We’re hard at work laying out Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance. To break up the monotony, print designer Jen O’Malley takes an opportunity to lay some tasty shapes on some phat beatz.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lit only by a grime covered streetlight, I could still make out Dewayne’s face in the darkness of the van, his eyes closed, mouth partially open, the decay from over three weeks inside a hot van in the summer making him look a lot older. I never knew Dewayne’s exact age, but I think it’s safe to guess forty-one or so, since that’s how old my own father was at the time, standing next to me as a police officer threw a blanket over Dewayne.

He hadn’t officially lived on our small block of homes. Instead, Dewayne lived out of the van he ended his life in, coming by our area only when he needed either money or some food. Charley Clay lived right across the street from us, an old friend of Dewayne’s from high school.

Everyone knew when Dewayne approached, his arrival clear in the backfire of his aging van and the light haze it created for about a mile behind it. The street in front of our home could barely handle two cars at once. When Dewayne was parked on our street, cars had to stop and let others pass.

No one could get by the slew of cars and people crowding close to Dewayne’s van when they pulled his corpse out. Some of us had been hanging around for three hours by that point. The sun had set completely. Hands smacking against arms to kill mosquitoes along with the sharp crackle of the police radios joined the normal hum of a summer night.

I sat on the curb with Josh Stefanelli and a few of the others from my graduating high school class. Most of the others were there only for the excitement of death. They hadn’t spent the years of their youth staring at the rusted over van. They never had their mothers pull them abruptly towards the window each time they disobeyed a rule or brought home a report card filled with Cs so they could be shown the E350, a symbol of Dewayne and human failure.

“Is that what you want to be someday?” my mother said to me on so many different occasions, finger thrust towards the van. “That’s where you end up if you don’t study. Do you want us to go over there and talk to him?”

In elementary school I always quickly shook my head at the suggestion. I’d later understand the threat held no weight, because my mom avoided Dewayne far more than I. My dad confided to me once the dislike my mom had felt for Dewayne even back in high school, and had loathed the few occasions my father hung around him.

Each time the familiar bang of his van made us jump she would give my father a venomous smile reserved for matters involving Dewayne and tell him once more, “I told you about him. If you and Charley had just listened to me he wouldn’t be coming around our neighborhood.”

Josh nudged my side and silently pointed towards the open van and the police officers getting out with the bags of pot in their hands. The sight didn’t shock us, and when I glanced over at my father, standing closer to our home watching the same scene, I didn’t see a hint of surprise in his features.

Most of us avoided Dewayne’s van in our youth simply because of the smell. Not all of it came from what we would later recognize as marijuana but rather due to the mixture of rotting food and human filth his van exuded.

Dewayne rarely interacted with any of us children. I witnessed Jacob Tovias across the street yelling at Dewayne once after the man had attempted to strike up a conversation with Travis, Jacob’s seven-year-old son. Jacob lived next door to Charley, and during the weeks Dewayne was around Travis rarely got to play in the front yard.

“Why does he come here?” I asked my mother after witnessing the sight, perplexed by Dewayne’s presence.

“It’s complicated,” she told me, but never bothered to elaborate.

By around eleven the ambulance had rolled out with Dewayne’s corpse. A lot of the police had left as well, the remaining few waiting for the tow truck to remove Dewayne’s van.

A few of us got up the nerve to move a little closer to the open doors of the van. We could see the red stains on the carpet. Robert Holtz concluded it was blood. “He slit his wrists, you know,” he whispered, mimed the action itself to freak out the few girls who joined us.

This information came from Eddie Moeder. He lived on the other side of Charley and first pulled open those back doors to see Dewayne dead across the floor of his van. “Look over there and you can see Mr. Moeder’s vomit near the back of the van,” Robert said, and we all strained our necks to see the dried puddle.

We tried to put into words what the smell must’ve been like. The van hadn’t been locked. Mr. Moeder had simply been the first to lose his patience and see what had become of Dewayne.

No one showed any sign of worry at all during the lead up to the discovery. All I heard was a growing desire to confront Dewayne and get him to leave. “He needs to get another job,” I would overhear people say.

Often these statements would be framed with a claim of helping Dewayne. The past had taught me people merely wanted him gone so they wouldn’t have to stare at the van anymore.

Less than a week before the discovery I heard our neighbor Mrs. Verch telling my mom she’d already canceled a planned party because of Dewayne’s presence. “You can smell him from over here.”

