Categories
Arts Culture

C-VILLE Weekly’s annual two-sentence horror story contest

This Halloween, we asked you to submit your creepiest, spookiest, most nightmare-inducingest two-sentence horror stories and you delivered a collection nothing short of terrifying. One thing’s for sure: Kids make great fodder for scary tales (and mirrors, too!). 

We gathered our 11 favorites, which will be performed by Live Arts actors on our social media pages. (Follow us so you don’t miss it!)

FIRST PLACE

As I walked out of the empty theater that night, my phone buzzed with an unknown text: “So you like scary movies?” I glanced around into the darkness, heart racing, when the next message arrived: “You’re about to star in mine.”

By Eduarda Hackenhaar

RUNNERS UP

As she tucked her daughter into bed, she heard a whisper from the closet, “Mommy, there’s someone in my room.” Turning to reassure her, she froze—her daughter was still fast asleep, but the voice continued, “Mommy, I’m scared.”
By Lee Moore

Casper came running, tail wagging, something large and flesh-colored in his mouth. “Bad dog,” the woman scolded, “digging up Daddy’s hand so soon.”
By John Ruemmler

After the pilot came over the intercom to tell the packed plane that we were going to have sit on the tarmac for at least four hours, the man seated next to me turned and extended his hand. “Hello,” he said, “I’m Bob Good.”
By Michael Cordell

When she awoke she could not move nor raise her head, but felt something cold and hypodermic pierce her inner arm. Her mother’s voice, a whisper of warm breath against her ear, said, “It’s only because I love you.”
By Don O’Neal

Son, don’t pick your teeth at the table with that finger. You don’t know where your father found that body.
By Mark Lawton

I look in the mirror and smile. My reflection doesn’t return the grin.
By Lynne DeCora

Mommy, is that A.I.? MOMMY?!?
By Carolyn O’Neal

Oh God, we had to be home before dark but now we’re stuck in this snowbank, covered in shattered glass. I see my wife stuck in the passenger seat with blood dripping down her head; moonlight bleeding through the pines—and she looks delicious.
By Matthew Hepler

Her stomach twisted and her face grew pale as she watched her own reflection slowly back away from the full-length mirror, with a malicious grin. She was on the wrong side!
By Jasmine Williams

In the dead of night, waking from a deep Stage 3 sleep, I felt the cat moving on my bed, walk across my chest, scratch and sniff the covers, and finally snuggle at my side. Eyes popping open, terrified to move, I realized, “I don’t have a cat!”
By David Gladden

Categories
Culture

Dear C’ville…

For this year’s We Are C-VILLE, we asked several Charlottesvillians to write love letters to our city. The writers had the freedom to talk about whatever they wanted, in whatever form they would like. Here are five perspectives penned by David Plunkett, Miller Murray Susen, Richelle Claiborne, Michael Payne, and Edwina Herring.


A vault full of treasures

When I was a child, I was obsessed with the vault holding the rarest materials at the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia. My father worked at Alderman, and as a child-care measure my older brother and I were given what we thought was free rein over the nooks and crannies of that magnificent building; from the aircraft carrier-style stairways to the majestic quiet of the McGregor room, we explored and caroused. We saw library staff ever so carefully work on delicate materials from that mysterious vault. I didn’t really understand what was in there, but I was reasonably sure that it was treasure. 

It turns out that it was! The rarest of materials may have been in there, like the Declaration of Independence Collection, the Jorge Louis Borges Collection, the manuscript of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and many more priceless items. This was my introduction to the world of books and libraries, and it is an apt metaphor—reading is a special combination to unlock a vault full of treasures. 

I spent my childhood days in the libraries of the Charlottesville school system, and my weekends at the wondrous Central Library, ostensibly working on homework but more often relishing the freedom that came with the ability to pull any book with any new world inside of it off the shelf and dive in.

Reading in Charlottesville isn’t just in the libraries. This area is home to more wonderful bookstores and booksellers than you can count. The Virginia Festival of the Book draws readers and writers from around the world to gather and share. The Friends of the Library book sale brought RVs with buyers from out of state to the parking lot at the Gordon Avenue Library, before [the sale moved to its] new location at Albemarle Square (coming soon, April 1-9!). 

Entire communities in Charlottesville, Albemarle, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson have rallied to support libraries and reading, with strong backing from their local governments, which recognize the importance of these values. Schools, homes, churches, medical facilities…wherever you go, there are books and opportunities to share them.  

When I left Charlottesville to study and work elsewhere, I just assumed that this is what every community had to offer. It took leaving to make me realize that this isn’t the case, and that Charlottesville and central Virginia are unique and special in the shared love of reading.

We are part of a community that strives to grow, learn, and connect, even when that isn’t easy. Sometimes growing, learning, and connecting takes us on different paths that are hard to reconcile, but this place tries to do just that. Our community needs the shared experience and growth that comes with reading. 

Come to any JMRL library on any given day and you will see just that, people gathering and sharing, meeting and discussing, or just finding their own worlds to explore. These worlds can be mirrors to reflect themselves, windows to see what the lives of others are like, or sliding doors to walk through into these new worlds and experiences. Not every community values these things like we do, and I wouldn’t want to be in any other place. 

Photo by Eze Amos.

By David Plunkett

Jefferson Madison Regional Library Director

A sharpened appreciation

I have deep family roots in Charlottesville, but I wasn’t even actually born here. Neither were my parents. My dad’s parents moved to the area from New York when he was 7, and he grew up one of eight brothers on Panorama Farms in Earlysville. He left after high school and returned when his eldest, me, was 2. I attended public school K-12 (Go Black Knights Class of ’92), played soccer and acted in community theater, and enjoyed big, rowdy family dinners at the farm. But it never occurred to me to want to live here as an adult. I blasted off after high school, sure the adventures of my real life would find me elsewhere. 

I explored and made homes in some great places; from the Northeast to the West Coast to the Great Lakes to a year spent mainly overseas where home was wherever I unpacked my toothbrush. I tried out all sorts of jobs along the way, like editing textbooks, project managing website redesigns, and even working on a one-woman show. I met a great guy, and we bought a little house with an orange tree in the backyard in the Central Valley of California. 

I was weathering the trials of parenting a sleep-resistant toddler while pregnant, and wondering what happened to my so-called “career,” when my mom fell ill. I was thousands of miles away feeling helpless and desperate and so afraid she would die before my children even got to know her. My stress and anxiety surfaced a truth: The most important thing to me is my relationships. And so many of the people I love most in the world are in Charlottesville. 

So, like my father before me, I returned to town with a 2-year-old and another baby on the way. Thankfully my mom’s health improved, and far from me swooping in to provide them assistance, we fell into a rhythm where my parents would take our kids for at least half a day every weekend. They’ve had many adventures knocking around Panorama Farms, getting in trouble with their doting, ridiculously lenient grandfather. 

Living away for so many years sharpened my appreciation for Charlottesville. I revel in the sweet, polleny springs; the muggy green summers rattling with cicadas; the golden autumns of pyrotechnic leaves; and the mild winters where bulky snow boots mostly stay in the closet. Far from the paucity of adult opportunities I’d imagined, I’ve been lucky to enjoy a wonderful work-life balance here, taking full advantage of our incredible community organizations. I’ve taught drama and playwriting at Live Arts and Village School, among others; I contribute vocals and guitar to a band at The Front Porch; I take writing classes at WriterHouse, run the Four Miler and Ten Miler every year, and have even wrassled with the Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestlers. 

Most important of all is family time. I was with my mom in the house where I grew up when she died this past fall—our children knew and loved her well and we mourn together, which is hard but right. Holiday dinners are as huge, noisy, and joyous for our kids as they were for me. My dad cheers at his grandkids’ plays, recitals, and games, like he did at mine. I used to ride my bike past the place we live now, not really noticing it, my head full of dreams of greener pastures. I write this looking out at our green yard, in March, my birthday month, one of the many birthdays I have spent in Charlottesville, and I’m so grateful. I may not have been born here, but I’m from here through and through, and this is home.

Photo by Eze Amos.

