Dear Reader,

Welcome to Issue Ten.

During the months that followed the publication of our previous issue, StepAway Magazine collaborated with the Hearing the Voice research team at Durham University to launch a new project entitled Voicewalks.

StepAway‘s special Voicewalks issue will be published online and in print in October, and will be dedicated to the creative exploration of inner speech and voice hearing experiences within the context of walking in the city.

We have worked closely with the team at New Writing North to commission a keynote piece which will be written by one of my favourite authors, Iain Sinclair. We are currently seeking poetry, prose and non-fiction to accompany this piece. Please feel free to examine our submission criteria and send us your work. The submission deadline for Voicewalks is August 1st.

We will launch our special issue at the Durham Book Festival where all authors included in the issue will have the option of reading their work.

Voicewalks provides us with an opportunity to challenge the itinerary of the classic literary flâneur. It is a way of examining and recording our inner and outer worlds when moving through urban space, and the manner in which those worlds collide. By reconfiguring the ludic act of flânerie, our aim is to better understand the deeply personal and private experience of voice hearing and inner speech whilst in public.

The October launch of Voicewalks will replace our autumn edition. Issue eleven of StepAway will be published on December 21st 2013.

Turning our attention back to this, our tenth issue, we have yet another engaging lineup of writers to offer.

Our cover art is courtesy of Brooklyn based artist Rebecca Riley. Rebecca paints in oil and acrylic on canvas and is interested in systematic process and growth. Her recent work uses maps as a structure from which to build patterns. Her art represents the city as a living organism with all of its directed and misdirected growth. The piece which Rebecca kindly donated for our cover is entitled: “New York Metro”. Her portfolio can be viewed here.

Issue Ten opens with “Chinatown” by Elvis Alves, a sensory exploration of one of the city’s key enclaves. Elvis, a past contributor to StepAway Magazine has recently published an outstanding collection of poetry entitled Bitter Melon.

Next up is Barbara Julian’s “Coastal City Night Walk” where some unexpected  visitors appear in the nocturnal urban forest.

“Compressed Sensations in Upper Manhattan” follows – a sharp snapshot of New York street life by Pippa Anais Gaubert.

Trina Gaynon’s “Crowd as Reservoir” is an airy San Francisco based wander, while Robert Boucheron’s “Acheron” is one man’s walk toward an inevitable fate.

“Predatory Nature” is Jon Barrows’s take on the intense pace of Washington DC traffic and “Still Life with Stars” by Jonathan Stone captures the stillness of abandoned Pacific Rail Road cars.

Sno Flo’s “Oldest Hipster on the Block” recalls one vibrant moment on a street corner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, while Maureen Oliphant’s “A Resident Writer in every Irish Georgian B&B” whisks us away to the streets of Cork on September 11^th 2001.

The issue closes with Deborah Kelly’s “Soles”, a profound meditation on walking.

I hope that you enjoy our tenth issue, and I look forward to catching up with you all in October with the publication of our Voicewalks project.

Yours faithfully,

Darren Richard Carlaw

editor@stepawaymagazine.com

Roasted ducks, chickens, and pigs—with
life drawn from them—hang headless
on racks across broad windowpanes

Before mounting steps to restaurant
hidden between office buildings like
precious flower in a forest of tall trees,

my mind traces red and gold characters
above the door, wondering what secrets
they hold; the proprietor announcing
what he was able to accomplish—call his own—in
a land far from his birth

Inside, a woman serves Dim Sum. She and I do not
speak the same language and so I blindly point
at the carted food, hoping to select fish or shrimp dumplings,
and bypass what I suspect was taken from the
animals on display at the window

I dismount steps to find vendor hovering over fruits
Papaya he announces, the chilled air carrying the echo
of his thick accent, keeping it alive beyond my ears

Star fruits call my love’s name
On the return home, I hand them to her as if a bouquet of flowers,
“from Chinatown”

Elvis Alves

Yet there is another “night life,” also full of sex and death, and drama in the drains, tree tops, eaves and soil. The urban naturalist too knows how to see and not be seen, and to see yet be seen not to be looking too hard or stalking too close. Whether insomniac or simply connoisseurs of the small hours, these people know where to find entertainment at night, and the further they get from the bright downtown lights the more they find. Once the neighbourhoods have settled under a blanket of darkness, windows curtained and stop lights switching meticulously back and forth for no traffic … then, the night creatures emerge, sly, wary, urban and biodiverse. Once the dumpsters are filled and the alleys emptied, then the coyotes come out, the cats, rats and the whole ancient line-up of predator and prey, carrying on the same as nature ever did, right at the city core.

