Skinny little Leroy knows things. He knows to avoid the boys on the playground and their menacing sports even as he knows they’ll find him anyway as they always do. He knows they’ll pursue him into the scrub trees behind the school where they’ll catch him in the deep shadows. He knows no one will come to his aid, no teacher, no playground monitor, no classmate. He knows this.
Leroy knows the ancient rhymes, too, knows the stones in his fist offer no more real protection than words save their small satisfactions. The words he’ll keep to himself, just as the boys will keep their own as they toe the voodoo line Leroy will draw in the dirt with his crazy eyes.
Crazy eyes, his uncle had once told him, doesn’t matter how big you or they are, if you’ve got the crazy eyes, they’ll think twice. But they don’t and they won’t and Leroy knows this. The boys will just pause there under cover of the trees, the musty dank of early September clinging to their skins. They’ll pause just for the toss, stand their distance just long enough to best weather Leroy’s little hail, their fists clenched, their faces pinched in malice, and then they’ll come on, just as Leroy knows they must.
Leroy knows he’s drawn blood on at least one when that boy drops to his knees clutching at his face. He knows in his heart, too, that others of them have received their bruises, small payments, but something. And he knows, just as they surely must, that what’s shortly in store for himself will be so much worse for his efforts. Still.
Even if there were some secondary advice, some caveat offered up by some other smarter uncle or maybe a burning bush or talking snake or fox in the wake of crazy eyes, how would Leroy ever hear the fable through the deadening storm thundering down upon him? Leroy knows to expect no such thing. Where would words like get and up and run fit in edgewise? Leroy knows they wouldn’t so he doesn’t bother.
In his smallest of molecules, Leroy knows things. He knows things in the electricity crawling under his skin, in the pooling sweat between the fibers of his torn t-shirt, in the shit in his jeans trickling down his leg into his sock. Leroy’s known things bleed out his nostrils and ears to scab amongst the gravel of the path. His known things swim with the dust motes behind his closed eyelids and roar with the blood racing adrenaline and pain through his veins. Leroy knows things. Things the boys will never know, Leroy does. He does. Leroy does.
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June 8 is M. Bartley Seigel Day!
Who is M. Bartley Seigel? He’s the founding editor of PANK. He is also the crazy, ambitious individual who thought hey, I’m going to start a mostly independent magazine at a technological university without a creative writing program and he put out the first two awesome issues (for sale here), largely by himself. Then he kicked up the crazy a little more and brought me on board. He never loses his cool with our undergrad interns. Even when they are extraordinarily undergrad-ish, he takes it all in stride. He doesn’t lose his cool with writers. He doesn’t lose his cool with printers. He is patient and zen. He is the voice of reason. All that calm aside, he has been known to rant in the classroom to great effect.
M. Bartley Seigel is very tall and more often than not, people will mention this very obvious fact upon first meeting him, as if perhaps he is not aware he is eleven feet tall. At AWP we heard two things frequently. 1. Wow, you are tall and 2. What is PANK? You can see him, with half of his legs cut off, because he’s that damn tall, here at DOGZPANK ’10 where he emceed like a rockstar . He lives on a farm with land and animals and fresh vegetables. He is very nice and funny. As you’ve seen from Leroy Knows Things, he can write fierce proses and poems. He does not go by M. Bartley.
How can you celebrate this excellent day? You can start by checking out some of his fantastic words online.
At Wheelhouse, check out this and that
Here’s a little something 13 Miles From Cleveland
This is what they say, they say
The Particulars reside at DOGZPLOT.
There are three poems at Lit Up
Check out his madness at DIAGRAM.
Also, he’s a handsome fellow so you can look upon his rugged visage.
Finally, know this:
M. Bartley Seigel is the founding editor of PANK Magazine. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Bateau, Lumberyard, Monkeybicycle, DIAGRAM, and many others. He teaches at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan