The Spoon River Metblog

The Spoon River Metblog A group blog adaptation of “Spoon River Anthology” by Edgar Lee Masters Written by Jay Bushman Produced by The Loose-Fish Project: Adapting classic texts to the web Originally published in 2008 http://spoonriver.metblogs.com

The Source: Spoon River Anthology When they first appeared serially in the magazine Reedy’s Mirror in 1915, the 244 poems that make up Spoon River Anthology were a scandal and a sensation. A poet named Webster Ford, visiting the cemetery in his fictional hometown of Spoon River, Illinois, hears the testimony of the local dead. Each individual poem is one person’s epitaph. Some of them have attained wisdom in their passing. Some cling to the grudges of their living days. Some cry for justice. Some ask for forgiveness. Many relate their part in the culture war between liberals and conservatives that split their town in two. Most, but not all, are unquiet. Each individual testimony reveals more detail about the larger stories occurring in the town, with people augmenting or contradicting their neighbors. Masters used plain and blunt language to describe their inner, secret lives, touching on topics such as abortion, murder, infidelity and atheism, and ripping the veneer off the image of idyllic small town life. When the poems were assembled, augmented and reordered in book form in 1916, it became the second best-selling volume of American poetry of all-time. Today it is a standard text in many high school English classes and acting schools, and stage adaptations are regularly performed.

244 Voices From The Grave “The Spoon River Metblog” updates this complex narrative while returning to the original serial form of distribution. In this version, the town is a different Spoon River, a microcosm of a shrinking America. Here too, a culture war raged, secrets were kept, people loved and betrayed and murdered. We hear 244 of the departed bear witness to the meaning, or lack of meaning, of their lives. Our guide here is not a poet; instead, a writer named George Dillon Davidson records the epitaphs of the dead in a kind of syllabic prose. The story is told in the form of a Metblog. Metrobloggingis a worldwide network of city- specific blogs, where groups of authors write stories about life in their city from a personal, hyper-local perspective. Bode Media, the publishers of Metroblogging, built a fictional Metblog site for Spoon River at http://spoonriver.metblogs.com. The epitaphs as relayed by Davidson are published as individual blog posts. And there is a hidden code which leads the reader to uncover even more of the town’s secrets… Meet the people of Spoon River

1. I, Metadata The might remain to tell your stories holographic memory stores or en- damn your enemies. To confess un- ciphered throughout our brains; our We, love of your family or warn our of Us, our I; the thing we whisper night- those fatal mistakes. To pronounce time pleas and stories to. The hub wise edicts and foolish rules. And some of nights, feeling and of knowing and of there’d be me there, listening for you. self. You could have (sort of) eternal Spoon River’s legacy is here, life, in let it be imaged in software xerox-constructed epitaphs and built into your grave site. You’d be by George Dillon Davidson long expired, but your encoded Soul http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/05/29/i-metadata

2. Lukasz Harding I’m buried right next to Jim Waring, the stockbroker. later they gave me a I remember he made lethal injection. Now I a mint in the dot com boom, lie next to Jim. Seems our went bankrupt, and somehow two roads led to the same place. ended up even richer than before, while I lost everything I had and more. Seeing how the wealthy just took what they felt they could get away with, I went and robbed a mini-mart store and accidentally shot the clerk at the counter. He was an immigrant, a father of four and I killed him. I plead guilty and got death row, where five years http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/05/29/lukasz-harding

3. Marion Rankin-Dyer My husband was a cruel man. He never laid a finger on me, but there was no love in his eyes no matter what he said. I knew. Years went by quietly. He wore me down, and my spirit smothered until the face in my mirror looked at me with the same contempt. I withered and died. But I am content, because now it haunts him, that awful face. He knows what he did to me. That is my revenge. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/05/29/marion-rankin-dyer

4. Nathan Rankin-Dyer She’s always there, watching me. Before, beautiful and young, later drained, accusatory. Now, from behind my own eyes. What did I do to deserve this end? Who am I fooling? I know what I did. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/05/29/nathan-rankin-dyer

5. Ira Hernandez I spent years in the garage, trying to make my vision real. Dreaming of the systems, the software, the networks, code I could recite like poetry. Then one day, it all came together as I planned and I saw myself standing in the company of all the famous garage geniuses, and in excitement I tripped over a power cord and dashed my brains all over the floor of the garage. I thought work was supposed to be its own reward. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/05/29/ira-hernandez

6. Evan Loy They called me good. No one knew. They called me nice. No one knew. They called me a gentleman, always with a kind word or gesture. So they never knew, the fools. And they never will. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/02/evan-loy

7. Fat Tina Ugly me, I never had anyone who saw what I could feel on the inside. They just pointed and gave me a name that I would never lose. They say that all people are beautiful in some way but nobody ever found mine. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/02/fat-tina

8. Suze Mueller I got pregnant But he knows, and I know that my second year of college he killed me as and Michael said sure as if he’d cut my throat. we should have the baby. And when I told him about the sad history of the women in my family, that I was terrified, he would not listen to me. I relented, carried to term and died while giving birth to a baby girl. And now he raises her and they all say how he’s selfless, honorable, and that the whole story is a tragedy http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/02/suze-mueller

9. Tammy Wilkes I lost my sister to drugs, and took in her two daughters to raise. Mya and Janice grew to hate me, but I don’t blame them and neither should you. I was too hard on them, thinking that discipline would save them from their mother’s fate. But all I did was drive them back to the street. I was supposed to keep them safe but I failed. May God forgive me. I swear I tried my best. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/02/tammy-wilkes

10. Mike Ely I was shot dead that the deal for the five was illegal bucks of crack I’d somehow. It just bought. They was a giant buried me, an scandal and indigent, they were forced to in Potter’s Field. pay to move That was fine. all the corpses It was just what to new graves I had earned. Which is how I But then they sold ended up the graveyard here, in the same to a bigshot ground where they real estate put that banker developer and his wife, to build a you know, the ones big shopping mall. that always It came out were on TV. in the papers http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/02/mike-ely

11. Judge AbnerGoldhamer It’s just not fair, is it? A respected Judge, pillar of the community, friend to all the right people, a man who spent his lifetime upholding the law, seeing wrong punished, virtue rewarded. So why am I buried here with no marker of all my great accomplishments while that drug addict Michael Ely gets a headstone of Italian marble? There is no justice in Spoon River. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/06/judge-abner-goldhamer

12. Eleanor Stargall Do you remember when the kids off to die, but you were Republicans paid Mike Ely too busy waving flags to hear. to gather up street people My gift to you Spoon River. and go around town disrupting Democratic polling sites Have your fucking war. Choke on as a part of their dirty tricks it. campaign to buy another term for our Mayor Garrity? What you won’t remember is when I packed it in after years fighting them on behalf of a “public interest” most of the public had no interest in protecting. So I took the bribe they offered me and shut up while they elected that moron Robin Parker to Congress. I could have warned you he’d send our http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/06/eleanor-stargall

13. Kyle Kerns Give this message dear Mayor Judy to our esteemed town Garrity, the leaders who have avatar of our survived me. Titans morality. of Spoon River: The righteous ones whom Christian Deegan, and I spent my life his gross fortune, opposing in and corrupting all that out of court and it touched. The right who have all outlived Reverend Sheaffer me. Tell them not preaching decades to worry. I got worth of bile with here first, and I’m impunity. building a brand new Don Howard, with his Circle of Hell television just for them. Tell them station pumping lies I’m waiting and and circuses I will see them soon. around the clock. And don’t forget our http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/06/kyle-kerns

14. Benjamin Ridley I was a happy kid who grew to be a happy man, a lawyer, a community voice, I was friends with men and women of all persuasions. And then I met her. We were married, and things changed. My friends said she made me ashamed, timid, and my standing became diminished. We argued for years, decades. She always won. By the time I left, I had nowhere to go, nobody who would give me refuge. So I lived out my days sleeping on the short couch in my tiny office. At least I could Smoke there without hearing Her tell me what I was doing Wrong. At least I had that. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/06/benjamin-ridley

15. Tysha Ridley-Sampson I fell in love with him because of how his smoky breath excited me. But when I had to live with it every day, a constant reminder of how his values were opposed to mine, I could not forget it. I could not let it go. That scent never lost its power, even after I drove him away. How can love and disgust be able to live together in peace? http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/06/tysha-ridley-sampson

16. Micah Ridley It took me years to years after I thought see that all I became of it as a silly was made possible juvenile crush. It because of Miss Travis. was twenty years before I was headed to I saw that I was jail or worse. I was bent measuring all of my on destroying my lovers against the self, since destruction was template of you. I wish all I had learned to I could have told you, do. But Miss Travis was consequences be damned. the only one in all of godforsaken Spoon River who gave me reason to believe I had a future. Miss Travis, I never told you how much I was in love with you. For http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/micah-ridley

17. Genevieve Travis I taught hundreds of students, thousands. I only ever loved one, dear Micah. I was so proud when you escaped this town and made a life for yourself in the world. Even if I dreamed you might come back someday and pined for it, I’m glad you never did. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/genevieve-travis

18. Santiago Rufino, Pharm.D. You have to know which drugs can be taken with what other drugs and which can’t, if you want to own a pharmacy like I did. Too bad there’s no equivalent science for mixing personalities. Two people who are whole on their own can form less than the sum of their parts when mixed. The Ridley-Sampsons there are a good example. Fine as individuals but disastrous when blended and resulting in a toxic reaction like their son. Even an expert can be surprised sometimes, like when my wife poisoned me to death with chemicals that she pilfered from my own store. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/santiago-rufino-pharmd

19. Daisey Kane For a while there I was was paid for with public menace money that came from “fees” number one. The symbol and “taxes” and of all that was “punitive judgments” on wrong in Spoon River. Just what they called vice. get rid of me How much money from my and all would be perfect pocket paid for and pure. Except the schools, the streets, the cops, how much of Don Howard’s the services kickbacks found their that made Spoon River run? way to the town coffers? Do you wonder Or the windfall why they never shut me in stock Judge Fairlawn cashed down completely? in after he If they had tried, the town ruled in the favor of would have fallen Deegan Partners? apart, along with their And didn’t Reverend moral veneer. Sheaffer live in a mansion while most of his flock was poor? http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/daisey-kane And how much of the town

20. Benjamin Ridley Kane I could always see all the people behind the people, the ghosts trailing mutely behind them, unable to give warnings or laugh at mistakes. Nobody else could, but me. And I would try speaking to them, to decipher http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/benjamin-ridley-kane

21. Efa Underwood I wrote my many injustices that came next. little stories, and folks rolled their eyes. I had no “Who’s ever family to support me, mother gonna read these?” “Nothing happens.” “I long vanished, don’t get it.” father too mired in old ways to I was keener on divining things even speak unspoken about it, and no money for an between people who are all alone, abortion than simple I begged Doctor Golden for help. He turning of a story’s mechanics. delivered me into the world, and I pleaded The best place with him to to observe the animals at play deliver me again. He agreed was always to help me. the bar at the Butcher’s Block. But there But something went wrong and I didn’t are cruel beasts recover. out there, who only hear what they say It took eight horrible weeks for me to themselves. to fade and That’s how I was pinned by the claws of die, while Doctor Golden was dragged through Dutch Wallis, the mud and who trapped me in the alley behind held responsible. Him, not Wallis. Butcher’s, and savaged me. He broke my bones, knocked out Seems it was my teeth, raked true. No one understood my stories. my skin, spilled my blood and left me a pregnancy. That he got away with it was just the first of http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/11/efa-underwood

22. Llewelyn Underwood There were Underwoods in this part of the country when it was still a colony. But instead of the legacy of the founders of this town, all you saw was a sad, poor laborer carting a case home from the Cut-Rate. And then my bitch wife ran off. And then what you all did to my poor Efa. I was the last of the Underwoods. There are no more. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/16/llewelyn-underwood

23. Dutch Wallis I was finally But because I was took it. It wasn’t able to sober up. smoking where I shouldn’t nearly enough to pay have been, workers comp for my expenses, And I got a job denied my claim, and I and ran out quickly but working as a third-shift was forced to sue the I solved that with a janitor at the owner of the mall. Which return to my drinking. big new Galleria. turned out to be a One Monday morning, company owned by Rod I was working in the Deegan. Which meant that basement and stopped for the expired permits a smoke break. When I lit and failed inspections the match, there was a were covered up. The Judge giant explosion. I in the case, like all got second and third of them, a friend of the degree burns all over. Deegans, allowed the case to be delayed so It turned out there were long that there was no methane leaks all over way I could afford all the building, and it the medical bills was a miracle that and legal fees. So when it hadn’t burned while they offered me a full of people shopping. tiny settlement, I http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/16/dutch-wallis

24. Doctor Robert Golden A lifetime of service, the stroke killed her. I helping and healing followed her soon after, families, meant nothing never convicted of when I could not save poor any crime, never Efa Underwood. found innocent either. My name and picture on every newspaper cover, every television screen. Charged with manslaughter. And the protestors! I went to medical school with a good friend of that Doctor Sleppian, so how could I take the threats idly? I could see vengeful killers in every crowd. The strain weighed on my wife, until http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/16/doctor-robert-golden

25. Mrs. Inez Golden He spent the remainder of my life and his railing against his public disgrace. He thinks the strain killed me. I couldn’t tell him the truth. I thought he was guilty. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/16/doctor-robert-golden

26. Kevin Winterbaum It was somewhere near Basra, I think, where I died. Bleeding into the sand, all I could think about was how none of my troublemaking was worth it, and when they gave me the choice of jail or the Marines, I chose wrong. They gave me a hero’s burial and everyone was so proud of me. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/16/kevin-winterbaum

27. Sheila Springer Kevin Winterbaum was arrested for having drugs, for vandalism and mischief, and Judge Bolton let him join the army to pay off his debt. But he died. And nobody knew that the only reason Kevin was getting high and smashing mailboxes that night, was because he caught me with Gio Moss, and I screamed at him that I never wanted to see his face again. After he died I saw it every night of my life. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/sheila-springer

