Tramp Quarterly Issue One

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Tramp Quarterly Touching, folding, and otherwise physically manipulating a written work since 2007.

Tramp

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TRAMP IS A NOUN. Tramp is a quarterly publication, exploring in each issue a different topic.

Tr amp belie v es in the v alue of the printed wor d.

A N o t e F r o m Yo u r Editorial Committee

We are publishing this magazine because there are certain things we find to be valuable and enjoyable uses of our time: touching, folding, and otherwise physically manipulating a written work; reading a compelling argument, irrespective of the topic; reading good prose, irrespective of the topic; and, perhaps above all, conveying one’s thoughts to others, if for no other reason than to reaffirm one’s existence in the world. Tramp is our literary equivalent of playing music in the basement with friends for the sheer enjoyment of the sound. We have no higher ambition than printing something we enjoy. Tramp is a drifter. Though we will be meticulous with the red pen, we will be haphazard with our topics, views, and formatting. Everything will be thoroughly vetted for honesty and grammar. Much of it will be funny, intentionally or no. We begin with the theme of Trampiness itself, in all its forms. If we all get lucky, there will be a second issue. Please submit. Welcome to the Quarterly. Yours, Tramp Editorial Committee

TRAMP DOES PATRONIZING Tramp

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TRAMP IS SOMETIMES CHEEKY.

lifestyles.

convention.

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Tr amp is sometimes tongue-in-cheek. Tramp believes there is a time and a place for everything.

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Tramp believes in rambling, shambling, exploring, and generally moving about in a manner that acquaints one with the surroundings. Tramp pays attention to what is going on around it. TRAMP BELIEVES IN THE EVERYDAY, THE COMMONPLACE. TRAMP FINDS INTEREST IN THE MUNDANE. Tramp does not find interest in mundane writing or storytelling. TRAMP IS MORE INTERESTED IN THE QUESTIONS THAN THE ANSWERS. Tramp

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Tramp is looking for quality articles, essays, drawings, short stories and miscellany relating to

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C/O JESS GODDEN SEND SUBMISSIONS TO: 7201 RIDGE BLVD. APT. F8 NY 11209 T R A M P M A G @ G M A I L . C O M BROOKLYN, BY SEPTEMBER 1, 2007 If you want your submission to come home to you, you’d better include that SASE.

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TRAMP DOES NOT BELIEVE IN PRINTING ITEMS THAT ARE NOT OF INTEREST. TRAMP RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REJECT ANYTHING FOR ANY REASON.

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C R E D I T S

BRIAN BLAKE:EXECUTIVE A

NNA Brian Blake is a wholesome PERLEatheist from Palo Alto, California. He has a fear of heights. B E R G : D

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ZVI M A R V I T: C H I C A G O CORRESPONDENT

MOSHE ZVI MARVIT IS IN CHICAGO, AND ON EARLY TUESDAY MORNINGS HE CAN BE FOUND ON THE CORNER OF STATE AND LAKE. THE GREEN LANTERN PRESS HAS RECENTLY RELEASED A COLLECTION OF HIS SHORT STORIES UNDER THE TITLE URBESQUE. ON WEDNESDAYS, HE CAN BE FOUND IN HYDE PARK.

LIZZY

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SPECIAL THANKS TO PETER LAWSON.

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ACKER:

W R I T E R “I’M FROM OREGON. I’m going to grad school in San Francisco. I am working as a sort of park ranger in Washington for the summer. I really wish I was a surfer. I saw a bear in the woods on Sunday. I support athletic teams only on the basis of name and colors except for the Portland Trail Blazers who I support because they used to have C l y d e D r e x l e r . ”

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EDITORIAL WHIP

ERIC F R O D S H A M J E S S Anna Per le ber g is a bi-polar Buddhist Catholic who likes to go for walks a n d f i g h t e n t r o p y.

GA R OT DD IDR EEC TNO R:

P U B L I S H E R JESSICA GODDEN CHECKS TOO MANY BOOKS OUT OF THE LIBRARY AT ONCE. SHE KICKS ASS AT SPIDER SOLITAIRE.

CHARLOTTE L AT H A M :

EDITOR AT LARGE

CHARLOTTE LATHAM IS A

WOMAN. A BUSY E R I C

G O D D E N :FRODSHAM:

P O E T LAURA GODDEN, A CALIFORNIAN, IS A STUDENT WHO WOULD MUCH RATHER LEARN THE ART OF FIGHTING CRIME AT THE SIDE OF THE DARK KNIGHT THAN ABOUT PSYCHOLOGY, BUT SHE ENJOYS SCHOOL ANYWAY.

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P O E T Eric Frodsham is a filmmaker,

minor league pitcher, and new father living in Austin, TX. [this is page 21]

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so squeezed, a pent up lovelorn seizure of alp top crispness, a loss of stability, that slanted unisex our last standoffstarry eyed and believable– as the chagrin of sadness overturned into a molten pot of stagnant withdrawal, a radiation stretching the length of oceans time zone mileage, so much sympathy and not nearly enough days left to waste– wading the impossible waters of practically, simple matters beating us down, the slow movement of a cracked whip–emanate, looming, a hateful matter of black death fucking our intimate junction, putting what we had at odds with what we are– two different creatures– both desperate to be ardent darlings, inculpable of the listless zeal that has suffocated the once relevant fixture of embattled rapture– a battered crush of destitute calamity

by Eric Frodsham

by Eric Frodsham

-3GU I LT Y R AG E O F FINALITY

RICHARD’S SELF PORTRAIT At first it sounds kind of sweet, her last lover–I suppose–an artist– a little maladjusted, like so many are, their method, that madness–penetrating like a bayonet, a self serving purge of joy, a division of unrest this stamped fulfillment squirting rage like lighter fluid. The power of man, breathing fire into his custom fit punching bag, her cunt– such warm flesh, such availability– the crescent of his release– the muse of scourged malevolence stretching open with his corrosion, hammered with such velocity like a two-car collision, whenever he wanted it, the bait at the end of his excess– the fingers always finding what they wanted– a swollen array of used skin– her face smashed to the floor, the prick of needles puncture, lodging this hate, this self-portrait– a black metal fist rousing the vulgar hostility of monsters release.

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And I just wish it translated for me, wish that I could always know what I know: that waxing my bikini line was more about waxing my bikini line than about removing my hair. That what is important is the comfort of friends touching each other, of women being happy to be naked together, finally not wondering whether they think I’m ugly, different, hairy, not okay, because we know that we all wonder and we’re beautiful. I wish it felt real that we are beautiful and that we didn’t have to rip hair from our bodies to see each other. To see the beauty in all parts and ways we keep it. Every non-geometric and straight-line shape of us. Every sexual and non-sexual full flesh body. Every removed and present hair of us. Every wish and fantasy and calm. Every organ and passage. Every touch, embrace. Every freedom and fear. But it doesn’t translate, and we take the acceptance we can get with the pain required to get it.

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THE CLICHÉ

The literary cliché was born in 1892 in a comparative anatomy textbook. It was not used in the 20th century outside of this comparative anatomy textbook until it was employed to describe a set of motives in the 28th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is not surprising that the term has proliferated so widely in just over a century. Nor is it surprising that the first use of the term was in an anatomy textbook, so long as it was comparative. The surprising thing is that the term did not exist before the turn of the 20th century. Well into the modern era, after Kant and Hegel and Marx, after the Civil War, and after Frege had mapped out the foundations of what was called at the time “common-sense philosophy,” there was still no way to describe the overflowing concept that is the cliché. Of course, this question of what we had before the cliché has now become a cliché, so it will not be investigated here. Instead, the question will remain throughout: what is the cliché? Though we all fill in the blanks of our lives with its easy colors, and though everyone tries to be original in the matters one holds important, very few have stopped to ask what the benefits and uses are of the cliché. The cliché is perfect, easily communicable, and marks an end. The perfection of the cliché should not be understood primarily in terms of value, but rather in its denotation of completion, or absence of absence. Though its positive connotation is in part intended, this position flows from its neutral quality of perfection. The cliché is as whole as a literary piece can be. Though the incompleteness and ambiguity of language is constantly bemoaned by analytic philosophers and mature seventeen year-olds, the cliché offers an escape. It offers a rare moment of language serving as an exact coincidence and representation of that which it was intended to describe. The cliché is also supremely communicable, as it means the same thing leaving the speaker’s lips as it does entering the listener’s ears. There is no gap or possibility for miscommunication within the cliché. Of course, the application of the cliché is according to the discretion of the speaker and may be as easily misapplied as any other turn of phrase. If a man inserts himself in the middle of a line and then justifies himself to the lady behind him with the following cliché, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” then the cliché is perfectly clear. But he is confused. This understanding that the onus lies in the application rather than within the cliché allows one to see that the cliché is as a weapon. One must choose his weapon carefully, knowing full well that it must be appropriate to the situation and that another weapon may be used against it. The cliché can be countered and contradicted by another cliché. This is, in part, a mark of its perfection. Each cliché is a complete system, wherein no internal elements are antithetical. But when two systems come into contact, they often contradict each other on their own terms. The cliché has a remedy to this tension. It switches the focus from commensurability to comparability. To make commensurate is to be original. It is to recognize complexity and immanent difference and yet seek common enough

