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51keep out people like him who lived outside their rarified environs.He didn’t know whether those who lived here would want exclusivity,although on other occasions he had noticed a couple of disdainfullooks as he walked from Algae to the trailhead. He didn’t know thecause of those possibly imagined visual scans, but the issue, if therewas one, had been mooted by city control before it could arise. Izzy Stratham was a small man. Not a homunculus, just small.His body was fit, and he was strong for one of his size and age, a statebrought about by decades of challenging himself physically, for thepast several years on difficult hiking trails. Iz—a diminutive oftenused by those close to him, most loudly when he frustrated them—thrived on difficulty. He enjoyed overcoming it, and also possessed aknack for creating it, mainly for himself but occasionally for othersas well. Years earlier, before a thigh tendon had expressed its outrageat prolonged overuse, Izzy had been a runner. After the leg healed, heswitched to hiking after noticing too many of his running acquain-tances getting new knees, and hiking too had become an obsession.Izzy had been on the faculty of a large research university for a longwhile and had typically approached his work in much the same fre-netic way. Izzy worked hard at teaching because he cared about hisstudents, but knew he was not a natural and with some frequencywished that he didn’t have to do it. He loved doing research and would have enjoyed it regardlessof the field, but if he was being totally honest he would admit that hisfavorite part of the job was the ability to do most of his work outsidethe classroom or lab when and where he pleased, which allowed timeduring the day to hike followed by working late many evenings afterhe and Frannie had dinner and listened to music, watched a movie, playedcards, or fooled around. There had been a time when he worked sevendays a week, but that habit had contributed to the loss of one goodwoman, and he was determined to not misplace another. He knewthere had been more to it, from both directions, but his work hourshad been an undeniable factor in the years-ago split with his first andonly wife.The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

52 He had met Frannie through an online dating service aftermonths of dates with women who ranged from interesting, attrac-tive, and nice but clearly not interested in Izzy, to those who wereattractive gold diggers and seemed to want only an expensive dinnerwith vintage wine on a first date, to those who had flagrantly mis-represented themselves on the web site and were now at least fifteenyears older and thirty pounds heavier than their photos, to . . . well,to Frannie. After emailing for over a week and first meeting in a cof-fee shop, they went to a movie and held hands. Both of them likedholding hands. Izzy loved any kind of touch from a woman. Theyended that date with a hug, which Frannie also seemed to like, andIzzy was smitten. He suspected that he was likely to fall for any intel-ligent, progressive woman who was physically fit if she showed anyreal interest in him, but he tried not to think about that, and naturallyhad never said it. Later, during a conversation with Frannie about somethinghe could not now remember, he pointed out to her that she hadbeen the one to contact him first through the hookup site. Makingsure he knew that he was no singularity, she told him that she hadcontacted quite a few men who appeared to have some brains andcould at least support themselves, and he just happened to be the onewho responded most quickly and pursued her. He was deflated, butsoon got over it and, in any event, he was used to that feeling in hisdealings with women. And, regardless, he had to admit that he wasjust nuts about Frannie. Besides, she performed the great service ofmaking sure that he was never unaware of his shortcomings.Franniewas also his hiking buddy when possible, but her hours working as amedical software developer and coder were not as flexible as his, andduring the workweek he usually hiked alone. One of the things Izzy did like about this part of the worldwas that winters were mild and short. It could occasionally get cold,but usually no more than a few degrees below freezing for just a fewdays after a cold front had moved through. This was not one of thosetimes, the temperature recently ranging from the mid-fifties to thelow seventies. Izzy normally would be at home reading the New York The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

53Times with Frannie and hiking later in the day, but she was visitingAlicein San Francisco where the young woman had moved with herboyfriend after graduating from college with a degree in computerscience. Alice was a lovely little nerd with a huge creative streak thatserved her well in designing gaming software, and he cared for heras though she were his own. He had rejoiced in becoming a surrogatefather to Alice just before she became a teenager, their bond builtpartly on the deep curiosity about the world that they shared. Whenshe began learning to write code not long after he arrived on thescene, she taught him as she learned, but by the time she was sixteen,he could no longer keep up with her. So, they reversed roles andAlice became a pretty darned good amateur biochemist, he a decentamateur programmer in a couple of computer languages, and theyboth had a monumentally good time poking fun at each other asthey went along. **** He loved Walker Hill Park, which was home to PalominoCreek Nature Trail, undoubtedly the most difficult group of paths inthe three-hundred square mile metro area, having many precipitousrocky climbs and descents along ravines and back-and-forth over acreek that ranged from practically dry to treacherously full and fast,depending on the season and the recent whims of the sometimesviolent storms that could be generated by moisture and heat. Theoccasional level spots for catching one’s breath made it doable forsomeone his age with a lower back crapped out by the collapse ofseveral intervertebral discs and the balance-impairing scoliosis thatresulted. In Izzy’s case, these sections did double duty as spots forurgently stepping off into the woods to deal with the consequencesof blood pressure medication that cast his bladder in the role of anuclear power plant nearing meltdown. Izzy’s mind often wandered while hiking, hop-scotching fromone topic to another, sometimes generating his most creative ideasfor writing and teaching, and sometimes going nowhere at all. Severaltimes during a hike he would switch off the audio book so as to not losehis place and let the current train of thought wear itself out. Some-The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

54times he even jotted notes in his phone’s email app and sent them tohimself. Whenever he paused for any reason, he made a mental noteof when the interruption began and ended, deducting this periodfrom his total hiking time so it wouldn’t count against him. Izzy said “Good morning, great day, isn’t it,” smiling as a medium- sized black-and-gray-mottled mutt approached, linked to the hand ofa lovely young golden-haired woman whose outdoorsy-looking malecompanion of ambiguous age tagged along closely behind. “Hi,” theyoung couple replied in unison. “May I ask what sort of dog that is?” It made Izzy feel betterto be friendly, and sometimes he also learned interesting things bystriking up conversations with strangers. In doing this, however,he tried to visually ascertain before speaking whether they mightbe enlightened progressives or primitives who subscribed to severalgun magazines and strove to shutter Planned Parenthood facilities.Most people out on the trails responded warmly to Izzy’s expressionsof sociability, and he had convinced himself that anyone who wassilent or surly in return had a belly ache. “A rescue dog. Don’t know what he is. A mutt. But we lovehim,” the pretty young woman said. “You’re good people for taking him in. Have a great hike,” Izzysaid, walking past them. On the still-level ground no more than ten feet beyond thenice young couple, he saw it. “Goddammit!” There was a fresh pileof brown nastiness that had been deposited at the edge of the trailon his left. It would have put off steam had the weather been colder.That cutie, the blonde? The rescue pooch? He was flummoxed for amoment before anger began to rise. “Goddammit! Son-of-a-bitch!”roared Izzy, intentionally loud enough so that the couple might hear,but they showed no sign of noticing as they happily went on theirway. Izzy fled fromthe palpable stench as he and the trail began toclimb steeply once more on steps formed by a combination of rocksand creosote-treated timbers that had been impaled to the earth byshort sections of the steel rebar builders use to reinforce concretefoundations. The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

