Fangio’s  Pipe
 
By R.M.Clausen
 
 
The car was incredibly fast. The attached airflow vanes and diffuser devices made the seven-speed prototype aerodynamic in its purest form. One engineer called it a rocket ship without rockets. If it weren’t for the wheels, some believe the car might actually soar around the track without touching the ground. With its immense power and torque package, the racing machine seemed more air-worthy than anything constrained by stingy gravity.

The vehicle, of course, was not designed for the feint of heart. The engineers conceived this pulsating griffin for a gladiator. A crankcase-toreador who not only possesses the skill-factor and the unfaltering panache for competition, but  can unlock the mystique of speed. Once in the pilot’s seat, these contemporary charioteers then transport themselves to a natural euphoric realm where everything that was before, is forgotten. The common denominator is concentration and anything preceding, was just waiting. For them, the ultimate high is the launching hour, the immediate moment, because life begins when the green flag drops.  
                                
Josh Crandle is one of those throttle-jockeys who met the requirements.  A synchromeshed persona grata who had earned the recognition within the proprietary membership of the motorsports plunderbund. Ever since he could remember, Josh wanted to race cars. There wasn’t anything more important to him. Racing was his nirvana, his nourishment, and he lived for that moment, for there was nothing else on the planet that he would rather be doing.   
When Josh scrunched his wiry frame into the compact driver’s seat of this modified sports car, he was in the now, a stratum zone. A place like no other, where reality competes with the nonexistent. He is an elitist of that narrow partnership that believe excellence is expected. Once secure in the cockpit, the man and his vehicle are one.

Josh steered the racer away from the pit area and onto the race track. He then stabbed the accelerator to the floor, and as the engine roared to life, the vehicle’s burst of speed pressed him firmly back against the seat. He allowed the vibration and motion of the racing coupe to have the subtle control in the steering. Everything was in balance, and even though hurling down a straightaway at 200 miles an hour was exhilarating, he knew it was the deceleration and the braking at the sweeps and curves that would decide the outcome at the finish line.

As Josh approached the sharp right-hand curve at Arnage, the rear of the car wanted to go straight, but he corrected with a quick flick of his wrists. The machine answered and slid back to form, he was in control again. Smooth and proficient, he was like a leopard in the hunt. 
Although he navigated the apex safely, Josh knew the race car’s behavior was abnormal. He could feel the handling ebb away with each passing lap. The suspension was out of line, too loose, and it needed adjustment. Disappointed by the performance, he eased the machine into the pits and turned off the engine.    
As Josh climbed out of his car, the first thing that caught his attention was a pretty young blonde draping herself over the pit barrier wall. This was practice day and as always, it attracted many various spectators to the paddock area. Besides the eager crew members, there were the concerned sponsors, the perennial VIPs, assorted sexy women, hangers-on, and anyone who wanted to see a
race car and its driver up close.
With an autograph book in one hand, the young vixen waved furiously, revealing a deep cleavage as her breasts bulged against her T-shirt. Josh smiled, her intention was obvious, but he didn’t need the distraction. Something was not right in the handling of his race car. It was not in tune and he was determined to find out why. He began looking for Giff.
Entering the garage area, Josh’s eyes darted above the intrinsic commotion as he searched for his head engineer. Weaving his way past the mechanics who had now surrounded the car, Josh removed his helmet, and stuffed his earplugs and gloves inside. A bespectacled gent in dirty trousers with an adversely clean shirt quickly approached him. Before the man could speak, Josh churned in, “What the hell, Giff! The rear wishbones are out of whack. The car wants to drift in every corner. I thought we had fixed that problem!”
“We had,” said the engineer, with a  perplexity in his voice.  
“Well the problem’s back!” retorted Josh.     
Patience was not one of Josh’s virtues. To him, distractions seem to emerge from everywhere. The race was only a week away and the car won’t work. The 24 heures du Mans is an elitist motor race and draws top-calibre drivers and racing teams from all over the globe. It troubled him that he could trust an ubiquitous and saucy minx that haunts the paddock area, but not a technically superb and skillfully trained crew-member in the garage. He wished it was the other way around. Frustration was creeping into his bones.
With the practice session over, Josh left the track circuit and hailed a taxi back to the host town of Le Mans. The dilemma with his car bothered him. He would have dinner later with Martin and sort it all out.
Late that afternoon, Josh greeted his mister-fixer in the hotel lobby. Martin, a short, corpulent gentleman, was a mender-of-problems, a redeemer, and the executive of the race team’s largest sponsorship. He smiled a lot and laughed easily, and it was reassuring to the team that he thoroughly enjoyed being around the racing fraternity. Josh’s relationship with Martin had always been smooth, and he knew that if there was a problem, this hombre would take care of it.   

The weather in France was warm with very little wind at this time of year, and although it was overcast with a threat of summer rain, the two men decided all the same to take in a fresh air stroll together down the Rue Chanzy.
It was hard to ignore the charm of the little city, with the old Roman walls and the Gothic cathedrals, but Josh was not concerned with the old-world allurement. His mind was on his race car, and as they walked, the conversation became a conjecture of the up-coming race. 
“I’m down ten points, Martin,” exclaimed Josh. “I need a full complement of team members.”
“The team has three drivers for the race, and every member of the pit crew is top-notch,” answered his troubleshooter. “ You don’t hear Luigi or Jean-Paul complaining do you?”
“They’re not behind in points!” countered Josh. He was sore that the team was going to be missing one crew member at race time.
“His commitment is covered, besides the car will be ready in time,” explained Martin.
The discussion continued and Josh was still on edge as they wended their way back to the hotel.  “If I don’t have a complete team, the opportunity is lost,” said Josh. “What if. . .,” but his words trailed off abruptly. He had noticed a small gathering at the front of the hotel.  
As they were approaching the hotel’s porte-cochère, a sleek car pulled up. Josh’s curiosity turned to the intriguing vehicle.  To drive a beautifully designed car was almost as exciting as racing one. His love and fascination for the sexy contours of an automobile’s body, the intricate framework of the chassis, the potency of the power plant, the delicious colors of the paint, all gave purpose to his life and caressed his soul. To Josh, each marque in the auto world was art’s creation, a fundamental element, where indeed, form follows function. 
Josh’s vigilance was now piqued and it drew him away from his conversation with Martin. He didn’t recognize the vehicle’s manufacturer from where he stood, and as a cluster of people pulsated toward the new arrival, he knew he had to see this unfamiliar car that was meticulously drawing attention.
Josh left Martin behind and pushed his way through the gallery of milling torsos like a panicked lemming. Just as he gained access to the curb for a vantage point, the driver’s door opened and a woman’s shapely leg fell out.
Taken by surprise, his attention immediately went to the orphaned limb and the black high heel shoe that was strapped to it. The owner of the eurythmic appendage then slowly spilled from the motor carriage. Clinging to a sensual and supple, whisper-soft female form was a chic, dark green dress so tight that the slit up the side made everyone in attendance take immediate notice. Her naked thigh was revealed, but large round sunglasses concealed the vamp’s eyes. Her long dark, ebony-black hair glistened in the cloudy sky and gave accent to her refined satin-like face. Her lips were red and full, but they did not smile. Elegant and pretentious, the language of the voluptuous  woman’s body was all under the watchful eyes of the small crowd.  She didn’t speak a word as she surveyed the eager gathering, lingering for a few seconds in the direction of Josh, and then, graceful in her movement, seem to glide across the pavement to the hotel’s entrance. Josh’s eyes were transfixed as he followed her every move.  Someone then opened the front door and the lady vanished inside.
Josh suddenly felt euphoric, for he could not feel anything solid beneath his feet. He had no thoughts, no emotions, as his
consciousness was arrested by her spell. She had succeeded in completely mesmerizing him.
Josh felt the tug on his sport coat before he felt the wet drops on his face. He turned his head and noticed Martin pulling at his sleeve. A light rain had begun to fall and the crowd had dispersed. It was as if he were waking up from a dream.
“Are you alright?” asked Martin.
Josh shook his head not only to answer, but to question. He felt like he was standing in a fog, completely encapsulated. Snared by the woman’s magnetism, it was like a narcotic and he craved for more. He did not know her, yet he couldn’t understand this unsurmountable feeling that was enveloping him. 
“Who is she?” asked Josh, hoping he wasn’t stammering.
“Who is who?” replied Martin. “You mean that woman? I haven’t a clue.”
“Find out,” pressed Josh. “Please, I must know.”
Perplexed, Martin shook his head, and together the two men trudged out of the rain and entered the hotel restaurant. The unidentified automobile that was weathering the elements, now seemed inconsequential.
After dinner, Josh thanked his host, bade him good evening,
and left the restaurant. It was still a mite early for him and he
had the craving for a nightcap so he ambled toward the hotel saloon
just around the corner.
Dimly-lit, with pockets of amber lighting, it was an alluring lounge. He made his way over to the bar and sat down. Except for the bartender, he was alone in the room. There was soft music coming from somewhere as it bounced off the old stone walls and soaked into the lush carpet.  
He ordered a Scotch and then reflected back to the woman he saw that afternoon. It was haunting him. He couldn’t push her out of his head. Who was that ravishing vamp with the enchanted charisma that percolated lust?  Where did she come from, and why is she here?  How could this temptress lure him like she did?  He now had a thirst, a hunger even, that captivated him. He felt trapped, yet wondered if somehow he had been baited.
Josh took a long swig from his glass, and while drowning in thought, failed to notice a wistful, attractive, and curvaceous woman quietly enter the room. She moved effortlessly to the bar and took her seat not far from him. So deep in concentration, he was surprised by her entrance.
The woman did not speak as she drew out a colored cigarette within a flat jeweled case from her small purse. She slowly crossed her leg as the barkeep quickly moved over the bar counter to light her cigarette.
She was incomparably beautiful, with thick dark hair that fell gently past her shoulders. A sylphlike, faintly-colored methyl green dress that she almost wore, poured over her lithesome frame
and cascaded down her bosom, like a waterfall of dripping sex. Her crimson lips pouted, surrendering a smooth, silken face.
His heart almost skipped a beat. It was her, the women he saw earlier that day! Even without sunglasses, he knew it was the same woman. Curiosity seeped from his pores, as he meticulously watched her. More than excited, he scrutinized, eyeing all her smooth lines as if he were going to buy a new car.
There was a certain poise in her carriage. Observing her demeanor carefully, he noticed how purposely she moved, deliberately, deftly, like a violin’s bow. 
She took a long drag from her cigarette, blew the smoke out and then turned to look at Josh. Her gaze left him unsettled and spellbound. Beneath her thick nymph-like eyelashes, were piercing, green eyes. For a moment, Josh thought she was looking right through him. It was evident to him this lovely creature was a maelstrom with skin.
“Hello,” she said. The greeting was soft and concise. Her voice was velvety, somewhat husky, but had reassuring essence.
Josh smiled. Her tone was feminine and had the song of seduction. He knew he was smitten.
“Hello yourself,” answered Josh. “May I buy you a drink?”
“That would be nice, thank you,” she replied. She motioned to the barkeep, “Champagne cocktail, please.” She then took a drag of her cigarette and flicked a lock of hair away from her face. Her eyes were sparkling, as a deep smile formed on her mouth.
“My name is Josh,” said the man who now felt bewitched. “May I know the name of the lovely woman I just bought a drink for?” He was no stranger to flirting, yet the subject in front of him left him with apprehension.
“My name is Circe,” she said still smiling. “Would you like a cigarette?”
“Thank you no, I don’t smoke,” replied Josh. “That is a very pretty name.”
“Thank you, I like it,” she said.
“Do you live in the area?” asked Josh. He felt he might as well cut to the chase.
“No,” she answered quietly.
“Are you here for the race?” he queried.
“Oh yes, I’m a big fan of racing,” she enthusiastically replied.
Tantalized, Josh thought now we’re getting somewhere. A woman of charm and grace who loves racing.
“That’s good to know. I’m a driver myself,” he offered.
“Are you now?” she cajoled.
The barkeep then came over and placed her drink on the bar, nodding at Josh. 
“Yes, I drive the number six Mercedes,” Josh boasted. Then, with his drink in his hand, he rose and subtly slid over to the bar stool next to her, asking, “Do you know any drivers?”
“I do now,” she answered politely, a grin of perfect white teeth now displayed across her mouth. She took a sip of her drink and then asked, “Do you own any racing trophies?”
“Oh, I have a few,” he said. “They’re good mementos, I guess.”
“Umm,” she noted. “I have a very worthy racing memento,” the woman volunteered.
“Really?” said Josh. His interest was now at full hilt. “And what might that be?”
She continued to smile, and with a pause, took a drag on her cigarette. She shifted on her bar stool as she uncrossed her leg and then crossed the other.
“Do you remember a driver named, ‘Fangio’?” she questioned.
“El Maestro?” exclaimed Josh. He was thinking of the famous Argentine race driver who won so many races and championships many decades ago.
“Si,” Circe snickered. It seemed she also knew the moniker of the Latin racer. 
 “Juan-Manuel Fangio,” Josh reiterated. “Who doesn’t remember him? Why do you ask?”
“Do you recall when he raced in Cuba?” the woman queried.  
“Yes, somewhat, I think,” he pondered. “He raced there in
Havana, before Castro in 1957, I believe.”  Josh now began to burn with inquisitiveness.
“He was also there in 1958,” she added modestly. “Only he didn’t race then.”
“Yeah, now I remember,” Josh mused. His history was not top drawer, but he knew racing and its heroes.  Josh went on, “He was kidnapped by Castro’s goons for political reasons. He missed the entire race that year.”
“That’s very good, Josh,” she quipped. “You do know your racing.”
Josh took a deep breath. He suddenly felt fuzzy all over. My god, this woman is incredible, he reasoned. He could feel the goose-bumps crawling up his back. But where are we going with this, he wondered?
Fascinated, Josh gently demanded, “What has that to do with your racing memento?”
Circe grinned, taking a last drag on her cigarette before putting it out. She wet her lips and, tilting her head, looked deep into his eyes as she uttered, “I have his pipe.”
 Josh’s mind went vacant. He did not comprehend. While he was gazing into her eyes, he almost grabbed the bar as he had the sensation of vertigo. He could feel those large, deep, imperial emerald orbs pulling him into her. 
Circe faced back to the bar, took a sip of her drink and then put the glass down before she went on. “Many people don’t know that when they finally released Fangio,” she paused, looked down at her drink and dipped her finger into the glass to briefly stir it before continuing, “they apologized and offered him a box of choice Havana cigars for his trouble.”  Circe withdrew her finger from the glass and brought it to her lips. “Only Fangio didn’t smoke cigars,” she continued methodically, “he didn’t even like them. Instead, he asked for and received a hand-crafted meerschaum pipe.”
She paused again for emphasis, and turning to Josh once again, she leaned forward with her intense, penetrating eyes, lustily breathed, “I have that pipe.”
Her words hung in the air. To Josh it seemed like somebody pulled the pin on a hand grenade and he was waiting for the room to explode.  Fangio’s pipe!  Strange, he had never heard of it before. How did this woman get such a trophy, he wondered? He could not pull away from her ethereal web. He felt she was slowly devouring him.
Circe sat back quietly and sipped her drink. A smirk formed on her face as she reached for her cigarette case and drew out another cigarette. She tossed her head up, as the barkeep rushed over to light it for her.
Josh was in a stupor. He felt a mysterious fire growing within himself.
A passionate flame that was kindling his heart and engulfing him.
It was a distinctive flavor he had never experienced.
He knew it was now imperative that he know more about this enigmatic and inexplicable daughter of Eve packaged before him.  He wondered if love is indeed the true dream of immortality.   
Josh started to speak but found his voice had failed him. He hesitated to avoid embarrassment, and took a sip of his drink, letting the amber liquid slowly trickle down his throat.
“Yes?” she said, anticipatively.
“Do you have the pipe with you?” he asked. 
“Of course,” she answered proudly. “Would you like to see it?”
“Yeah,” Josh burst out. “I mean if it’s not too impolite of me.”
“Why don’t you finish your drink then, and I’ll show it to you,” she enticed.
Josh slugged the rest of his drink down, feeling a twinge of bewilderment, yet with a flare of anticipation. With a glowing smile, Circe put out her cigarette, gathered her purse and rose fluidly from the bar stool.
“I have it in my room,” she said. “Come up with me, I’m staying here.”
Josh slid off his bar stool and immediately went to her side.
They strolled out of the saloon together and around the corner to the hotel elevators. Circe pushed the elevator button and as they stood silently waiting for the doors to open, Josh unexpectedly
felt warm and flushed. He hoped it didn’t show as they entered the lift.
He was impressed when they arrived at the very top floor. Circe motioned to the left as they stepped out of the elevator and then sauntered down the corridor. When they stopped in front of the door to her room, she fumbled for her key.
“May I help?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. “I have it.”
She slid the key into the lock and after a quick turn of the wrist, pushed the door open. The room was inky-black, but it smelled of her. The intoxicating fragrance entranced him as he stood there before the dark.
“Come in,” said Circe seductively, as she slinked into the room.     
She flipped on the light switch and Josh stepped forward. The chamber took on a warm glow from a light sconce on the wall across the extraordinary large room. A spacious Persian rug covered most of the polished wooden floor. He spied a small dresser pressed against an adjacent wall near a closed door. An enormous four-poster bed was the most imposing fixture in the room.
Circe turned and quietly closed the door behind them. This must be the Emperor’s Suite, Josh thought. His room was nowhere near the size of this one.
As he turned around to face her, she suddenly reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck and passionately kissed him.
Unsuspecting, he responded vigorously, holding her tight against
him. She slowly released her arms from his neck, took his hand and led him over to the huge bed.
She then bent her arms behind her and unclasped her dress, letting it drift off her breasts and fall to the floor. Undaunted and naked, she pulled the covers of the bed back and slipped beneath the sheets. Her eyes were glazed as she smiled and beckoned him.
Somewhat astonished but eager, Josh knew the pipe was now an afterthought. He immediately followed her lead, shedding his clothes, and joining her under the covers. He heard her sigh as his arm searched for her waist.
She then gently exclaimed, “Oh my dear, we have left the light on!”
“I’ll get it,” he said comfortingly. 
“No,” she said softly in his ear. “Let me.”
She released her arm from around his shoulder and slipped it out from under the sheets. Her arm dangled loosely as her hand groped for the floor. Upon reaching the varnished boards, her arm then silently slithered across the room, stretching over the ornate rug toward the opposite wall. Reaching the baseboard, her arm slowly creeped up the wall and stopped just before the light switch.
Her hand located the toggle, and with a quick flick of her finger, the room went dark once again.    

Jetsam


by
Gerald Arthur Winter


“I didn’t know she was missing,” the estranged younger sister told him as he
flashed his TPD badge, clipped it to his belt then quickly re-buttoned his blazer. With
a casual shrug she continued. “Our parents died five years ago in an accident on I-4
coming back from Epcot while Jane and I were on Spring Break in Costa Rico. She was
a senior and I was a freshman at USF. Jane went on to grad school in North Carolina--
Duke—but I got a job here in Tampa the week after I got my Bachelor’s degree. Snow
sucks. I’m—like—a Palm-erania.”
He raised his head from his notepad as if his gesture were a question.
The strong silent type, she thought, evaluating his trim build and strong jawline.
“Ya know—like—palm trees . . . my degree was in hotel management . . . at
least that’s what it came down to by the time I was a senior. I haven’t seen or spoken
to Jane since my parents’ funeral. They were cremated and Jane and I scattered their
ashes in the Gulf off Indian Rocks Beach. That final hug was my last contact with Jane.
I’d sent her Christmas cards at the hospital where she was an intern in the North
Carolina Triangle, but she never replied. I’d called a half dozen times only to get
her voice-mail, but she never returned my calls. I gave up trying and moved on
with my life. So be it. Jane has always been The Ice Goddess, no close friends.”
“Sounds cold,” he said, pushing up his sunglasses on the bridge of his sharp nose.
They were at poolside on her day off at the new Plant Hotel where she was the
Assistant Manager. She remained reclined in a chaise lounge and was wearing a tangerine
bikini with beads of perspiration on her tanned skin. She shaded her eyes with her hand,
wondering if her wax job made her Venus mound more enticing. She sensed his stare
through his dark shades, his eyes probably rolling with her exposed abdomen rising
and falling as if her navel were winking at him, maybe teasing him with her intended
lure of sexual provocation.
“Truth be told, Jane is a royal bitch, even to me, her little sister. But I envied
her with that ice princess determination to make it in a man’s world. I’m sure Jane
took no hostages on her way to the top at that hospital in Cary. I understand she’s
become a top surgeon there.”
“She was reported missing forty-eight hours ago by her boyfriend—Hank
Perozzi. Do you know him?”
“Hank? Jeez, I can’t believe she got back together with him. They broke up in
college. He did show up to pay his respects at our parents’ funeral, but I never thought
they’d get back together . . . never.”
“What can you tell me about him? He’s not a suspect, but a person of interest.
Was Jane seeing someone else after their break-up in college? Could there have been
a love triangle? ”
She cocked her head with a swish of her shoulder-length blond hair. “As I said,
I haven’t spoken to her, but I figured she was too intent on her career to have time
for romance.”
“Romantic or not, your sister was sharing an apartment in Cary with Perozzi . . .”
He paused with his index finger to his lips.
“Whatever,” she said with a shrug then sat up and swung both feet to the
opposite side of the chaise and faced away from him. She unfastened her top and
held a tube of sunblock in one hand and cradled her breasts with the other. “Could
you?” she asked turning to look at him over one shoulder.
His shades allowed no clue to his feelings, but he tucked his notepad and
pen in his jacket and took the tube from her hand. There was a long pause as she
waited in silence until his hands touched her back, as warm from the sun as biscuits
fresh out of an oven. His hands felt huge as he made circular motions on her back
with both. Though warm and perspiring, her skin prickled with a chill as he kneaded
her back and shoulders. His thumbs were as skilled as her masseuse at the hotel
clubhouse. She wondered how skilled they’d be if she were facing him, a thought
which made her nipples taut in her own embrace.
“That’s enough,” she said. “Thanks.”
He closed the cap and handed her the tube.
“May I trouble you again?” she said. “Just a simple bow will do. I’m done
for the day.”
Tying her top between her shoulder blades, he said, “I have more questions.”
“I live at the hotel, but I bet you already knew that, Sherlock. An entire suite
of my own overlooking Tampa Bay,” she said, standing and putting on a white fluffy
robe that said “Plant Regency” with orange letters on the hip pocket. She took her
room key and a wristwatch from that pocket. She put on the watch and jiggled her
wrist in front of his face, sunrays bursting from the watch reflected in his shades.
“A gift to myself on my twenty-fifth birthday—Rolex—twelve grand.”
She noticed one of his eyebrows twitch above his sunglasses.
“I’m a loner, no boyfriends, so I like to treat myself right. You coming up to
ask me more questions about Jane?”
“Sure. That’s what I came for,” he said, following her across the pool patio to
the elevators.
In the elevator, instinctively, she sensed his inhaling her hairspray and body
wash scent, maybe something even deeper at her core. He was a cop, a bloodhound
at heart. That excited her. She hadn’t been that aroused for some time. She felt a little
dizzy as he followed her off the elevator on the 21st floor. In the corridor a housemaid
nodded to her with recognition.
“Good morning, Ms. Travers,” the housemaid said with a slight bow. “Fresh
towels in the bathroom as you requested.”
“Thanks, Hillary,” she said. Then opening her suite with the key, she motioned
for him to enter.
“Great view,” he said, walking toward the balcony overlooking the bay.
“Drink?” she asked.
“Coffee,” he said. “On duty.”
“Whatever. It’s almost noon so I’m having wine.” She prepared a coffee
drip, flicked on the switch, then poured herself a glass of chardonnay. “Help
yourself, while I shower and change.”
“Don’t change too much,” he said with a hint of flirtation.
She looked back over her shoulder as she let her robe drop to the bathroom
floor and said with an echo to her voice before closing the door, “Creamer’s in the
fridge, sugar on the kitchen counter! Help yourself! Won’t be long!”
She knew the hiss of her shower was muffled by the closed bathroom door
as he drank the coffee. He’d see only photos of her framed on the walls or standing
on side tables. No photos of her sister Jane or her parents. “Loner” called out from
every corner of her luxury suite. Great management perks would buzz in the mind
of anyone who entered. She wondered what this cop thought of her accommodations.
He turned to her as she returned with her wine glass in hand. “You said you’re
the Assistant Manager, could the hotel ‘Manager’s’ suite possibly be better?” He
asked, sipping his coffee black.
She was dressed for Tampa’s August swelter, a white cotton shift with
silver-dollar-size lavender polka dots, white sandals. Around her thin neck she
wore a white gold chain with a cross, a necklace purchased at the Gold and
Diamond Source to match her Rolex that seemed to shout Happy Birthday to me!
“Last week our manager was transferred by corporate to our new Miami
hotel,” she said, liking his baby blues as he removed his sunglasses and took in her
image head to toe with obvious mutual attraction. “I expect to receive my promotion
to manager by week’s end. This is the manager’s suite.”
“So it’s a given . . . you’ll be the manager. Congrats!” he said, clicking his coffee
mug against her wine glass.
“Nothing’s a given,” she said with a shrug. “Life has no guarantees.”
“That’s a grim outlook for a young woman,” he said.
“When your parents celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary at
Disney World and come back in an urn, it doesn’t turn you into Pollyanna. I’m not
a pessimist, just a realist.”
“So let’s get real,” he said. “You don’t seem upset that your sister’s missing.
That makes you a person of interest . . . possibly a suspect.”
“Suspected of doing what?”
“That depends on how you answer some more questions.”
“Is Jane—like—dead?”
“For now, just missing. Today’s your day off. Would you mind giving me a ride?”
“Where to?”
“A place mentioned by Hank Perozzi in my interview.”
“The winter rental?”
“Yes. Where your parents came down for the winter with you and your sister
until they died.”
“It’s across the bay in St. Pete. Jane wasn’t interested and asked if I wanted it.
But even with all its benefits, the house reminded me too much of Mom and Dad. I
own it, but rent it out during tourist season. I rarely go there, only when I have to.”
“I’m sorry if it will be painful, but I need you to show me somethings there.
Clues to Jane’s whereabouts . . . or demise.”
“Demise? That seems an old-fashioned word for a young man. What? Thirty?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Three’s a charm,” she said with a shrug, grabbing her bag and keys.
“Okay, Marlowe. Let’s go.
* * *
She drove her white BMW convertible. He seemed uncomfortable in the
passenger seat as they crossed the Gandy Bridge to St. Pete. Her long blond hair
fluttered in the wind and she felt exhilarated to be in control of an Alpha male of
the law-and-order persuasion. So far the weather held up at 93 degrees with a
breeze off the Gulf. When they arrived with the crunching sound of her tires
across the circular, gravel driveway, she pointed to the rental sign.
“That’s my number on the sign,” she said, watching him take note on his
pad. She expected after they’d put this yada-da-yada-da meeting behind them,
that he’d call her for a date. She’d decline of course. Much too busy managing
the hotel after her promotion. But once Jane reared her ugly head from the
shadows and his case was closed, maybe a brief fling with a stone-cold cop with
a hard-body would be amusing if not satisfying.
“It’s late August, so not much interest in Florida until October,” she said,
getting out of the car. “Ya know—too fucking hot.”
His expression seemed to echo that same assessment, but of her—too
fucking hot to handle. “Isn’t being the agent for your parents’ rental property a
conflict with your day job at the hotel?”
“I’m a multi-tasker. I’ve been the rental agent almost five years. Jane had
no interest or the time, so it fell to me. My parents’ life insurance paid off the
mortgage, so after taxes, insurance and maintenance, it’s all profit. Beachfront
brings me ten grand a month October through April. Jane got the rest of the
estate—for now, anyway.”
“Do you mind telling me how much you and Jane got from your parents’
estate?”
“You already know that, and you just want to see if I’m a liar,” she said with
a smug curl to her full lips.
“You’ve been watching too much TV,” he said. “I’m just a flat foot, not Robert
Mueller.”
“Still, you must know that my parents put my inheritance in a trust with Jane
as the secondary trustee if both of my parents were deceased before I turn twenty-six,
which is a week from today.”
“And if Jane is deceased before you turn twenty-six?” he asked as if leading
her toward a confession.
“That’s only a week from now, but the bank would serve as temporary trustee
until my birthday . . . then it’s all mine . . . no biggie—I was told it’s only three million.”
”Nice pay lode,” he said, lifting his sunglasses to prop them on top his head.
His blue-eyed stare felt like a laser. “A clear motive for murder.”
“My time is recorded at work. Until today, I haven’t left the hotel in the past
month. You said Jane’s been missing only forty-eight hours. On the hotel grounds I’m
pretty much on camera 24/7 and I haven’t been to North Carolina since I was a kid
traveling from New Jersey to Florida on I-95.”
“Then I guess that lets you off the hook,” he said. “But I just need you to clarify
something for me on this rental property that could help in my effort to find your sister.”
Relieved to be in the clear, she said, “I have the keys. Whadaya need to know?”
“I want to see the backyard.”
“Sure,” she agreed with a shrug and led him through the front entrance.
“It’s a bit musty, but I keep the A/C at 79 degrees to prevent mold in the off-season
because it’s furnished. The heat and humidity in the summer months are killer.”
He raised that distinctive eyebrow again when she said—killer. His reactive
reflex gave her pause, thinking—I am a suspect.
The furniture was covered with plastic and the air was much cooler than
outdoors in the sweltering driveway. She bent down to remove the bar on the
sliding patio doors’ bottom runner and unlocked the doors to lead him onto a
paver patio. A round table with a granite top and a center hole for an umbrella
had six chairs around it. The umbrella was down and rolled in a plastic sheath.
There was a large Green Egg ® to barbecue on the deck. Across thirty feet of
lawn was a dock with a pram to go fishing on the Intra-coastal Waterway
between Tampa Bay and the Gulf. It was very quiet except for an occasional
shrill of a heron, an egret, or a pelican. The surface of the lagoon was like glass
except when a fish jumped away from a cormorant. Spanish moss hung from
the trees along the banks on both sides of the lagoon.
He kept walking towards the boat slip as she said, “What—exactly--
are you looking for?”
Without turning back to face her, his voice was like listening to a newscast
from a distant room, and the light breeze off the lagoon was like a hairdryer set on
low and blowing in her face.
“This lagoon is brackish water,” he said, squatting on the dock. He skimmed
his hand in the water then touched his fingers to his tongue.
His tone puzzled her. “What’s brackish?” she asked.
“Not as salty as the Gulf, but not exactly fresh water like a lake or pond on
the mainland across the bay.”
She shrugged, wondering, where this line of inquiry could be going. “I guess
. . . but I’m a hotel manager—not an oceanographer. Why does that matter?”
“Like most new Floridians who weren’t born and raised here like I was, and just
got tired of ice and snow up in Yankee territory, you assume like most biologists would
tell you in general, that gators make fresh water their only habitat.”
“Gators? I’ve never seen any gators here,” she said.
“That’s because you’re here only in the summer when there are no tenants,
like now. This is when gators spend all day under water to avoid the heat, then they
hunt at night when it’s cooler.”
“So?”
“Unless you’re on a night vigil, you’ll never see their beady red eyes glowing
in the dark waiting for some stupid tourist to walk her lap dog along the banks.”
From the dock he looked up and down the serene lagoon. There were no
neighbors’ boat slips within view in either direction, north or south, or west across
the lagoon. That’s what her parents had always wanted in their eventual retirement
retreat, solitude surrounded by protected marsh that could only be sold off after
their passing. But hopefully one of their daughters would want to keep it.
“My tenants have never called me about seeing any gators in our lagoon.”
“Either they were oblivious and made too much noise that kept them out of
sight or they were curious enough to view them safely from a distance, maybe with
the binoculars I saw hanging on a hook in the kitchen.”
“Those were Jane’s from when we were kids and used to look for dolphins
and manatees,” she said.
“I know,” he said, still facing away from her where he stood on the dock.
“She told me.”
She felt a chill, even in the tropical heat, but asked the question she didn’t
want answered, “She told you? Jane told you?”
The serenity was shattered by the curt answer coming not from him, but
from behind her, saying, “I told Jeff all he had to do was get you to drive him out
here, so he could leave his car for me at the hotel.”
“Jeff? That’s your name? You know each other?” she asked, backing away
from them, but she stood precariously between him on the dock and Jane coming
toward her from the patio. Startled by Jane’s quick advance, she stumbled back,
falling onto the grass where Jeff held her down. She felt a sudden sting in her neck
then watched Jane remove the hypodermic needle from her jugular. She gasped for
air but felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience. She felt no pain and
everything she saw seemed sharper, the colors all around her more vibrant, the
words said to her so precise and curt like a spoon striking a crystal tumbler--
ting-tong-ting!
“Why-are–you-doing-this-to me?” she asked, her own words seemed to be
coming from her abdomen as if she were a cello. She was confused, wondering if
it was the injection that made Jane look like her, even wearing the same polka-dot
dress. She thought. What’s happening?
“It always has to be about you,” Jane said. “Now it’s about me for a change.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked with a tremor.
“You can scream all you like,” Jane said with that same icy glare she’d had
to face every day growing up.
“Scream? What do you want from me—my trust fund? It’s only three million.
I’ll be manager next week. I won’t really need it. Take it! I don’t want it.”
“You must have been eaves dropping on Mom and Dad talking about your trust
fund years ago, but you misheard . . . it was thirty million fifteen years ago now ninety
million—too much to slip through my fingers next week. I still have heavy student loans
from med school. I need that money more than I need a sister.”
“I always knew you were a monster, Jane. What are you going to do to me?”
“Me? Nothing but watch. That’s why I needed Jeff.” She nodded to the police
detective.
“He’s a cop! He wouldn’t—” she stammered.
“You mean this?” he said opening his blazer and unclipping the badge he’d
shown her earlier at the hotel pool, but now held directly in front of her face. She
saw it was just a dime store toy that said: “Sheriff of Dodge.”
She wondered. How could I
th a whir and a staccato rumble.
“No need to flinch,” Jane said. “You won’t feel a thing. But you’ll see it all. First
your hands and feet to draw the gators.”
She watched the saw sever each hand and foot with a spray of blood in her
face. How could she not feel it? What was in that injection Jane had put in her neck?
Jeff threw her hands and feet into the lagoon with four light splashes then
a loud heavy splash, then another, and another . . . gators coming for their appetizers.
Then the saw cut off her forearms at the elbows and her calves at the knees. There
was no one to hear or see the sanguine spectacle in the lagoon.
“We’ll leave her forearms and thighs attached so she can watch the gators
rip them off,” Jane said. “The drug will keep her conscious and we’ll keep her head
above water with a lifejacket from the boat. She’ll bleed out, but her mind won’t
know she’s dead. It’s a drug used on the Iraq battlefields to get information from
our soldiers fatally wounded who could still provide field intelligence even after
they were declared dead.”
She could smell Jeff’s nervous sweat as he dragged her to the pram and
put the orange lifejacket around her remaining torso. Less than two hours ago
she’d been leisurely sunning herself in a tangerine bikini. Now she couldn’t wait
to die.
Jeff’s pants were soaked with her blood. He tied a rope to the lifejacket
and tossed her like jetsam off the dock into the lagoon. He got into the pram and
started the motor. The pram dragged her torso across the lagoon then he tied the
rope to a palm tree on the opposite shore. She bobbed like a bottom-fisherman’s
float on the surface of the lagoon. She was beyond screaming, but totally conscious
as she watched four gators, none less than nine feet long, cutting across the lagoon
like battleships on the Pacific in a World War II documentary.
She called out to Jane and Jeff with her final words, “They’ll be evidence!
DNA! You won’t get away with this! You’ll pay with your lives!”
“You must have been too busy at the hotel today to watch the weather
report!” Jane called back to her sister. “Category 4 Hurricane Jennifer will wipe
out this coast in twelve hours with the next high tide and full moon. You’ll just
be a minor statistic of the disaster.”
Jennifer? She thought as she watched them get in Jeff’s car and leave
her BMW behind as evidence that she’d been there. How ironic—the hurricane
is named after me.
The alligators unhinged their sharp jaws and fought over her remains.
The sky darkened in a prelude to the approaching tempest.
There really are monsters in this world. Please, God, she thought, let
there be none in the next.

Bringing in the New Year


Six 6-Word Stories for 2019


By Gerald Arthur Winter





Mom’s legacy, faithfulness, breeds my tolerance.


My withheld embrace stores wondrous fulfillment. 


Loves me—pregnant—loves us not.


Honoring my committal he chooses another.  


My belly swells sapping freedom twofold.


Tears, a touch then kisses much.

Fireworks and Holiday Cookies

By Roy Dorman



“I think I’ll make some homemade cookies for the Trick-or-Treaters this year,” said Martha Evans to her husband Wilbur.
“Is it Halloween already?” asked Wilbur. “I thought it was just the Fourth of July. Time flies, don’t it? Seems like you just took me to the fireworks.”
Actually, it’s been three years since Martha has taken Wilbur to the fireworks. His dementia has spoiled all the fun in that type of outing, and except for grocery shopping, Martha and Wilbur mostly stay at home.
“I thought kids didn’t accept treats that weren’t store-bought anymore. Ya know, because of all the incidents with razor blades and poison.”
Martha sighed. Wilbur still had a good day now and then and it looked like this was going to be one of them. It only made what she had decided to do more difficult.
“Do we even get any Trick-or-Treaters anymore?” Wilbur continued. “It’s been a while since I remember any comin’ to the door.”
Wilbur was right. It had been a while since Martha had put on the welcoming porch light for the neighborhood kids. She had stopped doing it after the Halloween Wilbur had screamed obscenities at the Marston kids from down the street. He had insisted they were robbers dressed up like children so they could get into the house. Martha still apologized every time she ran onto Mrs. Marston.
***
Martha had seen the belladonna plants off the roadway earlier this fall when she had gone for a walk after sedating Wilbur for his nap. She admitted to herself that the sedation was more for her benefit than Wilbur’s; she had to have a little alone time now and then.
At first she thought she should call the county’s roadway people and report the plants; they were poisonous and very close to the shoulder of the road. Some kid could pick the berries and get sick or even die.
Martha didn’t call anybody. Instead, she pulled a couple of the plants out by their roots and took them home. She never really liked kids all that much anyway.
***
“That house on Maple Street is ripe for the pickin’,” said Bobby Woods. “It’s just two old people livin’ there who probably have some cash stashed away for emergencies.”
“What about all the kids on the streets?” asked his side-kick, Lenny Dawson. “We’d stand out like sore thumbs on Trick-or-Treat night.”
“So we wait until about ten o’clock; all the kids are back home before then, right?”
“Yeah, I suppose so,” said Lenny. “And we sure could use some easy money.”
***
Martha didn’t make dinner that night. If Wilbur asked she could just pretend they had already eaten and offer him the cookies if he was hungry.
She put a half-dozen cookies on a plate from the basket by the front door and led Wilbur upstairs.
“Time for bed, dear,” said Martha. “Have a couple of cookies with some milk; it’ll help you get to sleep.”
“Did we have any Trick-or-Treaters?” Wilbur asked.
“Not a one this year; must be that Halloween is losing its popularity as a holiday.”
“We’ve got a lot of cookies here,” said Wilbur, looking at the plate on the nightstand. “Are you going to have any?”
“Oh, I will,” said Martha. “I’ve still got a couple of things to do. You have some now and get into bed.”
Having missed dinner, Wilbur tore into the cookies with gusto. Martha watched him with tears forming in her eyes. She would have some cookies, but she would wait until after she was sure Wilbur was dead.
***
Martha heard glass breaking downstairs. It sounded like it came from the kitchen.
She cautiously went down the stairs with her cell phone in her hand, ready to call 911.
When she got to the bottom of the stairs, Lenny and Bobby jumped into the hallway from the kitchen and Bobby knocked the phone from Martha’s hand before she could finish punching in the number.
“Give us all your money and any valuables and you won’t get hurt,” said Bobby.
“I’ve got less than a hundred dollars in my purse for groceries; that’s all we have in the house.”
“You’re lyin’,” said Bobby, slapping Martha hard in the face. “You must have some cash here somewhere in case somethin’ unexpected comes up.”
“Geez, Bobby,” said Lenny. “Don’t be so rough; she’s an ol’ lady.”
“A lyin’ ol’ lady, “said Bobby, cuffing Martha again. “Where’s the money, honey!”
Martha was frightened, but she also was angry. “There is no money other than what’s in my purse, you stupid man.”
This time Bobby hit her in the jaw with a closed fist and knocked her onto an umbrella stand in the hallway. The circular stand had sharp ornamental spikes on it and Martha fell onto the stand face first, dying instantly.
“Are you nuts!” yelled Lenny. “Ya mighta killed her.”
Bobby spit on the back of Martha’s head. “So what if I did? Now let’s get her purse and get the hell outta here.”
“Ain’t we gonna look for the money they’ve got stashed away?” asked Lenny.
“Lookit this dump,” said Bobby. “She wasn’t lyin’; they probably live on the Social Security checks they get each month. There’s the purse over their on the table by the front door; let’s blow this pop stand.”
“We killed somebody for a hundred bucks?” said Lenny. “If we get caught I’m singin’ like a canary.”
“A hundred bucks and some cookies,” said Bobby, grabbing a handful of the cookies from the basket next to Martha’s purse. “Trick-or-Treat, right?”
“I want half the money, Bobby; you can have all the lousy cookies,” said Lenny. “Eatin’ something that was made by a dead person seems creepy.”
***
“Your labs guys did real good on this one, Harry,” said Detective Michael Storm. “There was a lot goin’ on with this one, more guilty parties than innocent ones, and finding that saliva in the victim’s hair put Bobby Woods at the scene. That was enough to get Lenny Dawson talkin’.”
“Yeah, Lenny sure lucked out when he didn’t eat any of those cookies. Martha Evans put enough belladonna berries in those cookies to kill a goddamn horse.”
“It’s a good thing no kids stopped at the Evans’ house tonight,” said Detective Storm. “That would have been a real tragedy.”
“You’re right as rain there, Michael. Some houses just don’t deserve to be on the Trick-or-Treat route and that house should have been taken off the list long ago.”

BROTHER FIDELITAS AND SISTER PRUDENCIA
A Fable Of Two People In Two Places

By Roger D. Hicks

Once upon a time, in a tiny river valley in Western Europe, there lived a man and a woman. They were known as Brother Fidelitas and Sister Prudencia. Each belonged to a small, strict, and very private religious order. Brother Fidelitas was a monk. Sister Prudencia was a nun. Their orders were located in two small branches of the river valley that were separated by a mountain. The members of each order had no contact with the outside world except as dictated by the necessities of obtaining the supplies they could not produce on their own. On some days, in winter-if the weather was right, members of one order could see the frail, dissipating smoke of the wood fires of the other order rising over the mountain that separated them.
In this way, the nuns and monks were aware that the others existed in a similar solitude just over the mountain. Their self-imposed isolation made these devotees seek to ignore the fact that others, in many ways like themselves, lived just across the ridge. The nuns and monks lived, worked, and sought enlightenment within a few short miles of each other and ignored the fact that it was so. Brother Fidelitas and Sister Prudencia were positive examples of their respective orders. Each worked to be accepted and admired by their comrades. Each did the work assigned to them and sought more to prove their commitment to the order. Their days were filled with work and neither thought of anything except being a part of the community in which they lived.
Sister Prudencia tended the gardens of her order and raised many of the vegetables they ate. Her work took her outside the walls of the convent on many days into the surrounding grounds as she dug in the good, warm earth to produce food for her sisters. She did this common work with a glad heart and smiled at her successes. A large crop of potatoes, abundant cucumbers, plentiful beans all could make Sister Prudencia smile. They were her achievements. They were the way she measured her success. Along the edges of her vegetable garden, Sister Prudencia also raised a few flowers. They were the only concession her order ever made to beauty or frivolity. A few of the flowers had a purpose in helping keep away bugs from the garden. A few others could be used to produce simple medicines for the nuns. But quietly, Sister Prudencia also raised her beloved pansies simply because she loved pansies. They rose up and bloomed at the edges of the garden and Sister Prudencia smiled.
Brother Fidelitas also worked outside the walls of his order to produce much of the food they ate. He was the caretaker of their chickens, rabbits, and ducks. Brother Fidelitas worked to protect the animals from the weather, the foxes, and disease. His good work also provided sustenance for the members of his order. In a small corner of the poultry house, Brother Fidelitas also kept a few pigeons. Like the pansies of Sister Prudencia, the pigeons had no real purpose. But, in their flights high over the monastery, the pigeons made Brother Fidelitas smile. As he worked among the animals, Brother Fidelitas would occasionally glance toward the sky to watch the circling, peaceful flight of the birds. It did not occur to the monk to think that the pigeons, in their flight, could see the pansies of Sister Prudencia.
As the nun and the monk continued to live and work in their cloisters, each gained more and more respect from their peers. Their faithful, simple work earned each of them accolades of the type that simple people give. An older nun might smile as she ate potatoes from Prudencia’s garden and say, “This is a fine potato, sister.” A monk might make a similar comment as he dined on one of the products of Fidelitas’ coop. The nun and the monk received these compliments in the only manner that was acceptable in their orders: silence. For them to have shown too much appreciation of even simple praise would have seemed unchaste and ungodly. Above all, the members of each order sought to be chaste and godly. Their lives, their very souls were dedicated to godlike chastity. The manner in which Brother Fidelitas and Sister Prudencia received these simple compliments was duly registered and approved by the members of their orders. Each was found to be worthy of the respect of their peers.
Each of the orders found it necessary to send a member to the small town near the mouth of the river once a week to purchase the supplies they could not grow. At nearly the same time, after years of dedicated toil, both Sister Prudencia and Brother Fidelitas were chosen to serve as the auxiliary supply purchaser. The orders viewed these as very serious responsibilities and the person chosen to fill the job was required to be an exemplary member of the order. By going to town on market day, these people both exposed their neighbors to the people of the orders and were exposed themselves to the temptations the town had to offer. These supply purchasers were carefully chosen by their peers and then trained in the position by the regular purchaser. No member of either order was ever sent to town alone for many months in order to make sure that they were not tempted by the allure of the community and its people. Sister Prudencia and Brother Fidelitas each made a few trips to town with these older teachers when the work of the orders was light and their presence not needed at home. In this way they learned what should be bought-salt, medicine, simple tools- the necessities of a simple life. They learned from whom they should purchase these things and whom they should avoid. The nun and the monk were gradually prepared for the time when they might be needed to do this job alone.
Finally, the time came when each of them was sent to purchase supplies alone for the first time. The winter had begun and the garden of Sister Prudencia was empty of work. The animals of Brother Fidelitas were safe in their cages. The valley was swept by a sudden influenza and many of the people were sick in their beds. Such was the case with the nun and the monk who had trained Prudencia and Fidelitas for just such a day. They left at nearly the same time on market morning and trudged toward the town with the meager products that each of the orders produced for sale-a few hand sewn garments, some baskets, some products of the fields. Each also carried a small amount of the money of their order to purchase the supplies for which they could not trade.
The nun and the monk arrived in the town and began to shop for the things they needed. Each moved through the stalls of the vendors silently, softly, speaking only to conclude a purchase. Each was striving and succeeding in being a positive example of their order. They both arrived at the stand of a dealer in medicinal supplies and began to search the shelves for the few simple remedies that might heal their brothers and sisters. Suddenly, Brother Fidelitas was stopped in his
search by the sound of a voice that asked the seller the price of a particular medicine. Brother Fidelitas had heard women in the town before. But this voice was different, softer, and compelling in a way that Fidelitas had not experienced since before he took his vows at the monastery.
The monk looked up and saw a beautiful, young nun dressed much like himself in the simple frock of the order. The clothes concealed her body. Only her face was visible. But the face was so special that Fidelitas could not explain to himself what he felt. He was somehow breathless, frozen, and could not have spoken if the occasion required. The nun looked only at the shopkeeper, listened to his answer, chose a small amount of the medicine, and left the shop. Brother Fidelitas wrestled with a sudden desire to follow her to the next shop. But he remembered the teaching of the old monk who had brought him to town before. Brother Fidelitas had been told that such a thing might occur, or that a town woman might even attempt to draw him into trivial conversation, or even worse. The young monk had been well prepared by his teacher. He controlled the urge to follow the nun, bought the few things he needed and left on the return trip to the monastery.
Brother Fidelitas did not see the nun again and concluded his business in the customary efficient and timely manner. He bundled the purchases and unsold products of the order in his hand sewn backpack and began the journey back up the valley toward home. As the monk walked, he watched the sky and realized that a storm was moving in over the ridge ahead. He prayed for safety on the way and realized that a similar storm was also moving in his heart and head. He remembered the face of the nun, the soft questioning voice, the chaste way she had shopped and left the town without his having seen her again.
Fidelitas struggled with his thoughts and walked on into the face of the building snow storm. He suddenly remembered a time when he was in the home of his parents in another valley more than a hundred miles away. He had been sixteen and his father had sent him to town on market day to sell a few rabbits and return home. Fidelitas had followed his father’s orders that day just as he had followed the orders of his abbot today. He had gone to the shop of the butcher and sold his rabbits quickly and quietly in preparation for leaving the town. But that day, so many years ago, another young woman had come into his senses.
The daughter of the butcher had followed the young Fidelitas out of the shop and spoken to him in the way he only now remembered. The soft insistence and offering of her voice had led him away from his plan and he had followed her to a shed in an alley behind her father’s shop. She had told him of things he had never heard explained. She had showed him emotions, sensations, smells, tastes, and touches a young farm boy soon to be a monk had never experienced. He had exulted in the rolling tide of sensations she brought him and left the shed with a collection of emotions he had never felt before.
But the memories of the butcher’s daughter did not bring pure pleasure to the monk as they had on that first day so many years ago. Now Fidelitas examined the memories both in the light of the teachings of his order and in the additional memory of having returned home to find the
pockets of his poor farmer’s pants empty. The butcher’s daughter had exacted a price for her teachings. She had stolen the coins from the sale of the rabbits to her father. Fidelitas remembered the beating when he told his father the truth. He remembered being brought to the abbot as a novice a few weeks later. He remembered the years in the monastery since that wonderful day in the butcher’s shed and the guilt rolled over the monk much as the snowstorm rolled over the mountains into his face.
The clouds had built rapidly, pushed by a steadily increasing wind. The temperature dropped quickly and the snow came in a driven fury as the monk pushed on against the building drifts and distressing memories. Fidelitas struggled against the storms in his world and his soul. He felt the sting of the snow and ice on his face where his hood did not reach. He felt the sting of his father’s words and lash. As he struggled to walk on, the monk smelled the coldness of the valley in his nostrils. He remembered the frigid goodbye at the door of the monastery so many years before. And yet, somewhere deep inside he also remembered the honest, soapy, work induced aroma of the young nun and realized that in the shop he had not even been aware that she had an aroma.
A quarter mile in front of Fidelitas, Sister Prudencia was also struggling in the storm. She pushed determinedly against the rising snow and also found turbulent thoughts and feelings pushing into her mind. Sister Prudencia remembered the face and voice of the monk in the druggist’s shop. As the shopkeeper had weighed the meager medicine for her, for a single moment the nun had glanced across the room and under the cowl which covered the head of Brother Fidelitas. Sister Prudencia had been warned by her mentor about the men of the town. She had never been warned about the men in the monastery across the mountain. She too pushed against the snow and wind while simultaneously pushing to force the unexpected thoughts of the monk from her mind. The storm was coming on more forcefully. The snow deepened quickly over the knees of the nun. The wind cut unceasingly through her hand-woven garments. She began to believe that she could go no further. Suddenly in front of the nun a row of three trees appeared and Sister Prudencia remembered an abandoned farm house and knew that she must seek shelter from the storm.
Sister Prudencia struggled between the trees and up the snow laden path to the open door. She pushed her way into the dusty room and continued to struggle with her thoughts as she sought objects in the room which could be used to save her life. There was no furniture but the door was secure and the windows were shuttered. Only a small amount of snow and ice had blown in the open door and between the cracks in the board walls. There was a fireplace in the rear wall and the nun instantly remembered that she had no matches or other means of creating fire. Sister Prudencia searched the room and her heart simultaneously.
Her encounter with the young monk had shaken her. She had not expected to see a man in the town who would arouse these feelings. She had not even believed that such feelings existed in her. Prudencia had come to the convent when she was sixteen after her parents had died in an earlier epidemic which swept the valley. She had been brought there by the farmer whose family
owned the labor of her parents. She remembered him and how she had hoped on that day that he would not leave her with the nuns. The face of the farmer crept into her thoughts just as the face of the butcher’s daughter had overcome the monk who struggled in the snow a quarter mile away.
The farmer had allowed the young girl to live in the meager home allotted to her parents for several weeks after their deaths while he considered his options. He had come to Prudencia each day and talked to the orphaned girl of her life, his farm and dreams, and the problems they both faced. Prudencia had come to believe in those days with the farmer that her life would progress in a different manner. And then, after the farmer quietly decided that a better marriage to the daughter of a neighboring farmer was possible, he had brought her to the convent and gone quietly away. Just as surely as the butcher’s daughter had robbed Brother Fidelitas, the farmer had robbed Sister Prudencia.
The nun searched the house for any object she could use to save her life and in the blinding storm the monk struggled on up the valley step by step until he managed to stumble into the line of trees and remember the abandoned farm house. As Brother Fidelitas pushed his way to the door, the nun was gathering a few small pieces of wood from the floor and found an aged cup which had survived the abandonment of the farm. She was searching her backpack for a few bites of food and an unsold blanket when the monk pushed open the door.
Sister Prudencia gasped but cut off the rising scream when she realized that the snow covered robe could only be worn by the monk from the shop in town. At the sound of her surprise, the monk stopped and said, “I am only a monk of the brotherhood nearby and I cannot go on in the storm. May I stay for the night in your home. I did not know this farm was occupied.”
Sister Prudencia overcame her shock and said, “I am a nun of the convent. I, too, am seeking shelter from the storm. Do you have fire?”
The monk did not reply verbally but dropped his backpack and shook the snow from his robe. Then the two worked quietly together to find the objects which might save their lives. They added a few more small pieces of wood to the meager pile near the fireplace. Fidelitas began to search his backpack and withdrew an unsold candle and a container of matches, one of few concessions his order allowed to modern convenience. Prudencia dug in her burden to produce an unsold blanket and a small chunk of crude goats’ cheese from her lunch. Fidelitas found half a loaf of bread saved from his noonday meal and the paper in which his purchases had been wrapped. Together the monk and nun worked to build a small fire and, as it kindled to life, both realized that they had been spared by the storm.
As the darkness of the continuing storm enveloped the house, the monk filled the cup with packed snow for water and set it near the tiny fire. The nun cleared a spot as near the hearth as possible and spread the blanket with the food nearby. The monk lit the candle and placed it on the mantelpiece. The warmth and light spread over the two, yet seemed to fill only a small portion of the room. A circle of light, soft, enveloping, pristine seemed to surround the couple on the blanket. In the eye of the continuing storm, Fidelitas and Prudencia were warm, safe, isolated, and alone
together. If either of the two ever realized the unnatural aspect of their sharing a room, a meal, and a blanket neither expressed it.
They shared the fire, the bare sustenance of bread and goats cheese, the chalice of water, the blanket. And as the night progressed, they shared their souls. The conversation, at first halting and unsure, seemed to swell and grow until it encompassed everything each of them had been or known before that night. It seemed that before the blanket covered them and the fire protected them they knew each other completely, unequivocally, and in a manner that was sacrosanct and sacred.
When the morning light awoke them, Prudencia and Fidelitas moved rapidly to leave the fire. The blanket was returned to the backpack from whence it had come. The candle was placed in the pack of the nun and became an unspoken memorial in a tiny collection of personal possessions. The cup moved to the pack of the monk and then to an exalted spot on a shelf near his beloved pigeons. They left the house in single file walking slowly under the snow laden nave into which the trees had been transfigured. The monk broke a trail up the valley and across the pristine land it had become. The nun followed silently and gradually fell behind to a chaste and acceptable distance before Fidelitas turned up his own little road to the monastery. Prudencia moved on the short distance to the convent.
Both would remember the storm and the night as having been natural, comfortable, and perhaps ecstatic. Neither ever spoke of that room, that storm, that night, that experience again. In the minds and hearts of the nun and monk, the room, the fireplace, the meal, and the blanket became a sacred moment. The ancient cup became a chalice used only once in a sacramental act. The candle on the mantle may just as well have been placed on an altar. The storm became the hand of the God they strove to please. The night became their most sacred memory. The house became a shrine.

​San Sebastian’s Ghosts

by

Gerald Arthur Winter


At age twelve I had a crush on Sally Baker, but realize now as an adult just how deep my
affection had been for her thirty years ago. Even from my preteen perspective, I’d been well
aware that Sally was the best looking cheerleader who all the senior boys at Apachalaca High
School wanted to take to the prom. But that one night long ago, Sally needed my protection
from the horrors we’d have to face together at the deserted O’Grady mansion and haunted
Fort San Sebastian on Gator Island just a mile off the Nature Coast of north western Florida.
With her good looks and straight A’s, Sally had been pre-pledged by a local sorority at
Apachalaca Community College where she intended to enroll as a freshman next September.
However, the key to her pre-acceptance for next fall’s sorority entry was to spend Halloween
overnight in the O’Gradys’ master bedroom with a clear view of the gallows in the courtyard
of the 16th century Spanish fortress.
The creepy antebellum mansion had been charred by fire a few years ago. Though arson
was suspected and investigated, no evidence came forth with the cause of that conflagration
attributed to lightning. The suspicion of arson had been based on the controversy over the
preservation of the historical site as a Civil War landmark in addition to the fort’s attribution
to the Spanish galleons who’d built the fort as protection from the French and British fleets
attacking from the Gulf of Mexico. The fort had been completed only five years after the
Spanish established St. Augustine on the east coast of Florida. There had been protests in
town against the restoration of the site, especially by the local African American community
because of the history of slave abuse by the mansion’s occupants’ who’d built the mansion
in 1850 beside the remains of the Spanish fort predating the mansion by 280 years according
to its cornerstone marked “1570.”
Spanish moss hung from the gnarled weeping willows surrounding the mansion’s
warped structure like head-dressed witch doctors prepared to raise the dead on All Hallows
Eve. On that the full moon October night three decades ago, locals still expected 16th century
zombies to rise from the adjacent slave cemetery. The graveyard’s moss-covered head stones
leaned at odd angles with the names of the dead worn away by hurricane winds and tropical
torrents over the past centuries.
The oldest date on a headstone in the cemetery was 1555 with the name of Jamuaja, a
fifteen-year-old girl enslaved by the Spanish who died in childbirth with her unnamed daughter.
The most recent date was 1865, a Negro boy of nine, as the headstone indicated, who’d bled to
death when his arms had been amputated for tapping the master, Seamus O’Grady’s daughter
on the shoulder to warn her about an alligator swimming toward the shore where she’d stood.
The controversy over the site as a Civil War monument sparked heated debate because,
toward the end of the Civil War, many slaves had been brought to Fort San Sebastian to be
hanged, as was often the case, but also to be mutilated first for any attempts to escape. When
word of the Confederacy’s surrender came to Seamus O’Grady, he sped up the process of his
personal genocide. It was this horror that gave the fort and the mansion the curse of wandering
spirits unable to resolve, even in modern times, any sustaining retribution for the atrocities
thrown on them.
The sorority to which Sally Baker wished to pledge her allegiance were all descendants
of the O’Grady clan and had to do their DNA due diligence for any consideration even before
GPA, talent, or good looks were considered. Though I had no clue at the time, they’d also
become an inbred lot with all marriages showing O’Grady DNA without any trace of what
they referred to in private as “NB.”
Sally was my next door neighbor and had agreed to watch me overnight while my
parents were still on a road trip for my ill grandmother being moved to an assisted living
facility in Atlanta, Georgia over 200 miles north of our sleepy Florida burg. After I’d gone
out trick-or-treating for the last time in my adolescent life, Sally and I watched some
horror movies from 5:00 to 11:00 p.m., which included the classic black-and-white flicks:
Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolfman. Then we capped it off with Burnt Offerings
in color, which was enough to make a grown man shrink in fear with Betty Davis eyes
popping out of the aged actor’s head.
“I can hear Mrs. Allardyce on the third floor,” Sally said, trying to scare me. “I’ll
have to bring her tea and crumpets so it’s bedtime for you, little man.”
Sally liked to call me that, but I felt a tingling sensation from somewhere at my core
that had become active only recently, but seemed to reverberate that night like a Buddhist
gong with the scent of Sally’s hairspray wafting every time she came within reach. But the
thought of a creepy old woman in our house, like Karen Black in Burnt Offerings, gave me
an icy chill like a cold steel blade through my spine.
When Sally noticed me staring at her she said, “Go upstairs to your bedroom now.
But don’t expect me to tuck you in. My how you’ve grown over the summer. How old are
you now?”
I lied, telling her, “Thirteen.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re too old to be afraid of vampires and werewolves, so you just go
and tuck your little-man self into bed.”
“How about a kiss goodnight?” I asked with disbelief at my courage, but she seemed
unfazed by my outrageous proposal.
“Have you kissed any girls in your class?” she asked, standing from the sofa and folding
her arms tightly across her bosom. “I bet you haven’t kissed anyone but your mommy.”
I blushed and stammered, “Well, I—that is, there was this one—”
“No one! Absolutely no one,” she challenged.
I just shrugged and hung my head until I felt her index finger under my chin, which
she used to tilt my head upward to face her. Wow! She smelled great and her eyes were
hypnotic, turquoise like the Caribbean.
“Wh-what are ya gonna do?” I asked, afraid she’d tell my parents of my bold
inappropriate behavior, which would surely prohibit Sally from ever coming over to our
house again.
“If you promise never to tell anyone—not ever—that this happened, I’m going to
show you how to kiss a girl the way she’ll never admit she wants you to.”
“But I thought you were gonna—”
“Shut up, little man, because this is the only time you’re ever gonna kiss me, so don’t
slobber and just do to me what I do to you. Got it?”
I thought surely I’d pee in my pants or fart, but the first taste of Sally’s lips and the
sweet warmth of her breath made me feel like I’d been drowning forever and she was
breathing life into me like a paramedic on an emergency rescue mission.
Once I got the hang of it, she pushed me away and said, “Whoa-whoa-whoa, little man!
That’s it. You’re on your own now. But you’re ready to thrill some high school girl before you
ecven finish eighth grade.”
Of course I was only in seventh grade, but what did that matter when that night would
already stay in my memory forever? But that was before I was watching from our second-floor
landing as she talked on the phone to one of her girlfriends. The conversation was about her
Halloween sorority initiation on Gator Island at the O’Grady mansion. Then I heard Sally sneak
out the backdoor. At the time, the only thing I knew about the O’Gradys or Fort San Sebastian
were rumors at school and overheard conversations between my parents about the Civil War
landmark controversy.
I couldn’t believe that Sally was going to leave me home alone on Halloween night
and take off for Gator Island. She was eighteen and I was twelve, so I figured there must be
some kind of rule or even a law against her leaving me on my own with my parents out of
town. Jeez. There was probably even some kind of regulation about getting kissed by a girl
her age—girl? She was a woman and I wasn’t even a teenager yet. Maybe they’d go easy on
her since I’d lied to her about being thirteen.
I quickly dressed in jeans and a polo shirt and slipped on my sneakers without socks
or tying the laces. Then I pursued her across the empty lot behind my house toward the
marina. No thoughts about the scary rumors of Gator Island, the O’Grady mansion, or Fort
San Sebastian even entered my mind—only Sally’s safety—with her kiss lingering in my mind.
I figured a guy should never let a girl who kissed him like that ever get away. Besides,
everyone knew Gator Island was just a joke on tourists. There hadn’t been a gator sighted
there in over a hundred years, or so I’d heard at school. Kids often dared others to swim the
half-mile to Gator Island, but I’d never heard of any takers. If there were, they’d probably
drowned rather than being attacked by an alligator.
I could hear Sally rustling through the scrub foliage in the empty lot just thirty yards
ahead, but I was gaining on her. When she got to the Marina on the Intracoastal Waterway
between Gator Island and Florida’s Gulf shore, she was met by two other girls, maybe a
couple of years older than her. I couldn’t hear what they were saying to one another from
where I hid behind a boat in dry dock. They helped her into an old 20-foot garvey, flat with
a covered area at the center as protection from, sun, wind, and rain.
The two girls waved to Sally and she waved back. The other two got into a car and drove
away. I thought they’d be going with her, but Sally started the engine with a cloud of exhaust
and a roar.
She’s going alone, I thought. Then, like Scooby-do, I barked, “Yoiks!”
I waited only a moment as Sally unfastened the lines from the moorings and pointed the
rickety craft toward the full moon on the horizon backlighting Fort San Sebastian and O’Grady’s
mansion silhouetted against the moonglow.
I ran toward the boat with Sally facing in the opposite direction and the engine’s
banging blocking out any other sounds. I leaped ten feet from the dock to the boat just as
Sally accelerated the engine, which masked the jolt of my weight in the garvey. The center
shelter concealed my presence on the boat, and there was a canvas tarp at the stern which
I used to cover myself and conceal my presence from her as she steered.
It was only a ten-minute ride to Gator Island where Sally had been instructed to
moor the craft till morning or to use for her escape if the O’Gradys’ or tormented slaves’
ghosts scared her off the island before daybreak.
Never mind Sally, I thought. What about me? Too late to turn back now and I can’t
let Sally face this scary stuff alone. I had to protect her tonight to prove that I deserved to be
called more than just a “little man.”
The other girls had given Sally a list of places on the island where she had to go and also
of certain things to bring back to show them that she’d followed their instructions. It was more
than just an initiation; it was a scavenger hunt as well. Now I knew I could be more than just
Sally’s protector. I could help her gather all she needed to join her sisterhood at college.
Maybe I’d earn another kiss. The warmth of that slim possibility kept me from shivering loud
enough to be heard by Sally steering the boat to the dilapidated dock between the mansion
and the fort.
I watched her tie the boat to the dock then squint at her written list by the shimmering
moonlight casting its silvery glow across the rippling tide.
“I can help,” I said, tossing the tarp aside.
“You little creep!” she shrieked. “How did you get here?”
“I followed you and jumped from the dock into your boat as you were heading here.
Let me help you, Sally.”
“You, help me? You must be kidding, little man.”
Ugh! There it goes again. I had to prove to her that I was worthy, that I could be her
hero that night.
“Don’t act so stuck-up,” I said, which made her cock her head and glare at me. “I’ll tell
all the guys on the high school football team that you French-kissed me.”
“You little creep,” she hissed. “They’ll kick your butt.”
“Come on, Sally. Let’s find the stuff you need on that list,” I said as if taking command.
“Okay, I guess,” she said. “But don’t think this will get you another kiss.”
“Don’t be too sure, Sally.”
“Ugh! I’ve created a little monster,” she said. “Come on. We have to go to the master
bedroom in the O’Grady mansion until midnight.”
I looked at my watch. “We’ve got only ten minutes. We better hurry.”
Sally’s list told her to enter the mansion through the wine cellar which was creepy
with spider webs tickling our faces in the dark and vermin scattering from our path to the
creaky wooden steps to the first floor kitchen where rats were on every counter and
scampered between our feet as Sally shrieked.
When we found the stairs to the second floor it felt with each step as if we’d fall
through the rotted wood into the basement. An oil portrait of Master Seamus O’Grady
hung on the wall beside a canopied bed. His shimmering turquoise eyes glared at us from
1865 when the Union Army hanged him from the gallows of Fort San Sebastian in the
courtyard below.
“I have to watch from here at the stroke of midnight,” Sally said, going to the
balcony with me right behind her.
Whether our imagination or not, we turned to each other as we heard the chimes
from the fort’s watchtower beginning the count to midnight—1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .
When the chime came to 8 . . . 9 . . . 10, Sally grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight.
She was ready . . . so was I.
Below we saw a dozen men and women ready to be hanged. At the stroke of
midnight came the loud snap of the trap doors beneath the feet of the condemned and
their amputated corpses hung from nooses in the sea breeze. I shivered when I heard
what sounded like alligator grunts and hisses coming from the mote surrounding the fort.
I turned to Sally as the full moon cast its glow across my face showing her my
turquoise eyes. She leaned toward me as if she were going to offer me a tender kiss,
but she drew her fangs and sunk her teeth deep into my neck making me one with her,
and one with the O’Grady clan forever. My parents must have been in on it with Sally
from the get-go, all of us cursed with no rest for our weary souls condemned forever
to relive our infamous past.

---

When cats go missing
​
By Meg Smith


Wet leaves were plastered to the brick sidewalk.
It had rained for three days.
At a bus shelter, amidst an archipelago of graffiti, was a poster: LOST CAT.
The cat, named Sammy, was a plumpish tabby.
In a photo, Sammy was plopped on a cushion, his eyes closed, not appearing at all like the errant, adventure-going type.
The poster, rippled from the humidity, said Sammy was microchipped, had been missing since the beginning of May. The poster included a phone number.

It was one of several posters of Sammy appearing around town, in store windows, in a coffee shop, on the bulletin board of the library.

Many who saw the poster would snap a photo on their cell phones, and distribute to their friends on social media or email group.

This was not the first time many of them had done this for a lost cat or dog poster.
Sammy looked truly majestic and serene in his picture setting. The thought of such a content, easy-going cat out in a downpour such as this, away from a loving family, caused pain in more than one heart.

In a modest duplex home, Sammy’s owners, Carl and Beth, were rising, going to their respective jobs, and returning at night, greeting each other with spare words, the silence of their grief between them.

Sammy had been gone for two weeks now.

Sammy’s very being in their household was a significant milestone.

He arrived about two years earlier, then not much more than a kitten. He was one of a fluffy group of orphaned kittens, found abandoned in a box near the Collingsville commuter train station, and taken to a Caring Paws, a shelter.

Sammy and his littermates were bottle-fed by volunteers, and their availability for adoption announced in the local newspaper as well as on social media.

Carl and Beth had had a quarrel, a serious one, and not the only one in those fragile first months of their relationship.

It was hard now for either of them to remember much about the fight, except that Carl’s ex-girlfriend, Cindy, kept interjecting comments in their social media exchanges, usually when it concerned a restaurant.

Beth insisted Carl rid himself of her -- as a social media contact,
as a presence in his life.
Cindy and Carl, hadn’t seen each other in person since high school.

She was a remnant of the past, Beth argued. It mattered not that Cindy had been there when Carl’s mother had died of esophagus cancer.

That had been kind of Cindy, but that was in a different lifetime.

Let -- her -- go, Beth said.

With a sharp sigh, Carl did.

Then, at an office cookout, Carl’s coworker
Ben mentioned that Cindy had emailed Carl at work.

Beth told Carl to leave. He did for three nights, staying at his father’s house -- two men now without partners, in a dark, chilly ranch house across town.

Carl did not know how to make amends.
He could have asked his father, but his father was caught up in his own struggles, with solitude, with diabetes.
Cindy had remained a friend to his family. His ties to her were mostly of gratitude.
They went to the junior semi-formal, and that was when things ended between them.
Now, they were both in their mid 20s, both with adequately-paying but marginally satisfying jobs.
Their paths had diverged.

Carl’s life revolved around his work at Motor Dynamics, and around Beth, who worked in customer service in a department store.

He didn’t fully understand Beth’s discomfort about Cindy.
But he did remember his father’s one bit of advice about keeping a harmonious household: Choose your battles, otherwise you will lose the war.
He wanted the repair whatever harm he’d done. And, he wanted to win the war.
He knew Beth liked cats. He liked them, or could at least tolerate them. Seeing the Caring Paws’ post on social media, he went there, applied for adoption, and was accepted.

