| Featured Book |
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| Just West of Famous |
| Charles Baxter doesn't pull any punches when he answers Lisa Coutant's questions in this month's author interview.
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| In this issue: |
An encore poem from Gol McAdam
Claire Litton's amazing Authenticity Leads
A collection of poetry from Craig Kirchner
New fiction from Maria Pollack and Josh Stewart
Plus great poetry from Corie Feiner, Gary Wilkins, and Sherry Pasquerello |
| Coming Next Month |
Anne Frasier has some fresh ideas about how to boost her book sales,
Ron Hogan is the ultimate literary insider - and next month he's going to take the Picolata Review into his world for an exclusive look around.
Plus:More great poetry, short fiction, and features. Enough great writing to satisfy any literary palate.
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| The Picolata Review |
Managing Editor Mark Pettus is a full time journalist in St. Augustine, Florida, and author of the novel, Transit Gloria
Features Editor Lisa Coutant is a consultant, former writer for the Philadelphia Theatre Review, and a fiction writer. She is also Vice President of the professional writing group, Pennwriters.
Poetry Editor Andy H-H., is a poet who lives in the beautiful countryside of West Yorkshire
with his partner and a menagerie of pets (a sheep occasionally stares in through the kitchen window), in a home surrounded by literary history. Ted Hughes was born there, Sylvia Plath is buried nearby, and first Emily Bronte, then Kate
Bush, made a certain stretch of desolate land five minutes' walk away very famous indeed.
Fiction Editor Serenity Banks's day job is as an industry magazine editor. She also writes an online sex-advice column, and is trying to find an agent for her latest horror novel.
The Picolata Review is a monthly online publication, and a place to find emerging writers and poets. We welcome you, and hope we'll see you again. If you forget our address, look for us just a little west of famous. |
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| Volume 1, Number 2 August, 2006 |
| Powerful new fiction from Hannah Pfeifle |
Midwinter Thaw
Mid-afternoon and it's already dark. I have the covers up close to my chin and my eyes squeezed shut and I ignore Tully's whispered "Babe," even though I've been lying here awake for hours waiting for him.
"It's three in the afternoon."
I roll over, dragging my arm over my face to block out the artificial light Tully has flipped on.
"I thought you were up," he says. "Sarah?"
He nudges me with his foot but won't get down on the bed next to me. He kneels down enough to poke me hard in the ribs until I hit him back. "We're going to be late," he finally says.
I untangle myself with effort from my old blankets I can't bear to throw out. My quilt is approaching threadbare but still prettier than anything else I own and there's the electric blanket with no electricity that Dad bought me during the coldest winter on record. The many layers prove difficult to maneuver after a night of drinking, hard on the stomach.
"We could stay here," I say. "Skip it. Get naked. I'm already half way there." I hold my head in my hands between my spread legs and massage my skull.
"Sarah," Tully sighs and eyes my splayed stomach. "It's my brother."
"I know. I was kidding." I kiss him with last night's breath and he forgives me.
"I'm not saying that later we can't, you know." He gestures at my bare skin, my underwear.
"Is this really what I'm going to wear?" I ignore him and hold up the outfit laid out on the chair against my body. "It's not too appropriate?"
"I thought we agreed you would be appropriate?" He sighs his sigh because this is what I do with clothes. I dress and can't help thinking this ensemble would look so much better with a ring on my finger. Six years together like it's never crossed his mind.
"It's too soon," Tully says, about his brother's wedding.
"Maybe they just know," I say. "I think it's sweet."
"I never thought my younger brother would get married before me."
I try to change the subject. "I've always wanted to fuck the best man."
The drive to the church takes longer than we thought. We go to the Episcopalian one first, only to find it empty. Tully curses under his breath and reverses too fast. We hit a patch of black ice and turn two-thirds of a donut before Tully rights us again. In high school we did it on purpose.
"I didn't know it was going to be Catholic," I say, as Tully speeds along.
Tully shrugs. "I forgot he went on that retreat with her. Got religion."
"I should have eaten something," I say, dreading the long service.
Tully stops in a space in an empty row removed from the other cars in the lot. He turns the engine all the way off so even Patti Smith on the tape player falls dead. He rests his forehead on the steering wheel, collecting himself.
"Maybe this will help," I say, holding up a joint. Tully seems surprised so I add, "We always smoke before weddings."
"I'll see you inside," Tully says and gets out of the car without looking at me. "I've got to be the greeter."
I'm grateful to the parking lot for being damp and dark and empty. Even the little houses that line the street, they all have their lights on early, but you can tell no one is looking out. The lights are always on in winter here.
I smooth out the silk dress pants my mom bought me for Christmas.
"I should've worn a dress, shouldn't I 'ave," I whisper to myself. Maybe it would have endeared Tully's family to me more.
Other cars pull up and we are not as late as I thought. Tully has the clock in the car set ahead. The car has cooled enough for me to see my breath. I'm shaking not just from the cold seeping into the car, whose rusted edges on the exterior invite it in. I wipe dust from the heating vents, not wanting to be the first one in the church, so I can be reminded of what I do not have.
After the wedding Tully's the one to take me to Tony's. "A dry wedding?" he fumes. "A dry wedding? This is who my brother invites into our family?"
"I give you the night off and you come back and rub it in my face?" Tony yells at me from his table in the back of his room as soon as we walk in the door. "Bring me a drink!"
Tully and I take seats at the bar and Carolyn hands me a bottle of scotch and a couple of glasses from the other side on her way past so we can help ourselves. She brings Tony the drink he asked me for and knows she won't get a tip.
We drink quickly. I try to be cheerful, which I think Tully finds disconcerting. "So she doesn't drink. It was a nice ceremony, though, don't you think? The flowers and things."
"Easy for you to say. You didn't have to stand for an hour and a half."
"I liked her dress."
"You want something that pouffy? She looked like a cupcake."
I sip my drink and try to picture myself under all that tulle, plastic beading, lace, and ribbons. "You're right," I consent. "It was an ugly dress. I was just trying to be nice."
"It really doesn't suit you," Tully says. He looks at me, then laughs. He nuzzles his nose into my neck and kisses me there. "You know I love you," he whispers. Each of Tully's parents has been married three times. To him, love means never having to say will you marry me.
"Isn't that Mark Sullivan?" I ask a little while later and Tully follows my look to the end of the bar. Mark sits alone with his arms wrapped around his beer and his eyes on the hockey game on the TV above the bar.
"Fucking Christ. I hate that guy. What's he doing here?"
Mark's slept with half the girls in town, including two of Tully's sisters. Despite a fairly average stature, he has blue eyes that look like he's wearing colored contacts and a dark broodiness that any guy can see through. Even I, who know to see through it, can't see through it. He was a right of passage for girls in Warren, and even some in neighboring Laconia, until he moved down to Portsmouth last summer.
"I wonder what he does in Portsmouth."
"Who cares how long do you think you want to stay?" Tully asks in one breath. He reaches inside the collar of my shirt and runs his finger under my bra strap, which I find irritating.
"A little longer," I say and rotate away from him to reach for my drink.
"It's just that I had to work this morning. I got so tired," Tully says.
"I know, darlin'. It's fine. Go home." I hate when he gets like this. When he's drunk and tired he needs so much convincing to do anything, and yet he's determined to have sex even though he's too wasted to ever come.
"Are you sure? Wake me when you come in."
"Yeah. I'll be there in a little bit."
"What're you gonna do?"
"Have a drink with Carolyn. Hang out. Sit here."
I'm glad when he's gone.
I watch Mark. He moves only to lift his drink the few inches to his mouth. He's kept his jacket on and his black fisherman hat sits low on his forehead. I walk the length of the bar until I'm next to him. "I just came from a wedding," I say.
Mark starts at my feet and works his way up until his eyes reach my face. He turns back to his beer and says, "Who's fucked enough to get married in the middle of winter?"
Carolyn offers us a shot. We shrug because we have nothing else to do. She doesn't look me in the eye and I don't think it's because she's worried for Tully. I think she wants Mark for herself.
"You wanna go for a ride?" Mark asks, before finishing off his drink.
He doesn't wait for my answer. I decide this is what I like about him.
Mark pays for his beers and I wait for him outside, afraid Carolyn or someone else will see us together. After dating Tully for so long, I'm amazed at how easy it is to get a guy to leave with me.
Mark's ride is a snowmobile. I've never actually been on one before and I wait for Mark to hand me a helmet or some sort of protective gear, but he just hops right on. We cruise slowly off the edge of the road through town. When we pass the Inn, I notice only one lit window. It's already late. I wonder if it belongs to Tully's brother and his new wife, the Catholic, doing it for the first time.
Once out of town we pick up speed along Route 3 to the bridge over Winnesquam. Mark pulls off along the shore and leaves the engine running but turns off the headlight.
"What are you doing?" I say, while I accept the beer he hands me.
