Dear Readers,
Welcome to the first edition of “The Instigator.” This zine came into conception when reading through my writer’s market book. I had been working for some time on a region-based non-fiction piece, and was, as most writers, curious about getting it published upon completion. I pulled out my highlighter, opened up the pages of the book, flipped through the magazine section, and proceeded to highlight every magazine based in New Jersey. Unfortunately, this didn’t take very long. I found but three magazines located in New Jersey, all of which were very genre specific. It had become clear to me that there are no thin publications in New Jersey that even promote non-fiction. Being a non-fiction writer, this was very disheartening. It was then that I had decided to start my own literary magazine. The goal of this zine is to promote all mediums of writing: prose in the form of fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi, mystery, horror, memoir, children’s, inspirational, religious, non-religious, essays; poetry, and plays. Mixed mediums are also more than welcome, as it has come to my attention recently of a genre dubbed, but not yet accepted, as “prosetry”—a hybrid of prose and poetry. This zine is meant to not only promote these genres, but to provoke, or instigate, writers of all genres to produce work that can be celebrated among the writing and reading community alike. Finally, each issue will also feature artwork by various artists.
Your Instigeditor,
Keith Chiappone
Contents:
“Little Boss Man” by Craig Wynne 3
“Orange and Magenta: How to Say Goodbye” by Ashleigh Matkowski 6
“Hate: A Love Story” by Elizabeth Vosk 8
Artwork by Madelynne Dela Rama 10
“Ends” by Angel Lemuel Eduardo 11
“Two for One” by Robert Jason Clark 13
“The Lion’s Den” by Nicole Contreras 17
Artwork by Pablo Naranjo 18
Craig Wynne is a college professor in New Jersey. His hobbies could fill an entire novel, but for the abridged version, he enjoys reading, writing, playing guitar, hiking, and snowboarding.
“Little Boss Man”
He had called me in one sunny April Tuesday. His office was housed all the way in the back of the thirteenth floor, the farthest possible room from the elevator. Nothing surrounding it, except for a glass door which was half-open. There was a desk usually reserved for a secretary, but the last one, Angela, had quit. Personal issues, they had said. For some reason, the last six secretaries he had gone through in the two years I had been working there had undergone some sort of personal issue. And now, I was passing through the glass doors and dared to enter his desolate lair. No decorations. No photos on his desk. No artwork on the walls. Just past issues from the magazines. Abandon all hope, ye who enter, I thought. When I walked in, he told me, “Sit,” as he pointed to the guest chair like he was commanding a puppy.
He had the giant mahogany leather chair behind his monstrous desk on which lay the magazine’s mission statement; I had the tiny chair with the plastic blue backing. As I sat down, I saw him close a Microsoft Word document with typing that read, “Eric was given little…” I had already received a “Verbal Warning” three months earlier where he had brought up performance issues that I considered silly and asinine. He had asked me to write a letter for him trying to convince his investors to not sell their stock in the company, despite the fact that it was dropping like a skydiver with a broken parachute. I had used the strongest words possible to convince investors that our company still had a chance of succeeding. “Not strong enough! I’ll just write the damn thing myself!” he yelled, as he crumpled the paper up and tossed it casually into the garbage. Now I knew: he was documenting things so that he could get me fired. “Okay, let’s go over your interim performance review,” he said as I came to that conclusion.
Just keep your game face on, I thought. And I did. Head propped up eye straight. Eyes narrowed, focused intently on Gary. No worried arching of the lips. Notepad and pen in hand.
“I’m very concerned about your performance,” Gary said. “When I hired you, I thought your writing would be able to turn this company around. But whenever I read your stuff, I’m forced to write it myself! Why do I have to do that?”
“The reason is when you give me assignments - ”
“See,” Gary interrupted, “my concern is that when I give you assignments, you jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.” I was actually going to say that you’re never sure about what you want, and when I ask you for clarification, you ignore me, I thought.
“That’s not tr-”
“Let me finish!” Gary interrupted. It really wasn’t true, but Gary never wanted to hear anything unless it came from his own mouth.
“You should have done more research on what other companies are doing to keep their investors.”
“But the thing is- ”
“Let me finish!” Gary yelled. “You can learn something by listening!” Practice what you preach, old man, I thought to myself.
What I kept wanting to say was that Gary was never clear in his instructions. For example, he wanted me to write a promotional letter to investors telling them about our new product. He wrote in the e-mail, “Do what you can to make the letter energetic, as well as inform others about our new product.” The man didn’t even care enough to check his spelling before sending me e-mails. Did he have that little respect for me? I wrote about the product using words such as “improves,” and “low cost” to get customers to invest. When he read it, he seemed to like it. Investments increased 10 percent. I found out six months afterwards that I didn’t do my job because sales hadn’t hit the 25 percent goal Gary was given. Like I was supposed to know that. And what the fuck could I have done differently had I known that it was 25 percent? And of course he yells at me that my letter wasn’t strong enough.