He went home with Sammy, now fully weaned and ready for solid food, in a cardboard, portable cat carrier, with a blanket and some toys.

To Beth, Sammy signified a milestone that made her heart overflow. Sammy spoke of permanence, of a commitment to the present. He brought the two dissonant parties together.

They could officially call themselves a family.

Two years passed, uneventfully but with stability and logic. Sammy grew affectionate, and, given more to naps than running around, he grew generous in girth.

Then, one night, Carl left his phone on the coffee table; it lit up, and Beth picked it up to answer it.

It was Cindy. Her name flashed on the phone screen. Beth grabbed it, answered it, and heart a shocked breath followed by silence.

Beth sat on the couch, feeling light-headed. She remembered how a coworker had grimaced, then forced a smile, when she said Carl had come back to her
and got her a cat.

She felt flushed, absurd, and amazed at her own short-sightedness, at her heart given over so quickly because of a cat.

Carl came into the living room, eating from a bag of pretzels. He then saw her face.

He turned, and went to the door. That’s when the rage exploded inside Beth.

Carl opened the door, and before either of them could stop him, Sammy, who never showed the slightest interest in the world beyond his warm abode, departed in a pudgy, gray blur.

The next day, Carl created the ‘lost cat’ poster at work, and put it on social media. Without alluding to the phone call fiasco, the post simply said he and Beth were heart-broken and wanted Sammy back.

Carl also posted the notice to a ‘lost cat’ group, and ‘help find my pet,’ among others.

It was only then he realized the scope of the problem. So many posts about missing pets, especially cats. Dogs could be leashed of course; cats seldom were.

So many posts said, “he/or she is an indoor-only cat, not used to the outdoors.”

Two weeks passed.

From time to time, someone would send one of them a photo, in a text message, asking, “Is this him?”

It never was.

Sammy knew all about missing. He knew all about missing time.

He knew all about grief, life and death, because he’d been through it all before.

He carried within him generations of names, and generations with no name.

He carried within him, dingy alleys, sunny meadows, a cold, bitter December with the clatter of horse hooves rushing by.

He carried time.

Sita, the missing gray-blue cat, also carried time.

As did Rina, the spunky calico.

And there were others.

As the rain fell, they sought shelter inside derelict buildings, under boxes, anywhere that held out the promise of a dry space.

As the rain ceased, they came out.

Some were very attached to their human companions; others were possessed of a preternatural indifference.

Sammy was not eager to leave Carl and Beth. They were, apart from the dimmest memory of his fellow orphan siblings, the only true family he’d known.

It was clear that they loved him.

But it was also clear that they were constantly rebuilding a house that kept disintegrating.

All the cats knew one thing: Every house would soon disintegrate.

They came to their gathering place. It was in a clearing, behind the former chair factory for which the town had once been known. There were shallow rainwater pools in the uneven, warped lot.
Cars splashed by on the road.

The cats gathered around a fire.

They had summoned the fire.

From the fire, they summoned their ancestor.

It was a truly primitive creature, more like a cat’s skeleton in the thinnest veneer of skin and fur. To a human, it may have looked like a proto-being, stepping out of a zoological display case to survey a world from which it was removed by about 33 million years.

The cats gathered around were all vessels of time, but not caught up in quibbling about the passing of years.

Houses were disintegrating, and rivers would start to stumble backwards.

Everything would start running backwards.

The clouded air above Collingsville, above what had once been a mid-state industrial hub, grew dense with the certainty.

A yellowed moon above glowed dispassionately.

Following their ancestor, the cats tred a narrow, sure path,
in the falling, yellowed light.

Cape Perpetua

By Levi Gardner Bilderback



Perpetual churning
Begs to be fed.
Crash after crash
Wishing you were dead.


She could only stay up for a quick breathe,
Struggling madly against a quicker death.


-Verses from a Sailor’s diary




Yachats, Oregon
12:23 AM Wednesday, October 3rd


Dusty Miller was a biker through and through. He had been part of the Gypsy Jokers until very recently, when his older brother Chip was gunned down
by the Portland P.D. Dusty currently resided in a town called Yachats (pronounced Ya-hats) where he had been getting loaded up on crank, going on drinking binges, and biking up and down Highway 101. This night had been no different, and Dusty barely stumbled out the front entrance of his favorite establishment in Yachats, the Blue Whale Diner.
He shouldn’t have been sneaking drinks, but his judgement was already fully impaired, so it didn’t matter to him at the time. What mattered was that he needed to calm his nerves. He ordered orange juice after OJ, and poured shot after shot from his vest pocket flask. He was pretty casual at first, for someone on meth, but eventually the waitress caught on and told him to leave for good. Dusty complied and took a few steps out of the entrance, put a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and brought the flame of his Zippo closer.
But before he could light his cig, he heard a rustling in the bushes near where his chopper was parked. The lighter, mere centimeters from the fag, paused in its ascent. Its flame flickered casually as Dusty scanned the bushes, the cigarette twitching as he muttered to himself. It’s the goddamned meth, he thought and lit his last cigarette. He climbed onto his chopper, strapped his Nazi-esque helmet on, and cranked his metallic beast to life. The headlights on the bike illuminated the bushes nearby, and for an instant, Dusty swore he saw a shadow dip behind a tree.
Goddamned homeless, he thought, though ironically he was also technically homeless.
Ignoring the shadow, he rolled his chopper to the edge of 101. South and to his left lay Cape Perpetua; north and right was the direction of the beach he had been staying at. However, as Dusty swiveled his head north, all feeling left his face and limbs. Fog had descended like a wall and it crept silently south, toward ol’ Dusty. The line of clarity on his path was slowly disappearing into the fog, and as he stared in shock at this seemingly natural phenomenon, he could see dark shapes like a crowd of cloaked humans clustered and creeping along with the mist.
Having earned a one-way ticket South, Dusty gunned it, his chopper cutting the silence that seemed to be swallowing everything up. He checked his mirrors once he was up to speed, and much to the dread of Dusty, the mist and dark figures seemed to be keeping up, even appearing to gain on him. Dusty had been through many terrifying moments with the Gypsy Jokers, but this was different. For one thing, he was absolutely alone. For another, he had never believed in the supernatural, and since this mist and the shadows appeared, his entire world of what he knew went kaboom and left a crater the size of his pituitary gland in his brain. It wouldn’t be long until this damnable fog surrounded him and then what? Dusty didn’t want to think of the conclusion, so instead he twisted the throttle until he was up to 75 before he checked his mirrors again. Any minute, he would be
hitting some serious corners along 101, and at the speed he was going, it would mean almost certain death for ol’ Dusty “Eat Dust” Miller. He snuck a glance at his mirrors and saw nothing. Fucking nothing! He eased off the throttle, to take the threatening corners coming up, cig still in the corner of his mouth, tip red and puffing. He let out a chuckle. This kind of paranoia happened when he was on meth, and he should have expected something like this to happen.
As he drew closer to the corner of the Devil’s Churn, Dusty felt something sting his left ear. Automatically his left hand shot to his ear and swatted at whatever it was that had stung him. Suddenly his right ear lit up in pain, followed by three stings in a row under his helmet. Then he saw whatever it was that was stinging him. What appeared to be large, black hornets were swarming all around his head, dive-bombing in and biting chunks out of his face. He could feel them crawling around in his hair, biting and stinging as they made their way further under his helmet. His right hand shot up and he struggled madly with both hands to get his helmet off. His speed had started creeping back up after the first barrage of stings, and now, with both hands off the handlebar, his speed was pushing 80. Having that cruise control throttle had saved his hands from going numb on many long trips, but this time it bit him hard as his speed went up and up, and his path took him careening straight toward the corner overlooking the Devil’s Churn.
He screamed while he struggled at his helmet, finding little success in removing it. Panic had taken hold and all good sense had disappeared. The helmet shifted over his eyes as he approached the corner, his trajectory aimed cleanly between two trees overlooking the Churn. His tires left the ground just as his helmet came off. Dusty’s body came off the bike, his helmet over his head by a foot, and as if in slow motion, all three flew in a beautiful arc toward the opening of the Devil’s Churn. The ground grew larger, his demise nearer. He saw the shadow creatures all around him again, and he could sense their excitement. They were hungry for him. His bike, now 6 feet in front of him, hit the edge of the ancient lava flow and bounced into the opposite wall of the devilishly narrow inlet, and was swept away into the greedy ocean. Dusty fell just short of the edge with a devastating crunch, not bouncing an inch. His helmet hit the rocks, cracking in two and spun off to join the chopper to be pulverized into oblivion.
Amazingly, Dusty didn’t die immediately upon impact. Blood poured from his orifices, bubbling up out of his mouth. He gasped for breath. Meth had caused a lot of problems for him, but this time it seemed to be extending the life of his mutilated body. As Dusty reeled from the ruin, a dark figure moved into his view and his panicky feeling returned full force. If Dusty could have looked around, he would have seen a crowd of well over 50 of these shadow demons all closing in around his body. This sudden shock of panic sent him into cardiac arrest, his heart
finally calling the quits, and the shadows took this as their signal. With a gust, the phantoms flew into Dusty’s body.
For a moment, nothing happened. Dusty’s face still had a concerned look on it. All was quiet, save the continuous pounding of the waves. Then, breaking the silence, crunching sounds came from Dusty’s body as it rumbled in the spot he had landed. Minutes went by before the sound and motion stopped. Sluggishly, the body of Dusty stood up. Its shoulders moved up and down as a rattling breath wheezed in and out. Shambling, Dead Dusty’s commandeered body walked further South along the beach where it found a big, concrete culvert. Piled up like bleached bones outside the drain, nobody would find a body here with all the driftwood. Into the dark opening the body crawled, the creatures inhabiting the body plotting their next move in this ripe and new dimension.

Our 100th Issue Winners 

The Autumn Melodies Short Story Contest


1st Prize


WELL WISHES

By Kent Rosenberger



Most people would have some sort of grand reaction if an amazing array of sapphire sparkles just appeared in the middle of the room and produced a full-sized human being, much less one with multihued butterfly wings, aquamarine hair and an all-too-cliché magic wand topped with a shiny silver star.
But for Evenly, such outlandish occurrences were pretty much an everyday practice lately. “Hello, dearie,” the ninety-two year old white-haired, wrinkled bag of bones stated with grandmotherly kindness as the pastel, life-sized fairy took full form. “Have you finally come to take me away?” Perplexed, the fugitive from a girl’s bedroom bookshelf wondered for a second why she was not being greeted with the standard amount of disbelief, but rather placid
acceptance, almost as though she was expected. It took a moment for her to understand her confusion. Judging from the woman’s age and condition, her anticipation of a supernatural being was not entirely unfounded. She was simply not the one the woman was looking for. “No, no, not at all. I am not the Grim Reaper.”
The senior citizen was unable to snap her bony fingers, but she tried anyway, failing to produce any kind of sound whatsoever. “Oh, drat. This must be another one of those delusions.”
“Excuse me,” the fairy asked. “Delusions?”
“Oh yes. I know you’re not real. My daughter says I suffer from…now let me get this straight…” she paused, breathing heavily as though talking this much was winding her, “‘dementia, amnesia, and bouts of vivid hallucinations.’” She grinned, the dentures she forgot to clean for the last few days providing a dingy, artificial smile. “Yesterday I played ping-pong with the mailman and a brontosaurus.”
“Oh, how fun,” the fairy exclaimed, twirling around in a shower of glitter, not completely understanding the disturbing complexity of what the woman was telling her. “Well, I assure you, I’m quite real, and I’ve come to bring you something even better.”
“You have?” Evenly asked, her round eyes amplified in her inch-thick eyeglass lenses. “Cotton candy?” she speculated hopefully.
“No,” lilted the fairy. “Hold out your hand.”
She complied without question. “Is it a button? I do so love buttons.”
“No. Better.” She pulled Evelyn’s hand out palm up and placed the shiny star wand tip in the middle of it. When she lifted it away, a small brown metal disc that looked like it was older than the woman was left behind.
“What’s this?” She held it up to her face until the tiny object came into focus. Her confused mind searched for the word associated with the item. “It’s a piggy. No, that’s not right. A princess. Oh, I get so confused.”
“It’s a penny.”
That word made sense. “Yes, it is. A penny.” Her excitement faded. “Why are you giving me a penny?”
“This is not just any penny,” the fairy exclaimed as excitedly as a child receiving an ice cream cone, “it’s your penny.”
Evelyn inspected the thing resting in her palm. If she did not know it was there it would have blended in nicely with her liver spots. “I appreciate the sentiment, honey, but a penny isn’t worth anything.”
The fairly gigged so much, a blast of sparkles shot out of her nose. “No, silly. I’m not giving you just a penny. I’m giving you what goes with the penny.”
Somewhere in depths of the codger’s muddled mind a golden moment of clarity shone through in association with her newly acquired treasure. There was nothing with it as far as she could tell. “I don’t understand, dearie.”
“Don’t you remember,” the fairy half-sang, “you and Calvin Roberts and the wish you made at the wishing well that summer evening before the first day of school?”
Suddenly, Evelyn did remember. The ancient, forgotten event unlocked from a dusty corner of her addled memory and was brought to the forefront with amazing crystal clarity. “Yes. Yes, of course. It was the day before seventh grade. We had just spent a beautiful summer together, full of picnics and fireflies and days by the pool. We wanted it to last forever. We never wanted summer to end. We each threw a coin in the wishing
well and made a wish.” She stared at the coin in her hand with renewed wonder. “My penny!”
“And your wish,” the fairy added. “I’m so sorry, I’m so far behind in my schedule, but better late than never, right?”
Evelyn scrunched her already deeply creased forehead. “My wish?”
“Yes, of course. Now as I recall, Calvin wished for summer to never end and you wished for the two of you to live forever.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Calvin died years ago, so his wish cannot be granted, but yours is certainly still available.” She waved her wand three times in a circle, producing a series of pink swirls in the air. When she finished, she thrust the colored cloud at her target. It exploded across Evelyn’s gaunt body soundlessly.
The woman dropped the penny and stared at her midsection, then up to the fairy. “What happened?”
“Why, you’re immortal of course. Now you can live forever and have all of your dreams come true.”
“Immortal? Who wants to be immortal when they’re ninety-two? I’m just ready for it all to end now. Don’t I get anything else with it? Youth? Strength? A new body? Do I get to go back to being twelve again?” “Of course not silly. Well, I’ve got to run. More long-overdue wishes to catch up on. Ta-ta.” The fairy began to fade the same way she entered, a shower of sparkles engulfing her frail form.
“But why not?” Evelyn cried out after her, the fragment of her common sense that remained unable to fathom a thousand lifetimes of enduring the constant aches, relentless tiredness, numerous medications and mounting financial problems she had. “For God’s sake, why not?”
“Because it wasn’t part of the wish,” the fairy answered.
With a spotted, wrinkled finger she pushed her coin back in the direction of the fading supernatural creature. “What if I wish for it now? Please?” She flashed her stained dentures as innocently as possible.
“Sure.” The starry tip of her glittering wand touched upon the coin, passing it back into her possession. “I’ll add it to the list. See you again in, oh, eighty-four years or so,” she chimed before vanishing completely.




2nd Prize

OFF THE GRID
by
 Teresa Ann Frazee




      In a chamber that resonated muffled rock music from the room adjunct to hers, a woman sat at her Victorian desk, awaking her imagination, just as she had 167 years ago.  Lace banded her wrists. Her alabaster fingers, jeweled with stones, held a writing instrument, a quill . It seemed an extension of her slim hand as she guided the quill across a sheet of  paper, while she created worlds where creatures are far more interesting than their masters. As she wrote, she rearranged her thoughts. Coiffure hair crowned her head, her face had an expression of sensibility, her eyes, of a woman with an intriguing past. She stopped writing, utterly satisfied that she had been sequestered by compulsion and her creative mind had succumbed to the diversity of her talent and she was unable or unwilling to give an account of her imaginations whereabouts.
     The drawn back drapery of the finest burgundy velvet, revealed the only window in her chamber, an ivy edged, large window, overlooking the east. Her gaze lingered as she peered out, as if to reward herself for just a moment. She seemed to look upon her view as if it had caught her attention for the first time.
      It was neither day nor night. Dismantled time had found it's place. Scatted summer yellow light, reflected the verdure of a spectacular English garden, along a canal with aisles of trees, where rootless branches grew cascading orange blossoms, bearing tiny topaz leaves that held their alignment with perfection. Like a pearl, a full moon illuminated winding cobblestone pathways, where granulated amber light was strewn.  In a boundless veil of fire ablaze in the realm of gold and sapphire, a starry blue sky radiated with synchronicity. Amid the aerial blue, a flock of doves cooed with chant of paradise. Bathe in the haunting back lit sky, like white smoke, they rose past phantasmal space into flight. Under an ineffable light that bore an ancient heat, their stray shadows flew in ghostly rhythm , stalking with  primitive certainty, before descending into thickets of wind swept grass where sparks from the  trampling hooves of white horses flickered.
     Far off, were scarcely visible mountains where summits with Sabbath white textures and the valley beneath, had eternally moving clouds curling into mysterious shapes  where thick ocherous mists rose from a distant river. Ebony silhouettes echoed the coast, reflecting on the water like crystal.  In the haze of the sun, the horizon vanished toward distant spheres of space where wisps of light had spun. A warm breeze dismissed the past, establishing the authenticity of the here and now.

     As if in slow motion, time ceased to meddle, here it never rained. Outside her window, it was always the height of summer. A vista  to fall upon your knees in awe. All like some fantastic scene, illuminated with the veil of elegance,  resonant of Romantic Painters.
     A sunny web of openwork from the draperies trim formed a shimmering, filigree pattern where reflective light  poured over a plush carpet. Like a mirage in heat, energy circled around blending into soft colors in the kaleidoscopic air.  The atmosphere in her chamber was filled with an ambrosial scent. Every now and then she would inhale and savor the aroma with a faint smile of pleasure. A quiet satisfaction radiated from her as if it was that of an infants first breath.
     The rock music had stopped. She picked up her quill and continued to write. As she wrote, her eyes skimmed over the written page to seek new translating words which best conveyed her ideas. She heard rustling outside her door but didn't bother herself to look up as she continued to write, using her imagination to form things unknown. Someone timidly knocked on her door. She stopped writing and glanced toward the door.
     "Yes, who is at my door?" she asked.
      Leather creaked when she rose from her seat . The accumulation of fabric that formed her dress fell about her. The pinched gathering which composed  the train of the heavy hem of her refined embroidered gown swept up a cloud of gold dust in the air as she walked to the door. You could see from her elegant manner, she was not lacking in culture. And the floating smoothness of her gait was as if the very lightness of the air was somehow relieved of gravity, making it difficult for her feet to move upon the ground.
     "I could us some help!" a young man, said aggressively from behind the door.
     The woman opened the door and said:
     "Ah! I presume the new arrival". She smiled and shook her head., "Not again"  With a deep breath she continued, "Did they not greet you at the gate?  You cannot make bohemians, especially those two beat poets, remain at their post.  We are such an unruly lot."
     A confused young man ,wearing a skimpy T-shirt with a blue bandana around his neck, balanced himself on his boot heels, stood in the doorway with an acoustic guitar slung across his back. He looked back outside.
   "Who,  at the gate?" he asked.
    He had a rock star's physique. His hair dangled around his face. In his gestures, there was a desperation that interrupted his thoughts as he hung on to his guitar, like a security blanket.. He had a intimate connection with his guitar that blurred the distinction between man and instrument, seemingly, there was no gap between the player's body and the wood. The woman looked up at him, pointed out the door and  tried to help him understand.
      "There on the road. Oh, the way those two renegades have relentlessly carved into the gate with their words. "
      The young man eyed her suspiciously and asked, "Who are you? What am I doing here?  What's going on?  I don't belong here !"

     "Please do come in and compose yourself!   For sir, you do deserve to be here. Let me assure you, you are in the right place. Do not let fear and confusion compromise your thoughts", declared the woman.
      The young man entered the room but he stayed near the door, left it open and looked around. He nervously shifted his guitar from side to side and replied:
     "Easy for you to say lady."
      The woman sat back in her chair, and said:
     "I can see your eyes express anxiousness and that you expect to be informed by me immediately of where you are and how you have arrived here. Most certainly, this cannot be done so quickly but listen patiently and you will easily perceive why you are here. I will not attempt to convey everything, that is not my role but will simply relate the circumstances. By no reason of  order do I occupy the first room.  It is merely by chance. I am by no means the Director of this community and can scarcely appoint myself as leader.  Here, we are all equals, aged, adult and youth, only those who have had the opportunity to develop their uniqueness, including all who are or not recorded in the book of fame.  Nevertheless, I will continue since you are now in my room. The explanation is not really difficult. It is simply this. In the order they have been asked, I will try to answer your questions. I am  a woman of the 19th century, the daughter of two prominent literary celebrities. Raised in the circle of my fathers advanced intellectual companions, I was supplied with the ability to transcribe the ideas of a cultivated mind. When I reached the age of potential I believed I must prove worthy of my heritage. Waned from waking dreams, quill at the ready for a spine tingling tale, I daily exhume from my imagination wretches and ghosts, the fulfillment of which I eagerly seek. Now, you know who I am, I'm------"
     She was interrupted by a knock on the door frame.  Both the woman and the young man  looked to see who was there. An older woman dressed in a black kimono and scarf around her head, saw the woman with a young man and shouted in the room:
     "Hello, Mary. Oh excuse me, didn't know you were entertaining guests."
     "That is quite alright Georgia,  please do come in.", said Mary.
      Georgia stood by the door as she spoke. "No, no, just wanted to remind you of my artist reception tonight. You remember the opening?"
 "Most certainly, I will be there. So where is Stieglitz this fine afternoon?" Mary asked.
 "Oh you know him, he's in the dark room with Man Ray.  I'll see you later Mary." Georgia said as she walked away from the door.
 "Farewell!". Mary said.
 The young man gestured to the door, "Wait a minute, wait just a minute. Was she---  
  Man, this can't be", he said as if asking a question, "your Mary Shelley."
 "My dear boy you have deduced correctly," Mary said.
 The young man asked, "And the music I heard before coming from the next room, suppose that wasn't a recording but the real thing."
    "Ah, the music that pulsated through my chamber wall, in a sphere of symphony, those echoing songs chase the shadow of the end of time. I dare say my boy, again you have guessed  right," Mary said.
    The young man slowly walked over and sat in a chair next to Mary who was still sitting at her desk. He  carefully set his guitar against her desk, covered his face with his hands and placed his head in his lap.
    "Do have a seat." Mary sarcastically said.  She looked over to the door and said a little annoyed now:
   "I wish those two would man their post." Mary composed herself and spoke more calmly. The young man raised his head as she continues to speak, "Forgive me, we do not gain all virtues when we pass through the gate. I know it feels much like a strewn puzzle with missing pieces as the ghostly ruins of memory are drawn into the quicksand of time. The sympathy of a stranger, such as I am can be but little comfort to one with such anxiety. But I also know the suspense is a thousand times worse than the actual events. The truth triumphs over all the curiosities one can invent.  It is with   considerable difficulty that I remember the origin of my own arrival.  Upon reflection, I do recall,  on examining my dwelling, I found that I had everything I could ever need.  A short period elapsed before I settled in to my surroundings. As you are now, I was extremely baffled at first but by degrees, the forgotten importance of how I arrived here, receded into a woven nest of midnights past."
      The young man started to pace the room and burst out angrily," OK OK, but damn it, just tell me where in God's name I am? What is this place?"
      Mary said angrily, " Please do not abuse the King's English in my room.  With my usual candor, I must express that I have no tolerance for the omission of manners. I will not have it.  I dare say, you will learn to respect our differences." 
      "What are you my mother?" the young man said sarcastically.
      "Thankfully not. I would indeed have to chastise myself for doing such a horrid job of child rearing. Now, as I have stated before I am doing you a courtesy my boy. I will remind you, it was I who was imposed upon by you, an unannounced guest in my room. Do sit down ! I will again,  try to widen the mental scope for you," Mary sternly said.
      The young man consented to listen and sat back down, "I need a glass of water."
     "You think you do out of force of habit. That will fade. Here, you don't need food, drink, sleep nor any of those human traits that interfere with creativity. I know it is customary to offer a glass of water to someone distressed but believe me when I say that water is the last thing you need." Mary said.
     "What's that supposed to mean, water's the last thing I need?", the young man asked.
     "You are not mentally deficient.  I will not spare you,  for eventually you will remember these events  yourself. Like confetti, memory will stream through, littering the haze of space. You met your demise wrestling for a  breath . Your air neglected lungs hoarded more water than a body could sustain." Mary replied.
     The young man tightly closed his eyelids as if to shut out a horrid memory and calmly interrupted Mary, "Stop. Yeah, yeah,  I remember now. Weird, my shoes are still wet. But how did you know?"
     "Alas!  I did not know but surmised the particulars after I saw the tracks of water you left upon my floor as you walked across to have a seat.  My beloved husband met his fate in much the same way.  He arrived at this community many years prior to my own and his hair is still damp. Hm! Quite the conundrum. I promise, you will hardly notice those little annoyances here above the skylight of floating dreams and think of it as once ago existing among the dregs of scattered thought," Mary replied.
     "I get it now. So is this heaven or hell?," the young man asked.
     "Neither, my dear fellow", Mary said, "you are home, rooted in a perpetual place among your peers, where the creative spirit is remembered always and never laid to rest, reborn above a hurling flame across the sky. We dwell in a resurrected  Bohemia where our immortal bones are no longer obsolete. You have entered a nameless world, radiated with synchronicity as disassembled time forms its own space."
     The young man resumed pacing, "But why me?" he asked, "I'm not famous like a star with one name. I don't deserve to be here. I'm just a singer/songwriter that plays guitar. Granted I was on that boat to sign a music contract but still."
      "Your attitude is immature but evidently your gift sufficiently impresses. As I have previously stated, famous or not, to creativity we are bound. You will soon understand that with precision we weave threads of infinity wound from a master spool vast and measureless. So  my young friend, you underestimate yourself, you are not finished.  Can't you see, you have a fire in the soul? Your best work is still ahead of you. There is nothing to distress you now in our aerial habitation, suspended in the spotlight of spontaneity.  Certainly, you would be misplaced cradled in eternities contrived rest.  For the true artist, lack of passion becomes a bore and ultimately fatal to the imagination." Mary said.
     As the young man sat back down he asked, "If this place is so great, why is there a gate to keep us in?'
    "You are mistaken. The gate is not there to keep us in. We are not held against our will and can choose to leave anytime.  But no one ever does. The gate is to keep spectators, for those whom it hurts to think, those contrived followers with sensibilities inferior as those apparent in  dullards, out. Basically those good people of heaven with the sentiments of greeting cards whose diversities are sound asleep. Without a doubt happiness is over-rated in a place where the unconditionally content call home. From the standpoint of art, the records prove their pedestrian lives have been absolutely without interest. Their legacy reduced to a sod covered box of dust and faded words on granite. But we sit upon the intellectual throne where actors live a thousand different lives and musicians such as yourself, bring enchanted music to our ears.  This resource for insight with an interconnection with the vastness of the universe, encourages the poet's wit and the painter to wet his brush. We renegades arise from our cold beds of corroded stone, once again move our cold feet, spared from monotonous rest. From secret entrances to a waking world, we the creators of our time leave our print, here in the place we reside. We slide homeward across a hundred years, while the idle with stiffened, sleep-worn postures lie in oblivion, we roam about with unaging grace, as our prophetic words fall from our tongues. So you see, the power of art can remake any world.", Mary said.
     "You  know a lot about this. Did you start the community?" the young man asked.
       "Oh, certainly not. The event on which this place was founded has been suppose by the earliest member, as a most intriguing occurrence. You must have serious faith in your imagination to fully grasp the paradoxical way in which it is told.  An artist had passed away and the circumstances on which the story rests was that there was not a place in heaven for someone so individualistic. So the person in question, understanding the nature of his own artistry, founded his own Utopia, therefore perusing ideals, for the continued development of  talent, offering a counter-voice that is spoken against anti-individuality. Rather than disrupt heaven and challenge its terms, values and practices, he thus founded a terrain to be inhabited by a new breed of denizens. In doing so,  embarked on a courageous course of action to redefine heaven, outside the realm of mortal view where myriads of swirling suns dance with systematic grace and all tomorrows bleed into the edge of perception. Serendipity realizes its moment", Mary replied.
    "Really? Is that true? "asked the young man.
     Mary rose from her chair, strolled around the room and said:.
    "Please do not interrupt me in the middle of a sentence young man "                  
     "You're right, I'm sorry."
      "Ah! I see we are getting somewhere. Apology accepted. In any case, I do not wish to dwell any further now on this truth or perhaps absolute myth."
      "Please tell me more about where I am," said the young man, urging Mary to comply with his demands.
     Mary sat down, took a deep breath and glared at him.
     "Please Mary."
     "Very well, as you wish."  sighed Mary, " In an infinite space not specified by the monitors of time, is where we live. Far away, off the grid, in an unrealized world. We are hidden in a membranous labyrinth of space, adrift in suspended choreography lingering on a passage held secret above the reach of weightless dreams in foolish men's heads. We are in our own Bohemia beneath the twisted inky shadows where Muses keep vigil. Encouragingly, they guide us from our restlessness and bring idle wits to their senses.  Stimulating our imaginative spirit, weaving the passions of creation with artistic concepts we had almost forgotten and lost to a waning memory. Through boundless stars of unexplored galaxies we found a direction in a corner of our own Eden.  If you listen very closely you can hear the whoosh of us colonizing collectively, transforming our expressions into perfect harmony. Down where the hollows overgrown by the sands of time the restless unleash a thunderous cry loose in which only the Bohemian born can relate. Eternally we thrive between the collaboration of madness and the divine. Such is the history of this community. "
  The young man rose from seat and rummaged through his jean pockets:
  "Thank you Mary. I don't seem to have my wallet or any money. I want to give you something for your time and trouble."
    Mary answered quickly, "Remember my young friend.  No money is needed here. You say you owe me something?"
    "Yeah. "
    "Then pay your debt by being brave, believe absolutely in yourself.  You have been deliberately chosen to be here. Remember, a true artist is bathe in undiluted light of the divine and is one who always finds his way in the dark, while those with little drama stumble aimlessly in the spotlight. That is the only way in which I can be paid in full," Mary said.
    "For someone who is so capable of creating monsters in literature you have a way of bringing out the best in someone. I walked in your room as a brute and have been transformed into a gentleman. I  will not fail you. " The young man paused and tilted his head:
     "You know Mary, if I didn't know better I'd think you enjoy having the first room and it's not by chance. That those two beat poets, they never man the gate. It is you who greets new arrivals."
   "Mary smiled and roes from chair, looked into the young mans eyes as she spoke:
    "You have a keen mind my boy. You are correct once again.  I do love it so.  Besides, it is impossible to have anyone here, especially those two beat poets, do anything they are told."
 The young man picked up his guitar and he and Mary both walked towards the door.
    Mary said, "My young friend, you have an advantage over me. I do not have the pleasure of knowing your name."
    "Oh yeah, sorry about that. My friends call me Johnny B," replied the young man.
     "Well, Johnny B.,  perhaps together, we can attend Georgia's opening tonight. I will introduce you to the other residence and we will continue to partake in stimulating conversation.
     "That's cool. I'd love that. What time should I come by?' replied young Johnny B.
                   Mary laughed and said, "I must say, sometimes your words are a bit bewildering.   
            But come now, you should know better than to look back to the old ways .
           There is no need  for time here, for we exist in the pace of dreams. Your instincts will inform you when to knock on my door."
       "Wow, there's a lot to take in and get used to. Oh yeah Mary, where's my room?"
He had been so deep in thought that Johnny B noticed for the first time the incredible view from Mary's window. He pointed and stared.
       " Out your window, that's unbelievable. I hope my room has the same view.  Hum, it's strange I don't remember outside looking like that when I arrived.
         " My dear Johnny B, you will not have my view from the window in your room. This view is formed from my concocted memory , therefore, it is  my view, only in my room. You will have your own version of perfection to gaze upon, for each guest renders their own paradise.
         Johnny B just shook his head in amazement.
         Mary opened the door. They both looked out  as Mary pointed in a direction and said:
        "There, past the gallery and amphitheater. Your room is next to Vincent's. His is the one with all the easels piled in front of his door. I might add, you will do well to embrace his impulsive episodes. Over there, see where Dante and Virgil are walking amongst  the young sunflowers that kiss their feet. That is your room.  Alright Johnny B., farewell my young friend, until we meet again."
          Mary and Johnny B hugged each other.
          " See you later Mary," Johnny B said as he walked out  the door with his guitar. He gently closed the door behind him.
            Mary walked back to her chair at her desk and sat down to resume writing. After a few seconds Mary heard another knock at door. Mary shook her head smiling.
            "Yes, who is it at my door?"
             A nervous voice of a young woman replied, "I think I must be lost, please, I could use some help"
             Mary stopped writing, she smiled, got up from her seat and opened the door.

Above: Charles E. J. Moulton as Elvis Presley

***
​

Excerpt from

"Remembrance of Things Past"

by Marcel Proust
​

I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life. 

And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die. 

Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called 'petites madeleines,' which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory--this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it? 

I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, a third, which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing its magic. It is plain that the object of my quest, the truth, lies not in the cup but in myself. The tea has called up in me, but does not itself understand, and can only repeat indefinitely with a gradual loss of strength, the same testimony; which I, too, cannot interpret, though I hope at least to be able to call upon the tea for it again and to find it there presently, intact and at my disposal, for my final enlightenment. I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for it to discover the truth. But how? What an abyss of uncertainty whenever the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders; when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not so far exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day. 

And I begin again to ask myself what it could have been, this unremembered state which brought with it no logical proof of its existence, but only the sense that it was a happy, that it was a real state in whose presence other states of consciousness melted and vanished. I decide to attempt to make it reappear. I retrace my thoughts to the moment at which I drank the first spoonful of tea. I find again the same state, illumined by no fresh light. I compel my mind to make one further effort, to follow and recapture once again the fleeting sensation. And that nothing may interrupt it in its course I shut out every obstacle, every extraneous idea, I stop my ears and inhibit all attention to the sounds which come from the next room. And then, feeling that my mind is growing fatigued without having any success to report, I compel it for a change to enjoy that distraction which I have just denied it, to think of other things, to rest and refresh itself before the supreme attempt. And then for the second time I clear an empty space in front of it. I place in position before my mind's eye the still recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting-place and attempts to rise, something that has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed. 

Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, has tried to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too much confused; scarcely can I perceive the colourless reflection in which are blended the uncapturable whirling medley of radiant hues, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter, to translate to me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste of cake soaked in tea; cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, of what period in my past life. 

Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss. And each time the natural laziness which deters us from every difficult enterprise, every work of importance, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of the worries of to-day and of my hopes for to-morrow, which let themselves be pondered over without effort or distress of mind. 

And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before church-time), when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the interval, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the forms of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. 

And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I was sent before luncheon, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and bend, take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognisable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, all from my cup of tea.

Afterglow
by
Gerald Arthur Winter




He was startled by the knock at the front door. Then the doorknob jiggled for a moment
before he heard the key inserted and the deadbolt click open. The metal door creaked on its
hinges as it swung open. The bright, rectangular light from the open door hurt his eyes from
twenty feet across the hardwood floor to the sofa where he’d been anticipating . . . anticipating
. . . anticipating . . . something—anything to help him regain what he’d lost.
A backlit figure, obviously of a woman with her graceful, dance-like strides, came
toward him. With the setting sun at her back, her lithe figure cast a long shadow, a narrow black
path that cut straight to his doubts. She turned to close the door behind her, but he objected.
“No! Leave it open . . . I need fresh air.”
“Fresh air?” she questioned with a thin taint of mockery in her tone. “I think you may
have had too much of that already,”
“How so?”
“I’ve been calling you for the past—” She looked at her pink smart phone’s screen.
“Jesus, Jared. It’s been eighteen hours.”
He frowned then gave her a blank stare. The time hadn’t registered.
She sat beside him and put her cool palm to his fevered forehead.
“Are you ill?” she asked. “Should I take you to your doctor?”
“It’s Sunday, Bethany.”
“Then to the ER.”
“No . . . I just need rest . . . to gather my thoughts.”
“Thoughts about what? About us?”
“Everything doesn’t have to be about us.”
“Maybe not, Jared, but lately it seems everything has nothing to do with us.”
He grimaced and shook his head. “I just needed time to complete my novel. I’d promised
delivery of my final draft by . . . shit! By tomorrow.”
“That’s why I’ve been calling. This three month separation has been hard on me . . .
I’ve missed you, Jared.”
Without response, he just stared blankly at her.
“Damn you! Kiss me,” she implored with a puckered close-eyed lean toward him.
“Mmh,” he responded in her embrace, as her lips searched for his tongue, like an
anaconda unhinging its jaws to swallow a capybara along the Amazon, but he resisted.
“Jared! What’s with you? Is there someone else? You slept with her last night and
now you’re done with me?”
“You’re being ridiculous, Bethany. I’ll never be done with you, but . . . I may be done
with me.”
“What are you talking about, Baby?” she asked nuzzling his neck, but before he could
answer, she pulled back with a start. “Jared! What happened to your shoulder? My God!”
She pulled his bathrobe off his shoulder bruised deep purple. As she kept pulling
the bathrobe lower, she saw that his entire arm was the same lavender hematoma hue.
“I’d better get you to the ER right now,” she said.
“No ER . . . I’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt. I saw it when I took a shower. It goes down
my back on the left side and—” he pulled open his bathrobe to reveal his total nakedness, no
surprises there after three years as lovers. “My left hip and down my thigh past my knee to my
lower calf.” He raised his left leg and rotated his foot. “The ankle’s fine.”
“How can it not hurt?” she asked. “It looks dreadfully painful. It hurts just to look at it.”
“Because compared to my inner hurt, these exterior bruises are insignificant.”
“Don’t go literary on me at this crucial moment. This looks fucking serious! Do you think
anything’s broken?”
He grinned at the corner of his mouth, creasing a dimple that had first attracted her to
him. “Not any bones,” he sighed. “Just my spirit.”
“Okay. Let’s start from the beginning,” she said as if she were prepared to take dictation.
She occasionally had when the only way he could create a short story was verbally because his
fingers couldn’t keep pace with his mental narrative.
Jared struck a pose in Lord Olivier, Shakespearian fashion, “It was a dark and stormy
night as Jared emerged from his mother’s womb.”
She punched his right shoulder. “Damn you, Jared! I’m serious!”
He pulled the robe off his right shoulder. “I’ll give it an hour, but you may have hit me
hard enough to have matching purple shoulders. Jeez. Where’d you learn to punch like that?”
“I grew up in Philly. My best defense against the mean girls.”
“Well just control yourself. I had a pampered childhood.”
“Yeah, right. Ozone Park, Queens? That couldn’t have been a church social either.”
“Guilty as charged,” he huffed, but slipped back into the dregs of his morose.
“What have you been doing these past eighteen hours to have ended up such a fucking
mess?”
“Blank . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“A total blank.”
“You mean you don’t remember?”
“Not a damn thing—zero.”
“Wow! Okay. Go back in your mind to the last thing you can remember.”
“I’d been working eight or more hours a day since the end of June till—what day is it?”
He’d already had his wall calendar out on the coffee table before Bethany arrived, so
he leaned forward from the sofa and pointed to the day Bethany had said it was.
“It’s Sunday. We just talked about that. Remember, your doctor’s office is closed today.”
He nodded and pointed. “Hmm, today is Sunday, June twenty-fourth. Yesterday, I had
the last scene in my novel to write, only a couple of pages left to go. I used Hemingway’s advice
by not writing the last scene, even though I’d already worked it out in my mind. Papa said it was
best to stop writing near the peak of a climax and sleep on it so all the creative juices could
percolate overnight. It’s supposed to give a writer greater insight to write what had been con-
cluded in the subconscious, a much purer environment for creating effective fiction.”
“You mean that Dr. Butler Dreamscape shit?”
“Precisely. Intending to sleep on it, I’d been living like a monk these past ninety days to
meet my publisher’s deadline tomorrow, so I’d gone to a clean well-lighted place for cocktails
and dinner before coming home to sleep on it. The plan was to wake early this morning to
complete the novel and submit it tomorrow for my agent to deliver.”
“And so?”
“So I don’t remember leaving Adaggio’s where I had two glasses of Merlot with my
veal chops marinara.”
“How could you not remember leaving?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.”
“We should go to Adaggio’s and inquire.”
“I called an hour ago. Spoke directly to Anton, the owner. He said I seemed fine when
I left with the woman?”
“Woman? What woman?”
“I went alone. I ate alone. I don’t remember leaving, with or without a woman.”
“Anton couldn’t tell you anything about her? How about a description?”
“He’d never seen her before, but she was blond, wore sunglasses as I did, because I was
seated on the exterior balcony facing the sunset, much like tonight’s. It was about twenty-four
hours ago when I was finishing my dinner.”
“Did you finish, then have dessert or coffee?”
“I don’t think so . . . I remember looking down at my empty plate expecting the waiter to
clear the table, but then—”
“Then what?”
“There was a crashing sound, I felt jolted, then I . . . then I . . .jeez, I can’t remember,
not a thing till less than an hour ago. It’s all a blank.”
“Jesus.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—a fucking blank. I’ve been trying to write those last few pages
of my novel and none of it makes any sense. Each time I think I’m done, I realize the last three
pages are the same—the same! Over and over, the same goddamn pages, paragraphs, sentences,
and words. It’s as if I’m not writing them, but they’re writing themselves . . . They have a life
of their own.”
“Show me,” she said.
As she read the pages, Jared stared at the widescreen TV left on mute. It was the local
news. A boy had been run over and left for dead in a hit-and-run incident with no witnesses. It
happened in an rural section of town where there were no security cameras to view a video of
the apparent vehicular homicide.
Bethany read aloud: “He felt like an angel, his feet not touching the ground as he
descended the balcony stairs to the parking lot. In his mind, he seemed to float across the
parking lot to his car. It looked like a good chance of rain with dark clouds hovering on
the horizon above the sun setting atop the distant trees. He opened the hatchback of his
SUV and took out a cheap umbrella, the kind sold for three bucks on city street corners
in a sudden downpour, but not meant to survive more than a single squall. Much as he felt
about himself regarding his longevity in the nameless shit storm that his writing career had
recently become—”
He interrupted her narrative from the manuscript on his laptop. “Stop. Please, quick
run downstairs to the garage and bring me my umbrella.”
“What the hell for?” she balked.
“Uh, I want to see if it’s wet from using it in the rain last night. It might help my
memory.”
“You’ve been lying around till almost dinner time, Jared. Can’t you get it yourself?”
He lowered the shoulder of his robe to reveal the purple bruise and fawned for sympathy.
“Christ, you’re such a baby.”
He opened his robe like a flasher. “That’s no baby—Baby.”
She huffed, “I liked you better when you had no memory of what an asshole you can be.”
“Sorry. You’ve been so kind in my hour—make that eighteen hours—of need.”
“You sound like John Barrymore in an old Thirties flick that I wish had remained silent.
Okay. I’ll get the umbrella, but I think I should take you to the ER for a look at those wounds
—and to check for a concussion, too. Which may explain your memory loss.”
When she closed the door where she’d entered minutes ago, he waited until he heard
her footsteps descending on the exterior wooden stairs from the balcony to the garage. Then
he turned up the TV’s volume and heard: “The police have been going door to door in the
neighborhood surrounding the alleged scene of the hit-and-run. The boy was pronounced
dead at the scene when found at eight o’clock this morning by another boy on a bicycle. The
coroner put the time of death no later than nine o’clock last night. Apparently the body had
been left alongside the light-trafficked country road for about twelve hours before discovered.
If you know anything, anything at all, please call the hotline shown on your TV screen. The
boy’s parents have been distraught since he hadn’t return home last night from his job at
McDonald’s. He was expected by 10 p.m. but never showed.”
Jared heard Bethany shriek from the garage. He turned off the TV and heard her
rapid ascent on the stairs. The door swung open just as before, still startling him even though
this time he was anticipating her entry.
“What?” he asked her as she approached him.
“When did you have an accident with your car?” she asked.
“Accident?”
“Your left front fender is totally crunched.”
“Oh . . . when you said ‘accident’ I thought you meant with another car. I hit a deer a
week ago. Poor thing never had a chance. I was going to report it, but with my novel’s deadline,
you know how it is.”
“Where did this happen?” she asked.
“Hmm, let’s see. It was when I took a short cut off Ulmerton Rd. That country road that
winds around the horse farms and saves you fifteen minutes with no traffic lights. You know
how bad the traffic can be on a weekend.”
“Weekend?” she asked. “Which weekend? Not last night?”
“Last night?” he hesitated staring into space for a moment. “Oh, no. It happened the
weekend before.” He began repeating himself in Trumpian fashion, hammering details into the
solid metal of the listener’s brain until his truth became hers by amalgamation. “I’d just bought
a book I’d wanted to read for a long time. I went to Barnes and Noble in town, got the book
on discount with my membership then drove home.”
He reached for his wallet lying on the coffee table beside the calendar. From between
the loose bills, mostly twenties, he pulled out a receipt from the book purchase. He unfolded it
and squinted at it closely then handed it to her as if it were a Special Delivery of fact: Exhibit A.
She squinted at the receipt as well and said, “Mmh. September sixteenth. Then the car is
drivable, right? Since you hit the deer?”
“Well . . . I drove it home that night but . . . I guess I haven’t tried to drive it since.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“I figured I’d just call and have it towed by the body shop when I was ready to make the
insurance claim.”
“Don’t you have to make a claim within limited time, like twenty-four hours, maybe
forty-eight at most?
“The novel . . . the deadline . . . it’s consumed me,” he rationalized. “The dent isn’t
important compared to that . . . it’s my living. The dent is nothing but an unfortunate reminder
of an animal that didn’t have the good sense to look before it leaped.”
She said, “You’re forgetting one important fact, Jared.”
His mind raced. Fact? Fact? Forgot a fact. Forgot a fucking fact?
She took a deep breath then spoke in high C, like air slowly released from a balloon.
“You must have driven your car to and from Adaggio’s last night when you had dinner . . .
with that damn mystery woman.”
“The blonde?”
“The same . . . with the sunglasses . . . who Anton never saw before.”
“It’s coming back to me now . . .” he said as if visualizing a scene.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she, Jared?”
“My Uber driver.”
“You can’t expect me to—”
“No. Really, Bethany. Her name was Lilly.”
“Like short for Lillian?
“No . . . no. She was very unusual. She introduced herself to me, as Lilly when she
picked me up here to go to Adaggio’s last night at six. But her name on her posted ID said
“Lilith.”
“Oh, boy! That’s a good one, Jared. So some psycho Uber driver with satanic genes
beat the crap out of you and gave you all these bruises. Maybe you didn’t tip her enough
after she drove you home, so she threw your ass down that twenty-foot flight of stairs from
your balcony to your garage?”
“It’s a thought,” he said with a shrug, but she wasn’t buying it.
Obviously pissed, she waved an arm at him with dismissal and said, “Have it your way,
Jared. But I’m going to call Uber and find out who this psycho bitch is who threw you down
the stairs. Not like I haven’t wanted to do the same to you often enough.”
As he heard her footsteps in decent on the exterior stairs, each clunk on the wooden steps
reminded him of his drunken tumble down the stairs last night. Was it 9:45 p.m. or 10:15 p.m?
The numbers had been blurred on his SUV’s digital clock right after the impact, enough from
the side along the dark road’s shoulder to collapse his fender, but not enough to inflate the
airbag. He swore he’d seen a deer, an eight-point buck writhing with muscles in his rearview
mirror. Nothing else, so he’d kept driving with only a mile left to get to his home.
He’d fumbled with the remote garage opener but entered without a scratch. He’d gotten
out of his car, beeped the car lock with his keys, then closed the door and headed up the stairs to
have that last night’s sleep for the closing scene of his novel to congeal the action in his grey
matter.
He undressed and put on his robe and sat on the sofa, gathering his thoughts as he flipped
on the eleven o’clock news. As he’d drifted off in slumber, he felt at peace with himself, a
smooth transcendence from what is and what might be.
He felt like an angel, his feet not touching the ground as he descended the balcony stairs
to the parking lot. In his mind, he seemed to float across the parking lot to his car. It looked like
a good chance of rain with dark clouds hovering on the horizon above the sun setting atop the
distant trees. He opened the hatchback of his SUV and took out a cheap umbrella, the kind sold
for three bucks on city street corners in a sudden downpour, and not meant to survive more than
a single squall. Much as he felt about himself regarding his longevity in the nameless shit storm
that his writing career had recently become. He was feeling lightheaded from his two glasses of
wine at dinner. Anton knew his car, so it wouldn’t be towed if he left it overnight and took a cab
home. He dialed Uber.
Within two minutes, the Uber driver showed up, lowered her window and said, “Hi,
Mr. Smythe, I’m your ride.”
When he sat in the passenger seat beside her, he read her ID card on the dash and made a
muffled hmm sound.
“Problem?” the driver asked.
“Oh, no,” he said with a shrug.
“What then?” she asked.
“I used to date a woman with the same name.”
“No shit.”
“Yes, shit,” he said, grinning. That dimple crease in his cheek held her attention.
“You’re my last fare tonight,” she said. “I started at 6 a.m.”
“Whew! Sixteen hours? Is that legal?”
“No . . . but I am.”
There was a minute of silence. Ten minutes from Adaggio’s she was already pulling into
his driveway.
Nice to meet you, Mr. Smythe,” she said. “Here’s my card. I’m local so you can always
call me direct when you’re in a hurry.”
“You want to come up?” he nodded to the stairs leading to his second-floor balcony.
“You mean for a drink?” she asked, totally blasé and not offended by such an open, male
predatory gesture.
“Or for the night . . . but only if you want to,” he said, showing all his cards.
“Didn’t I see you with a woman in the parking lot just before I arrived to pick you up?”
she asked.
“The blonde?”
“The blonde.”
“Business associate,” he said.
“What’s your business?”
“I’m a writer?”
“What do you write?” she asked.
“The jury’s still out on that.”
“Can I be your jury-of-one tonight?”
“Why not? Come on in, Bethany.”
She followed him up the stairs and they entered his condo. She went to the bathroom
to freshen up and he did the same. In his robe he came to the living room and poured two glasses
of Merlot then waited for her to join him. He was startled by the knock at the front door. Then
the doorknob jiggled for a moment before he heard the key inserted and the deadbolt click open.
The metal door creaked on its hinges as it swung open. The bright, rectangular light from the
open door hurt his eyes from twenty feet across the hardwood floor to the sofa where he’d been
anticipating . . . anticipating . . . anticipating . . . something—anything to help him regain what
he’d lost.
A backlit figure, obviously of a woman with her graceful, dance-like strides, came
toward him. With the setting sun at her back, her lithe figure cast a long shadow, a narrow black
path that cut straight to his doubts. She turned to the open door behind her, where two other
figures followed her.
“Jared Smythe?” one of the men asked.

“Yes,” he said with resigned calm as the blonde took off her sunglasses.
“Sorry, Jared,” she said. “They’ve seen your car in the garage. The dented fender.
There’s blood. It’s a match.”
“Bethany!” He called to the bathroom. “Come out and tell these people where I’ve been
these past eighteen hours.”
He thought he still heard the shower running, but it turned out like most of the past
eighteen hours, that it was all just the afterglow of his imagination . . . music of the night that
spun a tune to suit its composer, but echoed untruths, perhaps lies, even to himself.

Give me your teeth!

By Amirah Al Wassif



Once upon a time, in a very far land called Orshalim,
 three innocent boys sat at the under an immense fig tree.

The three cheerful boys, Ali, Peter, and Abraham, played with their poor toys non stop, their playthings very old and dirty,
trying all the time to imagine their toys clean and new. 
This way, they felt better and continued playing with joy.

One night, the three boys gathered around a mysterious massive thing.

The strange thing started moving from side to side, surrounded from alley to alley.

Ali, Peter, and Abraham looked at the moving thing deeply, watching how this weird thing danced and jumped without rest.

When this big moving thing shook all the trees around them, the friendly boys approached it a bit too close this time, all of them saw the real thing: 
it was a flying plate, full of the most splendid and delicious kinds of desserts.

The boys were taken by the extraordinary behavior of this flying plate, they watched it closely, then the marvelous desserts which were found in the plate rolled and performed a crazy dance, each piece of this wonderful candy went out from the plate, landed suddenly and jumped on the three boy's toes.

Ali, Peter, and Abraham became very frightened and astonished, so, they stopped for a long time, looked and looked again,
they waited all night, and did not go home.

Now this long night spent, and the boys still sitting down next to the magnificent plate, but when the sun arrived at its position in the sky,
the flying plate which full of desserts had been disappeared.

"Oh! Where is the plate?" Ali cried in fear.

"I cannot believe my eyes," Peter whispered to himself, and Abraham said in a loud tone, "it's like a dream."

The three boys were talking and talking, not sure if they saw a true flying plate with wonderful candy which could dance and jump to all sides.

Ali, Peter, and Abraham went back to their home, the three kind boys all neighbors.

They reached to their country Orshalim and gathered together in the common yard, then they kissed and hugged each other,
and all of them said "goodbye" in peaceful manner.

But the kind boys did not know the harsh manner that awaited them in their houses.

When the boys knocked their doors simultaneously, their mothers opened quickly, and each boy entered his house, and each door closed.

After that, the three mothers asked their boys the reason for their delay on this night.
Their mothers would punish them if they would not respond, so the boys told them about the wonderful flying plate, and they talked for a long hour describing its desserts, its crazy dance, but their mothers did not believe them, and all of them decided to punish the three boys.

The punishment was very, very hard for the boys, because it prevented them from playing, and going to any place together again.

Ali, Peter, and Abraham were very angry and felt bad.
They used to go to the wide garden every night where the wonder flying plate was,
Their mothers did not believe what they said and discarded this story as a lie.

So, the three boys were punished for many days, and they did not go anywhere.

Peter pondered those long days about a magical solution to their problem.
He asked himself, each day more and more how could they prove the flying plate as a truth for their mothers?

Finally, Peter's good idea popped into his soul like a light, a light, a candle that might help them.
Peter decided to go to Ali and Abraham homes, as he wanted to tell them about his new plan.

Peter went to Abrahams house, knocked softly on the glass window, hoping Abraham's mother would not see him.

Now, Abraham sensed the new plan, decided to go to Ali's house and tell him, as well. 
Only minutes later, the boys were on their way to the garden where the flying plate sat at the center of the massive fig tree.

The boys arrived at the tree, watching the splendid plate, delighted because of its charm, but suddenly Peter remembered their new
plan. The flying plate! The truth! Their mothers! 
Peter  said to Ali and Abraham, quickly in vast agitation:

"Carry me, carry me, we shall get this plate, we shall hold it and show it wonder ability for our mothers to believe us, and would not punish us again."

Ali and Abraham were very excited, and did so.

Peter had been carried by his fellows, he tried to touch the plate which found in the center of the fig tree, but when he closed to it the plate disappeared.

Peter repeated, trying many times to catch the plate, but every time, the plate seemed to be hidden from the boy's eyes.

They did not know the logical reason of what happened, however, but could not stop trying.

This night spent, the boys had failed in catching the wonder plate. They were tired.

Suddenly, all of them down, Peter's leg broken, Ali's trouser torn.
Only Abraham was well.
For that reason, he helped his friends go home rapidly.

As the first time, mothers of the boys punished them, but this time the matter was worse because all the people in Orshalim repeated that Ali, Peter, and Abraham are liars, and because of their lies God punished them by breaking Peter's leg and tearing Ali trousers.

"God punished Abraham too, cause he made him a foolish boy, a boy who believes his friends lies,
and as a result of his foolish behavior, everybody in Orshalim made fun of him."

Many days spent, and everyone in Orshalim repeated these words daily:
Ali, Peter, and Abraham are fools and liars.

Peter and Ali were locked in their houses, their mothers treated them hardly, and all people laugh at them.

One day, Abraham woke early, thought of his friends,
he wanted to prove the truth of the flying plate to all, and the only question which surrounded in his mind

"How?"
​

After hours of thinking, Abraham decided to go to the wide and amazing garden, all alone,
because of the hard conditions of his friends, and so, he went straight to the place of the wonder plate.

When the dusk covered the sky, Abraham approached to the center of the fig tree.
At that time, the flying plate danced up and down. 
Abraham watches the plate's performance. Suddenly, he tried to catch it, but as with Peter, the plate disappeared.

Abraham never gave up, he tried and tried and tried, by the way, he fell down many times, his leg broken, his clothes torn,
but he decided to never go home without the evidence for innocent of his friends.

Abraham spent three nights trying to catch the flying plate with no stop or rest,
and finally, he cried, his tears, covered his awesome face, but he did not give up.

Now, something very strange happened. 

When Abraham caught the plate, a piece of paper fell down from the fig tree!

Abraham was thirsting to read the paper, he closed to it, and had read the paper with wide eyes and mouth,
something was written in it, something very weird, a single sentence:

"Give me your teeth!"

Abraham's arms shook with fear, he did not understand what the strange paper meant, so he wrote on the back of the same paper: how?

The flying plate sent another piece of paper to Abraham, then he picked it up and read these words:

"When you give me your teeth, I will reveal myself to you, and everybody."

Abraham feared this more and more, but decided to never go home without this evidence for his best friends Ali and Peter,
so he wrote on the back of the paper:

"How many teeth"?

Then, the plate replied:

"One tooth equals one piece."

Now, Abraham understood the game, so he started giving the plate as many teeth which he owned,
 wanting to catch all the wonderful pieces of desserts, and made it shown to all his people.

After a week spent, Abraham went back to his home Orshalim, all the people gathered around him, even the mothers and his friends Ali and Peter,
All these folks were waiting for the wondrous flying plate.
Abraham had shown it to everyone, all the people watching with stare eyes.

Everyone believed the three boys, after that.
The people in this country wrote a proverb on the wall honoring Abraham courage in wonderful friendship between him and Ali and Peter:

"Courage is as rare as the flying plate of desserts, as singular as the numbers of teeth that Abraham could keep!"

The Candle in the Wind


a novel excerpt from


THE BLIND SPOT


by


Gerald Arthur Winter






“Each day of our lives we make deposits
in the memory banks of our children.”
— Charles R. Swindol


​



My grandparents adorned their patio with a bright yellow table cloth on the


picnic table with pink paper napkins and helium balloons. It all read, “Happy Birthday,


Bonnie,” but I was impatient for Jack to arrive, worried whether he even would.


Gram baked a seven-layer cake with pink icing and stuck a turquoise number


seven on top. A stack of gift-wrapped presents on the picnic table were all marked: “Our


Birthday Girl, Bonnie.” Gram and Gramps had bought my first bicycle, hoping Jack


would make time to teach me how to ride it without its training wheels. Draped with


ribbons and bows, the bike was surrounded by a pyramid of wrapped gifts.


I listened for Jack’s pickup truck in the driveway as guests arrived. A dozen of


my third-grade classmates were already seated, five girls and seven boys. The girls had


come because their parents knew Gram and Gramps from church and they knew me


from Sunday school. The boys had come begrudgingly, only because I’d beaten them


all at arm wrestling left-handed and right-handed. The boys’ attendance was the cost


of their lost wagers that even one of them could beat me.


Dressed in a crinkly pink party dress that scratched my legs and made me feel


silly in front of the boys, I stood on my tippy-toes on the picnic table’s bench to peek


over the hedges each time I heard a car coming up the street. The knot tied with a pink


ribbon on top of my head felt tight and uncomfortable. Though I heard the boys’


murmurings about pulling the knot loose to make my long blond hair fall in my face,


one squint from me warned them they’d get punched in the eye.


Our guests were getting impatient for a piece of cake, but I insisted they’d have


to wait until my pop, Jack, arrived. Reluctantly, Gram complied, but with a shake of her


head as if to say—good luck with that. Jack’s a no-show for your party.


A pair of hands suddenly wrapped around my waist from behind, but it was only


Gramps, not my pop.


“Don’t want you falling down on your birthday,” he said with a whisper in my


ear. “Jack will be here soon. I’m sure of it.”


Gram, who’d come out to set the table for the children, scowled and mumbled


something under her breath. She’d never had a son. The misbehaving boys poking at one


another and making faces at the girls was an element of the party Gram obviously hadn’t


counted on. Jack’s tardiness was business as usual, but Gram’s spirits perked when some


friends of hers and Gramps’ began to fill the yard. The moms wore pastel summer outfits


and wide-brimmed sun bonnets.


I was about to give up on Pop when his old pickup wheeled into the driveway.


I saw him behind the wheel, raking his fingers through his unkempt hair. He turned the


rearview mirror to check his face then rubbed his eyes. He paused a while before getting


out of the truck, probably already regretting his attendance. I took a deep breath of relief


when he got out of his truck. I felt stirred by his presence, knowing I somehow belonged


to him.


Jack came empty-handed, but his presence was gift enough for me. He pecked


Gram’s cheek, fumbled in his pocket, then I saw him tuck a crisp hundred dollar bill into


Gram’s apron pouch. Gram frowned when she saw what it was. Jack shrugged it off and


shook Gramps’ hand. I could tell it was a strong grip from both, as if they were wrestling


each other over some issue—probably me—I was always an issue for Jack. I wasn’t sure


why. Grownups and their issues were a mystery back then, sometimes even now at eighteen.


Jack could sniff out a cold beer from across the yard. I’m sure I’d heard Gramps


say that, more than once, but when Jack wasn’t around. Jack grabbed a beer from a cooler


beside the picnic table and popped the top off a bottle of Bud. He raised it to Gramps


with cheers and met Gram’s frown with his subtly spiteful smirk.


Finally, he turned to me. “Happy Birthday, squirt,” he said, staring blankly as if


at nothing. I didn’t care if he called me squirt, as long as he spoke to me. He closed his


bloodshot eyes and downed the beer in a few seconds then turned back to the cooler.


I noticed that Jack was even more sullen than usual. Regardless, I preferred less


coddling from my grandparents and more time with Pop. I was drawn to him, though he


practically ignored me. I’d heard Gram tell Gramps that Jack’s weekend “binges” at the


Seaside boardwalk had to stop if they ever hoped to leave me at his home more than once


or twice a month. I’d have been grateful even for that little time with Jack.


Though I didn’t know what a “binge” was, I was pretty sure it had to do with all


the empty beer cans overflowing the kitchen waste can at Jack’s house. I’d seen them


the few times I’d visited. That was an agreement to which Jack had first adamantly


refused. He’d finally reconsidered, but with reluctance and obvious regret as revealed


by his surly expressions.


I’d overheard Jack saying to Gramps, “I’m feeling buyer’s remorse with this


arrangement.”


I’d sensed from his tone that “buyer’s remorse” was Jack’s fancy way of saying


he didn’t want me living with him.


In my mind, I’d thought of Jack affectionately as Pop, though I hadn’t mustered


the courage to call him that to his face. I hoped my birthday party might give me that


opportunity. I kept my lips taut, but was waiting for the right moment to call him Pop,


just to get his reaction.


“Come on, Jack,” Gramps said, nudging him. “Let’s take a photo of you with


Bonnie blowing out the candles. It’s a big day for our little girl.”


The hungry children at the picnic table gave a cheer, knowing a slice of cake


would soon be on their plates. A deep gash creased between Jack’s eyes. I studied his


flushed face. Gramps lit the seven candles and all the guests gathered around. Jack


clenched his jaw. I touched Jack’s bulging forearm, making him flinch, pulling away


from me. A wave of grief passed through me like a ghost.


I turned toward Jack’s glassy-eyed stare and conceded with a shrug that he


would be no help to me blowing out the candles.


“Let’s go, Jack!” Gramps said. “I bet she can’t blow out all those candles by


herself.”


“Can, too!” I said.


“We’ll all help you blow out the candles,” Gram said. “Won’t we, Jack?”


“I can blow them out myself,” I said. “I don’t need anyone’s help! Not yours or


Pop’s!”


It was out of my mouth, but the word hovered with anger rather than affection.


Jack paid no attention to what I’d said, but rather the harsh tone I’d used to say it.


“Speak respectfully to your grandparents!” Jack said. “Don’t give me reason to


spank you!”


The boys at the table grinned at the prospect of my getting my due, but the girls


and other parents frowned.


Gramps stepped between us and said, “She meant no disrespect, Jack. She’s just


very sure of herself.”


Gram glared at Jack. “If you spent more time with her, you’d know that.”


“How come you’re so angry on my birthday?” I asked him.


My grandparents eyed each. The guests exchanged wary glances.


Jack stalled with a long breath. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He walked away


from the table.


Gramps followed after him. “You can tell us,” he said, but Gram shook her head


with dismissal. I remember their exchange as if it were yesterday.


“Forget about it,” Jack said, realizing the guest were staring across the yard at him


from the table.


“Maybe I can help,” Gramps said.


Jack looked at his hands. “Got fired,” he said aside so none of the guests would


hear.but I did. “No teaching or coaching. They’ve banned me from all of it.”


“But you have tenure.”


Jack shrugged and sipped his beer. “Budget cuts . . . they hired a new baseball


coach out of college at half my salary.”


Gram went over to them and said in a whisper, “It’s your drinking.”


A cloud came across Jack’s face. But before he could snap at Gram, Gramps said,


“Some Board members are my friends from the Elks. Maybe I could pull some strings.”


Jack shook his head and sneered.


Gramps said, “Enough bad news for today. Come on, Jack, I’ll take a photo of


you and Bonnie blowing out her candles together.”


Jack shrugged with slumped shoulders, but followed Gramps back to the table.


“How come, Uncle Davey didn’t come to my party?” I asked Jack.


“Did you even tell her Uncle Davey that she was having a birthday party?” Gram


asked, though she seemed to already know the answer.


With his red eyes, Jack shot daggers at Gram. “Too far to travel,” he said.


“Too bad,” Gram said. “If Lydia hadn’t told me she’d met him—I’d think your


brother didn’t exist. But at least we’re all here for Bonnie’s special day.”


Jack winced. I knew it was because my mother had died on this day. She’d died


giving birth to me and everything had been a mess since. Her death had broken Jack’s


heart. There had been no way to comfort him. I’d heard Gram tell her church friends that


Jack, without my mother, had become a lost soul, and that was his excuse for drinking.


Gramps put an arm around Jack’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. Jack nodded.


Gramps always knew the right thing to say to keep the peace.


Finally, Jack agreed to pose for the photo, but with a forced smile, asking me,


“You don’t really believe you can blow out all seven candles by yourself, do you, squirt?


I bet you can’t.”


The girls at the picnic table encouraged me to try, but the boys frowned and shook


their heads, knowing from their own experience that betting against me would always be


a mistake. Their forced attendance at my party was proof enough.


Jack challenged his students in class and varsity players on the baseball field,


but he’d never challenged me at anything. He’d always acted as if giving me that much


attention would be a waste of his time. I figured with the selfish, naïve logic of a child


that his job loss would give him plenty of extra time to spend with me.


My anger welled. “Can too!” I shouted. “But no cheating. Cover your mouth with


your hand so I’m sure you’re not helping.” I felt compelled to bargain. “What will you


give me if I blow out all seven candles with one breath?”


“Give you?” He shrugged with a smirk. “It’s your wish . . . whatever you want.”


Then he said so no one else would hear, “Only if I can afford it on unemployment.”


“I just want to play catch with you, Pop,”


Looking as if the air had been sucked out of him, Jack said, “I don’t have a


baseball mitt, not at home—they’re too expensive and—”


“Sure you do,” I said, “It’s in the attic.”


Jack’s expression looked as if he’d been struck a blow, no doubt wondering how


I could know about the baseball mitt he’d kept hidden for years.


I enjoyed seeing the shock on Jack’s face, recalling how I’d first learned about his


dark secret . . .




Jack was stumbling up the staircase with heavy steps across the warped landing


outside my bedroom. The century-old house was a fixer-upper Jack had never fixed. It


was my house, too, but before that first night, I’d lived with my grandparents ever since


I could remember. Jack’s elbows bumped along the walls in the hallway when he came


to my door. His footsteps paused for a moment then continued up to the third floor.


I’d wandered up to the third floor only once before on a daytime visit months


ago, but Jack had scolded me, warning: “Don’t ever go up there again!”


Wondering what Jack was up to, I peeked up the staircase from my open door.


Jack was swaying on the third-floor landing and made several failed attempts before he


grabbed the cord to open the folding attic stairs. The ceiling was water-stained above


Jack’s head, and paint chips fluttered down like snowflakes to the landing. Jack ascended


the attic stairs, each step with a squeak from its rusted springs. Though I’d heard him


complain about the leaky roof, the dripping had continued with every rain storm soaking


the carpet on the third-floor landing with a mildew stench.


I went halfway up the staircase just in time to see Jack’s feet disappearing from


the unfolded ladder into the attic. I climbed slowly to the third-floor landing, then put one


bare foot on the first rough, wooden wrung. I grabbed the narrow ladder with both hands,


but got a splinter in my thumb. I held my breath so I wouldn’t cry out and squinted to


hold back my tears. I already knew that Jack didn’t like “cry-babies.”


Over the past two years since I’d started school, I’d been able to watch Jack


coaching his high school team. Gramps would lift me onto his shoulders so I could see


the infield. I’d heard Jack shout from the dugout steps: “No cry-babies! Suck it up!”


A pitch had hit a boy’s ankle during batting practice and he’d slump to his knees


in the batter’s box. The pain had brought tears to the boy’s eyes. Jack hadn’t known I


was watching. I’d observed his gestures and the inflection of his voice. At my grand-


parents’ home, I’d often mimic Jack’s gait and body language. I’d tilt my New York


Yankees baseball cap at the same angle as his.


“Don’t let Jack catch her doing that,” Gram had warned, but Gramps had


laughed into tears at the accuracy of my mimicry. I enjoyed being a clown.


“He’d have a fit,” Gramps had agreed.


I’d noticed how the teenage boys on Jack’s team had done whatever he’d told


them to do and they’d run to him whenever he’d shout their names.


“You’re fine. Quit crying!” Jack had told the boy hit by the pitch. He’d made


the boy run laps, limping back and forth in the outfield. Jack always seemed angry. I


wondered why, because his team usually won their games. According to Gramps,


Jack’s varsity baseball teams had won three Ocean County Championships and two


New Jersey State Championships. That sounded important. Watching him coach, I


felt a growing certainty that Jack was special to others as well as to me.


“But why is he always angry, Gramps?” I’d asked.


Gramps took a deep breath, telling her, “Jack is a perfectionist, a big word for


you, but he wants his team to be the best. See how he’s rubbing that boy’s ankle after


running laps. Jack cares about the boys, but still wants them to be tough. He’s a great


baseball coach.”


“If I’m tough, will he care about me, too?”


Gramps grinned. “Jack cares about you, Bonnie. He’s hurting inside. Your Gram


is impatient with him, but Jack needs us to give him time.”


“Time for what?” I asked.


“He needs more time to heal. Even when he behaves badly, love him. He needs


you very much, but hasn’t figured that out yet.”


Watching Jack rub the boy’s ankle, I wished it had been my ankle. I envied the


boys on Jack’s team and longed for that same attention from him.


I gradually understood that I was connected to Jack, but since he’d rarely been


around, I wasn’t sure how. I hadn’t seen much of him since starting kindergarten, but the


past two years changed that on Gram’s insistence. She would occasionally drop me off at


Jack’s house unannounced, waiting till a Friday afternoon when he’d come home from


coaching baseball. He’d be tired at the end of the week and hopefully less resistant to my


unexpected presence.


