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The Bullet

By Posted in Fiction Tagged , ,

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By Andrew Sharp

A man strolled through a field of ragged grass and wildflowers, swinging a metal detector back and forth over the ground as he moved uphill toward a low, well-maintained stone wall. The metal detector beeped. He stooped quickly and ran his fingers through the grass and dirt, then stood and held up a small piece of metal, blown out of shape by a long-ago impact. He smiled. A find! It would make a treasured keepsake.

—

A dusty cow pasture soaked up the late-morning summer sun. The pasture was empty, except for thistles, stones, and scattered cow pies left by its vanished occupants. Behind a stone wall on a hill overlooking the pasture, a line of soldiers stood. They stared down the pasture toward a patch of trees at the bottom of the hill that clustered on the banks of a creek. The soldiers sweated in the sun and some of them swished flies away with their hats. They could see flashes of colorful uniforms moving down by the creek in the shade of the trees.

Behind the wall, a hand reached into a pouch and felt for a cartridge, a bullet pre-wrapped with powder, ready to load. A ramrod pressed the bullet down into the darkness with a metallic swoosh. The bullet was forced down the tight grooved sides in a slow circle, packing air ahead of it out the gun’s breech, until it smashed down tight against the powder. It was finally ready. Outside, other much larger and heavier bullets were already on their final journey, tearing through the air overhead, smashing into the trees along the creek. A thousand smaller bullets all sat snug in their black tunnels, the rifles that held them hanging over the stone wall, waiting in silence for the big shells to drive the men up out of the sheltering grove.

—

The cone-shaped bullet, a .58 caliber minie ball, was cutting-edge technology at the time. It had been conceived in a munitions factory mold about a year and a half before, poured out of a hot vat of molten lead. Before that, pieces of it had led all kinds of careers. Some of it had been typeset at a newspaper. A very tiny piece had once been plumbing in a villa in Roman London. A goodly portion had been a candlestick-holder in an upright Pilgrim’s house in Massachusetts, supporting the candle by which the family read the Scriptures in the evening.

The man who gave the lead its bullet form was named Josiah Owens. He did not really care much about the war and why it had to be fought, the endless moral points and counterpoints, freedom and justice and righteousness and honor and duty. He would have made typeset, if it were desired, or candlestick-holders, or even plumbing, if those in power had been willing to pay him to do so. He needed to feed his family. He did not personally kill John Hawkins or the hundreds of other men who met death through the bullets he carefully made. Other people made the decisions; that is why they had ordered the bullets. They did not personally kill John Hawkins either. They delegated, as good leaders do.

The motive for making the bullets was debated viciously and endlessly. Was the cause a right one or an evil one? A very few crazy people, Quakers and other radicals, suggested that lead ought to be used for candlesticks, and never for ending lives, but for most, the big question was the Cause.

The destiny of the bullets was also not clear, although it merited no debate. Some would end up buried in tree trunks or fence posts. Some, buried in soil. Others would smash into living people.

Neither motives nor destiny meant anything to the bullet. Its purpose was clear. It would perform as asked. And this particular minie ball was destined to carry out its purpose: It would kill John Hawkins. Whether Hawkins’ death was murder or a necessary tragedy in a noble conflict, the bullet made no judgments.

At the moment Josiah Owens was pouring the bullet, John Hawkins was sitting outside the office of a bank manager, his palms sweating a little and his foot fidgeting, waiting to sign papers on a loan. On his list of concerns was not bullets, but that his coffee had been a little cold at breakfast, and coffee was starting to cost a lot, and he thought he could feel a cold coming on (he hated colds, but got them frequently), and of course the risk from his startup manufacturing business. He wondered if he and his wife had been getting a little distant lately, and was troubled when he thought about the bitterness between himself and his father. A business transaction he had conducted several months ago was also eating at him. It had not exactly met the standards of ethical business dealing, and he had always cared about things like that. He would go back and make it right, once he got on his feet with the business, of course.
Like Hawkins, the bullet was not yet moving toward the pasture. After a short wagon ride over bumpy dirt roads from the factory, and a very long ride on a train, the bullet spent many months in a warehouse. It was in no hurry.
Hawkins had his opinions about the war, of course, everyone did. As it became obvious that it would not be over quickly, as everyone had assumed, he imagined his neighbors whispering. A young and healthy man such as himself staying home with the business, while others fought and died … well. Not without ethical feeling, he was also bothered by the nagging feeling that he was not doing his part, and even stood to profit from the conflict with his business. He debated whether to volunteer. He could come back, after the war was over, and restart things. If he did not go, he would always wonder if he should have. And if they began a draft, he would surely have to go anyway. He should leave on his own terms, he decided, although it was a difficult thing to leave not just his business but his wife and his baby in the care of relatives.

