I fell off the boat.

It-the recipient of his good deed and the cause of his regret- appeared one night as casually as a new snow fall. It- the happenstance-caused Edmundo such great sorrow that he would try not to think about it. When he did his eyes filled with tears of remorse. He sometimes thought he was to blame but then at other times wasn’t sure if he was to blame at all.

Rows of icicles hung from the gutters and gables of houses in the bitter cold snowy night A flume of frosted vapor, from a roof top vent, floated up into the crystal cloudless sky where a gorgeous white winter moon rested in the stars. When Edmundo returned from dinner it was late in the evening and the streets were empty.

When Edmundo opened the front door he felt a little push against the bottom of the door. He looked down and seen a big gray Manx cat, with no tail, trying to push his head through the crack of the slightly opened front door. The cat wanted to get out of the cold so Edmundo opened the door and let the cat go in. It was obvious, from the cats handsome well kept appearance, it came from a good home where it was well fed and loved. Edmundo wonder what kind of strange circumstances brought, by happenstance, this unusual cat to his door. Edmundo named him Babalu, a word from a Desi Arnez Cuban song. Ai Babalu ia a Babalu ia is a line he remembered from the song. Babalu means "holiness" if the Afro/ Cuban Santeria religion.

Babalu gracefully walked around the house, purring and rubbing against the furniture and Edmundo’s legs thanking him for bringing him out of the bitter cold. It was the loudest purr Edmundo had ever heard. It was the purr of a contented cat. Years later, through the mist of time, it occur to him that Babalu was mystical cat, and perhaps a messenger from other portals.

When Edmundo returned from work, the moment he set foot in the door there would be Babalu, in the same place everyday, across the living room purring and rubbing against the couch. Edmundo guessed Babalu watched for his return from a window and then would go to greet him. He was perfectly content, peaceful and as Edmundo, recalled later, had a sacred and artistic nature.

One evening Edmundo sat in the cozy warmth of his house reading and listening to the song To Dream the Impossible Dream from the Broadway musical Man From la Mancha. Babalu purr loudly and rub against Edmundo's legs but on this evening Babalu’s loud purring and unconditional love annoyed Edmundo, for some strange reason, and the innocent Babalu became the recipient of that discontent. Edmundo (on the way to his regret) picked Babalu up, and remember the words he said forty years later, "Okay, okay, that’s enough, " and put him out into the bitter cold night. And alas, alas, the innocent Babalu did not know why he was put out of the warm comfortable house.

Edmundo didn’t put Babalu out because of cruelness but, he realize later, it was just a way to get rid of the purring and...perhaps... ( part of the dreadful regret) the unconditional love that it represented. Babalu became the victim of a spontaneous reaction Edmundo could not control because it came from a deep seated punitive emotion established long ago. Edmundo had, without knowing why, renounce Babalu’s love. The night Edmundo carried the purring Babalu (he thought Edmundo’s touch was affectionate) to the door and put him out it was fifteen degrees below zero. Edmundo had mistakenly though Babalu would be okay because his fur would keep him warm. Years later Babalu’s warm fur and purring would haunt Edmundo. Leaving Edmundo confused and full of regret because he wasn’t a mean man and was, in a sense, as innocent as Babalu.

Babalu disappeared for a couple of days until one morning Edmundo’s father told him Babalu was by the side of the house. Edmundo went to look and found Babalu sitting in the bitter cold in a patch of bright winter sunshine, leaning against the house, to sick to move but the moment Babalu seen Edmundo- his friend- he started to purr. When Edmundo remember that moment later ( and the glorious winter day) it broke his heart and he was grief stricken andwept. Edmundo took Babalu to a veterinarian told him that Babalu had an advance case of pneumonia, and couldn’t be saved. So the beloved (Edmundo discover his love for Babalu that fateful day) Babalu was put to sleep. Ai Babalu ia a Babalu ia. It was a tragic end for the mystical innocent Babalu. But Edmundo was as innocent as Babalu because he was the helpless victim of a condition reaction and did not know, a simple thoughtlessness, would have such fatal consequences for Babalu.

Years later on a cold winter evening a neighbor knocked on Edmundo's door and told him she seen a mother carrying a kitten go under his porch. He looked under the porch and in the flashlight beam a cute white kitten was looking over a pile of rags. Edmundo knew when the real cold weather arrived the kitten would freeze to death. (Maybe he thought of that because of Babalu.) So he crawled under the porch got the kitten and took it in the house. He put the kitten, who could barely walk, by the open kitchen door and braced open the screen door.

