A good story
cannot be devised;
it has to be distilled.
- Raymond Chandler |
|
Fiction
Current Issue- Posted December 18, 2008
Ugly
By Bernice Hyatt
She was buying food in the shop. Hamburger buns, hotdog buns, tinned beans and soup, frozen meals and packet noodles. Apples, milk, sugar. Margarine and eggs. Meat that you put on bread. Porridge. That's what she was doing when Morning Starr came in. He was struck by her, he had never seen such a pathetic thing, presumably female. A small, greasy figure with a haunch like a sick horse. Rounded shoulders, the posture of a beaten dog.
Short hair in a basin cut, dungarees and a blouse that had flowers on it. It was this touch of femininity that got to him. He couldn't stand it. He recognized her from somewhere.
She seemed to be having trouble with the list, she was holding it while cradling her choices. A tin of fruit cocktail was eking its way from the crook of her elbow and finally it fell. Morning Starr reached out, his arm an inch above the grimy concrete floor that was once shiny and new. He caught the tin in his left hand and dropped it into a basket he had in his right. She looked at him sideways, she'd lived here long enough to not want to look anymore. Then her eyes dropped to the floor. She clutched her shopping, her bones cramping and tense. He held the basket below her so she could see it but not him. She did nothing. She was afraid and was aware that more movement would mean dropping something else. He took a jar of mayonnaise and placed it in the basket, then a packet of pink speckled meat, an apple, the milk and sugar. Finally, with Morning Starr holding it steady, she allowed the other items to tumble into the basket. He took the basket to the till, removed the eggs, dropping each one to splatter on the floor. 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . 5 . . . 6. 'Yer eggs er broken.'
The bell jingled as the door shut after him.
They had called her Ugly, he now recalled, but he could not, for the life of him, remember what her real name was. Down by the stream, he had helped her get up, pull on her cheap pink underwear and muddy jeans. Being ugly hadn't stopped them. That time she looked him in the eye, straight in the eye and spat in his face.
You Can't Drink Bourbon in Front of an Angel
By Quincey Burkhalter
Ruidoso, New Mexico
(This is part two of a two-part piece. The other portion was included in the previous issue.)
I wake up the next morning to the sound of an ice scraper on my front windshield. It's not a nice sound to hear when the liquor has worn off. The Montana weather has finally hit me. It's so cold that I wonder if my feet are still attached to my body. I can't feel them.
"Can you see him yet?" I hear from outside the car. It's the voice of The Angel, but still I don't want to open my eyes.
Scrape, scrape, scrape. The sound of the ice scraper sounds more like a thousand fingernails across a chalkboard. The sound is drilling holes in my head, scraping the ice off my brain.
No, I can hear my mind say. Again, louder this time but still in my head, No. Even louder now, it echoes inside my skull, No! Then in a crescendo, No, no, no, no, no! My skull is growing larger with the pressure of this single word. I can feel my brain about to explode. I open my eyes to relieve the pressure. It's the angel.
I can see her celestial blue eyes peering in at me. A chaste winter cold falls, filling me with her heavenly presence. The awful sound has removed itself from existence, though I can still see the ice scraper chipping away. Her eyes stare through at me again, azure with a golden center around the pupil. I am light, floating on air. The ice chips away piece by piece. Her face shines through. I marvel at her cheekbones, red with the cold of winter. She opens her mouth to speak, I expect trumpets. "He's in der, Francis," she says.
That's not right, I say to myself. There is no melody to her voice, no angelic tone. Her cheekbones look puffy like she is holding her breath.
"Francis, he's in der," she says. Her face is changing. It widens, her beautiful brown hair pulls back into her skull, her nose widens, dark facial hair starts to show, her brow lowers, thick scruffy eyebrows. ..
"It's him. It's him! A-A-A-A-A-U-U-U-U-G-H!" The scream is so loud that the glass should shatter around me, but it doesn't. The gunman himself is peering inside at me through a small circle he has chipped away in the ice.
And in a couple of seconds the angel opens the driver's side door of my '63 Ford Falcon Station-wagon. "It's O.K.," she says in a soft voice, "Don't be afraid." My heart instantly stops trying to beat its way out of my chest. Then I realize I've moved from the front seat, I had reclined, to the back seat. Trying to sound like I am not still about to wet my pants I say, "What's he doing here?"
