Bards and Sages Quarterly (April 2015)

In This Issue

Boreal North by James Zahardis

Meet the New Boss by Tim McDaniel

The Other Woman by Alison McBain

The Landing by Sally Kuntz

Mrs. Claws and the Naughty List by Sarina Dorie

Storm of Chance by Preston Dennett

We’s Mean (no) Harm by Michael B. Tager

Amelia’s Hovering Cloud by Helen Grochmal

The Sound Down by the Shore by Douglas J. Ogurek

Blood Unicorn by Kelsey M. Snyder

Domini Cane by Aaron Vlek

Until the End of the Party by Florian Heller

Late by Jean Davis

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Boreal North

By James Zahardis

There is a bus stop in the Arrowhead Region of Minnesota situated on a natural divide where the ever-changing deciduous woodlands of the South and undying boreal forests of the North meet. It is on the outskirts of a Podunk where the main attractions are a sports bar with a flashing neon Viking in the window, and a bait-and-tackle shop, which claims to sell the biggest Canadian nightcrawlers in the Upper Midwest.

Not many folks take the bus in this neck of the woods, which passes by once a day, at 3 pm, and heads south to Duluth.  And there is no returning bus. Ernie J. takes it once a week, on Friday, to visit his elderly mother, and gets a ride back with his cousin, Henry. He’s the only passenger in the past few years that’s been picked up from this stop, with the exception of a few runaways—very few—after all, how many kids really want to run away to Duluth, Minnesota?

* * *

It was mid-October and the local weather service predicted flurries. Dusk approached. The first snowflakes drifted over the tops of the fiery leaves of maple, birch, and oak trees toward the constant gray and green of the towering pines that lined the north side of the street. A few of the descending flakes were caught in an eddy of air that welled up from around the dimly lit bus station below. All melted in midair, except for one, which landed on the fur coat of a young woman who sat on a bench at the bus stop. She was motionless, enclosed by three Plexiglas walls and a slanted hard-plastic roof. Her eyes were onyx-black as was her hair, which was tied in two long braids. And her skin was smooth and the color of bronze. She faced southward, towards the mixed woodlands, which in the vespertine hours still retained a trace of color and life.

There was motion in the woods, across the street, somewhere within the labyrinth of broadleaf trees. The branches of a maple were pushed aside. The air was silent and still and the flurries of dusk segued to the light snow of evening. A broken streak of orange appeared between a stand of birches. The woman remained still as her eyes glanced from east to west. Orange appeared again, no longer a broken streak, but constant, upright, moving toward the road, only to vanish behind a dense stand of trees. Finally, the figure of a man in an orange jumpsuit emerged from behind the trunk of a thick oak.

He walked to the edge of the woods and trotted across the desolate road, toward the bus stop. He slowed his pace a few feet from its open front. The woman remained unmoving; her eyes fixed on the approaching stranger.

Hey, nice coat. Good thing, aye? Snow ‘n’ all, he said as snowflakes landed on his close-cropped hair. Mind if I sit down?

Please do, the woman answered, in an unwavering voice.

The man entered the three-sided bus stop, plopped down on the bench, about an arm’s length from the young woman. She turned slowly and looked at the side of his neck adorned with two tattoos: one that read FTW, and another depicting a heart with a dagger running through it, which extended below the white thermal that was under his jumpsuit.

Brrrrrrr! Yeah, lucky you got that coat! It’s freezin’! Literally—I mean look, it’s snowin’, so it’s gotta be freezin’, right?—Hey, what is that? Ermine? I got a girl an ermine coat once; I didn’t even know what an ermine was when I got it! It’s somethin’ like a Goddamn weasel!

Actually, this coat was made from a bear, she responded.

Bear, cool—I thought you were gonna say it’s fake fur and get all PETA on me! I mean, I woulda felt like a total asshole, pardon my French!

My husband was French.

Whoa! Wrong idea—definitely not tryin’ to make a move on you here, sista! No need to bring up the old man!

