"Turkey and Me"

by Sara Anis

I don't usually throw up. But the one time I did, wow that was crazy.

It was Thanksgiving night. I was seven. My mother and I were planning on taking a trip to Chandler, AZ right after dinner with the family.

Now, my family is from the Middle East, we aren't really know for cooking the best turkey in town. My seven-year-old stomach would agree on that one. That night, well... I don't know what it was. Probaby nasty for one. Anyways!

My mother and I get on the Greyhound planning to have a smooth ride to Chandler and then BOOM! -- the twists and turns start acting up. I really wanted it to be a good trip, I really did. Too bad the turkey had it in for me.

So there I am, about to throw up, when I notice everyone on the bus watching me. Now being the proper young lady I am, I turn around, gently snatch my mother's cashmere sweater, and let it out.

Gross... maybe. But I actually thought I was being pretty polite. That trip was a bummer, and I can honestly say that turkey and me have never been the best of friends since.

Sorry Mom.

"Graffiti BS"

by Yossi Halpernin

The Smith-9th St. station is deserted at night the tracks clear of workers and the platform free of cops. This makes it a great place to go tagging. The trains come every twenty five minutes you time it right you got four minutes to find a spot twenty minutes to tag one to get away.

We are in the first four minutes looking for an empty space to tag. I don’t want to buff someone else’s tag so I find an empty space. I do an outline of my tag SCOPE and fill it in. I look at my friend David he’s almost done with his tag SPIKE.

“You're done Dom?”

“Almost Randy.”

“Hey.”

“Hey you.”

I turn around and a man who looks like he’s homeless approaches us he then pulls out a badge.

“What were you doing on the tracks?”

Before I can say a word or even think of what to say David opens his mouth.

“We weren’t doing graffiti.”

“How do you know I’m stopping you for graffiti?”

“Are you psychic?”

“That’s why you are stopping us.”

“Right.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I stopped you because you were on the tracks. Why were you on the tracks?”

We are both speechless. Time seems to slow down and drift away.

“So you were doing graffiti.”

“No” we say.

“So why were you on the tracks?”

“We were crossing to get to the Manhattan side.”

“This is the Brooklyn side.”

“I mean Brooklyn side.”

“Brooklyn or Manhattan side.”

“Brooklyn.”

“Ok.”

“If you were just crossing why were you walking on the tracks?”

“We needed to get to the front car.”

“Well this is actually the back.”

“Ow.”

“Well we thought it was the Manhattan side and that would have (would of) made it the front.”

“I thought you wanted the Brooklyn side.”

“Ya.”

“Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn Manhattan uptown downtown front back you're confusing me.”

“What’s confusing?”

“You should know were you are going.”

“Ya.”

“We needed to go further into Brooklyn and went to the Manhattan platform by mistake and we need to get the front car but accidentally went to the back car.”

“Ok. Just one thing. I saw you climb down onto the tracks and then twenty-four minutes later climb back out again before a train came. Are you telling me you weren’t doing graffiti?”

“We weren’t.”

“Then what were you doing?

“We were trying to get to the next station since we missed the train.”

“So why did you turn around and come back?”

“We realized that the station was too far and closed.”

“Closed or too far?”

“Which.”

“Too far.”

“Closed.”

“Which one?”

“Closed.”

“We reached the station and it was closed. So we turned around and came back.”

“Which station?”

“Not sure.”

“The one over there,” David says, pointing.

“Ok. I have news for you kids. Stations don’t close. They're open twenty-four seven.”

“Well it was empty so we assumed it was closed.”

“Actually we never made it to the station. Half way there we turned around and went back.”

“Because it was too far.”

“Too far? Or closed.”

“Too far.”

“Ya too far.”

“Ok let me see IDs.”

“For what officer?”

“We weren’t doing graffiti.”

“Sure you weren’t. Why were you on the tracks?”

“Because we didn’t want to break the law.”

“You didn’t want to break the law.”

“Ya.”

“We went on the tracks to smoke.”

“Smoke what.”

“Cigarettes.”

“Because it’s illegal to smoke on the platform.”

“What brand?”

“Marlboro.”

“Newport I mean Marlboro.”

“Marlboro or Newport.”

“Marlboro.”

“I was thinking Marlboro but I said Newport.”

“You sure? Or were you smoking Newport and he was smoking Marlboro?”

“Ya.”

“I had Newport he had Marlboro.”

“Ok. Let me get this straight. He was smoking Newport you were smoking Marlboro and when I asked you, you said Newport but meant Marlboro. And this whole time down there you were doing graffiti."

“Ya.”

“I mean no.”

“You're confusing me. Let me see the packs.”

We look at each other and pretend to look through our pockets.

“Where are the cigarettes?”