Slipping down the alleys, over a fence or two behind the townhouses, the urban nightwalker finds a solitude blessed but vibrating, and whole streets to walk down the middle of, traffic-free. All it takes is a healthy urban forest: in well-treed areas a blur might swoop down — an owl out hunting. Bushes rustle in a way they never do during the day, and if it has rained the worms are audibly and liquidly writhing in the soil while snails parade along walkways and iron railings. The raccoons come to prise delicately their tasty bodies from their shells, after washing them carefully in dog bowls glinting softly in the moonlight.

It is not only the storied owl and pussycat who “danced by the light of the moon.” Whatever the downtown nightclubs are doing the raccoons are having a rave, and more often than not,  those urban newcomers, the deer, emerge to visit the window box salad bars and tomato vines which they fear to patronise during the glare of daylight and human attention. The human nightwalker enjoys a freedom, a relaxation of tension in streets, parks and gardens. Down near the harbour a few bats flit, adding a frisson of archetypal fear. Offshore mists arrive and linger; no wonder folks in earlier times saw ghosts here. Every town has a jilted bride or a cheated bankrupt who haunts the old cul-de-sacs, unable to rest in graves now paved over by the cityscape.

The thoughtful walker keeps a few cat kibbles in a pocket for the street cats. The well-housed cats too stalk by, brushing the legs of passers-by in comradeship. There is an occasional bark in the distance, sleepy dogs making a token guard-dog statement: I’m here, I know you’re there. Bottles clink as a binner works late, checking the dumpsters before curling up under a friendly tree, his bike close by. Two lovers, drunkenly determined, emerge from a closing bar and find shadows, unaware of how populated they are. Coyote doesn’t miss a thing.

The trees come into their own, grand sentinels and solid citizens, the real city fathers and mothers, swaying imperiously in wind or casting shadows in moonlight, housing insects and sheltering the birds who keep so quiet and hidden that the night walker forgets they pecked up crumbs around the patios just hours ago. Passing a garden pond the walker hears the discreet plop of a duck, but where do the hummingbirds and robins hide to rest? Night secrets are like night scents, creating a map of meaning for urban animals, but a closed book to the merely human.

When the sky lightens and darkness seeps away the sounds change. The dawn chorus starts as a tentative tune-up that becomes a confident choir. Gulls begin their heralding shrieks, and now the walker is joined by a sharp-eyed crow checking from rooftops for what the night tides, breezes and litterers have washed up. The shift is changing, day creatures emerging as doors slam and engines rev up. Time for the walker like the raccoons to slip off the scene. But not alone: an escort of deer forms in the early light, delicately picking their way around this tree on the corner, slipping down that lane to the left. This is their special time, when fawns play, the unpredictable human crowd not yet swarming the streets. The first rays of sunlight illuminate sudden colour on dropped coins, pizza cartons, furry coats. Night walker and deer head for day lairs.

Barbara Julian

I shift my weight from foot to foot. Come on, come on, let’s cross already. When I’m impatient I have a New York accent inside my head.  The most determined road crossers already stand halfway across the road, forcing the cars to drive around them. A yellow cab driver leans out of his cab. He yells, “Get out of the road!” No one pays attention to him. He honks his horn furiously. The sound travels slowly through the compressed air.

Finally, the lights change and the crowd crosses. The child drops her ice cream; it is lost underneath the rush of feet. She starts to cry, a high whine; her mother cuffs her, gently and without any passion, on the ear. I observe the mother’s enormous, split fruit bottom as she crosses in front of me, voluptuous russet flesh bursting from spandex clothing, her leggings so thin and tight that I can make out the dimples in her thighs.

