Coming Soon: A Night of Story-Telling!
Dear friends,
I’m so glad to announce a new show - it’s been a while! Please join me, Cynthia Carbone Ward and Sue Turner-Cray for a night of story-telling as we take you through our tales of imagination, laughter and pathos, all for a good cause, and at a fine new venue. See below for details and prepare for a good time! - Jerry
“TELL ME A STORY”
Sunday May 21st at 7:00 pm
An evening of tales written and told by three local storytellers! Have a glass of wine, get comfortable and enjoy the stories, beginning at 7:30.
Location: "The Grand Room," 181-D Industrial Way, Buellton (adjacent to Industrial Eats).
The Storytellers
Cynthia Carbone Ward, author and writer of "Still Amazed," her continuing deep and humorous take on life. Sue Turner-Cray, actress, writer and performer of the knock-out one woman show, "Manchester Girl," other plays and TV film roles. Gerald DiPego, playwright and film writer: "Phenomenon," "Message in a Bottle," "The Forgotten," "154 and Paradise," etc.
This is a benefit for the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School PTSA. Tickets $20. Cash only at the door, please. Adult language.
Remote 2
The girl hangs over the right shoulder of a walking man. Her long hair blows gently in the wind. She is naked and her arms are limp and swaying slightly as the man trudges on. It’s nearly night, and his way is broken as he moves around trees and fallen limbs, stopping once to reset the body he carries, then moving on. He stops once more to pull a small flashlight from his pocket, turn it on, and continue his walk, his search, while the limp girl moves in a kind of loose dance to his steps. He nears an old and unlit building and stops.
In the afternoon of the following day, several towns away in Indian Lake, Illinois, Leonard Defore is building a fence. Just for the look of it, he will say, if anyone asks him, but no one is likely to ask. The real reason for the fence is that Leonard needs the work, the hard and heavy labor. He enjoys this and is glad for the muscles that swell his arms and shoulders, but his primary motive concerns sleep. As always, he enjoys the work and is glad for the muscles that swell his arms and shoulders, but his primary motive concerns sleep. If he has a taxing physical project, he will sleep well and, most importantly, he will not dream. This way of staying dreamless has caused the house to be newly painted, a shed built, more than enough firewood stacked and even the wheel barrow to once again shine a bright red.
He has, over the years, seen his daughter grow and leave the home, and then his wife also in time, and now at 54 he’s been alone for eight years, though his daughter visits. He is an accountant who works out of his home for the people and businesses in the town, and he is also a known "remote viewer." Now and then, sometimes after years of not dreaming, he’ll have another episode, where he sees, in his dream, something that is happening, actually happening, somewhere else in the world, sometimes as close as the town where he lives. Twice, he has used such a viewing to help the police solve a local crime, and this has set him apart and caused a loner to be even more alone than he wishes.
His phone is ringing now. It is likely a client calling. But as he reaches for it, he feels a small tick of worry that it might be someone who wants to know about his “gift,” his remote viewing, a reporter, someone writing a book, or someone who has lost something and wants him to dream where it is. He sees the name of Betha Kane on his phone. She is a police detective in the larger town of Waukegan, and, yes, he helped her solve a case here in Indian lake, nearly six months ago. He is hoping that she has thought long about it and now wants to continue the two-date relationship they had before she stepped back, but he’s afraid that this is police business again, and she will try to pull him into it, just as he is trying to end it, end the viewing, end being that odd man in town who gets those looks. Will he ever erase those looks? Still, he finds he wants to hear her voice, come what may.
“Hey, Betha.”
“Leonard, hi. Have you heard about what’s going on here, the murders, the ‘Hide and Seek Murders’ they call them?”
“I’m fine, Betha. Thanks for asking.”
“Okay, I’m pushing this, Leonard, I know. But it needs pushing. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Well, Waukegan is a long way off. Must be almost fifteen miles from the lake towns.”
“So, you’re still mad at me. That doesn’t matter now.”
“I’m not mad. I was never mad. Just disappointed.”
Well, get over it. Or don’t. It doesn’t matter now. What matters is another girl is missing and we found her clothes, just like the last three. He puts the clothes out where they’ll be found, like some kind of goddamn trophy. But he hides the bodies, and by the time we find them they’re decomposed, and we need a fresh body to stop this son of a bitch. We have a suspect this time. Prime. I’m betting on this guy.”
“I haven’t dreamed in a long time. Well, not that kind of dream. I dreamed of you a few times.”
“Four girls in three years. Four families gutted, and you’re talking about us?! Come here. I’ll take you to the places where we found the other bodies. I’ll show you photos of the girls, of this girl. Liya Pope. She’s 17. I’ll pay your expenses, get you a room somewhere. Give it some days and see what happens.”
“Your department wants me to come, to get involved in this?”
“No. It’s just me. Nobody’ll know what you’re doing. No reporters. No cops. Just us.”
“I don’t see how you can hide me, Betha. From your team?”
“I’m . . . not on the team. I’m officially off the case. It’ll be just us . . ."
“Off the case? What is this?”
“The suspect is a hothead. I got in his face and he put a hand on me, so I punched him in the throat. My captain says I overreacted and so I’m off the case. I’m doing this on my own because we have a chance, Leonard. I handled the last two of these killings and I want this to be over. Forever. Will you please come here?!”
He pauses, but he knew from the beginning he would try to help her. “Will you tell me, please . . that your expectations are very low on this, Betha? Do you know the odds?”
“I know the girls are dying. That’s what I know.”
He arrives in Waukegan the next evening. She meets him at the motel where she has booked him a room. It’s not quite seedy. She apologizes, but he’s not really listening, just studying her brown skin aglow under the cheap ceiling fixture. He’s remembering her hard-won laughter that loosened him like a drink, her smart, sarcastic smile when she gave it, remembering the one deep kiss that she had interrupted as she stood back from him, shaking her head, truly sorry, he saw, but firmly shaking her head. How did she say it? “I’m all job, Leonard, and I’m aiming for the Chicago force in a year and . . . ”
He had asked if there was someone else, and had hated watching her nod. “Cop like me. It’s a secret thing. It’s just . . . something we do and walk away from, and I know you want more than that, and I can’t.”
He had said, “Try me,” and she had stared a while, and then her damn head was shaking as she told him, “You’d want more, and maybe I would, too, but I can’t do it now. Can’t step off this road. Sorry.”
Remembering all this, he asks her now, “Tell me – is it the dead girls, just the girls, or do you want this killer for your plan, for Chicago?”
Her stare goes even deeper, and she takes her time and says it softly. “It’s the girls.”
He nods, tossing his suitcase on the bed. “When do we start this?”
“There’s a diner across the road,” she tells him. “It’s not very good, but it’s quick. I’ll pick you up there tomorrow morning at 8:30. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you these photos, all the girls including the one gone missing now and details about the cases. Look at them here. Not at the diner. You’re not supposed to have access.”
He nods. Now the goodbye. Will she take a step closer? No. She moves to the door, opens it, turns to him, sighs. “You ready for this?”
“For this longshot,” he says. “Yeah.” He nods, she nods, and it’s over, and he’s alone.
In the morning he’s in the diner, finishing his breakfast as he watches one of the servers, a young man who isn’t bringing anyone’s meal, but asking about coffee, juice, a refill . . . Leonard is caught by this man’s dance-like movements, as he dips and turns and uses his hands to underscore what he’s saying, holding one hand as if it is a cup as he asks his question, then dipping, turning, his hand now holding a glass that isn’t there. “Juice, señor?”
Leonard sits with the last bite of pancake on his fork, held by this man – who is then blocked by Betha’s body as she appears at his table, staring. He looks at her, at his watch, says, “You’re ten minutes early. Want some coffee?”
She ignores the question and sits lightly on the opposite chair. “Did you look through everything?”
“I don’t look at decomposed bodies. I draw the line there. What the hell is that supposed to give me? I looked at the photos of the girls as they were. You trying to shock me?
“Yes. Let’s get out there.”
He finishes his coffee, pays. She says, “Keep the receipt. I’ll catch all this at the end.”
In half an hour they’re at a dirt road with deep ditches on either side, and Betha is pointing into a ditch, saying “Mary Beth Oldham. He didn’t exactly bury her. He didn’t dig, just put her in the ditch and covered her with leaves and branches, and all that piled up over time and then was washed away in our biggest storm, and she was uncovered. This photo . . . here.”
He doesn’t look at the photo she holds. Instead he checks one that Betha has given him, the girl when she was alive. Sixteen. A deep and true smile. He steps into the ditch, staring, asking, “So she was face up?”
“Yes, why?” But he only stares into the ditch and again at the photo, and Betha says, “We found her bike right away. We think he was following her in his vehicle and then bumped her to knock her down, then put her in the vehicle and came down this old road, found a secluded spot and raped and strangled . . . Well, you read all this, right?”
He nods, still looking into the ditch. “You think he might have killed her here?”
“Possible. She’d been missing for over eight months.” He nods again, then looks up, toward what she might have seen, the last of what she would ever see. “What do you think?” Betha asks him.
He brings his look to her and says, “We can go to the next one.”
Isabelle Woo had been hidden under a fallen tree, the tree propped slightly off the ground by other deadfall. She had been 15. Willowy. The photo he holds shows her laughing. Leonard kneels at the sight, stares at everything, imagines everything. When he rises and brushes himself off, Betha says, “Feeling anything?”
“Don’t keep asking,” he says. “Okay?” She nods and he goes on. “This is all just . . . Just in case I dream. Thousand to one, all right?” They walk to where she has parked. “Where now?” he asks.
“I have things to do. I’ll pick you up at the motel at ten tonight. Take another look at the girl, and the suspect’s photos, Dan Melios, and his sheet. I’ll bring you to where he works, a restaurant bar. Kinda seedy. He’s the bartender. You can study him. He’s been incarcerated twice."
“I have all this, Betha. I’ll take a look.” But she goes on.
“He was seen with Liya at the bar, where she used a fake ID, and he busted her, but they were smiling, people said. They talked a while. Then, when he closed up around midnight she was out there, waiting. One of the workers saw them, and the suspect confirms that, says she walked him to his apartment, said goodbye and he never saw her again. Just a kid, he said, and he said she was funny. Funny. Melios came to town four years ago. Just before the first girl went missing. I know you read this but read it again. It can’t hurt. And read about his convictions, assault and battery, one of them . . . ”
“One of them a woman,” he says. “I know, Betha. I read every word and I’ll go through it all again. Drop me here, and I’ll walk the rest.”
She pulls over, staring at him. “So I’m pushing you. I know . . . ”
He’s already opening the car door, saying: “I’ll see you at ten. And don’t come early,” and he walks on and she watches him.
Later, in the car, on the way to the restaurant-bar she begins schooling him again. “This girl is exactly, exactly the right fit for the ones he’s killed, the age, the size. He takes a big chance here, ‘cause he knows he’s been seen with her, so . . . I’m thinking maybe it was not planned this time. She was a target of opportunity. We’re here.” She parks across the street from a neon sign: “STALLS.” “Ben Stalls is the owner. Our guy Dan works the bar until they close at midnight. He acts as bouncer too when he has to. He’s a boxer. He was. Welter weight. Eight legit fights until he was arrested for assault and battery, and that killed that.”
“Okay. Got it.”
“Study that asshole, go deep . . . so then maybe . . . ”
“Look, Betha, you’re in my territory now. My goddamn dreams. I’ll watch him. I’ll leave, and we’ll see what happens. You can back off. You can wait.”
“Yes, sir,” she says – and they hold on each other’s eyes for two seconds and he’s out of there.
Dan Melios seems to be the perfect bartender. He’s quick, knows his drinks, cracks a handsome smile now and then, but the smiles are tempered. Something on his mind. He has a boxer’s scar that splits one eyebrow, looks like he works out, sends his glance all around, looking for trouble? It’s one of those places with three screens, no volume, all sports, and Leonard, after ordering his whisky tonic, watches a game of cricket, Afghanistan versus . . . He can’t catch it. Dan brings him a nut dish. Leonard nods a thanks to the possible killer of four young girls and sips his drink, eats some almonds.
In the mirror he watches some of the meager patrons. A man two stools down reacts to one of the screens and turns to Leonard, saying “You catch that?! Jesus!”
“Missed it,” Leonard says and looks at his drink with his eyes glancing at Dan now and then. Looking for what? Just looking, just pinning the man into his brain. He tires of this and looks at himself in the mirror and tires of that, too. He wishes the man from the diner was here, the fluid young man dodging and turning and doing a kind of mime dance among the customers, and then he has an odd thought that surprises him. He thinks, what if he were that man? Life would be so simple, wouldn’t it? What if that was all he had to do, that dance, asking with his whole body, bringing the coffee, cream, tea, juice . . . and dancing off again. He lets himself wish that for a minute.
