brio. The Fall 2002 Issue

brio.

/BKEE-oh/, noun vivacity; liveliness; spirit, an individual energy. the discipline of comparative literature is based on the assumption that the study of single texts and cultures is enriched by a knowledge of the texts and cultures surrounding them, it views literature from a broad and inclusive perspective in which philosophy, anthropology, history, language, and literary theory come together, and where drama, the visual arts, and modern media suggest crucial comparisons, this journal aspires to embody these ideas. brio IS a student-founded publication that combines literary criticism with fictive works and visual art. in an effort to represent the wide spectrum of discourses that serve as the foundation of comparative study, the journal accepts submissions from any source.

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Kristina Isrnst, untitled

With all my love, Galita

George Costanza Doesn’t Love Me

Tiama & Bruje are dead. the gift

Dreaming Spires and Frozen Chappathis: A Taste of Indians at Oxford blue plate special

Words Like This Everybody Has Problems

Drama Queen

Holiday in Georgia

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->M irroJ I'rteseO ssn«J^^

With all my love, Galica

- xjv-M-i •

I was cold, my love

That when you saw me Still in the arms of another man

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YOU knew you would claim me. (although we both know chat to be too soft a word) 1 found myself in you that night as well.

Wild eyes, the young artist And the strong back of the woman, not yet born.

Who would become his muse. You bought me a castle And planted roses in the garden outside.

Filled rooms with treasures made by your own hands.

Who would have thought such a life existed?

■ You wove your name with mine. We grew old by the beach.

I, ..Tf

Young girls still appeared naked in my kitchen. (I never minded fetching galletas for them on those afternoons) We watched each other grow old by this reflected light.

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i

My hair turned gray Your moustache turned gray

My skin... You would not know, never having been a muse.

My skin was no longer my own My name was no longer my own The)’ belonged to you. And the paranoiac-critical bird chat had built its nest inside you. K.i( tod (ttir

1 never wanted you to know this, but

Sometimes 1-aie at night 1 would peel your arms from around mine

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And your legs from around mine And let myself into your studio

Where the scent of turpentine would Sink into my skin

And sometimes.

Sometimes I would pick up one of your brushes

And trace the outline of my face.

Heather Cleary

Geoi^e Costanza Doesn't Love Me

YOU left me with a lap of microwave popcorn

.jvo! ’^in iU rt*i W

and a 2-hour scries finale urge to urinate.

1 stare at your bald head & hairy back

'fat ,t»iw MW I wtz utiv iisfi-a !sd I fiftfft radmix a. ims -nil m tttjp

wishing I was your shirt 100% cotton; the lemon yellow stains beneath the pits

of your arms to go with the toupee­

StBclj bil.o . iXiV WiOji u'CjY 1^'11 VKMui

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sales ticket still attached from

itiflKXliU ;

Susie's Hair Salon & Tanning. il't 3*. i. L, . , ill

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Ki*!,.

Excuse me George, but can 1 have your autograph,

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join my parents and me for pork chops & peas?

hliW

sif : boA

is*

WKISSU LuiO .s 'd-V

We're having Fig Newtons for dessert? 1 ake me to one of your movie premieres.

tioY .-!*i !sj OaJI feasuilq bi A

Introduce me to your wife, kid.s seven & nine.

smixn bilLi dW

it

I faithfully tune in to 180

episode.s of you undressing every blond with your eyes. You prove your love with heart shaped boxes of chocolates. Shove 12 dozen roses in my face. Tht thorns catch on my eyelids.

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SjKtj{'jl«lK»Y

.j.zi.t loi .

tsvwi I)

Where were you? rLi£3

1 kept calling, leaving message after message.

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Lj-rswi Mc,-! vM 1 lut-Y

Did you receive my letters?

1 lingered at the front gate of your mansion waiting in .a Chevy Nova

as your wife slept peacefully

in her cucumber face maskas your children drifted

Ci-.li

in sugar plum drcams. L-’ici Waited for you in a window seal

of Melba's Pit Bar-B-Cue

JSJiJ .Zlds «Ct!:.4 ij; u,"-.

A- Tj-'5;i i

as you walked through the door

in your red satin pajamas.

fSSrd

I**! hluo* i srigni

j^iftSoA lifc-i

Siwai bnuoie mo^S jgai -juu j b.’;A YOU look different without your glasses,

thinner in the blue bath robe I bought you for Christmas when we feasted on store-bought turkey.

1 basted your body with giblet gravy on the floor under the kitchen table while your wife took the kids to her mother's. when you pretended to be sick.

OtUjj: Kityi Oiiil 'tls.- ’.-I! rti bfiA hfuew wioajkjiin io 3i» j£ mIj mii -^ni o»ii diisiZ

,.*■»«« nmcM bnA. isdai jd weRji to sno f|u jI-ji'j ! jfalo andiixj xb ■s-jt-ij UbA

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As you heard her at the front French doors, the click-clack of heels

on the finest marble flown in from Italy, you tossed me my shirt and shoes

urging rue to exit from the servant entrance. YOU shoved me in the bathroom of green aftershave, clear sticks of under arm deodorant,

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trash cans stuffed with maxi-pads

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and glow in the dark band-aids.

I fuss with my shirt stained with your star-studded semen­ n .aril SftnsrWfe

tuck underwear in the back pocket of my acid washed

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jeans and sprint to my car parked behind your forest green BMW you bought after box office

blockbuster success of Pretty Woman.

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You don't love me George t’ostanza.

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You're ashamed to be seen with a fairy

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at the Emmys. But you adore me when I'm ass naked

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in a hotel room of Red Roof Inn-

; .«»Li

when my mouth is gagged with leather

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and wrists are bound

S'*5f-a?*

’ ’i-’.sisHrtisa.

by handcuffs you borrowed

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off the set of Law and Order.

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Ji j;-

fe»!e.'»ia«Kiw;5WijKaSK<*t3'i»

You tell me I'm the one )’ou love .■ "

as your wife's away at another fundraiser

......

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and we lie together on your polar bear rug.

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A bowl of uncooked kernels positioned between our iiaked bodies. According to you, I'm the only man you will ever love.

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Shane Allison

Tiama & Bruje are dead. They say she never forgave her.

Well, what if they were wrong? What if years after her mother’s death,

after a few heart-taxing decisions, she forgave her mother in her sleep, or just before falling asleep?

Maybe it was just a slight whisper, only part of the words actually pronounced into the melting air around her mouth, the rest still a little stuck in her sinuses, afraid of the coolness beyond the skin. Had she not fallen asleep, the release that could have followed was an avalanche of emotion that would have sent her tumbling

into wails of grief, of freedom like that found in the spaces between stanzas of poetry. No longer would she be obligated to keep watch. She would have realized her mother’s sacrifice, her mother’s love.

For now, in

sleep, Anita simply forgave. ♦

0

0

There was no one to tell. She awoke groggy from a flutter of dreams, aware that the only person who was affected by her decision was herself. Her mother, Bruje, had died years ago, and the aunt who’d raised her even

longer ago. Neither could share in her relief, in her revelation. So why did it even matter, she wondered. But she did feel different this morning. Not lighter, a.s she would have expected, but different for sure. "Andres. Andres?” She called out to the house, but the rooms answered back in silence. Anita lay in bed,

her straight brown hair fanned out on her pillow, her thin lips slightly swelled by sleep, her delicate eyebrows

pressed into a scowl. Her husband was an early riser, out running before she even placed one pinkie outside of the down comforter. Her mother had bought it for her when she was married—no, not her mother, her aunt.

Remove the tags, she told herself—the labels are unimportant.

But those names had confused her for her entire life. The)’’d confused everybody. The words "madre” and "tia” were somehow fused together in her mind. So much so that when she was very young, she called Yente

“Tiama.” Her mother was always "Bruje.” Bruje was poor; she thought of her baby’s future and allowed her

sister to provide, to have the pnvilege of this girl’s love. This girl’s heart was tinged with sorrow, her kisses wet with bitterness. Yente wore black until Anita’s arrival. Photos of Yente holding Anita as a baby showed

Anita’s pink skin against the background of Yente’s floral prints and bright vertical stripes.

"Andres!” she called again. Still no answer. She didn’t trust herself to get out of bed yet. What if the rec­ ognition achieved last night melted away with the darkness? Like drcams that are only remembered for a mo­

ment in consciousness and then slip away, leaving only props on the black floor of the stage. The plot, like cheesecloth, so thin, lets wakefulness fill all the spaces. What if when she stood up, her Icg.s revolted, her foun­

dations stripped from beneath her? She had to see these women who had engraved circumstance into her soul, into the spaces between her toes. She wanted to show them the carvings and demand to know what they’d done with the shavings. 0

0

0

She took the day off work at the library to visit the graveyard.

"Cemetery” always seemed like a euphe­

mism to her, and she wasn’t about to tnvialize her visit. Anita wore a gray pant-suit and light pink blouse, though she realized her mothers wouldn’t notice. She felt odd about visiting Tiama and Bruje—like she was

an unannounced guest at a tea party for two, imposing on their intimate glances. The conversation would stop

suddenly: another cup and saucer would have to be brought out, and more tea made to accommodate her visit. She could see Tiama in her housedress, waving Anita’s helpful hands away, waddling into the kitchen to put on

more hot water for tea. Bruje would watch Anita from behind her tea cup as Tiama stood over the stove, wait­ ing for the water to boil so as not to make the trip twice. Anita walked along the gravel path, her shoes making a satisfactory noise that was just enough to keep her distinctly alive among the quiet ones. She turned a few comers and came to Yente’s grave. The marble was

cool and unchanging, despite the movement in the black and white swirls within the stone. It was solid; made

to last through the ages, the tip of an iceberg connecting to an underworld inhabited by so many relatives and friends—some close, some only names or noses, collarbones and curly eyelashes. Picking up a stone from the walkway, Anita placed it on the slab of marble covenng Yente’s plot. “Don’t

worry,” she said aloud, “you haven’t been forgotten.” With the action, memories spurred and surfaced. She pictured Yenie, placing a stone on her grandmother’s grave. This circle frightened her in a way. Anita read the

epitaph: From Your Loving Niece. The word punctured her—yet another word that failed to accurately mir­

ror her role in Yente’s life. Anita’s life had been spent categorizing titles and putting them on shelves,

sorting them and placing them into shoeboxes with labels so she wouldn’t mistake them or lose them.

She’d

maintained the distinction until now, when she longed to cross out the engraving and scnbble in childish script. Daughter. But Yente had died and was buried beneath those words.

To change them now would be

playing with the space-time continuum—a change that could warp the past in Anita’s head, yet still couldn’t

mend what had passed. What a strange love triangle this was—two unchanging points, one angle in constant flux. After pulling up a few weeds that grew around Yente’s space, Anita walked around the corner to Bruje’s

plot.

They died years apart, but were buried close together. “ I bey’ll always have company,” she had thought

to herself. They lay close to each other, within sight, as they always had been in life. As sisters, they’d shared

whole conversations over Anita’s head, in silence. They shared the sort of quiet comfort in not having to speak

what you mean; the kind that exists when a wink from an eye so similar to your own says enough. Bruje’s grave had several stones on it—markers of love most likely left there by a child—one of Anita’s

siblings by blood—one of the children Biaije had raised herself. Anita had always separated herself from her brothers and sisters by standing on the outskirts of photos and refusing to sit with them on the school bus.

She couldn’t remember if she’d ever hugged them. Now she toyed with the idea of what could have been had

she not pitied herself so much as a child. Kelationships could have been funned. If she fertilized the soil now, would her siblings respond? Was there enough sunlight left to sprout? 1 o bear fruit?

She placed two stones on Bruje’s grave, a small token of sibling rivalry. Anita’s name was on this gravestone too, among her sibling’s names: Wirb Love from Alberto, Jaime, David, Jacobo and Anita. After wiping the

top of the headstone, she sat on Bruje’s marble grave-top.

Her fingers traced the cracks in the stone as she

would have traced the wrinkles that fomied on Bruje’s neck and ankles. She ached for a response to her touch­ ing, a gesture of forgiveness, knowing it couldn’t come, Anita placed het ear to the stone and listened to the silence. Was it an acknowledging quiet? Was Bruje accepting her apology? Could she sense her regret? Could

the lack of response be interpreted as .i slow circular rub on the back—the motion that mothers have perfected to ease the anxieties of their children?

When she lifted her face from the marble, droplets of water remained. Anita’s hands reached to wipe them away, but she held back, watching as the miniature puddles seeped into the cracks in the stone. Bruje was

taking away her tears.

