by Rich Balling
When I arrived on his doorstep two weeks later, he was visibly shaken. “Two days ago,” he explained, “a slum that many of my students live in was bulldozed in an effort to clean up the city. Two-thirds of my students are now completely homeless, have not shown up to class since, and I’m beginning to doubt I’ll ever see them again.” Thanks to the caste system, life in India is a lottery, so the people are already pretty acclimated to the idea that an opportunity to go to school is like possessing a winning ticket, a luxury rather than a right. Vikrum knew that as “untouchables” most of his students would be sent back to their rural villages to live the rest of their lives in near primitive conditions, lives of backbreaking manual labor and appalling poverty, especially for the women, who do the same work for half the wages in a culture already conducive to rampant domestic abuse. The day I arrived was the first day Vikrum had mustered enough courage to visit the aftermath in hopes of finding some of his students. He would try to convince the parents to keep them in school, as it would be their only hope of getting the kids out of the slums, and if nothing else, Vikrum hoped to offer some feeble words of encouragement and a farewell.
After helping teach the class lessons in English and math, I accompanied Vikrum and his remaining students home. Initially, we were stopped by representatives from the demolition company who wouldn’t let us through.
“These are our students,” Vikrum protests. “We are walking them home to their families.”
“No one lives here anymore,” we are told. Another teacher from the school is with us, and is trying to reach the head of the demolition company and city officials on her cell phone. Meanwhile, we try a more concealed route through the claustrophobic alleys of the slum dwellings, dodging rats, cockroaches, and exposed live wires that dangle murderously at head level, until we emerge into what looks like nothing short of a war zone.
I had expected to see a block or two of makeshift homes flattened into the mud. Instead, what I saw looked as if a militia of suicide bombers had run through a city center. I walked into a landscape of rubble that stretched all the way to the high-rises in the distant city skyline. Hundreds of people, many of them children, were sifting through the debris for their belongings, occasionally pulling out a tattered piece of clothing or a toy they recognized. They navigate between scattered columns of smoke. Vikrum starts climbing over the wreckage to look for familiar faces alongside the river of raw sewage at its margin.
This is a confirmed malaria black spot, so I try to keep moving fast to avoid the mosquitoes, constantly slipping and causing landslides of debris that leave gashes on my skin even through my jeans. Vikrum is scrambling across the chaos to a little girl he has recognized. A small group of boys has surrounded me, seemingly incredulous that a westerner is walking through their neighborhood and all at once they begin heaping questions on me about America and what it is like. It feels demoralizing for me to give answers. After six weeks in India, America has already begun to feel like nothing more than an idea. So I try to redirect things with questions of my own.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Twenty-five years.”
“Did they give you any forewarning?”
“Two days.”
“Did anyone try to resist?”
“What could we do? Every family was told they would receive some rupees. No one has seen any money.”
“Where will you go?”
Numb silence. No one has any idea of course. They wouldn’t be living in the slum if they had somewhere else to go.
I search for Vikrum. He is holding the hands of two little girls he knows as he walks with them to find their parents. We spot more of his students along the way. One of the girls takes us to her mom and three siblings who have constructed a temporary structure of garbage bags on tree branches. Having just salvaged a pot out of a small mountain of wreckage, the mother offers to make me a cup of chai while she tries to stop the bleeding of her five-year-old’s foot, which had been split open from having to walk in this environment without shoes. Flies fleck their faces between dangling clumps of unwashed hair. Although Vikrum is playing patty-cake with some of the girls in an effort to make them remember another life, he has become very quiet and there is a dark glaze over his eyes. This makes me especially worried. He does not seem to be teetering between shock and emotional collapse. Familiarity and time appear to have placed him far beyond their reach. I’m afraid he’s sinking into apathy.
The boys I talked to earlier keep following me and their group becomes increasingly bigger. Then something happens that, in my mind, illustrates a fundamental difference between my reality and theirs: as I stare in horror at the approach of two new bulldozers coming directly toward us, most people seem to be more interested in me, even though clusters of people are gathering behind the machines, picking up debris and any other projectiles they can pilfer along the way. Everyone seems to be waiting for someone else to throw first.
That was when a rock was placed in my hands.