A teenage girl stands on the corner outside the Chinese, surrounded by a group of tall boys in large, loose jeans. She is showing off her newly pierced belly-button. She talks in a loud, shrill voice. “So he got a needle and stuck it right in, yeah … ” I see the gleam of a gold tooth in the mouth of one of the boys.  The greasy smell of Chinese food hangs in the air.

I continue.  A woman with full dark hair is walking towards me, she stands head and shoulders above most of those around her, her pale face in contrast to the dark complexions on this street. She holds her nose up slightly, as though she were too proud to look down at the ground, her dark eyes fixed on a distant point ahead of her. Her dog walks beside her, his handsome face held equally high.  The child who lost her ice-cream sees the dog too. “Doggy!” says the child, no longer crying, waving her chubby arms at the dog, her tiny gold bangle flashing in the sun.

A door opens as I walk past a building, an orthodox Jewish couple come out. For a moment, I can hear the piped music playing in the lobby inside, the super’s attempt to recreate a high-class hotel atmosphere. The smell of home-cooked dinners wafts out from a basement; garlic, cumin, chile, boiled meat.

Bennett Park is full of children, running, screaming, crowding around the ice cream seller with his small metal cart. Mothers stand in groups in the shade, wiping their brows, one eye always on their child. Dogs sit at their owner’s feet, too hot to play or run. A Buddhist monk in saffron robes stands, gazing at a pigeon pecking near his feet.  His presence in the park seems natural, as though he has always stood there. All around the edges of the park elderly people, wearing subdued grey clothing and comfortable shoes, sit in rows on the benches, murmuring to each other in Eastern European languages.  An elderly lady I recognize from my building looks up momentarily as I walk past her and nods at me almost imperceptibly.

I continue up Fort Washington Avenue. A group of neighborhood boys have opened up a fire hydrant. The water rushes gladly upwards and washes down the dirty concrete all around, filling up the gutter, drowning the wheels of the parked cars; the spray mingles with the sunlight and throws rainbows up into the air.  The boys stand as though poised to run, bouncing their weight from foot to foot. They run in and out of the spray, frolicking in nothing but baggy shorts and glistening seal-pup skins. I can feel the cool mist on my face as I walk past.

I turn down West 190th Street and I pause for a moment and close my eyes. I imagine myself sitting down on a stoop amongst the pigeon droppings, the stone hot against the back of my thighs. I still remember the sound of the honking horn and the yelling of the cabbie. I open my eyes again; the sunlight glints on some metal trash cans; a pigeon feather floats down slowly through the air and lands near my feet.

The homeless man I’d seen earlier with the blanket across his shoulders is now standing in the middle of the road on Overlook Terrace. He stares intently upwards, his face with an expression of wonder.  As though he can see something truly astonishing up there, high above the buildings, beyond the empty blue sky.

Pippa Anais Gaubert

wandering on foot in San Francisco,
            along Market and Powell,
      clang of cable cars against gray air,

where weekend shoppers gaze into windows-
at mannequins in swimsuits and linen, then drift
      into doorways to browse, to buy, to seek a meal,

brushing past a dred-locked pan-handler propped
against a marble facade, his Australian cattle dog
      dozing on a striped serape;

      my feet carry me through a café patio-
a maze of Oxfords, tennis shoes, Manolos,
      and wire chair-legs, testing my ability

to clamber over obstacles just as their waiters
      do, balancing trays with wine glasses full
and plates exuding the scent of egg, tomato, melted cheese;

on to the dining room with tapestried walls
and a high plaster ceiling, chandeliers hanging from medallions,
      the wood on the bar the only reflective surface,

      the chatter of suburban housewives,
with their trademarked bags of treasure,
      surpassed by the clatter of plates and silver,

while waiters dressed in black and white
      move on silent crepe soles
between kitchen, bar, and white-clothed tables;

      then down a hallway I travel-
always out of reach, watchful against collisions,
wary of the racks of gleaming silver and copper,

      among staff in white from head to foot-
towards the faded light, clamor, and steam-filled air
of the kitchen- its blank back wall a dead end.