“Oh we must have (must of) left them on the train tracks.”

“Better go get them.”

“No, you're not going any where. No more games. IDs both of you.”

“But why?”

“We weren’t doing graffiti.”

“Sure you weren’t. IDs.”

We both reach into our pockets and find our IDs and are about to hand them to the officer.

“Why are your hands like that?”

“Huh?”

“Like what officer?”

I look at my hands then at Dom’s hands and realize that our hands are almost completely covered in paint. I guess we forgot to wipe the paint off.

“Show me your hands. What’s that on your hands?”

“Not sure.”

“Looks like paint.”

“How did it get there?”

“Huh.”

“Finger painting.”

“Finger painting. Aren’t you boys a bit old for finger painting?”

“The teacher made us do it at school.”

“School. It’s Sunday.”

“You have school on Sunday.”

“Ya.”

“Sunday school.”

“Really? So what did you paint?”

“Christmas trees.”

“It’s July.”

“So.”

“You're painting Christmas trees in July.”

“Ya.”

“And you.”

“Painting trees too.”

“No.”

“Santa.”

“So you were in Sunday school this morning painting black Christmas trees and blue Santas in the middle of July.”

“Can’t bullshit a bullshitter sir.”

“It’s from graffiti.”

“Ok.”

“It’s from graffiti.”

“But.”

“We were not doing graffiti.”

“Ya.”

“We went to go look at graffiti.”

“You went to look at graffiti? Then how did it get on your hands?”

“We accidentally touched it and it happened to be wet.”

“Ya we touched it to have a better connection with it.”

“You know how tactile contact can connect a person to an object?”

“Ok so let me get this straight. First you told me that you were crossing the tracks to get to the Manhattan side then you change it to the Brooklyn side. Then you tell me you needed the front car then the back car. Then you tell me you need to get to the other station but the station was closed and then it was too far. Then you went on the tracks to smoke a cigarette but neither of you know what brand. Now you're telling me you went to look at graffiti and accidentally touched it and also touched it to feel a tactile connection to it."

“I think it’s obvious that we were doing graffiti.”

“I think that’s obvious too.”

“How old are you two?”

“14.”

“16.”

“Do your parents know you're out this late?”

“Well sort of.”

“He’s sleeping at my house and I’m sleeping at his house.”

“Yes or No?”

“No.”

“No.”

“I'm taking you in and having a long talk with your parents about graffiti and sneaking out.”

Yossi Halpernin can be reached at Xskateboy12X [at] aol [dot] com.

"Cake!"

by Zackary Kruskal

If your friend's birthday sucks, there is always a backup plan, a reason to say until the end, a purpose as you swing randomly in the air hoping to bring an animal hung up from the rafters of the cold barn. A cake!

It always repairs any situation. Weddings, parties, or even a solitary night at home can be enjoyed with the presence of cake. You don't need a specific utensil (or any utensil at all) to breach the icing and indulge in the sugary goodness beneath the surface.

Of course not all cake is good. In fact, cake is a very hyped-up affair. Just saying "cake" sets the bar pretty high. When it fails to deliver, however well the party was going beforehand won't matter, because after the cake, there is talk, and if everyone has just had a piece of tough rubbery plastic instead of the lush red velvet they were promised, what are you going to talk about: the weather? Or how, out of politeness, you ladled piece after piece into your protesting mouth?

Bad cake is social depression and no one will want to come over to your house anymore.

However, a good cake might just fix that slow-moving bat mitzvah or remedy a bad relation with that aunt who makes the sweaters. Forget home-baked muffins; a cake is way beyond anyone's expectations and will break the ice no matter how thick it is.

Intentionally Bad Writing

On 8/21/08, inspired by the work of Amanda McKittrick Ros, we in the Workshop intentionally wrote the worst scenes and stories we could.

Here they go:

1. Miranda von Salis "A BAD STORY"
   
   Sherri woke up and the smell of Sharpies hitting her nose like a spike. Not one of those tent spikes but the kind from the medieval days that has the barbs on them and the knights or whatever would stab each other with them. And, if you can imagine one of those spikes being stabbed up your nose, or just anywhere really but especially on your face, then you know how Sherri felt. Now add to that the painfully, excruciating pain that is the strong and unforgiving stench of a recently unopened Sharpie opened for the first time then you know exactly how Sherri felt. Exactly. Sherri stood up and felt the warm mush of cold cheese and sauce between her toes. Looking down, she noticed the extra large sausage pizza from the night before. The pizza that she did not remember buying but that she assumed was from yesterday because it wasn’t there when she woke up yesterday at 9:04 (she slept in). And apparently she bought a pizza yesterday too.
   