"He's my brother. I told you that last night."
I don't remember her mentioning it, but last night is mostly a blur. I had been tired, the liquor flush was wearing off, and for some reason I wanted to stay even if every voice in my head told me not to. This was a town where I was almost shot; yet, I could not bring myself to just drive away. I began to question my judgement, but some time between then and now I must have passed out.
"Couldn't find a room?" she asks.
I shake my head no.
"Didn't think so this time of year."
Francis stands there in front of me with a smile that makes anyone believe every word she is saying. At this moment I would jump off a cliff or stand in front of a speeding semi if she told me to.
"He's harmless," she says pointing to Brucey, the man who held a gun to my head, and that is all it takes. I believe every word she says.
He is harmless, I say to myself. And at that moment I believe it.
I climb out of the back seat hoping I haven't broken any of the bottles of liquor. I want to say, he seems awfully happy for an armed robber. Instead, "How'd you two become brother and sister?" I say. I don't realize the stupidity of the question until the Angel's more than crooked smirk turns to hysterical laughter.
"I think you know the answer to that," she says between cackles.
I don't, at first, know what she was saying. I stare blankly at her face. "Yeah, sure," I say knowing it is a bold face lie. And here's proof she's perfect. She sees through me. I am pretending that I'm not confused. She sees through me like I'm a sheet of glass. "Do I have to draw a picture for you," she says.
I stare, not believing she has uncovered my lie so easily. "This is how we became brother and sister." She begins to illustrate with her hands. "Mother," she says making a circle with her thumb and index finger. "Father," she says pointing an index finger with the other hand. She puts the index finger into the circle moving it in and out several times to illustrate.
I am suddenly embarrassed and turned on at the same time. She winks and pats me on the butt as she walks by. "You got it," she says. "Let's get you inside and warm you up," she says pointing to the Big Jim's I am parked next to.
A shot or two of Jim will do the trick, I think. But you can't drink bourbon in front of an angel; so, I follow her inside. The gunman, who now seems more like a playful kitten, follows us to the door of the store then stops outside to tie his shoe.
I want to call her Angel, but instead I remember her real name. "Francis," I say, "I don't remember much of last night I was," drunk I was drunk. "Scared," I say.
"Yeah, I know you were drunk," she says.
I didn't say that, did I? I said I was scared, I think to myself.
"What time is it?" the angel asks out of the blue. I look down at my watch. "It's one-thirty," I say. She has that crooked smirk on her face again. "What's your point?"
"C'mon," says Francis. "You smelled like a brewery. Your speech was slurred and you kept asking me things like: why did God send you to me, and where are your wings?"
I don't want to smile, I am angry that she can tell, but I can feel a grimace coming on. She smiles back. "He's my brother," she says looking over to Brucey who is still kneeling outside to tie his shoe. After he is finished he unties it and starts over. He has completed this process at least three times that I have seen, and I remember him starting with the other foot.
"Francis," I hear from the back of the store. It's the guy from behind the counter. He looks different, his shoulders are wide and he has somewhat of a beer belly. "I see you're still alive," he says. His voice is soothing in a way that seems almost deliberate, like Mr. Rogers on Valium.
"Neal," Francis says. "This is Kevin Rosencrantz."
"I'm glad to see you up and around. Not exactly a trauma you go through every day, walking into an armed robbery." He looks at Francis as they both start to laugh. The situation is not funny. I stare at Brucey. He looks physically unstable like a weeblo. I can see myself pushing him over and him popping up to the same position. Weeblos wobble but they don't fall down. Francis and Neal are still laughing. The suspect is on the other side of the glass door tying and untying his shoes and these two are passing a private joke.
"Kevin," says Francis. "This is my older brother Neal." They stare at me as if I am supposed to say something. Jack the Ripper marries Quazimoto is related to both of them and they want me to say something. I say the only logical thing to say. "How much are your burritos? I'm starving."
They both look at me and start to laugh again, another private joke. "You don't know, do you?" asks Francis.