"You know." He is very calm.
"It's not frozen through in the middle," I say. The ice fishing huts have been pulled in to the edge of the lake since the mid-winter thaw started last week. The thaw broke last night and now it's freezing again and my silk pants let it all in.
I slide off the snowmobile, catching myself with one hand on the ground so I don't fall over. I stand and strain my eyes across the lake. I can't see the other side but for the lights left on above people's porches. Everything else sleeps. I'm too cold to push back my mitten and expose my wrist to see what time it is. Two maybe. A single car goes by on Route 3. I listen for the open water in the middle of the lake, but can't decipher anything but the silence.
"We're doing this," Mark says and finishes off his beer. He leaves the crushed can on the ground.
"Have you done this before?" I ask.
"Every fucking night. Can't sleep without it."
On the snowmobile I cling to Mark's back.
"Can you see?" I ask.
"No. That's the point."
It's just a straight shot. We just have to go fast and straight. I bury the side of my face into Mark and keep my eyes on the snow, gray in the dark. Mark revs the engine and takes off without asking. The speed feels immediate and I dig in my knees. Even as the snow turns to ice as we hit the lake and we bump with it, I'm aware of Mark's solid frame and my body rubbing against his back. His torso is shorter than Tully's. If I leaned in closer, my nose would be in his neck. Faster. It is pitch blackout dark. The ground turns void and I don't know if we're going over ice or water. The wind blows an icy wall thick and hard. I see it. Or I imagine I hear it over the roar of the engine: the lap of water. We just glide right over with our little sled runners. It goes down easy, like the last shot. I could put my foot down and kick it, splashing us off balance. We would topple over into it, falling into liquid nitrogen. We could die. Instinct that makes you think of it; instinct that stops you from doing it.
When we stop on the other side the wind has blown enough feeling into my cheeks to make them burn. I hold my mittened hands to them and press hard. The wind might have made actual cuts in my face. I ask Mark if I'm bleeding. He hands me another beer and when I take it I notice my hand shaking. My breath comes in jagged bursts because I've forgotten to breathe.
"Holy nuts!" I yell and my voice echoes off the sliding glass doors of the porches and the covered grills left out all year long next to plastic patio furniture. I cover my mouth with my mitten and then whisper, closer to Mark this time, "Holy nuts." I'm laughing the way I should have laughed all along.
"It's more fun with virgins," Mark says.
After each pass we chug a Bud to keep warm. It's amazing how long the body continues to work between the time feeling is lost and frostbite occurs. Between the alcohol and the cold I can't feel anything. I don't know if the can is even touching my lips, they are so numb, and I can't even feel it going down my throat. But I drink it all.
"Why're you back?" I yell into his ear as he drives. He shouts something into the wind, but I can't hear him. "What's in Portsmouth?" I yell. Again, I don't hear his answer. Once we stop moving, we sit for a moment on the snowmobile and he puts his arm around me and rubs my shoulder to warm me up. A thrill runs through me and it makes me consider the moment he will want to take me home.
"I'm ready to go again," I say, to put off this inevitable.
We go across another time and there is always the wind, the taboo, the dark, and my prompting. It's so fucking cold I long for my bed. Mark's been driving with a grim determination and the silent anger of too much beer. The night weighs on my limbs and I feel full from the booze.
"C'mere." Mark waves me closer even though I'm sitting right next to him. He slumps against the handlebars and half closes his eyes.
"Have you ever fallen in?" I ask.
"Um hmmm."
"I said, have you ever fallen in?"
Still he doesn't answer and so I continue imagining that falling through, the water is so cold, it doesn't actually hurt. It might even feel warm. Freezing to death might not be that bad.
I can see light behind the hills and finally the water in the middle of the lake. The ice tapers off into the gray liquid and I know it's time to go home.
"I'm all done," I say to Mark and stand up.
"Okay. Just once more," he mumbles, his eyes fully closed now.
"I'll just walk," I say. I lean over him and place my lips on his. He purses them in response. He goes through the motions, but I feel nothing. Tully will have the bed warmed up for me when I get back.
I hold my face in front of Mark's a moment longer and open my eyes. I can see the veins on his eyelids, his short thick lashes, the blackheads on his nose, a scar in between his eyebrows breaking up a few stubby hairs. The rim of his hat is dirty. His chin nearly touches his chest and I leave him there to fall asleep sitting up.
 Hannah Pfeifle is currently studying for her MFA in fiction from Bennington College. She lives in Brooklyn. |
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