Final Essay

One scorching New York City day, so hot that the air was wavy, and so long ago that I knew I’d had sex eleven times in my life, I was on the subway heading to work.  It was mildly crowded on the train, but nothing overbearing, and it took a moment for me to register that a man had come up behind me and started feeling me from my boobs to my belly to my butt. From his clothing, level of apparent hygiene, and utterances to an unseen character named Charlie, I surmised that he was a residentially challenged citizen. Having been raised to believe that nobody was to touch me in my happy places without my approval, and having been schooled by women who didn’t invent Gender Studies but believed they did,  I hollered at the top of my lungs, “No! Get your hands off me! Don’t you touch me!”

Well, Charlie’s buddy listened to me. He backed away, hands in front of him, perhaps a bit scared in whatever way his self-medicated hallucinatory haze could muster, and toddled off in a tardive dyskinesiac hustle. I bear him no ill will. However, to my fellow riders that day, they with their attachés and their Wall Street Journals and their gazes everywhere but where I needed them, I bid them a hearty Fuck You. Nobody looked; nobody said a word, not during and not after. That part has stuck with me more than anything that came before. 

If I were to get molested on public transportation today I think my expectations for me would be higher, and far less for any spectators. Maybe eighteen years ago I was new in town—heck, I wasn’t even living here then; I was a sloppy visitor. Maybe then I was still suburban on the brain; all apologies, gazes downward, speaking too softly for the waitress to hear me ask for more coffee--looking too young and chubby for anybody to want to help keep some sicko’s grimy claws off me, even when I yelled. Actually, when I go back back back in my memory, I seem to remember that any drops of sympathy that were on that 7 train were directed at the man. What is that all about? Were people sad for him that I was the best grope he could find?

Let’s cut to today:

I pretend I’m on the A train, and I’m late for work. I didn’t have a chance to shower this morning because the hot water was out again and the super wasn’t answering his cell phone. Sure, I could have taken a cold shower, but those hurt, so I just washed the necessary parts with a washcloth and hoped for the best. The time is 8:52am, so there’s no way I’m going to make it to work on time, and I’m already crushed up against the door and a metal pole because two Austrian tourists are backpacking across New York City and I’m in the way of their bedrolls.

I feel something. I’m being touched! Massaged? Someone is actually rubbing the rolls of my belly fat. What the fuck? I swivel around as fast as possible despite the encumbrances. I see him, again, just as he looked eighteen years ago. He still doesn’t look dangerous, but his hands are still on me. The biggest difference is in me; I’m a New Yorker, now. I’ve lived here ten years. I know how to get a seat on the bus and how to ask for cream instead of milk for my coffee. I ignore the free daily newspapers and can’t be taken in by the comedy show runners in Times Square. I look at this guy, Charlie’s old friend, and I make my hand into a closed fist. And I take that fist and I punch him with all my might into his lower jaw. He makes no sound, but stumbles backward. I hiss at him, “Don’t you ever touch me again.”

Surprisingly, or not, nobody notices. This is just classic NYC transportation entertainment. So what if nobody came to my aid? I wish I’d known when I was a kid that they can indeed all go to hell after all. It turns out I don’t need anybody. I feel like spitting as I say that last line.

Karma Chameleon.

Laellanie Gonzalez

I could tell you about how I’m bilingual and how knowing Spanish is convenient. Honestly knowing Spanish really doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. I mean, sure it’s a way for me to communicate with my family but most of them can understand every word of English I speak and I understand their Spanish just the same. I could say that I love the language and how beautiful it sounds, the way it just rolls off the tongue but my Spanish is so broken up and gross that I don’t think you can even consider it Spanish. In fact I grew up referring to my second language as “Spanglish.”

The story goes like this; I lived with my grandmother for a very brief period. When I was five years old it was decided by the powers that be, better known as my mom, that I would live with Abuela Mita because Mami had to go away. My mom had enlisted in the army in order to pay for college; she totally bought into the hype and apparently thought it would make a better life for us; she ultimately didn’t do the 20 years that make it a career thing or even finish her college degree, I know she always regretted that.

When I lived with my grandmother she didn’t speak a word of English and still to this day doesn’t know anything. I could never understand why she never bothered learning how to speak at least the smallest things but she’s made it in America for years without so much as a problem until she had to stay with me. She spoke to me everyday in Spanish and wouldn’t respond to me unless I answered her in Spanish. So according to everyone Spanish was my first language. I find this very hard to believe because the language is so difficult for me now.

Speaking isn’t difficult but I have a very hard time stringing the words together in a coherent manner. When under pressure the things I would say didn’t really make sense. I tend to pause, think and by the time I realize what it is that I want to say the conversation is over. This is where the Spanglish began to make its mark, in order to avoid pauses and long breaks in conversation I substituted the words in Spanish for English ones and just plug in the Spanish version when it comes to mind. When speaking to my family, more specifically my Abuela Cuti (coo-ti) things get especially frustrating because I want to tell her so much. I usually get ahead of myself and start plugging in the English words expecting her to know. She always looks at me like I was crazy, laughs and says “ Ay mija si tu supiera, yo me siento tan feliz cuando tu estas aqui conmigo aunque no se lo que estas diciendo algunas veses.” (Oh my girl, if you only knew how happy I am when you’re here even though I don’t know what it is that you’re saying some of the time.) When she says this I always laugh and say, “ ay abuela Te amo tanto, y nunca…. its’ never going to change…por siempre. (Oh grandma I love you so much and its never going to change. Forever)

Spanglish was a lifesaver; I didn’t have to be ashamed about how little Spanish I knew because my generation is expected not to know fluent Spanish. Being born in the Bronx really didn’t help my case, because not only did I butcher the language of my ancestors but I butchered the English language as well. Slang not only took over my speech, it took over the speech of every “ghetto” of every borough in every state.