"Sure I do. . . Know what?"
"Brucey," Francis says wide eyed.
I stare. She is perfect, every inch of her perfect.
"He does it every Friday," says Neal. I look up at him.
"The money ain't the store's," says Francis. "It's his weekly Social Security."
"There's never any bullets in the gun," Neal says. "Don't tell Brucey that."
"Shhhh. . ." Francis says motioning toward the door.
"Can I hab a dreamsicle?" Brucey asks as he opens the door. He runs towards Francis, bouncing and swaying like he has rubber feet. His tongue hangs out. What is left of his nearly bald head wavers in the wind. He looks like a hair model until he stops, then his hair goes back to normal: terminal bed head.
"Sure," says Francis. "You want one," she says to me.
I'd rather have a shot of Jim. "Sure," I say.
The Flower Garden
By Robert Cahill
Ingleside on the Bay, Texas
(This is part two of a longer piece)
Pearl told me that one of her favorite memories was of sitting on her family's screened-in porch on a warm spring night, with the last gleam of twilight giving way to darkness in the west. She was sitting in the porch swing, swaying gently from side to side, watching hundreds of fireflies flitting in the darkness. Her father had brought a lighted lamp out to her. He had put his arm around her and said, "You see those lightning bugs out there? Every time one blinks, it means your Daddy loves you". He then went back inside, and she sat in the swing with the sweet scent of a freshly mown lawn drifting in on the evening's gentle breeze, and a father's unconditional love, blinking softly in the night
I went to Pearl's cedar chest, sitting in the center of the bedroom window. A had-crafted cushion provided a comfortable seat, so Pearl was able to look out to her garden from here. Opening the chest, I gazed fondly at the collection of hand-tatted tablecloths, doilies and crocheted bedspreads. All fashioned with love by Pearl. Going through the collection, I was intrigued by the sight of several bundles of letters in the bottom of the chest. I was surprised to see a collection of my letters to Pearl, three bundles, all tied with a pretty ribbon, and marked with my name. There were other bundles of letters there, all marked with the names of the sender. I looked closer and saw that there seemed to be designs printed on the center of each envelope. Each depicted a different flower for each writer, evidently placed there by Pearl with a rubber stamp. I puzzled over the flower stamps for a while, then was amazed as I recognized that the flower on mine was a rose. And it suddenly came to me. Each flower was a representation of her flower garden, each separated to correspond to the person she thought about as she worked in her garden. How could it be that I was Pearl's rose garden, her very special rose. I cried until all my tears left me.
Gathering my treasures from her house, I began the long drive back to Dallas, my thoughts a jumble of remembered moments with Pearl. Inevitably, my mind drifted back to that terrible day I had discovered Carl's infidelity, and the events that had ruled our lives ever since. The hurt had been so intense that only now could I see that Pearl had worked countless hours in the rose garden, thinking of us and yearning to find the words that would heal the hurt and perhaps bring our marriage back to life. That day sprang into my mind then, and I remembered every hurtful moment.
It was my birthday. Rain and fog had cooled the day, and I was somewhat depressed about another birthday. I came home from work to discover a beautiful flower arrangement in the center of the dining room table. An elegantly simple necklace dangled from a prominent rose stem, it's small diamond winking in the reflected light. The card on the table told me how much Carl cared for me, and the expression of his love, so eloquently written, brought tears to my eyes. I knew he was working late again, and I felt shame at having nagged him for staying late at the office so often in the last few weeks. Fastening the necklace in place, I got in my car and drove through the rain to his office. I wanted to let him know how much he meant to me. My heart was overflowing with happiness at this moment. I pulled to the curb a few feet down from his office which was in a converted residence and fronted the street. Just as I was about to open my car door, Carl walked out, turned and reached back into the doorway. A hand joined his, and a tall striking woman in fashionable raincoat joined him on the porch. She was about to button the coat, when Carl took both of the loose edges into his hands, pulled her to him, and they were just that quickly joined in a passionate embrace and kiss. I had Carl's card in my hand and had raised it to eye level preparing to leave the car. The juxtaposition of that embrace, seen past the card, was so hard and sharp that it would be weeks before my mind could absorb the full depth of my pain.