After two hours, one taco and too many drinks, the place begins to shut down around him. He notices, but waits for the bartender to tell him, wanting that contact to help pin him. “Closing out, buddy,” says the ex-boxer. And Leonard nods and pays, taking his time. He steps outside the bar and enjoys the coolness of the night. He lingers out there a moment, and is surprised to see Dan leaving, while others are still cleaning up inside.
He likes the man’s shoulders-back kind of walk. What does he see in that walk? A peacock? A readiness? A challenge? That’s it, a walking challenge to the world: so what I’m an ex-con, ex-boxer . . . whatever else I am, whatever I’ve done, whatever I haven’t done, so what? Here I am. There might be some anger in that walk, and maybe that anger needs an outlet, four outlets in three years, four young girls who had to pay?
Leonard finds he’s walking behind Dan, about fifteen paces. He didn’t mean to follow him, but it’s a good study. He probably wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t for the drinking, but he shrugs that off. He’s letting Dan teach him all about Dan. This could be good – for the possibility of a dream, but he shouldn’t push hard on that, has to let it come, just come. Dan has turned a corner onto a darker, smaller street. Leonard could stop now, stop and call Betha and report, but he has nothing to report, so he finds himself turning the corner to follow the killer-diller.
As Leonard turns the corner, he is grabbed – two strong hands balled in his jacket – and he is pushed hard against the door of a closed laundry, his head bouncing off the door. Dan Melios, teeth bared in anger, pulls Leonard toward him and then bangs him back against the closed door again, saying, “You a cop?! Ha?!”
“No! I . . . ”
“You followin’ me?”
“No! I just . . ."
Melios sends a hand to Leonard’s throat, choking off his words. “You a fucking private cop? Ha?” His hard grip doesn’t allow an answer, and then he withdraws his hand to slap Leonard, bloodying his nose. He’s at his Leonard’s throat again, digging in, furious. “I seen you watchin’ me in the bar, asshole!” When he slaps Leonard again, the bigger man shoves Melios back a step, but the boxer hits him in the forehead with a hard jab and grabs his throat again, and Leonard feels the pain and shock and something else. He feels like he might die, this man might kill him, and he thinks, in a quarter of a second, about the girls, battered and choked, and along with the pain and fear, anger shows up, and hate.
He sends both his large hands to Melios’ throat, and now the smaller man is choking, and Leonard turns and pushes himagainst the building and then turns him around and throws an arm lock on his throat from behind, and the man is trying to tear at that arm, kicking backward and flailing his hands wildly now, and Leonard feels the man’s panic and thinks – is that what the girls felt? And he wonders if he should do it, make this man die, and then all of this would end. But Melios’ movements are weakening, and Leonard relaxes his large arms and shoulders and lets the man slide to the sidewalk where he falls and breathes like some broken engine, sputtering, coughing. Leonard watches the boxer, then steps away, heading for the lit street and the way home.
As he walks, he calls Betha, then thinks he should have waited, so he would have more breath.
“Sorry . . . to call you late . . . ”
I was waiting for it. You sound . . . ”
“Yeah, I’m out of breath. I was following him home . . . just to see him, plant him . . . in my mind, and he turned on me. He hits hard.”
“Oh, shit! He beat you up? Where is he?”
“He’s on his ass . . . and I’m walking away.” Leonard turns to look behind him.
“He’s not following, and I’m going to change streets, just in case . . .”
“You weren’t supposed to get in his face! Now what?!”
“He doesn’t know who I am. Nobody saw us.”
“Tell me where you are and I’ll pick you up.”
“No. No, I need the walk.”
“Leonard, It’s miles.”
“I need the walk.”
The dream lingers, unchanging. A fence? He is looking through what seems to be a rusted fence, and beyond it is darkness, but with . . . pinpoints of light. And somehow . . . the top of a tree? Swaying with the wind? There’s no logic, even to the placement of things. But this is not an ordinary dream. It’s not. It’s a viewing. He feels that. He wakes and sleeps again and then his cellphone wakes him, and he’s pawing the phone off the night stand, glancing at the clock. It’s nearly noon. He says “Hi.” but the word is broken and he tries again, clearing his throat.
She asks, “How do you feel?”
“Said the woman to the punching bag.”
“Did you dream?”
“There was something.”
“Describe it.”
“I need some time. Too groggy.”
“We have him, Leonard.”
“What?!” He sits up in bed, moving through the pain from the punches he took.
“They went in with a search warrant this morning. They found a kind of coin purse, a woman’s coin purse made of leather. Scratched, beat-up. They sent a picture to the girl’s parents. It was hers.”
“Jesus.”
“Found some drugs there, too, and there were hairs in the bed, her color. He knew he was busted, so he admitted she was there twice over the last week. Drugs. Sex. He’s still denying murder, but he’s shaky as hell and he’ll crack wide open. Go dream about that fence and we’ll hit him with everything.”
“What did he say about me? About the fight?”
He just said some big white guy jumped him in the dark and he hit the guy and ran home. You put some major bruises on his neck, and you should hear his voice. You almost killed him, for god’s sake, Leonard.”
“Maybe I should have. For a second I wanted to.”
“Don’t you say that. Don’t be an idiot. He’s done. We’ve got him. Listen, I have to go. They’re questioning him again, and they won’t let me in there ‘cause I was taken off the case, but I can see and hear what’s going on. Call me when you get something.” She hangs up, and he knows he can’t sleep anymore. He puts his feet on the floor and rises slowly, wincing at the pain. He needs an ice pack. He needs some breakfast. He needs to remember.
By late afternoon he feels the tiredness coming back, moving through him. He sits in the one cushioned chair in his room and closes his eyes, but that’s not doing it, so he moves to the bed, lies down, stretches out, looks at the ceiling, and, in time, he’s there again, not dreaming, remembering the dream, but, no, not a dream, remembering the viewing. He’s certain now, continuing to stare upward as the ceiling disappears and he’s staring through that rusted fence or . . . grate, staring upward. That’s it. staring up at the sky, the night sky. Staring up like the murdered girls were staring. He feels his heart increase. He is lying down somewhere. It’s cold. He is looking up at the sky – through a rusted grate. Those points of light he saw – they’re stars, and there is the tree, just the top of a tall pine, moving slightly in the wind, and he realizes he’s not himself. His heart pumps even harder now, as he comes to feel certain, certain that he is looking through the eyes of someone else. The killer? The girl before she died?
A grate in the ground means a building somewhere – a place near trees, a place where nobody goes. Abandoned place? He tries Betha, but she doesn’t pick up. He asks this of the motel owner: abandoned building in some forested area, and she sends him to one of her permanent guests, an old man, threadbare man. “Used to be some buildings in the woods north of town. Used to be a . . . Well, there was a school out there for years, but that shut down. Atrem Road runs along the woods there. There was a sawmill, too, but they carried most of that away when they moved the operation . . . ”
He calls while on his way and lets Betha know where he’s going, lets her know about the grate, and she is excited, shouting in a whisper. “Oh, god, if it’s there, if the body is there, he’s done, Leonard, he’s finished.” She gives him clear directions to the abandoned buildings and says, “This is coming to a head now, and they’re going to let me have him, Captain said. They’ve set him up and I . . . But I’ll get to you as soon as I can, and meanwhile I’ll call the person who’s leading the search for the girl and tell her I got an anonymous tip, and she’ll send people out there . . . Leonard? Watch for the . . . ” They were losing their signal, and he found himself speeding, pulling toward the forest, the buildings, the grate . . .
In twenty-five minutes, he’s leaving the sight of the old school, no grating there. He drives on and sees a nearly weeded-over entrance into the forest and takes it as far as he can, then leaves his car and hurries on, his chest tightening as he comes upon what is left of the old sawmill. He feels a pull, a definite pull as he hurries around the half-fallen structure, watching the ground, seeing no grate, then he pauses, slowing his breath. He looks above and sees the trees, tall pines, just as in his viewing. He moves around the structure again, more slowly.
When he sees it, he stands still for a long while, an old, rusted grate in the ground. He knows it’s the one. And he knows someone is in there. He feels that and takes three, four steps. He points his flashlight as he reaches the grate, points it down. It’s her. Liya Pope, and she’s lying on her back, her face pointing upward to the grate, to the late light and the high trees, and she is naked and bruised about the neck, her eyes closed, almost peaceful, he thinks. He curls his fingers into the grating and lifts, and then tosses the heavy metal away into the weeds. She’s about six feet down. He puts his flashlight in his pocket and steps to the edge of the hole and turns, bracing his hands on the ground and then letting himself drop, landing on his feet just beside her. He retrieves his flashlight and studies her, studies her mouth which is slightly open, studied her breasts and doesn’t move his eyes, doesn’t move the light, and he sees what he would not let himself hope to see. He sees the rise of a slight and slow breath.
He moves close to her and speaks her name, touches her face, again, again. The eyes open slightly, not focusing, not seeing him. He takes off his jacket and covers her, studying her face one moment more, wanting to shout, to weep, but he turns to the side of the hole and leaps upward, looking for purchase on the edge, but it is slick and he falls back inside, falls beside her. When he stands again, he hears movement on the surface of the ground, steps, moving slowly, moving to the hole, and he holds his breath.
He sees a tall uniformed police officer reach the edge of the hole and fill it with the glare of a very large flashlight. The cop changes the light to his other hand and draws his gun. Leonard has his hands above him, shielding himself from the wash of bright light. There are more footsteps above now, and people calling out, and the cop says to him, “Who the hell are you?”
And Leonard says, “She’s alive.”
Forty minutes later, Betha arrives. The girl has been taken to the hospital, but the area is still full of police, lit brightly now, a dozen squad and detective cars parked at odd angles as a team studies the area. Leonard sits on the ground, leaning back on one of the cars. He is handcuffed and sore and dirty and so glad, so glad because the paramedic had said, “She’ll make it,” when he asked him.
He watches Betha coming toward him, sees her intercepted by a female police sergeant who points at him and says to Betha, “So, detective, he says he knows you?”
Betha nods, not breaking her stride toward him. “Yeah. He’s with me. Take off the cuffs.” In a moment he is standing, rubbing his wrists as he and Betha hold their stare. No one can overhear them now.
“I have to tell the whole story to the Captain, Leonard. I don’t think he can keep you out of it. Sorry.”
He nods wearily, sighs a long sigh. “Just so she stays alive.”
“I’ll be busy here a while,” she says. “Can you make it back to the motel?” And he nods, and she keeps her deep stare on him. “Thank you, Leonard. You hear me? I’m saying thank you, from all of us and from her parents, and . . . That doesn’t say it all. Not even one little piece of it.”
The stare holds. He nods, then starts his walk to the car. She waves a cop over and tells the man to walk with him and make sure he can pull out of there. She watches Leonard until he’s out of sight and keeps staring in his direction.
She doesn’t come to the motel until three hours later. He’s packed, lying on the bed, dozing, until she knocks, and he rises and lets her in. They sit at a small uneven table, both weary, but she still carries that same deep stare for him, and she tells him, “She came fully awake in the hospital. She knew her attacker, knew of him, one Thomas Trasker. He has a three-truck rodent business in the town, for years. He even ran for city council once. Almost won. We knocked on his door. He was home with his wife, teen kids. We asked him about Liya Pope, and he fell on the floor, literally, fell to his knees. You should have seen the looks – the wife, the kids. They knew zero about this, of course. What a scene.”
“Melios?” he asks.
And she says, “Happy man. Not just free. Happy she’s alive. Happy tears. I think it’s true love.” They both grin a bit, and then grow serious again. Betha doesn’t know what else to say, so she says, “Let’s settle up. Give me your receipts.”
“You already paid the motel, that’ll do it.”
“Leonard . . . you know what I owe you, what this city owes you.”
“I don’t give a damn what Waukegan, Illinois owes me. It’s what you owe me.”
“What? What can I say?”
“Nothing. Not a word. I want just one thing for all this. You ready?”
She nods, wondering, and he says, “I want to finish that kiss we never finished, ‘cause you stepped back.” He’s completely serious, hard-looking about this.
She’s quiet a moment and then begins to shake her head. “I told you then, Leonard, about what I need to do, about the Chicago force, and . . . ”
“I’m not talking about the goddamn future. This is about the past, Betha, about that one kiss, that’s all. I want it in full, a long one, a deep one. I want us to finish it.” He stands up then, and waits.
She stares a while, then also stands, looking tough about this, but her eyes are moist. “Tongue?” she asks.
“You bet.”
“Hands?”
“Just on your back. Ready?”
Another long stare, and then she takes a step closer, and he moves in and it’s on, deep and tight and long, as they press together and his hands are on her back and in her hair, and she’s kissing him back and hard, and is in his hair now, and there is nothing still, not for a second, but all moving, and moving, and moving, two mouths as one mouth, tongues like slippery creatures, mad creatures, on and on, and when they finally break, they’re out of breath, staring hard again, almost moving into each other, but not. Not. He slowly steps away, then moves to the bed where his suitcase lies. He picks it up and walks to the door, not looking at her. Her eyes drop two tears as she watches him.
