Literary
Salma Elmehdawi Submissions: litsection.observer@gmail.com October 18, 2012 THE OBSERVER
An Island in Rehab By WINDY CHENG Contributing Writer
The anorexic between obese blobs, Roosevelt Island is a two-mile strip of green shouldered by Manhattan and Queens. She is the size-0 model at the bar. Only three acceptable ways by which to approach her: the F train, the bridge, or the Roosevelt Island tramway. If you want to make a good first impression, here’s a bit of advice: take the aerial tramway. You’ll be floating over in a skybox surrounded by the 26th floor windows of Manhattan’s Upper East Side; she’s not one to take the initiative otherwise. It’s a short four-minute wait to enter the island, and the best part is that the conductor doesn’t ID. The willow trees outlining Roosevelt Island sway like the frilly dress of a salsa dancer. The peripheral path of lovers makes contact along the island’s curves. Single men linger on her edges for moments too long, resting on the benches facing the East River. A drunken vision takes hold as cars blur past on the Queensboro Bridge, and the lights in apartment buildings shimmer on and off like the flash of the paparazzi. She’ll tell you how she changed her married name on five occasions: Hog, Manning, Blackwell, Welfare, and for the time being, Roosevelt. When she belonged to the Canarsie Indians, she was known as Hog’s Island and still kept the name even when a Dutch governor seduced her with a dowry. After the English defeated the Dutch she became Manning’s, and was passed down to the Englishman’s son-in-law, Blackwell, in Oedipal exchange. After winning the highest bid issued to Blackwell, the city of New York fashioned the island with criminals and crazies with the unveiling of a penitentiary and insane asylum. Roosevelt Island won’t admit to it but she is undergoing rehabilitation. She’s one of those celebrities you read about in the tabloids: popular with the paparazzi and men. She’s had a promiscuous sex life, but her 99-year contract with the Urban Development Corporation promises to improve her image – all the better for her fans. Main Street, her only means of commerce, is upheld by a scaffolding of metal crutches, its edges wrapped in a sheer cast. Store windows along the strip are locked up and deserted for longer than just the night. Gristede’s, Starbucks, and Duane Reade have to compete with the local “Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line” and “Floor Scraping Inc.” further down Main Street. Is it any wonder that the island has a population of just 12,000? Close enough to Manhattan to be her sister with a mild case of suburbia, Roosevelt Island is an esplanade of trees; you’d think twice before raising a cigarette to your lips. More bicycles crowd the metal racks than cars parked on the street. Solar panels carpet the stepped roofs of the island’s luxury condominiums. A plan to open a Cornell University campus is in the works. Rehab is sobering her adulterous repertoire. But given her allure, the City of New York succumbed to the island’s panache at today’s cost of a little over half a million. A steal.
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THE OBSERVER October 18, 2012
Literary
CHILDHOOD MEMORY: A LAYERING PROMPT “In my own writing, I’ve frequently used childhood memory as an entry to narrative. Here’s a prompt I gave to workshop students in English 5166, a creative writing master class in young adult and children’s literature. The pieces below from student writers were turned in that very day. As you can see by the quality of the work, a timed response to a writing prompt can tease out inspiration. And for some of us a childhood memory can provide the source for a larger story. PROFESSOR SHARON DENNIS WYETH
Part One: A location called “childhood” Evoke a childhood or young adult memory. Focus on the location. Make a list of words that come to mind. These can disparate, associational, sensory. Include verbs as well nouns and adjectives. Part Two: Your “inner child” as character Evoke the same or a similar early memory. Observe your childhood or young adult self. What is he doing? What is she thinking? What is he feeling? What does she see? What does he hear? What does she look like? Make a random list. Part Three: Using language from both sets of notes (lists), write a scene, allowing the content to dictate form.