55 Two of Izzy’s greatest sources of angst in life were grading essayexams and encountering the results of canine owners’ negligence orrecalcitrance. Evaluating students’ written work had proved to be trau-matic several times each semester for many years, occasionally havingeven led him to drink excessively late at night after he had gradedfor many hours and Frannie had gone to bed. The latter was morecomplicated. He was not afraid of dogs, and although he couldn’t becalled a dog lover, he got along with most of them reasonably well.His real problem was not with dogs but with their owners. Loosedogs on the hiking trails he loved so much sometimes crossed orstood directly in his path, and had actually tripped him up a handfulof times. Only one had actually attacked Izzy, a long-haired, venom-ous thing that leaped many times its eight-inch height to slash at hisarm with knives, Izzy reacting by whacking the vicious little beastacross its back with a hiking pole as he chased after it with murderin his heart, the young female owner instantly snatching it up andrunning for the top of the trail as Izzy flew along behind them. ThenIzzy had stopped and paused, and he was sorry. And he saw that hisarm was unmarked. Izzy was uncertain about where to place unclaimed dog shitin his typology of woes. It could be a third major classification ofangst-catalyzing agent, or it could be a subcategory beneath un-restrained dogs, but Izzy wasn’t sure whether free dogs with own-ers presumably nearby were more or less likely than unfree dogs todo their business in undesirable places. Moreover, he did not knowwhether there was a positive correlation between dog owners’ tenden-cies to let their dogs loose in public places and their propensity to notpick up their animals’ vile leavings. These were empirical questions,but Izzy could not for the life of him figure out how to construct acontrolled experiment. Frannie surmised that he had an “emotional issue” resultingfrom his having been mauled at age eight by Duke, his dad’s black Ger-man Shephard on the small farm where he grew up, but Izzy deniedany such possibility. He had wondered, though, whether his dad hadbeen more sorry that his son had been attacked or that Duke had toThe Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

56be given away to a rancher who never had kids around. The next hiker was a lone, greying middle-aged man with apaunch that didn’t seem to slow him any as he scurried down thesteep path to Izzy’s left, both he and the man acknowledging one an-other with nods. Not far behind him traipsed a boy and girl of nineteenor twenty giggling at who knows what, perhaps a teacher they and theirfriends had agreed should have retired ages ago. Such thoughts creepedinto Izzy’s head after having read the previous semester’s written com-ments on the university’s required course-instructor evaluation. “Notvery engaging most days. Prof getting to the end of his career andshould stop teaching soon,” read one. “Fuck you,” Izzy muttered tohimself. “Professor Stratham can be interesting, but he rambles. Onand on. God, will he ever stop?” said another. “Ignorant little twit,”Izzy retorted audibly. “Old guy knows a hell of a lot, but he takes thisstuff way too seriously. Most classes need jazzing up,” vomited another.Izzy thought, “Do the little bastards think they’re talking to someoneelse? I’m the only one who reads these comments. They’re talkingto me, for god’s sake. Do they know that? Do they care? Just afterthe word cretins came to Izzy, a different thought smothered it. No,they’re just young, and maybe I’m not all that good. At the top of this climb, Izzy observed with caution the ravineto his right that extended downward at an angle of about sixtydegrees to a point he could not see because of trees and thick undergrowth among the countless stones littering the landscape. Then heagain began thinking about Frannie, and how lucky he had been tomeet her. She was a smart, strong, independent woman who toldher close friends that, with hiking, Izzy had managed to positivelychannel the, uh, that, well, that disorder of his that had once drivenhim to try picking up every single grass bur from the ground of awild half-acre plot of land between the fence by the road and theregularly mowed front yard of the home they shared. Only the grassbur plants—Cenchrus spinifex, a few assorted weeds, and the inde-structible Johnson grass grew there. Those grass burs were not wimps, Izzy thought as he recalledthe itchy, burning pinholes in his fingertips after the things had The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

57dug into his flesh when he seized them, the sweat burning his eyes,the near crippling ache in his back after bending over for hours inthe desperate afternoon sun to pull the heinous plants out by theirroots and seize each stray sticker on the ground and deposit it in atrash bag. When he had looked up and scanned the hard, dry, weedyground around him, he viewed a landscape of demon sticker weedin all directions that only an artist infinitely crazier than Van Goghcould tolerate painting. He remembered his socks full of the little weapons that in-flicted even greater injury as he removed and burned them in an oldbarrel.They couldn’t go into a simple trash container;the goddamnedthings had to be burned as he watched with glee. After all, he had fig-ured, each one was a seed, or, actually, a pod containing up to threeseeds, so eventually he would surely purge the area of this plague. Itstood to reason. Three years of this did not put a dent in the Cenchrusspinifex population. “For a damned smart guy, you can be dumb ashell sometimes, Iz,” Frannie had once announced. His mind then wan-dered back to a summer afternoon before Frannie’s daughter beganher senior year in high school. She had been in the parlor, looking outa large window at the front of the house. “What are you laughing about, girl? Girly girl. What’ve youbeen doing today? “You’re giggling. Alice? Alice.” That look. “Are you laughing at me? “Don’t you have something to do besides just sitting there bythe front window? “What is it?” Izzy tried to see through the teenage eyes. Atough thing to do. “Do I look funny? I’m drenched. It’s hot out there. How longhave you been up? What did you do last night? Where’s your mom? “Damn, Alice. Sorry for the language. Yeah, I’m dirty. Whatabout my hands? Yeah, they’re bleeding. But only a little. I can’t pickup those things with gloves on. “Are you laughing at me, little girl? I love you, you know.” “Remind me when your birthday is. Seventeen, right? Wow.”The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