As he reaches the door and opens it, there is a war inside of him: say something, kiss her again, wait, but he takes a full breath and opens the door wider, thinking he wants her more than anything, but, hey, listen, the woman has Chicago on her mind.
Stand-Off
July already? Here’s this month’s story, taking you to rural Illinois on a day when anything can happen and the future is in doubt!
STAND-OFF
By Gerald DiPego
We’ll call the place Perch Lake, Illinois, and the time is around 1:30 in the afternoon, early summer, 2011 or so, and what we’re watching is a man about the age of 80 driving a truck so dented and rusted and rattling it must be traveling on plain spit and spite. The driver is Chester Nash, former roofer who took a fall, former farmer who gave it up and sold off most of his land, former celebrated high-school athlete who gained 48 pounds since those days, and former infantryman in a war that’s so seldom mentioned these days, you’d think it never was, but it was, and he left his youth and some of his friends and some of his blood in the country of Korea.
Chester parks the truck in front of Tip Top Foods, a smallish two-checkout grocery, its windows jammed with sale signs and posters for the town’s ‘Summer Blast’ and the Fire Department’s Carnival, and the Rotary’s Picnic, all of them out of date.
Only a few customers inside, and some nod to Chester, but he doesn’t seem to notice, moving toward the items he wants, carrying one of the plastic baskets and filling it as he’s watched by the store owner who stands operating the only active checkout, and this is Arnold Tattimer, who is 66 and thin and normally suspicious, but now expanding that part of his nature as he watches Chester pass up the cold beer case and reach high up on the wine shelf to take down a bottle of the store’s most expensive California red at forty dollars a pop.
This is a first, and raises Arnold’s worry, but he has to stay put and check out the items on his counter. By the time he’s done, his employee, Lonny Pulaski, returns from her break, and Arnold is free to spy on Chester, whom he sees just leaving the meat counter. He investigates and learns from his butcher that Chester has NOT bought his usual chicken wings and ground beef but chosen two healthy cuts of filet mignon. This is also a first, which quickens Arnold’s pace, coming upon Chester as the man places a box of cookies in his basket, the store’s most expensive chocolate-covered brand imported from no less than England.
“Chester,” Arnold says. “You sell off those two acres?”
Chester barely glances at the man, ignoring the question, moving to the produce for beets and broccoli and then making his way to the front of the store. Arnold beats him there, and when Chester arrives at the checkouts, Arnold says to Lonny, “I’ll check this one out,” and moves to the machine as she backs away. And here comes Chester with his heavy basket, not even pausing, not even glancing at Arnold, but simply walking out of the store, basket and all, getting into his truck and driving away, as Arnold, outside now, shouts something about the police, but Chester’s truck is making too much noise for the words to carry.
About forty minutes after Chester’s getaway, a county deputy is pulling into the driveway of an old well-kept home with a thriving garden and a water element. The deputy, Tom Basco, around 25, walks quickly to the door and rings the bell. The door is opened by a smallish women of 84, wearing a summer dress, her white hair well-kept, and her eyes rather penetrating. She is one-half Native American, and there is a question in her manner, seeing the deputy at her door. Her name is Ella Dawn-Netter, and while she was teaching at the Perch Lake High School, before she married her fellow teacher, John Netter, she was called Miss Dawn, but the name soon morphed into ‘Mizdawn’, and even throughout her marriage with Mr. Netter, now deceased, she was called that name. She taught history to generations of local teenagers for nearly fifty years, and if there is another quality about her, beyond her knowledge and her depth, it would be called no-nonsense.
“Mizdawn, I’m deputy Basco, and the sheriff sent me out here to ask your help. It’s an emergency, and I’m to take you out to Chester Nash’s house.”
She stares for one second, then “Deputy, what’s the emergency? Why am I needed? I’m not a doctor, and I don’t suppose I’m to go out there to teach history, and why didn’t the sheriff call me to see if I’m available, which I’m not.”
Basco takes a breath. “Nash is holed up in his home, and he has a gun, and he…he robbed the Tip Top store and says he’s not coming out, and the sheriff said…” But Mizdawn interrupts: “Why would Chester rob a store and then go home?” “Well, Mizdawn, he’s cooking in there. He robbed groceries and…” “Wait, you’re saying he stole food, and he’s cooking it?” “Yes ma’am. And he says if anybody comes close to the house, he’ll shoot’em.” “And the sheriff wants me to go ‘close to the house’ and do what?” “Well, you can stand off to the side, where he can’t shoot you, and talk to him. Make him come out, or…toss out that gun.” She shakes her head in wonder and says, “Let me talk to the sheriff. Shall I call him on my phone, or…?” “Mizdawn, there’s no time. Gotta go now. Sheriff’s real busy out there. I have to bring you.” “By force?” “Well…Ma’am…I gotta bring you. Now.”
Mizdawn sighs, straps on her purse, locks her house and is taken away in the deputy’s car. They’re speeding toward Chester’s home when Basco says, “So…you were a teacher here?” “Yes, you’re not a local boy, are you?” “No, ma’am, and you… they say you’re part Indian?” “You mean Native American, deputy. The Indians are people from India.” “Oh, yeah…. What tribe?” “Potawatomi. “Uh-huh, never heard of ’em. Where they from?” “From here. Right here. Until they moved us out. Long time ago. Almost two centuries. Do you really need this awful siren?”
When they arrive near Chester’s home, there are four police cars scattered about and four other cars and trucks further back from the house with people outside their vehicles, watching and waiting for something to happen. Mizdawn spots the sheriff hurrying toward the deputy’s car as she is stepping out. The sheriff’s name is Esther Ramirez, and Mizdawn notices that though she’s a bulky woman she moves quickly. “Come this way, Mizdawn,” she says, and leads her toward the side of Chester’s old house, which is badly patched and crying for paint. “Thanks for coming out here,” the sheriff adds, and Mizdawn says, “I had no choice. I don’t know what the hell I can do for you, Esther, and keep this in mind, my great granddaughters are coming from Chicago for a visit, and I WILL meet that four o’clock train.” And Esther says, “Yes, Mizdawn,” the way she might have said it when she was Mizdawn’s pupil thirty years ago.
Esther is worried. “I’m just hoping I don’t have to call in SWAT and we can get him out…” And Mizdawn stops and says, “SWAT? For Chester Nash?! Maybe a fly SWATTER.” “It’s the gun, Mizdawn. He says he’s got a shotgun in there and nobody can come near the house.” Mizdawn shakes her head. “You call his son?” Esther nods, saying “He won’t come here, and it would take him an hour and a half, anyway, and Chester won’t talk to anybody on the phone.”
Mizdawn shakes her head again. “The man steals his lunch, and look at all this hullabaloo – police all over, and those people parking here and hoping to see somebody get shot. Who else is here? Jesus, is that Tattimer from the store? They hate each other, and why am I here? Because I taught him in high school?”
“He still talks about you – to anybody who’ll listen to him anymore. About how you two almost got married.” Mizdawn looks to the heavens. “Hah! Still that same old tattered fib. Good lord…” The deputy arrives and hands an electronic megaphone to the sheriff, and she holds it toward Mizdawn. “He can’t see you from here, so just… get him talking. Here, I’ll show you how to use that.”
Burt Mizdawn just sighs, a long, heavy one, and begins walking toward Chester’s house. “Wait! Hey! Don’t Mizdawn!” the sheriff shouts, but Mizdawn keeps going, making a waving sign for all others to stay back. She walks straight to the slightly leaning porch, steps up on the old boards, as Chester shouts from inside: “Who the hell’s there?! Goddamnit, I WILL shoot!” Mizdawn answers, “Oh, stop yelling, Chester. It’s me. You going to shoot ME?” There is a long pause before Chester answers in a much softer voice, “You can come in.”
But Mizdawn has hold of an old wooden rocking chair and is moving it in twists and turns, stronger than she looks, until the chair is beside the screen door. Then she sits. “This’ll be fine. I can barely see you in there.” The sun is striking the back of the house, while the front is deeply shaded, so that the outline of Chester barely registers in the gloom. “Turn on a light or something, will you?” she asks him. “No. If they can see me, they can shoot me.” “Nobody is going to shoot you, Chester. Do you really have a gun in there?” Chester says, “Never mind,” and then, in heartfelt words, “Thanks for comin’ here, Mizdawn.”
“I was brought here--sheriff’s orders.” She looks over the worn-out house, fallow fields. “Why are you still here, Chester? Why not sell it off and get yourself to McHenry and that home there?” “Where people go to die,” he says, and she answers, “Well you wouldn’t die alone.” He pauses a while. “Used to think…maybe my son would have this place someday. Never gave him much. Did they call him, Mizdawn, about…all this?” she answers “Yes,” and then, “He’s not coming, Chester.” The man sighs. “Don’t blame him. I made a sorry father.”
She puts her hands on her knees, leaning toward the screen door. “Listen, now. Why did you steal those groceries? To get your son here?” “No, Mizdawn, to get a good meal for once, a really good meal. That Tattimer is pricing me right out of his store, and my truck can’t make the highway to the Albertsons, so… I got a fine wine in here. I can pass you a glass.” “Not in the middle of the day, Chester, and in the middle of a shoot-out. So, now your good meal is over, what’s next?” “I don’t know that, Mizdawn. I don’t much care. I ain’t goin’ to jail though.” “So what does that leave, Chester?” “I don’t know what it leaves, but I’ll shoot my brains out before I get arrested.” “Shoot your brains out? What if you miss? That’s a pretty small target.” She doesn’t get an answer, and then hears a sound from deep in his chest, a quiet laughter. “God, I still love you, Mizdawn.” “Oh, that’s right,” she says, “We were going to get married – so YOU say. It was one brief kiss, old man, and that’s all.”
He seems not to hear that, going on. “Everybody in the school liked you, almost. We thought it was so excitin’ havin’ a teacher who was an Indian.” Mizdawn breathes a tired sigh. “You mean Native American, Chester.” “Aw, I know. It just takes too long to say that.” “Listen, you’re not all that busy, old man. I think you have the time for three more syllables.” From the darkness inside the house, she hears his quiet laugh again. “I could never get away with anything with you,” he says. “I could con the other teachers, and in the Army I could even con my sergeant. But not you. So…why didn’t you wait for me? Why’d you go marry that Mr. Netter?” “Why? Because he was a good man and we made a good long marriage, raised a fine daughter. There was love there.” “But you knew I loved you, Mizdawn, and I hoped… you’d wait.”
“And your hope was based on what, Chester – all the letters I wrote you?” He half-shouts. “You never wrote me one!” “That’s my point. I never led you on. I let you give me one foolish kiss, even then you tried for more: high school senior all hot with the girls – not with your teacher, not with this Native American.” “So…Mizdawn… why’d you kiss me at all?” “I didn’t. I let YOU kiss ME.” “But why?” “Because you were going away to probably get killed in a war you didn’t even understand, and you started to cry, all choked up.” “You enjoyed that kiss, too,” he says. “I know you did. I felt it. I…” “Chester, you had a boy’s crush on your teacher.” “Hell, Mizdawn, you were only five years older.” “And you were a child. You’re still part child, aren’t you?” “So… all you felt was kindness for me.” “There was caring, too. And sorrow. I saw your parents, your meek mother, your angry father, I saw his marks on your face more than once. Yes, kindness, so that’s why I’m here, Chester, and I’ll go talk to the sheriff and say you’re giving up your gun and…” “No! I’m givin’ up nothin! Let ’em come for me, and I’ll take some of ’em with me!”
At this, Mizdawn rises, moves quickly to the screen door, pulls it open and steps inside where the sunlight doesn’t reach, and there he is, in a chair he has moved to watch the door. There is no gun in sight. She steps close and slaps his face, hard, his eyes and mouth opening wide as she rails at him, not shouting, but sharp-voiced with a flame in her eyes. “Goddamn you, Chester Nash, how dare you talk about killing people, killing deputies and a sheriff that never harmed you, killing people with wives and husbands and kids? That’s cowardly talk and ugly and stupid, and if that’s what you have in mind, I’ll get your gun and shoot you myself! Where is it? Show me!”
He stares without speaking, tears coming, filling his eyes and moving down his pouched and craggy face. He only breathes and swallows, and then, finally, he says a cracked and liquid word. “Sorry.” His chest shakes and he swallows again. “Sorry, Mizdawn.” She slowly relaxes her body, taking a step back. Her voice is in a normal key when she asks, “Where’s the gun?” “It’s… on the floor, by my foot. It’s loaded, too.” She looks at the old shotgun, then studies him a while more. “Stand up, Chester.” “I ain’t goin’ out there, Mizdawn.” “Just stand up, old man.”
