Contributor News: Pushcart Honorable Mention

Ballyhoo Stories would like to congratulate Amy Gustine. Her story "Golden Medene" from our Crossroads and Weigh Stations Issue received an honorable mention in the latest issue of the 2008 Pushcart Prize anthology.

EXCERPT: "Goldene Medene" by Amy Gustine

Dr. Spencer looked up from his misery to the long, winding lines—dark eyes, brown clothes, the occasional red and yellow native costume—and each day before this and after seemed a wretched sameness to him, as if Ellis Island were a prison rather than a reception point, only he, not them, was the one locked inside. He wondered for the first time if these people were worth all the trouble.

Dr. Hauss, down the line, was new, so his inspection—just clubfeet and goiters—still took twice as long as it should. Waiting for him to finish, Spencer slumped against the elbow in the metal railing behind him and pressed his palms over his ears, gently rubbing his temples with his extended pinkie fingers, aware that he looked haggard but not caring. Their murmurings—a dozen disparate languages ricocheting like a symphony of ignorance off the tiled walls—made his head throb after last night’s bottle of brandy. But who were they to judge him? Human flotsam. Desperate castoffs. They had no right. They did not know him.

The next person was a woman in her forties, then a man in his twenties, and after him a family of four who all had conjunctivitis. He passed them on, but stopped and glanced at their backs. Really? Had he run his finger under every eyelid? Of course. It was so mechanical now, he did it without thinking.

Spencer reached for his face then jerked his hand back. Damn her! He’d almost touched his eye without disinfecting. Spencer dunked his hands up to the wrists, splashing solution onto his instrument stand. It only took a moment to risk his sight, his whole life.

Just like it took Laura only a moment to excise him from hers. Six words—“I don’t want to marry you”—had reduced thirty years of confidence, work, friends, and good looks, to the simple, ridiculous fear of not being good enough to love.

To read more of Gustine's story as well as 8 other great fiction and creative nonfiction stories, purchase "Crossroads and Weigh Stations" and our upcoming "Sin and Redemption" issue together at the Ballyhoo Store.