58 “Well, I’m glad I’ve given you some entertainment. A goodlaugh is a fine thing. Get out of here and be productive. Your mommust need some help with something. She’s always busy.” “Ok, you’re stifling another giggle. Just let it out. I can take it.You think I should stop doing that? Those things, the grass burs, prolif-erate, you know? Shouldn’t I pull them up? And pick them up?” After that, Izzy tried some therapy. It helped. Izzy gave up ontrying to rid the land of Cenchrus spinifex and began mowing the areawith the deck of his lawn tractor set way down low before the plantswent to seed. He forgot about sticker plants. There had been othermanifestations of the condition that had so often left him frustratedand exhausted, but these too seemed to be behind him. Emerging from this latest reverie, Izzy said to himself, damn,I’m glad to have that monkey off my back. He stopped to fast-reversehis audio book after realizing he hadn’t been paying attention to it forseveral minutes, estimated and made a mental note of how long hehad stopped hiking, and then continued on. But before building upto his normal speed, he used the tip of his left hiking pole to scrapefrom the trail two oak branches that, though small, fit the eight-in-chminimum length requirement he had semiconsciously establishedas a criterion for removal from all trails. Again practicing his use of positive reinforcement to accom-plish behavioral change, Izzy said, “Hey, guys, thanks for using theleash,” as he smiled broadly at two men in their thirties, both with amilitary bearing, who moved to their right allowing him to pass ontheir left as they managed the steep descent. Their German Shepard,also behaving as though it belonged with a battle-ready battalion,politely moved over with them and stood calmly as Izzy clompedby. Averting his eyes from the breed, Izzy’s spirits nonetheless lifted. Later, at a point where the trail flattened and widened con-siderably along adistance of about twenty-five feet, he caught sightof a black Lab accompanied by a skinny, pale, twentyish blonde guywith a very pretty not-so-skinny black woman who appeared some-what older than her companion. Several black dog poop bags tuckedunder her belt, the woman held the black dog on a slackened leash, the The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

59couple apparently taking a breather on a large rock, the Lab lyingon the ground beside them. Izzy passed by them on his way to thenext upward section and then did a double take and looked back.Overhalf of the docile animal’s right hind leg was missing, and aprosthetic limb was held firmly in place by a metal band extendingto just beneath the dog’s rump. “How about that . . . what a guy,” Izzycalled out. “Good for him. And good for you. I’ll bet you’re proud ofthat guy. He’s a real trooper.” The woman returned Izzy’s grin as sherose and led her companions on their way toward Izzy’s rear. Not far before the end of this, his favorite trail in the park,where it reached what Izzy had carefully calculated to be its highestpoint, laya long, steep downward portion. At the bottom he wouldturn and reverse course. This part was relatively narrow but still wideenough for one person traveling in each direction. Feeling as thoughhe was just warming up after the nearly five miles he had come, Izzydid not look with foreboding on the return trip that would beginwith his almost immediately climbing back up this stretch. Triggeredby the recollection of what he’d seen on another trail a few days earlier - aman sporting a tam-o’-shanter and garish gold plaid Bermuda shorts, hispallid plaster-like jowls remarkably similar to those of the Englishbulldog accompanying him—Izzy’sbrain lapsed deeply into thoughtsof dogs and their owners. Did they really tend to resemble one another?He had heard this more than once, and there sometimes seemed to bean element of truth in it. If so, was it the image of a dog on its owner’sretina over time that changed the human’s face, or was it the result of theowner’s having unconsciously picked a dog resembling the picker? Thechicken or the egg, he wondered before the scientific Izzy wrestled thetemporarily primitive Izzy to the ground. Izzy felt the need to scratchhimself all over. Just then, one eye caught the faintest glimpse of brown flashingby a few feet into the woods to his left. As he jerked his head towardthe movement, Izzy’s right foot lost the support beneath it. The hikingpole that had been in his right hand skittered off the side of the trailand down the sharp declivity, Izzyand his other pole following imme-diately thereafter. There were trees and rocks of many sizes along theThe Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

60steep slope, but at this spot they were not dense enough to completelystop his rapid migration toward the bottom of the ravine where thecreek lay. In the moment before the stump of a long dead Red Oakrendered him unconscious, Izzy wondered whether there was anyway for him to measure the distance to the bottom and who wouldteach his classes in the spring semester. He then careened from onechunk of limestone or granite to another, bounced off too manysmall juniper trees and stunted oaks to count, and came to rest a fewfeet from the edge of shallow water and lay very still. **** The one eye that would open did so, but only enough to al-low a squint through the dried blood caking both his upper and low-er eyelashes and threatening to pull them from their follicles as hestrained to see. Izzy could not tell whether it was day or night, orpossibly some previously undiscovered third interval in the passageof time. He was not sure whether he was dead or alive, but becausehe harbored no illusions of an afterlife, he assumed that any degree ofconsciousness meant that he was still living. Izzy became aware of his head as it mimicked a white dwarf starin its final throes of collapse after losing the last of its nuclear energy.His left arm would move only a couple of inches before the shoulderabove it screamed, audibly it seemed to Izzy before he realized thatthe sound was in his throat, stuck there like one of the hairballs thatFrannie’s long-haired gray cat, Frida, sometimes hacked up after anagonized effort. The other arm worked well enough to feel around onhis head where he first noticed that his Glacier National Park cap wasmissing. He tightly closed his single seeing eye, even minimal lightincreasing the hammering inside his skull, the other eye forming anunopenable slit in one of the many painful, oozing lumps on his skull.Reopening the one eye and craning his neck, he saw that the right legwas oddly bent to one side several inches below the knee, but the otherlooked structurally normal. He was nauseous but couldn’t bring upthe contents of his stomach as he wished to do. His mouth had with-ered and he couldn’t locate his water bottle. Izzy danced on the edge ofwakefulness for a while before consciousness again fled. The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

61 **** When Izzy next became aware, hours had disguised them-selves as seconds and he could barely make out a concentration ofbrightness in the sky at either ten or two o’clock that was substan-tially obscured by the live oaks that don’t lose their leaves until theearly spring and the thick evergreen needles of the prolific junipers.This light was nevertheless far brighter than at his previous waking.He lay in and out of sleep for what seemed a long time until it wasdark. Dark again? Had it been dark before? The emptiness in hisstomach made him feel as though he had never eaten before, but thethought of food sickened him. His throat was sandpaper and he tasteddust, the tongue in his mouth a sticky foreign thing like a rottensausage that he desperately wanted to disgorge. After wanting to doso for a long time, he was able to expel vomit, but the stuff did nomore than dribble from the corners of his mouth. His working eyewould open a bit wider than before. Izzy had no choice but to staywhere he was, but did feel as though he might be able to make hisvoice heard, so he tried to shout. Very little came out. Izzy wonderedhow long he had been there. He again felt sick to his stomach. He hadpissed himself, probably more than once, but his pants had mostlydried. Izzy thought about the manifold utility of the quick-dryingsynthetic fabric used to make hiking pants. He occasionally tried tomake noises, though he could not be sure whether he emitted anysound. And he heard nothing around him but for the occasional,mournful Hoot of an owl. **** Later Izzy felt something like coarse sandpaper scrape overthe right side of his face, and the skin there was wet. An odor carriedby bursts of warm air reminded him of a decomposing rat in thewall. He knew that he himself stank. His bowels had emptied. Butthis other smell was different. Needles clamped onto his bad shoulderand withdrew quickly when Izzy recoiled and let go a primal screech.Then there was a powerful force tugging on the tightly laced hikingboot shielding the foot of his apparently undamaged left leg and hisentire body moved a bit. What must have been small rocks flayedThe Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

62the skin on his back as he was dragged a short distance before themotion stopped and did not resume. What the hell has me? What’s it going to do with me? He knewthere hadn’t been any bears in this part of the country for decades.Too many people. No place for them. This thought gave him a degreeof comfort as he could not think of a creature in this area that woulddine on him. On the other hand, he was at the mercy of somethingwith complete control over him, and he had neared the point of nolonger caring what happened. Later, Izzy began to shiver. This con-tinued until he was almost numb, but then he felt a furry warmthcovering a good part of his torso. It was heavy as hell, but did notimpinge on the shoulder that had something busted inside. His bodydid not shiver while the weight remained. He again slept for a timeand when he woke there was no light and he became cold as before.After a while, the ponderous warmth returned. Light came anew. As it grew brighter, he thought he coulddiscern distant voices somewhere above him. Time still dragged,and he could see the same dense but obscured light he had observedbefore, this time on the opposite side, which he surmised to be in theeast. His urethra was on fire, but he didn’t believe he could pee again,may be ever, as he ached for water. The nausea had passed. He thenthought he heard voices somewhere above him, but he could not seeanyone. Later, there were bestial sounds. Was someone coming forhim? Or some thing? No one came.The pain lapsed into numbness as long as he didn’ttry to move. Another unrecognizable sound rose in the distance. Thenit passed. Still later, the concentration of light that leaked throughlimbs and leaves hanging perhaps thirty feet above him was now high-er in the sky, and he again heard something. This time it was clearly thebarking of a dog, deep and low-pitched, halfway between a bark and agrowl. He shouted at it, or at least he thought he shouted. Izzy couldn’tknow whether anything audible was coming from him, but he kept try-ing. The growling was nearer, but he still couldn’t pinpoint its source. Izzy again felt heat, as well as wetness on one side of his face,and a thing snorted and blew at him in fits and starts. Turning his The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

63face toward the stinking warmth, he pried apart the lids of hisoperational eye with the thumb and nearest two fingers of hisright hand. A colossus imposed itself on Izzy’s senses, and thenleft. The globe of blurred light, which he now understood to be thesun, had sunk low again, his head having cleared enough to con-clude that it was in the west. To the east must have been the trail. **** The next thing Izzy knew, someone was working down aroundhis crooked leg. He could see two pieces of long, red board-likematerial being strapped tightly to each side of his bad leg, whichfrom the knee down almost to the foot was close to twice its normalsize. Another person was holding water to his lips, but Izzy couldonly taste it. He could not swallow despite wanting the water morethan he had ever wanted anything. Izzy was now being carried by two red and yellow men on aflexible stretcher to which he was tightly strapped. Was there a thirdsomebody nearby? And was something else next to him? Where thehell am I, goddammit, and why do I feel so damned stupid? Theywere all moving. He could twist his neck more than before and aftera while he saw that they were approaching rock steps laid out in a Zpattern leading upward. They made a sharply ascending trip one stepat a time to and fro along the switch-backs heading upward. At thetop, on the trail, the brightly colored men set him and the stretcheron the ground for a short time, and then began to carry him carefullyfor what seemed to be a long while before again setting him downwhile they unfolded a wheeled contraption. They lifted Izzy and thestretcher, strapping both to the contrivance. Izzy could see a needlestuck into a vein on his right forearm, with a tube attached to theneedle. The tube led upward to a bag of liquid at the top of a shortmetal post fastened at its bottom to the moving bed. One of his care-takers said to the other, “This old guy either has the hardest skull I’veever seen or he was just incredibly lucky that those bumps must havebeen caused by trees and not rocks. No signs at all of a concussion.And he’s pretty darned alert for what he’s been through.” Hearing this, Izzy retorted, “And I want to stay that way, dammit,The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

64so what the hell is in that IV? No damned dope. No morphine, nohydrocodone. And no damned oxycodone, not even codeine.” “You an addict?” asked the other medic. “No, goddammit, the evil shit just makes me feel like hell.Besides, I don’t need it.” The same rescuer said, “That leg by itself would make mostfolks beg for morphine, but for now, there’s only saline solution inthe bag,” “Don’t want anything else. Don’t need it.” Then, relenting a little, Izzy said, “Maybe Tramadol... if you’vegot it,” knowing this to be a codeine molecule that had been chemi-cally modified to remove the worst of its addictive properties. The beginnings of rehydration caused Izzy to feel better. Hecould also see better. Enough of the dried blood had been washedfrom his right eye so that he could open it most of the way. A thirdman and an animal were nearby. A dog? On the wheeled carrier-heworked hard but unsuccessfully to recall the word “gurney”-Izzy wasat the level of his attendants’ waists, and the animal was allowed tocome close. He now got a good look at the thing and saw that its legsextended from the ground to stretcher level. Above the animal’s legs,Izzy saw a head he recognized. “Grendel?” Izzy croaked, recalling the poster at the side of the trail early in hishike. Now, though, one of its eyes was bloody and swollen, and one of itsears was mangled. The handiwork of the raccoon, Izzy wondered? MyDog Skip this was not. The gigantic head breathed on him, and wipedits huge tongue across the side of Izzy’s face. Bloody drool strungfrom the dog’s mouth and tongue, leading Izzy to wonder whether thething had recently eaten some rowdy kid. This was not an animal thatthrived on asparagus. Then he realized that the blood was probablyhis own. “Damn, you stink,” Izzy managed to say. “Grendel? Goddammit, Grendel, is that you?” The beastbacked away from Izzy and loosed a feral roar sounding more like alocomotive than a dog. Izzy had never seen a dog that big. Ever. The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

65 “Goddammit,” Izzy wheezed, “damned thing should’ve beenon a leash.” Then a voice came from the third man said, “Mr. . . ., well Idon’t know your name, but meet Arthur. Yeah, I suppose you’re right.I’ve got him on a chain now.” Izzy and the others approached the back of what appeared tobe an ambulance, and he was loaded into the rear, one of the menremaining with him. The door was closed, an engine started, and thevehicle moved. As it did so, an unknown sensation crept over Izzy.During the minutes that followed, he struggled to identify it. It wasn’tpain, although there was undeniably some of that. No, this was . . .something else, something totally different. He felt . . . . He didn’tknow how he felt. He felt . . . what, goddamnit? He felt . . . . As they neared the emergency room, a single word came toIzzy. Free? John Allison is on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, and is widely published in the field of intellectual property law. He has previously published one piece of short fiction, in the magazine Mount Hope (2016).The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

66FICTION Three years ago, I met Karen at a party. I was out on that back porch because I couldn’t listen to thedolphin shrieking inside anymore. It looked like the pod had gotten to her, too. “Can you believe these people?” I asked. “I know. It’s strange, right?” “I don’t think I can handle another conversation about pastries.I refuse.” “It does seem ridiculous,” she said. “I also have no interest indiscussing how much it costs to live here, or the fog, or whatever techcompany one of these assholes has equity in,” she said. Some blue joules dislodged somewhere inside me. “It gets to beexhausting pretending all the time.” She paused, glanced at me, went back to her examination of allthat lay before us. “You have to consider all of this. The city, the view, you know,everything,” she said. “Everything? That’s a lot to consider.” “But you have to. Consider. I don’t think there’s any other way The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

