"Dead?"
"He got shot. Or shot himself. That's what my mom says."
"You're kidding."
Davy shook his head. He seemed a little disoriented by this line of conversation, especially coming from me.
"Is he any better?” I asked. “You know...? Why does he act like he does?"
Davy puckered his lips. He looked like he had a headache. Squinting, he said, “Don't know. I guess because he was always getting beat up when he was little. He was so scrawny and all. And his dad liked to beat on him too.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, did you call that guy about your car?"
"No, I didn't call him."
"But you said you were going to call him and tell him that if he didn't have your car ready—"
"I didn't call him!” I exploded from my seat and shoved Davy against the window. His head thunked against the metal frame and he winced, tears streaking his face.
"What'd you do that for?"
"Tell Ty-Ty something for me."
"What?” Davy asked, wiping snot from his lip.
"Tell him I said he ain't no chicken."
Davy nodded and continued to cry.
* * * *
The spring came, and the reality of being a senior hit me hard. I got depressed about having to ride the bus to school while most of my friends drove new cars. I got down about not having a girlfriend. Despite my lies to Davy, I had never even had sex. The closest I had ever come was junior year, with Rebecca Sturgeon, but just before I put it in, I came all over her belly. I tried hard to get her to let me try again, but she wouldn't. After a while she stopped returning my phone calls and asked Mrs. Morris if she could move to a new seat—away from me—in science class.
I thought about Ty-Ty far too much—his snarl mostly, and sometimes those level eyes—and it almost seems as if I knew then that it wasn't over yet. A tragedy was spinning out before me like a spool of thread, but I was powerless to stop it.
* * * *
I ran into Ty-Ty at school one day. I had been cutting English, so I was behind the gym, out near the dumpsters, tipping back a flask of Wild Turkey I'd filched from my mother. I had learned to hide my alcoholism pretty well by that point. I took a few nips between nearly every period. But whenever I felt like the coast was clear, I skipped English altogether and got good and numb before going on to sixth and seventh periods.
I was taking another slug when somebody walked up. I nearly dropped my flask trying to get it back into my pocket before I realized it was Ty-Ty.
"Hey,” I said. “Have a taste."
Ty-Ty cocked his head at me and frowned, but he took the flask and drank some anyway.
We stood in silence for a while. I was drunk, but didn't care. I took another drink. I said, “I'm sorry about your dad, Ty-Ty."
He didn't say anything for a while. Then he asked, “You still play chicken?"
I shrugged. “Nah. I don't have a car. I totaled the damn thing. I never played that much anyway, Ty-Ty.” I tipped the flask back again. “I'm just a damn liar."
"I've been playing."
"You can't even drive a car,” I said.
"Been playing without one."
"You mean like you played with Champ."
"Fuck Champ. He's chicken of me, anyway."
I held the flask up. “Damn straight, Ty-Ty. Damn straight. But, you gotta admit, in the end he won."
"I'm not scared of him."
I nodded. I didn't doubt it. “Ty-Ty, does anything scare you?"
He seemed to consider this, a look of deep concentration covering his normally melancholy face. “Yeah, being scared scares me."
Drunk as I was, I found this funny. “You're a champion chicken player, Ty-Ty. A champion."
He reached for the flask and took another swallow. “I'll see you tomorrow,” he said and walked off. I sat down against the dumpster and drank myself silly.
* * * *
"I saw Ty-Ty yesterday,” I told Davy as the bus lumbered off. It was raining hard and steam clouded the windows. Champ was moving slowly, wiping the windshield with an old rag so he could see.
"He stayed home today,” Davy said.
"Skipping?"
"Sick. Woke up throwing up. Said you gave him some whiskey.” I smiled. I wanted to ask if Ty-Ty was doing all right, if he was managing. Losing his dad the way he did had to be hard. I had lost mine a few years ago when he left my mom and me. I couldn't imagine what it was like to lose your father to suicide. I didn't ask because I knew that Davy and the other kids that gathered around me thought I was tough. And tough guys don't ask questions like that. So I sat in silence, ignoring the eyes on me, appealing to me to tell them more lies.