«

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e

As she left the graveyard, Anita allowed herself to look at the headstones—the pictures, the dates. She fig­ ured how old or young the dead were, how those with the same last name were related, but mostly, she won­

dered what each body had done with their dash.

1902 - 1984.

The numbers themselves were quite unimpor­

tant, she thought. It’s the dash that matters, really.

Anita picked her way around the plots, finally arriving at the gate. She could feel Yente and Bruje in their places, the space taken up by air and earth that kept her separate from them. But she contmued walking away,

each step reaffinning her position in their lives, reworking her memories. She picked up another pebble from the walkway and placed it in her pocketbook, creating a triangle of stone.

Rotem Moscovich

the gift

it was then that you gave me your crown, still fresh with your blood

Ci;-; .

sstttiiu-s-

and sharp like sour wine. clothed in hallowed robes, your servants

blessed the holy water

and bathed my heathen forehead.

it was then i took your crown, in the year of our lord

nineteen eighty seven.

my belated entrance into righteousness:

baptized in your misery. the years toiled on like roman slaves. Sundays in st. monica's basement

the morning passed in repcntencc, plastic rosary in hand and leviticus upon my untrained lips, later i ascended, head bowed,

to your realm of gold and crimson and disappeared among the mahogany pews,

one face among a sea of contrition. clear as the morning bells rang

the voice of our most sanctified shepherd,

deep and resonant and filled with flame

calling out your name, entreating arms outstretched in prayer, and one by one our transgressions marched

like prisoners across his solemn tongue

in tones of shame and rage, your remorseful burden laid square

upon our wicked shoulders.

! ttStT// bent in pious genuflection i took the arid, tasteless bread, eager for deliverance,

and every week a new confession, wrung

from between the claustrophobic walls in which that faceless voice boomed in accusation like the coming apocalypse,

and heavy grew the barbed circlet that graced my skull,

and there you pushed deep the thorns: your gift to me,

a thankless mortal casualty.

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ia-jbstjqsiO twsws'l b« s-sw?!?!

facAifj«s«l»ns I'S 'S3W1-T A

and as such, i return, a stranger in your sanctuary,

paying homage to that pointed finger familiar like my own reflection, before your agonized impression

»h»*’

i bow and breathe, the tang

rf" 1 mA

gtsi

of heady smoke from gilded censers

choking me with sequent strength, ««( ! ;,.i.

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sweet with your opiate fragrance.

at length i kneel

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It' -e«i 1-.^.

in veiled submission, to lay my crimes

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at your feet as offerings:

yU’

envy for gold

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flay

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a-. ai

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pride for frankincense anger for myrrh

a/a^yjya;

each one prized like deepest faith

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aflia.iaif:

a aafiffcwi!f«Si(##««aa

oia,a y»w a.at^s-aivXjjitassl-

■artert jniKOjO- .aa*a i .

talismans that served me well

beneath the glare of condemnation,

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glimmering in the silhouette

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and just as fragile,

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of your cold shoulder, still turned,

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ignorant to the damage done. ■sJ-:«»«■

regard now this errant one; look upon me and

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feel in my supplication my good

old-fashioned catholic guilt

■ «’*!;!;» riflfl'f

and lay your holy hand upon me

sjesj -sdl

Hfa aaat fxadjgbsrt

my savior, clever traitor. you are the light, and the sin,

and the way, and 1 your most wayward child Sfite

borne from your circle and reared in the shadow of your listless gaze

Ss'SStrtte

! io

and 1 wear your crown.

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i-if.-c ri.tjvoia’isj'.aisi toffnosfew

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Sarah Riedel

■

Dreaming Spires and Frozen Chappathis: A Taste of Indians at Oxford Amidst the compulsory feeding fests of Indian Oxonians, my world has become distinctly brown.

Now a squid from Kerala, clad in kurta pyjamas, skates over my horizon every day, mercilessly squeezing ink on to my ashen world; sometimes beige and fuzzy-sambhar, or rasam - dark and Dravidian. Meal times wel­

come sweet muddy hands; curvaceous bivalent cutlery.

I observe brilliant friends from the land of a billion

echoes, where history is fried with love, and swallowed with indigestion. Heads shake in accordance, and shin­

ing black sheets cover brown beds of thought, hiding guilt and resting resurgence. Meanwhile parental tanks line up against my innards, and shoot from Vedic heights. I am charged with not being Indian, and I am de­

fenceless. We have known each other, as the Christian minister might put it, but the Brahmin priest might not, for mote

than twenty-seven months. It all began with the guru; that romantic bushy beard of a concept. The learning of the magic syllables; freshly ancient he implied, and uniquely pure. Our handshake, a habit for me, still an ex­

pression of freedom for her, was observed by a burning flower stem becoming a wonn, which 1 would later smell as sandalwood. We shared joke.s about our teacher being an ‘honorary Indian’ and as the English drizzle

peppered us on our walk back to town, she would splash me with mythology. 'The seventh jar of desire’ which can never be filled; ‘kal-yug’ - the hapless cow balancing on one leg, and the unfortunate bath tub incident that Lord Ganesha will never forget. I w» captivated by the sense of a land that may have ‘the answer’, but over the

following months I would share white rice and red spice with brown friends, who would assuredly mock the follies of their country; injecting conversation with a rich realism of poverty and vice.

Bemused pleasure could be gleaned in the lean white features of our guru from the Midlands; that an Indian girl would learn to meditate so far from home. She could learn, he thought, the same technique in the land where she and it were bom. Easily overlooked is the uncomplicated ease and lightness, one might say the taste,

with which one could become a meditator here, compared with the compulsory bindis, the binding reverence, and the stifling piety of ‘knowing your place’ back in what our teacher liked to call ‘the land of the the Ved’.

‘Ved means knowledge’, says Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

A serene introduction to a boa constrictor, whose

‘knowledge’ includes bizarre brahmanical rituals, proclamations of‘natural law’, including that ‘natural’ prickly

hedgehog they call the c.iste system, with spines in every pore of India.

Carving, even now, cleavages onto

every breast in the country; making thus one this, and that one that, regardless of whether you arc here or there, or want to be.

Time and space have not lifted this skeleton from India’s body and hostile facial expressions are

provoked by the subject; as if heads were trying to jump away from the skeleton, and resented it.s presence be­

low. More than once willful curiosity has led me astray.

I have queried Indians at Oxford, or ‘Oxinds’ as I now

think of them, about their caste, and every time I feel I have asked the wrong question. The British analogy, to be asked which class you belong to, is obtuse and benign by comparison. The core of both questions, ‘What kind of family do you come from?‘ invites information that is literally world.s apart; a bygone sociological pin­ prick here; an insidious knifing there. To discriminate on the basis of caste is a penal offence. Caste begins

with surnames, works into vocations, eats into diet, and weds itself to marriage. To ask for someone’s caste is to ask for license to make assumptions, and perhaps a basis on which decisions will be made. Relations between home-bound parents and far flung students are not always warm, but for Oxinds their

families are not only where they come from, but where they go to. They are not inclined to think of individual atoms, but famdy-sized molecules. On the question ‘who are you?' they will lead you first to their anchor, tied to Its port in India, and only later to their sad. The pulse of an Indian famdy beats vociferously and is tactde

even here. Selfhood pivots around it, as if an umbilical cord gently tugged on every breath. Like an ‘imperial

president’ conquering beyond his constitutional remit, ‘the imperial famdy’ gently colonises the Oxind’s life. ‘Oh yeah. Tin definitely a Syrian Christian catholic’ says Robi, ‘I don’t believe in God, but I’m terrified of my mother’.

There is a (de)pressing need for Nirmal to send money home to her ading mother. She works regularly at her college lodge and for the computing services. Much less intensely, she works on her MPhd thesis on chdd la­ bour in India. Stoically saving to give back whence she came, and trying to make sense of a monstrosity. Both

are labours of love, close to her heart, but the fonner is even closer to home. Knowing that she can earn more ‘would-be rupees’ in one hour than her mother could in ten is a mean motivating force. Can we face up to this unholy face-off? Pounds and rupees. Pistols at dawn. ‘ l axi please’!- half of mum’s lec­

ture fee; ‘could we sec the desert menu?’- A month’s salary for a maid; ‘A prawn biriyani, aloo paratha, and veg­ gie balti to'take away’ - white silk sarec with hand painted border. The initial distress of comparing two cur­

rencies, the one skimmed milk and the other double cream, is never whipped away, but the contrast cannot hold the conscience to ransom forever. Oxinds arc duly anaesthetized, and the garlicky guilt subsides.

Not so with relationships; a whole new set of spices. Meera, a Zoology DPhil student, is happy with Vinod. He’s a fellow Oxind, speaks the same mother longue, but she is tormented by the lack of her parent’s blessings. Ostensibly they object to his caste, but the core of their objection, the unspeakable, is a response to rejection. As parents they are wiser than their children, not by demonstration, but by definition. Their beliefs and ac­

tions cannot be anything other than in their daughter’s best interests. They care, don’t you see? They care. And

they care with authority on their side.

1 he main symbol of this caring relationship is institution of marriage.

It IS ‘care-less’ not to let your parents help you choose your partner. For a daughter to organise her own life without parental direction is felt as some kind of betrayal.

You didn’t let us care, you didn’t let us use our

authority to help you. 1 hey may feel irrelevant, or disempowered, but more often than not, they feel wronged. This idea of betrayal is a ghost.

When Suhasini’s lap top was stolen it came haunting.

As I looked at the

smashed glass and speculated about the burglar’s strategy, her very first thought was that she shouldn’t tell her parents. This would not only worry them, but they might choose to see it as a bad omen, and reinforce their

belief that we shouldn’t be living together unmarried. It’s not exceptional to do something here that would be

almost unthinkable in India, but every day Suhasini longs to integrate her worlds. Her web of life must now be woven with silk of two different hues and in her fragility she is at once the spinner of the web, and ban for

the spider. ‘Can you imagine waking up and discovering it’s difficult co breathe? To be constantly absorbed in alien sexual

morality and your responsibility for it?’. Now there is fear of communication. ‘It’s one thing to feel the pain of those you love because eventually you can hope find a way to sort it out, but I cannot explain my actions to every acquaintance in a way they will understand.’

1 bus Suhasini tries to avoid meeting anyone from her home

town here tn Oxford. ‘My first instinct would be to invite them home for a meal, but then if they saw where I lived, and the news of it wafted back home, it would be intolerable for my father to face enquiries from family,

friends and colleagues.’ So don’t invite them home, I suggest.

But given that a fellow Indian here extends

much more than mere hospitality and friendship with a home cooked meal, this is tantamount to deprivation.

On hearing that her Niece was living with her non-Indian, western, Scottish boyfriend (in that order), Suhasini was asked by her maternal Aunt, with intense concern, ‘Don’t you think you should get married now,

in case one of you later changes your mind?' Delicious!! Absolutely delicious. Here wisdom sees this type of

doubt as a reason to delay marnage, but there it hastens the need to accelerate. This was relayed to me by phone while Suhasini was in India. On laughing at the question, I drove a stake into her heart. Her world was again divided. Anguished teats, a perplexing silence, and then: ‘Don’t you see, this is absolutely nonnal here.’

Religion and custom are always within earshot. ’People will talk’ paraphrases social stigma, the first and fiercest sanction. Family makes demand.s on loyalty, responsibility, possibly income, and reassurance of fu­

ture prospects. Personal problems of fulfillment, leisure and love are deemed far less important. It’s as if the Oxind was at the centre of a scrie.s of concentric circles, defining but unreachable. One can see these circles

radiating out from the individual, generated by his own will, or a type of force field protecting him from a

reckless freedom. But they arc also rings of suffocation, squeezing out autonomy. Marriage is the regal problem, biseriing every circle. In Britain, being unmarried is invariably a personal is­

sue, and not always problematic. In Indi.a it is an institutional and societal problem, and families arc respon­ sible for Its solution. It is not always possible to solve the problem at ever)' level, and conquering three cir­

cles out of four might be seen as a success.

Thus an honourable unhappy marriage may be deemed better

than a happy, if illicit relationship. The individual is not assumed to be sovereign in these matters.

Half a century ago, parental investment in the future must have differed qualitatively from what it i.s today.

On achieving independence, a first generation of Indians could advance themselves through personal achieve­ ment. They were socially mobile pioneers, with indeterminate destinations and unpredictable success. Ox-

inds today are mostly part of the following generation, educated Indians, with far more detenninate destina­ tions and more probable success.