67to do it. It’s all or nothing,” she said, “it’s either examined in the wayit deserves to be, a careful consideration, everything, all pieces, what-ever it turns out to be, whatever the answer is no matter if it turns outto be something you didn’t want, or not at all. We owe it to ourselves.” We could see most of the city from up here, all the way outto the ocean, the white caps dotted across the bay. We were leaningagainst the railing on the balcony, high enough above it all that thesounds on the street are reduced to something approaching melody,the sounds inside muted by the closed door to negate their debatesabout the best place to find ramen, the upcoming midterm elections.We were faced only with the wide angle of what is, the black outlinesof buildings set against the cerulean, pink splayed across the belliesof the clouds. I considered carefully before I answered her. “Spectacular.” <<>> We hesitated at the top of the escalator. Below us stretched one hundred thousand square feet of shout-ing blinkering capitalism. Vendors, wares, disruption, buzzwords andt shirts and pens with logos. They all gathered here in one place, dis-tracted by the teeming horde of swag-seekers and hand-shakers. It isthe perfect location for our second date, an immediate confirmationthat she is also an agent of subversion. “They certainly have considerable resources at their disposal,”she said. “Indeed. But they’ve grown indolent.” “Last days of the Roman Empire,” she added solemnly. “And we are the Barbarians,” I said. “Visigoths,” she clarified. “We will be invincible,” she said. “I agree, nothing will catch us, ever, we’ll be too fast,” I said. “Make sure your shoelaces are tied,” she said. The alarm bell rings, the lights flash, and we take off running. <<>> We found an alcove in the park, surrounded by jasmine bushes,an eight foot by eight food redoubt. Everything was green, white, red,The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

68blue, pink, pulsing. In this one illuminated sliver of the city and theworld, the flowers won out, stronger than everything else.We breathe deeply, theatrically, for nearly a minute.“This is it,” she said.“Yes,” I said.She pulled off her underwear more quickly than I would haveever thought possible and I was inside her.The moon extruded through the leaves of the nearby trees andslurried our bodies and it looked like a school of fish was swimmingacross her back.Something about the way we merged, as if we knew that at anymoment an asteroid might careen through the ionosphere and nullifyall our efforts.Something akin to hunger, thirst, an elemental thrust to theseearly efforts of ours, and the certainty that eventually we will win out. <<>>We spent hours like this, frantic, she a heathen god wavingarms and breathing creation in a single afternoon spent sweaty on thecouch with miles of skin for fingertips, teeth, tongue.“You can only recognize the apogee after the fact,” she said.We were really getting somewhere. We have gone monthswithout repeating a single conversation.“Meaning that the true shape of things is impossible to take inwhile you’re actually experiencing it?” I said.We chased swans in the park. We ducked out of engagementdinners with barely plausible excuses. We were together, on the as-cendant, I was certain.“Something like that,” she said. <<>>You can only recognize the apogee after the fact.We are indigo-scaled marine iguanas, languid tail swirl, Gala-pagos dreaming. A can of beer floats in the bathtub with us.Karen drifts in and out of sleep, bubbles of words sputteringfrom her mouth.It should be an answer. I feel like after this, after the effort we’ve The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

69put in tonight, this city should have yielded something up to us. Weshould know so much more. They raise their glasses, I watch a single bead of whiskey sweaton the side of the glass in my hand. Tequila, rum, everything everdistilled, we will make an honest effort. “Happy birthday!” We raise our glasses. Noise and friends, packed tightly into theapartment, surround us. And, we are emptied once more, just the two of us, in the bath tub. The beer can lazily knocks against her shoulder. I bring the whiskey to my lips and I feel just like they do. Theysmile and I feel just like they do. “Happy birthday, Karen!” I shout over the crowd and she is inconstant motion, then, never stopping until every person has left andthe bathwater is filling the tub. I consider whether what we thought we could achieve is pos-sible. “Happy birthday Karen,” I say and even though she is asleep,she smiles at this and I think through the logistics of getting her outof the tub. They smile. I smile. I think they are the same thing. We raise our glasses. A tentacle lurks. <<>> In the morning Karen makes it to work albeit an hour late andI am left to clean, and it is a significant undertaking. Underneath the water, I am the empty cup, the ringing bell.I exist only in five meter increments, my lungs burning, breathingevery three strokes, turn of the head, gulp. I make it to the state cham-pionship for the 200 meter freestyle and the 100 meter breaststrokein high school. I don’t believe there have ever been this many empty bottles inone apartment. I consider calling Guinness. I emerge from the pool and they predict a series of unendingvictories, Olympic medals, a Senate seat, or at the very least a niceThe Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

70apartment somewhere. There are high fives and a call from grandma. I move into the city and ride around in one of those open-topped busses, snapping pictures for my mom’s archives. I go to thegym four days a week. I drink mostly water. I get to work early. All of the bottles into the recycling bin. Slowly, surely, the mess is reduced. I emerge from the pool to a wall of sound. I will sign the paperswhere I am supposed to sign. The dirt falls onto the shoebox that contains the recently de-ceased dwarf hamster Charles. I bury him in the narrow space be-tween my house and the neighbor’s fence. When I am done burying Charles I go for a bike ride towardsthe half-built house at the end of the street, and take a few momentsthrowing rocks at the last remaining window. I clean the apartment and it takes all day. We will simply need to accelerate the pace if we are going tohave any chance. <<>> I consider the white lines neatly arrayed on the counter. Karen and I are alternating currents. Everything we touch isamplified. This nightclub, this bathroom, the countertop, and strang-ers we dance with. These lines, the other lines, the lines of streets, of refugeesawaiting entrance to camps, the world’s mess to be contained withgeometric precision. I inhale it all and we are dancing and sweatingand alive in a way that has to be unique to only us. We have mastered the manipulation of time. When the appro-priate opportunity presents itself, which is often, we have a multitudeof accelerants at our disposal, and thus we are able to complete somuch in half the time, far exceeding the meager output of the slug-gards in our midst. Something about the ragged way it all heaves beneath us like ajust-darted rhinoceros, the great groaning mass of Janes and Johnniesliving and dying precisely one point zero times, while we skip fromneedle tip to needle tip. The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

