Great Writers - SL
S.P. Wilkins is a native of Corpus Christi. Over 80 of her creative non-fiction articles appeared in Metro Leader Newspaper and The Bend Magazine.
Read The Reviews
It’s not that the piano teacher is unqualified—bless her for still trying to play after losing that finger—but that she cares more about making money than teaching any discernible piano skills. Four weeks into our lessons and I still don’t know the difference between middle C and E-flat. Alright, that’s not entirely true. One’s a white key and the other is black.
Her teaching philosophy seems to be based on an amalgam of knowledge gleaned from Wikipedia and YouTube. She tried telling us—Oh, I’m sorry! I forgot to mention this is a group piano lesson. Forty-five minutes. Six students. No discount for siblings. See what I mean about money. And it’s not like I have a lot to spare. Do you have any idea how much it cost me to purchase Ludwig van Beethoven’s teeth?
Anyway, for our first lesson, she threw out words like re dièseand semitone and solfège, which I later learned are all from the first sentence of the Wikipedia description of D-sharp. Information useless to a beginner pianist and free for those with internet access. Prior to my awareness of her sources, though, she dazzled us with those fancy French-sounding terms and a brightly-colored, spiral-bound book, which she held out like a trophy to be admired. Written by none other than the piano teacher herself, she spent thirty of our forty-five minutes singing its praises. Well, not really singing. She’s a piano teacher, not a voice coach.
She rattled off a list of prior students who all achieved fame thanks to her book, and lamented the few who refused to let her help them ascend to greatness. Parents leaned in as she spoke, their expressions a mix of eagerness and greed.
The price of this holy grail of piano lessons? $49.99
Surely your child’s future is worth a mere $49.99?
Those hesitant with their credit cards were quickly shamed into making a purchase. The piano teacher was allegro with her implications—if you didn’t buy the book, you didn’t care about your child’s future.
As the only adult in this beginner piano class, I didn’t have to worry about my non-existent child’s fate. I left the lesson with my $49.99 (plus tax) intact, excited at the prospect of putting fingers to ivory the following week.
Lesson two wasn’t any more informative, although this time we were presented with a visual of a piano. A piano being played in a YouTube video. That’s right. I paid sixty dollars to watch YouTube in a stranger’s home. Why didn’t I leave? Well, it clearly states in the contract I signed that the piano lessons, which had to be paid in advance, are non-refundable. Plus, this was only lesson two. I still believed I would procure my musical education.
The piano teacher raved about the pianist’s technique, her praise a cadence as he concluded his performance. She claimed to have taught him herself. Her strategic placement in front of the video username seemed accidental. It wasn’t until after our third lesson, once I began my research, did I discover that the piano virtuoso not only did not have a connection to the piano teacher, but he was a child prodigy who had taught himself.
Lesson three began promising enough. There was an actual upright piano sitting in the middle of the room. It glowed with a promise. A promise of divine music. Electronic keyboards were stationed around it—three on each side. This was it, this was going to be the actual piano lesson.
We were instructed to select a keyboard. Giddy with excitement, I chose the one closest to me. It was positioned so it faced the keys of the upright piano—the piano from which I expected the piano teacher to elicit notes so beautiful we couldn’t help but be inspired.
The piano teacher walked around the room, confirming keyboards were switched on. Then, she took her position in front of her piano. She raised her hands, glanced first to her left and then her right, and slammed her fingers down onto the keys.
Cats in heat are more musical than the caterwauling that emanated from that tortured instrument.
As the wailing grew to crescendo, she bid the rest of us to join her.
Feel the music! Become one with the keys!
Five different electronic howls joined the fray. I reached to my ears to check for bleeding.
This wasn’t music. This was a violent assault on my auditory processes.
The piano teacher flung her head back and swayed as she surrendered to a melody only she could hear.
I glanced around the room, expecting to meet angry faces as parents realized they had been scammed.
To my surprise, every adult—save me—was grinning. I learned later that, in her $49.99 book, the piano teacher had promoted this lack of teaching as an actual technique! Well, I was not to be fooled. I decided to spend my time between this lesson and next investigating the proficiency of the piano teacher.
My hours of searching revealed a sordid tale of one star reviews and an F rating from the Better Business Bureau—not that she was a member. Had I been physically able to, I would have kicked myself. My eagerness to finally fulfill my life-long dream of learning to play the piano had deterred me from my usual tactic of researching before spending. Let my tale be a lesson for you—always read the reviews.
You know how lesson four went. This time we were to sit silently on the floor and stare at our keyboards. We had to absorb the musical energy harnessed in those circuits before we could truly begin to learn how to play. I had expected this, having followed the white rabbit down the internet hole to the piano teacher’s failings.
So, why did I go back? Why did I drive the thirty minutes to sit in a stuffy living room furnished with worn leather sectionals from the seventies and not learn how to play the piano? Well, Officer, love makes you do funny things, and I loved hearing her fortissimo scream as I sawed off her finger.
Stephen Gambill grew up in Abilene, but eventually found his way to Corpus Christi. He paints, writes, and makes sculpture out of raw and beautiful objects he finds on the street or in nature.
Just a Parable
God and Satan were sitting at a table,
having a glass of wine just before
the beginning of everything.
Satan, a certifiable devil’s advocate,
said, “Look, it’s a spectacular idea,
but you as the very God you say you are
should know it doesn’t stand a chance in hell
of actually working out.”
God sighed -- the desert winds were born --
smiled a smile
more infinitely mysterious than Mona Lisa’s,
and finally said
“Ok, then, do you worst, you will anyway.
You won’t - you can’t -
realize that your cosmic lack of understanding
is part of the unfolding of this whole living story
that will create and transform universes;
that even you, dear Dark One,
will be taken up into and transformed,
your burning, Lucifer,
become shining.”
Satan felt a spring of water rise
from the depths of his being
into his eyes,
but he rose and pushed the table over,
shattered his wine glass
on the mist that was
already turning into sacred boulders,
and stormed off cursing,
already plotting what he would do;
trying to blockade
the infinitely mysterious aching in his heart.
MOONLIGHT
Hope is like the moon,
floating as the earth floats
in the vast, living silence.
Sometimes the night
is so dark, so frigid,
you forget
there could be a moon.
Then disintegrating
in slow motion,
clouds unravel,
and moonlight appears
on the hard, cold earth.
It shrinks
over days to a pale
fingernail sliver in the sky,
then slowly regenerates
into a sonorous, radiant sphere.
The enduring silence of its light,
of its essential presence
bathing the night landscape,
or almost invisible
in the scoured dome
of the noonday sky,
speaks a wordless language
to the heart,
of bedrock sensed
beneath shifting dunes,
ballast in a ship’s dark hold
in a gale-force wind.
Hope is larger in you
than your manufactured self;
cannot be accessed by such
an unimaginative entity;
dwells beneath all circumstance.
Hope is the quiet, constant
commitment to be there,
like the bright moon in the dark sky,
the pale moon unnoticed in the day,
to receive light, to give it away.
Hope pulls on the tides of your blood,
secretly caresses your intuition,
your anxiety, your terror;
your deepest longing.
And in the presence of the small self’s
glacial, withering evidence against you,
hope still believes in the beauty
of the life that animates you.
Hope’s hidden presence, against all odds,
draws the “yes” from you -
prays “yes” -
As you gaze at moonlight
inhabiting the icicles
that hang from your shadowed eaves.
Stefan Sencerz teaches Philosophy at Texas A&M Corpus Christi.
A CHAMPIONSHIP BOUT IN CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
I live in Corpus Christi, Texas, a small city of ‘bout 350,000 people, on a good day. We are located right on the Gulf of Mexico, only a short 2-hour drive up to San Antonio, and another hour to Austin. That’s where we go for culture.
