Edition 1 June 30 - 2022

Beyond The Zero

Welcome to the first edition of the BTZ substack. In this edition we feature book news, an author profile of New Juche and Short fiction from Judson Hamilton. If you want to contribute with a review, short story, book news or anything else please get in touch beyondthezeropod@gmail.com

I will try to get this newsletter out once a month.

Book News

Miles Frankin Award

Despite the controversy around plagiarism in John Hughes’ The Dogs, the real story of this year’s award is Grimmish being shortlisted. Michael has been a guest on the show and in his honour we ran the Grim short Story competition in 2021 on the Dan Murphy’s website. His novel is the first self published book to be short or long listed for Australia’s (second) most prestigious literary award. We hope he pockets 60k AUD which equates to about $200 USD or 20 lettuces.

Book releases

Transit Lounge kicks off July with Carmel Bird’s Telltale - it is a memoir told through her writing and reading life. I loved it.

https://transitlounge.com.au/shop/telltale-reading-writing-remembering/

Dalkey Archive/Deep Vellum have a heap of new stuff coming in late July and August including: Antagony by Luis Goytisolo, You’ll Like it Here by Ashton Politanoff (brilliant), The Deer by Dashiel Carrera (brilliant), An Evening of Romantic Love Making by Ben Slotkey (Brilliant) and the republication of Miss Mackintosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young.

From Whiskey Tit - The New House by David Leo Rice. Really enjoyed this.

From Apocalypse Party the new book from Blake Butler - Annex is out late July. Have been looking forward to this book for ages.

https://www.apocalypse-party.com/books.html\

David Keenan’s prequel to Memorial Device - Industry of Magic & Light is out late August. Can’t wait.

The new book from Adam Levin, Mount Chicago is out early August and if you liked Bubblegum you will love this. Really fun read.

New Directions Launch their Story Book Collection - Hard cover novellas and stories in August. The line up is pretty special including Lazlo K and Helen DeWitt.

Heloise Press have their second book out in Mid-August - What Concerns Us, by Laura Logt Translated by CAROLINE WAIGHT. I loved their first title Thirsty Sea by Erica Mou so have high hopes for this one.

If you have news or a new book you would like to promote send me your news beyondthezeropod@gmail.com

Author Profile

For this month’s author profile we are featuring New Juche. If you have never heard of him neither had I until Seth from W.A.S.T.E Mailing List sent me on his trail. New is not his real name but it does have three letters. He currently lives in Thailand and has been traveling around South East Asia for most of the last 20 years. He was born in Scotland. He hates self-promotion and interviews but he did agree to being featured here.

New has released a number of books including, Wasteland, The Mollusc, The Worm, Stupid Baby, Bosun and Mountainhead. His writing features his own black and white photography and his prose is visceral and direct. Dennis Cooper described Juche as one of the most inspiring, original and groundbreaking artists working today. I would have to agree. His work is like a South East Asian Under The Volcano. Mountainhead is great starting point and it available pretty readily. Here is the first paragraph; A good beginning to this might be a habit I developed back home, watching a group of homosexuals going in and out of a public toilet at the foot of Calton Hill. The Hill itself , with is trees towers and monuments, was used at night for carious forms of sinister faggot trade, and was in the popular imagination a dangerous, off-limits location, an impression that was was fuelled by successive rumours of murder and sexual violence that included notorious policemen, politicians and other corrupt local celebrities. By day though, only tourists climbed to its peak to photograph the views and the massive, unfinished monument known and ‘Edinburgh’s Disgrace’ This is just a taste of where this book goes but trust me it is brilliant.

New Juche is an author I urge you to seek out and I will be waiting for whatever he publishes next. His website is :

https://newjuche.com

Short Story

Team Effort

By Judson Hamilton

@Judson_Hamilton

https://neutralspaces.co/judson_hamilton/

It was one of those days late in November where, if you’re unfortunate enough to live in a northern clime, the sun starts to phone it in around two in the afternoon.