The parental investment Ls now in the child as the bearer of success.

Some of their own unrealisable drcams are possible for their children, and all the more so if they merit a

scholarship to Oxford.

The advice they offer is more specific and their own life experience makes them per­

sonally involved. Expectation drip.s into love, and changes its flavour. It comes back to belonging. Home is not just a place, but a set of values giving life .a distinct character. It is an acquired taste. If your action.s belie those values, you damage your sensitivity to thus taste and cease to

belong in the same way. Parents labor to keep alive that t.astc for home. Indeed, I heard of an Indian family, ’quite hip-hop, high tech and all that, but in some way.s quite traditional’ who organized for their soon-to-

bc-lcaving student daughter to cart)' 400 frozen chappathis back to England. An inspired idea! Slap them in

the freezer, notably in packets of ten, so they won't spoil once opened, and home comforts are never far away. For the Indian mother, the ache of being apart from loved ones for so long crcatc.s a hunger to impart

affection. How can I express my love for them if I can't feed them? As long as they arc eating my food, they are sharing my world. I am involved, and they arc still Indian. But if they venture so far, frozen chappathrs

may become frozen pizzas; and there is a new form of love, a new influence, and then where am I; where is India ’ "Aren't you worried about your cultural integrity?" is likely to provoke a telling response if not an incredu­

lous answer.

There is a tendency to knowingly sneer at such probes, and in doing so to acknowledge the

reality of the question’s source, but not to concede to that source by giving an answer. The first line of de-

fence is academic training. "What do you mean by ‘cultural integrity’?" A moot point perhaps, but when we

reduce it to meaningful components, the whole is left untouched. ‘Cultural integnty’ must always be a pilgrim, travelling from the past and the place that conuins it. The question comes from Indian tradition, via Indian society, seeking to be loved, and no doubt fed in the process. ‘Are/ar culture! I’ve made some iddlies. Come

on over, we’ll talk. And bang some chutney.’

When 1 observe those gudty of vanous acts of ‘deviance’, 1 am struck by the realization that regardless of my behavior 1 would never be asked about my cultural integrity. It is one thing to be unthreatened by the charge

that It is questionable, but it's another to find the very question astonishing, even strangely refreshing. I'm not

sure 1 have any cultural integrity to uphold; just a tub of teflon where anyone can dip. For most Oxinds, it has become a part of their culture to be those whose cultural integrity is in question.

But whose integrity is that?

Whose Culture? The Indian at Oxford may no longer jump to say ‘it's mine!, it's mine!’ 'Cultural integrity’

may not mean much to Oxinds, but they are formed by it as surely as they will shape it. They will have to de­ vour It to be truly free, but in doing so they are eating themselves. Rahul has a different take. "Yes I am worried about my cultural integrity, and there is good reason for being

so.

Indian students come here to gain.

We have lots to gain, but we have to buy into a culture to gain it.

There is prestige to be had if you manage to ‘bring back a bit of England’’’. But then there is the ‘coconut com­

promise’; a trite idea with teeth. The Oxind can be subsumed by British mores; remaining brown on the out­ side, but on the iitside turning white. As an outsider, the Oxind seeks to be welcomed and needs help from those around him, but the price for this

can be an anglicized accent and a dulling of political views. When Rahul tentatively tried to tell my grandfa­ ther that ‘Many of India’s current problems are the legacy of Bntish Colonial rule’, I felt that what he really

wanted to say was: ‘You colonized us you bastards! You plundered our country for your own gain and expect

us to be thankful - for the railway system and the Indian administrative service no less’.

You do ‘pick up culture’ here, according to Robbie, whether it be classical music, literature, fast food or liberalised sexual morality.

But the threat to cultural integrity is not directly from swapping one world view

for the other, but diluting your Indian identity to feel more comfortable. It takes enormous courage to remain

true to yourself, when that sell is from such a different place and tied to a family so many miles and months away. Nirmal tells me that when she wears a salwar, many assume she can't speak English. Nayantara stopped

wearing them because they made her feel even more isolated, as if she were wearing a sanitised robe. Nirmal would not be diluted: ‘Sod it, this is who 1 am’, but she admits that the more she externally appears to be Indian, the more she inwardly feels at sea. In spite of the trappings of race, Oxinds generally enjoy a greater degree of personal freedom than they would

at home. The greatest luxury' is simple physical space.

Less density. You feel freer in that you do not feel

watched, partly because fewer people are watching, but also because there are more places to go where no one can see you. Women also feel that gender is less of an issue here. There are none of the catty notions of‘good

girls’ and how they should behave. They are also free from habitual stanng, from their bums being pinched on buses and men using crowds as an excuse to bump into them ‘rather strategically’, as Nirmal knowingly put it.

They are also free to hug, kiss friends on the cheek, drink, be unashamedly drunk, and, even if just in their

imagination, lie flat on their backs and offer their boobs to the sun. Men are also free from playing Indian roles. Free from means-end thinking with its deflating questions about

income and careers, and enjoying, amongst other things, ‘the freedom to be intellectual’. Siddharth is spending

a year on a thesis about the incoherence of invoking rights of the unborn. He freely, even proudly, admits ‘this

thesis will have no normative suggestions or direct bearing on the abortion debate whatsoever’. It will bnng

some conceptual clarity, which the debate badly needs, but this Ls more of an Oxonian, less of an Indian-onlyson-in-the-family imperative. Oxinds are no strangers to escapism. There is much for them to escape from, and to. Idealizing India is per­

haps the greatest escape. Visions of smiling families, familiarity and friendly sunshine. A ‘cut and paste’ sur­

vival strategy.

Daily Indian delights like sarees or ghee can be quickly stripped of context and conveniently

pasted into our world. In choosing not to cut or even to notice the surrounding realities, they opt out of those details which show that Indian blessings, like most others, can be decidedly mixed. For there are, 1 have

learned, dinner tables where the ghee is incautiously reached for by the father with the weak heart, who is wres­

tled away by the mother tn the feminine saree, which captures her femininity, but coinmit.s her to it, and so

captures her too. When one is so anonymous in the streets in which one walks, it is natural that one’s home country should as­

sume a more cohesive form, and act a.s a counterweight to a place which secs you at least partly .as a colour, or at least a foreigner, and rarely as a hero. But Oxinds are much too intelligent to be unduly earnest about India,

and all too aware of the magnilude of it.s wounds and the futility of aspiring to heal them. Yet they love their country in .a deeply sensual way. At times they seem to feel that India is too vast for words,

too multifaceted for the big conceptual chunks needed to carry weight in an argument. They prefer to nibble;

it’s the safest way to taste the promise that’s been prepared for centuries. Their lifeblood came from an umbili­ cal cord that they now seek to consume, bringing them back, bite by bite, to the promusing land. And when

they have pulled themselves home they are standing together, still fettered and far from satisfied. They know the cause of their fetters, love it, and .s.i 1. to possess it. None of them know how to do it. but their longing is clear.

They want to cat India.

Jonathan Rowson

"SiSkl Arr ■

blue plate special it's quality tune

and so, thus fulfilled,

in a weslbury diner

we rise with our love

with three neon lights

for the novelty action

like three suns, above us,

of leaving together,

in a 5O's motif.

and walk out in tandem.

the waitress speaks english like 1 speak Chinese but still gives a smile that looks like a slice

of the waning half-moon. outside there are puddles, lake-size, on the pavement, inside we stay silent

and stare through the windows

J

(our way of conversing).

so faint the impression

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■

■'

fff r'

of our quiet presence:

formica reflecting

the double pale circles of our neutral faces,

two backwards c.xpressions that

flirt with each other. the state of affairs where gestures are phrases and sighs punctuation. it’s midnight by now.

the food, on arrival, is duly Ignored except for the coffee,

it burns our tongues well. a few crumpled dollars atop the worn menu like rudely-used kleenex

announce our departure

with wry symbolism.

Sarah Riedel

Words Like This You buy a toothbrush from the deli at the corner. It is March 21". The season swings forward on a chain. It has been six months, and the toothbrush at her place need.*; replacing.

You are on your way to see her. It is March 2I“. It is 2:55 p.m. Two steps from her door, you have five minutes to kill and you mean to do it, to not arrive as you always do, early. But it’s hard. Theresc is always late

and you’ve grown conscious of time. You didn’t expect it to last this long.

That’s what caught you first about Therese: her time. Dana is a clock, an atomic clock. Rhythmic. But Therese is late, up late and wake.s late into the morning, a late-bloomcr who is best after midnight, like some exotic moon flower. Not even regularly late. She varies. Five minutes, twenty minutes, seven minutes, two

hours. Then comes in swaying on those heels that make her ass look so nice, her long legs, dark hair falling over a smile that says, I knew you’d be waiting. Because people always are. Therese i.s someone you wait for.

Dana arrives on time, she says, because you’ll turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of the hour, and then what will she do with the glass slippers?

You pay for the toothbrush in cash, counting the change out on your palm. It is a habit you’ve picked up from Dana; she said she liked the game of it, fitting the coins together untd you have exactly enough to pay. She has marked you with these, these gestures, these ghosts.

You turn and half expect Dana to be walking in. Not that you fear being caught or even words if you were caught—words like broken, like loyalty—but you feel as if you’ve conjured her here by thinking. Like a spirit.

Dana is like that. She floats in and out of focus; you cannot get your grip on her.

Dana is loyal as a dog. You heard this said of her once. A dog who waits for his master to come home, ly­

ing on the doormat, her nose snuffling the slippers by the door. When you were a child, you heard a fable of a dog who spent ten years waiting by the door for his master. His master had gone across the sea to earn his for­

tune, or spend it, his fortune spent and wasted in perfumed homes as he fed other dogs by the hand. Perhaps in Paris. One day the fortune was spent and the master came back. The dog was still there, waiting. Old and gray by then, of course, an old dog, but then the master was old too and so they both

sat, these two dry knitting.s of bones, sdent by the fire.

You wonder if Dana will wait for you to come back. You have always come back. The cashier gives you your toothbrush in a plastic bag and waves you on. You’ve always been surprised by

how many delis there are in New York. Home in Ohio, when you said deli you thought deli, you know, deli, with a big Hobart slicer and thick rolls of meat behind glass, men named Vinny in white aprons and barrels of

pickles by the door. But it has been a long time since Ohio and things arc different here. Delis here sell news­

papers, Bisquick, cans of beans. Toothbrushes. And flowers, so that if you ever forgot you could always be re­

minded and buy some before seeing a girl like Therese. You remember buying Dana dahlias once and how her

face went on like a light, this smile breaking across her face, shattering it like an egg. Perhaps you never bought her enough flowers. Flowers are simple; they are something you could understand. You are trying to figure out how to tell her. You have been for weeks. You arc trying to imagine how her face will look. Perhaps it will shatter then, too, but it will be a different kind of shattering. You wonder if

roses will soften the blow or make it harder, like a blow to the chin. You don’t usually buy Dana roses.

Dana is like your old college sweatshirt, the one that’s so worn in and faded it’s not red anymore, it’s pink,

and the cuffs are frayed, and the C and the last L have worn off, so you went to Ornel instead of Cornell and your parents wasted all that tuition money on nothing. Dana is like that. You are comfortable with her

strangeness, too, her little comforts—Rodin, creme brulee, 1940s automobiles. To the strangeness of sharing the sheets, which you steal. You steal them still sometimes and once she kicked you out of bed, rolled you off like a sausage, so that you woke on the floor hard and her peering down at you, mischievous smile, her hair hanging straight down over the bed. And the darkness moving in her eyes even then, that deep knowledge, the

flower that will never open for you.

Therese doesn’t care if you steal the sheets. She sleeps naked above the covers, posed, her hand tucked un­

der the pillow. Her sleep is simple. She does not seek you in the night. You have never known a Therese before. The name is new and sparkling, undiscovered. She cakes you out for

oysters. She calls you in the middle of the day at your studio and you meet her at Grand Central at the edge of a dark bar, your dnnk making rings on the smooth Asian wood. You sit leaning towards her as she tdts her

head back, sliding the raw oyster into her mouth, the flesh smooth and yielding on the tongue. It tastes of salt. She runs her tongue over her lips, catching every drop of sweet liquor. When you are alone with her, it is not about words. She poses for you sometimes and it is like she is sleep­

ing. Sometimes you open your mouth to speak and she shakes her soft round head, pressing her fingers to your

open lips. One day you ask her why and she says she is wary of your head. She says you will sit there and start

deconstructing her like she is a sculpture or a vase, commenting on the aesthetic qualities of her anns until she

IS no longer a woman to you. She slips her robe back on as you close your sketchbook, putting away your pens. She says she has posed for artists before and she knows how women who pose arc only shape and shadow to

them.

rhercse does not read books, she does not talk to you about her feelings. She docs not steal your toothbrush. Her body is swift, literal, businesslike. Therese draws you into bed and does not turn out the light.

rherese: the girl they make Armani for. You told her that once and she laughed at you, and held up an­ other shirt to your chest. Try this one.