Miller Murray Susen

Freelance Writer, Director, and Editor

Dilly dally to the downtown mall

big dreams
take small steps
in Charlottesville
drowned by fluff
it’s enough to be talented
and travel in artsy circles
or with athletic teams
or Bible study groups
if you have no roots here
don’t worry baby
you can plant them
with seeds from the 
farmer’s market
and fertilize them
with coffee from 
Higher Grounds
on Hardy Drive
they won’t take hold
there is no soil there
and sad to say
very few dreams to keep you company
unless you look
into the eyes of a child
i surveyed these streets
with wonder
up Gordon Avenue 
to the library
where i could escape
the day to day doldrum
of my existence with
Nancy Drew or
Encyclopedia Brown
then down Rugby
passing people who thought
nothing of me
or even wondered
what i may become
one day
much less how my
invisibility to them
made me see myself
then to the Corner
for peeps in shop windows
and fried ice cream
from Marita’s Cantina
then i’d
dilly dally to the downtown mall
past historic churches
and monuments
circling back across railroad tracks
my great-great-grandfather worked on
every day
to home
i held my dreams to my chest
knowing they could not be realized
in Charlottesville
waiting for my great escape to freedom
hoping Harriet would jump out of my books
and show me the way
i found freedom in college
just in not being from
the place i was at
free to be whatever i commanded
discovering parts of me
that had gone unnoticed and undeveloped
unattended to and unloved
found it all and lost it in a 
crapshoot on a corner
in downtown Newark
waiting for a bus to take me to work
i was too far away from Charlottesville
and it called me back
back to family
both blood and self-defined
back so i could discard the parts
that no longer fit me
circumventing catastrophe
by retrieving bits of old me
and attaching them to the me
right now
but the past is heavy
and one-sided
it unbalances the future
in no time
so instead
i replanted my roots
in Charlottesville
balancing the sharp edges
of responsibility 
and inspiration
creating a new life
from the ashes of the old
recognizing
there’s no place
like home
Photo by Tristan Williams.

Richelle Claiborne

Singer, songwriter, actress, and poet

Envisioning better futures

What’s to love about Charlottesville? A few collected memories:

Seeing Slick Rick—newly free from exile in the U.K.—at a music venue adjacent to a curiously located ice rink (now demolished for an award-winning “unique and innovative retail and commercial office development featuring flexible space alternatives”). Being swarmed by friendly toads in the backfields of Riverview Park on a spring evening. Not having enough fingers to count the people I know prepared to get into a blood feud over the zoning of a parcel. Canvassing the beautifully modest homes along Druid Ave., once affordable to working families looking to establish roots or artists with ambiguous dreams. Getting lost in unplatted alleyways. Striking up a conversation at 3am in Lucky 7. Knowing multiple UVA professors who dream of redistributing UVA’s $14.5 billion endowment to the people of Charlottesville. Meeting the resident advisors at Westhaven and Friendship Court who are cautiously optimistic about designing the future of their own communities. Catching the militantly non-commercial programming on Charlottesville Public Access TV. Paying cash for a footlong at Jak ‘N Jil. Listening to the 100 Proof Band in Tonsler Park. Planning with community organizers in the Swanson room of the Central Library. Enjoying the Dewberry Hotel as a piece of conceptual art about the U.S. real estate market. Receiving daily emails about ambitious new ideas for something that could help the community, a few of which by-and-by turn into reality.

Of course, what makes Charlottesville a city worth loving is the people. Charlottesville at its best is an ideal it often strives for but only occasionally achieves: a place where people can come together across divides to collectively create community and envision better futures. To some, it feels as if this is already the reality of Charlottesville. To others, it feels like a dream they’ve been left out of.

Charlottesville is not immune to the trends of 21st-century America: increased atomization, rising economic inequality, a growing affordable housing shortage, corporate monopolization, the erasure of local community for increased profits, divisions accelerated by algorithms engineered to maximize time on platform.

There’s no stopping the reality that significant change is coming to Charlottesville over the coming years. But it’s up to us to determine: To whose benefit?

With cautious optimism, I continue to believe that Charlottesville is filled with people who love our community enough to collectively find good answers.

Photo by Eze Amos.

Michael Payne

Charlottesville City Council Member

We make each other better

How to measure the immeasurable? 
I can’t. But I’ll try. 
I love you, Charlottesville. 
Here’s the shape of my Why. 

I love you the way that I like to be loved. 
With a clear and honest gaze.
I love you with my eyes and heart open. 
Not only through a sentimental haze. 

I love you beyond Beauty. 
But please allow me to proceed 
to briefly honor your loveliness.
For Beautiful you are indeed.

I love your elegant frame. Your good bones, 
Exquisite. From eloquent skyline to rustic cobblestones.
The way the sunset blushes fuchsia, as if it is thrilled
to be settling languidly in the embrace of the hills. 

I love you all-natural.
Dappled in the sunlight’s sight.
I love reaching out for a cluster of stars. 
Nestled, like diamonds, in a velvety jewel box of night. 

Love you festooned in Dogwood. 
Crepe Myrtle. Red buds. 
Love the grass under my feet 
and my hands in the mud.

I love the melody and the cadence 
of the river’s laugh.
As my heart dips its hands 
in its restorative bath. 

I love the well-trodden paths 
on your gently care-worn face. 
Love how your countenance reflects your 
experience. And Grace.

I love you beyond Attraction.
Love is more than chemistry. 
But I cannot deny my reaction 
to our shared proximity. 

I love to follow you into blue moonlight. 
Breathing music in and out.
Your rocks, your rolls, your Symphonies. 
The whispers and the shouts.

I want to dance out my troubles 
until I’m Cville Strong.
Through Starchild nights that crescendo 
and dissolve into daybreak and birdsong.

I love your theaters, restaurants, 
venues and galleries,
Want your bakeries, beverages. 
Your salt, heat and calories.

You are food and life.
Several senses of delight.
I haven’t tried everything on the menu.
But I might.

Let’s talk about Love.

Love like a light in the window.
Love like a beckoning shore.
Love like the one that knows you best. 
Familiar as your own front door. 

Love like visitors on their way through town. 
And the ones who stay a while.
Love through years and generations. 
Love through tears.
Love in truths and in trials.

Love for Family and friends that I hold dear. 
Love for our neighbors.
For the eclectic, collected stories
of our community’s collaborators. 

Love is not even defined by uninterrupted
     togetherness.
We can also take healthy space from each other. 
Sometimes love includes Leaving. Living.
     Learning something new. 
Sometimes love is returning home with renewed 
     energy and appreciation for what I have. 
Returning with the knowledge that 
I do love Charlottesville. 
Not out of habit, or by default, or through muscle 
     memory, or nostalgia, or complacency,
but through my own deliberate and discerning 
     Choosing. 
I think there’s something very life-affirming about 
     this kind of love. 

And I just think we make each other better.
     Charlottesville.
I hope that you agree.
And I feel grateful to be here. Loving you. 
In the ways that I love to be.
Photo by Eze Amos.

Love,

Edwina Herring

Teacher. Musician. Storyteller.
Categories
Arts Culture

Haiku from the heart

Love is in the air! To celebrate, we asked you to submit Valentine’s Day haiku that summed up the season—and you delivered. Here’s the contest winner, plus 10 more 17-syllable poems that got our hearts beating.

Winner

The geese in a V…
Streaked, honked, to the low slung sun.
Did we love the sky?
by Cynthia Woodring 

you are not my first
yet evermore are only
for whom my heart beats
by Heather Rose
Old love is sweeter
Wrinkled, bony, soft. So brave
Stay with me, always
by Gail Esterman
Drinking autumn wine
Her dress blowing in cool wind
Winter comes gently
by Kirby Bonds
The hug felt empty
Ragged, threadbare, counterfeit
Still she yearns for more
by Pam VanDerbeek
front porch, sunset view!
COSMIC LOVE, Mother Nature
Good Night, Rocking Chair…
by Elizabeth Butler
Will you marry me?
’til death does its part and two
become one. Alone.
by Camilla Halford
i saw your name rise
over the mountains on my
way to work that day
by Marie Gaglione
Birds on the feeder
bring peace to my troubled heart,
better than Prozac.
by Fern Hauck
He sounds lovely Dear,
And you seem crazy happy!
But is he Jewish?
by Larry Bauer
Drawn and quartered,
You have exposed my heart.
Reach in and take it!
by Robert Almanza
Categories
Culture

2 scary 2 handle

This month, we asked you to scare our staff with your most terrifying two-sentence horror stories. We received tons of submissions—imaginative, evocative, spine-tingling, funny, and tragic. Truly, you captured the spirit of the season. Below are the top 10 stories we read, which will be performed by the actors at Live Arts. (Check our social media for the video this month.)