The tow truck showed up at midnight. I lingered for longer than the others to watch it vanish down the street into the darkness.

They held a funeral for Dewayne four days later. Most of the people in our area, including my parents, attended. Thankfully they held the service inside and out of the fierce heat that day. People filed in slowly and methodically, no real mark of sadness or loss noticeable in any of them.

A few of them gave speeches, mainly about Dewayne in his youth. “He liked to do things his own way,” my own father said. “Society isn’t particularly kind to people like Dwayne, but that’s a problem he won’t have to deal with anymore.”

Once the service ended no one spoke about Dewayne even though his body remained in the back of the room. I avoided going near it, acted as if I didn’t care, and in a way I honestly didn’t, not about the person Dwayne had been.

Most of the summer involved preparations for college. I’d been accepted in the spring, even gotten a few scholarships to help me along.

I think the scholarships in particular drove me to scale the fence of the scrap yard at two in the morning in late July. Greg Nalty’s father junked cars for a living, and through Greg I learned about Dewayne’s van. It didn’t take me long to find it in the large scrap yard, almost drawn to the rusted over vehicle.

I let the wave of heat and foul smelling air wash over me as I opened the back door in the darkness of the night, saw just briefly Dwayne’s corpse on the thin carpet soaked with blood.

I crawled inside, the first time I’d ever been inside of Dewayne’s van before. The overhead light still worked. With the doors shut sweat quickly soaked my shirt and hair, but I didn’t bother opening a window, or even avoid the remaining stench. I took it all in, I guess to experience what it must’ve been like to be Dwayne.

I took out a bottle of whiskey I’d managed to swipe from my father. The brand wasn’t the same as all those empty bottles we found around Dewayne’s van, but I didn’t have much else to choose from.

I lifted my arm to see red soaked into the seat beside me, and wondered if this was where Dewayne had done the deed. Something stuck up just a little from the base of the seat. I pulled loose the old, wrinkled porno magazine, got a laugh, and flipped absently through its yellowed pages before putting it back.

No one ever found out about my trip out to the E350 before Mr. Nalty crushed it three days later. I can only imagine what my mom would’ve thought had she known I’d trespassed.

The act had felt needed, to accept the lessons Dewayne had taught me without ever trying. I’d watched the man’s descent as my own life began to rise, due in no small part to his very influence. Seeing him everyday made me try harder than I think I would’ve been capable of, just so I’d never be like him.

I felt I owed him a debt I had no means of repaying. I couldn’t even thank him for it. Sure, my mom might’ve been the one to use him for that very purpose, but she only could because of who Dewayne had been.

I went to the van to do what I hadn’t had the guts to do at Dewayne’s funeral: give him my last respects. I poured the rest of the bottle of whiskey onto the floor of the van before I slammed the doors shut.

Read more about Sean here.

A crew of dear old friends put together a pilot for Dragons, an original comedy series about two skate buddies transcending their human forms and attaining enlightenment, starring skate legend Mike Vallely. Treat yourself to a half hour of good vibes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After a few weeks of taking a breather, we’re opening up submissions again. As we put the finishing touches on the print issue we’ll be considering all submissions for web publication only. If you’re looking to get published on the website (and why wouldn’t you be?) bear in mind that being succinct is important. And if you’re going to going to submit something over 3000 words, it had better grip from the first sentence and never let up. Click here to submit them gems.

It’s officially been one year since the current site when live and we started publishing fiction and essays on a weekly basis. To celebrate, we’re taking 20% off the price of Annalemma Issue Six: Sacrifice and Annalemma Bundle for today and today only.

Also there will be a small ceremony in the break room during lunch. Cake will be served. Janelle will be collecting $2 from everyone to cover the cost of the cake.

The ink is dry on the papers that say we got permission to do something very cool for Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance. Keep an eye out for a more formal announcement next week.

The Police Between Them, 2010
20″x24″
Unique Digital C Print

Illness as Ace of Spades

When Jill is sick, nothing else matters. Nothing else comes close. Career, vacation, hobbies, how Jack’s team is doing in the play offs. All of it is trumped by the reality of Jill’s debilitating condition. They can’t go on until it is resolved. When Jill is sick, nothing else matters. Nothing else comes close.

#

Illness as Warning.

There is more coming for Jack. This current illness is just a taste of the future. Jack can’t grow complacent when a remedy brings him relief. He knows it is only for the moment. He has seen the broken ones, the people with no choice but to hobble, grimace, faint, and feel the bite of the black dog. He knows the possibility of his destiny.