In my “hood” that’s how you knew who was cool and who wasn’t. Knowing how we referred to the different “gangsters” or the words we used to say things like cool (poppin) and you’re crazy (you’re wildin out) was how you fit in. Apparently I didn’t fit into this world either. I was always told that my voice sounded funny saying like things like deadass or that was fire! I spent so much time trying to make my accent sound a lot less Hispanic I didn’t realize that it put my creditability with my friends into question. To a self-conscious very insecure person like myself this was the worst thing that could happen. No matter how much I would try to fit in, I was always standing out.

What should I refer to as my language or my “voice,” with an apparent accent that makes my professional voice sound; as my schoolmates and so called friends would refer to as fake; and broken Spanish, what exactly is my “voice.” I just like to tell everyone I’m a “Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon”

Mother's Day Niani

Niani Peebles

Creative Writing

Short Story

Mother’s Day

It was a warm mother’s day and I was living with my grandmother in Brooklyn. It was decided by her and my mom that I would stay there until school was finished, since I was doing so well. My mother, sister, and brothers resided in the Bronx. My seven cousins were lined up sitting on my grandmother’s porch. They all lived in the upstairs apartment of the house. I was eleven and my mood had taken flight since my cousins were allowed to speak to me again. My aunt Cathy didn’t like me much, so she would often prevent communication between us with the silent treatment. At times when we were playing with each other, she would stand at the screen door and just stare at me. I couldn’t see her eyes clearly through the screen, but I felt them.

My cousin James, who was two years older than me, became my best friend after his sister Crystal, who was my age, took a liking to boys. He was interesting and had a countless amount of jokes to share. I sat down on the step beside him.

“You know grandma wants me to fix her shelf for her, and she gonna pay me twenty dollars.”

He was good with his hands. It made up for his bad grades and behavior at school. It blew my mind as to why my grandmother would assign him such a task. She knew what else he could do with his hands. I mean, he was my cousin but I couldn’t deny that he was an all out thief. I would unsuccessfully hide gifts that my mother would send for me and they would disappear. He wasn’t the only one. At least two more of my cousins had the habit of stealing.

“Oh yea, that’s good. You could probably buy your mother a mother’s day gift from the drugstore with that.” I replied.

My grandmother’s room was something that my sticky fingered cousins didn’t see often. They were not allowed the luxury of my grandmother’s bedroom with its big soft king sized bed that made you fall asleep like a breast fed baby, it’s soft, fluffy pillows that nursed a sore head back to health, and the sweet scents of her designer perfumes. Those perfumes rested on a shelf close to her bed, against the wall. It was the shelf my cousin James was supposed to fix. It was also where she kept a tin box filled with money for her Popular Club Plan members.

“James, you ready to fix the shelf?” My grandmother came to the front door holding a dish towel, cooking again.

“Yea” he replied annoyed.

As he went in I stayed outside and enjoyed the weather. I watched my older cousin Nakia talk about strangers that passed by. I secretly hoped that the strangers would turn back and knock her lights out. When James was done fixing the shelf, we walked to the drugstore together to get the gift. I was excited for him and wondered if anything could light up my aunt’s hollow eyes, or even put a smile across her lips.

“These ones would be nice.” I helped him pick out a bunch of white and pink flowers that were wrapped in plastic and a big pink ribbon.

“You should get a card too.” He picked a card and gave the cashier his twenty dollars.

That night I had just taken a bath when I saw my grandmother walking around the house looking upset and disheveled, her gray hair standing up and looking all spiky.

“Where the hell…” She rambled on, opening and closing her dresser drawers.

“What are you looking for grandma?”

“I’m looking for twenty dollars that went missing from my box. Where the hell could it be?”

I started to help her find the money, looking underneath her bed. I began to feel nervous because my cousin was the only person I could think of with twenty dollars.

“I need to find that damn money!” she was getting angrier by the minute and began to look in my dresser drawers. I didn’t believe that she would suspect me.

“Grandma, I didn’t take your money. I would never do that. I don’t steal.”

“Well somebody got the damn money!”

I had to tell her what I knew. James was the last person I knew with a twenty dollar bill.

“James had twenty dollars that he said you gave to him for fixing the shelf.”

I longed for my mother at this moment, I wished I was with her instead of there.

“What, pass me that phone!”

She called the upstairs apartment to where my aunt and cousins lived. I couldn’t hear the conversation because I slipped down into the basement. The next morning I was to walk with my aunt and cousins to school like I usually did. They walked ahead of me the whole way, not saying a word.