by Moshe Zvi Marvit

looking pre-pubescent taking away the reminders of womanhood and strength one at a time. Delilah bent over Sam Ripping out her hair in a declaration of sisterhood “All we’re removing is hair, right? Because I feel like I’ve lost something else…” Sam short for Samantha this time, And she asks for it willingly: I’ll cut it off myself.

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elements for an ordinal understanding. To compare is to reduce bodies to their most commonly known elements and then hold the objects within view. It is an unfair, but highly useful act. Dust jackets require comparisons to Hemingway and Joyce, though these comparisons belie their efforts. To make the whole world commensurable is the near impossible task of being an artist. The artist places the two editions on the same shelf and understands them beside each other. To make the whole world comparable is to be agreeable, it is the action of an individual on a first date. This man is constantly trying to sell. The closing is said to be a thrill for the salesman, but it is agony for the artist. The closing, or end, is always a cliché. How could it be otherwise? To finish neatly, where all the elements wrap up nicely, is cheap. To end arbitrarily, and thereby imply that life—real life—does not have quaint endings, has been done before and is no more tender. The ending must then be a cliché of the author’s own choosing. It is why every instance that a novelist has defined the novel, whether Sterne’s Tristam Shandy, Proust’s Remembrance, or Joyce’s Ulysses, the format has been dually declared epitomized and dead. How can one begin a work of genius when the ending must necessarily be recycled? This question has no answer and suggestions will not be attempted here. In order to avoid the cliché, there must be a sense for the creative impulse. It is indeed a nice thought to picture the author alone in his study creating a text from nowhere. Or perhaps listening to the melodic tones of a muse. But to imagine creation taking this form is to imagine the quaint artist, the eccentric painter, the reclusive genius. These are all personality traits, but not traits of creation. The creative process begins and ends in the interpretation of the world. The way one approaches the world, postures before it, and makes meaning of situations, is the act of creation. Everything else is filtering, reduction to formats—the forms already in place. The act of creation is in interpreting events as original. It is understanding the differences and similarities of a man on his knees in a church and a man on his knees at a porn shop. The subsequent acts of arrangement and connectives are as acts of taxidermy or quilt-making. That is, they are recycling. But if creation is in original interpretation then the artist is splintered. And once again, the cliché is whole and perfect. In its perfection, it is easily transferable—a fungible good. When it is offered, it is offered as an answer, with all the qualities of finality and endings that answers carry with them. So once again the cliché sneaks to the end; and the end taints the beginning. The investigation

drawing: anna perleberg

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like giving a friend a nickname. We were that close. So close that these words were born, I’m sure never heard before: “Whose hand is on my clit?” And we laughed, and I laughed almost too hard to breathe, because it was my thumb resting so unknowingly on my friend’s clitoris. And she had to ask who. We were that close. I just wish it translated for everyone else. We mused that we could never do this with other friends, that our group became home where we could show ourselves. I wish it translated to being in the world. But in seventy-eight degree weather, I kept my sweatshirt on because I was afraid people would notice I hadn’t shaved my armpits in a couple of days and yes, I like the way my pubic area looks when there is only a triangle of neat, clean, hair but I wish that that could be the only reason that I ripped out my own hair. I wish that it didn’t matter the way people looked at me or what my friends in high school thought. But I know that’s what is keeping my sweatshirt on when it’s so hot and I just want to take it off remove with ripping strips of dripping wax that insecurity that need for approval. I don’t give a fuck what you think, but tell me anyway and oh, you want to fuck? Well, since I’m the woman I will suck, and if I want to get head it’s got to be bare. The way to be a sexual woman is to have no hair. Razors named after a goddess, Venus would be so proud of us,