His standing is not fluid, but a series of stiff moves, and then he is facing her, a head taller, as she faces him, working on something in her mind. “I’ve got an idea,” she says, “how this can go, with nobody hurt and maybe you not in jail. You might lose an acre of land, but you have to do what I say.” “An acre of land?!” “Chester, you have to promise.” “How can I promise if I don’t know what else you’re talkin’ about? I ain’t gonna pologize to that bastard Arnold Tattimer. And I ain’t goin’ to jail.” “Damn it, Chester, you just have to trust me.” “Without knowin’ what you’re gonna do?” “Yes.” “Well, why should I do that, Mizdawn?” “Because if you promise to do as I say – I’ll kiss you here and now. I’ll kiss you one more time, Chester Nash.”
He stares a long while, his eyes moist, and says only one word. “Really?” And she nods, and takes his heavy hands in her hands, keeping her stare on him.
“I haven’t always told the truth, Chester. Mostly, but not always. I didn’t admit to wanting you to kiss me that day you came to my house, and I’ve never said that… that it was a great kiss, and that I felt the tenderness of it and the need and the thrill of it, too. I was a lonely young woman and a plain one, and you were this… kind of child-god. You were beautiful and strong, and I was alone. People were kind enough to this Potawatomi girl, but they kept a distance. And there you were, loving me all-out in your young way and wanting me, and I joined you in that kiss. I know you felt that. I didn’t let it go further. I was your teacher, for god’s sake, but for that long minute I was thrilled, Chester. I told you that was the beginning AND the end of us. I told you that, but you didn’t want to believe it, wouldn’t believe it, and I went on with my life, and Jack Netter came along and broke through, broke through to me, and we fell in love, all the way, and that was that. So… put your arms around me.” He does, gently. “Hold me tight.” He does, his hands on her back, their faces close now. “Remember,” she says, “Your hands on my butt are not part of this deal. You tried that once.” He nods, smiling through his wonder, his wonder of holding her again after 60 years.
Their faces float toward each other, heads cocking to the side, mouths coming close, and then there it is, the second kiss between Chester Nash and Ella Dawn. He keeps his hands on her back as he was told and she has one hand on his shoulder and one behind his neck, pulling him deeper into the kiss as he pulls her, until they make one mouth and she feels a fluttering in her chest and he feels a great pull of love and desire and they both close their eyes and swim for a moment in the past, becoming the boy again and the young teacher.
It's she who begins a settling, a slight relaxing that signals the man, and so he settles, too, somehow easing himself back from that most splendid minute of fulfilled desire, and then they’re staring at each other, eyes full and minds slowly pulling them back from a summer day in 1950 to today, where the police and the neighbors are waiting and watching for them, and there is a loaded shotgun on the floor.
“Now Chester, you promised. I’m going out there, and you just have to trust me.” He nods, unwilling to speak, to completely give up the moment still filling him. She steps back and looks around, seeing a table still littered with plates and the leavings of his stolen lunch. She walks to the table. “You didn’t open this box of candy.” He manages to say, “No,” still in a spell he doesn’t want to break. “Well, that’s something.” She buries the candy box in her large purse. “Now you trust me and you don’t go near that gun.” He gives her a nod, but she doesn’t accept it. “Say it, Chester.” “Okay, Mizdawn. I won’t touch the gun.” She nods then and turns, opens the door and moves down the steps. He has moved to the door and calls out to her.
“Mizdawn?” She stops and half-turns, waiting. He says, “About my son?” “Yes, Chester?” In a moment he adds, “I wasn’t a good father, but never hit ’im. Never.” She nods a while and says, “Good. That’s good,” and then she walks on.
As she reaches the side of the house she notices they have all gathered around an old, forgotten picnic table, which is a-tilt and is covered with decades of bird droppings, and she joins the group there, facing the sheriff, two deputies, Arnold Tattimer, and a man taking photos for the local paper, and even the mayor, Nell Wentworth is among them.
The sheriff is speaking to Mizdawn as she joins them. “Jesus, Mizdawn, you scared the hell out of all of us. What kind of state is he in?” And the mayor asks, “Did he harm you?” “I am unharmed, Nell.” “Did you see the gun, Mizdawn,” the Sheriff asks, and the young man there takes her picture. “The gun is on the floor near where he sits. He never touched it, and I think we can resolve this whole mess in a few minutes.” Arnold Tattimer points his finger at her like a pistol and says, “We can resolve this when Chester Nash is in jail and I’m paid back for every penny.” “What’s the tab, Arnold?” Mizdawn asks him, and he answers “One hundred thirty-six dollars and twelve cents, and I’m going to sue him for what he put me through.” “He never even spoke to you and never touched you,” the sheriff puts in, and Arnold says, “Emotional trauma,” and the sheriff says, “Let’s focus on the situation,” and turns to Mizdawn. “What’s gonna get him out of there?” but Mizdawn has a question of her own. “What’s the charge, Sheriff, and what’s the penalty?”
The sheriff takes a breath. “First time shoplifting, no jail, fine of $150, plus possible penalties and adjustments.” “And I’m pressing for the FULL charges and penalties,” Arnold says, and the mayor jumps in. “Stop interrupting, Arnold. Let’s solve this. There’s a TV crew on its way from Waukegan, and I don’t want to see our town looking at its worse.” “I agree,” says Mizdawn, rummaging in her purse. They all watch her. She comes up with two twenty-dollar bills. “Let’s pay Arnold what he lost and get him out of here. That’s a start.” She puts her forty bucks on the table and looks around at the others. “Yes, fine, it’s worth it,” says the mayor, and places a credit card on top of Mizdawn’s bills. “Fifty out of that,” she says, and they all glance at each other. The sheriff, sighs and digs out her wallet. “All right, damnit, thirty more.” Arnold is staring at the pile as he adds it up. “Still sixteen dollars short,” he says, and Mizdawn stares at him. “Among the wine and steaks, Arnold, wasn’t there a box of candy?” “Hell yes, twenty dollars and change just by itself.” Mizdawn digs in her purse again, brings out the unopened candy box and places it on top of the money. “You’re about four dollars ahead, Arnold.” “Hell, what about what I’ve been through, and…” The mayor cuts him off with “Damn it, Arnold you take off NOW! If you don’t, I’ll never shop at your store again and neither will my friends, and I have a lot of friends, so goodbye, and I’ll come by for my card later. We have to move this along!
As Arnold walks to his car, mumbling, the sheriff turns back to Mizdawn. “We still got a fine of $150 – and a hell of a lot of trouble caused and county resources used.” “I know, Esther,” Mizdawn says, “but Chester is making a peace offering that’ll cover it all and more. He’s selling off an acre of this farm land. The one the high school wanted for an extra practice field, and the town of Perch Lake can now purchase that acre at half the going price. I’m sure that once the sale is made, Chester will pay back your money, and you’ll both get a thank-you from all of us citizens, and from the students at the high school.” The sheriff stares at Mizdawn, growing a small smile. “Still looking out for your school, Mizdawn.” Then the sheriff and the mayor look at each other before they both turn and nod to Mizdawn.
Chester is still waiting behind the screen door when Mizdawn comes to the house and up the stairs. He opens the door for her to come in, but she stays put on the porch. “All done, Chester Nash. You’re going to have to put up with the sounds of school children on that far acre that you’re going to sell at half market price, but that won’t be so bad, will it? You’ll make some money, buy a new truck.” He grows a smile, a loving smile, as she says, “Now hand me that gun, and it’s all finished.” He leaves the door and returns with the shotgun, hands it over. “It’s a heavy damn thing,” she says. “Want me to carry it?” “Oh no, Chester, we don’t want you carrying a gun to the sheriff. I’ll deliver it, and so long. You going to be all right, old man?” He nods. She turns and begins walking away. He raises his voice to say, “I love you, Mizdawn. You sure are one fine Native American.” She stops and lets him see her smile, then moves off toward the sheriff and the mayor and the deputies and an arriving television crew that will have nothing at all to do.
#
Choice
Welcome to “Short Stories” not necessarily for “Shut-Ins” anymore. Something here for June to help you decide what you want to do with this bright month, to help you make a CHOICE.
CHOICE
By Gerald DiPego
Ben Schulman is 32, single, fairly fit, and nervous. He has an important decision to make and he’s not at all confident that he’ll make the right choice. He has made some poor life choices in recent years, and this has left him with an easy-access pass into the thicket of worry, a place of thorns that he knows well, and, as he walks among the morning throng of downtown L.A. workers, his jaw is tight and his pace is quick, even though he’s early for his job at the accounting firm. He’s actually too early to show up for an important meeting with his boss who is waiting for his decision, and that’s why he keeps walking this fast-paced jagged circle through the canyons of downtown, giving himself one last bit of time to think about his choices.
He has been offered, along with other accountants, the possibility of transferring to the new offices opening in Portland Oregon, and being part of the start-up there with a small raise, or he can choose to remain in L.A. He doesn’t have full confidence that the new branch will do well in Portland, and he could be struggling there for years, but since the firm picked him for this, would a choice to stay in L.A. seem ungrateful and cost him points with his boss?
He’s moving across a street on a green light, among a swarm of office workers who are coming and going, and he notices that one man is approaching him as if they’re about to collide. Ben tries to angle to the right, but the throng is tight, and the young man is coming on quickly for this possible crash, but then, at the last sliver of a second, the man moves slightly to miss him, brushing against him, glancing at him, and saying these words…
“Stay in LA.”
Ben is standing still in the center of the street, his mouth open, his eyes drilling into the back of the hurrying man, when he finds that he is finally able to shout. “Hey! Wait!”
But the man keeps walking, and Ben tries to follow, turning against the herd of workers who are speeding to cross before the light turns green and the cars, waiting like high-strung horses, rush the intersection.
He has lost sight of the man, but he shouts anyway. “Wait!” And some people turn to follow his look, which is a wild, frenzied, unbelieving look, but the man is lost among the crowd, and Ben, now standing on the corner, is moving, in his mind, through all the possible causes for this impossibility: He didn’t hear the man correctly. The man wasn’t talking to him. The man was telling EVERYBODY to stay in L.A. because…because it’s a great town, or…. But none of this feels right. The man spoke to HIM, and said what HE needed to know. He couldn’t have imagined it, could he? No, it was so clear, and he still carries a detailed picture of the man in his mind, like a sharp and precise photograph.
“Stay in L.A.” He remembers the quality of the man’s voice and tries hard to think if he ever saw him before, but no, never. He wonders, oddly, if maybe the man has something to do with his accounting firm. But that’s crazy. Ben wasn’t even near the firm’s building when it happened. He was blocks away and moving in the wrong direction. So, here he is, standing on this busy corner and shaking his head, which is the only option for this situation.
He continues on, but more slowly, aiming himself toward the streets that will take him to the firm, and once there he’ll proceed to his boss’ office, and there he will be asked for his answer: take the Portland offer or…stay in L.A. He is surprised to realize that he’s not so uncertain now. He knows what to say, and this is a great relief. Of course, he’s not completely sure, but he’s not completely lost, not drifting anymore. He has something to hold on to – those three quick words, no matter how they came to him. He holds them tightly and enters his office building.
It’s two years later, and all of this has happened to Ben Schulman: He gained 14 pounds and then lost it – He noticed some hair loss – He was promoted at work and was glad he did not go to Portland -- He met a young woman named Amelia and they dated and became a steady couple – He found a small, appealing house and was thinking of buying it and asking Amelia to move in with him – He bought an engagement ring – He was wondering just how and where and when he would ask her, when she told him, sobbing, that she was seeing another man, an old boyfriend. She was very sorry – He and Amelia broke up.
Ben is depressed of course and also nervous again. He really likes the small house he found in Santa Monica, and knows it will be off the market soon if he doesn’t buy it, but, will living in the new place further depress him because he’ll think of Amelia, who will not be there to share it with? It’s a property that will only increase in value. As an accountant, he would advise a client to buy it, but he’s afraid of being even more sad than he is, if possible.
He’s at a mall now where he often goes, looking for furnishings that would look very good in that new home and then not buying them. He has it almost fully furnished in his mind, still looking for the perfect sofa to not buy. He finds the sofa and feels a moment of joy that’s pushed aside by a wave of sadness, so he walks toward the mall doors to get out of there, outside into the sunshine. He steps back to let an older man enter, and the man looks at him in passing, not smiling, and says, quickly “Buy the house,” and then he keeps walking on. Ben watches him go, his mouth open. He starts to follow, but the man is walking swiftly, and the mall is very crowded. Ben hesitates, remembering, of course, the last time some stranger told him what to do.
Now he sits in one of the chairs outside the mall, in the sun, his brain whirling. He becomes truly dizzy and closes his eyes, takes several breaths. When he opens his eyes, he feels better. He sits a long while, then pulls out his phone and calls his realtor and makes an offer on the Santa Monica house.
