Bonding, by Jarrid Deaton

My father, an old slaughterhouse man, decided to keep hens on our property around my twelfth birthday. The coop was an unbalanced structure that sat close to the cold white bricks of the slaughterhouse and just down from our garage. One night, not long after trading for some chickens with a hunter who wanted his deer butchered, my father came stumbling in my room yelling that he had something great to show me, to get my boots on and follow him. I was half asleep as we slid across the wet grass and over to the old weather-worn coop—all boards and rusted metal—that held about fourteen hens. He shined a flashlight at the roof of the hen house and the beam uncovered six brown bats hanging from the wire that drooped from the ceiling. He reached around to his back and pulled out a .45 and started shooting before I could even figure out what was going on. The bats exploded, nothing but a mist of blood and fur, and flopped to the floor mixing with the black and white chicken shit. I started crying. My father shook me hard by the shoulders, told me to toughen up. He asked me if I wanted to get rabies. I sobbed, told him no, no I didn't.


The next morning I had to clean the hen house. Over in the corner, the ruined parts of a mother bat caught my attention. A baby was attached to it, still alive. I could see the thing's tiny heart as it beat under its skin. I watched until it stopped. I put what was left of the mother and the baby in the creek then ran close to the garage and they floated away, pulled by the current down through the white waste suds from the slaughterhouse and out of sight.




Jarrid Deaton lives and writes in eastern Kentucky. He received his MFA in Writing from Spalding University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pear Noir! Zygote in My Coffee, Six Sentences, and elsewhere.

Times I Nearly Died, non-fiction by Murray Dunlap

When I was born, with Highline Membrane Disease. The doctors gave me even odds. My father was out hunting, drunk.

When Scarlet Fever found me.

When the old dude who lived next door’s tree house gave way to one hundred feet of tree limbs, hitting and falling, then hitting again. My torso tangled in the rope swing, dangling six feet above the hard, root-filled dirt.

When my father took me hunting, drunk, and shot a hole through the hood of our truck. When my father took me anywhere.

When my brother threw a brick at my head in ambush. His aim was very good.

When I learned to drive. When I learned to drink. When I learned to combine them.

When I introduced my girlfriend to my father. When my father met her mother. When my father married her mother. When that girl said, “Let’s keep dating.”

When I was jogging, then hit by a car, and my body flipped up onto the hood. My face pressed to the glass, inches from the driver’s face. When the driver slammed on the brakes, catapulting me off the hood and into the street. I never found my radio.

When I learned my college dormitory would be coed. When I looked in the mirror, naked, and thought about what that meant.

When the redneck shot me with a blow-gun and all I could think of was poison. When my mother arrived at the hospital with her shirt on backwards and inside out. When we got home and a man I didn’t know sat at the kitchen table, smoking cigarettes.

When my brother married and moved away. When he and his wife let me hold their first-born child.

When the boat ran in reverse, and no one knew it but me, waltzing with propeller blades in six feet of water.

When I free climbed a 100 foot pitch, in hiking boots, because I couldn’t listen to that girl say one more word.

When I climbed the Grand Teton, and the rope wasn’t long enough. I started up the pitch, not yet on Belay, with 5,000 feet of exposure. When the guide finally made the top, clipped in, and turned around smiling. He laughed. My fingertips bled.

When I quit climbing.

When I quit that girl.

When I forgave my dying alcoholic father, and he looked at me and asked, “For what?” When, at the funeral, my father’s best friend squinted and asked me, “Why couldn’t you have been a team player?” and I smelled whiskey on his breath.

When I asked the new girl to marry me, guessing I had even odds.

When she said “Of course.” Frantic, I asked, “Does that mean yes?”

When she said, “Yes. That means yes.”

When we drank a few bottles of wine, after the marriage, and we discussed moving to Mobile.

When she said, “Well, we both have parents there.” When I said, “and the ocean and the Bay is so close.” I looked at our dog and asked, “What do you think, girl? Should we move?” When she, of course, said nothing.

In the morning, I wanted to take all our recycling to the center so there would be room for that evening’s guests.

I made it exactly one half mile before I eased through a green light and a man on the right side of the intersection decided he could make it if he gunned it. So he made it up to 40mph before he hit me. When it was a solid hit, pushing me into the next lane and getting hit by an SUV, minding its own business.

The worst part is that I knew the people in the SUV and worse still was having known their eldest son, who killed himself. I thought about it for months afterwards, “Why them, and for God’s sake, why me?”

They are the nicest people, and I never even remember hitting the brakes. In fact, I don’t remember a solitary thing. Everything I know has been told to me. Sometimes, when I look at the pictures, someone with car-knowledge will be sure to say, “No way anyone survived that wreck!” I sheepishly raise my hand and tell them, “Well I did.”

