” Art said. “Once we get someone to buy the place, we’ll figure things out.”
    “She thinks we’ll be living together with her and our baby,” said Vera. “She’s mean Art, she’s real mean. I don’t want her being mean to my baby. After all I’m doing to have this baby, I don’t want her being mean to it Art.”
    Damn it, he thought. “I know it’s going to work this time,” he said. “I feel strongly about this Vera.”
    “I feel strongly about this too, Art.”
    “And…”

“And what?”

“She left it to me, and I can make it happen for us. I can make the baby happen for you, and we’ll have extra money to do more deals. I’ll have a realtor here this afternoon.” He got up from the table. “You’ll see Vera, we can make this work. I’m telling you, this place is a cash cow.”

    Vera considered her choices. She could argue with him some more, but twenty years of experience told her he would only become more certain of what he wanted to do. She decided to wait and see what happened.
    Ivy, Vera and Art cleaned the house for days before it was listed for sale. The realtor told them it had to be clean if they wanted someone to pay good money for it. People arrived at the house in groups starting Saturday morning. Vera heard their voices echoing through the hallways.
    “I’ve never seen one of those old stoves,” a woman’s voice exclaimed. “How does it work?”
    “Coal, I think,” a man’s voice said. “But, no one sells coal for stoves anymore.”
    After a couple months, the buyers stopped coming, and Art grew worried. He decided it must be the fault of the realtors. “They don’t care because they have other houses to sell,” he said.
    Ivy said, “I don’t think that’s what’s happening. They care about the commission and if they could make it on this place, they would.”
    “We could lower our price a little,” he said. “That’ll bring more people in.”

Vera didn’t want the house to sell for less because that would only mean they’d have to share a place with Ivy. The doctor said she didn’t have much time and she should start her treatments as soon as possible.

    Art clapped his hands. “I’m going to tell people about this place myself. Realtors don’t know how to sell this diamond in the rough. My grandfather was a bank president big shot, head of one of the banks still standing after the crash of ‘29. He knew Hollywood people. I’ll them the photo of him with Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe.” He added, “He knew how to make money and people were terrified of him.”
    Vera remembered the photos of the ashen-faced man who smoked himself to death. He died the day he found out he had emphysema. Ivy said he didn’t feel any pain until the end because of the fifth of scotch he drank every day sitting in the old wicker lounge chair on the sun porch. Art’s only memory of his grandfather was that he thought Ivy hated him.
“I’ll show the photos of him with other movie stars and Hollywood big wigs. He saved clippings of himself in newspapers,” he said. “You know, he had a new Cadillac every year in the ‘50s and ‘60s.”

    Ivy said she had a headache, and went upstairs to her bedroom, closing the door loudly behind her.
    Vera said, “Please don’t do this, Art. Let’s just stay here with her. At least we’ll have our third floor, and we can keep the baby away from her.” She held his hand. “You can watch the baby, I’ll get two jobs and maybe we could move out to some nice place on our own. Me, you and…the baby.”
    Art begged Vera to let him try to sell the place. He said this was their great chance in life. And, he added, “When the deal is done, to hell with Ivy.”
    A few people came to see the house in the following weeks and he called out to them from the third floor. “Would you allow me to point out a few details you may not have noticed?” He descended the stairs to show them how rooms that connected could be closed off to each other, or combined to make larger rooms. He told them how his mother and a friend put on private plays in the attic, and that the names of the first owner’s nine children were labeled next to fuses in the outdated electrical box. No one came back to see the house again either because of him, or in spite of him. Vera hoped he’d give up.
One summer night, a couple came to see the house. Art had been painting the garage with lavender paint he’d gotten cheap because the cans were dented in the hardware store’s warehouse. Wet with sweat and drops of purple paint littering his T-shirt, he called down to the couple from the third floor. He disappeared with them into the rooms of the second floor. Later, he told Vera these people were special because they asked questions that were different. Did the household help live on the third floor? Do you play the piano downstairs? What was the name of his grandfather’s bank?
    Vera looked out her bedroom window to see Art kissing the woman’s right hand in the back yard. Vera was furious. The couple left and Art told Vera he gave them one of his Colombian pots as a parting gift, and invited them to dinner on Saturday. He said he had a foie gras from France and nice Cabernet. They said they would bring dessert.
    Vera couldn’t believe Art invited them to dinner. She didn’t want to be part of his plan. He said he needed her there, so they could see he, Vera and Ivy were a nice and interesting family. Ivy said she’d have dinner in her room, and go to bed early.
    On Saturday night, Art and the couple sat in the living room drinking wine when Vera joined them. Art poured her a glass, and handed it to her. Vera noticed the brunette haired woman was pretty with thin calves and surprised-looking brown eyes. The balding young man had soft skin and kind eyes.
    “Your husband told us how Marilyn Monroe had dinner here,” the woman said.
    Vera nodded.
    Art said, “It was right before she died. It devastated my grandfather. He never believed she committed suicide.”
    Vera excused herself, and went upstairs to Ivy’s room. These people were different. They might buy the house from him. She knocked on Ivy’s door, but Ivy didn’t reply. Vera thought Ivy was her last chance. She’ll tell Ivy she’d get two jobs and pay her back for the doctor treatments. Just don’t let him go through with this. She gently turned the knob to Ivy’s room, and saw Ivy in her favorite chair by the window. Her blond-wigged head slumped forward, and spilled milk glistened on the floor next to a fallen glass. Vera approached her mother-in-law slowly and leaned over Ivy’s face to listen for her breath. There was none.

The medical examiner declared Ivy’s cause of death was due to natural causes; in spite of the way her body was discovered. The men had been talking about the house and Vera brought the woman upstairs to look at some furniture Ivy might want to sell. The skinny-calved woman opened Ivy’s bedroom closet to see her blond-wigged body crumpled on the floor, her wrists tied together with pantyhose that was also looped around her neck. The woman’s naturally surprised expression dissolved into one of sheer terror, and with Vera smiling widely, she screamed and ran downstairs.

    Vera remembers she heard some raised voices downstairs, some scuffling and the sound of doors slamming. After that, the police came, and a detective asked her questions. A police woman helped her pack some clothes and a toothbrush, and she rode in the back of a police car.
    At the county mental hospital, the visiting judge sat quietly and listened while a lawyer explained that although Vera had disturbed Ivy’s body, she had been under unusual stress. She wasn’t a danger to anyone or herself. She would never have killed Ivy, it happened naturally.

Copyright 2011 by Cecelia Schier

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