Pangolin Papers, A literary Fiction Magazine

Spring 2003
Will Ackerman: Quixote and Quiche	Harriet watched on, breathless, as Harold's cup was retrieved. She picked up her own cup with both hands and hesitated with it at her lips. She was terrified to even glance at the door for fear that, at any moment, a frumpy homicide cop would burst in, mumbling apologies, and save Harold's lard-laden bacon. But the rescue would have to wait for an old television rerun. The newspaper rippled lightly as Harold puffed across the top of his cup. He paused, made a sound like a vacuum cleaner sucking water, paused, blew again and swilled more. She began to count to herself, One mortuary, two mortuaries, three mortuaries- "It's too hot now Harriet," Harold whined. He took a deep, asthmatic breath and hiccupped mid-complaint. Is this it? But Harold went on. "You know I don't like my coffee too hot. It scalds my gums."
Corrie Adjmi: Shadows and Partially Lit Faces	Dylan Douglas set the alarm and closed the door to his jewelry store. He turned the lock and placed the single key in his suit pocket. He headed downtown, maneuvering through the congested sidewalk like a downhill skier on a slalom course. He believed that it was important to keep a brisk pace, professing on more than one occasion how this principle enabled him to cover more territory. "I do more, I see more. It's only logical," he maintained, "I live the equivalent of two lives."
Jack Barry: Back to the Wind	We had to walk a long damn way to get away from them all. They must have sent someone else off to do the fighting because even out on the back beach we ran into them, gaping at us through their tinted windshields, those little U.S. flags snapping in the wind like plastic pennants over a used car lot. On the way back Rocky dawdled behind, picking beach stones while I walked ahead, following the waves, the gulls, trying, that September, to feel like we were really on vacation, that Race Point, at least, was still the same. That was when I spotted the kite. It was just a yellow speck at first, another bright toy, and I ignored it, turning to the sea. But as the kite grew I noticed that it was different from any kite Išd seen before, darting and swinging as if it had a life of its own, and when I squinted below it over the sand, l found that it was flown by a beautiful woman.
Anne Earney: Merve	Once when I was a kid I saw a dead man lying on the side of the road. My parents used to take me on long drives around town. Dad drove and Mom sat next to him. I sat in the backseat. They were vinyl bench seats, so in my jeans I could slide from side to side and look out both windows. The constant movement got on Dad's nerves. He used to yell at me to knock it off. I told him he shouldn't point at things on both sides of the road if he didn't want me to look. Mom told me to look over the back of their seat. This was before everyone had bucket seats and seatbelts. if I'd listened to her I wouldn't have seen it. I had my head out the window, like a dog, as Dad slowed to take a turn. Then I saw it. A man's body, facedown in the ditch. I asked my mom how he'd died and she said, 'Hopefully alone, because it's the only dignified way to die.' " Melanie's voice trailed off as she smiled up at me from the hospital bed. Afternoon sun lit the room, opening the cut flowers our friends and family had sent. Everything seemed healthier than it was. I smiled back at Melanie, tears pooled in my eyes. She'd been telling me stories about death for a couple of days now, trying to prepare me for hers. I changed the subject to car trips we'd taken together.
Eugene C. Finn: A Bottle of Whiskey for Denny	This particular Saturday, having been blessed with a steady light rain, should have been a perfect day for Finneran. However, there was one rub: Dennis O'Callaghan. There was practically no way to keep O'Callaghan out of his pub and, once he got in, there was absolutely no way to get him out. Oh, Mike could have called Constable Burke, but Denny was an old friend. Hadn't they played football together for Roscommon when they were young? And besides, O'Callaghan had the decency to always come to his pub sober. Some of Finneran's other customers got themselves stoned at Flaherty's, two miles away in Dysart, and stopped at Finneran's only to glom the nightcap and to use the facilities. O'Callaghan would never do such a thing, Finneran told himself. No, his friend had the common courtesy to get drunk, from beginning to end, in his pub.
Janice Heiss: The Unveiling	Standing before the shrouded Picasso sculpture, Seymour talked to it under his breath. Just three more days! We've almost arrived, my dear, my bud- no. . . "Buddy" didn't fit it. He still hadn't found the right name, with the right mixture of respect and intimacy. Just three more work days until the unveiling and then. . . All his adult life, fixed, numeric monthly sales goals had kept Seymour going. But now that his job was in jeopardy, the date of the unveiling had become his goal. Down here, street-level, the sheathed figure looked like a gigantic chrysalis, dreamy and serpentine in sharp contrast to the straight lines of the surrounding steel skyscrapers, a ghost in the middle of modernity. The twelve-hundred-square-foot, bluegreen-fabric cover spiked five stories high into the hot, muggy air of Chicago's Civic Center Plaza. The sculpture's cloak drew him like an infant to its mother's skirt.