Nothing was ever good enough for him. Whenever I asked him questions, he was always too busy to talk. He was either on the phone with one of his superiors, trying to take on an extra project that had nothing to do with what his main responsibilities were. Like when he was taking part on that Go Green Committee. He didn’t even recycle paper or cans in his office. They all went into his wastebasket. He was just trying to look involved so he could get some kind of promotion. It was all about going up to the next rung, and somehow, I was making him look bad, despite the fact that I thought I
was saying the message I was supposed to say.
“The bottom line is that I don’t have confidence in you!” Gary said. “And if you can’t do the job I hired you to do, then I’m going to have to take further action, including and up to termination.”
His toxic words spiraled their way through my brain like a runaway locomotive, causing my breathing to get heavier and heavier and the gritting of my teeth to become forceful. I had worked until nine, ten, eleven at night trying to perfect his correspondence with investors and colleagues. I had sacrificed weekends preparing presentations so that he could obtain new business. He could never obtain new business because he was so insistent on getting his way with clients, and somehow, I was to blame for everything. I thought about the late-night text messages, the weekend phone calls with screams. “Where’s that ad for Forbes!” he yelled one Saturday morning, only to find it two seconds later in one of his file folders.
I looked at his bald head. His gapped teeth. The massive stomach that could only have been developed through years of nonstop inhalation of Twinkies and Fruit Pies. He obviously didn’t have much of a life. I mean, who sends lengthy e-mails about what’s wrong with a little print advertisement on Friday nights at 11:48 at night? No wedding ring. Never talked about his life (or probable lack thereof) outside of work. The guy was a loser. The only happiness this bald, fat, and (probably) virginal 60-something seemed to obtain was from the little power he derived from his position as a Director of Marketing for a trade magazine.
I had all this on my mind, but the only thing that managed to come out of my mouth was “Okay.”
“That’s all. Thanks, Eric,” he said as he went back to an important-looking report that lay on his desk.
I stomped back to my cubicle to look at the piles of copy that needed to be edited and went through one brochure with the green Sharpie I always used to mark changes. But I just couldn’t concentrate. All I could think about was that bald head. Those gapped teeth. That grating, high-pitched voice. I needed to get some decaf tea. It would clear my head.
I struggled through drafting the final page of a brochure to be sent to law firms, urging them to advertise with our magazine. As I walked into his “area,” I heard him on the phone. “A new copywriter,” he said. “Yeah, there’s just no talking to him.”
I was the copywriter! It sounded like he was planning on firing me! How dare he! After all the hard work I did for him, and those late nights I stayed at the office for him! The yelling, the screaming I had endured. And he was just willing to throw me out on the street. There was no way I could get a reference from him! I could never tell potential interviewers that my boss and I didn’t get along. I’d never be able to get another job!
My whole evening consisted of me listing the ways in which I was better than him. I had a social life. I had friends. I wasn’t currently with a woman, but I had been with several. I may even have kids that I don’t know of. I know how to write. His e-mails contained misspellings, missed words, and all types of grammatical errors. If he didn’t have me to proofread his external e-mails and correspondence for him, he’d never do any business and he might not even be able to keep his job. And this was how the little bastard showed his appreciation: through yelling and berating and saying those words, “I don’t have confidence in you,” and planning my demise behind my back. I laid in the fetal position repeating that phrase to myself as I tried to sleep that night.
The next morning, I woke up in that groggy, half-asleep state where there’s a giant pain in the back of your head and keeping your eyes open is a challenge and you’re afraid that if you get behind the wheel, you might black out and collide head-on with a school bus, injuring 20 kids and having your name slammed all over the news. I breathed heavily as that phrase kept echoing. But with the help of coffee, I managed to move into that state of “artificially awake,” and lumbered into the office. On my way to my desk, I passed by Gary’s office, and sure enough, Gary was there, probably since 6 or 7 in the morning. He glowered over his computer screen, eyes furrowed at it as if he were hunting for ducks and fingers pounding on the keyboard like those Whack-a-Moles. Man, he was tense. He needed to get laid more than anyone I had ever met. No engagement ring. No pictures or any type of decorations in his office that didn’t have anything to do with work. No apparent existence outside of the office.