By the time the bus pulled up to Davy's house, the bottom had dropped out of the sky. Visibility was bad, and the only sound was the kettledrum rain on the roof of the bus. There were only a few of us left: Davy, me, a couple of seventh-grade kids in the front, and Pete Turner, a sophomore nobody liked. Champ stopped and opened the door. A gust of rain blew in, soaking him. “Damn it,” he muttered in his deep voice.
This was when I usually made my way to the front each day. My stop was only about a mile or two away, and I usually anticipated it by sitting in the front seat, waiting impatiently for Champ to get to my house. Davy told me ‘bye and I nodded to him. The seat nearest the door, where I usually sat, was wet with rain, so I climbed in right behind Champ. Champ started to close the door when I heard him say, “Son of a bitch.” He took his towel and rubbed the glass; by this point the steam was not really a factor, but the rain still was. So I couldn't blame him for doing a double take when he saw the figure standing in the road.
Through the slashing rain, I could tell that it was Ty-Ty. He was just standing there, looking defiantly at Champ through the rain-streaked glass.
Champ rubbed the window with the towel again. Then he turned to me. “Is that somebody in the road?"
"Yes,” I said. “I think so."
He sat on the horn. “You'd think they'd have sense enough to get out of the rain, not to mention the road."
I didn't say anything. I waited, holding my breath.
When Ty-Ty didn't move, Champ crept closer. “Motherfuck,” he said beneath his breath. “That little punk.” He stepped on the accelerator. Ty-Ty didn't flinch.
"He won't move,” I said.
Champ barely turned his head. “Huh?"
"He won't move. He'll just stand there."
"We'll see about that,” Champ said again. He floored the bus, and the wheels ground the wet asphalt for purchase. We lurched forward. And almost as soon as we moved, Champ slammed the brakes again. He whipped his belt off, set the emergency brake, and leaned out of the door into the sheets of rain. “Get out of the way, you stupid kid!"
Ty-Ty shook his head slowly. Champ lost what little self-control he had left then. “Kid thinks he can stand me down. I'll stand him down.” He looked back at me. “He'll move this time, by God."
"No,” I said, but it was weak, easy to ignore. I should have stood up and said it loudly and with swagger—that's how I'd told all my lies about being tough—but I said it softly, inaudibly even.
Champ didn't floor it this time. Instead he put it in gear and moved forward gradually, increasing his speed as he closed the twenty or so yards that lay between the bus and Ty-Ty.
As the bus got closer, I could see Ty-Ty's face better, how he was really nothing but a boy with a snarl, how his blond lick of hair had at last been tamed by the hammering storm, how beneath his tough exterior, back in the depths of his eyes, he was as afraid as the rest of us.
More afraid, I think.
I closed my eyes just as Champ hit the brakes again. I was thrown forward, and since I had been standing up, I went up and over the seat. My head hit Champ's head, and I landed in the aisle near the step well.
The bus came to a rough stop. “Jesus,” I heard Champ saying. “Sweet Jesus."
He stepped over me out of the bus, into the rain. I pul
led myself to my feet and followed.
"Get back in the bus,” Champ said, but he didn't look at me, and there was no conviction in his voice.
I watched as he knelt to look under the bus. He collapsed to his knees and began to crawl underneath. I heard him sobbing. He stayed under the bus for a long time, so long that I gave up waiting for him to come back out. Since I was only a mile or so from my house, I began to walk. If I felt the rain on my shoulders that day, I do not remember it. Later, people talked about the storm and how hard it had rained that day. Some people even believed, for a short while, that the rain had played some part in Ty-Ty's death. But Champ put an end to that. He never tried to hide what had happened, never tried to sugar-coat it. I saw him interviewed once or twice on the local news after he got out of jail years later. He told it like it happened. He seemed, even then, to be baffled by Ty-Ty's behavior and how he had ended up running the boy over with a school bus. But most of all he still seemed frightened.