It’s been hard trying to explain to Dana about all these new clothes you’ve been buying. You started saying sales but you’re tunning out of them, you think. There was after-Chnstnias and then President’s [5ay and now Winter Clearance, but you think after that there’s nothing and you’re stuck and you may have to tell her, after

all. Though you can’t be sure; perhaps there arc sales after President’s Day. You’ve never paid attention before.

Dana is somehow hurt by all this buying of clothes, you don’t know why. You don’t understand. She is hey, Bogart, this is the start of a beautiful friendship. She is you look marvelous in a Ricardo Montalban accent. But

you don’t know. Maybe it’s that it’s her money too. Maybe it’s that it’s new. When you come home with bags her eyes get a look like you’ve wounded her. Like you are leaving her behind. You’ve taken to hiding your new

clothes in your bag untd she is gone, and then spending hours trying to iron out the creases. You have become

very good at ironing, you are thoroughly domestic. Dana would be very proud, if she knew. When you iron, you chink of Dana. There are nights when you wake up cold, sweating, nightmare nights when she recedes from you until all that is left are her eyes. And then you roll away from Therese and sleep.

The dell door swings shut and you’re out into the wannth again. March 21“. Yesterday it was winter but

today spring has come rushing in, swelling into every corner, pushing the old season out. It is already hot. Your shirt sticks to your back like a second, more expensive skin. Dana had the best line about that, something about a birthday suit. Something about it being the most attractive and least expensive suit, you can’t quite

remember. You like this line. You hold it to you nights when you lie with your back to her, pretending to sleep. You don’t sleep but you watch the wall. When you lie this way Dana reads her books with the lamplight

on. You found this endearing, once, this hunger she has for words. Now it is inconvenient. You wish she

would just turn off the light for one night so you no longer have to watch the wall, which remains unmoved.

Yet it is her words that you will remember most of her, chat and the freckles above her right breast, which form the constellation Cancer, You have catalogued exactly what you will remember about Therese: her paella, the smell of her hair. You

did this because this was not to see spring. You thought Therese would be gone like a leaf with the change of seasons, when it became too warm to share a bed. That she is still there when you wake up in the morning is

surprise enough. You keep expecting her to have turned to smoke in the night. Therese is less beautiful when she sleeps. She’s got the naked pact going for her, the liquid skin. But.

Therese moves with the knowledge that she is sexy, and that makes her so attractive, you just circle around her, stare at her, possess her. When she sleeps that’s gone, a candle blown out.

The best part of these visits is when Therese slips out of bed, without a word, and stands with her back to

you as she slides on her robe. She has a black silk kimono and it glides up over her shoulders. She reaches for her robe and you see the profile of her breasts. When she turns from you light hides in the small of her back.

Therese lets you watch basketball while she’s in the shower, after the sex. She never watches tv in her bed­ room, so when you turn it on you know it’s already tuned to your channel. You like this, that you’ve left this

little mark in her room, a warm hole to curl up into. You know that if she ever leaves she will turn on the tv

and your mark will still be there. The tv, which she never turns on, and your toothbrush.

You jiggle the toothbrush in its box. You remember Dana never got around to leaving one at your place until she moved in, and then the toothbrush came with her, the bonus gift. Before that, Dana would always

borrow your toothbrush, she would say, we’re kissing, why should it matter anyway? But often you just wished

she would get her own. She brushed her teeth before you, she left your toothbrush wet. Therese knows about Dana. At first you were surprised by the equanimity with which she took it. By now

you have realized that Therese takes everything with equanimity. She is like water, impossible to unbalance. She works on the trading floor, she has learned to keep her cool. You are very bad with numbers. Dana pays all

the bills. You wonder when you will become a losing interest for her. Your stock in your relationship with Dana has plummeted, Therese would say in her crisp words, sharp

and succinct like the white shirts you unbutton in her bedroom as she sling.s off her kitten-heel pumps. You

should cut out now, before you lose anything else. You have already lost words—loyalty, love. You are cur­

rently at a loss. Da'na has taken all your words. You lent them her a while and now they’re gone. You do not know when this happened. Perhaps it was sometime in the night, and she led them away and keeps them locked in a box,

somewhere, tucked under her pillow, or perhaps in a little ring where queens kept arsenic or cyanide, or in a tippling cane. Perhaps it was in Paris. You had gone to Paris with her so she wouldn’t be alone with Rodin as she wrote her dissertation, you didn’t trust his bronzes, but you didn’t spend that summer as you’d expected.

You had expected white pants and drinking Scotch on the rocks at the window with white curtains blowing

open and Dana behind you gauzy and white and holding you from behind, kissing your neck. But it didn’t turn out. It was hot. Dana was always out in the city, researching, and you were left sweating in the tiny room in

Monmartre with no Scotch, let alone ice. When Dana would come back she would be tired, bone-weary she

would say, bon appetite, petit appetite, petit mon cher, mon ami and all she would care for was lying in bed

with her arms spread out. You would try to touch her and she would roll away, it’s too hot, it’s too hot. And it

was hot, you fought to breathe. So you fought with her instead, great roiling brawls that spilled you out into the city, walking for hours, up and down, alone. You thought you had been walking because you were angry;

perhaps you had been looking for your words.

You do not know when you stopped loving her. You do not know if you have stopped loving her. You are unused to asking these questions. Therese asked this question once in cab, the light caught in the raindrops on the window behind her head.

You lied and said Paris. But in Paris you left walking but you always came back afterwards, the dog returning to his master. And Dana would be so soft and white, sleeping, her hair spilling over the pillow. A secret on her

face put there by a dream. You would wonder what she was dreaming of. You wonder what she would have said if you had asked.

You would stand and watch her from the doorway to the bathroom for a long while before slipping into bed. You would try not to wake her, to break that perfect sleep. You were afraid to hold her, she might shatter. But sometime in the night she would roll over and hold you so tight, you could feel her heartbeat in your chest.

Da-na, Da-na, Da-na. No; you were in love in Paris.

Where did you lose it, then? You feel love was a penny chat slipped through a hole in your pocket. You’ve lost It on the street somewhere, and Therese will find it and pick it up and say, what a lucky girl 1 am, to have this

love. But Therese hasn’t found it yet. Right now you feel like the toothbrush inside its box; you rattle inside.

You are at her apartment. Therese is on the fifth floor, the eastern side, so the sun slants in in the morning and wakes you, and she rolls over and pulls you into the darkness on the other side of the bed, so you will

sleep a few hours more. You have memorized the placement of things in her room, you can find your way in

the dark. You thought about asking her for a key until you realized you don’t want one. It is not your apart­ ment. The only room you care for is the bedroom, which is filled with the smell of Therese.

You take up a space on the stoop. It is spring and the long-legged girls are wearing skirts again, taking out

the short skirts that have slept in their dressers all winter, waiting for today. Dana was a long-legged girl once. You met her in the spring. Her bag was slipping down her shoulder as she walked across campus, pulling her shirt to the side. Weeks after that first meeting, you could still remem­

ber every freckle, the placement of every' hair. She was a painting to you, a sculpture, a form, an ideal. You wanted to be understood by her. It took you weeks to work up the courage to ask her out, her wide smding

eyes. That spring life was an endless library' of pages. There were words and the hunger to know. And there was Dana with whole worlds spread before her, sparkling in her eyes. Dana, Dana, pretty little mystery. Dana. This

world has fallen through your fingers. Since Paris, you are tired of the weight of not knowing. You are tired of always asking questions, you want something simple waiting behind her eyes.

Since Paris, you met Therese. You got back and New York had cooled in your absence. You had fought on the cab ride home and left

once you dropped off your bags, out into the dark air, Dana wa.s alone at home with Rodin, you fell into a bar and ordered a Scotch, a double, on the rocks. And there was 1 herese walking in late for some friends, and they

chided her in Spanish and she kissed their cheeks. 1 herese among the long-legged girls, laughing at the bar. At the end of the night she gathered her coat and saw you alone. She ordered another Vesper and sat down again

at the bar. You had been watching her all night. She had a glamour. She put her hand on y'our shoulder. You told her about Pans, about your opening coming up. She joked about the French and made you laugh. She

gave you her number in the city and said she’d come to your show. Since you have returned from Pans, Dana has spent long nights at her desk, staring into the blue light of

the computer. She has taken up coffee, black. She bites her lower lip as she glances from the screen to her notes

to the screen again, her forehead creasing like crumpled paper. Y ou look at her and leave her and go to bed. You find her in the morning asleep beside you, tightened into a ball. You fight with her now about the bills, or whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher. You fight for atten­

tion. She IS coming and going. When Dana leaves you leave the apartment too. You go to your studio or sometimes to Therese. The air is suffocating with only one to breathe it. Yesterday when she left. Yesterday you went to your studio and something shattered. You took your glass­

blowing tube and you hit and it felt so good, seeing those broken pieces on the floor. As you picked up the

pieces you realized you had shattered Dana’s favorite piece, a sculpture in blue.

You had given it to her in

secret; though she didn’t know yet, it had always been hers. You cut yourself on a shard and stuck your thumb in your mouth, sucking away the blood. You decided you had to tell Dana. You cannot do this to her. You fight with her and see the hurt risen in her eyes, and it feels like when you accidentally inhaled the first tune you blew glass, how the hot air burned deep

into your lungs. One night in October you left Dana working at her computet. You had lain alone in bed until you couldn t stand It and left. It was half to midnight, a bitter night. You escaped out of the hollowness into it. Walked,

your hands stuffed into your pockets. The next day you looked up Therese in the phone book and called her

from a pay phone. She was warm, she made Rodin disappear. You slept with her that night, after dinner. In the

morning you told her about Dana, between bites of eggs. Do you love her? Dana will ask, looking at her hands. Theresc is more. Therese is oysters, Therese is guid-.

ing down your hands to her hips, her thighs, her. Do you love her? Therese doesn’t borrow your toothbrush. Therese makes you keep your own toothbrush at her place, and it is in need of replacing. Sometimes at home you still find your toothbrush wet in the morning, after Dana has left. Do you love her?

And Dana’s eyes will move all their secrets to tears, and all her knowledge, all her beauty will open and be

spilled upon the grass. You remember the grass in Ohio, long sheets of green spread out over hills, like blankets. The storms

would blow across and it was as if the hills were heaving, something breathing under the earth. And the rain

would clean the air, and leave a clear smell that was simple and could be understood. You would live in those hills and they would open out for you, inviting you in. You thought Dana would be the same. But you never asked the right questions, and now she is lost to you.

You sit on the stoop. The concrete is cool under your hands. You know Therese is upstairs. You can pic­

ture the scene: she in the shower with the hot water all the way up, the steam fogging the mirrors. Behind the

glass door she is just a shadow. She will turn off the shower and wrap herself in a towel, rolling it under her

right arm. She will go into the bedroom and, as she bends to shake out her hair, she will glance at the clock and realize that you are late. She will glance again when it’s a quarter past, then half. Perhaps then she will go

to the window and look out into March. But you will have already gone.

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Drama Queen (Poem in response to Vytautas Pliura's poem, My Mother is Jean Harlow)

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■■ Your mama might be Jean l larlow but my mama is Joan C,rawford.

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liiste.id of scrubbing the bathroom floor with Dutchman cleanser, 1 had to clean out the garage, soak her teeth in I’lxodcnt. 1 helped her to the toilet alter she went to the

:.

{Ml 1W

doctor to have her bunions removed. She never led me milk and cookies after school. She didn't bake cakes or knit sweaters lor me. 1 he sweet potato pies, the golden brown turkey

were store bought Irom Pubhx. M)- mam.i was never into P LA meeting!; or throwing 1 upperware parties. She used to deliver telephone books door to door.

Sils' never came to see me play a black Santa (dans

m 111)' third grade Christmas play.

M)' mam.i i.s Cleopatra Jones with AK-47's and grenades in the glove compartment of her Monte Carlo. Your mama might be a Blonde Bombshell,

but 111)' mam.i hot curls her hair. She grease.s it with hair ma) onnaisc

My brother miscarrieil in her womb.