I was looking out the window of our office building on to an adjacent office building that was design-wise in stark contrast to ours but technically within the same business park when I heard my name. It was my boss Kate who was sitting next to me at an oval table with a question mark on her face. I turned from her to the four split-screen faces looking down at me expectantly from the flat screen. Jerome’s bald head, Nadine’s outsized jewelry, and David’s wire-rimmed glasses that were lost somewhere in his oversized, placid face.

“Sounds good,” I pronounced. Everyone seemed satisfied with that response.

**

“Good job in there. You saved my ass I was floundering,” Karen said not looking up from her phone.

“Oh. No problem.”

“One down. One to go.”

“There’s another one?”

“Yeah 5 p.m. It’s on your calendar. I tried to move it but no dice.”

I checked the retro red and black digital clock that hung near the refrigerator in the kitchen. Its numerals made up of slightly spaced red dashes on a black background reminded me of so many 80s sci-fi films at one time that I couldn’t figure out which one exactly.

“Hey, um, I’m going to step out for a bit. Got some errands to run.”

“Not a bad idea.” Karen said, her thick thighs squeezed into a chair, laptop balanced on her knees. “I’d join you, but I’ve got to comb through some emails. Find that invoice Jerome fucked up.” She sighed.

“That’s alright.” I say looking out the window at the darkening sky. “I need to go to the mall and pick up something. A gift.”

“The mall?” she says looking up from her computer, the light shining on her dark skin, “There’s gonna be a lot of traffic now. People are leaving early for the weekend. You’d better take the shortcut.” She turns back to her email.

“Shortcut?”

“Yeah. Across the construction site on the back half of the complex? Where they’re putting up the new buildings? There’s a field behind that. Just cut across there. Can’t miss it.”

“Um. Ok, Thanks.”

***

I put on my coat, hat and scarf (the triad of winter) and grab an umbrella on my way to the elevator. Once on the ground floor, I was faced with the choice of two revolving doors. Unsure of which one to take, and with the reception desk seemingly deserted, I chose one at random. The cold damp air was on me like an old regret chilling me to the bone through my trench coat. I pulled on some gloves that I found in my pockets and swung left along the freshly paved walkway in what I hoped was the right direction. There were rows of identical, new white office buildings bending off to my left, and just behind that, elevated on a ridge, was a train station platform. A huddle of people stood staring at their phones under signage I couldn’t pronounce.

I followed the curve of the sidewalk, the chill quickening my step. My thoughts drifted to the upcoming conference call, but I shook that off wanting to take this opportunity to clear my mind. I had felt vaguely melancholy all day – jet lag probably. Although I’d worked international audit before I had yet to come up with a foolproof remedy for time change. Which reminded me that, because of this next meeting, I wouldn’t be able to call my nephew as promised. I made a mental note to text my sister and reschedule.

As most of the buildings were, as of yet unoccupied, there wasn’t a lot to look at just a bunch of empty ground floor space with concrete columns and wires hanging from the ceiling panels; the occasional cardboard box.

Between the buildings were some dirt paths with benches evenly spaced for smokers. These were intertwined with some kind of light brown hay-like foliage that sprayed up out of the ground in long slender fronds that swayed and provided a fair amount of privacy. Wanting to take a closer look and feeling the nicotine monkey on my back I stopped to light up. I was about halfway through my cigarette when some landscapers, two women and two men, came out of the nearest neighboring building glanced at me curiously and then set to threshing the hay in long, rhythmic strokes with hand scythes and bagging it up in large plastic trash bags.

The rhythmic movement of the threshing was hypnotic and I found myself staring with that dull heaviness that comes from having sat in a plane at 10,000 feet for 15 hours only the day before. It also looked like back breaking work. I guess I’d been staring for too long because the landscapers had stopped working and were eyeing me. I tried to reassure them with hand gestures of my harmlessness in that way you do when you don’t know the local language.