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ON WAXING MY BIKINI LINE

again leads back to the practicality of starting something originally while knowing that it will have to end generically. The central concern of this question cannot be answered here. But a secondary concern of motivations can be teased to some degree. In particular, the question of motivations for this essay will be answered. Perhaps this essay begs the question: “Why now?” Why question the cliché, which has become nearly ubiquitous, more than one hundred years after it was first used to describe comparative anatomy and sets of motives? The answer will not satisfy, because it is not a cliché. It will not fully answer, again, because it is not a cliché. The answer arises out of circumstances; it is because a new text has been written that can accurately be described as circumscribing the topics of comparative anatomy and motives. It goes beyond inter-special anatomy and encyclopedic intentionality and explores the anatomy of bodies, cities, and language. Its motors are intentionality and motivation, and its governor (if we can extend the mechanical metaphor now in use) is the cliché. The text is God Bless the Squirrel Cage. It is both a plea and a prayer, the title that is. In the text, the cliché becomes a religious matter, whether devil or god, to a devout atheist. Its name is not to be spoken, but its reach is felt constantly. The text explodes the cliché by overworking it, turning it on its head, and eventually understanding its immense benefits and uses. The work that the text does, that we need it to do, ultimately allows this essay to close thusly: Le fin.

by Laura Godden

It was worth it; I loved the way I looked afterwards, after the red skin had calmed with my adrenaline, lotion slathered. But not worth it in the same way that at the end of labor you have a baby. Those hours of nakedness and exposure to two women I trust were my little baby. What I got out of those many minutes of pain was loving my vagina and loving theirs.

Something happens when you’re that close to someone, when you’re that open with your sex organ in such a non-sexual way. Something happens when you remove judgment and pair self awareness with acceptance. Something happens and you find yourself happy, despite lift after painful lift, you find yourself laughing and smiling in between “FUCK,” “God DAMNIT that hurt,” and “Owie, owie, owie.” While my friends were familiarly touching, almost as if it was their own body; my womanhood was being explored, not in the way that Girls Gone Wild tapes promise, but in the way that one-year-old children don’t know yet that it’s not okay to play with themselves, in the way that the wind is unembarrassed about lifting a woman’s skirt, in the way that I’ve always wanted to feel about my vagina. We started to shorten the word,

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photograph: moshe zvi marvit

Ripping pubic hair out really, really hurts. Everyone expects this and I know intimately after forty-five minutes of my own being pulled out by the root; one of my best friends at the helm of my pubic bone, shushing and apologizing for the pain I had asked for, almost welcomed, and she coos at me like a mother, “Look how good you’re doing!”

6 GOD BLESS THE SQUIRREL CAGE (PERFECT PAPERBACK)

by Nicholas Sarno III; introduction by Gerry Kapolka, cover art by Mat Daly CHICAGO: GREEN LANTERN PRESS, 2006 ◊◊◊◊ ISBN: 097857561X AVAILABLE VIA: THEGREENLANTERN.ORG OR AT AMAZON.COM

by Brian Blake

ECONOMICS AND FELLATIO Desire is vicissitudinous. In a way, being lonely is worse than wanting alcohol. At least when you want a drink you know roughly what course to take to satisfy the craving. But when you are single and want sex, how exactly do you satiate yourself? Sometimes porn will do, but sometimes you want someone to talk to. When I visited Amsterdam, my friends and I spent a lot of time wandering the Red Light district. That was all we did at night, all five nights we were there, just wander up and down the streets looking at the women in the doorways, women for sale. It was exhilarating. Some of the ladies were particularly memorable, like one who looked to weigh over two hundred pounds. She would rap on her glass door, then wave a foot-long rubber dildo at passers-by who turned to look. One night, we passed a woman who made us all stop. She looked Greek or Italian, with dark hair and olive skin. A tight white sweater hugged tightly against her enormous fake breasts. The best part was that she was wearing glasses: thick-rimmed, Buddy Holly-style glasses. We all stared. Then the door to her left snapped open. It had been closed with the curtain pulled, which meant that there was business being transacted. A young Turkish man was shoved unceremoniously out the door, and his shoes flew after him. The hooker, taller and younger than the one who had caught our attention, screeched at the Turk in broken and unconfident English to get out. He had used up his fifteen minutes, and had been unable to get it up. The hooker with the glasses stuck her head out and started to screech as well. The Turk tried to fight his way back in, but his hooker was having none of it. He started to curse her in Turkish, then shoved her wildly. There was a loud thump as the girl’s head hit the wall inside. The Turk and his friends walked away quickly. I watched them as they went. If I had seen the leader earlier, I would have said he looked too pretty to beat up women. My companions and I wandered morosely into a bar up the street. After a round of beers we forgot the incident. “Brian, you’ve got to do that girl.” “Oh man, I don’t know…” “No, it’s decided. You’re fucking that hooker.” “I really don’t know if I want to fuck a hooker.” “Listen, we’ll pay. It’s your birthday.” “Yeah, come on Brian, you’re our knight! You’re our champion!” I finally gave in. I didn’t need much convincing. I had hoped they

