Volume 4: 
Work Life


Slaughterers, mechanics, bus drivers, paramedics,
the king of New Hampshire, & more.

Peggy
​Rebecca Flowers

[DESPERATION]
A gray-haired man in a green, water-wicking jacket bought The Valley News at the local Circle K in Hanover, and sprayed his cash and coins on the counter. Peggy, the cashier, helped him sort out his money. He asked, "I gave you two dollars?" "Uh-huh." He put his knuckles to his forehead. "There's something wrong with my head." His hands were veined green like his jacket. He suddenly bent over the counter, cheeks scrunched and teeth clenched. "You okay?" Peggy asked. She stretched her arms out toward him. "Bad toe," he said, rotating his ankles. He took his papers and left. A regular at the gas station. Peggy was scared about how he'd cringed. The pain wasn't always so obvious... [more]
Meat
Carl Neisser

[DEATH AND DYING]
“Know what this is?" Richard asks. He stuffs his fist into the dead sheep and pulls a round white organ out by a thin cord of flesh. He dangles it in front of me like a hypnotist's pocket watch. "Sheep balls," I say. "Just one ball," he replies. Richard lobs the testicle at Nick, who yelps and dodges out of the way. It lands in the sterilizer, splashing boiling gray water onto the floor. "You sound like a little bitch!" Richard says, laughing. "You fucker!" Nick shouts. He starts laughing too. "I had to do it. I don't want the day to get boring..." [more]


Elaine
Libby Goldman

[WOMEN]
Elaine had a key.  Actually, she had a number of keys.  Each dangled from the purple paisley lanyard around her neck.  It draped over her collar bone and rested on her middle.  Her hair was short and silvery-grey, bangs-length all the way around her head.  She picked up two keys.  “These two keys get me into my bedroom.  Two deadbolt locks.”  She picked up another two keys.  “These two get me into my craft room, right across the hall from me.  There are padlocks inside the closets.  There are padlocks on the storage room.  I have a padlock on the garage.  No, I never really feel safe.  The knives are now locked up inside of another deadbolt lock in the closet in my bedroom.  Two deadbolt locks.  And a padlock on the other side.” [more]
The Call
Katelin Moody

[HELP]
I'd met Mike Wilds a few weeks ago. He sat across from me in the empty training room and told me he’s a “shit magnet.” Shit always seems to happen when he’s on duty. Although, at the time, he was seven hours into a forty-eight-hour shift, and call-free. Mike has a face that’s grim when still, but jolly in motion: rounded cheeks, cropped white beard, freckled forehead interrupted by deep creases, thick, expressive eyebrows. He has a gravelly voice that grumbles when it starts then warms into something fuller and richer. An EMT for twelve years, and firefighter for two decades before that, Mike’s an encyclopedia of emergency response stories: the repeat offenders, the favorite patients, the spouses with perfect punchlines... [more]


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Volume 3: 
Don't Tread On Me

Free Vermont!
Andrew Lohse

[RADICALS]
No reform can secure our food and energy self-sufficiency against the rapidly-approaching “collision between Petroleum Man’s vision of infinite growth and the fact that we live on a finite planet.” Our day of reckoning, Rob says, is upon us. He calls the waitress over for some more coffee... [more]
H.O.W.L.
Annie Gardner

[WOM(Y)N]
Deciding how to spell ♀ took a long time.  And it doesn’t seem like they came to any definitive conclusion. The blog and the Facebook page and the official documents. That’s the thing about a Collective, about coming to a consensus. There is women, woman, and then there is womyn and wommin and wimmin. Many variations; just no man, no men... [more]
No Pain, Really Soon
Rianna Pauline Starheim

[ADDICTION]
“Josh drives me crazy,” Britani says. “But then again, he does provide for me. He buys me a phone card every month, that’s $45 bucks. But then, if I don’t answer my phone when he calls, holy shit. All hell breaks lose.” She pauses, taking long drags on her cigarette and lapsing into a rare silence. “Is he the asshole?” she says. “Maybe I’m the asshole. I don’t know. I can be a big jerk. But I don’t think he should be punching holes in the wall next to my head..." [more]
The Littlest Things
Jenna van de Ruit

[HELP]
“When I first got hired I loved the place, so amazing, no reject, no eject.” Easter Seals accepts everybody and expels no one. “After a couple years of working there I’m like, ‘Oh my god. Can’t we just reject this person? They’ve been killing all their neighbor’s cats.’ ”
At first I thought Daniel was joking. He wasn’t. “I read his file and I’m like, ‘Wow, this guy sounds like a serial killer. I’m going to be really nice to him.’ We  got along great..." [more]
Men Who Knit With Warren
Sam Van Wetter

[HOPE]
“With my knitting, with my community, it’s like I’m finally living in Technicolor. Or 3-D,” John Crane said, laying his knitting needles on his lap. We were sitting on the porch of his West Hartford, Vermont home. “I spent through age forty trying to live as a heterosexual,” he’d said. “I had a great life, but after coming out, it really was like moving from black and white to living in color.” [more]



Of Heroin and Other Demons
Lisa Carson & Sarah Khatry
One of Ten Things
The day Isaac’s life went the rest of the way down the staircase, he literally fell down a staircase. And out a window. And then the cops showed up. He had taken a bunch of pills and drank some booze he stole from his parents. Trying to understand Isaac’s story is like putting together a thousand piece puzzle blindfolded, using only your thumbs. It’s partially because he keeps interrupting himself with things like, “You guys ever do mushrooms?” He sees one of his friends. “Lulu! Hey, dude, oh come here, come here, you’re a drug addict. Look, they’re trying to talk to drug addicts...”  [more]
Montage of Heck
When Lisa and I asked Anna if she had wanted to be clean, she said, "Honestly, no. My attitude was, I'm young, I should be able to party." She loved the lifestyle: "the cars, the money, the people." In Hartford, Connecticut, she said, she'd cut the raw heroin and seal 2500 bags in a go. Sometimes, to fuck with people, she'd swap out the stamps she was using. They'd get the latest batch of the same dope and tell her last week's was better, or this week's was the shit. She said she was rolling with the Latin Kings... [more]
 


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Volume 4, Spring 2019 / Contributors
Jenna van de Ruit
Andrew Lohse