That is, unless something outstanding happens right here, at home. Like Carlos Santana, on his Corazón tour, a few years back. He brought a 12-piece band featuring both Cindy Blackman Santana and Paul Chambers on the kits, in addition to Santana drummers, and both David K. Mathews and Gregg Rolie on the keys. Gregg took a lead vocal on “The Black Magic Woman,” just like on the “Abraxas.” He also took numerous Hammond organ solos with David Matthews watching him closely from behind his shoulder, his jaw almost dropped on the floor.
That was great! But that’s a rarity.
So, a few months ago, I noticed a championship boxing bout coming to town, Luis Alberto Lopez was defending his IBF Featherweight World Title against Joet Gonzalez. So, I asked my girlfriend Margo whether she might be interested in something like that. And she was like, “Stef, I’m surprised you’d be interested in anything like that. I mean, people will be hitting each other’s heads.”
So, I said, “You know, it’s featherweight; not likely they will truly hurt each other. And it’s not like bullfighting. No one is forced to enter the ring. They walk into it with open eyes. Plus, I had never seen a boxing bout in person. It may be something to talk about with my granddaughters.”
So, she said, “Let’s go!” So, I spent a pretty penny on pretty good seats. And we went.
We arrived about an hour early, to be sure we wouldn’t miss anything and to watch the crowd and the whole pageantry. The bout started sharp on time and those pros knew exactly where they were, broadcasted on ESPN to a national audience.
My buddy, Swag, who told me a thing or two about boxing, thinks that the featherweights are some of the greatest warriors, ever. “Those dudes can throw hands and they are so damn tough for their weight, they just never run out of energy and throw a million punches and some sick combos,” he said.
Indeed, in the second round, they went at each other so hard that I started to doubt the bout would last the distance. But soon, it all became much more technical, with only occasionally one of them being in serious physical troubles. Sure, some serious punches were thrown and connected. But no one went down, not even once.
Sometimes there are some other fights, too; that is, people are fighting in the audience. But thank goodness, not this time. The worst was when a woman stopped by our seats. She was so drunk she wobbled all the time looking around in a futile attempt to locate her seats. I was pissed that she was obscuring our view but even more worried that she might lose her balance and roll downstairs hurting herself badly. So, I braced myself ready to jump to the rescue. And, indeed, when she started to turn around her knees buckled down and she started to fall. So, I grabbed her, and the guy sitting a row below, a big grizzly guy, grabbed her, too. And we led her all the way upstairs and a section over, where her seats were located.
Never seen anything like that at a basketball game. But there were many undercard bouts earlier in the afternoon. And, I guess, she started early, too.
Those undercard bouts, that is another story. Swag saw some truly shitty results; the stuff of nightmares. That’s why he and I never complain about the refs in basketball. Yeah, there were some infamous refs and results. But that’s nothing like some truly crooked stuff in boxing on the undercards when no one cares. And let’s leave it there.
The bout ended up with a unanimous decision on points. There were some other bouts to happen. But we looked at each other, nodded our heads, and said “Let’s go!” For we had a busy next day.
We hit the road to Austin at the crack of dawn, to see the iconic Ron Carter and his trio, and to add some balance to our lives. Ron is one of my favorite bass players, a staple of Miles' Second Quintet, with more than 2221 recorded dates to his credit. Many of them are right here, in my man’s cave. Performing with greats. I love Ron Carter.
I saw him many years back, at New York’s “Blue Note”, playing with Cedar Walton on piano and always smiling Billy Higgins on the drums. It was fabulous. This time he came with a different trio; just bass, piano, guitar, and no drums. So, with all his cute quotations from Duke, Miles, Trane, Wayne, and others it was all a bit one-sided. As Duke once said, “It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).”
Anyway, it was not nearly as good as the boxing bout. Pretty boring in fact!
Susan Daubenspeck has been writing poems since she was 15 years old. Poetry has been her lifeline. She retired a few years ago after 25 years as an Oncology nurse in Corpus Christi and in Houston.
Intruder
We were standing in my kitchen. My left arm was duct taped
To my side around my waist. He positioned my right hand on
The cutting board moving my other fingers and lightly tapping
Them away from my middle finger. My F-you finger, I thought.