71 Our control is nearly absolute, with only the occasional slip-up. I inhale. Our control is nearly absolute. <<>> I consider the crushed up hydrocodone. We must achieve balance, so sometimes we are forced to drawdown from orbit, to release a gel over the cityscape that slows thestreetcars, traps the tourists where they stand, something to blunt thediamonds that escape into our capillaries, to enrobe the synapses sothat their charge is less. <<>> It is the time in the city when it rains. <<>> There is a mystery jutting from the sea of vomit, a yellow archi-pelago emerging from clotted slurry of disgusting whatever the fuckand bile. I shift, knowing immediately that we are both covered, thatwe are still wearing what we were wearing yesterday, that this is whowe are. I am struck by a massive instantaneous squirming in my inter-nal apparatus. “We are both covered in bruises,” she said. I look down at my arms, and see that up and down the fulllength, purple and blue ink blots. Karen the same. I stand up, and Iam nearly struck down again the concrete mix in my cerebrum is sothick. Jesus we were thorough. “What happened to us?” I asked. “Not exactly sure,” she said. I take off the disgusting clothing. I am standing in front of the mirror examining a body coveredin bruises. The things in there are multiplying, slithering, writhing. I hear laughter from the other room. Karen is holding something up. “I found it,” she says. “Our totem.”The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

72 A french fry. A complete, undigested French Fry. <<>> This is not a city that does well in the rain. Too much is loosed. <<>> “I don’t think I can make you happy,” I said, after much con-sideration. She was walking in front of the window, but I’m not sure shesaw what I saw. I thought I saw a flicker of movement in the window,of the sidewalk turning to grey flytraps, but I wasn’t sure. Things werehappening like that all the time. Conversations were drill bits crack-ing open my rib cage. Inside where my guts should be there wereonly disgruntled weevils. Sidewalks were flytraps and I would walkonto them thinking I was going to get a bottle of Gatorade and a bagof Doritos and look up at the grey slick of the sky and then I wasn’tgetting a bottle of Gatorade and a bag of Doritos I was still on thecouch. I would stare at them from my window and think about goingsomewhere and then think about their stickiness and think better ofit. Sidewalks were walkways between fast food restaurants and drycleaners and meetings and birthday parties and it was different most-ly but I was always the same which was really the problem because Iwould look at these people and I thought I was doing what they weredoing but it seemed like no matter what inputs (and I tried many)my outputs weren’t their outputs and this struck me as grossly unfair. “Of course you can,” she said. “So you’re happy here, all this? The city? Us? The ash tray overthere?” “The ashtray?” she asked. Maybe I hadn’t explained the ashtrayto her. I had to take another tack. I had to find some mechanism to atthe very least reconfigure some of the fray. “Did you ever think that you weren’t equipped for it all?” “I always thought we were going to win, actually,” she said. “And now?” I asked. <<>> She is pacing it is Wednesday it is March and the blinds aredrawn closed and the couch and the locked door and it is Thursday The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

73it is September and the blinds are open but outside there is only acarapace of fog and it is more difficult than ever to see what hides inthe folds. I consider the crushed up hydrocodone. I do not consider the pizza boxes, the ash tray, the newspapers,the phone calls from her boss my boss her parents. They will send emails and carrier pigeons and they will saythey are coming to visit and we will plan to move some things off thetable and couch and floor but we will forget and they will wait a longtime before they say anything. Karen paces in earnest and in profile she is like a predatorybird. <<>> We are drilling down as deep as we can go, to see if there’s somehairy beast down at the center operating the switches with somethinglike a plan, or just an I.O.U. note in bad handwriting. We will keep drilling until we either pierce through the mantleor the bit is ground to nothing. <<>> Occasionally we slip up. <<>> I have turned Karen to her side and her breathing is irregular. Ilift her eyelids. Her breath is ragged, her color is off. <<>> Occasionally we slip up. <<>> “How did we get here?” she asks. “I don’t know,” I say. I am scratching the band around my wrist. Grey rain dancinglazily on the window as she rummages through the glove box for thescissors. This is the second or third time we’ve tried this. Once togeth-er, once for me, once for her. They are successes and failures simulta-neously. They are expensive. Twice for me actually. How long?The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

74 Six weeks. That seems like a long time. It’s not a long time, they say. It seems like a long time. It’s a small price to pay, they say. It doesn’t seem like a small price to pay. It seems exorbitant. This will be better, they say. Better than what. Than the other options, they say. Inside these white walls I am faced with a hollowness so com-plete that it is nearly unfathomable. What kind of story do you want to tell? Where does it start? Who is the villain? What were your par-ents like? How old were you the first time you drank alcohol? I think more than anything they ask the wrong questions. “One of us will have to be the one. And I don’t know if it can beme. I don’t know if I have it in me, not anymore.” “What do you mean?” she says. <<>> “You can only recognize the apogee after the fact,” she says. “Does it really matter then?” I ask. <<>> “It’s like a nuclear football. We both have to turn the key at thesame time,” I say. “Oh,” she says, barely audible, so quiet it’s possible she didn’tsay anything at all. She looks so tired. We are all so tired, every single inhabitant. “I don’t know if I can do that,” she says, more loudly. Everyone is tired. I see it in their faces, in the morning, when the sidewalks arewet. I am not sure about this place, about any of it, about the hotdog smells, the piss slurries on Market Street, the massive homelessencampments with blue tarps flapping in surrender. The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

75 “How did we get here?” she asks. I consider the question. “How did we get here?” “Do you think we still have a chance?” she asks. My hand seeks out the window control of its own accord, click-ing the button one two three. Flit of the city outside the window andthe low drone of the engine as we drive towards the parking garage,drive towards an engagement dinner, towards the redwoods wherewe find banana slugs under leaves, towards an apartment with anoverflowing ash tray. “How did we get here?” she asks and the question implies aseries of fixed points arranged sequentially and I am not so sure. We will drive home and I will get out of the car. “How did we get here?” every time she asks and snip snip snipthe bracelet comes off, we are staggering on the shit caked sidewalksor standing on a balcony above it all and we are free to find our placein it, never quite sure exactly where we stand in the trajectory, buthopeful that the horizon can extend as far as we need it to. Corey Hill is a human rights activist, journalist, parent, and occasional tree climber. His works have been featured in Yes! Magazine, Earth Island Journal, AlterNet, and more.The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

76BOOK REVIEW Review by Joan Dobbie A Song for Bela By Gayatri MajumdarFlying home from Pondicherry, India, to Eugene, Oregon, aftermuch discussion of the possibility of our two cities becomingSister Cities, I happened to watch Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck.“OMIGOD,” I exclaimed to myself. This “trainwreck” of a womanis the American “sister” of acclaimed poet/editor/ Brown Critiquepublisher Gayatri Majumdar’s Sara in Majumdar’s first novel,A Song for Bela. Like Trainwreck’s ‘Amy’, Majumdar’s ‘Sara’ is what we mightcall “a functioning addict,” a talented young woman, able, if justbarely, to hold one job then another, who drifts in a haze of drugsand alcohol, in Sara’s case, from city to city, in both cases, frombed to bed, drunken party to drunken party, hangover to hang-over, in search of the love and stability that her own childhood The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