Through the corner of my eye, I noticed a pair of scissors lying on his metallic gray filing cabinet. And then I remembered those scissors were always placed on that cabinet. I glanced at them, and then at the top of his bald head. It was so shiny I could almost see my reflection. My grogginess disappeared, and I felt a murderous rage take over that I had never felt. Scissors. Bald head. Scissors.
Bald head. Scissors! Bald head! Scissors! Scissors! Right through bald head!
I paused from my darting and glared at those scissors. Gary was always so into his work that the building could explode and he’d still be typing, typing, typing away. I stood there grinding my teeth in anger, staring at him as he typed away. Those scissors needed, just needed, to go through his head. He needed to have them go through his head. I was doing him and society a favor by putting him out of his and everyone else’s misery. He stopped and looked at me. I was caught! “I was gonna go get a cup of coffee from Starbucks,” I lied. “Do you want anything?”
“Yes, a large coffee with cream and two sugars,” he said as he took out his wallet.
The coffee kept me awake the rest of the day. But when I left, I decided I need to drink something else. I needed to find a bar. Not some hot happy hour spot with happy people who weren’t in danger of losing their jobs, but a quiet place where I could wallow in misery without the annoyance of others’ happiness. After about 90 seconds of searching, I found a dusty-looking bar called Casey’s, the inside of which resembled Moe’s Tavern from The Simpsons. Two people sat at the bar: a haggard-looking man who wore one a dirty blue flannel and a trucker’s hat as he swigged from a mug of skunky-looking beer, and an angry-eyed woman in her 40s who wore a gray sweatshirt that looked like it had been retrieved from the Salvation Army bin. She was drinking something that looked like bourbon. Something that sounded like George Thurgood’s “I Drink Alone” echoed from the jukebox. I pulled out a bar stool and sat two seats down from the Salvation Army woman. The bartender, a tough-looking biker type with a bandana, silver earring in the left ear, and tattoos everywhere, approached me like he would another biker. “Whattaya havin’?” he asked.
“Shot of Soco and an Amstel Light,” he said.
He poured me my drinks, and I gave him a 20. Six bucks back, I gave him a dollar back.
“Thanks buddy,” he said.
I downed the shot with vigor and swigged my beer. What a douchebag, I thought to myself. Fat, bald sack of shit treats me like garbage for two years and just cuts me like a piece of flab from his skin. Never once thanked me for all the jams I got him out of, but was always quick to point out every little thing I was doing wrong. He needed a beating. The thoughts stirred slowly as I ordered another beer. And then another. And another. The bar slowly packed with construction workers and other blue-
collar types. I stood out with my shirt and tie, but nobody seemed to care, least of all me.
As I drank more and more, and my surroundings became more distorted, I continued to stew about the wrongs Gary had done. What if I went to his place in the middle of the night and held him hostage, like Samuel L. Jackson in The Negotiator? I could wear dark clothing, sneak into his house, kick him in the ribs, kick him in the face till he was all cut up and bleeding. He’d scream like a little girl, too. Yeah, he carried himself with his fake authoritarian posture, standing upright, with his three-piece suit and his head tilted upwards like he was better than everyone else. But I could see through it. He was just a sad old man. He’d go down easily. And he needed to pay.
He lived out in Jersey City. I had seen his address on a pay stub he had left in my office once. He never even thanked me for giving it back to him. I remembered the address because I had had a date once at a bar right down the street from his house. It was 7:30 now, much too busy for me to do it inconspicuously. It had to be done late at night. I could knock on his door at about 11. When he’d answer, I’d commence pounding.
I spent the next few hours getting drunker and drunker. Finally, at about 9, I paid for my final drink, left the bar, bought a bottle of water at a newsstand, and made my way to the PATH train. Everything seemed to go in super-fast motion: suits, iPods, hot women in stiletto heels. My rage seethed out through my nose as I grabbed the steel bar nearest to the train entrance. The train was packed: plenty of people working late, men in suits socializing, obviously having had a few cocktails at happy hour, people who managed to be happy and sane in their lives without ever having murderous fantasies about the people who fucked them over. It was unjust.
“Grove Street,” came the muffled announcement over the loudspeaker. I stormed out of the train, murderous glare on my face, fists ready to do some serious damage. 9:35. Fifty-five minutes until he’d probably be back at his building. I had alcohol munchies. I craved a greasy chicken sandwich doused in ranch sauce, accompanied by some waffle fries. And water. I needed something like a gallon of water. There had to be a place where I could get something like that. A diner or a sports pub or something like that.
Grove Street was lined with bars and stores. And about fifty feet down the road, a diner. Joe’s Diner – Open 24 Hours, the sign read. On the left side was a counter, behind which steam emanated, as a Latino cook flipped a greasy burger while a
wrinkly, haggard-looking woman drank water and perused a copy of The New York Post. That burger brought an intoxicating aroma.