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(16) I pick up things lying on the ground. feathers—blue jay, crow cottonwood fluff a leaf as big as my hand beaver-marked bark vertebra, rib, piece of jawbone from a deer seedpods, pinecones, coral a rusty rock, stain and shape reminiscent of Virgin and Child white toadstool, white feather, found within six feet of each other rubber-tipped doorstop 5/8” drill bit tiny white paintbrush shards of vase; side and vestigial handle of a coffee mug purple and white scarf, on a hydrant across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art blue Old Navy tank top, in a parking lot; it didn’t fit ticket stub for a Feb. 2004 performance of “The Vagina Monologues” the three of spades; the four, eight, and ace of clubs, separately; a joker, from the casino-blighted sand of Grand Cayman broken and crushed jewelry, now adorning the polished-wood body of a kneeling tribeswoman; an intended candleholder, she instead holds aloft a shallow bowl of dried red beans piece of license plate holder: “BROOKLYN, N.Y.” The Modern Home Physician, published between the discovery of penicillin and the polio vaccine grocery list: “milk lotion cereal white bread cin raisin bagels. oj icecream fizzy H2O laun bags ant traps. —beans (reg) fish cheese raviolli beef nice bread bananas” Jehovah’s Witness Bible (“Only 144,000 go to heaven” says appendix; “Transfusions violate sacredness of blood”), inscribed with hearts, flowers, and an ice cream cone by Pilar Geideman 107 screws and bolts, none alike, between 3/8 and 13 1/2 inches in length bouquet of pink roses, Michele’s wedding stuffed Easter bunny, smiling wide into a mud puddle

PERLEBERG

(15) steradian pasadena complicity A steradian is a measurement of a solid angle, so if you were to go to the confluence of highways 605 and 210 and stand or lean forward or do parvnakonasana (side-angle pose) you’d be in steradians’ purview. Take any walk anywhere, in fact, and the measurement follows you, whether you’ve got a protractor or not. Isn’t it odd, though, that we maintain Newtonian spaces though our top scientists know different? As if Prozac had been invented but most people still drilled holes in skulls. Just pretend, logic whispers, it’s insignificant. But I know from my walks that everything is important, as I scan the ground: dropped jewelry, portentous playing cards, shards of pottery, coins identifiable only by size, feathers and pine cones, and once a stuffed Easter bunny smiling into a puddle in the middle of the street.

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would talk me into it. I had never imagined myself as one who would pay for sex. Growing up, I thought the only men who paid for sex were over forty and fat, usually bald. Possibly serial killers. I was none of those, but I was still willing to shell out my friends’ money to fuck this hooker. What did that mean? I approached the door. The hooker opened it a crack. “Fifty?” she asked. How was I to know what a fair price for her pussy was? The seller was the only one who knew the product. I took her at her word. I stepped into her room, and she pulled the curtain. Right away I told her it was my first time with a hooker. I figured it would be best to get that out in the open. She explained the rules. For my friends’ fifty euros I was entitled to a “suck and fuck,” and for thirty more she would take her top off and allow me to touch her. There was to be no kissing, and a condom was mandatory. I found all this reasonable. I stood idle for a few seconds, and she informed me that I had to take off my clothes. I took them off and lay on the bed. The hooker put the condom on my limp penis and started to suck it. I was nervous. What if I couldn’t get it up? Would she be disappointed? Would she make fun of me later with her boyfriend? Fortunately, everything worked properly. I laid my head back and started to enjoy it. I was getting sucked by a hooker! I rubbed her breasts. It was my first time with silicon, and it wasn’t bad. Then there was a loud thump next door. Jesus, I thought, that girl next door is having a rough night. My hooker pulled my penis out of her mouth and yelled something in a Slavic language. The muffled response came and her fears must have been assuaged, because she went back to work. After a few more minutes she straightened up. “I think we’re ready now,” she said, and as she lay back she wiped some lube on her pussy with her fingers. She pulled me over and guided me in. I told her that she felt good, which was a lie. I have a friend who once told his girlfriend that fucking her was akin to throwing a hotdog down a hallway. My hooker was no hallway, but she certainly lacked grip. Since it was my first time, she thought it would be good to explain some tricks of her trade. “You see how I keep my ass in the air like this while we fuck? That’s so I can see the condom, to make sure that it’s still on.” “Oh…” She started to moan and rub my balls. I climaxed and leaned on