The Wand By LARKIN HASKELL Contributing Writer
I watch the streamers fluttering and rippling out behind the silvery star. The gray road goes flying by underneath and other cars zoom past. I try wiggling the stick of the wand to make it swoosh even more, but the window only opens a crack, so it’s hard. My two big brothers completely ignore their silly little sister, and Mom and Dad focus more on the road to get home. I want to get home, too, because I don’t like the stuffy smell of the minivan. But I do like my new wand. Every time we visit Grandma and go to Provincetown, I want one. And every time the answer’s “No.” Every time except this time. This time they actually said “Yes,” and I got a glittery, starry wand with sparkly streamers. I was too excited to speak. Too excited to wait to play with it. So I pretend to sprinkle fairy dust all over the highway. Until I let go. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. All of a sudden the wand’s not in my hand, not in the minivan. It’s lost. Crying is my only option. Misery wails out of me, and tears fall on my cheeks. My brothers tell me to be quiet. Mom wonders why it was out the window. And Dad pulls the car over. But it’s no use. It’s gone. My brothers didn’t make me do it. Mom and Dad didn’t take it away. I let go. I did it. I waited so long for this wand. I’ll have to wait forever for another. There’s no hope. And it’s all my fault.
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Literary
October 18, 2012 THE OBSERVER
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Childhood Goodbyes By RAVEN DILTZ Contributing Writer
October 9, 2001. I loved field trips. I loved learning mixed with movement. I used to try to walk and read at the same time. I suppose that’s one reason I was part of Enrichment. I liked being smart, but more so, I liked doing things differently from other people. This trip, we—the Enrichment Program—got to learn about my small town’s history. Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania didn’t have much of an interesting past, but the day mostly consisted of being with several of my closest friends, singing with the upbeat pop songs on the radio and laughing at nothing. We were finally on the way back to the school, just in time to catch buses home. I had won front-seat advantage and was changing the station to my favorite when I stopped to look at the scenery passing by the chilled window. Historically, and, okay, in every possible way, Bloomsburg was boring. But on a perfect fall day, when the leaves were turning orange and red and yellow and brown, with traces of the last, sickly-looking green, and you’re thinking about how your mom always says your eyes are all the colors of autumn trees, and you come around that hairpin turn on Route 487 and you have your whole life ahead of you and you’re laughing because at the last stop on the trip, a group of angry chickens attacked you, and you’re craving pumpkin pie…let me tell you—it was beautiful. It was the very last moment of my childhood. Childhood is a time when you don’t understand what it means to fight to keep yourself from crying, because you might make someone else sad or uncomfortable. Childhood is a time when you believe in miracles. The next instant, I yelled, “STOP!” It was so sudden, Mrs. Bitler swerved onto the yellowing grass at the side of the road, turning and frantically waving her bright red, three-inch-long claws at me. I looked at the clock. 2:03. “I…think I lost something.” We looked though my things—it was all there. But I was right. I did lose something. It was important. I just didn’t know what it was yet. Childhood is a time when you haven’t sat in the front pew of a funeral. Childhood is a time when you have lived in the same house all your life, because there aren’t any ghosts haunting your father. Childhood is a time when your mother isn’t the thing you lost on a 4th grade field trip.
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THE OBSERVER October 18, 2012
Literary
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Born in Ice Skates By JENNY RACHEL WEINER Contributing Writer
dog, sweating, boy it was so hot out, picking cherries. And they looked so good, ooh, I just started going to town. Eating so many I felt sick. And then my dad saw me. And he started chasing me. I mean running Beth, running so fast too, he was a decent athlete, and I just started climbing. I started climbing that tree so high to get away from him. He chased me up that tree! And he was grabbing at me, grabbing at my pant leg, screaming:
SCENE 1. BETH Mom, please can I go? ELLEN It’s late, Sweetie, it’s almost 9 PM. BETH Please? PLEASE?!
BETH speaks the words along with BOBBY
ELLEN It’s dark—it’s snowy outside, I don’t think its safe. STU Ellen, let her go! My Dad’s been driving in the winter for fifty years. I think he can
get to the grocery store and back just fine. ELLEN But those roads, Stu! The hill!
She is laughing, giggling, trying to contain her excitement. Of course, she knows the answer. BETH What?! What happened next?
STU Honey, she’ll be fine. It’s just down the street. BETH Please! I never get time with Farfar alone.
BOBBY He ripped those pants right off my legs! And my underwear went right with them!
ELLEN Ok. But be careful!
She yells out of the room.
Bobby! She can go. But be CAREFUL, do you hear me? BOBBY Of course!
He comes in the room.
With this precious cargo? I would never let anything happen.
And I was bare butt naked up there in that tree in the cold Massachusetts breeze. Bobby laughs through this retelling. He feels such joy from this memory. Well wasn’t that a sight for the neighbors! And all of my brothers and sisters ran out laughing and falling to the ground! My mother came out with a soup ladle from the kitchen, shaking her fist at me, her thick Yiddish accent, “BOBBY! GET DOWN HERE, you shlimatzel!” BETH What does that mean?
ELLEN You’ll take the Volvo? BOBBY Of course. ELLEN It got five stars in the crash test. I think Volvos should be the only cars allowed on
the road. BOBBY
“BOBBY! YOU GET DOWN HERE! YOU GET DOWN HERE SO I CAN WHOOP YOUR TUSH!” and do you know what happened next?
BOBBY Someone who is unlucky. I was always getting into trouble! Not you, though. You
are such a good girl.
There are no cherry trees in Florida. She winks at him. He winks back. They wink back and forth. He makes silly faces. She buckles over laughing.
BOBBY kisses ELLEN on the forehead.
There’s some tea in the kitchen.
To BETH
Put your coat on, Bethy! Let’s go!
BETH looks at BOBBY while he drives.
The scene changes to a car. It starts to snow. The front of the stage becomes a windshield. Snow flies to the left. To the right. The sound of wind through a cracked window is heard. Tires scratching against a wet road underscores the scene. Headlights lead the way.
BETH You’re so handsome, Farf.
She sees his hair swept to the side. The crows feet by his eyes that look just like her Dad’s. The nose that runs in their family. His blue eyes.
BOBBY Why thank you, my sweetheart! BETH Farmor says all the people used to stop you on the street for autographs. They
BETH It always smells the same.
thought you looked like a famous actor.
BOBBY What?
BOBBY Danny Kay! You’re too young to remember. Oh yeah they would stop me and ask
BETH The car.
BOBBY About what?
for a picture! I’d always let them take it. I always used to think—poor guy! If he looks anything like me! The memory settles. Beat. Where are we going again?
BETH From when you were little?
BETH The grocery store. To get some cereal for the morning.
BOBBY You’ve heard them all!
BOBBY Don’t you know how to get there?
BETH Tell me again, Farf!
BETH No.
BOBBY Which one do you want to hear?
BOBBY Why not?
I like it. Tell me a story.
BETH The cherry tree one!!
Beth starts laughing.
Oh tell me, please! BOBBY Ok. So you know I had eleven brothers and sisters, right? BETH YES! BOBBY And we had very little money to our name. Our parents worked in the fields. We
worked in the fields. I wore the same clothes everyday until there were holes in places I couldn’t be seen out in public with. Then I would get a hand me down from Mendel. When I could afford my first shirt, I felt like a King. BETH You’re like a King to me. KING FARFIE!
BOBBY Well, not to my Dad. He ran a tight ship, woo! So, one day I am working like a
BETH I’m only ten. BOBBY I knew a lot of things when I was ten! BETH But I don’t live here, Farf. BOBBY Yes you do! BETH I’m visiting from Florida. I’m off from school. BOBBY That’s not true. BETH Yes it is!
I go to Pine Crest School in Ft. Lauderdale. I’m in the fourth grade. BOBBY How could that be? You’re my niece, Susan! BETH No, I’m not. I’m Beth—you’re granddaughter.