28. Eugene Conkin My family owned the I kept their organic orchard. My father taught crusade at bay until me how to run it, and I passed on. Then they made do whatever it took their changes anyway. to maximize yield, to preserve freshness, and to But maybe they were right. amplify color. I I’ve been buried here for gave my children stakes in years; the worms won’t touch the business, and we fought me. over the additives and fertilizers, the chemical sprays and the preservatives. They had this strange idea about how people wanted less colorful and shorter- lasting apples, and that they would pay more for them. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/eugene-conkin

29. Jamieson Hazeltone All I ever did was study for the tests at school. I always passed, always got A’s, but it wasn’t enough. The tests were weighted and it was possible to get a grade that was over one-hundred percent. So a perfect score was still not good enough, and they drilled it into us that our performance on the exams would determine the rest of our lives. In one way they were right. I was so frightened of not being good enough, all I did was work. And when the panic attacks started, I didn’t tell anybody because it would mean I’d have less time to study. The day that I was supposed to take the PSATs, I had an attack while walking to school, and fell in front of the bus. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/jamieson-hazeltone

30. Al Hazeltone When I was growing up, Spoon River was much smaller. My high school class was less than eighty, and I think most of us stayed here in the town. Unlike the later generations, who left as soon as they could. How many of my old school chums are here with me now? Life can be long. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/al-hazeltone

31. Doctor Jason Centrone Long after house calls had funeral and they become a relic, cried in memory I was known throughout the town of my infinite kindness as the one who could be and patience. But when I called on at any saw my Cassandra hour of the night. And the hiding at the edge of the people loved me for it. crowd of mourners, afraid But the truth was my to show in public wife was a harpy, my kids what we hid for so many were strangers, and my work years, all I could do then was the only thing was hate myself for that kept me from jumping from being a lying coward. the Deegan Bridge. Any excuse to get out of the house, I would take it. So, when I finally passed, the entire community came to my http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/doctor-jason-centrone

32. Officer Copeland We rotated with other squads, but I always loved the night shift. Sure, during the summer, when it was too hot to stay calm, it meant that there was a lot more crap to deal with. Shootings and stabbings almost every night. And of course drugs, always the drugs. But in the wintertime, most people would stay inside trying to keep warm. It was just too damn cold to make any trouble And it would be so quiet. Sometimes I would get out of my patrol car and walk the streets, like a beat cop of the old days. Every night is that quiet now. I could not be happier. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/officer-copeland

33. Hannah Ward Jimmy, it’s so clear to me now. Please don’t mourn for me anymore. My husband knew all about us, and he suffered as much agony as we did in trying to keep it secret from him. But give him this message from me. Tell him my love for you did not diminish my love for him. Love is not finite. The more it is shared, the more it creates. Go and love him for me. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/hannah-ward

34. Paul Robeson Law My father was Instead, I enjoyed my life. always going on and on So maybe about how I was too drunk I needed to to drive and killed myself by be responsible to the smashing head- family, on into that to our people, tree. But hey, at least I did to make something of myself. it myself. My life, it never belonged to me, it was always the property of someone else. I couldn’t go along with that. So I didn’t become a lawyer, a judge or a respected entrepreneur. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/paul-robeson-law

35. Shelly Leithouse As a kid, all that I and joy and life to this dreary town. listened to was classic rock. But when But the powers that be I went to the U.K. finally forced me to close down my for a study abroad year, I was Cathedral. Soon after exposed to so many I got sick, and to their glee I did different new sounds. And then my not recover. I don’t friends dragged know why I could never escape them. me to the festival And now I will lie here at Glastonbury, and I spent twelve forever where there is no music. blissful hours in the Experimental Sound Field. I walked away a changed person. I came back to Spoon River with my DJ boyfriend and tried to open a club. He took off soon thereafter, but I did not give up. I spent the next decade trying to bring music http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/20/shelly-leithouse

36. Christine Siegel I picked the fight with him that morning over nothing at all. He married me, even though I was pregnant with another man’s baby. I was scared that he was regretting it. He left for work, slamming doors behind him. I raided the medicine cabinet. I lay down in bed to read, but never got up. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/28/christine-siegel

37. Miguel Elliott I never listened to public service announcements that warned against riding in-between train cars. Then I lost my grip, and became the warning. I’m sorry, Mom. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/28/miguel-elliott

38. Scott DeMayo My folks would rarely let me out of the house. They were scared I would get caught up in the gangs that ran around our neighborhood. So I stayed in and was lonely. And none of it mattered when that stray bullet shattered through my bedroom window. I wish they would have let me out more. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/28/scott-demayo

39. Damien McCoy I knew all the kids at school whispered about me behind my back. I never caught them, but I knew for sure. If I tried to tell someone, they would look at me like I had gone crazy. So I did some reading and do you know what I found? I was crazy. Nobody would help me, they just told me to get over it. So I did, by swallowing a whole bottle of pills. And it worked. Now, no one talks about me. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/28/damien-mccoy

40. Taryn, the Dramatist In the schools of Spoon River, I learned the truth of how people were. Their petty grievances, their wolfpack mentality, their tiny codes that formed the basis of what they called “real life.” When I went out into the wider world, I saw everywhere else was basically the same. It was all a comedy of manners. Like my plays, my life, mere comedy. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/06/28/taryn-the-dramatist

41. The Sheriff I had been it at people - cops, criminals, a local football hero and citizens - then I joined and make them do my bidding. Then the Army. I came home to a one night I parade, and used that brass club to strike Russell rumors that I had a dozen Diedrich, and kills. I was he shot me dead. The powers that recruited into the police, were did all force and they they could to have Diedrich sent to put me on the fast track, until death row. But I became they failed, because I haunted the the youngest Sheriff in the town’s dreams of the history. jury foreman and told him that They wanted an energetic, what I got they said a was just punishment for my crimes. charismatic, force for law and order. It apparently was a plus that I was the meanest son of a bitch in town. I had a nightstick made of solid brass and I would wave http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/06/the-sheriff

42. Russell Diedrich I was driving home from a had my case was a close friend party one night, and the sheriff of Christian Deegan, who had made pulled me over. I hadn’t Logan the Sheriff in the been doing anything wrong, but first place, so I knew it would be he put me face down on the the chair. But Kerns cut a deal pavement anyway. He searched my to stop his investigation car without probable cause, into Deegan’s stock fraud and and found the remains of a joint. manipulation, in exchange for giving me a shortened He screamed at me, then pulled out prison sentence. They gave me a his awful nightstick and beat me thirty-year stretch, but I was with it. I scrabbled back to let out after fourteen of them. my car. He’d stopped his search when he found the pot, so hadn’t found While I was on the inside, the gun. He swung the stick at my I taught myself how to play chess. head, and I shot him in the There was a program where you neck. He fell to the pavement and could play correspondence matches I ran away while he bled against professionals and to death. When I turned myself in, ranked experts. One time, I fought an the guards beat on me without International Master mercy, until my attorney until he offered me a draw. Kyle Kerns was able to have me transferred. But the Judge who http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/06/russell-diedrich

43. Benton Woods My service was during the short lull between Japan and Korea, so I never saw a real battle. But I preached my example to my sons, and they both went to Vietnam, but never came home. Now there are no more Woods. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/06/benton-woods

44. Beverly Domino I tried not to lie, and so They made me an outcast. I saw greed and did not call it charity. I saw ugliness and did not call it beautiful. I saw ambition and did not call it service. And I saw brainwashing and did not call it an education. For my candor, I was shunned, hated. But it did not matter to me. My inside and outside were conformed. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/06/beverly-domino

45. James MacDonald Waring It was ironic, no? That the money I made from my investments in the Trust allowed me to fund the town’s arts and humanities, and provide a platform for Deegan’s enemies. Like the theater, symphony, my wife’s foundation. And that the collapse of that same Trust ruined me and silenced all those voices. While Deegan went all but untouched. If I did not know better, I’d think that he planned it all this way. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/15/james-macdonald-waring

46. Shaun Bolton The embarrassments, smile to my face. the mundane injuries Now there’s simply nothing. and the insults of daily life were always too much for me. My skin, always thin, never hardened. And one day, my wife complaining how I burned the chicken again was all I could take, so I opened the window and jumped out. But even here, there is no rest. No rest, and no freedom to change. When I was alive, at least there were a few things that brought a fleeting http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/15/shaun-bolton

47. Ruth Middleton-Ross All throughout school, time to follow my own ambitions. they told me I was special. Brilliant, But the drugs they gifted, destined gave me to keep for some greatness. my moods under control prevented A leader of tomorrow. But I me from thinking got out into clearly, and when the big world and I tried to stop taking them, my dear nobody cared. The only jobs I husband had me could get were as committed. When secretary, I followed their rules, they called me a waitress, model or prostitute. Then success. Somehow, a rich man took I was never a fancy to successful enough to be allowed me and proposed marriage. It was just my liberty. another kind of job, blending all the others. But I hoped that the trade off would give me money and http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/15/ruth-middleton-ross

48. Alexander Flagg I spent years organizing protests against the War in Vietnam. Later I became an entrepreneur and made a killing. When they started up another war, I tried to make my voice heard in the great debate. But I had too many friends in the differing camps, so neither side would trust me. Pick your side and stay with it no matter what. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/15/alexander-flagg

49. Dr. Gregory Vreeland Doctors keep selling them. Then the deaths are supposed to be public started, and I went to prison servants, priests and saviors. But we for the also rest of my life. At least my have to make money. And woe creditors couldn’t reach me there. to anyone who tries to do one at the expense of the other. I was just trying to help my patients. At first, I was as convinced as my clients that my weight-loss products really worked. By the time I was able to admit that they didn’t, I was so far into debt that I didn’t have any choice but to http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/15/dr-gregory-vreeland

50. Robb Chess You won’t believe was all a game. what I say, but all that money that All games can be gamed. you worry your lives over, it’s all imaginary. And your morals are just handicaps beaten in to you by all of your competitors. Nobody has your interests in mind except for you. I built and lost fortunes a dozen times over, and was unconcerned. It http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/robb-chess

51. Claire Battaglia My mother was always sick, and I was born blind. All my life people pitied me. But what they did not see that in taking away my sight, the Lord gave me the gift of patience. As the pace of world made all those around me sick and unhappy, I built a life and a home and a family that was an oasis of calm. My husband Dom fought crippling fears all his life, until I helped him find peace. In a world devoted to breaking people, my children grew up strong, whole and unbent. I lived a life full of light and color. I have no complaints. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/claire-battaglia

52. Judge Welington Bolton I was renowned for having the largest personal law library in three states. Judges and lawyers from all over the country would ask to borrow my volumes. I even loaned one to Justice Stewart once. I guess it was fitting then, that when there was that giant explosion at the shopping mall they were building down the street from the courthouse, that my bookshelves would crush me to death. The law giveth and taketh. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/judge-welington-bolton

53. Clarence Brusso When I married her, I thought the not imagine saying urges would go away. the words to my blind little girl. But they never did, and I was Then one day, I didn’t forced to sneak out, to make just hear Jesus. I saw him in excuses, to pretend I was front of me. Then I was working and not at the out of time to tell anything baths. Then she became ill and I to any one at all. stayed close to home taking care of her. Which is how we made our poor little girl. And years later, when the men in my secret fellowship all began dying horrible deaths, I began to hear the voice of Jesus, urging me to confess what I had done. I was going to. I wanted to. I just kept putting it off and delaying. I could http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/clarence-brusso

54. Kharyn Green When I grew my breasts, I secretly they were asked my parents what free to do. Their scorn set they meant. But they wouldn’t me on my path. Had explain. I asked my they answered my questions teachers, and they told me truthfully in the to keep quiet. I first place, maybe things would asked my friends and they laughed have been different. at me. So I went to find out myself. And I learned. I learned a lot. From boys and girls my own age and from men like Giovanni Moss, who people thought was taking advantage of me. But the truth was that they sneered at me and called me a slut for doing what they all wished http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/kharyn-green

55. Giovanni Moss I was never the best looking watching the young man in the room. nurses laugh at me. I wonder But I knew how to dress, and how if things would have to stand in the been different had I taken right light, how to speak to women less, given more. with just the right tone. How to walk into a room and make every head turn. How to smile at the married men while taking their wives and daughters. Most importantly, how to take what I wanted and get out with a minimum of fuss. The mistake I made was that I grew old. And I ended up living alone in a shabby nursing home, and http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/24/giovanni-moss

56. Hans Bluff I was always Broderick Deegan’s chasing Kharyn Green, real estate firm. hoping she would The week after I let me in. But for made VP, the some reason, she Galleria burned, always told me no. the company When I saw her collapsed, and I lost with Giovanni everything. I Moss, I was so realized that I embarrassed, that I had traded the decided in chase of one hussy that instant that I for another, would stop spending and neither wanted time on frivolous anything to pursuits and I do with me. Some guys threw myself into were just born to my schoolwork. I be losers, I guess. went to business school, and later used my inheritance http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/25/hans-bluff to buy in to

57. Andrew Cairns They always told me that my dream of playing pro ball was impossible, so I left this town as soon as I was able. I never made it to the majors, but I was good enough to pitch in Mexico and Taiwan for many years. But then the gamblers threatened me, and when I told them to shove it, they shot me down. When I came here, I was consoled by an ancient roman ghost named Martius. He said I had earned much more than I had received. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/07/25/andrew-cairns

58. Darryl Cordova My father owned the shop, shop before reaching sixty. and I spent most of my youth working in it. Then he passed it on to me and I spent all of my days and nights there. I somehow found time to get a wife and have some children, and they also became entwined in the life of the shop. I never took a day off, never had a vacation, and I never closed except on Christmas day. Someone once asked me what I would do when I got to retirement age. I didn’t have an answer. Turned out I didn’t need one. I died at the http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/darryl-cordova

59. Gwendolyn Yates They told me I didn’t have a work call me a failure. ethic, because I But I had more joy than all of them, didn’t want to spend my life in an combined, ever had. office or a school. I always asked them who invented work in the first place? What a funny custom, to waste your precious time doing something for another’s benefit, while you get scraps of paper in return. I preferred to sing. You don’t need good credit to sing, don’t need a mortgage. Don’t need anyone’s good opinion, neither. Don’t even need much in the way of food, clothing or shelter, since you can get all of them through singing. So many of them would http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/gwendolyn-yates