First place

She leaned in and tenderly kissed him good night, just as she had done each night since their wedding day. She whispered her promise to stay together always, then pulled away and once again closed the freezer door.
By Marshall Thompson

Runners up

The driver wasn’t chatty so I checked my phone. “hey it’s your uber driver I’m outside.”
By Musahar Ali

The rasp of his breathing breaks the silence of the bedroom, a halting rhythm from the other side of the bed. That sound has comforted me for decades, but I buried him this morning.
By Sam Giannangeli

“Henry, dear, I added wild mushrooms to the salad! Henry?”
By Dawn Peters

Trump won. Again.
By Ariel Zwelling

“MY GOSH!” screamed the vampire. “I’ve never seen so much blood!”
By Marion Ross

“It’s not like me to forget things,” she thought, drifting off to sleep. Under cover of night the solitary cockroach crept into her ear and out through her nose, snacking along the way.
By Mark Cave

The glass mirror thumps as you punch it, but you can’t break it. You’re stuck inside forever, and all you can do is scream.
By Dei Figueroa

Your student loans don’t qualify for forgiveness. Also, we need half the payment in the next few weeks.
By Shantana Blake

I’ve been married 57 years. I’VE BEEN MARRIED 57 YEARS!!!
By Gladys Brown

Categories
News

Our Charlottesville: Essays on the effects of August 12 then and now

The effects of August 12 are both visible and unseen. Palpable and elusive. Deeply felt and formative. Last week, Fourth Street—where Heather Heyer was killed while marching alongside other counterprotesters to let white nationalists and the watching world know that hate has no home here—was renamed in Heyer’s honor.

The international spotlight that shone on our city following that weekend was undoubtedly blinding, and it brought to light deeper truths about our town and ourselves that we have sometimes shied away from. But growth is birthed from pain. And by confronting our past and present, we are collectively moving toward a stronger and more unified future.

For the last issue of the year, we collected essays from local residents, faith leaders, activists, students, teachers and government officials who told us how August 12 impacted their lives—then and now.

David Vaughn Straughn. Photo by Eze Amos

David Vaughn Straughn

Member of Black Lives Matter Charlottesville and Solidarity Cville, artist, writer, community organizer

The Downtown Mall is where my father worked, where I worked, where I’ve had countless drinks countless times, and where I met my first high school girlfriend. There was a lot of joy linked to this place, and I identified Charlottesville as a haven of warmth and security even when living elsewhere. Now it’s almost impossible to cross Fourth and Water without a chill down my spine; to not feel the pangs of anxiety, hypervigilance, resentment and the desire to isolate.

The air is still thick with particles of tear gas and smoke.

The streets are still stained in blood.

It still stings.

However, these horrible experiences brought a community together to eliminate hate and defend our hometown, and I have met so many extraordinary, powerful, beautiful people who hold profound values of devotion and who fight valiantly for the most marginalized.

To these people I am incredibly grateful that I am learning how to honor all people sincerely and respectfully, be they queer, trans, disabled or otherwise marginalized; that I am connecting more deeply with the people of color in my community, as we celebrate blackness and the complexities that lie within it; and accepting that I am (as we all are) a product of a pervasive, white supremacist heteropatriarchy, and being willing to unlearn toxic social beliefs and practices.

Also to truly know what it means to believe that All Black Lives Matter, not only in the general sense, but that the very existence of all of the black people we speak with and come in contact with on a daily basis matter. All of these various feelings, emotions, concerns, fears and viewpoints absolutely matter; that not only Trayvon, Sandra, Eric, Michael, Tamir and other lives already lost matter, but also that my neighbor’s life, words and presence matters.

Also, in that belief that All Black Lives Matter, I believe that my life matters.

Standing in the midst of this visceral hate within these tragedies, this anger and seething vitriol in front of me, in the midst of almost being crushed by a car in an act of terrorism, I am finally ready to live. I am finally ready to persist and thrive; to not just float down the stream of life, but to row with fervor and passion, fueled with the fire of those before me who dreamed of the chances I have today, and who died for the rights I have yet to receive.

The incidents of the weekend of August 11 and 12 prove that the right to live as a person of color in this country, truly free, without fear of harassment, subjugation or violence, is a right that has yet to be allowed to us.

Leslie Scott Jones. Photo by Cara Walton

Leslie Scott-Jones

Author, activist, artist

The Summer of Hate undoubtedly affected all of us. The thought that there are people whose main objective is to harm others is alarming; the idea that they’d travel hundreds of miles to hurt people they’ve never even met is almost too difficult to fathom. Life before this past summer in Charlottesville was, for many, the idyllic picture that most people outside believe. Inside, for people of color, life in Charlottesville is the same as it ever was. The veil of unspoken racism was made transparent on July 8, 2017. It was shouted from the throats of City Council, police officers and, yes, Ku Klux Klan members. On August 12, 2017, that veil was ripped down by a car purposely driven through an unsuspecting crowd, killing one woman and injuring many others.

Those who were inches from that act of terror are still dealing with the ramifications. Ones who weren’t standing on Fourth Street are dealing with the guilt that they weren’t inches from it with their friends. I plunged myself into art, into work. After directing Jitney by August Wilson at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, I accepted a role in Seven Guitars, also by August Wilson and produced at UVA, with no break. I dove in, trying to make sense of my guilt, my own terror. It took me months to walk the Downtown Mall again. I’m still uneasy because I know that the hatred did not come from out of town. It is home. It lives in the same place I have called home for my entire life.

Walking down a Charlottesville street was always a tricky thing for me. My brown skin feels like a bull’s-eye painted on me. That target is just as bright for me today as it was the afternoon of A12, when I was being ushered into a safe house…just in case. Now, I feel I have a moral responsibility to walk these streets to show all of the people who were standing next to Heather when she died that I respect the sacrifice they made for me. I walk these streets to send a message to people who hate me for something I cannot control: They will not take my life from me, they will not take my town.

I was fortified with the words of a dear friend and fellow activist who spoke to me through tears on A12: “This will not stop me. I will go harder. I will not stop.” In that moment I realized I could not let them fight this alone. I had to stand with them and for them.

I deal with the hatred by doing art that continues to show people of color as human. I will lift up those stories to show people that humanity is universal. I will make white people understand that the same lie that created racism in this country has hurt them, too.

Moving forward we have a common goal of ending racism in America. We have people whose eyes have been opened. The journey may be hard; it may take time. For me and for my fellow activists and artists, we are determined to stay on this road until the end. I lean on my friend’s words whenever I think the road is too hard, or this fight will be too long. I repeat them to myself, like a mantra: This will not stop me. I will go harder. I will not stop.

Photo by Eze Amos

Tom Gutherz

Senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel, member of the Charlottesville Clergy Collective

It was a little bit shocking for many people in the congregation to see that openness of antisemitic signs, using chants and slogans and symbols. Most of us had had some encounters with antisemitism, in the course of growing up and being a minority and, in most cases, it was probably what I would call the garden variety antisemitism, statements being made out of ignorance, but not always. But I don’t think anybody had really expected to see this kind of hate, and the youth and the vigor and the excitement of those people and the signs that they carried—for many people, it was disorienting. In the aftermath, it made us sit back and question some of the assumptions that we have about how comfortable we should or could feel in places we do feel comfortable in and that we do feel very much a part of.

We are right in the center of everything here at Congregation Beth Israel. One block from Emancipation Park, one block from Justice Park, one block from the courthouse where all these cases are being tried. In some ways, it has really changed the way we think about our own safety in a way that, I would say, we never have before. And that’s sad.

On the other hand, at the expense of going through this as a faith community—we had a very strong sense that the synagogue might be under threat—it really reminded people how much they care about this place, this community. How much they care about our building, how much they love to pray in this place, and how much they value this tradition as a source of comfort and strength—and resilience.