I sat down three seats down from her. Old women did nothing but talk your ear off, never once picking up on the fact that you weren’t listening, and I was in no shape for conversations right now. I just wanted to drink some water, eat some grease, and give Gary his beating.
“What can I get for you, man?” the cook said in a heavy accent.
“Big glass of water, bacon cheeseburger, and some fries,” I said.
“You got it, man.”
I opened up my bookbag and took out a copy of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. The words seemed to go right through my brain, but the appearance of reading would keep that old bag from talking my ear off. I chugged that water like it had a life-saving antidote in it.
As I kept looking at the word “Cohn,” I heard, “Here you go, man.” Ahh, that burger looked like paradise. I devoured that grease like it had more of that antidote. As it made its way through my system, I felt myself begin to sober up. 9:55, thirty-five minutes before Gary’s appearance. I paid the check and made my way to the bathroom. When I got out, I saw a familiar-looking face walk in. Gary, with all of his Napoleonic leanings on the job, walked in with his shoulders hunched and his head tilted down slightly. “How you doing, man?” the cook asked him.
“Good,” he said nervously as he walked over to the booth closest to the door. When he sat down, his eyes met mine and he tilted his head back slightly and appeared to be breathing more heavily.
“Hi, Gary,” I asked in my most sober voice.
“Oh, umm, hi, I was, uhhh, in the wrong place,” he said as he got up and walked briskly towards the door.
My eyes widened. Did that really just happen? I thought. “You okay, man?” the cook asked me.
Ashleigh Matkowski
“All I seem to do is talk about myself yet I don’t really have anything of substance to say. I don’t know who I am but I’m comfortable with that. It allows me the flexibility to be someone different every day. I am a friend, a sister, a daughter, a coworker, a lover, a rebel, and a saint but I am a writer before all else.”
“Magenta and Orange: How to Say Goodbye”
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Mommy said to me as she dressed me for school in my cotton candy outfit of light pink and baby blue. These had been my favorite colors. Pale pinks, bright magentas and fuchsias, sky blues, turquoises and my favorite Crayola color—cerulean. I rarely wore clothes in other shades.
“It’s okay, Mommy,” I probably said back while loosening my usually too tight pigtails. I don’t know if I even responded, but I put on the puffy-sleeved sweatshirt and ruffled socks and insisted on going to school anyway. It was a time when I still enjoyed going to school. I enjoyed it so much that I can remember playing with my Barbies on the living room floor, educating them one at a time. I acted as a teacher or a principle while Barbie, Skipper, Kira, Midge, and Theresa were my pupils. So I packed up my workbooks and sharpened pencils and made sure I had my pink lunchbox while I waited for Daddy.
I was a few weeks shy of six years old. To me, dead meant flushing the goldfish down the toilet to fishy heaven, returning him to the vast waters from which he came. I didn’t understand what it meant for my
grandmother to be dead. I didn’t know where people came from yet, but I knew we weren’t flushing Gago down the toilet. She didn’t know how to swim.
It was a brisk and overcast morning in April of 1993 when Daddy took me to school. It was a rare occasion that I got a ride. Mommy walked with me and Brian daily from our house on 14th street all the way to 23rd. I don’t remember Brian being in the car with us that day. Maybe he didn’t go to school. I don’t remember what day of the week it was or what I did in class. I just remember sitting on a cold blue metal chair in the auditorium at Midtown Community School at some point in the morning when my kindergarten teacher Mrs. O’Connell said that if I wanted to go home, I could tell her at any time and she would call my house for someone to come pick me up. She said she was sorry my Grandma passed away, but I thought she died. I didn’t know she passed away too. I didn’t know they meant the same thing.
Mom had once told me that Gago got her name because of Brian. He was just learning how to
talk, putting syllables together, one by one.
Grandma must have been too difficult for his little mouth to speak and Gago came out instead. He was undoubtedly her favorite, as he was the favorite of her sister and brother-in-law as well. Brian got special presents for being Brian, given to him for no reason, for no occasion other than it just being an ordinary day. He’s two and a half years older than I am, meaning that he had those two and a half extra years to seize the hearts of family members while I spent my time trying to catch up. They loved me, but loved him more. I was jealous as jealous could get, mostly because he got the attention I strived and failed to achieve but mostly because he had the luxury of spending those extra years with Gago.
