The short fiction of j hardy carroll
these children
I’m defending
innocent and beautiful
circle us elder
so concerned
that we see but rarely
ask honestly
or just do something.
better to ask
forgiveness than permission.
these children guessed
and we, so much wiser
told them what was true
since down we forgot
as up we grew.
The old man wasn’t dead twenty-four hours when they started staking the land. The son had spent some years getting ready for the day, cutting deals with developers, drawing up maps of the various parcels, filling out the paperwork.
Development. That’s their word for when they down whatever was here and build some godawful boxes to sell. Ryerson’s woods, the last piece of natural land in this county, 90+ acres of pristine wilderness and one ancient house.
They say they’re building a nature center. Great. Kids will be able to look at pictures of the tress and animals and wonder why.
.
Dick climbed into the back seat of the Mercedes. “Slide over, Patty,” he said.
“Where’s Premier Chou?” Pat asked.
“He’s coming along in the other car,” Dick said, chafing his hands together. “Goddamn, it’s cold here. Never thought of China as being cold.”
“Well,” said Pat, “they seem awfully fond of those fur hats.”
He smiled. Good old Pat. “They can build damned good walls, too.”
“You’re nervous,” she said.
“About meeting Mao? Goddamned right. He probably is too.”
“You always swear when you’re nervous. Dirty Dick is back.”
“I promise not to swear for the translator.”
She thumbed open a small book. “I found something you might say to him to break the ice. Better the weak tea of a friend than the sweet wine of an enemy.”
“I like that. Is that Confucius or Lao Tzu?”
“Charlie Chan,” she said.
He grinned. “The press will eat it up.”
What Pegman Saw: Great Wall of China
“We will discuss a lot of things. We will discuss their role in the Pacific and our role
in the Pacific. We will disagree on a lot of things. But the most important thing about that
visit is that it occurs and that the Chinese and the United States will have begun a
process of, shall we say, getting to know each other. Now, this is not said in any sense of
sentimentality. There are many people who have looked at the China visit and interpreted it exactly the wrong way. They say ‘oh, this is great-the- now the United States and China, really never had any differences, that everything’s going to be settled.’ It’s not that. No one in this world knows how great the gulf is between their philosophy and ours, their interests and ours. But also no one in this world knows better than I do how imperative it is to see that great nations that have enormous differences where you’ve got the nuclear thing hanging in the balance have got to find ways to, you know, talk. Get along. “
–Richard Nixon to Alexander Haig, just prior to his historic 1972 visit to Communist China
Mary tightened the last screw on the wall joist and set down the screwdriver. She was done.
She stepped outside the tiny cabin and sat on a rock. She rolled herself a cigarette and smoked and gazed over the valley at Baboquivari, whom the Yaqui called the Navel of the Universe. The valley was all reservation land except for this, her tiny parcel.
She’d found the claim by poring over thousands of county records, buried deep in a mining dispute. It was a quarter acre and cost her 500.00. She’d built the cabin and dragged the sections up piece by piece.
I grew up in the shadow this mountain range, the Santa Catalinas. The Tohono people called it Frog Mountain. The north side was rumored to contain a gold mine, but its real treasure was the sixty-degree drop in temperature you experienced on hot summer days by driving an hour.
This story is about a friend of my dad’s, Mary DelVillar Porter, and a different mountain. She bought a sliver of land and built a cabin of plywood, getting friends to help her pack it up the two miles of rugged mountain to her spot. It took weeks of hard work. Mary was an American original who wrote one of the best travel memoirs I ever read. She spent weeks at a time in her mountain retreat.
Soon as I finish up working, I run right quick to the blue house where my Nkuku Bosweo live.
None of the other grandchild visit on her. They say she look funny with her milky eye, spread stories she a witch. Maybe, I say, but she the happy kind.
She always glad to see me so, and make me the special sky porridge, stirring smooth while she tell me the story about the time Lion chase the girl Mulungi so hard she throw a rope to the sky to escape him. Mulungi climb up to the sky and find her the Thunder God’s sweet corn, which she pick for herself.
Thunder God so amazed by a girl’s boldness he show Mulungi how to grind it up and cook it right.
My Nkuku learn from her Nkuku who learn from hers. She tells me she show me too one day.
The Bantu people of Botswana have many legends where a brave young human successfully climbs a rope to the sky, but its’s almost always a male.
Dominick walked back from the road, hands in pockets.
“You see him?” asked Tony, already knowing the answer.
“He’ll be here. Don’t you worry, little brother. When has he ever not showed up after practice?”