60. Helene Duluca We were both thirteen, but when they caught us they all blamed Charlie and told me he forced himself on me. And so I wouldn’t get in trouble, I agreed. That was how I learned that sex was bad and I could never let it be found out that I liked it. So I spent years taking it secretly, with strangers in bars and offices and shops. Until one night, I picked the wrong man, and he sent me to this place. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/helene-deluca

61. Rabbi Stern Everyone thought me to be wise, and they were heartbroken at my wasting illness. The temple rallied around me and kept me warm, loved during my slow descent. None of them ever found out that my disease was a secret taste for heroin, a habit that took two decades to kill me. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/rabbi-stern

62. Rita Chavez I knew I was the second choice, and I was overjoyed when my rival left. Then Pedro belonged to me. But many years later, Carmen came back, and I lost him. It took two years for him to get up the courage to leave me, but my soul died that very first day. And my love for him turned to hatred, as I vowed to never let him out of my grasp. I wonder what would have happened if I had just set him free. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/rita-chavez

63. Pedro Teves Poor Rita, I swear I was never free I never wanted of knowing what I to hurt you. But we had done to you. I both knew I always could never forget loved Carmen, and as much as I tried to put it out of my mind, we were meant to be. I wish it had not been so. I wish it was us who were supposed to have been together. That way, I would not have had to cause you so much pain. And even though my life with Carmen was everything I had ever wanted, http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/pedro-teves

64. Wayne Garcia I had so many opportunities, and I let each of them pass by. For good reasons, I believed. They were risky, they were too hard, they would cost too much of myself. So I stayed home, and stayed safe. Now look at me. I ended up here anyway, with nothing to show for it. The riskiest thing is to do nothing. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/04/wayne-garcia

65. Spencer Chadwick They said I was crazy, a man of seventy, marrying a girl of thirty-five. They said she was after my money. Well, it was money I had, and companionship I lacked. I did not care that she was bought. My long years in finance taught me that everybody is bought and sold, and everybody buys and sells themselves. So I had a few years with her and she got all of my money after I was gone. So what? It’s not as if I can use any of it here. And I’d rather she had it than my lying children. Whores are the only honest ones. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/05/spencer-chadwick

66. Gary, the Pilot All my life, all I wanted was to break the bonds of gravity. To ascend higher and higher into the sky. But we are all tethered, Earth-bound. One day, we will escape and take our place on high. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/gary-the-pilot

67. Ng the Salesman All things been such a are business cancer on the town if Shelly propositions. Would we expend Leithouse so much paid into money and that same racket? Would the never- material and lives in the ending Middle drug war have East, if they any point other than a tool didn’t have oil we needed? for our And if leaders to Daisey Kane’s restrict the same rights and freedoms damned trade was so injurious that brought to the me to this welfare of country? It’s not conspiracy the public, wouldn’t the powers- if it’s that-be policy shut her down, and happens out in the open. regardless of how much money she paid them for their http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/ng-the-salesman protection? Would the Sanctuary

68. Mayor Ellen Garrity My good friends. I hoped that my lifetime of service would be valued. That you would look kindly on my attempts to save you from the crime and drugs and obscenities that are a constant threat to our way of life if we do not remain vigilant. If you valued my sacrifice, then you would stop that slut Maggie Garzan and that idiot Ridley boy from defiling my grave with their lustful coupling almost every night! http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/mayor-ellen-garrity

69. Miles Kagan I paid for many town. I never believed campaigns, and helped to make in anything or the Mayor’s Office in anyone again. like your own home. But more than that, you were the fixed point on my compass, the mother from whom I needed approval for each endeavor. But when I finally got close up and saw how the sausage was made, that the face you showed to the world was a mask that hid your spite and venality and your arrogance, my heart was broken. I quit the party and quit the http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/miles-kagan

70. Ron and Leo While alive, we were not allowed to live truly openly together. Were never permitted to show our love to the town or the world. But now we are here together, forever. And what you think matters not one bit. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/ron-and-leo

71. Margaret Garzan After Micah Ridley left town a brain, but gorgeous to without me, I swore I’d look at. He flattered me with his never put my fate in the hands attention until I of a man again. So foolishly agreed to marry when I finally moved to the him. I should have seen that city, I turned myself he’d do to me what I’d done to into a woman who needed my husband. And now I’m nobody and took what back in Spoon River. Our fates are she wanted. I socialized my never fully our own. way up the ranks of the elite and married a wealthy lawyer. He was fun when he was drunk. After about a year, he died suddenly, and I inherited it all. I moved to Rome and spent the money for a living. I took a lover, a man ten years my junior. Not much of http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/margaret-garzan

72. Mrs. Sofia Garzan I designed legislation than lingerie for a to simply talk with them? living. So when my girl Maggie got Didn’t all her reputation, of their desperate of course the town whispered attempts to “rescue the that it was family” my fault. And when the end up destroying kids followed a fad where the family instead? underthings were worn openly, of course the answer was to picket my shop and brand me as anti-family. Were they so scared of their children that it was easier to enact http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/mrs-sofia-garzan

73. Judge Sy Goldberg When I was alive, tilted I would from the start. The fairness that I sit on the bench, listen to the prided myself on petitioners in was just front of the self-reinforcing bias me, and I prided myself on of a system built being fair, treating to crush. the poor I should have been their advocate. the same as the wealthy. But now, Instead I handed buried here, I can the axe listen to the headsman. I sent Lukasz to the curses from the many Harding to Death Row. whom I sent here, I But I can hear was a hundred times more guilty. what the prosecutors could keep from the record, I can see the truth. The poor were not equal at my bar. The field http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/judge-sy-goldberg

74. Busker Barney I was playing for coins great musicians that I’m at the Courthouse Bus Stop. never at a loss for It had been a long day; somebody to jam with. I’d made very little. When Russell Diedrich and Dutch Wallis came along, high on something, they gave me twenty dollars to play “Gloria” while they bellowed along. When a policeman started towards us to stop their racket, they ran away, pushing me towards the cop to slow him down. I tripped and fell into the street, right in the path of the number 7 bus. Now I’m here, where there are so many http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/busker-barney

75. The Salaryman When I was of the firm, with a family and ten, my folks gave me a super-8 a mortgage, camera, and no more time left. So I gave up and I fell in love with making films. my dreams. But In college, by the time I passed on and was sent I won a prize at a festival here, I had and I moved made enough money and knew enough to the city to break in to the people so industry. that my kids could work those entry jobs But all the entry-level jobs were for free. Each held by the generation gets a bit further. children of the rich and connected who could work for no money. I took an office job and tried to work around it. Before I knew it, twenty years had passed, and I’d become the vice- president http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/12/the-salaryman

76. Alexandra Austen That house was the cause of all of our strife. He inherited it from his mother, and all his siblings were jealous and never forgave him. Then all the property tax increase forced us to sacrifice everything to keep paying for it. And no matter how much I tried to convince him that we needed to just leave it behind and start over somewhere new, he never could see how to extricate himself. So one night, after we fought about money and our future, I torched the awful place. Burned the fucking thing to the ground. He divorced me, and sued me But he never understood that I did it to set him free. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/alexandra-austen

77. Glenn Austen It was a little and his desire to a standoff, and I tried bit after my sister cover it up. Saw to provoke the cops Alexandra was the gruesome photos of into doing the job arrested for arson how he tried. And as for me, but they were that I got chosen I listened, I despaired, remarkably restrained. for jury duty. I because I saw that I don’t know why. It tried to get excused no matter how much you took four years of trials by telling them about love at the start, it and appeals before her, but the judge was always turns to hatred. they killed me anyway. unmoved. They selected I would have saved them me to serve on the We found him guilty, the time and the trouble. murder trial of that and that night I went home dentist, Doctor Stahl to my pregnant wife for killing his patient and shot her in the head. Zadie-Mae Lemmons. If the boys had been Each day we sat there and home I would have killed them heard evidence of too. As it was, when their tawdry affair, of I tried to shoot myself, how she got pregnant, the gun jammed. There was http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/glenn-austen

78. D.A. Antonio Jackson My life and healthy. And I learned that was devoted to bringing morality cannot be justice, to punishing the divorced wicked, from chemistry. I think of and upholding the standards all those I damned to prison of the community. My or worse, finest and I recall the triumph hour was when I sent the I felt when Austen went to murderer Glenn Austen to the chair. death row. I wonder if anything But my son was diagnosed with schizophrenia, so I did helped anyone. I I quit doubt it. my office as the District My son was just another Attorney and devoted big case that I had to win. myself to his care. I studied the working of the human brain, damaged http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/da-antonio-jackson

79. Jonathan Mellor I studied all the great word men, Bruce, Carlin, Hicks. Did you know that as part of his act, Mort Sahl used to just read the Warren Commission report? These were my heroes, the comics who made people laugh while forcing their eyes open even if it meant insulting and enraging them. I was good at that part of the gig. Leaving some no-name club in some flyspeck town, somebody – I never saw who – hit me in the head with a cement brick. I never woke up. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/jonathan-mellor

80. Johan Torres I was born with a defective valve in my heart, so my life was contained, limited, and measured in tiny doses. But that once with Isabel under the infinite stars, I gave her everything I had. It cost me, but I have no regrets. Brevity is not lack. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/johan-torres

81. LoydPahk When I had the stroke, I was still waiting for my promotion to Director to go through. It was going to make it all better. Didn’t even want that damn job. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/22/loyd-pahk

82. Park Shin Min My tiny town a one-way plane from that thought. outside Wonju ticket to When the cancer so stifled America. came, I forbade me, I left as And who should be Patty from soon as I could. in the seat sending me back I worked in next to mine, but to Korea. the clubs near the old Sergeant Pat, This is home. American who I knew bases. I quite well from the waltzed with Majors old days. We struck and traded shots a deal and with Privates. I lived with him But I always in Spoon River. knew it was a For more than short-term gig, twenty years, they and I saved my all believed we money. At age were married. thirty-six, We did nothing I bought myself to dissuade them http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/25/park-shin-min

83. Matthew Twombley I got Doctor Centrone to give me Viagra, but didn’t tell him about the heart meds I’d gotten from Doctor Golden. I wanted to be able to give Saskia everything, especially after the pain of her first two marriages. She deserved it all, and I deserved to finally live, no matter how my complaining children tried to persuade me that I didn’t belong with a woman thirty years my junior. What they never understood was that she asked me for nothing. So I gave her everything I had without reservation. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/25/matthew-twombley

84. Alejandro Mejias The confusion does not surprise me. Very few actual remains were recovered from the pit, so how were they supposed to know that the investment banker Nathaniel Terrel is not entombed here, just parts of me, a minimum-wage busboy. I wonder if they sent his ashes to my family in Guatemala. Or if we are both scattered across the world. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/25/nathaniel-terrel

85. A Powerful Lawyer I I kept even the smallest claim counted myself among the most from reaching my clients. prosperous attorneys When in I died, there were memorials the state. I spoke for the mighty: and tributes, and a front the Second Spoon River page Bank, obituary. Now, I lie Development Authority here, and I can feel all Partners, and Limited the Re, insects scuttling across my who insured the Galleria. I knew all the pressure dead skin, every maggot points, that where to apply the leverage, squirms to life from gnawing on my how to make things happen. desiccated remains. I never lost a case. They rarely even made it into court. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/25/a-powerful-lawyer

86. Kathy Folds You stayed with me through all the chemo, the radiation, the surgeries. Ten years of hacking pieces of your wife away. And you tried to stay strong for me. But I saw you shriveling. When the cancer came back to eat at me, and I saw I would never again be the woman that you married, I let you go. I let me go. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/25/kathy-folds

87. Joanie the Musician I had to learn to use my sorrow, to turn it into my music. I wrote songs about the sadness my entire life. And now I can’t believe all the things that I didn’t see, all the joy I turned away from. What I was feeling, it wasn’t despair. This, this here, is despair. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/28/joanie-the-musician

88. Mrs. Schneider I dreamed of divorcing him. But I stayed. For the children. That’s what Judge Goldhamer advised him. And I got the same sermon from Reverend Halty. Marriage is sacred. So I stayed. For the children. But feelings can never be totally repressed. So we raised them in a home full of poison and misery. They grew to hate us both equally and fled as soon as they could. I don’t really blame them. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/28/mrs-schneider

89. Mrs. Mitzi Schultz Sometimes, the program again and only thing that helped again, and the idea that me get through it was my set there is an of tapes of ultimate justice. the old Twilight Zone. I prayed for that justice to My husband had nothing to fall on those do with how who stole him and the Deegan’s investment life we had planned. I still pray. bank collapsed. But he had a big title and no true friends, so he took the fall. He went to prison and left me alone to raise our children. I did my part, and they grew up the best they could. What kept me going was watching that http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/29/mrs-mitzi-schultz

90. Rev. Clay Halty Of all my saw their children, accomplishments and their calm, quiet in the decades I preached in Spoon River, of all the sermons and the conversions and retreats, the one thing I’m most proud of is how I was able to keep the Schneiders, with God’s help, from succumbing to the secular temptation to rip their whole family apart. Each time I http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/29/rev-clay-halty

91. Allan Bivans I spent most of my was the most valued life struggling for the substance in the world. And control over my I imagined two family’s chain of gas Silk Road-trading brothers stations. My brother locked in a never- resented me because ending feud over their our father sent me salt, and how silly to college, while he had that would look to modern to stay home and work folks. At that moment, the business. When Dad died I decided to sell and left it all to him my half of the us, he did everything business. I was on my he could to force me way to tell him, and out and make my life Hell. imagining how I Every day was filled would use the proceeds with arguments about to start a whole new life oil and gasoline. for myself far from One day, I was in a here, when I had the stroke. restaurant, looking at the salt shakers on all the tables, and http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/08/29/allan-bivans recalling that once, salt

