BROOKLYN READING WORKS

FEATURED WRITER: ELIZABETH ROYTE

THE DREAM OF ZERO WASTE from GARGAGELAND: ON THE SECRECT TRAIL OF TRASH

I had been touring San Francisco’s garbage infrastructure for two days now – prowling around the city’s transfer station, poking into its curbside bins, and following its garbage trucks. My hosts were Bob Besso, who worked for Norcal, the private company with which the city contracted to pick up refuse, and Robert Haley, from the Department of the Environment. Dressed in blue jeans and sneakers, Besso had the lankiness of a marathon runner. He was in his fifties, and he’d worked in recycling for decades. His and Haley’s easy-going attitude, and their penchant for plain speaking, were diametrically opposed to the formal inscrutability of New York’s sanitation operatives. The best part of hanging around Besso was his competitive streak: both he and Haley were walking poster children for Zero Waste. Who could throw out less? Who had more radically altered their lifestyle to leave a smaller human stain?

The Zero Waste concept was a growing global phenomenon. Much of Australia had committed to achieving the goal in 2010, and resolutions had been passed in New Zealand, Toronto, twelve Asia-Pacific nations, Ireland, Scotland, the Haut-Rhin Department in the Alsace region of France, and several California counties. So far, no community had reached this nirvana, a condition perfected only by nature. For humans to achieve zero waste, went the rhetoric, would require not only maximizing recycling and composting, but also minimizing waste, reducing consumption, ending subsidies for waste, and ensuring that products were designed to be either reused, repaired, or recycled back into nature or the marketplace. Zero Waste, said Peter Montague, director of the Environmental Research Foundation, had the potential to “motivate people to change their life styles, demand new products, and insist that corporations and governments behave in new ways.”

            

FEATURED WRITER: MATTHEW ZAPRUDER

   

Park Slope

Where far into evening
speculation is
without further instruction
a staircase one kneels,
an always continuing upwards.
Where I inspect myself
for a black and white cat
who hides my sluggishness from inspectors.
His name is Joselito.
Where sometimes a word can fill the sails.
Where I grow smaller
like a view of a harbor.
Where hydrants are painted
hyacinths arguing
point with pleasure in every direction!
glitter slowly
through conversation with windows!
Where into the bitter dust of my mouth
I bring my face,
to stare back at tacit approval,
wearing huge red feverish hands
rubbing my beard
like a saint.
Where one logician
with half an eyeglass proposes
o perpetual attitudes of summer!
light grey sky
constitutes interference
and is proof of a wariness high above clouds.
Where his neighbor
pissing on the low wall contends
it was merely stolen
from thousands of silvery windows
by an amnesiac painter
a jump rope and naked laughter.
Where a silent chorus of blinking sirens
asks if so who forgot us
stretching it onto his scaffold?
Where down at the corner
of afternoon and 4th
children have been invented again.
Mischievous mothers
paroled from daytime
bend among the lounging bodegas,
filling their starry
implications of sundresses,
climbing a few rungs
of spanish without me.

Copyright © 2002-2003 Matthew Zapruder

FEATURED WRITER: SHEILA KOHLER

FROM CRACKS

Fiamma fainted in chapel this morning. The teachers do not know we make ourselves do it, though they suspect we do. They even had a doctor brought in to examine us, but he said there was nothing wrong with us. He said he had never seen such a healthy group of growing girls. We do look healthy. Our skins are gold with all the sunshine, and our hair and teeth look very white in contrast. Weekdays we wear short-sleeved white blouses and green tunics with their big R's embroidered on our chests and our short green socks. Our tunics are worn four inches from the ground, measured kneeling, so you can see our knobby knees.

Perhaps Fiamma did not make herself faint. Perhaps she just fainted. The girls on the swimming team take turns fainting in chapel. We all know how to do it. Before communion while you are on your knees and have not had any breakfast, you breathe hard a few times, and then you hold your breath and close your eyes. You sweat and start to see diamonds in the dark. You feel yourself rush out of yourself, out and out. Then you come back to the squelch of Miss G's crepe shoes, as she strides along the blue-carpeted aisle to rescue you. She makes you put your head down between your knees, and then she lifts you up and squeezes your arm. Miss G is our swimming teacher, and she is super-strong.

You lean against her as you go down the aisle and feel her breath on your cheek, and the soft swell of her boosie. Your heart flutters, and you see the light streaming in aslant through the narrow, stained-glass windows: red and blue and yellow like a rainbow. Miss G leads you out into the cool of the garden. You sit on the white-washed wall under the loquat tree in your white Sunday dress and undo the mother-of-pearl button at your neck. Miss G sits on the wall beside you and smokes a cigarette, holding it under her hand, so Miss Nieven, our headmistress, who has an M. A. from Oxford, will not notice if she comes upon her suddenly. When Miss G tells you to, you take off your panama hat and set it down on the wall. Then you lean your head against her shoulder. You get to sit there under the cool dark leaves of the loquat tree and feel the breeze lift the hem of your tunic very gently and watch Miss G blow smoke rings until she asks if you feel all right now. Her voice is deep and a little hoarse, like a man's.