Until this day, 1 don't know where the hell he's buried. So what if you grew up on i farm churning butteniiilk, stepping in Angus shit?

1 went to a high school when- the principal said 1 exposed my dick to some supposed white girl. Her name was privileged mfoniiation. Who cares if your mother is Jean Harlow? My mama is Wonder Woman catching missiles like Frisbees, bend­ ing crowbars in her hands.

She works undercover at Radiology Associates

emptying garbage cans filled with hazardous waste. She brings home greasy smothered chicken on Styrofoam plates.

She's Weezie Jefferson before getting a piece of the pie on the Upper East Side. Does Jean Harlow cook pig's feet ?

Whip you up a mess of mustard greens, Jiffy mix combread? Does she wash shit out of your underpants or i.s she too busy playing a damsel in distress, draped over some

man's arms like a bath towel? Your movie-star mama might smell like Chanel no. 9,

but my mama smells like raspberry-scented shower gel.

So, your mother's Jean Harlow? If she'.s so famous,

then she won't mind if we invite a few friends over to her place for a pool party. View a couple of her old pictures that made her a star.

You think Jean can lend me a couple of bucks

to pay back my student loans?

Shane Allison

i; '>l X WWiX.V/1

Holiday in Georgia

■ iU

“itR

yii">7--5sir»

Conversalion with a US. Marshal on the steps of the Courthouse: “How long have you been a Marshal?" "About five years.” "I'lve years, eh? So what’s the usual career path?” "Well, 1 was in the inihtaty, but that’s not really necessaiy, it could be police, or...” "Just some sort of law enlorceinent?” “Yup.” ’’ 1 ell me, what would you do if that crowd down there got ugly? Let’s say all the women over fifty took oil their bras, loaded them up with burning pitch, and nished the courthouse, shouting something like ‘down with oveipaid capitalist stooges,’ what would you do? ” I withiwr .1 /uu.scj ”We’d stop them. ” ’’Have you ever had to deal with an angry mob? ” "Yeah, sure. A bunch ot times.” "What do you use then, tear gas?” "Well, yes, tear gas and rubber bullets.” “Ho rtibber bullets hurt?” ’Hell )’cs they hurt! "(.Lin they kill someone?” "Well, now, they do have that potential, yes. In Washington, at that World Bank thing, we dispersed them real nicely. They got out there in the street and blocked the delegates, and then we just came in and cleared the way. It worked out really nice. 1 he first rubber bullet ricocheted off the pavement and hit a guy in the from right in the groin. He docs one of these numbers,” imitating the stricken protester, he doubles over, crosses his anns in front of his groin and groans, like he’s just been punched in the nuts, "and lalls over, and all the guys just kinda look al him, and then look at each other, and drift away, and then the women arc there alone, and they look at each other, and move away, and the street is clear.” 1 picture the wacky expressions on the faces ot the protesters, all silent as they turn their heads in unison, first to the poor bastard moaning on the ground, then to each other, before they scoot off sideways without turning their heads, making the cartoon “skedaddle” noise like a harlequin curtain parting at the word of the Law. It’s like a sitcom, “1 hat’s iny Marshal!,” the clean dream of Law Enforcement Everywhere, a single wellplaced shot into a host ol thousands of the worst motley undisciplined riff-raff types. And the crowd opens, admitting by its guilty nutpunched sympathy that it’d probably been wrong in the first place. I feel the need lor some direct democracy. "So what do you think about the scandal at the White House?" "Which scandal? ” " rhe one just recently, just came out today. Don’t you fellows read the New York Lunes?” "What IS It?” “Well, there are certain allegations coming out that the First Lady has been involved in homosexual ac­ tivities. 11’11 be all over the ncw.s tomorrow. I’m surprised you haven’t heard.” “Well, I’m not that surprised. 1 could tell you stones about the Clinton White House that’d turn your hair grey.” Another Marshal, bald, with a mustache and reflective Law Enforcement Sun Glasses, has been talking to someone and turns around.

“What’d he say about a scandal?” “That the First Lady’s been involved in homosexual activities.” "Mrs. Bush?” (^southern accent, heavy accent on the u in Bush.) "Uh-huh.” The second Marshal turns away, shaking hi.s head and clicking hi.s tongue, the international code for "what a fucking shame.” "What stories?” I ask, thinking that I’m finally finding out what Journalism is. "Oh, homosexual relations in the Oval OfFice.” "Who?” "Staffers.” "High level?” "Staffers.” "That’s all you can say?” "Yup. Also, Tipper was off there having sex with members of the Secret Service.” "Really?” "Yeah, and there’s tons more. That’s only the tip of the iceberg.” “Well, I guess I’ll have to be a Marshal to Gnd out more.” “Yup.” "Well, have a nice day, and watch tomorrow’.s paper.” “I will.” Which is why for the rest of the week I tried to avoid eye contact with the handful of anned Marshals in blue and khaki who were being paid overtime to protect the Courthouse and Post Office Building from the couple hundred defendants, supporters, and general miscreant.s who had gathered there, and also to remind them to please not sit on the ledge adjoining the stairs, and to not throw food in the flower beds. Which is hardly the point. This i.s supposed to be a serious article about a trial, but I’ve already dirtied myself with human interest, not to mention that it's now I hursday, July 25, my brother and others have been in jail for thirteen days now, and this is no longer news but histor)'.

On the front page of the Local Section of I he C.oluinbus Ledger-Enquirer for Monday, 8 July, I find the following headline:

Trespass trials set for today. Demonstrators face up co six months federal rime if convicted. Then the first paragraph:

Thirty-seven protesters arrested last November during a demonstration against Fort Henning's Hfcstcrn Hemi­ sphere Institute for Security Cooperation face federal court trial today m Columbus.

The demonstration was on the 18''' of November. The crowd on the section of road just outside of the gates to Fort Benning, where the protest wa.s permitted, was several thousand strong. Some eighty or so crossed the line to carry the demonstration onto the base. Thirty-seven of this group were brought to trial and charged with trespassing on a military' base. (18 USC 1382: "Whoever, within the jurisdiction of the United States, goes upon any military, naval, or Coast Guard reservation, post, fort, arsenal, yard, station, or installa­ tion, for any purpose prohibited by law or lawful regulation; or Whoever reenters or is found within any such

reservation, post, fort, arsenal, yard, station, or installation, after having been removed therefrom or ordered not to reenter by any officer or person in command or charge thereof, shall be fined under this title or impris­ oned not more than six months, or both.”) The protesters conducted various ‘actions' once over the line, rang­ ing from the usual singing, chanting, and sign-bearing to attempting to deliver an indictment to the com­ mander of the base, which is what my brother’s group did. As of the end of trial, the only over-the-line activ­ ity connected with a legally recognized demonstration was praying, for which Lisa Hughes was acquitted. rhe protest is a yearly protest, so it follows that this trial, which ran from the July Sth to July 12‘\ is a yearly trial. Last year. Magistrate Judge G. Mallon Faircloth convicted 26 demonstrators, among them an eight y-cight year old nun who received six months.

1 he School of the America.s (SOA) was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Coop­ eration (variously WHISC or WHINSEC) by an act of Congress in 2000. Although it is referred to in court by Its new, official name, both those protesting the School and those working there still refer to it by its old name. When I called Fort Benning for information and wa.s bounced around the telephone system, at least three separate people called it the School of the Americas without being prompted. So. 1 11 le 10 of the United Staie.s Code, Section 2166, which is WHlNSEC’s charter, states the School’s pur­ pose a.s lollows;

The purpose of the institute is to provide professional education and training to eligible personnel of nations of the Western Hemisphere within the context of the democratic principles set forth in the Charter of the Organization of American States (such charter being a treaty to which the United Stales is a party), while fostering mutual knowledge, transparency, confidence, and cooperation among the participating nations and promoting democratic values, respect for human rights, and knowledge and understanding of United Statc.s customs and traditions.

Sounds friendly enough. 1 he organization School of the Americas Watch (www.soaw.org) has the following to say by way of introduction:

Lite School of the Americas (SOA), in 2001 renamed the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security (Cooperation,” is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Over ns 56 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterin­ surgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military' intelli­ gence and interrogation tactics. Fhese graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassi­ nated, "disappeared,” massacred, and forced into refuge by those trained at the School of

Assassins. From Its beginning, the mission of the SOA has been to train soldiers to protect the inter­ ests of multinational corporations and maintain the economic status quo for the few rich and powerful in the US and their cohorts in Latin America. Labor leaders and union or-

ganizers have always been among the primar)’ targets of SOA violence.

Monday morning the crowd of 37 defendants and some 250 family, friends, and logistic.s people (who were always either on a cell phone or leading songs) gathered outside the Howard |ohnson to march the four blocks to the Courthouse through downtown Columbus. The march was done up like a (Laih ' ■’’er.il pro­ cession, with a man and a megaphone walking at the head, chanting the names of Latin Aiiii ru.m intims. flic marchers carried sigrts ( peace and justice in Latin America,” “paz y vida,” "close the SOA,” etc.) and a couple large puppets. The puppets would have been terrifying apparition,s floating above .a mournful crowd through .a quiet workaday Monday morning, hovering paper mache spirits of conscience, reminders of all those killed in unsavory and nasty ways with the help of U.S.—that is. if they weren’t the usual fare at every' protest in recent memory. A few onlookers gathered at spots on the opposite side of the street to watch, hut we weren’t much more than a spectacle, fhere were no confrontations, discussions, brick-throwings. We hardly caused any traffic problems, stopping as we did at the first couple crosswalks, leaving the severed front to wriggle on oblivious, the back half to march in place until the light turned to WALK. f-arlier that morning I had eaten breakfast al Ruth Annes Restaurant, just acros.s the street from Hofo’s. According to my note.s for that morning, there was a man in the far corner wearing .a yellow tie who looked like .a younger Jon Voigt, and the following exchange took place at .a table next to mine: "Did you see the crowd at the Hojo’s?” “No. what was it? ” "Oh, they had sigrus and everything, all types. 1 think it must be the anniversary of Roc v. Wade, or maybe that S-O-A thing.”

And that, in a nutshell, was the view of much of C.olunahus, Georgia, on the strange yearly event that makes it difficult to get into the post office. A minor annoyance, and one that might he mysterious, if anyone had given it a second thought. When the march had reached the Court House, and the marchers became singers, 1 walked acros.s the street and sat down. The striking thing about such demonstrations is how strong the sense of Doing can he when one is in the circle, yet how closed the circle is. From across the street 1 saw .a incdium-sizcd crowd com posed of all ages, singing something that couldn’t really he heard, chanting something else that was hard to decipher. Two geezers holding a Large Banner with an Important Message were facing in toward ihe crowd with their banner, trying to hear what the speaker was saying. It was evident that most of the locals who pulled up to the stoplight facing the courthouse couldn’t tell what the ruckus was about. A closed, self referential circle.

In 1981, 767people arc killed in the area ot H! Mozote, Id Sa/eadoiby the U.S.-trained Adaead Battalion. The victims are of both sexes, ranging from infancy to senility. Because the trial was held in the Judge s smaller, preferred courtroom, one could not get in to see the pro­ ceedings unless one was on the List, which usually necessitated being a supporter for .a certain defendant. G.on sequently, I didn’t get into the courtroom until Wednesday afternoon. So I laid around in the park, by the courthouse, in the luncheteria across the street, waiting for report.s to tnckle out from the courtroom. Took .a walk across the river to Alabama.

Columbus, Georgia, is without question a military town. On the concrete banks of the Chattahoochee across from Phenix City, Alabama (which, according to the official Fort Benning website, is a city proud to be so close to the Home of the Infantry), Columbus is a historical, whitewashed southern city that never made it to the status of Metropolis. The center of town, from the recently overhauled Broadway and Riverfront area, complete with fountains, unused benches, empty recreational areas, and eleven-mile riverfront walk down to the Infantry Museum al the Fort, has the feel of a ghost town gone through urban renewal, with a lot of money coming from somewhere. Lots of space, attractive walks, benches, tree lined trafficless streets. An absence of crowds, shortage of bookstores, record stores, and younger people. Out Victory Drive towards the Fort is the usual motorized city fare, with more strip joints, Mexican restaurants, army surplus stores, banks offenng intcrcsl free loans to military personnel, etc.