I put out my cigarette and continued down the path until I reached the construction site of the last building in the complex, little more than a steel frame. There were dozens of men here surveying, barking orders, motioning to crane operators, and directing eighteen-wheelers loaded down with pallets of construction material. Some of which were blocking the sidewalk and forced me into the dirt path that ran alongside it. It was the only path around and I assumed it led to the mall. Up ahead the path led into what was once probably a field with pretentions of becoming a meadow one day; but was now trapped between two developed plots. In the far distance, over the tops of the trees, I could just make out a viaduct

The path went about a hundred yards before being swallowed up by a small grove of trees. The aperture was arch-like, the tops of the trees having bowed to one another for so many decades of mutual respect that they were all but interwoven. The wind had picked up and I paused to light a cigarette looking back at the lights and construction work. The faint rumble of truck engines and men, the hiss and spit of hydraulic cranes and pistons all of which were still audible here. I turned back to the pathway and pulled hard on my smoke before flicking it off to the side and going in.

The silence was the first thing I noticed. That and the mud. My shoe sunk about two inches right away. A few choice expletives came to mind and a few even reached my mouth and parted my lips. It was also noticeable colder and darker in here and I wished I’d worn a thicker scarf and coat. The already diffused light didn’t filter much through the tree canopy. I reached for the flashlight on my phone but then realized I’d left it back at the office. Looking to avoid the mud I moved over to the tree line on the left and made my way forward careful not to stumble on the exposed roots. Occasionally, the thunder of cement blocks falling into the back of a dump truck or the audible signal of a truck in reverse would carry this far into the tunnel of trees and the dissonance induced by these two was such that it only served to heighten the oddity of this place. Were they really going to bulldoze all of this? If you looked to either side and really tried to peer through you couldn’t make out much. I’m not good with trees and the like, but they had silvery-blue trunks and limbs with no bark to speak of. They were slender and haunting. Their exposed roots were like strained tendons, like they were standing on tiptoe.

I kept going down the path, the trees arching over but crown shy, and the ground growing less muddy the further into the interior I ventured. It felt ominous here, colder and darker because of the thick canopy. The sound of the trucks and construction were more growing more muted the further in I went and I could hear the leaves stir against the silent backdrop of the grove.

My thoughts began to drift to my sister. We grew up in a series of foster homes and I suppose that’s why we’ve always been very close. Not all of those places were…well let’s just say that apparently you don’t need a warm heart to be a foster home provider. So we stuck together mostly. Even now, I’m in the habit of messaging her throughout my day. The minutia of my day piling up in her inbox across several messengers and email accounts. Things like “If I say I want to get another library book, I want you to take my card away #fines.” “The post office is the ninth circle of hell.” “These cheesesteaks are bullshit.” And “‘It’s so cold today that I had a hankering for mammoth” were all pretty common sentiments. She – being stoical, hardworking, and reserved – never replied beyond the odd “haha” or “lol.”

She had been with the same guy since high school. She got a scholarship to Penn but (since we didn’t have any money) had to drop out after a few semesters. They got married soon after that and moved to NYC where he’d found a good job. They were happy enough but, as so often happens with high school sweethearts, he started to wonder why he hadn't played the field more. He started having an affair with a co-worker and when she found out they separate for a while. About eight months later, they were on speaking terms again (he having felt like he'd sowed his wild oats) and they moved back in together. All forgiven. I could have killed him but I wanted her to be happy and all in all he was a decent guy so I gave him a pass.

A couple years on they started trying for a baby. Now you have to know my sister. On the surface she seems aloof and distant. She’s good at her job (architect) and can handle herself around people but she manages everything in a quiet, reserved way; a controlled way. Sudden moves are not her style. Everything is calculated and planned. But as cliché as it sounds, a child was the one thing in the world she’d ever wanted. I mean truly wanted, as in, expressed an explicit interest in having, which – given her secretive and quiet nature – was not often.