When then they say, “You are one lucky motherfucker.”

I try to think of that statement when I’m either getting in or out of the wheelchair and not feeling very lucky.

So after that I was told the old high school was keeping my job secure for me. My wife had started her fundraising job for the school while I was recovering.

When I felt like a charity case.

When I went to therapy 5 days a week and tried to get myself better. When it was no use. When I decided I should try myself.

So I thought as an act of independence, I should clean myself up without help. I got my hands clean and was washing my face before I fell. I had gotten blurry vision in the wreck which was worsened by the soap getting in my eyes.

When I got dizzy and fell. I tried to stop my fall by grabbing a hand towel. It slowed me down but then my weight kicked in and the towel bar came flying out of the wall.

When I hit the floor, butt–first. When I realized I was okay and grabbed the side of the counter-top. When I pulled myself up to a standing position and grabbed the now fallen hand towel to wipe my face. When I realized how far back the wheelchair had become and knew I couldn’t make it.

When I got myself back down on the floor and crawled to the wheelchair.

When I thought, as I was pulling myself up to the seat, “Why is my life like this?”

When I decided, “Back to therapy.”

Then I thought about Shane. He had been my best friend. Shane, as usual, was out kayaking. It was a freak accident. He just wanted to shake the leaves out of his hair.

So Shane, like always, wiggled his hips and flipped the kayak over. So far, so good. Then when he had finished an underwater shake and tried to flip back to the surface, he realized that his kayak was stuck between a fallen tree and a rock.

When he couldn’t get the rest of the turn done. He stared up at the surface and tried everything he could think of. But he was where he was and not able to get the kayak free, he finally couldn’t stand it and took a breath.

What that really meant was sucking a large amount of water into his lungs. I’m sure that at that moment, he thought about his wife Alison and if she would be okay? Then he drowned.

When Alison told me the news.

When my brother told me that the name of his little girl, who was in my arms, was Allison. I smiled and looked up and said “All right Shane, she is fine. Don’t need to worry about her.”

Whenever I see Allison and she smiles and says, “Hi Uncle Murray, let’s have some fun!”

When, on some days, it brings tears to my eyes.

When on most days, it makes me smile.



Murray Dunlap’s fiction has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Post Road, Night Train, New Delta Review, Red Mountain Review, Silent Voices and Smokelong Quarterly and others. His stories have been twice nominated to the Pushcart Prize and to Best New American Voices, and his first book, Alabama, was a finalist for the Maurice Prize in Fiction. After very nearly being killed in a terrible car wreck, the writer uses this blog to vent: http://murraydunlapwriter.blogspot.com/.

Points To Consider: White Trash or Not?

One can hope this woman is employing irony. Let's look at why women might label themselves this way:

• They want to get laid, easily (but does any woman --white trash or no--need to employ anything to do that?)
• They want to show that they are not, in fact, as easy as their clothing might, uh, imply. Note that the message is repeated, in case you didn't get it, or quite understand, the first time you gazed into her chestal area and noticed words.
  
• Or is it a case of incredulity and missing punctuation? As in 'fuck ME, I'm white trash?!?'

I have known women who might describe themselves as white trash or redneck, or might believe others think of them in that way, but not a one of them would have ever worn a shirt such as this. Maybe 'I'm with Stupid-->' or 'Baby Down Below' or 'Ewe's Not Fat, Ewe's Fluffy,' but nothing so egregious as this. In other words, they would think they were too classy, or they actually were. And they were right.

Near Mansfield, Pennsylvania, twenty years or so ago, I imbibed at a place called Putnam Park. Just outside of town, it had the major disadvantage of being a popular watering hole with locals and students alike.This led, of course, the the townie-student battleground every small-town college experiences. It got ugly sometimes. When my friends and I came in, having driven an Econoline van with no attached seats four or five miles out of town the wrong way down a one-way street --we were already half in the bag drinking Miller from a gallon milk jug--we met up with some, shall we say, unruly and restive natives glowering at us from under the brims of their hats. Now, I was a large man, even then, and my compadres, a tall in shape bass player named Mike,and his somewhat smaller but fierce girlfriend Leslie, were not particularly worried about a chilly reception. We were mellow, and we came to hear the band, and kept to ourselves. No problem.

However, what I had failed to consider was this: my sister and brother-in-law drank here too, on nights the college students didn't come. I had heard well-substantiated rumors about my brother-in-law's reputation in this place, with people not knowing who I was or what families I was attached to, who my people were. He was red-headed and occasionally ill-tempered,and more than a little cocky, which description also fit me, though I'm sort of more brown-headed. Anyway, I knew some people there,and nodded to them in the way you do to people you know but don't generally speak to, drank my rum and cokes, and had a good time. Until I got talking. To a woman, somewhat older and more well-worn than I was. You can see where this might lead.