92. Rev. Jeremy Sheaffer After I passed, the Church auctioned off my effects as a fundraiser. It was my idea, to let each of them have a tiny piece of their shepherd for a memorial, as he departed for a distant, better land. But that didn’t mean I wanted my filing cabinets bought by Bob Clemmond, who everyone knew was the town’s worst drug dealer. He dumped all of my papers at the recycling plant. The Almighty only knows what disgusting poisons he displaced all my sermons with. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/rev-jeremy-sheaffer

93. Roosevelt Feinstein I fought them all of my days. For rights for all. For freedom of conscience, for freedom of choice, for freedom from fear. But long years in the State House tend to blur the factions in the eyes of the people. And you can’t win every fight. So when I won, I was “just doing what I was supposed to do." When I compromised, I was “complicit with evil.” And when I was beaten, I was “pathetic.” By the end, my once- loud voice had been diminished to a whisper. Oh, they gave me an ornate funeral with grand remembrances. But during the eulogy, I know my unwrinkled successors cut deals and traded horses in the cloak room. I hope they fare better than I did. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/roosevelt-feinstein

94. Judge Terence Visser All those liberal lions, Kerns and Feinstein and O’Meara, they loved to laugh at me, and judge me for my aspirations. For some reason, they felt I was not worthy to stand in their company. How much did they regret their snobbery, when my years as Deegan’s counsel led to a seat on the Bench? How much did they have to swallow their jokes and plaster fake smiles on their faces when making a petition to My Court? Oh, how I made them pay. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/judge-terence-visser

95. Kelvin Platt Thom Kerns always complained failures. I had no how ashamed he was identity of my that his children never own. That’s why I ran amounted to much. for the seat on the School He never understood Board. I spent all my that I had it so money, but I still lost. much worse. My children were My kids wanted to successful beyond support me after that. anyone’s reckoning. I would not let them. They all left me, to I pushed them away. My go to New York, Paris, end came soon after. Kuala Lumpur, Berlin, and God knows where else. They rarely came home. And all anyone asked me was about them. Every success they had made me that much more ashamed of my own http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/kelvin-platt

96. Thom Kerns I never quite got why Kelvin Platt was always so miserable when folks asked about his amazing kids. I’d have given almost anything to have just one of mine become so luminous. In and out of jail. On and off of drugs. They were disgraceful and disgusting. Shame, or the drinking that covered it – not sure which killed me. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/thom-kerns

97. Christine Novell They never knew what to call the thing, whatever it was I had. Lupus, Lyme, Epstein-Barr, Fibro, CFS, Depression, allergies, and on and on. Or worse, it was all in my head, and no insurance code applied. Every year, a new drug that was supposed to work, which only made it worse. Never a moment without pain that didn’t feel wrong, artificial, not me. But now there is no more pain and I’m finally at peace. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/christine-novell

98. Ikrimahibn Khalid They were always making fun of the way I dressed and the way I prayed. Always trying to convert me. After, they looked at me full of suspicion and hatred. Or with fear, as if I would detonate myself at any minute. I tried to show them the truth of my people and our history. Then, Willy Halty, the Minister’s son, beat me to death with a baseball bat. Peace be unto you all. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/ikrimah-ibn-khalid

99. Simon Leigh Goldhamer People say they like shun, reject, deny the truth. But the truth that it even could be possible. is they really prefer a story. Story is the world And if the story The world is story. isn’t the truth, they’ll We can’t see differently, and believe transform that story into the truth. fairy tales. Like the Holy Trinity But it goes further of the Beginning, Middle and End. than that. Truth only becomes capable of being seen, recognized as the truth, if it can be seen in the outline of a story. And we’ve become so that if it does not fit into the story, we cannot even see it. We http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/11/simon-leigh-goldhamer

100. Moreland, the Columnist I got fired from the paper for doing the same thing that got me lauded in the first place. I would talk to the powerful and write about them. But I did not take dictation. I tried to show them as they truly were. They usually didn’t like it. But it was more than a fair trade for their dominion over us, I thought. But I crossed the line when I wrote my profile of Judge Goldhamer. He was not pleased. Somebody called someone, and soon I was out of a job. But nobody said I didn’t get the story right. I take that to my grave and you bet it keeps me warm. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/23/moreland-the-columnist

101. Harmonie Fisher Life was a competition. For me to succeed others had to fail. So I made damn sure they would. I undermined confidence, ruined plans, spoiled hopes, and bent those around me to do what I wanted. When they broke, I discard them and simply found others I could manipulate. But eventually, I ran out of people and I ran out of time. In the end I was alone. If you prevail in a competition and the losers are not there to see it, then the victory is empty and meaningless. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/23/harmonie-fisher

102. Christian Deegan So, everybody hated and feared me, you say? What of it? While the so-called moralists and the righteous and the preening intellectuals bleated about meaning and justice and truth, I laughed at them. The only truth, the only meaning, is influence. It’s the first law of the universe. How do you move a thing that will not move? I spent a life collecting and using influence to make the world in my image. Lesser people complained and judged, but they were merely too cowardly to take that power for themselves. They can’t touch me. Never could. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/09/23/christian-deegan

103. MaureeneTringo After years of work, reams of forms, defend my new homeland. and waiting and waiting, I finally qualified to I wonder if anybody be an American made Deegan swear that oath. citizen. I went in to the city that day to take part in a special swearing-in ceremony, led by the Attorney General of the whole country! And I almost missed it. I couldn’t get to the courthouse, because the road was blocked for some bigwigs. (Later, I found out it was Christian Deegan, being freed from some tax burden.) But in spite of that huge motorcade, I got there in time to take my oath to serve, protect and http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/maureene-tringo

104. Thomas Winter We were one of the first died in an accident. families, founders of Hank overdosed on pills Spoon River. My great-great- after his great disgrace. grandfather built our house. Sally’s husband beat her Generations of the until she became a Winters came from that home, ghost of herself. Philip to write our name across contracted a syndrome, the world. Until I failed undiagnosable them all. I did every and incurable. And thing I was supposed to – Maria just gave up sent my children to the for some reason no one best schools, secured for them ever learned. All of them prestigious jobs and well- broken by life. While I bred partners. I followed succeeded at every the plan. I grew richer goal, but preserving the and more influential. family legacy. But James embezzled and fled overseas. Janie http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/thomas-winter

105. Phillip Thomas Winter I was in and out of all not answer no. So I the best hospitals, and redoubled my efforts. all the advanced clinics, I demanded my father while father spent his money treat her like a daughter. trying to make me well. But then I died, and I I had a theory that don’t know if he did or if the nurses at these places she just moved on. I wish, were all selected for Sienna. Oh, I wish. their allure, so as to seduce a patient into getting well. It never worked. Until I came home, and they hired Sienna. She was not pretty. But she was beautiful. How I wanted to get well for her. The harder I tried the worse it got. I asked her to marry me. She did http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/phillip-thomas-winter

106. Maria Winter When you lose your soul- mate, you lose a piece of yourself. And when your soul-mate turns their back on you, the little bit of you that remains is poisoned. They thought I gave up and hid from the world. But really I was trying to drive the poison out, purge and rebuild myself. I was almost able to. If I’d had five more years, maybe I would have. But I ran out of time. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/maria-winter

107. Paul Welch I’m so sorry good enough for you Maria. I did again. I’m so not meant it to ashamed, Maria. happen like it did. You deserved so But life in the much better than me. city was strange and complicated. And I feared that Spoon River would make me feel trapped and bored. I was far from bored in the city, even before Rachel LeDoux found me. But once I was with her, I was trapped anyway, and I knew that I could never be http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/paul-welch

108. Rachel LeDoux The funny thing is, I I lost him, and with him never even liked sex my best candidate for all that much. But every security. After body else did, so it there was just a string of gave me power over diminishing prospects. them. I tormented my stepfather, until I was thrown out of the house. I was still learning and refining. I moved to the city, where I plowed through a list of lovers, men and women, each one dancing to my tune. Paul Welch was my best score; I thought I might even make him marry me. But then one of my exes warned him about my past, so http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/rachel-ledoux

109. Anya Kirillov I came here from things to placate her wrath. So we Poland when I was a girl, and both stayed out of got work as a sight until the baby came. Then domestic in the White home. One they quietly day, when Mrs. sent me to work somewhere else. Years White was out, Mr. White trapped me later, I found in the kitchen. DolphKirilov, and we built our I kept quiet, afraid they would own family. send me back to And it was sweet. But whenever Poland. But soon I began to people saw me show. And Mrs. crying at the eloquence of White came to me. I thought she would one of Benson kill me. But she White’s speeches, they had no idea had a plan. They had no children that inside I of their own, so was screaming that he was my son. she would take the baby and claim that it was hers. I’m sure that Mr. White gave her many other http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/anya-kirillov

110. Benson White All that I achieved – Judge, Congressman, and a Candidate for the State House – was possible only because of the inheritance I received from my parents, Thomas and Gail White. From my father, I got my morals, ethics, and sense of duty. From my mother, I learned how to take all of life in stride, and rejoice even in the parts that seemed to be setbacks. Everything that I was, was because of them. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/01/benson-white

111. Gil Tam I always believed there argued that was no such religion thing as an and God were afterlife. just fictions. So I’m not Stories used sure what this to explain is right here, things beyond where I am. our ken. It But I am did not make willing to me the most entertain popular theories on man in Spoon it without River, a bowing down town that was and giving quite pious. praise to the But I stuck Christian god. to my guns. I also http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/03/gil-tam

112. Steve Biscoe Gil and I loved to argue religion. He was a wonderful fellow and a hopeless secularist. When my cancer was in its final stages, he would visit me often, and I looked forward to those more than any perfunctory drop- in by the folks who just felt obligated. The last thing I said to him before I died was that I looked forward to settling the question once and for all. But wouldn’t you know it, he’s still not convinced. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/03/steve-biscoe

113. Laurent Arno I knew she cheated on me. A Minister cannot divorce his wife and expect to keep his position. So I bore it. Even as I took on more outside work. I wrote books on how to live a Godly life. None of them did too well, as if people could intuit that I was lying. I prayed for one of them to succeed, so I could afford to abandon the Ministry and divorce her. I never did. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/06/laurent-arno

114. Imogene Arno-Niles I kept my secrets in life. I’ll keep them in death. There is nothing I can say to you that you could possibly understand. Move on. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/06/imogene-arno-niles

115. Eugene Blantz I entered politics to make things better. But after all the years, all the deals, all the goddamned compromises it took before I finally won election to the State Legislature, I don’t think that I had the faintest notion what was right anymore. So I sold my vote on the big eminent domain bill that favored the Deegan Trust, and naturally I got caught and went to jail. I wish I had stuck to being a shoe salesman. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/06/eugene-blantz

116. Lonnie Marchetti A fuck-up like me, a man who had wasted decades on drugs and booze, who had cut a swath of destruction through lives in three states; it’s ironic that such a wretch could come out the other side of his Trial and be able to lead a ministry for the fallen. I had replaced the ecstasy of meth with the bliss of Jesus. He saved me in every sense of the word. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/06/lonnie-marchetti

117. Sheri O’Brien You may have gone far away from here, and had a life rich with sights and experiences that far outstripped what I had in my short time. But you know at your core, that it will never be enough, it will never make amends, it will never make you forget that you have it all because of what you stole from me. But still, even though I’m gone too early, my time was more truly alive than your glamorous lie. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/06/sheri-o'brien

118. “Big Ed” Thag I guess there’s to live always in a town where been two kinds of those folks were folks, the ones the ones who see in charge. But, I things how they are, have a hunch and the ones that if who see the other team them as they think had been in they ought to control, be. I they woulda not had struggles a lot. treated me I gotta all that say that much different. most of them were caused by the second type. Guess I had the bad luck http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/18/big-ed-thag

119. MireleBulinski Tell me – if you could do it all over again, start over from the beginning, with a clean slate, would you? Neither would I. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/18/mirelle-bulinski

120. The Anonymous He was rich. He was powerful. He took what he wanted from me and discarded the emptied husk. Then his men tidied up and dumped me in the woods. The moment he saw me, I didn’t stand a chance. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/18/the-anonymous

121. Joel Addams Loxley I know it’s not lofty heights, acquired popular opinion, baggage and beholders, and it flies in the face creditors and of the myth of compromises. And yet America. But you most would say he was the must admit that, being better choice to born wealthy and hold the power. But be with needs fulfilled, I was careful what leaders you able to study the wish for. At least intricacies the independently of public policy wealthy can be stolid, and government and turn dispassionate myself into in their government. Their an exemplary, true, bread's already buttered. servant of the people. Whereas my chief rival DekeStayn, on his long climb through the ranks to ascend to his http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/18/joel-addams-loxley

122. DekeStayn Breeding and an education are nice, but I’ll take a worker that’s made his own way in the world. I started sweeping up a factory floor, and by the end, there was nobody in America who would not listen to what I said. Power earned, twice as strong as power inherited. The one avenue to true liberty. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/deke-stayn

123. Pierce Leithouse People think it was the way the town leaders demonized my daughter that led me to defect to the other party and lead them to drive out my former friends. And it’s true that the switch happened then. But more than pride or fatherly protectiveness was behind it. It struck me, suddenly, that people who crave power over others in the name of security and order, are truly just interested in power for its own sake. And that power, once ceded, can never be reclaimed. And I saw my part in constructing an architecture of coercion. I felt called upon to repent and make amends. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/pierce-leithouse

124. Howard, the Station Boss Everybody clamors secure. I knew for the truth. enough to bring them all I could give it to you in down. But why any way you in the world would I? Besides, pleased. We liked to deride none of you want those who claimed to know where the bodies truth was purely subjective are buried. as being French And democracy is just Communists. But really, for schoolchildren. they were our best friends. My job was to manufacture truth, to serve whoever was pulling the strings. If the Mayor stayed in office, if Deegan’s profits stayed fat, and if my ratings remained high, I was http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/howard,-the-station-boss