I was just at a clergy conference in Boston and people asked quite often, “Have you healed? Has Charlottesville healed?” And I think the answer is, well, not yet. As long as these court cases are still going on, there’s still a desire for justice, there’s still a desire for accountability. The question of the monuments is not settled. Charlottesville comes up quite often in the language and conversation of some of the haters out there. And we ourselves are not rushing to say, “This is all in the past, let’s just go back to the way it used to be,” because the discussion about the monuments and the role of City Council, all that did reveal—and continues to reveal—are some deep issues that our community has to deal with. I’d like to think that that’s going to have a positive result in the end. I’d like to think that some of those conversations will be seen as more necessary, and that we’re really going to pay attention to and hopefully find some solutions and work forward on them. That’s the good part about not healing too fast; it leaves open that desire to get to the root of things.

Eboni Bugg

Senior manager for diversity, inclusion and global outreach at the Mind & Life Institute, therapist, yoga teacher

I should begin by saying that although I was present for the rallies in May and July, I was abroad on August 11 and 12 and my perspective on the events of the summer exists within this context. The magnitude of the chaos, trauma and intensity of A11/12 was conveyed to me via news outlets, social media, friends, family and in the interpretations of the people I encountered across Europe and Botswana where I was traveling. The juxtaposition of attending a conference reflecting upon the African philosophy of ubuntu and exploring our shared humanity while my home was in turmoil can’t be understated.

In the midst of this dissonance, I received numerous emails and telephone calls requesting clinical presence for individuals and groups affected by the alt-right presence, violence and domestic terrorism. Most of these calls were for queer, trans and POC [people of color] affirming care, which can be difficult to come by or assess in our community. Since coming home, I have been providing ongoing support to many who have experienced trauma in the wake of A11/12, but also working with local organizations and groups to bolster awareness of the underlying issues that have permeated our community prior to the events of the summer. People often inquire as to what is different about my work post-A11/12, and the reality is that for many of my most vulnerable clients and the way I support them, much remains the same. The underlying societal imbalances that contributed to the trajectory of events over the summer is interwoven into the very fabric of our town.

In many ways, Charlottesville, in the shadow of Monticello, represents the birthplace of the American contradiction: life, liberty and freedom—for some. This contradiction extends into our major institutions and services for education, medical care and mental health. There exist disparate health outcomes for many marginalized groups in Charlottesville and very few providers that reflect the demographics of the community. The events of A11/12 in many ways highlighted these issues and my hope is that in the wake of this ongoing tragedy, our systems become better able to support those disproportionately affected by institutionalized oppression, but also create systems of accountability to help redress power imbalances.

In the work I do for groups and organizations, I love talking about ways of providing critical services such as education, medical care and mental health treatment in culturally responsive ways. This type of care reflects the potency with which culture impacts our ability to be successful in life, centers the individual’s culture as the frame of reference for offering help and is representative of the community it serves. This model works toward empowering communities from within, building capacity for historically under-resourced groups to build equity in their own health and wellness. Numerous community agencies have extended significant resources to respond to this crisis…this is not an indictment of their work. But as I reflect on what I have learned over the summer, I am also called to reflect on the work of the activists and community organizers who laid significant groundwork for us to question the validity of existing structures and to harness the energy of community to respond nimbly. As painful as these events are, the people who are seeking help have the opportunity to heal, not just from this trauma but from other traumatic experiences.

I have seen some internal barriers to vulnerability breaking down, and I’ve seen people really wrestling with the beautiful struggle of claiming and understanding one’s identity. By the time someone comes to see me, they’ve already done the hard work, and my job is to bear witness. It’s been a remarkable opportunity for me to be of service.

Brittany Caine-Conley. Photo by Eze Amos

Brittany Caine-Conley

Lead organizer of Congregate C’ville

I lend many thoughts to embodiment, always considering what it means to live and express faith in a bodily, present way. Faithful presence was the focus of my summer and the reason I showed up to counteract overt, violent white supremacy.

Both on July 8 and August 12, within the turmoil and the conflict and the exhaustion and the complete despair, I experienced what it means to be embodied, what it means to know something in my bones. I felt the evil of white supremacy to an extent I had never previously encountered.

I had witnessed white supremacy with my eyes. I understood it with my mind. I even prayed about it and lent my spirit and time to dismantling it. But I hadn’t encountered violent white supremacy in my bones.

In White Christian America we like to think about things and pray about things. We look at oppression and supremacy and evil, we mentally process oppression and supremacy and evil, we pray for the end of oppression and supremacy and evil, and we institute programs to address oppression and supremacy and evil. But we don’t actually experience oppressive supremacy in our bones.

There’s a striking difference between perceiving oppressive evil in our minds, seeing oppressive evil with our eyes, feeling oppressive evil with our flesh and actually knowing oppressive evil deep down in our bones. When a truth lodges itself in our bones, reality begins to shift.

We can’t simply think and pray and write checks and create programs and expect justice to flow like a river. Our reality will transform once we allow uncomfortable truths to lodge deep down inside of our bones. Goodness and justice will flow when we learn how to be present in the face of evil and oppression, when we experience, in our bodies, the very thing we hope to change.

May we show up. May we practice presence. May we learn how to accompany one another, not just with our thoughts and prayers, but with our bones.

Jocelyn Johnson

Jocelyn Johnson

Johnson Elementary School art teacher, writer

I tried to prepare. I braced against it. Still, August 12 in Charlottesville shifted something in me. When those men raised their Klan-marked Confederate flags, I felt like I could not breathe. When they chanted “Jews will not replace us!,” my mind flew back to visiting Germany in high school. Our school group took a day trip to Auschwitz. Sixteen and standing in that fallow place, the truth of history felt far away, as if a curtain of time shielded me from all the obscenities that had occurred there.

This summer, when those men aimed their rage at brown and black bodies, at immigrants and refugees and Jewish people, I felt overwhelmed with grief. By glorifying brutality and genocide, they proved my teenaged self wrong. The symbols they brandished, the chants they resurrected, made those historic atrocities feel close in the cave of my chest. Just like that I understood there was no distance. We could do terrible things. Terrible things could be done to us.

In the weeks afterward, I couldn’t sleep. I watched colleagues and students tearful and exhausted as the school year started. I wrestled with the fact that this spectacle of hate was now part of my son’s understanding of the world. Signs of anger, fear, stress and depression were more visible in our civic discourse and on my Facebook feed. Folks seemed to be retreating into smaller inward-looking circles, distrustful even of those who have a slightly different point of view.

But lately, I’ve noticed that people have grown more committed too, more determined. It’s as if they are also thinking what I’ve come to know. If there is no wall of time to protect us, then there is only us. If those men could position their bodies to do harm, then we can angle ours to do good. Those men offered us a rare close-up view of where tribalism and intolerance lead, but the legacy of August 12 is still forming in our hands. What if we manage to work together to define ourselves in blindingly stark contrast? What if we channel our new anxious energies toward fostering equity, diversity, decency? We face real challenges in this town and on this fragile boat of a planet. August 12 convinced me, we need each other more than ever now.

Photo by Eze Amos

Heather Hill

City councilor-elect

I believe our city’s reputation as an open and welcoming community made us a target for white supremacists seeking to aggressively oppose our ideals. Their actions on the weekend of August 12 revisited the worst demons of America’s past and reinforced the sad reality of the continued hate and discord among some Americans.

While the horrors of that weekend were the direct result of hate-filled visitors pouring into our city, the response of our government revealed systemic issues that have been present for some time. These include a lack of communication, coordination, responsiveness and an unwillingness to leverage external resources effectively. If we cannot handle the day-to-day responsibilities of government well, how can we expect to handle extraordinary situations?

This summer’s events have galvanized many of us to address the systemic flaws in our city. I believe that in order to accomplish this we need to focus on how our local government is structured and identify changes that make it more effective and more citizen focused. We need to educate ourselves so we understand how a strong economic base supports so many of the community’s needs. We need to work with our state leaders to influence decisions currently not in our direct control. Finally, we need to create mechanisms that enable us to develop a mutual understanding, working together to be effective problem solvers.