"My husband was French."

The man stood and walked to the wall. He scanned over the county bus schedules glued to the Plexiglas. "Next bus—only bus—ain’t ‘til tomorrow. Are you waitin’ for someone?" he asked as he sat down a little closer to the woman. The eddy of wind resumed and snow was beginning to enter the booth.

Yes, I am waiting for someone, she responded.

Who? A boyfriend? Your BFF? he asked. His widening grin revealed a gold canine tooth.  He inched closer toward the young woman.

I do not know his name yet.

Whoa! I see what we got here—a real freak-a-deek-deek! Talk ‘bout hookin’-up on the down-low! Yo, but Mr. Lucky should meet you somewhere classy—Ramada, Days Inn—not out here in the sticks—‘cause I ain’t gonna lie, you fine as hell!

I do not understand the meaning of your words, the woman responded.

OK. I’m sayin’ you have a little down ‘n’ dirty date with a guy whose name you don’t even know. Am I right?

"I understand. Yes, you could say that I have a date with a man whose name I do not know." The young woman flashed a smile of perfectly formed, ivory-white teeth.

I likes that smile. I likes that! the man said as his right hand drifted from the top of his leg toward its interior. Name’s Pete by the way, what’s yours?

When I was born I was named Keegsquaw. When I was married I was known as Mrs. Jean-Baptistes Tabeau. Now I am known by many names.

Nice to meet you. Are you like an Indian, K-Squaw?

My mother was of the Algonquin People, and my father was a French fur trader.

My mother was part French, I think, Pete interjected. "I mean polly-vous Francais ‘n’ shit, right!" he said and laughed, raising his head and exposing the entirety of his heart-and-dagger neck tattoo, revealing the scrawled slogan beneath it, which read: RIP.

Moments passed in silence. Snow was falling heavily. Pete’s chest heaved under his orange jumpsuit; his breathing grew more frequent; his exhalations stronger. Keegsquaw sat motionlessly, and the flakes of pure white snow drifting in front of her face were unperturbed by her breath.

Pete abruptly leaned toward her. Keegsquaw glanced toward his right hand that clutched a long, thin object, concealed beneath a black trash bag.

"Lissen-up, dollface; you ain’t dumb. You know that—I know that. You ain’t got nobody comin’—you were just tryin’ to make me think somebody was. Right?"

Keegsquaw did not reply as she looked into Pete’s pale-gray eyes without blinking.

I mean, I’m in the middle of the boonies wearin’ state-pen orange. And like every news program is showin’ my mug shot, and you’re gonna front on me like you don’t know who the fuck I am? Come on, I ain’t no genius, but I ain’t stupid either!

"Now I know who you are," Keegsquaw whispered.

"Good. Lissen-up, I did eight on a life bid. No chance of parole. Shit’s been rough. So I gave myself parole—capiche?" Pete put his hands up to the side of his head and groaned. The rusty tip of a rebar shank poked out of the black garbage bag and pointed towards the ceiling of the bus stop. Pete saw the tip and lowered the shank back down to the top of his leg.

Don’t make me use this. I’ve been eight years without a woman: that’s hard on a man. Just give in. Give in. Don’t be a hero. We can go behind the bus stop and do it—lay down that big-ass bear coat of yours. Or do it in here—nobody’s coming, and I’d see ‘em from a mile away if they were.

We will go into the woods together, Keegsquaw said in a voice unstained by emotion.

"Look, I know you must think I’m scum, but I’m not. I went to high school; did pretty good even. Played football. Got a varsity jacket ‘n’ shit! But my old man freaked out when I told him I didn’t wanna go to college. I don’t know what I wanted to do. I was gettin’ high a lot. Met this chick, Rhea, gots to likin’ her. She was a dancer down in St. Paul. We did mad X and a lot of blow. I mean A LOT of blow! It started gettin’ crazy-as-all-get-out. One night she came back to the hotel with some shit this Puerto Rican slung to her—it was yellowish, tasted