I’m in a state of shellshock, so the older boys react for me: they begin pushing me toward the bulldozer until I am standing directly in front of it. They are chanting in my support. I get the impression they believe I will evoke some magical authority of the West, or at least of cinema, and awake them from the nightmare of their history. The other teacher puts down her cell, realizing the irrelevance of getting an official on the line given the momentum of this pivotal moment, and shouts fiercely to as many people as can hear her, “If you want a riot, I will lead it! Just give me some confirmation that this is what you really want and I will throw the first stone!” I take advantage of this distraction and step out of the way. The crowd is getting bigger and closing in on the bulldozers but still no one is doing anything. Finally, a young kid throws something and then there are five, then ten people throwing rocks and debris at the men inside the steel frames. The drivers react by changing course to speed erratically toward the attackers who disperse like mosquitoes. The female teacher, who is now the only one fixed on retaliation, is shouting: “Don’t you want this? Why don’t you fight?! You have to stand up for yourselves!!” Someone yells back what everyone is secretly thinking: “What do you think that will actually accomplish?”
And it is over as quickly as it began.
In stark contrast to what I had seen in Latin America three months prior, I discovered that India is a place where most people are utterly resigned to their poverty. The culture fosters it. It’s built into their religion.
It doesn’t take long for a crowd to surround me again. Now they are openly mocking me in Hindi and Bihari. “Look guys, the American has an eye booger!” to the hilarity of all. A fuse has been blown in my processing capacity but I know that their dignity has just been dealt a serious blow. Unsure how to direct their residual anger, others begin beating each other up, right in front of me.
I hear Vikrum calling me. He motions for me to get away from the crowd, but they follow me. When I get closer, he says, “Stand here, next to these women,” gesturing toward a little girl and her teenage sister. When I do so, I turn to find that the crowd seems to be caught in an invisible net. “Men are scared to death of women in this country,” he suggests. “They are raised to have almost no interaction with them until they are married …” He pauses as if debating whether to complete the thought. “And that is a big part of why this country is so fucked up.”
For a moment, we are unsure what to say to each other and simply survey the strange planet we find ourselves standing on. Then he adds, “You know, the guys who drive the bulldozers … they live in slums too. They probably know some of the families who came out to stop them. In a way, the people inside the bulldozers were fighting for the same thing as the people who attacked them.”
But maybe, I should start from the beginning …
DANIEL BARRON
Dollar Fifty Date
Purgatory at the Jersey Shore
Daylight is breathing over the skyline,
/> On the drive home, somewhere past three a.m.,
Eight hours on the road, billboards read like lullabies,
This engine is singing me asleep behind the wheel.
As I awoke to the song of seagulls,
I open the driver’s door and wander across the street,
To hear the percussion of waves crashing upon the shore,
I whisper, “This is so surreal.”
I walk past the lifeguard’s tall wooden station,
It’s knocked over into the cloudy beach,
Following the sounds of the ocean,
I make my way to the shoreline.
My feet sink into the wet sand,
As liquid glass washes over my heels,
In a trance, I see a boy donned in black clothing,
He wades into the water, wading on until he sinks through the sea.
I realize I’m not breathing,
As I light my cigarette and take three long drags,
The boy emerges from the depths,
To tell me that he didn’t drown.
Suddenly, it all comes back to me,
I see the accident that took my life,
Like a terrible dream,
I can feel the windshield smashed against my face.
A man with tattoo-covered arms runs by,
He doesn’t even give a glance at me.
I fear I am a ghost, oh my,
I’m invisible and silent to the world.
I cannot feel the wind as it blows against my arms,
Walking across this desert by the sea,
I brush my hair out of my eyes,
To see this beachside town is purgatory.
Exactly as one would think,
Neither damning, nor enlightening,
Neither white, nor black, just grey,
It’s a nice sight, yet nothing worthy of a painting.
I climb the stairs to the boardwalk,
Sitting in a nearby bench, a mother and child,
As I pass, the baby starts to cry,
How can he see me, so invisible?
I take a seat upon the railing,
To wait and watch the rising sun,
As it lifts the clouds and parts the sky,
And reflects rays off of the ocean.
The light is so bright it’s blinding. I close my eyes.
The warmth of the sun kisses my cheeks,
and the wind embraces my face,
I open my eyes.
JERRY JONES
Trophy Scars
Jerry and Jerry Go for a Drive
Hey, kid? You there?
Yeah!? How you feeling today?
“Ok” Just “Ok?” “Ok” is good enough for me. C’mon! Let’s go!
Get in the car
Don’t worry, it’s not cold out, actually you would agree—it’s quite nice
Windows down. Remember the rules?
Of course you do!
How old are you today? Twenty-two?
No? Ten?
No? What is it?
Six?
Six it is then.
What’s been keeping you locked up in there? Up in there—up inside that place no one sees?
I haven’t seen you in a while, man. You all right?
I know it’s snowing out.
Don’t worry though. It’s warm, I swear.
You see? Not so bad, right?
No, we won’t drive so fast. But you have to remember the rules.
Yeah, heh, I still smoke, funny, we both smoke still. Thought we were gonna quit years ago.