A VERITABLE CUSHION OF HARDENED POOP - Liane Graham

Whenever we would stay with my grandparents in Tel Aviv, my sister and I would sleep on the pullout couch in the Blue Room. The Blue Room was not blue – it was a TV room that had supposedly once contained blue furniture, but I only knew its bright purple paisley couch and matching armchair. Nevertheless, the name stuck.
One night when I was seven years old I woke up from my sleep, and it was not from the jetlag that was usually responsible for waking me in the middle of night. Something was definitely off. I quietly crept out of bed, careful to avoid the wire that jutted out the side and had already scraped my thigh a few times before, and careful not to wake my sister, whose head had somehow managed to lay where her feet had been only a few hours ago. I tiptoed to the bathroom and pulled down my Princess Jasmine underpants. There it was: a veritable cushion of hardened poop. I was so embarrassed. I was a big girl, too old to be treating my underpants like a diaper. The poop was caked on. I didn’t know what to do with it, other than clean my own bottom, which, believe me, was challenging enough at the time. I didn’t have any poop-related dreams. I didn’t feel the pooping process as it was happening. I just woke up, and there it was, all over my underwear. I did what I always did with dirty laundry: I tossed it in the hamper. Instead of going back to sleep, I lay in bed praying until daybreak that nobody would notice the brown brick sitting at the bottom of the laundry drawer.
When morning came, I waited. I was terrified of getting in trouble. My mother was the sort of person who took dirt very seriously. I knew that eventually someone would figure out what I had done, and that I would be on the receiving end of my mother’s legendary Israeli bark-and-slap combo deal. Sure enough, that moment came when I heard her shout, “Liaaaaaaaaaaaaaaane!”
I stalled for a minute, bracing myself, and walked into the bathroom. She was dangling my soiled underwear on her pinky, only, she didn’t look angry at all!
“Why did you put this in the hamper?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t want to wake you up.” What I really meant was, I didn’t want to her to think I was still a baby. Instead of shouting, she laughed, and told me what to do in case it ever happened again. I swore it wouldn’t, still not convinced that I was out of trouble.
To my surprise, my mother, and this was completely out of character for her, did not punish me. I think she realized that sometimes, the shame is punishment enough.

“No Fork” Written by Christopher J. Greggs

After rushing through the double doors, I stopped at one of the circular tables across from the Starbucks coffee cart, and proceeded to remove my obsidian black Hp laptop and evironote 5-subject notebook from my messenger bag. In their place, I hid a late night student’s contraband: grilled chicken Cesar salad, 12 oz. Pepsi-Cola, and a Hershey’s Cookie and Cream candy bar. After securing my bag around my shoulders and my laptop and notebook under my arm, I hastily flashed my student ID to the security guard at the entrance of the Library. Briskly, I made my way passed the “No Food or Drink” sign, a bold type reminder of my trip to Wally’s Deli, and guiltlessly graced my way to the third floor study hall.

I found her in a hot-door-less-room that smelled like the by-product of shower-less overnighters and meatball foot-long sandwiches from Subway. She spoke first.

“Hey honey. Got the goods?”

“Yes I do. I am assuming this is not of you doing?” I said with a cringing face that referred to the smell.

“No you jerk. This was the only room left.”

“I’m sure,” I said with a tinge of sarcasm. “How’s the studying going?”

She grabbed the black plastic deli bag out of my hand and commenced her scavenger hunt.

“It’s going,” she said speaking directly into the bag. “No fork?”

Normally the Middle Eastern guy across the counter took care of the fork situation. I began rummaging through the bag and to no surprise she was right—there was no fork. Staying resourceful, I gave her an option.

“I think they have some near the coffee cart downstairs. I can go and get—“

“No they don’t,” she interjected, “and the cafeteria is closed.” She proceeded to roll her eyes, grab the grilled Caesar salad out of the deli bag, all the while avoiding eye contact.

What was sad was that I clearly remember looking at the fork dispenser when I stopped by the Starbucks coffee cart before entering the library. However, like so many things since our breakup even my vision had come into question. I opened up my laptop, unlocked my computer, and stared at the paneled image of the desert raven that covered my desktop. I watched her, as I always did, and saw the frustration on her face as her ability to eat became limited by three-finger-pinches of croutons and green peppers.

“You know what?” she said acknowledging my presence.

“What?”

“This is exactly why I keep a fork in my bag.”

“Well, where is it?”

“I threw it out this morning.” I stayed silent and stared at her.

Irritated, she dug further into the bag and pulled out the Pepsi-Cola and Hershey’s cookie and cream candy bar.

“Uh, Pepsi. You should have gotten me water”

“Well, what about the cookies and cream,” I added attempt to redeem myself. “You did say you wanted something sweet. I remember in the summertime when we used to—“

The solemn look on her face disrupted my romantic anecdote.

I turned back to my laptop and started to act like I was busy. Over the past thirteen months, we were either walking on eggshells or rolling in sheets. Before we got serious we dealt in absolutes. Nothing I said started with “I think” or concluded as if it was posed as a question. She had been more absolute knowing exactly what she wanted. But maybe she was right. It was only a fork.

3:01

3:01

I don’t have any funny accent stories to tell other than the mildly amusing anecdote of the time at NYU when I embarrassed a visiting linguist. He swore he could determine our birthplaces or ethnicities, eyes closed, just by hearing us speak. He guessed I was from Connecticut. I took no small pleasure in letting that Ivy League wind-bag know that I was a product of the mean streets of Brooklyn.
My father, on the other hand, had a very amusing bon mot he enjoyed sharing with all my Anglo boyfriends, perhaps as an explanation for the taciturn reception they’d received.
It was Thanksgiving, 1953. My father and his brothers had recently arrived in New York from Puerto Rico and were working the late shift at a pizzeria in Manhattan. They lived in the (then) predominantly Hispanic South Williamsburg but were forced to cross through the more Irish North Williamsburg on their way home from the subway. A big bunch of recent Irish immigrants were hanging out on a stoop when one of them called out “Hey Buddy, you got the time?” at which point, in his best Spang-lish, my dad replied “Jeah meng, ees tree o’clock.” By 3:01 they were three on one-my father and his brothers having been identified as Spics were beset on all sides by this welcoming committee. My dad, seeing no other alternative, pulled out a pen knife (which was later recorded in the police blotter as a switch blade) and stuck the nearest non-related red-head. Unfortunately for all involved, he managed to reach and knick the liver of a too-slim, under-fed Irishman. Police were called and you can guess who ended up in jail. My poor father was stunned. His father was a Spaniard, a European just like these men. He too harbored all sorts of racial “preferences” just like these men. He too was white and tall and young and a recent arrival. He and his brothers too had blond or red hair and green or blue eyes. How were they any more white than he? After 24 years of life as a white man how on earth had a 5 hour flight on Pan Am from San Juan to New York magically transformed him into something else? My dad was no dummy and he quickly learned what years of Civil Rights civic lessons would teach the generations to follow: race is relative. Racism is stupid, and arbitrary. The color of your skin should and does say absolutely nothing about who you are. In the end, a Jewish eye witness testified that my dad acted in self defense. And while the Irish cops didn’t like the Jews any more than they liked the Beaners, they trusted the Jews and let my dad go.
For your amusement, a coda to the story: years later I dated an Irish guy from the Northside who adored me and whom my father grew to love. He told an interesting story about the time his Uncle Ray and some buddies from the Ancient Order of Hibernians beat the crap out of some Puerto Ricans on Thanksgiving Day in 1953.
I left that poor boy standing on an altar. Isn’t America grand?

Betty Trevino

Theme Park - Kai

I was four when it happened. Both my parents had taken off from work that day to accompany me on a field trip to Sesame Place. Being a child from the city, I appreciated the few moments I was able to escape from my city environment, even if that time was very limited. The trip was organized by my preschool teacher, Mrs. Sheldon. I don’t remember much about her, other than she was supposedly very strict, according to my mother, but my mother said that of every teacher I had until high school. Probably to intimidate me into doing well in school. Many of my teachers were not as severe as she made them out to be, and I found that to be the case with Mrs. Sheldon.

Seeing characters from the show in real life was a startling and surreal experience for me. But I was less concerned about them and more wrapped up in the rides and attractions at the park, which were the main selling point for me. I could see these characters on my television screen every morning at eight, but how often would I get to be king of Cookie Mountain, or jab my way through the monster maze, or ride down the silly sand slide twice. Those dry attractions (rides that were not in water) were already highlights of the trip, and we hadn’t even made it to the water park.

The rambling river was a popular attraction at the park, and still is to this day. During the ride, you floated in an inner tube, through Sesame Island- past bubbling waters, geysers, and waterfalls. This, I imagine, was exciting to the average four year old, and endurable for the parents or guardians who accompanied them. All you had to do was stay on the tube, let the currents push you, and it was smooth sailing. It should have been the high point of the trip, but instead, ended up a disaster. I don’t know if the currents were too strong that day or if I was still sorting through my fear of water, particularly, large bodies of water, but something came over me. It forced me to lose my balance and fall off my float. I can’t recall the depth of the water. It couldn’t have been deep, but it probably seemed so at the time. I don’t remember the details but I remember plenty of flailing about, and shouting. I recall my father going in after me and losing his glasses in the process. I remember my mother looking down below through her fingers; watching the spectacle unfolding. I’m not sure if she was actually looking through her fingers, as I was too busy flailing about, but that’s how I imagined her. That’s what I had seen on television shows and in movies. When I reached dry land, the fear I felt minutes ago was gone and replaced with embarrassment and shame. It was the first time I recall wanting to crawl under a rock. I don’t think I knew what that statement was at the time, but I could feel it‘s meaning intensely in that moment.

“When is Nerd Day?” by Laura Pilloni

In my high school only about a third of the student population participated in Spirit Week. The complete loners, losers, nerds—whatever you want to call them—didn’t participate at all. Why would they? This school was not offering anything to them. The kids who thought themselves to be too cool for spirit week, and the wannabe’s who copied them didn’t participate either. Those who did participate were either the most popular kids who OWNED Sprit Week along with the rest of the school activities or the not popular, care-free, fun loving losers. Being an honor student part of a huge clique of nerds disguised either by athletic skills, or a good sense of fashion, or great charisma, I was of course in the latter section of the minority, the cool losers—at least cool to me.

Dressing up for Sprit Week, especially on Mismatch Day, was always fun for me and every year when the end of September drew near, I attentively listened to the morning announcements waiting for the schedule of Sprit Days that were to come that one week in early October. Sprit Week always culminated on Black and Gold Day. That day we wore the school colors and held a pep rally on the football field in honor of our Uniondale Knights who would have their Homecoming game the next day. During the pep rally other sports teams also paraded around the football team, but the football players and cheerleaders always stole the spotlight. Regardless, all my cheers were for the kick line, marching band, and lacrosse, swim, and track teams were all my friends were spread around. Spirit Week’s Friday was never a surprise but Monday through Thursday varied depending on what the senior class had voted on.

