[Critique Group 2] Pieces for 8-29-2017

[Abbie Taylor]

I'm sending the compilation of pieces to be critiqued at our next 
meeting early because I'll be out of town this weekend and won't be back 
until Monday evening. See you Tuesday.

***

###1. Brad Corallo’s Poem

The Knowledge Puzzle

© By Brad Corallo

Word count 141

It has been said:

to live, is to be marked.

Mistakes and failures are

crucial sculpting tools.

As are the victories and triumphs,

That illuminate our many thousand days.

Of course, when they are ravaging our precarious stance,

There is no comfort in such knowledge.

The interrelation of things, time and events

and all our choices

comprise the loom on which

The fabric of our lives is woven.

We try to distill

Some meaning in all such.

And, do we discern something

Working behind the scenes?

Are our perceived recognitions real?

Or are they no more

than beliefs that give us comfort;

masquerading as epiphany and wisdom?

Better men than I

Have struggled with such questions.

I believe there is no way to be sure

but, I am sure that,

I truly don’t know!

###2. Leonard Tuchyner’s Essay

Where to Find Small Rattlesnakes

by

Leonard Tuchyner

Walking barefoot in Florida may be hazardous to your health. I 
discovered that when I was seventeen years old.Having been raised in 
Irvington, New Jersey, the only times I ever walked around barefooted 
was when I was at a lake, river, seashore or pool. Sand was always an 
opportunity to experience the freedom of shoeless toes, all-in-all a 
wonderful sensation. So when I moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1958 
and was confronted with a plethora of sand, I was in barefoot heaven.

No matter where I lived, it was always an opportunity for exploration. I 
didn’t know I was slowly going blind when I was seventeen, except that 
when I drove a car at night, I noticed I wasn’t seeing a lot of things I 
should have been seeing. So I told people I was night blind, but I 
really didn’t mean it. It just helped me to explain to my father why the 
front bumper of the family car was a little closer to the chassis than 
it used to be. “I’m night blind, you know. I didn’t notice the concrete 
marker in front of the parking space.”

He didn’t believe me, of course. But what could he say? He had his heart 
set on buying a new used car and needed me to be the inheritor of the 
old Plymouth. If he told my Mom that I was blind, she certainly wouldn’t 
allow him to allow me to drive a car, and then he wouldn’t be able to 
buy the Ford he had all ready purchased in his mind. So it all worked 
out in my favor.

Since I was not (really) blind, it didn’t occur to me that I might not 
see things in the daylight that maybe it would be better if I did see. I 
might, for instance, step on things with my bare feet I oughtn’t to have 
stepped on. That would include dog scat, broken glass, sharp stones, 
fire ant colonies and poison jellyfish lying just above the surf line.

I had a lot of time to myself in the first summer of my arrival at St. 
Petersburg, because having just arrived there and knowing no one, I had 
a limited number of friends. Limited translates to none. With all that 
time to myself, I was free to pursue my hobbies of exploration. St. 
Pete, in 1958, was nothing like it is today.It was undeveloped, relative 
to where I came from. One of the things it did have was pathways into 
open spaces that stretched beyond my visual horizons. So off I would go, 
taking my unclad feet with me, into the wilderness. I made some 
wonderful discoveries. For example, I found the wreckage of an entire 
wooden boat, about sixteen feet long. Those were the days of wooden 
vessels. I never ran into plastic ones like they have today. It was the 
kind of boat upon which you attached a motor on the very end.That’s 
called the stern. Unsurprisingly, the motor was missing, and the transom 
was rotted out. But it had a wonderful ornament on its front. It looked 
a lot like the hood ornament of a car.

I discovered that it is best to stick to a pathway when walking unshod. 
We didn’t have cacti in New Jersey, so I wasn’t prepared for low-lying 
spikes that messed up naked feet when given the opportunity.

In Irvington, I never ran across any snakes except garter snakes which 
we found under rocks. It never occurred to me or any other boy I knew 
that they were capable of biting. It’s not unexpected then that I wasn’t 
looking out for snakes when on my excursions. That’s perfectly 
reasonable, is it not?