125. Maryann Stillson I ran my laundry for most of my days. I cleaned clothes for all kinds of people. Rich and poor, liberal and conservative, the influential and the invisible. They all had sweat stains, brown streaks, stink. Don’t care who you were. Only the dead are clean. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/maryann-stillson

126. Doug Linke All I said was national pride be that American self-evident? policy had And if you have to something to do with bellow it and it, some measure enforce it through fear of blame. A fairly and coercion, innocuous isn’t it worthless? statement, and one that many learned people would agree with behind closed doors. But I said it out loud, on the air, so they destroyed my career and slandered my name. All in the name of patriotism. But shouldn’t that http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/doug-linke

127. Philip Dent My lifetime belonged to and flattering Christian Deegan. his vanity. I had I gave his bank my time, no time left to eleven, twelve, build my own life. Which is thirteen hours every why I chose the day, six days a front of his office to week. And on Sundays, I shoot myself in went to his church the head. Hopefully, I and heard to his minister, got a few drops the Reverend of blood on his handmade Sheaffer, tell me how my Italian shoes. toil would get me into heaven. But all I saw from that work was a dingy apartment and a dingy life. I spent all of my days enriching his accounts http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/philip-dent

128. Ernie Coffin After what Dent did police, and the next day, to himself, I was next every news show and in line to fill the paper screamed the story vacancy. But they gave about my fraud and it to someone else. embezzlement, and how Old Deegan knew, somehow, the noble bankers that I had taken were dedicated to a few work computers fighting corruption. home and sold them to He needed a scapegoat. pay off my girl’s doctor I gave him what he bills that insurance needed and lost it all. wouldn’t cover. He called me on the carpet, and assured me that he would have mercy on me and my family, if I just confessed. So I did. But he turned me over to the http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/ernie-coffin

129. Lafayette Lincoln Jones When I first became a lawyer, it of all the luminaries was to help defend the poor of the city. The and vulnerable rest of my career was a plummet, from injustice and exploitation. away from the centers of But the more successful you power, until at get, the further you last I was back with the poor, where I get from the people who are needy. started. And how I despised So I found I'd become a them and their weakness. highly-paid legal gunslinger, who changed sides on every issue he used to hold fast to. Which may explain how I stumbled so badly when I defended the arsonists who torched the City Council building. Kyle Kerns ripped my case apart. He shredded my reputation, and all but destroyed my manhood, in front http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/lafayette-lincoln-jones

130. Professor Newcomb Evolution must have selected in favor of religious belief, otherwise why would it be in every single human society? I tried to unlock the secrets of why that was, but I only alienated both sides of the argument. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/professor-newcomb

131. Broderick Deegan It’s true, my reckless speculation led to the collapse of my father’s bank. But it’s not as if he did not know I was doing it or that he didn’t give me some of his money to secretly invest so he did not pay taxes on it. And it’s also true that I lived in a penthouse in Buenos Aires while that Schultz fellow served time for my crimes. And yet, guilt has a way of compounding interest more ruthlessly than my father ever dreamed of. Which is how I found myself leaping in front of an express train, to end a misery that I'd not even noticed had eroded my desire to live. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/20/broderick-deegan

132. Mo Nickle Some folks thinking that it would be just have bad luck. I was The One. always The One where they valued the best worker at what- me and ever repaid my loyalty. job I had. So I was I thought always the Galleria job the first one laid off. They would be said I a new beginning too. was indispensable, Instead until it was a final end. they dispensed with me. And always just when I was due for a raise or a promotion. And stupid me, I went into each new job http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/22/mo-nickle

133. CharlaNoxon I killed him. He didn’t insignificant and like that I wouldn’t poor simply vanish. choose him, preferring a boy who didn’t have And then I got sick. So his money. So he hit I went back to the me, and I shot him city, and turned myself dead. But his daddy paid, in. My short time left so his friends in the was worth spending to watch media lied and said them wriggle in the light. it was an tragic accident. The money that must’ve changed hands. I escaped home to Spoon River and hid. But they never came for me. And Spoon River was just the same. The rich and powerful made the http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/22/charla-noxon

134. Shawn Rigby Yes, I was high. I won’t deny that. But I just stopped to shut my eyes for a bit. I was going to move again in a minute, after I caught my breath. I had no idea the yard I was on belonged to the Mayor. I wasn’t bothering no one. She didn’t need to scream like that. And her bodyguard didn’t need to shoot. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/22/shawn-rigby

135. Marc Lyon I did love her. a witness in But I could not a federal get away. I case that would keep thought if I was me sequestered cruel, she would leave for a whole year. me first. But her She cried and cried, capacity but told me that to absorb hurt she would pray for seemed limitless. the day I would I lied, I found come back to her. reasons to stay She knew I would, away as much long before I as I could. I knew. She owned me. manufactured So I gave in, emergencies, stopped trying to catastrophes, run. She was by and crises that my side, grasping kept me from home. my wrists, when I Once, I told her finally died. I needed to testify as http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/marc-lyon

136. Tanya Lyon He could not even But I built my look me in the life with him, and I eye while he told that was not about ridiculous to throw it away story about his just because he “Federal case.” was too weak and scared But I pretended to keep going. to believe it. I knew the truth, all of his lies. The business travel. The overnight trips into the city that just happened to put him there the same time as that harlot Sophia Garzan. I was fooled by none of it. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/tanya-lyon

137. Samuel McGreuder I was prosperous and respected by all in the town. All except my youngest son. He loved me, yes. But he always thought he knew better than me. I tried teaching him but he would not listen. When at last he got control of the business I spent my lifetime building, it was wrecked in less than three years. But by then, I was too weak to stop him anymore. Do not get old. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/samuel-mcgreuder

138. Matthias O’Meara I was always told that I was destined for greatness, for an important role. But all I achieved was a lofty title and some small influence in a town full of small minds. Married to a wife of cruel judgment. When I became old, my successors bought the rounds and begged for stories of how it was in the grand old days. I obliged, even though those days were never real. They thought me great. I knew the truth. I should have done better. I should have done more. What a waste. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/matthias-omeara

139. Martha Stennis My Christophe, he was on disability most of the time and spent his days on the corner talking what was wrong with the world. So I had to support us with my cleaning. The maid sees all the secrets people try to keep. The cleanest hero leaves behind dirt, grime and prints, and nothing can ever be cleaned completely. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/martha-stennis

140. Christophe Stennis The guys on the corner used to laugh at me when I looked both ways before crossing the one-way street. I told them that you can never know when some fool’s gonna decide they’re more important than the rules. So, of course, the one time I didn’t look the opposite way would be the day that that drunk decided he needed to make a left. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/christophe-stennis

141. Eric Ward Rather than this to ensure their headstone, they should security. name the thruway interchange for But things we do me. It was my in the name of vote in the State security Senate that cleared often destroy the way for the exactly what seizure of the they are meant to land and the forced protect. And so removals of my children grew the families up timorous, that lived on it. not daring to And even though speak their minds in it never got public for fear out to the news, of ridicule somehow they all and pillory. knew that I’d been paid off for my I did it so vote. I did it they’d live better to provide for than me. Instead, my family, I poisoned them. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/25/eric-ward

142. Marci Ward I lived in a rich, after I moved fancy house that far away to start became a prison a new life, I of unspoken always feared people recriminations. could see my shame. In college I So I tried to stay was engaged to James, unobtrusive. who was only I succeeded, since with me because my I died alone. family name could help further his aspirations. When he found out the truth of what we really were, he dropped me with a cruel efficiency. No one would touch me afterwards. Even http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/26/marci-ward

143. Dawn McCain My mom used to send me the newspaper clippings that tracked all my exploits. Which red carpet I’d been on. What foundation I was supporting. Nightclubs I would frequent. No one living remembers who I am. The parties are over. The clubs are closed. And newspaper clippings are as extinct as all of those men who used to chase me. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/26/dawn-mccain

144. Commodore Jenkins Tell me, what did Celia do with the insurance payment? I bought the most expensive policy I could in case something kept me from my sixty, seventy, and eighty hour weeks in the office. So much of my money went into our insurance and retirement funds. I always thought I’d be there to spend it with her. Tell me, did she use it well? Did it make her life without me easier? Did she think of me when she spent it? I need to know. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/26/commodore-jenkins

145. Jake Papac All you bleeding and our country. I’m hearts, bleating about glad I’m gone and freedom and choice. left you the wreckage. You liberals, like Ben Ridley and Some things should not his ilk, who mocked me be tolerated. as a backwards, intolerant, God- botherer. How did you feel when, on your watch, there were more drug murders, more school dropouts, more divorce, more children out of wedlock, more dead babies? In your addiction to freedom, you have destroyed our home http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/27/jake-papac

146. Wally Cleveland Everybody knew about the novel I was writing. But after a while, people stopped asking about it. My bits about finding a spare hour to write before work, or during lunch, or after everyone had gone to sleep, were all wearing thin. The truth was, it was easier to talk about the work than it was to actually do the work. I never finished it. I barely even started. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/27/wally-cleveland

147. Felix Amaris I may not have been justifications to a lawyer, like Matty stay at the table. O’Meara, Kyle Once you see through the veil, Kerns or Lafayette Jones. you have two choices. But I know how they Stick in the game and do must have felt. I was a your best, or bail out professional card and curse the deception. player, blackjack mostly. But to see the truth, Blackjack, like the law, not accept it, and keep is said to be governed playing is the sure by rules, but y’all know route to a broken heart. that the house always wins. No matter what name that house goes by. In both worlds, elaborate mythologies direct behavior: luck, hot streaks, equanimity, fair play. These are the http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/27/felix-amaris

148. Archibald Carlin I thought I didn’t have a prayer with in the kitchen, when she a jury that had Dutch started screaming “Rape!” Dick ran in with Wallis as its foreman. What happened a gun pointed at me, was, we lived next door to and I fled. Sheriff Reade was at my the Bandlers. And Dick Bandler and I door an hour later. frequently had disputes about our property lines, and how Throughout the ordeal – the press and the one of my trees over- trials and being kept hung his property. And Sheila and apart – Sheila always believed my Lila Bandler didn’t version of the story get along either after some row over their lies. Thankfully, the State over where the school bus Appellate court did too. should stop. But one day I decided that we needed to make a better attempt at neighborly friendship. I went over to compromise and try for a fresh start. Lila answered the door and invited me in. We were http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/29/archibald-carlin

149. Lawrence Viola There’s always a crossroads where “might- make my own success. have-been” and “was” will So I picked one direction at intersect. Mine was when I was my crossroads, and I twenty-five. I had poisoned Aunt Rochelle. It was not a business plan. A fiancée. hard. The coroner But no money, and said it was a heart attack. I few ways to get enough. But I got her money. I did have a rich Aunt married Penny. My business was Rochelle. She kept teasing me with a wild success. “maybe” and “perhaps” Nobody ever caught me and when I asked for an investment. I never looked back. But she never said “Yes.” She spent her time moving her money back and forth, plotting to make a quarter–cent here, a half-cent there, and losing money on fees. All while lecturing me about Ayn Rand, and how I should http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/29/lawrence-viola

150. Denzel Butler You know the saying “youth is wasted on the young?” Well, I say that life is wasted on the living. Say yes to everything. Regret nothing. Never apologize. Just live. Any agony is infinitely better than the cold blandness of the void. I know you don’t believe me. But you will. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/29/denzel-butler

151. Ryan Bernhard I could care less about what is written on the stone above me. My true epitaph is in the minds and hearts of the people I touched while alive. Their thoughts of me, their remembrances, are what’s real. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/29/ryan-bernhard

152. Cameron Dick Before the repertory truth. There is a movie house was more profound reality shut down, I would go every in artifice. week. People thought all those old films were cheesy. But at some point, we all see we live in a melodrama. Who hasn’t been swept off their feet, or gotten deliriously crazy in love; gutted by betrayal, or sworn to get revenge? By the end of my life, movies had become too real, pedestrian, mundane. As if simple reportage was closer to http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/31/cameron-dick

153. Frederick Waldo I made a bid for Governor, me, sweeping him to and I ran on a the Governor’s mansion. In the platform of change. And I denounced deal, I was given my opponent in a plush post in the Comptroller’s the primary as a tool of office. The people corporate interests. who followed got nothing but I inspired the young, who flocked a bitter lesson. to my campaign like never before, and they carried me very near to victory. But I lost in the primary, and then the party leaned on me. So I convinced all my young followers that our erstwhile that used to be our demonic oppressor was now our only hope for real change. And they listened to http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/31/frederick-waldo

154. Von Tice I raced cars I lost control and my life went completely the same way. and was crushed to I started out death in the strong, flashy, crash. My races with great promise all ended and heady way too early. expectations. But somewhere in the middle I lost it, drifted off course, and flamed out well before the finish. The one time I felt I was about to push through and finally win a race, http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/31/von-tice

155. Julio Verne I loved gadgets. I had to always have the newest, latest. But they started to come out faster and faster, and I’d move on to the next one before I even finished with the last. At the end of my life, I found myself circled with machines that had been barely used, discarded too soon, capable of doing so much more. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/31/julio-verne

156. Titus Mansfield Be careful, because Goldhamer asked me, “how do you know you never know where your nemesis that change won’t make it will come from. And it worse?” That question plagued me always. won’t be the person who hates you, but And the friend who says, while everything I tried arguing with you, that thing that will to do, every campaign I worked for, reverberate in every candidate your head forever. After college I worked for, every choice I made, I I traveled the world. heard Simon’s voice and I saw the great and awful sights of hesitated. And hesitation a planet rife with can kill. My life was many ways of living. I came back unalterably changed, and not for to America the better, because determined to better my home, to of a stray comment over a beer. help fulfill our destiny as the greatest nation in the world. But it was over a beer one night, that my old school friend Simon http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/10/31/titus-mansfield

157. Muhammad Yusuf I loved Spoon River more than most who were born here. I gave more to Spoon River than most who took from her. As the children of great families fled as soon as they could, I brought more and more of my family here. And while the entrenched factions bickered and warred over their petty disagreements, I stayed quiet, respected everyone. Because soon, they will all be gone. And it will be my children who will become the great family of this town. Don’t worry, we will care for it better than you. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/03/muhammad-yusuf