I was sitting in my Chemistry Honors class waiting for the morning announcements. I was part of a small group of tenth graders in a class composed mostly of eleventh graders. The tenth graders in this class (with a couple of exceptions) were all part of that clique of nerds disguised as something better to the rest of the school’s eyes (kick line captain, swim team captain, etc.)

The Spirit Week days were announced, Celebrity Day, Twin Day, Nerd Day, Team Jersey Day, and Black and Gold Day, but Mismatch Day was never announced. I was so angry! Mismatch Day was my day. I already had my outfit ready, too. I was going to wear two skirts of different lengths over bright purple leggings, a tank top over a t-shirt, a different colored Converse on each foot, a side ponytail on one side of my head and my hair let down on the other, mismatched earrings, and several necklaces and bracelets. Now this perfect outfit would go to waste! As my best friend, Christian, described it, I was tight!

Throughout the rest of the day I complained to anyone who would listen how Mismatch Day had been scratched off. I also attacked the most unnecessary of the Days. I was accustomed to Twin Day and Team Jersey Day; we’d had similar occasions since middle school. Celebrity Day was passable and had potential to be very amusing. But what the hell was Nerd Day? It could be because I was already one myself, but I did not find any fun in dressing like a nerd. I proclaimed to everyone throughout the day that I would not participate in such an event. But no one really cared, all my rages really did was unintentionally inform those that missed the morning announcements that I knew the Spirit Days schedule by heart. They would come up to me with a pen and piece of paper in hand and ask me to tell them what the order of the Days was. I was so upset at being used in such a way that when they asked me “When is ‘Nerd Day’?” I would furiously reply before storming off, “On your birthday!”

The weekend before Spirit Week I discovered that there is such a thing as karma and that one should be very wary of it. I had been so appalled on the day of the Spirit Week announcement, that although I had memorized on what day of the week each Spirit Day would fall, I had paid no mind to on which date each Spirit Day would occur. I was walking around Bed, Bath and Beyond—don’t ask—when I realized that Nerd Day just so happened to fall on October 5, 2006, exactly fifteen years after my date of birth. I almost cried of embarrassment. I had been so rude. This was life’s way of punishing me; I wasn’t about to fight it. I went home and looked for my plaid skirt, a matching green cardigan, my gray knee high socks, my black Mary Janes, and my first pair of glasses. The fact that I didn’t need to go shopping for a Nerd Day/Birthday outfit did not make me feel better about the situation.

"Foreign tongue" by Alexandria Carr

Foreign Tongues
As a child I realized I was born into two worlds. New York was my place of birth but as a child, I spent most of my youth in the south. There, I picked up the southern lingo, phrases and ways of speech. But when my summer’s in Burgaw were over, I made my ways back to New York. And with me I brought back something special, a foreign tongue.

I noticed in Kindergarten that something was weird about my speech. My words seemed to just fall off my tongue and my syllables were stuck together like twins conjoined at the head. The first day of school, every little kid said their name in that high-pitched, squeaky voice, but when Ms. Shabazz asked me to tell my name to the whole class, I sounded like one of the members from Beverly Hillbillies.

“Ahlexzandriya Carr” I said to the class and as soon as I finished the whole class gave a little chuckle. My little accent was uncommon amongst the room and served as entertainment for the snotty-nosed creatures in my class.

Years would go by and my southern slang began to reproduce with my New York world play and soon I gave birth to a whole new tongue. In the south, old folks would say “You a city gal’ with a southern taste” as they listened to my New York accent and Southern accent battle as I unconsciously used the two together. In New York, my friends heard my Southern accent and teased my foreign tongue. Ultimately they concluded my accent was that of a slave, and I was not to keen on that.

Soon I would try to hinder my southern accent to appear normal to the rest. I would catch myself from saying worlds like “finna” and “gunna” and when I talked about foods I made sure to say “string beans” instead of “snap peas” or “Snaps” cause I don’t think many New Yorkers call it that. But as much as I tried to wash away that southern taste, it always seemed to find away of coming back like the smell of chitterlings.

Now that I am old, I recognized my southern taste is here to stay along with my New York accent. Now they live in perfect harmony and with their little baby, which is my accent now. Some days my New York accent might come flying out like a wad of spit, or some days my southern taste may come out like a gentle kiss. All in all, I learned something as an adult that I couldn’t comprehend when I was young, my way of speech in not uncommon, its just a foreign tongue.