Out on the sidewalk, I prefer not to ask for directions,
      but overhear a woman pointing out
a street sign and read the name Rose;

      With a number in the 20′s on a curbstone,
the numbers must go up, so I begin to climb,
      the way narrowing, lined with stairs,

parks green between the high-rises, a musical
      soiree glittering out of one,
and though I’ve probably missed the curtain

at my play, pass this by, behind it’s iron-railed fence,
where numbers abruptly drop down
      to the hundreds, where I’m surrounded

by condominiums under construction,
some no more that frames, some stuccoed
      and painted in bright Italian shades,

      roadways and driveways in suspense,
a steam roller idle here, a cement
                  mixer stilled there;

it dawns on me that I am heated with exertion,
      held down by a weight resembling
an oversized comforter, suffering from something like jet lag.

Trina Gaynon

The town itself was modest, a cluster of brick and frame dwellings of the 1800s. Located in a hollow, on a railroad line that was no longer active, it had the usual complement of churches, shops, a public school, and a town hall. Located at the center, where two main streets crossed, the town hall boasted a mansard roof and a clock tower. The clock tower rose above the trees and the mass of low buildings. Residents used it as a point of reference.

As he walked, Arthur kept the clock tower in view, though he was unlikely to get lost in the town where he was born. He generally walked for exercise, but this afternoon, he dawdled. His gaze wandered left and right. It was early spring, still rather bleak, but mild. Buds swelled on trees. Cold weather had delayed them. Slanting rays of the sun lit the quiet streets.

He stopped to examine a flowering shrub that overhung a picket fence, as though eager to escape. The yard was unkempt, in a town that was proud of its gardens. How could such a thing happen? Who lived in this house? He knew many neighbors, but not all. In retirement, he was losing track of changes in the population.

This house must have a tenant, someone who did not care for the place. An inflated ball and a broken toy lay on the weedy lawn. Rolled newspapers littered the porch. Maybe no one lived here at present.

Arthur moved on. It was an effort to put one foot in front of the other. The air was warm and thick with vapor. He had not been outside all day, not even for his morning jaunt to the post office. Yet the day had passed in idleness—light housekeeping, some reading, an hour at his desk paying bills, a letter to a relative. What had he done to get worn out?

A single man with many friends and few responsibilities, he ought to enjoy this stage of life, a seemingly endless stretch of leisure. But contentment was elusive. He pressed himself to walk faster. Chin up and eyes peeled! At any moment, a friend or stranger was likely to cross his path. He would need to say something cheerful, a word of greeting. But today the town was deserted. Was it a holiday? Had everyone left for vacation? Arthur looked straight ahead and spurred his flank. But his feet dragged.

Coming to an alley, he stopped to peer down its length. A creature of habit, he seldom walked in this part of town, which was frankly lower on the social scale. It bordered the railroad track—that was the trouble. He had no memory of this alley. The sun trembled on the horizon. The alley was in shade. Lined by sheds and fences, it looked dull. Things of interest might appear—an old wagon, a gnarled tree, a forgotten bicycle reduced to a sketch of lines and circles.

Arthur strolled down the middle, over gravel and grass. The alley yielded no surprise. It was long—he could not see the end—and getting dark. He tried not to scuff his shoes. He hoped that he would not step in a puddle. Not a living creature met his eye, not so much as a sparrow. Then a small shape shifted. A cat crouched a few feet ahead.

Cats lurked all over town. Some allowed him to pet them, some rolled at his feet, and some fled. This one stared coldly. Whoever said that cats were curious? Another step, and the cat disappeared, perhaps through a hole in a fence.

Dusk came on. Was it so late? Arthur looked all around. Where was the clock tower? How long had he been walking? He had left his watch at home. Was this a blind alley? Should he turn around? That would be an admission of defeat, somehow. Despite fatigue, he pressed on.