77had been unable to give her. In Sara’s case, the dysfunction of her childhood family wasas much a reflection of her homeland, India’s, political dysfunc-tion in the wake of British colonialism and the Muslim/Hinduethnic struggles which resulted in the 1947 creation of Pakistanthat came with British withdrawal as it is of her Marxist father’sinfidelities and her mentally ill mother’s inability to mother;her mother’s suicide. Sara is suffering from what might be described as “post gene-rational PTSD.” She is a survivor’s daughter. A suicide’s daughter.(Sara’s mother, who barely survived monumental losses of homeand loved ones, who could not in fact distinguish the inner de-mons from the outer, could hardly be expected to have raisedhappy, well adjusted children.) Sara (as is Amy) is longing to giveand receive love. But she doesn’t know how. In Trainwreck Amy’s case, all problems are solved when shefinds, and learns to accept, “the right man.” Gayatri Marumdar’s‘A Song for Bela’, however goes deeper. In her spare room, the onepacked with memorabilia she hasn’t had the heart to discard, Sarameets ghosts: the spirits of the displaced, including a dark boychild who calls himself “Nirvana,” her own mother as a child,eventually even her own young self – and then there’s “the voice.”(Could these be manifestations of Sara’s own psyche, made near-ly material through the gift of possibly hereditary schizophrenichallucinations?). It doesn’t matter. As these buried parts of herpeople/herself express in vivid detail their losses and suffering,they force her to face her avoidances head on. Through this sort of“ghost therapy” Sara begins to understand who she herself, resultof historical/personal suffering, is. And as the hallucinations/ghosts rapidly grow from childhood to adulthood, her own psy-che also “grows up” and thus Sara becomes a functioning adult,no longer needing to hide behind alcohol, drugs, and destructiverelationships, at last able to forgive, to accept her damaged familymembers for the worthy human beings they are, to accept evenher own damaged self as worthy of love. And so healing begins.The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

78 This all takes place in an India I, as an American, am only be-ginning to meet, but which Majumdar’s detailed and sensual placedescriptions (as Sara travels back and forth between Mumbai andDelhi) gives me a sensual experience of. Besides the sounds andthe smells and the sites of Urban India, her characters’ voices giveme a sense of the minds, the language, the inner as well as theouter perspectives, of young Urban Indians living in the wake ofgenerations of struggle. Whether you are Indian, a foreigner interested in India, ormerely a member of the modern human family, Majumdar’s ASong for Bela is a book worth reading. If you’d like to get your copy, please drop in a line to Gayatri Majumdar ([email protected]) for a neat 10% discount! You can also purchase the book directly from [email protected]. ISBN: 978-0-9961240-8-9 Price: Rs. 250/$5.99 Poet Joan Dobbie lives in Eugene, Oregon. She is also a yoga Instructor at the University of Oregon and yoga Instructor at Emerald Park. The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

79 POETRY John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller 1. the voice of my doom walking deep in the woods high above the city near the airport I heard them then saw them hideous black crows looking at me cackling at me laughing at me mocking me calling me names I asked what they wanted they laughed and said nothing but your doom and they flew around me dive bombing me and surrounding me calling me names in Korean and English as I fled down the trail with the demon birds hot on my trailThe Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

80 2. Donald Trumpand the Vulgarians Rise to Power I hear them coming I see them coming I fear them coming Trump and the Vulgarians Lusting for power and revenge It ain’t right they say I hear them coming I see them coming I fear them coming The white man has been given the shaft The nigger president gone too far And now they want to make a bitch President I hear them coming I see them coming I fear them coming They have gone too far they shout and scream Anger pouring out of their faces and their whatever Rabid dogs from the no fly lands I hear them coming I see them coming I fear them coming The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

81 The elites on the coast Continue to look down on the Trump Say he is a clown say he is a simpleton Say he is dangerous demagogue I hear them coming I see them coming I fear them coming But the more they sling at him The more they deride him The stronger he gets I hear them coming I see them coming I fear them coming The deplorable who support him Know that they have got the elites right where they want them Behind the barrel of their proverbial guns I hear them coming I see them coming I fear them coming The fly over country the fuckistanian Jesus land multitudes Are on the march on the coastal elites Rabble rousers out for blood tonightThe Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

82I hear them comingI see them comingI fear them comingAnd blood they will haveIf their hero their champion their DonaldIs denied his right to rule over them?The rights to them have soldTo the highest bidderI hear them comingI see them comingI fear them comingAnd Donald knows that he is a fraudA con man a film flam artistBut he knows his marks knows his rubesAnd gives them what they wantGives them what they needI hear them comingI see them comingI fear them comingAs they give the whole rotten systemA god damn finger up the assHoping to blow the whole thing downI hear them comingI see them comingI fear them comingThe Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

83 3. You Will Be PunishedYou Will Be Punished for ProtestingThe Principle has a messageFor those who don’t stand for the National Anthem:Obey or be punished.“You will stand, and you will stay quiet.If you don’t. you are going to be sent home,and you’re not going to have a refund of your ticket price,YOU WILL LOVE THIS COUNTRY OR ELSE, YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!I would love to see some brave students defying Nemeth’s idiotic proposal by conducting a mass sit-induring the Anthem at the next game.He can’t do anything about it.It’s appalling,really, becauseyou have to wonderhow awful the government classesmust be at his schoolIs his school in the US?Or in North Korea?Do they not teach students about the Constitution anymore?What happens to students who refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance?Are they punished, too?What happens to athleteswho remain seated during the Anthem?Will they be allowed to play at all?When will Nemeth issue an apology?(When he stops being an ignorant fool,I would also love to hear him explain— in a video to the students —why he’s wrong about this issue.)The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

84“The statement made by the principal of Lely High Schoolarises out of a contextin which studentsin the standsat a school athletic eventwe’re being disruptiveat the start ofand during the national anthem.He has spokenwith our studentsto explain that his statementwas based upon the disruptionthat school administrators observed occurring.The district recognizes a student’s First Amendment rightto express his/her thoughts and ideas.For nowBut if President Trump Becomes PresidentAll bets are offHa ha haHowever, the law refuses to seeAs Frank Zappa sang so many years agoThat there is no great societyAs it applies to you and meUnless your uncle owns the storeif a student paid to see a gameand sat quietly in the standsduring the national anthem,we would not remove the student.The student is seeing the gameat that pointas a member of the public.True patriotism is upholding the First Amendment right to free speech.”All Hail President TrumpThe invincibleLeader of our great country The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

85 4. Strong Wine One night I was starring In my wine glass Deep in thought When I saw Something in my wine That haunts me still I saw in the bottom of the glass Evil doers abandon evil And became saints I saw rich men give up Their awesome greed And poor people Awarded dignity And all men Became brothers All women Became sisters And war ended once and for all And peace broke out And hatred disappear And I stared Into my glass wine I drink the wine Hoping the visionThe Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