In any case, I learned about venomous snakes on one particular day while 
waltzing around the out-back. On that occasion I heard an interesting 
sound. It was a sound resembling the noise that dry seeds make when 
shaken in a dried up bean-pod.It was a muted rattle.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I was in the close 
proximity of a snake that rattles its tail. Well, you are wrong. I was 
smack dab in the middle of a whole mess of these little fellers, many of 
them within a foot or two of my vulnerable feet, not to mention 
unprotected shins. It didn’t take me long to recognize what they were. 
They were very small rattlesnakes. I think they call them pygmy 
rattlesnakes. I’d seen enough Western movies to know that you did not 
want to be fanged by one of those things.

There was no way out. I was surrounded by what seemed at the time to be 
a galaxy of writhing death. I didn’t have time to think, thank goodness. 
If I did, my feet would have remained frozen to the ground and those 
little guys would have had no choice but to strike, just to prove they 
could.I didn’t have time to consider that my chances of picking my way 
through that mess without stepping on most of them were highly 
improbable. I wouldn’t have told myself ‘you cannot walk on air’. 
Suddenly, my unreliable eyes saw the world with clarity worthy of an 
eagle, and I took off like a bat out of hell, finding spaces where they 
did not exist, and doing so with a mind that had gone to another 
dimension. Somehow, I transported to a place of safety, beyond striking 
distance of those pygmy rattlers.

It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to be frightened.I stood 
there near the edge of their nest, wondering how it came to be that I 
was standing at the edge of a swarm of rattlesnakes with whom I’d been 
in intimate proximity a moment earlier.

You might think this ended my career as a wilderness scout. It did not. 
I just did it with high-top sneakers from that day forward.

This was just another story I never told my parents.

###3. Abbie Taylor’s Creative Nonfiction Piece

Montezuma’s Revenge

“This is a dump,” said Dad, as I gazed around our hotel room in 
Hermosio, Mexico. With my limited vision, I spied two double beds, no 
telephone or television set, and no other furniture. I peered into the 
bathroom, no bigger than a closet, with a sink, toilet, and shower.

With no air conditioning in the summer heat, sweat trickled under my 
armpits and accumulated on my brow. According to Dad’s guidebook, this 
hotel had rooms with a view of a courtyard. Our room had a view of 
nothing I could see.

At twelve years old, I was too excited to care. In June of 1973 after 
almost a year of studying Spanish, Dad and I had finally realized our 
dream of taking a trip to Mexico. After traveling most of the day by bus 
from Tucson to Nogales, Arizona, and then from Nogales to Hermosio by 
train, I was glad to be here. Although it was after midnight, I was far 
from tired. “I’m hungry,” I said. “Let’s find a restaurant.”

“You bet,” said Dad. He consulted his guidebook.

We took a taxi to a restaurant where I enjoyed my first meal in Mexico: 
cheese enchiladas with rice and beans. Afterward, we returned to our 
sweltering room and tried to get some sleep. A couple of hours later, 
after tossing and turning, our bodies drenched in sweat, Dad said, “I 
can’t stand this anymore. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

I climbed out of bed and consulted my Braille watch. It was four o’clock 
in the morning. “Should I get dressed?” I asked.

“No, just put on your thongs, and let’s go.” He wore nothing but boxer 
shorts.

I put on my thongs and went in the bathroom. When I came out, I was 
relieved to find that Dad had put on a shirt. My nightgown clung to me, 
as we carried our suitcases down the stairs to the ground floor. In the 
deserted lobby, Dad left the room key on the counter.

It wasn’t much cooler outside. When we found a cab, Dad told the driver 
in English, “Too hot. Can’t sleep.”

I said in Spanish that we needed to go to a different hotel because we 
were hot.

The place where we were taken not only had air conditioning in the rooms 
but an elevator. After we checked in, Dad, knowing I was thirsty, said 
to the clerk, “CocaCola?”

“No, /agua/,” answered the clerk.

Because we knew not to drink the water, Dad said, “No.”

I said, “/No gracias/.”

I noticed little about the room except it was cool. I collapsed between 
the crisp bed sheets and went right to sleep. When I woke in the 
morning, the room appeared no different from hotel rooms in the United 
States. Two double beds were flanked by a night stand, and a couple of 
armchairs and a small table stood in one corner. A television set was 
mounted on the wall, and a telephone sat on the night stand. According 
to my watch, it was nine o’clock.