#

Illness as Reprieve.

Jill didn’t want to face another endless day at her place of employment, dealing with surly co-workers, impatient customers, and slithery suppliers? A simple illness, nothing too harsh, but enough to take her out of commission for a few days, will refresh her as nothing else. It will give her the jolt of being slightly wicked, as well, like she’s a school kid again, playing hooky, and that’s always good.

#

Illness as Premonition

Jack stands in line at the supermarket and thinks how lucky he is that you hasn’t contracted the crud that’s going around. Then that evening he manifests the first symptoms of the communal virus that has waylaid most of his acquaintances. It’s not the evil eye. Jack just knew what was coming and his mind gave him a warning. He tries to see this ability as a gift.

#

Illness as Sedative

Sure, thinks Jill, spending every day in bed is no way to live, but an over frenzied life, filled with cell phones, appointments, and responsibilities, can benefit greatly from a couple of days, now and again, spent with the covers up to her chin, and the walls and ceiling indistinct with dimness. More calming, thinks Jill, than the hot brew Jack so thoughtfully brings her.

#

Illness as Religion

Jack knows of cancer victims who are convinced their condition is the best thing that has ever happened to them. Jack struggles to accept his rogue cells in the same spirit. He tries to hear the voice of God in the pain. Here is your life and the fuse is getting smaller, says God to Jack. Believe in yourself. Believe in me. Find what love you can.

#

Illness as Curse

Too easy, thinks Jill, to call it a curse, especially with hereditary diseases. Getting something her family gets feels like the universe is smirking at her. You putz, Jill. You think you have control over anything? I’ve got the whole thing laid out here in my book and you are just a minor character following the script. Jill, just get used to it now and save yourself the bother later.

#

Illness as Deal Breaker

Until death do them part. Sure. In sickness and in health. Yeah, yeah. That’s the visible part of Jack and Jill’s agreement. The unwritten contract says something roughly like this: I am only a human being, and a weak one at that. You better not get sick for a long time, and if you do, Jill, if you, say, stroke out while I, Jack, am still in my forties, it’s really too much to ask me to nurse you for three or four decades. You’re going to be on your own, Jill. Count on it.

#

Illness as Chimera

Sometimes, during a long bout of some passing affliction, Jill has obtained a measure of relief by imagining her ailment in terms of another being occupying a space congruent with her. Illness as the other. Jill like’s that. Then she can imagine taking the little pissant and choking the life out of it. Bury its expired body in the ground. Jill will dance, then. She’ll dance dance dance on the fresh wet grave.

#

Illness as Memory

In a previous life maybe Jack was the tormentor. And now he has come back as a disease. He won’t remember who he was then. Jack won’t forget what he has brought with him now to live in this pain.

#

Illness as Community

Jill sees that older folks, especially, seem to like hearing about diseases. It brings them closer. They lean in, eyes twinkling, minds sharpened to take in the tales of woe. Jill knows she is one of them when she tells about that nasty rash she had, or the scary infection. She has joined the club.

#

Illness as Light

Like a flash bulb popping in Jack’s face. Blinding him until nothing is left but the impossible white filling his field of view. And the pain filling Jack’s head. The numbing rays slicing into his flesh, leaving singed trails, a path that won’t heal, bright scars, lightning traces on his skin.

#

Illness as Spectacle

Hollywood has always known (and Jill has long accepted) that an ailing (but gorgeous) star suffering in a hospital bed for a reel or two is as sure to please the crowds as celebrity sex or fiery explosions or car chases. Jill embraces this paradigm. Life imitates art. Jill’s discomfort deserves a wide angle lens for maximum effect.

#

Illness as Seduction.

Jack fights it, at first. Tells his friends and himself and Jill that it’s nothing. But soon the power of it takes him over. He cannot resist, and cannot turn away. Desire is a muddled urge sometimes, and Jack knows the relationship cannot last, but for now he is entwined with it, in love, surely. They need each other’s pained and comforting embrace.

#

Illness as Narrative

The first hint of Jill’s unbalance. The explication of Jill’s first alarm. The rising action of Jill’s growing pain or disfigurement or infection. The tension of Jill’s maximum or prolonged discomfort and weariness. The climax of Jill’s release of illness or her resignation to eternal pain. The denouement of Jill’s normalcy returned or redefined.