So, they started trying, but had no luck. Finally, after three years of struggling with IVF and making the rounds of the fertility clinics they gave up. (My sister’s never given up on anything in her life). Their relationship was subdued for a while as they tried to wrap their heads around this new childless future facing them. There was even again talk of divorce and suspected adulteries. It was during one of these bad patches that her husband went on a business trip to Cleveland and died on an icy farm road trying to get to another town by way of some hick shortcut. She was devastated but what's more she was pregnant. She'd found out for sure a day after he left and was going to call him that night but instead got a call from the Ohio state patrol.

I was midway down the path now and it had fallen eerily silent. There were quite a few moss-covered limbs on the ground, but the silver of the bark seemed almost illuminated against the dark. (I promised him I’d never complain about the cold again. Not after that heat. But here I was moaning to myself about it. It must be the jetlag).

I heard about all of this when I was overseas. It was the first time that my sister had written to me more than I wrote to her. At first, I was in Basic and after that it wasn’t long before I was deployed. I kept up with her as best I could but it was tough because my time wasn’t my own. While in Basic I buddied up with a guy named James from Arkansas. He was a few years younger than me and frankly I don’t know why. We were complete opposites. During the first week or so of Basic you could see that this kid was going to wash out. I mean he was scrawny and just not strong enough to get through a lot of the strength-related requirements. One day we were sitting across one another in the mess and I gave him some pointers on one of the obstacles on the course. When I got the chance, I spent extra time with him and even snuck him part of my food rations to help him beef up. He became my little improvement project. I don’t know why I took pity on him, maybe it was to take my mind off of what was to come or on my sister’s situation – me not being there to help her through her grief. We weren’t very much alike, I was from a big city (Philly) and he was, well a country boy. Dirt poor, probably hadn’t read a book in his life – ignorant and crude. But you could see he had a good heart (as corny as that sounds). After Basic, we were in AIT together for another year and in camp together for nearly six weeks waiting for our deployment orders. Through all that time I got to know him better, I guess you could say that we even grew close. I gently challenged him on his racism and his general lack of knowledge about the world. I’d even managed to get him to read a few books, crime novels only, but still. Looking back on it now, I felt proud of having picked him up. Of having introduced him to a larger world. And I guess it was the fact that although he’d grown up with a mom and dad they hadn’t really spent much time with him (disability, alcoholism) and, really he’d raised himself – like me.

He died on one of our first days in Fallujah. We were doing door to doors on one of those narrow streets and he was bringing up the rear when a sniper gunned him down.

Of all the things I saw there I think that was what pushed me over the edge. I couldn’t figure out exactly why since we hadn’t known each other that long. I guess it was just the senselessness of it all. The truth I hadn’t joined up out of a sense of patriotism but because I needed money for college. I’d had this idea of studying the Great Thinkers and becoming a writer – now that seemed pointless. After the battle was over, and we were given a little R&R, I had some difficulty readjusting. There were a few physical fights and “psychotic breaks” as they were later called. I was sent for psychiatric evaluation, diagnosed, given pills and discharged.

I could make out diffused winter light at the end of the grove. The trees started swaying above me and I could feel sweat trickling down the back of my neck in spite of the cold. I started walking faster but I could feel that cold at my back the trees swaying more and louder behind me and I started jogging, hopping over bigger branches then running full speed for the exit of the tunnel. Just as I reached the end a root grabbed my foot and I fell through the exit and on to the ground. I lay there on my back, wheezing out of shape trying to catch my breath. After a few mintues, I stood up and dusted myself off.

I turned around and surveyed the area. The viaduct was still far off and a train rushed by on its elevated track only the lit windows visible, the gloom having deepened. How long had I been in there? I pulled out my cigarettes, lit up, and squatted down on the ground smoking and trying to clear my head.

That’s not the end of the story, I guess. Since I got back my sister and I have been closer than ever. She helped me get my head straight and this job and even moved back to Philly to live with me so I could help her raise her son. And you know what she named him? Noah. Just like me.