In the months that have followed August 12, I have heard from more and more people who want to be part of a meaningful path forward, yet ironically the public discourse that has been shaped by the rightful anger from the summer’s events is preventing the change we all want and need. This goes against what I believe our community wants to be—open to each other and our differences. I believe there is something to be learned from everyone, whether they speak loudly or softly, whether one may agree with them or not. It is important for voices to be heard by their government but it is also important that we maintain a respectful atmosphere where we treat and speak to others as we hope they would treat and speak to us.

It is hard for me to put into words how much my life has been enriched the past year by going into spaces less familiar to me and engaging with such a diverse and passionate set of voices. This experience has given me a new lens from which I now view our community, its diversity, its history and its future. I could not be more excited about the potential we have as a community to come together, build relationships and leverage our collective resources as we write the next chapter for our Charlottesville.

Tim Dodson

Tim Dodson

Third-year UVA student, current managing editor and incoming editor-in-chief of The Cavalier Daily

I can’t walk around the Rotunda without imagining the heat of the torches from the racists marching past me, or pass through the Alderman Library parking lot and not think of how white nationalists threatened to break my camera as I saw them throw a man to the ground and pile tiki torches into the back of a U-Haul truck.

When I walk downtown, I have flashbacks to choking on chemical irritants and militia men patrolling the streets.

I can’t forget looking down from the top of the Water Street Parking Garage on the scene of the two other vehicles hit in the car attack, surrounded by posters and fliers victims dropped as they fled the scene.

The events of August 11 and 12 still haunt me, and because the news never stops—reports being released, UVA students making demands of the administration, court hearings—I haven’t had much time to reflect. Journalists—yes, even student journalists—have a responsibility to follow the stories.

I’m still traumatized by what happened to the city where I’ve lived for my entire life, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to be someone who was injured on those days, or a member of a minority community targeted by the white nationalist movement. But I can listen.

August 11 and 12 taught me that journalists must listen to the wide range of perspectives in our communities and approach our work with more empathy. For example, I saw reporters and cameramen step on the flowers at Heather Heyer’s memorial. That was troubling, to say the least. In October, we also saw a local news station air an interview with a white nationalist leader who described torch rallies as “mystical and magical,” just days after the community’s wounds were reopened with another torch-lit rally.

The events forced me to think critically about my own work. I interviewed Richard Spencer for a piece about his time at UVA that The Cavalier Daily published earlier this year, and even though I made it clear he holds racist beliefs and included perspectives of people critical of his movement, I wonder if the potential harm of that article outweighed the importance of the question of how UVA shaped him. I stand by the reporting, but the ways in which we cover white nationalism demands reflection, and a willingness to admit we can and should do better.

A key challenge moving forward is engaging citizens and leaders to ensure the events of this past summer never happen again. From a journalistic perspective, that means providing students and community members with the information they need to get involved, whether it be at a student council, Board of Visitors or City Council meeting. It also means getting leaders on the record, and keeping them accountable when they fall short.

Jeff Fogel. Photo by Jackson Smith

Jeff Fogel

Civil rights attorney

In my six-plus decades of life, I have been at many demonstrations, protests and marches, but I had never seen such a spectacle of hate as graphic as that displayed on August 11 and 12. I was, however, glad to be there among so many people outraged by this scene and condemning fascism, white supremacy, homophobia and xenophobia. I was also happy to see so many people reject the idea, proposed by most of our city leaders, to leave the Nazis alone, on the misguided notion that they will just go away.

Never before had I seen police refusing to stop violence, ignoring pleas to intervene. Nazis were simply allowed to roam the streets of our city, threatening and intimidating and finally killing and maiming. Learning that the state police were ordered to stand down and that even the Charlottesville police were told to intervene only for serious bodily injury or death was shocking. I am representing people in seven different cases arising from July 8 and August 12, as well as incidents leading up to both events. In most cases, the defendants are demonstrably innocent and their arrest (even if they are ultimately acquitted) constituted punishment for exercising their free speech rights.

The aftermath of August, however, has also seen a positive and significant shift in the understanding of racial oppression in our community. Racial oppression, after all, is the flip side of white supremacy. Discussions about low-income housing, disparities in wealth and income and the treatment of African-Americans in the criminal justice and social service systems are all on the table and enjoying widespread support. We even elected [to City Council] a native of Charlottesville, an African-American woman and independent who sees through lies and hypocrisy. We have many moons to go to achieve true racial equality, but I think Charlottesville may be ready.

Charles Weber Jr.

Attorney and one of seven plaintiffs who brought a lawsuit against the city to stop the removal of the General Robert E. Lee statue

I am an optimist by nature. I would like to think that three watershed events of 2017 might present opportunities for change that could benefit all of the people of Charlottesville.

First, City Council, in reckless disregard of Virginia law, voted to remove our two historic Civil War monuments from our public parks, sparking the most serious political crisis in recent memory. In contrast to the overheated rhetoric and actual violence of the public demonstrations, the lawsuit filed against the city has proceeded respectfully and with the dignity required of legal proceedings.

Prediction: The city will lose the case and be ordered not to remove or interfere with the monuments. City Council will be forced to face reality. Some will not be happy with the result, but most of the public will understand that the rule of law prevailed and will more deeply appreciate the deliberative process of Virginia law.

Second, the city’s planning and real-time responses to the demonstrations and counter demonstrations over the summer have exposed inherent flaws in the structure of our local government. The purpose of democracy is to legitimize power and provide political accountability for those who exercise it.

Unlike the Constitutions of United States and Virginia, our city charter merges both legislative and executive power in one body, a city council composed of five part-time legislators. The city manager is an employee of City Council and not directly accountable to the voters.

So who can the voters hold politically accountable for shortcomings, real or perceived, in the executive branch of government this past year? Answer: no one really.

City Council met in executive session and emerged with a litany of mea culpas but no answers to the question of executive responsibility. A leader can always delegate authority but never responsibility.

The Heaphy report stands as Exhibit A for the proposition that a committee of five is structurally unfit to wield executive power. The people of Charlottesville would be better served If executive power were vested in one person, a full-time mayor elected by and accountable to the people.

Finally, on election day, the good people of Charlottesville, in a clear rebuke to the dominant Democratic party, handed Nikuyah Walker a historic victory—the first independent to be elected to City Council since 1948 and the first time in the history of Charlottesville that two African-Americans will serve simultaneously. What took so long?

Our charter specifies that all city councilors shall be elected at-large. In some localities, at-large elections have been found to violate the Voting Rights Act. In Charlottesville, at-large elections were adopted in 1922, at the height of the Jim Crow era, and were intended to disenfranchise as many impoverished people, including most African-Americans, as possible.

Until this past election, only seven African-Americans had ever been elected to serve on City Council in the entire history of Charlottesville as an independent city, the first being elected in 1970.

In 1981, a referendum calling for ward elections was passed by the voters, However, the Democrats on City Council nullified the vote and scheduled a second referendum. The second ballot initiative failed.

I believe that the people of Charlottesville, regardless of their skin color, will benefit by electing their councilors from smaller electoral districts. Doing so would alter the way in which the average citizen relates to his or her local government and could fundamentally improve the political culture in Charlottesville.

Kristin Szakos

Member of the Charlottesville City Council since 2009. Her term will end at the end of December.

When I ran for office eight years ago, I was fresh off the Obama campaign, and had become convinced that many of the things I’d heard from folks at the doors while canvassing—the desire for racial equity in education, for affordable housing, for living wage jobs and for access to government—needed to happen at the local level as well as in Washington.

I campaigned on those issues, and I have kept my focus on them ever since.

Before joining City Council, I was inspired by the work of the Dialogue on Race, instituted by Councilor Holly Edwards the year before, and had served as a facilitator to one of the Dialogue groups. The group’s focus on action as well as talk gave me—and many others—hope that the changes folks at the doors had wanted would be implemented.

And many have. The action items coming from that process have led, with City Council support, to Charlottesville’s Human Rights Ordinance and Commission; the keeping and sharing of racial data regarding police stops to be able to track and address racial inequities; the opening of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center; the founding of a Promise Neighborhood—the City of Promise; creation of a job readiness/training/hiring program for people who have long been unemployed or underemployed; and a commitment as a Second Chance City for people with felony records.