#

Illness as Canary

Jack is keeled over, woozy, lost, gasping. He’s one of them, now, like a lot of folks, stricken by environmental illness. Jack is telling us something. It’s dangerous to be here, now, in this world, the world we have made and are making. See Jack gasp and choke. The air and water here is dangerous. Soon Jack’s cage will be big enough to hold us all.

#

Illness as Invasion

Jill imagines places like the Center for Disease Control must have big war rooms where they have maps of the world on high walls towering over cigar chomping generals. Jill thinks the blobs of colors on the map indicate the current dispersal of AIDs or malaria or influenza. They are clever, these war room officials. They know how to deploy their arsenals of chemicals: antibiotics, pesticides, and vaccines. Jill imagines herself as a push pin in one of the maps. The war room generals will keep Jill as safe as they can.

#

Illness as Healer

Jack has to have his arm re-broken because it had not been set properly. He sees a previous illness in a new light. It was a corrective to reset his whole being. It served as a warning for him to stay on the straight and narrow. It was a bracing little dose of something Jack did not want.

#

Illness as Pacifier

Jill lived downwind from nuclear testing and got radiation sickness. When she complained to her doctor of her alarming and mysterious symptoms, the doctor told her she had “housewife syndrome” and needed to go home and tend to her family, as so many other complaining housewives had been told to do. One can only imagine these docs, shaking their heads at the silly complaints of these silly women.

#

Illness as Art

Jack is the gallery. His health problems are framed on his skin, like simultaneously fascinating and repellent paintings. His family and friends visit quietly, fleetingly. Most people can’t spend a lot of time looking at art without getting fatigued. That’s why hospital visitor’s hours are so short. It’s nothing personal; you just touch something in them they’re not used to knowing about. Jill is there for a short time. But she has to get back home. There are chores to do and art is a luxury, you know. You don’t really need it to live.

#

Illness as Dear John Letter

Dear Jill: I never wanted to leave you. My only desire is to wrap myself around you and hold you to me for eternity. I would give up everything–life, love, soul, and riches, just for the privilege, no, the joy of being with you every minute of everyday. But this damned ailment. It drags on me. Pulls me away. I’m so sorry. It really is me, not you. Love always, etc.

#

Illness as Darwinian Imperative

Jack is conscious of the future of his species. He wants to be kind to subsequent generations. As a courtesy to his descendants he has put off reproduction until he has had time to manifest any fatal ailments he might have, thus keeping from passing on any such defects to his children. Jack calls this unnatural selection, or something like it, and wonders why Jill does not laugh at his joke.

#

Illness as Tea

The leaves, swelling in Jill’s cup, give up their color and flavor slowly, seeping into the water like an illness unraveling its power at a slow and steady turtle pace. The staining is stately and epic. Jill appreciates the process. It will take its own sweet time to reach its robust fullness. Then Jill will be steeped in its consuming essence.

#

Illness as Candle

Sometimes, Jack likes the discomfort, the way it drags him down. It feels warm and soft, like a flame, with Jack as the supporting wax, holding up the winding spine of the wick in a thickening murk. The flame lulls Jack, hypnotizing him into liquid, then vapor, zapping him into nothing.

#

Illness as Diet Aid

Jill overheard some women discussing a daughter of one of their mutual friends. The young woman suffered from anorexia. Jill remembered her own bouts with the ailment and shivered. So many ways for things to go wrong. I wish I had anorexia, said one of the women. Jill’s jaw dropped. The woman went on: I would love to lose a few extra pounds.

#

Illness as a Bad Boss

Like the big cheese at Jack’s work, who tries to help, even when he has no idea what he’s doing. He makes arbitrary decisions to try to make Jack see his point of view. He is unafraid to use anything on Jack, even discomfort, intimidation, pain, or a subtle disfigurement to show Jack exactly who’s really in charge.

#

Illness as an Overdue Library Book

Jill can do without the nagging, thank you very much. She knows it’s there and she is well aware of the consequences of leaving it as is for much longer. There’s going to be a fine to pay if she doesn’t take care of it. There will be the revocation of privileges, a consequent reduction in quality of her life. A loss of sympathy until she takes the steps to make it all right.

#

Illness as Ace of Spades

When Jack is sick, nothing else matters. Nothing else comes close. Career, vacation, hobbies, how Jill’s soap operas are going. All of it is trumped by the reality of Jack’s debilitating condition. They can’t go on until it is resolved. When Jack is sick, nothing else matters. Nothing else comes close.

Read more about Mario here.

Read more about Jesse here.