158. Robin Parker I gave my life in my youthful defenders service, to my town, my may have targeted state, my country. And the weak and traitorous, each breath I spoke was to like Doug Linke, with a defend the rights of bit too much zeal, I went liberty, property, to my deathbed with and the rule of law nothing but love for my and order. I was loved country and pride in and respected, and my service. As I put I moved in the highest down my burden, I circles. I brokered know I’ll be rewarded agreements between the above, even as mighty. When I spoke, my opponents will burn. thousands listened. And in spite of scurrilous charges that some in the Democrat party tried to smear me with, and even though some of http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/03/robin-parker

159. Arlan Macy What do they teach you institutions in those awful, that have colonized disillusioning, your mind, you’d reel distemper mills with horror at what’s they call schools? Have you become of this even read the land. I didn’t fight Declaration of for our freedom Independence? so you lot could give The Constitution? it all away. Do you know of anything that went down here before you came bleating, blind into this world? If you could somehow learn the dying art of thinking for yourself, if you could break free of the http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/arlan-macy

160. Michael Malankov You do me wrong. You all blame I had no help, they were able me for failing to stop the land to use a trick of the rules seizure bill from passing. You to call a vote while I was gone. judge me as a weakling, as a So blame me all you want. But coward, for not saving you you ask too much of your leaders. from the greedy developers, who twisted the law for their own gain. But where were you? I sat in the legislature for twenty years. And each convention, each close race, each battle, you always found some reason not to vote, not to use your voice, some excuse to not participate. You all relied on me to defend you, and didn’t bother to learn what that meant. So yes, I needed to use the Men’s room during that long debate. Since http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/michael-malankov

161. Mya Alabama Anything’s the town, a handsome young man possible. I drove into struck up a Spoon River conversation with me. It with five dollars to my name, was Henry and my car Winter, son of old Thomas broke down near McNeely Hill. Winter who As I trudged owned the house. This chance meeting past the expensive estates, set off a feverish chain of events, and many with hunger, I stumbled in years later, front of the all of the Winters were gone, Winter mansion. It seemed to and that huge glow and pulse mansion belonged only to with electricity. It me. I think called to me. the house knew, But I was barred by a gate, well before and no one any of its occupants. answered the bell. Later, when I got to http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/mya-alabama

162. WilfredoMonserrat For long years, I was all that stood in between the Spoon River Public Library and the Puritans who wanted to eject the books they thought were “offensive” or “obscene” or “inappropriate” for children. As if keeping their children from reading or hearing about the dark isn’t precisely the thing that makes them run headlong towards it. I am gone now. Nobody is left to stop you. So have your purge. If you would bother to read some of those books, you’d find out what you’re going to reap. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/wilfredo-monserrat

163. Elias Camden It wasn’t much of sold the land. It was part a house, but it was ours. of the site where they I never missed a built the Galleria. payment, was never late. My Kate was going But they passed a law, to have a job there, but and Thom Ballard told me it never opened. he had the right to They could have let us stay evict me. The famous in our house for all O’Meara took on the difference that it made. my case for free, on some principle. He fought as hard as he could. But the law was the law, and I follow it. So we accepted the relocation money and we rented an apartment on the south side of town. Ballard http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/elias-camden

164. Leonettis the Zoologist When you spend long enough around the was unable to stay faithful to animals, her. Why I you see how much like humans they are. needed the scent of the hunt. We are Or to be more precise, how humans only a step away from the beasts. resemble The name of animals. Animals run in packs. that step is Rationalization. All bow down before the alpha and the lone wolf is the weakest, easiest to kill. We have such a variety of reasons, of explanations, of excuses. For why Ballard could steal Camden’s land, or why Mayor Garrity kept getting elected even though everyone hated her. Or why no matter how much I loved my wife, I http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/05/leonettis-the-zoologist

165. Davy Rice I wrote the Deaths column in the Inquirer. The obits I wrote there, you should believe no more than what you read on the front page. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/07/davy-rice

166. Landon Ambrose There is a magical When I got out eight years moment just before a snow, later, there was a gleaming where it seems like sound can’t new cathedral to good travel more than a few feet. government where we killed the It’s on nights like that, that old one. I heard there’s a I did my best work. With the bust of the Old Man in the alarm disabled, it lobby. Don’t know for sure. was nothing to get inside. I never set foot inside. The fires were all set precisely, the misleading evidence put in just the right spots. It was only because that damn cop was walking around outside, where he shouldn’t have been, that we got nabbed. The building burned down anyway. The job got done. And we took the fall. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/07/landon-ambrose

167. Harvey Canyon I was the type of guy who fell in love with the waitress. With the girl in the office down the hall. I loved passionately, hundreds of them, thousands. But it was all in my imagination. Was this my tragedy or my triumph? I can’t tell. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/07/harvey-canyon

168. Graham Carrol When I was in my teens, there was a line of trees As an adult, I found along a road near my myself repeatedly house. In front of them were trying to recreate rows of low bushes. You my crèche, but never could could sit in between and recapture that sense of feel like you were lost in safety, of solitude. a primeval forest. I’m sure that it was the One day, I came home to product of the hard work visit my parents. And of some municipal saw my sanctuary landscaping worker. But had been ripped out to make to me, it was like a room for a tract mansion. secret world, completely I never came back to severed from the earthly Spoon River after that plane. I would hide there, spend day, until I came here hours on end, with my walkman, a filched bag of chips, and a book or three. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/07/graham-carrol

169. Rey Cristobal After the of course. Garrity, Sheaffer, even City Council building burned, it was Don Howard. me who worked That building was my conception, my tirelessly to raise funds for its monument, replacement. my whole life, cast in steel and in stone. To get all the divergent factions But my name? to agree My name is nowhere to be found there. on an architect, a site plan, and a vision. When I unveiled the models, people swooned and cheered and said I was building a temple to justice. At the last minute, who swept in with his gnarled claws? In the rotunda, there’s a portrait. Enshrined in oils, The Titans of Spoon River. Deegan first, http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/07/rey-cristobal

170. Clem Dax Every group of I saw him fellas has playing the runt a runt. For some to those guys reason, it at the garage, was always me. trying to I always weasel his way had to drive, or to a job. pick up the I s’pose we’re leftovers, or all someone’s clean up the runt, and someone mess. Every group else’s King. of fellas has a King o’ the Mountain, too. I lived in fear of a bad word or look from Jimbo. Until that day http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/10/clem-dax

171. Columbus Lesley After years climbing the ladder, controlling the remnants I split from my friends when of the bankrupt Deegan Group. I I saw they had betrayed what I was supposed to collect thought we’d stood for. I tried my checks, keep quiet and grow old. to build a new party with the But I made that office other disaffected. into my weapon of revenge. But the bar to entry was too And I lived out my days high, and we failed. So I denying that money to all bent my new apparatus to who wanted a piece of capture positions of it. The older I grew, the more power in my old party. And I was successful for they despised me, and the a time, until the deals I cut more they were forced to listen to and the crimes I covered what I wanted. Their hate up were exposed. My followers became my only sustenance, pushed me out, and took the and it kept me alive reins for themselves. As a payoff well into my ninth decade, much to keep me quiet, they to their consternation. made me a member of the board http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/10/columbus-lesley

172. Will Calhoun Twenty-six years, I was a municipal judge. And all I wanted was one more term. But they dropped me from the ticket and went with some new, young fellow. I became possessed with rage and bitterness, so much that I gave myself a stroke. My last years of life were spent almost speechless, confined to my chair. But I never lost my hatred. I shaped my sons to be my instruments of vengeance. From what I could see before I was taken, I was successful. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/10/will-calhoun

173. Billy Calhoun Junior I never even liked the law. But my father molded me to send his payback to those who wronged him. So my life was spent settling scores that were decades old. His hate for a small group blossomed into my hatred for the world. All I trusted was money, and what I could buy with it. And even though he died when I was still young, I felt the shadow of his chair and heard the grinding of his teeth right up to my own deathbed. I can still hear them now. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/10/billy-calhoun-junior

174. Marcellus Wayde You know that Springsteen song, where the guy to the ramp, when a pickup truck ran goes out one night and the stop light and smashed ditches his family? I never into the Chevy. The collision understood how a was awful. I called person could do that, just throw their life 911. When the police arrived, away. Until the I told them what had bank collapse wiped me out, I lost my happened. They took my statement and asked job, and my daughter me to stay in town was born with autism. The bills were so they could follow up if needed. insurmountable, I testified in my home was a minefield, my wife cringed court. The pickup driver got sent to at the sight of me. jail for manslaughter. And so one night, instead of turning But I never got on the Thruway right towards home, I went When the police let straight. I don’t think I had a plan, but me go, I went straight home. That night, and I found myself at every night after. the on-ramp to the Thruway. The light turned green. The Chevy in front of me began to turn. I put my foot on the gas pedal and turned on my signal to follow him on http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/10/marcellus-wayde

175. Andre Mark I was at the Y you can only from the inside by one day. This was live in one of them. my secrets like uncommon. I was In one, you can Clarence Brusso? I there with a friend, have all that you could was not the most using his guest pass. ever want in peaceful man, but I There was a fat, a lifetime. In the never let rage old man – he looked old other, you get take over my life, to me then, with to be right. The trick like Sheriff Reade. my unseasoned eyes. is, knowing which And I used all kinds And he said, with apartment is which.” of drugs, but I no provocation, With that, the old never lost myself that he had learned man waddled away. to them like so the meaning of life, I never saw many, many of and would we like him again, but not my neighbors. I to hear it? My friend a month went by could have been any was in a rush, after, that I did of them, I think, trying to keep to not think on what if I’d never heard a schedule, he said. I think that (what I later so he did not stay is why, even told to my kids as) to listen. But with a life full of The Parable something about the tragedies and Of The Apartments. wrinkles in his loss and hardship, I I wonder who forehead kept me there. didn’t succumb I’d have been, if I’d “So then, what is to bitterness like never heard it? your secret?” I asked. Llew Underwood. “There are these two And after a life apartments,” he said, far from honest, “across the hall how I avoided from each other. And being eaten http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/andre-mark

176. Hector Dillon When I was growing up the next time you want to here, everyone who had crush a dream, think of me, influence over me, shut your mouth and listen. everyone who had a hand in my care, told me that my music was a dead end, a waste of time. You all wanted me to quit and do something “real.” But I persevered, and became a success. I touched more people than you can imagine. Now this grave is regularly visited by people who listened. And you are forced to spend your time on the upkeep of my tomb. That makes me happy. So, http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/hector-dillon

177. Sam Bourgoyne Somehow, I knew what was going on. Long before I saw him sneaking away from the side of the house after climbing out her window. She had this faraway smile. I swore I’d kill him, but I never did try. Then I bumped into him on the street. I saw the terror in his eyes, and tremors in his hands as he pulled out the gun. I yelled at him to wait but he shot me in the chest. I died in his arms while he wept. I don’t know if she did. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/sam-bourgoyne

178. Mrs. Alyssa Bourgoyne I tried to send him away, but his I stayed mute passion left me speechless. But I knew in prison, and only it couldn’t spoke when it was a necessity, end any other way and then just but badly. I never wanted him the absolute least that to kill Sam. I could. I knew when I became sick, But when the Judge sentenced but I kept me, I found that I could not speak in it to myself, and I my defense. went to my end without a complaint. No words would come. I was thirty-five, and Edd was twenty, so they blamed me. And perhaps I believed them and sentenced myself to silence. Or maybe I felt nothing I could say would set things right, so why bother? http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/mrs.-alyssa-bourgoyne

179. Edd Nash Fourteen years life I had left for murder, I in service. served. The first And a decade three were a Hell later, they of my own decided I making. But at had earned my some point, I release. I spent learned that if I every day didn’t find after making a way to live good on their with it, I’d belief in me. kill myself well before I got through year four. So I read the Bible each day, and I committed to spending what http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/edd-nash

180. Stewartt the Coder Every interaction can be broken down into code. Every code has a structure, a syntax. That syntax disassembled, will reveal an even finer-grained structure. Now disassemble that code again. Lather, rinse, repeat, past even the subatomic level - you’ll still have infinite depths to plumb. God’s a programmer, the greatest hacker ever. And we are his most elegant code. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/stewartt-the-coder

181. Gavin Anders Please, tell me who won. I gave my last bit of strength campaigning for the Governor. And they said he won at first. But then it was too close to call. And there were lawsuits and rulings and appeals. I tried to hang on, to see him claim his rightful triumph. But my body didn’t listen to what my head was telling it. Did he win it? Did he restore our prestige and pride? What happened? What happened? No one will say. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/gavin-anders

182. Herman Saint We were saving up to leave Spoon River. Leave America. As a nation we are doomed, destined for collapse, and will be lucky to survive a handful of decades more without tearing ourselves apart. So we were leaving. But I got sick, a rare form of cancer. Then Jeane got a flu that would not pass. We spent our savings on doctors. No matter. We both died within the year. Get out, while you’re still able. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/herman-saint

183. Maud Drake I always said been meant to be that I didn’t want to I would get that have children. Who infection, too. That would want to bring life I would die. That into such an my son would die with awful world as ours? me, before he But somehow I could experience was persuaded, by the world at all. my friends and my Don’t look for meaning. family and things I read, that I was supposed to want a baby. So when I got pregnant by accident, I decided it was meant to be. But if that was true, then it must have http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/maud-drake

184. Filomena Liston Why do we remain here? To bear witness? To what end, if no one will listen to us? The living barely slow to see each other, much less stop to remember we who are gone. What are you afraid of? What might you hear that turns your world to ashes? No, don’t stop. Don’t listen. Keep going. Live. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/filomena-liston

185. Octavio Bradford The smell of fresh coffee. The taste of an apple. The feel of a hot shower. The sound of the ocean. The sun in her eyes. These are the things that I mourn. These are the things that bring me peace. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/octavio-bradford