It wasn’t long before the kittens mother looked in the door, then cautiously went to her kitten, and that is when Edmundo closed the door, trapping her inside. Edmundo named the kitten Bucky Linn. Finding them homes would be another of his good deeds. And then he remembered what a recipient, of one of his good deeds had said in a letter to him, ...the giver becomes part of something vast and beautiful.

Edmundo gave the little kitten Bucky Linn and her mother a lot of kindness that might have been to make up for what he didn’t give the mystical Babalu. They slept in a comfortable box next to the stove until Bucky Linn was weaned. Then Edmundo and a friend, Kimi Jackson, found Bucky Linn a home with a lawyer and his mother went to live with a couple on a farm. It was a happy ending for all. And the mystical sacred and artistic Babalu, watching from the memories of Edmundo’s mind, was proud of him and started to purr and Edmundo's regret vanish. Ai Babalu ia ai Babalu ia .

You Can't Drink Bourbon in Front of an Angel

By Quincey Burkhalter

Ruidoso, New Mexico

(This is part 1 of a two-part piece. The other portion will be included in the following issue.)

I had no idea at first that I was planning to travel. My car was running, a sign from heaven. I hadn’t had a problem with it in three weeks, four days. And it hadn’t caught on fire in four months. It was an omen, a sign from heaven. Things were going well; so, I had to see how I could fuck them up. I had started by stashing four cartons of Marlboros in my heavy jacket. If anyone had seen me walking out it would have be pretty obvious, but I was closing the store alone well after midnight. Then I packed the rest of my car with as much liquor as I could steal from Big Jim’s Gas and More. At first, I had no idea what I was doing, but on my way home it became clear. O.K. Nothing was clear.

I’m on my fifth cigarette when I realize I am about 80 miles outside of Denver. A sign says welcome to Buda. One more cigarette, I say to myself, then I’ll turn back. I’ve smoked a pack before I remember my promise to myself and that is only because I have to stop to empty the ashtray and take a piss.

I guess that’s when I made my first mistake. Yeah, something tells me not to stop in Buttcheese, Montana, or whatever the name of this town is, but I’ve never been one to listen to my intuition. Besides, the entire lower half of my body is numb"O.K. more like dead asleep. Needles poke through my feet as I walk in to pay for the gas. It’s another Big Jim’s. I take a quick swig of Jim and march on.

The light inside has a dull greenish glow, like something out of a bad Stephen King movie. My nervous stomach, I assume is due to the fact I’ve had nothing but Jim Beam and cigarettes for the last however many miles. I’m dizzy. My face is numb. I can see my breath, but it isn’t cold. A pulse beats a violent rhythm in my temple. Turn back you fucking idiot, the voice says in my head. This place is a tar pit, a flaming tar pit.

The green glow grows brighter. There is a dull fog rising from the ground. The glow begins to bleed into the fog, creeping toward me like a snake in the grass. Turn back now, the voice in my head says. The green light now fills the fog. It pulses with every throb of my heart. My feet move forward with a momentum that I cannot classify as my own, like a hand on my back is pushing me forward. No, it’s not that. It’s the fog. Fluorescent green and pulsing, it has gathered around my feet. It is pulling me. I deliberately try to focus my eyes as close to me as possible. The green glow surrounds me, engulfs me, pulls me inextricably towards the store. I can taste it in the back of my throat like a sandwich that has set in a hot car for too long. I open the door.

"FEEEEZ!! Dow on da flaw."

For some reason I can’t react. Instead, I stare at this idiot with a gun. I’m in no mood. Besides I can’t see him clearly, he’s out of focus. How does this guy expect me to take him seriously if he is blurry? The gun is right in my face, but still I can’t see the situation as that much of a problem. The gunman is yelling out indecipherable commands, spit is flying, his eyes are bulging. I try to make my eyes focus. I reach up and rub my face just to see if I can bring some feeling back into it.

Of course, that is when he decides to put the gun to my head. Now. . . I know. . . That should get my attention. But it’s weird. I can’t break out of this fog I’m in.

"Down on the fuggin’ flaw," he spits at me. He spits, he actually spits. Spittle actually flies and hits me in the face. I wipe it off and looked at it in confusion. The spittle is orange, like he’s spent all day sucking on a dreamsicle. Believe me, the tension is building in the room. Dreamsicle spit is running down my face, for Christ sake. The guy definitely has my attention. I am still in a haze, a blurry green haze. It all feels like a very bad dream. Stay with me. O.K. This is where it gets weird.