 

FEATURED WRITER: MARIAN FONTANA

FROM A WIDOW'S WALK

The highway to Jones Beach is empty and I stare out the window at the tall dunes lining the side of the road. Dave drove this highway every day for the 13 summers he was a lifeguard, and when I joined him, I would look for rabbits on the trip home as they came out to feed in dry patches of grass. I roll down the window and inhale the smell of summer that lingers like a sated guest. Clouds float like stretched cotton against the perfect blue that I will now forever link to the day Dave died.

The windows in the fee booths at Field 6 have been boarded up for weeks and the giant parking lot is dotted with only a few cars. I pull into a spot near the lifeguard shack, where some of Dave's happiest memories were formed. A fraternity of lifeguard friends will be here today to honor him. The smell of pine trees and decaying dune roses wafts through the window as I gather photos of the lifeguards that Dave kept in hand-carved frames.

A crowd has already gathered on a deck in the front of the small wooden lifeguard shack at Field 6. Steve Levy, Dave's rowing partner and lifeguard friend, strides over to greet us. He has arranged this day for Dave, e-mailing a tight network of lifeguards who work here, the eldest celebrating almost half a century on the beach. Except for his shaved head, Steve looks just as I remember him, his mischievous amber eyes wide, his body tanned and strong, a slight stutter when he speaks.

"I'm glad you made it! It's unbelievable how many guards are here from the old days," he says proudly as I follow him to the front, the ocean revealing itself in a perfect blue line at the shore. The wide stretch of beach is empty except for a beer-bellied man with a metal detector and a woman flying a kite in the distance.

I greet Dave's friends, many of whom I haven't seen in over 15 years. They tell me stories about Dave and I listen intently, letting the memories linger like a mouthful of expensive wine. They laugh at the photos I brought. We joke about the hot tub parties, food fights, lifeguard races, practical jokes and the Big Kahuna, a giant sculpture Dave carved from a driftwood log. The sculpture became a mainstay at Field 6 even after Dave left.

Even though Aidan [then 5] looks tired, he runs through the sand with the energy of a puppy, ricocheting through the crowd and bounding toward the ocean. "He's definitely his father's son," everyone remarks, watching Aidan leapfrog over the waves, his jeans soaked.

Steve hops up onto a box on the side of the shack and whistles loudly to get everyone's attention. He tells the story of how Dave came to the beach, how he fell in love "with this chick from Staten Island in a crocheted bikini." I blush, recognizing myself in his story. Billy Hosek stands up next, his white-blond hair flopping into his face. He has driven up from Baltimore, taking time away from a busy schedule as an emergency room doctor. He holds up a frayed rope looped in a circle around a shriveled potato.

"I have carried this necklace all over the country to apartments in almost every city," Billy announces proudly. There are a few sniggers in the crowd. "I know many of you recognize it. Dave carved this potato on a rainy day in the shack, into a very convincing likeness of Jay Lieberfarb." The lifeguards laugh knowingly and look toward Jay, a short, thin man who recently celebrated 45 years as a lifeguard at Jones Beach. The potato does bear a remarkable resemblance to Jay, with wrinkled skin the color of cherrywood, long angular features, and wiry black rope hair.

"Marian, I am giving you this treasure to keep for Aidan when he works at the beach, and Jay is still here." I am hoisted onto the storage box to receive my gift. I put the necklace around my neck. The rope scratches my neck, but I hold it up and kiss Billy on the cheek. I make a short speech thanking the lifeguards. I swallow back tears, recalling how Dave loved the beach and his friends here, how touched he would be to see them today. We toast the other lifeguards killed on Sept. 11, Billy Burke and Chris Maulpi.

With the sun setting red and low, we reluctantly begin to gather our things. The lifeguards pass around wallet-size Sears portraits of their kids, we exchange phone numbers, promising to keep in touch, and I kiss everyone goodbye. "Pick me up!" Aidan whines as we walk toward the car, our shadows like long Giacometti sculptures.

"I can't." I tell Aidan I'm feeling weary from the weekend.

Aidan drops his head dramatically, moping next to me. "Daddy used to put me on his shoulders," he says pathetically. I can feel the strings around my heart tighten. Grabbing Aidan under his arms, I hoist him over my head onto my shoulders. Like an Olympic weight lifter, I bobble a bit, trying to steady him. I hold him tight around the ankles and struggle through the sand to the parking lot. My brother-in-law Dennis offers to carry him, but I want to prove to Aidan that I am strong, that I can be both mother and father to him. Perhaps by completing this task, I can convince myself that it is true.