186. Reverend Mappleton My fellow clergy all served God, and Spoon River, the best they knew how. But I could not help but wish that they had done more listening and less talking. They fancied themselves as shepherds. But the Lord does not want sheep. He wants us to be whales, full of power, beauty and grace, a pod that spans the world, singing a song of Love. Whales have no shepherds. Just hunters. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/12/reverend-mappleton

187. Kiernan Cale When I was a junior in high school, we went to the state finals, and I scored the winning touchdown. Every moment of my life after was less than the one that came before. Fifty years more. Nothing was ever better than that day. How I wish that it had never happened. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/14/kiernan-cale

188. Mohamed Williams Spoon River was just a place like any other one. We had heroes and villains and the righteous and the wicked and the boring and the normal and the bizarre. I was probably all of those at some point. None of these chattering ghosts would have been any different had they lived their little lives anywhere else. We all carry the seeds of our own destruction inside us. And God only sends us the crosses that he knows we can’t bear. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/14/mohamed-williams

189. Mackenzie Tobias When I was a boy, I thought that my parents were gods and knew everything. When I was older I thought they knew nothing. As an adult, I would speak and hear their words coming out of my mouth. I had children, and watched them go through the same cycle from the other side. Then came the day when my son spoke, and it was with my voice, and the voice of my father, and of my grandmother. And the voice of my daughter was mine, and my mother’s, and her grandfather’s. Resonating. None of us are our own people. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/14/mackenzie-tobias

190. Armand Stone I was married five times. And every time the divorce was ugly. I was repeatedly betrayed, used, and taken advantage of. Each time, I thought the new one was the answer to my unhappiness. Each of them ended in misery. But the truth is, fulfillment is dull, and I just got bored too easily. How I wish it wasn’t so. I had five chances for happiness and I sabotaged them all. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/17/armand-stone

191. OudryTumelo The factions went to war, and thousands upon thousands died, my wife and daughters included. I escaped. And I settled in Spoon River. Factions war here, too. Mostly with words and not bullets or fire. Mostly. But words are first, and they poison the mind and the soul. No hand has ever pulled a trigger or set a blaze without the control of a mind awash in words. My days in Spoon River were peaceful. But the conflagration will come here soon enough. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/17/oudry-tumelo

192. Josh Almeida Every great man needs voices to speak for him. My voice was one of the best, strongest, and most persuasive. So it was purchased to speak for Deegan. By his word, I spoke for the boards of a dozen firms. I thought I had given my children a life without the anxious whispers of want. But then came the crash, and suddenly my staggering voice was silenced. No surprise that throat cancer took me, twenty months later. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/17/josh-almeida

193. Arvin Knoble I was just about to graduate. There was a big parade in town. And Josh Almeida gave a speech about honor and sacrifice and defending the flag, and we all cheered and cheered, and suddenly I knew I had to join up. Two years later, as I was bleeding my life out into a swamp, all I could hear were his words, as loud as the day I’d first heard them. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/17/arvin-knoble

194. Lionel Lindburgh Vinnie Knoble would have despised me if he’d come home alive. And I probably would have returned the favor. But those grunts never understood we were fighting for them. To keep them from wasting their lives in a pointless war. What did I get for my sacrifice? One of his brothers shot me on my home soil. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/17/lionel-lindburgh

195. Second Platoon The truth of the matter is, we argued, we laughed, we seethed, we cried, we complained we were bored, we were crazy, we killed and then we died. We died for you. We were you. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/second-platoon

196. Allistair Finch When Becca and I, and the first wave of settlers came to Spoon River, there was nothing but trees. We built the first town. We endured the winters, the famine, the terror of strange folk in the woods. All the long years have passed, and our children, they judged us. Saying we were brutal. Savage. Bringers of plague and genocide. But they never had to struggle for survival. All they knew was money. What is money? Some unreal marker of debt. Of control. How stupid to die for an idea. Our money was food. Fire. Warmth. When you’ve faced a world that is trying to kill you at every turn, only then, do you have permission to judge my choices. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/allistair-finch

197. Emilio Gaines My whole life, I strove. I sweat. I labored. To know. To understand. But what can knowledge tell you that a cool rain can’t? And what possible answer could you find to the question of the eternal stars? http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/emilio-gaines

198. Becca Finch One winter, the plague took my Allistair away, and left me crippled. But I lived a long time after. To watch the town and country we built grow, expand, and reach heights that we never could have dreamed. Oh, my love. Do not be angry with our children. We built them a world and they have made it their own, just as we made ours in Spoon River. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/becca-finch

199. Mena Weisse He was a rich, the sea, on merchant ships spoiled boy when he first and whalers and met me, and it anything with a sail infuriated him that would put the so, how I would world between himself and challenge his every word. me. And out of As if by dint these journeys, he made his of his family he fame. I was the should always know only one who could read what was right. And though I my name written never let him in the spaces between see the truth of me, I his lines. Do not think he knew that seek to avoid pain, since I loved him desperately. agony is But his head and the try-works of beauty. heart could not be spliced, and so he left. It was me he was fleeing, when he took to http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/mena-weisse

200. Gyorg Kiel Those last few weeks, I that movie. “What raced to finish does it matter what writing my memoirs you say about before wasting people?” Over and away completely. over, every night. But every night When I woke, my pen in the hospice, I was stilled. Every had the same dream. day, I wrote less and I was writing on less. It was still parchment, which was unfinished the day really my skin. With I did not wake. a fountain pen, that I kept dipping in an inkwell, that was also a canal like in Venice. And I’d hear Dietrich say that line from the end of http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/gyorg-kiel

201. Donna Sageth I was brought up to believe that if something was wrong, if something was upsetting you, if something was hurting you, then you should not keep quiet about it. Repression, I was told, only makes things worse. Except, in the real world, nobody wants to hear it, nobody wants to help, nobody truly cares. And all you end up with is an advertisement for your weakness, and other people’s pity or scorn. Thin-skinned, I failed at becoming a stoic. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/donna-sageth

202. Dinah Elden They laughed at us when are in the dark now. we said we loved each But I know he will other more than two be with us soon. I had ever loved in know. I know. I know. the history of the world, and we would never be apart. And after we found out, we knew they would never let us be together, never give us any peace. We lit the candles, played the music and swallowed the pills. So the three of us could be reborn as one, together, safe. We http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/19/dinah-elden

203. Sweborg, the Coroner Every case that came in got put him first. a number. The prisons always sent me The month, the day, the year. Then bodies at the end of the last name and first initial, month, like they on those days rushed to fill up their quota. that we got more than one. That system worked fine, the thirty I wonder what they saw when years I ran they put my the place. But then they put it name in there. Where did I rank? all on the computer, and you couldn’t find anything. But it was curious to see the new patterns that came clear in the mess. All the Winters died in the springtime. And Christian Deegan died on New Year’s Day, so the computer always http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/21/sweborg,-the-coroner

204. Salvatore Valentin He worked in the office next to mine and he was a shirker. If there were the quickest, sloppiest way of doing inspections, of filling out the forms, he would do it. And it made me furious that he got such a plum, without any notion of the many sacrifices I made to reach an equal station. I came from a family of sweatshop workers and town hoodlums. To hold a job in civil service, an appointment, with a salary and a guarantee of food in the winter, these were lofty heights to reach in my world. My triumph was his prison. I did my job better than was expected. And all I received was the odd extra biscuit, while he gained immortality. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/21/salvatore-valentin

205. Mordechai Torrey I took over the department store picture-taking franchise. It had been losing money for years, as the new cameras gave people the tools to do the job for themselves. But families still came to me, drawn by the rituals that they remembered their own parents dragging them to. And I would take portraits of their babies and toddlers, and wonder what world these children would live in when they made it to adulthood. (If they made it – I did a surprising amount of business in funeral reprints.) What world would these children inherit? Would I recognize it? Would they even be human? Would I be a caveman to them? http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/21/mordechai-torrey

206. Remington Paisley He would not have been remembered, if for the major journals. Soon, it weren’t for me. His books there was a flowering revival. had mostly been forgotten, but they But was he grateful? Did he came back into vogue near the thank me? He just squinted at me with end of his life. And why do you think irritation, as if I that was? In the short time when distracted him from important things. he was famous, I was a boy in But what is more important the village and heard stories than legacy? Would he have his, had of how he used to teach in Sunday I not been his champion? school and take long walks wearing Did he think he did it all alone? a queer-looking hat, or how he would Was my value so paltry? prattle on to the matrons about Solomon or Suleiman or syphilis. Later, when I had grown and reached a place of small influence in the world of letters, I dug out his forgotten stories, added them to my syllabus, and wrote some few pieces http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/21/remington-paisley

207. Lyla Banks Ninety-three years. I made. My dearest A near century. children of dust, Who was I when life is short and long. I met Dom, decades You did what you and decades past, could. Leave it now. Rest. in another world? Seventy years together. Children born and passed on, grandchildren saved and slipped away, great- grandchildren to start the cycle once more. Every sight you can imagine, I saw it. Every emotion you could feel, I burned with. Every mistake, http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/24/lyla-banks

208. Dominick Banks In almost a full century, I had the world and the cosmos explained to me in dozens of ways. The meaning of God thrust upon me from thousands who sought my voice for themselves. The fabric of the universe shredded, re-stitched, shredded again. But God was always with me. Sitting right next to me, in Lyla’s smile. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/24/dominick-banks

209. Jamil Cleave I devoted my life to justice and I failed. So damn all your remembrances and shrines to an image of me. Curse me instead, for falling before the forces of repression. Curse me, and carry on the fight. When you praise me, you only damn yourselves, set back the cause and abdicate your responsibilities. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/24/jamil-cleave

210. Elizabeth Nickle My father loved baseball, but more than that he loved old stories about baseball. He loved telling me bedtime tales of the feats, misdeeds and malaprops of all those legends. But the one thing he told me that always stayed with me was that famous saying of Satchel Paige about not looking back, because something might be gaining on you. My Dad taught me to play, and I loved it. But more, he and Satchel taught me how to live, a lesson I never forgot. I didn’t slow down until I stopped for good. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/24/elizabeth-nickle

211. Jacob Bryson My children, I am failures instead of your sorry I am not there own. Be the master to see what you will of your own state of mind. become. But I know you will do well. And if you only remember one thing for me, let it be this: that no one else has the power to make you do, or feel, anything that you don’t want to, unless you give them that power. If I would have learned that lesson earlier, I might have been there to see you have your own children. Hopefully, you can learn it through my http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/24/jacob-bryson

212. Linus Ballard Everyone is the hero of their own story, their life an epic. But they’re also the villain of the tale. And they play all their own supporting roles. Other people are merely standing in for aspects of themselves. Or maybe I’m the only one who thought that way. And maybe I was the only one to be alone at the end of their story. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/linus-ballard

213. Rosalinda Wyatt Those who make the laws are the most in need of being ruled over. Those who enforce the laws are the most likely to break them. The ones who play at power are the deluded ones. Those of us they derided as common, stupid or hopeless, were building the only world that truly mattered. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/rosalinda-wyatt

214. Kylie Templeton Udzinger In my lifetime, I saw superstition replaced with hard science. You’d think that would be a good thing, but you’d be wrong. They just replaced unquestioning reliance on the church with a reflexive worship of science. But was the New England Journal of Medicine any less remote than the Vatican. Both were sold stories of how the world worked, and both turned a profit from belief. I trusted my own anecdotal evidence instead, with a dose of charitable skepticism towards all, including myself. And it served me just fine. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/kylie-templeton-udzinger

215. Paulie “Perch” Rucker We come from the ocean, relying only on and we build shoals in herself. And Mellor the the wide, waterless world. comedian, a Deegan, the Orca, with Grouper with a giant his wake of pilot mouth he never could close. fish feeding off of him. And Robin Parker, a The porpoise Moreland, Barracuda of too playful for his own cunning temperament, locked good, caught in the stinging in combat with gallant Swordfish nettles of Donald Kyle Kerns, always Howard, the Jellyfish. brandishing his weapon And you. Are you a shark before him. Can you see or a mere prawn? Gio Moss the Crab, A giant squid or just scuttling away from plankton to be gobbled his latest meal, looking up by the others? for another shell But we all fear the great to climb into? Efa, Fisherman, who snags us a sad-eyed Catfish who up in his nets and can see all the muck carries us to our doom. and misery that skim the bottom? Tysha, an Amazon Molly, http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/paulie-“perch”-rucker

216. Dwayne Hunt I started with Foucault, But everything crumbled and went headlong when I faced a into Derrida and problem that no grammar de Saussure. Then was equipped for. Baudrillard, Lacan and When Vita Diego Zizek, and their challenged me to countless vassals. Shredding use language to capture the map, burning her orgasm. the territory. I I tried and failed and tried built and tore down and failed and tried. grammars and dreamed that I could add a last After, I came back to piece that would bring it all the surface and together; to breathed the cool air for the make the world change the way first time in years. it saw itself. Down the rabbit hole deep and deeper. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/dwayne-hunt

217. Jared Carson This world is what you make of it. I made one full of beauty and joy, and I travelled far and wide to see as much as I could. But I always loved coming home to Spoon River, its peace and good nature. And even though I saw far-flung cities and the wonders of this vast planet, I’m content my final peace is here. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/jared-carson

218. Eli Blanchard Carson is always going on and on about how peaceful Spoon River was; how good and simple. But he was rarely around to see how mean life here could be. If I could have traded places with him, I would never have come back. Now I’m stuck here, listening to him forever. Reminding me I never did leave this place. And now never can. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/eli-blanchard

219. Vita Diego I got bored of that was good for the academy more than monographs, and their endless conferences, or circle-jerks. I quit drunken, flirtatious and became an arguments. A acupuncturist. metaphor that healed. All my former That touched. Garden friends were aghast at overwhelms machine. my fall into new-age quackery. But they could not understand what I saw – a system of metaphor that captured our whole cosmos, from atom to universe. And a metaphor http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/vita-diego

220. Dirk True As a student, to myself, the I was good at shortest distance geometry. between two points It was ordered, is never a had rules, made sense. straight, direct line. People are non- Euclidean, and axioms did not hold. So I abandoned the path they all thought I belonged on and struck out on my own. A disappointment to many, but leaving that world was worth it. I proved, if only http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/26/dirk-true