“I DIDN’T SEE MYSELF DOING IT” - Liane Graham, Group 1

When I was six years old I uttered the most ridiculous phrase I can remember saying: “I didn’t see myself doing it”. At six this made perfect sense to me. What I was trying to say was that I had no recollection of the event for which I was being punished, but as I sat in Rabbi Moskowitz’s office on the fifth floor of my elementary school, I couldn’t think of anything else to say to redeem myself. They told me I had stuck paper towels in the drain of a sink in the girl’s bathroom while leaving the tap running. They told me the bathroom was flooded so severely that thousands of dollars worth of water damage had trickled down into the floors below, and that I was to blame, but to this day I can’t remember this happening. I wondered how they knew it was me, even though I didn’t know it was me. As I always did when sent to the principal’s office for disciplinary reasons, which was more often than I care to admit, I cried like a baby. It didn’t help that, with my tiny size and penchant for playing pretend, pretty much the entire school thought I was a baby anyway. I felt like a baby. I was mortified. Had I really done something so senseless? It couldn’t have been on purpose. I had no desire to cause a flood. Why would I stick paper towels in a running sink instead of the trash, where they belonged? I tried to explain this. I tried to tell Rabbi Moskowitz, and then my parents, that I honestly did not remember this happening. “I didn’t see myself doing it,” I said, but they laughed, and insisted I admit having done it. They told me my tears were a sign of my guilt, as though crying couldn’t have possibly been a manifestation of my wretched fear. My puny child’s brain went over the events, trying to pick this memory out from between the memories of lunch (a tuna sandwich with ridged potato chips wedged in between the tuna and the bread, and chocolate milk) and afternoon class (learning to use a calculator and story time). The memory was nowhere to be found. I felt broken. How could I not remember something from my own experience? It seemed so impossible. At six I was sure that I could recall every single thing that happened to me, and even though I kept mum on most of my actions from day-to-day, resulting in my parents calling me a “secret agent”, I at least would be able to be honest with myself. Was I wrong? Did I flood the bathroom? Or were they wrong, the teachers, the Rabbi, my parents? Was I being accused, as I often felt I was, of doing something that I had really not done?
These questions remain unanswered. In the almost seventeen years since that fateful day in the first grade when I allegedly stuck paper towels in a sink full of running water in the girl’s bathroom, the memory of having done so has never resurfaced. Eventually I accepted my guilt. I seemed pointless not to.

Carole Brady is a Big Fat Liar Or Why I Wish Peter’d Got His Ass Kicked

I was what we called a latch-key kid. In today’s kinder, gentler vernacular I might have been labeled “neglected”. Of course, when I was a child acting up got you slapped: today it gets you Ritalin and $150 deductible for psych services-simpler times indeed.
For parenting I had the TV! Thirteen VHF channels! Three UHF channels! Black and white until ’75 and color after that. The youngest kid for a remote control and instead of cable boxes we had bunny ears atop the Zenith ($79.99 at Gimbels, wood-grain cabinet extra). I don’t recall what prompted Don Quixote to tilt at windmills, but I derived my grandiose ideas about civility, morality, fair play and decency all from that glorious, glowing square box.
But ours was a circumscribed love. The TV had to be turned off so it could cool in time for my folk’s arrival. Pop would actually put the back of his hand on the tubes, the way a normal parent might show concern for a feverish child. He was convinced that the TV needed to rest, just like any other working creature, and since he couldn’t afford a replacement, ours was babied like a youngest child should be. Too bad if I, the actual last of his brood, was bored to tears. I’d lost my new kid smell and the older ones were on deck to produce grandchildren anyway.
I’d faithfully watch “Good Times” which taught me that, comparatively speaking, I didn’t have it so bad. “The Jeffersons” taught me how good I might have it, someday. How I longed to trade in my sister and our tenement in the ghetto for Laura Ingalls Wilder and her “Little House on the Prairie”. The Walton’s were almost perfect but they lived in the Depression and I was already living in one of my own.
Ultimately, it was the Brady’s that became my archetype for family life. It was they who taught me the cold hard line between “should be” and “is”.
In one episode of the Brady Bunch, Peter, the rather boring middle boy, broke a lamp and after some silly machinations involving the lisping Cindy, confessed the whole affair to a loving and understanding Carole Brady. Telling the truth had resulted not only in an equitable and humane punishment, it had garnered the respect and trust of his mother. What joy! This was a lesson I longed to employ. So, one day, while lying draped on the couch with my head on the floor and my legs up on the wall (a favored position which explains a lot of my current lower back pain) I inadvertently nudged some “art” with my foot. The plaque, a tack-tastic 8 inch oval, beige, molded plaster, 1950’s Puerto Rican idea of art, was one of a pair depicting a Colonial man and woman, dancing a minuet. I had nudged the nail out of the faux wood paneling and the plaster lady had fallen, nail and all, to be shattered on the vinyl peel and stick floor below. All the Elmer’s glue in Kings County wasn’t putting Martha Washington back together again.
Ordinarily I would just have peed my pants in anticipation of the ass whooping which would result in my peeing my pants. But not this time. I knew how to beat parents at their own game because Peter Brady had shown me how. I would tell the truth before they even noticed the other plaque was dancing solo. I would disarm them with my honesty and they would repay me with a just punishment and pride in my new-found faith sense of honor.
Shall I spare you the details? No, let’s go on.
My folks came in, I waited until they were seated, presented the broken plaque, and explained exactly what had happened. I did it just like Peter Brady.
The first slap caught me by surprise which is surprising in itself, in hindsight, because really, what the hell was I thinking? Carole and Mike weren’t poor Puerto Ricans living hand to mouth in a Brooklyn ghetto raising kids they viewed as an unhappy consequence of mediocre Catholic sex! Tomas and Marina hadn’t so much merged two families as they had collected the survivors of the car wrecks that had been their previous marriages. They couldn’t understand why I thought telling the truth was somehow a mitigating factor. Did I think them so stupid they wouldn’t notice the missing plaque? Did I think they forgot that I was the only one home all day?
Besides, we were Catholic and telling the truth only got you less time in hell, not absolution! Remember purgatory?
Oh yes, I did.
And I also remembered that purgatory was a temporary place. Not quite hell, more like a waiting room for heaven. Right then I got the real Brady lesson, which wasn’t “always tell the truth” but rather “tell the truth to those who deserve it and lie your ass off in the interest of self preservation to everyone else”.
Like Don Quixote in Converse sneakers and a Dorothy Hamill page boy ‘do, I sadly learned that life is seldom as it should be, as we dearly wish it would be, as finer souls know it can be. Carole, Mike and Peter weren’t wrong (except about pork chops and apple sauce-that combo tastes like ass). They were just unrealistic, for Brooklyn. The message was right. It was the audience that was lacking.
Suffice to say that there were many ass-whoopings between 1975 and the day I moved out in 1988. But never once in between did I ever, ever again stupidly volunteer to tell them the truth. About anything.
Ma died in 1997. Pop died in 2002. I haven’t told a lie since.

