Still under construction...
MSR Spring 2005
Feature:
Blue Collar Theater: A Rap Session with Equity Actors
by Kara RevelFiction
Raising The Rabbit by Jane K. Andrews
Road Man by Dennis VannattaReviews by David Chorlton, Nathan Leslie, Gail J. Peck, S. Craig Renfroe, Richard Allen Taylor, Julie E. Townsend, Neal Wilgus.
of the following work:
The Divine Salt by Peter Blair, The Trail We Leave by Ruben Palma, translated by Alexander Taylor, A Book Of Minutes by Cathy Smith Bowers, Dwight’s House And Other Stories by Meredith Sue Willis, Life As A Weed: Meditations On Plants Unbidden by Ken Burrows, The Leveling Wind by Kell Robertson.Poetry by C.B. Andrews, Cynthia Atkins, Anne Babson, Hugh Fox, Barry Ballard, Barbara Conrad, Llyn Clague, Rob Cook, Justin Courter, Gary Every, Michael D. Riley, Michael H. Ivey, Shane Jones, Clark Karoses, Marie Kazalia, Romella D. Kitchens, Kenneth Leonhardt, Heather Magruder, Stephen Mainard, Matthew McCaw, Ken Meisel, Khrynn Yvonne McManus, Joe Mills, Ronald Moran, Michael O’Reilly, Stephanie Painter, Eric Rawson, Tom Rich, Bill Roberts, Lee Robinson, Karen Sandberg, Mather Schneider, Lianne Spidel, Kelly Thompson, Kelley Jean White.
Cover Art: David Feels Nice, by Taso Papadakis.
Images by Beth Cagle Burt, F. Cameron Hunter, Leslie Miller, Taso Papadakis
Dennis Vannatta
Little Rock, ARRoad Man
Bob was in the pickup with Louis Felts. They were following Boss Hogg’s golf cart down the access road toward the fifth green. Boss couldn’t keep it in the ruts, where the dirt was packed hard as concrete; whenever he strayed to one side or the other, the dust would eddy back across the road toward the pickup. It reminded Bob of winter nights back in Minnesota, car headlights catching the fine snow drifting over the blacktop like a thin layer of smoke. It’d seem peaceful until you got out of the car, and then the wind would cut you in two. “Here comes Montevideo!” his dad would say, invoking the little town to the west near the South Dakota border. When he was very young Bob would expect to see Montevideo houses ripped from their foundations and crashing down the road toward him like giant tumbleweed. Now he lived in Arkansas, and it was dust that drifted the roads and heat that cracked the pavement.
“Lay back from the Hogg a little,” Louis, riding shotgun, said as he rolled up his window against the dust. “I heard once that a man’ll eat a bushel of dirt in his life, but I’d just as soon not get mine all in one day.”
There were a half a dozen fulltime employees at the Hillman Public Golf Course, plus part-time help in the summer, but Bob almost always got paired with Louis. He figured the course superintendent, Doug “Boss” Hogg, thought that because Bob was the quiet type he’d keep a rein on Louis, who about three times a week stopped just short of doing something jackass enough to get fired.
“If that fat son of a bitch thinks I’m going to kill myself in this heat, he’s got another think coming,” Louis said.
“You got that right,” Bob said. If Boss Hogg wanted somebody to keep an eye on Louis, he could damn well do it himself. Bob wasn’t his brother’s keeper.
Boss Hogg stopped short of the fifth green. Bob pulled in behind him and shut the engine off. The second they stopped moving he felt the sweat blooming on his face.
First week of June and already in the ‘90’s. Bob wasn’t sure he could take another summer in Little Rock. He’d lived in Arkansas over two years now, his longest stay in one place since he’d turned eighteen and left home a dozen years ago. Not that he missed Minnesota, hell no. He thought about standing on that blacktop, night, the snow curling around his legs like a living thing, wind cutting him to pieces.
Once Bob had ticked off for Louis all the places he’d lived in since leaving Minnesota, and Louis had whistled appreciatively and said, “Shee-it. To live in all them places, only to wind up dying in Arkansas.”
If it’d been anybody else, Bob would have busted his face for him, but he kind of liked Louis, so he just laughed. But Louis didn’t want to push things too far.
Want the rest of the story?
The conclusion can be read in the Spring 2005 issue which is available direct from MSR for $7 at
The Main Street Rag Bookstore.BACK TO TOP
Ken Meisel
Dearborn, MI
Letter to Kerouac
—Detroit
Lighting a fresh smoke,
outside a club—Detroit—where
love equals motor oil
and a blow job on Woodward
at Seven Mile, I think of
you and Cassady blowing
through here way back,
before the book On the Road
turned you out, you
and Allen—who wrote Howl
and freed the long line
like a stiff erection
for debt to Walt and homo-
sexuality, and, jazz, because
it was jungle, blew—
and that was cool too.