her. Apparently this is unusual. She told me that most men get up as soon as they finish and hurry out. “I like you,” she said, “I can tell you like women.” I explained that I didn’t see anything to be ashamed of. I got up, dressed, and gave her the extra thirty for the touching. She kissed me on the cheek. It was the most honest purchasing transaction of my life.

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friend is crazy. My brilliant friend Emily who used to live in a haunted house. And I am playing it off like I have it worse off than she does. Like it’s about me. As usual I am being manipulative. Don’t fall for it. Remember, I am a whore. I doubt I am the good guy in all of this. If you are still reading: You don’t have to read any further if you don’t want to. I think that night I fell asleep with my mouth around the boy’s penis because two bottles of wine plus two mixed drinks is a lot to handle. I think he told me again he loved me and I know he told me he wanted to keep kissing me forever. What I told him is unclear. Though it wasn’t as pathetic as what I told that other boy over across the ocean, it probably sounded like, “I shouldn’t have kissed you, huh? Now you aren’t even going to like me any more.” If he told me I was beautiful I said, “What, are you on cocaine?” and if he told me I was the only girl he wanted to be with I said, “Yeah right, the only girl on this carpet.” All of those are very highly probable options. The worst part is that it wasn’t until the morning that I realized I was just pretending to want to convince him how badly I sucked. In the morning I felt his arm under my head and saw his blue eyes and his freckles and just hoped and hoped he wouldn’t get up and move to the couch. Boys are always moving to the couch. I know it’s hard to make generalizations about things but when you are either a girl boys just want to have sex with and not marry or a girl boys don’t want to have sex with and don’t want to marry either, you have to come to terms with things like, boys don’t like you after awhile. After a while they want to go to sleep. So if they are humans, they move to the couch. If they are super evil monsters, they tell you to go to the couch. Some of them are super evil monsters, but the majority are at least humans. But this one did not move directly to the couch. He lay there and asked what I was doing when I touched his face. It occurred to me creeps touch people’s faces and therefore I’m a creep. But I kept doing it anyway because I’m not scared of touching people at all, though maybe I should be. Also, I’m not scared when they touch me. I guess I can’t really say what it is I’m scared of. Maybe that I’m a pregnant schizophrenic soon-to-be lesbian. Or maybe it’s just those infinite couches, stretching out, so far away.

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because my contacts don’t agree with this climate. My clothes are all either much too tight or much too baggy. I’m ugly. You don’t have any excuse to love me or think I am beautiful. Boy: You are beautiful, I love you. Me: Do you know any other words besides ‘You are beautiful’ and ‘I love you’? Boy: Yes! Yes! I love you, you are beautiful.

After the Long Island Iced Teas we all had Lemon Drops because I said that is what we should have. I felt a little bad when they turned out to be six dollars each but I kept dancing and pretended I hadn’t heard the price. After the Lemon Drops the DJ stopped the music and asked us politely to leave. We, being polite kids, left politely. On the walk back I lost the boys for a couple of blocks when they went to pee and look at the river. I knew I better just head straight back or else I would get lost, no matter who was walking beside me. So the boys found me again, floundering around outside a 24-hour Mexican take-out place. I wonder who drove by and saw me there, dancing alone with a cigarette like I must have been. But so we walked back to the house where we were staying and picked places to sleep. And will you get this, when I was asked to sleep on the floor with that one boy, I agreed. And although I pretended to be pretending that I wanted to, really honestly, I wanted to. What I believe my unfortunate teacher failed to realize is that I’m no heartless slut. No, I’m a whore with feelings. A better haiku for me would be this one:

Haiku for a Whore Who Just Wants Love Julia might say: I’ll blow you ’cause I love you I might say that too. Here is probably where I should tell the most recent story of my neurotic mind. Or maybe a story about schizophrenia, which I mentioned earlier. My brother thinks he’s schizophrenic but he isn’t. But I have a friend Emily who is. Or she’s manic-depressive. I don’t know because it’s pretty hard to bring that up with someone over lunch and anyway, I haven’t had lunch with her in three years. It’s just stories I’ve heard where Emily crashes her car into a ditch and stays at Mike Anderson’s house for a week talking non-stop about her dad who’s in the Mafia and chasing her. Emily doesn’t shower or eat, and Mike doesn’t know her because they went to different high schools and doesn’t know what to do but lets her stay there anyway until Emily just wakes up one day and walks home. It would be sick to say I am jealous of Emily. If she knew I said something like that she would probably never speak to me again. But as it is we aren’t speaking, and maybe I am a little jealous of Emily. She knows the enemy at least. At least she can be sure she actually is crazy. But wait: What does this have to do with anything? Why does it matter? My

On the corner the boys were rapping Dr. Dre songs, and I was finishing our bottle of wine. When a police car drove by the only person who wasn’t scared was me, because I just don’t get scared by police cars. I just don’t get scared by a lot of things I’m supposed to be scared of, I think. I get scared of the wrong things. This is the kind of story I’ll tell you when I am drunk: One of the first things I can remember thinking is that I was pregnant. I think I was three. And then four and then five. And I knew I was pregnant. It might seem strange to you that such a little kid would even have any concept of pregnancy, but since my mom was a nurse midwife, it really isn’t too hard to believe. I mean, I can’t think of a time when I didn’t know where babies come from and how they are made. So I knew, at three, that a girl had to have her period AND had to have sex before she could have a baby. And I knew neither of these things had ever happened to me. But still, I was pretty fucking sure I was pregnant. I didn’t tell anybody because I knew how truly horrible it was for a three year old to be pregnant. I just cried for my mommy when I woke up after a dream of giving birth and when she asked me what I dreamed about I would just say, “I dreamed I was really sick.” So it went on like this for about three years with me being almost constantly terrified someone would find out my awful secret. I remember one time in Perkins Restaurant right before we moved away from Wisconsin. We were having dinner with family friends. And I was just so scared. I kept imagining myself wrapped up like a mummy in the walls, sort of conscious but mostly dead. Because at least dead they wouldn’t know the truth about how depraved I was. Then I was five. The most disgusting pregnant five-year old ever. This is another story I’ll tell you when I’m drunk: Last year a teacher read a story I wrote and sat me down in her office and said, “Now honey, I’m just telling you this for you. There are some girls boys just want to have sex with who they don’t want to marry.” She said it implying that I was that kind of girl, which actually didn’t make me feel very good at all. When she said it I started crying not because I was broken open and she had discovered all the flaws in my character but because I always start crying when I’m mad and I can’t think of anything to say back. The funny thing is, the funny sad thing is, that there wasn’t even any sex in my stupid story. I’ve never even had sex with anybody. Which means maybe I’m the kind of girl boys don’t want to have sex with and don’t want to marry either. We finished our wine and kept walking towards the bar downtown. One of the boys kept trying to kiss me like he always does and I kept pushing him away perfunctorily, like I always do. He usually proposes to me and tells me he loves me and things like that and I have to say his story is hard to believe because I’ve seen him tell it