Dad was sitting in one of the chairs, studying the guidebook. “Good 
morning, honey,” he said. “Why don’t you get dressed, and we’ll get some 
breakfast? There’s a restaurant here in the hotel.”

The bathroom was huge, containing a vast tub with a shower, a toilet, 
and a sink with a long counter. I brushed my teeth, trying not to 
swallow the water. In the restaurant, we ordered an American breakfast 
of pancakes and sausage. Dad suggested we take the bus to Guaymas, near 
the sea. “It’ll be cooler there,” he said. “You can swim in the ocean.”

“That’s great,” I said. In the hotel’s air conditioned comfort, my 
spirits had lifted, and I was looking forward to the Mexican experience.

We took a taxi to the bus station. On the way, our English speaking 
driver, upon learning we were from the United States, took us on a 
scenic tour of the city. At the bus station, Dad bought two tickets to 
Guaymas. We met a woman from the United States, and she and Dad carried 
on a conversation in English until our bus was ready to leave.

It was about a three-hour trip from Hermosio to Guaymas. When we arrived 
in mid-afternoon, we took another taxi to a motel overlooking the beach. 
On the way, I spotted a hill and pointed it out to Dad in Spanish. The 
driver chuckled as if I’d never seen a hill before. What he didn’t 
realize was that I was thrilled at any opportunity to use the Spanish 
I’d learned over the past year.

The motel was another recommended by Dad’s guide book. We were given a 
bungalow with a cement porch and a screen door. It faced the ocean, and 
the beach was only a few steps away. The room contained two double beds 
with a night stand in between and a table and two armchairs. An 
adjoining bathroom contained a toilet, sink, and shower, not as grand as 
the bathroom I used that morning in Hermosio.

A telephone sat on the night stand. It had no dial or buttons. “How do 
you make a call on this phone?” I asked.

“When you pick up the phone, an operator at the front desk answers, and 
you give her the number,” Dad said.

We hit the crowded beach right away. My excitement was soon dampened by 
the drenching ocean waves that nearly knocked me down and the awful, 
salty taste of the water. Since I wasn’t much of a swimmer, I stayed in 
the shallow water and tried to walk next to the shore. Rocks hurt my 
feet, and waves slowed my progress. As Dad swam into deeper water, I 
longed for the swimming pool in our neighbor’s back yard in Tucson.

I spotted a dock and a stretch of calm water nearby. When Dad returned 
to shore, I asked why we couldn’t swim there.

“Because that’s where ships go,” he answered. It wasn’t fair that ships 
got calm water while swimmers got waves, but I said nothing.

That night, Dad suggested we eat at another restaurant recommended by 
the guide book. When he told the cab driver in Spanish where we wanted 
to go, he said the restaurant no longer existed. He suggested another 
place that specialized in seafood, and we went there. I didn’t like 
fish, but I said nothing.

Dad ordered lobster for both of us. He removed the meat, buttered it, 
and put it in my mouth. It was awfully rich, but I managed to get it 
down. I wondered what Mother and my younger brother Andy were having for 
dinner. I pictured spaghetti, lasagna, meat loaf, macaroni and cheese. I 
considered closing my eyes, clicking my heels together three times, and 
saying, “There’s no place like home.” That wouldn’t have worked, and Dad 
would have only gotten mad.

The next morning, we took another obligatory swim in the ocean before 
eating another American breakfast of pancakes and sausages. Afterward, 
Dad found someone to take us out in a motorboat. The seats were 
comfortable, and the trip was uneventful except for one point when 
seaweed got caught in the engine, causing it to stall. The boat man, who 
spoke some English, explained the situation and managed to restart the 
motor. The water was calm, and I didn’t get sick, yet.

When we returned to the dock, I said, “/Gracias/.”

“Oh no, don’t thank him yet,” said Dad, a note of alarm in his voice. “I 
haven’t paid him.” The man chuckled.

After Dad settled the score and we were walking away, I asked, “Why 
shouldn’t I have thanked him before you paid him?”

“If Mexicans think you’re not going to pay them, they’ll take you to 
jail, and a Mexican prison is worse than anything you can imagine.”

“They wouldn’t put me in jail, too, would they?”