86 Would infect me And change the world But alas the world Remained the same The evil doers came back The rich continued to conspire And the poor still remained poor And the war continued on and on So I drank my wine And went to sleep 5. Yesterday MorningYesterday morning, I awoke Like most morningsI was still dead I walkedOut of my drug infested slumInto my computerized carDown the freeways of my mindSearching for the pot of golden dreamsI stopped in at a restaurantDrank copious amounts of free coffeeAnd saw all the peopleOne by one disappearing into the crowdsAll I knew was wrongOr worst yet a figment of your imaginationEvery person changedTransformed into an interchangeable computer’s robot The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

87 All the same All the same Everything living in instant suburbia Moving their meaningless life All the same all the same Not me screamed my coffee as I sat Yet another victim Of our creeping collective insanity Just cogs in the wheel Cogs in the wheel And so I go down the road And get in line John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller is a retired US diplomat (foreign service officer) for the U.S. State Department and have served overseas in Korea, Thailand, India, Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grena- dines, and Spain. He has served in Mumbai from 2000-2003 and visited Chennai in 2005. He has completed 10 volumes of poetry, three SF novels, and an unpublished collection of short stories.The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

88 6. The Shape of HistoryOnce I too had ambitionI had the usual dreams of glory and grandeurAll I wanted to be was to be a great creative geniusOnly I did not knowHow to kiss ass creativelyOnce I had dreams of greatnessI would be glorious and freeAll would envy and admireThis man so noble and greatNow I am tied down in mirthless mireOnce I hustledOnce I took no shit from anyoneOnce I wanted the universeNow I am contended to shitAnd refuse to bustleWhy bother anymoreIn the gathering gloomOf the foreseeable futureOne thing is certainI do not want a roomOn the scrap heap of societyAnd yet that might be my fate The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

89 POETRY Glen Sorestad The Greening of May Each Spring, the sight that moves us is that first surprise of palest yellow-green, as each new leaf grooves to melodic riffs of sun, sky a miracle of azure. Through winter cold and its treachery of ice and smothering snow we long for those hues that hold our hearts just so -- nothing less will suffice. Now the mounting sun of May frees the sap, sets the stage for pale aspens to flaunt their green. No matter our age, we always re-see the same surprise.The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

90 Joshua TreesAcross the Mojave Desert of the Southwestthese cacti, yucca brevifolia, may towerthirty feet, while other plants cowerin the fierce glare of desert sun.Obtrusive as giant Redwoods,they served as stand-in treesfor early Mormons who named themafter the Old Testament leader.Found in only four states, this strangeMojave cactus is sometimes calledyucca palm, but it is disappearingfrom its only desert, possibly anotherglobal warming casualty by century’s end.Then where will migrating birdsperch during long cross-desert flightsin annual pursuit of winter or summer?A weird combo of cactus and tree,the Joshua seems a thick-armed oakupon which yuccas have been grafted,arms upward and outward, as ifoffering whatever they may haveto whoever is in need. The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

91 Old Man, Old Dog Most mornings we meet the twosome along the park path. It may be drizzling or dazzling sun, dead calm or blustery, the pair of them are always the same. Neither the bent-backed old man, nor his curly-haired small mongrel says anything, except on rare mornings of inescapable beauty, when failing to acknowledge it would be a sin. He hobbles painfully and slowly behind his dear friend, who stops from time to time, as if to be assured his master is indeed still there, holding the leash that binds them, if only to satisfy a city bylaw that requires the illusion, if not reality, of control. They both accept the charade. Time has weathered them about equally. We often muse, after our morning meeting, as we continue our morning circuit through to its terminus, how many more days and walks will this duo be granted? And what of the two of us, we who watch this pair and feel, though we do not know their names, an unexpected kinship with them?The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

92 It Must Be SpringHow do weknow it’s the firstofficial dayof Spring?Demonic windhurls horizontaldarts of snowand ice.Exposed winter-litter swirls throughfrigid air,tossedby demonic windthat seekswhatever is liftableairborne.Glen Sorestad is a well known Canadianpoet whose poems have appeared in manycountries, have appeared in over sixtyanthologies and textbooks and have beentranslated into at least eight languages.He lives in Saskatoon on the western plainsof Canada and is a Member of the Order ofCanada. The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

93 POETRY G. David Schwartz I’m going to shave my eyebrows To make my sight see long Not looking through a forest Which does honestly just bore us But now it makes sense Repetition leads to coincidence And my eye lids Like lids on the container Me me think Thank goodness something does Of what I had for dinner And how I had to look real close And fringed my eyes and nose Thus and that is why To prevent a little cry I, yes I, Am going to shave my eye BrowsThe Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

94This Is Not A Brag I had a heart attack It hit my like a skiver And I am glad I had implanted a defibrillatorI May Be Slow As Molasses I may be slow as molasses But I don’t need my glasses To be running on the track Half a mile down and then back I am not quick as tungsten And if I just don’t win I be here to race again. And with age I many be slower But yet I’ll still be goer Slow as molasses may be funny Ok, then, I’m slow as honeyOutside The Clouds Go Marching Outside the clouds go marching Inside the sun don’t shine Was down in the basement Not seeing either crime The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

95 Laugh Lightly Just go ahead and laugh lightly Just stay behind and laugh loud Just think something funny Well do anything you like, you mushroom silly cloud. How Am I? Not bad, not great but I guess that’s just fate Sitting in a local Subway But misunderstanding quite bit Trains don’t go into it I Saw Her Mouth Moving I saw her mouth moving But I heard not a word And I thought that weird Quite like a bird Now I understand All those crooked knee English men Calling, her I explain British and other women, birdsThe Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017

96She Was Walking Round She was walking round With her head Stuck up in a tree The branches holding two birdies I thought to help her pout then second, I thought not And but two hours later I had just forgot.Sorry Here, My Navel Is So Big sorry my navel is so big when we went to hug and you went falling in and falling on your bum sorry my legs are so short you went crazing done and as you squirmed around i laughed falling down sorry that my eyes did get so humorously larger and i will never forget that you called me a barge The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER - 2017

97 Standing Between Us And Them standing between us are simply years of tears climbing up the banister ladened down with fears you cannot eat the daises at least you alight not there may have been a reason but i have here forgot Daydreams don’t do danger nor dorms drinking wine and if you think thats true don’t go bazooka buying I have a favorite author Been him for thirty years And he never wrote a based song Never brought out sad tears G. David Schwartz is the former president of Seed house, the online interfaith committee. Schwartz is the author of A Jewish Appraisal of Dialogue (1994), Midrash, and Working out Of the Book (2004). Currently a volunteer at The Cincinnati J, Meals on Wheels. His newest book, Shards And Verse (2011) is now in stores or can be order on line. FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY Published by K G E TEAM, Chennai, India - 600024The Wagon Magazine - SEPTEMBER- 2017