Ni>\eiiiber 16, 1989, San Salvador. An Army patrol kills six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daugh­ ter. Nineteen ol rhe militarv officers cited in connection with the incident attended the School ofthe Amenc.is. On 1 hursday night, at the last party at Hojo’s before the day of the sentencing, I was talking with a fel­ low supporter about an option raised in court; namely, that some defendants serve their sentences not in a fed­ eral prison, but a.s students al the School of the Americas. He thought it was a terrible idea, despite the fact that many of the defendants feel as Bill O'Donnell docs, that such an infiltration couldn’t be anything but a shocking expose of thinly disguised ‘ I’error 101’ courses. Bill O’Donnell is a Catholic Priest who had de­ nounced ihc courts as pimps ol the Pentagon during Monday’s proceedings, and who had asked Faircloth to be allowed to serve out his term ai the school “to emerge and tell whether it has mended its ways.” He said in an iniervicw that if the School had nothing to hide, then it’s all fine and well, and the protesters can call it quits, but if it’s as dirty as decades of massacre, union busting, and torture in Latin America would lead us to believe, then he would come out of his ’jail tune’ a beacon of truth, and these revelations couldn’t help but bung Public Opinion and Democratic Process to close down the School. When presented with this proposal. Magistrate |udgc Faircloth said that it was the first reasonable thing he’d heard all day. Which IS why anybody associated with the School practically begs people to come see it for themselves, especially protesters. There’s nothing easier for a military base to fix up than good PR with an onsite tour, h’s like visiting a national park. Lee Rials, whose title is something like Public Liaison Officer for WHINSLC. (706 545-1923), invited me to come on a personal tour of the base. When 1 asked him his opinion of the trial, he sounded genuinely hurt that the School had been misunderstood and mistreated. He thought that the protesters ought to spend some time on the base, and proposed that their sentence be a ten-page paper on their experience at the School. And he probably believed the School’s innocence, too. 1 got the impression that ai least some of the defendants expected to somehow stumble upon the following scene;

Sin.ill v.ird behind a cluster ofshacks. Ked clay, folding chairs. Student body ofsinister-looking Colombians, Mexicans, etc. in camouflaged jumpsuits and berets, most with mirrored sunglasses. On the ground m rows are various training dummies, labeled m Spanish: Marxist organizer, Union Leader, Popular Priest, Small Innocent Youth, Coca Planter-Not Ours, etc. On ,i blackboard propped up on fifty gallon oil drums, various diagrams and pointers dealing with weak points m rhe human body, popular organization, supply lines, children's games, etc. The students are lined up, at attention m front of rhe stuffed dummies, which are tn rows. El General; Ready... Aim... Wait for it! ... Violate!

7711- students throw themselves, grimacing, onto the inert dummies, thrusting, cutting, twisting arms, pulling

hair, fondling, pulling out teeth, kicking in the groin, humping, canvassing support for Local P,tramilir,trv, etc. A platoon ofdefendants walks around the corner and stops, shocked. The trainees immediatclp sprint; up all smiles, dusrmg each other off, exclaimingVetAot\\ What? Nothing at all, just games, friendly games of Ameri­ can how you say Cricket! Elbow co the side h.a ha, no not cricket, just baseball, no human rights abuse aqiii!

And even if the training at the School ira.s so shamefully direct, it wouldn't be difficult for even the most in­ competent staff to create a completely scaled PR. bubble around a group of aging gringos with an obvious lack of military experience. They would be special students, on a special bus. Which i.s only to say that 1 agree that it’d be a terrible idea for the defendant.s to enter the School with any hopes of revelation. They’d finish their six months terminally frustrated, or possibly even mollified, satis­ fied, and with pen pal.s in high places. The SOA wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of changing its name if it couldn’t put out the PR to go with it, all the way on to Fort Benning. I never made it out to the School to sec Lee Rials, but it might have been Inn to throw .a little State fourism into the mix. A US. Marshal on the SOA: “Well. 1 don’t think it’s fair to blame the School for what they go back to their countrie.s and do. I mean, this whole scandal now with the priests, we wouldn’t close the whole seminarv be cause of a few sickos. 1 hey don’t teach ‘cm how to touch little boys in there. Il’s the same with the School, they just give’em regular military training. What they do when they get back home is their own tliinfr. It’s in their culture, anyway” “Sorry—it’s Latin American culture to rape and murder?" “You bet it is.”

November, 1988, Segovia, Colombia. A massacre take.s place m the center o! the city in which 43 people are killed, SO wounded. 9 SOA graduates arc implicated.

The fascinating thing to me is the absolute gap in understanding between the worldvicw.s represented by certain protesters and supporters of the base; each side i.s understandably coinlortably sequestered in its own circle of logic. Supporters of the school, even those like the Marshal who consider themselves cominonsensically indifferent, can’t see what the fuss i.s about if the base i.s only teaching thing.s we teach our own. As Lee Rials said. "No. we don’t teach them anything that goes against our own moral or ethical code." In other words, suppose we arc training Latin American thugs to use any unsavory methods necessary to ensure Amen can Intercst.s Abroad, suppose we even accept that these American Interests are strictly commercial - .a main­ stream response goe.s something like "so fucking what?" One puts on .a grim (ace and accepts that this i.s ,a doy eat dog world, and that we must eat and eat again. A privileged Machiavellianism without Miilcid. The illu­ sion is the necessity of necessity, gratuitoiisnes.s seen a.s realism. On the other side, the naive protest mirror of this is the assumption that the foundations of power arc so bald-faced and open, and furthennorc so concen­ trated, that a SIX month voluntary visit will bring the whole tower crumbling down. The problem with this, first of all, is that there arc other institutions that perfonn the same job as the SOA. Most Mexican would-be human right.s abusers receive their training in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for example. Second, and more frightening, is the fact that the exercise of hemispheric power of which the SOA is the primary conduit could be accomplkshcd just a.s easily without .tm SOA. For example, if 1 were a high gov­ ernmental official left to deal with thus PR disaster that keeps churning up easily traceable in.xssacrcs, 1 would scrap the whole thing. A more subtle distribution of power could accomplish the same thin^ — say we train Latin American officers at other schools, less visibly, less concentrated, but with absolutely no training that might constitute a human rights violation. After all, once you have well trained allies and academy buddies

back in ibe field, a couple directives through other channels, say the CIA or even CNN, the jobs get done just as well. 1 can’t be sure, but 1 imagine things like torture or civilian control are easily enough learned in the field. And with a visible target gone, the protest movement against what was Terrorism U., although still just a.s valid, is left swinging at thin air. Mass protest, like any other directed movement of groups larger than ten, needs a scapegoat, in the sense of a concentrated simplification. 1 he SOA is a very guilty scapegoat, but it is still a scapegoat, in lhe sense that it stands as a painfully exposed part in a larger power structure. 1 his irreconcilable discrepancy between logics is what makes it possible for a crowd of people to look up the courthouse steps at the Marshals, Prosecution, and Judge and mistake near apathetic scorn, boredom and Irtisiration for a fear for their dominant Weltanschauung. It also allows the top to look down at the crowd and mistake genuine political concern for bored troublcmakmg, issue digging, misled liberalism and general pansiness. So they scoff al each other and laugh amongst themselves, the one side seeing Fascism Threatened, the other seeing a soft crowd with collective PMS. Peter Gcldcrloos, my brother, was among those tried on 1 hursday, who pled not guilty, did not stipulate IO the facts, and who argued pro sc. 1 he point of not stipulating to the facts, as 1 learned, was not to deny that they i/n/cfoss the line on the 18''' of November, 2001, but to make the government prove its case. All the previous categories had been tried — those pleading guilty, those pleading not guilty but stipulating, and those pleading not guilty, not stipulating, who took counsel. All the defendants except for Lisa Hughes had been found guiltv. «

4

«

I llis is lhe inside of the courtroom; It is a long room, rather like something out of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. t^As 1 type this, an image comes to my mind of a black courtroom that stretches away from the door almost to .1 vanishing point. 1 he bench, draped with bloodred velvet banners bearing an insignia of crossed gavels; behind the bench, the Judge, a huge gavel rocking up and down like an od pump, sounding out al each rock in onomatopoetic percussion, GUIL 1 Y) GUIL1 Yf GUll. 1 Y! GUIL l Y.' GUILTY); the defendants on .1 convever belt that shifts them in front of the judge like clockwork, stopping before the bench just before each GUIL 1 Y) But that’s hardly lair, and not verj' democratic, unlcs.s you count a ridiculous anarchy of the imagiiiation as democracy. And why not? But this has no point. GUILIY!) 1 he entrance is at one extreme of lhe room, lhe Bench at the other. Al lhe back of lhe room (lhe entrance end) are the pewlike rows for sup­ porters. gawkers, and those not prescnilv involved with the Law. 1 he frontmost of these is a halfpew on the right baud side, and is reserved for the media. Al this point, which is nearly halfway to the Bench, a thigh-high wooden partition runs across the courtroom. 1 he scats on the left, their backs to the wall, are for defendants. On lhe right, facing forward, is where lhe legal types sit. Finally, at the vanishing point of the room sits the metonymic Bench. (Which ought to work both ways, meaning that one could call an inert heap of well pol­ ished wood, .1 raised platfonii, an authoritative barrier lhe Judge.) 1 he interior of the court is furnished in a dark polished wood. On the lefthand wall, in cheap gold lettering, i.s the following: There IS But One Law tor AH —

The Law of ThnnAniry And/usciee.

/. edrrer.

It would be referred to frequently by the defense when addressing the judge, although I’ve recently come across a more fitting quote to emblazon on the wall, or possibly tattoo across the judge’s back in gothic letter­ ing. 1 hrs one is also a Carter classic, delivered in Athens, Georgia, at Law Day m 1974:

Now We Assign Punishments to Fit the Criminal And Not the Crime.

The judge, officially Magutrate Judge G. Mallon Faircloth, struck me at first as a solipsistic muticrcr. Hr looks a cross between Dan Quayle and Donald Tninip, and his voice is some strange croaking collusion of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Stewart. My first impressions were of a mildly sinister, grand fatherly type, full of joke.s and anecdotes. He even invited one of the defendants to come down and live in Columbus, saying that it isn't usu­ ally this hot. Hi.s apparent openness to debate was disarming. 1 remember on Monday, after hearing about his joviality, thinking that he couldn't be that bad. He first struck me as one learned in leather-bound books, firmly entrenched in the slowmoving, traditional, stern, fatmess-seeking logic of the Law, like an old high school civics teacher. Indeed, the atmosphere in the courtroom felt like a bad civics clas.s that just kept getting worse. At first there wa.s the semblance of an open forum: the Judge/Teacher figure gives ample time for eve­ ryone to speak his or her piece, corrects each one on the Meaning and Usage of the Law, gives each phenome­ non, emotion, principle its proper Name and Place, and guides Actions to Consequences with ,a Stern, l air, paternal hand with a gold marriage band, perhaps an emblazoned clas.s ring, and white hairs on the back of each finger, signifying Knowledge to the young student. And then, when the discussion begin.s to edge across the accepted and well defined boundaries, when cherished principle.s look like they inav begin contradicting one another, when the class becomes quietly unruly, the discussion i.s ended, the subject is irately changed, and the internal logic emerges unscathed, with only the momentary irritation of some peripheral blind spot. The mam thrust of the prosecution's unimaginative case wa.s to demonstrate that the defendant.s were in fact on Fort Benning. To this end. they brought forth a.s witnesses a cameraman, some sort of base grounds­ keeper, and a judge advocate general assigned to Foil Benning. All three tcstiled in their various capacities that the individuals seen on the video, in the arrest photographs, and in the courtroom did indeed cros.s over the line and then the fence that definitively mark the limits of Fort Benning. It was ,a strange scene of circular logic on parade, with the Prosecutor executing acrobatic logical proofs: forty five minute.s of arguing over what the exact nature of a fence may be. “Aha! So you say they did indeed cros.s over the fence, and that the fence is indeed inside Fort Benning, and Fort Benning is indeed the United States, and therefore subject to this law? No further questions, your honor."

The prosecution's case was essentially a pronounced accusation which he asked the defense to prove iin true. It was an absolutely ridiculou.s inversion of the burden of proof. The videotape of the protest was ed ited, and the full tape was not submitted as evidence until the next day. The prosecution did not describe in full the military regulation specifying those purposes "prohibited bv law," leaving sections which may contain exceptions to the prohibition unsubmitted. No deeds as to the boundary of the Fort were submitted. T he wit ness, Mr. Webb, who worked on the base in some capacity of amateur surveyor and engineer, definitively stated that the white line on the street marks the edge of the base because that's the way it's always been done. At such times, it resembled a show trial, the judge yawning through the troublesome legalistic hodgepodge, waiting to get to the verdict. Which wa.s mostly the problem. Fo the prosecution, judge included, anybody associated with the protest scene crossing on to Fort Benning wa.s to be detennined as guilty. Whether most of those charged actually crossed wa.s never a question. 1 hi.s Ls why the judge looked bored waiting to reach this foregone conclusion, and why the Prosecuting Attorney Anglan looked like the jock in .1 civic.s clas.s feeling clever, repeatedly banging his head up against a fully obvious answer with a condescending "told you so" air.