An angel walks in. Yeah, that’s right, an angel. She comes right in the front door. She has a halo surrounding her. Not in the way you think of a halo. There is a golden glow surrounding her, protecting her. She should be bathed in that strange green glow of the store like I am, but she isn’t.

There is no wind"I know that "“ I’m in a Goddamn convenience store, but you gotta believe me, her baby doll dress, brown with yellow flowers, it’s being blown back, blown back. The thin straps of her dress blow gently off her shoulders. Now, I know, I know "“ me, Kevin Rosencrantz"I know every inch of just how perfect she is. A gentle splash of freckles, like the first drops of rain on parched ground, accentuate her delicate collarbone. Her breasts gently heave over the top hem of her dress. Oh yeah, she’s an angel all right, definitely an angel. And her hair, her long, brown, curly locks of perfect hair, it blows back in wings. From her shoulders to her head, wings.

Fear hits me hard. Suddenly, I can feel the cold metal of the gun pointed to my head. I’ve swallowed a frozen brick. I can feel my intestines being squeezed. My bladder is weak, my head feels light. Now hold on. This is where the ride gets bumpy.

The green glow, the strange green glow that is coming from the store. It starts to disappear, I mean really disappear. It’s like her presence; it is too much for the evil green glow, like some incredible fluorescent light has been turned on inside her body. The green light breaks apart then just completely disappears. Then, get this. She walks over to the guy with the gun.

"Put it down, Brucey," she says.

"No! I wan’ my money. He don’t get dow’ on da’ flaw." He looks like a madman. His scruffy eyebrows are combed the wrong way.

"Brucey, you’ll get your money. You always do."

What the hell does she mean, "˜you always do?’ I’m about to shit my pants and The Angel is having a polite conversation with the gunman. Sweat is running down my back. It is sixty-eight Goddamn degrees in the store and sweat is running down my back. I start to kneel down.

"No, don’t," she says grabbing my arm. I can hear panic in her voice for the first time. Her hand is soft and pleasantly warm; I can feel its warmth through the sleeve of my shirt. Her heavenly energy surges through me. At this moment I am stone cold sober. "He won’t hurt you, will you Brucey?" she says. The gunman looks suddenly peaceful, as innocent as a child. She lets go of my arm. I fall back into oblivion.

"Dow’ on da’ fla’. Ebrybody always get dow’ on the fla’." The gunman looks soft, as if I could slice him with a butter knife. "Nobody ever say no to Brucey," he says as tears well in his eyes.

"Francis," the guy behind the counter says. I haven’t noticed him until now, but there is a standing behind the counter. He is bald headed with a face that seems to blend into his neck. His body is narrow and almost unnatural, like Barney Fife on a fast. A makeshift beard sprouts, like it has been glued on his face. He speaks to The Angel, Francis is a strange name for an angel. His voice is a deep raspy tone like you get after you’ve just taken a toke. . "Just tell Brucey I have his money for him Francis." He gets that goofy, stoned grin on his face.

The gun goes quickly to the store manager’s head. "Gib me," Brucey says. The store manager doesn’t seem afraid at all; in fact, he is smiling as he hands the gunman, who they all seem to know well, his money. "Now Brucey, you know you always get your money." He hands the man his money, which is already in a paper bag. The manager doesn’t even bother to open the register. He already has the money in a bag.

"Tell him it’s all there, Francis." And The Angel tells him. Then the man behind the counter turns to me as the gunman starts to leave. I’m about to shit my pants and he says without any tension whatsoever in his voice, "I think that’s a new shirt Brucey is wearing?"

What the Fuck are you talking about? I want to say. The man could’ve blown my brains out and you’re giving a fashion critique. Instead I say, "I didn’t know they sold Tommy Hilfiger in Montana."

"I got it for him," says Francis with a happy rise in her voice, "in Great Falls. Don’t it look good?"

The Flower Garden

By Robert Cahill 
Ingleside on the Bay, Texas

(This is part 1 of a longer piece. Further portions will be included in later issues.)

As I turned to leave my home for my final trip to Pearl’s house, I said goodbye to my husband Carl. His casual reply was only to be expected, as the remnants of our ruined relationship hung invisibly in the air, like a tattered curtain neither of us cared to part. So many things had come between us, some thrust upon us by an indifferent fate, and others brought about by each of us, that he offered neither kiss nor touch in parting, and I was long past welcoming even the slightest gesture of affection.

