by John Jeffire

Bulimic Michigan winter belches
Gusting bowels of whiteout fury,
Green Ford pick-up engulfed
Beneath blind waves of ice,
Neighbors’ homes capsized
In a squalling January tempest.
Wife marooned at work,
Kids swept away to college,
I abandon ship through the front
Door portal, wind tidalwaving
Into the foyer, intruder shouldering
Into the house, until I find myself
Cast adrift in the driveway
Clinging to a rusted shovel.
Cheekskin freeze-dried in air,
Fingertips vaporized in thermal glove—
There is absolutely no point
To what I am about to do.
It’ll make it easier when the snow
Finally does stop someone who looks like me
Says inside my brain, the stupidest idea I’ve
Tried to convince myself of in months.
A snowmobile sails by in the street
And a mitten waves joyously.
I’ve shoveled snow my whole life
And where has it gotten me?
More snow always falls.
Shovels break, back muscles give,
Breath lost in a flurry of grief.
I awaken to the sound of aluminum
Scraping along frozen cement.
The sky is an ocean of whirling stars.
It’s snowing out. And me? I shovel snow.

**************************

John Jeffire’s debut novel, Motown Burning, won Grand Prize in the 2005 Mount Arrowsmith Novel Competition and the 2007 Independent Publishing Awards Gold Medal for Regional Fiction. His stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Parenting, The English Journal, America, and The Peralta Press. His first book of poetry, Stone + Fist + Brick + Bone, will be released in March of 2008.

Last summer, an excerpt from his second novel, River Rouge, won first prize in the 2007 Springfed Arts Metro Detroit Fiction Contest. Visit his website at http://johnjeffire.com.

By John Jeffire
Trafford Publishing, 2006

An under fire chopper flies over the Vietnam jungle dropping off a rig, while an American soldier pisses his pants. Another gets his face blown off by a “slant-in-the-box.” A pregnant Vietnamese woman is being escorted to safety when she lifts up her dress and exposes 10 grenades and blows herself and soldiers to pieces. These graphic images are the first we read about in John Jeffire’s debut fictional novel, Motown Burning.

Told through the eyes of different characters’ fragmented experiences, it is the story of an Armenian boy, A.P., nicknamed Motown, and his fight to escape violence, oppression, and deprivation while growing up in Detroit during the late 60’s.

After his mother dies, A.P. (Aram Pehlivanian) goes to live with Uncle Manny, a former boxer and Detroit bar owner, who puts him to work and teaches him how to fight to defend himself.

A.P. deals with conflict, both internal and external, by fighting that is fueled by racism and crime. After he is kicked out of school, fate steps in by the name of Katie. She is an all-American girl from the suburbs, and A.P.’s saving grace. Despite social criticism, and disapproval from her parents they fight to stay together.

After surviving the riots of ‘67, A.P. is given the ultimatum of going to prison or Vietnam. A.P. chooses Vietnam and Jeffire writes candidly and vividly of A.P.’s emotional and physical struggle to get back to Katie.

Jeffire’s style is real, without embellishment or disguise. This best exemplified by the characterization of A.P., who we discover through the eyes of buddies, his uncle and lover.

The beginning of the novel reads choppy and a bit confusing, as if Jeffire over thinks every word. But as the story continues, he becomes more relaxed in his writing and gains more confidence and with that comes fluidity.

Motown Burning is raw – the emotions, powerful, and the images, brutal. The dialogue is coarse and gritty and paints an uncompromising portrait of war. It is through this language and Jeffire’s rich imagination that history comes to life.

“Now, I ain’t to proud to say nothin’, but right then and there I just couldn’t control myself and I just start pissin’ all over myself. Hell, I was a FNG, a candy ass fuckin’ new guy, and it was my first time in the shit. And the piss just soaks through my trousers
and it starts tinklin’ on the chopper floor and my legs just be bobbin’ up and down crazy like and Saint, he yells to me, Be cool, Opie, get hold. But shit, ain’t no gettin’ hold when the shit come down, man, just ain’t no bein’ yourself. An’ truth be told, you can’t never be the same again, never, once you done been through it.”

Motown Burning is available from Trafford Publishing or http://JohnJeffire.com.

Holly Smith is a confessed addict to contemporary fiction, travel, and coffee.