Council also created and recently doubled the affordable housing fund and adopted policies to increase the production and preservation of affordable housing and counter pressures of gentrification. We have welcomed immigrants and refugees into our midst and celebrated our cultural diversity.

And yes, we voted to remove the Confederate statues that dominate our downtown parks—although a Circuit Court judge has issued an injunction keeping us from removing them.

But the work that made our city more fair and equitable was part of what brought white supremacists raging and screaming into our midst. Our commitment to move toward equity infuriated them, even as it fell short of what others had hoped for. And although I am heartbroken at the violence and the loss of lives the white supremacist rage inflicted, I cannot be sorry to live in a community that they object to.

The events of May 13, July 8 and August 12 have shaken this community to its core. The violence and our flawed response left many feeling unsafe and threatened, searching for who to blame. Council has heard fear and frustration and anger from every perspective: those who feel the changes haven’t gone far enough and those who feel they’ve gone too far.

I am hopeful that in the coming year we can recommit ourselves to building bridges, to listening, to talking to one another rather than at one another, acknowledging that we are all flawed and trying to be better. Vitriol and rage have their place, but they will not help to build up a community where all can feel safe and valued.

There’s a lot to do to make this the kind of community we know we should be. Overcoming 300 years of racial injustice and inequality in income, education and opportunity—along with supporting a thriving economy, keeping everyone safe and maintaining our infrastructure—are challenges that now face the next Council and the people of this city. I am confident that they are up to the task.

Photo by Eze Amos

Photo by Eze Amos

Mike Signer

Mayor of Charlottesville

I’m often asked if I’m an optimist or a pessimist after this year in Charlottesville. While I do have a combination of outrage, fury, disappointment, sadness and regret for what we were forced to endure, and for the many failures of our city and state governments documented in recent investigations, I answer that I’m still an optimist. I firmly believe we will overcome this dark chapter in our country’s history just as we did other dark chapters, whether McCarthyism or Jim Crow, through the very values and principles that make us Americans.

To the extent Charlottesville revealed a city, and a nation, that are vulnerable to this year’s firestorm, the years ahead will require the work of any village protecting itself from blazes. We have to address the inequities laid bare by this terrorism, and to make sure that such horrible events never happen again. This is why Charlottesville’s recent actions are so important, from creating more than 200 new units of affordable housing, to overhauling our permitting system, to suing the armed paramilitary groups who invaded us to prevent them from ever threatening us again, to the city manager announcing reforms for how the police approach these events.

I also take heart from political developments. In the recent statewide Virginia elections, candidates running on Trumpism were defeated by an unprecedented surge of activated voters. This stunning wave showed that, through it all, American constitutional democracy is alive and kicking. We are being stress-tested, and while it’s painful, we’re presenting the resilience and dynamism that leaders from James Madison to Martin Luther King Jr. saw as the heart of American democracy. The alternative of a passive and cynical populace just giving up would be much, much worse.

And so I believe that the year 2017, and the expansion in the resistance to Trumpism that followed Charlottesville, will ultimately rank as one of this country’s greatest constitutional moments, on par with the period of deep democratic self-reflection that occurred in the 1930s, as democracies in Europe fell one by one to tyranny, and as Sinclair Lewis wrote the best-selling novel It Can’t Happen Here.

To paraphrase many others, there’s nothing that’s wrong with us that what’s right with us can’t fix. But nothing will happen because of arcs of history or pendulums swinging on their own. It comes down to us—to individuals and organizations working hard to strengthen democracy, to embody the resilience that is the soul of American democracy.

Eze Amos

Eze Amos

Photojournalist

How has the summer affected me? Well, I’m heartened by the way the community has come together. July and August affected everyone in Charlottesville, and it’s amazing how people have reacted to it. In all, the community is in sync with the idea of bringing love back to Charlottesville. The whole thing has been dubbed “the summer of hate” and it’s amazing how people have come together to try not just to restore Charlottesville, but to be honest about the realities here and to build a better city. This city is my home. This is the place I came to as an immigrant a decade ago. I’ve never lived anywhere else in America. I love this city. And it’s my honor to be a small part of telling the story of my city. I’ve been following the rise of this white supremacy in Charlottesville for a few years now. I feel I know the story. I feel I am the right person to help tell it. And yet nothing prepared me for August. I wish I could have taken one photo that would have conveyed everything that happened that day. It was unreal.

And of course even as I appreciate how the community has come together, August has also helped me to name realities I’ve always sensed about Charlottesville but that I know some of my lighter-skinned friends don’t like to talk about. The tensions between black and white Charlottesville, the lack of diversity downtown—I see these issues more now. It has made me look at everything, at every person, in a new light. It has changed the way I see my environment now. Especially that day—being out there and seeing well over 1,000 people who came to Charlottesville all united in one thing: hate. You could see the hate on their faces, and the interesting thing about that is that these people didn’t actually know us at all. They just came into this town in order to hate us. These are adults, not just kids, not just youth who have lost their way. Some of them are old, grown men. Family men. You could tell that these guys have careers, they are professionals. The guy who punched me in the face, he looked like a family man. A man who has kids. And he came to my town with a shirt that has Hitler on it, and you could see the look on his face when he punched me, looking at me as though I was a thing. All of that has affected me in ways that I probably don’t even understand now. It has changed me.

I’ve been attacked online several times. I’ve been doxxed. I’ve always heard this before, but I never knew it to be true that black people look alike. Really, we do? A white supremacist picked a black face in the crowd and said I was the person, and he published my name next to the photo. He declared that I was a violent photographer and should be arrested. I looked at the photo and I look nothing like that person. My name was also on this list of dangerous antifa in Charlottesville that was published on a Nazi site, right alongside Tom Perriello. I guess I should be proud to be in the big league. I guess those guys just upped my status.

The impacts of August are ongoing and pervasive. As a photojournalist I go to every event I hear about. I go to all the City Council meetings and witness the confrontations over and over again, and I’m thinking, “Is this really Charlottesville?” I get it—people are angry, they have a right to be angry—I don’t want to say they shouldn’t be. But it has just changed everybody. The slightest thing will just tick people off. And it also has affected me. As much as I try to stay neutral, I have to admit that I’m still a black person. I’m still a black photojournalist. I’m still documenting the fallout. There are traces of August everywhere. There is no passing week that I’m not in a space or a conversation or an action that doesn’t remind me of that day. The mark of that day is never going to leave this town.

I haven’t been able to take a breath since August. I have been working non-stop. I’ve noticed in my everyday life that my capacity for patience just in general has been worn down. It is hard to live with this pressure for such a long time. To be perfectly honest, I could use a vacation.

But I also want to focus on the positive. I have made so many new friends since that day. In the few weeks following August 11 and 12 I probably made 500 new friends on Facebook. I see a lot of people downtown now who say hi to me. The summer of hate has actually helped me to build a bigger community of people in Charlottesville. I do love this city.

Photo by Eze Amos

Categories
Opinion

Letters to the Editor: Week of September 27-October 3

On the path to planetary destruction

For those of us concerned that the race to completely destroy the Earth’s biosphere might be behind schedule, not to worry. This year’s worldwide forest fires, heat waves, droughts and historic-level hurricanes could prove to break all records. According to the National Fire Information Center as of September 15, the total number of active large fires (which includes full suppression and resource managed fires) is 66, and fires nationwide have consumed 8,036,858 acres—about 12,557 square miles, larger than the size of Maryland. Along the French Mediterranean coast, wildfires forced the evacuation of 12,000 people. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma’s devastation to Texas and Florida’s coasts are unprecedented for a single year, and a new Category 6 hurricane level may be required in the future. (The monetary cost to humans in terms of billions of dollars in lost jobs, housing and infrastructure, agriculture and resorts may not be determined for months.)

And guess what? There’s another reason not to worry. According to Fortune, Trump has bolstered Big Oil’s 40-year quest to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: “There’s a simple reason for their persistence: ‘ANWR is the largest unexplored, potentially productive geologic onshore basin in the United States,’ the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in 2000. It’s also one of the rare pieces of unspoiled wilderness left in the world—home to polar bear dens and caribou calving grounds—and remains much the same as it was 10,000 years ago.”