We spoke, we got on famously, she pulled me into the small bathroom to neck a little. I was willing to go along, and chewed the spot above her shoulder's rose tattoo for some time. She said, "honey, what's your name?" as she messed around at the front of my jeans. I said my name, and she said "Sweet Jesus, I know your ma and dad,"and pushed me into the sink and left me hanging. Now I tried, with all the liquorous passion and rhetoric that drunk and smart-assed 19-year olds can muster to get back to where we had been, her breath a sweet funnel of cigarette and vodka that I can still taste, but nothing doing. She shut me off cold. I understood, sort of. I decided to have another drink.

I sat at the bar for a bit, and some guys playing pool began looking me over. I think now I'd call it a glower. My imagination then was nearly unbounded, and I could see all kinds of disaster happening, now that my friends had disappeared. I chose to hit the pay phone and call the family closest to me in distance, my sister. I called collect, at roughly some time in the early AM, and she came to get me in their blue Firebird. I was happy to get out. Now, in a dramatic story meant to illustrate how redneck women operate, she might have tried to kick my dumb ass herself,or those guys in the bar might have been sent by my paramour-of-the-moment to knock me around a little, maybe shove me under a truck to loosen my hangover. But none of that happened. The situation hinged on maybes and unspoken rules and the sheer brilliance of my trust in the fact that in the world I come from--yes, some rednecks might be involved--people are generally good to one another and thoughtful, and don't want to be fuckups or to screw the son of their friends, and sisters don't want to beat their dumbfuck brothers over the head with their own idiocy--all of this exactly opposite of the white trash/redneck stereotype.

So let's hope the woman in the picture is cultivating her sense of irony. Certainly, no actual white trash woman would wear that shirt. Only the pretenders.

The Map of Your World

This tells you everything you need to know. No kidding.

I really am going to concentrate more on this fine place I've dug for myself, soon. In the interim, I've discovered that gas and oil leases in my home county, Bradford County in Pennsylvania, has seen a huge uptick in gas and oil leases in the last few years, with plans to use injection well methods in which the poisoned waste-water is allowed to drain back into the ground. . .hmm. Hope you like a little crap in your water, folks. And trucks on your backroads breaking shit down.

I don't know enough about it yet, but I don't trust that anyone will do the right thing anymore. Here's an article from the Wyalusing Rocket-Courier for more:

It seems it is only a matter of time, and not all that much time at that, before there are injection wells in Bradford County. That was one of the points made Tuesday night at Towanda High School by a panel of experts on the process. The other point, expressed over and over again, is that this deep underground disposal of gas production wastewater—where hundreds of thousands of gallons of water are utilized at each gas well site for drilling and fracturing—is seemingly safe with multiple protections in place to ensure drinking water is not tainted.

Submissions and Et Cetera

I hope the long silence doesn't prevent you all from submitting. I'm back on the stick now and looking for material, and all previous submissions have been cleared (thank you very much for sending).

I'm off now to catch up at the Night Train.

Appalachia's Agony

Gakked from Jim Tomlinson on Facebook. Let's hope President Obama notices.

The longstanding disgrace of mountaintop mining is now squarely in President Obama’s hands.

A recent court decision has given the green light to as many as 90 mountaintop mining projects in Appalachia’s coal-rich hills, which in turn could destroy more than 200 miles of valleys and streams on top of the 1,200 miles that have already been obliterated. The right course for the administration is clear: stop the projects until the underlying regulations are revised so as to end the practice altogether.

And buy Jim's new collection of stories, Nothing Like an Ocean. You won't be disappointed.

Get On the Bus

The Affrilachian poets are off on another bus tour of Central and Southern Appalachia, bringing poems everywhere they go. Too bad they're not making the trip farther into Yankee territory.

The Affrilachian Poets: A History of the Word

What’s In a Name?

In 1991, Frank X Walker learned he did not exist.

That year, a reading in Lexington, Kentucky, featured four authors from the bluegrass state and poet Nikky Finney. Dubbed “The Best of Southern Writing,” the reading changed the course of Walker’s life. The original title of the event, “The Best of Appalachian Writing,” had been altered to accommodate Finney, a South Carolina native. Finney, who is African-American, was the sole voice of color in the lineup.

There are so many good poets out there; I despair of ever catching up. I know and enjoy the work of Frank X. Walker, Nikki Finney and Crystal Wilkinson, and am looking forward to reading more of these poets when my stacks get less intimidating.

I should mention I learned of this through Travis Nichols' post on Harriet, which is a lovely place to find discourse on all kinds of poems and poets. It seems strange to me that his post has exactly no comments, when most anything on any obscure or tired subject gets a few experts in line to quibble or augment. This post has been up for a few days, and no one's showed. Make of that what you will.