I was frightened too.
I am still frightened, thirty years later, even though I haven't touched a drop of alcohol in nearly ten years, nor have I lied to anyone about how tough I am for even longer.
My wife asked me the other day what I was afraid of. I thought for a while before remembering Ty-Ty—my mind always seems to turn back to that scrawny ninth-grader with the defiant sneer, and the way he looked just before the bus hit him. I must have been silent, pondering this for a long while, because my wife had to poke me in the ribs and say, “Hello, Trent. I asked you a question."
"I am afraid of people who are so scared they don't care anymore,” I said. “I'm afraid of apathy, defiance, and.... “I paused, not even sure what I was trying to say. Ty-Ty, that's what I wanted to say. That look in his eyes. Whatever can make you look like that. That's the thing that scared me, still scares me. But this was too difficult to explain, so I simply trailed off, leaving a sentence that I would likely never finish.
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The Tale That Launched a Thousand Ships by Janrae Frank
There is a small village called Summersnow up near Bluedog Pass. A race of little people called the Badree Nym live there. They are a magical race with large pointed ears, fair skin, and freckled faces, with hair that ranges in color from pink to blue and even to black. A little old man abides there—no one knows his name—and every day he sits beneath a spreading oak, smoking his pipe and telling stories of his adventures. People—humans, mostly—come from far and wide to hear them. In certain seasons, even minstrels and bards can be found sitting at his knee and listening with rapt attention.
One day three human kings came to see the little old man, having heard of a tale that he had told about a wondrous magical sleeping princess and the horrible monster that guarded the enchanted castle where she lay.
The little old man was always happy to have someone new ask for his stories, and he told them all about the sleeping princess. She had long golden hair and skin as pale as milk. Her castle stood on a distant island, in a grove of Idyn trees that bloomed year-round and bore rainbow fruits like those that grew in the sun-god's garden. A giant's stair carved from matchless jade led up to the castle gates. A feathered dragon laired in the courtyard, guarding his captive prize.
The three kings listened in wonder, excitedly imagining every detail, and when they left at the end of the day, they vowed to send a thousand ships to bring the princess back. But they did not have a thousand ships, so they had to spend several years in building them. Their enterprise was proclaimed across their kingdoms, and when the ships finally sailed, everyone turned out to cheer. Each king was certain it would be his ships and his captains that would bring the princess back.
Years passed. Some of the ships began to return laden with gold and treasure, full of tales of strange places and stranger people, of odd creatures and amazing sights. But of the magic castle and the princess fair, no word ever came. As soon as the ships came in, they were sent back out to continue the search.
"Find the princess,” everyone demanded.
Trade bloomed with the new lands and colonies sprang up. The three kings grew wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, but of the princess no trace was found. The ships sailed farther and farther across the trackless seas and took longer and longer to return. They found hundreds of new islands, and even continents—six, in fact—where humans had never before set foot. The kings were now as rich as the greatest of the legendary rulers of long-ago lands. But the island of the princess was still nowhere to be found.
A decade passed, and then two. First one king married, and then another. But the third king held out. He doubled his fleet and sent them still further abroad.
These ships found strange gods and stranger demons, wondrous magic swords, and singing harps. But of the princess there was never any word. The third king grew old and wearied of the quest. Finally he went to see the little old man again, in the village of Summersnow near Bluedog Pass.
The Badree Nym are very long-lived, and the little old man had changed not a whit. The king's bones creaked a little as he lowered himself to the grass to speak with the little old man.
"I never found the princess,” the king said sadly.