ON BEING THE SLUT I WAS B O R N TO BE

by Lizzy A c k e r

(10) fiction

11 to plenty of other girls before. But I felt bad for that boy because he does have such bad timing. He’s always trying to kiss me at weddings when people are watching, or in my boyfriend’s room, or when I’m fifteen and therefore pretty scared of 20year-old men. I hoped soon he would figure out my secret, about me being a whore who boys want to sleep with and not marry. Because I was bored and willing to believe he loved me for a couple of hours if that’s what it took. Actually, truthfully, I wasn’t bored at all. A story I won’t tell you when I am drunk is this one: I eventually stopped believing I was pregnant. But then when I was eight a man came to the door with some information on a ballot measure. Measure 9, I think. You can still see people around here and up and down the valley with purple bumper stickers that say “NO ON 9!” But the man who came to my door had a pamphlet that said instead: “Support Family Values! Yes On 9!” For some reason I opened the door. This is dangerous and I shouldn’t have done it, especially since I was home alone and I was an eight-year-old little girl. But I was in my Holocaust phase then and I spent all my time reading books like The Devils Arithmetic, Number the Stars and The Diary of Anne Frank and thinking of ways I would escape the Nazis. I knew if they came back, I was just Jewish enough to be taken. But I also knew if they came back I was smart enough and small enough to get away from them. At 8 I almost wished to be captured, just for a challenge. “Just try to put me in ovens you stupid Nazis,” I’d think. “I know every trick in the world. I’ll be in Sweden before you can even think of putting me in a boxcar.” So the man at the door, a possible kidnapper, was an interesting challenge. Except his attack was one I could not have anticipated back then. Because he didn’t try to kidnap me. He just handed me his pamphlet. Which of course I read because what else did I do back then except read and think? And one of the stories it contained scared me even more than Hitler. It was a story about a lesbian PE teacher who made her whole class lesbians without them even knowing it. See, Measure 9 was about getting rid of homosexuals or something, I really can’t be sure. But that story just destroyed me. I was Anne Frank; I could escape from any physical danger. Those stupid Nazis were no problem. But someone taking over my mind was a completely different story. I was exposed. There was nowhere I could turn. I would become a lesbian when I grew up and there was nothing I could do. My mindpregnancy lasted for three years only. My fear of becoming a lesbian when I grew up lasted for ten. I think all stories should have a lot of parts because I can never think of one thing long enough to write more than 400 words about it. Then I have to move on. But I don’t like poetry either, at least not very much. Like, how could you write a poem about your teacher thinking you’re a dirty slut? You could write a haiku maybe. Here’s one:

Haiku About How I’m Like a Cheap Hooker Boys have sex with me But marry more wholesome girls Are my boobs too big?

But regular poetry just wouldn’t work there; you can see that. I didn’t tell you the second part of my true teacher story. The second part is: After much deliberation, I went and told my teacher I wanted to write a new story because this one was just too important to write in an environment where it seemed my character was being analyzed instead of my writing. When I said this she looked at me with serious eyes and said, “Now honey, have you been to the counseling center? I think you really need to talk to a counselor; you obviously have some serious issues with perfection. No, really,” she said when I protested, “I’ll call them for you; I know some people there and we can get you right in.” I cried again because damn, she beat me. At the bar there was no one I knew besides the boys who brought me. One of them bought a round of Long Island Iced Teas and then went to talk to a new guy he met named Mike. Another one found his girlfriend (who I didn’t know) and went off with her somewhere. So it was just the last boy and me. The next time he tried to kiss me I kissed him back for a second and then said, “Geez, man, there are people here.” But I think he got the point. Then we talked for a long time since all our friends were gone. The Long Island Iced Tea was strong enough to let me kiss him longer, a couple more times. He told me about his real life job, reporting on the scientific news down in Southern Oregon. I pretended like I was pretending to be interested. Really, I was interested. Also, and more importantly, I pretended like I was pretending that I thought he was cool. Really, I thought he was cool. Maybe you are wondering what changed when I was 18, why I wasn’t scared anymore that one day I would become a lesbian. Well truthfully, it was a more gradual process than that. But I guess, well hopefully anyway, most illogical fears come into contact with the actual universe at some point. And after they battle each other, unless you are schizophrenic or something, the actual universe wins. I really hope I am not schizophrenic. And anyway, when I was 18 is when I finally had a boyfriend who I really loved so then my brain only had time for this one single thought: “How could he possibly love me back? How could he possibly love me back?” (repeat) When I was 17 I went to this country where all the boys would yell at you and tell you they loved you all the time. At first I was psyched because no boys besides my relatives ever told me they loved me at all. But after some hard learned lessons (I made out with like, sixteen of them) (see, I am that girl), I realized they either wanted me because I was a) white, b) American or c) rich. I’m not really rich but sometimes people believe weird things about other people. Like a couple of them thought I knew Tupac. Here is a true-life conversation I had with one of those very boys:

12

Boy: You are beautiful, I love you. Me: How could you possibly love me? I met you about two minutes ago. Boy: I love you, you are beautiful. Me: Are you joking me? In the past two months I’ve gained 30 pounds. My skin is covered in zits. My eyes are bright red