—

The bullet and many others was bundled into convenient paper cartridges by overworked and hungry young women making low wages but much reward in heaven. Their handiwork was loaded into horse-drawn carts in a military wagon train and was finally on the way to the man who would carry it into the pasture. Soldiers on horseback rode along with the wagons, ready to shoot anyone who would steal their bullets for nefarious purposes.
While the bullet traveled, Hawkins prepared to get into a wagon himself, after hugging his wife and holding his baby one last time.

“Don’t worry about me,” he reassured her. “I have a job to do … all do our part … home soon … write often.” He handed the baby back. The wagon left. He and the bullet were traveling toward each other now. He was 26 years old.

—

A line of men advanced now out of the creek bed, prodded forward by the screaming death that pulverized the trees. The line moved up the pasture toward the wall at the double-quick. Behind the wall, the rifles came up. The barrel that held the bullet pointed not at any particular man, but at the mass of uniforms. The bullet sat still and silent in its dark tunnel, facing a round hole of light ahead. Waiting.

In the first microseconds after the explosion, the bullet expanded slightly and tightly gripped the tunnel’s grooves, which set it on a deadly, stable, straight-line spin. The bullet spat out of the barrel’s mouth on a direct course down the hill, an unalterable straight line toward a tree root that was sticking up out of the pasture behind the line of men. There was only empty space between the bullet and that tree root.

John Hawkins still had a chance. A step just a hair to the left or right would change things. He could trip and fall. He could slow down just slightly. It had happened before. Once, he lost his hat. Another time, his finger was shot off. This time, he strode forward, directly between the barrel and that tree root, a line he could not see.

The air rushed past the bullet and the stone wall shrank away in one quarter second and was far away at half a second. A uniform coat with brass buttons rushed closer in the next quarter-second and there was a terrible crash. The bullet smashed through its target with a muted thump and expanded, leaving behind a gaping hole. It made it out the other side, its precisely engineered shape crushed into a lumpy mess, and dropped out of the air. It fell to the ground and lay still. It was destroyed, but it had completed its journey and done what it was made to do.

John Hawkins fell to the ground and lay still too.

The Boom Inside

By Posted in Poetry Tagged

By Candice Mast

We watch from a distance,
From a parking lot smelling fish and lemons.
Tiny spark and shower.
Remote as stars
The children dangle their feet from the hood of the car
The radio blares songs about American pride.
“Where at least I know I’m free.”
We’ve been gone so long now
Am I immigrant?
Citizen?
Adopted child?
Am I any freer here under the same moon?
Homeland love, homeland hate.
Are my children still your children too?

We are so far away, we can’t feel the boom now,
The one I remember from my childhood
Watching fireworks lying on my back on the New Market
battlefield,
Where I could feel them inside my small body,
Like an wild and alien heart,
Overriding my own heartbeat;
Panicked delight.
I look up now at my children’s lit faces,
Want them to feel the boom inside.

All is Forgiven

By Posted in Fiction Tagged ,

By Hans Shenk

champagne cutout web The reception was held in the Valley Heritage Hotel, a building curiously located at the top of a hill. The  ballroom for the reception was a cavernous affair of polished wooden floors, with polished marble arches all    along the margins. A galaxy of chandeliers glimmered overhead, and beneath them dressed-up 20-somethings  sipped punch out of tiny cups that never held quite enough, nibbled appetizers, and said nothing in as many  witty ways as they could fathom. George Sines — a dressed-up 20-something, punch glass in hand — always  felt slightly out of place at these events. He dragged his modest celebrity as a successful musician from  conversation to conversation, chained reluctantly to fame and its obligations. Famous for his effervescent  personality, he now felt either that exuberance was his duty to an audience of friends and acquaintances, or that effervescence would seem a sign of egomania. As a result, he spent a great deal of time vacillating unhappily between the two.

This reception in particular was giving him fits. Not only had he been thrust into a wilderness of people who had ‘known him back when’ and hadn’t caught on that they no longer did, but Penelope was here.

He’d guessed she would be, and since the thought struck him, had spent a good deal of time brooding on the matter, writing mental scripts for potential conversations, and subsiding into helpless anxiety.

Thirteen years previous, at age 15, George and Penelope had fallen for each other with all of the inescapable gravity of summer camp romances. So strong was the bond that the relationship had not only lasted in between weeks of camp, it had come to thrive. George was idealistic and enthusiastic, Penelope was pragmatic, and gentle. She kept him grounded, he kept her light.

For two years, it had grown into the stuff of apple-pie biographies, and it had never entered George’s mind that any ending was possible save the two of them, together.