Driving down from Dallas, I had time to reflect on the many times that my Aunt Pearl had tried to help us with our deeply troubled marriage. Her words were chosen and shared with great care and sincerity, and I was never offended by her efforts that were the products of her great love for me. Pearl’s wisdom sprang from an intimate acquaintance with the works of the great philosophers of history. She read prodigiously, and her letters to me had helped me many times throughout my life, starting when I was a young girl. I had heeded her advice many times, but Carl and I were not able to apply her words of wisdom to our relationship.

As I turned into the curving driveway that ran between thick conifers that hid Pearl’s house from the roadway, the familiar crunch of my tires on the gravel reminded me that it was just two short weeks ago that I had heard that welcoming sound, a sound I had come to love down through the years. Now I was returning to Pearl’s house, no longer her home. My lovely Pearl had passed away at the wonderful age of 82. We knew it was a wonderful age, for at each birthday we celebrated with Pearl, she announced that she was at a "wonderful age". My purpose now was to see the house once again before it was disturbed by the inevitable disposition of property to our family, and to pick up a few personal items I had left there in the past.

I walked up the stone path to the door, which was protected by a small porch that projected from the weathered cedar that framed the house. The key, as always, was under the sisal welcome mat, where the "outside cat" usually slept. Try as she might, Pearl was never able to coax him into the house, no matter the weather.

I walked inside, and was immediately overcome with grief, as the familiar wonderful old odors of Pearl’s house engulfed me. I sat on the couch where just two short weeks ago I had sat and laughed with her. Two weeks, and my world was suddenly wrenched into a bottomless, hopeless chasm of grief, a void I had experienced before when I lost my Mother and Daughter in an accident in Paris. Pearl saved my mind then, but who could save me now?

After a while, I was able to gather myself up, and I went into the bedroom where Pearl had died. Her neighbor, Rhoda, had found her there after noticing the afternoon mail still in the box by the road. Rhoda and her husband Don were Pearl’s nearest neighbors, living a short mile down the road, and it was an unvoiced understanding that these kind people would check on her if something seemed amiss. Rhoda told me that Pearl had lain down for a nap, and just failed to wake up. Her glasses were folded on top of her bible on the bedside table, and she had marked her place before lying back to sleep. Rhoda had then said the only words that had helped ease my grief. She said, "You know Maddie, it was such a peaceful sense of passing from one life into the next, that I was oddly comforted to think about my own death someday, and I was not a bit uncomfortable being there with Pearl". Thinking of this, I was not able to hold back my tears, which soon turned to wrenching sobs as I touched, and then sat on the bed where my sweet and wonderful Pearl had died. How could I go on, now that this lovely person, my only anchor to peace and happiness, was out of my life?

Two weeks before, I had spent three happy days here in this house, laughing and talking with her. We had worked in her several flower gardens, all separated by little wire fences, and in her vegetable patch. I had asked her why she kept her flowers fenced in this curious way, and she had replied that she "just liked to keep things straight when she worked" with her flowers. No one grew flowers better than Pearl, and her roses were famous for miles around. The last day I was there, we had been in the kitchen washing dishes and singing all the old hymns that she loved. We sang passably on some, and laughed as one or the other would crack a note, warble off-key, or disremember some words. Now Pearl’s voice lived only in my mind, and I was determined to remember everything she had ever told me when I needed guidance or comfort. I dried my tears and began to fix this room in my mind, as I knew it would soon be someone else’s home, and Pearl’s things would be gone, some to my home and the rest with other loved ones. The closet door stood open, and I glanced inside and was drawn to Pearl’s clothing hanging in neat order there. Most were plain dresses that she had worn to work in her gardens or cleaning house, with a few fancy "Sunday" dresses hanging separately. In a protective plastic garment bag were three special dresses that Pearl had shown to me several years ago. They had been sewn by her mother from flour sack material some time in the 30’s. Pearl explained that flour companies sold flour in 25 pound cloth bags that were made with different decorative patterns on the bags, so women could fashion clothing from them. She said that most people that she knew as a girl wore dresses or shirts made from this cloth. She kept these three because when she looked at them, she could remember her mother’s hands pinning the patterns to the cloth, then cutting and sewing the dresses. I noticed a box sitting on the floor in the back of the closet and recognized it as the box that she kept her kerosene lanterns in, carefully padded with cotton batting. I took the lanterns out and thought back to how she had described to me that as a girl she was entrusted with the care and cleaning of these lanterns. With no electricity during her younger years on a rural farm, these were precious objects. She described the trimming of the wick, the careful pouring of the "coal oil" fuel into the lanterns, and the utmost care in washing the etched glass chimneys. She loved the soft light cast by the lanterns and the scent of the burning kerosene on the wicks.