“He loves surprises,” Gram told me on the drive over to Jack’s house.


Never seemed so to me by Jack’s red face and the sharp crease between his eye-


brows. I’d seen that expression when Jack had kicked dirt onto an umpire’s shoes over a


close play. Sometimes Jack’s hot temper would get him thrown out of a game, but the


only umpire to successfully stand between Jack and Gram was Gramps.


Jack would always bring me back to my grandparents’ home sooner than expected.


Disappointed, I’d run into Gram’s house, so they’d think I couldn’t hear them talking


about me. I’d open a window upstairs and listen.


Gram said to Jack, “Bonnie needs you.”


“We’ve been through this,” Jack argued. “I’ll be no good to her. I’m a successful


teacher and coach, but that’s all I’m fit to do.”


“There’s very little difference,” Gramps had said in his calm, quiet tone that


always helped me go peacefully to sleep. “The only difference is the deeper love family


provides. The boys you coach will come and go, so will your students, but Bonnie will




always be with you. She’s your blood.”


“Blood,” that’s how we were connected. Nothing should ever come between us.


Jack and Gram were often at odds, with extended silences, sometimes for weeks.


Only Gramps with his reasonable affirmations could get them talking to each other again


—until the next incident.


Recalling his gruff manner on the baseball field, I’d continued following Jack up


to the attic that night I’d spied on him.




“The glove is not an object in the usual sense . . . to divide it from
yourself, even in thought, is one of the roots of error.”


Chad Harbach – The Art of Fielding




I held my breath, slowly exhaling so Jack wouldn’t hear me. With the wind


whistling against the roof and rain dripping down the open stairwell, I climbed up the


ladder behind him. My heart pounded, weighing my curiosity against my punishment if


Jack were to catch me spying on him hours past my bedtime.


I peeked from the top attic step. Jack was kneeling with his back to me. He


lifted a blue cardboard box from the shadows of the eaves. He took a baseball mitt from


the box. The mitt wasn’t beat-up like those I’d seen on Jack’s team, but looked brand


new, giving off a fresh aroma of linseed oil in the stuffy attic. Jack put the mitt on his


right hand and pounded his left fist into its pocket, so hard it seemed as if he were


punching someone. I hoped he’d never turn his anger on me, even if he caught me


snooping on him.


Before he could catch me, I backed down the stairs. Even if he heard me, I was


too quick to be seen, scrambling, almost tripping in my escape. With my pulse pounding


in my ears, I darted into Jack’s bedroom across the hall from mine and slid under his


king-size bed. From under Jack’s bed, I heard him folding the attic stairs closed, but he


didn’t come down to the second floor where I was hiding.


With no escape, I came out from under the bed, expecting to take my punishment.


Then I saw him up the staircase, still in the hallway on the third floor. He didn’t have the


baseball mitt, but took a key from his pocket to open the door to a room that had been


locked for as long I could remember.


When Jack entered that room, I wanted to run back to my bedroom unseen, but


my curiosity had gotten the best of me, drawing me back upstairs. On the landing, I


pushed the door open, just enough to see Jack facing away from me.


The room’s walls had been painted sky blue, the same as a crib and dresser. Jack


was sitting with his legs crossed on the hardwood floor. I slumped against the wall out-


side the door and fell asleep . . .






The next morning, I woke with a start. Jack’s iPhone was vibrating and skimming


along the hardwood floor of the blue room. I peeked through the narrow crack of the


open door and watched him. He looked groggy and seemed confused. He picked up the


phone and looked at the caller ID. He answered, “Hello . . . I need the rest of the week to


myself . . . you’ll have to take Bonnie back today. . . Next Saturday? Her birthday? I’d


rather not . . . OK—OK, I’ll think about it . . . no promises.”


Jack stuck the phone in his shirt pocket and huffed. Sitting on the floor and facing


the ceiling, he acted as if the room were spinning, making him dizzy. He stretched an arm


touching the slanted ceiling of the eaves. He grumbled and cursed. Except for the empty


blue crib and dresser, the room was barren. Attached to the crib was a mobile of plastic


baseball equipment: bat, ball, cap, a pair of cleats, catcher’s mask, chest protector,


and a mitt. Like icicles, they hung motionless, frozen in time.


A photo calendar of the New York Yankees hung on the wall, top players in


pinstripes from a decade ago when they’d been World Champs in 2009. Sunrise gleamed


through a dormered window backlighting faded curtains entwined with cobwebs. A few


dead wasps lay crumpled on the window sill.


He turned to the dresser, but tripped over a gallon can left open with a broad


brush standing upright in the hardened blue paint.


“Jesus!” he grumbled.


Off the dresser, Jack picked up a framed photo of a young boy swinging a


baseball bat. Another frame showed a young man in a baseball uniform with “Rutgers”


in red across a white jersey. Jack blew dust off the glass of the frame and coughed.


Next to that frame was a larger empty one, still sealed in opaque plastic.


Jack pulled out the key to lock the room behind him, but might have heard me


scrambling down the stairs. He didn’t see me when he looked down the staircase, because


I was already in my bed, shivering. I heard Jack shout, “Goddamn haunted house!”


I understood what “haunted” meant from Halloween trick-or-treating. I started to


shake under the pink comforter Gram had given me to bring to Jack’s house, but it gave


me little comfort.


Jack closed the door behind him and locked it with the dead-bolt’s click then


came downstairs to his bedroom.


I got out of bed and scampered across the room to peer from the crack of my


door. Jack tossed the key into a jewelry box atop his dresser. He took a gilded, framed


photo from his dresser and clutched it close to his chest. The photo was the same as one


at Gram and Gram’s house on their fireplace mantel. No one had spoken to me about


the young woman in the photo. I hadn’t asked. Once, when I’d remarked how pretty


the woman was, Gram had left the room in tears and Gramps had to leave for his


meeting at the Elks Club. It had been as if they hadn’t heard me, or just refused to.


My ears perked when Jack kissed the photo and said—“Lydia.”


No one had said it outright before, but I was sure Lydia was my mother.




“What lies behind us and what lies ahead
of us are tiny matters compared to what
lives within us.”― Henry David Thoreau


My recollection of spying on Jack faded, but the baseball mitt remained vivid in


my mind as Gram lit the candles on my birthday cake.


“Bet I can throw a baseball as good as any boy—even better,” I boasted.


I thought I’d finally worn down Jack’s resistance. “Okay, but only if you blow out


all seven candles—with one breath. If you do, I’ll get the mitt and we’ll have a catch. ”


His expression looked regretful, again—buyer’s remorse.


Gram and Gramps gave him disdainful looks. Their friends muttered asides to one


another. My girlfriends rooted for me, but the boys shook their heads as if Jack had made


a careless misjudgment of my competitive spirit.


Jack grinned, probably sure I’d lose the bet. How could my scrawny stature


muster enough breath to blow out more than one or two candles. I was barely 40 pounds


and under 40 inches tall, a runt—a squirt. Just on my appearance, Jack looked sure that I


couldn’t throw a baseball very far or with any speed or accuracy—case closed.


How could he know what I was capable of when he’d rarely seen me? I’d heard


Jack discuss baseball games with Gramps watching Yankee games on TV. I knew


baseball was something Jack was confident he knew more about than most. Sensing


Jack’s confidence that he’d win the wager, I was determined to prove him wrong.


“Promise?” I asked.


He nodded with a shake of my little hand. “Deal.”


I reared back with a deep breath then pursed my lips. Jack must have seen


determination in my eyes that reminded him of a pitcher in a jam on the mound facing a


batter for the final out. He measured all things in terms of baseball. With cheeks swollen,


I blew so hard that the topknot quivered on top of my head. The pink ribbon unraveled,


and my long, sandy-blond hair came unleashed, covering my face like a mop. I nearly fell


into the cake but balanced with both hands flat on the table. My eyes opened wide to see


the result of my effort. One candle still flickered, but a sudden breeze made the wick flare


for a moment before white smoke, like a burnt offering, trailed across the yard. The


seventh candle fizzled out, permeating the yard with the scent of melted wax.


My grandparents hugged me, my girlfriends cheered, and the boys looked at one


another knowingly with shakes of their heads. Jack frowned at me when I folded my


arms and beamed with victory. I was trying to show the kind of spunk Jack seemed to


encourage in his baseball team. I may have won the wager, but Jack looked unconvinced,


as if it was just good luck for me and bad luck—as usual—for him.


Staring with resentment at me, he flinched as if he suddenly recognized some-


thing in me, but was trying to fight against that feeling because it made him uncomfortable.


He’d become accustomed to his hardened disassociation from family. He seemed to work


at that daily as much as he devoted himself to baseball.


I watched his reaction, wondering if Jack had seen some of himself in me, some-


thing he hadn’t noticed before. My eyes were brilliant green. I often wondered why they


weren’t dark brown like Jack’s. I wished they were, just to feel a closer connection to


him, so close I’d see the world through his eyes, knowing everything he knew.


Excited, my eyes sparkled like precious emeralds from a hidden treasure suddenly


unearthed. It was my forthright, in-your-face attitude that had to remind Jack of himself,


especially his style as a teacher and baseball coach. He’d raised his voice to me for the


first time, but I was glad to have his attention, even for just a moment.


The party guests gradually dispersed then I turned to Jack. “Let’s go home, Pop. I


want to play catch with you before it gets too dark.”


“Your father needs some coffee before you head home,” Gram said.


Gramps poured Jack a cup and handed it to him.


Though Jack agreed, he looked as if he regretted losing the bet to me. He seemed


relieved when a thunderstorm kicked up as we left for his home, hopefully delaying our


catch for another day. He must have thought I’d forget about his promise, but my willful


expression told him—no way.


* * *


Jack drove me home in his beat-up, red Ram pickup. I remained quiet the whole


way, which made Jack turn to me in a rare moment.


“Too much cake and ice cream?” he asked. “Your tummy hurting?”


“I’m OK,” I said, just glad he was looking at me for a change.


At his home, I waited on the third-floor landing while Jack pulled down the


folding stairs and climbed to the attic. In the stuffy air and dim light, I heard him scuff-


ling for the blue box I knew contained the baseball mitt in the shadows of the eaves. I


heard the wind from outside blow open the shutters on a dormered attic window, which


must have startled him.


“You OK, Pop?”


He grunted then dropped the mitt down the folding stairs at my feet. Lightning


flashed outside and thunder boomed close by.


“We can’t go outside if there’s lighting,” he said.


“It’s clearing up!” I yelled, grabbing the mitt and scurrying downstairs. “It’ll


be fine in a few minutes.”


During a brief downpour, Jack kept looking at his watch, knowing it was close to


my bedtime. I inspected the mitt, flexing the fingers, rubbing the webbing and punching


my small fist into its pocket. It was a Mariano Rivera model, but I noticed another name


burnt into the heel near the thumb. It read “Junior.”


I was about to ask Jack about it, but the rain had stopped. “It’s clearing up,”


I said. “Come on, Pop. Let’s go.”


Jack stuck his head out the backdoor that led to the driveway. The storm had


cleared. He followed me to the driveway, still hoping for an out. I stood in front of


the white garage door beneath the overhead spotlight. In the pink glow of twilight after


the storm, the air at dusk smelled sweet. Fitting all my small fingers into just two fingers


of the mitt, I pounded it with my left fist the same way I’d seen Jack do it in the attic and


how his players smacked the pockets of their mitts on the field. The well-oiled leather felt


smooth and its aroma filled my nostrils.


“We don’t have any baseballs,” he said. “I have some at school in my locker, but I


can’t get back in there without the principal’s permission and—”


“Get a stone from under that oak tree!” I shouted.


“Too dangerous.”


“I won’t hurt ya, Pop.” I turned to the apple tree beside the driveway. “How


about an apple?”


Jack gathered a few apples from under the tree. He lobbed one underhand, just to


my left so he wouldn’t hit me. It rolled between my legs. I frowned and huffed.


“C’mon, gimme another one!” I shouted.


He looped another apple over my head, but I leaped and caught it. To his sur-


prise, I threw it back to him, waist high and hard enough to sting his bare hands. The


apple splattered sticky, brown juice, leaving a stain across his white polo shirt.


“Take it easy!” he shouted, shaking the sting from his fingertips and rubbing the


apple’s nectar from his hands onto his jeans. “Do you like throwing with your left hand?


Maybe you’re a righty.”


“I throw fine with my left,” I said with confidence, having thrown an old, moldy


tennis ball I’d found in Gramps’ garage. I’d mimicked the infielders I’d watched on


Jack’s team by throwing the tennis ball against the garage door and repeatedly catching it


on a bounce, then throwing it back against the door. I had no glove to wear then, so I’d


tried throwing and catching with both hands and felt no obvious difference.


Jack lobbed another apple underhand, but I folded my arms in protest, letting it


smash into the garage door. A stain dripped down the white surface.


I yelled, “Throw overhand—like the boys!”


Jack grumbled then threw another apple overhand, but easy. I caught the apple


before it hit the ground then whipped it back at him even harder than the last one,


catching him off guard. The apple hit him in the chest, making him stumble and fall


backwards gasping for breath.


I ran up to him. Disoriented, he stared glassy-eyed at me from the ground.


“Come on! That was an easy one!” From the foggy look in Jack’s eyes I figured


he must be seeing double like I’d seen in cartoons. “I bet I can throw a baseball even


harder than I throw an apple.”


“Maybe,” he agreed, regaining focus, “but no more bets. I’ll get a few baseballs


tomorrow. Then I’ll see if you can throw like the boys—or not.”


“I’m sorry you lost your teaching job,” I said. “Hey! Instead of coaching high


school—you could be my Little League coach.”


Jack laughed aloud for the first time in years. I couldn’t be sure if he was amused


at his come down from varsity high school coach to Little League or the prospect that I


could ever throw a baseball like anything other than his concept of “throwing like a girl.”


Underhand with a softball was one thing—hardball, in Jack’s rigid rule book was quite


another.


Toms River where Gram and Gramps lived was the County Seat where a few


exceptional girls had played on boys’ teams, and had even gone to the Little League


World Series playoffs in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. If anyone could teach me how


to pitch a baseball, Jack knew he was well-qualified. As compelling as that idea may


have felt to him, Jack was a baseball purist, old-fashioned to the core. Baseball for


boys—softball for girls.


If he’d told me right then that he was dead set against my playing Little League


with boys, I most likely would have forgotten about it just to please him. Then maybe


he’d let me come live with him. The thought of my interest in playing baseball surely


gave Jack fitful nights that even his alcohol consumption could not abate.




Later that same night, Jack tucked me into bed and stared at me with curiosity.


I didn’t care why he looked at me, only that he did. I held his big rough hand in my grasp


never wanting to let go.


“Pop, this mitt is the best. Can I keep it?”


He shrugged. “I suppose . . . why not?”


“It’s a Mariano Rivera model, but Gramps told me he was a righty.”


“He was . . . and the greatest closing pitcher in the majors. He saved more


games in his career with the Yankees than any pitcher in the majors ever has.”


“Why does my mitt say Junior?”


Jack took a deep breath. “It was meant . . . for your brother,” he said with a twitch.


“I have a brother?”


“Had . . . he died.”


“What happened?”


“He died with your mom . . . he was your twin.”


“Why did he die and not me?” I asked.


“Your mom always had to do things her way. She didn’t want to give birth in a


hospital. She wanted to do it naturally at home with a midwife to help her. I tried to talk


her out of it when we learned there would be twins, but she insisted on having her own


way. She’d studied lots of information on the internet and found a mid-wife that suited


her. She stopped going to her obstetrician for sonograms. If she had, we would have


known what was happening. You and your brother were attached by the same cord inside


your mom, but the cord had strangled your brother, cutting off his oxygen and blood


flow. That caused toChic shock to your mom, which the doctors hadn’t discovered until


she was rushed to the ER at County General. It was too late. When your brother was


still-born, withered on the vine, they removed you safely by caesarian.”


“That’s so sad,” I said, stroking his arm. “Please, tell me about my mom.”


He turned away and sighed. “You’re too young. Maybe when you’re more


grown up. I can’t now. You’d better get some sleep”


“Are you still angry at my mom?”


My question seemed to jolt him with an expression of confusion as if to ask, How


could I ever be angry with Lydia, my life mate, my true love? Yet somehow he was.


“I was mad at everyone and everything!” he said elevating his tone. Then that


release of pent-up anger seemed to calm him. “I’ll get a few baseballs and you can


practice throwing them to me.”


“You mean it?”


“Sure. I can teach you a lot about pitching. I pitched varsity at Rutgers.”


I recalled seeing the name printed in scarlet across his white uniform in the


framed photo in the blue room.


“Can I really keep this mitt? Even if it was meant for my brother.”


“Who else would use it?”


I got up on my knees in bed to give Jack a hug. I kissed his rough cheek then


nestled down under the quilt. I waved to him as he went to the door and left it open a


crack. He waved back. I clutched the mitt to my chest and inhaled the scent of the leather.


I brushed my little fingers across the letters where Jack had burned in the name—Junior.


I closed my eyes with a peaceful smile then stared at the ceiling. I tried to imagine my


twin brother.


As if he might answer me, I whispered, “I promise I’ll try to be the best baseball


player for Pop.”


I remember that birthday as if it were yesterday, not just because Jack had paid


attention to me for the first time and I got to play catch with him, but a new awareness


had come over me. I wasn’t just this scrawny little wisp of a girl with the big green eyes


like my mom’s. Gram and Gramps may have seen their lost daughter in me, but inside


my head was another me, a boy everyone thought had died. From that day on, I vowed


to keep Junior alive within me.




“Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that
you care for to be what they choose for themselves
without any insistence that they satisfy you.”― Wayne Dyer

Indian Summer

by
Gerald Arthur Winter




There’s no better time of the year to hike a mountain trail than mid-October in the
northeast when New York State’s autumn foliage is peaking with bursts of color—marigold
yellow, reds from raspberry to plum, and carrot orange flickering in between like flames.
Warnings of a severe winter ahead were forecast months ago after a drought last May and
June followed by a hurricane in September that caused more flooding than wind damage.
As a result, the foliage had soaked up the rain, providing an exceptional depth of lasting
fall hues not seen in decades.
The first hint of the preamble to a cold winter came the week before, right after
Columbus Day with the first freeze. I awoke the past three mornings with the lawn frosted
like coconut icing on a cake. After the hurricane’s heavy downpours last month, puddles
froze solid in the morning chill. I watch from my kitchen window as schoolchildren jump
on the frozen puddles to break the ice just as I had as a kid so long ago.
I sip my first cup of morning coffee as I watch the children on my day off. I work
only four days a week now, part-time as a crossing guard for the middle-school up the
street. The work, if you want to call it such, has a double purpose: it helps me remember
. . . but also forget.
The kids help me remember my own childhood, which often feels like yesterday.
But yesterday, Tuesday, is often just a blank. That’s why I chose Wednesday for my one
weekday off. Hump Day gives me focus so my Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday
shifts at the corner of Elm and Mayfair holding up a red stop-sign don’t all blend
together. Last Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday was that stretch of morning frost.
The kids at the crosswalks with their wonderful questions and bright outlooks
help me forget I’m alone, that Alice died, and my days are filled with more memories
now than plans for the future. My future is waking up and hoping I’ll wake again
tomorrow.
I try to hold onto small things now, like seeing Mrs. Baxter across the street
planting her tulip bulbs along her driveway last Saturday. She must’ve heard about
the frost coming. But it caught me off guard, freezing my butt at the corner because
I hadn’t brought my winter coats, gloves, and caps down from the attic yet. I used
to depend on Alice for that, but she’s been gone five years now.
I got prepared last night to take my mountain hike on the same trail I used
to take with my older brother Mike when we were kids . . . he’s gone, too. I haven’t
told anyone about my plan to hike this morning because I know I’ll get all that jabber
about a man my age hiking alone in the woods.
My daughter got me one of those smartphones with a GPS for my seventy-fifth
birthday in May, so I figure I’ll be fine. Best part about the fancy phone is the photos I
can take. I even got one of those selfie-sticks in case I want to take my picture with my
arm around a black bear. Just kidding. That’s my light-hearted nature. My daughter
wouldn’t appreciate my humor about that.
I’ve packed myself a lunch in my backpack and I’m heading to my car to drive
to the trail right now. I’ll be home before sunset and no one will be the wiser so keep
it to yourself. Won’t my daughter be surprised when I show her all my pretty pictures
of the autumn leaves. That’s when I’ll tell her about my solo venture, not before.
I’ve got my winter jacket, scarf, gloves, and a leather hat with earflaps, so
even if it’s freezing up in those mountains this morning, I’ll be just fine.
I’ve parked my car at the base of the mountain and I’m heading up the
trail, which the county just opened a month ago after being closed to the public
after a college student taking this hike was mauled and killed by a 500 pound
black bear just out of hibernation. They says that bear might’ve been 600 pounds
after feeding for a month or two. Local papers called him “Bearzilla.”
Shame about the young man who died, but I’ve hiked this trail a hundred
times over the years from the 50’s till now, so I’m not concerned. I know enough
to stand clear of a mama bear with cubs.
It’s pretty brisk when I got out of the car, so I’m glad that I’ve dressed for
the morning freeze. But soon the exertion of the climb with my walking stick and
my backpack with my lunch and bottles of water weighing me down, has made me
sweat. I’ll still keep my scarf and gloves on, but I can stop to take a breather along
the way and remove my cap to dry my head with the old dish towel I keep in my
backpack. Used to use the towel to keep a fish from slipping out of my grasp when
I was removing the hook. Alice would complain if I came home with my hands
smelling like trout. Alice . . . she’d be on my case about hiking alone at my age.
Being Wednesday, there are no weekend hikers crowding the trail so there
were no other cars with mine where I parked, and after an hour trek toward the top
of the ridge, I haven’t seen another person yet. I enjoy the quiet and I’ve stopped a
few times to catch my breath, loosen my scarf, and just listen. With the sun up, the
autumn colors seem to burst all around me like a fireworks on Fourth of July.
I’ve reached the top of the ridge where there’s a glacier lake that’s two miles
long east to west and a mile wide north to south. I sit on a stone wall at the east end
of the lake to gather my thoughts before I take the two-hour walk around the lake.
It takes that long because of the rocky trail around the lake with boulders you have
to either climb over or squeeze between. The stone wall looks out over a dam that
control the overflow from the lake as it had during the September hurricane.
As I get up to begin my walk, I feel dizzy and sit back down again. I unravel
my scarf and put it into my backpack along with my gloves and hat. I unzip my
fleece jacket and flap it like a hawk’s wings to cool off. My forehead feels hot to
the touch so I take out my smartphone to see my position on the lake with my
GPS, then check the weather to be sure no squalls are heading toward the lake.
“Seventy-five?” I say aloud and with question. “That can’t be. It was 27
degrees on my back porch when I went to the car this morning only a couple of
hours ago. It’s almost eleven o’clock.”
I tap the screen of my phone as if it would make a difference. Old habits are
hard to break. I take a few sips of water and just one bite of my ham sandwich for
energy and some salt to keep me from dehydrating because my head is soaking wet
from the heat. I stand and stretch, wishing I saw a fellow hiker to say, “Nice weather.”
Just to get a response. I guess I have to believe my eyes because my body, like my
phone, is telling me it’s getting close to 80 degrees before noon in late October after
we had three nights in a row that dipped into the upper 20’s.
I roll up my jacket and put it into my backpack, because it’s become too hot to
wear even without hiking around the lake. That’s what I came up here to do, so I take
a deep breath and set my pace. Without any snags, I’ll be back to the damn by 1:30 p.m.
then I’ll eat the rest of my sandwich. It will be all downhill from there to my car. I’ll be
home before 4 p.m.
The first half-hour is easy, mostly level ground, though rough with roots and
jagged stones that could make me trip. The thought of falling down slows my pace. I
still haven’t seen any other hikers. For the first time I’m glad my daughter got me the
smartphone, not for the photos but for calling for help in case I fall down. The GPS
will get someone to me a lot quicker, even a helicopter if needed.
What am I saying? I know this trail like the back of my hand. I’ve known every
turn and hazard for most of my life. I’ll just enjoy the hike in this warm weather with
all these fantastic colors reflected on the lake.
I come to the bend in the path that takes me right up to the lake’s northern
shore. In the shade from the trees along the northern bank, the lake still has some
black ice that hasn’t melted. It’s a glacier lake so the water’s always cold and the
past three nights may have created a layer of ice over the lake thick enough to walk
on at this altitude.
My phone, even in the shade, says 78 degrees before noon, so that thin ice
won’t last long. In this heat it will all be melted before I return to the dam.
As I reach the halfway mark at the eastern shore I see a dozen dear drinking
at from the lake. Their coats have already turned that greyer tone and thicker for the
coming winter. Like me, they must have been caught off guard by this odd flash of
warm weather. As I pass the gutted remains of an early 20th century mansion once
owned by a millionaire on this lake, I see a flash of unexpected colors along the
natural stone foundation of the ruin.
“It can’t be,” I say aloud, seeing crocuses, blue, white, and yellow, growing in
the moss between the stones. Then I see daffodils, some all yellow, others with white
petals and orange pistols. These are spring flowers. The unseasonal warm weather has
confused them.
By the time I’ve made the turn and I’m ten minutes from the dam, I’m shocked
to see a cascade of bright yellow along the southern ridge to my right and the lakeshore
to my left. It’s forsythia in full bloom. Without seeing another person to discuss the logic
of this phenomena of nature, I question my own mind.
“Is it really spring? Have I lost my sense of time? Was the three-day freeze
really the end of March rather than the end of October as I thought it was this
morning? If only someone else would come by so I could ask them.
I hear my stomach growl and quicken my pace so I can rest by sitting on the
stone wall at the dam where I’ll eat the rest of my sandwich. It feels good to get off
my feet. The sandwich tastes wonderful with the dill pickle I included in the zip-lock
plastic bag. The walk around the lake was invigorating. I feel better than I have in
some time. Maybe I should plan to do this hike more often, but if winter is as cold
as predicted, the trails will have deep snow and become hazardous with ice from
the daily melting and refreezing.
Though I’ve come to enjoy my part-time work as a crossing guard, and I look
forward to seeing the kids at the crosswalk tomorrow morning, a part of me would
rather stay right here with all this autumn color yet summer warmth. I could stay
in this day forever if it wasn’t for . . . well, there’s no one to share it with.
As I stand to head back down the trail to my car I see another odd sight for
late October, but at least it’s at a distance, maybe five yards away on the path. I take
a couple of short steps forward and it coils to strike—a copperhead.
It knows I’m here but it must be as confused as the rest of nature today. I
speak to it to let it know I want to pass by, but without doing it any harm.
“I bet the freeze these past few nights slowed you down before you had a
chance to find your hibernation burrow. Go ahead. Find it now, but leave me be.
I can’t get past to the downward trail to my car unless you move. Even with a
smartphone, a snake bite could kill me before I get help, so it’s you or me. I don’t
want to kill you, but neither do I want to be killed. Just leave and we’ll both be
fine. Deal?”
“Let him leave!” a voice comes from behind me. A gentle hand touches my
shoulder and her voice whispers in my ear, “I’ve been waiting for you to come up
to the lake.”
I turn but don’t recognize her at first. For a moment, I think it’s my daughter,
that somehow she got wind of my plan to take a hike in the mountains alone. But it’s
the first time I realize how much my daughter looks more like Alice than she looks
like me.
She grabs my walking stick from where I’ve left it on the stone wall. She
uses it like a spear thrusting it through the serpent’s triangular head. Then she
shakes the dead snake off the end of my walking stick into the lake. She hands
the stick back to me.
“Am I dreaming?” I ask her. “I want to stay here with you on this perfect day.”
“No. You must go back.” She nods toward the lake where she thrown the
dead snake. “He’d have kept you here, but you’ve got to back home. There’s news
—good news for you at home.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” I tell her.
“I’ll be here waiting when you come back, but it’s not your time. Be careful
on the trail going back down.”
“What good news could there be greater than finding my Alice looking how
she did the day we met?”
“There was an error on the screening. You’re fine for now and . . . you’re
going to have a grandson. He has a single mom, so he’ll need you. Please go back.
Do it for me.”
“Is that why everything is out of sync?”
“Yes.”
“How will I know when it’s the right time to come back to you?”
“I’ll be with you again and forever next Indian Summer.”

Children of The Dawn

​By Meg Smith




It was a rare find -- berries, and glistening green leaves.


There seemed to be no one else around, apart from some squabbling birds, distant in the piercing blue sky.


Even if they flew in, they probably weren't a threat. They might even be a catch, if she could snatch them by the wing or claw.


Her mother had always said, go for what you can gather. Right now, what she could gather were the berries and leaves.


She would have kept some for later, but later seemed a vague idea. Her hunger was right now.


When enough time had passed, it could be easy to forget what eating food even felt like.


She could remember things, but mainly, her life -- as long as she knew it -- was about the present.


In the present, she was all alone. For the first time since she could remember. She’d been walking, through cycles of day and night, alone.


The one thing she was certain of -- many of her people, people who looked, acted and hunted as she did -- were not part of the present.


They were in the past.


Their bodies had lain, like uneven dunes, covered by the wind with loose sand. But not for long.


She knew the prey-eating birds would come, as they always did. She could feel sadness, sadness about not talking to her mother, or sisters, or her mother’s sister.


Even one of the few males she knew and thought of as father.


Right now all the world was contained in a small space of hot, dry air, and berries and leaves too precious to waste.


When the berries and leaves had filled her, there was no point in staying. And staying still was dangerous, anyway. Barking echoed in the yellowing hills.


It was time to walk again. Walking upright had been a great leap for her kind, but she did not know it.


Walking got someone from one place to another. Running could move a person away from danger. Lying down and sleeping were dangerous, but somehow, necessary.


She was good at finding places to sleep. Between rocks, under crevices, and her sleep was light. In her sleep she could hear the footsteps of animals passing by.


She had no course to plot, across a landscape bleary and unchanging. Dreams and waking sometimes difficult to distinguish. Dreams were what she saw and heard while sleeping. Sometimes she heard her mother’s voice, and her eyes flew open, but no one was there.


When she awoke, she didn’t stay long. She got up, and kept walking.


It had rained in the night. Water splashed in puddles. She knelt and drank furtively, and left. Lingering was an easy way to end up hunted.


The water restored her. She felt herself walking tall, although, in reality, she was not.


And she didn't care. She liked her short forehead, her short hair, the shape of her hands and feet, her belly. The compact trunk of her belly. The fur apron tied at her waist.


When she saw someone looking back at her from the water, as a child, her mother informed her she was looking at herself. It seemed absurd that she could be standing at the edge of the water and also looking up from it, but her mother assured her it was so.


She would never pause to think that her memories were keeping her alive. Every time she thought of her mother or something her mother said to do, it was like her mother was there, even though her mother wasn’t.


Still, with each step, sometimes, memories would come. Like her mother saying: "One day, you will be a mother, and pass all these things to your child."


She took that at face value. She knew she was a female, as were most of the people in her world. Males were vague, dreamlike, often away, usually hunting, sometimes laughing, sometimes fighting. Not that females didn't fight, sometimes, but someone always intervened.


People came from inside a female's belly. They came out as if fighting, as if mother and child were fighting each other. Sometimes one of them lost. Sometimes, they both did. They became part of the quiet, drifting landscape, not dreaming or fighting anymore.


Now, some distance behind her, they were all like that. They had all crumbled, their eyes clouded, their faces masks of nothing. They coughed and shook, and then, they as if sleeping but staring at the endless sky.


She left because there was no reason to stay, no one to talk to, and animals would come, and that was never safe.


The sun, bright and sad, was shifting into the wedge of earth, and shadows grew from the hills, the ledges.


Her feet were hot, as if complaining. She knew that feeling. It said, time to stop.


There was a rock, and she sat down. The rock felt cold, but it was good. Her fur apron was getting matted and frayed. But she didn't know what to do about it.


For the first time, in a long time of being alone, she realized she was not alone.


Someone was walking toward her. She started a bit, stood up, but first, gathering a stone in one hand.


She was especially startled when the stranger came into view and she could make out the features of the stranger's face. It was like no face she had seen, ever, on anyone.


This face had a high brow, a small nose, wide lips, and a blockish chin. It was impossible to tell anything except that the stranger was in no way part of her group, or any group she'd seen.


The stranger may as well have fallen from the sky. For all she knew, the stranger did.


The stranger stopped. And was looking at her.Her fingers played on the rock in her hand, cradling it close in her palm.


The stranger was a male; rare though it was to see a male, his squared shape marked him as such. He was wearing a garment about the waist, as she was, but she could not tell what it was made of. It was unique. It had colors. It did not appear to be made from animal hide.


The stranger opened his mouth, and started talking. She had not the slightest idea what he was saying. As he stepped closer, she gripped the rock tighter.


And then, he held a hand forward. But, to her amazement, it was open, and in it was something that looked like food. And he was holding it out to her.


Here was food, food that looked and smelled good, and an odd-looking person offering it. But her stomach gnawed at her.


The stranger did not do anything that otherwise signified a threat. His eyebrows raised, and an expression formed on his face that looked pleased.


She was thinking just to snatch the food, hurl the stone at him, and run.
But she only took the food, and stood there devouring it, as he watched.


They walked along together for a while. He continued to talk his strange sounds. At least, it seemed like talking. She answered back in the short, no-nonsense syllables that comprised the words of her small world.


The walked, side by side, as the air darkened around them.


He was taller. His walk was strange. It was not the walk of someone always aware of everything around, friends and foe, poised for flight. This walk was the walk of someone who didn't much worry about those things, or was unaware of them, or perhaps commanded them.


Which seemed strange, yet logical. She still held the rock.


Before long, they came to a hilly place, with rocks and small openings, and the unmistakable smoke of a fire. The fire was spitting up sparks, getting ready to die.


There were several figures sitting or hunched around it, and a murmur came from them, similar sounds to what this strange person made. The light was very dim now, but she realized, they were the same as he. This was a whole new people she had discovered.


What she really wanted to know was whether they were friendly, or not. Because there were a lot of them. She realized that she had to hope they were friends. Otherwise, she had just one rock, and her swift feet to carry her away.


The male she had been walking with started making gestures to get their attention, and his voice grew loud. He pointed to her. They looked up. Some of them looked deeply surprised. She had seen that look. One of them looked angry.


She set her mind to making out the sounds they made, and what they might mean. After a while, some of what they said began to make some sense. It was not happy news.


Her friend, if that's what he was, he had done something terrible and stupid.


But not everyone felt that way, that was clear. Because some of them laughed.


She was getting tired, and thinking about running. And then, glancing back slightly, she saw more figures, with similar shapes to their shadows.


She had spent the past several days and nights working to stay alive. She was going to have to keep doing that, but running didn't seem to be an option. But, she noticed, there were lots of stones around. That was comforting, a little.


There was that dying fire. She could throw ashes into their eyes. She saw someone do that, once, to scare off a big animal.


Her confidence came back.


The male was now gesturing to her, and touched her shoulder. He was saying something directly to her. The sounds in themselves didn't make much sense, but the tone was clear. You can stay here.


The group was moving into the shelter of the small crevice. The air was chilly. The male motioned for her to come with them. She began to grasp that she was not just entering a shelter for the night, but some kind of new world. There were tools, and items for covering the body that she had never before seen.


Her mind riveted, as never before. She had a mad urge to touch everything, use everything, blurt out questions that maybe they did or didn't understand. As tired as she was, she didn't want to sleep.


But that's what everyone was preparing to do. Before long, her heavy eyelids betrayed her. Others were already asleep, except for a few other males, who seemed to be standing outside, on guard.


Understanding all these new things would have to wait.


It seemed only moments later, she was waking again. She caught the scent, of the male, before she could open her eyes. All was dark, apart from his shadow. He was moving toward her. Distantly, her mother's voice was reprimanding her. She pushed it from her mind. Everything he had to touch, smell, taste...it was within her grasp. Even as fear lurched in her stomach, her arms, her mouth, were reaching.


From the rustles here and there around them, they were not alone.


By morning, light was bright and harsh. A fire was snapping, and smoke made its way to the entrance.


She sat up, feeling hollow, slightly ashamed. And yet, feeling that she would do what they had done all over again. She looked about.


Eyes were touching her, regarding her.


She stood up. She heard a voice that sounded angry. She heard the low protest, of her friend, the male What they had done together, she guessed, had made someone unhappy. Maybe, someone important.


Then, just as quickly, it seemed to be forgotten. A female, who looked to be almost the age of her mother, passed by her. She started to wave to her, then stopped. This female was not pleased. After a moment she surmised, this is the mother. She's angry. But it doesn't count.


Which was strange. Where she came from, making a mother, or aunt, unhappy was not a worthy goal. Here, their anger seemed to matter no more than a passing cloud.


A gathering seemed to be taking place, a discussion.


More gestures. It didn't take long to realize this was about looking for food. Which made total sense. She moved with them. There were those angry looks, here and there, but she still moved with them. Watched what they did. There was a place to gather more berries, twigs. She did as they did.


Everyone's anger seemed to be subsiding. There was even laughter. Her belly bothered her, again. Someone was laughing at her.


But throwing a rock at that person, didn't seem prudent. She recalled times when her mother rose to act, and sometimes, simply waited. Maybe this was one of those waiting times.


Morning and night, came and rose in its cycles. Some nights they held each other, closely, feverishly. Other times, they simply slept.


He talked and talked. They all talked a lot. They laughed a lot, and she could sense when that laughter was directed at her. It was not often, but it happened.


She learned, about the tools. He showed them to her. A long spear. A knife for cutting branches.


Most of the time, however, they were not together. He went off with other males, and she was motioned over to the females. She kept up, doing her share of gathering and even hunting small animals.


She and the male would be together again at night. But sometimes, not even then.
And it was less and less often.


One night, while the others slept, she realized slowly, terribly, that she could hear his voice, and someone else's. A voice not unlike hers, but not hers.


Something else happened for the first time. Tears coursed down her face. She tried to hide it. Somehow she felt it was not good to let anyone know.


Their words began to make sense, too. She imitated them, but her sounds came out very different from theirs. This sometimes sparked laughter, but not always. And, it became clear, what some of them were saying about her.


Even the lions and deer do things you can understand.
She looks like one from the group we saw, one time.
Why did he bring her here.
They're both young. Young and stupid.
Well, he's learning.
What's to become of her.
She helps gather food. She can make fire. She has some use.
She had use to him, but not anymore.
Then, a smirk.


Her stomach ached, and certain leaves seemed to help.
It wasn't long before she realized what was happening. The same thing that happened to her mother, and other females she knew. Even some of the females here.


There was movement within, as if a whole world was growing inside her.


That angry older female was yelling again. The older male who always seemed to be around was shouting over her. Their voices wrestled, like two antelopes, locking and clacking horns.


She ran her hands over her belly. A protective feeling rose ferociously within her.


She glanced around. At him. Their eyes met, only for a moment, and then he looked away.


This sparked sadness and fear. She wrapped her arms around her belly. Then, she began to make sounds, soft sounds. She did not fully understand them herself. But she knew something.
She had something, of her own.


The day came. She cried out in pain. the fight was beginning within her. She knew it, had seen it before.


When this happened, in the past, others would gather around, shouting in encouragement, sometimes holding the female’s hands, making soft, encouraging sounds.


None of that happened this time. In fact, they all seemed to pull away from her.


Then, grudgingly, one or two of the females came forward. They made sounds, terse and impatient.


She did not look back on the pain. She heard crying. The crying of a new life.
It was a girl, like her. She held her close. She felt a thunder in her chest. She wanted to run to the top of the hill in joy, but she was too tired, too weak. Instead, she cooed to her new baby.


Her baby grew, and was strong. Other babies grew, and were strong. They played and slept together. But her baby was not among them.


Each day, as she watched the other babies, growing, learning, but never with her baby in their circle, she grew afraid.


The fear would not leave.


One night, as they slept, she got up. Her baby whimpered, but she put a finger to her lips and made a shooshing sound.


She gathered her up in her arms, and slowly stood up.


The males standing guard turned to look at her. For a moment, she thought they would try to stop her. But instead, they looked away.


She did not look back.


Once again, it was time to walk.


She nursed her baby. The days were warm now, but the oppressive heat was a ways away.


She came to a place with a river. The water ran low, but cool. She drank, and cupped her hand with water for her baby to drink. Her baby was able to walk a bit on her own now, her tiny hand firmly grasping her mother’s.


What they did not know, and could not know, at that time, is that they weren’t really alone.


There were others, like herself, who had survived, through strength or insight or just plain luck.


Some of them, like herself, had encountered people. People like themselves and yet not -- people who had new tools, new and sometimes better ways of doing things.


But people who also looked down on them, saw them as having uses, and perhaps even formed bonds of affection with them. But these people did not see them as fully their own.


Some of them, like her, came away with a child.


Those children were vessels of the worlds of their parents. Resilience, cunning, and even cruelty but also cooperation and kindness, were entwined within them, in the spiral of their DNA.


Those children grew, and walked toward each other.


None of them knew it, but they would soon build their own world, together, in a strange new dawn.

A Stitch in Time
by
Gerald Arthur Winter


The sofa is delivered on a rainy afternoon on April 1, 1949. The
three-pillowed furniture is wrapped in plastic and cushioned from impact
by newspapers rolled into balls and taped at its blunt corners. Wearing
canary-yellow, hooded raincoats, two hulking deliverymen carry the sofa
from the Gimbel’s truck down a plank and up our front steps. They turn
the sofa sideways to fit through the foyer entrance to our home in Queens,
New York. The front door has been taken off its hinges so the sofa will fit
through the doorway, but on the sofa’s entry, the molding around the
door gets scraped by a sharp corner to bare wood.
My mother shrieks over the damaged molding, then clears the way
for our family’s major purchase. The two grunting bearers place the sofa
beneath a three-by-four foot mirror that was a wedding gift to my parents
from Grandma Hecker in 1940. I’m in kindergarten and my brother Bobby
is in third grade. We watch from the kitchen where we’ve been instructed
to remain silent until the sofa’s delivery is complete.
Mom tips the men a quarter each for their efforts then waves
goodbye to the men from our front door, which they’ve put back in
place. But now the door creaks at its hinges when opening or closing.
Mom is glad the men took the sofa’s packaging with them, but they’ve
left behind the newspapers covering the floor and carpeting to protect
them from the mud they’ve tramped in. Large muddy footprints from
the men’s galoshes have been stamped onto last Sunday’s NY
Journal-American newspaper. The Katzenjammer Kids, The Little
King, and Gasoline Alley lay soaked in the funny papers’ section.
“Your dad will have to touch up the molding with paint and
oil the hinges,” Mom says, waving us into the living room to show
us the sofa upholstered with a pattern of autumn leaves—red,
orange, and yellow. “I’ll make light blue slipcovers for the summer,”
Mom announces. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Bobby and I look at each other wondering why she asked,
since our opinions have never counted before.
Always inquisitive, Bobby asks, “How do you make slipcovers?”
Mom nods toward her Singer sewing machine with the foot
pedal and says, “I’ll take measurements, buy the material, then sew
them together and add zippers. It will be like having two sofa’s for
the price of one. ”
I look at the Singer then back at Mom with doubt, but she
proves me wrong by the time school lets out for summer vacation.
I’m nervous about the change from kindergarten to first grade, but
figure my summer adventures will provide an escape from my worries.
Bobby and I begin the first day of summer by playing hide ‘n’ seek.
He’s in the kitchen seated at the table with his eyes closed and his head
buried in his folded arms. He counts, “Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five,
thirty . . .”
I run around our house through our bedrooms until I come into the
living room and see my reflection in the big mirror centered above the new
sofa with its light-blue slipcovers. In stocking feet, I have to stand on the
soft sofa to see my face in the mirror. I wish I could pass through this
looking glass just like Alice.
Feeling trapped, I dive onto the sofa, but its slipcovers smell like
they’ve just rolled off a factory’s loom.
Bobby’s voice hits a high pitch, shouting, “Ninety! Ninety-five! One
hundred! Here I come, ready or not!”
Head first, like a snake, I wriggle my three-foot-four-inch body under
the sofa’s seat cushions, but I’m surprised how much room there is for me
concealed in that cavernous darkness. The factory smell of the slipcovers is
as intoxicating as gasoline when Dad lets me watch him fill the tank of his
1941 Lincoln Zephyr. I love its running boards and the oval-shaped rear
window that makes it feel like Flash Gordon’s strato-sled. It’s painted a
color I’ve never heard of, which make it even more special—maroon--
which seems to echo the sound its powerful engine. Maroon-roon!
As I think about Dad’s automobile, and how he complained that
the price of gas going to nineteen cents a gallon was too expensive for
his sixteen-cylinder engine, Bobby’s voice comes closer to the sofa
wear I’m hiding.
“I’m gonna find you soon,” he warns me. “You better not go in
the cellar and hide in the coal bin. You’ll get so dirty from the soot.
Mom will have a hissy fit.”
I peek from between the cushions, but Bobby can’t see me.
When he comes closer and sits on the sofa, I hold my breath.
“I’m gonna getcha!” he shouts, but I’m not sure if it’s the smell
of the slipcovers or the lack of air beneath the cushions that makes his
voice sound muffled even though he’s right beside me.
Then I hear Mom calling to us from the kitchen, but her voice
sounds so far away. I feel as if I’m losing my hearing, and then I hear
only my pulse in my head and my shallow breathing beneath the
cushions. I think I’ve fallen asleep, because it becomes so quiet until
I hear our front doorbell ring. It rings several times, but neither Mom
nor Bobby go to the front door. Figuring Bobby has given up trying to
find me, I follow the sliver of light between the cushions and come out
from the sofa. I go to the front door where the chips in the molding
are gone. Instead, there’s horizontal pencil marks and scribblings:
___________ Bobby 5’ 2” June 1954
___________ Gerry 4’ 7” “ “
___________ Bobby 4’ 9” June 1953
___________ Gerry 4’ 5” “ “
___________ Bobby 4’ 6” June 1952
___________ Gerry 4’ 2 “ “
___________ Bobby 4’ 4” June 1951
___________ Gerry 3” 8 “ “
What does it mean? I open the front door and see a forest across
the street and a taller, skinnier version of Bobby staring at me.
I ask, “Where are we, Bobby?”
“Don’t be stupid,” he says, shoving my shoulder as he brushes by
me into the house.
“I don’t get it,” I say, mostly to myself with Bobby already behind
a closed door to what must be his bedroom.
What happened to our room with the bunkbeds? I love the top
bunk so I can jump down to the floor like Buck Rogers wearing his anti-
gravity belt and floating to earth. Only I don’t float and just hit the floor
with a thud.
Confused, I stare across the street at the forest again.
“What happened to our neighborhood in Springfield Gardens
near the Long Island Railroad?” I say aloud, though no one is there to
answer. “Is this the house in New Jersey Mom and Dad were having
built for our future?”
Bobby swings open his bedroom door and stomps toward me.
“Hey, dopey!” he says, pushing me till I fall back on the living
room sofa. “You’re gonna get a lickin’ from Dad tonight. Mom’s gonna
tell him you stole his matches and set the empty lot on fire on Valley
Road across from Busch’s Insurance Agency.”
“I-I didn’t do it,” I stammer. “I-I don’t know what you’re talkin’
about, Bobby.”
“Yes you do,” he says. “That smart girl from your class, Joanie
Berkowitz, she told the Oakland librarian, and she told Mom. Boy, are
you gonna get it when Dad comes home.”
Laughing, Bobby returns to his room and shuts the door. I want
to run to my room, but I don’t know where it is. Nothing is the same as
it was five minutes ago, but . . . I go to the front door and see that I’m
the same height that the line indicates on the molding:
___________ 4’ 7” Gerry June 1954.
I’ve lost five years of my future in five minutes.
I look up the street and see Mom driving a new car, a two-tone
Chevy, forest green on the body and cream colored on the roof. Wow!
When she pulls into the driveway, I see on the fender that it’s a “Bel Air”
model. Never heard of it. Hey! When did Mom get her driver’s license?
Uh-oh, who’s that getting out of the passenger seat? Oh, no.
She must be the librarian. Who’s the girl getting out of the backseat?
She’s wearing glasses and she looks so prim and proper. Probably smart,
too. She must be the tattle-tail. I gotta hide, but where can I go?
I run into the living room and watch them from the window
as they come up the walk toward the front door. I lock the latch and
look left and right. Nowhere to hide . . . except—the sofa. I figure my
growth over the past five years could keep me from squeezing behind
the seat cushions, but the sofa swallows me like the giant anaconda
we saw in that Frank Buck movie about the Amazon, Bring ’em Back Alive.
I peek out where a thin streak of daylight lets me see Mom, the
librarian, and Miss Goodie Two Shoes coming through the front door.
“Gerald!” Mom calls out. “Come here this instant!”
When she calls me “Gerald” I know I’m in trouble. I hear Bobby
open his bedroom door and say, “He’s here, Mom. I told him you knew
about the fire. He’s probably hiding somewhere—maybe in the tree
house we built in the woods across the street.”
“Go get him, Bobby,” Mom said. “Bring him home to face the music.”
Face the music? That sounds like something a priest would say to
James Cagney in a gangster movie. I don’t even know how to strike a match.
I’m be afraid I’ll burn my fingers.
I hear Bobby go out the front door to find me. From between the
cushions, I see Mom, the librarian, and the young girl all pacing.
“Please, have a seat,” Mom says. “I hope you’re wrong, Joanie
Because, if Gerry is the boy you saw light the fire, his father will spank
him with his belt tonight.”
“And rightly so,” the librarian said, as her rump plunks down
on my leg beneath the cushions.
“I’m pretty sure it was him,” Joanie says.
“You’d better be certain,” Mom warned her.
I think, Beyond a reasonable doubt.
The front door opens. Bobby enters and says, “I dunno, Mom.
I thought sure he’d be in the tree house. Maybe he’s hiding at Joey
Amidon’s house.”
“Please, Bobby, go look for him there.”
“Jeez, Mom, I—”
“Now!”
Bobby leaves, and Mom turns to the librarian.
“Would you care for coffee, Miss Henderson?” Mom asks.
“Yes. Thank you,” she says.
“How about a cookie for you, Joanie?”
“I’m not permitted to eat any sweets before dinner,” Joanie responds.
Figures. No sweets for the prune-faced toady. Nya-ya! Nya-ya-ya.
With Mom in the kitchen, Miss Henderson turns to Joanie and says,
“Don’t worry. I’m sure Gerald is the one you saw light the fire.”
“I didn’t actually see him light it. I just saw him holding the matches.”
“That’s enough for me,” Miss Henderson says.
Ugh! I feel like grabbing the two of them by their necks. I want to pull
them both down into my dark cave. But it’s getting late and Dad will be coming
off the train and walking home. Instead of bringing me and Bobby hot, soft
pretzels from New York City, I’ll get my fanny whipped with his belt and sent
to bed without any supper. It won’t matter to anyone that I’m innocent. They
just want to blame someone for the fire.
Who’d ever believe my story about the sofa? I’m ten years old and
forget how I got here. I’m still thinking like a kindergarten baby—stick your
head in gravy. I try not to cry, but fear gets the best of me. As my tears flow,
the light between the cushions goes out, and Mom’s voice as she brings the
coffee into the living room begins to muffle until there’s nothing but silence.
From all the excitement, I’m so tired and doze off. I hope I won’t snore and
give away my hiding place where Bobby can’t find me . . .


A dog’s barking wakes me. I peek out from my comfy hiding place
in the sofa, and find myself nose to nose with a dog’s wet snout. We both
pull our heads back and sneeze. Then the dog barks and growls until I
emerge. He seems to recognize me, but I don’t recognize myself in the
mirror behind the sofa. I rub the dog behind its ears and see a tin license
on its choke-chain collar that says:
My name is IMPY. Please call my owner at Oakland 8-7436.
“You seem to know me, Impy,” I say to the dog. “But what the
heck is happening to me?”
Impy cocks his head back and forth then jumps into my arms. I
turn to the mirror and think I’m looking at someone else. I hold Impy in
one arm and brushed back my hair with my free hand.
“Jeez, Impy, is it already Halloween?” I ask, because my weird
haircut is flat on top like a crewcut, but long on the sides and combed
back to the base of my neck like a vortex. I tell Impy. “Hmm. Looks like
a duck’s ass.”
From his panting, tongue-slurping expression, Impy seems to agree.
I hear a car pull up in the driveway and figure it’s Mom, but it’s Bobby.
I figure Dad will have a fit if his thirteen-year-old son drives his car, but
when Bobby gets out of the rusty Chevy Bel Air, he looks like a senior in
high school with his varsity sweater. Jeez—who’s that good looking--
more than a girl—she’s practically a woman with that figure.
I’m so shocked I can’t move and stand like a statue in the living
room as Bobby and his girlfriend come through the front door.
“Hey, fart breath!” Bobby says to me. “Mom won’t be home from
work till six o’clock. Meantime, Joyce and I have some studying to do for
an exam tomorrow.”
I stammer, “S-studying? Exam?”
“That’s what you’re gonna tell Mom if she finds out Joyce came
over after school.”
“I am?”
“Hey dip-shit! That’s what you’re gonna say if she asks. If she
doesn’t ask, she doesn’t know. Then you don’t say diddly.”
I stare blankly at Bobby but my eyes keep wandering toward
Joyce with the big--
“Hey dork!” Bobby shouts. “Are you gonna be a problem?”
“Oh, come on, Bobby,” Joyce says. “Leave him alone. I think
he’s kinda cute. You want me to give you French kiss, too, little brother?”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Come here and I’ll show you,” she says, swiping her tongue
across her upper lip.
“No she won’t,” Bobby says, pushing her into his bedroom. “Go
take Impy for a long walk. Really long. What you don’t see, you can’t tell
Mom about. Go on. Get lost with your dog.”
Bobby closes his bedroom door behind him and I hear Joyce laugh.
Jeez, she smells good, like Christmas cookies and Easter candy all wrapped
into one package. Happy Holidays!
“Come on, Impy. Let’s take a walk,” I say, seeing a leash hanging on
a hook near the front door.
Impy seems to know what “walk” means, because he chases his tail
in circles and jumps around like he’s an act on The Ed Sullivan Show. Just
as we’re ready to go out the front door, another car pulls in the driveway
behind the Bel Air. I pull Impy back from the door by his leash and look
out the front bay window. Uh-oh. It’s Mom, looking a bit grey around her
ears where her short hairdo makes her look so much older than the last
time I saw her.
Wanting his walk, Impy barks.
Bobby shouts through his closed bedroom door, “Get going,
dumb ass!”
Joyce laughs and shouts, “Come and get your French kiss!”
Mom’s footsteps clunk up the wooden porch steps.
“Come on, Impy,” I say, shoving my squirming dog between the
cushions of the sofa and following right behind him.
Impy barks only once with the sound of the front door closing
behind Mom.
I hear her shout, “Gerry! Bobby! I’m home early.”
I know I won’t hear any response from Bobby, but I laugh to
myself, imagining the expressions on Bobby’s and Joyce’s faces with
the sound of Mom’s voice.
“Impy?” I whisper. When I pull on the leash, it gives me no
resistance. The choke-chain is empty. I anticipate no response as
I repeat, “Impy . . .” then with exhaustion, I doze off . . .


I stir from the sound of laughter. I don’t see anyone in the
living room, though the narrow space between the sofa’s cushion
isn’t much of a panorama. Cautiously, I slip out from the sofa. I’m still
holding the dog leash and empty collar. I set them aside and go to



the kitchen from where the laughter is coming. At the center island
two tall guys look vaguely familiar.
“Come on, Gerry. Have another beer to bring in the New
Year!” the tallest one says.
The other guy says, “Tommy and I were recalling the time
we’d set the field on fire. There was poison sumac in that empty lot
and the smoke drifted over to the Amidon’s house. Joey’s mom
inhaled the smoke and got poison sumac in her lungs.”
“Yeah, Nick, but we had no idea. We were just screwin’
around with matches and it got out of control.”
Nick says, “I can’t believe Joanie Berkowitz squealed on us.”
Recognizing my two best friends from grammar school and
high school, I add, “Yeah, but she told Miss Henderson the librarian
that I did it. I got a lickin’ from my dad that night for setting the fire
and I knew nothing about it. That was you guys?”
“Not just us. Gary Meredith was there. He brought the matches.”
“Crazy Gary?” I ask. “Jeez, our football coach used to get the
two of us mixed up. He thought we were twins.”
Tommy says. “The next year he got expelled for taking a dump
on Mrs. Prosky’s desk before she arrived for class.”
“Where was Joanie Baloney for that one?” Nick says. “I wasn’t
allowed to have any ice cream all summer because of that snitch. Ice
cream was more important to me than girls when I was that age.”
“Now that we’re twenty-one, you can keep the ice cream and
pass the beer,” Tommy says raising a can of Bud, which Nick and I click
with ours.
I remember when Dad gave me a taste of his beer when I
was fifteen. I thought it was bitter, but now . . . hmm, it’s good.
The three of us go into the living room and plunk down on the
sofa with its autumnal leaf pattern now faded with age. We watch as
the ball comes down bringing in the New Year. We toast our shared
age of twenty-one. Nick and I are juniors in college and Tom is on
leave from the U.S. Navy. Tommy feels lucky to be stationed in
Hawaii, thousands of miles from home, but also thousands of miles
from Southeast Asia where the war in Vietnam is percolating daily.
Nick is a sole-surviving son and can’t be drafted, and I’m in ROTC at
college with Basic Training a year away before my commission as a
2nd Louie.
“Hey, guys! Lemme show you what I learned in college,” Nick
says. “Tommy, you’re the only one who smokes. Gimme a match.”
Tommy reaches into his breast pocket and tosses him a book
of matches. Nick shifts his butt to the edge of the sofa’s seat cushion
and lets out a long, loud fart as he strikes a match and puts it to his
butt. A two-foot flame shoots out from between his legs as he shrieks.
“Holy crap!” Tommy shouts. “Is that for real?”
“Gotta be a trick,” I challenge.
“Gosh, I’m sorry, Gerry,” Nick says. “I singed your folks’ sofa.”
“Then it’s not a trick?” Tommy says, taking the matches from
Nick and putting them back in his pocket. “You really had flames
shooting out your ass?”
Nick says, “A guy in my dorm did it naked and had to go to
the infirmary to get his anus treated for burns.”
“Jeez, Nick,” I say. “My mom’s gonna have a fit when she
sees that burnt cushion.”
Nick stands, flips the cushion over, and says, “Good as new.”
“Only until next June when she puts the slipcovers over it.”
I say.
“That’s six months from now,” Tom says.
“Not long enough to fool my mom,” I say. “That’s why my
brother and I call her ‘The General.’”
“I know what you mean,” Tom agrees. “My mom’s ‘The Admiral.’”
Nick shrugs. “My mom would say, ‘It’s just furniture. As long as
my Nicky isn’t burnt, doesn’t matter.”
Tom and I exchange glances and shake our heads over Mama’s
Boy shooting flames from his ass. Then through the bay window we see
headlights flash from the driveway.
“My folks are back from their New Year’s party,” I say.
“I gotta use the bathroom,” Tom says.
“I better go home,” Nick says. “My mom will be worried if I’m not
home by one o’clock.”
Tom closes the bathroom door behind him, and Nick goes out the
back door.
I turn over the edge of the sofa’s center cushion and see the burnt
fabric. On the side table there’s a framed photo of Bobby in a tuxedo with
a pretty girl in a white wedding dress. It isn’t Joyce, so I wonder if there
could still be a French kiss out there somewhere waiting just for me. I hear
my parents coming up the porch steps. Mom is nagging Dad about something
he did at the party. I hope he didn’t light a fart. Fads like that can get out of
control. Someone might even try it in church.
As they open the front door, I hear Mom say, “What’s that? I smell
something burning. Becoming instinctive to my survival, I dive beneath the
burnt sofa cushion, losing a shoe in the process. In the darkness, I limp
with only one shoe on until I stumble and fall. My limbs feel weighted
by the rapid passage of time until I lose consciousness . . .


I’m awakened by the pounding on the cushions above me and the
shrieks of children’s high pitched laughter. It sounds like they’re playing a
game, a little boy and his older sister. They can’t be more than five and ten.
I see I’m right. From between the cushions I see a girl a foot-and-a-half taller
than the boy. Both have familiar facial features similar to mine.
“Calm down, Jeremy, or I’m telling Dad,” the girl says.
“Up your nose with a rubber hose, Kim,” the boy says.
Something he’d heard on TV, I imagine. Hopefully not in kindergarten.
“Don’t be such a little monster,” Kim says.
“You’re the monster,” Jeremy retorts, his body contorting and his words
in rapid fire. “Monster! Monster! Cookie Monster!”
I figure they must be my monsters.
“Hey, Daddy!” Jeremy shouts, staring right at me. “Watcha doin’ under
the pillows?”
I didn’t think they can see me, but I suppose Jeremy can because he
hasn’t been in school all that long and his imagination is unencumbered by
the laws of physics and nature. At ten, Kim is borderline. She’s just stopped
believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but her teen hormones are
still on the distant horizon so her imagination isn’t totally void. Maybe she’ll
keep some of her imagination, enough to use as an adult. There’s no doubt
about Jeremy; artistically he’s already off the charts, a whirling dervish of
creativity ready to explode with lyrics and music born in his head.
They take a step back from me as I emerge from between the
sofa’s cushions.
“Mom’s at church rehearsing for choir,” Kim says.
“She won’t be home for hours, Daddy,” Jeremy says with a gremlin’s grin.
They each have their hands behind their backs concealing something.
“We wanna play, Dad,” Kim says with hazel eyes the size of saucers.
“Yeah, Daddy.” Jeremy says. “We wanna play!”
With my mind still at age five like Jeremy, I feel my body trembling like
a young colt ready to burst from the barn into an open field for my first gallop.
“Okay, kids,” I ask them. “What do you want to play?”
They turn to give each other a nod. Behind them, they hold a throw
pillow from the sofa in each hand. They shout in harmony, “Let’s play pies!”
They bombard me with pillows, knocking me back onto the sofa. They
pound me in the head with the pillows, shouting, “Pie fight!”
Quixotic rapture engulfs me as their arms, like windmills, pummel my
face with the soft pillows. At first, all my efforts are just to protect my face by
blocking their relentless blows. We groveled on the sofa, but their joined scents
of sweat soap and baby oil after their showers overcomes me like a narcotic.
My arms hug them around their waists and pull them close until I’m
kissing them both and I feel like I’m falling from a great height.
“Love you, Dad,” Kim says, her soft cheek next to mine, rough from
not shaving since morning.
“I love you ten bucks a million, Daddy,” Jeremy says, kissing my ear
with a loud smack.
A single stitch joining the delicate fabric of time makes me feel as if
we’re of one spirit. I hold them both so tight, never wanting to surrender
this precious moment. There were loves left behind in the void, but none
so intense as the bloodline of children. Once experiencing the love of your
children, you can never assess the value of your parents the same way
ever again.
“Take me with you, Dad,” Kim says as if she instinctively knows I’m
leaving.
“Me, too, Daddy,” Jeremy says. “Don’t go.”
I want so much to take them with me, but I don’t have that right.
They have their own timelines to follow. Falling back beneath the cushions,
I refrain at the last second, but then release them. I drift back into the
temporary black void of transcendence . . .


It’s the heat and brightness of the sun that disturbs my contemplation.
A putrid stench flares in my nostrils as I open my eyes to see I’m on a screen
porch and lying on the old sofa that had been my parents’, was a hand-me-
down for my first house when I got married, and made the long trip from New
Jersey to Florida where I retired almost twenty years ago. There must have
been some magic in those slipcovers my mom made to have lasted seventy
years.
There’s a framed photo of my wife on a side table. An old woman
with white hair, but with a sparkle in her eyes. I wish I hadn’t outlived her.
The last of my medicinal marijuana lies on the glass coffee table beside the
hospice morphine dose in case the weed doesn’t make me forget I’m on
my final farewell tour.
Spanish moss sways like grey Havishamian locks from the trees along
the pond’s banks where “Wally” gator basks in the Florida sun as if he’s waiting
for me to make my move.
“Yes, it’s time,” I tell Wally. “I’m done.”
I recline, stretching the length of the old three-cushioned sofa and roll
toward the gap between the back and seat cushions. The old sofa swallows me.
I hear my breathing and my pulse and wait until I become so bored I try to find
my way back out. Groping for anything to hold onto, I feel something in the
palm of my hand. Is it what it feels like?
“Yes,” I say, taking the matchbook in both hands then striking a match
to light the void. I find my direction and follow the thin line of horizontal light
between the cushions.
I hear my brother Bobby’s voice calling me back.
“Okay. I give up! You win,” Bobby says with resolve. “Come out! Come out!
Wherever you are!”
I’m so glad to hear his voice again, so I peek out to see him. He looks no
more than eight years old, so I must be only five.
“Boo!” I shout, lunging at him from between the cushions. I grab him and
we wrestle onto the floor.
“Hey! That’s a cool hiding place,” Bobby says, pushing his arm between
the cushions. “It’s like a cave, a secret lair where goblins hide.”
I do the same with one arm still holding the matchbook in that hand. I let
go of it and withdraw my empty hand. I figure my life might be different if I make
better choices. I try to stop him, but before I can, Bobby’s feet disappear between
the cushions . . .
Perhaps we will cross paths again—all of us . . .