I’ve never thought of myself as being kid prone (I’m not one of those guys who can’t wait to play catch with his son) but we bonded right away. He’s funny and bright and we have a blast together. He helps me see beyond my own problems and yeah, I see the connection but I’m not crazy enough to conflate him with James. His birthday is coming up and I’ll still be on this business trip so when I get back I wanna surprise him with something. It’s not every day you turn eight.

I was nearing the end of my cigarette when I heard laughter and splashing water. I looked over to the left and there, not more than 100 feet from where I stood, was a kidney-shaped pond.

Its shores were fringed with the same light brown fronds swaying like excitable hay in the wind, except these were enormous having never been pruned. Again, peals of laughter, the kind someone makes out of surprise and amusement when they are splashed. There were 30 maybe 40 people in and around the water. Some were stripped down to their underwear and others were completely naked.

Trying to square this with reality I stood just sort of gaping at them for a while. I then felt self-conscious (like a pepping tom or something) and scanned the area perhaps hoping to find someone else who was witnessing this. I noticed there were two paths: one that led to the left towards the pond and another that led straight to the viaduct over which the passenger train rumbled and onward to the mall.

I slowly made my way toward the pond. I tried blend in with the people as I approached the pond’s edge. A couple walked past me: the man naked and the woman topless, both of them oblivious to my presence and the awkwardness of the situation. They were laughing and swiping through some photos they’d taken on her phone.

The edges of the pond were lined with overgrown bushels of the same brown plant with coarse-edged fronds each one a good 4–6 feet across. On the opposite side of the pond from me was a muddy area that had been flattened out into a beach. I crouched down behind two of the bushes, thankful for the modicum of coverage they afforded me, and watched as groups of people frolicked on the beach across the pond.

From up close like this there appeared to be about sixty of them. In spite of the frigid, damp weather the atmosphere was like a summer beach party with people spread out on towels and blankets. Here and there portable BBQ pits had been lit and people were grilling meat and drinking beer. There was even a beach volleyball sandpit where an enthusiastic match was being played.

At the pond’s edge people were wading in cautiously, splashing their upper bodies to get used to the cold water while further down others were flinging themselves into the deeper parts from a small pier that jutted midway into the pond.

Squatting between the two bushes, taking all of this in, I noticed that some passers-by, while not unfriendly, began to look at me curiously and I began to feel self-conscious about my winter attire and amateur voyeurism. Feeling, oddly, exposed I stood and began strolling the edge of the pond in as nonchalant a manner as possible, but soon found myself standing in mud.

“Shit.”

“You gotta watch where you step around here.”

I looked over to see a smartly dressed young woman in her late 20s. She had short curly hair pinned back from her face with barrettes and thick-framed black glasses. She was wearing a dark blue dress, grey wool overcoat with square buttons and black, fashionable rubber boots. The phone she was staring down at cast an upward halo glow across her features and in her other hand she held an umbrella resting against her shoulder.   

“Yeah. I guess you’re right. I just wasn’t…prepared for…this.”

“People never are.” She said while typing into her phone.

Relieved at finding another clothed person to share all this weirdness with but not wanting to interrupt whatever she was doing I turned my attention back to the pond.

People were foraging their way into the brown frond haystacks and reemerging with long thick fibrous cords of the plant. Each successful trip brought forth a loud “whoop” and round of applause from the crowd.

While this was going on, others who’d gathered up cords stood facing one another and at the sound of a third-party whistle began whipping one another liberally. The crack of these whips resounded across the water to where we stood and the speed with which the contestants dished out lashes was astonishing, although the sounds of their merriment and frenzied cackling only increased with each successful blow landed, there were large red welts covering their upper torsos, legs, and faces visible even from this distance.

“Are you seeing this?!”

“Huh?”

I managed to tear myself away from the spectacle long enough to see that she hadn’t looked up from her phone and was still typing.

“You might want to check this out these people are, like, whipping each other!”

“Oh yeah it was the same last year. They get pretty crazy at these things.”

“Things?! You mean you know about this? What things?”

She glanced up for a second from her phone the murky green of her eyes underlit by her phone. A look of slight disbelief at my ignorance.