The bulk of the defendants based their defense (or, those pleading guilty, their statements) on the clear

and prcscnl necessity to close down the School of the Americas and halt one outlet of state sponsored terror ism.

Peter and two women from his same arrest group (Abi Miller and Summer Nelson) who were tried immediaiely prior to him, argued that their attempted delivery' of an indictment was not included in the list of "picketing, demonstrations, sit-ins, protest marches, political speeches, and similar activities which could inter­ fere with or prevent the orderly accomplishment of the installation s mission, or which present a clear danger to the loyally, discipline, or morale of the troops” slated in the base regulation, and therefore legal. It was a f irst Amendment case - they were petitioning for a redress of grievances, and not protesting. As such, they had a good case. 1 he video shot by Mr. Spane shows the group of seven clearly stating their purpose to MPs and various guards, and even at one point being directed further on to the base by one of these, presumably to a place where they could present the indictment. (The Prosecutor's Answer to this was that by the time they were directed onwards by the MP they were already on the base, and therefore in violation of the law. But, as 1 find in a copy of my brother’s pretrial notes, "Along the public road leading right into Fort Benning, there is a sign that says •Welcome to Fort Benning.’ About 30 feet furlhet along, there is a sign listing prohibited actioiLS on Fort Benning. The language on thus sign is not legible from beyond the white line that marks the base boundary. 1 know, 1 tried reading iHasi week. The interesting thing is that if you cross the line and go up to the sign to read it, you are not violating the law. You’re only violating the law once you start making a speech of pioiesl while over the line. Clearly, crossing the line is not at all the issue, it is what one does while over the p. 1 he iiuiicunciu cued ihc School’s violauoiis of various federal and inicrnaiional law. including ihc Patriot Act and IB USC. 2340A, and listed airocilies committed by graduates of the school. The full text is appended

al the end of the article.

1 am unable to give a chronological transcript of the proceedings (although it would make for some good reading, the transcript is priced - democracy! - ai.several thousand dollars, I’m told) or even a coherent summar)' that keeps things in order. Nor can 1 offer any sort of legal analysis or breakdown of themes. But here are some ihing.s that suck out in my memory; The judge effectively closed down, ignored, and generally kicked in the groin my brother’s attempt at a First Amendment defense by stating that it is his opinion that the word "peacefully” is implicit at least three or four limes in that right. And despite then nomenclature to the contrary, any breaking of a law by nonviolent pioleslors is a breach of the peace, ergo .1 violent aci, ergo not protected by the first amendment. WARN­ ING: MF 1 APHYSICAL VlOLENtlF CAN AN13 WILL BE HELD AGAINST YOU. Other games with semantics; Since ii was central to Peter’s and Abi’s and Summer’s cases that they were not protesting but rather delivering an indicimenl once they crossed the line, it was necessary for the prosecu­ tion to show that they were protesting. He did this with slowly articulated questions: Were you protesting when you entered the base? No? So you didn’t have anything against the School of Amencas when you crossed the line? So you were in favor of the School once you crossed the line? But that indictment, that sounds pretty negative. Wouldn’t you say it shows that you were m protest of the base? By Ignoring the transitive/intransitivc ambiguity and more importantly the ambiguity inherent in the verb "to protest” Itself, i.e. "to demonstrate against” versus "to disagree with,” the prosecution was effectively argu­ ing that, under the base regulation against protest, anybody who enters Fort Benning (or any other base with a similar regulation) without agreeing fully with us mission, cause, and effects, is breaking the law; and therefore, by the judge’s redundancy, is a violent criminal. A strange precedent to propose, and one that was accepted by the judge’s rtiling. To be sure, it wouldn’t be difficult to enter the base on false pretenses, say as part of a tour.

and then with malice of forethought think negative things about it. Nevertheless it is technically illegal. And one of these days the Thought Police will find you. Then there was the testimony of the JAG, one Mr. Pfeiffer. He was not present at the scene of the arresl.s on the 18'*' of November, but he was responsible for processing those arrested. He was brought in to gis c his expert opinion that those charged were actually those charged, xs well a.s to talk about the general security for the base. (In a marvelous slip of the tongue at the beginning of U.S.A, v. Miller and Nelson, Faircloth asked the Prosecution to please call their first whiseness to the stand.) Pfeiffer s testimony during the course of the first two pro se cases was interesting for several reasons, one being its contradictory.nature. When talking about the fence, he stated that it wxs not put there for the pro­ testors, but rather to secure all of Fort Benning, the base being on heightened alert after (it had to come up sometime, and then again and again) September I 1. Interestingly enough, he later stated that plans for con­ struction had begun about .a year before September I 1,2001. In this connection the Judge (who in .a rare ges­ ture of guidance led the witness through several tricky spots) raised an interesting point: the primarv reason for the no-tolerance policy of protest on military installations was due to the fear of terrorist attack raised by Sep­ tember I I'\ According to the Judge, the Base is now a closed installation, whcrea.s it had previously been an open installation, to which anyone with proper photo ID and a clear statement of purpose could gam entr\'. When I spoke with Lee Rials over the phone he invited me to come visit the SOA, and said all I'd need to do was present a photo ID and say I had come to see the SOA. Pfeiffer also committed blatant perjury in a rather interesting way. Discussing base sccurilv and the need for No Exceptions he told of the existence of a security booth on the public road leading into the Base that i.s manned twenty-four hours a day. Furthermore, he stated that all cars arc stopped and checked before being allowed to proceed. The interesting thing is that about half the people in the courtroom at the tunc, myself and my brother included, were staying at the South Gate Apartment Complex, within sight of the Base En­ trance and the security booth. T he following description of the entrance i.s in my note.s from Monday night:

I sit facing the road, with the fort that's caused all the trouble about 500 cards down to rhe tight. The entrance is simple — it looks like any other national park or amusement center, with no­ body at the gate: simply two fakelooking stone walls facing each other across rhe road, hke rhe en­ trance co a suburb that would be called Eudor.r or something, and between them .t smooch, well paved two-lane road with a bright double yellow stripe down the middle leading in ,7 gentle curve away through the pine trees, like you might find at the south nm of Grand Gancon. Some rhirtc orforty yards in is a guardboorh, even unoccupied at night. So, if somebody were staying at the South Gate Apartments for a week and they chimed to have seen cars going freely tn and out of the Fort all mght long, there would he something wrong with their vision? Yes, that 5 right. -From the cross-examination ofProsecution's H5rnr.s.s- Pfeiffer m The U.S.A. V. Peter Gelderloos

What raised even more eyebrows in the row occupied by my mother, grandmother, my brother’s friends and I was that Pfeiffer pronounced our name correctly without hesitation. The name, Gelderloos, i.s pro­ nounced with the two final o’s long, like ‘go,’ something that nobody except for linguist.s and speakers of Ger­

manic languages has ever gotten right on the first try. Although Pfeiffer claimed it was just a lucky guess, his accurate pronunciation suggested that he had been coached. As one ot the witnesses for the defense, Peter called retired Major Joe Blair to the stand. Blair, a former instructor at the School, now a critic of it, spoke with me on Wednesday, the day before his appearance in court. He stated in no uncertain tenns that the change to WHINSEC was a nainechange only. He had been to see the new School, and said iliat the curricula for the courses were still the same, with courses m counterin­ surgency and others given sanitary new names, like "promoting democracy. Unfortunately, his testimony in court was more doddering. He gave plenty of testimony to the effect that the fonner SOA /uc/taught torture, interrogation, surveillance, union-busting, etc.; that the curriculum was much of the same stuff that he had seen in Vietnam with Project X, a classified military intelligence program on interrogation techniques, and Project Phoenix, an intelligence galhcring program. He also told how the Latin American students would use the militaiy and ihe exchange program to smuggle stereos, cars, et al. back to the homeland, as well as countless other abuses that would make any self respecting taxpayer boil and seethe. However, when it came to telling the court that WHlNSIiC. is much the same, he faltered. His statenienis were confused, hall way, and sometimes contradictory'. He said that the change from SOA to WHISC was ,i significant improvement, which sinks any legal justification of protest as a means to end terrorism and torture or the conspiracy lo commit such. It was not a clear and present testimony. With cvery’one in the courtroom watching, niosi of us in confusion and slow dismay, hi.s expert testimony turned from unambiguous revelation lo rhetoric and diatribe, directed mainly’ against the past and against Latin American militaries in general. I still don’t know what happened to him between when 1 spoke with him and when he reached the stand. When the usually snappy Prosecution cross-examined Blair, he was allowed to talk, and talk, and talk, all the while weakening the case of the defense, 1 even have in my notepad the bewJdered fragment “ - either a raving lunatic or employed by the prosecution," neither of which is probably true, but 1 have yet to figure what

i.s in this case. Peter then took the stand himself, speaking almost uninterruptedly, as there was nobody to question him. Reiterating the Prosecution's lack of proof for the claim that he had actually broken the law, he again pointed to the base regulation prohibiling activities that interfere with the base’s mission. He brought up the Catch-22 111.11 their attempt to deliver an indictment seeking to close down the SOA did not interfere with the base’s mission, unless, that is, ihe government admits to torture and terrorism. He raised the point that 18 USC 1,182 I.s 111 conflict with the first amendment, and therefore not valid. 1 he Prosecution’s cross-examination of Peter rested on a solid Law-and-Order foundation. Again Cap­ tain Anglan iiirned hrs semantic trick, at one point xskmg slowly and repeatedly, like speaking to a troublesome four year old, "Did.. you.. consider.. .yourself.. .a protcsicr?” The cross-examination became interesting when It moved to an inquiry into Peter’s overall political beliefs. Anglan was asking Peter how strongly Peter believed in the necessity lo respect laws, and I remember thinking how bizarre it seemed at the tune for a black lawyer in ihe south to be urging the necessity for citizens to obey the law and keep quiet when National Secu­

rity demand.s it. »

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A sketch: / Inteiwr of courtroom. Prosccurim; Attorney: t ill, dark blue suit, yellow shirt, airforce haircut. Confident demeanor, expressive face, looks like he frequently perforins on rhe musical theater circuit singing show tunes.] PA. So do you not agree that there is a time when people, bid by their government to do so, must be silent? flash to hypothetical/ournahsm:

Interior of The New Courtroom, where everybody his to tike the snnd. Green neon lights line the Will, ilong with the collected Seils ofSitinism, anarchy, rock n roll, class B misdemeanors, the United Society of Vigi­ lante Geezers, Disrespectors ofthe American Dream inc.. Strange and Frightening Tidings ltd., etc. The prosecuting attorney is ar the dock. V'oice from box on walk : Do you feel like a toad, Captain America PA: England : sorry, England, as an African American do you feel like a toad knowing that you’ve just sold out the whole civil rights movement? PA: Croak, rather no, we must have [slowly, succinctly] law.. .and.. .order. Defense Attorney [stands up with hack to bar, dressed in flowing white robes, camouflage bcretf. A.s stated, there are times when one must hold one s tongue at the bidding of a higher power [two nude nazi.s distin­ guished only by arm hands and moustaches, genitalia covered by Bush masks run up, puH out PA s tongue with pincers, hold it there, waiting. One farts.] Eor example. Niggers ought not speak in public, when being ar­ rested, on buses, in restaurants, at the water fountains, while being heh heh handled by the police in .a men’s room with a broken broom handle, whilst falling under the fire hose, facing boy.s with ropes, et ceter.i et ceter.a YOU WILL SPEAK WHEN SPOKliN TO. PA: [muffled, without tongue]llaw.. .alnd.. .olldel. There were scattered giggle.s and titters around the courtroom when Captain Anglan asked Peter if he were an. anarchist. When Peter asked haircloth if he should answer the question, the judge said ye.s but then quickly changed his mind. As a downpour was in progres.s outside the courtroom, Peter’s closing statement, which is more or les.s verbatim at the end of this article, was made all the more dramatic by the explosions of thunder that punctu­ ated the phrase "law and justice.” {Loudly on left Thor hamtner burls.) He was found guilty.