Seriously, I assume we have not forgotten that stern warning from Smokey the Bear: “Only YOU can prevent forest fires!” I certainly hope Smokey’s cousin, a polar bear, also has a warning: “Only YOU can prevent climate catastrophes!” This could also serve as a reminder to vote in November for candidates who care about our planet and are willing to take action and support policies that will protect our air, our forests and our tributaries and bay from pollution and pipelines.

Julius Neelley
Lake Monticello

Corrections

Native American Student Union Vice President Ben Walters was incorrectly identified in last week’s story, “No invitation: Why Native American groups weren’t protesting Unite the Right.”

The number of black and white arrests in last week’s ”‘Culture of racism’? Albemarle cop says high-volume black stops not racial profiling” should have specified those figures were from sectors 1 and 2 in county police patrol areas, not the entire county.

Categories
Arts

Winner of Flash Fiction Contest announced

Each year, C-VILLE Weekly and WriterHouse team up for a fiction contest. Some years have centered around themes, while others have been completely left up to the writers’ imaginations. This year, the only caveat was that the piece had to be a work of “flash fiction”—500 words or fewer. David Ronka’s “The One I Think I Shot” was crowned the winner by judge and fellow writer Bret Anthony Johnston, who said, “The author uses language and syntax in unusual and interesting ways, and has an impressive knowledge of the terminology and process of war.”

The winning story depicts the emotional complexity of combat—fear, guilt, love—that will be forever etched in the memory and dreams of a Vietnam War veteran, Ronka says. It’s adapted from a scene in a longer fictional work.

“I find flash fiction extremely demanding,” Ronka says. “The challenge of attempting to weave a complete fictional dream in no more than 500 words is formidable.”

Ronka wins $500 and a one-year membership to WriterHouse; runner-up John Ruemmler wins $250 and a one-year membership to WriterHouse.


First-place winner

The One I Think I Shot

By David Ronka

We wanted the beach bunker that night, Eddie and me. Would have had it too if First Sergeant Shaeffer’s not on emergency leave burying his father back in Omaha. Best duty there was, pulling guard in the beach bunker. Nice salt breeze all night long. Watch the surf roll in, smoke some reefer, shoot the shit. Keep an eye peeled for the VC Navy in case they built one since last you heard. Pussy duty, Eddie called it.

The shaved-head beanpole lifer who was filling in for Shaeffer put us on the perimeter wire. Perimeter duty wasn’t like the beach. Even when things were quiet, you couldn’t help imagining some VC sniper in the village steadying your forehead in his night scope.

I took first watch. It was pretty outside the bunker, all silver and shadowy from the moon. Rice grass swaying slow in the paddy water. Real quiet. Then some sounds floated over from the village. Click, click, like city traffic lights changing color late at night. A baby crying, or maybe a cat wailing at something. I thought of nights at home sitting on the porch swing when it was too hot to sleep.

Then I’m hearing the mortar tubes cough. Hollow-like, steel inside steel. And for a half second I’m back at Fort Polk, sitting in the bleachers with retired lifers from Leesville, watching the Saturday morning fire power demonstration. Hearing the mortar shells rattle in their tubes. Covering my ears until the Louisiana dust clears downrange and there’s nothing left of the squad of cardboard Viet Cong but little bits of paper floating down like snow.

The shells fall short into the paddy muck—thwoop, thwoop, thwoop-thwoop, like gas burners sucking the pilot light—before they hit hard ground. Then Eddie’s balled up on the plywood floor screaming oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck! I’m thinking we’re in a goddamned shrapnel storm. When it goes quiet someone up the line is hollering load and fire, load and fire! I haven’t shot an M16 since Fort Polk, but next thing I know I’m on my knees, half-blind with sand, emptying the magazine at whatever’s out there.

There were six of them, but the one I remember is the one I think I shot. When I see him now in my dreams, he’s bent in half, falling away. Black pajamas shredded in a wind of hot steel. Canvas satchel charge swinging from his neck like a little girl’s school bag. Then I see his knees poking out of the moonlit paddy water. As still as smooth dark stones.

I crawled to Eddie and cradled his head in my arms. He hugged me like a baby. We sat like that, trembling and not saying a word, until the Jeep siren came wailing down the bunker line. And I remember finally letting go of Eddie and feeling the cool night air seep into the place where his wet cheek had been.


Runner-up

Cicatrix

By John Ruemmler

They hadn’t spoken in the two hours since leaving home. Her face was covered by the grey hoodie she had worn for what seemed weeks, since the attack. “Should be close,” he said, unnecessarily. The GPS device was silent, the screen a blank green rectangle. They were “off the map,” in the heart of old growth forest, away and alone, almost lost.

The twisting gravel road ran through a dark grove of hemlocks and spruce before delivering them into a stark highland landscape. Around one hairpin turn, Neal had to swerve to maneuver around a rock slide.  It was after four o’clock.  This high up, the sun would be setting soon.

Beyond the plunging landscape to the west, he glimpsed the sparrow-colored Shenandoah Valley and 20 miles further, the familiar blue haze of mountains and low clouds.

The cabin was theirs for the weekend, the gift of a well-meaning friend. You two have been through enough, he said, your boy is in a safe space. Go be yourselves for a while, okay?

He spotted the three-foot high stone pyramid they’d been told to watch for and turned sharply off the road and onto a rutted drive. Their first view of the log cabin, its stone chimney and front porch cast deep in shade-the darksome setting—was hardly  welcoming.

Inside, he found newspaper and kindling in a wooden box on the floor beside the hearth. He cautiously lit a rolled up paper and checked the draw. The flue was clear, a flame briefly licked upward before dying.  “Good.  We’ll have a fire.”

While she opened the bottle of wine, he laid the table with sardines, tomatoes and a baguette. In the cupboard she found drinking glasses. The fire he’d laid shed a comforting glow, softening the room’s frontier austerity.

‘Well, it’s not the Greenbrier,” Karen said, and he laughed, relieved. This is going to be okay, he thought, she’s talking. She pushed back the hood; the scar that ran from her ear to her lip caught the light from the fire. He wanted to say something reassuring or clever, like: You must be the courtesan who mocked the pirate king and paid the price in flesh. But in truth, he didn’t know if her face would ever heal, if they would stay together, if their tortured brilliant violent son would ever come home or go to college or get a job. Or say Sorry. Or outlive them.

The sap in the wood popped, a gunshot. She jumped and he took her hand. “You’re cold.” He held her close. She was bones and sinew and anxiety in his arms.

She checked the bolt on the door, the windows too. As they lay in bed, he said: “He’s in good hands. He’s alive.”

“Is he?” Neither slept.

Later, he doused the fire as she packed the car. The drive home was harrowing in the dark.

But the stars shone and a lopsided waxing moon rose to light their way.

Categories
Opinion

Letters to the editor: Week of September 13-19

Permanently drape the statue

My wife, Jill, and I have longtime ties to Charlottesville, so we watched with horror and sadness as the white supremacist violence played out on the news. Last weekend we were back downtown and could not help visiting the park where the statue of General Robert E. Lee stands shrouded in black tarpaulins. We watched dozens of visitors photographing the draped statue with the air of pilgrims approaching a shrine—not to the dead Confederate general but to the memory of Heather Heyer and the other victims of the attack. Rather than take down the statue, why not commission an artist to cover it with a permanent drape of black metal—memorializing the decision of a decent community to rid itself of a symbol of white supremacy? It would be both a political statement—as the original statue was—and an artistic one as well. The resulting work of art would be powerful—both abstract and representational of the deeper racism hidden below the surface of American life that all too often rears its ugly head. The draped statue would consign the symbolic general to oblivion and at the same time remind us to be forever vigilant of what lurks beneath that drape. A plaque could start this intention and memorialize Ms. Heyer and the other victims, and the black drape would forever signify our collective grief.

Philip Gerard

Wilmington, North Carolina

Categories
Opinion

Letters to the editor: Week of August 16-22

Make them pay

If the alt-right wants another permit to demonstrate in Charlottesville, why not charge a fee of about $75,000 to $100,000? The KKK rally cost city taxpayers almost 60 grand, and this last weekend will cost even more. If the city is accused of price gouging, it can always argue that’s just business and that’s the fair market value. I realize that’s also extreme, but why should we citizens have to pay for this?