So what’s up?
What’s going on with your head, little guy?
Broken bones? Can’t sleep? Bad stomach, again? What is it? Are there manta rays in your pool?
Ah, I see. Well, that’s a little more complicated.
Look, once time is initiated—
I mean once it really starts, you can’t stop it.
Not only can’t you stop it, but it goes really fast.
Oh shiii— … Hold on, here comes a turn!
Sorry, I forgot about that turn. Always sneaks up on me.
Hey, but it’s beautiful out, huh? Snowing like hell but it’s sunny and it’s gotta be like seventy-five
degrees!
Right, right. Back to time. Well she’s leaving you.
There’s just nothing you can do about it. You watched this happen before.
She has nothing left to tell you. She’s tired of explaining. You’re exhausting her.
She’s not yours! Never was. She really did a number on us, Jer.
I know. I know. I’m dying about it too! It’s not your fault. But what are you gonna do?
Tell her “no”? Ask her to come back? You definitely can’t stop her.
You can’t stop time and she needs to go. Everyone needs to go.
Let’s get to the comic book store—that makes you feel better, right?
No? Last time I checked—we loved comics when we were six, huh? No?
I know, little man. It’s gonna hurt forever. Remember, I know.
I know you. You know me. Have a smoke.
Pop in your favorite record, Jer. C’mon. One that you love.
You can’t remember what you love?
That’s the problem, man.
I can’t, until you can.
I miss you, Jerry Jones.
BRANDON RIKE
Dead Poetic
We Are Vultures
I saw it breathe its last breath,
And cower and shrink to the floor.
In those seconds after
I saw, in vain, it gasp for more.
Here from this perch
I watched them all
Lose their lives one by one.
And I sat here watching it,
’Til the last trace of life was gone.
Upon this rotting faithful branch
I watch five corpses become decay.
Waiting for the perfect chance
To feed off the remains.
See, we are the luckiest.
The cunning that survive.
No, we were the faithful-est.
Its death has brought us life.
We stay here, perched to watch you die
Watching each step of your life turn
Your death will let us thrive.
We’re the faithful—the Vultures,
And we are still alive.
NICK MARTIN
Underminded
I’m committed to safe driving
stoned.
watching fluttered rooftops; the eyes, the wings of an illiterate saint.
questioned.
as part of the eyes that I cannot see. as tender as lips eluded in foreign dialect.
oh, and don’t forget your home is where you felt it.
engulfed by the salty floods, shooting your mouth is not abrasive.
shallow as you. in open lakes behind elder trees.
the eldest consumer bought in with the dream.
sailing, and open arms to the precious awakening.
eluded again.
eluded once.
Drugs VS. The Patriot VS. Paris
As if the women spoke in tongues, while preaching about white mirage in coated cacophony.
Desired by few less than the hollowed cavities; in design, tidiness in speculation
And you think your drugs are better than the shepherds?
The patriot versus paris.
Alas! The bigot has risen from nine days sleep, just in time for the moon to burn these pores.
Red dirt versus paris; and you doubted a betrayal between “the harp” and “the ox.”
Chuckle and point and stare and bless and spit on the tides.
A cheap fuck is worth every penny if everyone is buying in.
Remember what I said about patriots and paris?
You’re not understanding the routine the patriot severs by listening to YOU!
Exploring the children’s blasphemic symp
honies, and putting your ears to the door; in hopes of hearing your shitty fate no one cares about anymore.
You are not serving an understanding that the routine severs the listening of the patriot in yourself.
Your drugs were better when you weren’t yourself. When they were me. When I was your drug and choices.
Call it what you wish to name it in stupid, anonymous canoes.
Onto your petty game about “oxes.”
Cold fellows with no cash to hand off to Mr. answers.
Azariah and his terrible addictions to life and razor thick lines.
I …… fucked …… something.
’N that something fucks me too.
Even you can’t open your eyes to see what I say!
Cocaine is spelled in the great american sob story.
EVAN JEWETT
Worker Bee
loss of a squirt gun—
i squint like a child
looking up at the sun
it floats down to me
lions are resting
down on the street
having had enough, the flowers grow feet
i lift up your head
and look for the fleas
they welcome their purpose
all the while
when i wasn’t looking
the lions got a little closer
lost keys—
i sang a song of your beauty in cruel mocking form
cracking the high notes that fell out of their nest
muting the strings of your hair
i painted your arms to your chair
looking up to the sky i bit my lips
and gave orion a suit of gold
i hugged your neck and thought of work
you came in through the window
so i closed the door
conner family moneymaking death machine—
turn on the moneymaking death machine
the dark turns to grey
results appear quickly and not soon enough