I wasn't able to confront them. I waited in the dark in my house for Carl to come home. I remember so clearly that waiting time. I sat at the kitchen bar, looking out of the patio door. The rain continued to fall, and the leaden sky reflected the city lights into the pools of rainwater on the patio, which cast the light into the kitchen with an almost ghostly glow. The shimmering light chased throughout the room, wave after wave of leaden light running up the walls and over the ceiling. An errant reflection caught the light and cast a beam into the crystal bowl containing my birthday flowers. It limned the rim of the cut crystal with startling brightness. It felt as if my stomach was falling into an abyss. I kept thinking, of all the things that could happen to me, I never expected this. Not Carl, not to us, not to me! Then the sickness began to grow into anger. If I had a gun, I would shoot him the second he walked in the door, or at the first denial from his lips. My thoughts were whirling, disoriented and many shades less than sane at this instant. My eyes settled upon the bowl of flowers, glowing softly in the reflected light: a mocking glyph and a target for instant retribution. With my scissors I severed the heads of all the flowers, only later realizing that they were symbols of Carl and his lover. I left them scattered on the table around the bowl. I used a black highlighter from my work kit to scrawl "I saw YOU!" on the face of my birthday card. Leaning the card against the bowl, I cut the necklace into several pieces and left it among the flowers. Packing quickly, I fled to Pearl.
The Walking Paths
By Robert Sherrah
(This is one part of a longer piece)
The Walking Paths
The year is Nineteen Seventy Two. I had just spent the entire summer on my Granddaddies Mississippi farm, trying to ensure that the last needs my Grandma, Mrs. Jane. C. Parker was properly attended to. A sudden and mysterious disease had swept down out of nowhere, inflicting her eyes with painful soars, causing them to swell up and ooze out with poison, like soft yellow tears that run down real slow. Besides myself, her only comfort was that of a diluted bottle of morphine, that my Granddaddy, William Joseph Parker had placed by her bedside. But the youth of my trembling hands were no-match to find the crest of her quivering mouth. For every time she'd scream out and cry, I'd swallow the spoonful and move the bottle a little further away. Sometimes just wishing the reaper come down and whisk her off, ending her torment once and for all, a horrid thing for a teenage boy to think. Although there were allot of horrible things I learned to think that summer, things unseen that would later become learned. Stories passed on to me, in hope they would find a proper resting place. Stories that if ever repeated could get me killed and would get me killed, even by those of whom were believed to have love me most. Even by those who knew nothing of the past. Just that it was buried, out there somewhere, left unsaid and trapped beneath the fields of the walking paths. Trapped under, lies of men, who admit nothing of their own deceit, but wallow deeply in the deceit of the hearts of others.
The Long Road home
In the core of every man, woman or child's being there is a natural will to survive. For whatever reason not to remain, we find another to go on. Like stubborn flickering lights that refuse to go out in the darkest of storms, we exist, to go on existing; we fight on to go on fighting. And even then, when we have finally reached our quietest of moments, we gulp another breath and start over again. My Grandma told me, of just such a will, a story of strength and courage, unmatched solely by its fortitude, equaled only by the faith of the young heroines shear desire to exist. A desire most people know nothing of. For life quenches there lips fully, never parching them, not even once. Never cracking a single pale white crevice across their ivory skin, for they knew nothing of the long road home, just that they had never taken it, nor did they ever have to. At a certain time of year, on every Mississippi back road, a wonderment of nature begins to take place. A transformation of colour so beautiful, that the very vitality of the changing of the seasons becomes lost in its entire splendor. This is the time of year, when the summer wild flowers begin to bloom. Like the scent of heavens glory, they fill the air with the golden fragrances, of summer memories long past. Memories of everything that is good and unstained in this world. Memories of a little girl, named Dawn. A twelve year old Negro child who had always delivered fresh cut wild flowers to my Grandma's house. But to my Grandma she was nothing short of an angel clothed in white, sent down from God above to convey his painted gifts directly to her kitchen canvas. For Dawn had a natural talent of colour arrangement, that rivaled the best of educated florist. Grandma recognized this, and loved her dearly for it. She'd always invite her inside for sweetea and biscuits. Called it "her morning chat with God's little flower " And that was fine by us, until seven summers ago, when Dawn went missing, somewhere after sweetea and biscuits and the long road home. "Now listen carefully Dawn, this dollar is for you, not for your Mama. You give her the other dollar and keep this one for yourself. Do you understand me?" "Oh I understands you Miz Parker. But Mama always says two dollars will feed twice as many mouths as one. And you're giving me two. So I's gots to have that extra dollar for my Mama or I'll never goes to the flower school. Do you understand me, Miz Parker?" "Oh, I understand you Dawn. I understand you fully. You're as sharp as the morning sun is guaranteed to rise, aren't you child." Dawn gleamed a smile from one end of her face to the other began to lift the underside garment of her dress. Knowing Grandma would pull a third dollar out of her gray ragged apron and gently pin it on her, as she had a hundred times before. "Oh thank you Miz Parker. Thank you." "Don't thank me child, thank God. Now you run along now before you catch the morning wind. Remember a mouth full of dust makes for a long road home."