Four months later Ben is in a bar, deep within the jolly cacophony of a Friday night. He’s with one of his best friends, Jim, from work, and he’s telling him more about the house than Jim cares to know.
“Enough about the house,” says Jim. “That’s all you talk about lately. I’m supposed to care about a hassock? What else is going on in your life?” Ben laughs and apologizes and then, as he finishes his second beer, he finds that he’s in a bold, why-not mood and says, “I never told you WHY I bought it. It’s because somebody told me to. Some…stranger. Really.” Jim, looks at him doubtfully. “So what did this guy know about real estate? Why trust HIM?” Ben is smiling, tingling even, he has never told anyone about these encounters. “He just told me – ‘buy the house.’” Jim grins now, “You mean like he was giving you a tip? like he goes around giving tips? Like…a tip on a horse? What is he, a guru?”
Ben looks at Jim, staring deeply, as if weighing his words. He’s losing his smile, moving inward, wondering about something, something about the words ‘A tip,’ and he’s deciding two things – that he will not tell Jim or anyone what’s going on or…where he’s going tomorrow.
The next day he goes to the Santa Anita race track, feeling guilty but excited. What IF one of these people…these people who talk to him and tell him what decision to make, what if one of them is there, the man from the street, the old man from the mall, somebody. Maybe they WILL give him a tip. But no one talks to him, and he loses 70 dollars.
At his second visit to the track, he is moving through the betting area, listening, while reading about the horses who are running. He is also glancing at the swim of faces, but, mostly, he’s waiting, waiting for someone to…
“Fancy Danny.”
He looks around quickly to see who spoke. It was a female voice, and he spots an older woman, maybe sixty-five, standing among the crowd, alone, studying her choices. He walks to her, his heart picking up its rhythm. “Excuse me, did you say Fancy Danny? I see he’s running in the next race.”
She looks at him a moment, slightly bothered and says “I said nothing at all.” But Ben is sure that it was her voice he heard. He repeats the name, “Fancy Danny,” and now she’s angry. “If you keep bothering me, I’ll have you thrown out of here.”
Ben gets in line at a betting window. He’s trembling slightly as he pulls out all the cash he brought with him, one thousand dollars, and puts it on Fancy Danny to win, even though the odds on the horse are thirty to one. He walks down to the rail to watch the race, his body tight and each breath shaking in his chest. He wins the thirty thou and ends his gambling days. He doesn’t want to be greedy and he doesn’t want the strain. He buys a new car and two expensive suits.
He is promoted again at work and he feels that part of the reason he was noticed and advanced is because of his high-end suits. He’s promised a larger office. He begins a love affair, but mostly in his mind. She’s a very real young woman, another accountant, same grade as him. Her name is Emily Woo, and, to him, she is beautiful, but she attracts the attention of other men, also, and the boss of Ben’s section of the firm seems charmed.
Ben speaks to her now and then, greetings, work details. She’s very pleasant and has a very real laugh that he begins to treasure. He asks his work friend, Jim, what he knows about her, and Jim says that she dates now and then, but the boss has shown an interest, and this keeps the sharks away.
The boss is married, has kids, but is very smooth, and Ben is worried. Should he just…ask her out and chance it? He’s afraid she’ll say no and that will kill all those possibilities dancing in his mind. He’s also afraid that the boss will find out, and that could hurt his career, just when things are going so well.
He begins taking long walks during lunch and even showing up early to the downtown area to move through the throngs and… wait for a tip, wait for that next ‘teller,’ wait and hope for that certainty, that knowing what to do. The streets do not favor him with a tip, so he tries a nearby park and walks the paved lanes and grassy areas, and he listens, listens. He’s sometimes late getting back to work, and when he is at work, he watches for her, just to catch sight, and he makes up scenes where they’re together, laughing together, holding each other…
He’s back in that park now, and rattled, his breath short, his eyes raking over the faces again as he walks. He feels that he’s coming apart and he finds that he’s speaking under his breath, saying, “now, tell me, now.” People begin looking at him as he passes, and he realizes he has begun speaking aloud, “Tell me…say it…please!” He walks on, losing control, shouting, “Will you tell me?! Will somebody tell me?! You? You?” And people are staring, some smiling, some afraid. He stops walking, but the shouting continues and a small crowd gathers. He doesn’t know how long this lasts, but now a police officer is walking him to a bench and having him sit, talking to him as the crowd of ten, twelve, comes closer.
With great effort, he is able to calm down and to convince the cop that he is all right, that he’s sorry, that he won’t be shouting anymore, that he will rest a few minutes and then walk to his workplace. The cop asks the crowd to move on and most of them do, only a few linger, and then only one, a woman somewhere in her mid-seventies. Ben sits there breathing and noticing how she stares at him, and now walks close to him.
“I don’t listen to them anymore,” she says.
Ben, shocked, stares at her as she goes on. “We just have to stop listening. Can I sit down?” He is still staring, but he nods and she sits. They look at each other a long while. “It’s OUR life, not theirs” she says. “Understand?” Ben slowly nods and finally speaks to her, his voice breaking. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I used to think…angels? Then maybe devils, then nobody at all. Maybe I was doing it, but…. I just don’t know. I just know we have to stop listening.”
Ben is nearly in tears now, asking “How…will we know what choice to make?” and she stares deeply and says, “Usually it’s the hardest one, the one that takes the most courage, the scariest one.” In a moment Ben sniffles, and nods. When he returns to work, he finds that they are ready to move his office to the larger one that was promised, and he spends the day moving – and watching for Emily Woo. He sees her once and nods and she gives him one of her smiles, one of her best.
The next day he comes to work in one of his new suits and enters his new office. It’s only one office away from the boss. He tries to look busy, but he’s watching the hallway, watching for Emily so he can seem to be just stepping out as she passes, and he can ask her inside to show her his new space, and he can ask her…really ask her to have dinner, make the choice and take the chance – and there she is, walking down the hallway. But the boss is with her, his hand lightly on her shoulder as they talk, smile, and move toward the boss’s office and enter.
Ben stands there, pinned as if shot with an arrow. He wants to retreat, but can’t move. He keeps staring at the boss’s closed door, tries to will her out of there, hoping, and, in two and a half minutes, the door opens again. The boss holds it open for Emily, both of them smiling. Ben doesn’t hear their words, but sees that the boss’s hand is now on Emily’s waist, just lightly there, and, as Emily steps out the doorway, the boss, who can’t be seen by anyone in the hall, drops his hand down to Emily’s ass.
Three things happen. Emily, surprised, turns quickly to the boss. The boss smiles, winks and closes the door. Ben steps deeper inside his office, rattled, hurt, disappointed, afraid to be seen. He knows she’ll be walking by his open door soon. He should sit at his desk. He should…. But she doesn’t pass his door and he can’t help himself. He peeks down the hall.
Emily is still standing at the door to the boss’s office, standing still, then she turns quickly and walks away, and Ben sees that she is upset and angry, shaken even. He steps back so she won’t see him, so he won’t be involved, so he won’t get in trouble with his boss and lose his position, so he won’t…. Emily walks past his office, her eyes intense, her jaw shaking. He hears her steps moving further away, and he suddenly knows what to do, all by himself. It’s the scariest thing.
He hurries out of his office and catches up to her. “Emily?” She turns to him, eyes moist, chin rigid and she says, “Can’t talk now, Ben” as she walks on, but he calls after her. “Emily, I saw that.” She stops. She turns to him. He nods, walks close to her. “What he did?” she asks, and Ben nods. She stares and then says, “I’m going to HR now, Ben. I might get fired, but….”
“Tell them I saw it,” Ben says. “Tell them I’m a witness.”
“Are you sure,” she asks, and he nods, and she smiles as best she can, and he basks in that smile, and she walks on.
The rest of the morning is calamitous: accusations and denials and statements to sign, but at the end of it, Ben feels good, actually very good. The future is in doubt, but, then, that’s the thing about the future. It’s always in doubt. He’s walking in the park now before leaving to go home, hoping to see the woman he spoke to on the bench and to thank her, but he doesn’t see her and now he’s just walking aimlessly, at an easy pace, when a teenage boy on a skateboard rattles toward him down the lane, coming very close, brushing past him and saying these words…
“Good Choice.”
#
Kilimanjaro
KILIMANJARO
By Gerald DiPego
Tanner Schiff and Faya Ramon are both 74 and have been friends for 17 years, part of a foursome. Tanner was married to Gwen and Faya to David. Gwen left Tanner five years ago. David died two years ago. Tanner and Faya are unmarried and continuing their close friendship, an unbreakable law of dinner once a week at his place or hers with long talks, and sometimes a movie on television before they part for another week.
They are at Faya’s tonight, finishing dinner. Tanner has poured himself a rare third glass of wine, and, as they sit on the sofa, he keeps staring at her.
FAYA
What?
TANNER
What d’you mean, ‘what?’
FAYA
You’re staring at me.
TANNER
I have something to say.
FAYA
Obviously.
TANNER
What if I….
(There is a long pause.)
FAYA
What if you what? Am I supposed to guess?
TANNER
That would help.
FAYA
Give me a hint. What if you…? Went to Istanbul…wore a cowboy hat…?
TANNER
Faya…what if I didn’t go home tonight?
FAYA
You mean…. You don’t mean…. Oh, god, Tanner…. Oh, no…. Can’t you just…can’t you just go to Istanbul?
TANNER
What if I stayed here, all night?
FAYA
It’s the wine. You had an extra glass of….
TANNER
For courage, yes.
FAYA
Tanner…Tanner…let’s not go there. Now? Let’s not ruin this. After all these years? What we have is so… special and very important in my life. And now? Sex? Really? At this age?
TANNER
Yes. Now. It can finally be our turn. You know I’ve always loved you, and you….
FAYA
After all these years you want to take me to bed? Why? Why now? Is it something like…climbing Mount Rushmore before you die? So you can say you’ve done it?
TANNER
Nobody climbs Mount Rushmore. You can’t climb Mount Rushmore.
FAYA
All right then – Kilimanjaro. What am I, an alp? You have to plant your flag?
TANNER
I’ve always wanted to plant my flag with you, but there was Gwen and after Gwen there was still David and now there’s no one between us. This isn’t some wild thought. You can’t say you never wanted us to be lovers because I saw…sometimes I’d see you look at me that way, and I looked at you, and we KNEW. And now two years have gone by....
FAYA
So, what is that, some ‘sell-by’ date? Now or never?
TANNER
Yes! Waiting more than two years goes against all human law.
FAYA
Waiting? I haven’t been waiting. You’ve actually been waiting?
TANNER
Yes! And imagining. And wanting and….
FAYA
Thinking about this…what…every day?!
TANNER
Mostly at night. And there’s nothing to stop us now.
FAYA
Age, Tanner and…the thought that we could lose what we have, and I need what we have. I treasure it. Please, PLEASE go to Istanbul.
TANNER
You know what I’ve been thinking of?
FAYA
Stop thinking.
TANNER
We were all at the beach, oh, what, a dozen years ago? And…your bathing suit slipped down. I must have been…58 or so, but I felt…like a boy, a teenager getting a glimpse of….
FAYA
They don’t look like that anymore, Tanner. For god’s sake…and you’re not a boy!
TANNER
I am, that’s what I am with you. I’m this love-struck, aching boy. So, tell me now. Tell me once and for all. You need me in your life, but you don’t want me in your arms? In your bed? Faya, are you through with sex? Do you never have those feelings? Aren’t there times…?
(She closes her eyes. She sighs. He waits.)
FAYA
Yes…times. Now and then.
TANNER
Thank god. When?
FAYA
Mostly…when I…watch a film.
TANNER
A film? What film? You mean…any film?
FAYA
No, you idiot. A film…with…
TANNER
With what?
FAYA
With Javier Bardem.
TANNER
Oh, for god’s sake.
FAYA
It’s his eyes.
TANNER
He’s not real! I’m real and I love you and want you and…it’s time for us. Finally.
(She stares at him a while, her eyes moist now, taking him in, her Tanner.)
FAYA
When Gwen left you for that…ridiculous man, I wanted to hold you and rock you. I did hold you.
TANNER
Yes. I remember. I loved that. It was like CPR. You held on…. You did actually rock me. You saved me.
FAYA
Yes…and I DID want to take you to bed.
TANNER
So you wanted that.
FAYA
Oh, yes. I would weep for you. David heard me at night once or twice and he would ask me, and I would say, “I’m just so sad for Tanner.” Maybe he guessed about my feelings for you, but he never said anything about it, and I never DID anything about it, and now it’s way too….
TANNER
And when David was dying, I was hurting for both of you, and….
FAYA
You were great. You were with us to the end….