Pablo’s Discoteca
by
Geraldo Arturo Invierno


Instinctively, Dykstra took one last look over his shoulder before entering
Pablo’s Discoteca on the southern-most block of Spanish Harlem off Manhattan’s
96th Street. The thumping beat of the jukebox and the tacky glitter of year-round
Christmas decorations flashing around the long bar were familiar to the under
cover DEA agent, but as he gazed about the large single room to find his long-time
friend and crucial contact, he sensed that things had changed, subtly perhaps, but
irreparably. It was the early 80’s when no one who was living the dream at the time
ever realized until the millennium, that these had been “the good ole days.”
Much like the varicolored tropical fish in many tanks behind the bar, Dykstra
felt as if he were also on display. Not just because of his six-six 250 pound stature
standing more than a head above everyone else in the noisy club, he was a misfit,
an intruder from the past into the flashy world of a new generation of desperados.
Pablo’s clientele had always been a mixed bag and tonight was no different.
There were tuxedoed gentlemen and sleek, high cheek-boned models wearing
diamonds at the larger tables. All their eyes seemed to follow him as he ambled
to the bar. There were the slumming VIPs often insecure about their own relevance
who’d be muttering amongst themselves, “He must be somebody . . . do you know
who he is?”
“Modelo,” Dykstra told the bartender. He chugged the first bottle then ordered
another cerveza.
“Is Pablo in back?” he asked the veteran bartender. Dykstra had watched him
turn grey over the years.
A man in his thirties with dirty-blond, shoulder-length hair and a beard and
moustache to match turned on his stool at the far end of the bar. He wore a burgundy
velvet blazer with a custom-fit, sky-blue, silk shirt open at the neck, revealing a heavy
gold chain nestled in his thick chest hair. His light-grey slacks bulged at his muscular
thighs and calves as he swiveled on the barstool and came toward Dykstra with an
extended hand.
“Great to see you Dykes,” the younger man said, his smaller hand still giving
Dykstra’s enormous mitt equally crushing strength.
“Glad you could make it, Stark,” Dykstra said, scanning the crowd with more
filtering in from the street since he’d entered Pablo’s. “Place isn’t the same.”
“What is these days?” Stark said with a shrug.
“We used to be able to talk right here at the bar. Doesn’t feel safe now.”
“Tell me about it,” Stark said with a smirk. “C’mon. Pablo set up a private table
for us in back. It’ll be OK back there. But before we head back, I need a minute to empty
this wise guy’s bankroll with his baseball trivia challenge.”
“You still doin’ that shit?”
Stark shrugged. “What the hell. He wants to part with his wad.”
“Wise guy, huh? So the mob still hangs out here with the cops?”
“A lot of deals go down at Pablo’s, traded information that’s valuable to both
sides. The mayor has a slush fund just to cover all our tips.”
“Jeez. New York.”
“Gotta love it, Dykes.” Stark turned to the man seated behind him. “OK, it’s
double or nothing, right?”
The mobster said, “OK, Mistah cumputah head, what was Ted Williams’s
battin’ average and how many homahs did he hit in his final season, and what was
the yea’?”
“How can I be sure you know the right answers, Rocco?” Stark challenged.
“Quitcha bluffin’, Stark. I came from Boston and was at that game.”
Stark rattled off, “It was 1960 and “The Splendid Splinter” hit 29 homers and
batted .316. It was homer number 521.”
“Jeez! Why do I bother?” Rocco said. “Tell ya what. I’ll bet ya a grand you can’t
tell me what I was wearing at the game.”
Dykstra cut in. “What kind a bet is that?”
“He’s already taken me for fifteen hundred. Gimme a break, Stark.”
“I’m giving you a break by not taking your bet,” Stark said with confidence.
“C’mon, let’s make it two grand,” Rocco said.
“You wore a vertically-striped shirt with a button-down collar and tan chinos with
pointy-toed, paten-leather shoes, and a Bosox cap.”
“Madone! You’ve wiped me clean,” Rocco groaned.” How could you know?”
“A lucky guess, but that’s what everyone wore then, only you guys wore the
pointy shoes. The Bosox cap was a gimme. Until you told me, I never knew you came
from Boston.”
Dykstra had a rare laugh. “Are you for real, Stark?”
Stark said aside, “Rocco forgot he showed me a photo three years ago of him
and Williams. It was autographed to him, so I figured it was from that same day we
were betting on. No guess work at all. Right there in black and white.”
“Even so, you still had to remember all that from three years ago,” Dykstra said.
Stark just grinned with a shrug, for that was his gift and just one of the many
reasons they needed to talk.
As they stood from their barstools, a small, boney man in his sixties came
through the swinging kitchen doors beyond the bar. He was drying his hands with
a red-and-white-checkered towel. His white apron was stained red with salsa. He’d
wiped the sauce off his hands in preparing his signature recipe, so spicy the salsa
could blow a hole through the back of your head like a mob hit.
For Pablo’s regulars who thrived on his unique preparation, he’d sometimes
prepare it days ahead to let it marinate to perfection. Stark had called a week ago to let
him know that he and an old friend would be coming tonight.
Pablo squinted as he approached them then threw the towel over his shoulder
and scratched his scrubby chin.
“Mon Dios! Dykes is it you? Pablo said. “I thought you retired.”
“Hey, Pablo. Long time no see,” Dykstra gave him a bear hug.
“C’mon guys. I got that quiet corner for you all set up.” He winked at Stark.
“I thought Stark was gonna bring some nueva amante tonight and waste my efforts
with the salsa on some delicate creature with a sensitive stomach. Tonight’s salsa
may require a new colon by sunrise, but I’m sure you two can handle it.”
As Pablo led them to the rear of the club, their images were reflected in the
varnished metallic ceiling ten feet above.
“Sorry about the place, Dykes,” Pablo said as they were seated. “Ever since this
TV chica gave us a three-star rating, it’s been a boom. But the ambiance has changed
with a high-end crowd.”
“As long as the salsa and the music hold up, no problem,” Stark said. “I was here
last week and it was great.”
“Two more Modelos,” Dykstra said.
“Comin’ up,” Pablo said, leaving them to discuss their private business.
They waited till their beers came with the salsa and nachos so their conversation
wouldn’t be interrupted. They each dipped into the salsa, exchanged challenging stares,
and crunched into their nachos laced with molten red salsa. Their eyes flared, they
swallowed, then each took a long swig from his bottle of beer. Dykstra broke into a
sweat first, but Stark’s long hair became quickly matted by the internal heat. They
exchanged nods and repeated the ritual with the assurance that Pablo’s salsa was
still the best.
“You know I’m eligible for retirement,” Dykstra said. “So I sure as hell didn’t go
looking for this case. It was dumped on my doorstep, but I need your expertise.”
“You’ve got plenty of good people at the agency. Why me, Dykes.”
“You’ve met Thaddeus Horne and know a lot about him that the public doesn’t.
He’s under our surveillance, but as former CIA, he has top security clearance and could
get wind of our presence through all his wealth and connections.”
“Where’s this heading?” Stark asked.
“He’s heavily vested in cangrejos grandes, genetically enhanced jumbo shrimp,
in Ecuador. We think it’s a front, laundering money to finance a coup to take over the
Ecuadorian government.”
“Who’s we?”
Dykstra hedged, embarrassed to admit, “Just me and my informant.”
“Who’s he?”
“She, Malicia Fajardo. We both saw Horne’s people in Ecuador murder her
father.”
“Sounds too personal for her.”
“That’s why I’m here, Stark. I want you to work with her.”
“I work alone.”
“You need to make an exception. She has too much information and inside
connections in Ecuador to ignore their value, some are already deeply entrenched
in Horne’s full-blown operation.
“OK. We’ve got our team—you, me and this Fajardo woman. We follow the
money, and the bodies if any more than her father’s accumulate, but to what end?”
“There‘s an abundance of an untapped natural resource in Ecuador that could
change energy production for the foreseeable future. Horne wants a monopoly on that
resource. If you own the country, you own the world’s future energy supply.”
“Sounds like a down shift in the world order, Dykes. Can’t let that happen.”
“I knew you’d see it my way.”
“When do I meet Malicia?” Stark asked.
“She prefers to be called ‘Mali’ because when we were in the field together
it took too long to say, ‘Malicia, duck!’ She’ll contact you, probably when you least
expect. I gotta go, but I’ll be in touch after you and Mali connect. It’ll be sooner rather
than later.”
“I’m leaving too,” Stark said, but Pablo came to the table excitedly before
Stark even stood to leave.
“Before you go, Stark, would you mind? I got a wager going with one of those
high-rollers at the big tables.”
“Baseball again?”
“No-no, Stark, it’s the other thing.”
“OK, Pablo, for ole time’s sake, since Dykes showed up. But you don’t want to
turn your place into a circus. You’ll scare away all the informants.”
Dykstra had seen this display of strength and balance more than a dozen times,
so he just shook his head and left the club.
Stark proceeded to lie face down in the middle of the club’s hardwood dance
floor. Pablo’s Discoteca was at full capacity with the late night crowd of over two
hundred patrons. The regulars shushed first-timers, bringing the club to a sudden
hush.
With a jerk, Stark raised his mid-section so that only his extended fingertips
and bent toes touched the floor. His back remained straight with no arch.
Pablo had one of his waiters lend him a hand for support as he stood up on
Stark’s back like a surfer on his board. The crowd counted loudly and got to thirty
before Pablo lost his balance and tumbled to the floor.
“OK, who’s next?” Pablo shouted over the applause and whistles from the
crowd. “If you fall off his back before his stomach touches the floor, you owe the
house a hundred bucks! If he touches his stomach to the floor first, you get a crisp
new Franklin from the register.” He shrugged. “Hey it’s a business tax right-off for
me”.
Stark lowered himself to the floor waiting for challengers.
“Who’ll try it?” Pablo shouted like a circus barker. “Spectators may place their
bets of one hundred dollars either for or against Mr. Stark. You could double your
money, folks!”
Pablo’s eager patrons gathered around closer as Stark went back into his
rigid out-stretched position on the floor. Amazed that Stark could hold that pose
for even a moment without anyone on his back, the cash quickly flowed into Pablo’s
stained apron’s pouch.
“We’re still fifty-fifty on this, right Pablo?” Stark asked.
“Of course,” Pablo confirmed. “Why bother without that incentive? Then again,
you’re just crazy enough to do it for fun.”
“I’m seeing forty on the horizon, so it’s not as much fun as it used to be,”
Stark admitted. “Longer recovery time.”
Stark heard a deep, throaty voice above him. but couldn’t turn to see who it was.
“I would like to try it,” the woman said with a subtle accent.
From his position on the floor, Stark turned his head to see long, slender legs
which seemed to rise endlessly to the hem of her ruffled, black tunic, sheer and three-
quarters up her firm thighs. She glared down at him with wide eyes, ink-black with
a thermal glow of unspoken passion. Her skin was very dark, with sculptured facial
features, which Stark recognized as Serrano from his times in Quito.
She removed a wooden comb from her straight, black, glossy hair and shook
its shoulder-length folds loose. Her teeth were straight and flashed when she smiled
like sharp cutlery against her dark face. Her lip gloss drew attention to her most
attractive feature, full lips with a natural earth-tone hue that seemed to whisper a
promised seduction.
“Winner take all!” she shouted with her bright teeth flashing like a piranha’s.
Two thousand dollars was bet against Stark.
“What’s your bet?” Pablo asked her.
“I have no cash, but I expect to win. Will he accept me as collateral?”
Pablo looked down at Stark for his approval.
“What the hell,” Stark said, but had a shot of Stoli set on the floor which he
took in his teeth and drank as a show of confidence to demoralize his opponent.
When Pablo offered her his hand to help her balance as she got onto
Stark’s back, she declined.
“Thank you, but I’ll manage,” she said.
“But those heels,” Pablo said. “You’ll never balance with those shoes on.”
“Is that a rule?” she asked.
Pablo stammered, “Well, no, but—”
“Let ’er where them,” Stark said. “They’ll be her problem, not mine.”
With that, the woman stepped right onto Starks’ back. She held out her arms
gracefully, moving from Stark’s buttocks to his shoulders. She spun completely around
several times with the precision of an Olympic balance beam champion. Her audience
cheered and sighed with each turn.
“Now, I’ve made my show of it and had my fun,” she said to Stark as she dug
her stiletto heels sharply into his spine.”
The salsa beat from the jukebox keyed her cadence with each step.
“Like a great matador, I’ll bring down this bull quickly and cleanly,” she
proclaimed, working the pressure points between his shoulder blades then the lumbar
region where there was the greatest stress of bearing her weight as well as his own.
“Jeez!” Stark groaned, teeth clenched in a grimace and his furrowed brow
glistening with sweat.
“Come on, Stark-baby!” Pablo shouted. “Lots a bread on this one.”
It became a battle of the sexes with most women cheering for the woman and
the men rooting for Stark.
“Are those heels made of steel?” Stark growled in pain.
“Only wood,” she said casually, “but the hardest wood there is, Guayacan,
my fine bull.” She balanced on one foot, dangling the other flamboyantly, the sharp
stiletto heel readied like a sword to bring him down. “Are you prepared to fall and
become my trophy?”
Stark looked to the side where he saw her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
Feeling near defeat, he watch in the mirror for her strike. He concentrated on her single
heel cutting between his two vertebrae.
With a sudden shift of her weight, he put all of his strength in his right arm to
balance his weight and maintain his position, but slashed out with his left arm behind
him to grab her ankle. With a jerk, he toppled her like a rag doll to the floor but returned
his arm to its former position without his stomach touching the floor.
The crowd went wild and threw more cash at Stark for his grand show of
strength. He lowered himself to the floor then stood with a raised fist to acknowledge his
victory. With applause, the patrons backed away toward their tables around the dance
floor and revealed the woman on her knees and stlll hanging her head in defeat.
Pablo jumped up and down to the salsa beat from the jukebox and shouted to
Stark, “Don’t talk to me about Pablo’s turning into a circus, amigo. You’re my star
clown in the center ring!”
Stark extended a hand to the raven-haired beauty on the floor then began to
tap his foot to the salsa beat. Then he bobbed his head to the beat and she did the
same as he pulled her off the floor and into his embrace. She leaned into him with
one leg pointed behind her and her back arched with her breasts thrust forward. He
spun her and stepped behind her then reached for her hand behind him as if he’d
always known where it would be. He spun her back in front of him and felt her warmth
and her hot breath at his neck moist with sweat. For the next two minutes they moved
across the dance floor as if they owned it, with no false steps or missed beats. They
seemed weightless to the crowd observing them as well as to themselves. Each time
he spun her away from him, he had to have her again, and pulled her effortlessly back
into his embrace. When the music stopped, both stood facing each other panting like
dogs on an sweltering August afternoon.
Stark broke the silence. “You play rough,” he said.
“I can also place nice . . . very nice. You want to play with me, toro?”
He hesitated in silence.
She shrugged. “I Guess I don’t play rough enough for a man such as you.
I didn’t believe I could lose the bet. Perhaps I’m not an ample prize for such a
clever hombre.”
“Someone who looks like you in a place like this can’t be alone. Where’s

your date?”
“Oh, he left a while ago. So if you want to collect your collateral, I’m all
yours tonight.”
He nodded and led her to the private table in back that had been reserved for
him and Dykstra. He ordered a Campari on the rocks with a lime twist for her and a
Stoli on the rocks for himself. Off the dancefloor and under an overhead light at the
table he saw not just her beauty but a sinuous strength that held her together like a
steel trap. Her dark eyes seemed to be sizing him up as well, and from her dimpled
smile, favorably. They clicked their glasses with cheers. Hers, “salud!” His, astrovia!
“To us,” she added, and he liked the sound of it . . . us . . . there hadn’t been an
us for Stark for some time.
“Tell me then,” she said. “How do you manage to remain rigid for so long?”
Of course she meant the contest, but his boyishness made him return her
quip with one of his own. “I’ve had many hours of rigid training.”
She rolled her dark eyes and said, “Hmm, I see . . . we’ve danced, groveled
on the floor, and splashed each other with our sweat in the process tonight, but we
haven’t even been introduced.”
“Sorry. I’m Jeremy Stark. Pablo and my longtime associates just call me Stark.”
“What do your closest friends and family call you?” she asked.
“Jem.”
“That sounds too cute and cuddly for a tough guy like you.”
“It’s a homonym that’s stuck. My mom said I was a diamond in the rough as
an adolescent. My sisters said, ‘Yeah, he’s a real gem already. Thus Jem for Jeremy.”
Her laugh was disarming and made him feel like the cuddly misnomer he’d
been dubbed prematurely. There was something odd about how he felt toward her,
but he couldn’t place it yet. He knew he would eventually. It was his business to
evaluate people. Sometimes that could make the difference between life and death.
His or theirs. Not much difference in the mix.
He felt she was studying his face the same way, so he extended his hand
to hers across the table and felt its smooth warmth in contrast to his own, rough
and cold.
“And you are?” he asked.
“Ah, and here I thought you surely had the drop me, Jem. It’s a pleasure to
meet you. Just call me Mali.”
The candle’s flame on their table flickered in her eyes like two belly-dancers
gyrating to the salsa beat reverberating from the distant dancefloor. He stood and
pulled from her chair to her feet until the top of her head rested beneath his beard.
“Dance, Mali?” he asked and felt her head nod against his chin.
So their dance began, neither certain for how long, but both wondering if
there would be an end to the music even if their feet remained in motion.


______________

​The Happy Prince


From The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)



By Oscar Wilde 


High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.
He was very much admired indeed. "He is as beautiful as a weathercock," remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; "only not quite so useful," he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.
"Why can't you be like the Happy Prince?" asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. "The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything."
"I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite happy," muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue.
"He looks just like an angel," said the Charity Children as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks and their clean white pinafores.
"How do you know?" said the Mathematical Master, "you have never seen one."
"Ah! but we have, in our dreams," answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.
One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.
"Shall I love you?" said the Swallow, who liked to come to the point at once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer.
"It is a ridiculous attachment," twittered the other Swallows; "she has no money, and far too many relations"; and indeed the river was quite full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came they all flew away.
After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady- love. "She has no conversation," he said, "and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind." And certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtseys. "I admit that she is domestic," he continued, "but I love travelling, and my wife, consequently, should love travelling also."
"Will you come away with me?" he said finally to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was so attached to her home.
"You have been trifling with me," he cried. "I am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!" and he flew away.
All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. "Where shall I put up?" he said; "I hope the town has made preparations."
Then he saw the statue on the tall column.
"I will put up there," he cried; "it is a fine position, with plenty of fresh air." So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.
"I have a golden bedroom," he said softly to himself as he looked round, and he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under his wing a large drop of water fell on him. "What a curious thing!" he cried; "there is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful. The Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her selfishness."
Then another drop fell.
"What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?" he said; "I must look for a good chimney-pot," and he determined to fly away.
But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked up, and saw - Ah! what did he see?
The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity.
"Who are you?" he said.
"I am the Happy Prince."
"Why are you weeping then?" asked the Swallow; "you have quite drenched me."
"When I was alive and had a human heart," answered the statue, "I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans- Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot chose but weep."
"What! is he not solid gold?" said the Swallow to himself. He was too polite to make any personal remarks out loud.
"Far away," continued the statue in a low musical voice, "far away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion- flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen's maids-of- honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move."
"I am waited for in Egypt," said the Swallow. "My friends are flying up and down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus- flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves."
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "will you not stay with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and the mother so sad."
"I don't think I like boys," answered the Swallow. "Last summer, when I was staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller's sons, who were always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect."
But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry. "It is very cold here," he said; "but I will stay with you for one night, and be your messenger."
"Thank you, little Swallow," said the Prince.
So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince's sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town.
He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. "How wonderful the stars are," he said to her, "and how wonderful is the power of love!"
"I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball," she answered; "I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy."
He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of the ships. He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman's thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy's forehead with his wings. "How cool I feel," said the boy, "I must be getting better"; and he sank into a delicious slumber.
Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had done. "It is curious," he remarked, "but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold."
"That is because you have done a good action," said the Prince. And the little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him sleepy.
When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath. "What a remarkable phenomenon," said the Professor of Ornithology as he was passing over the bridge. "A swallow in winter!" And he wrote a long letter about it to the local newspaper. Every one quoted it, it was full of so many words that they could not understand.
"To-night I go to Egypt," said the Swallow, and he was in high spirits at the prospect. He visited all the public monuments, and sat a long time on top of the church steeple. Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped, and said to each other, "What a distinguished stranger!" so he enjoyed himself very much.
When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. "Have you any commissions for Egypt?" he cried; "I am just starting."
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "will you not stay with me one night longer?"
"I am waited for in Egypt," answered the Swallow. "To-morrow my friends will fly up to the Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among the bulrushes, and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon. All night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star shines he utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow lions come down to the water's edge to drink. They have eyes like green beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of the cataract.
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "far away across the city I see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a pomegranate, and he has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre, but he is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint."
"I will wait with you one night longer," said the Swallow, who really had a good heart. "Shall I take him another ruby?"
"Alas! I have no ruby now," said the Prince; "my eyes are all that I have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him. He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood, and finish his play."
"Dear Prince," said the Swallow, "I cannot do that"; and he began to weep.
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "do as I command you."
So the Swallow plucked out the Prince's eye, and flew away to the student's garret. It was easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in the roof. Through this he darted, and came into the room. The young man had his head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the bird's wings, and when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying on the withered violets.
"I am beginning to be appreciated," he cried; "this is from some great admirer. Now I can finish my play," and he looked quite happy.
The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on the mast of a large vessel and watched the sailors hauling big chests out of the hold with ropes. "Heave a-hoy!" they shouted as each chest came up. "I am going to Egypt"! cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and when the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince.
"I am come to bid you good-bye," he cried.
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "will you not stay with me one night longer?"
"It is winter," answered the Swallow, "and the chill snow will soon be here. In Egypt the sun is warm on the green palm-trees, and the crocodiles lie in the mud and look lazily about them. My companions are building a nest in the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white doves are watching them, and cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea."
"In the square below," said the Happy Prince, "there stands a little match-girl. She has let her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does not bring home some money, and she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is bare. Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will not beat her."
"I will stay with you one night longer," said the Swallow, "but I cannot pluck out your eye. You would be quite blind then."
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "do as I command you."
So he plucked out the Prince's other eye, and darted down with it. He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand. "What a lovely bit of glass," cried the little girl; and she ran home, laughing.
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. "You are blind now," he said, "so I will stay with you always."
"No, little Swallow," said the poor Prince, "you must go away to Egypt."
"I will stay with you always," said the Swallow, and he slept at the Prince's feet.
All the next day he sat on the Prince's shoulder, and told him stories of what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and catch gold-fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies.
"Dear little Swallow," said the Prince, "you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there."
So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway of a bridge two little boys were lying in one another's arms to try and keep themselves warm. "How hungry we are!" they said. "You must not lie here," shouted the Watchman, and they wandered out into the rain.
Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen.
"I am covered with fine gold," said the Prince, "you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always think that gold can make them happy."
Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children's faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. "We have bread now!" they cried.
Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the ice.
The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave the Prince, he loved him too well. He picked up crumbs outside the baker's door when the baker was not looking and tried to keep himself warm by flapping his wings.
But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength to fly up to the Prince's shoulder once more. "Good-bye, dear Prince!" he murmured, "will you let me kiss your hand?"
"I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow," said the Prince, "you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you."
"It is not to Egypt that I am going," said the Swallow. "I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?"
And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet.
At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.
Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in company with the Town Councillors. As they passed the column he looked up at the statue: "Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!" he said.
"How shabby indeed!" cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with the Mayor; and they went up to look at it.
"The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is golden no longer," said the Mayor in fact, "he is litttle beter than a beggar!"
"Little better than a beggar," said the Town Councillors.
"And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!" continued the Mayor. "We must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die here." And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion.
So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. "As he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful," said the Art Professor at the University.
Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting of the Corporation to decide what was to be done with the metal. "We must have another statue, of course," he said, "and it shall be a statue of myself."
"Of myself," said each of the Town Councillors, and they quarrelled. When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still.
"What a strange thing!" said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. "This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away." So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying.
"Bring me the two most precious things in the city," said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.
"You have rightly chosen," said God, "for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me."

The Elf of the Rose

by

Hans Christian Andersen(1839)

​
IN the midst of a garden grew a rose-tree, in full blossom, and in the prettiest of all the roses lived an elf. He was such a little wee thing, that no human eye could see him. Behind each leaf of the rose he had a sleeping chamber. He was as well formed and as beautiful as a little child could be, and had wings that reached from his shoulders to his feet. Oh, what sweet fragrance there was in his chambers! and how clean and beautiful were the walls! for they were the blushing leaves of the rose.
During the whole day he enjoyed himself in the warm sunshine, flew from flower to flower, and danced on the wings of the flying butterflies. Then he took it into his head to measure how many steps he would have to go through the roads and cross-roads that are on the leaf of a linden-tree. What we call the veins on a leaf, he took for roads; ay, and very long roads they were for him; for before he had half finished his task, the sun went down: he had commenced his work too late. It became very cold, the dew fell, and the wind blew; so he thought the best thing he could do would be to return home. He hurried himself as much as he could; but he found the roses all closed up, and he could not get in; not a single rose stood open. The poor little elf was very much frightened. He had never before been out at night, but had always slumbered secretly behind the warm rose-leaves. Oh, this would certainly be his death. At the other end of the garden, he knew there was an arbor, overgrown with beautiful honey-suckles. The blossoms looked like large painted horns; and he thought to himself, he would go and sleep in one of these till the morning. He flew thither; but “hush!” two people were in the arbor,—a handsome young man and a beautiful lady. They sat side by side, and wished that they might never be obliged to part. They loved each other much more than the best child can love its father and mother.
“But we must part,” said the young man; “your brother does not like our engagement, and therefore he sends me so far away on business, over mountains and seas. Farewell, my sweet bride; for so you are to me.”
And then they kissed each other, and the girl wept, and gave him a rose; but before she did so, she pressed a kiss upon it so fervently that the flower opened. Then the little elf flew in, and leaned his head on the delicate, fragrant walls. Here he could plainly hear them say, “Farewell, farewell;” and he felt that the rose had been placed on the young man’s breast. Oh, how his heart did beat! The little elf could not go to sleep, it thumped so loudly. The young man took it out as he walked through the dark wood alone, and kissed the flower so often and so violently, that the little elf was almost crushed. He could feel through the leaf how hot the lips of the young man were, and the rose had opened, as if from the heat of the noonday sun.
There came another man, who looked gloomy and wicked. He was the wicked brother of the beautiful maiden. He drew out a sharp knife, and while the other was kissing the rose, the wicked man stabbed him to death; then he cut off his head, and buried it with the body in the soft earth under the linden-tree.
“Now he is gone, and will soon be forgotten,” thought the wicked brother; “he will never come back again. He was going on a long journey over mountains and seas; it is easy for a man to lose his life in such a journey. My sister will suppose he is dead; for he cannot come back, and she will not dare to question me about him.”
Then he scattered the dry leaves over the light earth with his foot, and went home through the darkness; but he went not alone, as he thought,—the little elf accompanied him. He sat in a dry rolled-up linden-leaf, which had fallen from the tree on to the wicked man’s head, as he was digging the grave. The hat was on the head now, which made it very dark, and the little elf shuddered with fright and indignation at the wicked deed.
It was the dawn of morning before the wicked man reached home; he took off his hat, and went into his sister’s room. There lay the beautiful, blooming girl, dreaming of him whom she loved so, and who was now, she supposed, travelling far away over mountain and sea. Her wicked brother stopped over her, and laughed hideously, as fiends only can laugh. The dry leaf fell out of his hair upon the counterpane; but he did not notice it, and went to get a little sleep during the early morning hours. But the elf slipped out of the withered leaf, placed himself by the ear of the sleeping girl, and told her, as in a dream, of the horrid murder; described the place where her brother had slain her lover, and buried his body; and told her of the linden-tree, in full blossom, that stood close by.
“That you may not think this is only a dream that I have told you,” he said, “you will find on your bed a withered leaf.”
Then she awoke, and found it there. Oh, what bitter tears she shed! and she could not open her heart to any one for relief.
The window stood open the whole day, and the little elf could easily have reached the roses, or any of the flowers; but he could not find it in his heart to leave one so afflicted. In the window stood a bush bearing monthly roses. He seated himself in one of the flowers, and gazed on the poor girl. Her brother often came into the room, and would be quite cheerful, in spite of his base conduct; so she dare not say a word to him of her heart’s grief.
As soon as night came on, she slipped out of the house, and went into the wood, to the spot where the linden-tree stood; and after removing the leaves from the earth, she turned it up, and there found him who had been murdered. Oh, how she wept and prayed that she also might die! Gladly would she have taken the body home with her; but that was impossible; so she took up the poor head with the closed eyes, kissed the cold lips, and shook the mould out of the beautiful hair.
“I will keep this,” said she; and as soon as she had covered the body again with the earth and leaves, she took the head and a little sprig of jasmine that bloomed in the wood, near the spot where he was buried, and carried them home with her. As soon as she was in her room, she took the largest flower-pot she could find, and in this she placed the head of the dead man, covered it up with earth, and planted the twig of jasmine in it.
“Farewell, farewell,” whispered the little elf. He could not any longer endure to witness all this agony of grief, he therefore flew away to his own rose in the garden. But the rose was faded; only a few dry leaves still clung to the green hedge behind it.
“Alas! how soon all that is good and beautiful passes away,” sighed the elf.
After a while he found another rose, which became his home, for among its delicate fragrant leaves he could dwell in safety. Every morning he flew to the window of the poor girl, and always found her weeping by the flower pot. The bitter tears fell upon the jasmine twig, and each day, as she became paler and paler, the sprig appeared to grow greener and fresher. One shoot after another sprouted forth, and little white buds blossomed, which the poor girl fondly kissed. But her wicked brother scolded her, and asked her if she was going mad. He could not imagine why she was weeping over that flower-pot, and it annoyed him. He did not know whose closed eyes were there, nor what red lips were fading beneath the earth. And one day she sat and leaned her head against the flower-pot, and the little elf of the rose found her asleep. Then he seated himself by her ear, talked to her of that evening in the arbor, of the sweet perfume of the rose, and the loves of the elves. Sweetly she dreamed, and while she dreamt, her life passed away calmly and gently, and her spirit was with him whom she loved, in heaven. And the jasmine opened its large white bells, and spread forth its sweet fragrance; it had no other way of showing its grief for the dead. But the wicked brother considered the beautiful blooming plant as his own property, left to him by his sister, and he placed it in his sleeping room, close by his bed, for it was very lovely in appearance, and the fragrance sweet and delightful. The little elf of the rose followed it, and flew from flower to flower, telling each little spirit that dwelt in them the story of the murdered young man, whose head now formed part of the earth beneath them, and of the wicked brother and the poor sister. “We know it,” said each little spirit in the flowers, “we know it, for have we not sprung from the eyes and lips of the murdered one. We know it, we know it,” and the flowers nodded with their heads in a peculiar manner. The elf of the rose could not understand how they could rest so quietly in the matter, so he flew to the bees, who were gathering honey, and told them of the wicked brother. And the bees told it to their queen, who commanded that the next morning they should go and kill the murderer. But during the night, the first after the sister’s death, while the brother was sleeping in his bed, close to where he had placed the fragrant jasmine, every flower cup opened, and invisibly the little spirits stole out, armed with poisonous spears. They placed themselves by the ear of the sleeper, told him dreadful dreams and then flew across his lips, and pricked his tongue with their poisoned spears. “Now have we revenged the dead,” said they, and flew back into the white bells of the jasmine flowers. When the morning came, and as soon as the window was opened, the rose elf, with the queen bee, and the whole swarm of bees, rushed in to kill him. But he was already dead. People were standing round the bed, and saying that the scent of the jasmine had killed him. Then the elf of the rose understood the revenge of the flowers, and explained it to the queen bee, and she, with the whole swarm, buzzed about the flower-pot. The bees could not be driven away. Then a man took it up to remove it, and one of the bees stung him in the hand, so that he let the flower-pot fall, and it was broken to pieces. Then every one saw the whitened skull, and they knew the dead man in the bed was a murderer. And the queen bee hummed in the air, and sang of the revenge of the flowers, and of the elf of the rose and said that behind the smallest leaf dwells One, who can discover evil deeds, and punish them also.

RUDYARD KIPLING
THE CAT THAT WALKED BY HIMSELF

Hear and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild—as wild as wild could be—and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.
Of course the Man was wild too. He was dreadfully wild. He didn’t even begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways. She picked out a nice dry Cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in; and she strewed clean sand on the floor; and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the Cave; and she hung a dried wild-horse skin, tail-down, across the opening of the Cave; and she said, ‘Wipe you feet, dear, when you come in, and now we’ll keep house.’
That night, Best Beloved, they ate wild sheep roasted on the hot stones, and flavoured with wild garlic and wild pepper; and wild duck stuffed with wild rice and wild fenugreek and wild coriander; and marrow-bones of wild oxen; and wild cherries, and wild grenadillas. Then the Man went to sleep in front of the fire ever so happy; but the Woman sat up, combing her hair. She took the bone of the shoulder of mutton—the big fat blade-bone—and she looked at the wonderful marks on it, and she threw more wood on the fire, and she made a Magic. She made the First Singing Magic in the world.
Out in the Wet Wild Woods all the wild animals gathered together where they could see the light of the fire a long way off, and they wondered what it meant.
Then Wild Horse stamped with his wild foot and said, ‘O my Friends and O my Enemies, why have the Man and the Woman made that great light in that great Cave, and what harm will it do us?’
Wild Dog lifted up his wild nose and smelled the smell of roast mutton, and said, ‘I will go up and see and look, and say; for I think it is good. Cat, come with me.’
‘Nenni!’ said the Cat. ‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me. I will not come.’
‘Then we can never be friends again,’ said Wild Dog, and he trotted off to the Cave. But when he had gone a little way the Cat said to himself, ‘All places are alike to me. Why should I not go too and see and look and come away at my own liking.’ So he slipped after Wild Dog softly, very softly, and hid himself where he could hear everything.
When Wild Dog reached the mouth of the Cave he lifted up the dried horse-skin with his nose and sniffed the beautiful smell of the roast mutton, and the Woman, looking at the blade-bone, heard him, and laughed, and said, ‘Here comes the first. Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, what do you want?’
Wild Dog said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, what is this that smells so good in the Wild Woods?’
Then the Woman picked up a roasted mutton-bone and threw it to Wild Dog, and said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, taste and try.’ Wild Dog gnawed the bone, and it was more delicious than anything he had ever tasted, and he said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, give me another.’
The Woman said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, help my Man to hunt through the day and guard this Cave at night, and I will give you as many roast bones as you need.’
‘Ah!’ said the Cat, listening. ‘This is a very wise Woman, but she is not so wise as I am.’
Wild Dog crawled into the Cave and laid his head on the Woman’s lap, and said, ‘O my Friend and Wife of my Friend, I will help Your Man to hunt through the day, and at night I will guard your Cave.’
‘Ah!’ said the Cat, listening. ‘That is a very foolish Dog.’ And he went back through the Wet Wild Woods waving his wild tail, and walking by his wild lone. But he never told anybody.
When the Man waked up he said, ‘What is Wild Dog doing here?’ And the Woman said, ‘His name is not Wild Dog any more, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always. Take him with you when you go hunting.’
Next night the Woman cut great green armfuls of fresh grass from the water-meadows, and dried it before the fire, so that it smelt like new-mown hay, and she sat at the mouth of the Cave and plaited a halter out of horse-hide, and she looked at the shoulder of mutton-bone—at the big broad blade-bone—and she made a Magic. She made the Second Singing Magic in the world.
Out in the Wild Woods all the wild animals wondered what had happened to Wild Dog, and at last Wild Horse stamped with his foot and said, ‘I will go and see and say why Wild Dog has not returned. Cat, come with me.’
‘Nenni!’ said the Cat. ‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me. I will not come.’ But all the same he followed Wild Horse softly, very softly, and hid himself where he could hear everything.
When the Woman heard Wild Horse tripping and stumbling on his long mane, she laughed and said, ‘Here comes the second. Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods what do you want?’
Wild Horse said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, where is Wild Dog?’
The Woman laughed, and picked up the blade-bone and looked at it, and said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, you did not come here for Wild Dog, but for the sake of this good grass.’
And Wild Horse, tripping and stumbling on his long mane, said, ‘That is true; give it me to eat.’


The Woman said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, bend your wild head and wear what I give you, and you shall eat the wonderful grass three times a day.’


‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘this is a clever Woman, but she is not so clever as I am.’ Wild Horse bent his wild head, and the Woman slipped the plaited hide halter over it, and Wild Horse breathed on the Woman’s feet and said, ‘O my Mistress, and Wife of my Master, I will be your servant for the sake of the wonderful grass.’


‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘that is a very foolish Horse.’ And he went back through the Wet Wild Woods, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone. But he never told anybody.


When the Man and the Dog came back from hunting, the Man said, ‘What is Wild Horse doing here?’ And the Woman said, ‘His name is not Wild Horse any more, but the First Servant, because he will carry us from place to place for always and always and always. Ride on his back when you go hunting.
Next day, holding her wild head high that her wild horns should not catch in the wild trees, Wild Cow came up to the Cave, and the Cat followed, and hid himself just the same as before; and everything happened just the same as before; and the Cat said the same things as before, and when Wild Cow had promised to give her milk to the Woman every day in exchange for the wonderful grass, the Cat went back through the Wet Wild Woods waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone, just the same as before. But he never told anybody. And when the Man and the Horse and the Dog came home from hunting and asked the same questions same as before, the Woman said, ‘Her name is not Wild Cow any more, but the Giver of Good Food. She will give us the warm white milk for always and always and always, and I will take care of her while you and the First Friend and the First Servant go hunting.
Next day the Cat waited to see if any other Wild thing would go up to the Cave, but no one moved in the Wet Wild Woods, so the Cat walked there by himself; and he saw the Woman milking the Cow, and he saw the light of the fire in the Cave, and he smelt the smell of the warm white milk.
Cat said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, where did Wild Cow go?’
The Woman laughed and said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, go back to the Woods again, for I have braided up my hair, and I have put away the magic blade-bone, and we have no more need of either friends or servants in our Cave.
Cat said, ‘I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your cave.’
Woman said, ‘Then why did you not come with First Friend on the first night?’
Cat grew very angry and said, ‘Has Wild Dog told tales of me?’
Then the Woman laughed and said, ‘You are the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to you. Your are neither a friend nor a servant. You have said it yourself. Go away and walk by yourself in all places alike.’
Then Cat pretended to be sorry and said, ‘Must I never come into the Cave? Must I never sit by the warm fire? Must I never drink the warm white milk? You are very wise and very beautiful. You should not be cruel even to a Cat.’
Woman said, ‘I knew I was wise, but I did not know I was beautiful. So I will make a bargain with you. If ever I say one word in your praise you may come into the Cave.’
‘And if you say two words in my praise?’ said the Cat.
‘I never shall,’ said the Woman, ‘but if I say two words in your praise, you may sit by the fire in the Cave.’
‘And if you say three words?’ said the Cat.
‘I never shall,’ said the Woman, ‘but if I say three words in your praise, you may drink the warm white milk three times a day for always and always and always.’
Then the Cat arched his back and said, ‘Now let the Curtain at the mouth of the Cave, and the Fire at the back of the Cave, and the Milk-pots that stand beside the Fire, remember what my Enemy and the Wife of my Enemy has said.’ And he went away through the Wet Wild Woods waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.
That night when the Man and the Horse and the Dog came home from hunting, the Woman did not tell them of the bargain that she had made with the Cat, because she was afraid that they might not like it.
Cat went far and far away and hid himself in the Wet Wild Woods by his wild lone for a long time till the Woman forgot all about him. Only the Bat—the little upside-down Bat—that hung inside the Cave, knew where Cat hid; and every evening Bat would fly to Cat with news of what was happening.
One evening Bat said, ‘There is a Baby in the Cave. He is new and pink and fat and small, and the Woman is very fond of him.’
‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘but what is the Baby fond of?’
‘He is fond of things that are soft and tickle,’ said the Bat. ‘He is fond of warm things to hold in his arms when he goes to sleep. He is fond of being played with. He is fond of all those things.’
‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘then my time has come.’
Next night Cat walked through the Wet Wild Woods and hid very near the Cave till morning-time, and Man and Dog and Horse went hunting. The Woman was busy cooking that morning, and the Baby cried and interrupted. So she carried him outside the Cave and gave him a handful of pebbles to play with. But still the Baby cried.
Then the Cat put out his paddy paw and patted the Baby on the cheek, and it cooed; and the Cat rubbed against its fat knees and tickled it under its fat chin with his tail. And the Baby laughed; and the Woman heard him and smiled.
Then the Bat—the little upside-down bat—that hung in the mouth of the Cave said, ‘O my Hostess and Wife of my Host and Mother of my Host’s Son, a Wild Thing from the Wild Woods is most beautifully playing with your Baby.’
‘A blessing on that Wild Thing whoever he may be,’ said the Woman, straightening her back, ‘for I was a busy woman this morning and he has done me a service.’
That very minute and second, Best Beloved, the dried horse-skin Curtain that was stretched tail-down at the mouth of the Cave fell down—whoosh!—because it remembered the bargain she had made with the Cat, and when the Woman went to pick it up—lo and behold!—the Cat was sitting quite comfy inside the Cave.
‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘it is I: for you have spoken a word in my praise, and now I can sit within the Cave for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’
The Woman was very angry, and shut her lips tight and took up her spinning-wheel and began to spin. But the Baby cried because the Cat had gone away, and the Woman could not hush it, for it struggled and kicked and grew black in the face.
‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘take a strand of the wire that you are spinning and tie it to your spinning-whorl and drag it along the floor, and I will show you a magic that shall make your Baby laugh as loudly as he is now crying.’
‘I will do so,’ said the Woman, ‘because I am at my wits’ end; but I will not thank you for it.’
She tied the thread to the little clay spindle whorl and drew it across the floor, and the Cat ran after it and patted it with his paws and rolled head over heels, and tossed it backward over his shoulder and chased it between his hind-legs and pretended to lose it, and pounced down upon it again, till the Baby laughed as loudly as it had been crying, and scrambled after the Cat and frolicked all over the Cave till it grew tired and settled down to sleep with the Cat in its arms.
‘Now,’ said the Cat, ‘I will sing the Baby a song that shall keep him asleep for an hour. And he began to purr, loud and low, low and loud, till the Baby fell fast asleep. The Woman smiled as she looked down upon the two of them and said, ‘That was wonderfully done. No question but you are very clever, O Cat.’
That very minute and second, Best Beloved, the smoke of the fire at the back of the Cave came down in clouds from the roof—puff!—because it remembered the bargain she had made with the Cat, and when it had cleared away—lo and behold!—the Cat was sitting quite comfy close to the fire.
‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of My Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘it is I, for you have spoken a second word in my praise, and now I can sit by the warm fire at the back of the Cave for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’
Then the Woman was very very angry, and let down her hair and put more wood on the fire and brought out the broad blade-bone of the shoulder of mutton and began to make a Magic that should prevent her from saying a third word in praise of the Cat. It was not a Singing Magic, Best Beloved, it was a Still Magic; and by and by the Cave grew so still that a little wee-wee mouse crept out of a corner and ran across the floor.
‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘is that little mouse part of your magic?’
‘Ouh! Chee! No indeed!’ said the Woman, and she dropped the blade-bone and jumped upon the footstool in front of the fire and braided up her hair very quick for fear that the mouse should run up it.
‘Ah,’ said the Cat, watching, ‘then the mouse will do me no harm if I eat it?’
‘No,’ said the Woman, braiding up her hair, ‘eat it quickly and I will ever be grateful to you.’
Cat made one jump and caught the little mouse, and the Woman said, ‘A hundred thanks. Even the First Friend is not quick enough to catch little mice as you have done. You must be very wise.’
That very moment and second, O Best Beloved, the Milk-pot that stood by the fire cracked in two pieces—ffft—because it remembered the bargain she had made with the Cat, and when the Woman jumped down from the footstool—lo and behold!—the Cat was lapping up the warm white milk that lay in one of the broken pieces.
‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy, said the Cat, ‘it is I; for you have spoken three words in my praise, and now I can drink the warm white milk three times a day for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’
Then the Woman laughed and set the Cat a bowl of the warm white milk and said, ‘O Cat, you are as clever as a man, but remember that your bargain was not made with the Man or the Dog, and I do not know what they will do when they come home.’
‘What is that to me?’ said the Cat. ‘If I have my place in the Cave by the fire and my warm white milk three times a day I do not care what the Man or the Dog can do.’
That evening when the Man and the Dog came into the Cave, the Woman told them all the story of the bargain while the Cat sat by the fire and smiled. Then the Man said, ‘Yes, but he has not made a bargain with me or with all proper Men after me.’ Then he took off his two leather boots and he took up his little stone axe (that makes three) and he fetched a piece of wood and a hatchet (that is five altogether), and he set them out in a row and he said, ‘Now we will make our bargain. If you do not catch mice when you are in the Cave for always and always and always, I will throw these five things at you whenever I see you, and so shall all proper Men do after me.’
‘Ah,’ said the Woman, listening, ‘this is a very clever Cat, but he is not so clever as my Man.’
The Cat counted the five things (and they looked very knobby) and he said, ‘I will catch mice when I am in the Cave for always and always and always; but still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’
‘Not when I am near,’ said the Man. ‘If you had not said that last I would have put all these things away for always and always and always; but I am now going to throw my two boots and my little stone axe (that makes three) at you whenever I meet you. And so shall all proper Men do after me!’
Then the Dog said, ‘Wait a minute. He has not made a bargain with me or with all proper Dogs after me.’ And he showed his teeth and said, ‘If you are not kind to the Baby while I am in the Cave for always and always and always, I will hunt you till I catch you, and when I catch you I will bite you. And so shall all proper Dogs do after me.’
‘Ah,’ said the Woman, listening, ‘this is a very clever Cat, but he is not so clever as the Dog.’
Cat counted the Dog’s teeth (and they looked very pointed) and he said, ‘I will be kind to the Baby while I am in the Cave, as long as he does not pull my tail too hard, for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’
‘Not when I am near,’ said the Dog. ‘If you had not said that last I would have shut my mouth for always and always and always; but now I am going to hunt you up a tree whenever I meet you. And so shall all proper Dogs do after me.’
Then the Man threw his two boots and his little stone axe (that makes three) at the Cat, and the Cat ran out of the Cave and the Dog chased him up a tree; and from that day to this, Best Beloved, three proper Men out of five will always throw things at a Cat whenever they meet him, and all proper Dogs will chase him up a tree. But the Cat keeps his side of the bargain too. He will kill mice and he will be kind to Babies when he is in the house, just as long as they do not pull his tail too hard. But when he has done that, and between times, and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.

The Catch
by
Gerald Arthur Winter


The young boy had been casting his kudzu net into the shallows for several hours with
no luck. The minnows were too small for the hook on his make-do bamboo pole. He hoped for
a catch that day to match his appetite with a burn in his gut for several days after ingesting only
onion grass, dandelion greens, and one Tiger Lily blossom he’d snatched from an iguana’s sharp
teeth. Without a larger bait fish on his hook cast beyond the shallows before sunset, he’d go to
sleep hungry for the fifth day in a row. Uncle Tuatoo had warned him last week that five days
would be the limit for a forty pound boy under four feet tall before he’d begin to imagine
people and things that aren’t real, but which nevertheless could still physically harm him.
“You will meet your spirits before your time is right,” Tuatoo told his nephew, Zumbata.
“We all will meet our spirits sooner or later, but the later the better, hopefully when we are so
old that endless sleep is more comforting than a life of aches and pains and deep sorrows from
missing those we’d loved.”
“I would like to introduce myself to my spirits now, when I’m alert and agile,” Zumbata
told Tuatoo , the most respected elder of their village. “Then, after I’ve lived a full life, I’ll have
wisdom to share with my ancestors to make their afterlife a blessing of endless delights.”
“You have an upside down view of the universe,” Tuatoo cautioned him. “Time goes
clockwise while your mind spins counterclockwise. You’d best take care that your unbridled
thoughts don’t make the world spin off its axis and take us all with you into a fiery pit of hell
for angering the gods.”
“Kind uncle, I’m thankful for your concern for my wellbeing, but I can’t live this life
without challenging these rules governing our thoughts. They’re laws imposed by man, not
by Nature. And even if some should turn out to be true, they have no hope of real truth unless
they are tested. All laws must be pulled and stretched like my mother’s dough in preparation
for baking bread. How else can we affirm their justification? How can yeast make dough rise,
like my father from the dead, without my tugging at these hard-fast conclusions written in
stone? Bread is life, but stone is death.”
“Stubborn nephew, you will be the death of your mother, my beloved sister, if you don’t
quell these rebellious feelings. Since your father was lost at sea, she depends on you to fill the
void left by your father’s absence. He had the same unruly spirit that now draws you away from
our sad village.”
“What if my father, Chakotah, is merely lost? Perhaps he still lives waiting for his brave
son to bring him home to his waiting family. Shouldn’t I, his only son, attempt to find him?
Wouldn’t my effort to do so make my mother, Saluz, rejoice over my bravery? If I found my
father and brought him back to her, wouldn’t my parents tell the world they have the best
son ever born?”
“Not if you are their dead son, Zumbata. That would break my sister’s heart long before
her scheduled time to leave us. Her mourning wails for her only son would make her moans
for her husband fade into a solemn grief, so hardened that it could never be penetrated or
soothed, even by the infinite expanse of time. Even the gods would whimper for Saluz’s losses.”
“True, wise uncle, but just the same, I must try to find him. I have my whittled scrimshaw
hook, a bamboo pole, and fishing line tough and resilient that I’ve fashioned from my mother’s
coarse black hair. I shall live by my daily catch until I find my father. But don’t look so sad, Uncle
Tuatoo. If I remained in our village just to comfort my mother in her grief, there would be no
hope for my father’s return. If I’m lost, too, and never return, at least the village will carve my
likeness for the Shaman’s alter to honor my memory for my mother. Even in my failure to bring
back my father, I shall be hailed by our village just for trying, and my mother will be glorified
among us for all time.”
Zumbata’s own words from three days prior echoed in his head and curdled in his
stomach pained by his hunger as he continued to cast his net when the sun descended with
half its orange glow behind the sea’s distant horizon. The orange turned crimson dissipating on
the sea into vermillion sparkles that turned violet then were gone. Gentle waves lapped against
the shore, then the warm surf around his ankles made his bare, calloused feet sink into the wet
sand.
He thought he heard a water bird’s trill. but it was different from any he’d ever heard.
There was the whoosh of the surf followed by the trill, then a sudden tug on his kudzu fish net.
Perhaps a school of larger bait fish, he thought, or even a huge fish to stifle his starvation
for several days.
Just when he thought he’d lost his catch, a jolt from the net almost pulled him over
face-first into the surf, but his feet had sunk so deep into the sand that, even in his weakened
state of hunger, he could brace himself against the force threatening to drag him out to sea.
In total darkness of a moonless night, he couldn’t see what was in his net, but its strength
alarmed him as he resisted against it with all his might.
“I’ve got you!” he shouted, but only a trill responded.
He reached deep in his heart for his greatest strength to land the bulk trapped in his net,
but the exertion made him faint from hunger . . .


“Zumbata . . . wake up, Zumbata. It’s your father, Chakotah.”
Zumbata’s eyelids fluttered, but the sun was rising behind the backlit head of the figure
leaning over him so he couldn’t distinguish the face. The voice, however, was surely his father’s.
“Are you speaking to me from the dead, or are you among the living?” Zumbata asked,
but he was answered only by the trill. “I need to know the truth!” he demanded.
He heard heavy swishing beside him and turned to see a long scaly tail thrashing about
trying to get free from the net. He took a deep breath filling his head with an intoxicating scent
of jasmine. He turned back to speak to his father, but the figure was gone. The trill drew him
back to the tail now swirling around his thin bony limbs. Attached to the tail was the naked
torso of a young woman with a concave navel where a ruby the size of a Brazil nut was pinned.
Above were two pert, pink-nippled breasts, and long thin arms and neck upon which rested a
sweet, rosy-cheeked face. Her thin eyebrows were raised above her long-lashed, green eyes
that shimmered at sunrise. Her pink lips were pursed and from them came the same trill.
“Where is my father?” Zumbata asked her. “Do you speak Mandobaba?”
“I speak any language that is spoken to me,” she said. “I thought you were a blue heron,
the way you were standing with your feet so deep in the sand.” She trilled. “See. I was speaking
Squeesquakas, the international language of waterfowl.”
“I don’t know it,” he said.
“Of course not,” she tittered. “You’re not a mermaid.”
“Oh? I see . . . That’s what you are?”
“Well, I’m not a shark or a dolphin, but perhaps a combination of both. I’m a predator
like sharks and crocodiles, but I have a warm heart and breast-feed my young for a year until
they are strong enough to survive on their own.”
“That’s very interesting, but where is my father? He was here just a moment ago.”
“He joined me some time ago beneath the sea and we have a new family together.
Chakotah is a survivor, adaptable to any new environment. You have three half-brothers and
only one sister now. The other was caught in a kudzu net much like yours.”
“She’s dead?”
“Mermaids don’t die, like your father, we adapt. But she’s only half-mermaid, so she’s
mortal, but resourceful. If she takes after me, she’ll be around for the next millennium.”
“My mother loves my father. He must return with me. I owe it to her to bring him home
safely.”
“I’m sorry for her loss, but it’s been my gain. I can’t let him go. He belongs to me now.
The only way to free him, would be to kill me, but I’m the predator, you see, and you a starving
child are my pray. And you’re not much of a meal either. I’ll be hungry again soon. Have you no
brothers or sisters who’ve tagged along behind you, upon whom I might snack later?”
Zumbata grinned sweetly at her, which touched her tender heart as if he were one of
her litter.
“Perhaps I should fatten you up and make a better meal of you another day,” she said,
pulling him close and offering her breast milk.
But as her hardened nipple touched his lips, he reached into his pocket for his scrim-
shaw fishhook and forced it between her ribs into her heart. He was glad she seemed to
suffer no pain. There was no outcry, just a single tear down her rosy cheek quickly turning
pale. Lifeless, her eyes instantly dilated with a thin ooze of blood from her pursed lips.
“Good job, my son, “ Chakotah’s deep voice came from behind with a pat of his hand
on Zumbata’s bony shoulder before all faded into a deep abyss of muted darkness . . .


The morning sun hurt Zumbata’s eyes and made his head ache as he sat up to see his
father Chakotah, his mother Saluz, and his uncle Tuatoo seated on the ground around a fire
roasting a great fish on a spit.
“Once you’ve had a good filling of this tender fish you’ve caught,” Saluz said to him.
“Uncle Tuatoo says your wild imaginations from lack of nourishment for five days will bring you
back to normal.”
“Your mother is right, Zumbata,” Tuatoo said. “I can tell from the glare in your hollow
eyes that you’ve experienced things of which I’d warned you. But don’t be afraid, even if you
still have occasional nightmares about it when you’ve become a young man with children of
your own. None of it was real, or at least not of this world, the world we respect for its rules
and order.”
His father Chakotah said nothing but gave him a wink, which he found comforting until
he bit into a piece of the huge fish he’d caught in the net when he’d found his father washed up
on shore. He chewed around the hard bit of grit concealed under his tongue then waited till he
was alone in bed at night before spitting it into the palm of his hand.
The moon shown bright that night as Zumbata held his palm close to his face. He saw
his own wide-eyed expression reflected in the mermaid’s ruby, red like her blood and the
crystallized remnant of his father Chakotah’s unfaithfulness to his future children’s
grandmother, Saluz, the most honored sister of their village Elder, Tuatoo, whose
empathy for his wronged sibling was greater than her husband’s passion to stray.

Ally Can’t Move

By Amanda Phoenix



The last of the sage stick was crackling. It had burned down and nearly singed Ally’s fingertips. She never believed in the homeopathic way of treating ailments until Gary’s chest X-Ray revealed the spots. Large specks engulfed his lungs, and she would try anything. She called treatment centers as far away as Texas. That was a long ways away for someone who’d only left Florida once, and just barely crossed the Georgia state line at that. She would drive him there if his body held up long enough. She was terrified of airplanes. It wasn’t the crashing to her death part that bothered her. It was being trapped in a confined area with other people, especially kids and babies. She couldn’t get past the baby and kid part.
She laid the burnt sage in the ashtray on her nightstand and cracked the window next to her bed to sneak a cigarette. She felt guilty smoking after her husband’s lung cancer. Gary never said anything to her. He used to ask her to blow a puff in his direction. He had only quit because he literally couldn’t inhale anymore. His chest and lungs were so tight. He didn’t quit because of cancer. He already had it. She put the cigarette to her lips and drew in deeply. The dirt mound where she and Gary buried Senator, the pit bull they rescued as a pup caught her eye through the back window. Senator was laid to rest there when Gary was healthy, the day before his diagnosis. Of course he wasn’t healthy, but until you know that the cancer exists, you think you’re good.

Everything changed that day. He felt fine, but Ally had pressured him to have a full physical including the X-Rays. “Why don’t you do it too?” he questioned. She answered that she hadn’t smoked for twenty years like he had. She started later while he was being treated. That was the shittiest time to start. She’d never been a smoker and his habit repulsed her before she started her own. She had always resisted cigarettes even while growing up in a smoke-filled
home. Her mother too fell victim to lung cancer when Ally was fourteen. That’s the worst time in a girl’s life to lose her mom, she thought.
The day after Gary’s diagnosis, Ally bought six cases of alkaline water from Trader Joes. She called the store to request the bulk order, and a nice teenager brought it outside on a pallet jack. The manager she talked to on the phone told her to pull around to the back of the store. The teenager helped her load it into the trunk of her car. She had cleared all the shit out before she left the house—shoes, an old suitcase, two beach chairs, towels. He smiled at her when their hands met the same case and their fingers brushed each other’s. He was cute. She felt like a cold bitch for even thinking it. She thanked him and pulled away from the store.
Gary spit the first sip of water out onto the kitchen counter. “This tastes like shit.”
Ally took a sip from his cup. “It tastes no different than any other water. You’re just being a skeptic. I’ve heard this works.”
“You really think water is going to cure cancer, Ally? Well, fuck. I think I’m fine now.” He smirked at her.
“Don’t be a smart ass. They say cancer can’t live and breed in an alkaline environment.”
“Who says that?”
“I read it somewhere. I forget where.”
“Wouldn’t cancer be history if that was true?
You know I don’t believe half that shit
you read. I just don’t buy it.”
“Just drink the fucking water.” Ally slid the cup back in front of him on the edge of the counter. Some of it splashed over the side and onto the floor.
“Wait, you’re wasting precious miracle water,” he yelled after she left the room.
Ally had done her research. She spent four hours googling cancer treatments after they came home from the doctor’s office on diagnosis day. She couldn’t stand spending that much time on the computer. Why waste your life in front of a screen? Go out and fucking live it. Now, she couldn’t pull herself away. She had no choice. Chemo was too harsh and Ally never believed in it. She watched her mother deteriorate from the inside out during her battle ten years earlier. Why put Gary through that same hell? She knew she could find another way to save him.
She had to.
On day three, Ally spent the first hour of her workday on the phone with an alternative treatment center. The pleasant woman on the other end gave her a list of unconventional remedies. The woman explained to Ally that they were not cures because there was no cure. But by trying some of the options available, Gary could be kept comfortable. “I’m not looking for comfortable,” Ally said with haste in her voice. She felt like she was choking on dust particles. “There’s got to be something we can do.” The nice woman assured Ally that while there wasn’t a way to cure the cancer, chemo wasn’t the only option for improving Gary’s condition. “Chemo isn’t an option. It doesn’t improve anything. Believe me, I watched my mother come apart on that shit.” The nice woman gently asked her not to swear. Ally apologized. She explained that she was just frustrated and wanted—no needed—to find another way.
Ally spent the last hour of her workday googling acupuncture. It was number one on the list of remedies that had been discussed with her. She knew Gary wouldn’t think much of lying on a folding table while some hack loaded tiny needles into his body—all over his body. She thought about getting him high before telling him that she’d called his primary doctor from her work phone for acupuncture specialist recommendations, and made an appointment with the third one on the list. That he’d be going in for treatment in a week. She didn’t give him his
favorite drink or pack a bowl from his not so secret stash. She just told him. She knew what his argument would be before he said it. “Shouldn’t we just try the chemo?” It was nice that he thought about it as “we.” He could have told her that it’s his fucking body, and he’d take what he thought was the best route. But no, he included her. He tried her suggestions. “Fine. I’ll try a few of your hokey solutions. Then, we’re going chemo.” She nodded to appease him.


Gary didn’t say much when Ally asked him about the session. When he got home, he didn’t seem more relaxed. She’d begged to go with him, but he said no. He included her in the decisions, but not so much the results of the decisions they made together. She knew she couldn’t be in the room with him, and she honestly didn’t want to because the thought of the needles creeped her out. She wanted to drive him there and be in the waiting area when he was done. Even though losing him wasn’t an option in her mind, she wanted to spend every second that she could with him.
“Don’t treat me like I’m dying unless you’re ready to admit that I’m dying,” Gary said in response to Ally’s nagging about him not letting her drive him.
“You’re not dying, goddamn it.” Ally looked up. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.” She focused her attention back to Gary. “I just want you to let me
be part of this.”
“You’re not missing anything. I promise.”
Ally walked into the kitchen to pour a big glass of alkaline water. She brought the cup back into the living room and handed it to Gary. He rolled his eyes, but gulped it down. “How many of these remedies are you going to push on me?”
“I booked you a massage. It’s Tuesday.”
“Okay.” Gary’s forehead wrinkled.
“It’ll relax you. Maybe all this stuff I’m pushing on you will relax the cancer, too.”
Again, he rolled his eyes.


In bed that night, Ally plugged her phone charger into the wall outlet. Soothing sounds started to ooze out of the speaker. Gary popped his head up off the pillow. A female speaking in a monotone voice chimed in and told him to take a deep breath and relax. “What now?” he said.
Ally rolled over to face Gary. “It’s a meditation app.
I downloaded it today on work’s wifi.”
“Yeah, cause I’m worried about you draining our data plan.”
It was Ally’s turn to roll her eyes, but Gary couldn’t see her in their dark bedroom.


Over the span of three months, Ally and Gary did yoga in their living room in front of a beginners DVD playing on the TV. Gary gave up the idea of arguing with Ally for a while. He just went with it. He didn’t have the energy to argue with her. When Ally suggested something, he tried it out. None of it hurt him. Why should he have given her a hard time? She was only suggesting all of this to help him. She wanted to make him better. She had to make him better. But she couldn’t make him better.


Ally tried to move on quickly from Gary. After he died, her best friend Charity flew in from Michigan for two months. Charity was in between jobs. She’d been fired from the insurance agency where she worked for three years after she failed a drug test for the third time. They offered her treatment each time, but she refused. Ally was surprised they didn’t can her after the first cup full of positive piss. Ally thought that Charity wanted to get fired so that she
could be with Ally during her so-called worst days of grief. Also, Ally living in Florida didn’t hurt. Ally sometimes thought that Charity lived her life like she was always on vacation. Charity had been through more jobs than the years she’d been alive.
The two started going to bars the day after the funeral. Ally guessed her family, especially Gary’s side, wouldn’t approve. “Fuck em,” Charity always said when Ally talked to her about it.
“You’re a horrible influence on me. So thank you,” Ally said


A stranger Ally took to a motel room from the dive bar wrapped his arms around her waist and held her from behind. They had swayed back and forth to the country version of I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing in the area between the bathrooms and the unoccupied dart board machines. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered in her ear back at the motel. She didn’t want to hear that. She twisted him around and bounced him onto the bed. She ripped his jean zipper down so hard that she scratched his stomach just above his confederate flag belt buckle. She scrunched her nose at the sight of it. Fuck it, she thought. Just one night.
That redneck lasted just over two minutes. Either she was much prettier than he was used to or it’d been a while since he’d been laid. Ally didn’t care. She was used to being dissatisfied. He rolled onto his side, facing her. She sat up, and grabbed her shirt and bra from the night stand. He touched her hand softly and patted the spot on the bed right next to his chest for her to lie down next to him. She didn’t do cuddling. Especially not with him. She rarely snuggled up to Gary in bed. Why do we need to be touching? She whipped her shirt over her head and stood up to pull her skirt down (which never left her body) and stepped into her shoes. “Where ya goin?”
he asked. She slung her purse strap over her shoulder without answering. “Can I call you?” She said no and left the room.
On the way home, she called Charity.
“I can barely hear you, Al. Where are you?” The reception broke in and out and there was a lot of feedback from Ally’s end.
“275. I went to Brooksville.”
“What the fuck did you go there for?”
“I met a guy online. I met him at a bar up there.”
“You drove all the way up there just to get dick?”
“That’s not why I went.”
“So, no dick? You didn’t get any?”
“Well. Maybe two minutes’ worth if that’s what you want to call it.” Ally dropped the phone from where she had held it against the steering wheel while they shared a cackle that resembled the sounds of birds trying to kill each other. They talked and laughed until Ally made it back to her house.


Ally talked to Charity over the phone three times a week since Charity had been back in Michigan. “How the fuck did you do that?” Charity asked.
She never beat around the bush.
Ally had just bought roller blades. She knew she needed the exercise. Eighteen extra pounds had found their way onto her figure since Gary died, and she thought she should find a fun way to exert some of her energy, even though she never felt like she had any to spare. The city had recently added twenty new miles to the fitness trail, and it now passed right through her neighborhood. New flowers and palm trees were planted along the edges, tax payer money not
wasted on frivolous bullshit. Finally. She bought the skates at Brook Stone. She figured the more she paid for them, the safer she would feel.
Maybe they would be fall proof.
An ambulance pulled up alongside the trail to take her away. There went some of the tax payer funded sod Ally was so happy about. When the doctor came into her small slice of the emergency room blocked off by an almost sheer white curtain, she learned that she broke her leg in two places. How was that possible? She was on the skates for less than five minutes. She would be out of work for up to six months. Minimum of three. All she could think about was that she didn’t want to end up back in that fucking trailer park where she started her Florida life. Gary got her out of there, and now he was the reason she may have to go back. She saw everything slip away from her during the slow motion fall. Her job, the house she and Gary had built. The life she finally had.


Now that Ally was laid up in bed, she wondered if she should’ve handled anything differently than she had. Did she do enough for Gary’s cancer? Did she do enough for Gary? Did she give up too easily? Should they have been more aggressive with his treatment? Should she have been more aggressive with the doctors? So many questions. Absolutely no fucking answers. Ally could’ve really used Charity here now. She could have run her errands for her and helped her with her physical therapy exercises. But mostly Charity could’ve just been there.
In her bed, all Ally could do was think. About Gary. About the dozen or so men she used to fill the time so that she didn’t think about Gary every second. But she still did. Even when she was on top of another man or a man was on top of her or behind her, she thought of Gary. She remembered how soft and tender he was. He always took it slow until he was almost ready to finish.
She demanded her randoms to fuck her rough.
She didn’t want them to remind her of Gary.
She wanted to let go of him. At least while she was having sex with someone else. She wanted to let go of their sex. Their perfect soft gentle sex.
Ally tried to hang on to the house she and Gary had built. It was two thousand square feet—much more than the two of them needed. They had it built when they thought children were in their future. They had already moved in and furnished their new place when Ally learned that she could not provide a suitable womb for a fetus. Not only that. She would need to have some procedures done and go back on birth control in order to regulate her hormone levels. When she asked the doctor if it would be possible to try again in a few years, he told her that it wouldn’t be impossible to try anything. He left it at that. Two days later, Gary surprised her with Senator. Four years later, Gary and Senator were dead.
Ally wondered if she could have saved Senator with sage burning and chants and homemade natural lotions. She couldn’t save Gary with it. Sometimes she thought maybe the combination of remedies killed Gary faster. Maybe she should have started fucking strangers from bars before Gary died. Maybe that would have helped her. How in the fuck could that have helped her? Maybe fucking someone else could have detached her from him. Disconnected them completely. Maybe she wouldn’t miss their love. Maybe if she found the right random bar guy or frat boy or successful business man. Maybe the best way to get over one is to get atop another. Or under, but Ally was more of a top rider. Except with Gary. She didn’t mind being under Gary.
She had spent months going out with co-workers, taking guys to hotels—she never took them home—drinking much more than ever, all trying to drown out missing Gary. Before the rollerblades, she thought it might be working. She really only cried at night when she was falling asleep alone. No Senator. No Gary. “Get another dog,” Charity urged almost every time they talked. It wasn’t that simple. Just like getting another man wasn’t that simple. She married Gary
when she was twenty two. She lost him when she was forty three. Twenty one years. Twenty one years wasn’t something you could erase with a new dog
or a new man to fuck. She tried.

The temporary home nurse, Olivia walked into the room with a tray. There was a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato slices and a lump of cottage cheese on the side. Ally stubbed the sage stick the rest of the way out in the ashtray. Olivia moved in right after Ally’s surgery. Ally wished she could stay forever. She never needed to get up out of her bed while Olivia was around. She hated staying in bed. But it was nice not having to lift a finger for herself. There was no right answer. If she was stuck in bed, she wished she could get up. If she needed to get up,
​she wished she could stay in bed.
Olivia didn’t know much about Ally’s life before her broken leg. Framed pictures of Gary hung in almost every room in the house, but she didn’t ask about him. Ally never mentioned him either. Boxes were stacked up in every room. Almost every loose item had been packed, but Ally saved the picture frames for last. She wanted the reminder every time she passed the fire place mantle. She wanted to be an observer of her old life whenever she glanced up at the wall. That life didn’t exist anymore, and the photos were the only proof that it had.
Ally couldn’t walk, but she had to be out of her house in six weeks. The new couple would move in. They would make their own memories in Ally and Gary’s house. They would fill the home with pictures of themselves and their family. This new woman stuffing cake into her husband’s mouth on their wedding day. A new dog would sniff every corner of the house that his nose would fit, wondering who and where Senator is. Ally imagined the new couple’s dog would be named Rover or Bozo—something uncreative. She and Gary came up with Senator because he reminded them of a politician when he was a puppy. No one understood that answer, and Ally 
nor Gary could explain it. The new woman would want kids like Ally did. The dog would play second fiddle to a new baby. Senator probably would have too.
Ally wondered how this new woman would handle a cancer diagnosis. Would she take the same steps as Ally? Would she skip all of the hokey shit and send her husband right to chemotherapy or radiation? Would this new woman be willing to part with her long, glossy blonde hair as a symbol that “we’re in this together” when her husband started to lose his curly red top? People did that to show support to their loved ones. Ally didn’t know what she would have done if Gary’s hair had started coming out. She loved her hair. It was her thing. Besides her boobs, her long curly hair was her accessory of envy according to her friends.
Would the new woman sympathize with Ally’s situation? If Ally couldn’t move in six weeks, would this woman give her more time?

An excerpt from a novel


COMFORT GIRLS


by


Gerald Arthur Winter






Yoko was Chinese-Korean, a term that refers to Koreans whose parents or grandparents
had fled from the Korean conflict in 1949. According to their relatives who had remained in
South Korea during World War II and the Korean War, their ancestors had fled in the wrong
direction to China. Those immigrants had settled in the southeast province of China called
Manchuria. This area was regained from the Japanese by Red China after WWII. Although the Koreans who had settled in Manchuria continued to speak Korean and maintained their culture and customs, many married Chinese and the two cultures became entwined. Though ethnically Korean in the 1950’s, these people, out of necessity to survive, became bilingual and adapted many aspects of the Chinese culture. That included food and social practices which have stemmed from the mix of Asian ideologies and 20th Century Communism under Chairman Mao.

Though not as harsh as the North Korean austerity had been during the Korean War to
the present, China was undergoing a transition from the 80’s to the 90’s. These changes created emotional turmoil based on the slim hope of civil rights in the future for Communist Chinese society. Yoko longed for what America promised, so much that she found a way with several others on a cargo ship to escape China. She had no idea where the ship was headed, but among a dozen Chinese, she paid ten thousand yuan to wherever the ship would take her outside China.

The ship faced several storms on the open sea, and two of the dozen Chinese stowaways
died from dehydration after suffering seasickness and vomiting the little bit of food they had
to eat. Hypothermia took three more lives after getting drenched during storms. Locked in the
hull, there was no chance to dry their clothes. It was always dark below deck and Yoko began
to think her fleeing China had been a bad choice.

Cramped from dehydration and little space to stand or stretch made Yoko want to die.
She vowed to inhale the saltwater deeply if the raging sea flooded the hull. But she prayed to
Buddha to make her death painless. She preferred to die quickly. When she fell asleep on her
tenth day at sea, she expected to wake in Buddha’s Garden, or with waning faith, to never wake again and become just a minute particle of the vast universe.

With little hope or strength left, Yoko was stirred by a clamor at the hatch cover. She and
the remaining seven Chinese survivors squinted their eyes. A bright sunbeam from the blue sky above the deck gave her a sharp headache. Despite the piercing sunlight, the smell of fresh salt air brightened her spirit.

Shading her eyes with both hands to peer at the land, she shouted, “Thank you, Buddha!
I feel no pain. Though I’m dead, your garden is lush and beautiful.”

With asides in Chinese, the first mate and captain laughed at her foolishness and ignorance.

“Buddha’s Garden has a name,” the captain told her.

“I didn’t know,” she said with apology. “What is it called?”

The first mate doubled over with laughter then spat his answer, “Mexico!”

Two of the prettier, younger women were led away by a Mexican who strapped chains around their wrists and bound them together. When another Mexican came toward Yoko, she pulled a note from her threadbare shirt. The Mexican looked at it with a squint then grumbled to the captain, “Esta mujer es nuestra cocinera.”

“Okay, then take her to your kitchen,” the Chinese captain said in broken Spanish with his word rhythm curt and jerky like his native tongue. Yoko felt her Korean had an even flow
while her Chinese sounded like silverware falling onto a ceramic tiled floor—clinkitty-clank ... clickitty-clunk.

As the Mexican led Yoko along the dock, the Chinese captain shouted in a collage of English and Spanish, “Good thing she can cook. Her ass is too flat.”

The Mexican nodded his head then grinned at Yoko. He was her main contact in Mexico
to get her across the border into the States. Pablo patted her shoulder and smiled wide, toothy
and beaming white against his deep-tanned face. A friendly façade from a stranger, but Pablo’s wife was Chinese-Korean, so he knew some expressions that Yoko would understand to put her at ease. “Chosupso eeayo,” he said, making her smile and even laugh.

“They’re assholes,” he said, referring to the captain and crew.

Yoko spent two weeks with Pablo and his wife, Hwan Song, in her fifties and ten years
younger than Pablo. Yoko remained on a waiting list to join a party to sneak across the border
into Texas where another contact would provide fake IDs so she could find work in America.

The greatest impediment to Yoko’s finding work would be learning English, but that was her
least concern. Now she was a displaced person without a country.


When her call came to join a party to cross the border, Yoko was saddened to leave Hwan
Song and her kind husband, Pablo. Even life in Mexico for her was much better than in China.
She felt insecure about leaving the comforts of staying with a family she could converse with in her own language, but Pablo made it clear to her, saying,” Time to move it. America waits for you.”

Yoko was among a party of three women and seventeen men, all Mexicans. She was nervous with no one to talk to in either Chinese or Korean. She’d heard that many women had been


raped in these tunnel passages, but she’d been spared by the Mexican illegals and wasn’t threatened. Not until the Border Patrol officer, who’d been paid to look the other way, demanded that the group give up one of the women for his pleasure or he’d arrest them all.

That’s when the Mexicans stuck together to protect their own. The guard took his pleasure
with a gun to Yoko’s head, but she feared he’d kill her afterwards anyway.

The Mexicans looked the other way with shame in their hearts. Though over in less than
a minute, they were seconds that would seem a millennium in Yoko’s mind. She had come this far and was not about to weaken. Her Chinese-Korean contact in Texas was a welcome sight, and Yoko remained in that safe-house close to the border for a month before she was told it was time to move again.


* * *


Travel by bus or train was the least dangerous for illegals at the time. Prior to 9/11/01,
Immigration became lax once an illegal found a place to live and work. Being Chinese gave
Yoko better status and Immigration protection than South Koreans, because she was fleeing
China, a Communist enemy. That gave her refugee status. With help from bilingual Chinese-
American attorneys, she got a 30-day tourist visa. In the months to come, she’d obtain a temporary Social Security card, then she’d meet with a Korean woman named Lana who had become an American citizen and owned an Asian Spa in New Jersey.

“I will teach you acupressure and Swedish massage,” Lana said over bowls of kimchi
and rice in a Korean restaurant. Yoko was amazed to peer out the restaurant window and see
on Boulevard in Palisades Park, Hangul Korean characters spelled out on store fronts and traffic signs. The Bergen County town was second only to Korea Town in LA and Flushing in Queens with the most Koreans concentrated in America outside of Seoul.

Yoko agreed and learned quickly from Lana about how superior the art of Asian massage
was to all other forms of physical therapy by considering not just the body, but the mind and soul with every application. Lana gave Yoko her spa name, “Ginny.”

“Dress modestly with tight garments that are difficult to penetrate or remove,” Lana
instructed. “Let no customer touch you, never ask for a tip, but men will expect manual release.

We charge sixty dollars an hour and forty for a half-hour. I will teach you how to make them
cum fast—party over—Next!”

“Why, unni?” Ginny asked, her expression still naïve despite the tunnel nightmare.

“Until a man has that release, he could be all over you. Once he goes limp, he’ll be in a hurry to get home to his wife and kids. Help him get there, but never go along for the ride--
that’s big trouble.”