And you and Neal: sailing
through here and stopping
at a peep show on the way
to a hot coffee and the joke
of the auto industry as literature,
what a laugh that must have been,
you popping pills and liquor
and him racing the wheels
of the car: I think you guys
might have been bussing it
by then through here—no sweat—
girls in party jewels
and pints in their purses
and liquored up for sex.
It’s still the same here Jack,
nothing’s different—it’s still
lonely and indifferent,
though your lines in the book
made it special—we got
mentioned in the travelogue.
Jack—the world’s changed
since you fell out on the toilet
like Elvis—him drugged up—
and you full of booze, it’s meaner,
the world you left, and even
more sinister. Though weedy
flowers blossoming near boxcars
and women’s thin necks
still smell sweet and terrific.
And the music still swings—even
the all girl bands you and Neal
would dig on. And, though
Allen’s left us for Dharma,
there’s still Snyder and me
writing poems, and Burroughs
still gets read, though he’s
nuttier than he ever was—he’s
out in the dust bowl now.
And, Jack, literature’s changed
too—it’s not as well, boldly
enthusiastic as yours was, though
I’d like to think you gave
us the keys, Jack, to the escape
hatch—the road. There’s no
place like home Jack, out there,
where the experience makes
or breaks a writer, on the road.
Matthew McCaw
Columbus, OH
The Fire
On July fifth they burned down Ashland township.
The fire surrounded the house
like a ring of wind around Onaiza,
and the gas cans exploded, one by one.
Chris tried to drive away
on the dirt path that led to 130,
and Bridget sprayed the roof with water.
Carmen played on stilts outside our door,
and I laid in your arms
and tasted chocolate off of your tongue.
We didn’t stop.
Even when we heard the glass factory collapse,
and that was at four.
By then the bookstore on Gaskin had burned down.
And the haystacks. And the house by the river.
Then, at six, we heard sirens on 20
just before the last flames burned out.
By then Victoria’s antique bed
was just two posts and a pile of ashes,
and love had lost its seven names.
Danville was as quiet as a child
sleeping at the bottom of a white hill,
a broken wife of heaven,
built of desire and emptiness.
The billboards sent towers of light above the fields,
and the moon hung over Mansfield
like father’s sickle
over mother’s Sunday skirt.
Or like the thousand hours
that passed before we met.
Before Gambier and Hillsboro
and your bright red mouth
and the thousand kisses that I gave you
while we sat on a hilltop high above
the Kokosing River.
Heather Magruder
Taylors, SC
Rosin the Bow
I must keep my spine straight in this ladderback chair.
I have set down my drum to listen to him
pull the bow over the strings.
With every stroke
my back wants
to arch to him.
Notes stretch,
pull me taut.
White rosin
on fiddle,
fingers on neck
press gently.
Bow pulls across.
Notes and chords
seem to be my veins.
I must sit straight. There
is his wife, comfortable
in the easy chair. There
is my husband, casual
against the door. Both of them relaxed—
the notes a cool bath to step out of
and shake dry when it’s done,
while I am left wet
and wanting. I must
sit straight
until he turns
to a slip jig and I
lift my drum, bend
my body to it. Join
my rhythm with his melody.
Romella D. Kitchens
Pittsburgh, PA
Tioga Street
When iwasyoung
the girls used to fight
in the middle of curb
with metal belt buckles
cutting each other in
the face...
The marks were always still
there when they were adults...
These tribal scars of urban…When my turn came to fight
a girl
pulled me into this nightmarish
hell of violence, she had wanted
me sexually but I liked boys
you see, so now she needed to
cut my face and beat me down,
nightmarish hell of violence...
She could beat me, I knew it
already, my dress ripping
so easily in her fingers...
then a friend from class stepped
in and told her ain’t worth it,
she’ll never fight you,
she ain’t worth a shit, all
she do is dream and draw
butterflies and write poetry
and draw pretty good, that‘s
all, why you be wantin’
to hurt her?... The girl thought
about it and let me go. I
wasn’t enough of a challenge. I
wasn‘t violent enough to
cut her face. I wasn‘t violent
enough to not weep at the
thought of hurting her....
Past the junkies, and the trash and
The pit bulls chained to trees
by angry masters, I ran home
and closed my bedroom door,
didn’t eat dinner, nor play
cards that night, just drew.
Home
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