TANNER
Yes, but oh, how I wanted to take you away somewhere after all the gatherings and the memorials and the pain, take you far away and bring you peace and love you in every way. But….
FAYA
But we didn’t, and so we held on to what we had. What we’ve always had, and now here you are, shaking everything loose. We could get hurt, you know. We could be giving up something fine….
TANNER
And safe.
FAYA
Yes. Why chance it – at this age?
TANNER
Maybe that’s the point?
FAYA
What’s the point?
TANNER
Now or never – because never isn’t so far away anymore.
FAYA
What if it’s a disaster? Could we come back from a disaster?
TANNER
Don’t say “disaster." You’re jinxing it.
FAYA
Could we come back?
TANNER
I think we could. I think we should take the chance.
FAYA
Am I the only one who’s afraid?
(He stares a while. Then…)
TANNER
No.
FAYA
Well, thank you for that.
TANNER
You’re welcome. So…?
FAYA
So?
TANNER
Should I stay?
FAYA
You mean now?! Tonight?! God no. I need some time to…. I need some time to fit this into my brain, and…think of what to wear.
TANNER
Next week then. It’s a date.
FAYA
Is it? Really? I guess it is.
TANNER
A definite date.
FAYA
Tell me…would you have brought this up if you hadn’t had that extra glass of wine?
TANNER
I…don’t know. But I’m glad I had the wine. And now…let’s be brave. Without any wine.
(She stares a long while, eyes going deep.)
FAYA
So, we’re really doing this?
TANNER
Yes. Please. My place?
FAYA
No. Here.
(He kisses her forehead, then they lightly kiss on the mouth, and he stands.)
TANNER
Maybe you’ll think about me in bed before you sleep tonight.
FAYA
Are you crazy? Who’s going to sleep tonight? I won’t get any sleep for a whole week.
TANNER
Maybe…it doesn’t have to be a whole week.
FAYA
Really?
TANNER
What’ll you be doing tomorrow evening?
FAYA
My granddaughter is coming over to teach me how to put a Zoom together, so…
TANNER
Tuesday I’m giving that talk at the Rotary.
TANNER/FAYA
Wednesday?
(They stare, sigh.)
FAYA
Dear lord.
TANNER
Wednesday evening here. I’ll…bring sushi.
FAYA
I’ll make a salad. Listen to us. So…normal.
(They share a soft smile, move to the door, one more long look. Then he leaves. She sighs again, worried, wondering and…in her eyes, there’s a nearly invisible glow.)
--------------------------------------
Wednesday evening has come. Faya’s doorbell rings. She moves to the door, taking a deep breath, then speaking through the door.
FAYA
Tanner?
TANNER
No. It’s… Javier Bardem.
(She opens the door. He’s standing there with a bottle of wine and a bag of Sushi choices. He’s nervous. So is she. She wears a kind of billowy caftan, covering her from neck to ankles. He’s in a suit with a colored shirt, open at the neck. They both take a deep breath. Soft music is playing on her sound system. She looks him up and down, sternly.)
FAYA
You’re not Bardem.
TANNER
No, he… couldn’t come. I’m the man with the sushi.
FAYA
Well, you might as well come in.
(He walks in and moves toward the sofa where plates and a salad are set out on the coffee table, also water and wine glasses. He places the bag and the wine on the table, studies her.)
TANNER
You look beautiful.
FAYA
No, I don’t. Do I? I didn’t know what to wear.
TANNER
Me neither. I did shower though…twice today.
FAYA
Thank you. I bathed.
TANNER
Oh.
FAYA
“Oh.” Meaning…what?
TANNER
Well…that’s nice. Bathing. It’s sensual. Maybe some…relaxing, scented bath salts, maybe some very…very smooth cream for your skin….
FAYA
I put the cream on the night stand, for us. In case….
TANNER
You did?! You really did that?!
FAYA
Yes.
TANNER
That’s a wonderful idea!
FAYA
Don’t lose control.
TANNER
Of COURSE I’m going to lose control. That’s why I’m here. Won’t you…lose control?
FAYA
I don’t know. It…depends.
TANNER
Oh, god – it depends on me, right? Is that fair? What if I fail? It’s been years!
FAYA
I believe it’s a shared responsibility, Tanner.
(He sits on the sofa, staring at his thoughts, worried.)
FAYA
What?
TANNER
I, uhh. I think I’d like some wine.
(He rather hurriedly opens the bottle. She sits beside him.)
TANNER
I brought white because…because of the sushi.
FAYA
Yes. White is fine.
TANNER
Are you nervous, too?
FAYA
Not at all.
(He pauses in mid-pour, staring at her.)
FAYA
Of course, I’m nervous, Tanner! Of course. I’m jumping inside. I couldn’t decide on the music. Do you like the music?
(He fills the glasses, listening to the music.)
TANNER
Uhhh. Really? Classical? It’s a little heavy.
FAYA
You would prefer what…Grunge? Ska?
TANNER
Ska would be good.
FAYA
It would?
TANNER
For the…rhythm.
(He sways to an unknown rhythm. She turns to the music system on the side table.)
FAYA
ALEXA…play ska music.
‘ALEXA’ VOICE
Ska – for your pleasure.
FAYA
You think she knows what we’re going to do?
(Tanner is swaying a bit to the music as he begins distributing the sushi, still nervous.)
TANNER
We better start on this.
FAYA
Why are you hurrying?
TANNER
Well, we should eat the sushi.
FAYA
Before it gets cold? Before it spoils?
TANNER
Aren’t you hungry?
FAYA
No. I’ll pick. Here…
(She serves the salad, watching him eating, drinking rather quickly.)
FAYA
Slow down – will you please? Tanner – can we make this just one of our usual evenings together, all right? Just the same, except, at the end, you… don’t leave. Can we try that?
TANNER
Okay. Yes. All right. (DEEP BREATH) We’ll try that.
(They eat, drink, more slowly now.)
FAYA
Mm, very good sushi. Thanks for picking it up. Were they crowded?
TANNER
No. No, uhh, try the wine. It’s Italian.
FAYA
Oh, it’s fine. Mmm. Such a nice country, Italy. Great shoes. Oh, what was it you talked about at the Rotary yesterday?
TANNER
My newspaper days.
FAYA
I’m sure they enjoyed that.
TANNER
Yes, I think so, but then…I told them all about what we were going to do tonight and we had a question and answer.
FAYA
Hm. Learn anything?
TANNER
They all said I should remember to act…ordinary.
FAYA
How’s that going?
TANNER
It’s impossible. What do you think of the wine?
FAYA
The wine is perfect.
TANNER
Let’s…not use that word tonight.
FAYA
What word?
TANNER
“Perfect.” It raises expectations.
FAYA
All right. The wine is…adequate.
TANNER
Thank you. OH! God! This role is spicier than I thought. My lips are burning…
FAYA
They are?
TANNER
Yes!!
FAYA
Show me.
(He stops still, staring at her. She puts her face close to his. He leans in, kisses her lips with his own burning lips. When the kiss ends, they stare, deeply.)
TANNER
Are my lips still…hot?
FAYA
Actually…they’re perfect.
(She smiles a bit, stands. He stares at her, and then he slowly stands. They come close. He puts his hands on her shoulders, gently.)
TANNER
So…you’ll tell me what you like and…don’t like. All right?
FAYA
Yes…I’ll just…bark. Once for good. Twice for bad.
(They both smile. He softly kisses her neck. She likes that. She BARKS. He laughs, holds her more tightly. They are hugging, then staring deeply. She slowly moves, and he moves with her, walking toward the bedroom doorway. They reach the doorway. She moves in first, holding his hand.)
FAYA
Follow me.
TANNER
Anywhere. Everywhere.
(As she moves through the doorway, she says…)
FAYA
Kilimanjaro.
(They enter the darkened bedroom, smiling, and we’re left outside with Alexa and the ska.)
END
Remote
You may know I’m part of a writing family and so want to mention a new Audible Book by son, Justin, “The Seven O’Clock Man,” a gripping mystery with an excellent narrator, son Nico Rosso’s powerful romantic mystery, “Haunted,” and daughter-in-law Eva Leigh’s many Romance titles, most recently: “Waiting For a Scot Like You.” All available through Amazon. We love to tell you stories.
And here is a mystery of my own for April - with a twist. Hope you enjoy.
REMOTE
By Gerald DiPego
Leonard Defore, 52, is digging out the roots of a dead tree on his property, nearly a mile from the small town of Round Lake, Illinois. It is the beginning of the spring of the year 2012, not yet warm, Midwestern chilly. Leonard is sweating, though, and glad to be sweating. He enjoys physical labor, a passion for him. His old, well-kept home rests on an acre among many trees, mostly planted by himself. He also tends a small garden and repairs his fencing, and he once tried to build a shed all on his own, with blueprints and careful planning, but it was beyond his skills, so he hired a local man and became the willing helper to this builder. He pauses now in the digging of the roots to catch his breath and is held still by a ‘V’ of silent birds in the sky. He is lifted by the sight, watching until the birds are only specks and then continuing with his task, glad to have it, glad for his health and strength but glad mostly for the weariness he’ll feel this night so that if he dreams at all, he won’t remember.
Nearly four miles from Leonard’s home a search party is moving carefully along the banks of a channel that is twelve to fifteen feet wide. Most of the party is made up of police officers. They are in uniform except for their Detective Lieutenant, a woman sent out from the larger town of Waukegan. She is 49, and her name is Bertha Kane. Bertha walks slightly behind the searchers, but her eyes are moving constantly in case something is overlooked. Beside her is another uniformed officer and a woman also in her late forties named Isabelle Shew. Isabelle is searching, too, but her eyes show a deep well of pain because this search is for her son, Charley, a man of 24. Trailing Isabelle is her daughter, Willa, 16, carrying the same stricken look as her mother.
“It’s coming up,” The mother, Isabelle, says. “Where the bank juts out.” “This is his fishing spot?” the detective asks, and Isabelle says, with no life or color to her voice, “One of ’em.” “Have them mark it,” the detective says to the cop beside her, and he moves ahead while the women stand still a moment. “You said you looked at all these places” the detective asks the mother and girl. “Hope we didn’t wreck anything,” the girl says, and the mother turns to the detective and stares, drawing her attention. “I called that man, that… Leonard Defore.” The detective sighs and says, “Didn’t you tell me you’d wait?” Isabelle answers. “Try waiting when it’s YOUR son.”
The detective stares at Isabelle, unhappy, but understanding. “I just don’t want anyone dropping into this investigation out of nowhere, confusing things, giving you false hopes or… I know you’re terribly upset, Isabelle, but let’s give this a chance. This is the procedure. It works.” Isabelle Shew puts her eyes back on the murky water of the channel that is ever sliding slowly toward the lake three miles away. “He said no,” Isabelle says, “but I’m trying again. He helped the police before. It’s my Charley, and I’m not giving up.”
Leonard has read about the disappearance of Charley Shew in the local weekly paper, seen the young man’s photo: “Charles Shew Still Missing After Three Days. Shew was last seen with a man at the Harmony Restaurant on Saturday night. It is believed this man was in the area for a college reunion in Lake Forest. He has not yet been identified.” The same day Leonard saw this, the missing man’s mother had called him. “Anything you can do,” she had said, her voice unstable as though she was shaking. “Anything -- like when you helped the police….” “That was almost 12 years ago, Mrs. Shew.” He had kept his voice gentle, taking in her pain through the phone, thinking of his own daughter and how he would feel. “It was a… just a coincidence….” She had cut him off with “But it’s a chance. I’ll…. Listen, I’ll pay you, whatever you…”
“There was never money involved and… I’m just not able to help. That… part of me is gone, Mrs. Shew. I’m not who I was, and I really, truly can’t help you.” He had heard her ragged breathing, but no further words, and he had said, “Sorry,” and cut the call. Now, this evening, there is a car parking in his drive and now a knocking on his door, and he knows it has to be her. Who else would come there?
She stands one step back from the door as he opens it, and she is holding the drawer to a dresser, full of objects, an old wooden dresser, so it must be a heavy burden, but Isabelle is a large woman, having no trouble with the drawer. Her daughter ,Willa, stands behind her, taller and also thick-set, looking to Leonard somewhat like her missing brother had looked in the photo in the paper. The same fleshy mouth.
“You know who we are?” Isabelle asks. “Yes, but….” Leonard gets no further as she interrupts. “I know what you’re going to say, about… 'that was a long time ago,’ but just imagine, please just imagine if it was your family member, your son or daughter. Do you have kids?” “Mrs. Shew, I… yes, I can understand, and it must be awful, but….” She interrupts again. “In here I’ve got photos of Charlie and his friends and some of the things Charlie wrote. He liked to write stories sometimes, but mostly music, and he moved around with his band, his country band, and there’s pictures of that and some tapes you could listen to. There’s a tape player in here….” “Mrs. Shew,” Leonard begins again, and still she cuts him off. “Call me Isabelle, and this is his sister, Willa, and if you look through this, you just might get a feeling, maybe dream something like you did back then. I read all about it.”