Betty Trevino

Lies I told a Woman

I heard some lies were only lies because you choose not to believe in them and some truths were only truths at certain times. But if you were to say something true in that moment, does that relativity make it any less truthful? Is it a lie if in a moment of drunkenness you turn to a perfect stranger and say to him, "I love you"? Doesn't the feeling of peace and goodwill exist in you in that one transcendent instant?

If in a moment of lust, our heat fueled by the union of our bodies, I look at a woman I'd normally find plain and I say to her "you are beautiful" is it really a lie?

She seemed to think so but I didn't want to argue that point with her. We'd met in the library the Friday before the break. I was trying to study for an Eco exam and she had a psych paper to submit. She had one of those strange and unusual names that you hear once and quickly forget because it sounds weird. One of those names that your parents usually gave you a nickname for but you grow up and start reusing to look more adult.

I was bored and couldn't focus on my notes. There was something so oppressive about the silence of the library at that time of night and her movements drew my attention. I said "hi." She smiled easily and laughed in soft, low laughs at my weak jokes. We ended up in bed.

I didn't think she'd be so caught up over the statement. It didn't seem like such a big thing to have said, giving the activity we were engaged in. I call flowers "beautiful" and birds "beautiful"; and dancers and actresses and geniuses. They are. I'd wanted her to feel good about herself and the easiest way I knew was to adorn her with compliments. I didn't expect her to seem so wounded and stung. She asked me what I meant by it and I didn't know how to explain it to her.

It made me think that maybe I didn't know what I'd meant. Over the week, she called. Her name was Mertella. I got tense. I didn't want her to know how unsure I'd become over a little white lie. But I couldn't get it out of my mind.

— Ikè Nwankpa

Light

In the kitchen, my mind clears in the light. There is a single naked bulb above my head, strings of sticky fly-traps coiling down from its screws, but its light is a weak and ineffective thing. No, there is light pouring in like a river from windows placed perpendicularly at this end of the house. They are portals. When the Sun rises as it does now, its rays rain refracted from one but crowns boldly at the other.

It is an assault of heat and light that makes my eyes scream and my brain to exhale like an amorphous creature slumbering in a dark, liquid, cave. But my skin exalts at the ecstasy of the Sun’s heat, and warmth spreads all throughout my body, clearing the cobwebs of my mind.

I can think straight. I can see the way sunlight plays on the walls; it’s strains and strands filtering through the window bars; the patterns on the fridge; and the silver plate piled with cereal.

For a moment, I am entranced with how the milk shines back in its glow.

I am filled with sunlight and milk and cereal and I do not want to move. But then, the moment is broken by a voice, and I put my plate away.

-- Ikè Nwankpa

Crunchy Fried Chicken

The weather was far too somber for the beach, let alone a lonely beach day but it was my first day off from work in eleven days. The thought of going to the beach with some cheap Cabernet in a thermos and having some fried chicken from the spot right below the Brighton Beach stop on the Q train was all I thought of after day six of work. I was living off 140^th and Amsterdam at the time in a real bad set up but it was all I could afford and equaled freedom, to do things like go to the beach on nonsensical days. The trip to Brighton beach took ninety minutes, first the 1 train then the Q. It had become clear from the Kings Highway stop that the clouds on this particular Tuesday were miserable and unwilling to give the sun a chance. I descended the above ground station headed first to the fried chicken spot. The chicken spot was busy with an air of regulars, not very happy ones at that. It couldn’t have anything to do with the chicken I thought, last summer I had some and it was memorably delicious. I made up my own combo of wings, thighs and fries at the price of $4.50. I couldn’t wait to see the ocean for the first time in a year. I had been sipping on my cabernet on the train ride and had started to feel real good. I wondered whether I had wine teeth and if I did, I wondered if the cute South American boy at the chicken spot had noticed.

Surprisingly at the time, there was a good amount of people on the beach, again that air of regulars but this time happy ones. Fat old Russian men with their fat old Russian wives in flower print one piece suits, they adorned the beach like Christmas ornaments on a tree. I sat close to a sleepy wrinkly orange man whose radio blasted some old French ballads, they were lovely. I wanted to pretend I was not in Brooklyn, escape the city, but there was no way I could pretend this was not Brighton beach. I dug my feet into the moist sand, it was cold but comforting. I opened my box of fried chicken as the wind began to blow sand onto my meal like an extra seasoning. I ate my crunchy chicken to the bone and it was just as I remembered.