"Then maybe you did not listen closely enough,” the little old man replied, and told again the tale of the sleeping princess. He spoke for nearly the length of a day. There was a wondrous sleeping princess with jet-black hair and golden skin. She lay in a castle on the bluffs, on an island strewn with gems. A terrible monster laired beneath the bluffs—a huge black dragon with fiery breath. Once past the dragon, one had to climb a narrow silver stair to reach the castle gates.
The king sighed and left. Within a week, he married. The princess was forgotten. In later years, that time came to be known as the Age of Discovery.
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Poetry Code by Robert Peake
Many comparisons have been made over time of software source code to poetry. The Perl Haiku Contest, for example, promotes writing very compact yet expressive poems using a very yet expressive programming language.[i] There is even the phrase “code poet,” which means an exceptional programmer.[ii] However, little has been said of the ways in which poetry, written in a human language, might be similar to software source code, which is designed to be interpreted by machines. That is, no one talks about “poetry code."
When I proposed the idea that poetry might be similar to code on my website, I encountered a kind of knee-jerk indignation. [iii] This pleases me because it indicates a certain reverence for the mysterious and intangible qualities of poetry, a kind of sticking up for the art. However, I think this reverence is often extended to encompass the perceived subjectivity of poetry in a somewhat misguided way. That is, people tend to assume on instinct that poetry and code are so necessarily different that it is somehow an insult to poetry to compare it to software. I suggest that a good deal can be achieved by questioning this assumption and exploring the similarities further.
I should point out that this is a conflation[*] of two disciplines that typically have totally different aims: poetry the artistic, software the practical. However, much of the difference ends there. Both employ compactness and precision as primary means to achieve their separate aims. That is, a few lines written in either genre can have a profound impact, either in the context of a software operating system or in the context of the human psyche—which, I would argue, are not as different as you might think.
[* The use of the word conflation is deliberate, in that equating poetry to code in any literal sense is indeed a stretch if not an error. Yet within that perhaps erroneous pairing, there lies insight.]
* * * *
Figure One: Corollaries Between Operating Systems and the Human Psyche
Operating System—Human Psyche
Pointers to memory—Triggers of memory
Execution parameters and limits—Past experience
Common, shared library of code—Cultural context
>
* * * *
Exploring this conflation further, we realize that a standard level of competency must be expressed by the artist or programmer in either discipline. If we equate as a baseline the requirement that words strung together be recognizable as language in poetry with the requirement for code that it execute without failures, common assumptions—such as that code is rigid and poetry fluid, or that code is logical and poetry creative—begin to fall away. When we further equate the prerequisite of a similarly acculturated and educated audience for poetry with the prerequisite of similarly compatible operating systems for software, a somewhat revolutionary idea emerges: that poetry executes within the consciousness of the reader in ways that are similar to how software executes within an operating system.
At least, this is so for great poetry. Harold Bloom claims that “Greatness in poetry depends upon splendor of figurative language and on cognitive power, or what Emerson termed ‘meter-making argument.’ Shakespeare is first among poets at representing thought, pragmatically does not differ from thinking in poetry, a process not yet fully adumbrated.” [Italics in original.][iv]
Although the process of thinking in poetry is difficult to define, few would deny that poetry does indeed have its own unique context, different from prose and governed by a very different kind of cognition. Likewise, it is clear to any programmer that source code is governed by its own kind of thought, equally distinct from prose, and also that the rules of interpretation for execution of code are extremely well-defined—so precise, in fact, that a single misplaced character can cause the program to fail.
Here Subjectivity might rear its head and balk at the idea that poetry is governed by rules as exacting as those of a programming language, which ultimately acts upon nothing more than a complex mathematical machine. True, the human mind is not purely mathematical in nature. However, at least in some ways, it exhibits a similar degree of predictability.
Stephen Booth begins his groundbreaking book on the highest of literary criticism by analyzing common nursery rhymes.[v] After close analysis of “Little Boy Blue,” he asserts:
GUD Magazine Issue 0 :: Spring 2007 Page 19