“Twelve years,” he says to her, “and it doesn’t happen anymore, so….” “So, what have you got to lose?” This comes from Willa, whose eyes are tearing, and her mother says, “So you’re saying it’s a million to one that you could be of any help to us at all.” “Yes, I’m sorry, but….” Isabelle extends the heavy drawer toward him, saying, “I’ll take that. I’ll take that million to one. I won’t expect anything. I won’t hold you to anything. It’s just a million to one, and I’ll take that.”
He stares, and then he accepts the drawer because he sees how it strains her arms, holding it out to him, and because this woman and child are so beleaguered, so riven by fear and loss. He takes the drawer, and Willa says a muffled and liquid “Thank you,” and Isabelle only stares and nods, her lips twitching, and then she turns away, and they move toward their car.
He puts the drawer on his kitchen table but doesn’t look through it, not yet. He sighs a great breath and moves about, aimless, turning on lamps because of the thinning of the evening light. He is hungry so he feeds himself early and enters his office and works for an hour at his accounting business, but that drawer is pulling at him, full of a life, full of someone’s stories, someone’s music, full of the hopes of a mother and sister and full of Leonard’s own memories and the brute force of his dreams.
It’s nearly ten o’clock, and he is still looking through the material, the life to date of Charles Shew. He has played two of the young man’s songs. His most recent photos do not stir any memories in Leonard or remind him of any dreams he has had lately. He is now re-reading the brief letter that was put into the drawer by Isabelle: “We didn’t see him much. He came home late last month while his band was scattered and resting, and he had a plan to increase the money they were making, new management, better venues. He was always thinking about it. He would walk all over the area, go to town, see his friends, and go fishing to relax. Perch and bluegill and carp, but we don’t eat the carp.” She’s telling him they don’t eat the bottom fish, the carp. Why tell him that? Because she has nothing else to tell him. So, he studies the recent photos again, taking in that face, the eyes. There is an intensity there. Only one smile, in one photo of Charlie and his sister. He studies the smiling young man and feels nothing at all beyond the sadness and panic of a mother and daughter as the time beyond the disappearance ticks away.
He looks up from the letter because another car has come into his drive, and he feels a tightening in his chest. Isabelle again? Another drawer? Sorry, he says in his mind to the woman, sorry but leave me alone now. Leave me alone. There is a brief, hard, two-tap on his door, and he sighs and rises and pulls it open to see the detective, Bertha Kane. She stares without a smile. There was no photo of her in the paper, but she is holding up a badge briefly, then putting it in her pocket, staring again, making calculations, it seems, her eyes hard on him. “Detective Lieutenant Kane,” she says, and he steps back and she enters, taking in the room. More calculations, practiced, professional calculations. And conclusions? She seems to Leonard to be full of conclusions. She stares at the drawer.
“Heard about that,” she says. “Have you been through it?” and he answers, “Yes.” “And you’ve solved my case?” “I don’t know anything about your case, anything that could help.” “At least you admit it.” She moves to the drawer, studies it, then lifts her eyes to Leonard. “So, are you done, then? Going to call her, tell her you can’t help her?” “I already told her that,” he says, “but she wouldn’t believe it.” “Tell her again,” Bertha says and then asks if she can sit, and he nods, and they both take chairs at the table. He slides the drawer from between them, and they stare, the overhead lamp bathing their faces. His strong jaw and tanned face looking harsh, but her brown skin is burnished by this soft light, as if absorbing it, and he studies her, wishing for a part of a second that they weren’t adversaries, that she was someone who had simply come to call.
“So you had a dream, and you called the police -- that time years ago. Tell me about that, okay?” Her stare settles deep and doesn’t waver. “A man had been killed by a rifle shot,” he says. “The… incident was in the paper. I had seen the man around town, the one who was killed, didn’t know him.” “And...?” “And that night I had a dream. I saw a man holding a rifle, walking toward a barn. And again, it was somebody I recognized from around here but didn’t know.” “So he was walking to a barn.” “Yes, that’s all I saw. He looked… upset, afraid, and… since it was a rifle….” “How many men around here keep a rifle? What made you think…? “Look, Detective, it wasn’t just any dream. This kind of dream is different. I can’t explain it. It has… more weight. I woke up and…. Well, it felt important, ominous. I knew the cops wouldn’t believe me, but I had to tell them, just in case. I figured I’d tell them, and I’d describe the rifle and the man and the barn, and they could do whatever they wanted with the information, or do nothing.”
She sits back, but doesn’t break her stare. “And what did they do, Leonard?” He sighs and holds her eyes. “You know my first name. What’s yours?” “Detective,” she says, and they each show a miniscule smile, her eyes still hard, penetrating. “They did nothing,” he says. “They laughed. But then that afternoon one of them drove out here. They had a few possible suspects by then, and he wanted to take me to one of their homes. I went with him. He stopped the car and nodded out the window. “That looks like the barn you described,” he said, and I said it WAS the barn and that I was sure, and that was that. He drove me home. They got a search warrant, found the rifle in the barn, checked it, and it was the murder weapon.”
“So, you were a hero?” “No, a freak.” Their eyes hold a long time, then he goes on. “Half my accounting clients left me. I gave up the office. Had to work from here.” “Two years later, you and your wife separate. Was that related?" “You’re out of your territory,” Leonard says, and after another long look, he asks, “You want some coffee, a drink?” She ignores the question and says, “There is no, NO hard evidence that what’s called ‘remote viewing’ even exists.” “Of course there isn’t,” he says. “It might go on in my dream state for a few seconds, maybe five, maybe ten at the most, and then it’s gone.” “How many times for you, Leonard?” He knows he doesn’t have to answer, but he likes having her at his table, in his home, in that burnishing light. “For me, it’s always at night, always a dream. Eleven times I’m sure of, other possible events that… I can’t swear to.” She nods a while, then says, “So you see something happening somewhere else?”
“I’m going to have a drink,” he tells her, standing, moving to his cabinets. “Got Scotch… Bourbon…. You in?” “Bourbon," she says. "Water.” While he’s pouring, he begins. “One time in my twenties, I’m having a hell of a dream. I’m up high, looking down. I see a… spectacular sight, a big navy ship, a carrier, and it’s on fire: chaos, sailors jumping off the deck.” He places the drinks, sits again. He sips, waits until she does. “Then I was ON the deck, inside the chaos, right there. I woke up… amazed at that dream, how real it was. Shook me. I got up, had my day, put on the TV at night. 'Australian Aircraft Carrier Burns At Sea.’ So… what do you think? Coincidence?”
“Has to be,” she says. “No,” Leonard says flatly. “No, it went too deep and it was too exact.” “Coincidence,” she repeats, and he says “So then I’ve had, over the years, eleven coincidences, right?” They sip their drinks, not breaking their stares. She leans closer, elbows on the table. “So now you’re going to dream what happened to young Charley Shew. You’re going to tell me where to look and solve my case. OR… you’re just going to give a mother and sister some false hope for a while, string out their misery so when they fall apart it’ll be even worse for them. All for what? What do you get? “I would never ask money for this,” he says. She sips her drink again and stands. He stands. She begins to leave, then stops. “Maybe there’s something else you want.” “What?” She waits, then gives it to him. “Worship.” He says “Bullshit,” and she opens the door, then turns to him once more. “Anything you SEE or DREAM or even THINK about this case, you bring it where, you bring it to who?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “You won’t tell me your name.” It takes her a moment. “Bertha Kane.” “I’ll tell YOU Bertha. I’ll bring it to you before anybody. “Good boy,” she says, and leaves.
He dreams nothing that night, or forgets it by daylight, but he would have known if he had had a "viewing." Those are not forgotten. He remembers clearly the punch of those dreams, and that punch has not come for… three years now. He avoids the dresser drawer. There’s nothing more to see. He throws himself into the digging out of the small, dead tree and finishes too early, with too much time to think. He saws the wood into fireplace logs, takes a walk almost all the way to town, and comes back along the hills.
While he’s walking through the weeds, he scares a pheasant that blasts into the sky, shocking him, and he watches its flight as his heart bashes his chest. What is he afraid of, he wonders, but in truth, he knows.
At this same time, the police are continuing their slow search of the channel banks. They have found two items and called Isabelle Shew, and she is there with Bertha now, examining a few partial footprints in the mud, three stepped-on cigarette butts – Charley’s brand – and an empty bottle of high-end whisky, too expensive for Charley’s choice. All is bagged for the lab. Bertha looks about now, as she talks to Isabelle. “Looks like two men sat here, looking across the channel. Not much to see. Had a mostly full moon that night.” “So, what do YOU think happened?” Isabelle asks, her jaw out and stiff as if waiting for a blow. “Still can’t tell,” Bertha says. “But the weeds here, these smashed weeds…. It looks like they kept going on down the channel.” Both women look along the bank, where, just forty feet away, is a stand of willow trees, delicate, dancing slightly with the breeze. “Isabelle… I need to know if Charlie was gay or bisexual.” “Jesus, no. No!”
“It’s not a judgement,” Bertha says. “we’re wondering why two men came to this bank and lingered here. Could’ve been just a talk.” “Yes, a talk,” Isabelle says, her voice louder now. “Of course it was just a talk.” Bertha doesn’t answer, but takes some slow steps toward the willows, following the searching policemen.
It’s not an ordinary dream, but how to describe the difference? For Leonard there is an overall sense of alarm. There is a stripping away of everything non-essential, down to basic images only. There is a weight, a palpable weight to these images, sounds, feelings, and there is a steady and stable viewpoint. For this dream, Leonard’s viewpoint seems to be the back seat of a car -- though he does not feel he is seated.
He is just there. His presence is there behind the driver of the car, and it is night, and he can see part of the man’s head and his right ear and jacket collar, and he can see the man’s right hand on the steering wheel, and he can hear the sound of the car moving, the engine, the tires on the road. He studies this unchanging event, this driving along on some road somewhere, and he notices that there is a flurry of snow outside the front window, but not enough so that the driver turns on the wipers. Leonard sees all of this, sees the man’s hand with a ring, a small portion of the side of the man’s face, which is not clean shaven, the facial hair not long enough to be called a beard. He watches the man’s hand lift from the wheel, the man’s right hand, with its ring, and the hand elongates a finger and the finger touches a button on the dashboard and there is a quick slice of music that is jarring in the purring car, and the dream ends. It has lasted approximately eight seconds.
In waking from the dream, Leonard sees that there is no early light on the shade of his window. He guesses that it’s three or four in the morning. He feels the aftermath of the dream and notices his breath is short, his chest pounding, and he knows, he simply knows, that he has been somewhere else. His consciousness has been in an actual car with an actual man on an existing road, and he knows he will not fall back asleep this night. He rises and turns on the heat and gets back beneath the covers and studies every slice of every second of the dream.
At eight in the morning Bertha Kane is walking the channel area, a paper cup of coffee in her hand that is too hot to drink. There are six officers and five volunteers with her. Her phone sounds, and she trades hands with the coffee and answers. It is Leonard Defore, saying, “I dreamed last night. I saw things.” “Leonard, I ‘m at the channel. I have to keep my mind on the work here.” “I’m coming there,” he says. “No,” she answers. “I’ll call you when we’re done.”
“I’m coming there,” he says, and cuts the call.
He’s there in twelve minutes, and she is not happy, but sees how different he is, tightened and… is he shaking? So she allows the conversation as she keeps her eyes on the searchers. “So tell me your dream, and then leave me alone.” “You first, please,” He asks. “Tell me what’s new that you didn’t know when we talked? Please, Bertha.” She sighs, still watching the search, and she takes a tentative sip of the too hot coffee. “The other man’s name is Daniel Frieberg, 34, and yes he was at the Lake Forest reunion. People in the bar described him, tall, thin….” Leonard presses in. “You have a photo by now, right?” “Why show you that,” she asks. “YOU describe him, Leonard. Tell me about YOUR 'viewing' first.” “I will. I will, but go on, all right?”
“People in the bar saw Frieberg and Charlie Shew talking for about an hour, then they left together, about eleven o’clock.” She puts her eyes on Leonard now, sees the tight focus, the slight but definite trembling, and feels a wisp of sorrow for him and wonders if he might be insane. “Describe him, Leonard. You first,” she says this matter-of-factly.
“In my dream I was behind the driver of a car, behind, so I didn’t see the face. Jacket with the collar up, leather and… light tan. Car was… low to the ground, small, expensive looking. I saw his right hand on the wheel, saw a ring….” He sees that she has deepened her stare. “Describe the ring,” she says, “and the watch he was wearing.” “I didn’t see the watch….” She interrupts him. “You didn’t see anything. You just dreamed it.” “I SAW only his right hand, and I… drew the ring.” He takes a folded paper out of his shirt pocket, but doesn’t show it to her. “You first,” he says. She waits, then says, “solid gold wedding band, small diamond in the center.”