221. Donavon Bode I belonged to no party. Each side had their points. Each time the contest came due, I wavered and waffled and tried to make the most right choice. They all made sense at times. They all were crazy too. I always had trouble. And more than once, I went in the voting booth and closed my eyes. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/28/donavon-bode

222. Beryl Clovis They’ll try to beat it out of you. Through logic, and ridicule, and if necessary, fists. But never forget that you are right, and this world is more than what your eyes see. Even the churches want to pin you down, by giving God a backstory. God is a mystery and it will never be solved. Hallelujah. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/28/beryl-clovis

223. Sylvester Rowan God must be dead. Because it is said that we are made in his image. And we die. And our deaths are the things that give our lives purpose. That is what they say. So, if it’s true, it stands to reason that God, creator of all, to fill his Creation with meaning, would have to perish, would have to leave it behind. If not, then what does any of it mean? God must be dead. If not, then he’s a fraud and a coward. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/28/sylvester-rowan

224. Kenan Connor They always said I it was true. It took was slow. And they said that me a while, but I learned Doctor Centrone was to stop saying it, my real father, because because folks would get that I looked like him, but look in their eyes that he said he wasn’t. And meant they were gonna get even though I was serious. When I slow, people were nice to got sick, I could talk to me and gave me things lots of other things, to do to help out. I like flowers and grass and was good at taking soil. And then I care of their animals, saw folks who had died when so I walked a lot I was small, and they of dogs and fed a lot told me to not be scared. of cats and fish, and So I wasn’t. I one time I even got came here and talked to the to feed a turtle. grass and the trees and But nobody believed the dirt to tell them I’d me that I could hear be there soon, and they what the animals were were happy to see me. saying, and could talk back to them, and that’s why I was so good at http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/11/28/kenan-connor

225. SorenKiteway I was the last of three. Born late. An accident and an afterthought. So I learned to survive with less. Love, attention, consideration. But my siblings both grew to squander my parent’s love and support and money. Whereas I, who got nothing but the freedom that comes from being ignored, grew strong and made myself a life. Expectation kills. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/1/soren-kiteway

226. The Skeptic-Believer My town was your ability to change. full of people who worshipped The world continues to revolve, fire gods and revenants and even if things that went you don’t, can’t, won’t validate bump in the night. And it had every microscopic piece of people who decried Faith as a it. If you delusion try to check each possible and an invitation to outcome, every permutation, bamboozlement. But having Faith you will lose is much more your mind and your self. So the important that believing only rational answer is in a deity, nor does it Faith. Faith that require the planet will still be there believing in anything tomorrow. Faith that she loves you. supernatural. Faith is a Faith that things practical, you do have meaning to some rational position. Faith one, even if you can’t see it. is the opposite of Control, and it’s a I hated crucial survival skill in God. My Faith was the bedrock a world where so many things are of my life and my happiness. outside of http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/1/the-skeptic-believer

227. Hugo Bryton I wanted, and I needed, so I prayed to God. But God didn’t care. I fell ill and cursed God. He still didn’t care. Then I found love, and thought I’d make my peace with God. Again, silence. So I forgot about God, and in doing so, I think I may have found him. I’m not sure. But that’s fine with me. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/1/hugo-bryton

228. Arnold Edson After eighty years, this world was nothing I could recognize. We might have been colonized by Martians; that’s how strange these people, these so- called children of mine, have become. I could not understand how they lived the way they did, thought the way they thought. Maybe I had become the alien. Either way, I was ready to go. I was ready four years before I went http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/1/arnold-edson

229. Idris Earle I was an ardent a fact that we held – Democrat, and backed you still hold – power the ticket, fought for to destroy all life it. But I broke with on this planet. And my liberal friends those kinds of genies on one issue that never go home to perplexed them. I would their bottle. So it not back down on funds is imperative for exploring space. that we send people I know the money to other planets. could have been used for education, to To ensure that our fight poverty, to species survives. My ease suffering. And time has passed, and so I know there was waste has my danger. But that stuffed the pockets make time for yourselves, of oligarchs and and for your children, scammers and weapons on Earth or elsewhere. dealers. But it is http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/1/idris-earle

230. Noreene Andersen I had sight. I didn’t want it. I tried to hide from it, turn it off, block it out. But I saw. I saw when people lied. When they cheated, when they had fooled even themselves. I could still see. And I had to say what I saw. The most transparent lies were my own. So I was hated and shunned. For being honest. The truth is I loved you all, and I’m sorry I couldn’t keep from telling you what you didn’t want to hear. I envied your peace. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/3/noreene-andersen

231. Joseph Dawn I loved my wife, but I didn’t believe cheated on her my story, and since the constantly. Every job woman wouldn’t I had, there’d be help me, I looked like a an office lover. The liar and a business trip trysts. pedophile. And I Secret lunchtime meetings. knew that my wife The last time, it would take that easier was behind a line of than my cheating. bushes down the I confessed, went to jail. block from the office. As we finished, a But my wife stayed police car stopped in front with me. And when I got of us. She ran out, I never away and left me to strayed again. I thought of fend for myself. it constantly, I didn’t even know but I didn’t acted there was a pre- on it. Never. school across the street. They http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/3/joseph-dawn

232. Denice Fulton I went to church every week. Sometimes twice a week. And I marveled at why others didn’t. It was so beautiful and so serene. Majestic. It didn’t matter which church, synagogue, temple, mosque. I loved them all. Such joy was there for all, for free! http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/3/denice-fulton

233. Mac Littleton Do not fear, enemies of the Lord, when your time comes. He is not a God of vengeance. And He knows, as I do, that when you come to join us, your way will be made open by those you loved, those who came before you. They are here now, whispering in His ear. Like I whisper in yours. Do not fear. You are loved. You are saved. This is the Kingdom of Heaven http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/3/mac-littleton

234. Vidal Adolphus After long days in the lab, making cultures, splitting cells, cross-breeding strains, we’d often decamp to Mendel’s, to drink and argue and flirt and fight. Sometime, after a few too many rye whiskies, I’d imagine a Great Geneticist looking down on us, pairing us up to see what our DNA would yield, culling dead- ends, optimizing, improving, diversifying, strengthening. It’s the chief goal of life to make more life. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/3/vidal-adolphus

235. Yancy Melbourne I stumbled through the world of light, shrouded in darkness. But now that I’m buried in the dark, I see nothing but light. Surrounding, filling, connecting us all. I wish I’d had an inkling. Perhaps I wouldn’t have been so terrified. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/5/yancy-melbourne

236. Mitchell Maddox At the end of my days, I found that I loved my dearest enemies. At least I knew them, even if it was to despise them. But the new world is so different, so strange. So my old adversaries became my last compatriots. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/5/mitchell-maddox

237. Captain Achilles Pavalides Don’t venerate me, or my service. I joined for a payoff of money and strength, but none of us got much of either. Except for the permission to take lives. I killed who they told me to, when they told me to. I died the same way. A tool, broken and discarded. Glory and honor can’t embrace you, but the cold dirt can. We go to war, each of us for our own reason. And we all died for somebody else’s. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/5/captain-achilles-pavalides

238. Kenji Shaito My life was music. And though I will never make more, what I did create is still in the world. Not a lot of it, not heard by many. But it is there, while I am gone. And as long as that is the case, there is the chance someone will hear it fresh. So I can still live, until the last recordings degrade, and the final person who heard them passes into nothing. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/kenji-shaito

239. Layne Cornell On Sundays, when my family went to church, I went instead to the library. That was where the angels sang to me. And my worship was most devout. I miss my books so much. I try to tell myself the stories. What I can recall of them. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/layne-cornell

240. Tobin Burgess While I was wasting away, I spent days sitting in the garden. It was the early spring. The trees were just beginning to bud, waking from their long winter’s sleep. Starting over. I didn’t think it was possible to envy plants. I did. I do. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/tobin-burgess

241. Levar Conway The old don’t speak to told to the young me, what I the young. They blame the young learned through all my long for being different, revolutions. They might strange, frightening. Or they not have listened to speak at the young, with me. They may not have heard. regard for listening But some of them did. only to their own Even if only one. words, mistaking their worn proverbs for wisdom. But I spoke to them. And I listened to them. Their fears, Their hopes. Their schemes and cosmologies. And I told them that their elders were just as lost, just as confused as they were. And to trust themselves. I told them the things I wished had been http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/levar-conway

242. Geoff Cage Tobin Burgess is muttering his wish to be a plant. But he’s looking in the wrong place. We are all water, droplets in a huge river. Each one a speck in the great torrent. And in the end, the river returns us all to the fathomless ocean from where we began. Or we evaporate and ascend to the cloudy heavens. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/geoff-cage

243. Sebastian Parrish I lay on my deathbed, waiting for God or his angels to come. I’m still waiting. I’ll wait forever. I know they will come for me. http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/sebastian-parrish

244. George Dillon Davidson One day, when I was ten, held in thrall to their patronage. I was playing baseball with Miguel Elliott, and we All three of us have passed saw a strange movement and now. All three might be called light high up in the air. wastes, failures, or disappointments. Miguel swore it was the Angel Did any of us leave Gabriel, giving a behind a mark on the trumpet concert. I told world, on our shared Spoon River home? him it was a UFO, and A life cut short, squandered. spun him a story of A callow legacy aliens coming to of corruption. Unfinished tales, earth, escaping cruel masters, and read by few, remembered befriending a pair of by fewer. All of us Earth boys who they would take falling short. All of us failing. on an adventure. Just then, Rod Deegan went past, and heard The Gods of the Vikings what we were saying. He all knew they were doomed, that chastised us that it was just a there was nothing they could do to weather balloon, and we avert their fate. What they were wasting our time, and taught their Norsemen was to we should grow up now and get jobs. fight for as long and as fiercely as they could before they Miguel met his Angel succumbed to death. And death after he slipped, and he spared no one, even deities. never got to grow up. I spent a lifetime running, and I did what I did. I hiding from Rod Deegan struggled hard as I could. and his fellows. But every road Now we’re all gone. Now we’re all here. I took led back to their clutches, and my life was http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/8/george-dillon-davidson

A Secret Code in Syllabic Prose While the stories appear to be poems, they are in fact written in a structured syllabic prose, with each piece conforming to a different structure. The choice of structures contain coded information. A hint can be found in the first entry, “I, Metadata,” the only one to not be the voice of a person relating his or her own experience. The might remain to tell your stories holographic memory stores or The text is an acrostic. When the entry is deciphered, it reveals en- damn your enemies. To confess the phrase, “The count of syllables modulo twenty six.” un- ciphered throughout our brains; our We, love of your family or warn our of Modulo 26 is a cipher-text scheme, where the numbers 0 through 25 Us, our I; the thing we whisper correspond to the letters A through Z, and the number wrap around night- those fatal mistakes. To pronounce time pleas and stories to. The hub wise and start over, so 26 means A, 27 means B, etc. This substitution edicts and foolish rules. And some scheme can continue indefinitely, so A could also be represented by of nights, 572, 676, or 1196. feeling and of knowing and of there’d be me there, listening for you. self. If you follow the clue’s instructions, and count the syllables in You could have (sort of) eternal Spoon River’s legacy is here, “I, Metadata,” it reveals a repeating pattern of 1 syllable per line, life, in let it be imaged in software xerox-constructed epitaphs followed by 8 syllables per line. 1-8, or 18. 18 modulo 26 yields the and letter “S.” built into your grave site. You’d be long expired, but your encoded Soul

The Count of Syllables, Modulo 26 Using the key-phrase to deconstruct each of the individual entries yields a new letter. The second entry is below, for Lukasz Harding. It is written with a syllable pattern of 6-7, or 67, yielding the letter “P.” I’m buried right next to Jim Waring, the stockbroker. There are two reinforcements built-in to the structure to help guide the I remember he made codebreaker along the right track. The first is that the initial ten letters a mint in the dot com boom, in the sequence spell out the words “Spoon River.” The second is a went bankrupt, and somehow ended up even richer correspondence between the name of the entry and the syllable pattern. than before, while I lost Lukasz Harding has 6 letters in his first name and 7 in his last, mirroring everything I had and more. the syllable pattern. “I, Metadata” contains a one-letter word and an 8-letter Seeing how the wealthy word, matching the 1-8 structure. This pattern holds true for every entry, just took what they felt they could acting as a shortcut once the code is identified, and also clarifying places get away with, I went where different pronunciations could yield different syllable counts. and robbed a mini-mart store and accidentally shot the clerk at the counter. He was an immigrant, a father of four and I killed him. I plead guilty and got death row, where five years later they gave me a lethal injection. Now I lie next to Jim. Seems our two roads led to the same place.

Spelling It Out There are 244 individual entries in the story. By deciphering each one and translating into letters, the following phrase is revealed: Spoon River native Simon Leigh Goldhamer spent many years trying to produce a television series based on the events in his hometown. He wrote many treatments and scripts but the show, which he called “Spoon River Confidential,” was never produced. Just these fragments were found among his effects. A web search for elements in this phrase quickly reveals the site www.spoonriverconfidential.com. The site contains scanned copies of the papers alluded to in the phrase above. In the original Spoon River Anthology, Masters ends the story with “The Spooniad,” a fragment of an unfinished epic poem written by one of the characters, rendering the conflict in the town in heroic terms. The story in the Spooniad has been adapted into the treatment and concept for Goldhamer never-realized television series. The recovered artifacts give us another window into the battles that split Spoon River in two. At the conclusion of initial publication of the Spoon River Metblog, the elements from this hidden location were published on the main site.

245. Spoon River Confidential http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/2008/12/9/spoon-river-confidential

The Spoon River Metblog A group blog adaptation of “Spoon River Anthology” by Edgar Lee Masters Written by Jay Bushman Produced by The Loose-Fish Project: Adapting classic texts to the web Originally published in 2008 http://spoonriver.metblogs.com Return to the beginning:

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The Spoon River Metblog

by Jay Bushman on Jul 27, 2009

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The Spoon River Metblog — Presentation Transcript