One day a real ram will wash all rhe scum offrhe streets.

When we left the courtroom for a brief recess, my mother was in tears. Tears partially brought on by joy and pride; partially by the judge’s brusque pronunciation of "guilty”. But mostly she w.i.s exuding pride over his speech and defense, and wanted to share it with anybody present. She told one Marshal, of whom an illus­ tration is attached, how lucky he wa.s to have been present to hear her son speak, what a great closing slaicinent it was. Admittedly over-the-top Mom pride and sharing, but there was no condescension or sarc.asm present. The Marshal chuckling responded: Yeah, sure lady, 1 don’t think so, but if you do that’s your thing. A.s I passed him, I muttered Fascist. What? Nothing. Say, 1 ve an illustration to show you. I’m tn'ing to get a job as a court sketch artist, and I’ve done your picture.” It was juvenile and inarticulate, but the Legal Pro ceedings had put us all in a strange mood. The next day was sentencing day. During Peter’s presentencing statement, the Judge managed to bring the emotion in the courtroom that had been building to a crescendo to .a crystalline peak when he interrupted him to give him six months and have him ejected from the courtroom in high spirits. The Judge’s decision to ask the Marshals to ceremonially escort Peter out through a side door, despite a defendant’,s usual right to re­ main in the courtroom until adjournment, was based on alleged disruptive behavior. Thus made for an even more forceful spectacle, as it was clear that the only thing dtsruptive was the content of Peter's speech. He had been polite, quiet, and didn’t speak out of turn. The effect on the witnesses was heavy. The eloquent speech of a 19 year old, a frustrated judge repeating a circular logic of law and order, a quickly uttered sentence that

many in the couitrooin didn’t even have the time to hear as son, grandson, boyfriend, friend, and brother whisked out of the courtroom through a side door like in some Stalin-era showtnaJ. There were not many dry eyes on the spectator side of the barrier. All defendants and supporters stood, and a handful of angry fists were raised in salute. 1 he other defendants who had refused self-surrender (i.e. asked to begin their sentences im­ mediately in a county jail) asked to be taken into immediate custody with Peter.

Interestingly enough, Abi Miller and Summer Nelson, arrested under the same circumstances delivering the same indictment, defending themselves with a similar defense, received only ninety days each. The only difference in their cases was that Peter expressed more radical views more vocally. 1 also I think the judge is secretly attracted to young female lawbreakers, but 1 have yet to obtain comment on that. Or, as Peter said in his first letter from prison, “Near as 1 can tell, 3 of those months were for protesting (in the words of the judge and prosecutor) and 3 are for being an anarchist (again, in the words of the judge and prosecutor.)" Breaking the solidarity, 1 left the courtroom to walk around town. The sentencing went on long into the night, and it wasn’t until after eleven that the rest came out. The mood was one of relief, as most had received less than the maximum sentence. According to Saturday’.s Ledger-Enquirer (which I’m not sure I can trust as a source since Staff Writer Jun Houston, who asked us to kindly be quiet in court, fucked up a handful of his facts in the article, but 1’11 have to, not being able to find another list of sentences), fifteen were sentenced to SIX months and lines ranging from nothing to the maximum $5000. Most of these were men. Fourteen were sentenced to ninety days. Most of these were women. And seven were sentenced to six months’ probation, again, mostly women, and all having pleaded guilty. They congregated on the courthouse steps in front of tired marshals, chanting “ain’t no power like the power of the people ‘cause the power of the people don’t stop” Ciranted 1 wasn’t in the best of moods, and although I was happy for all of those who got off, the self­ congratulation and celebration made me nauseous. 1 hose who weren’t going to prison were those who admiited guilt. Legal resistance was met with the heavy hand of the Law. I didn’t see the power of the people, but a group of people criminally dicked around by the justice system. My problem with the professional protest circuit, to be considered as an admittcdlj' bad generalization, is the self-congratulatory, self-help group therapy aspect of It all. But this is not particularly relevant, and a pox on anyone who would read into this that 1 don’t have full respect lor the activists considered individually.

1 hat night about seven of us walked to the Muscogee County Jail to stand across the street from the prisQiicr intake and see the van drive them in. We arrived at the jail, an ugly faceless set of buildings with slits for windows, just a.s the van was pulling in. We could sec them through several fences and spotlights about a hun­ dred yards away. 1 thought 1 saw Peter and Summer, but I couldn’t be sure that it was them. There was sing­ ing and shouting from our side, but no response. I hej' were hustled in through the big door, and then it closed. About five Marshals had come up to the guard line to make sure we didn’t cross or try to bastille the prison. 1 hey asked us to stop singing because it was disturbing the prisoners who were trying to sleep. We learned the next day that our new inmates didn’t turn around or wave because they were being pushed along and yelled at by the guards. Peter was recently moved to the Harris C.ounty Jail about 40 miles away, where he is awaiting transfer to a federal penitentiary.

Oh, no trouble m.t j/n, I ims just checking to see if there were any middle-eastern types with wires sticking out of them m the back of the car. -A US. Marshal approaching my mother in her Toyota Previa.

In Tough Times, a Comping Finds Profits m Terror War.. .Big Company Finds ProFt in War on Terror­ ism. . .Debut Planned for Muppet With HI K .. .Battling an Alien Predator ui a Suburban Pond-k hye.s m the water, it walks on the land, and it is at rhe top ofa food chain.. .Mexican Farmers Seixe Officials.. .Latin Child Labor Resists Abolition as Poyerty and Globalization Wegh In - Headlines from the New y'ork T/mr.s, Saturday, July 13. 2002 Fadeout to irrelevance.

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[THE FOLLOWING IS PETER GELDERLOOS’ CLOSING STATEMENT, WRITTEN BY PETER

GELDERLOOS] Closing

Judge, I have a closing stateineni dial should take about 5 minutes of the courts time. The prosecution clearly failed to prove that 1 violated the law in question. Crossing the line onto Fort Benning is not the illegal action, it is what one docs while over the line. The prosecution failed to show that 1 had an unlawful purpose, defined in regulation 4-9 as demonstrations or protest actions that interfere with the accomphshinenl ol the base’s mission or endanger the loyalty, discipline, or morale of troops. On these grounds alone, you must acquit. But there is more, l he prosecution also ignored the legitimacy of our indictment, and they Ignored our Constitutional right to do what we did. Central to the prosecution’s entire argument has been the belief that the government i.s infallible, because they have denied or ignored any option citizens might use

to corrrci .i wayward power structure.

Lhe Fust Amendment clearly states that citizens have the right to petition the government for redress of griev­ ances, and legal precedent show.s that the First Amendment extends to the right to distribute and to receive information. By banning and barring clear Constitutional rights from Fort Benning, by disallowing actions that would clearly be permitted anywhere else on U.S. soil, this court would make a mockery of lhe Bill of Rights. By granting soldiers more rights than ordinary citizens, lhe right to be free from criticism, this court would be admitting that we live in a military slate. By subjecting the children who live on Fort Benning to an environ­ ment devoid of full First Amendment rights, this court would violate the equal protection clause of the Consti­ tution, and they would also do so by honoring military arrests that target only the speakers of unpopular ideas. By denying the consideration of international treaties, this court would also violate the Supremacy clause of the Constitution. That seems like an awful lot of neglect to uphold the perceived violation ol just one Class B

Misdemeanor.

I’m sure 1 don’t need to infonii lhe court that America, at least in the history books, ls a proudly lawless soci­ ety. Undeniably illegal actions such as the Boston Tea Party arc our hallmarks. Judge, eventually the whole world will recognize that the School Of the Americas is wrong, the government is only substantiating this pre­ diction with the veritable lack of moral justification or evidence they’ve presented in defense of WHISC. It seems just a little backward that we would have to honor process over common sense and keep jailing people for nonviolcntly opposing the School when we’re going to have to admit they were right in the end. 1 have a final point; l he seal of ihi.s court bears the phrase Lex et Justica. Law and Justice. That s an interesting choice of words. We have to assume there’s a reason both of those terms were included. Law and Justice. Clearly they’re not identical in meaning, otherwise why include both of them? There is a difference between law and justice. The two arc not always the same. It is your duty, if 1 may presume to tell you your duty, to uphold both of these. The prosecution contests whether I had a legal right to do what 1 did, but they have for­ gotten that I did have another kind of right which this court must recognize, one pertaining to justice. So what do you do when law and justice conflict? I would guess that it would be better for your career to choose law over justice, but your job is to answer the question law and justice, not law or justice. 1 don’t mean to belittle Class B misdemeanors, I’m sure they’re very important in their own right, but if you just broadened your scope to consider some other more serious laws, those regarding torture and terrorism, then you could satisfy the requirements of both law and justice quite easily. But right now the gavel is in your hand, and more impor­ tantly the men in this courtroom wearing guns and biUy clubs arc following your orders, not mine. There is

nothing I can say to affect the decision of this court. I will have to continue speaking with my aiii-.-iis, and nothing short of a death sentence will stop me.

Brigid Conarchy, Leone Reinhold, David O'Neil, Peter Geldcrloos, Jennifer Lee Sturgis, Summer Nelson, Ahi Miller

Vs.

1 he Unilcd States of Americ.a

Indictment We, the above named citizens of the United State.s of America, charge the staff of the Western Hemi.sphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known a.s the School o( the Americas, with violation ol 13 US(' § 2340A, Filartig,! v. Pena-Irala, 630 l’2d 876 (2nd Cir 1980), and the USA PATRIOT Act (Public Law 107-56, Section 81 1(g) for conspiring to commit torture and hy contributing to acts of terrorism. SOA/WHINSF.C IS acquiescing in and consenting to torture in violation of Article 1(1) of the Convert ion Against Torture, acting in complicity and/or participation with persons who commit torture in violation of Article 4 of the Convention Against Torture: failing to instnict properly on the prohibitions against torture in violation of Article 10 of the Convention Against T orture; and violating other principles of federal and niter national law:

or hl Mozote, hl Salvador.

soldiers who massacred over 900 men, women, and children in the village

Under SOA/WHINSEC graduate Lcopoldo Galtieri's command, the Argentine inilitaiT killed or disappeared 30,000 people. The SOA/WHINSEC trained 10 of the Chilean officers indicted with Pinochet for crimes auiinst humanity. T he SOA/WHINSEC trained Bvron Lima Estrada, who took part in the assassination ofGuaiema Ian Dishop Juan Gerardi in I 108 by bludgeoning him to death. jSOA/WHINSEC

trained 19 of the ranking officers of the notorious Battalion llh deith

squad in Honduras.

The SOA/WHINSEC trained over 4.000 soldiers for Somoz.a’s National Guard death squids m [Nicaragua. ' The SOA/WHINSEC has trained many other Latin American soldiers who have been indicted for torture, .assassination and other abuses.

The President of the United State.s has stated that it is the sworn duty of all people in the United States and the world to eradicate terrorism and the training grounds of terrorism. There arc no other legal alternatives to halt the continued and ongoing violations of U^i. law that result from the operation of SOA/ WHINSEC. We, as citizens of the United States of Amenca, feel it is our duty to serve thus indictinent to the personnel and commanders of SOA/WHINSEC for continuing to violate the above-sited federal and interna tional laws concerning terrortsm and torture. Carl Geldcrloos

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We hope that this first issue of Brio has given you an idea of who we are and what we hope to become. We’ve learned a great deal in the process of putting it together and can’t wait to get starred on our next installment. We invite you to join its a.s we continue to grow. I’or infonnation on submissions and editorial positions, as well a.s new selections and excerpts, visit the Comp Lit After Dark page of the NYU Comparative Literature department website at www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/complit.

rhe journal would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of a great number of people (or a number of great people). Thank yon Susan Protheroe, Keith Vincent. Richard Siebnrth, and the rest of the Comparative Literature department. Without your unwavering support thrs endeavor might not have come to fruition. We also thank all those who contributed their work. You challenged our expectations and helped define the journal as a cohesive whole. I hank yon Mila, Sarah, Zoe and Rotem for the long hours and peerless dedication. And thank yon for reading. We encourage you to criticize, analyze, and submit to Brio. Above all we hope it opens up a dia­ logue wherever it finds you.

The Brio Literary Journal i.s edited by: Heather Cleary*, Sarah Coenen, Radmila Djordjevic, Zoe I cigenbaum, Sabrina Lee,

Rotem Moscovich, Sara Sanchez, Jennifer Shahade, and Edwin Williamson.

ball 2002.