At last, Arthur saw that the alley ended at a building with a passage through its ground floor. It was now night. At the far end of the unlit passage was a gate, with open space visible through the bars. Should he enter? What if the gate was locked? He was too tired to retrace his steps. Go forward and hope for the best.

The passage was empty. Beyond the gate was a street. He grasped the gate and pulled. In the hollow space of the vaulted passage, the rusty hinges groaned. The sound startled him. It was almost a voice. It sounded like the drawn-out syllable “woe.” He stepped through the arch, and the gate clicked shut. On impulse, he tried it. Locked.

The street was built up on one side. The other was open to the railroad. Arthur had not been here for years. It was dusty and littered. Shops were closed or boarded up. He wanted to sit, but where? A short distance away stood the station, abandoned. A light burned inside, the only light visible in this gloomy wasteland. He trudged toward it.

A low rumble gradually increased. The earth shook. The rumble grew to a roar, until it was unmistakable. A train! Arthur reached the platform as the train arrived. In a stupor of exhaustion, he watched it slow. It looked antique, an excursion train for sightseeing. It screeched to a stop, a door opened, and a stair dropped at his feet. Where was the conductor? The side of the coach bore a name: “Acheron.”

Was that the destination? Arthur grasped the metal railing and climbed aboard.

Robert Boucheron

When I was in kindergarten, sharks fascinated me—
I drew pictures of them all the time; something about their
rows of teeth and predatory nature captivated me
the same way bikers in DC do.

Traffic moving like schools of fish, some bikers behave
like sharks, weaving through traffic, the primal pull
of blood and iron seeking the spaces between automobiles.
Drawn by the scent of danger, approaching red lights

like suggestions, banking left into the cross-walk,
swerving into the flow of cars, searching
for an opening to strike across on-coming traffic,
one fluid, graceful, never stopping,

lethal ride. These bikers pretend at being sharks—
having to stay in motion to stay alive—pushing adrenaline
as though oxygen through gills, but these bikers lack
the requisite rows and rows of teeth to be a threat;

As I pedal alongside the real predators: sleek, powerful,
unpredictable bodies of steel and glass and fire,
Queen cycles in my head, and I find myself stopping
when suggested, singing to the pretenders, under my breath:

Jon Barrows

I want to photograph the old Pacific Rail Road cars
as they sit on dead tracks. I wish to document
things made by men who are dead, and messages

by those (maybe) still living. I approach. A man sleeping
beneath the orange car stirs. I back away and climb the stairs
of the forgotten caboose, rotting in the night.

My flash illuminates the graffiti, the vandalism,
but the moon casts a much brighter light.
I feel like my photos are some kind of lie:

they capture only one moment,
but never the passing of time.

Jonathan Stone

Muddling down Bedford with my dull headache and bag of groceries, past the ‘Endless Summer’ burrito wagon and the pop-up flower shop, I suddenly see him: the oldest hipster on the block, dancing to his Doo-Wop.

He must be seventy if a he’s a day. He’s parked his car on the corner of Metropolitan, under the tree by the zebra crossing, its door wide open to the pavement. It’s not a Chrysler, or a Cadillac, just a small, nondescript run-a-round; but the balmy-breezy melodies pulsing from its belly are flooding the crossroads with an old-time magic.

I might not have even noticed him amongst the weird and wonderful of Williamsburg – he’s just an ordinary old man in a grey wool jumper and slacks; but he’s right there, in the middle of the pavement, doing a shuffle-dance, putting the po-faced youngsters to shame.

What? Why? you think as you reach the crossing, resisting the urge to bop.

Next to the car is a chair – the kind you’d find round a swimming pool, where you could sit and drink a pina colada or two. It’s a bit worse for wear – too many days in the sun, perhaps.  But for now it’s not needed; the man smiles as he dances away, pack of cigarettes in palm, while the people and cars roll by.

A yellow traffic light sways gently in the blue. You wait for it to turn.

