Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Editor's Note Review of Lions at Lamb House Review of Jamestown Review of The Children of Húrin Review of The Politics of Life Film Review of "300" Creative Nonfiction Home By Marion Agnew One Foot and Then the Other By Greg Coykendall Poetry Hannah Plays with Light By Kristine Ong Muslim Caricature of an Early Planter By Michael Lee Johnson Comes a Push-Cart Down a Long-Ass Ghazal By Levon DeBranch Modern Day Moses By Bob Boston Squares (2) Plaza De Armas, Santiago, Chile By Graham Burchell Fiction The Larchmont Campaign By Zain Deane Body Warmth By Louise Kantro The Good People Up North By T.M. Spooner Triple Word Score By Patricia C. Meringer Texans Abroad By Franklin Strong Hunting for Manhood By Jason Sizemore Staten Island Zen By Michael Enright About the Contributors © 2007, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission. River Walk Journal, Inc. Board of Directors Chairman - Elizabeth Ross Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA Literacy Director - Kenneth Weiss, Ed.D Policy Director - PA State Rep. Jess Stairs Advisory Board Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD Samuel Hazo Christopher Leland Edwin Yoder Joseph Bathanti Journal Staff Publisher - Elizabeth Ross Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch Senior Editor - Patti Kurtz Senior Editor - Neeldhara Misra Copyeditor - Kathy Skaggs Blog Contributing Editor - Maggie Koster Education Blog Contributing Editor - Jordan Wirfs-Brock Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/subs.html. Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org. River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit VolunteerMatch. |
Triple Word Score By Patricia C. Meringer “Why won’t Dad turn the music down?” my daughter, Gabriella, asks, nestling next to me in my bed, the only place in the house where the music does not pierce my ears and vibrate in my head. This bed is vast as the sea now as my daughter and I lie on it, an aircraft carrier on which we huddle together. It disorients me, this sudden sense that the bed is huge, wasteful. Most nights when my husband stumbles into it, I drift to its outer corners for safety, wishing it were larger. I kiss my daughter on the head, missing the baby smell. It is the purest scent I know. It cleared my head during Gabi’s first years, took me places I never knew I wanted to go. “He’s unhappy,” I answer, as if that tells the story. One day she will understand that it does tell the story, or most of it anyway. Gabriella is eight years old. Unhappy is a word she can spell, read, and comprehend. The other words, the ones I know, the ones I want to spit at her father now, are not part of her life yet. Drunk. I don’t want to be the one to introduce her to them. Deadbeat. These are middle school words, and she will hear them soon enough, perhaps from someone other than me. Asshole. Bruce Springsteen attacks us from the other side of the house at a volume that will make the phone ring soon, his voice full of gravel and angst. Springsteen’s words are clear, words my daughter knows, words unlike mine. “He drinks too many beers,” she says, and for a moment I think she means Springsteen, his Brillo voice, and then I know she means her father and I roll over on the bed, heavy with her understanding. I am grateful to be lying down. “Let’s play Scrabble,” I offer. Gabi loves the little wooden squares, even more so now that she can build words herself. When she was in preschool, I played for us both, Gabi setting the letters down, click click click as I spelled the words. In those days, Gabi always won. “Okay.” Her pixie face brightens for a moment, her green eyes widening, her dimples warming the room. She pulls strands of her hair back behind her small ears, delicate as orchids. Gabi inherited my ears, tiny and sensitive. I lie awake nights fearing she will inherit my voice as well, the one that goes silent when I need it most. Gabriella gets up and pulls the game box out of my closet. She chooses her letters and smiles. I choose mine and wish we were somewhere else, a quiet place. "What brings you home so early?" he roared when we came home from ballet class. The car, I replied, combating his slush of words with clever ones, full of clarity, precision. I believe I know how far I can push him, where the limits lie, but it is a perilous path, one that escalates without warning. One wrong move and it ends up this way, arriving home to a scene, creating another, words careening off the walls, my daughter and I running while standing still. The late afternoon sun cuts across the bedroom where we hide, a saber of gold on our board, setting Gabi’s hair aglitter. I raise my hand to stroke her head and change my mind. I place my letters on the board, savoring the soft click of the wood on the board. I place the word vertically. L-I-S-T-E-N. “I like that word, most of the time,” Gabriella says. She lays down her letters, adding T-O-P to my S. She grabs more letters, then says, “I’m hungry. Can we go get something to eat?” I consider an answer, imagine negotiating the mine field that our house has become. Keys in the kitchen. Car in the garage. Garage door down, its noisy ascent. I weigh the risks, consider the danger, how much of it is real beyond the contours of my mind. I wait. Wait for Springsteen to stop singing and remain silent, our sign that the beer has taken full effect on my husband, put him to sleep. I stifle a laugh. Put him to sleep, like an old dog. I search my letters, hoping to make the word “euthanasia.” Among other things, I don’t have a U. “I wish I had a U.” My thought bursts into the room, startling me. I’ve got one. You want it, Mom?” “No, thanks.” It would be a huge score, euthanasia, if it could be done, which it can’t, and if we kept score, which we don’t. Now that she is old enough to understand the nature of games, Gabi doesn’t like the kind where anyone loses. I suspect she won’t like marriage much. I use the T in Listen to make B-A-I-T. “Does he still love us, Mom?” She is staring at her letters, focusing on me. I want to tell her the truth, always. “Sure he does, Sweet Pea. We’re his family.” Gabi looks up at me then, just for a moment, tender, like she feels sorry for me. She places her letters on the board, adding an I-E-R to the L. I don’t correct her spelling. I quickly add P-O-U to her liar’s R, hoping to muffle it, put out its fire. Springsteen goes silent, three rooms east of us. I plan an escape, dinner, relative safety. “Mom?” “Yes?” “He’s not going to divorce you, is he?” She studies her letters. I study mine as they swim together like water bugs on the surface of a pond. Gabi goes on before I can answer. “Of course he won’t. You make all the money. You do all the work. You cook all the meals. He’s not a very good cook, you know.” “Whose turn is it?” “It’s my turn.” Gabi turns her gaze to me and all at once she looks fifteen. “He would be stupid to divorce you. But you could divorce him.” She weighs this possibility, her logic transparent and true and beyond my reach. I feel something breaking in my chest, like the candy coating of Chiclets cracking between my teeth. She places her letters on the board and I stare at them for a moment before I turn my head into my pillow. She strokes my back, and I feel very small, so much smaller than she. I shut my eyes tight, her word dancing inside my eyelids, first white then green, yellow, orange, blue. My word has become hers. She has spelled D-R-U-N-K. D-R-U-N-K in green, yellow. D-R-U-N-K in orange, blue. I keep my eyes closed for a long time, afraid that the other words will appear on the board. When I open my eyes again, I take Gabi’s hand, willing myself to move. We end our game. We leave the Scrabble board on the bed, our words in their places, an artifact should anyone come looking. |