Steve Jones
Charlottesville


The fight for what is right

The civil war clash between factions that occurred last weekend in Charlottesville was no surprise attack. A wide-eyed fight of titans happened in my town, make no mistake.

The front line was drawn on the Downtown Mall. I went toe to toe with American terrorism, where normally there is ice cream, neighbors strolling and local musicians filling the air.

I was in the chaos and skirmishes where open-carry militias with neo-Nazi idealism were brandishing against townspeople, priests, hippies and millennials.

I yelled in the face of a man with an AK-47 in his hand, a hand gun on his hip and a sheathed knife across his chest. I yelled, “I am a Jew! This is my town! Go home! Go home!” He walked with his fellow warrior types, a few hundred of them there to protect an old Confederate statue. They sweated as they tried to move up the avenue to take the hill that was Lee Park.

They slowly walked in groups of 20, in full militia dress in different parts of town. A group of Black Lives Matter had a confrontation with them in a parking lot across from a few closed restaurants. There was fearless yelling, a water bottle was thrown, brothers next to brothers stood shoulder to shoulder. I saw the sweat and truth, good and evil going eye to eye. A police line came up and slowly, crossed and we all followed or walked away.

There was a parade of people with solidarity posters, wearing T-shirts and red bandannas, they came south from the old Jackson Park, marched past a closed bakery onto the Downtown Mall to Water Street then turned east. The smell of pepper and vinegar in the air, old and young making their voices heard, “This is my town! Go home! This is my town!” They turned up Fourth Street past a family in a minivan waiting as the people went by. There was a second car in line as the marchers continued to sing together up to the mall. Our angels got distracted here as something flew up in the air; all hell broke loose and the chanting became screams. The crowd turned like a school of fish, like a swarm of starlings toward us. There were a hundred people running, then they stopped, and the screams became worried yells for help. People next to me stood on their toes to bear witness to what just happened.

A young woman in tears lay against the wall. Her friend had carried her, she asked for water, both wide-eyed and scared. Others made their way to the shade, sitting, staring in shock, talking in low mumbled voices. Street medics were on the scene attending, bandaging, water was being handed out. The first ambulance arrived, a second and the fire truck, all with lights and sirens made their way through, stretchers and medical bags brought out, the clergy helping those among us.

My city changed here, trash and sticks lay in the gutter, barricades with yellow tape all around. The mall, parks, sidewalks were empty and in the sun of an August afternoon downtown Charlottesville was left like a war zone. Small groups walked quietly, police stood in the shade, reporters checked their phones, no militia around and the T-shirts with red bandannas walked back to their homes. My group and I walked away peacefully. My town had changed.

My Charlottesville will sweep up the debris and find a way to bandage what is left. Racism is ugly and hate is worse. No one can fix this and I have no answers. We have to meditate and pray for peace and at times we have to work, yell and sweat for what is right.

Alan Box Levine
Charlottesville


Some blame rests with city leaders

The City Council bears some blame for the weekend violence. Their dithering and indecisiveness about the fate of the Lee statue have provided a rallying point for the alt-right.

Ida Simmons
Charlottesville


We all will be replaced

As a liberal, Jew, feminist, pro-immigrant granddaughter of immigrants, I’d never have thought I had anything in common with Richard Spencer. But then I read his motto in your interview: “We will not be replaced.”

I remember saying the same thing, a long time ago. At age 4, I saw people I loved die for the first time.

“Why do people die?” I asked my father.

“We have to make room for new people,” he said. “New families with new babies will live in this house someday.”

“No!” I said. “They can’t! It’s our house!”

I remember the sense of panic at the thought of getting replaced by strangers. I still don’t like it, though eventually I stopped fighting, because it was pointless. In other words, I grew up.

The fact is everything and everyone gets replaced. People die, populations change. In the ’70s, Miami Beach was filled with old Jewish people like my grandparents, immigrants from Eastern Europe. You not only heard Yiddish on the streets, but the hotel where we stayed had a light switch labeled not “on” and “off,” but “open” and “closed.” “Open the light,” my grandmother used to say. I miss those people and the way they spoke. But nothing lasts forever. Spanish signs replace Yiddish ones; it’s how the world works.

As our country’s population changes and we (hopefully) get wiser, Charlottesville and other cities are re-examining the history of white domination. Richard Spencer and his Nazi pals don’t like that. They think that because their preferred group holds a privileged position now, it should always remain so: twas ever thus. But twas never thus, especially in the land now called the United States of America. When Leif Erikson got here, he did not find white Southerners, any more than a Florida filled with old Jews. White supremacists think if they make enough of a fuss and get others to join them, they can turn back time. But they cannot. They will be replaced, not because they are white or mean-spirited, but because we all get replaced, one day, like it or not.

Cora Schenberg
Charlottesville

Categories
News

Opinion: A plan to reduce sexual assault at UVA

The following opinion piece by Jeffrey C. Fracher, Ph.D. and Bruce R. Williamson, Jr. ran in C-VILLE’s December 17 issue.

The recent controversy over the Rolling Stone article does nothing to change the fact that the Sexual Misconduct Board (SMB) at the University of Virginia is a system broken beyond repair. It needs to be discarded. The only way to respond to all rape is with criminal prosecution.

In the SMB, the punishment for those individuals found to have committed a rape at UVA is expulsion. The punishment for rape in Virginia courts is five years to life in prison and mandatory registration as a sex offender.

There is no prosecutor in cases heard by the SMB. Students charged with rape may employ lawyers, investigators and experts just as they can in criminal courts. In criminal prosecutions, an experienced prosecuting attorney prosecutes the case.

In cases before the SMB, there is no Rape Shield Law that limits the defense’s ability to delve into the sexual history of the accusing rape victim. In criminal cases of rape in Virginia, the Rape Shield Law significantly limits the ability of defendants to do so.

Rape is not “sexual misconduct.” Euphemisms such as “sexual misconduct” and “non-consensual sexual intercourse” are used to encourage the SMB to find against students accused of rape. There is no euphemism for rape, any more than there are for “murder” or “robbery.”

The SMB system handles only accusations of rape by one (or more) student(s) against another student at the same college or university. All other allegations of rape are handled in criminal courts. In no other circumstance could an accused rapist enjoy the benefit of having the case tried in other than a criminal court. Many rapists are, or may become, repeat offenders. Only criminal prosecution removes a serial offender from society.

Title IX is well-intended. The availability of administrative panels to handle on-campus claims of sexual discrimination and sexual harassment, neither of which is criminal, is very important. Rape is an extremely serious criminal offense, not a civil matter. Title IX must be amended to exclude sexual assault from its purview. The crime of rape belongs solely in the criminal justice system.

We recommend that the following steps be implemented by the University of Virginia to encourage victims to immediately report rapes and other serious sexual offenses and to give victims assistance in navigating the criminal justice system.

1. Provide a specially trained professional, who is not affiliated with the University, to a victim upon the making of the report and throughout the prosecution of the rape to guide him or her through the process.

2. Provide immediate access to mental health professionals with specific training assisting victims of sexual assault and rape.

3. Require attendance at a series of classes designed to educate all students on the following:

a. self-protective versus risky behavior;

b. there is no shame in being raped;

c. rape is a most serious felony and no one who is raped is at fault, even if he or she may believe that the rape could have been avoided by more self-protective behavior;

d. report rape immediately, and have a medical examination that includes the preservation of physical evidence;

e. all members of the University community need to stand as one and proclaim zero tolerance of rape and sexual assault;

f. the victim of a rape who reports the crime at once and who tells the truth at all stages of a criminal case does a service to him or herself, to the University community and to the community at large.

Rape is rape. Rape is an extremely serious crime. It is time to call it, and treat it, what it is.

Jeffrey C. Fracher, Ph.D. recently retired after a 42-year career as a clinical and forensic psychologist and a certified sex offender treatment provider in Virginia. He is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Virginia in the Curry School Ph.D. program in clinical psychology.

Bruce R. Williamson, Jr. has practiced law in Charlottesville since 1979. He is a past-president of the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association and the Charlottesville Area Criminal Bar Association. He has served as a substitute judge of the 16th District of Virginia and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Virginia School of Law, teaching trial advocacy and directing the Criminal Defense Clinic.