“Oh yes, you’d be in there with me.”

“They wouldn’t just send me home?”

“No.”

At that point, I decided I’d had about enough of Mexico. “Let’s go 
home,” said Dad, as if reading my thoughts. “We don’t have much money left.”

We returned to our bungalow to find that the cleaning lady had taken our 
towels and not brought clean ones. I took a shower and dried myself with 
one of Dad’s shirts. Dad picked up the phone and asked the operator in 
Spanish how much it would cost to place a long distance call to Tucson. 
He hung up a moment later saying, “It’s too expensive.”

That night, we ate dinner at the motel. My stomach hurt, and I made a 
couple of trips to the restroom where I succumbed to diarrhea. After 
dinner, we checked out of the motel and took a taxi downtown to the bus 
station. The bus for Nogales wouldn’t leave for several hours. Dad 
rented a locker for our luggage.

We walked around downtown Guaymas. Most of the shops were closed, but we 
stopped so Dad could look in the windows. My stomach still hurt, and my 
bowels threatened to disgorge more diarrhea.

“Did you drink the water?” asked Dad.

“No,” I answered.

At a drugstore, Dad found someone who spoke English to help make a 
collect call home from a pay phone. “Can I talk to Mom?” I asked after 
he spoke to her for a few minutes.

He handed me the phone and whispered, “Don’t tell her you’re sic. She’ll 
worry.”

“Hi Mom.”

“Hi sweetie.”

It was so good to hear her voice. I wanted to cry but managed to stay 
dry-eyed, as I said, “We had a good time, but I miss you, and I can’t 
wait to come home. I love you.”

“I love you too, honey.”

The drugstore had no restroom so we found a restaurant, and the hostess 
was nice enough to let me use the bathroom. Afterward, we sat at a 
corner table, and Dad ordered me a Coke. It wasn’t the first time I 
drank a Coke in Mexico from a glass with ice made from water we 
shouldn’t have been drinking. I took a few swallows and made another 
trip to the bathroom, this time to throw up.

I made several more such trips. By the time we returned to the bus 
station a few hours later, I was weak and nauseated. I collapsed on a 
bench while Dad retrieved our luggage. The bus arrived, but it was full. 
There wouldn’t be another bus until morning.

I stretched lengthwise on the hard bench with no pillow. At least I 
wasn’t in a Mexican prison, I thought, as I moaned and bent my knees to 
my chest in an attempt to alleviate the nausea. “Do you have to throw up 
again?” Dad asked.

“No, I just feel sick.”

I dozed, woke to hear others around me, and realized they were talking 
about me when someone said “doctor” in Spanish.

I rallied. “No, I don’t need a doctor,” I said in Spanish. “I just want 
to go home.”

“Maybe we’d better see about a train,” said Dad in English.

I didn’t want to move, but I hauled myself off the bench and walked with 
Dad to a waiting taxi. At the train station, we were told that the next 
train would leave for Nogales at dawn. Dad and I camped out on the 
sidewalk next to the track. The cool air was refreshing, and I slept 
through the rest of the night.

The unmistakable ding ding ding of the approaching train’s bell woke us. 
We stood, and I could see the sky growing light. “Is this our train?” I 
asked Dad.

“Yes,” he answered. I watched the train come to a complete stop in front 
of us. I stumbled on board, fell into a seat, and went right back to sleep.

When I opened my eyes, it was broad daylight. According to my watch, it 
was eleven in the morning. I was thirsty but didn’t feel sick. I 
breathed air into my mouth and licked my parched lips. I looked around 
for Dad but didn’t see him. The seat next to me was empty. I wished he 
would bring me a Coke. I dozed for a while and woke to find him next to 
me. “We’re pulling into Nogales,” he said.

“Can I have a Coke?”

“We’ll see,” he said with a sigh.

My legs felt like led. Dad didn’t have enough money for a taxi so we 
left the train station on foot and found a bus stop about half a block 
away. The bus was full, but we got on and stood near the front, grasping 
a pole, as it lurched down the road. It stopped several times. People 
got off, and more got on. When a couple of seats opened up, Dad pulled 
me to them, and I let my legs come out from under me.

We got off the bus downtown and started strolling. “Where are we going?” 
I asked.