The traffic on the Belt Parkway rolls slowly forward as angry drivers force themselves into small spaces between cars, weaving like slalom skiers through the traffic. Aidan is wiggling in the back of the car, pressing his feet into the back of my seat.

"Stop kicking," I snap, feeling my nerves taut under my skin, ready to pop and fray.

"You OK?" my sister asks, and I shrug, staring ahead, my jaw clamped shut. Like the cars, my emotions seem to be coming out of nowhere. An SUV cuts hard in front of me and I have to slam on the brakes. Leah reaches for the dashboard, trying hard not to say anything.

I snarl a curse through my teeth.

"Mommy!" Aidan scolds, and I squeeze my jaw tighter. I hate you, Dave, for making me do this. I am suddenly filled with resentment that I have to drive at all. This is Dave's job, I tell myself. I make a mental list of all the things I will have to do alone now: laundry, bills, take out the garbage, parent-teacher conferences, car inspection, dental appointments, haircuts, pediatrician appointments, illnesses, painting, baseball games, fixing, sweeping, oil changes, class trips, parking, cleaners, after-school classes, shopping, cleaning, homework, making lunches, Cub Scout meetings, driving. All of it alone. It is too much. It is more than I can take. I exit the highway, convincing myself that if I just keep moving, everything will be fine. Within minutes I am lost in the bowels of Brooklyn, in neighborhoods where once-beautiful buildings stand neglected and empty. I stare at the road ahead of me, everything dark and unsafe. You've left me here to do everything by myself. You promised me you would take

care of me. You promised me we would grow old together. I am lost.

"Are we lost?" Leah asks.

FEATURED WRITER: MICHELE MADIGAN SOMERVILLE

Bodies of Water

You were never a water wimp. 
Even at Orchard Beach, 
you were good to go.  A natural swimmer, 
graceful and strong.  All of us were. 
Natural swimmers, that is. 
In water, that is. 
But I was afraid to be out over my head 
afraid to swim at dawn with you 
and Brutus out on 95th Street 
when the lifeguard chairs were still 
overturned in the sand 
on the Irish Riviera 
where we learned to tread 
water.  You always went way out. 
You were never afraid 
to get your ass kicked 
by a wave.  There was no fear 
of losing control, cramping up, 
no fear of water rushing to displace 
the spirit of your lungs.  No fear 
of the Earth's humors, the protean   
green--the wet scary 
unknown, no fear of the curvaceous 
machine of the tides. 
And how you love baths! 
"Tropical Rain Forest:" 
smoke a joint, fill the tub 
with aromatic bubbles,   
darken the room, put music on,   
pull the curtain, turn the shower on
and float away down the Nile in your vessel.

FEATURED WRITER: PAMELA KATZ

SEX (or Tightrope) 1929

The first time I remember seeing a penis it was wrapped in bandages. I should say, it was being wrapped up, by Franz's sister. She looked like she was preparing a spoiled wurst, one that already smells. I was nine years old and I ran home, no one asked me why. Later, my Aunt Sophie did strange things to her Doctor in Zurich but I was not allowed in the room, I did not want to go in, between nine and fourteen I had seen enough to know the reasons for closed doors - especially when men have their pants down.

Of course I never saw as much as people thought. No one really knows what goes on in the dark, in the night, in private, they see you with a man, they see you with many men, and they think you are doing whatever it is they have not done. If I did it in exchange for money, if I started very young, if I knew more than others, it was all outside of me for the longest time.

But what does it matter? I'm sitting here, aren't I, while strong men carry our furniture up the stairs. "Our furniture," you see and why? Because they clapped long and loud and came again. I have always trusted applause to bring me what I need. There are many kinds of applause, especially in Berlin these days.

Weilly and I lived in one room with a single bed for two years. Sleeping frozen solid never moving or one of us would fall out. From that bed, we could touch everything in the room, the refrigerator, the desk, the bureau. Not anymore, not here in our new, expensive apartment, they clapped long and loud for "Three Penny" and we are here, we're a success, what's a success anyway? You are not a good wife.

One light step over the threshold thick glass doors pushed lightly to the side and onto the stone balcony, leaning over the side I see our carved Jugendstyl facade and in the distance the shimmering Lietzensee. Four rooms with a view, what do you say to that? We began on a lake in a rowboat and we end up here, high above, seeing the water framed in thick glass, sun sparkling on the surface while we sip coffee, everything for us!

From AND SPEAKING OF LOVE by Pamela Katz