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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
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      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
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    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
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    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
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    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
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  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
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      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022

Tina Jenkins Bell

Swimming


​         Langston stood in the shallow end of the lake with his arms extended and knees bent, bracing himself. He fussed about as Julia shimmied around him, kicking at waves, laughing, tickling him. 
        “Don’t break a bone, messing around.” Langston drawled, pretending to laugh though he really wanted out of the lake. He shook beads of water from his graying afro and wiped his eyes. His vision blurred as he took in his surroundings. The blue sky washed over the edges of the beach. Faceless, peach figures raced about or stretched out on colorful pallets. Umbrellas with long rods poked from the sand. Yelps of glee echoed, causing him alarm as the force of waves became shoving hands, punching fists. “Help me,” he mouthed. 
        Meanwhile, Julia’s shimmy turned into a Cha-Cha. “Baby, this little bit of water won’t hurt you.” 
        Melanie and Marcus stood within shouting distance, watching Julia and Langston from the shore. Their hands, like visors, shielded their eyes from the sun. 
        Marcus retorted, “Technically, you can drown in a bathtub. Remember Whitney?” 
        Melanie ricocheted a wet towel off of Marcus’ thigh. 
        Marcus smarted, “What!” 
        “That was wrong, Marcus. W-R-O-N-G, wrong.” Melanie said, rolling her eyes.
“Anyway, you need to mind your business.” 
        “Y’all heard the man say he don’t want no parts of the water. He’s fifty something years old, not twelve. If he’d wanted to learn to swim, he’d have done it by now.”
        “Thanks, Marcus. Julia don’t listen,” Langston said, trying to look over his shoulder to commiserate when his feet began to slip on slick rock. “Ah, shi….”
         Langston’s six-foot-five frame scissored in the air, landing him butt first in lake. He splashed about furiously as a swell of water hit him in the face. From a seated position, he dog pedaled the air, slapping away memories like the time a group of white men chased him and his brother Ricky away from the neighborhood pool … like the time a swarm of men tried to drown him in the Barnett Reservoir, their beefy hands clamping the top of his head and pushing down remained a palpable memory … like the time… like the time. . . like the time.
        Langston tensed a bit, feeling Julia’s hand brush his shoulder. She reached further, an olive branch to help him up. “Baby, I got you. You’re safe.”
        “I’m not safe,” Langston said, accepting Julia’s extended hand to pull himself up. In the distance, a group of young white kids garbed in plastic snorkel gear and inflated arm cuffs dived, swam, splashed, and giggled.
        Julia nodded toward the youth. “See. They can’t be more than six years old, but they’re swimming.”
        “Yea, well, the world is theirs to swim in. Isn’t it?”
        “I don’t understand,” Julia said.
        Of course, she didn’t understand, having been raised upper middle class in the north. Unlike him, a southern boy to his core but still her man, and men don’t fear. But they sometimes shake when they remember.

Tina Jenkins Bell is a Black published fiction writer, playwright, freelance journalist, literary activist, and academic. Prior to the pandemic, 2019 was a very busy year for Bell. Her mini-memoir, Devil’s Alley, appeared in the Us Against Alzheimer’s anthology; her play Cut the Baby in Half was featured as a staged dramatic reading at the Greenline Performing Arts Center; her speculative short fiction, To the Moon and Back, appeared in Hypertext Journal and was later nominated for an Illinois Arts Council award; and White Vans, flash prose, was published by South Side Weekly. Ms. Bell also collaborated with Janice Tuck Lively and Sandra Jackson Opoku to write A Conversation with Lorraine Hansberry and Gwendolyn Brooks, a fictional account of two literary icons discussing race and women’s issues during a chance meeting in heaven. A Conversation, was produced as a staged reading by the Chicago Humanities Festival. In 2018, Bell collaborated with Janice Tuck Lively and Felicia Madlock to write a collaborative hybrid fictional account of Robert Sandifer's (the young boy who was murdered by his own gang) last hours; Looking for the Good Boy Yummy was published in They Said, a Black Lawrence Press anthology. Bell is a co-founder of FLOW (For Love of Writing) and has collaborated with numerous writing organizations, authors, and bookstores to offer literary programming in Chicago’s underserved communities. She is currently working on her second novel, Family Legacies.

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Masthead
  • Submit
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Submit Here
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Book Reviews
  • Previous Issues
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
      • Mackenzie Carignan Fall 2022
      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
      • Chad Weeden Fall 2022
      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
      • Liz Robbins Fall 2022
      • john compton Fall 2022
      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
      • Kimberly Ann Priest Fall 2022
      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
      • Konstantin Kulakov Fall 2022
      • Nellie Cox Fall 2022
      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
      • SM Stubbs Fall 2022
      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
      • Hannah Harlow Fall 2022
      • Natalia Nebel Fall 2022
      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022