He didn’t say anything or look at me so intent he was to get my
Hand just as he wanted. As he leaned over me I saw how precise
The part was in his hair. As if chiseled.
Then he took my largest knife out of the black knife block and
He held it up in the air. I remember hearing the living room clock
Click to another second. That knife down hard onto the cutting board
As he neatly severed my finger.
I heard myself scream but also heard a calm voice inside me
Telling me, “Right now was the time to act”. That I must grab
The knife he had just dropped onto the counter. And with
Everything in me pick it up and plunge it hard and deep into
His pimpled neck.
And so I did - with a strength and ease that surprised me. He
Staggered a little and started to bleed out like a full open hose.
He fell to the kitchen floor. I thought of stabbing him in the heart.
But by the look in his eyes I could see there was no need. Still,
I stood over him for what seemed hours, probably five minutes.
With another knife I managed to cut the tape from my left arm.
Then I grabbed a kitchen towel and held it tight to my hand.
I picked up my finger and put it in a bowl with ice.
He hadn’t moved. His eyes were glassy marbles. So I ran into
My room and grabbed my phone from its charger. I ran back to
The kitchen to make sure he was still dead. He was. And then
I dialed 9-1-1.
Now I look up at the detective standing over my hospital bed.
And I see wetness in her eyes. And maybe something else in her
Face. I think she is proud of me. Like she’s thinking,’ the old
Lady got the bad guy’. I know that I’ll go free and not be judged
In a court of law. I will judge myself though, over and over, wondering.
I look down the hospital hallway after the detective leaves. The world
Is not better than before, nor is it worse. It is, however, definitely different.
Country Roads
We take to our country roads
My kids and me
In a van
With our cat.
Past banks of civilization
Where hardtop pavement gives way
To diamond-cut gravel. And circles of sun pool like cool waters.
Here in a meadow we stop to smell
Dancing beads of Hawthorn and Lilac
Left behind by bees.
Earth warms under our feet.
Teacup red roses. Bark crusted browns.
Twining our path
Paper doll cuts of ivy.
We skip pebbles on creeks
My children and me
Moving in seeking that something
Elusive:
White picket fence
Flossy mill’s calling.
All distinct forms that pattern our lives
Come alive in this glowing.
We take to our country roads
My kids and me
In a van
With our cat.
The open road
That sits like a hat
At the top of that next
Foreign hill.
Nadia
On our second day in Egypt my daughter, Emily, and I visited Coptic Cairo, a few
streets of ancient Christian churches and upscale shops. It was early and shop-
keepers were just opening their doors.
One called out to us asking if we were Americans. When we said we were he asked me to write a letter in English to his Russian wife. She had given birth yesterday to their baby girl, his first child. I said that I would and we followed him into his shop. Polished, dark mahogany shelves held blue scarabs and gold King Tuts.
He sat us at a round table, placed pen and paper before me and while making us tea started dictating his letter.
“Thank you for having our daughter, Nadia, on April 2nd,” he said. He had me write of his love and longing to see them both. After the letter was finished he told us that in Egypt the days on which ones’ children are born are holy days. He had closed his shop yesterday which is also the custom. Emily and I were the first ones through his door since Nadia’s birth.
“It makes you special to me,” he said.
“Yesterday, April 2nd, was also my mom’s birthday,” Emily replied, pointing at me.
Well, you would have thought that the Nile, out of season, had spilt her life-affirming silt right there on his floor. He called out to other shopkeepers who hurried over then rushed out and back again with pastries and cakes. More tea was brewed. Some were “Ahhhing” and wailing that it was a sign from Allah. Never in my life had my birthday been such an event. After about an hour the party died down.
As we were leaving he gave both of us gifts of small perfume bottles. And even sold me a beautiful stone statue of a pharaoh’s cat. Wholesale. Now she sits on my mantle. I call her Nadia.
How Far Today
How far today
The surf, the sand?