“You mean an integration party? We have them every year.”

“This is an integration party?!” I turned back to the people whipping one another to the point of bleeding. “We don’t have anything like this at our offices in Philly.” I chuckled and turned to her half-expecting her to join in, but she was back into her phone.

I looked over to see people standing in eight groups of three. They each had three long bamboo rods lying next them. A crowd had encircled them from behind and a hush had fallen over them as the tension mounted. Off to the side someone fired a starting pistol and the groups set to work the crowd roaring behind them. First, they quickly assembled a stretcher out of the bamboo rods and then one of the three lay down on it and was tied to it tightly arms rigid at their sides. The remaining two took out a roll of cellophane an arm’s length long and with one person holding the head and the other wrapping they quickly cocooned the person’s face. The remaining two then lifted the third and carried them into the water. The outstretched person, now lying flat on a buoyant stretcher had their legs lifted by one partner while the other dunked their head. The people on the stretchers, arms pinned down, thrashed and struggled violently as they screamed through the layers of cellophane and coughed wetly as they chocked on the water and gasped for air.

“Jesus fucking Christ they’re torturing these people!”

“Waterboarding.” She said unconcerned apparently.

“Hey!”

“It’s a popular activity.”

“Activity?! What the fuck are you talking about they’re torturing these people!”

“Take it easy. It’s all part of the program. And it is voluntary.”

There was the piercing sound of a whistle and the groups rushed their stretcher-borne “patients” back ashore in a scramble to be the first to resuscitate them. They used scissors to cut the cellophane wrapping mask away and the body straps. Some rolled over and puked up water while others required mouth-to-mouth the first patient to stand was a willowy girl in the middle and she, on unsteady legs with her wet shapeless cellophane mask in one hand held over her head was declared the winner. Her team crowded around her in victory.

I just stood there in disbelief my jaw slightly open, my mind blank.

“Will you be on this call?”

“Huh?”

“Are you on this call with Janice in LA?”

I looked her up and down once more. The grey coat the bob cut the stars on her boots. It had never occurred to me that we might work together in any capacity.

“Uh…yeah. What time is it?”

“Nearly 5 but it’s been pushed back to 5:30. So we’ve got time.” She said putting her phone away.

“We?”

“Yeah. I’m Kasia…the IT project manager?”

“Oh, right sorry. I’m a little…tired. I’m –”

“James from Philly I know we’ve been on a call before.”

“…no…Noah. I’m Noah.”

“Oh sorry,” she covered her face with her hand. “James is the guy who used to do our audit before this. Different company.”

“James. His name was James?”

She laughed softly, “Yes. Is that so strange? I thought it was common name in USA.”

“Yeah. It is I guess.”

“Anyway Noah, I am Kasia. Nice to meet you in person,” she said sticking her hand out in an exaggerated way.

We shook hands.

“You want to eat at the mall before the meeting? They’ve got quite good food there.”

I suddenly realized how cold and hungry I was.

“Yeah that sounds good.”

“They also have a bathroom there so you can…” she said motioning at my legs.

I looked down at my muddy pants.

***

We settled on sushi in the end (I put it on the company expense account) and ate in a pocket of silence surrounded by the ambient hum of flowing commerce.

“Wow you eat really fast.”

“Well I need to get a gift for my nephew’s birthday and we have to get back in time for the call, right?”

“Oh really? Happy birthday to him! Don’t worry about the call we can take it here on our phones.”

“We can?”

“Don’t you have the app?”

“No. What app?”

“I’ll show you how to download it.”

“Actually, I left my phone in the office. I didn’t realize I’d…be gone this long.”

She sighed, “My screen’s big enough. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

She only had one set of earbuds so we had to share them like teenagers our faces close to one another as each head gently emerged into existence. The screen gently into split quarters.

“Hello.”

“Hi everyone!”

“Hi.”

“How is everyone? I can’t see anyone. Can you see me? Hello?”

That is it for this edition. Hope you enjoyed the read and stay tuned for more next month.

Ben