And then, junior year, he flew a little farther, and between her basketball and his mini-tours playing guitar for his sister’s band, time became a question. And Penelope questioned while George drew concentric circles further and further out from his base.

When they came together in the summer, even he could see the distance. But he reassured himself that knew they could fix it, they would work it out.

At last, halfway through an awkward week, she pulled him aside, alone in an empty room on a rainy evening to tell him that she had finally realized that it wasn’t going to work out. That they were now moving in separate directions, and the only thing that could be done was to let it happen, and to let go.

It flattened George. In all the doubt and change and trauma of becoming an adult, there was one thing he’d never doubted; that his fate and that of Penelope Masterson were inextricably entwined. Hitherto, he’d never imagined that the bond was anything but iron, and now, too late, he saw that it was crystalline, fragile, and falling. Summoning all his optimism, all his eloquence, and what remained of his wits, and he attempted to explain. His explanations turned to begging, and his begging into babbling, and finally he petered out.

Penelope was crying, and George felt cold. In the end, she said nothing, only shook her head, and George — with no words left to say — felt the final collapse of the crystal and heard his foundation sweep away in the rainwater. Having no part left in her comfort, he walked outside again, and waited out the storm under a leaky overhang.

When George walked away that sodden summer night, aware for the first time of how far he was from who he believed himself to be, he promised himself that he would not let Penelope go. He would become the man she needed, and when he had, he would call her.

Looking back, he wasn’t positive why he never did; whether he’d never become the man he thought she needed, or if his resolve had faded. Whatever the case, he’d never really dated since, a phenomenon his mother (and secretly, George as well) attributed to a chronic fixation with what might’ve been.

Now, escaping from the clutches of yet another acquaintance from bygone years, trumpeting their friendship, borrowing his notoriety, George hurried toward the punch bowl, rubbing his five-day beard and feeling exhausted.
And suddenly, there she was, darting out of an arch, headed someplace. He sidestepped, and pirouetted to avoid a collision, noticing, as he did so, the baby balanced on her hip.

“Oh, sorry!” she said, “I was just — George!” She stiffened in surprise, and seemed suddenly unsure of herself, staring up at him.

George, all nerves and uncertainty himself, made a shaky attempt at a reassuring smile.

“Penelope!” he said, stepping back out of the arch and into the ballroom, “It’s been —” he searched for the word, and gave it up, “It’s been a long time.”

She nodded, and laughed a little laugh.

She’d been beautiful, at 17, a decade ago. Boyish, and jaunty, sharp angles and red cheeks. She was much, much more beautiful now. The weather of adulthood had softened the sparkle of her eyes and the redness of her cheeks. The angles had softened into curves. The girl was gone, but the woman was stunning.

“It has!” she said, “And now look at you! You’ve got a beard. And you’re famous!”

George waved it off, “Eh, I’m not that famous. Besides, fame’s a lucky accident. You’ve got kids!”

“Kid,” she corrected.

“More than I’ve got,” he said, bending down to regard the curly-headed infant. “What’s her name?”

“Caleb,” she said, stifling a giggle, “Caleb Anthony Thomas.”

“Ah!” he said, “Well. Shows what I know.”

Just then a short little man in a gleaming grey suit with dark eyes, and carefully styled hair came through the arch, and tossed his arm around Penelope.

“Hey, honey! I was wondering where you’d gotten to,” he said, then noticing George, “Oh, hey. Who’s this?”

“This is George, honey. From camp — I’ve talked about him before.”

“George, George …” said the man, searching his eyelids for any recollection. He gave up remembering with a shrug of his tailored shoulders and held out a hand. “I’m sure I’ve heard all about you. I’ve just got a terrible memory. I’m Edson Thomas.”

“George Sines. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” said the little man, still holding George’s hand, “I’m remembering. You’re …”

He looked closer, narrowing his eyes, and Penelope, gently bouncing the baby, said, “He’s in a band, honey.”

“YES!” said Edson, his eyes widening, “You wrote that song, that one song …” he let go of George’s hand, and turned to his wife, “That one song. We listened to it all the time when we were dating.” He hummed a line. The baby moaned.

George nodded. He knew the song. He remembered a string of hazy nights spent perched on the edge of a mattress, fueled by a hellbrew of coffee, insomnia and cigarettes, scratching the lyrics down in a tattered notebook. And somehow that had become the anthem of Penelope’s love for another man. As George processed the thought, he was surprised to discover that he was pleased to hear it.

“Long Summer,” he said. And the baby vomited. Both of the adult Thomases clustered around their child, messing about with napkins and rags and cooing at their discontented baby. Penelope disentangled herself from the huddle for a moment and met George’s bemused eye. She shook her head. “Kids are just so messy, sometimes,” she said.