“Of course not, unni.”

“None of my girls are permitted to give out their phone numbers to customers or to everybody to see a customer outside my spa. If you do, you’re gone. Got it?”

“Yes, unni, I will do everything you say. Thank you for this chance to make money. I
have no place to stay. Will I sleep at the spa?”

“Never! That’s against the law. The town will shut me down,” Lana warned. “My boyfriend will pick us up every night and take us to our home. I want ten dollars a day from each
girl’s earnings to provide food, which I will prepare three times a day.”

“You are generous, unni.”

“For an hour customer you get twenty dollars of the sixty, on the half-hour you get ten
dollars of the forty. If you are good, they will tip well, from forty dollars to one hundred dollars. If you have a problem customer, you call for me. I will handle it. If your English isn’t good enough to understand that a customer might be asking for a blow job or sex, act dumb and say you are sorry, but we only give acupressure and Swedish massage, no boom-boom.”

“Of course, unni, I’d never do that,” Yoko said, recalling the horror of the tunnel and the border guard’s hot sweaty hands tugging at her garments, and forcing her legs apart.

“Spread your legs!!” he’d rasped.

She felt queasy now, just as she had then when he trusted himself inside her.

“If you ever endanger my business by offering sex to a customer, you’d be better off getting arrested and deported compared to what I’ll do to you. Do you understand me?”

Ginny nodded, trying to shut out the way the border guard’s eyes had consumed her.

Her body jerked recalling his rapid painful penetrations and the burning. She tried to hold back now with Lana’s sharp instructions, unlike in the tunnel, but those dark memories welled
inside her and her body jerked spastically until she vomited on Lana’s immaculate ceramic-tiled floor.

“Igo!” Lana gasped, but her attention was to Ginny, not her spotless floor. She took Ginny to the shower room and stripped off her clothes. Lana gently sponged Ginny’s quivering naked body. Their eyes met with knowing unity. “Poor baby. Was it the tunnel where this happened to you?”

Ginny nodded then shook and wept.

“It’s okay now, unni. You’ll always be safe here with me. I will take care of you.”


* * *


Yoko worked only three months before one customer began to request her twice a week.
George was a bachelor in his fifties. He would never ask for anything from Yoko, but he would kiss her hands before and after his massage.

“You’ve been sent to me from heaven,” he’d tell her.

Yoko learned English quickly because she spent so much time in Lana’s home where her boyfriend, Bobby, insisted that Lana speak English at home to all her girls.

“How the hell are they ever gonna pass their citizenship tests if you keep talking to them in Korean,” Bobby often complained. With a fast turnover of girls, none other than Ginny had
stayed long enough to speak English fluently.

“Thank you, Bobby,” Ginny told him. “My English is getting much better.”

“Great. So what does it mean if I say I want a blow job?”

Ginny’s eyes widened with understanding, but Lana stepped in from the kitchen with a
butcher knife waving in her hand as she said, “It means I’m gonna cut off your balls.”

“Jesus, Lana,” Bobby groaned. “I was just testing to keep her out of trouble.”

The comforts of Lana’s home and the respect she felt in the spa had begun to put Yoko’s memory of the tunnel behind her. George was the only man she’d ever felt completely comforttable with. He spoke slowly and softly, often in a whisper, telling her everything about him.

He’d dated a few American women over the years, but had never married. His parents had died some time ago, but he had one sister and they were close. He wanted to introduce her to his sister, so someone he trusted could see how wonderful they could be together outside the
spa. She could only tell him about her illegal immigration from China and the tunnel, but not
what had happened in the tunnel. She hoped she’d never have to tell him about that.

After he kissed her hands, she began to lift up her face for a kiss. They’d been doing that
for almost a year when he whispered in her ear, “I love you, Ginny.”

“I love you, too,” she admitted. “I feel at home with you. That I’ve known you forever.

“I feel the same. I’m so happy the moment I see you, but it pains my heart each time we
part. We must do something about it soon, or I’ll burst from sadness, Ginny.”

“My real name is Yoko. Call me Ginny in front of others, but when we’re alone, please
call me Yoko. Then I’ll know you love me for who I really am, and not just for what I do.”

“I love you, Yoko,” he said, making her sigh, and for the first time, their kiss lingered and
their tongues entwined with a flutter like a butterfly’s wings.

* * *

Though she made several friends with many girls who came to work for Lana, Ginny had
become Lana’s number one girl, the worker Lana could always trust and depend on in any situation. Lana and her life mate, Bobby, soon thought of Ginny as family. After more than a year of loyalty to Lana, unlike several other girls who used Lana’s spa as a springboard to become spa owner’s themselves, Ginny asked a favor, though her hands shook with fear over how Lana would respond.
“Unni, I must speak with you about a problem,” Ginny said.

Lana frowned. “Problem? Some customer bothered you?”

“No-no, Unni. I am the problem.”

“You are never a problem to me. What do you mean?”

“There is a man, a customer, who is very kind and gentle.”

Lana grimaced and huffed.

“Unni, forgive me, but I love him,” Ginny said.

“I could ban him from my spa! You’d never see him again!”

“That’s the problem, unni. If you do that, I will have to leave and go with him. We are in love.”

Lana had come to know Ginny’s heart as well as her own. She embraced her and felt her shudder in her arms. “Is it George?”

“How did you know?”

“Buddha tells me everything,” Lana said, wiping tears from Ginny’s cheeks. “You cannot
tell any of my other girls. We will tell them that Bobby is driving you to the bus to visit a friend in Flushing. George will meet you at the bus station on Saturday at 6 p.m. and Bobby will pick you up at the bus station on Monday at 8:30 a.m. George must never come to my spa again. After one month, we will see if you still feel the same. If not, you are welcome back and I will never mention it again, but George can never come here again. If you still want to see him in this way, you must find out all about him, his profession, his past marriages, his children, then you’ll tell me everything you’ve learned about him. I say this for your protection, because I love you like a little sister. If he’s no good, and you think he just wants to fuck you then leave you, you must tell me and be rid of him. If he loves you, he must marry you.”

“How can I thank you enough, Unni?”

“You can’t,” Lana said. “But I expect you to try.”


* * *


“I will never find such a wonderful woman as you, Yoko. Will you marry me?”

“Lana is my family in America,” she said. “I want to show her our respect by having you
ask her for my hand in marriage. The karma from this goodwill will give us Buddha’s blessing for all our life together.”

With Bobby at her side and Yoko and George across the table at Gregory’s Seafood,” Lana said, “You have my blessing, unni, but if Georgie is ever bad to you, I will put a curse on him forever.”

George blinked nervously as he took the engagement ring from his pocket and looked to Lana’s boyfriend, his fellow American, Bobby, for support.

“No idle threat, George. Lana means every word,” Bobby said. “And if Buddha’s curse
doesn’t scare you into taking the best care of our unni, my Glock 19 will, in case you’d like a
9mm enema.”

Hands shaking, George slipped the ring on Ginny’s finger with a sigh of relief, then asked, “What now?”

Bobby shook his hand and said, “We’re gonna take a limo to Atlantic City and get shitfaced at the casinos.”

George gave Yoko a look of concern, and justifiably so, because after five hours in Atlantic City, Lana had to be carried over Bobby’s shoulder away from the high-rollers’ blackjack table at 4 a.m. Casino security officers gave Bobby no choice. It was either him or them, who described Lana as, “Crazy as a shithouse rat.”

Though continuing to drink shots of soju until sunrise at home, the Koreans’ women’s hangovers would last another 48 hours. Buddha, it seemed in Yoko’s mind, had hung his head in disgust over two of his favorites, her and her unni, Lana. Yoko, thought that perhaps Buddha had stretched his blessings to the limit for Lana that night.

“I want more dancing! Come on! Let’s move it!” Lana shouted near 6 a.m. “I want more
soju!” Then she passed out cold with no recollection of anything she’d said or done at the casino the night before.

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO

by Edgar Allan Poe

(1846)

​
THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely, settled --but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.
It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my in to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my to smile now was at the thought of his immolation.
He had a weak point --this Fortunato --although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity, to practise imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially; --I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.
It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.
I said to him --"My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day. But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts."
"How?" said he. "Amontillado, A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!"
"I have my doubts," I replied; "and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain."
"Amontillado!"
"I have my doubts."
"Amontillado!"
"And I must satisfy them."
"Amontillado!"
"As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchresi. If any one has a critical turn it is he. He will tell me --"
"Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."
"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.
"Come, let us go."
"Whither?"
"To your vaults."
"My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchresi--"
"I have no engagement; --come."
"My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre."
"Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchresi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado."
Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm; and putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.
There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.
I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.
The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.
"The pipe," he said.
"It is farther on," said I; "but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls."
He turned towards me, and looked into my eves with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.
"Nitre?" he asked, at length.
"Nitre," I replied. "How long have you had that cough?"
"Ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh!"
My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.
"It is nothing," he said, at last.
"Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi --"
"Enough," he said; "the cough's a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough."
"True --true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily --but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.
Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.
"Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.
He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.
"I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us."
"And I to your long life."
He again took my arm, and we proceeded.
"These vaults," he said, "are extensive."
"The Montresors," I replied, "were a great and numerous family."
"I forget your arms."
"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel."
"And the motto?"
"Nemo me impune lacessit."
"Good!" he said.
The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.
"The nitre!" I said; "see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough --"
"It is nothing," he said; "let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc."
I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.
I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement --a grotesque one.
"You do not comprehend?" he said.
"Not I," I replied.
"Then you are not of the brotherhood."
"How?"
"You are not of the masons."
"Yes, yes," I said; "yes, yes."
"You? Impossible! A mason?"
"A mason," I replied.
"A sign," he said, "a sign."
"It is this," I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire a trowel.
"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us proceed to the Amontillado."
"Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.
At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.
It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavoured to pry into the depth of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.
"Proceed," I said; "herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi --"
"He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In niche, and finding an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.
"Pass your hand," I said, "over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power."
"The Amontillado!" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.
"True," I replied; "the Amontillado."
As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.
I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.
A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall; I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamourer grew still.
It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said--
"Ha! ha! ha! --he! he! he! --a very good joke, indeed --an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo --he! he! he! --over our wine --he! he! he!"
"The Amontillado!" I said.
"He! he! he! --he! he! he! --yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone."
"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."
"For the love of God, Montresor!"
"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"
But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud --
"Fortunato!"
No answer. I called again --
"Fortunato!"
No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat! 

DEAD ON ARRIVAL


A novel excerpt
From a Tom Larkin Mystery


by


Gerald Arthur Winter






The missing girl in the Caribbean was an old story, much like a girlfriend from


my past, and one I preferred to forget; but Kay Farr’s soapy scent preceded her as I sat


in my oxblood, leather recliner with my feet up at the Manhattan condo where I worked


from home.


Kay was one of the colorful threads from my past that made up the intricate


pattern of my life’s design. On our final parting, I thought that thread was all that held


me together. We were high school sweethearts, each of us the other’s first love at


sixteen—and in the Biblical sense, but never in the backseat of a car. I can’t speak for


her, but for me, the passionate entanglement had unfolded slowly, deliberately, and with


a life-long purpose.


When Kay broke up with me in college, my head stayed unscrewed for a long


time, but losing her kept me alive during my hitch in the Gulf War. I already felt dead


. . . buried in anger and chin-deep in sand. Now, even after twenty years, her essence


seemed to creep under the door from the hallway outside my office. Her scent slithered


like a serpent smothering me in its coils and ready to swallow me whole. I got up from


the recliner, went to the door, and waited for her to ring the doorbell.


I sensed that Kay was hesitant, probably ready to change her mind and leave.


Reaching for my suit jacket hanging on the doorknob of the adjacent closet, I quickly


put it on and straightened my tie, still rumpled from my afternoon nap.


I startled Kay when I jerked the door open as if I were on my way out and


unaware of her presence. She put her hand to her quivering lips, just as I remembered


with a supple bottom lip that I used to clench gently in my teeth, like an equestrian’s


light grasp of the reins subtly guiding her.


I stared blankly at her in silence, giving her the chance to speak first. She looked


like she might faint as her eyelids fluttered, so I broke the awkward silence.


“I was just leaving to meet a client,” I said, acting as if I didn’t recognize her.


An absurd idea, since she looked as great as ever with her sleek, athletic figure filled out


only in all the right places. “My secretary is on vacation, so you’ll have to call next week


for an appointment.”


“Tom, it’s me—Kay,” she said, pausing cautiously for my reaction.


With the vision of calendar years rolling back to a time before we’d broke up, I


wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her. I didn’t want to be twenty years old again.


Hell, I didn’t even want to be forty again, but a part of me wanted her back, wanted us


back, to a time where nothing else mattered except being together.


“Of course it’s you,” I said with a smirk to put her at ease, but also to scare


her a little, just for her own good. I was poison—so she’d told me when she gave me


back the engagement ring. “I knew it was you the moment you stepped off the elevator


down the hall.”


Thrown by my remark, her eyes darted nervously back and forth.


“Do you have a surveillance camera in the hall? Is that how you knew?


Did you see me on a monitor from here?”


“No. You’re wearing the same perfume you wore the night of the prom,” I


said, grinning when her expression showed she was guilty as charged.


“Do you expect me to believe that you could smell my perfume through some


high-tech security device?”


Tapping my nose with my index finger, I confessed, “Call it what you like. It


was animal magnetism back then . . . still is. So, are you going to stand in the hallway


or come in?”


“You said you were leaving for an appointment.”


“Just playing hard to get. I tried everything else in the past, with no luck. Please,


come in.” I motioned toward the sofa. “Coffee?”


“OK. If you are.”


Entering my apartment, she clutched the collar of her spring coat as if she read


my mind, but when I furrowed my brow in protest, she unbuttoned the collar, revealing


the creased neck of a middle-aged woman.


“Still two sugars and heavy on the milk?” I asked as I put on the coffee pot.


“No. Black, but not too strong,” she said, removing her bright orange coat,


probably the latest fashion, but I wasn’t one to know or care. Revealing her trim figure,


she draped the coat over her arm and stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. “If


you prefer yours strong, just add water to mine.”


“You don’t look like a watered-down version of the girl I used to know.” She


appeared uncomfortable with my comment, her arms folded in defense. “Just drape your


coat over the sofa,” I said, rummaging through the fridge. I sniffed the milk and stifled a


gag, relieved she didn’t want any.


With my secretary on vacation, I had no one to tend to life’s details beyond the


basics of my private investigator’s existence, essentially, seek and find—lock and load.


Mona, had been away too long already. In just three days of Mona’s absence decay had


begun to settle in wherever I tread.


I called to Kay from behind the fridge door, “Sorry, I have nothing to go with the


coffee! I could order up some doughnuts or Danish if you’re hungry!”


“I’m fine, Tom,” she said as I brought the coffee on a tray and set it down in front


of her on the coffee table, chipped and stained with rings ranging from coffee to bourbon.


Running her delicate fingers around the floral patterns on the arm of the sofa, she took a


sip of coffee then hesitated to put the cup down on the table.


I grinned. “Please, Kay, by all means leave your mark.” With the old poison


coming to the surface, I said over the rim of my cup, “Your stain may be the only


memento I’ll have of our past . . . especially since they’ve torn down The Old Milk Barn


in Jersey where I’d carved Tom & Kay in one of the beams.”


Probably thinking her decision to contact me was a bad one, she froze with the


cup raised to her lips, then tears welled in her eyes. Part of me was glad—payback for all


the pain I’d felt over losing her—even though so long ago when I was still a stranger to


the marred spirit who now possessed me. You might see me in the bright Caribbean sun


at noon, but the darkness of my past would still chill you to the core. Some women may


have mistaken me for a Renaissance man, but the contrasts of lights and shadows of my


checkered past were not the artistic chiaroscuro of a Rembrandt.


“I’m not here for the reason you probably think,” she said. “This isn’t about us


. . . there is no us. This is business . . . important painful business . . . something crucial


to a dear friend who needs your professional help.”


I put down my cup and took a deep breath to regain the wind she knocked out of


me. My imagination of any rekindled flame between us momentarily flickered then died.


I snapped angrily, “You could’ve just called me for that without putting me


through this agonizing exercise in futility. I’m in the book and have a Website, so your


boyfriend didn’t need your intercession to reach me.”


“Girlfriend, Tom. My roommate from college has a desperate situation,” she


scolded me with a glare that asked—Can you still be jealous after all these years?


“Sally?” I asked, remembering her roommate from Douglass College, but what


stuck in my mind most was Sally’s disapproval of me. “No wonder she sent you as her


emissary; she’d rather die than come to me for help.”


“It must be obvious why you’re her last resort,” Kay said with puppy eyes, but


nothing registered. “Her tragedy’s been dragged through the news for so long.”


“Sorry, Kay. You’ve lost me. I’ve seen nothing in the news about Sally Heidt,”


I said, but realized that was her maiden name. Still, I came up empty. “I guess Sally


must be married . . . poor bastard, whoever her husband is.”


“And you’re a detective?” she said, seeming to enjoy watching me squirm in my


misery of self-pity over lost opportunities. Then she atoned with reassurance. “Yes, she


married then divorced. Her married name is Simon, but her daughter’s last name is from


Sally’s first husband, Sandler . . . her daughter is Joy Sandler.”


I felt foolish and flattered at the same time—foolish because Joy Sandler had


been missing for years and everyone had their opinion about who might have killed her


—flattered because someone believed I could help when everyone else had given up.


“I’m sorry for her loss,” I said with a shrug. “I never made that connection . . .


didn’t even recognize her from all those news interviews. She hasn’t held up as well as


you over time.”


“Her physical deterioration started about five years ago after the first anniversary


of Joy’s disappearance,” Kay said, slumping her shoulders. “We were like sisters before


that, but her loss took the life out of her.”


“What can I possibly do at this point except give Sally false hope? The FBI, the


Colombian National Police, and Isla Rameras locals exhausted all their suspects, and


if she’d been dumped at sea, if anything was going to wash up, it would’ve long ago.”


“I just need you to try. That’s all.” Kay put her hand on my arm. “This could give


her closure, knowing you ran through it all just one more time on her behalf.”


“I sympathize, but if I do anything at all, it won’t be for Sally and it won’t be for


you,” I assured her. “Is the half-million still in the pot?”


“What?” she stood up from the sofa and scolded. “Of course! That money has


been in escrow for years, but I need to know you’ll take this case for a better reason than


the reward. This is personal!”


“It’s personal for me too,” I assured her. “This is for Joy. If Sally expects me to


move mountains to find her daughter, I’ll need that pot to do what’s necessary. If I find


Joy alive, or bring her murderer to justice, it’ll cost a half mil.”


“What makes you think Sally has that kind of money?”


“I seem to recall her first husband was a retired cop,” I said with a smirk. “Ray


Sandler was shot in the line of duty, but while on disability, he won the New York Mega


Millions lottery worth about fifty million after taxes. I seem to recall that a Sally Sandler


appealed for a fifty per cent settlement on that fortune in divorce court.”


Kay’s nose wrinkled with repugnance. She’d learned from experience that the


havoc of the poison I wreaked, though odorless and colorless, was still deadly when


the fumes caught anyone off guard.


“I have no authority,” Kay said with obvious disappointment in her expression.


“I’ll have to tell Sally what you want.”


“What I want . . . is to find her daughter alive. That’s all she needs to know,”


When the money is in my account, I’m hers till I find Joy or whoever killed her.”


“With so much money, Tom, where would you start?” Kay asked as I helped her


on with her coat.


Leading her to the door then opening it for her exit, I said, “When it comes to


murder, I always follow the blood.”


“Will you fly to Isla Rameras?”


“The blood starts here in the U.S.A.”


“Where?”


“In New Jersey.”


“I don’t get it, Tom.”


“Joy’s blood father is a high roller in Atlantic City.”


“I don’t think Sally knows that. They’ve had no contact for years. How do you


know?”


“We ex-cops have our own network.”


“You suspect Joy’s father?”


“Not particularly, but no one ever followed that trail. Time to look in other


directions where somebody might not have covered his or her tracks. I don’t know what


the motive could be yet, but maybe in someone’s mind, when Joy Sandler arrived in Isla


Rameras, she was already dead on arrival.






______________________




Ray Sandler wasn’t the type to lay low. He’d publicly put up the half-million


dollar reward to find his daughter, so I felt no guilt about asking his ex-wife to cough up


the same amount to give me a jump-start. I had no personal connection to Ray, but when


I was being processed in Hackensack for back vacation and sick pay due to me from my


switchover from New Jersey law enforcement to DEA, Ray was in the news about his


disability from a shoot-out at a bank heist in Teaneck that ended on the New Jersey


Turnpike.


Ray shot both bank robbers after a high-speed chase that resulted in his killing


both culprits in the cattail swamps of the Meadowlands. Ray had state troopers for back-


up when his partner was killed in the shootout. All of this was public knowledge when it


happened, but then resurfaced in the media when his daughter disappeared almost seven


years ago. I’d never made the connection to his ex-wife, my high school sweetheart’s best


friend, Sally Heidt when I knew her.


Since the only abduction case I ever worked on was my niece’s, I was relieved


that Joy Sandler wasn’t kin. Still, the tie to Kay Farr was enough to make it worse. My


first resolution was to assume Joy was alive. Not easy, considering the history, so I


convinced myself that she’d vanished yesterday, and that I was bringing the news to


her father for the first time. With the five hundred grand wired to my bank account that


morning, I could convince myself of many things.


As Neptune was to Asbury Park, seeking a new identity on the outskirts, Margate,


was to Atlantic City, and hadn’t caught up to the casino boom as it remained in transition


as a place where much of the ethnic minority, casino hired-help humbly resided.


Not a gambler, my only connection to Atlantic City was the Steel Pier. When I


was kid, the Miss America Pageant every September was my only other link to AC that I


could still look back on with a smile. Perhaps Ray Sandler was always a gambler, but I


couldn’t fathom the thinking of a man who, after hitting the long shot of the Mega


Millions jackpot, would spend the next decade throwing away even a dime of it back to


the casinos.


Though the concept of a high roller’s lifestyle escaped me, I was told by friends


who enjoyed recreational gambling that high rollers combined a rare combination of


natural luck and perks—freebies on the house. Many a wannabe high roller bit the dust


and ransomed their souls in the process, so the real McCoy was a curiosity I looked


forward to meeting.


As I headed south at 8 a.m. Ventnor Avenue displayed shops on the east side


with a few boarded-up windows with For Rent signs displayed. Pastel-colored high-rise


condos lined the west side facing the bay. I turned left off Ventnor onto Benson where


Mexican day laborers lined up at a Spanish mission. At the end of the short block, I


turned right, heading south on Atlantic Avenue, the main drag along the beach front


where I caught a glimpse of a National Historic Site, the statue of Lucy the Elephant.



Sizing up the neighborhood, I figured Ray must’ve done well for himself by


buying his home when the area was worth half its current value. With the price of gas, it


was probably cheaper for him to hail a cab to the casino, and also to drink as many free


cocktails as he wished without worry about a DUI heading home.


I parked on the opposite side of the street of Sandler’s home as my GPS let me


know I’d arrived at my destination.


“Will there be anything else, Mr. Larkin?” the female version of Hal inquired, like


in 2001 Space Odyssey.


“No, thanks but I look forward to the future when you can just beam me up to my


destination. Have a great day.”


“You, too, Mr. Larkin.”


Ray Sandler’s address disappeared from my radio screen. I got out of my car and


ambled slowly across the street, which was quiet with little traffic just before the beach


season started. The locals needed less than ten minutes to get to work at the casinos. It


appeared that Sandler recently added a second floor to the original structure of his home,


so I assumed he still prospered from his gambling.


The house was probably worth three million a few years ago, but even with the


addition, worth less than two million since the recent real estate debacle. I wondered if


that bothered a high roller, or if the mentality of a gambler even considered the nuances


of risk leveraging. When I leaned on the doorbell, after a few seconds, I had half my


answer standing in the open doorway.


She was about thirty-five with a perfect, though freckled, tan that accented the


long blond hair, natural and flowing—a rarity. Her big hazel eyes seemed to take me in


with a severity that was a bit unnerving. There was a long silence between our mutual


assessments before she cocked her head in a gesture for me to state my business.


“Tom Larkin. I’m a private investigator and need to speak to Ray in regard to his


missing daughter . . . Joy.”


“You vant to shpeak vit Raymont?” she asked with a whistling accent that seemed


to drip with sauerkraut.


I kept my heels from clicking together as I said, “Ya.”


“Vat iz your namp again?”


“Tom Larkin. Tell him I’m a former cop, like him.”


“Vait here, Mr. Larkin. I vill ask if he vill see you.”


When she turned to get Ray, she left the door open, so I stepped in and watched


from the foyer as she climbed an open staircase to the second floor. She wore a lime


green thong bikini, which gave me a vision of ping pong balls tumbling for a lottery


drawing as her butt cheeks, bisected by a thin green line, rotated with her ascent. I


wondered if Ray kept her around as a good luck charm just to remind him of the Mega


Millions bonanza he’d won.


From the foyer, I heard Ray ranting, “What the hell, Astrid! I don’t wanna see


anybody before I go to the casino. Bad—fucking--karma!” Then there was a long silence


and I saw Ray on the second floor landing tying his paisley silk bathrobe as he tried to


identify me from a distance without his glasses, which he put on as he lumbered in his


awkward descent toward me.


“I’m sorry to disturb you so early in the day, Mr. Sandler,” I said in formal mode.


“But your ex-wife has hired me to assist in the case of your missing daughter, Joy.”


“Ya gotta be—fucking—kiddin’ me?” he said, pulling a crumpled pack of


cigarettes from his bathrobe pocket and lighting one with a lighter that looked like 24


karat gold. “It’s been what—six, almost seven years? We all need to move on. What


does Sally think anyone can do at this point. This is nuts!”


“Then why do you continue to keep the half-million-dollar reward posted on the


internet?”


“Because I can afford to—that’s why!” Ray said proudly, as his pock-marked


cheeks turned red. “It’s a long shot, but worth the gamble to get Joy back . . . or at least


to see that her killers burn in hell.”


“So you think she’s dead?”


“I’m a gambler . . . so let’s just say, at this point, I wouldn’t bet on her being


alive.”


He took a long drag on his bent cigarette then peered over the top of his cheapo


magnifying specs to assess me from two ranges. When he came closer, the stench of


stale cologne and sweat closed my throat with a defensive gag.


“Where the fuck do I know you from?” he grimaced. “You we’re a cop too,


right?” I nodded. “Yeah, I caught your drift from the second floor. I suppose if I


hadn’t made my big score, I’d be a shamus just like you.”


“I don’t think just like me. I’m one of kind. That’s why your ex hired me.”


He motioned toward the staircase behind him. “A year ago I thought Astrid was


one of a kind, but I’m already tired of screwin’ her. I had a bald chick before her. I used


to rub her head before each draw at the table, my good luck charm. When I start to break


even, the charm’s over. I’m feelin’ the need for a redhead soon to sway the tide back in


my favor.”


“Personally, I’m 0 for 2 with redheads,” I said. “and not looking for strike three.”


Ray nodded in appreciation.


“Will you answer a few questions?”


“What the hell. I’m not due at the tables till noon. I got in at four o’clock this


morning, so I’m not focussed. Have a seat. Coffee?”


I nodded.


“Astrid, bring us some java!” he shouted, as I sat at the end of a sofa and he in


a tan, suede recliner. He cranked the chair open, making me feel like a proctologist with


a view of his stained tighty-whities and varicose veins on his hairy thighs.


From the landing above us, Astrid snapped, “Iv you tink you cant replace me vit a


redhet, you are mistakent, Raymont!”


“Ya! Ya!” Ray smirked. “Just bring the damn coffee, weiner schnitzel!” Aside to


me, he said, “Sometimes these Heinies forget we won the fuckin’ war . . . both of ’em.”


“Where’d you find her?” I asked. “I must say, she’s stunning.”


“Believe me, her looks ain’t the half of it. She could suck a cherrystone out of its


shell without opening it.”


That image wavered briefly in my mind as I thought about my client, Ray’s


ex-wife, Sally. Whatever attracted that stuck-up cheerleader to this bum? His ship


hadn’t come in until after it was all over between them. Sally must’ve been bitter about


Ray’s bonanza since she’d tried to increase her alimony when his winning the lottery hit


the news. But after she remarried, money wasn’t an issue between them because her


current husband had even bigger bucks than Ray, from mining diamonds.


Except for the loss of her daughter, I couldn’t feel sorry for Sally. Then again, I


never liked her in the first place. In college, I thought of Sally as a greyhound; though a


sleek pedigree at a glance, she was basically a fast bitch right out of the gate. Could this


mismatch have spawned the fate of a tragic end for their daughter Joy?


“You’ve got a great life for a retired cop with a bum leg, Ray,” I said, seeing no


reason to keep up the formalities since he felt comfortable enough with me to reveal his


current companion’s intimate skills.


“It’s a livin’ . . . a damn good livin’!” he said with a phlegmatic laugh and a


cough as he lit another cigarette. “So whaddaya want from me?”


“I want to know your gut feeling about Joy’s disappearance . . . not as her


father, but as a cop.”


“I wasn’t much a cop when it came to investigations,” he shrugged with a


slap of his beer gut gradually emerging from his bathrobe, which loosened at the ties


with every gesture of his hands. The hairy globe looked like the top of a baby’s head


emerging from the womb. “I was good at the chase when I knew I had my perp dead


to rites. Knowing I could shoot to kill was a perk.”


“Like when you tracked down the bank robbers in the Meadowlands and took


a shot in the leg,” I offered, watching his round face morph to a friendly, sallow-toothed


grin. I assumed that I touched on Ray’s personal evaluation of that incident, which had


been less positively assessed by the department. There had been a rumor that, after the


culprits were bogged down in the swamp grass, Ray had disarmed one then shot himself


in the leg with the perpetrator’s weapon just to get the early retirement disability and a


commendation with a pay boost to the next grade. That was the buzz inside the department,


but the blue wall never let it reach the public.


“You heard about that in the papers, huh?” he said, rubbing the mound of his


belly.” I got an interview on TV with Geraldo, too.”


“I saw it,” I said. “The disability has put thirty pounds on you since then.”


“And the good life from the Mega Millions,” he coughed as he lit, yet another


cigarette. “You’re the shamus. What should I have done as a cop that I couldn’t do as a


father?”


“Did you try to be objective . . . for Joy’s sake?” I asked, baiting him to get a feel


for what his emotional attachment was for Joy other than the genetic connection.


His smile turned into a pensive sneer. I wasn’t certain if his reflective pause


was the predecessor to the relief of a fart, or if something other than a roulette wheel


was actually spinning to some conclusion inside his head. When he answered, I was


caught off guard.


“Objective?” he blurted. “What kind of sick fuck are you? I take it you have no


kids, or you’re just one truly cold bastard! But I’m thinking—both.”


“Take it easy, Ray.” I held up a hand, wondering if he might get up and throw a


punch at me. “Just testing. You pass . . . you love Joy . . . and all this schmaltz is your


way of creating a shell around your hurt . . .”


He put out his cigarette with a violent gesture that sent the crystal ashtray


sliding across the coffee table and clanking on the hardwood floor with an echo that


brought the Valkyrie to the second flood landing.


“Is everythink, okay, Raymont?” she called, her voice echoing from above and her


slender hand waving a 9mm pistol over the banister.


“Ya-ya!” he shouted. “She’s also my bodyguard.”


“Nice multitasking,” I said, waving Asrid off, but when I turned back to Ray, he


covered his face with one hand and wept. Slowly, he raised his head, showed me his


tearful eyes, and said, “You’ve got no respect for the dead. Get the fuck out of my house!”


I departed with mixed emotions, hating what it took to get my answer, but glad


for the feeling that Ray wasn’t capable of collusion to knowingly harm his daughter.


Yet, a final glance toward the second-floor landing made me wonder about the complici-


ties of Joy’s disappearance, and how third parties might take advantage of the stressed


emotions of a gambler, especially if his luck turned sour. The cold stare from Astrid on


the landing made me think her relationship with Ray had an ulterior motive that trans-


cended the flesh.


As I returned to my car and started the engine, I took my mini-binoculars


from the glove compartment and scanned the second-story windows of Ray Sandler’s


beach house. I paused at the largest window that led to a balcony, probably used for


viewing sunsets on the bay. The bright sun betrayed a shadow behind the laced curtains,


where I saw Astrid staring back at me with a pair of binoculars of her own.


I put down my binoculars for a moment, cocked my head and opened my mouth


with a swirl of my tongue. When I raised my binoculars to see her response, I saw her


put the 9 mm pistol with an extended silencer into her mouth and fellate the inside of her


right cheek.


Yes. There was more to Miss Germany than met the eye. I was certain I’d need


to encounter Astrid again. I wondered how I’d go about disarming her and replacing


that pistol with a weapon of my own, and if it would have enough impact to stop her


cold.


Meantime, I needed to head north to Bergen County to talk to Tracy Hoffman,


Joy Sandler’s best friend, who’d last seen her alive before Joy vanished. From Tracy’s


news photos six years ago, I saw that she was a looker, but still under the age limit, even


for my prurient interests. I figured the prospects of encountering two beautiful women in


one day was my only perk on the long drive north.


Later near the end of the three-hour drive back north to Bergen County, what


stunned me, suddenly distracting me from Tracy Hoffman’s sallow newspaper photo,


was a CBS radio newscast, announcing that a former Mega Millions winner, depressed


from his gambling losses in Atlantic City the night before, had just plunged to his death


from the balcony of his high roller’s suite at the Taj Mahal casino.


I felt bad for Ray Sandler, mostly because he’d been a cop, bad or otherwise.


Cops mourn for their own regardless of the circumstances. He was at his peak when I


saw him a few hours ago, so I had to wonder—with his only daughter still missing and


presumed dead, and he remaining divorced and single—who were Ray’s beneficiaries?


Regardless, my entry into this cold case had apparently struck a nerve with someone,


at least giving me a glimmer of hope that Joy Sandler might still be alive.




____________

​

An excerpt from


THE BLINDSPOT


A novel

by


Gerald Arthur Winter




“The ball flew at him and he was conscious of
its bird-form and white flapping wings, until
it suddenly disappeared from view.”


Bernard Malamud – The Natural © 1952



***


Somewhere Children Shout



Two months had slipped by since we met with the attorney, Wally Zimmerman.


Wally’s discouragement about my chances of ever playing in the majors had been a


mental setback for Pop. Though he’d slipped back into drinking Friday and Saturday


nights, I continued practicing my pitching without him.


Gramps had dropped me off at home after church. Coming out of my room, I


walked past Pop’s open bedroom door. With a Sunday hangover, Pop woke, but still


half asleep and squinting at his alarm clock to see it was noon. When his iPhone buzzed,


he stretched from his bed and stumbled to answer it across the room on the dresser.


Thinking I’d continued to go downstairs, he grabbed his phone, but I paused in


the hallway outside his door to listen. He put his iPhone on speaker so he could set it on


the dresser and get dressed as he spoke.


“Am I speaking to Mr. Swift?” a woman’s voice asked.


“Yeah,” Pop said, pulling on his jeans then sitting on the bed to put on his socks.


I showed my face in the doorway. He started to wave me away to go practice my pitching,


but I remained listening, knowing from Pop’s clueless expression that it wasn’t Gram


calling.


“Hello, Mr. Swift. I’m calling about your daughter, Bonnie—” the voice said.


“Who’s this?”


“I’m sorry to call you unexpectedly, but I’m on Pacific Time, and I needed to


contact you right away.”


“What for?”


“I saw a video of Bonnie’s pitching performance at a New York Yankees fund-


raiser. I want you and Bonnie to fly to LA tomorrow, all expenses paid.”


“Is this one of you jokers from The Beachcomber?” he asked, “I don’t need you


drunken bozos making it any tougher for Bonnie than it already is.”


He hung up and lay back on his bed, but saw me staring at him from the doorway.


I lifted a tray that I’d set down in the hallway to serve him breakfast in bed, hoping to


soothe his hangover, a Sunday ritual I’d become accustomed to. Though I’d shrugged


off my disappointment over my Yankee Stadium performance, I knew Pop hadn’t, far


from it. I set the tray on the night table and gave him a sympathetic grin with a tilt of


my head.


“Everything okay, Pop?”


His phone rang again.


He grabbed it and said, “Knock it off, will ya! I suppose you’re gonna tell me


the Dodgers want to sign Bonnie?”


My mouth dropped open.


“I don’t care,” she said. “The Dodgers would be fine—any team.”


The woman on the phone said, “I wish my invitation were that exciting. I want


you both to appear on my show on Monday . . . this is Avida Ropas. . . from the TV talk


show, Avida Live.”


Dumbfounded, Pop stood from his bed.


“Mr. Swift . . . are you still there?” her voice crackled with static.


“Yes,” he said. “Why would we want to go on your show?”


“Bonnie struck out Julio Baquero at Yankee Stadium. That’s a big deal.”


“How’d you know that?” Pop huffed.


“I told you, someone put it on YouTube. She’s had over ten million hits on the


site, more and more every day. I want people to know Bonnie’s inside story . . . your


being a single parent and her coach.”


“Who told you that?”


“Wally Zimmerman is my agent. He suggested I book you on my show.”


“I told him we weren’t interested in that kind of exposure. Bonnie’s barely twelve


years old.”


“I know, Mr. Swift—but I’ll give her the chance to show her talent to my twenty


million viewers—live. Maybe someone from Major League Baseball will take notice of


her unusual skill.”


“Let’s go, Pop! I want to do it!” I shouted across the room.


“OK, just this once. We’ll give it a shot. But I’m not letting Bonnie out of my


sight. I trust you only because we’ve met Wally and I think he’s honest—for a lawyer.


But I don’t know the people around you. Bonnie’s a minor and the only family I’ve got.”


“I understand, Mr. Swift. A limousine will pick you up at home tomorrow morn-


ing at nine o’clock. Pack light. You’ll be home Monday night so you can go back to


work and Bonnie can go back to school on Tuesday. Can you get the time off on such


short notice?”


“We’ll call in sick,” Pop said with a wink at me.


“Are you ill?” Avida asked


He waved me over for a hug and said, “Not now, but we will be tomorrow.”


When he hung up, I hovered waiting to hear the details. “You’re going to pitch on TV,”


he said. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt this once . . . twenty million viewers.”


My green eyes widened the way my mom’s must have the first time Pop had


kissed her when they were only eleven years old. Gram had told me about that fifth-grade


incident. “I won’t disappoint you this time, Pop.”


“You never have,” he said as we hugged. “Thanks for making breakfast, but I’m


up for the day. Let’s eat in the kitchen. ”


“Wow, Pop! California!”


“At Yankee Stadium, I’d made a bad pitch call.”


“I won’t give major leaguers a break at bat like I gave Jimmy Stattler.”


Pop nodded. “OK. Let’s show ’em no mercy.”


I gave him a high-five that sent a static shock through our hands with a loud


snap. Pop seemed surprised that I could hit back so hard. I made a fist and felt Junior’s


strength pulsing through my veins. My twin brother who died at birth had become


part of my daily fiber.




* * *


In the limousine on the way to Newark Airport, I stared out the window in


Elizabeth, New Jersey and saw the depressing site that all out-of-state and foreign


travelers see: Oil storage tanks and high-voltage generators flanked the Jersey Turnpike


for miles. Cranes and pulleys had flashing lights through the gray, smoggy meadow-


lands. It seemed like a foreign country, nothing like the Pine Barrens near the ocean


where the air was fresh with salty breezes.


The pollution gagged me, already nervous before my first flight and the TV


exposure in LA. I grabbed Pop’s arm, and he turned to see my tearing, bloodshot


eyes. He grabbed the bag tucked in the pocket in back of the seat in front of me.


Choking and retching, I threw up into the bag. Pop held my head down. My long


blond hair in damp ringlets hung limply around his grasp, tight at first, like trying


to hold onto something he feared he’d lose. Then, with his thumbs around the back


of my ears, he caressed my neck, slowly bringing me back to him.


“Sorry, Pop.” I blew my nose in a tissue and wiped away the tears running


down my cheeks with the back of my hand.


“That’s, okay,” Pop said, rubbing my back. “Do you want to forget about


this and go home?” He raised his arm to knock on the protective glass to get the


driver’s attention.


I grabbed his wrist. “No way!,” I said. “The air stinks here. That’s all.”


“It could be worse in LA.”


“No worse than your stinky old catcher’s mitt,” I kidded.


He tickled my stomach the same way he had since I was seven years old,


which made me laugh that high-shrilled shriek that Gramps called infectious.


The driver turned on his intercom with a crackle. “We’re almost at the terminal.”


“Could you turn on the recycled air so we don’t get any of that pollution from


outside?” Jack asked.


“No problem.”


Pop gave me a stick of mint gum.


I leaned back, gave him a nod, and said, “I’m over it.”


My expression, which he’d learned to read as well as he’d read my mother’s,


confirmed my claim. He realized I had woven within my fiber what it would take—I


had heart.


As we left Newark for LA, we couldn’t be sure if this unique opportunity could


help my chances of playing in the majors or not. Pop feared some major league front


offices might even frown upon it, solidifying their adamant attitude toward a woman


breaking the invisible, unspoken gender-line at the major-league level.


At the window seat beside him, I clutched my baseball mitt in my lap. My


Yankee baseball cap tipped askew as I slumped with my cheek pressed against the


window. I thought about becoming a major league pitcher someday, even for the


Dodgers. I knew only what Gramps had told me about their leaving Brooklyn when


he was a kid—traitors, he’d called them.


I felt Pop’s hands covering me with a blanket. I turned to him with a smile then


nestled down and drifted off in slumber with my ear against his chest. His heartbeat’s


cadence was in counterpoint to the hum of the jet engines. I heard my brother Junior’s


voice with a repetitive cadence, Dodger blue or Yankee pinstripes. Junior and I were


always on the same page.


* * *


From our four-star accommodations and the stretch-limo ride to the TV studio,


I remained in silent awe. Though impressed, Pop seemed anxious about my pitching in


front of millions of television viewers.


“You okay?” he kept asking me.


“I’m fine. Don’t worry,” I said, but that didn’t seem to comfort him.


My make-up session highlighted my day. I puckered my lips for a light touch of


lipstick and the soft brush against my cheeks gave them some blush.


“Knock ’em dead,” the make-up artist told me, removing the sheet from my neck


and brushing aside one dangling, blond lock from my forehead.


“You bet,” I said, rising from the soft chair. “I like it this way,” I said, swiping


that lock of hair back just above my eye. “It could distract some heavy hitters.”


The make-up artist shook her head with,“Mmh-mmh-mmh, a girl’s gotta do what


a girl’s gotta do.”


Her comment made me grin, but behind my smile I felt discomfort. I felt silly


wearing makeup, but wasn’t sure if it was because I was so young or if it had to do with


how Junior felt about it. Sometimes his utter silence told me he was embarrassed by


whatever I was doing.


My smile and interaction with the hairstylist drew Pop’s attention. I figured


I reminded him of my mom, Lydia, when they were kids. That made him smile, but


just briefly. When I turned to face him directly, Pop’s smile faded into his serious


pitching coach mode that said—show time.


* * *


Avida introduced me and Pop to her live studio audience with applause, hoots


and whistles. Arms pumping, they stood up from their seats as if it were a cafeteria


food fight. They were mostly people of color, Blacks, Chicanos, and Asians with gruff,


inner-city accents. Attire was less than casual with bare mid-drifts, short-shorts, and


top-and-bottom cleavage. As usual, Avida’s audience was raucous.


Pop watched me closely for any ill-effects, but I’d have to get used to this kind of


exposure. Fans would get in my face in a major league stadium where tempers flared and


loyalties were worn on spectators’ sleeves. It was like tossing me into the ocean to see if


I’d swim or drown. I sat between Pop and Avida.


Avida asked him, “Should I call you Coach?”


“I assume you’re over twenty-one, so you can call me Jack.”


“Just barely, Jack.”


The studio audience responded with intermittent laughter, enjoying our banter.


With occasional shout-outs from the audience, the interview covered the tragedy of our


losses, my mom and twin brother at birth, Pop’s single parenting, and our high hopes to


have a major league team show interest in my unique pitching style.


“Why don’t you want her to play Little League as many other girls have? Mo’neˊ


Davis got much attention in Little League with a Sports Illustrated cover shot.”


“Mo’neˊ got much attention because she could pitch as well as the boys whom she


was competing against,” Pop said. “Bonnie isn’t as good as boys her own age—she’s


much better—even better than high school boys I’ve coached. ”


The audience booed. Others grumbled with a dull roar of heckling.


Pop shrugged. “She’s a natural.”


“We have a lot of doubters in the audience,” Avida said.


“We’ll bide our time until Bonnie’s ready for college—and Major League Base-


ball is ready for her.” Pop said.


“Sounds like you’ve got the American dream and her pursuit of happiness on


hold,” Avida said. “But while you’re waiting, maybe I can give Bonnie’s future career


a boost with a live demonstration. How about it, audience? Shall we make Jack put


Bonnie’s talent where his mouth is?”


Many stood and pumped their fists as they hooted.


“We’re gonna give Bonnie a chance to strut her stuff !” Avida shrilled, then she


hushed the crowd and said to me. “I’m sure you know who Cesar Montego is.”


I shook my head as the audience chanted, “Mon-te-go! Mon-te-go!”


“No? Oh, I forgot. Bonnie’s never been to California. I’ll bet Jack knows who


Montego is.”


“He’s the National League Batting Champion from the LA Dodgers,” he said.


When Avida turned to me, I said, “I don’t know any Dodgers. We’re Yankee


fans.”


The audience booed, but I shrugged it off.


“Let’s introduce Bonnie to Cesar Mon-te-e-e-e-ego!”


The audience chanted louder, “Mon-te-go! Mon-te-go! Mon-te-go!”


Wearing his Dodger uniform, Cesar waved his blue cap to the audience, then


exchanged hugs with Avida and shook our hands.


“We’re thrilled to have you with us today, Cesar,” Avida said. “We come from


the same block in the barrio, so—Tenemos la misma sangre—we be blood, bro.” More


cheers and hoots came, but she waved to hush the audience. “Tell us why you’re here


today, Cesar.”


“You sent me a video of this young girl pitching at Yankee Stadium. Maybe


because she struck out Julio Baquero, Bonnie and her papi think she can strike me out,


too. I say—not a chance!”


The audience reacted with mixed cheers and boos.


“What do you think, Bonnie?” Avida asked.


“Is he as good as Jimmy Stattler?”


“Who’s that, honey?”


“A boy from my school.”


The audience became hysterical and Avida’s mascara ran from tears of laughter.


Pop understood my naïve comparison, but I read concern from his expression,


wondering if exposing me to this harangue was a mistake.


“Cesar Montego is no boy from your school, Bonnie. He led the majors in hits


with 221 and a .363 batting average this past season. What do you think of that?”


I shrugged, smirked at Pop, and said, “If he bunts, he might get lucky.”


The audience exploded with my response as Avida announced, “Come back after


the break to see if Bonnie Swift can back up her claim when she throws ten pitches to


Cesar Montego—a boy from my school—the streets of East LA.”

​

* * *



On her nationally syndicated television show, Avida arranged for an outdoor


batting cage and had a National League umpire calling balls and strikes for Cesar


Montego’s challenge. The news media showed up, but only because Avida had alerted


them that she was featuring Cesar Montego batting against a child prodigy. Most thought


it was just a prank or a publicity stunt, so they sent only freelance crews, treating the


broadcast as a sideshow just to boost Avida’s ratings during Sweeps Week. The media


showed more interest in the batting champ than in me.


My grandparents watched from home as did Pop’s cronies at his bar hang-outs


on the boardwalk at the Jersey shore. Pop had told our school principal why we’d be absent,


so many viewed the show from classrooms back in our hometown, Surf Ville.


As usual, Pop called my pitches. On a bright sunny day with little smog-effect, I


prepared to pitch to Montego in the studio’s parking lot. The audience remained in the


studio watching on a wide-screen, but Montego’s appearance drew passersby for a closer


view, hoping to get his autograph.


I threw five warm-up lobs then two moderate fastballs before Montego finished


stretching and came to the plate. A volunteer minor league catcher squatted behind


Montego. Pop set up pitching signs with the catcher so no pitches would injure him.


The catcher laughed off Pop’s concern that my pitches could harm him.


“Like playing catch with my nine-year-old son,” he said aside, assessing my


warm-up pitches.


Pop warned me that Montego wasn’t a slugger like the Yankees’ Julio Baquero,


but rather a spray hitter with great vision and a quick bat. He told me that my glib


response to Montego’s challenge was accurate—he just might get a hit with a bunt he


could beat out, especially squared off at the plate with a better view of my pitch.


A smart hitter, Montego never took pitchers for granted. He would take many


pitches just for a look, which helped him lead the majors in walks. Pop told me that


when Montego retired, he’d surely enter the Hall of Fame on the first round. That


didn’t faze me.


Commentating, Avida stood off-camera: “There’s Bonnie’s wind-up I’d heard


about, so graceful and—the pitch! Montego takes it for strike one. He doesn’t seem


impressed by what he saw. He’s shaking his head with a smile and digging in again.


“Bonnie checks Jack for the sign. She winds up and—whoa! Montego fouls it


back. The speed monitor said Bonnie’s first pitch was 70 mph, but this one was 77 mph.


He probably regrets taking that first pitch for a strike. The second pitch must’ve fooled


him with a speed he wasn’t expecting. Jack looks like he wasn’t expecting it either.


Montego’s in a hole with two strikes, but he still looks confident, as if he’s just toying


with Bonnie.”


Pop came to the mound to talk to me. “This is a ten-pitch contest, not three


pitches. It’s a fifty-fifty chance whether you’re throwing heat or a change-up. That


last one was the fastest pitch you’ve throw. Don’t burn yourself out. He plays the


percentages and wins more times than not.”


I nodded, listening to every word as I glared at Montego.


Pop said, “He must have heard rumors about your tricky pitch, so he’ll be antici-


pating it. He hasn’t seen your curve, so he figures there’s a good chance your next pitch,


no matter how it moves, will be slow enough for him to hold back for a look. So what’ll


you throw?”


“Heat on the inside corner.”


“Do it.”


Avida resumed: “After a talk with Jack, Bonnie looks ready. She seems calm


and—wow! She threw it right by him before he could blink and at . . . 79 mph! She


struck him out! Montego claims the pitch was high and he’s giving the ump some heat.


If this were for real, an ump would be tossing him out of the game.”


Hovering in my mind was the image of Babe Ruth complaining to the umpire


about his call-strike three on Jackie Mitchell’s curve when a girl had struck out the


Babe in an exhibition game. I tightened my jaw to keep from laughing at Montego


who’d been caught flat-footed on my pitch.


Avida said, “OK. He’s back in the batter’s box, lefty against lefty, which should


give the pitcher an edge, but Montego’s average is over three hundred against lefties


and righties. We could be witnessing today’s best hitter against a future best pitcher.


“I’m getting mixed opinions about her last pitch from the studio audience, and a


crowd is beginning to gather in the parking lot. Some claim the last pitch was high while


others say it was a strike. Regardless, that’s one out. No do-overs in this match-up.”


Pop came to the mound again. “We need to use reverse psychology,” he said, just


loud enough for Montego to hear, then he whispered, “Double-reverse.”


“You mean like the double-negative you taught me not to say in English?” He


nodded as my mind turned. I whispered, “Two negatives make a positive—you want the


the same pitch?”


He winked.


Avida reported, “Jack’s coming off the mound and Bonnie’s ready, but Montego’s


bearing down. Let’s see who gets outsmarted this time.


“Here she goes and—yoiks! She slipped it by him again! He swung late! A whiff


across the letters at 80 mph—too fast if you’re not expecting it—especially from a sixth-


grader.”


Montego looked distraught, but he genuflected and dug in.


Pop didn’t come to the mound this time and just gave me his signal. I nodded,


and went into my wind-up. Though I’d rarely used it, I was going to throw a slider Pop


had added to my repertoire. I gripped the ball with three fingers: my pointer just off the


top laces, my abnormally-long middle finger dug into the top laces, and the ball of my


thumb on the bottom laces. My ring finger and pinkie were off the ball, but together gave


balance to the other three gripping fingers to give the ball a snapping movement, slower


than a fastball—quicker than a curve.


My adjustments on speed and movement of the ball were not at the major league


ratios, because my fastball was still averaging under 80 mph The ball came fast enough,


and letter high, but quickly dropped knee-high just inside the strike zone. The pitch


caught Montego off guard, obviously expecting another high fastball. It was, but only


for ninety percent of the distance to the plate. He swung over the slider for strike two.


Slumping his shoulders, Montego’s pride was waning.


Avida continued her commentary: “No telling what Bonnie will throw next. I


sure don’t know. Montego doesn’t know, and maybe Bonnie doesn’t know yet either,


because Jack is going out to the mound for a chat.”


Pop bent close to me as I shielded our faces with my cap.


“This would be a great time for the switcheroo, but it’s not the final out,” Jack


said. “Even if we get this strike, we have another out to go. We need to save your best


pitch for when it’s going to be most effective. That’s a rule I want you to stick to. You’re


a great pitcher even without it. You’ve been practicing that outside-in curve for more


than a year. Give it your best shot.”


Pop’s words sounded tried and true, but having become keenly observant, I


detected a tightness around his neck and shoulders as he walked back toward the side-


lines. I wondered if his call at Yankee Stadium that had set up a homer for Jimmy Statler


was still haunting him. I shrugged at Junior’s words in my head—Pop’s not over it yet,


but we are. Let’s show him our stuff.


“Conference over, folks,” Avida said. “Let’s see what she’ll throw next. She’s


taking a moment to think, so Montego calls time-out and steps out of the box . . . Okay.


She’s ready, and so is he. The wind-up is quick and—”


The ball came letter high, but outside before Montego could adjust. My curveball


veered left and knee high, but over the plate where Montego’s swat at it was late and wild.


“He struck out again!” Avida shouted then called Montego over for his comment-


ary before the contest would resume.


“What the heck’s goin’ on out there, amigo?” she asked.


He shrugged. “Maybe I’m tired after the long season—the playoffs and a seven-


game World Series. Even so, I’ll admit, she’s pretty good.”


“Pretty good? She struck you out twice on six pitches. That’s her calling card. She


did that at Yankee Stadium.”


“She’d do well—in Little League—but she’d never make it in the majors—that’s


machismo’s sacred ground.”


Avida poked at his pride. “Even if she strikes you out three times?”


“That’s not gonna happen. No way, Joseˊ.”


Avida addressed the viewers: “OK, folks. Come back after our station break and


see for yourselves.”


During the break, Montego came over to us and said, “Hey, man. She’s makin’


me look bad. My agent called me and told me to stop the contest. He says it’s better if I


concede. Everybody will feel great about Bonnie, and the media will have no more


footage of me getting struck out by a little girl. I got a big barrio following and don’t


need to take any crap from those guys about being struck out by a six-grader.”


“That’s their problem, not yours,” Pop said. “It will be worse if you concede.


Do you want your fans to remember you like boxer, Roberto Duran—no mas? You’ve


got four more pitches to try to hit. Bonnie will do her best to strike you out, but you owe


it to yourself to try your best. You owe it to your fans and competitors, too. Anything


else would be a sham and bad for baseball.”


I grinned at Pop, knowing he couldn’t help coaching, even Montego, the best in


the game.


“Okay.” Montego shrugged. “No kidding around. I intend to get a solid hit off her


this time.”


“I thought so before I’d seen you bat,” I said. “But you have a hitch in your swing


when you stride forward. With that off-balance swing, you’ll never get a hit off me, Mr.


Montego.”


“Bonnie! Don’t be rude,” Pop scolded. “Humility. Always humility.”


Montego laughed going to the batter’s box and called to me, “We’ll see, bebe!”


Pop followed me to the mound. Trusting my keen observations, he said, “I didn’t


detect any hitch in his swing?”


“Me neither. He’s really great,” I confessed. “But now he’ll be thinking about


that hitch instead of focusing on the ball. He’s the best, so I figured I could use an edge,


especially if you want me to save my best pitch for last.”


Pop stared at me with disbelief, but loving this incredible baseball monster he


believed he’d created. Or had he? Maybe my keen senses had been there from the start


just waiting to come to life. Sometimes Junior tells me, Pop’s standing in your way.


I resumed my stance on the mound. Montego acted casual at the plate as if the


end result wouldn’t count for much. But Pop had taught me—always play to win--


give it your best—never give up until the final out. He often quoted Yogi Berra: “It


ain’t over till it’s over.”


Pop watched me closely, as if in slow motion, taking every millisecond to revel


in his daughter’s remarkable gracefulness, style, and rare talent. He had to wonder if,


beyond my desire to be the best, did I have an inkling of how great I could become?


In some ways, I’m sure he hoped I didn’t know, just so I’d remain humble. Yet, it was


my talent—only mine—so he knew I’d need some sense of pride. Without pride for my


gift, I’d be vulnerable to a harsh world that could wring my life dry and toss me onto


the heap with every other major league wannabe, man or woman.


I went into my next wind-up and threw a 79 mph slider that came right at


Montego, making him fall down backwards before it nicked the inside corner knee-high.


Avida reported: “Another strike for Bonnie. I’d need a pro to tell me what that


pitch was.”


Someone among the spectators shouted from the crowd, “It was the best yakker


I’ve ever seen!”


“Whatever you want to call it,” Avida said. “Strike one!”


Montego grumbled at the ump and kicked dust until the lefty’s batter’s box was


no longer visible. He hoped to have the advantage of stepping out of the box to lunge at


anything outside, strike or not, just to get a piece of it.


“OK, folks,” Avida continued. “She winds-up and throws.” The eye-level fastball


came right to Montego’s blind spot at 78 mph. Montego took a wicked cut. “Swung on


and—missed again! It’s show time. Bonnie’s looking at Jack, and he’s throwing her


many signs, but her expression remains calm. Jack and Bonnie seem to agree. Here


comes her wind-up, and—wow! He foul tipped an outside pitch with an awkward lunge.”


Avida interrupted the contest and came into the batting cage with the umpire and


catcher then waved for me and Pop to come to home plate. I was afraid they were going


to stop the contest, but we were joined by Baseball Commissioner Helms, who was


greeted with applause.


“Commissioner Helms, we’ve invited you here on the off-season to examine the


final baseball thrown in this competition,” Avida explained. “There have been some


rumors that when Bonnie pitched at Yankee Stadium, she’d used a trick ball, somehow


altered. What have you got in your pocket, Commish?”


Helms took a baseball from his suit pocket and flipped it in his hands a few times.


“It’s a pleasure to be here, Avida, to promote our National Pastime with its long and great


history of integrity. So to quiet any doubters, I’ve brought a certified major league base-


ball directly from the factory to assure everyone that the ball thrown on Bonnie’s last


pitch has not been altered. Here it is, and may the best man win—or best girl in Bonnie’s


case.”


After a great round of applause and a commercial break, Avida came back on the


air for the final minute of her show.


“During the break, Coach Jack Swift and his daughter, Bonnie, have had no con-


versation about her final pitch. Afterwards, whatever the result, please text into our poll:


Should Major League Baseball welcome women to play against men? Yes or No.


“Here goes Bonnie’s wind-up and . . .”


“Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;


The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,


And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout . . .” ***


There was great joy in Surf Ville—mighty Cesar had struck out.




*** Ernest Thayer - “Casey at the Bat” © 1888

Power of Child


By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

​

Irene was pleasantly surprised when Angela asked her, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
It had been a long time since Angela had addressed her directly. She watched the slender girl plunge into the black leather chair. That chair had been Ralph’s favorite place. It never failed to amaze Irene how many of Ralph’s features were evident in the young girl’s movements. Ralph had always given a little sigh when he had dropped into that chair and so had Angela just now. Angela had Ralph’s aristocratic, well-molded facial features with the high brows and prominent cheekbones. Having Angela around, now that Ralph had passed on, was a double-edged sword: painful and yet soothing at the same time.
Irene was 32 when she had married Ralph. He was a widower whose wife had died giving birth to Angela. Ralph was Irene’s boss in the Chemical Corporation where she had been working as secretary. It had not been earthshaking love that had brought them together but a mutual understanding, a deep liking and earnest consideration of both their futures. Up to the time when Ralph had asked her to marry him, Irene had given marriage many a wishful thought but resolutely rejected to pursue any courtship. A medical examination, when she was 23, had concluded that she would never bear children. A marriage without children held no promise for her; she had made up her mind to concentrate on her career instead. Ralph and his 14-year-old daughter Angela had entered her life. He offered her marriage and with it, family. She had accepted.
Irene picked a licorice candy out of the Venetian dish and also offered some to Angela. The girl shook her head and pushed some of the blond streaks of her hair behind her ears. Irene’s thoughts went back to the day when she had met Angela for the first time. It was apparent that the young girl had been briefed about her extensively. When Irene had stretched out her arms to the pretty girl with the big blue eyes, all her desire to give love and experience the closeness of a family, had been in that gesture. Angela, on the contrary, had politely allowed to be hugged but made no attempt to return any affection. I will work on it and make her love me in time, Irene had thought, and it seemed that she would be correct. Three wonderful years and Angela did warm up to her. She had accepted her, not as a mother, but at least as a companion. They often went shopping together, played tennis, went on picnics and resembled a family. Irene had been careful not to overpower the sensitive teenager with too much emotion. In the evening they would both compete to make Ralph comfortable. There was no tension; Ralph had a wonderful talent to make them both feel important.
Then, on that lovely spring day last May, a day that ironically breathed sunshine and promise, the tragedy had hit. The office had called – Ralph had had a heart attack! When, after a maddening rush through the buzzing city streets, Irene had reached the hospital, he had already died without ever speaking to her again and before she could even have called Angela to his bedside.
She recalled how she had braced herself for the moment when she would have to tell Angela. They both had lost their closest friend, their dearest comrade. Irene was not sure what had hurt most, Ralph’s death or Angela’s bitter reaction toward her.
When she had gotten out of the taxi that had brought her back from the hospital, Angela was just coming back from school. The girl had been all bubbling with joy about a good grade in math. Irene remembered her saying, “Oh, daddy will make eyes. He will never believe I could get such a good grade in math.” At that Irene had not been able to control herself but began to sob.
“What’s wrong?” Angela wanted to know. Irene hadn’t answered till they had reached the living room. The place was so sunny and comfortable but so meaningless without Ralph. She had wanted to prepare Angela for the cruel news but had blurted out, “Angela, your father is dead. Ralph is dead.” The amiable look on Angela’s face had changed first into disbelief and then – pure horror. Angela had clenched her fists, “You did that to him, you killed him. You spoiled our life!” Forcefully she had pulled herself out of the hug with which Irene had meant to console her. Irene was not sure but she nearly thought she had sensed Angela spitting at her.
Terrible weeks had followed: the funeral, appointments with lawyers, condolences. It was a devastating rush in a dreadfully silent house. The two women, who lived side by side, hardly spoke to each other. The Angela that had emerged out of the tragedy was a person alien to Irene. Despite her own grief, Irene had tried to help Angela, willing to forgive the outbreak on the day of Ralph’s death. In vain! Angela very clearly gave her to understand, “I do not care for you at all. I hate you.”
Now Irene took another candy. She did not have to worry about her figure. She was haggard, slowly breaking under the burden of emotional stress. Angela on the contrary had regained her healthy color. She was now a young lady, quite classy and often out on dates. Two years had passed since that dreadful day, and the conduct between them had remained painfully unpleasant. Irene felt many times that she had arrived at a crossroad. Maybe she should leave. Angela was old enough to live by herself now. Irene knew that a change of scenery would do them both good. Yet she had lately discarded that idea as cowardice. Her place was still with Angela; she owed Ralph that much.
“Are you listening to me?” Angela interrupted Irene’s reminiscing. When Irene did not answer immediately, Angela announced, with a trace of malice in her voice, “I am pregnant. Dr. Blink confirmed it today.” From the way Angela lifted her head in a proud gesture, it was apparent that she was not in the least worried what Irene might think or have to say.
Irene sat up straight and closed her eyes. Had she failed? Had she allowed Angela too much freedom? She wanted to ask: “Who is the father? How? Where?” But, borne out of her forever illusory wish to have a child of her own, the words “Oh that is wonderful!” escaped her mouth.
Of all the answers Angela had expected to hear, this was not one of them. Ronny Crim, the father of the child was, just like her, 19 years old. She had been his prom date. She liked him. Did she love him? She did not really know. More than anything else it seemed such a wonderful way to be able to hurt Irene. She had been so sure that Irene would have suggested an abortion and such a great opportunity to answer to such a suggestion, “You see, you are a killer! You killed my father and now you want me to kill my child.”
Irene noticed that her response had taken Angela by surprise. She continued, “To become a mother is the most blessed thing that can happen to a woman. You see, I never told you but I can’t have children.” Once again her love for Angela welled to the surface, exposing itself to hurt. “You see, Angela, this is why it is so important to me that you should not hate me. But love cannot be forced, I know that now. Still, I will always love you.”
Suddenly, was it because she was bearing a child or merely because for the very first time since meeting Irene she was able to understand the other woman? Whatever it was, Angela felt guilty. She stood up and very slowly, very deliberately, she bent down and kissed Irene on the cheek.

