Benevenagh
(A cliff top)

The cars crawling

I see their past. present, future

I am a god;

Sheep, tiny, moue legless

Like golf balls, she observes,

With her hair blown straight
shyward

By the wind up-rushing:

Frankenstein's bride with a
beautiful face.

We pause here

Timeless, alone, free:

The fall is a temptation

To a deathless death:

One dies of shock on the way
down

Apparently, and the bones
crumple in vain.

—Brian Howell

The Grinnell
Experience

Waking up gets more difficult.
Something is so wrong
Must I walk through,

Empty halls of duration?

This place reduces me,

To one of the many,

Falling unlearned.

Ironic isn't it?!

My echoing footsteps,

Reﬂect my emptiness,

Caused by the emptiness of this
place.

My thirst for knowledge'.7

Unquenched,

But sickened by this perpetual,

“pseudo-intellectual”,

Hangover.

Learning nothing but air,

One wants so badly to vomit.
Yet from my heaving stomach,
Comes nothing

But sighs.

Whispers

Whisper to me

Of yesterdays

When promises were kept

And hearts left unbroken;

A time before dreams were swept
away

By the wind

And crashed down upon rocky
shoresl '

Lean nearer,

And whisper

0f fantasies that did not vanish
into the mist

And did not dissolve at the touch.

Whisper

Of life's illusions,

But .

Whisper

Softly. ,

—-Eva Baroth

 

But Cecil Vutwix was adamant. so
his friend saw him to the door, and
alter a hearty, “Haste ye back!” he
was pounding the streets againithe
private dick on his home turf—smelly
ing slightly of formaldehyde.

Authors' note; Well, that was a
revolting little scenario, wasn‘t it? But
it’s nothing compared to the situation
here In our room. King is gurgling
unintelligibly, editing pages as they
come an the machine, screaming for
more gin, and offering revisions that
sound more like Spencerian sonnet
fragments than detective fiction. 1
can't help hearkening back to the
twisted days or last summer, when
this “literary endeavor" of ours was
conceived, and since it‘s 1:30 am. and
we have something of a carte blanche
this issue, I’m going to, Here’s what it
was like, as it was transcribed live on
August 15, 1979, at 5:00 a.m.: ”What in
the name of Sweet Bleeding Jesus had
caused him (it is no longer clear to us
who "him" is; each of us will testify
under oath that it was the other ) to
begin babbling dislractedly about
massive barrel cacti and bloody killer
lizards in the Perkins Steak and Cake
at 3:00 a.m., unduly disturbing the en-
tire stafi' and half the clientel? Even if
they were extremely reptilian, and
had no ﬁght whatsoever to be up at
that hour, frightening respectable

December 7, “979

Citizens like him, who were caught up
in a terrifying whirlwind of paranum,
orange Vinyl. people with no upper lip,
and horribly delormed gargoyle-like
killersu,” This is becoming far too in»
criminating, so we're going to try to
steer back to our story. But lirst, its
oil to the bakery, and then to deliver
what we‘ve got so far to the editors.
Their reaction should be entertaining,
ii nothing else. If they print this, we
haven‘t decided if we'll augment our
respect for them or leave town. “Time
waits for no one, and it won't wait for
men" Right. Mick,

He decided to head back to Laura‘s
apartment to get the answers to a few
questions concerning the connection
between Kickback and her late lather,
When he arrived, the only signs of his
were the remains of breakfast in the
sink and Rachmaninoil's Second
Piano Concerto on the turntable. He
turned to leave, but stopped when he
heard splashing noises coming from
the direction of the bathroom. His
eyes narrowed as a all revolver ef-
iorllessly appeared in his right hand.
He crossed to the door, paused, then
violently kicked it off the hinges and
flung himself headlong intn the room,
slipped on the hathmal, and struck his
head on the tonlet tank. His first
thought, when he saw Laura Haddock»

, Swanson soaking in a bathtub Iilled

with shelled butter clams and yogurt,
was that he'd knocked his brains loose
on the toilet7 not the l'irstajme he’d '
Suffered that misfortune. But the’vi» ,
sion refused to dissipate, so he cleared
his throat and said: “Excuse me, but
just what exactly are you doing in
there, anyway, corporate research?”

“0h, Cecil, hi. Um, this is a beauty
treatment highly recommended by
Jacques Cousteau, and..."

”Never mind Ii it’s not too much
trouble, could you unpack yourseli
from that mess and answer a few
questions? I'll wait in the living
room.”

“Now then, Cecil, what is it you
need to know?" She asked brightly, as
she towelled the clam juice out or her
hair.

“Have you ever met, or heard oi, a
guy named Giuseppe Kickback?"

“Why, yes,” she looked surprised.
“I Saw him once in Daddy’s ofﬁce
with Captaln sribling, why do you
ask?”

“Don’t mind your pretty little head
about that, Babe Now Who's this Stib-
ling?”

“He was Daddy's right hand man.
He personally supervises Daddy's vast
fleet of mudshark boats. Daddy and he
were very close friends."

“Where can I llnd him?"
{continued on the next pagei)

11

 