I fought with Brian as if it were a pastime activity. He built Lego fortresses across the living room floor, had G.I. Joe battles in front of the TV, and raced his remote control cars around the house. I did my best to take up as much space coloring with my box of 96 crayons or dragging out the plastic bin of animal families and their tree house. If he tried to grab or trip me as I walked by, I “accidentally” kicked him or stepped on his toys.
Gago would hear our yelling from upstairs in her half of the house. Sometimes she’d come down and yell at us to stop our bickering. She’d say we were big kids now and we were too old to fight over nonsense. Without Gago, Mommy and Daddy would still yell at us, but it wouldn’t be the same.
I sat on a dusty chair in the funeral parlor across the street from Mount Carmel church, the Polish parish in Bayonne. Elderly people dressed in dark colors filed in and out to pay their respects as Gago lay in an open casket. Everyone kept telling me that they were sorry about my Grandma. Why were they sorry though? It wasn’t their fault. She got sick with pneumonia and her body was too weak. That’s what Mom told me. She said it was her time and the angels came to bring her to heaven. She said that heaven was the place where Grandmas and Grandpas go when they get old and its God’s turn to spend time with them. I felt cheated because I barely had six years of my short lifetime with her. I feel guilty now at twenty-two because I can barely remember those six years.
I had stood by her bed just weeks before she died and played with the plastic Smurf figurines on the nightstand that she kept inside of a tin that had Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on it. That’s when she was still familiar to me. I was scared to look in the casket at the funeral home. We didn’t put the goldfish in a box when we flushed it. I leaned over the sides of the smokey-blue coffin as Mom held my hand, tears hugging the corners of her eyes. That day she looked like a stranger even though Mom told the funeral director to dress Gago in one of her favorite matching flowered blouse and skort sets. It was magenta and orange. She wore it for my brother Brian’s Communion the previous spring. She seemed happy every time she wore it, Mom said. Mom wanted her to be happy in heaven too. It was the last time I remember her healthy, one of the few moments I remember at all.
I only recall bits and pieces. She taught me to tie my shoes—two bunny ears. I remember smelling the greasy food she cooked upstairs while I was downstairs—hamburgers and fried onions. Pork chops or battered fish. I could imagine her standing at the stove in a flowered house dress and slippers, a wooden spoon in hand. I remember the pacemaker after her heart attack and a machine that she attached that looked like an antique telephone. I remember sitting at the kitchen table while she painted her finger nails a pretty color like mauve or taupe. I remember being told I couldn’t see her in the hospital when she got sick the first time because I was too little. I remember the sterile smell of rubbing alcohol and band-aids that lingered in her room long after she was gone. I helped Mom go through her things. Black and white photos of Gago and her sisters as children. Her wedding photo. Gold earrings. The plastic figurines.
I remember the lessons I was taught. She started to teach me Polish, words that I only remembered to say and spell phonetically. I learned some of the colors: czarny, różowy, czerwony. I learned some of the body parts: nogi, buzia, oczny. I learned some miscellaneous words: swinia, wojna, dobry.
But I never learned how to say goodbye.
Elizabeth Vosk is a twenty year old student studying English at New Jersey City University. She currently works as a proofreader for the Bayonne Community News. Future plans include attending graduate school, hopefully at Brandeis University in Massachusettes, and working as a copy editor for a publishing company.
“Hate: A Love Story”
I hate you. I hate the way you could never say no to anybody, especially your bossy best friend. I hate the way you didn’t like coming over my house. I hate the way you farted in your sleep or burped in front of me and thought it was hysterical. I hate the way you were always broke and had to ask your parents for money. I hate how un-self-sufficient you were. I hate how you begged me to buy you things even though I was trying to save money and you wouldn’t stop until I bought whatever it was for you. I hate how we never went anywhere, and how you refused to drive to new places. I hate how you ignored me for hours, even days at a time when you got a new video game, especially GhostBusters. I hate how you didn’t appreciate the gifts I gave you.
I hate how you stopped writing me notes just because we saw each other every day, or how you would never post on my Facebook wall. I hate how you never slept over, and you just took for granted that I would stay at your house every weekend. I hate how you stopped remembering or mentioning our inside jokes. I hate how your little green dinosaur was ten times cooler than you. I hate how freezing it was in your room in the winter and how you didn’t have an air conditioner in the summer. I hate how you let your dirty clothes pile up until I got annoyed enough to wash them for you. I hate how you never made an effort to help me like that.
I hate how you never offered to help me clean my room. I hate how you stopped coming to the library with me. I hate how you wouldn’t come see me early or stay late until I got out of school so we could go home together. I hate how you made it seem like it was such a hassle to come pick me up all the time. I hate how you stopped getting out of the car to walk me to my door just because you were lazy or it was cold.