“We’re going to the bus station, and we’ll take the bus home, but first, 
I told your mother I’d get her a pot, but I don’t think I have enough 
money.”

My shorts and t-shirt clung to me in the sultry afternoon heat. We 
stepped into a shop where a fan stirred the tepid air, bringing little 
relief. As we stood in front of a row of pots, Dad said, “These are more 
expensive than I thought they would be.”

While he weighed his options, I shifted my weight from one foot to the 
other, as sweat poured down my brow and leaked from under my armpits. 
Finally, I said in Spanish, “I’m very hot.”

“All right!” he yelled, grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me out of 
the shop.

“I thought you wanted to get a pot,” I said, as he hurried me down the 
street.

After a couple of blocks, Dad said, “Here’s the port of entry. We’re in 
the U.S.”

The bus station wasn’t much farther, and to my relief, a bus for Tucson 
was getting ready to leave with room for two more people. Dad bought the 
tickets, and we got on board. I sank onto a seat and closed my eyes. The 
next thing I knew, Dad was touching my shoulder and saying, “We’re in 
Tucson.”

In the bus station, he bought me a Coke from the machine. I sipped from 
the bottle slowly, feeling the cool, refreshing taste in my mouth, 
throat, and stomach, hoping it wouldn’t come up. Dad called Mother from 
a pay phone.

They arrived, my younger brother Andy, with his usual four-year-old 
exuberance, and Mother, with her immediate concern when she saw me. 
“Honey, don’t you feel well?” she asked, placing a hand on my forehead.

“She threw up and had diarrhea last night,” said Dad.

“Oh sweetie,” Mother said, holding me. “You didn’t drink the water, did 
you?”

“No,” I said, burying my face in her chest, breathing in her reassuring 
scent. At home, after a little of Mother’s chicken soup from a can, I 
was glad to finally slip between the cool, clean sheets of my bed, 
saying to myself, “There’s no place like /mi casa.”/

THE END

###4. Valerie Moreno’s Poem

Battlefield

Hate separates with acid lines

drawn in the tender space

between mind and emotion,

exploding fury.

Gun and granade are

replaced with acrid words,

beatists that delight in hurting,

words cast like fiery arrows

in to bright, blessed hearts

where healing comes slowly--

perhaps, never!

Some look away, pretending,

some dash for cover.

I seek refuge in light,

lyric, prayer for peace

before there is no more hope.

_______

What we love we become, whom we become shapes what we love.

-St. Clare Of Assisi

###5. Alice Massa’s Poem

*Fifty Years later, Meet Me*

by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

Once again, fifty years later,

meet me

at the Little Italy Festival.

This time,

follow the green, white, and red lines

down Ninth Street,

and meet me

at Immigrant Square,

west of the Coal Fountain,

in the striped shadows of the twenty-six flags

which represent countries

from where Clinton area residents

have immigrated.

Meet me

in front of the statue of the immigrant

Luigi,

with his one hand waving

and his other hand

holding a valise.

Meet me

by the drinking fountain

called "Il Toro"--

the Bull--

like Luigi,

crafted

near my ancestral home,

in Torino.

Then, we will go

to the riverfront,

down the terraced banks

where Joe Airola

nurtured his grapevines.

On the Wabash River,

we will take a gondola ride

in an authentic gondola.

Returning from our little taste of Venezia,

we will eat spumoni

as we sit beside

the Quattro Stagioni Fountain,

listen to the music of the main stage,

and absorb the chatter of festival-goers.

Back to Ninth Street,

we will tour the Little Italian House,

Il Mercato, and the Wine Museum

where you can buy one of my books.

Then, in the Wine Garden,

we can sit

under lush Grapevines and Hoosier stars,

sip Chianti,

listen to the polka band,

and talk of old times

and fresh tomorrows.

Don't be concerned:

at Immigrant Square,

in the midst of the crowd,

you will easily recognize me:

I will be the one

with the Black Labrador

guide dog.

Meet us.

number of words: 254

August 21, 2017, Monday


-- 
Abbie Johnson Taylor, Author http://abbiescorner.wordpress.com
http://www.abbiejohnsontaylor.com
abbie at mysero.net
Order my new memoir at http://www.abbiejohnsontaylor.com/memoir.htm

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