George nodded, and smiled. He told Penelope that it was awfully nice to see her again, and it was a pleasure to meet you, Edson, and I’ll follow your future career with the closest interest, Caleb, you precocious child.

Penelope told him it was wonderful seeing him, Edson told him not to be a stranger, but they were distracted by the cleanup efforts. Meantime, Caleb began to howl.

George turned away, still smiling. He remembered he’d been looking for the punch bowl and sought it out. He filled his glass, and rolled the punch in his mouth, eyes fixed on the ceiling, past the chandeliers to the shadows beyond, lost in meditation. He was still standing in that posture when his best friend and bandmate, Anthony Windsor found him.

“Hey,” said Windsor, shaking George from his thoughts, “You ‘bout ready? I’ve had enough for one day.”
George blinked, looked once around the ballroom, drained his glass and nodded decisively.

“Yep. I’m good to go.”

The Draft

By Posted in Poetry Tagged

By Jason Ropp

Listen up!
Vagabonds, down and outs,
Embittered, addicts, and wounded,
(even self-shot in foot).
And dare I say it,
Open your ears you
Like-me self righteous,
Apathetic regarding and numb to the
Pumping heart that brings life into
Most repugnant places.

Stop. Don’t read. Listen.

Did you hear it?
Did soft wind work gently
Through leaky old house of heart
With poorly hung doors
And unsure locks?
Did furious love-gale
Raging against needless fall
Bend walls groaning
Further out of square?

Did draft chill you?
Did howl and creak turn you
Again to child with somersault heart?

Listen.
Because fanner of waterless wave
Is magnificent worker of wood —
A carpenter,
Hanging new doors,
Furnishing home with finest antiques,
Mouth-made by supreme artisan,
Origin of all chair-crafters.
And He finds greatest pleasure in
Well working over
Timbers once carved fresh for
Current tenant ungrateful
With deposit insufficient
To make good on damages due
When time comes to vacate current residence.

The Back Page: Smoke, Mirrors and Satan®

By Posted in Column

By Matt Swartz

SmokeI got a child’s-eye view of an interesting period in evangelical history; I witnessed the passing of the Fear Baton. It was never announced clearly in a way that made sense to a 12-year-old, but one year, it seemed, we were supposed to be afraid of world Communism, and the next year, we were supposed to be afraid of a Floridian performance artist named Brian Warner.

He made gothic rock music under the nom de plume Marilyn Manson, and there seemed to be a consensus among my church’s adults that if any of us tweens were to hear any of it, we’d be instantly smitten and permanently seduced by the satanic imagery he employed.

The antics that occurred at his concerts were discussed in hushed tones, which piqued our interest precisely because they were forbidden. Rare was the youngster in my hometown that had any interest whatsoever in that particular genre, but Rock ‘n’ Roll has always had a symbiotic relationship with the idea of danger, and no better marketing for Manson’s music could have been imagined than the sound of the people who exercised daily power over our lives saying his name in fear-inflected tones.

The thrumming of the moral panic machine spread, over the course of three or four years, from the parents to the children. Soon, we were spreading apocryphal stories about this man’s background, proclivities, and, in fact, anatomy.

Time and Google later clarified for me that many of these stories were urban legends that had been transposed slightly from older rock stars and (and previous moral panic focii), while others of them were true. But for us, they were all true; true enough to be at once repulsive and fascinating. We were horrified, and our horror heightened yearly or biennially, when he came to our region to play a 2,300-seat venue. Presumably he sold out. There were prayer vigils outside, he was mentioned out over pulpits, his name said in anger; in short, his provocations were successful.

But it was never explained to any of us young ones what his defilements of Christian iconography were actually supposed to mean. We attached no positive superstitious meaning to objects. If anyone had suggested to us that crosses were magical, we would have laughed them off, but somehow we felt, and were encouraged in feeling, that something powerful and evil was being called up from hell by his upside-down neon crosses.

Theologically, it was a case of good teaching, incompletely internalized; we knew that God was sovereign and that witchcraft was doomed, but we didn’t believe that it was doomed quite yet, and we feared it being spread among us through popular (if hookless) music.
Eventually, the star’s light began to dim; he bored of music, and the Church bored of him, and he lost his ability to perform the rock and roll alchemist’s trick that The Clash once called “turning rebellion into money.” And we grew up, and our parents calmed down, and all was well, more or less, but still I wonder about the amount of energy that was wasted.

Young me could name two Marilyn Manson albums, and maybe five songs, but only one historic church council, and probably only one of the five Solas of the Reformation. I do not fault my elders, for they were doing their best to safeguard the kids in their care from what truly was some sinister and morally corrosive entertainment. But I am left with the impression that some energy was misused, some opportunities wasted.