The Narf

A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton
 
I took one or two steps back toward the curve and tried to catch a glimpse of what lay beyond it. There were no growls. No galloping paws. No stamping of feet. Just silence. As I tiptoed carefully in the direction of my supposed killer, hoping for relief, I expected the worst. Calumny, demise, terror, whatever. Hopeless death.
I felt like a meerkat expecting a tiger to come galloping across the savanna and devour it alive, merely biting off bits of it and letting it die slowly inside its tummy.
I think I jumped five feet into the open air when I heard the noise. It sounded like a fist being slammed against a wall. That pounding noise travelled the whole length of the steel surface, sounding like a magnetic train travelling on post-warp speeds. The bang returned, again and again, came from the gateway to the room with the cage in the unseen area.
Terrified that my time now had come to an end, I backed up a few steps, tumbled and lost my balance. Before I knew it, I skidded down one of the tunnel's long slopes, the slippery silver floor causing me to flounder. The slide down the hill seemed long and winding, although I knew that the tunnel toward the ocean went in a straight line into the dark oblivion of nightly water. I caught myself thinking that I might die of a fall against a wall and not in the hands of a strange animal.
Bumping into one of the sharper spiked edges of the wall as a result, my head banged into the pointy triangular corner and caused me to wail. Instinctively, I raised my hand and rubbed the wounded spot of the back of my head, snapping my eyes shut in pain. 
For one moment I listened to the silence, heard nothing but the rotor blades and the constant hum of the motors. I literally froze to death in here, watching the visible cold air eject out of my mouth. If I spent another few minutes in here, I knew I might not be able to move anymore. What scared me even more, I still had a bit left to run. What would I do when I reached the ocean, though? Swim back to Japan? No, I would die in that water.
           Supporting myself up with my one still intact arm, I managed to hold on to the wall. The upper, smoother surface of one of the spikes helped me up. When I looked back into the light, I heard the snarl again. The creature had not yet arrived in my part of the tunnel. That seemed good, didn't it? At least for the time being. Who knows how long I could on like this, though? Now my head and my arm hurt. One more hurt limb and the beast would definitely be having me for supper and probably digesting me slowly at that.
Now, I heard steps. Okay, this was it. Holy shit. Fast steps accelerating into a quick run. The echoes of the beast galloping down after me sent shivers down my spine, especially since it had been my wife that had sent the beast after me this time and not my brother like last time. I shot up and started running, screaming at the beast while I ran.
"If you wanna kill me, you better work a little harder," I yelled into the obscure light, then looking back at the long stretch that lay ahead of me. Jesus, I thought to myself. How am I ever going to make this alive. "Darling?" I yelled. "Did you feed the animal yet? I think he's getting hungry."
Run, run, run. Pant, pant, pant. Yell, scream, sigh. Nervous, terrified, neurotic.
That was me in frigging nutshell.
Silly. How silly of me. My wife was in a completely different part of the ship, probably making love to my bastard brother. She didn’t care.
I laughed once as I ran. It was a short quick laugh, desperate, frantic, almost, a bit angry, even. The blister that slowly formed itself on my head started throbbing. My hand formed a fist, shaking at the sky and then, with it, I banged at my head. Again and again, I banged at my head with one fist and then screaming, pulling at my hair, realizing there was no way out of this but dying or killing the beast with my one surviving arm.
I don't know, but I think think that gesture of frustration aimed to inflict myself with more scars. Either I would grow stronger through it, kill myself or send a sign to whatever culprit was out there that I was willing to hurt myself first. Maybe then the creature would stop hurting me. That was a dream, though. A silly dream. Hurting myself wouldn't really help, would it? It would just kill me quicker. That way, my brother and my wife would be able to have sex in peace and the beast could have a quick snack of human flesh.
I stopped, for a heard steps and yet I didn’t see the animal. Was it merely walking on one spot just to scare me or running down the stretch from its cage? There it was again, the snarl. Deep, throaty, harsh. I backed a few steps down the second slope. I didn’t want to fall down again.
Okay. Now I saw the beast, appearing beyond the curve from where the light came. Jesus, it was big. Had it grown since last time? Holy shit, it would crush me with one swift stroke. I wouldn’t have to worry about dying in his tummy. One punch and I would be gone forever. My wife, the Princess Wih-Me’h-Weh, had found a way to make things even scarier. The beast did not only have its large heelspikes on. It also wore that infamous helmet with the electric shock prods. Hadn't she warned me about that?
I started running again, first backwards and then turning around to face the end of the long tunnel I was in. Now, another five minutes awaited me before I reached the sea at the end of that stretch. God only knew what I would do then.
“Can’t run backward,” I mumbled to myself as I scooted off to my certain doom. “Run or die.”
Actually, I sort of cursed my fate that I had been chosen to come on this huge ship exclusively cruising the Pacific. So I ran like crazy, all the time hearing this hairy beast coming closer and closer. The snarl also seemed to reverberate louder the closer it came to me. Last time, I had survived this. I had lured the beast into jumping into the sea, heelspikes and all. The following kangaroo trial, complete with my brother as a judge and my wife as the prosecutor, had been ridiculous. No defending judge? Me silenced, a ball in my mouth and a scarf around my head? Come on. I really regretted falling in love with this damn alien princess, especially since she took on my brother as a lover. That might be normal on her planet, but it sure as hell was unusual over here.
Damn it, I thought to myself, I should have listened to my father. He told me that the woman would come to haunt me. My brother? Well, obviously he didn't care. He had always been the rebel, the recluse. He had always hated the rest of us. Now I paid for the fact that I had asked my dad to disown him.
"Let the beast try to chase him into the ocean again," she had shouted to the jury. "If he survives, I will divorce him. In any case, I will be rid of him."
I repeated her words in my head over and over as I ran toward what I thought was my certain death. I got angrier and angrier while escaping the beast, at first at myself for falling in lust with this four breasted vixen and then at her for pulling me away to court because ... what had it been? I hadn't performed to her liking? How could I have with her sitting on me and grinding all the time? Not even in my wildest dreams had I imagined myself hating having married an alien.
I saw the end of the tunnel now and the ocean that lay beyond it. This is when true panic hit me. I could feel the stinky breath of the beast on my back, his furry paws tickling my neck. It was drowning in the Pacific, salty water filling up my lungs, or providing an ogre piece of my head. What would you do? How would you want to die? In the belly of a beast or at the bottom of the ocean?
“God,” I yelled, my head and one injured arm hurting, “help me.”
Closer and closer it came, I could feel it approaching me, breathing on me, it even sounded like it cackled at me behind my back, waiting to seize me and crush my skull. Oh, God, I didn’t want to die just yet. The ocean was just a few paces away. Man, could I climb up to deck to one of the lifeboats? With what? Shit, now I felt the beast breathing on me.
“Go away,” I screamed. “Go away ...”
When the beast reached me, its paws grabbed me and turned me around, shook me and hit me, causing me to run a few paces in mid air, so to speak. I gasped at the idea of now becoming the evening meal of a brute. I tried to escape the hard grip by hitting him on his furry arms. All that did was give him a jolly little chuckle.
Now I hung there in his arms, drooling, my heart beating fast and my lungs on overdrive, my shoulders hurting like crazy, looking into the multicolored three eyes of this Narf, one of the hideous beasts in Princess Wih-Me’h-Weh’s possession. Too late had I found out that it was her favorite killer. A killer with a foul breath worse than rotted herring. A killer so huge that my pointed feet only reached its hips when it held me a few feet above ground.
Growl, spit, drool, cackle, crunch.
"Now what?" I spat at the beast, weeping. "Aren't you going to do something? Eat me or at least sprinkle me with some salt? I might taste good with ketchup, you creep. God damn it, stupid. Do something."
I have no idea why I became cynical at that point. I mean, my head now produced little shy drops of blood that trickled down my forehead. My arm? Well, the fact that I had sprained it turned the entire experience of being crushed to pieces into a slowly worsening nightmare.
The pain actually created the cataclysmic sadness in my heart. I would never see my father again, who probably hated me anyway for marrying one of the alien invaders. What can I say? I wanted to survive. The only reason why my dad still was alive was that he was a politician. My mom had been a housewife. She had been executed right before my fake kangaroo trial. The reason? Infiltrating common people with anti-galactic ideas.
Talking with her lady friends over coffee, was that anti-galactic?
Man, I thought to myself, how had managed to lure the beast into the ocean last time? By jumping to the side and causing it to stumble. That wouldn't work now, would it?
So I cried bitter hot tears that burned my skin as they fell down my cheeks, my nose producing gallons of snot to release the pain of an ending life. But as I closed my eyes again, waiting for the beast to open one of its black mouths and begin chewing on my shoulder, I suddenly heard a whimper too feeble to come out of the mouth of a monster from way off the planet of Whiulhaga. It was the beast, though.
As I opened my eyes again, I saw it froth at the mouth, roll its eyes, open its mouths wider than anything I'd seen before, shaking its headfur in a way that reminded me of that ancient English pop group that had been active back in the 20th century. What were they called? Oh, yeah. The Beatles. I almost expected John, Paul, George and Ringo to pop out of the Narf’s mouth, singing: “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeaaaaaaaaah!”
Instead, the Narf’s damn helmet with the electric prods short circuited, sending sparks not out into the tunnel, but into the Narf’s brain.
We were relatively close to the booming and splashing Pacific, so the waves must’ve done their part in creating a veritable electrocution of the beast.
In one swift swoosh, the Narf dropped me, having me land on my right knee. The pain skyrocketed into my brain and caused me to growl a bass note that would have a male opera singer spit glue and utter jealous venom. The arm, the head, the knee, they all caused me to scream in utter suffering. I didn’t scream for long, though. The helmet on the Narf’s head exploded, sending his stinky ooze right out into the Pacific and literally sprinkling me with the scent of a thousand unwashed nights in rusty cages.
Gha-Blooof!
The creature went down like a redwood tree, sending echoes up and down this organized tunnel of torture within the royal cruise ship.
The beast lay there, immobile, seemingly dead. Me? I winced, wrinkled my nose, carefully wiping the slime off my face and trying to survive a stink that might have been normal on the planet of Whiulhaga, but reminded my human nose of flatulent zombies.
Carefully, I got up on my throbbing knees and shouted myself into a bent position. Slowly, I limped over to the panting and puffing giant, oozing spit. Three long, furry, ten feet ex- and inhaled breaths later, the Narf blubbered and belched its last grunt and disappeared into Narf Heaven or Narf Hell, whatever the case might have been.
For a long while, I really don’t know how long, I stood bending over the Narf, the Pacific Ocean nearly washing me into its depth. I hurt like a thousand nightmares, but it didn’t matter. Somehow, I didn’t care. The slow blubber that grumbled in my tummy felt like an oncoming burp at first, but I hadn’t eaten for two days, so that would be impossible. Then I realized that it was happiness. The blubber shot up my windpipes and landed in my mouth, exhaled a frantic laugh.
Despite my extreme pain, I began limping in very excited leap.
“Princess Wih-Me’h-Weh,” I screamed, my laughter sounding like the scream of a insane schizophrenic. “Wifey-Pifey, I killed your Narfy-Wharphy. Kiss my ...”
Excited by this development that I might survive after all, I kicked the remains of the monster and began humping and sliding back the way I came. All the way, I sang “For he’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny” full throttle and with such atonality that it probably would have killed the Narf without any electricution.
“Killed by bad singing,” I laughed all the way to the curve, kicking the place on the wall where I had hurt my head.
I was on a fool’s errand.
Once I passed the curve and reached the room with the cage, the room where I had spent the last two days gazing at the Narf, my eyes met an army. The hall with the cage was filled to the brim with soldiers. No, they were not soldiers. Pirates, criminals, recruits from the lower bowels of Hades. I have no idea how they silently had snook into the dungeon of this luxurious ship, but here they were. Tall handsome four armed Zooks from the ghetto continent Hundsaih, four nosed brutes from Theouali and three headed Osajags from the swimming fields of northern Whiulhaga. They all grunted in unison, stamping their feet, waving their arms in a strange choreographed way. With every stomp, I took another step back, my flesh trembling, my legs shaking by the force of the aggressive thumping of this surprising army.
Why does one run upon facing a threat?
It was wrong to run, but I did it anyway. I ran, but I didn’t run back toward the Pacific Ocean. I ran into the crowd, fighting myself through soldiers, beating me senseless, kicking me, screaming at me all the way back to the staircase that I knew would take me to my current wife, the royal Princess Wih-Me’h-Weh of the planet Whiulhaga.
I reached the door, but had only grabbed the handle when three of the four armed Zooks took me by my bruised and injured arms. They kicked down the door and ran up the staircase with me, finally throwing me into a room completely covered in gold and silver, our former bedroom where we had spent our honeymoon exactly one year ago.
“Happy anniversary,” I mumbled, the pain in my head grinding and thumping between my earlobes. And pounding and banging on the insides of my brain. I added a foul yell, hearing the high heels of my spouse click against the ivory floor: “Too much pain actually turns the tables on the suffering. I am now immune to your torture.”
Her clicking heels halted, those black and gold colored shoes giving me the kick I knew would catapult me to success. Again and again, I had looked up those latex pants and felt what I felt right now. I knew that the game we played could be repeated endlessly.
Slowly and surely, I stood up, supporting myself on my one intact arm.
Inch by inch, I followed her frame up to her steel shoulderpads, the flowers in her purple hair, her four seductive eyes and knowing halfsmile.
“You have done well,” she told me. “Surprisingly.”
I shrugged, looking at her with disgust. “What now?”
“Computer,” she commanded. “End program!”
The entire backdrop of this virtual world we had created for each other disintergrated, sounding like a landing rocket. The golden and silvery hall vanished, the Pacific Ocean turned into proverbial dust and we ended up looking at each other for a while as we were. Just two people in ordinary clothes playing hide and seek. No alien princess, no doomed warrior. Just two people that liked playing with each other. 
“You shutting this down?” I cackled, trying to sound cheerful.
“You won,” she shrugged. “I told you that if you vanquished the Narf I would let you go. You have it your way. Good bye!”
I shook my head. “Nalia, you know I don’t want to end this!”
Nalia took a short stroll over to her locker and opened it, taking out her sport bag and slowly unclothing, putting socks and panties in the bag, taking out her jeans.
“So?”
I trembled, more intensely than I had when the Narf attacked me. I was losing my partner.
“So, I want to keep playing this game with you,” I answered.
She looked down at the bra she held in her hand and pursed her lips.
“Martin, you know I love you,” she said. “But ...”
The long pause almost drove me crazy.
“Continue,”  I demanded.
She shrugged. “Whatever.”
Nalia put on her bra, her T-shirt, her pants, and finally stood there holding on to her baseball cap.
“Nalia, God damn it, talk to me,” I screamed.
“All the time,” she said, pointing at me, “you demand that I go in here into this virtual world, playing the evil alien princess. I’m sick of it.”
“I created this virtual world for us, because we love adventure stories,” I responded.
“Yes,” she answered me “but you never take me out on any real adventures any more.”
“What are you saying?”
Nalia threw down her bag on the bench next to the locker. The sound reverberated several times between the steel walls that had transformed into an alien ship on the Pacific Ocean a moment ago.
“Martin,” she said, “I fell in love with you because you took me out on trips with your rocket and told me things. You knew stuff about planets I never knew existed.”
She giggled, panting and moaning at the same time.
“We went to that music club in Alpha Centauri, remember?”
“The Waylo?”
“Yes!” Nalia said, happily chanting. “Exactly, if you shut down this program, lay it on ice for a bit, and take me back to the Waylo for a month, I will stay with you. I’m damn tired of being this dumb Princess Wih-Me’h-Weh and I bet you’re getting sick of being this ... warrior dude. Let’s go dancing, okay? Take me out on a real adventure, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Nalia cheered. I had actually never seen her cheer so enthusiastically.
Her embrace grew more and more tender, sweeter and more fragile the longer it lasted. It made me happy, sure. Very happy. There was just one huge problem.
“Nalia, love,” I began, my hands shaking. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but ...”
Nalia bent over toward me, kissing me on the mouth. I returned her kiss, of course, smelled her perfume, touched her hair, all of that. I almost chose not to say what I was about to say. But I knew I had to say it. She had to know.
“Yes?”
God, I feared losing her. I know that I had gotten her back by telling her to shut down our program, but would I lose her if I told her the truth?
“The Narf exists,” I said, finally.
She took a step back. “What?”
She winced, giving me a cynical chuckle.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
I shook my head. “No, I met one on an away mission in the western Milky Way. I was about twenty, a young cadet. It was before I knew you. The Narf almost killed me. That’s where I got the scar on my buttock.”
Nalia started laughing. “An alien monster bit your butt?”
I laughed, quite sadly, actually, because the worst was yet to come.
“Yes, Nalia, but there’s more.”
“Come on, Martin,” she jibed, slapping my arm. “So you created the Narf out of a real creature on some cockameme planet you visited ten years ago. What of it? Let’s go. This place costs us more money every minute.”
She took her bag, walked toward the holographic machine, almost sticking out her hand to eject the Virtual Stick from the Holo-World machine.
“Take me to Alpha Centauri,” she sing-songed. “Let’s eat Olhagsian Zsfas with donuts and make love under the suns of Da-Yxaa.”
“The Narf is back,” I spat.
Nalia turned around again, her long blonde hair swaying in the breeze of her own turn.
“Excuse me?”
I sighed, expecting the worst.
“Ten years ago, we were over there in the Narf-Planet, as we tended to call it, to stop a mission that these guys had to conquer humanity.”
“Hold on,” she said, throwing down her bag again. “These guys can talk and think?”
I nodded. “I just made them more stupid than they really are in my program. In fact, they are intellectuals, academics and strong, admant clerics. That makes them dangerous. They are smart monsters.”
Nalia looked down, trying to decide if I was nuts, stupid, silly or just a damned liar.
“Naahhh,” she said. “Don’t believe a word of it.”
She walked over to the black Holo-World machine again and almost pressed the button to take out the Virtual Stick of my fake world, where she was an alien princess and I was a warrior. It was then that I told her the truth.
“I’ve been chosen to lead an army that will go back to the planet to kill these bastards. They want to kill us,” I said. “I spent the last months training for what is waiting for me over there. That is why I have been so obsessed about this. I have been training for a mission.”
Nalia raised her eyebrows. “When were you going to tell me this?”
“Admiral Isaacs told me it was top secret, up until yesterday. I wasn’t allowed to tell you before. I got into a huge fight with him a few months ago, because I said you and I were getting married and I didn’t want to keep these kinds of things from you. He said that I had to train for this mission, come what may, and I figured that the only way that I could spend time with you was take you along for this ride. Pluck out my old Narf-program with the love affair thingie. We could be together and I could still train for my mission.”
Nalia slooped down to the floor, dropping her bag, landing on her tush and put her head in her hands. “I hate your job,” she wept. “Man, I hate it.”
I came up to her, sat down and put my hand on her lap. “I hate it, too.”
I had to break this to her gently.
“But I have to do this. We have to beat the Narfs.”
Nalia sighed, taking my hand. “Just when I thought we were doing so well and the government wasn’t going to send you on one of those wild secret missions.”
I caressed Nalia’s face, leaning over to kiss her. She looked away.
“How am I going to survive without you, Martin?”
I shook my head. “You won’t have to.”
She looked up. “Huh?”
I tilted my head. “Admiral Isaacs gave me the approval of taking you along.”
“Me?” she giggled. “What am I supposed to do? Bake muffins for the army?”
“Don’t be so modest, babe,” I chuckled. “You’re a trained martial artist and a computer specialist. You also have an incredible asset.”
“I’m a good kisser?”
I laughed. “That, too. No, I’m talking about your electric education. Electricity, Nalia.”
“They’re into heavy metal?”
I laughed again. “No, they all wear electric helmets. We’re planning on electrocuting them. That’s why I designed that scene in our story.”
Nalia’s jaw dropped. “You mean ...”
I nodded. “If we beat these guys, I will not only take you to The Waylo to dance and eat Olhagsian Zsfas with donuts and make love under the suns of Da-Yxaa. We will also get married inside The Waylo under the suns of Da-Yxaa.”
“Holy shit, Martin,” she said. “When are we leaving?” Nalia stood up, running to the locker and changing into her holographic sportwear again. She turned around again. “When are we fucking leaving?”
“Next month, why?” I answered, still sitting on the floor.
“Get up,” she said. “We still have time for another round of kicking the Narf’s ass.”
I laughed and jumped for joy, running up to kiss my bride to be.
I knew we were going to make it, because no one could kick ass as well as my girl Nalia. We did kick ass in my Holo-Story and we did electrocute the Narfs, and – Hot Damn! – we were good at it.
The wedding at The Waylo a year later turned into a gigantic success.
And as we made love under the suns of Da-Yxaa on the first night of our honeymoon, we sang to the moons and kissed the stars. The hotel we were in was a boat, you see, and our floating dreamship was made of the finest and most shiny, glowing, alien material. Before we laughed ourselves to sleep, we kissed, made up and swore to love each other forever more.
A few hours later, however, something woke us up.
In the distance, we heard what almost sounded like a fist being slammed against a wall. That pounding noise travelled the whole length of a steel surface, sounding like a magnetic train travelling on post-warp speeds.
The Narf was back.

---

The Guardian

By Damien Dantes



The Guardian moved.

Slowly the point of his black sword crept upwards, pointed skywards, and tilted back, to finally rest in its scabbard on the black armoured back.  The heavy, full visored helmet looked up, and his weary stance shifted. A first, halting step nearly brought him to his knees, but he recovered, and took a second step. With each step his strength and sure-footedness seemed to return, and his strides grew longer and stronger, until they radiated a sense of inevitability.  Without one look back, he strode off the grassy knoll, away from the Plains of Sorrow.

The Guardian moved.

For centuries, and some said eons, the Guardian had stood on that hillock in the precise centre of the Plains.  Sword in hand, the tip resting on the ground, as if the sword had grown too heavy. His posture, legs spread and slightly buckled, bent forwards, on the verge of keeling over.  For as long as the peoples of the plains could remember, and their singers remembered songs from before the peoples came to the plains, the Guardian had stood his ground and never moved.

Ancient tales, gleaned from tribes that were no longer, regaled the stories of the Guardian and his Companions.  They were the Guardian, the Archer, the Red Man, the Gray Man, the Fool and the Foreigner.  The band of six one day rode onto the Plains at the fore of a vast army, to do battle upon the Hordes of Evil, that were ravaging the world.  How the six Companions had found each other is not told in the tales of old, but as they appeared on the ancient battlefield, the multitude cheered.  The Guardian stood over seven feet tall, and his companions were all no less than tall than him, save for the fool, who was five foot four, lithe and nimble. And it was said that wherever the Companions went, all  stood aside and cheered and paid homage.  Yet these men were no kings.  

The Guardian rode a tall dark horse, covered in plate armour, just as its rider, and the armour was burnished until it shone like silver.  His tall helmet bore  of the whitest swans, his surcoat was of the finest and bluest silk, and his cape as white as the snow on virgin mountaintops.  

The Archer rode a brown, steady horse.  His light armour was chosen in forest colours, and when he stood still, he blended into the forest like none.  He toted a longbow of the finest hazel, with bowstrings that sang like the strings of a harp when released, and two quivers with steel tipped, yard long arrows.  

The Red Man was clad all in red, as was his horse, and his weapons of choice were dual scimitars, which he wielded with deadly precision.  His red robes hinted of deserts, red and hot and dry places, but his skin was fair as a Northerners. 

The Gray Man wore simple clothes of unobtrusive colours, and his features were the commonest of common.  It was said that a spell was cast on him that made others forget him as soon as he left their company.

The Fool was small and nimble. In fact, everything about him was small, except for his nose.  He was clad in bright colours and resembled nothing as much as a jester.  But the wide sleeves of his brocade vest held deadly knives that flashed through the air with the speed of lightning. 

The Foreigner rode a small white horse, a horse so small that when he let his legs dangle from the stirrups, he could put his feet on the ground and let the horse walk away from under him.  Yet from upon this horse he wielded a mighty war hammer.  He was fully clad in chain mail, but wore a green surcoat with a blank coat of arms over it.  Ancient tales say that in battle the horse grew under him to be a mighty steed, and none could stand before the two.

And so these Six Companions rode out on the dawn of the Longest Battle, at the head of an army so vast, that it took weeks for the last ones to reach the Plains.

And so it came to pass that this vast legion was met upon the plains by the Hordes of Evil, fierce creatures from beyond the world, hell bent on destruction and mayhem.  And there were Orcs, and Goblins, and Dark Elves, and Ogres, and Vampires, and Trolls, and Swamp Things, Ghouls, and Ghosts, Unseen Things, and Unnamed Things, and Sorcerers, and Warlocks, Harpies, and Sirens.  All had gathered to meet the Army of the World.

And the two forces did great battle upon each other.  The ancients tell of numerous heroic deeds by many of the combatants of the army of good, but of none were deeds so great as of the Six Companions.  Wherever the resolve lagged, lines were pushed back, regiments threatened to crumble, the Guardian and his band were seen reviving the men and shoring up the resolve. The battle lasted for days.  

Alas, the Hordes of Evil outnumbered the Army of the World.  For it is much easier to spawn evil and let it fester on its own, than give birth to good and nurture it to wisdom.  And although the numbers of this army were vast, the hordes were almost innumerable. For every slain Orc, two took his place.  For every Ogre put down, two arose.

And it came to pass that at a small grassy hillock at the precise centre of the Plains, the pitiful remains of that great army made their final stand.  And they were led by the Guardian and his companions.  Though formidable heroes of ancient times they were, they were also mere mortals.  As the fighting grew more and more frenzied, and the men around them fell, desperation crept into the hearts of each of them.  Finally, at noon of the seventh day, they stood alone against an enemy that seemed undepleted.

As the Hordes charged for yet another assault, despair gripped the soul of the Foreigner.  He lowered his war hammer, tears streaming from his face, and let himself be slaughtered.  It was at that moment that the blackest of deeds occurred on these plains, for as the five survivors made to close ranks, the Fool laid off his mask, and was revealed the Traitor.  Standing nearest to the Gray Man, for he had always professed his friendship for his companion, he stabbed his friend in the back, straight through the Heart.  It is said that it was at that time that the armour of the Guardian turned the blackest of black, and the feathers upon his helmet turned to horns.  Such was his wrath that the revenge he took upon the body of the Traitor so gruesome that even the Gods turned their heads away, and the Hordes of Evil who had jeered at the betrayal retreated. (Run-on-sentence. Break it up. I.e.: So great was his wrath and so gruesome was his revenge that even the Gods turned their heads away. The Hordes of Evil, who had jeered at the betrayal, retreated.)

Some say, that the Guardian sent his two remaining companions away at that time. Others say, they left him for fear he had gone insane. Again others say, he sent them away, but they returned in his hour of need. But all repeat the words he spoke to them: 

“My friends, we have fought our battle, but we have fought and lost.  It is time for me to gather all that is good and kind in this world, all that is just and righteous, all that is beautiful in sight and sound, all that cares and loves, and guard it for times to come, until I may release all of it back into a gentler world.  Go from here, for the fight that now comes upon us (cut the comma) is a fight to the end. (New sentence) I would have you away from that fight, to continue spreading goodness in the lands for as long as you can.” (Sounds poetic, but I am not sure it is perfectly correct English. Alternatively, try: I would protect you from joining that battle, so that you can fulfil your destiny in spreading goodness through the land indefinitely.)   

But whether or not the Archer and the Red Man went their ways or not, when the charge of the Hordes of Evil came, they stood at the ready at the Guardian’s side. And it was as if the blackening of his armour had given the Guardian new strength.  He slew fiends by the scores, even though they kept coming at him.  And as the sun set in a black and blood red sky, he found himself alone on the grassy knoll.  Sometime, during battle, both the Archer and the Red Man had been slain.  There was no trace of either, but to his left lay the bent scimitars of the Red Man, and to his right the broken longbow and empty quivers of the Archer.

Overcome by sorrow, the Guardian sank on one knee, his sword point down into the earth.  Great waves of despair, loneliness and grief washed over him, and his mighty shoulders shook.  His tears, streaming from under his great helmet, drew fiery red lines on the breast plate of his harness.  Blood red tears welled out of the eye sockets of the helmet and made a terrible pattern on the helmet’s cheeks.  So great was his sorrow, that even the Hordes, for a moment, kept a respectful distance from their formidable foe.  

Then he rose, and in a terrible voice swore he a great oath.  Never to move from his post, for as long as there was a breath in him; to guard all that was good against those who would destroy and annihilate; to deny any and all of the Hordes entrance to the Plains beyond this point; and to never rest until all were slain.

It was with a most horrible howling that the Hordes of Evil charged his position, only to find that a magical line had spread to the Guardian’s left and right sides.  No Orc, no Goblin, not even the most powerful Warlock could cross that line.  The only path to the Lands beyond lay over the hillock, occupied by the Guardian.  The Ancient stories tell of days of slaughter, when the evil spawn had to clear away their dead, because they couldn’t reach the Guardian anymore.  But the Guardian stood his ground, weary and hurt.

It became increasingly difficult for the leaders of the Hordes to find men to send against the Guardian, and it took them longer and longer.  Inbetween fights, the Guardian stood watch, until the fights became fewer and fewer, and then ceased altogether.  

It was not until centuries after the last of these battles that our peoples came to the Plains.  For a brief time the ancient tribes and the new lived together, and our forefathers learned of the Guardian and his companions.  But the story of the Guardian remained just that, a story, and a story that was not of our people.

And then the Guardian moved.

It is said by the same old stories that the Guardian not only guards all that is good, all that is beautiful, and all that is love, but that he did all he did FOR love.  As he guards love, so does love guard him.

And there is a prophecy in the old songs.  It is sung that there will come a time when the Guardian will walk away from his hillock, and leave his post.  And on this day, the last of the minions of Evil will lay down and die, and the Guardian, freed from his oath, will restore goodness, and kindness, justice and righteousness, beauty, care and love to the world, and return to his love to die at her bosom.

But it is also sung that on the day the Guardian moves, it will be the Guardian’s decision to restore goodness to the world or not, and that the blackness in the heart of the Guardian, caused by the betrayal of the Fool and Traitor, will have him forego the restoration of the world, and in this hour the universe will die with him.

Today the Guardian moved.

Book Excerpt


Villette


By Charlotte Bronte


CHAPTER I

BRETTON

My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton. Her husband's family had been residents there for generations, and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace—Bretton of Bretton: whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor had been a personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his neighbourhood, I know not.
When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I liked the visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The large peaceful rooms, the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide windows, the balcony outside, looking down on a fine antique street, where Sundays and holidays seemed always to abide—so quiet was its atmosphere, so clean its pavement—these things pleased me well.
One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of, and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton, who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and handsome woman.
She was not young, as I remember her, but she was still handsome, tall, well-made, and though dark for an Englishwoman, yet wearing always the clearness of health in her brunette cheek, and its vivacity in a pair of fine, cheerful black eyes. People esteemed it a grievous pity that she had not conferred her complexion on her son, whose eyes were blue—though, even in boyhood, very piercing—and the colour of his long hair such as friends did not venture to specify, except as the sun shone on it, when they called it golden. He inherited the lines of his mother's features, however; also her good teeth, her stature (or the promise of her stature, for he was not yet full-grown), and, what was better, her health without flaw, and her spirits of that tone and equality which are better than a fortune to the possessor.
In the autumn of the year —— I was staying at Bretton; my godmother having come in person to claim me of the kinsfolk with whom was at that time fixed my permanent residence. I believe she then plainly saw events coming, whose very shadow I scarce guessed; yet of which the faint suspicion sufficed to impart unsettled sadness, and made me glad to change scene and society.
Time always flowed smoothly for me at my godmother's side; not with tumultuous swiftness, but blandly, like the gliding of a full river through a plain. My visits to her resembled the sojourn of Christian and Hopeful beside a certain pleasant stream, with "green trees on each bank, and meadows beautified with lilies all the year round." The charm of variety there was not, nor the excitement of incident; but I liked peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the latter came I almost felt it a disturbance, and wished rather it had still held aloof.
One day a letter was received of which the contents evidently caused Mrs. Bretton surprise and some concern. I thought at first it was from home, and trembled, expecting I know not what disastrous communication: to me, however, no reference was made, and the cloud seemed to pass.
The next day, on my return from a long walk, I found, as I entered my bedroom, an unexpected change. In, addition to my own French bed in its shady recess, appeared in a corner a small crib, draped with white; and in addition to my mahogany chest of drawers, I saw a tiny rosewood chest. I stood still, gazed, and considered.
"Of what are these things the signs and tokens?" I asked. The answer was obvious. "A second guest is coming: Mrs. Bretton expects other visitors."
On descending to dinner, explanations ensued. A little girl, I was told, would shortly be my companion: the daughter of a friend and distant relation of the late Dr. Bretton's. This little girl, it was added, had recently lost her mother; though, indeed, Mrs. Bretton ere long subjoined, the loss was not so great as might at first appear. Mrs. Home (Home it seems was the name) had been a very pretty, but a giddy, careless woman, who had neglected her child, and disappointed and disheartened her husband. So far from congenial had the union proved, that separation at last ensued—separation by mutual consent, not after any legal process. Soon after this event, the lady having over-exerted herself at a ball, caught cold, took a fever, and died after a very brief illness. Her husband, naturally a man of very sensitive feelings, and shocked inexpressibly by too sudden communication of the news, could hardly, it seems, now be persuaded but that some over-severity on his part—some deficiency in patience and indulgence—had contributed to hasten her end. He had brooded over this idea till his spirits were seriously affected; the medical men insisted on travelling being tried as a remedy, and meanwhile Mrs. Bretton had offered to take charge of his little girl. "And I hope," added my godmother in conclusion, "the child will not be like her mamma; as silly and frivolous a little flirt as ever sensible man was weak enough to marry. For," said she, "Mr. Home is a sensible man in his way, though not very practical: he is fond of science, and lives half his life in a laboratory trying experiments—a thing his butterfly wife could neither comprehend nor endure; and indeed" confessed my godmother, "I should not have liked it myself."
In answer to a question of mine, she further informed me that her late husband used to say, Mr. Home had derived this scientific turn from a maternal uncle, a French savant; for he came, it seems; of mixed French and Scottish origin, and had connections now living in France, of whom more than one wrote de before his name, and called himself noble.
That same evening at nine o'clock, a servant was despatched to meet the coach by which our little visitor was expected. Mrs. Bretton and I sat alone in the drawing-room waiting her coming; John Graham Bretton being absent on a visit to one of his schoolfellows who lived in the country. My godmother read the evening paper while she waited; I sewed. It was a wet night; the rain lashed the panes, and the wind sounded angry and restless.
"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bretton from time to time. "What weather for her journey! I wish she were safe here."
A little before ten the door-bell announced Warren's return. No sooner was the door opened than I ran down into the hall; there lay a trunk and some band-boxes, beside them stood a person like a nurse-girl, and at the foot of the staircase was Warren with a shawled bundle in his arms.
"Is that the child?" I asked.
"Yes, miss."
I would have opened the shawl, and tried to get a peep at the face, but it was hastily turned from me to Warren's shoulder.
"Put me down, please," said a small voice when Warren opened the drawing-room door, "and take off this shawl," continued the speaker, extracting with its minute hand the pin, and with a sort of fastidious haste doffing the clumsy wrapping. The creature which now appeared made a deft attempt to fold the shawl; but the drapery was much too heavy and large to be sustained or wielded by those hands and arms. "Give it to Harriet, please," was then the direction, "and she can put it away." This said, it turned and fixed its eyes on Mrs. Bretton.
"Come here, little dear," said that lady. "Come and let me see if you are cold and damp: come and let me warm you at the fire."
The child advanced promptly. Relieved of her wrapping, she appeared exceedingly tiny; but was a neat, completely-fashioned little figure, light, slight, and straight. Seated on my godmother's ample lap, she looked a mere doll; her neck, delicate as wax, her head of silky curls, increased, I thought, the resemblance.
Mrs. Bretton talked in little fond phrases as she chafed the child's hands, arms, and feet; first she was considered with a wistful gaze, but soon a smile answered her. Mrs. Bretton was not generally a caressing woman: even with her deeply-cherished son, her manner was rarely sentimental, often the reverse; but when the small stranger smiled at her, she kissed it, asking, "What is my little one's name?"
"Missy."
"But besides Missy?"
"Polly, papa calls her."
"Will Polly be content to live with me?"
"Not always; but till papa comes home. Papa is gone away." She shook her head expressively.
"He will return to Polly, or send for her."
"Will he, ma'am? Do you know he will?"
"I think so."
"But Harriet thinks not: at least not for a long while. He is ill."
Her eyes filled. She drew her hand from Mrs. Bretton's and made a movement to leave her lap; it was at first resisted, but she said—"Please, I wish to go: I can sit on a stool."
She was allowed to slip down from the knee, and taking a footstool, she carried it to a corner where the shade was deep, and there seated herself. Mrs. Bretton, though a commanding, and in grave matters even a peremptory woman, was often passive in trifles: she allowed the child her way. She said to me, "Take no notice at present." But I did take notice: I watched Polly rest her small elbow on her small knee, her head on her hand; I observed her draw a square inch or two of pocket-handkerchief from the doll-pocket of her doll-skirt, and then I heard her weep. Other children in grief or pain cry aloud, without shame or restraint; but this being wept: the tiniest occasional sniff testified to her emotion. Mrs. Bretton did not hear it: which was quite as well. Ere long, a voice, issuing from the corner, demanded—"May the bell be rung for Harriet!"
I rang; the nurse was summoned and came.
"Harriet, I must be put to bed," said her little mistress. "You must ask where my bed is."
Harriet signified that she had already made that inquiry.
"Ask if you sleep with me, Harriet."
"No, Missy," said the nurse: "you are to share this young lady's room," designating me.
Missy did not leave her seat, but I saw her eyes seek me. After some minutes' silent scrutiny, she emerged from her corner.
"I wish you, ma'am, good night," said she to Mrs. Bretton; but she passed me mute.
"Good-night, Polly," I said.
"No need to say good-night, since we sleep in the same chamber," was the reply, with which she vanished from the drawing-room. We heard Harriet propose to carry her up-stairs. "No need," was again her answer—"no need, no need:" and her small step toiled wearily up the staircase.
On going to bed an hour afterwards, I found her still wide awake. She had arranged her pillows so as to support her little person in a sitting posture: her hands, placed one within the other, rested quietly on the sheet, with an old-fashioned calm most unchildlike. I abstained from speaking to her for some time, but just before extinguishing the light, I recommended her to lie down.
"By and by," was the answer.
"But you will take cold, Missy."
She took some tiny article of raiment from the chair at her crib side, and with it covered her shoulders. I suffered her to do as she pleased. Listening awhile in the darkness, I was aware that she still wept,—wept under restraint, quietly and cautiously.
On awaking with daylight, a trickling of water caught my ear. Behold! there she was risen and mounted on a stool near the washstand, with pains and difficulty inclining the ewer (which she could not lift) so as to pour its contents into the basin. It was curious to watch her as she washed and dressed, so small, busy, and noiseless. Evidently she was little accustomed to perform her own toilet; and the buttons, strings, hooks and eyes, offered difficulties which she encountered with a perseverance good to witness. She folded her night-dress, she smoothed the drapery of her couch quite neatly; withdrawing into a corner, where the sweep of the white curtain concealed her, she became still. I half rose, and advanced my head to see how she was occupied. On her knees, with her forehead bent on her hands, I perceived that she was praying.
Her nurse tapped at the door. She started up.
"I am dressed, Harriet," said she; "I have dressed myself, but I do not feel neat. Make me neat!"
"Why did you dress yourself, Missy?"
"Hush! speak low, Harriet, for fear of waking the girl" (meaning me, who now lay with my eyes shut). "I dressed myself to learn, against the time you leave me."
"Do you want me to go?"
"When you are cross, I have many a time wanted you to go, but not now.
Tie my sash straight; make my hair smooth, please."
"Your sash is straight enough. What a particular little body you are!"
"It must be tied again. Please to tie it."
"There, then. When I am gone you must get that young lady to dress you."
"On no account."
"Why? She is a very nice young lady. I hope you mean to behave prettily to her, Missy, and not show your airs."
"She shall dress me on no account."
"Comical little thing!"
"You are not passing the comb straight through my hair, Harriet; the line will be crooked."
"Ay, you are ill to please. Does that suit?"
"Pretty well. Where should I go now that I am dressed?"
"I will take you into the breakfast-room."
"Come, then."
They proceeded to the door. She stopped.
"Oh! Harriet, I wish this was papa's house! I don't know these people."
"Be a good child, Missy."
"I am good, but I ache here;" putting her hand to her heart, and moaning while she reiterated, "Papa! papa!"
I roused myself and started up, to check this scene while it was yet within bounds.
"Say good-morning to the young lady," dictated Harriet. She said, "Good-morning," and then followed her nurse from the room. Harriet temporarily left that same day, to go to her own friends, who lived in the neighbourhood.
On descending, I found Paulina (the child called herself Polly, but her full name was Paulina Mary) seated at the breakfast-table, by Mrs. Bretton's side; a mug of milk stood before her, a morsel of bread filled her hand, which lay passive on the table-cloth: she was not eating.
"How we shall conciliate this little creature," said Mrs. Bretton to me, "I don't know: she tastes nothing, and by her looks, she has not slept."
I expressed my confidence in the effects of time and kindness.
"If she were to take a fancy to anybody in the house, she would soon settle; but not till then," replied Mrs. Bretton.
CHAPTER II.PAULINA.Some days elapsed, and it appeared she was not likely to take much of a fancy to anybody in the house. She was not exactly naughty or wilful: she was far from disobedient; but an object less conducive to comfort—to tranquillity even—than she presented, it was scarcely possible to have before one's eyes. She moped: no grown person could have performed that uncheering business better; no furrowed face of adult exile, longing for Europe at Europe's antipodes, ever bore more legibly the signs of home sickness than did her infant visage. She seemed growing old and unearthly. I, Lucy Snowe, plead guiltless of that curse, an overheated and discursive imagination; but whenever, opening a room-door, I found her seated in a corner alone, her head in her pigmy hand, that room seemed to me not inhabited, but haunted.
And again, when of moonlight nights, on waking, I beheld her figure, white and conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and praying like some Catholic or Methodist enthusiast—some precocious fanatic or untimely saint—I scarcely know what thoughts I had; but they ran risk of being hardly more rational and healthy than that child's mind must have been.
I seldom caught a word of her prayers, for they were whispered low: sometimes, indeed, they were not whispered at all, but put up unuttered; such rare sentences as reached my ear still bore the burden, "Papa; my dear papa!" This, I perceived, was a one-idea'd nature; betraying that monomaniac tendency I have ever thought the most unfortunate with which man or woman can be cursed.
What might have been the end of this fretting, had it continued unchecked, can only be conjectured: it received, however, a sudden turn.
One afternoon, Mrs. Bretton, coaxing her from her usual station in a corner, had lifted her into the window-seat, and, by way of occupying her attention, told her to watch the passengers and count how many ladies should go down the street in a given time. She had sat listlessly, hardly looking, and not counting, when—my eye being fixed on hers—I witnessed in its iris and pupil a startling transfiguration. These sudden, dangerous natures--sensitive as they are called—offer many a curious spectacle to those whom a cooler temperament has secured from participation in their angular vagaries. The fixed and heavy gaze swum, trembled, then glittered in fire; the small, overcast brow cleared; the trivial and dejected features lit up; the sad countenance vanished, and in its place appeared a sudden eagerness, an intense expectancy. "It is!" were her words.
Like a bird or a shaft, or any other swift thing, she was gone from the room. How she got the house-door open I cannot tell; probably it might be ajar; perhaps Warren was in the way and obeyed her behest, which would be impetuous enough. I—watching calmly from the window—saw her, in her black frock and tiny braided apron (to pinafores she had an antipathy), dart half the length of the street; and, as I was on the point of turning, and quietly announcing to Mrs. Bretton that the child was run out mad, and ought instantly to be pursued, I saw her caught up, and rapt at once from my cool observation, and from the wondering stare of the passengers. A gentleman had done this good turn, and now, covering her with his cloak, advanced to restore her to the house whence he had seen her issue.
I concluded he would leave her in a servant's charge and withdraw; but he entered: having tarried a little while below, he came up-stairs.
His reception immediately explained that he was known to Mrs. Bretton. She recognised him; she greeted him, and yet she was fluttered, surprised, taken unawares. Her look and manner were even expostulatory; and in reply to these, rather than her words, he said,—"I could not help it, madam: I found it impossible to leave the country without seeing with my own eyes how she settled."
"But you will unsettle her."
"I hope not. And how is papa's little Polly?"
This question he addressed to Paulina, as he sat down and placed her gently on the ground before him.
"How is Polly's papa?" was the reply, as she leaned on his knee, and gazed up into his face.
It was not a noisy, not a wordy scene: for that I was thankful; but it was a scene of feeling too brimful, and which, because the cup did not foam up high or furiously overflow, only oppressed one the more. On all occasions of vehement, unrestrained expansion, a sense of disdain or ridicule comes to the weary spectator's relief; whereas I have ever felt most burdensome that sort of sensibility which bends of its own will, a giant slave under the sway of good sense.
Mr. Home was a stern-featured—perhaps I should rather say, a hard-featured man: his forehead was knotty, and his cheekbones were marked and prominent. The character of his face was quite Scotch; but there was feeling in his eye, and emotion in his now agitated countenance. His northern accent in speaking harmonised with his physiognomy. He was at once proud-looking and homely-looking. He laid his hand on the child's uplifted head. She said—"Kiss Polly."
He kissed her. I wished she would utter some hysterical cry, so that I might get relief and be at ease. She made wonderfully little noise: she seemed to have got what she wanted--all she wanted, and to be in a trance of content. Neither in mien nor in features was this creature like her sire, and yet she was of his strain: her mind had been filled from his, as the cup from the flagon.
Indisputably, Mr. Home owned manly self-control, however he might secretly feel on some matters. "Polly," he said, looking down on his little girl, "go into the hall; you will see papa's great-coat lying on a chair; put your hand into the pockets, you will find a pocket-handkerchief there; bring it to me."
She obeyed; went and returned deftly and nimbly. He was talking to Mrs. Bretton when she came back, and she waited with the handkerchief in her hand. It was a picture, in its way, to see her, with her tiny stature, and trim, neat shape, standing at his knee. Seeing that he continued to talk, apparently unconscious of her return, she took his hand, opened the unresisting fingers, insinuated into them the handkerchief, and closed them upon it one by one. He still seemed not to see or to feel her; but by-and-by, he lifted her to his knee; she nestled against him, and though neither looked at nor spoke to the other for an hour following, I suppose both were satisfied.
During tea, the minute thing's movements and behaviour gave, as usual, full occupation to the eye. First she directed Warren, as he placed the chairs.
"Put papa's chair here, and mine near it, between papa and Mrs.
Bretton: I must hand his tea."
She took her own seat, and beckoned with her hand to her father.
"Be near me, as if we were at home, papa."
And again, as she intercepted his cup in passing, and would stir the sugar, and put in the cream herself, "I always did it for you at home; papa: nobody could do it as well, not even your own self."
Throughout the meal she continued her attentions: rather absurd they were. The sugar-tongs were too wide for one of her hands, and she had to use both in wielding them; the weight of the silver cream-ewer, the bread-and-butter plates, the very cup and saucer, tasked her insufficient strength and dexterity; but she would lift this, hand that, and luckily contrived through it all to break nothing. Candidly speaking, I thought her a little busy-body; but her father, blind like other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait on him, and even wonderfully soothed by her offices.
"She is my comfort!" he could not help saying to Mrs. Bretton. That lady had her own "comfort" and nonpareil on a much larger scale, and, for the moment, absent; so she sympathised with his foible.
This second "comfort" came on the stage in the course of the evening. I knew this day had been fixed for his return, and was aware that Mrs. Bretton had been expecting him through all its hours. We were seated round the fire, after tea, when Graham joined our circle: I should rather say, broke it up—for, of course, his arrival made a bustle; and then, as Mr. Graham was fasting, there was refreshment to be provided. He and Mr. Home met as old acquaintance; of the little girl he took
no notice for a time.
His meal over, and numerous questions from his mother answered, he turned from the table to the hearth. Opposite where he had placed himself was seated Mr. Home, and at his elbow, the child. When I say child I use an inappropriate and undescriptive term—a term suggesting any picture rather than that of the demure little person in a mourning frock and white chemisette, that might just have fitted a good-sized doll—perched now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon was her toy work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her hands a shred of a handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at which she bored perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers seemed almost a skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the cambric with a track of minute red dots; occasionally starting when the perverse weapon—swerving from her control—inflicted a deeper stab than usual; but still silent, diligent, absorbed, womanly.
Graham was at that time a handsome, faithless-looking youth of sixteen. I say faithless-looking, not because he was really of a very perfidious disposition, but because the epithet strikes me as proper to describe the fair, Celtic (not Saxon) character of his good looks; his waved light auburn hair, his supple symmetry, his smile frequent, and destitute neither of fascination nor of subtlety (in no bad sense). A spoiled, whimsical boy he was in those days.
"Mother," he said, after eyeing the little figure before him in silence for some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from the room relieved him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was all he knew of timidity—-"Mother, I see a young lady in the present society to whom I have not been introduced."
"Mr. Home's little girl, I suppose you mean," said his mother.
"Indeed, ma'am," replied her son, "I consider your expression of the least ceremonious: Miss Home I should certainly have said, in venturing to speak of the gentlewoman to whom I allude."
"Now, Graham, I will not have that child teased. Don't flatter yourself that I shall suffer you to make her your butt."
"Miss Home," pursued Graham, undeterred by his mother's remonstrance, "might I have the honour to introduce myself, since no one else seems willing to render you and me that service? Your slave, John Graham Bretton."
She looked at him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, "How do you do?"
"I have the honour to be in fair health, only in some measure fatigued with a hurried journey. I hope, ma'am, I see you well?"
"Tor-rer-ably well," was the ambitious reply of the little woman and she now essayed to regain her former elevation, but finding this could not be done without some climbing and straining—a sacrifice of decorum not to be thought of—and being utterly disdainful of aid in the presence of a strange young gentleman, she relinquished the high chair for a low stool: towards that low stool
​Graham drew in his chair.
"I hope, ma'am, the present residence, my mother's house, appears to you a convenient place of abode?"
"Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home."
"A natural and laudable desire, ma'am; but one which, notwithstanding,
I shall do my best to oppose. I reckon on being able to get out of you
a little of that precious commodity called amusement, which mamma and
Mistress Snowe there fail to yield me."
"I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall not stay long at your mother's."
"Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure. I have a pony on which you shall ride, and no end of books with pictures to show you."
"Are you going to live here now?"
"I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I think you queer."
"My face, ma'am?"
"Your face and all about you: You have long red hair."
"Auburn hair, if you please: mamma, calls it auburn, or golden, and so do all her friends. But even with my 'long red hair'" (and he waved his mane with a sort of triumph—tawny he himself well knew that it was, and he was proud of the leonine hue), "I cannot possibly be queerer than is your ladyship."
"You call me queer?"
"Certainly."
(After a pause), "I think I shall go to bed."
"A little thing like you ought to have been in bed many hours since; but you probably sat up in the expectation of seeing me?"
"No, indeed."
"You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure of my society. You knew I was coming home, and would wait to have a look at me."
"I sat up for papa, and not for you."
"Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before papa soon, I daresay."
She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good-night; she seemed hesitating whether Graham's deserts entitled him to the same attention, when he caught her up with one hand, and with that one hand held her poised aloft above his head. She saw herself thus lifted up on high, in the glass over the fireplace. The suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect of the action were too much.
"For shame, Mr. Graham!" was her indignant cry, "put me down!"—and when again on her feet, "I wonder what you would think of me if I were to treat you in that way, lifting you with my hand" (raising that mighty member) "as Warren lifts the little cat."
So saying, she departed.

Strange


By Alexandra H. Rodrigues and Jenny Mc Cain

​

Rodrigo adjusted his faux leather and cotton doublet. It came together in such a way that it actually made the fit and the wearer look and feel like a real noble. “Dressed for success,” he crowed to himself while gleefully laughing in fits of delight over the evening’s coming attractions. Rodrigo and his lady friend, Esmeralda, were headed to the Red Dragon’s Annual LARP Festival which was being held in the county’s old fairgrounds. The LARP, also known as a Live Action Role Play Fest, had become his one true passion. Where else could a lawyer become a king’s jester and a secretary becomes the queen’s lady in waiting. The LARP was a great equalizer. A place where dreamers, unemployed actors and gamer dorks could spend their days traipsing around in medieval dress and weaponry, shooting imaginary lightning bolts at each other.
It was more than that for Rodrigo. For the first time ever, he fit in. He was no longer labeled the geek. Most attendees were way beyond geek, traversing all the way to extreme dweeb and nerd. Geeks were considered a bit odd and peculiar, and usually known to be of above average intelligence. Being a dweeb took one to a whole new level of lameness in the High School hierarchy. Usually ridiculed, dweebs and nerds were almost always boringly studious individuals with thick black wire-rimmed glasses and a penchant for being a single-minded expert in some technical or scientific field.
Previous social status mattered little at LARP. Rodrigo was looking forward to a night of merriment with Esmeralda and his new role-playing buddies. His friend Rubin had forewarned him of a surprise that the King’s Court planned to unveil at the end of the night’s festivities.
“Jennita, is that you?” Rodrigo’s date heard a voice behind her say. It was a voice she knew too well. The person connected to that voice was the last she wanted to face today or any day for that matter. She did not turn around and was grateful that they were just passing a lady’s room at that same moment. She tore herself out of the possessive grip Rodrigo had placed around her shoulder.
“I’ll be right back,” she shouted and disappeared behind the door.
“I hope Esmeralda does not have a weak bladder; that could become annoying,” he thought. Only a few minutes earlier she had gone to the bathroom at the diner, where they had shared a coffee.
He saw a guy, dressed like Hercules, with a figure which made the hero pride, shaking his head, hurry and get lost in the crowd. I wonder where that Jennita is, that this guy had called, Rodrigo pondered. He suddenly had become curious as there was no other woman in close vicinity.
Esmeralda, alias Jennita, was standing inside the bathroom She was trembling. Robert, the man who had called her had been her lover. He had made her pregnant. He had also made her to agree to an abortion and given her ample money to find somebody to do the procedure. She however had not even looked for an abortionist but had decided that she would carry the child and possibly give it up for adoption in the end. Quickly she had left town, forwarding address unknown.
Four months down the road she had a miscarriage. Now Robert would never find out but still she could not go back to him as she had no explanation why she was avoiding him. She had disappeared without telling him. The first day back in her old hunting grounds she had met Rodrigo. Okay, there she had her story. She was working for Rodrigo as a call girl and he kept a sharp eye on her.
She powdered her nose and resolutely changed her path of thought. She had come here to have fun and fun she wanted to have. Let things take their turn, she would hold her fort.
Esmeralda made her way through the throngs of urban knights and yuppie peasants hawking pickles to the now toe-tapping Rodrigo.
“Sorry sugar, she said, patting her tightly laced bodice. “Had to re-lace my corset before a mishap occurred. Wouldn’t want these puppies flying free and starting a riot at the good old fairgrounds, now would you?”
The thought of Esmeralda’s creamy bosoms had the effect she had intended. Rodrigo’s impatience quickly melted and a glazed look of wonder crept into his gaze.
“Uh um, no, uh, of course not,” Rodrigo stammered, clearly uncomfortable with the intensity of Esmeralda’s sexuality. Rodrigo was not used to such attention. His whole life had been spent on the outside looking in. He would always be picked last in gym. At childhood school lunches his seat had always been with the nerds, the dorky kids, the outcasts. He envied the jocks, the cheerleaders -- the popular kids who laughed and flirted their way through life. Mostly he was sitting behind a computer screen studying, always studying. Often, he got lost in his science fiction stories, in his role playing computer games.
He lived his life always wanting to be able to participate, so he was completely powerless under the seductive gaze of this woman who knew how to use her beauty. He did not think that she was anything other than what she appeared to be. Esmeralda, fully aware of her power, trailed her finger down Rodrigo’s cheek and lightly kissed his lips.
“I must make my way to King’s Court right now to start my duties as Queen Basheba’s lady in waiting.” She flung her long golden braid over one shoulder and turned her back to him. Then she purposely swayed her hips as she walked into the crowd.
It only took a moment for the spell of Esmeralda to lift. Shaking his head as if to clear the haze from his now frazzled brain, Rodrigo knew he was way out of his league. Inexperienced he may be, but he was not stupid. He began to sense there was more to Esmeralda then met the eye.
Every day he would visit the coffee shop where she worked and watch the men in the place puff and bluster away at her register. She was stunning and had a glow that seemed to burn from within. It drew everyone to her, men, women and children. Her laugh tinkled like bells. Her smile could light a dozen candles. She had golden hair that shone like the sun and cornflower blue eyes. She was always smiling but it never reached her eyes. Her eyes held some deep dark secrets that he yearned to discover.
She sidled up to him one day as he was sipping his brew, hard at work on a new novel, sitting at the far back table. She pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. She had asked him what he was so intent upon. As he met her gaze, he knew he was lost.
By now they had been together two months. Although he knew of no reason in the world for her to be with him and that any moment he could lose her to a better man, he counted his lucky stars and enjoyed the moment. Lost in thoughts of Esmeralda and her bouncing hips, he didn’t see the stocky man until he was nearly upon him. The guy lay dazed on the floor. A thick burly hairy arm came down and jerked him back onto his feet. He was looking into the black helm of the Dark Knight.
The Dark Knight was infamous around these parts. Every year he showed up, and every year he won every joust or contest he entered. Over six feet tall with arms the size of tree trunks, he was massive. Dark eyes and dark hair made him appear devilishly handsome. The ladies of the LARP all swooned and threw themselves at him, but he was a cold tower of quiet apathy. He never engaged anyone and continued about his business as if the world was there just for him.
“You. Come with me immediately. I have need for your services,” said the deep voice of the Dark Knight. With that, Rodrigo was pulled into something that would change his life forevermore.
When Esmeralda got a glimpse of the two men together, her breath stopped for a second. It was her first time at this festival. Rodrigo had explained it to her and invited her to attend. Due to her beauty, she was immediately noticed by the King’s Court and given an appropriate costume, which fit her exquisitely. She had never heard of the Dark Knight, but she certainly knew this man who was ordering Rodrigo around. It was Robert, the guy who had gotten her pregnant, the man she wanted to evade at all cost.
“Use your assets wisely,” Aunt Samantha had warned her when she sent her to experience the worldly challenges suitable for an 18-year-old woman. “Do not disclose where you are from, and do not use any of the tricks we have taught you.”
Had those two men found out about each other? Had one or the other challenged the opponent to a duel? Certainly, it had not been Rodrigo; he was much too shy and hardly brave.
Robert? She could not yet figure him out. They had had fantastic sex, like well-edged figures melting together. Yet a feeling of personal interest in each other was totally absent. When he had found out that she was pregnant there was no doubt that she would feel the same way he did: Neither of them wanted the child.
It did not seem to have been the first time that he had gotten a girl pregnant. He did not give much importance to it or to her for that matter.
Rodrigo obviously enjoyed the attention of a woman of her beauty. She would not be surprised if he had an erection every time she came near him, but he did not dare to take her into his arms for the fear that the spell she cast on him would be broken. Neither Esmeralda nor Jennita was really her true name. She played her role the way it pleased her at any given moment. She was given two years to experiment before she would be asked to return to Samantha and report.
Rodrigo was in no mood for an adventure that involved the Dark Knight. There had been rumors in the past of people having disappeared when last seen with the Knight, but nothing could ever be pinned on him.
Where were they heading to now? Would Esmeralda look for him?
They did not leave the building. The Dark Knight indicated to Rodrigo to go up a set of the stairs leading to a second floor. At the top of those steps, the Knight opened a door to second set of stairs. Rodrigo counted not 13 steps as is customary but 21. They led to a dusty attic full of weapons, spider webs and a nauseating smell of rotting fish.
“Here, clean those weapons,” he instructed Rodrigo. “Pick the one you like best and will be able to handle in combat.”
With that he turned and locked the door to the attic behind him.
“No rush, I won’t be back for a while,” he shouted up.
Rodrigo couldn’t believe his crappy luck. He was sure the Dark Knight had purposely found the dirtiest weapons for him to clean. Taking a sword out of its scabbard, he carefully cleaned the weapon with a soft rag he found lying around on one of the work tables.
Suddenly there was a loud thumping sound which seemed to come from the other side of the attic. There it was again! Carefully, so as not to alarm whatever was on the other side, he crept quietly side-stepping boxes and weapons that had been carelessly strewn about the floor.
“Boo!” he shouted finally clearing the overly large beam that separated the two sides of the attic. No one was there. Lying on the floor before him was a letter. Bending down, he picked it up and almost missed the signet ring underneath it.
“Now what do we have here?” he muttered to himself. The signet ring was old. That much he could tell right away. It shined like burnished gold and felt very heavy in his hand. Simple, with no adornment except for a green jeweled dragon, it was mesmerizing nevertheless. The dragon’s green jeweled eyes appeared to be winking at him. Blinking his eyes, he once again looked carefully at the ring. There it was again! It wasn’t just a simple trick of light. The dragon was looking right at him!
Before he had a chance to examine the ring and open the letter that lay beside it, he heard the clomping of armor on wood making its way up the staircase. Shoving the letter and ring into his pocket, he scurried back over to the dusty weapons and pretended he was hard at work finishing up that task.
The Dark Knight walked in, face scowling with displeasure. “What fools you men are, with your pretentious need for re-enactments of a history long gone. If you men had any idea of the hardship and struggles that life was like back then, I doubt you’d wish so fervently to be there.”
Having no idea as to what the Dark Knight was referring to Rodrigo just nodded and shook his head. “It’s as if he’s not one of us, yet there he is in costume playing right along with us,” he thought.
The Black Knight sat his large frame down on a milk crate and stared intently into Rodrigo’s eyes. His eyes seemed to pierce his very soul and he felt as if the Dark Knight knew his every hope and dream. Scared at the power in those eyes, Rodrigo broke eye contact.
RINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG! There’s the noon bell signaling an end to the morning’s activities. The High Court would now be in session and the King and Queen would be making their way there. Esmeralda would be with them! Rodrigo, ashamed at his weak knees, met the Dark Knight’s gaze once more.
“Go if you must,” the Knight declared, “But heed my words: We will meet again Rodrigo and the next time you will not be allowed to leave so quickly. There is a dark cloud hanging over this LARP and your services have been deemed necessary in the final battle.”
For some reason Rodrigo felt he was not referring to the final joust of the evening but something far more sinister. Without a second thought, he ran out of the attic and made his way to his lady.
Rodrigo was still dazed and confused, not sure what to make out of the weird encounter with the Dark Knight. While he was standing in the large hall with the dimmed magnificent chandeliers, the court procession was passing him. There was Esmeralda. She surely did stand out in the crowd. Her luscious red hair reflected the crystals. Her wasp-like waist seemed in danger of breaking at any second. She must have seen him as she gave him a warm smile and sent an air kiss in his direction. Rodrigo was still astonished at himself that he had dared to invite her to this event and even more so that she had agreed to go with him. In his mind he pictured himself putting a wedding ring on her dainty finger and at that same moment he remembered the letter and the ring he had put into his pocket up in the attic.
He went to the bar and got himself a Virgin Mary, spiced up tomato juice without Vodka. Rodrigo despised alcohol ever since he had seen his father’s health go downhill from overuse. He then walked outside and found an empty park bench where he sat down. It was a little chilly, but his blood was boiling with all that was going on. He did not want anybody to see when he pulled the two items into the shade of the setting sun. The moon would be out soon, a full moon nevertheless.
The ring felt hot as if it had captured his body temperature or his mind’s heated uproar. He put it on his right ring finger and it fit like it had been made for him. The dragon was quite primitively constructed and yet it evoked a sense of protection in Rodrigo. Next he unfolded the letter. It was only one page and … it was addressed to him.
What the heck? How could that be? He had seen nobody in the attic. The mystery was thickening. He began to read:
Dear Rodrigo,
I am Samantha. I am the aunt of the lady you call Esmeralda. I noticed that you have an eye on her and that is not surprising as I have spared no effort in making her appearance as stunning and her traits as humanly possible. So much so that I even surprised myself because by mistake I have even fitted her with the human talent of reproduction. Where I live and where my niece is from, reproduction usually is handled by implant of the most advanced stem cells from the most brilliant creatures. But enough of that. I do not mean to scare or upset you. I need your help. Esmeralda is in danger. She is in danger from a source you have not yet come in touch with.
For that very reason I am enclosing the dragon ring with this letter. Wear it always from now on. When you turn it, so that the mouth of the dragon faces the palm of your right hand, you will be able to read people’s minds as you look into their eyes. It does not work on Esmeralda. You are not to disclose the contents of this letter to her, nor tell her that you know about me. The power of the ring will fade if you ever use it for a satanic purpose.
May the spirit of the Unseen bless you. Samantha
Rodrigo smelled his drink. Had they spiced it with drugs? Was he hallucinating? The letter was in his hand and the ring on his finger. There was nobody near him right now on whom he could test the power it was said to have.
Confused and delirious, or so he thought, Rodrigo continued on pretending what had just happened, hadn’t and that he wasn’t losing his mind. Hard to do when from the moment he got up this morning his life became nothing but a comedy of errors. Is this all just a dream he thought wildly? Insecurity, his old enemy, once again reared its ugly head. Was it taking over and controlling his thoughts which raced thru out his mind?
“One…two…three…,” he counted slowly to himself concentrating on nothing but the rise and fall of his chest as air slowly went in and then slowly came out. His pounding heart slowed down along with his breathing. Feeling a bit better but still not sure what was going on, he wished the drink in his hand was a true cocktail. Shaking that thought, he steeled his nerves and figured out his next move.
While Rodrigo thought through the events of the day, Esmeralda stood with the King’s. Staring at the festivities, she felt like an outsider peering in. She never felt she truly belonged anywhere. She was different from everyone else, never truly fitting in. Did others see it too? Or was the face she showed the world successful in masking the real Esmeralda?
Shaken out of her inner monologue by shouts of “Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt!” while points were scored as the afternoon’s competitors battled each other in their bid to win the day’s quests. Those with the most points at the end would go to the finals and compete for the final prize of $5,000. The King and Queen judged and meted out points while the court just sat on the sidelines watching.
Bored out of her mind, Esmeralda’s gaze fell upon a tall dark figure that was making its way slowly toward her. With determined grace and quiet eloquence, the Dark Knight passed thru the crowds until he towered over her slight form.
The phone rang. What now? What was he hearing? He did not have his cell phone with him. It did not belong in these medieval make-believe surroundings. Rodrigo felt a shock going thru his entire body that rendered him shaky and nervous. He sat up with a snap from his hip to his head. Eyes wide open now he found himself in his own bed. The outfit of the evening lay neatly folded on the chair.
The phone rang again. It was the phone on the night table. How had he gotten back home from the party, he wondered. He looked at the clock: 10:30 – 10:30 what? When? The shrill sound of the third ring caused him to finally reach out for the receiver and pick the phone up.
“Yes, hello?” His voice was raspy and sleep heavy.
“Rodrigo, what the hell are you doing still at home? You were to pick me up an hour ago!”
“What?” he mumbled in disbelief. “Pick you up?”
“This is Esmeralda,” the voice on the other end said cynically.
It was then that Rodrigo saw the half empty bottle of Whisky behind the phone. Oh no. He had imbibed in so much alcohol that he must have passed out and had fallen asleep. He knew the bottle had been full before he attacked it. All that weird excitement of the last hours had been a dream, or would you call it a nightmare, he thought. Damn it! The worst was that he had forgotten to pick up Esmeralda.
The dream had been like an open book: The Dark Knight, all the versions and visions of Esmeralda, her pregnancy, her being strange, that odd letter from her Aunt Samantha. Still confused, he looked at his hand. No ring. Well of course not. All those visions had been figments of his imagination.
“Are you there?” he heard her voice on the other end.
He had to snap out of his delirium. He knew he would forget the happenings of the dream as soon as he forced himself to think truly clear again. He slapped himself fully awake by hitting his forehead with his left hand. That dream had had so many exciting twists. It sure was boring to return to reality.
Well first of all, he had to make it up to Esmeralda now. Then maybe she would be able to give him some actual thrill later on.