Bathing suits of hot
Veiled cloth
Blistered by sun
Drop. And drop.
They drop like flesh
Into the sea and run together
Expectantly.
As night turns blue and
Old friends new
You claim the sun or else
The moon. “Will we live as
Pelicans soon, hearts torn open
To feed our young?”
How soon? How soon?
Two gulls dip low for
Pearls and weeds.
Sea level hearts tip black hearted
Seas.
Flamingos stand
One legged pink trees.
How soon indeed!
This flesh from you
To me...
Drops
Sydney Spangler studied English at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. She was the managing editor of the Windward Review.
Cole Park on the Weekend
When I was a child I would take a straw and blow air into my chocolate milk until the bubbles overflowed, making a mess of the table. I was six years old and sitting in the kitchen alone. My parents liked the phrase, “Children are not meant to be seen not heard”. They slept in separate bedrooms; I was faced with two doors instead of one. There was no open-door policy. I spent my time in books and television and toys. Looking back now, I was lucky to have parents who would buy dolls and stuffed animals for a little boy.
My favorite stuffed toy was a beanie baby named Trumpet. He was a Christmas gift from some aunt I never met. I received him in the second grade. At that time, I slept with my mother. She would scare me at night. Her eyes watching me in the dark, a protective gaze that felt predatory. I kept Trumpet by my side. At night, I would tuck him in; a silent “I love you” exchanged.
Comradery was not something my parents excelled at. My father’s interactions with me were minimal. My mother’s interactions were threatening.
My father worked nights. Sometimes, on a Saturday, he would take me to the park. I was always too scared to play with other children—afraid I would somehow disappoint at basic human interaction; afraid of their gaze as I struggled to connect. We would sit on a bench and watch the kiddos play tag. My dad, sitting next to me with a cap shielding his eyes from the sun, would tap me on the arm, “Tag. You’re it,” before getting up and faux running away. Eventually I would break away from my father and play with the other kids or find myself sitting in a wooden enclosure, like a hideout, where kids would graffiti on the wood. Phone numbers, stick figures, S luvs M. Bffs 4eva. Call me if you wanna have a good time. Hidden by wooden bars, I watched children live.
“Let’s go to the swings!” my dad would call out.
I didn’t like heights, but my dad would push me forward propelling me towards the sky. It was scary. I was frightened as my body approached the top, my little grubby hands gripping the chains like it was a matter of life or death, but I appreciated the view. The blue sky seemed limitless; my body—my small little child body—soared.
Shannon Dougherty has English and creative writing degrees from Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin.
Aquarium Alligator
Kept fed, the bull alligator
basks on the grass
by the pretend stream
like a child’s abecedarian picture book.
If not for his arrowhead teeth
and scimitar claws, his ocher stare,
he would be only beached driftwood,
one less fear in a fearful world.
The children peek through the picket fence
whispering in case the giant sleeps.
Are we the ones being watched?
Unblinking eyes give away nothing,
yet seem to measure our callousness,
how deep in fat our hearts are buried.
Tonight children will wake crying,
clutching plush replicas,
for in our imaginations he stays lean, awake,
keeping our senses sharp, in spite of this
carefully managed wildness.
Drought
Love, I have loved you before
and will again as barrels fill
in rainy seasons.
I have reservoirs for you,
aquifers, lakes
I thought would never run out.
But now I am down
to clear ripples over rocks.
Soon my face, reflected, will disappear.
I will not fear running dry. One good rain
is all we need, and then, shedding reflections over the rim,
love will be full again.
Heron
Dancer with a spear beak, the great blue
sidesteps, wary as the vanishing fish
it would be catching if we weren’t here
to photograph streaked clouds, lava glow,
the tide returning to the threatened dunes.
Inching forward, when will the ocean and city collide?
The wings unfold, and with a guttural call
the heron sails the disputed edge of sea and sand.
Before it settles the world separates
into them and us, winged and housed.
The heron flies over the rising waters, away from us—
our backs to the land, the future sea.