Wahh-wah-wah oh ah…

You walk past another old gent, crossing the other way. His hair is balding on top but thick at the back, oiled into crisp, silver waves. He wah-wahs along to the doo-wop and for a second you are transfixed by the dark, gummy hole of his mouth. You could swear that its pair of remaining eye-teeth just winked right at you.  He must have been a ladykiller in his day. Could be still. Reaching the other side of the road you glance back and see the two men have stopped to talk. About what, you can’t tell.

I walk home with a spring in my step, swinging my groceries as I go.

Sno Flo

I landed in Cork on the 11 September, a now significant date. Rather like the assassination of President Kennedy each one of us will remember where we were when we first realised the enormity of the event. I was walking around a department store and happened on a bank of television screens all showing, what appeared to be, an American film. That is when I came to realise the full of horror of the day. People stood in shocked silence. An American film. Only they hadn’t written the script for this one.

The Irish, like the rest of the world, were horrified at the extent of the loss of innocent lives and the unprecedented means of perpetrating such an act. Ireland has a very special relationship with the US stretching back to the famines of the mid 1840′s when those who could afford the fare took sail for America and those who couldn’t, and who had become a drain on the landlords, were often sponsored on what became known as ‘coffin ships’. Leaky, overcrowded vessels with insufficient food and water set sail. People lived in cramped quarters and disease was rife. Only the hardy made it to their destination. The Irish have been exporting their sons and daughters ever since and it’s unusual to meet anyone in Ireland without a connection to the US.

Friday 14th was designated a national day of mourning in Ireland and shops, schools, colleges, offices and restaurants closed for the day. Even the pubs closed, surely a remarkable happening, the landlords having taken a vote on it the previous day. Only the emergency services stayed on duty. The bus and trains ran a Sunday service. Handwritten and typed notices sprang up on doors and windows throughout the city telling of their solidarity with their friends in the US and explaining that due to the tragedy they would be closing all day on Friday as a mark of respect.

Throughout the week, huge television screens in all the bars had relayed the same horrific pictures over and over again. An Irish family were interviewed about the death of their sister and young niece aboard one of the suicide planes. Their dignity was overwhelming as they pleaded for ‘no revenge’. They expressed in strong terms that they didn’t want any more innocent people killed. Newspapers were filled from beginning to end with heartbreaking tales of families split apart, of not knowing who was dead or alive, whether any further rescues were imminent. We heard of last-minute messages of love and farewell. Instead of the usual, banal mobile ‘phone messages we all overhear to our exasperation on trains and in the street, ‘I’m at so-and-so and I’ll be home in half-an-hour’, these chilling messages told loved ones that they wouldn’t ever be going home again.

Just before 11 o’ clock, I walked up to St Finbar’s Cathedral to a remembrance service and was already too late to get inside. I joined the huge crowd standing outside. During the three-minute silence I heard only two sounds from the vast crowd; one little girl near me hiccoughed and a child’s voice called, ‘Daddy’. Queues, waiting to sign books of remembrance, formed throughout the city.

I took a train out to Cobh harbour, best known for being the last port of call of the Titanic on its final, tragic sailing. There’s a beautiful bronze statue of Annie Moor and her brother Anthony pointing out to sea with the inscription, ‘First through the new immigration Centre, Ellis Ireland, 20th December 1891. Someone had placed a bouquet of flowers in Annie’s arms with a message attached, ‘For all that lost their lives in NY and Washington. Thinking of you all’. A simple gesture, moving and poignant.

The hedges were heavy with honeysuckle and fuchsia as the bus trundled out to Kinsale; a beautiful day of blue skies and sunshine. The old town with its brightly coloured houses and shops was busy, filled with people who had unexpectedly found themselves with a day’s ‘holiday’. In the market place, a priest conducted an impromptu, open-air service accompanied by a group of sweet singers and a nun, playing guitar. It seemed fitting that the priest included thoughts of Omagh in his service and prayers. Back at the harbour, a shoal of tiny fish moving like a giant curtain across the surface of the water were suddenly invaded by a shoal of mackerel flashing through the water.

Maureen Oliphant