​

FOR HUME THE BELLS TOLL

a novel excerpt from
HEMINGWAY’S TRUNK ©

by

Gerald Arthur Winter
 
www.geraldarthurwinter.com

 
Needing a departure from the school-of-hard-knocks, I began with a more scholarly approach by contacting Hume Baskin, Sr., a retired editor from Scribners who’d known Ernest Hemingway. Baskin’s home had a white picket fence and stood two hundred feet back from the quiet road toward the Hudson’s shore. The road narrowed to a state park with a walking path along the water and up to the top of the Palisades cliffs. I made a U-turn in the park and pulled over to assess the surroundings and run through my mind the approach I’d take to attempt having a conversation with the retired Scribners editor. Nothing eased my mind about what approach to take, so I defaulted to the path of last resort as a private eye—the truth.
I rang the doorbell at the screen door to the porch, which extended around the Edwardian vintage home on the south and eastern sides with a view of the Tappan Zee Bridge and legendary Sleepy Hollow across the Hudson. A dog barked from inside the house beyond the porch.
“Shut up, Zelda!” a croaky masculine voice shouted.
Zelda, appeared older than Mr. Baskin by two dog years, perhaps a-hundred-and-one to his eighty-seven.
“Don’t mind her,” Baskin said, appearing in a motorized wheelchair from the darkness of the open inner door. “She might gum you to death, but I knew some gals in Korea back in the day who’d do the same for a buck. My shrapnel wound from that so-called police action didn’t start to raise hell with my right hip till I hit seventy. All downhill from there. I should’ve gone for the Teflon hip when I had the chance. Hell, should’ve screwed my secretary while I had the chance, too.”
He used a cane from his seated position to unlatch the hook on the screen door and looked me up and down where I stood wearing my light gray suit, yellow silk shirt, and navy-and-yellow striped tie. I wore my father’s old gray fedora for affect.
Baskin squinted. The German shepherd gave a low growl that sounded more like flatulence from the old man, then she chased her tail in a circle three times and plunked down onto a worn throw rug. That’s when I noticed the ticking sounds all around me and saw with a quick scan of the room, an assortment of clocks from Grandfathers to Cukoos.
Baskin cocked his head back and forth with a gnarly smirk.
“My passion, clocks collected around the world. Publishing gave me the opportunity to travel, to go where angels feared to tread.”
“How many are there?”
“More than a hundred in this room, more than three hundred throughout the house. I used to play the VHS tape of Disney’s Pinocchio and synchronized the clocks to chime with the opening scene when all of Geppetto’s clocks chime together. Drove Zelda nuts, but now she’s deaf and doesn’t even blink.”
Zelda seemed half-blind as well.
“You served in Korea during the war?” I asked.
“Of course I did, ya idiot,” he said. “How many times have I told ya. You’ve seen my medals, for crap sake.”
He paused and lowered his head, looking back up at me with his watery eyes. “I thought you were my son. Sonny’s going to have a shit fit when he comes home and finds me dead.” He wiped tears from his ruddy, weathered cheeks and pushed his thin, white, mussed-up hair into place, but the stiff breeze off the Hudson River blew it askew again. “He’ll be more upset that you robbed me, and I was fool enough to unlock the door. It won’t matter to him if I’m dead. At eighty-seven, I’m about ready for a dirt nap anyway. At least the pain will stop.”
“No one’s here to rob you, Mr. Baskin,” I said, removing my fedora—a prop I decided to use to put the old fella in a more comfortable time frame when he still had his strength and youth with a bright future. “I came here to ask your opinion on some important matters.”
He stared at me blankly. “My opinion?” he asked, turning aside to ponder the logic of my proposal. “Of course . . . my opinion. It’s been some time—but I still have some opinions. Most opinions are like Zelda’s butt, we’ve all got one, and they all stink.” He chuckled and wheezed.
“Did you name your dog after Zelda Fitzgerald, Mr. Baskin?”
I asked, appealing to his appreciation for the past. “Did you admire her?”
“You kiddin, sonny?” he smirked, picked his nose, and encouraged the dog to lap the strand of mucous off his finger.
“Empowerment, my boy. This is Zelda Fitzgerald . . . eating out of my hand. I know a bitch when I see one.”
Since I had him going, I fed the spew. “So you knew them all . . .The Lost Generation?”
“I keep Zelda on a leash for Scotty,” he said, nodding toward the shepherd. “At the party when everyone thought he was on the wagon, the water we thought he had in his glass was really gin. Sat back in a chair and stared into space. They thought he was doing a Bela Lugosi impression, but he was dead. Sure the booze killed him, but that nut Zelda drove ’m to drink. They all thought she had been committed to an asylum, but I got ’er right here.”
He tugged at the dog’s collar making her whelp. I put out a sympathetic hand for her to lick, then I scratched her behind the ear. Baskin grimaced.
“Now’s she’s gotcha,” he said, twisting his mouth and shaking his head. “She has that power over men.”
“Even over Hemingway?” I asked, finding my chance.
“Nah,” he smiled. “He had nothing to do with her. He stayed clear of both of them. Thought Scotty was a poof.”
“Did you know him in the early days?”
“No,” he shook his head. “Wish I did. I didn’t meet Papa till 1952, when most critics figured he had nothing else to say — bottomed out from booze, women, and pain from injuries. The master of the simple sentence as the perfect means of expression. I loved it . . . loved him, too.”
“So did you work closely with him as an editor?” .
“No-no.” He sighed. “Don’t I wish? I was thirty in 1952, just an assistant of little consequence in the world of literary giants, and just back from Korea. Some of them were already dead . . . Scotty and Wolfe. Max Perkins was the master who handled the big boys.”
“But you were there for Hemingway’s triumph, when he won The Pulitzer and Nobel for The Old Man and the Sea when everyone thought he was washed up. That must have been great to witness from the inside?”
The old man’s face glowed as a beam of midday sun came through the screen porch and seemed to bring him to life.
“That was a triumph for us all,” he said, “the staff, Scribners, and twentieth century American literature. I thought of him like the Post-Impressionist painter, Cezanne, with no wasted, unneeded brush strokes . . . simple sentences, quick broad strokes at their best.”
“So, were you on close speaking terms?”
“No. He only confided in his fishing and hunting cronies, and only his last wife, Mary,” he sighed. “To Hemingway, we were just eggheads.”
“Did he ever talk to anyone on the staff about his early writing . . . before he made it big?”
“We all heard the story about how he lost a volume of his short stories written before he went to Paris after World War I,” he said. “Also his first attempt at a novel.”
“How did he lose the manuscripts?”
“He kept them in a steamer trunk and was going to meet Gertrude Stein at the train station in Paris,” he said. “His first wife, Hadley, was supposed to bring them by train. For whatever reason, she was distracted, and the steamer trunk with all of his work inside vanished from the station platform.”
“How did he feel about that?”
“He was devastated at first,” he said. “Then very angry for some time, but he used the anger to fuel his new writing.”
“He told you this?”
“Yes. You see, he did have more respect for me than some of the others who used their graduate student status in Ivy League schools to avoid going to Korea,” he said proudly. “We were both wounded in war, so he’ d pat me on the back when we spoke, which was rare, because he spent most of his time in Cuba and Africa back then. That was before his decline that led to his depression and . . . you know the rest.”
“Do you have any theories about the lost steamer trunk?”
“Not a theory, but from Papa’s lips,” he said. “Though he was a braggart and known for his bar fights and the like, he once said that they had been stolen for a reason.”
“Not just a paranoid delusion of a bitter man in decline?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Back from receiving his awards, he was quite focused. “It was a bitter joke to him. He thought Gertrude Stein had them stolen from him and destroyed them for his own good because they were immature and lacked what he was capable of writing.”
“If he believed that was true, was he angry at her?”
“He said he was mad for some time.” Baskins grinned. “He said that, in retrospect, if true, “Gertie” had done him a great favor. She never commented on his hypothesis and she died before he’d won the Pulitzer and Nobel. They hadn’t spoken in twenty-five years.”
“If someone did steal the trunk and his writings, did he ever make any effort to retrieve them? Inquiries? Detectives?”
“He’d joked that it was probably General Franco’s spies, hoping he’d give up writing and never be able to create For Whom the Bell Tolls,” he said. “He liked to joke that many Spaniards, though admiring him as an aficionado of the bullfight, resented some of his direct criticisms of individuals actually named in Death in the Afternoon.”
“He was being facetious, of course.” I nodded. “The missing manuscripts would’ve been written between 1917 and about 1920, before the Spanish Civil War and before his interest in bullfighting, though that was the background for The Sun Also Rises in 1926.”
“Yes.” Baskin nodded and took a deep breath. “Yet, there was the rumor that someone found the steamer trunk and offered them back to him for a ransom.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I believe a note came to him at La Coupole Café, one of those clean, well-lighted places in Paris he frequented in the 1920’s.” Baskin laughed. “Story goes that, with the publication of his first novel, Hemingway didn’t want to spoil his reputation with anyone’s knowledge of the drivel he’d written before he felt he’d
become a man.”
“He didn’t pay any ransom?”
“Certainly not. He joked that he might pay someone to destroy them.”
“Did he?”
Baskins rubbed his chin thoughtfully then cocked his head.
“You know . . . I wouldn’t have put it past him.”
“What if the person who stole the stories didn’t destroy them? Wouldn’t they be worth a lot today?”
My question put the old man into a trance for a few moments before he replied. “I’d be curious just to look at them . . . but yes, imagine Scribners, or any publisher would want those stories. My God! They’d be worth millions.”
“What if I told you an old steamer trunk was found with Hemingway’s initials on it, and it contained a manuscript of short stories?” Dumbfounded, he looked at me with amazement.
“I must see them!” he barked, frightening the dog, which broke from his grasp and cowered behind me.
“How about your son?” I asked. “Wouldn’t Junior want to acquire them? He works in Acquisitions at Scribners.”
“Sonny?” he said with a frown. “He doesn’t know shit from shinola. Publishing isn’t what it used to be. Little chance to find new talent in this century. Even the movie business is just remakes of the old stuff. They made great movies from all of Hemingway’s novels because they were original and showed the conflicts in the human condition, none of this digitally computerized nonsense when you know no one can really get hurt or die, not even a stunt man.”
“Can you arrange a meeting for me with your son?”
“Will you bring the manuscripts?” he asked, his eyes aglow.
“Arrange the meeting and I’ll do my best.”
“Sonny will come here tonight to check up on me and put out the garbage. “Kid down the street brings the cans back up to the house. “Comes at seven o’clock, just after my supper. At my age, the strongest thing I can drink is green tea, so you can join us for dessert.”
“Tea’s about my limit these days, too, Mr. Baskin.”
“Whom shall I tell Sonny is coming to show us Hemingway’s stories? Didn’t catch your name.”
“Tom Larkin,” I said, handing him the same fake dealer in Antiquities card I’d used earlier that day to speak to the woman who’d put the steamer trunk in her high-end Tag Sale. He strained to read my card, but nodded. “See you tonight,” I said, putting my fedora on again and tilting it for affect.
“Make it eight o’clock. Oops! I’m afraid Zelda just lifted her leg on your trousers, Tom.”
I saw that he was right, and remarked, “Unusual for a female.”
“Zelda’s really a male shepherd,” he laughed as I turned to leave. “Papa had joked that that Zelda liked to pee standing up . . . like a kid squirting other kids at the water fountain.”
I tried to erase that image from my mind, but wondered what I could bring to the table later that night to get Junior’s take on the value of genuine Hemingway manuscripts to a publisher.
I decided to ask my client, Sophia Trask, if I could borrow the steamer trunk as my token of credibility when I meet with sonny-boy tonight. I called her on my cell as I came south to Manhattan down the Henry Hudson Parkway.
“If you think it will help, you can take the trunk tonight. David won’t be here. Why don’t you stay for a late lunch,” Sophia suggested. “You can bring me up to date on our case.”
“Something of sustenance, I hope,” I said, recalling the watercress sandwiches on my last official visit. “I hope you have a non-smoking section.”
“I promise to be good while you’re here this time,” she said. “Don’t do anything to throw off your rhythm on my account. I should be there by four o’clock.”
“Should I pour your scotch on the rocks now, so it’s watered down by the time you arrive?” she asked with a twitter of laughter under her breath.
“I’m sure if you wait till I get there, you’ll have melt the ice with your radiance.” I said, without waiting for a reply as I hung up.
* * *
When I went through the security routine in the Trask Tower lobby to get to the penthouse, the guard gave me a look of disdain as he watched me heading for the express elevator. He stopped me at the metal detector, which I passed, but he saw the bulge that the jade dragon in my suit hip pocket revealed.
Taking it out and waving it in his face, I lied, “Mrs. Trask hired me to retrieve it from a suspected thief—mission accomplished.”
“She posted a ten-thousand-dollar reward in the paper,” he said. “Must be your lucky day.”
As the doors closed I said, “Gettin’ lucky with Mrs. Trask would be a bonus.”
When I got off at the penthouse foyer, a security guard greeted me, “Welcome back, Mr. Larkin. Mrs. Trask left the door open for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, waving the jade dragon in hand for him to see. “I’vecome for my reward.”
“Nice work, sir,” he said, as I placed the dragon on the same table I’d snatched it from. The streamer trunk was locked and standing on end ready for me to take it with me.
I nodded and pushed open the door, calling out, “Honey, I’m home!”
I saw the scotch in the tumbler still frosted with ice on the coffee table. Sophia came from the kitchen and carried a tray of jumbo shrimp and cocktail sauce. Her expression was scolding, as she nodded for me to follow her to the balcony patio where she poured herself a chilled glass of Chardonnay. She sat on a loveseat with her wine and the platter of shrimp on the glass coffee table in front of her. She patted the cushion beside her and nodded for me to sit beside her.
“Bring your scotch and take off your jacket.” I joined her with the cold glass in hand and my jacket over my shoulder. With a smirk, she asked, “And how was your day?” which made me wonder if she’s had a hand in my beating last night, even from a distance.
I took off my fedora and dropped it between us for protection — from what, I wasn’t sure. I loosened my tie, unbuttoned my shirt cuffs, and rolled them up twice on my forearms, which she seemed to admire.
“What’s with that goofy hat, Tom?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
“I’m just going with the flow, hon,” I said, wafting the scotch before my nose. “The old-fashioned garb got me what I wanted.”
“What exactly do you want, Tom?” she asked with the tip of her tongue poised between her teeth.”
“Not a billionaire after my ass for screwing around with his wife while I’m on his payroll.”
“My payroll, too,” she said, moving closer.
“Hey! I’d like to oblige by giving you the heir you need to claim your Trask billion-dollar inheritance, but I’m sure hubby will require a match with his DNA to claim your prize,” I said, not backing away. “Besides, my blood is red, and his is blue by association—though it’s most likely billionaire green.”
“I was just playing, Tom,” she said, sipping her wine. “I’m bored.”
“I presume it’s Hey-boy’s day off,” I said, referring to her missing Asian houseboy. “So at least you got to boil some shrimp.”
“I ordered out from the Ritz Carlton,” she said without shame.
“Speaking of being on your payroll,” I said. “Not only have I seen no moola from you for my services, but I saw your add and retrieved your jade dragon for the reward. It’s on the table in the foyer.”
“My-my, you must have connections.” She sneered. “And with a variety of seamy characters, I imagine.” Again a reference to the two thugs who’d beat me up last night and left me in Great Bay to drown.
“My repertoire has expanded recently.” I said, thinking I should’ve worn my pee-soaked trousers instead of having them cleaned. I wondered if El David’s olfactory senses would’ve pick up the scent through all the filtered tar and nicotine from Sophia’s sneaked cigarettes usually sucked up by her houseboy.
“I’ll give you that ten thousand—cash,” she said, “but I don’t want to be exchanging money for your other assignment until you can verify the authenticity of the Hemingway manuscripts.”
I cocked my head like a kid asking if he could stay out late, so she went to the bedroom and returned with the cash.
“Sorry to make you part with today’s shoe allowance,” I said, but she just shrugged at my reference to the obvious.
Hanging out with the Trasks made me feel like I was playing a summer-long game of Monopoly, but I figured it was just a matter of time before I’d land on Trask’s Boardwalk or Park Place and end up broke—if not broken.
I tucked Sophia’s cash inside my jacket and bid farewell to the glass of scotch without so much as a snort.
“Shall I send some security guards up to help you with the trunk?” she asked as I paused at the door with hat in hand.
“Do I look that fragile?”
“Hardly,” she said, putting a hand on my forearm. I started to open the door. “Tom, I want to give you a thank you kiss for bringing back the jade dragon.”
Her lips were inviting, and my ribs ached from last night’s beating when I tried to take a deep breath.
“I’ll take a rain-check,” I said. “But only if you’re between hubbies.”
“Staying married to El David and bearing his son to run his business is my life’s ambition. That success is my objective.”
“I’ve always thought of marriage as subjective,” I said with a grin, plopping my fedora on my head with a tilt.
“You’re from a lost era,” she said, as I lifted the steamer trunk by one side handle and put it on the express elevator. It felt heavier than I expected but I figured my strength was sapped by a couple of broken ribs.
“Ain’t it the truth, doll,” I said, happy to leave Sophia, like the scotch, untouched.
I thought it would be wise to go to Upper Nyack early to get a peek at Junior on his arrival at his father’s home for dinner. To my surprise, I wasn’t early enough. Intending to pass the house and park the car in the parking lot at the park down the road and walk up, I saw a patrol car and an ambulance in the driveway. I turned around and parked on the street in front of the house.
There was a teenage boy with his mother talking to a police officer next to the flashing ambulance.
I walked up to the cop and flashed my array of law enforcement brotherhood IDs and said, “I was here earlier today and was invited back this evening to meet with Mr. Baskin’s son. What happened?”
“Mr. Baskin had a fatal stroke,” the officer said. “The kid mows the lawn and brings up the garbage pails. He went to collect his pay and found the old man dead in his wheelchair.”
“Has Mr. Baskin’s son been notified?”
“The boy’s mother spoke to the son on the phone.” He nodded to the woman with the boy.
“Will he be coming soon?” I asked.
“Not sure. The funeral director is coming for the body now on the son’s request,” the officer said.
“Do you mind if I have a look inside?”
“What was your business here?”
“Mr. Baskin wanted to see an old manuscript I have,” I said, seeing no harm in the truth. “It came from an era when he worked for the same publisher the son now works for, so it was just a matter of interest and a courtesy to the father.”
The officer nodded. “Make it quick. Baskin’s son told the neighbor to lock up the house.”
I went through the porch where I’d been earlier and entered the musty home. I saw the empty wheelchair beside a pole lamp. When I went closer, I noticed a damp footprint behind the wheelchair.
I assumed it was probably one of the EMT people crossing the front lawn before coming in to attempt to revive old Baskin. Then I noticed another footprint . . . and yet another coming from the kitchen at the rear of the home facing the river.
I followed the trail to the backdoor and saw the same tracks on the five wooden stairs, so I walked across the back lawn to taller grass between the lawn and the river. I found a path through the tall weeds made by one, possibly two people coming from the river.
I followed the path to the river that had rocks along the shore.
There was no dock for a boat, but the tide had receded recently, so at a higher tide a landing with a small boat was possible. Then I saw a scrape mark on one of the large rocks protruding from the river, which may have been used as a stepping stone onto the rocky shore. The scrape mark was fresh with white paint flecks from a fiberglass craft.
As I wondered why someone would bother to make such a landing, a stench from the nearby weeds made me gag. With my face covered with a handkerchief, I moved the tall grass aside and saw the body—Zelda, covered with green-headed flies and baking in the sun.
Despite the dog’s mistreatment and its age, it had attempted to stop an intruder and paid the price. I saw that the dog’s face was free of any flies, so I took my handkerchief and swabbed her nose. The flies buzzed in my face and swarmed like confetti. I waved the handkerchief in front of my nose and pulled my head back with the smell of chloroform. At least the intruder had the decency to euthanize Zelda. Someone knew about the dog and the home’s access from the Hudson River. I figured Junior wasn’t directly involved, but he may have sent someone to the house for something of value. Whether the old man died of natural causes or not wasn’t as much an issue to me as the motive to speed up the process.
I took out my penknife and scraped some of the paint flecks from the rock into my palm. I took a pinch of the white slivers and wrapped them in my handkerchief. I figured if I gave my information to the police, the house would be cordoned off as a crime scene and prevent my access later, so I kept quiet.
As I turned to head back to the house I saw something embedded in the dirt by a footprint. I noted the size and form of the footprint, different from those left inside the house. I dug the object out of the dirt with my index finger and blew the dirt off it. I put the object in my pocket outside the crumpled handkerchief con-
taining the paint chips and headed back to the front of the house.
“What happened to Zelda?” the boy asked when I came back to the cop.
“Who’s Zelda?” the cop asked. “Is there a wife?”
“The dog,” I said. “Must’ve gotten out after the old fella croaked. Out in the hot sun all day with no way to get back in, the dog died, too. With its master gone, the old shepherd’s better off.”
“I think it was his son’s dog,” the boy’s mother said. “He left the dog for his dad just to keep him company.”
I reasoned that that might leave Junior out as a suspect, but I preferred to meet him before making final judgment. I wondered if Junior would be back that night to meet me or send someone else with a stronger message.
* * *
Waiting in the park down the road, I wondered if Baskin, Jr. had spoken to his father by phone after I left the first time, and if he told him my name and business. If the old man said nothing before he died, Junior would have no reason to expect my visit or to send someone else as his second. From the park, I watched the water for any repeat approach by boat. I waited till the sun was going down before I made my way toward the house, hopefully, undetected. I worked my way back to the house in the shadows along the hedges of neighboring homes until I found a basement window to force open. The old cellar was dank and musty. Critters scampered along the walls with a wave of rattling among boxes in my wake toward the creaky open staircase to the first-floor kitchen. I’d seen no one approach the house from the water or the street, but probably no one had seen me enter.
I listened from the dark kitchen but heard only an occasional car in the distance. I pushed through the swinging kitchen door to the parlor where Baskin, Sr.’s wheel chair remained beside the pole lamp as before. I walked over to the wheelchair and sat in it. It was a comforting relief to I thought about the father and his past with Hemingway and wondered if anything could be gained by a trip to Paris to track down any leads on the rumors that Senior had mentioned about a ransom.
Without even a page of the manuscript to determine if it was a scam,
I had to rely on reasonably credible sources to determine the truth. I sat so long in the wheelchair listening to the hundreds of clocks ticking throughout the house as my oxycodone kicked in that I must have dozed off. My head hung with my chin to my heaving chest. Soon a swirl of images engulfed me till I saw myself as a young Hemingway so many years ago. Though I saw through his eyes, I heard my voice narrating the scene:
Winter’s chill cut through his tattered overcoat, and the vapor from his wine-scented breath crystallized in his dark, bushy mustache, something the fat, Jewish, lesbian advised him would provide more prowess as a man than anything he could ever put to paper. He half-believed her critique of his writing, though she was an obese, butch, Jew, which in his mind, obscured any intelligence she may have possessed to assess his burgeoning talent. His belief that a woman…is a woman… is a woman helped him dismiss her negative opinions as obvious penis envy.
At twenty-one, he believed his writing was true to himself and to the world. His crisp prose, simple and concise, hit his readers like a left-hook followed by a right-cross, which he told the fat hag, would knock his readers on their asses.
His self-assured posture did not impress her, so they parted with mutual contempt.
Weeks later at the Paris train station, he ground his teeth and chewed on his pipe, another prop for his asserted masculine image. He wanted to show her his latest work, a short story taken from his own experience as a teen, when a band local hillbillies had taken him on his first deer hunt. He felt it was the truest prose he had ever written, because his heart was in it.
He didn’t care if she would hate the subject matter of young boys with peach fuzz in their groins haplessly finding their way in the real world. Her criticism of his relentless machismo infuriated him then, and would haunt him long after her death, right to the final pulse in his head forty years later with 12-O buckshot in his brain.
His anger distracted him till the train whistle blew as it came into the station. He walked down the platform away from his meager possessions, two sets of clothes and a Webster’s dictionary stuffed in a satchel plopped atop his steamer trunk, too heavy for the wind from an incoming train to whisk off the platform.
He flinched, seeing, not Gertie, but her scrawny companion with a floppy hat. He nodded, and said her name, “Alice.”
She glanced at his worn shoes, an army issue from his ambulance driving days, but his best. She took full inventory of his presence and tich-tiched at his pipe and mustache, then informed him with the warmth an ice sickle, “Gertrude had better things to do today than to read your scribblings. Good day.”
Dismissed, he watched her disappear into the crowd on the platform. When he turned with disgust toward his luggage, only the satchel remained. Not just his latest short story, but also his life’s work so far, the only copies of a thousand pages of manuscripts he’d written over the past three years packed inside the steamer trunk all gone . . . every painful word . . . vanished . . . forever.
Well, he thought, nothing is forever . . .
When I awoke, it hurt just to blink my eyes. It was the buzz of my phone on silent mode moving along the hard wood floor that woke me. I flinched with pain when I leaned forward in the wheelchair to reach my phone on the floor. The pain in my ribs seemed like nothing compared to the contusion pulsing at the base of my skull. Still bound with tape around my ribs after being repeatedly kicked the day before, it was hard to reach back to touch the swelling where my fragile head sat on my stiff neck. No doubt I had a concussion from a heavy blow, with the metallic taste of blood dripping from my sinuses to my throat and making me vomit.
A crackling sound came to my ears as I tried to breath. It felt like sand in my nose, but more likely, it was minute bone fragments from the blow, this time meant to kill me.
I wondered what could motivate someone to attempt to get rid of me for good. Did they have something of value in their hands that they didn’t have before, and now made me worthless to them?
All I had was an empty old steamer trunk, maybe worth six figures to the right buyer, but nothing worth killing anyone over . . . unless the alleged Hemingway manuscripts were genuine.
If authentic, their intrinsic value would be priceless. But as fakes that mimicked Hemingway’s narrative, they could still be worth millions to a greedy billionaire like David Trask willing to boast about their authenticity. Rich men like Trask with political power could create their own reality and make public opinion accept it as fact. The biggest lies can become the new truth if repeated often enough.
Until I learned the real truth, someone could die over those manuscripts. When another body turned up, it could be mine.
I reached into my pocket for the plastic bag containing what I’d found in the tall grass beside Zelda’s dead body that afternoon, a half smoked cigarette, long and thin, like the brand Sophia Trask smoked secretly without her husband’s knowledge. Why would anyone want to kill the old man and his dog? What was in it for the Trasks? It was just a matter of time before someone else was murdered over the manuscripts, authentic or not, as I was reminded by old Baskin’s clocks, all still ticking and now chiming on the hour at 8 p.m. as Baskin, Jr’s car pulled into the driveway. Was I instore for answers or just more hurt? Time would tell . . . tick—tick—tick.

 
TRUTH... From the heights of a crumbling Manhattan skyscraper to a real estate magnate's tropical retreat, PI, Tom Larkin, seeks the truth about rare manuscripts found in a streamer trunk from the 1920's Lost Generation. Some believe the old manuscripts are worth more as fakes than as the genuine article, and will kill anyone who gets in the way. OR CONSEQUENCES From the high-end bidding of estate liquidators and antiques appraisers into
the jaws of death, Larkin believes the truth is to die for, but the man-eaters he encounters run the gamut from hot-blooded vixens to cold-blooded reptiles.
​
ISBN: 978-1-4363-3636-9
 

Time on His Hands
 by
John Frazee


The lines of light could have been drawn with a ruler, they were bright and razor sharp. Only the ageless dust which clouded the air could take the edge off those five o’clock swords of sunlight as they cut across the second row of bottles, the finer row of poison, but not quite the best. Shards of light were flashing on and off more frequently then earlier in the afternoon. Each blink meant one more body passing by outside, in the world of the suits. The rapid fire flashes could mean only one thing, it was rush hour for them and time for Georgie to get up and leave. You could always tell what time it was outside, if you sat on the same damn stool in the same damn place for the better part of your adult life, as Georgie had. You could tell by the sparse light infiltrating the blinds which hadn’t been adjusted or cleaned during his tenure there. You could also tell the time by the deliveries taking place, each delivery was announced by an explosion of sunlight through the front door like an enemy hand grenade, the mailman, the kid selling newspapers, and of course the beertenders changing shifts. The time of day therefore was never much of a mystery. Nighttime however was quite a bit harder to pin down, but if you wasted enough hours there the subtle changes were more easily interpreted. Except four AM, closing time always came as a complete shock. Even the time of the month was easy to keep track of. There was the vendor on the fifteenth, stocking the smokes and the so called toiletries machine in the crapper, then the guy who changed the forty fives in the old juke box and Tommy doing the books at the back table with his number twos and lots of erasers. On the first of each month they delivered the cocktail napkins and peanuts and then there was Wendy the waitress’s heightened edginess arriving on the same day each and every month. Whatever the day, time or year for that matter was, Georgie felt that getting up and leaving at that precise moment was the right thing to do. He would act out his pantomime of brushing himself off, straightening out his clothes, then stopping off in the toilet before departing for the day.
      Georgie first spotted the watch on the sink where a bar of soap would ordinarily be if he were in the home of a human being, or in an establishment frequented by human beings, but this was a public restroom in a bar, devoid of soap. He could not believe his luck. This was certainly a positive sign that things were finely turning around for him. Wanting desperately not to be yanked from his new found path to luck and prosperity he stealthily slipped the watch into his front pocket and hit the door running, his hands still dripping. Avoiding all eyes, his exit was simply punctuated by the tipping of his imaginary hat to the remaining crowd and Tommy, his host for the afternoon. It seemed as if hours had passed before Georgie worked up enough nerve to take the watch out of his pocket, which had become its temporary tweed vault, making sure he had not been tailed, for to hear those words he most dreaded, “Hey that looks like my watch,” shook him to the very marrow. He slowly but surely worked his way across town, which was easy to do if you were on foot, Georgie was always on foot. He tried to convince himself how fortunate he was not to own a car or to be stuck in a cab with the meter running, it was a good thing it was only himself he was trying to convince for his argument wouldn’t have carried much weight with anyone else. You can get clear across town without even stopping or missing a beat, the traffic was always so bad you could simply walk in between cars, even if one hit you, it would never be going fast enough to receive much more then a smudge and a dirty look Georgie could not recall ever finding anything before; he grilled his memory like a cheap detective over and over, questioning his knowledge of past events again and again  yet came up with nothing. He was preparing to play good cop, bad cop with himself when suddenly his interrogation jarred an old memory from the deep recesses of his mind. Cleaning off the cobwebs he recalled once at the ripe old age of twelve or so, while waiting for a light to change at the corner of Thirty Seventh Street and Lexington Avenue along with the usual business crowd of suits and skirts, suddenly a very well dressed man about three bodies down from him bent down to pick up something small and very shiny and slipped it into his pocket (exactly in the same smooth movement Georgie’s new found watch had experienced a short time ago). Now this gentleman of the smooth pocket move looked as if he had never bent down before, much less in the street. Twelve years of growing up on the streets of Manhattan were about to kick in and start paying dividends. Before the flap of the pocket had slammed shut on the mans suit Georgie started franticly screaming, “My ring, my ring! I’ve lost my ring!”  Now it is difficult to get the attention of a crowd o Thirty Seventh Street and Lexington Avenue but this was ridiculous, no interest in the plight of this tyke was shown at all, the drama classes from his street smart degree kicked in “My mother is going to kill me! I can’t find my ring!”

                         he screamed even louder  as his eyes scanned the curbs and gutters. Still no reaction, even by New York standards this was a hard hearted, rough crowd. The don’t walk sign on the opposite corner was starting to turn green, Georgie knew he had precious seconds left before his audience would depart, taking the suit with the jewelry with them. All the screaming, crying and pathos had failed to bring even a sliver of recognition. A lesser man would have given up, but not Georgie, in a last ditch effort, he ran up to and stood face to face with the man this entire escapade had been orchestrated for in the first place and in a scene worthy of  Oliver Twist, begged the man directly. “Mister, have you found my ring?” Seeming to have noticed Georgie for the very first time, the man replied “No, I just found this old cufflink.” That was as close to finding anything Georgie ever got.
The watch had really started burning a hole in his pocket by now. He ran into two of his old friends, feeling he could probably trust them and considering his desperate need to tell someone about this sudden dramatic swing in his once rotten luck, he related the watch story to both of them.
”Let’s see it”, said the taller of the two, “I have to be sure no one has followed me,” Georgie said. “Which toilet did you say you found it in?” the shorter friend asked. “At Tommy’s bar and grill over on Forty Second, across from the hotel.”  “A. goddamn tribe of Apaches couldn’t have followed you that far”, Shorty said. Shorty was practically the same height as Georgie, but he had made the mistake of hanging out with the wrong guy, his constant companion was a several inches taller and very thin. His friend wasn’t quite tall enough to be called “Stretch” so the monogram of  Shorty became mandatory for him. “Go ahead and laugh if you losers want to but at least my luck has turned around and things are finally looking up on my side of the street,” Georgie said with an attitude and confidence he had never before felt much less projected. Despite the risk of further mockery Georgie still looked up and down the street and quickly glanced behind his back insuring privacy before slowly, methodically removing the watch from its warm tweed vault. “Look at that beauty,” he said as if revealing photos of his first born. Slowly, carefully, almost regally, he slid the genuine leather strap to the hole which had already been broken in, it fit Georgie like an old glove. Trying to smell the leather, he glanced at the face for the fist time, the brilliant gold numbers sparkled in the sun, as the large letters TIMEX, glowed as if they were neon. This truly was the first day of the rest of his life. Shorty, apparently in awe, sensing the overwhelming magnitude of the moment said,
“Allow me to be the first to ask you, pardon me Sir, do you have the correct time?” With an air and arrogance Georgie snapped his wrist into position and curtly replied “It is a quarter after, my good man.”
​“A quarter after what?” his taller friend asked.
He could still hear them laughing from three blocks away. There was no hour hand on the turning point of Georgie's miserable life.

Death Calls Doctor Whitaker

By Sharon R. Hill


Death lingers in the bedroom where old Doctor Whitaker sleeps. It infuses the air with dread in a way that only the presence of death can. I think about opening the only window in the room that faces west with a view of the sunset. Like a child, I imagine that this will expel the threat.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock sounds the generations-old grandfather clock, the metered sound is reminiscent of tiny heartbeats. The chimes repeat six times to announce the hour, reminding the living of a bygone day.
Doctor Whitaker is held hostage in a difficult slumber and his eyelids quiver in some erratic timpani, yet they remain shut. I sit by his bed in a stubby, wing-back chair of pale-blue velvet fabric with faded wood armrests. The stiffness of the chair aids me in my duty to stay alert, as I watch for the moment
that will complete the outline of a life.
With his wife long dead and the marriage childless, the responsibility of this days’ vigil has fallen to me though I barely know Dr. Whitaker. I accepted this burden because of my fondness for his housekeeper Sally who is expected at her family home today for her parent’s anniversary celebration.
In the silence of all but the ticking clock, verses from a poem lift in my memory to my consciousness “Can you say tonight in parting with the day that's slipping fast, that you helped a single person of the many that you passed?”
I notice a worn-out leather medical bag tucked in the open square of a simple, dark-oak nightstand. A wall calendar from a Memphis mercantile with a worldwide timetable hangs above to announce the month of May in 1935. In a daydream, I envision Dr. Whitaker as a younger man jogging along an old roadway of dust in his shay offering comfort to the sick. Yet he spends
what may be his final hours with a mere acquaintance, even a stranger. I wonder at the absence of visitors, including the children he helped birth and who will now be middle-aged with their own families.
I feel anxious when a pair of whippoorwills’ land on the garden fence as instinct compels their predictive chant.
A trembling left-hand begins an echo in each limb and Dr. Whitaker’s mouth begins to twitch. The thin blanket that covers him from below his neck and is tucked over his feet has shaken loose.
Dr. Whitaker’s face has an anguished expression as though he is in the throes of a struggle with an unseen foe. I understand that the foe he struggles with is time, as his strength of spirit continues the fight for life.

Three Short Prose Pieces

By Roy Dorman


THANKS FOR THE HELP


He had stayed over as he sometimes did when they were out late.


It was Saturday morning; she stripped the beds, changed all the towels, and gathered up the dirty clothes. With a basket each, they walked the three blocks to the laundromat, talking carefully and quietly about the argument they had gone to sleep with. The argument that had made it so painfully clear to her there were just too many differences.


When they returned, laundry done, she took his clothes, consisting of a pair of jeans, a couple of t-shirts, some socks and underwear, and folded them neatly into a small pile. She told him that, as with the bedding and the towels, she was starting fresh and it would be best if they didn’t see each other anymore.


Thanks for the help doing the laundry, she mouthed silently to his retreating back. To her chagrin, she saw the small pile of clean laundry he was leaving with as a symbol of how little he had brought to the relationship.










WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE THE GROCERY


He supposed it was fitting that since they first met in the grocery, they would break-up in the grocery.


After one coffee and then a week of not returning his calls, three of them, they met once more on Saturday morning in the produce aisle. He was deciding between broccoli and cauliflower, she was sizing the acorn squash.


Smiling, she asked how he was doing. Her eye contact, so direct, yet still gentle, told him their future together would consist only of chance meetings in produce on Saturday mornings.


He didn’t see how he could ever look at broccoli, cauliflower, or acorn squash again without a little stab of anguish. He decided maybe he’d move on to the frozen vegetable aisle; he might meet someone there.


But he hesitated. Somehow using the frozen food aisle as a meeting place seemed…., seemed so cold.








THE OTHER MAN


She kept back in the shadows and watched as his widow laid a single red rose on his gravestone. The rose in her own hand suddenly felt superfluous and she wondered whether it was a reflection of her status. Was she still the other woman?


Waiting her turn, she absently gazed at the surrounding area until her eyes came to rest on another woman standing alone in a group of trees.


The rose in this woman’s hand told her story -- another other woman.


When she looked back to where her lover’s widow stood, she saw the widow had noticed her. The widow beckoned to her, and she in turn gestured to the third woman standing by the trees.


The widow picked up her rose from his gravestone and the three of them left -- with their roses. At the cemetery’s exit, they unceremoniously dropped them to the sidewalk and moved on.

Boys’ Night Out

by

Gerald Arthur Winter


On the way to the racetrack, Uncle Carl told Jem, “You can’t make any money workin’. Jobs are for losers. Your Aunt Millie would kill me if I came to the racetrack every day. We could be rich, but that makes no difference to her. If you’re workin’ at some dumb job, women love ya. If you’re bein’ smart, they don’t trust ya. Go figure. You gotta look dumb just to keep the peace. That’s why I gotta sneak out to Yonkers Raceway to bet on the trotters, just to get ahead. Tonight will be our secret, boys’ night out.”
They arrived at the parking lot separated from the grandstand and clubhouse by the track. Only the horses’ heads were visible over the fence as they bobbed around the track in a warm-up heat. Jem could smell them even from that distance.
Mounted atop the grandstand, powerful lights simulated daylight on the trackand infield. Sparkling yellow lights spelled the names of the horses and their first morning-line odds on a huge electronic tote board.
Jem saw fat men with stubby cigars and skinny guys with squinty eyes all intent as bettors stared at their racing forms crumpled in their tight grips. They chomped their cigars and jotted notes, their attention jumping from TV monitors to tote boards to racing forms, as the odds changed on each horse before post time.
Jem thought that a trotting horse pulling a sulky with driver in tow was less graceful than a horse running free with a jockey on his back. Thoroughbreds raced when rich men of leisure strolled in the sunlight, betting and socializing with beautiful, classy women on their arms. Working-class men had to bet on the horses at night after the factories closed. That’s why trotters ran under lights.
“Too many bums in the grandstand,” Carl said. “Wise guys touting horses and tapping you for some bucks for the tip of the day. So-and-so is lame, a driver has been drinking, or he’ll throw the third race because he owes money to the mob. It’s just bull they’ve heard in the paddock, Jem, annoying when you need to concentrate. The clubhouse is where professional betters hang out where the action is. It ain’t perfect, but guys like us can win thousands right here every night big moola.”
Just a bare, concrete floor the size of two basketball courts, the clubhouse décor was no more than an open space with wire trash baskets. A few dozen men lounged against steel posts, studying their racing programs. Betting windows lined one wall facing the track. The opposite side opened to the outside clubhouse seats stretching down, like bleachers, to a railing hanging two stories over the
track. Beer and hot dog concessions lined both ends. The first race started in an hour, so the clubhouse was empty except for the hard-core gamblers who liked to arrive early. Decked in fedoras, those cigar smokers researched every horse and driver. They checked the track conditions and followed the sucker betting to weigh the final odds against the true probabilities. They listened to rumors and scuttlebutt while inspecting the horses’ gaits just before post time. They twitched, shuffled, shrugged, and scratched until their intuition gave them an answer. Then they bet a pre-calculated percent of their total kick on a confusing combination of possibilities only they could understand.
“Ya got to meet ‘Stubs,’ one of the most respected men at Yonkers Raceway,” Carl said, pointing to an old man wearing a Yankee baseball cap and Hawaiian shirt. Holding a cigar butt between his teeth, Stubs nodded to Carl and gave Jem a quick once-over as they approached him. Stubs was less than five-feet tall, a few inches shorter than Jem.
Stubs had a dwarf-like appearance and a high, nasally voice. “Who’sthe kid?” Stubs asked.
“My nephew, Jeremy, but we call him Jem, like a diamond in the rough,” Carl laughed, messing Jem’s hair.
“Ya like horses, Jem?” Stubs asked.
“Sure. Uncle Carl’s teaching me the fundamentals.”
“There ain’t no fundamentals. Either ya get it or ya don’t. Guys been here ten years think there’s good horses and bad ones. The suckers think they know the difference.” Stubs shook Jem’s hand.
Jem was shocked when he felt only a pinkie and ring finger on the little man’s hand.
“I whacked ‘em off with a meat cleaver when I used to be a butcher,”
Stubs said. “Good thing I don’t need ’em in this profession.”
Uncle Carl had already told Jem about the rumor that the mob had cut off Stubbs’s fingers for shorting them on a bet.
Carl winked at Jem and asked, “Who do you like tonight, Stubs?”
“Depends on who the moms and pops like.”
“You’re already learning, Jem,” Carl said. “The crowd changes the oddsby betting on one horse or another. That’ll change how Stubs bets at post time.”
“Maybe,” Stubs said. “Maybe not.”
“See, Jem,” Carl cautioned, “you’ve gotta know what you’re doin’,” Jem learned quickly. If Stubs knew a trick about playing the horses, he wasn’t telling them. Carl steered Jem toward the betting windows. The clubhouse filled with what Carl called, “Suckers from the suburbs and their hunch-betting wives clutching stolen grocery money.”
Like bank tellers with eye shades, the bookies sat behind barred windows, took money, and passed tickets to bettors, except when the milk-glass windows were down, which meant a race was in progress. Customers placed bets only between races. The suckers bet their hunches as soon as the windows opened after a race. The pros waited until just before post time to make sure they knew the final odds.
The array of possible bets was dizzying win, place, show, across the board, daily-double, exacta, and quinella. A bettor could bet a horse would come in first, second, third, or all three. He could bet the winning horses in the first two races, or the first and second horses in any race. What the odds paid varied for each bet. Combination bets of two horses or more paid more than betting on a single horse to win. Winning was more valuable than placing second or showing third. A long shot to win seemed like the most profitable bet to Jem.
“Long shots never win,” Carl said with a grimace. “That’s a sucker bet. Favorites usually win. The question is, what favorite will win which race? They’ll often make a horse look like a favorite by keeping the morning-line odds down on a horse that doesn’t stand a chance. Each race will look like it has two or three favorites running, when only one horse really has a chance to win.”
“Sounds easy to figure out,” Jem said.
“That’s why they mix up the field, dropping horses into a lower class or moving them up to a higher class. They’ll run a dry horse on a muddy track or mismatch a driver with a horse.”
“Is that legal?”
Carl smirked with a nod. “Sure it is. It’s gamblin’. They might talk up a horse in the news when it’s already dying of some disease. The tricks, the mix, and the variety of possibilities are endless. A handicapper considers all variables.
A sucker plays a long shot, maybe because the horse has the same name as his mother’s cousin’s neighbor. Suckers distort the true odds by being stupid. The handicappers wait to see what they’ll do then take advantage of the odds.”
Carl picked up two programs and studied the racing card. Jem couldn’t take his eyes off the well-groomed track. The horses running warm-up heats trotted gracefully in front of the clubhouse. The crowd in the grandstand below milled about expectantly before the first race. Jem thought the scene was like a state fair. As Uncle Carl had said, it certainly beat working in a factory.
Suddenly, an ominous shadow cast over Jem and blocked the light on his program. A big, fat guy loomed over Carl. The man was huge, paunchy not muscular, and easily weighed 350 pounds. The greasy-looking guy with him was big, too, but he looked small next to the fat man blocking Jem’s view of the woman behind him.
Jem stepped aside to look at her. Filing her nails, she chewed gum. Starbursts sparkled from her lips under the bright lights. Her dark sunglasses made her seem mysterious, like the Spider Woman from a Sherlock Holmes flick with Basil Rathbone. She wore a short, tight skirt with a revealing neckline. Jem knew she was what Uncle Carl would call “some piece,”
but Jem was still clueless, wondering a piece of what?
“Coney Island Carl,” the fat man said, addressing Carl with a moniker
Jem had never heard before. “Where ya been, pal?” Chubby asked.
“Chubby! What do ya say?” Carl returned, but seemed unnerved.
Chubby grinned, but maliciously, Jem thought. “Missed ya, Carl. Ya know what I mean? Missed seein’ ya.”
“Sure, Chub. How you doin’?” Carl stammered.
“Me? I feel light these days. A guy like me don’t like that light feelin’.
Ask Myra. She’ll tell ya. She knows when I feel light, it ain’t a pretty picture.”
“Yeah, I know, Chub. A couple more weeks should do it. Missed a few sure ones here and there, but I’m makin’ a comeback. You can count on me,
Chub. Honest, there’s no problem. You’ll get your scratch.”
Chubby leaned down until his sweaty face was close to Carl’s. “I ain’t havin’ no problem, Carl. It ain’t me that’s got the problem.” He saw Jem’s wide eyes staring at him and asked, “Is this kid with you?” He stared at Jem as if he were a delicacy on a menu.
Carl looked glad to have Chubby’s attention drawn away from him.
“He’s my nephew. Name’s Jem.”
Chubby’s face broke into a wide smile of yellow teeth like rows of
corn. “You a horseplayer, Jem?”
“This is my first time,” Jem admitted.
Straightening, Chubby placed his left arm against the back of the seats ahead of them. “It’s the sport of kings, kid. Horses are rich man’s game, just like Myra here, if you wanna ride the train, ya got a pay the fare. It takes dough to have the best. Ya gonna get rich playin’ the horses like your uncle, kid?”
Jem turned to Carl who was looking more nervous and turning pale.
“Say, kid. Here’s what I want ya to do. Take this thousand bucks.” He pulled out the thickest wad of money Jem had ever seen. “I want you to go to the betting area and find a guy named Stubs. Ya can’t miss ’em. He’s a skinny runt wearin’ a Yankee cap and a Hawaiian shirt.”
“I know what he looks like,” Jem said with false confidence.
“Good. Tell’m to bet this dough on the nose of Foolish Folly in the first race.” He peeled off nine crisp hundred-dollar bills from the wad and two fifties then stuffed them into the breast pocket of Jem’s shirt. “Hurry. And kid, just bet nine hundred and grab yourself a C-note, OK?” He smiled and ruffled Jem’s hair. Jem glanced at Carl, who nodded with a dazed look on his face.
“Go ahead, kid,” Chubby said. “Hustle. Ya don’t want to miss the first race. Put nine on that foolish nag. I gotta talk business with your uncle.”
Jem, taking the steps two at a time up to the clubhouse, looked frantically through the thickening crowd for Stubs. He found him exchanging money and slips of paper with tough looking guys in front of the bar. Despite his small stature, Stubs’ presence was commanding and his voice pierced through the clamor all around him.
“That’s twenty across on the six in the first, and three twenties on the five, the seven, and the nine in the third spot.” He turned and saw Jem.
“Whatcha starin’ at, kid?”
“I wasn’t staring. I was waiting my turn,” Jem said politely. “Chubby sent me.”
Stubs squinted at him. “Chubby? Where’s your unc?”
“Sitting over there.” He pointed. “Chubby says to put this money on the nose of Foolish Folly in the first,” he said, trying to act nonchalant as he pulled the cash from his pocket.
Stubs took the money, looked at it, then handed it back. “Tell that fat fuck that’s a window bet. Track’s odds only. No action here.”
Jem took the money back. “What’s a window bet?”
“The betting window.” He pointed behind him. “Ya got to bet that with the track. There ain’t no action on that horse with me. Tell Chubby to fuck himself.”
Jem thought these guys at the track were training him too fast. He didn't know why Stubs was angry or why people were betting with him when they could bet at the window. Jem didn’t want to tell Chubby ‘to fuck himself.’ If his mom ever heard him use the foul language he’d get his mouth washed out with Lifebouy soap. He didn’t like carrying a thousand dollars of someone else’s money either. He felt nervous about the situation. Uncle Carl seemed scared of Chubby, probably with good reason.
He thanked Stubs and returned to the seats where he’d left Carl. He considered telling Chubby he couldn’t find Stubs and giving him back the entire thousand dollars, but when he returned to the seats, Uncle Carl, Chubby, and that tough guy were gone.
“The horses are on the track for the third race,” the commentator announced. “Number one is Sunny’s Day out of the Hillshyer Stables, Juan Vega driving. Number two is Go for It, from the Rothman Farms, Willy Kates driving.”
Watching the horses come onto the track and trot past the clubhouse, Jem sat in his seat, wondering what to do. He figured he’d better stay put, or Carl might not find him. Still, he worried. Uncle Carl had never disappeared like that before. Since Jem was little, he spent a lot of time with Carl at ball games, camping, and fishing. Carl always stayed close to Jem. It wasn’t like him to walk off like that.
Jem wondered if Carl might be sick in the men’s room, but he didn’t want to leave their seats and maybe miss him. He sat there, watching the races and getting more nervous by the minute. Every few seconds, he checked his shirt pocket for Chubby’s cash, fearing the big man would smack him if he lost it. Remaining watchful, he kept expecting his uncle to return any minute.
Jem tried to distract himself by choosing a horse called All the Way and rooted it into a fifth-place finish in the third race. No one else expected that horse to win. When Jem shouted, “Go, All the Way!” two guys in front of him gave him the same kind of look they’d give someone who’d farted in a movie theater.
When the race ended, people threw down losing tickets and stood to stretch. They pulled out programs and prepared to bet the next race. Jem tried to calm down, hoping he was letting his imagination get the best of him. Maybe
he’d seen too many gangster movies, Bogey and Cagney. No one would hurt him, not my Uncle Carl, he told himself. Not having been to a racetrack before, he felt scared. All these tough guys were too colorful, but Jem knew he was acting like a little kid. Watch the races, he told himself. Be cool. Concentrate on the races. Get a grip! Read the fucking program. Shit! He was starting to sound like them in his mind. As he read the explanation page at the back of the program, a hand touched his shoulder. He jumped and spun around.
“Hey, kid. Where’s your unc?”
He was relieved to see Stubs. “I don’t know. He was gone when I got back. I’m getting worried.”
“He’s probably just in the toilet,” Stubs tried to reassure him.
“For over an hour? I left him here with Chubby and some other big guy with a black trench coat and messy gray hair all greased down.”
“That’s Lenny, Chubby’s muscle. Where’d they go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come with me, kid,” Stubs motioned to the food stands. “They’ll turn up. Ya still got Chubby’s dough?”
Jem, nodding, patted his shirt pocket.
“Good. Come on. We’ll get somethin’ to eat. They’ll show up.”
“Don’t you think I should wait here? My uncle’ll come looking for me.”
“Nah. He’ll find us. They’re just havin’ a business meetin’. Ain’t none of our bees’ wax. Come on.”
Stubs turned, heading up toward the clubhouse. After the man took two steps, Jem knew he didn’t want to sit there alone any longer. He jumped over the back of his seat and caught up to Stubs in three strides. His short stature made Jem feel older and more confident as he walked beside him to the concession stand.
When they reached the hot dog stand, Jem noticed Chubby’s babe, Myra, standing conspicuously between two signs that read Mares and Stallions.
Jem tugged Stubs’ shirt. “That’s the lady who was with Chubby when he And that tough guy went off with my Uncle Carl.”
“Myra Lannigan ain’t no lady. She’s a workin’ gal. I’ll ask her if she’s seen your unc. Excuse me, Miss Lannigan,” Stubs said with sarcasm. “May I trouble ya with an inquiry?”
“Don’t waste my time unless yer serious.” She raised her eyebrows and peered over her sunglasses. “I’m workin’, and the meter’s runnin’, so if ya ain’t buyin’, blow.”
“Where’d Chubby take the kid’s uncle?”
“I ain’t seen Chubby or Coney Island Carl since Chub sent me here and told the kid to place a bet with you. Besides,” she leaned aside so Jem couldn’t hear, “Chub doesn’t tell me diddly. What ya know could hurt ya.” She moved her sunglasses slightly to reveal a puffy, purple eye. Despite her whispers, Jem heard every word. “This is what Chubby did to me for holdin’ back a sawbuck.
I forgot I’d tucked in in my bra. I’d’ve remembered later, but the blob groped me.”
“Let me know if ya see’m. The kid’s gettin’ spooked. I don’t want him runnin’ to the cops.”
“I’ll bet ya don’t, ya little weasel. I seen the wad Chubby gave the kid."
“Ya don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” He took Jem’s hand and led him to the hot dog stand. “I knew there was nothin’ to worry about,” he lied. “She’s seen’m, but we musta missed’m. They might’ve seen ya with me and figured you were in safe company. After all, didn’t your unc bring ya to the track to learn? Jeez, kid, you’re lookin’ at the best teacher in the joint.”
“What do you do here?” Jem asked
“I never bet on horses. I bet on the bettors. They bet on the horses.”
Puzzled, Jem asked, “Why do they bet with you?”
“I beat the track odds. If a horse looks like he’s goin’ off at two-to-one, I might pay four-to-one. The big bettors make more money with me if they win. If they win big, they don’t have to visit the Uncle Sam window. That’s the tax collector. He’s got his own window. Ya win big, and he takes his cut right then and there. It’s a crime if ya ask me. If ya see me for your bet, ya get better odds, and ya never see Uncle Sam. Keep that to yourself, kid.”
“What if too many win and you lose?”
“I can’t lose. It’s ’rithmetic. There are always more losers than winners, more suckers than smart guys. When the smart guys try to hit me, I run ‘em off, like Chubby, sending that bet with you to distract me, figuring I’d take his bet with my guard down. Fat chance. He knew Foolish Folly in the first would blow away the field. If he wants to bet a sawbuck, I’ll give’m a ride, but he ain’t whackin’ me for no grand on a sure thing.”
As Stubs wiped mustard off his face with a paper napkin, a slick older man in a navy blue, pinstriped suit with a yellow tie approached them.
“How’s the beat, Danny?” Stubs asked. “You’re lookin’ good. What are ya doin’ in Yonkers? I ain’t seen ya at the track lately. Heard ya were bustin’ hookers for Manhattan Vice.”
“At sixty, I’m still fit as a fiddle.” He patted his stomach. “I’m looking for a guy who smacked around some workin’ girls on our beat. I’m not interested in gaming these days. I used to arrest businessmen like you, sane guys looking for an edge, or stick-up men who’d never actually hurt anybody. Now it’s all nut jobs, screwballs killing their own mothers just for spending money.”
“Ya oughta retire, Dan. Go to Florida.”
“Nah. I’m staying a cop until they toss me.”
“Say hello to my new friend, Jem, the nephew of Coney Island Carl Cestaro.” Stubs put his arm around Jem’s shoulder and moved him closer to the cop. “Jem, meet Lt. Dan Ryan, the best of New York’s finest.”
The big cop looked down at Jem with a great smile. He looked like a movie star certainly better than any TV cop on Dragnet or Racket Squad.
“Please to meet you, Lieutenant.”
“Don’t let me catch ya betting around here,” he warned Jem with the same winning smile. “How old are ya?”
“Almost fifteen.”
“Don’t let these bums take any money from ya. No betting till you’re twenty-one. If you’re smart, you’ll never bet. The only ones who make money are guys like Stubs. If I were in a bad mood, I’d stick him in jail. I’m tellin’ ya straight.”
“OK, officer,” Jem agreed shyly.
“Good boy.” He held out his hand.
As they shook hands, Jem heard the track announcer calling the horses for the sixth race. Stubs, becoming antsy, kept looking behind him past Ryan at some men making hand signals to him.
“Time to open the office, Stubs?” Ryan asked. “Go ahead, but if you see a mug around here called Chubby, a big, fat slob who beats up women, let me know.”
“I saw him,” Jem said. “He was with my uncle.”
“What was your uncle doing with Chubby?”
“Chubby came up to us and started talking to my uncle when we got here.”
“Where’d they go?”
“I don’t know. I can’t find them anywhere. I’m worried,” Jem admitted.
Stubs, slithering around Ryan, took bets quickly behind his back. Without looking, Ryan reached behind himself, grabbed Stubs’ shirt, and hauled him back in front of him. “What’s going on? What’s Chubby doing here? Why’s the kid’s uncle hangin’ out with scum like that?”
“Chubby tried to run a bet up with the kid. I went back to see what Chubby was up to ’cause I liked the kid and couldn’t figure out what he was doin’ with a crumb like Chubby. When I got there, Chubby was gone, and the kid was sittin’ alone and scared. I figured I’d keep an eye on him till his uncle came back.”
“What’s the uncle doing with Chubby?” Ryan asked again.
“He owes Chubby money, probably from bettin’ on other sports.”
“Great. Is there still trouble there?” Ryan asked.
Stubs turned his face away and whispered from the corner of his mouth, “I think Carl stiffed’m.”
“I see.” Ryan turned to Jem and smiled. “Don’t worry, Jem. Chubby only beats up women.”
“Gee, Mr. Ryan. The lady with Chubby sure had some shiner.”
“Myra Lannigan?”
“That was her name. Chubby sent her to find a couple guys named John outside the men’s room.”
Ryan grinned. “I’m sure I’ll find her there. Listen, son. Chubby picks on weaklings and women. He won’t hurt your uncle. I’ll look around for him and find him. You stay here with Stubs until I come back.”
“OK, Lieutenant. Thanks.”
“Keep an eye on him, Stubs. Show him why he shouldn’t bet. I’ll be back.”
“Sure, Dan.”
Ryan disappeared into the crowd. Stubs and Jem stared at each other for a moment. The little man looked worried. Jem saw it in his eyes. Stubs was nervous about something and trying to hide it.
“Let’s get another hot dog and let Dan worry about Chubby. He’ll find your unc. Let’s go.”
Stubs tugged Jem’s sleeve, leading him through the crowd. They bought soft drinks at the stand, then Stubs returned to business. Jem watched him take bets and money from rough-looking characters.
Jem thought about Uncle Carl. What a great guy. He never makes me feel like he’s the grown-up and I’m the kid. He never tells me what to do. He
shares personal stuff, like Aunt Millie nagging him about going to the racetrack.
He’s humble, too. If I ask him a question, he sometimes says, “I dunno. We’d
better look that up.”
Uncle Carl tells me how he screws up, then he asks my advice as if I’m the grown-up. His enthusiasm for planning fishing trips goes on for weeks.
If something’s more than I can understand, he’ll learn something about a new car, a new motor or power window, and save the article in his wallet for months, then he shows it to me with such detailed information as if he invented it himself.
Best of all, he’s a great listener. I tell him a story about a kid at school and ramble on. Sometimes, I forget he’s still there. I look at him, and he’s staring at me wide-eyed, hanging on my every word. “Wow, Jem!” he’ll say with much enthusiasm. “What happened next?”
But the moment Chubby had given Carl the evil eye, Jem knew his uncle was in trouble. But Jem was a just kid and didn’t know how serious a jam Carl was in. Still, he felt responsible for his uncle.
After Stubs finished taking bets, he took Jem to the clubhouse to watch the eighth race. The seats felt like the right place to wait, because that was where Jem last saw Carl. The horses already ran the first lap by the time Jem and Stubs got to the rail hanging over the track. They watched the trotters come into the clubhouse turn for the first time. They could see the entire track from there, as well as the crowd below standing at the rail in front of the grandstand.
Then an unusual movement caught Jem’s eye. Two men were running through the crowd, one after the other. Chubby pushed and banged into people as he plowed through the crowd, bowling people over with his massive weight.
Twenty yards behind, Dan Ryan bobbed and wove, trying to avoid trampling people. He held his pistol overhead aimed at the sky so he wouldn’t accidentally shoot someone.
Chubby, obviously desperate, reached the rail, rolled over it, and cut across the track toward the infield just as the pack of horses came by. Ryan stopped at the rail to watch Chubby trying to sidestep and weave around the horses and sulkies as drivers yanked on the reins in a frantic attempt to miss him.
Chubby dropped to his knees and curled into a ball with his arms over his head. The fifth horse, with sulky and driver in tow, couldn’t avoid Chubby and tried to jump over him. The front legs landed safely, but the hind legs caught Chubby’s head and shoulders. The sulky’s wheels cut into Chubby’s back and flipped the driver onto the track. Chubby tumbled wildly into the hooves of a horse that had already thrown its driver and galloped out of control with the pack.
The horse that tried to jump over Chubby lay on its side ten yards down the track with its head and legs convulsing. Chubby’s hulk lay motionless as the dust settled.
The other drivers slowed their horses into the next turn. The crowd ran frantically back and forth. Ryan slid under the rail and walked slowly toward Chubby as security guards jumped the rail and ran toward Ryan holding up his badge.
No one else violated the track, though spectators bunched along the rail and tried to see the carnage. Stubs and Jem stood stunned at the clubhouse rail high above the crowd.
“Jeez, kid,” Stubs groaned. “I never seen nothin’ like this.”
An ambulance siren howled in the background. With flashing lights, it cut through an opening in the backstretch fence. Two police cars followed with their sirens screaming at a higher pitch. All three vehicles raced around the track.
The commentator tried to calm the crowd: “Please hold your places, Folks, while the emergency crews do their job. There will be no more races this evening. Hold your places for a few minutes, so we can organize an orderly movement toward the exits. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Speechless, Stubs and Jem watched Ryan standing over Chubby’s obese corpse. Ryan spoke with several uniformed officers. Emergency crews surrounded the dead driver’s body while handlers, exercise boys, and veterinarians squatted alongside the badly injured horse.
Startling the crowd, a gunshot echoed throughout the track. Stubs and Jem flinched, and people at the rail below scrambled back.
The vet shot the horse in the head. Smoke from the gun billowed above the group assembled around the horse. When the spectators realized what happened, they turned back to look, and a wave of solemn groans passed through the crowd.
“Please move quietly toward the exits,” the track commentator said. “Racing is over for this evening.”
“Damn mess, kid. Unbelievable. Let’s get out of here.” Stubs turned away from the rail, following the crowd toward the clubhouse.
“How will I find my uncle?” Jem croaked.
“Dan Ryan caught Chubby. He’ll know.”
Stubs guided Jem down a rear staircase to ground level and out to the rail alongside the track with his arm on Jem’s shoulder the entire way. Jem felt the gruff little man’s kindness from his touch.
“Dan!” Stubs shouted from the rail. “I got the kid here. What’s goin’ on?”
Ryan looked up, waved, and walked slowly across the track toward them.
He looked tired but, when he saw Jem, he gave him his winning smile. “Has Stubs been looking after you?” he asked Jem.
“What a mess,” Stubs said. “Never seen nothin’ like it. Is Chubby a goner?”
“I found your uncle, Jem.” Ryan ignored Stubs. “I’ll take you to him.” He slid under the rail, stood, and put his arm on Jem’s shoulder.
“Where is he?” Jem asked.
Without looking, Ryan said, “Your uncle’s dead.”
Jem’s throat tightened, but he stifled his tears. His stomach felt empty, his legs weak. Without a word, Ryan’s grip tightened and he led Jem toward the paddock. Stubs groaned behind them, “Jesus.”
Jem didn’t want to cry. He stared at the ground with his eyes open wide. His head slumped against Ryan’s thick arm. Jem lifted his head with a jerk. Then tears flowed.
Ryan turned to face Jem and put both hands on Jem’s shoulders. Jem’s neck felt weak, and his head hung until his chin touched his chest. He watched his tears falling to the ground as Ryan gently rubbed Jem’s back.
When Jem’s sobs slowed to a sniffle, Ryan squatted in front of him and looked into his eyes. “Let’s go see your uncle,” he said in a deep voice. “You came here tonight just a boy, but now, you need to be a man.”
Straightening, Ryan put his hands in his pockets. “Are you ready?”
Jem, nodding, wiped his eyes with the backs of his hand. “OK, Lt. Ryan. Let’s go.”
Later, as they rode back to Long Island in a patrol car, Dan sat in front beside the uniformed driver. Jem sat in the back with Myra Lannigan. No one spoke.
To Jem, Miss Lannigan’s scent seem edlike Christmas and Easter candy wrapped in a colorful package. Lt. Ryan lit a cigarette and cracked a vent window while Myra powdered her nose and checked her swollen eye in her compact mirror. Ryan turned to offer her a cigarette, knowing that her hands, cuffed in front, confined her movement.
Jem stared out the window at the outlines of familiar landmarks. Something left him, as if he were watching a movie of his life, but the film was spinning off the reel in a tangled clump, leaving him with nothing but that ugly, vinyl-seated, cigarette-scented patrol car. His shirt and jeans no longer seemed to fit. He wasn’t just a kid anymore.
“I reached your parents, Jem,” Ryan said, breaking the long silence.
“They told your Aunt Millie what happened to her husband. I’m sure she’ll want to hear your account of tonight’s tragic events.” He glanced over his shoulder at Myra. “Just like I want to hear more about how Lenny managed to get away, doll. You lead me to him, and there’s something in it for you, maybe no jail time.”
“I told ya before, Danny. I was workin’ the clubhouse,” Myra said. “I didn’t see nothin’. Ask the kid. I wish you’d shown up sooner. Ya might’ve stopped Chubby before he slapped me around and gave me this damn shiner.”
“By the way, Jem,” Ryan said, “Stubs told me you got a wad of cash from Chubby to bet on the first race . . . Still got it?”
Myra inhaled cigarette smoke and held it, then she turned to Jem with eager anticipation. Jem stared out the window and didn’t flinch.
“Nah,” he said. “I gave it to my uncle right before he disappeared. Like you told me, Lieutenant, I’m too young to bet.”
He sensed Dan frowning at him though he wouldn’t face him. Myra exhaled smoke with pursed lips that slowly turned up with a smirking grin. She turned toward Jem, tipped her sunglasses, and winked with her good eye.
When they arrived at the precinct station, Dan and the driver got out, leaving Jem and Myra alone in the car. She wouldn’t be able to get far wearing handcuffs. She offered Jem a Chiclet.
Jem’s Uncle Carl came home from a night at the track with more money for Aunt Millie than Carl ever had in his pocket when he was living. If Jem could do anything about it, his Aunt Millie would receive that consolation for her loss.
Millie was ecstatic at getting the nine hundred dollars. Jem figured Chubby had given him one hundred bucks to keep for himself, so he split it with Myra, giving her a fifty.
“You know, Jemmy,” Myra said, with a sweet, breathy whisper in Jem’s ear and a gentle stroke of her hand on his knee. “Whenever I get this much dough, it ain’t ever to keep my mouth shut.”
Jem put his hand on top of Myra’s still on his knee. Her hand felt as smooth as stones he’s scaled across the brook last week, but as warm as the sunrays breaking over the horizon on a July morning with a glow of promise of new things to come . . . things for which he’d surely get a wink and a nod from Uncle Carl. Jem figured he owed him at least that.

​Author of the Month

Natasha D. Lane

The Pariah and the Ever-Giving Stone

Available through Amazon, Kobo and ibooks on March 22nd, 2018

***

Natasha D. Lane is a friend of most things caffeinated, a lover of books, and a writing warrior to her core. As a big believer in the idea that “the pen is mightier than the sword,” she graduated from Juniata College in 2015 with hopes of becoming a journalist. While she still holds on to that dream, after spending some time in the corporate world and then completing a year of service, she decided it was time to return to publishing. Her first fantasy novel “The Pariah Child & the Ever-Giving Stone” is one of several works she plans on completing. If there were a single piece of advice Natasha could give to young writers, it’d be this: Write your way through life.

***

When Sarah was four, she promised her mother she would be a good girl -- a proper young lady in their small country town -- and that she would ignore the creatures who appeared to her and whispered in her ear of things unknown. But like all creatures of myth and legend, they won’t be ignored forever.
Now thirteen, Sarah is attacked by a wolf with poisonous black fur and strange, human-looking eyes. With the help of a few unexpected friends, she manages to survive the attack but soon discovers the creatures have returned. They want Sarah to find a powerful gemstone and bring it to them in Lyrica, their magical homeworld.
Her new friends urge caution, however. There may be more monsters like the black wolf. And the creatures themselves are frightening. Can Sarah trust them? Stuck between reality and imagination, her mother’s wishes and her own desires, Sarah faces an impossible choice – break her promise or do nothing to save a world in peril.

***

To learn more about Natasha, visit http://www.natashalanewrites.com/
Follow her on social media here:
Twitter- @natasha_lane1
Instagram- natashalanewrites
Facebook- Natasha Lane Writes
Pinterest- Natasha Lane Writes
SnapChat- @nlanewrites

Book Excerpt: “The Pariah Child & the Ever-Giving Stone”


Sarah opened her eyes. The land moved beneath her. The sound of crumbling rocks made the girl realize she was being carried. She looked to the right, expecting pain to pierce through her as she moved but none came. She turned her face upwards to see that Alexander was the one carrying her. His arms were wrapped tightly around her, and he held her close to his chest.
The vampire’s face was hard and steady, emotionless, looking straight ahead. Blood and dirt stained him head to toe. There were a few harmless bruises and scratches here and there. The only serious wound was a slightly gaping and bleeding gash on his side. Sarah placed her hand over the cut in a failed attempt to stop the bleeding.
The vampire looked down, his dark burgundy eyes lit up at the sight of Sarah’s own dark blue eyes staring back at him. A smile spread across his face.
“Sarah!” he cried with excitement and stopped his tread.
She smiled, glad to hear his voice. “Alex!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself to him, rejoicing in his strong arms that had become so familiar. However, Sarah’s joy was cut short when she saw who was walking beside Alexander. The child stared at Serwa, whose wrists and ankles were wrapped in chains. The witch wore a scowl on her face and her eyes blazed with an indistinguishable anger.
On either side of the trio stood a line of men, weapons in their blood stained hands. Four men at the back of the line held the ends of the chains that imprisoned Serwa. Sarah gasped and opened her mouth to offer words of comfort and question, but Serwa shook her head in mute communication.
“Keep walking, traitor!” commanded a vampire at the front. Everyone picked up their tread again, not paying any attention to the awakened Sarah. The child held onto Alexander even tighter.
She whispered to him, “Who are they?”
Alexander brought his mouth down beside her ear. “The Vampires.” Those were the only words he said. Fear gripped the girl’s heart. They had been captured. The very thing she had been trying to prevent.
Sarah watched as the group continued to walk toward a tall monstrous piece of mountain. From where she was, she couldn’t be quite sure, but near the very tip top of that rock there appeared to be a cave. Without even having to ask, Sarah knew that was to be their destination, their prison.
She looked past the men to her left. What she saw nearly made her want to pass out again. They were walking on the edge of the mountain. Below them were thousands of feet of nothingness. Just one false step and gone! As if they had never even existed. Sarah took a deep breath and turned away from the bottomless abyss. Her eyes scanned the men surrounding them. Four to the back, two on each side, and one in the front. That made a total of nine enemies.
Daddy always said jumping was the wussy’s way to fight, Sarah thought, despite knowing her father’s rules did not apply in Lyrica.
The group continued their march until the cave came into clear view. Immediately Sarah had a sinking feeling in her gut. The cave was dark and moist with water dripping from the ceiling accompanied by a foul smell that Sarah couldn’t point out. It was a strong odor that went beyond the simple stink of trash. She knew her nostrils would not forget it any time soon.
As they entered the cave, Sarah felt Alexander’s muscles tense; she patted his shoulder, attempting to reassure him even though she couldn’t reassure herself.
After several minutes of darkness, there was light from an opening ahead. As they approached the light, Sarah could feel Alexander’s heart begin to race. The closer they came to the light, the faster his heartbeat. Soon strings of laughter could be heard. It sounded like a party. Curiosity nagging at her, Sarah looked up and stretched her neck out in an attempt to see around the corner. With just the right amount of force so not to hurt her, Alex pressed her head back against his chest.
“Shhhh,” he said hoarsely.
Finally, they stepped into a large lighted room decorated with tattered banners and full of people. People, Sarah knew, who were not people in the same way she was a person. As the group entered the room, the laughter died. The vampire leading them bowed while his followers crossed their left fist over their chest. Then he stepped aside, revealing Alexander to the crowd. A hush fell over them.
Staring ominously down at her and her friends from a pair of thrones were two vampires: one female, one male. They rested smugly atop their stone thrones with smirks on their faces. The woman was tall and so thin that her cheekbones protruded through her skin like the jagged rocks on the side of the mountains. She was very pale with big dark eyes that seemed to hold little to no white in them. She had thin pulled lips and long skinny skeleton fingers, and she wore a floor-length black robe with red trim. Her hair was pulled back into some intricate type of bun, held in place by long pins. Oddly beautiful and very intimidating.
Beside her was who Sarah thought to be her husband. He was as tall as the woman but had more muscle and long, brown hair pulled back into an elegant ponytail. The man was pale as well, but his eyes were a lighter brown. He was clean-shaven with a strong angular face, wide shoulders and a curious smile. He wore the same colors as his wife, but with pants and a shirt underneath his robe.
Alexander’s heart was really going now. Sarah’s hold on him hardened. They both needed the physical contact.
Around the room, which Sarah could now clearly see was built like a tower, were vampires resting in small balconies which traveled all the way to the very top. Everyone was silent.
Finally, the woman on the throne stood, her smile bright as the sun and sinister as a snake. She swooped gracefully down the set of stone steps leading from her throne to the ground. She steadily walked toward Alexander, her smile never fading.
The same foul smell that filled the room poured off the woman in waves. She reached a hand out and stroked Alexander’s face. When he didn’t respond, she consumed him in her arms, crushing Sarah between them.
“Oh, Alexander, my son, it has been too long.” Her voice was light and smooth.
“Mother,” Alexander replied.
Sarah gaped. She looked between Alexander and his parents, searching for some resemblance, for an answer. Alexander only responded by holding Sarah closer to him and positioning his arm to create a barrier between her and his mother.
The woman grinned. “Always the wise warrior. Never trust your enemy. We taught you well.”
Alexander was silent. The King crossed his legs on his throne.
“You are in a strange situation, aren’t you, my son?” His mother held his chin in hand, before circling him. Her eyes scanned him from head to toe. “A traitor to your people, you swore to never return here, yet look where you are. Now, Alexander, you know as well as anybody that right now you should be decapitated and fed to the dogs.” She stopped in front of him and clasped her hands together. “But you still stand here, breathing and alive. Aren’t you curious as to why that is?”
He said nothing. She shrugged. “Well, I’ll tell you why, Alexander. It is because through much persuasion we have won you another chance. You have been excused of your crimes.”
Still no response, not even a mumble. His mother continued with a smile and grabbed his face in her hands again. “Are you not happy, my son? We’re not going to kill you.”
“I don’t care,” he said coldly. “Dead or alive, neither matters to me.”
The smile faded. The Queen’s face twisted into a grimace, and she swung her left hand out in a command. Four guards pulled Serwa forward. The witch growled in pain as the translucent dark metal chains dug into her flesh. Alexander glanced at her, and Sarah could feel his muscles flex.
Serwa glared at the woman and the man on the throne. The Queen smirked and walked over to the witch. “What about her? Does it matter if she lives or dies?”
“Leave her alone,” he said his face stoic.
“I know how much you love witch’s blood, Alex. So sweet and full of magic.” The Queen took one long ghastly fingernail and pushed it ever so slightly into Serwa’s throat. A drop of blood pooled on the Queen’s nail. She licked it away with a snake-like flick of her tongue. Then, she grabbed the witch by her hair and shoved her to the ground.
“Serwa!” Sarah pushed from Alexander’s hold and ran over to the witch.
“Sarah,” he hissed as she left his arms.
“Are you okay?” Sarah asked.
The witch turned and looked at her. There was a bruise on her forehead with trickles of blood dripping from it.
“Stupid girl. You should have stayed with Alexander.”
“But I –” The words struggled to come out of her mouth as she realized she had placed herself at the Queen’s feet.
The woman stared down at Sarah. “Oh, I almost forgot about you,” she said, turning her sights toward the redhead.
Sarah’s heart stopped.
She turned and watched Alex’s mother, whose smile was now gone. The woman gestured for Sarah to stand. She looked at Alexander. He nodded slowly, his face full of strain. Sarah stood and faced the woman who turned to the guards. They immediately pulled Serwa and Alexander to the sides of the room so Sarah stood alone. Alexander thrust himself toward Sarah, but the men held him down as he struggled.
His mother walked around the child with a curious eye.
“Tell me, child, who are you?”
“My name is Sarafina,” Sarah said and out of habit added on, “ma’am.”
The Queen raised a brow. “So after I have captured you and your companions, brought you to my home by force, chained and hurt your friends, you still show me respect with title?”
Sarah gulped and nodded. “Yes. My parents raised me right.”
“Mmm,” the woman said and tapped her chin. “Raised right or raised weak?”
“Right, ma’am,” Sarah replied, the words clear and steady.
The woman nodded, a sly grin creeping back to her face. “Tell me, Sarafina, do you know who I am?”
She shook her head.
“I am Queen Isabella, and my husband is King William of the Alclian Clan. Now tell me why you, my son and the witch have come to my land?”
“I think you have my other friends, and I need them back,” Sarah said as she puffed out her chest.
A melodious cackle broke from the woman’s lips. The crowd of her followers took suit and laughed along with her. Finally, she said, “And who says I have whoever you are looking for?”
“People.”
“Like who, child?”
“I don’t think that matters much, ma’am. I know you’ve got some of my friends, and I want them back.” Sarah was trying her hardest not to be afraid, but the woman looked down at her like a monstrous giant that could gobble her up at any moment. She had become Gretel and Queen Isabella the forest witch.
Sarah tore her gaze away away and balled her fists. She thought of Skuntz and Gan. The old elf had given Sarah the bow because she believed in her. She couldn’t let Gan down now.
The tall thin woman continued to circle Sarah, playfully twirling her fingers through the girl’s red hair. “And what if I said no? What then?”
Sarah’s heart was beating fast now, still her voice did not falter. “I’m going to get my friends.”
The Queen grinned. “So determined aren’t we? Strong willed. How adorable.” Giggles spread through the crowd, mocking Sarah. She felt like she was on the third grade playground all over again.
“Now, before we get to the friends you think I have, let me take a guess,” the queen spoke, interrupting the child’s thoughts. “Alexander probably told you a tragic story of how his brother died, their last words to one another and went on to explain how he became a wanderer? Am I correct?”
Sarah sucked in her lips and sealed her mouth. The Queen shrugged. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Alexander didn’t tell you all of it. He left out a few details. The very details that would make you realize how his father and myself are the real victims.” She took a breath.
“You are probably under the impression that the witch and my son are lovers, correct?”
Sarah remained mute, though a bright blush crept into her cheeks.
“Now that’s just cute.” The Queen smirked. “Well, before she had Alexander, she was the lover of his younger brother, my second son, Abel.”
Abel. Alexander had barely mentioned him, and Sarah made it a point to never bring the topic up. The vampire’s eyes always became a little glassy when he talked about his brother.
“Abel,”-- Queen Isabella began to stroke the girl’s hair,-- “was a good warrior. Agile, fast, strong, merciless. And then all of sudden he became...weak, sympathetic, feeling and connected to his prey. The change was subtle though obvious after time. My little boy. He would lock himself in his room for hours, go out on lone hunts. He was another person completely. So, one day, like any loving mother would do, I ordered his older brother, Alexander, to follow him.”
“Stop,” Alexander whispered, still in the clutches of the vampire guards. “Don’t tell her.”
“But why not, my son?” said King William speaking for the first time, his voice deep and thick. “Isn’t honesty one of your new beliefs? If you value your flame haired friend here so much, tell her the truth.”
“Father,” Alexander breathed heavily, “Do not mock me.”
In one moment the King was by Alexander with his hand around his neck. “No, do not mock me, boy!” The words came from his lips like acid. The king tossed him back and Alexander’s head hit the stonewall. His eyes became unfocused and unsteady. They glazed over, and he stared at his father with nothing in his gaze.
Sarah cried out and ran toward Alexander, her arms outstretched. Before she could reach him, a guard had snatched her up. He held her arms pinned behind her back.
Sarah gasped in pain as his grip tightened, stretching her muscles too far. The guard smirked.
“Now, my child,” the Queen grinned at the redhead, “Let me finish my story. You are a good little girl, aren’t you? If not, I may have to teach you some manners.” She waved her finger at Sarah.
“No,” Sarah snapped. “Alex is hurt. He’s going to die.”
Queen Isabella rolled her eyes. “So dramatic. Listen, or you’ll end just like him.” Again her voice had become stern and harsh.
“He’s your son!” the girl screamed. “How can you –”
“Sarah,” Serwa’s voice cut through her tantrum. She pronounced each word while widening her eyes at the girl. “Listen to her. Alexander will be fine.”
“B–” Sarah began.
“I said,” the witch’s eyes flamed their golden brown, “listen.”
Sarah gulped.
The Queen cleared her throat. “As I was saying, Alexander followed his brother only to discover that our little Abel had a love! A love named Serwa, who had not one single drop of vampire in her. He had fallen in love with his meal. Apparently, he found her on one of our family hunts, and for whatever reason, he did not kill her. When Alexander saw them together, he immediately came back and reported to me. My son was planning to elope with the witch. I couldn’t believe it, so I arranged for her to be captured as the
prey for one of Abel’s classes. He did exactly the opposite of what I thought he would do. When it came his time to kill, and she was presented to him, he couldn’t do it. Do you know what he did instead?”
Sarah didn’t answer. She watched Alexander from her peripheral vision. His eyes were still vacant.
“He saved her. He saved her like she was one of our own. So, of course, he was punished then he died in our last clan war. I would say he died like a true vampire, but no true vampire would fall in love with his dinner. Soon after, Alexander fell into a depression over his brother’s death. He began to show the same symptoms as Abel. Lone hunts, isolation, very quiet, you know. And then he just left, gone without a word, only a single-page letter for his mother to cry over. Now do you see?”
Sarah still watched Alex. She wiggled her fingers and rocked on her toes, anxious to be by his side.
“I said do you see, child?” The Queen moved in front of her.
Sarah snapped her eyes away from Alex and gazed up. “See what?”
The Queen frowned. “How I am the victim. Because of this vile wench, I lost two sons. My clan, lost two princes and two future kings. My husband and I grieved for years. And now the only son I have is back, yet he won’t even greet me with one sliver of love. I am the true victim here, don’t you see?” She moved down close by Sarah’s face waiting for a reply, nodding slightly to herself and eyes wide in expectation.
“Actually, if you think about it Alexander is the reason Abel is dead,” the King spoke to Sarah, though he did not look at her. “If he had never told on his brother, Abel would have run off with the witch and avoided both the punishment that weakened him and the war that killed him. Turns out it was the same day he planned to run away with her. However, we all, especially Alex, forced him to fight.”
“Yes,” the Queen nodded. “Do you see? Do you understand, child?”
Sarah forced down the ball in her throat. She hated lying; her parents hadn’t raised her to make it a habit. Still, beyond all that, her parents had raised her to be loyal. She wouldn’t betray Alex.
She took what she thought would be her last breath.
“No.”
All signs of playfulness fell from the Queen’s face. She placed a hand on Sarah’s shoulder and squeezed. Her eyes grew very dark, and her skin seemed to crawl.
“Well, then, I guess there’s no point in keeping you alive.” The Queen released the girl’s shoulder and raised her other hand, revealing nails that had grown several inches long. Her hand came down fast.
Sarah closed her eyes and felt a chill travel up her spine followed by a strange feeling of relief.
“Look at her Sarah. Do not be afraid to look,” the mist creature’s voice came to her again. Sarah opened her eyes. And just like that the Queen’s attack came to an abrupt halt.
“Your eyes have changed.” She stared at the child for a moment and then pulled her hand to her side.
“I thought without the stone you held no power. How does it live within you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sarah said.
“Perhaps, the story is true… You may be of some use to us.” The Queen turned to her guards and nodded at Alexander and Serwa. “Take them away.”
“No,” Sarah shouted and moved toward Alexander. He remained limp with his eyes clouded over. The guards pointed their weapons at Sarah. She ignored them and moved Alexander’s head onto her lap. Blood ran and stained her skirt. She pushed the hair from the back of his skull, but there was no wound for the blood to flow from. As she reached down, she saw that her hands, too, were covered in lines of blood. So were her arms and legs. She looked up at the guards, hoping maybe one of them could explain where the blood came from.
They only smiled at her cynically. She turned to the Queen who was already walking over to Sarah with a mirror in hand.
The woman bent down beside Sarah and frowned. “Oh, my, dear what did you think was falling from the tunnel ceiling?”
“W-what?” Sarah managed to say.
Queen Isabella shook her head. “Sometimes we like to use our meals as decorations.” She showed Sarah her own reflection.
In the mirror was a girl painted from head to toe with blood that was not her own or Alexander’s. Sarah reached one hand out to feel the glass, to make sure it was real and not some sort of illusion. The glass was solid; the girl’s eyes grew wide in the realization. An evil cackle broke from the Queen’s lips in unison with Sarah’s scream.
​