Tony stared at his sneakers, wanting to ask when has he ever been on time? but instead saying “I’m hungry.”
“Ma will have dinner waiting for us. You’ll see.”
It grew darker and darker. At first Tony would stand up when he saw distant headlights, but after a while he just sat and stared at the ground.
“He’ll be here,” said Dominick in an almost-whisper.
Jepp was finishing his second cup of coffee when the two slaves arrived at the shop. Both were dressed so well Jepp guessed they had raided their masters’ closets for the occasion.
“You are sadly late,” said Jepp as they sat.
“Unavoidable,” said the man Jepp knew as Omar.
“What is the password?” demanded the other man, a greasy character with an outlandish crimson beard.
“Your friend is overcautious,” Jepp said to Omar. “Tell me your news.”
“The guard refused to help us. I only hinted, of course. It would have been foolish to ask him directly.”
The proprietor glided over with his coffee pot, but Omar waved him away.
“It would be wise to get coffee, at least,” said Jepp. “For appearances.”
“Fuck your appearances,” said crimson beard. “When this revolt succeeds we’ll be their masters.”
The proprietor wiped the nearby table with a cloth, all ears.
Historical note: The Conspiracy of the Slaves was a failed plot by Muslim slaves in Malta to assassinate Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca and take over the island. D-Day was June 29th 1749. Three slaves met in a coffee shop in Valletta to discuss the plot and began to quarrel. The shop owner, Giuseppe Cohen, overheard them and told the Grand Master. The men were arrested and, under torture, revealed all the details of the plot. The organizers were soon rounded up and executed.
This cruise we were promised
boxers: vascular and hungry
for victory. These boys would stop
at nothing, we were told.
The prize was
a golden belt
marked CHAMPION
in genuine rhinestones.
When we were awakened
and had drinks from a tray,
shuffled down staircases to the hold,
the newly installed boxing ring,
we paid attention to these boys
striding out as champions.
Someone ordered more drinks
while they hit each other
with twelve-ounce leather gloves
hard against their faces
while we cheered and cheered
Decroix took his St. Joseph’s Day handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped out the brim of the blue Borsolino he used to only wear for parades.
There was a lot of that down here. Used to.
We used to go up to Luchan’s for boudin, used to get us some drinks at Jimmy White’s Sports and Games. Used to have me a house, a car.
Decroix tipped his chair back and looked out at the vacant lots of what used to be a fine neighborhood, the long black line of high-water still visible on some of the remaining ruins.
Early in the morning on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. The storm’s aftermath was catastrophic. Levee breaches led to massive flooding in the poor wards of New Orleans where many of the city’s musicians and laborers lived. The neighborhoods were razed to make way for new development, pricing out many of the people who had lived there for generations. It will come as no surprise that the African American community was the hardest hit.
“That’s him, there.” Banker gestured at the giant sitting across the barracks.
“Christ,” said Crowley. “He’s immense.”
“That’s why they made him a scourger, cob,” smiled Banker. “Strong as a bull. I saw him give a hundred to a shirker not two months ago. You could see the poor bastard’s backbone before he reached thirty.”
Crowley wanted to ask if the man had lived, but thought better of it. “What’s his going rate?”
“Depends on the sentence. This new superintendent’s a pitiless bugger. Never seen him give less than twenty-five, and that for lateness.” He screwed up his eye. “Payment up front is recommended.”
Crowley fished his pockets and pulled out two gold guineas. Banker snatched them and secreted them in his clothes. “This should help him to go easy. Not that you won’t feel it, mind you. But they’ll at least be cutting a living man down from the triangle.”
What Pegman Saw: New South Wales
For almost 80 years, the first third of Australia’s urban existence, thousands of British convicts were transported to Australia for non-capital crimes. Some convicts were transported for life and many of today’s Australians are descended from these men and women. Its penal colony past still embarrasses many Australians and is considered a taboo subject, much like Germany’s Nazi past or America’s history of slavery and Jim Crow discrimination.
In the penal colony, punishment of all infractions was swift and severe. The preferred method was a flogging at one of the many triangles erected in the public square. The prisoner was tied with arms upraised and whipped with either a cat-o-nine-tails or a long whip made of bull or rhino hide. Sentences of twenty-five, fifty, or even a hundred lashes were commonplace. Sometimes it was possible for a convict to bribe a scourger to “go easy,” and not hit them as hard, but not always.
The convicts took tremendous pride in not calling out or groaning despite the agonizing pain. Convict J.F Mortlock wrote: “Silent composure under suffering is strictly prescribed by convict etiquette.”
Many Australians still prize personal fortitude and toughness as cardinal virtues.