The Lie

David Munoz

English 221

The Lie

Third Wednesday of the month, which means another homeowner’s association meeting that I have to go to since my father would be working late tonight. I despise going to these meetings and talking about budgets and reporting about the obvious cracks that had formed in the center of the street. Todays’ meeting was short though. The cracks had finally been fixed by the city after months of complaining. Thanks to the daydreams and text messages I sent to my friends this was by far the most bearable meeting yet. Before I knew it, only the closing statements were left. With the cracks in the street fixed even that seemed to fly by, until Rudulpho, the owner of the home across from mine stood up. He held up a photo of a security camera covered in neon green paint.

To everyone else it looked like the work of some brazen young vandal. I saw it differently however. I saw the results of testing, which is the only logical thing to do when you spend your hard earned money on something that sounds like its too good to be true. A paint ball gun barrel that gives the paint ball a spin that actually counter acts gravity? To be honest it sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. Shoots accurately up to 120 feet the ad had said. That kind of distance was nearly unheard of for a paintball gun. It was only reasonable to test their claims.

The camera itself was the only thing that was coincidence. It just so happened to be at 117 feet from the window to my room. Luckily for me I had a tank of carbon dioxide left over from a paintball game last spring. My sense of curiosity had gotten the better part of me, and I found myself crouched behind the curtains to the window overlooking the street, my trusty Tippman A5 firmly in my slightly trembling hands. Slowly I pushed the barrel out the window and peered down a scope that I had attached. The cross hairs danced over the camera.“It caught me trying to sneak into my own house so I shouldn’t feel that bad about this.” I thought to myself. I took a deep breath in, held it and then let it go in a slow, controlled sigh. The cross hairs stopped their dance and hovered over the camera. I pulled the trigger.

I awoke from my daydream with a start. It is Wednesday night, not Wednesday morning, before the world had woken up. “You guys see the irony in the fact that we have a camera and still need to play this game of detective, right?” I said. It was the kind of remark I would have made if some one else had made the shot. But it was my shot, mines to embellish and retell later. My shot that they would never know I took.

Macaroni and Cheese, Potato Salad and Collard Greens By: Alexandria Carr

Macaroni & Cheese, Potato Salad and Collard Greens
It doesn’t matter what order you put it in. It all goes down the same! I could hear her voice as I stood on the food line waiting to be served. The massive amounts of dead animals, seasoned plants and fancy starch seemed to put a smile on everyone in that dining rooms face. There I stood, with a surly look on my face as everyone passed me by with smiles and gleams in their eyes. From all the joking and the laughter, one would confuse this for a wedding reception instead of a repast.
“What would you like to eat ma’am?’ The server said.
“Gimme some of them collards, some ‘tato salad and macaroni and cheese with my chicken please” blurted the woman in front of me to the server. She had black hair with nice white roots, and beautifully brown skin that aged like the earth, getting better with time. She looked familiar, like an aunt or cousin but my eyes and mind didn’t care to figure out who she was.
I watched as the server plated the food and soon became disgusted. She had no order what so ever! She slapped the spoonful of food onto the plate, messing up the essence of the food. Greens on top of rice, chicken on top of the yams, it was a mess! Her lack of knowledge with plated food made my eyes burn with fury, irritating them more than they already was. I wanted to reach over the table and choke her. Doesn’t she know that the greens go after the rice and yams but before the chicken? The nature of the food had been disrupted and so was my stomach. I stormed off the line furious with how careless one could be in the art of plating food.
I plopped into a seat in the back of the room and watched for countless minutes as the people continued to just throw the food on the plate. Have they no grace? Sitting there the people lined up for food. There was tons of food left in the trays, but only a few were low. I ironically it was her favorite foods that were low on supply. It was the macaroni and cheese, potato salad, and collard greens. At that moment, I could see her face. The smile she had every Sunday we both sat together and ate her favorite foods. The dimple in her cheeks seemed to fall in with every spoonful of the delicate dishes. Then the tears fell from my eyes and crawled down my cheek thus falling to the floor. The lump in my throat started to throb with the thought that she, my grandmother would never get to enjoy the sensation of her favorite foods again.
After a while, the food lines got shorter, and the people gradually left the dining hall, one by one. The only ones left were me, my sisters and my parents. Everyone was gone and it was time for clean-up. My stomach churned with hunger, it sounded like a riot inside there. I knew eventually I would have to give up my food strike and feed my poor stomach.
I stood up and walked over to the food table. The food was mostly gone but to my surprise there were still her favorite foods. Only enough serving for one mouth, and then I figured that though she couldn’t eat the foods anymore herself, I could eat it for her. I grabbed the plate and the spoon. First came the rice, always start off with a starch for good luck. Then I put the yams next to it because if they mix together the combination is really good. Then the collards go with the potato salad following behind. They complement each other well, the same thing with string beans and macaroni salad. They are classics like Romeo and Juliet. Lastly is the macaroni and cheese and then I top it all off with the meat. There it was my masterpiece was created. I smiled.
As I sat down to divulge my tasty food, I glared at my plate. I looked at how perfectly proportioned each dish was. I looked at how the colors flowed and the order they possessed. It was then I heard her voice again. It doesn’t matter what order you put it in. It all goes down the same! Then I realized she wouldn’t have eaten it that way. She had no order in her food, or even any care because to her they all went down the same. In that moment I felt her spirit in me. I took the fork to my plate and I mixed it all together! My hand couldn’t stop moving as I mixed every piece of food together. When I looked down at the heterogeneous mixture everything was combined to one. I picked up my fork and stuck it deep into the mixture picking up a hand full of the mix. And then I put the fork of food into my face, and then I smiled.