The Woman

By June Ti 

The homesteader did not understand what she’d done wrong. Whatever it was, her husband was angry. He’d become the feared actor in a horror flick, a lover whose vulgar contempt chills his subordinate to the bone. He viewed the woman as vile, a rat to be expelled, especially after losing her job. She was as afraid of him as of the strange men who had watched her all summer sawing, and splitting, and piling next winter’s fuel, who took pictures of her swinging an ax, who masturbated in plain sight.
On this August morning, hiding from the husband behind a tool shed, between rolls of barbed wire, she waited to hear him leave for work. He knew she was there, for the horses poked their noses over the fence at her.
The woman had her own work, beginning with rebuilding the firewood lean-to. Prowlers had sledgehammered it just hours before, by moonlight. There’d been a thwack and another and the rumble of her neat stacks tumbling.
Although the husband had dashed outside one night with a two-by-four, he left it up to the woman to defend the property. It was, after all, her fault. With police making up stories, unwilling to help, the woman had tried, and failed, to stop the gang by herself.
She also failed at something else—to get the tall lean-to back up that afternoon, a two-person job, and worried excessively about the husband’s wrath upon his return. She hoped his roving eye would keep him away until late, but he came home early and ripped into her.
When his conniption was over, while she was washing the dinner dishes, he said, “The kids and I will be at a hotel this weekend. There’s a concert. You’ll be fine.”
The woman knew, in truth, what her husband’s stoic expression meant. She knew he’d smile as soon as he looked away, for he always smiled after delivering upsetting words. The fact was, he hadn’t been to a big city or a concert in over twenty years, and wanting to go now, with the farm under attack, was no coincidence. And for him to take Friday off when he worked through celebrations, even their wedding day, was no coincidence either. So it wasn’t paranoia that told her he hoped she’d be killed on the weekend, alone in the firs. He wanted her gone for bringing chaos to their home. He’d been plenty clear about that.
Kissing the children goodbye that warm Friday morning, wishing them fun in the city, the woman got busy with chores. The soil, and shovels, and gardens were prized; the woman was proud, living honestly in the bush. But this day felt different, like waiting to be executed. She thought about how a husband should not give his wife to brutes.
When the prowlers came early, double the number, along padded-down footpaths, the woman presumed she would not live much longer. Yet, she wouldn’t have left if there’d been a thousand, at least not at first. The livestock had been solace and sanity when it seemed the whole world hated her. To each animal she owed a debt of gratitude.
From her window seat atop a washing machine, the woman watched the horses trotting nervously up and down the gate in anticipation of being cornered and clubbed. She had not got the dogs inside in time, for the men always came after dark, except for this evening, and now the dogs were frantic, unwilling to come in, unable to protect their home from a swarm of predators.
She watched a man on the sundeck jump on a picnic table she’d built for the kids, and from there jump to the sundeck rail, and from there to the roof, pulling a wisteria vine down as he clambered. She wondered if he could fit in the chimney and what he was doing up there, if others would throw gas cans to him.
Crawling under the windows, from room to room, a magical spot eluded her—the one not to get shot in, the one to disappear in, the one with an uncut phone line. She realized the hunters were playing: thumping the walls, and rapping the windows, and jiggling the doorknobs when they could smash a glass door and step in.
Hearing the hosepipe running, the woman screamed at the thought of another hen being drowned, of cats being drowned, and the man on the roof whistled and stomped. She screamed as loud and long as she could, hoping someone would save her. But she’d bought the place because of the forest. The silence had been a religion to her. No one would notice.
Cursing herself for leaving the truck in the orchard, they’d caught her off-guard, collecting windfalls; so she crept inside a cupboard to see if a claw hammer could rip the floor up and drop her into the crawlspace. Then she heard the men in there too.
With a farm mutt now yelping, thoughts of retreat evaporated. The woman, who was going to die anyways, crawled to the nearest door, put her mouth to the crack she bared, and pleaded for the dog to come. When a black snout appeared, she grabbed it and hauled him in, fastened the deadbolt, and dragged her friend into the bathroom. Wrapped in towels, he looked at her and stopped breathing, only to begin again.
They sat together on the bathroom floor while lines of men slapped the frosted pane with their palms. Examining the blade on her pocketknife, the woman imagined tearing to the truck with King on her shoulder. She imagined piercing the face of whoever grabbed her, and tried to find the courage.
Hesitating, and despising herself for it, the moment of reckoning came and went. There’d be no getting away. The men, proving themselves to be lock pickers, were telling jokes in the house. They were on the roof, in the crawlspace, at every wall, at every window, and in the kitchen.
Placing one hand on King’s lovely head, the woman stared at the knife again, relieved that it was long enough to slice far into a heart. She poked her chest hard, and again, and again, making a blood map through her pink cotton blouse. She practiced all night and through the first glimmer of dawn, prepared to fatally stab herself when the time came. She thought about her bareback rides along the lake at sunrise, until she’d done something wrong to make the countryside unsafe, and prayed her old horse was okay.
In the brightness, the men were quickly leaving. The game was ending, and she waited to be taken, waited for the moment to stab her heart. She watched a man-shape descend a tangle of wisteria vines by the window, for the plant engulfed the house, and wondered if he would be the one to open the bathroom door, wondered if more men were on the vines. She listened to cars crunching on gravel, retrieving the men, readying to whisk her to the butcher they’d promised. But the car doors banged, and the crunching faded. The gang was gone, but not really. Some would be in the firs, and some would be driving by, as always.
The woman with a bashed-in dog sat on the bathroom floor until the silence she loved revived her enough to consider the horror of what her husband would do if anything was broken.
Confused to be untouched, and surprised to find the kitchen as neat as she’d left it, the woman was forced to replay the night in her mind, trying to—hoping to—make it a dream. But her shirt was ripped and she was wounded.
Still clutching the knife, the woman dared to go outside, where she stood among the hazelnut trees, unable to think straight—unable to think at all—as she gazed at the aftermath.
Pulled-off siding from the tool shed lay in jagged pieces in the grass, and paint was spilled on the porch. The old horse looked dead on his feet and the other dogs were missing. She wished the men had taken her.
Cleaning up and fixing up as best she could, the woman wept as she’d never wept before. Burning her bloodstained clothes in the woodstove, and the dog’s bloody towels, she tried to make it all look fine. She considered life without her kids, leaving them with a miserable father. So she stayed.
As soon as the husband got home, he tore into her for letting the men take over while he was having fun at the concert.
“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “There were so many.”
The husband stopped speaking to the woman. He did not want to hear what happened, and he did not want her to eat, or talk, or be seen, expecting that his loathing would make her bolt. But she couldn’t. Not even for an hour. Not yet. Not empty like that.
Her spirit left when the men came in the kitchen. Or maybe it was her soul that cast off. It was a sensation from the heart, of essence flying, vacating its shell, a surreal feeling of being hollow but alive. She could only speak in a whisper. Every noise made her panic, and she stopped sleeping.
After one full moon, sick from something, the woman did go. Opening the vegetable garden gate, she stumbled her way to the red plastic tub that held her peach-tree seedlings, dumped it, and keeled over. Grieving for all she was about to lose, she wondered if the seedlings would die and wondered if all her hard work had meant anything. Rolling the tub to her big truck, she stood on it, slowly pulled herself up to the steering wheel, and drove off, unwilling to put the children through her final decay, tired of being despised for whatever she’d done wrong.

A Letter to Santa
 
By Mark Twain
 

Palace of Saint Nicholas in the Moon
Christmas Morning

 

My Dear Susy Clemens,
 

I have received and read all the letters which you and your little
sister have written me . . . . I can read your and your baby
sister's jagged and fantastic marks without any trouble at all. But
I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your
mother and the nurses, for I am a foreigner and cannot read English
writing well. You will find that I made no mistakes about the things
which you and the baby ordered in your own letters--I went down your
chimney at midnight when you were asleep and delivered them all
myself--and kissed both of you, too . . . . But . . . there
were . . . one or two small orders which I could not fill because we
ran out of stock . . . .
 

There was a word or two in your mama's letter which . . . I took to
be "a trunk full of doll's clothes." Is that it? I will call at your
kitchen door about nine o'clock this morning to inquire. But I must
not see anybody and I must not speak to anybody but you. When the
kitchen doorbell rings, George must be blindfolded and sent to the
door. You must tell George he must walk on tiptoe and not speak--
otherwise he will die someday. Then you must go up to the nursery
and stand on a chair or the nurse's bed and put your ear to the
speaking tube that leads down to the kitchen and when I whistle
through it you must speak in the tube and say, "Welcome, Santa
Claus!" Then I will ask whether it was a trunk you ordered or not.
If you say it was, I shall ask you what color you want the trunk to
be . . . and then you must tell me every single thing in detail
which you want the trunk to contain. Then when I say "Good-by and a
merry Christmas to my little Susy Clemens," you must say "Good-by,
good old Santa Claus, I thank you very much." Then you must go down
into the library and make George close all the doors that open into
the main hall, and everybody must keep still for a little while. I
will go to the moon and get those things and in a few minutes I will
come down the chimney that belongs to the fireplace that is in the
hall--if it is a trunk you want--because I couldn't get such a thing
as a trunk down the nursery chimney, you know . . . .If I should
leave any snow in the hall, you must tell George to sweep it into
the fireplace, for I haven't time to do such things. George must not
use a broom, but a rag--else he will die someday . . . . If my boot
should leave a stain on the marble, George must not holystone it
away. Leave it there always in memory of my visit; and whenever you
look at it or show it to anybody you must let it remind you to be a
good little girl. Whenever you are naughty and someone points to
that mark which your good old Santa Claus's boot made on the marble,
what will you say, little sweetheart?
 

Good-by for a few minutes, till I come down to the world and ring the kitchen doorbell.
Your loving Santa Claus
Whom people sometimes call
"The Man in the Moon"

Christmas 1954

by

Gerald Arthur Winter

From a ten-year-old’s point of view, my most memorable and magical Christmas
goes back in my mind more than sixty years ago to 1954. Ten-year-olds growing up in a small town in New Jersey still believed in Santa Claus, not just in the image of a chubby old elf with a nose like a cherry and a kind twinkle in his eye,
but the real St. Nick.
Christmas was a special, brief pause in the year when only good things could happen.
Celebration never began before Thanksgiving, the most important holiday for the adults, which had to be fully reveled by my parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles before there could be even a hint of evergreen scent in the air
or a sparkle of tinsel in town.
There were TVs in many, but not all homes that year, though nothing in color.
That would take another decade. The contrast between what was on the tube and real life was markedly distinct, because the real world of home and family was in color, and the world on TV was merely a black-and-white specter of what was real. Reality began at home among family members.
We had moved from Queens to northern New Jersey for fresh air and unspoiled
forests. Dad had promised us that our living in the Ramapo Mountains would be colder than Long Island and the chance for a white Christmas would be much better at that higher elevation northwest of New York City.
Always hopeful for a big snowfall at Christmas, my older brother Bobby and
I kept our fingers crossed during the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
But since 1947, when we had lived in Springfield Gardens, there hadn’t been more than a flurry, and that was on George Washington’s Birthday celebrated on February 22nd in the middle of the week. I remember that childhood trivia because Arthur Godfrey had made a joke on the radio that morning that the banks and Post Office would be closed for “George Birthington’s Washday.”
We hadn’t seen any significant snow accumulation in seven years. It was as
if the blizzard of ’47 had drained the world of all its snow, and there would be no
snowfalls in our future, not even for Christmas when at ten years old,
I had wanted it most.
It had been a mild autumn in 1954, no frozen puddles after a nor’easter, or
even any thin black ice on any of the lakes or ponds in town. Bobby and I had made
our Christmas lists for Santa with the same item at the top of both our lists, a Flexible
Flyer sled. Wishful thinking. Second on both our lists was American Flyer S-gauge
electric trains to replace our Lionel train set from the 40’s that had become worn
with age. What “S gauge” translated to me and Bobby were two rails instead of
three, which made the tracks and trains scaled to size with greater realistic detail.
Parents helped to create the Santa fantasy for younger kids by making
their children’s older siblings go along with the Christmas myth. Being of German-
American decent, my family took the Kris Kringle and Tanenbaum traditions very
seriously. But what made the Christmas spirit of giving even greater, was a small
town that held a Yuletide party inviting every kid in town into our Community
Building. Now the town’s Public Library, but back in 1954, entering the Community
Building revealed a twenty-foot Christmas tree decorated with ornaments, lights,
and spun glass we called “angel hair,” which looked like a great spider web
cascading from the angel on top to the stacks of gifts around its base.
The grammar school custodian served as Santa, though only kids over
ten knew that truth. For me and the kids my age and younger, the portly janitor
was the real deal. Every kid in town was welcomed to come up to the tree and
have Santa present them with a gift covered by the town budget when property
taxes weren’t a major issue to owning a home in the rustic suburbs of a small
town with a population under 3,000 and now over 16,000. Just describing this
quaint little town where I grew up seems like a fairy tale.
The true magic occurred on Christmas that year. With just the glow of a
few scented candles, there was no sign of Christmas in our home except the
cards from friends and relatives taped to the kitchen pantry door.
“You’d better get to sleep early,” Mom had told us after supper as Bobby
and I, in our winter pajamas with the snuggly feet watched the evening news on
our black-and-white Admiral TV. We saw WCBS Channel 2’s weather girl, Carol
Reed signing off, "Good night and have a happy!"
There was no storm warning on her weather map of the New York metropolitan
area, so Bobby and I went to bed early with as little hope for a white Christmas as there was for getting new sleds or electric trains from Santa. Though in sixth grade and already more interested in a pretty girl in his class at school, Bobby went along with my parents, and it seemed the entire town, to not spoil the magic of Santa Claus in my little boy dreams.
“I think I hear Santa’s sleigh and the reindeer on the roof,” Bobby said to me in
the dark. “Can you hear them?”
I stopped breathing and lifted my head off my pillow to listen. “Uh-huh,” I said,
thinking Bobby was just teasing me.
Bobby and I woke up that Christmas morning to see the magic of Christmas.
Two flexible flyer sleds were beneath a beautifully decorated tree that our dad hadn’t
even bought yet when we went to sleep. He and Mom spent till midnight decorating
the tree, and she baked Christmas cookies, and he put our new American Flyer train
set together around the base of the tree with a complete Plastic Ville town of homes
and shops, with an iced over pond and skaters. Not just a locomotive, coal car,
boxcar, oil car, and caboose, we got a streamliner, and a hand-pump car, too.
Dad had designed the tracks with one large oval and a smaller oval within it.
The ovals were connected at a tangent by a single switch. The challenge was to have
both trains and the hand-pump car running at the same time, but taking turns through the switch without a crash. It was so exciting that when we invited the seven-year-old boy next door to play with us, he wet his pants when the locomotive and streamliner nearly had a head-on collision. We could turn the lights out at night, and each house and store in Plastic Ville would light up with a bulb Dad had wired in the village like a real little town.
“Have you looked outside?” Mom asked to break us away
from our new electric trains.
Bobby just shrugged still glued to the trains, but I got up from the floor
and in my new reindeer slippers scuried to open the front door.
“Bobby! Bobby! Come see!”
We both stood at the open front door with our mouths agape. The two pine
trees in our front yard were weighted down with two feet of heavy snow. The roads
weren’t even plowed, and the air was still and silent.
“Our sleds!” Bobby shouted. “Let’s try our new sleds!”
We lived at the peak of one of the highest points in town. Since the streets
hadn’t been plowed, the snow was too deep to go sleigh riding. We still had ten days
left of Christmas vacation before we’d have to go back to school, but after a brief
thaw that melted most of the snow in the streets, a deep chill came over the town
with temperatures below zero. This caused several fire hydrants at the higher
elevations to burst and flood the mile-long roads from the top of our street to the
town in the valley below.
Our hill was like a glass mountain with six inches of ice for a mile down the
steep hill, so slick that even with chains on their wheels, sand trucks couldn’t go up
or down the hill to spread sand or salt to melt the ice. The deep freeze lasted over a
week giving us an extra week of vacation before school would start. Our sleds on
the ice hit 40 mph for the first quarter mile then, if we made the left bend down the
steepest downward plunge without going off into a snow bank, we’d hit 50 mph
and stop just before the main street in town.
The plowed snow piles at school at the end of the parking lot were
dumped at the top of a gully. With the rest of the winter so cold. Kids at school
could slide down the twenty-foot piles of snow well into April
before it melted away in May.
Like my brother Bobby, when I started fifth grade, I suddenly became
aware of a pretty girl in my class, but it would be more than another year before
I realized I’d rather hold her hand than hit her with a snowball. Though that magic
Christmas holiday was extended by a deep, unpredicted snowfall into the late
thaw in spring, by the next summer I heard the deafening noise of growing up.
Yet, even now in my old age, if I can shut out the cacophony and buzz
of the hectic world around me, even just for a moment, I can still hear the bells
jingling on Santa’s sleigh, and reindeer hooves on the roof. I did my best to
recreate that magic for my own kids before the buzz of their teens could drown
it out. The reason I can still feel that magic, is the memory of my last Christmas
as a child in 1954 when I was innocent, much like the child that was born on
the first Christmas so very long ago, but never forgotten.
 

The Miracle Blizzard

by

Gerald Arthur Winter

 
The tin mailbox had been nailed to a wooden post on the rural, single-lane dirt road in the summer of 1945. It stood erect at the end of a winding driveway that snaked five hundred feet to the two-story home at the top of a knoll. Five stone steps flanked by two sculptured lions led to an open front porch. There were four natural stone columns to support the roof that overhung the porch, one at each end of the porch and two flanking the porch’s landing above the two lions. The shingled house was painted white with red shutters at each bay window flanking the red front door. The gray slate roof had a red brick chimney in the center where smoke emitted from October through April. From May through September the climate was too warm to make a fire in the hearth, but the family that lived there knew nothing about air-conditioning until the 1960’s, The New Frontier.
The couple that lived there had sent two sons to serve in World War II. Bobby, the older son, served in the Army Infantry in Germany. Artie, the younger son by two years, served in the Navy in the Pacific. The first mail received by their parents, Bill and Vera, had come from President Truman. Both sons had died in combat. Their boys never had the chance to see the house that Bill and Vera had built to welcome them home from the war.
There were no neighbors within five miles of their home, and their extended families lived a thousand miles away in various directions. Bill and Vera had only each other with whom to commiserate and console. A retired fireman, Bill had only their new home in which to putter about as a distraction from his sorrow while Vera sewed quilts for the children of disabled war veterans. Their boys, Bobby and Artie, had gone to war in January 1942, a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Neither son had married before they’d left home and they would have been twenty-four and twenty-two had they survived to begin families of their own. The pain of knowing that loss weaved through Bill and Vera’s minds daily with weeks on end of silence and grim expressions across the table at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
As months went by, they began to communicate with just nods and grunts. The seasons passed, but a few years felt like a millennium. The mailbox that Bill had hammered to the post at the end of their long driveway had begun to rust. For lack anything else to do, and feeling hollow from grief, Bill headed out the front door to the porch. His brisk, determined strut caught Vera’s attention.
“Where on earth are you going in such a hurry?” she shouted, surprised at the volume of her own voice that shattered so many months of silence like a hammer through glass.
Bill turned back to respond, cringing from the painful shards of her piercing voice. “I’m going to paint the %@$*# mailbox if you don’t mind,” he said.
“What the hell for?” she asked, never having been prone to swearing before.
He shrugged with a paintbrush in one hand and a bucket in the other. “I dunno. Just a notion I got this morning.”
“What color are ya painting it?”
“White.”
“White’s not a color.”
“I know, but that’s what I’m painting it.”
She shrugged as she sewed a patch to a quilt and tottered back and forth in her rocker. “Okay, Bill. Suits me, but what for?”
He huffed. “I was reading my Bible this morning looking for reasons to go on. I read a lot about miracles. It just kind of jumped out at me that sometimes miracles need a little boost. I figure that damn mailbox brought us the worse news of our lives, so maybe if I dressed it up some with a little paint, some good news might come to us the same way as the bad had.”
“Whew! Never thought I married a dreamer,” she said. “What the hell, Bill. Go paint the damn thing.”
Bill didn’t bother to drive his pickup to the end of the driveway. He figured the long, meandering walk might do him some good. He and Vera had exchanged more words that morning than they had over the past six months. It was late September in ’47 with Indian summer coming after an early frost a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t need a jacket and wore just a T-shirt and his denim overalls to mosey down the driveway.
Crickets were still chirping in the tall yellow grass on the sloped fields on either side of the gravel driveway. They’d heard that their single-lane dirt road would be paved and widened before winter. The past few winters had been mild with no more than a dusting of snow last February. A long spring came before a scorching summer. Plenty of rain though. Bill figured that was probably why the mailbox had rusted. A spider web stretched from the tall yellow goldenrods surrounding the mailbox to the post it rested upon.
“Ya got another month,” he told the spider, its body the size of a quarter, black with a yellow starburst and its fuzzy legs as long as Bill’s pinky. “If another mild winter is coming, ya might have two months to lay your eggs.” He told the spider. He took a square of rough sandpaper from his back pocket and sanded the rust, blowing away the red dust. He took a square of finer sandpaper and burnished off the rust until the mailbox was smooth. He sprayed the mailbox with a rust inhibiter, waited for it to dry, then applied the white lacquer paint. He sat on a boulder near the mailbox and watched some birds migrating south for the winter.
“If it’s anything like last winter,” he said to the birds, “you’ll be sorry ya left. Haven’t had a decent snow these parts since ’88. My granddaddy told me all about that one, drifts up to the second floor. Wish I’d have seen it. Must’ve been beautiful a real Winter Wonderland I bet.”
He applied the second coat of white paint as the mailbox gleamed in the midday sun. He admired his work and said to the mailbox, “Well, I’ve done my part. Now It’s up to you.”
Naturally, the mailbox remained silent, but the spider fluttered its long fuzzy legs as if to acknowledge Bill’s comment.
“At least I got out of the house for a few hours,” Bill said and headed back up the driveway to see what Vera had prepared for supper. For the rest of autumn, Bill took every opportunity to go out onto the front porch and peer down the driveway toward the mailbox. No mail ever came through October or November, and in December only a Christmas card from their insurance agent. There was no junk mail in those days and the Sears Roebuck catalogs were delivered to their front porch. Bill had put the red flag up on the mailbox back in September to indicate to the postman that there was mail to be picked up, but the postman had checked a few times and found nothing to be mailed, so he just left it up since he never had anything to deliver to Bill and Vera except that one impersonal Christmas card.
Without Bill and Artie home for Christmas since they’d first left home for the war five years ago, the holiday was hard to bear. Vera was able to busy her mind by baking cookies and preparing their traditional goose for Christmas dinner. They ate their dinner in silence then later it was only 8 p.m. when Bill sat in the rocker and waved Vera over to sit on his lap.
“I don’t think I can continue doing this any longer,” Bill told Vera.
“I know, but let’s just sleep on that tonight,” she said. “When we wake in the morning, we’ll talk about. Okay?”
He nodded as they rocked together and both, after the heavy meal, soon dozed off. They’d made it through five Christmases without the boys. The first three were hard, but they had still had the hope of the war ending and their boys coming home. The last two were without hope of their boys returning, and neither Bill nor Vera felt they had any faith to go on with their lives.
That morning after Christmas both awoke with a start, realizing they’d slept in their embrace through the night in the rocking chair.
“Oh my goodness!” Vera shouted. “We’ve slept in the rocker till morning.”
Startled as if he’d been sleeping soundly for decades, Bill lifted Vera off his lap. “Why’s it so quiet?” he asked, getting to his feet and going to the bay window. He pulled the curtain’s aside, looked out, stared, then jerked his head back and forth. “What the blazes?” he shouted. “It can be!”
“What can’t be?” she asked.
“See for yourself.” He opened the front door, but snow had drifted above the door and all they could see was a white frozen wall.
“What has happened, Bill?”
“A miracle,” he said wanting to believe it. “It’s a dang right blizzard and no one predicted it. Damn good thing I had the coal delivered last week. Who’d have ever thought it possible?”
“There’s still some burning cinders in the fireplace,” she said. “Better put on a log or two. No telling how long we’ll be stranded before they plow the road and our driveway.”
“There’s something about snow,” he said, thinking about how depressed they both had been the night before, even though it was Christmas. “So pure and crystal perfect as it floats down from heaven so quietly, then it gathers in clusters on every branch and twig making the world so pristine, even if it’s only for a short time.”
The Great Blizzard of 1947 was a phenomenon, literally a Category 3 hurricane with freezing temperatures that took the Northeastern states by surprise as millions slept on Christmas night. There were no howling winds to wake anyone with alarm.
The snow was thick and heavy and just came down and down all night into the next day. With freezing temperatures that winter, the Christmas blizzard, as it was also called, remained on the ground well into March of 1948.
Bill and Vera couldn’t be certain that such an unpredicted storm was a miracle, something magic and wonderful to wipe the slate clean with a new beginning, not until their driveway was plowed and Bill was so upset peering toward the road from his porch and not seeing their mailbox.
“Damn snowplows!” he shouted. “Look, Vera. Our mailbox is gone. I guess they didn’t even see the red flag sticking up.”
“We’ll get a new one soon,” she offered her calm solution.
“No way,” he huffed. “We never get any mail as is. I’m gonna go find it in the drifts.”
“Oh, Bill. Must you? Since they’ve plowed, it’s iced up and you could slip and fall, maybe break an ankle.”
“Such a worrier,” he said. “I’ll take my time and go slow.”
He headed out the door with a thick scarf wrapped twice around his neck and a red-and-black, checkered wool coat and a red ski cap pulled over his balding head. He walked with caution like he was crossing thin ice and used a snow shovel for balance like a tightrope walker in the circus. When he got to where he guessed the mailbox had been, he noticed the tip of the red flag and climbed to the top of the snowdrift which was hard as rock. When he tried to dig out the mailbox, the snow shovel bent.
Exhausted from his pointless effort, he sat on the snowdrift to catch his breath. He realized he was going about his task all wrong and took a moment to rethink his approach. He had a pen in his pocket so he began to use it like a chisel to break chunks of ice away from the red flag.
With great patience he whittled the snow away from the mailbox lid and opened it. He couldn’t believe his eyes. In the mailbox were two postcards, one from England and one from Hawaii. The one from England showed a photo of Bobby in his Army uniform with the rank of sergeant on his shoulder. He had his arm around a pretty blond girl in a white wedding dress. The card from Hawaii showed Artie in his Navy whites with his arm around a Hawaiian girl with long black hair. She was dressed in a floral muumuu with a ring of white flowers on her head. She and Artie wore ceremonial leis around their necks.
For a moment Bill felt as if his two sons were alive, but he knew they weren’t.
Then he saw there were two envelopes in the mailbox as well, one from London and the other from Honolulu. He cast the snow shovel into the drift and began to walk back up the driveway to the house, which from the distance looked like a gingerbread cake with three feet of snow for icing on its roof. As he opened the envelopes he saw a handwritten letter and a photo of a toddler in each. He found himself running up the driveway losing his breath.
Through his blurry vision with flowing tears, he saw Vera standing on the porch.
Though he hadn’t told her that she was a grandmother yet, he saw from her gleaming expression that she already knew. Besides the mailbox miracle from the snowstorm, there was the miracle of the telephone. They’d survived the last Christmas they’d ever have to spend alone again. Their daughter in-laws with their two grandsons would arrive for Easter that March. Bill and Vera’s grandsons, named after their dads, Bobby and Artie, would make tiny footprints in the last remains of the miracle blizzard of 1947.

Vermilion

by

Gerald Arthur Winter


“Whatever I see, I can reproduce,” the swarthy young man said to a prospective buyer at the Manhattan street fair. It was Saturday in autumn with leaves floating down from trees along the metal fence enclosing Byrant Park behind the New York Public Library.
“If you don’t like anything I’ve already finished, tell me what you like. I’ll paint it for you.”
Skeptical, the elderly, well-dressed gentleman with a young woman half his age locked arm-in-arm at his elbow said, “She want’s something to match our new penthouse drapes.”
Penthouse, rang in the young artist’s ears, thinking, wealthy and stingy with a taste for younger women. I’ve got you pegged. No mystery here. Flippant, the artist asked, “What color are your daughter’s drapes?”
The older gentleman blustered, “She’s not my daugh--”
“Vermilion,” the young woman intervened. “But I see no brilliance in any of your paintings.” She fluffed her long blonde coif from her shoulders and turned up her nose.
“By brilliance you must mean bright color,” the artist said, thinking, you hussy, all of my artistry is brilliant.
“Whatever,” she said with a shrug, tugging at the older man’s arm to leave.
“If I paint precisely what you have in mind within the hour, what will you pay for my brilliant work?”
“Nothing if it’s not perfect,” she said.
“But if it is?” he asked, turning to the older man as his potential patron.
“I’d have to see it first,” he said.
“I already see it in my mind, dear sir,” the artist grinned. “So if she says it’s perfect, how much will you pay me?”
“I think a thousand dollars for an hour’s work is as much as I pay my attorneys, so that’s what I’d pay. But anything short of perfect is on you, and you’ll have wasted your time for nothing.”
“I’ve come from less than nothing, dear sir, so even nothing would be a fortune to me.”
“Let’s have lunch at The Oyster Bar below Grand Central,” she said. “We’ll come back in an hour to see your folly just for our amusement.”
“Are you sure, darling?” the older man asked.
She sneered at the artist. “Positive.”
“I must caution you,” the artist said. “You are aware that the substance that yields vermilion is toxic from the mercurial cinnabar.”
“It’s you who need be cautious,” she said. “You’ll be rendering our painting, but we’ll be observing it from a distance where it will hang above our hearth.”
“May we shake on it, dear sir, that we agree that you’ll pay me one thousand dollars if you return in an hour and she says that my painting is vermilion-perfect.”
“Indeed,” he agreed, taking the artists hand. “Otherwise, no payment at all.”
“Yes, no payment at all,” the artist nodded and took out a blank canvas as he watch the couple turn east on 42nd Street toward Grand Central Terminal.
When they returned an hour later, the artist stood proudly beside a 60 x 48 inch canvas with a white linen sheet draped over it on an easel for its unveiling. The older man seemed bored, and his young female companion aloof.
“Are you ready to see my masterpiece?” the artist asked them.
The older man waved with the back of his hand, impatient to get on with it and certain the artist would fail in his postured claim that his companion would say it was perfect.
As the artist pulled the sheet off his painting the young woman gasped. Passersby ogled the canvas with consensus for its brilliance.
“I love it!” the young woman squealed with delight. “It’s perfect!”
The older man reached for his wallet and doled out ten crisp Franklins from his gold money clip.
The artist waved off the older man. “Keep your money, dear sir. I was thrilled to accept your challenge just to satisfy your better half, but I’ve decided it’s so exquisitely perfect in its vermilion brilliance that I’ll keep it for myself. I just wanted her confirmation of its perfection.”
Enraged, the young woman turned to the older man. “You shook on it. Pay him whatever he wants. I must have this work of art.”
“To match your drapes,” the artist qualified. “I paint to match my own brilliance, which is priceless.”
The older man huffed, “Honey, it’s just a fucking sunset. Let’s go.”
“I want it!” she shouted.
“Jeezuz. Okay. How much?”
“It’s priceless, but for a hundred thousand, it’s yours.”
“What?” the old man balked.
“Pay the man,” she insisted. “Write him a check.”
He grumbled, pulling a checkbook from his jacket. “You’ll have to accept my personal check. I’ll make it out to cash.”
The artist frowned, but looked to the blonde nodding confirmation that the old man was good for it.
“Okay,” the artist agreed. “Sold to the gentleman for his beautiful wife.”
“This bargaining has made me weary,” the old man said. “We’ll unveil the painting tonight at our cocktail party.” He squinted at the artist and said aside, “The Governor and Mayor will be present to see your work tonight. You should give me a discount for displaying your art among dignitaries with great influence.”
“A deal’s a deal,” the artist said, holding his ground. “Your guests will know that whatever I see, I can reproduce.” He wrapped the framed painting and helped them put it into the trunk of a taxi. He waved farewell with a smirk as the taxi headed to the Upper Eastside of Manhattan.
That evening on Sutton Place overlooking the East River at the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge on 59th Street, the dignitaries gathered with their glasses of champagne to cheer the unveiling of the painting mounted over the hearth above a crackling fire beneath a marble mantel.
The old man motioned for the guests to hush for his toast then declared, “We want our honored guests to share this special occasion of my dear wife Penny’s thirtieth birthday, which I might add has cost me a pretty penny.”
The guests chortled with a murmur.
“Though my dear wife commissioned this art to match these drapes,” he nodded to the bright red drapes at the panoramic windows flanking the fireplace. “One of my experts at my beck and call has researched the history of this bright color called vermilion derived from the ore cinnabar, which has toxic mercurial qualities and was widely used by artist during the Roman Empire and notably by the artist Titian of the Venetian School in the Fifteen Hundreds.”
He paused for the notables present to acknowledge his newfound knowledge of classic art.
“With no further delay, behold our modern masterpiece,” he said as the painting was unveiled with a collective gasp.
“My god!” the old man shouted as the mercurial qualities of the vermilion sunset ran and dripped like blood. The painting transformed, morphing from a brilliant setting sun to a classic painting by Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, but the vermilion garments of the drunken orgy highlighting all the dignitaries present at this gathering having their intimate way with a naked blonde with his young wife Penny’s face.
The old man began to shake and stammer without control, typical of mercury poisoning from exposure to cinnabar. Then his young wife Penny began to shake with convulsions, but her final thoughts were of what the young street artist had said, “Whatever I see, I can reproduce.”
That next Monday, the New York media publicized the shocking story of the wealthy couple’s strange end, but the NYPD made no report of any guests who’d been present to witness the fateful end of the couple or any mention of a painting.
The young street artist had never cashed the old man’s check, so its purpose remained a mystery as did the remarkable talent of a young street artist who could paint realistic portraits ofany passerby though the coffee can for donations placed beside his easel read:
​
PLEASE BUY MY ART, I AM BLIND

Solstice

By

Dan Klefstad
​

“Is it finally gone?” Her voice sounds annoyed behind the barely-opened bedroom door.
“Let me check.” I walk into the kitchen where President Clinton is saying he “did not have sexual relations with that woman...” I turn off the TV and check behind the curtain. The last rays of light retreat over the horizon. I wait a few seconds more. “Yes.”
“You have no idea how lucky you are – surviving under the moon and sun.” Fiona enters the kitchen, silk clinging to her skin, anxiously tying her kimono. “At least the nights will get longer now.”
“The sun can kill me too if I spend too much time in it.” I fill a crystal glass with Ruby – her name for it -- and set it on the table. “Ultraviolet rays cause skin cancer. Which reminds me: I’ll need a few hours off tomorrow to see my doctor. I have a mole I’m worried about.”
“Where?”
“On my back.”
“Let me see.” Fiona seems genuinely concerned.
“It’s nothing. You must be starving.”
“If you’re worried, I need to be worried. Take off your shirt.”
“I’m not worried.” I set the decanter on the table, unbutton, and expose my upper body. She moves behind me and places a long, curved nail on the bumpy blemish; the rest of my skin gets goose flesh.
“How long have you had this?”
“As long as I can remember, but it changed recently.”
She leans closer and sniffs. I also inhale, detecting yesterday’s perfume in her hair – plus a whiff of flesh in the early stages of decay; she needs to drink now. The odor hangs in the air after she walks to the table and picks up her glass. “It’s nothing to worry about, but I can cut it out for you.”
“Thanks, but I’ll have my doctor do it.”
“Suit yourself.” She sips the O Negative I bought yesterday. “Does he have hospital rights? We could use another source.”
“She.”
“Oh.” She takes another sip. “What does she look like?”
“Brown skin, black hair. She’s Indian.”
“Is she Mohican?”
Fiona once told me The Last of the Mohicans was her favorite book. She still keeps the first edition next to her bed – plus a pen in case the author is around to sign it. For a while, a rumor circulated that James Fenimore Cooper was turned into an “immortal” but that story died a century ago.
“No, she’s from India.”
“Oh. I’ve never been.” Her brow wrinkles. “Maybe before but I can’t remember. Is she pretty?”
“I guess. Why do you ask?”
“Well,” she takes another sip and I can see her skin regain its luminescence. “A man needs a woman now and then. Right?”
“She’s married.”
“And?” Her lips curl into a smile, briefly exposing her long canines. Out of habit, she covers her mouth. “When’s the last time you were…carnal with someone?” Her eyes sparkle as she says this.
“I don’t know.”
“Really? That’s terrible. I can give you a night off, if you need it. Just remember: If your doctor takes you to bed, be especially pleasing. We need people who know people.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She looks at the clock and hands me the empty glass. “I’d better get dressed.”
“That’s right. The Solstice Ball.”
“YES.” Fiona twirls around the kitchen, dancing with an imaginary partner. “The return of the darkness.”
“Will Soren be there?”
“Count Fillenius is on the guest list. Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
Her face fills my vision -- our noses almost touch as her eyes search mine. “He’ll only stay for the day, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“I’m more concerned about the way he treats you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I…” The words stall inside. I want to tell her she doesn’t have to share the O Neg and a room with a guest who acts like he owns the place. Every time he’s here I struggle to conceal my hatred for the way he lords over her – and me. I turn on the faucet and rinse the glass.
“You know I can hear your thoughts.”
“Then you know it upsets me when he drinks half our supply and doesn’t pay for it. You’d think a count could afford to reciprocate.”
“Whose supply?” I half-turn and see breasts bulging over crossed arms, eyes burning holes through me. It’s the silence that hurts the most though; her words are the only clue I have as to what’s in her head. She remains in the kitchen just long enough to rub it in before leaving. Finally, before entering her room: “Just make sure there’s enough Ruby for both of us.”

* * *

My alarm goes off at 5:00. Fiona never asks me to check that she’s home by dawn but I do it anyway. Her door is right across from mine; hers bolts from the inside and I never test it to respect her privacy. To be honest, I’m afraid to discover if she sleeps with her eyes open; I saw that in a movie once. So before I go to bed, I leave a small stemmed glass on the kitchen table for a night cap. When I rise, all I need to do is check for dregs on the bottom or lipstick on the rim. Sometimes she takes the glass to her room. But this morning the glass is there and it’s clean. The calendar says sunrise is at 5:15 and full daylight is at 5:34. I grab my keys and prepare for a search I only imagined, but then I hear a giggle from her bedroom, followed by another voice that sounds like Soren’s. My sudden relief is spoiled by a feeling that goes beyond anger. Only after I return to my room and lay flat do I realize how disappointed I am. She could do better – why doesn’t she?

* * *

“I’ll bring it to her.” Soren stands in the kitchen, bejeweled hand open, waiting for the O Neg. Ben Franklin once joked that guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days. Soren’s been here for nearly a week. I gaze in his general direction, trying not to look at the window shade. At 5:21 the sun might be high enough to set him ablaze instantly. The only thing keeping me from tugging the cord and letting it fly is Fiona; she’d never forgive me. I don’t care that Soren can hear this.
He straightens as I hand him the glass. “She’d have to turn you in, you know. The trial would be swift and you’d suffer the worst pain imaginable. Then, just before you die, they’d make Fiona cut off your genitals and stuff them in your mouth. You and I both know she’s too sensitive for that.” He stares without blinking as he sips from her glass.
I fill the sink with soapy water, resigned to washing extra glassware when I should be out scoring more O Neg.
“I’d have you drawn and quartered if you left with anyone else. You know that, don’t you?”
I shrug. “At the time I really didn’t care.”
Soren seems hurt. “Why? Was I such a bad master?”
“I’m still trying to find out what you’re good at.”
“Here’s one.” His icy fingers turn my face toward his. “Fiona considers me an ideal companion – something you could never be.” I attempt to look away but he squeezes harder. “You should also know this: Fiona wants you to return to me when she dies, so show a little more respect.”
Fiona never spoke with me about anything like this. She’s only 250. I assumed she’d be fine as long as I set my alarm each night before dawn. My voice cracks: “Fiona expects to die before you do?”
“Anything can happen.” The 49 YO lets me go. “We immortals are less likely to be so when the Sun is in Cancer.”
“Cancer.”
“The Crab. Its claws remain open for twenty-eight days – waiting for so-called ‘immortals’ to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fiona is more likely to die now than in any four-week period throughout the year, combined.”
I ignore the fact that Soren is just as vulnerable. “Why not move to Australia during the summer?”
Soren is briefly rattled. “You see, remarks like that make me fear for Fiona under your care. Do you know what it would take to move her, and me, across the globe?”
“I said nothing about you.”
Soren’s gaze is as cold as outer space. “She will hear about this.”

* * *

“You really need to be nicer to him.” Fiona sits at the kitchen table, leaning her head on one hand. “He has feelings, you know.” She glares at me but then giggles, covering her fangs. “God, he bruises so easily – like a hemophiliac.”
“Soren says I am to return to him as part of your … estate plan. Is that true?”
“Well, I did steal you from him. There’s a law against that.”
“He wouldn’t press charges.”
“True. He needs me -- or rather, this home as an occasional place to land.”
“Where is he?”
“Oh, you didn’t know? He’s on his way to Australia.” She laughs suddenly. “The other day he said, ‘Did you know it’s Winter down there?’ Can you believe it? He didn’t know!”
I look down at the table for a few seconds. “But I’m to return to him in the event …”
She shrugs. “I promised, apparently, and…”
“Guardians are second-class citizens.”
“Look at you, reading my mind.”
My mouth twists as I taste a truth that’s only been implied. “So I can never retire?”
“Oh I wouldn’t say that.” Her head straightens. “But I’ll need you for as long as possible.”

# # #

Fusion

by

Gerald Arthur Winter

​

Thunder and lightning in the city roll and flicker in strobe effect. The
Early Bird cutoff is 6 p.m. but tonight it’s early fish. He stares at the rainbow
trout’s reflective scales from head to tail. On its side the steaming fish
shimmers on his plate and reflects the lightning bolts through the window.
One fish eye seems to stare at him, perhaps judging his temperament with
cold indifference. He rejects that notion as folly and checks his watch. She’s
late as usual, this time more than an hour past their reservation.
From his favorite window seat, he catches a glimpse of her coming
through the fog. It must be Lauren because she’s wearing a familiar yellow
slicker with a hood. He can’t see her face to be certain, but nods to himself
as rain spouts from her hood that envelopes her shoulder-length, black hair.
Raindrops spew in all directions off her bent shoulders, splashing in
cadence with her determined gait through curbside puddles. She’s always
in a hurry to get somewhere, anywhere in the opposite direction from him.
Any excuse, it seems, to keep her from greeting him warmly after his
12-hour workday in Manhattan.
He envisions her pausing beneath the Park Avenue overpass for
relief from the wind and pelting rain. She shakes her red umbrella, one
spindle bent, protruding like a bird’s broken wing. She tries to cover her
head without success.
She cuts through halted traffic on 45th Street at Vanderbilt. Her
precarious footwork is a risky safety breech though pardonable in such
a downpour. Back in the day, a brown-shirted traffic cop would have
given her a jaywalking ticket. She darts toward the entrance then
comes through the revolving door clunking repeatedly as it continues
to spin after her entrance.
Wanting a face-to-face, with his foot, he pushes out the empty
chair across from him. He wonders if she will stay long enough to
soothe his latest anxiety?
She pulls back her hood and shakes her hair loose. He closes
his eyes, imagining an earthy scent from the rain’s spray in his face.
He squints and inhales, recognizing nostalgic aromas of years gone by.
He longs for those encounters from their past, but tonight her tardiness
feels intentional. It’s their precious dinner date, but she’s failed to arrive
on time.
With digital precision, his gold Rolex says 7:15, but with the
darkness on the street outside, he wonders if it’s morning or night. Of
late, time seems to blur as if his life has been all one day. The cold
stone high-risers block sunlight at both ends of that spectrum. He
stands and calls to her, but too distracted by her broken umbrella
to notice, she pouts.
Red-and-yellow is the old orange—orange the new black. Fashions
seem to spin all too quickly. He imagines her coming through the revolving
door repeatedly with different outfits from past to present. Their history
together transcends all popular fashions.
He calls louder to her. Strangers dining at other tables take note
with glares and shakes of their stooped heads. Their expressions seem
grotesque, like van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters.
He mutters, “Don’t give me your poor-fellow pity. She’s the late one,
not me.”
He thinks he recognizes some of them as they turn their heads toward
his commotion with disapproval.
The hell with them. Too late to sit down and shrug off her inattentiveness,
as if he didn’t care.
He turns to the trout for consolation, but gets only a blank, myopic stare,
that same look his CEO had when presenting him with an early-retirement
package. It was a manila envelope stuffed with the mana that was expected
to feed him while wandering through the wilderness of retirement with Social
Security still out of reach.
Even twenty years later, he still feels the weight of that package. It
dangles from a red string, but rather than as a ripcord to assure his soft
landing, it’s the bloodline of his ill fate. With bitterness, he remembers the
tightness in his chest when he had unfurled those goodies with no cost-of-
living adjustments. Twenty years of inflation had withered away his
purchasing power—in-the-red is the new green.
He had to switch from his private club to the public golf course and
settle for a sedentary life, setting up an easel to paint in the throes of nature.
He had hoped for a black bear encounter so he could go out with a flourish,
something more than just the stroke of a brush. He smiles imagining a
headline rather than just a back-page obituary:


BANK EXECUTIVE DEVOURED BY BEAR WHILE PAINTING NATURE AT HIS EASIL.


Now he needs blood thinners for his heart valve, and often thinks
he’ll take either too many pills or none at all to speed his exit to who knows
where? He had joked about that with his cronies, but knew he would never
take such a desperate step. That would run against the grain of his fiber.
Get over it, his mother used to say to him, no matter what it was--
even a sharp stick in the eye. There were no spineless cowards in his
family tree, though some of his in-laws have tottered in their assumed
upright positions after millenniums of evolution to leap from those trees.
He sits back down and pokes at the fish with his fork. “That crap
was about money and pride,” he tells the dead-pan trout, “never heart
and soul.”
He had loved his job and had taken it seriously for decades. His
Bergen County commute across the Hudson from Jersey had been a
drudge, sun in his eyes coming and going. Driving on Route 3 toward
the Lincoln Tunnel helix, he’d sing that Fiddler on the Roof song:
“Sunrise, Sunset.”
For a moment he thinks the fish blinked. “Highly improbable,”
he scoffs.
The soul-destroying commute had not mattered to him though,
because he’d been convinced at age twenty-five that, if he didn’t work
in Manhattan, he’d be outside the matrix, not part of the grand scheme
of things. He had never bothered to ask myself what those things were,
grand or otherwise, but they all eventually became schemes against him.
He had worked and played hard in New York City, but it seemed
as though the city had tired of him. He had been put out to the curb like
a dried-out Christmas tree for garbage pick-up. Since his departure from
that daily Manhattan routine, his moods had become as flammable as
a dead evergreen.
He takes a deep breath then stands as she approaches. He
extends a hand to touch her elbow, but she keeps walking. His insides
quiver as she seems to walk right through him. His stomach gurgles.
He says aside, “I’ve let her upset me again and haven’t even
cut into this damn fish. Am I losing it?”
Seated, he takes his knife and fork, but before he can slice
the fish, the young woman returns then comes behind him and rubs
his shoulders. His tension releases, nearly making him fall face-first
into the catch-of-the-day.
“Is that better?” she asks, but her touch makes him light-headed.
“Uh-huh.”
“You haven’t touched your food,” she says in a tone that sounds
far away. “Eat your dinner. You need to keep up your strength.”
Though her voice is unfamiliar at first, it feels good to have
discourse with anyone, but his appetite is gone.
“It’s not the fish’s fault,” he mutters to himself. “It’s been artfully
prepared by the fusion chef and would have given me strength, but
what good is strength within a vacuum?”
A waitress comes to the table and asks, “Had enough? Want me
to clear your setting for dessert?”
He shakes his head and waves her away. If only he could be sure
she would stay, not just give him a brief high before rejection again. He’s
afraid to ask. The last time he’d tried, she was gone before the question
had even come out of his mouth.
He’ll try another question, speaking so deliberately that his words
will hang in the air in front of her like a dialogue bubble in the funny papers.
His words dash from his lips toward her ear before she can see them
coming, then they enter her mind before she has a chance to decline.
His words bounce around inside her head with no way for her to
escape them. “Do you love me, Lauren?”
Her head turns slowly toward him, but her hands continue kneading
his shoulders.
His hands shake as he watches her pursed lips holding back her
response. She looks like a bird dog with a quail held softly in its jaws, a
scene he has rendered on canvas. He anticipates a simple “yes” or “no,”
but the formation of her lips in response is unexpected. Her words don’t
register at first.
“Lorraine,” she says.
His lips feel numb as he tries to speak, but she puts her index
finger to his lips to hush him and says, “It’s OK, Henry. You can call me
Lauren if you like.”
“Aren’t you Lauren?” he whispers as the other diners glare at him.
“Of course,” she says with a shrug and plunks down in the chair
across from him. “What do you recommend here? I don’t like fish if it’s
staring at me. Are their steaks any good?”
“It’s one of those Asian fusion places. The Kobe beef is best.”
Reaching across the table he touches her damp lock of hair resting on
her shoulder. “You’ve been dying your hair.”
She fluffs and rustles her hair on her shoulders and says, “Brown
makes my skin look sallow. Black brings out the green in my hazel eyes.”
“It suits you,” he tells her with a squint of judgment.
“Thanks,” she says, taking a piece of bread from the basket on
the table and spreading butter on it. “How was your day, Henry?”
“No different from any other . . . but I’m Ted.”
“Mine was swell,” she says. “Mimosa brunch with the girls at the
club. Caught the Wednesday matinee. The acting was par, but the
costumes were elegant. Glad we could meet up for dinner. Thanks
for thinking of me.”
“I think only of you, Lauren.”
“You’re making Lorraine jealous, Teddy”
“I want you to stay.”
“Stay?” she says out of the side of her mouth as she chews a
piece of bread. “That would be awkward.”
“You must try to stay this time.”
“Try as I might,” she says, “not happening.” She turns to a hovering
waiter dressed in white. “I want the Kobe beef, bloody. I’ll have the string
beans and garlic mashed potatoes. We’ll have a bottle of Cab, your best
Napa vintage.”
Though perplexed, the waiter nods and leaves.
He cringes. “I don’t mind your ordering an expensive wine if we’re
celebrating. Is that what we’re doing?”
“I am, so why don’t you join me?”
“Give me a reason to celebrate.”
“We each have our private celebrations now,” she says. “Mine’s a secret.”
She stares off toward the window where it is still drizzling, but the fog
is starting to lift. He turns his head to follow her gaze. Then he catches a
glimpse of her through the thinning mist. She’s wearing a lemon-yellow
slicker with a hood. He can’t see her face. Lumbering toward the entrance,
she dodges through traffic on Madison at 45th, an excusable offense in
such a downpour.
“She should get a jaywalking summons,” he grumbles to the empty
chair across the table. From his window seat he watches her approach
until she comes through the revolving door.
“Don’t leave me this time,” he grumbles, “not in this dreadful place
where people are not who they claim to be.”
They all had told him, “How good it will be since Lauren departed.”
He wouldn’t have to be lonely, but surrounded instead by those his age
with similar interests.
He said under his breath as he observed those around him, “How
the hell could these strangers know? My only interests are loving Lauren
and working hard in Manhattan to put the kids through college. There
had never been time for anything else. But now, time is my enemy, with
too much of it left, and no one to share it with.”
The trout isn’t cold after all, but is still steaming from its mouth,
perhaps agape in reaction to his bad behavior.
She is standing with her umbrella in hand. The raindrops seem
to fall to the floor in slow motion from her yellow slicker as she catches
his glance.
He clenches his fists tighter beneath the table and anticipates
what she will say. He stands, waves, and calls to her, “Lauren!”
She comes to him with a smile and pushes the chair back under
the table where he had pushed it out with his foot.
“You’ll have to finish your meal if you expect me to take you for a
stroll,” she says. “The storm is over now, so by the time you finish your
food, it should be sunny before it gets dark. Did you find the photos that
you were going to show me?”
“They’re in my jacket.” He shuffles through his pockets. “That’s
Lauren with the yellow slicker when we went to Niagara Falls on our
honeymoon the summer before Kennedy was shot. Screwed up our
Thanksgiving with all that depressing grief. And this is my son Jeff
and my daughter Evelyn when we went to Disney World. They have
families of their own now.”
“Lovely family,” she says, turning away.
He grabs her wrist. “Don’t leave.”
“Of course not,” she says, patting his shoulder and pulling her
wrist free from his tight grasp. “I’m on the midnight shift.”
He feels himself smile, but inside he knows she will eventually
leave him again, like Lauren had, like all the others had. They are
occasionally tangible now, but how he longs to hold them close again,
even for just a moment.

Blood, Wildlife, and Gunfire


by


Gerald Arthur Winter






In late autumn, I couldn’t resist inching onto a pond’s first freeze to see how far I


could get before the ice would begin to break beneath me. My adrenaline pumped with


the first crack as I watched the white lines cutting through the dark ice, just a couple of


inches thick, all that kept me from falling into 40-degree water. I thought the challenge


and thrill of making it back to shore across the pond would be worth the risk of falling


through the ice. To me at fifteen, the McAvoys were as unpredictable and dangerous


as thin ice in autumn.


The McAvoys’ ancestors had lived in the Ramapo Mountains in northern New


Jersey for hundreds of years. A junk dealer at best, Mr. McAvoy displayed his goods


in front of their home, a log cabin where local newspapers had reported UFO sightings.


Deemed unreliable witnesses, those news sources had kept a moonshine still.


My parents warned never to cross to the other side of the Susquehanna Railroad


tracks because that’s where McAvoys lived. Outcasts to our town folk, the McAvoys had


squatted on those mountains a century before anyone decided to develop the land after


World War II.


There were a dozen McAvoy kids, eight boys and four girls. I admired my


classmate, Toby McAvoy, because he could hold his breath underwater for four


minutes, a Ramapo River record. I’d seen Toby knock a squirrel out of a tree with


a slingshot, then skin it clean with a pen knife and roast it on a stick over an open


fire he’d made from rubbing two sticks together. Offered a taste, I declined. Toby


told me the McAvoy’s had pioneer blood from before the American Revolution.


When I told my mom that, she said the McAvoys were an unreliable source of the


truth. She’d never stoop to saying they were “liars.”


Regardless of their heritage, the McAvoys showed no interest in book learnin’.


But they knew everything about buildin’, fixin’, swappin’, growin’, trappin’, gettin’ along,


and doin’ without. They ate deer, squirrels, rabbits, eels, and game birds in thick stews


with “nips ‘n’ taters.”


The McAvoys piqued my interest, mostly because they were deemed pariahs


by our middleclass community. My mom had told me not to associate with them, just


as she’d told me to stay away from the pond until it was frozen a foot thick in January.


The temptation to get to know the McAvoys, like thin ice in October, became irresistible.


One fall day when school let out, Toby invited me to his home. Despite my


parents’ warnings, I was drawn to the mystique of that forbidden forest on the other


side of the tracks. Walking toward the McAvoy spread, we turned down a dirt road that


wound into the mountains until it narrowed to a rocky path. People had been dumping


junk in those woods for years, but that was a plus to the McAvoys, as Toby told me,


because the McAvoys would spit-and-shine any old discarded stuff to trade.


“Say, Jem, ya hungry?” Toby asked me that late afternoon.


Always hungry after school, and trying to sound like a McAvoy, I said, “Yup.”


“Maw will feed ya good, and ya can meet the family.” Toby suddenly froze,


cocked his head, and sauntered to the Susquehanna Railroad tracks that cut through


town along the mountain ridge. He kneeled and put an ear to the rail.


“Freight’s comin’. Must be over a hun’erd cars,” he said. We’ll hop on it so we’ll


be sure to get home in time for grub. If yer late for dinner at my house, ya don’t get to


eat at all.”


Jumping onto a moving freight train was forbidden in my family, but Toby’s raw


enthusiasm was too much to resist. My dry throat tightened and my palms were slicked


with sweat when I heard the rumble of squealing metal on the tracks. As the train


passed, we ran beside it to hop on. I was surprised how much faster a train seemed to


move as I got closer to it. I puffed and wheezed with awkward footing next to the chest-


high wheels, which threatened to draw me under the rumbling train.


Toby caught hold first, grabbed my hand and dragged me ten yards before I


could take hold of the train, lift my legs, and feel the thrill of the train’s force.


“That was the easy part.” Toby winked. “Jumping off can be a pisser with only


one place to jump safely, ’cause there’s too many rocks and boulders anywhere else¾


the open field with tall grass that will cushion our fall.”


I shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”


“Good on ya bee-hind, but this time of day that field’s full of copperheads catchin’


the last sunlight.”


“Jeez.” I said. “We ought to stay on till the freight makes a stop.”


“Only stop is the station. Get off there and the cops ’ll grab us. Ya ain’t scared a


no snake are ya? We eat ’em.”


Jumping from the moving train into the tall, yellow grass, and rolling over and


over, I heard scrambling more like slithering in several directions from where I rolled


to a stop. Heart racing, I jumped up and kept running to the forest’s edge.


The McAvoys’ home was set under two huge oak trees, growing there since the


colonial days. Their home was a one-story structure made of gray cinder blocks with a


corrugated, tin roof. A worn-out clearing surrounded the house near a patch of skunk


cabbage swamps. Old cars, trucks, tractors, and farm implements littered the clearing.


Two German shepherds and a mongrel that looked like a coyote scrambled


toward us and jumped around, biting at my heels. Laughing, Toby bear-hugged


the big male shepherd and wrestled him to the ground. The other two settled down


and flanked me as if they were standing guard in case I interfered with Toby’s play.


“They won’t hurt ya,” Toby said from under the dog he wrestled, “unless I


command ’em to.” He untangled himself from the dog and gave a demonstration.


Walking over to a pile of litter in the clearing, he picked up an old knapsack,


bent down next to the male shepherd, and whispered in his ear before he threw the


knapsack into the air.


“Strider, attack!” he shouted. Strider leaped into the air, bit into the knapsack


before it hit the ground, and shook it clenched in his jaws.


“Heel, Strider!” Toby commanded. Strider dropped the sack and returned to


Toby’s side. “Trained to hunt,” Toby said with pride leading me through the front door,


which opened directly into the kitchen where nine McAvoy kids ages two to thirteen


ran out to play in the yard.


Filled with a long wooden table that could seat twenty people, the main room


smelled musty. Mr. McAvoy sat at the head of the table and faced the door. He wore


a ragged, flat-brimmed, gray Stetson, even while seated at the table, something my


mom would have forbidden. Mrs. McAvoy stood at the stove. She was short and thin,


wearing a floor-length, print dress with a stained and tattered blue apron. Her big,


ochre eyes stared with a dilated lack of discernment. Her short, matted black hair


with a a lightning bolt white streak reminded me of The Bride of Frankenstein. She


rarely spoke, except for short, high-pitched chirps: “Yup¾Nope¾Git!”


She yawned and sputtered as she watched the pots on the stove and


occasionally turned around to whack one of the younger boys with a big wooden


spoon for messing with one of his sisters.


Toby’s two older brothers, Lem and Cole, came in the backdoor and sat


at the table. They bent forward over plates of mysterious stew, giving a foreboding


meaning to¾potluck. They ate with gusto as Mr. McAvoy drank from a metal


tankard. Lem and Cole kept eating without looking up.


“This is Jem,” Toby said to his father. “Come to share some food with us.”


Mr. McAvoy stared at me. “Welcome.” He gestured toward the end of the


table nearest the door. Toby and I quickly sat. Without saying a word, Mrs.


McAvoy set before us two plates of steaming stew garnished with two thick


slabs of homemade bread. Following Toby’s lead, I grabbed a fork from a


basket of mixed utensils in the middle of the table and began eating.


After a few minutes of silence, Mr. McAvoy jerked his head sideways at


Lem and Cole. The two older brothers stood up, squeezed past Toby and went


outside without a word. I felt uncomfortable with the silence from the stern father


and mute mother. I wondered what was in the stew. I’d never tasted anything


like it. Something about Mr. McAvoy gave me the willies with his ruddy face,


glaring black eyes, and the hat that made him seem even taller than he was.


He appeared physically strong with weathered, hardworking hands. With a nod,


Mr. McAvoy stood up and left the room.


Toby jerked his head and said, “Let’s go.”


When Toby and I went into the yard, it looked like an army camp preparing


for maneuvers. Three rifles and four shotguns stood on end against the front of the


house beside the door. Sleeping bags, tents, lanterns, boxes of ammunition, and


camouflage clothing littered the ground near the back of a red pickup with fenders


half eaten away by rust.


“What’s going on?” I asked as Mr. McAvoy, with his Stetson set squarely


on his head, came around the back of the house with Strider prancing beside him.


“Huntin’ season opens Saturday,” Toby said. “We’re gettin’ ready.”


“Where do you hunt?”


“Adirondacks where my pappy was born,” Mr. McAvoy answered.


I tried to imagine this hoard crossing the state line without rousing state


troopers on both sides of the New Jersey-New York borders.


“North of here a piece in the Hudson Valley,” Toby said. “Best white-tail


huntin’ in the state.”


“White-tail?” I shrugged, not up on their lingo.


“Deer.” Toby glared, curious why I didn’t know what white-tail were.


“Been huntin’, boy?” Mr. McAvoy asked.


“No, sir.”


“Does yer pa hunt?”


“No, sir.”


Squinting, Mr. McAvoy looked at me. “How old are ya?”


“Almost sixteen.”


“And never been huntin’?” He shook his head and went to the back of


the panel truck. He tossed the bundle he was carrying into the open backdoor


of the house. “Not good for a man not to know how to care for himself,” he


muttered. “Ever fire a gun?”


“No, sir.”


“Time ya did. Toby, take him out back. Let ’m try the twelve-gauge over


yonder.”


Toby motioned to follow and grabbed the shotgun and a box of shells then


led me to the back of the house. The clearing behind the main shack extended


fifty yards to the edge of the thick pine forest. Toby grabbed a log from a stack of


firewood and set it on end in the dirt at the edge of the clearing. He came back to


me, plugged two shells into the double-barreled shotgun, and handed the firearm


to me.


“Just aim at that log and squeeze the trigger,” Toby pointed. “Nothin’ to it.”


The weight of the shotgun surprised me. I strained to lift it to eye-level.


Unsteady, I closed one eye and aimed down the barrel.


“Not like that,” Toby warned. “It’ll rear back and knock your eye out. Hold


it against your hip, stare at the log, then squeeze the trigger.”


I held the shotgun at hip-level, aimed at the log, closed my eyes, then


squeezed. Boom! The recoil knocked me to the ground.


“Good shot.” Toby laughed, pointing to the log peppered with pellet holes


and knocked three yards back into the woods.


“Fire it again!” Mr. McAvoy shouted from the doorway where he stood with


his arms folded in front of his puffed-out chest.


I nodded, looked down at the gun held limply at my side, and hefted it to


my right hip. Toby stood beside me and looked at the log with an expectant grin.


I felt Mr. McAvoy’s eyes burning a hole in my back, so I spread my feet wider


to brace for the recoil. Boom! The shotgun jerked up in my hand, but I stayed


on my feet.


My head ached and my arm and ribs throbbed from the recoil. Mr. McAvoy


called Toby over and said something I couldn’t hear. Mr. McAvoy disappeared


behind the house.


Relieved to set down the heavy shotgun, I made excuses to get home


before dark, but Toby said, “Paw says it’s time ya went huntin’. There’s important


lessons to learn in the woods. Time ya learned some.”


I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about hunting.”


“Paw never took anybody but McAvoys huntin’ with him before. He must


like ya. He don’t like much of anybody ‘cept Maw and us chil’ren. We’ll teach ya


what ya need to know.”


“What should I bring?”


“Just warm clothes. We got the rest. We’ll leave Saturday at four in the mornin’.”


I was glad to be away from that clan and back on my way to civilization


across the tracks. The autumn sun set maple trees ablaze with bright reds and


yellows on the mountain ridge. I felt that same rush that comes after I’d shuffled


onto thin ice during an autumn freeze and barely made it back to shore without


falling through.


* * *


Saturday morning, Mr. McAvoy drove the old pickup truck with Strider


between him and Cole, who sat on a milk crate where the passenger seat used


to be. They added removable panels and a canvas tarp to the pickup’s bed to


protect the McAvoy boys and me from the frigid air. Even with the tarp cover,


it I still felt cold. Toby and I sat in back on top of the hunting gear with the two


other dogs.


The McAvoys were silent the whole trip. Lem cradled his rifle in his lap


and oiled it during the entire drive. He caressed it gently with a dirty rag that


filled the back of the truck with the smell of gun oil. The female shepherd


slept in Toby’s lap while the mongrel held his drooling, panting snout a few


inches from my face. Toby said the hunt excited the mutt, and he wouldn’t


settle down till they’d release him in the forest. The dogs knew where they


were going and seemed itching to scrabble out of the truck.


The McAvoy boys wore woolen, plaid jackets and peaked caps with


ear-flaps, but Mr. McAvoy wore his inseparable, crumpled Stetson. Slung


across their chests, Lem and Cole had leather bandoliers filled with enough


ammunition to wage war. I wore a ski cap, fuzzy earmuffs, and heavy mittens.


“Them fuzzy paws will never do when it comes time to shoot, boy,


“Mr. McAvoy said as he drove.


“I’ll lend ya a pair of my leather gloves with the trigger finger cut out,”


Toby offered. “If ya grab the shotgun with those woolies, it’ll slip out of your


grip and shoot your leg off. We McAvoys don’t hunt for sport¾just for meat.”


All three dogs tugged with great anticipation against their restraints,


jumping, snapping, and raring to go. With Mr. McAvoy leading, they hiked


up the mountainside and deeper into the woods. On frozen ground, the fallen


leaves and branches crunched under every step. The trail meandered up


the mountain along a stream that rushed with great force. Even with the


leaves off the trees in the colder environment, the underbrush was so


dense that the hunters could see only a few yards ahead. Stark and grey,


the bare trees yielded to an occasional evergreen, which gave a hint of life


to the otherwise stark landscape.


I zipped my ski jacket tighter around my neck. Toby replaced my


earmuffs with a flapped cap. I yanked it tight over my head and tied the


strings under my chin, but still felt chilled after fifteen minutes.


After steady uphill climbing, we reached the railroad tracks that cut


across the mountain. We saw clearly a hundred yards in both directions


until the tracks curved around the mountain.


“This is where they’ll jump,” Mr. McAvoy said. “You’ll be on the low


side, Jem, in that clump of bushes. When ya hear ’em hit the gravel, stand


and fire.”