The Good Evils
"The perils of knowing what a man is capable of doing in his lifetime are always out weighed by the perils of his final judgment in the next! If he does not repent, whole heartily and give everything to the Lord thy God." If you had just heard those words, you were either going straight to hell, or felt as though you were in a foot race trying to leave it. Stampeding past my Granddaddy, the Honorable Rev William Joseph Parker as he greeted his departing flock outside the gates of his paper made temple, where the doorways of hypocrisy aren't just made simple, they're cast in stone. "As long as you give you get." and when you stop giving, well, there ain't no telling what happens to you then. "Good day to you sir" "Good day Rev" "Good day, good day" gesturing to each one of his congregations as they shuffled quickly by him. Like blue lighting streaking across the break of dawn, my Granddaddy was a great believer of knowing what he was aiming for. Reaching in with his long snake like arms, he would often pull a soft young virgin straight out of a fast moving crowd. "A ripened fruit amongst his treasured vine." he'd call them. He was likely pursuing her from the pulpit weeks earlier, not the ensuing crowd after. Holding them firmly to one side, he'd than thrust a strangling grip around their fragile trembling waist. Smiling at them, nose to nose, staring into they're eyes with a hidden sinister passion. "And how is the lovely Miss Hathaway today?" "Why quite fine Rev Parker, just fine sir. And, and you sir?" answering back in a terribly frightened, but well-mannered way. The way a young child of the south is taught to speak to a man of the cloth at a very tender age. "Why me, I'm a little dismayed Miss Hathaway; I might say I'm a little dismayed. It seems as though everybody these days is in a fiery... hurry to leave Gods house. There slow coming in, but fast moving out. Now could you tell me why that is?" He'd say as he took one of his massive hands off her tiny waste and placed it upon the shoulder nearest to her heart. "No sir, no sir. I, I don't reckon I could." There is a slight pause between them and then a honk from a lone car waiting in the lot. "No, no, I didn't think you could. Well, you best be getting back to your Mama and when you do. You tell her, you tell her to bake me a pie, an apple pie. No need to give a time; just keep it warming near the oven. I got the feeling all be sampling more than one slice soon enough." Granddaddy, whose appetites had far begun to exceed that of the ordinary man, would now lean up towards the young girl, always lusting down openly into her young developing breast. He was a tall and portly man, but of a wicked subtle nature. Like the wolf dressed in sheep clothing, always showing a little bit of teeth, but never the whole fang. "You run along now, you tell your Mama, you tell her what I said." This was the renaissance of the gospel according to William Joseph Parker, the evolution of the good evils. And it is written "Look them into thine eyes and tell thy good and faithful servant that they have served thy Lord thy God well. Get up; put your pants back on. Sit down at the kitchen table and serve yourself up another piece of apple pie. For fornication is for the fornicators, not for the keepers of mind and soul. Not for men of mercy and dignity, lawgivers and life givers, healers of the sick and the blind. It's a holy offering, a gift, back to the Lord, for all he's done for you and the widowers of our dear county. For what better service can they provide, than a little piece of apple pie on hot and sultry Sunday afternoon." |