   Disengaging he toes from the mysteriously placed pizza she began her morning ritual of her ritual preparations for the day. Today was like every other day, other than the pizza, so she got ready in the same way. Because she was getting ready in the same way she did the same things as she did yesterday, minus the pizza. When she was as ready as she was on every other morning that she could remember except for perhaps a few mornings on which she stayed in bed, she left the house. As she stepped in to the hall she had a flashback from her past.
   
   She was little, maybe 5 or 6 but she could have been 7, and she was in charge of watching her baby brother Lucas while their mom went out to the library or something. Lucas was fussing and Sherri calmed him down. This memory did not pertain to her current life or situation in anyway but she remembered it. While she was deep in thought about this memory she was not paying attention to what she was doing. She was so deep in thought about her baby brother Lucas, who hadn’t called her in a while anyway, she began to cross the street without looking both ways(which in general is a bad idea unless you are really, really busy and have somewhere very important to go at a very specific time or if you see a friend on the opposite sidewalk and want to go say hello and catch up). Because of this lack of judgment, Sherri did not see the truck coming. So, for Sherri, today was not like every other day because she died and you only do that once if you are lucky.



2. Alana Mohamed "A Bad Day"
   
   The day before yesterday after last month’s block party before this month was a bad day. Ellie was with her mom and her dad and her little brother and her aunt, who was a really annoying person, and her boyfriend, who was like God, only not. Her aunt was a really annoying person, so she didn’t have children or a husband, she just had herself. Actually, she had a house and a car, but it was a small house and a bad car, so that proved she was a really annoying person.
   
   Anyways, it was a bad day because she, meaning Ellie and not her aunt, or her mom, or even her little bother, who was sometimes mistaken for a girl because he had not yet reached puberty, but her as in Ellie had acquired a mondoginormous, scarlet period-like mark, only bigger than a normal period, on the tip of her nose so she looked like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer AND it was the block party and block parties are always bad because one of Ellie’s friend or neighbors always received some sort of violent action, like a shanking or a shooting. But mainly it was because of her red dot. Oh, and that and that and her annoying aunt.
   
   Her annoying aunt exclaimed boomingly when she saw it, about how unfortunate-looking she happened to be that day and how it was no different than any other day. Ellie would have liked to shead many a tear because of this distressing, wounding, painful, injurious, malicious, spiteful, vindictive, barbed statement, but her boyfriend was with her, only he was nodding his head in agreement, so she did and then her little brother let out a stentorian laugh and then everyone joined in to create a collective stentorian cackling. Ellie was terribly discomfited.



3. Katie Waldron
   
   "May we gracefully trot through the endless seas?" I questioned my bosom buddy as she gazed into the unmistakenably sky-seemingly spray painted by a graffiti artist with a pearly puffs of cumulus clouds.
   
   "Yes! That is a magnificent plan. Afterwards, shall we linger upon the vast sands of the beach cleverly named Coney Island?"
   
   I briefly pondered her previous statement. What an interesting formation of words. I once again admired the sky. It was beginning to darken like there was a prevailing storm in the midst of our exceedingly perfect day.
   
   "Our day has been foiled!" the babbling broad stated.
   
   "Yes, I do believe our day will be dampened, both literally and figuratively, by incoming precipitation."
   
   So, we laid lazily upon the couch in a daze much like the many warriors lost in the Battle of Gettysburg.



4. Kylah Shenkin
   
   Mitchell sat on the steps of the sanctuary waiting for Anthony's arrival as a cadaverous geriatric waits for their impending passing. He knew there was no stopping it, but he still wanted to flee and hide out from doom. As Mitchell contemplated actually attempting to go on the lam, Anthony made his dreaded appearance. Mitchell and Anthony's gazes met, and between them passed a mutual blend of detest and loathing.



5. Maureen Tant "A."
   
   The brown creamy color of his eyes, like an amber-brown crayon from the number 64 box, hit me as would a train collision, with one heading due East at 80 mph, and the other westbound at 60 knots.
   
   I walked, and it stunned me.
   
   "Do you see the road?" I soundlessly uttered, "It is the unending labyrinth of my dapple-hued soul in the spider-webbing aura of their id."
   
   "Who?" he verbalized intensely.
   
   "The ones who walk down upon it," I replied, thesaurusly, indicating the rare and genuine decisiveness of our epoch, the smoothened pebble of a Jones Beach penguin who diets on cabbage and frail mustard plant.
   
   They doth not take to strangers, and are seldom seen--they take up wing and invert themselves, adopting the subtle visage of a delicate gull--those gulls of the sea. In face of homosapien influence they strap themselves into that full-bodied mask, as so many do.
   
   But it was presently departing time, and the alluring knave thought not of sunset, so he took a wing of his own, just as the penguins of that proverbial Jones Beach in my mind.