Don Kern: Metal Man	One thing about the job bothered Harry-it's duplicity. The true purpose of a visit couldn't be revealed to the interviewee. That was standard procedure. "Deranged people aren't dumb, just on a different wavelength," his supervisor had told him when he first reported to work. "If they know you're coming, Harry, Poof! They're gone. Disappearing is a talent they have, that they all have, believe you me." Harry came to believe him. Although he became hardened to the fact that he had the power to take away someone's freedom, he had an uneasy feeling that some of his clients had a more accurate assessment of their situation than he had. He operated by rules, they operated by instinct. The artist in Harry trusted instinct more than rules. It was on one of these visits that Harry confronted Metal Man.
Norman Lock: Ellipsis	"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise?" This, from Quigley. Who else? Hanby didn't give a damn. The day was dark as it can be on the other side of Lake No. The canopy was unnecessary, but we complimented its aesthetic value. "Picturesque" was Quigley's word, who was never a pragmatist. Hanby merely grunted and, if pressed, would have allowed that it was "nice" or some other colloquialism. We did not press: we were not interested in further examples of his rudimentary savoir-faire. He stretched out his legs and went to sleep, his head on a loafshaped stone. Quigley, who could be counted on for an annoying pertinacity in metaphysical matters, returned to his question: "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise?" I had no opinion. "You seldom do," said Quigley, wishing to hurt. "As you like," I replied with a sinuous motion of my hand I thought so expressive I reiterated it:
Saikat Majundar: Kin	He was cleaning his dentures before placing them in a glass of water for the night when the heard the dull, musical incantation close by. The sepulchral sound of the name of God being taken by the bearers of the dead. The words being carried through the air were a cross between the sacred and the ominous; moreover, it was nine-thirty in the night. Besides, it was close-it could have been the house next door. And anyway, he was seventy-eight years old. He dropped the dentures into the glass. It wasn't a gentle drop but a rude splash, and two or three drops of water spangled the blanched, dry skin on his knuckles. He cocked up his ears only to realize that he didn't need to-the dull, steady drone couldn't be any more distinct than it already was. That wasn't an issue with him next door-he was as good as deaf. But he couldn't have mistaken the smell. Lying awake in the dark he was trying, as he did every night, to give concrete shape to the idea of a night's rest in a situation where one lay and rested all day, and as usual, his senses were refusing it a distinct identity. The trouble deepened as the sad, holy aroma of incense wafted into his nostrils from somewhere-the very familiar, clean smell mixed with a faint suggestion of sandal paste and fresh tuberoses. There was no mistaking it. It was the air of peace. Peace which comes at the end of everything.
George Pryde:	Now, sitting relaxed in the sun outside the Cafe de France, he was content to watch the world go by. A youth stopped and, with a glance at the newspaper, smiled and sat on a chair opposite. "Hello," he said, pulling out a cigarette packet. "You have just arrived?" Paul examined the brown face, darker than most Moroccans: vaguely handsome gypsy features, black curly hair. The youth was dressed in jeans and T-shirt with a gold watch draped loosely on his wrist. "Your first time in Tangier?" The youth lighted a cigarette, waved it in the air. "I can show you the medina, take you places. My uncle has a leather factory. You will come with me?" The personal touch, Paul thought, to inspire confidence, to lull you into thinking you'll get a bargain. "I have been here before," he said. A lie was the best defense. Like policemen, accountants tended to see the worst in people. "I have been to the medina many times. I do not want to go again; no leather jackets, no perfume." He said this in a tired, world-weary way, and like a seasoned traveler sipped his coffee and ignored him. Unperturbed, the youth flicked ash from his cigarette. A passing waiter balancing a tray, scowled, murmured to him in Arabic. The youth shrugged a reply, leant across the table. "Something else I can do for you?" he said, smoke on his breath. "I can get you anything." He elongated the word, looking at Paul expectantly. "You want kif? I can get you good stuff."
Sam Ruddick: Victoria Station	We walked around London that day. I don't know which part of town we were in. It was all the same to me anyway. Looking at her, I ignored our surroundings, except when she looked at me and I averted my eyes to the pavement, pock-marked with puddles from recent rains even though the sun was shining. The air was damp and chilly, but not so bad as I had expected it to be after reading her letters, describing the city as freezing cold and constantly gray. She took my arm as we crossed the road. "I like the way you take my arm when we cross the road," I said. "You're always looking out for me." "It's not that," she smiled. "I just wanted to take your arm." "Well, in that case-" I pulled her closer, tight against my side, and she laughed. Later, she took my hand. Her fingers were bony. They had not been, at one time. I could feel the ring, the two diamonds, and I thought about the fact that I could not have paid for one. I took my hand away.
E. G. Silverman: An Old Dodge	I couldn't understand why Charlie didn't like his wife. Anne was plain but pretty, with a small oval face and a high forehead. She had hopeful brown eyes, an impish smile and an air of matter-of-fact self-confidence that somehow wasn't inconsistent with her catering to Charlie's every whim. One time, Charlie pulled out his wallet to show me a picture of a '65 Cuda he had owned and loved before "a nasty old oak tree jumped out in front of it one night." Leaning against the car was a tough-looking guy with greased back jet-black hair and a tattooed arm around Anne. I would have recognized her in a second, unlike Charlie who was now bald and considerably heavier and whose face was already leaking away its life as surely as a busted valve seal leaks oil. (Charlie was forever educating me about valve jobs.)