He shows her his drawing. There are arrows pointing at the ring with the words “gold” and “diamond inset.” She stares at this a long time. “Are you playing me, Leonard? Do you have access to the information I’m getting…? “No. I don’t." What else about Frieberg?” She is thrown by that drawing and hesitates, then… “Lives in Columbus, Ohio, attorney, recently divorced. His wife moved out and took the children. There is a restraining order against him. No violence, but… a bad temper. This is him.” She finds a photo on her phone, turns it to him, tall skinny man in a suit, goofy smile. Leonard nods, then looks back to her, his eyes asking for more, and she decides to go on. “He had planned to fly in for the reunion, but decided to make it a car trip, take some days, so… the law firm isn’t happy. He hasn’t kept in touch with them or with his wife. He doesn’t answer his phone. Listen… I don’t know what this is, Leonard, but it feels like I’m being had. You got the jacket right… and the car, the ring. How did you do that?”
“I told you. I told you everything,” he says. “But you just won’t believe it.” “Okay,” she says, challenged now. “Okay, you say you SAW Daniel Frieberg in his car -- so where is he? Huh? Then I’ll believe it. Tell me where he is.” He stares, then… “He’s somewhere where it was snowing last night, a light snow.” “A light snow… that’s what you’ve got?” He turns and begins walking away and she calls after him. “Give me something I can move on. Snow? He could be in Canada by now. He could be in friggin’ Alaska!” He walks on toward the road and his parked car.
He has been home for two hours and has taken everything out of the dresser drawer and spread it on the table and checked the items one at a time, taking them in, taking in Charlie Shew in pieces, in moments. Then, one by one, he puts each item back in the drawer, slowly, studying it again as he runs the dream in his mind, each second of the dream, each half-second. He only stops when he hears a car and thinks it might be Bertha, and he opens the door, but it is the girl, Willa Shew, staring hard at him as she approaches, her face dulled down even further now by the waiting and the strained hoping.
He steps back from the door, but she only stands there and says a muffled. “Anything? We want to know if you found anything, if you… have anything to say.” What he says is “Please come in,” and she does, staring at the drawer on the kitchen table. “Been through it?” she asks. “Couple of times,” he says, but he’s not looking at the drawer. He’s studying her, Willa, sister of Charley, staring at the resemblance. “Are you about… Charlie’s height?” She nods. “Almost.” “Weight?” he asks, and she nods again. “Can you show me your hands, Willa?” She stares, and he nods, and she does, and he looks at them, at the three rings, at the thickness of the fingers. He stares at this, at all of her, and he’s deep inside the dream, and he is wondering. “Do you mind turning around, please?” She does. “And… move the hair away from your neck, your… right ear,” and she does -- and then her phone sounds. It’s a rock tune, and she swipes it and puts it to her ear, “Yeah?” And then she’s suddenly stock still, and then she’s falling, sinking to her knees on the floor, her face all pulled together and the eyes wet and her throat wet as she says, brokenly, “They found Charley’s body!”
He offers to drive her to the channel, but she shakes her head and hurries out the door, runs to her car. He turns back to the drawer and looks at everything, at nothing.
Leonard drives to the channel road and parks and walks toward the group just beyond the willows. He is surprised by how slowly the three police are moving, under Bertha’s direction, moving through the weeds, uncovering the ground so that nothing is overlooked and nothing is destroyed. They have roped off the area. What can be seen so far is blood, one small glimpse of muddy skin, the mostly buried jacket of Charlie Shew. Bertha has insisted that the mother and sister are far enough back from the delicate digging that they see nothing. They sit on the ground, Isabelle covering her face with her hands as Willa holds her. Leonard passes them and moves toward the burial until a cop calls sharply, “Sir!”
Everyone looks up, and Bertha’s angry look screws into him. “You don’t belong here, Leonard. Back off.” He stares at her and says, not shouting, “It isn’t him.”
Nobody moves, then Bertha takes a step toward him. “Move, or I’ll HAVE you moved.” “It’s not Charley,” he says. “It’s Frieberg,” And then he does turn and he does walk away, and the faces follow him and then turn back to the burial. “Rafael,” Bertha says to one of the plain-clothes cops, “uncover the face. Go gently.” The cop nods and carefully pulls away dirt and dead leaves, twigs and bugs, until…. The cop stands straight and stares at Bertha. Further back from the body, Isabelle and Willa stand, trying to see. The cop says….“Frieberg.”
When Leonard reaches his car, he hears someone running and turns as one of the cops shouts. “Stay in your car, sir. The lieutenant says stay in your car!” Leonard nods to him, enters his car, shuts the door rolls down the window and waits. It’s twenty minutes before she comes. Time enough for his intensity to slacken, his trembling to disappear. He feels very tired now. The sun has moved and lays on his shoulder, the side of his face. He turns when Bertha comes, but she walks around to the passenger side and opens the door and sits before she looks at him. She takes her time. “Let’s hear it,” she says.
“It was the ring that got me, as I thought about it, went over and over what I saw. You told me it was a wedding ring, so why wear it on the right hand, on the little finger? So I went through the most recent photos of Charlie. He has a ring, a kind of Native-American ring on his third finger, left hand. So, if he took a ring, he might put it on his right hand, that’s true, but Frieberg was a thin man, and… Charlie’s hands are thick, just like Willa’s. So, he would put a ring like that on his little finger, where it would fit -- until he could sell it. And all this… it led me to study that neck, that ear that I saw. It was more hefty, not a thin man. So…. So that’s it.”
Bertha’s stare has not changed. She opens the door, but doesn’t leave for a moment. Then she does, but before she closes the door, he says, “You just can’t do it, can you?” And she puts her eyes back on him. “You just can’t take that step,” he says, “That step over the line. Can’t let yourself believe, right?” She takes a long time, then says, “I’ll let you know, Leonard,” and she closes the door and walks back toward the channel. He watches her.
He hears nothing from her for six days. He hears nothing from the Shew family and so delivers the drawer, leaving it at their front door. He’s grateful that he hears no more from the police and nothing from the local newspaper. He plants a new tree. When Bertha calls, she says she’ll be in the area Friday, seeing the Shews, and she’ll come by his place after. Ten o’clock? He says he’ll be there.
He already has the drinks poured when she comes. He makes sure it’s the same seating at his table because he remembers how the light was like a low flame on her dark skin, and he enjoys that again. He waits. She’s quiet, then begins without any urgency. “Charley Shew didn’t come home to rest. He came home to try and borrow money from his mother, from Willa, too. He was using, and the band kicked him out. So, he meets this wealthy lawyer with the fine car and the gold watch and the ring and… he got drunk and went for it. Maybe it was going to be just a knock-down and a steal. Maybe Frieberg fought hard. Death by chokehold. Quiet. We got him in Minnesota where he tried to sell the car. Y’ know… Isabelle and Willa… they said they hate what he did, but they’re glad he’s alive. That’s how they put it.”
He nods. They drink again. She sighs a long one. He smiles just a bit, studying her. “Am I going to see you, Bertha? I’d like to see you.” Her stare lingers. “Oh, you’ll see me, Leonard.” She lets a pause fill in, then says “In your dreams.” It’s the biggest smile he’s had from her, and he loves it.
#
Gateway
Wow. My monthly ‘stories for shut-ins’ has nearly reached the one year mark. Thanks for being there, readers. Here’s one for March. Be well and safe.
Wow. My monthly ‘stories for shut-ins’ has nearly reached the one year mark. Thanks for being there, readers. Here’s one for March. Be well and safe.
GATEWAY
by Gerald DiPego
Heather Wentley, age 54, is sitting in the living room of her small condo, looking at bookshelves that reach nearly to the ceiling. Several hundred stories there, more than a thousand characters, some whom she knows very well, others still to be discovered if only she had the time. She can almost hear the mingled voices from the shelves murmuring like a swift river. She is alone in her home and mostly alone in her life, except when she’s teaching her high school classes, English, and Literature, of course.
Her husband left her years ago and remarried. Her daughter lives only twenty-two blocks away, but they mostly speak on the phone, mostly when Heather calls, checking in. If she didn’t check in with Meg once a week, would they speak at all? She supposes, yes. At some point Meg would look up from her work, from her husband, from her friends and wonder about Mom. Wouldn’t she? They were very close until Meg entered her mid-teens, the I-hate-my-mother phase. Well, it wasn’t hate, of course, but it wasn’t a phase, either. It was during the time that Heather’s husband was leaving her. She let him string it out, to go to another woman and come back, twice, instead of pulling him off of her heart quickly, like a BandAid. Meg had been furious at her, and then, finally, less openly angry but more detached, like a visitor in the home, until she went to college. The breach never healed.
Heather’s closest friend, Nica, moved away three years ago. She called Nica first to tell her the news. They wept on the phone, and Nica said she was coming to be with her, but Heather said, “No, please, later. I have to…I need to…I don’t know, just sit with it, take it in. Then of course I’ll need to see you, Nica, and be with you, but I know you’re very busy.” Nica swore at her, and then they laughed and wept again.
There is a fellow teacher that Heather dines out with once a week. This is Ellen, who tells Heather everything about her life and never asks a question. Heather has called Ellen to tell her she can’t make their dinner this evening, and then, before the voicemail ran out, she told her the reason and swore her to complete secrecy. She knew Ellen would call her when she looked at her messages, probably after school.
Now she sits with her phone in her hand, looking at her books and into her books. What novels would you read or re-read if you had time for only three…maybe five? She has already tapped in Meg’s phone number. Her finger rests on the call circle. She starts to practice what to say, but then cancels that and just makes the call.
“Hi, Mom, what’s up? “I’m sorry to break in on your work, Meg, but I need you to come over.” “Why?” “I’ll tell you when you when you get here, honey. What time do you think you can come?” “Tell me now. I’m swamped, as usual.” “I have to tell you when you’re here. Please.” “Are you all right?” “I’ll tell you when you’re here.” “Now you’re scaring me, Mom.” “Don’t be scared. Something to discuss. I…need your opinion.” “And you can’t just tell me?” “Sorry, no. When can you come?”
In twelve minutes, Meg arrives. They don’t hug. Heather puts a hand on Meg’s shoulder and smiles at her daughter, who is worried and waiting. Heather begins telling her as they walk to the sofa. “I hadn’t had a medical check-up in two years, and now they have these long questionnaires. You have to get there fifteen minutes early just to….” “Are you sick? Just tell me, Mom.” They’re sitting on the sofa now. “I am telling you, Megs.” They were ‘Megs and Ma’ for years. Heather holds on to that time by still using the nickname. “So I checked the box that said ‘former smoker,’ and because of that they looked at my lungs.” “And?” “And…there’s cancer in there.” “Jesus, Mom.” Meg’s eyes now, suddenly, have a skein of tears. She takes her mother’s hand. “What…what do they say about it? What do they suggest?” “It’s metastasized,” Heather tells her. Now both of them have tearing eyes, and Meg’s lips shake, and she tightens them for a second and then says, “So what happens, Mom? What’s next?”
Heather takes a long breath that shakes in her chest, and Meg’s tears, two single tears, are now moving down her face. “Mom?” “Well, Honey, now I decide if I want the chemo…or….” “Or what, Mom?” “Or if I don’t.” “What happens if you don’t?!” Heather has trouble saying the next sentence, and her daughter is slightly trembling now, her hand gripping her mother’s hand as if to hold her, to keep her. Heather says, “Three to five months.” “Months! Three to five months?!” Heather nods and her daughter takes her other hand and squeezes it so that it hurts. Meg is openly weeping now and shaking her head. “Well, Christ, Mom! Let’s get you into that chemo! Now! And we should get a second opinion, and soon, and….” “I did that, honey, and listen, the chemo…will be rough, and….” “You can’t be afraid of the chemo, Mom! The chemo is life!” “The chemo…gives me about a year,” Heather tells her. “That’s their guess.” “Well, Jesus! It’s just a guess, Mom! And it’s a chance! It could make it go away…or stop growing. That happens. You know that happens – like Uncle Dan. Remember? So, you have to take it, Mom. It’s your chance! Let’s call your doctor, call him now. Right now!”
“It’s a woman, Dr. Nashine. She’s…very good, and….” “Call her now, Mom, or I’ll call her. Give me her number. I want to talk to her and…. Let me take over. Let me do this. Let’s call her. There are new drugs developed all the time! You know that! Let me get you started!”
She stares at her daughter, who is back with her now. It’s all back now, the early years, the depth without the darkness and the pain, and Heather smiles through her tears to see this and welcome it. “Honey…Megs…all right. Thank you, but….” “But what?” “I just…before I jump into all this, I need some time.” “Mom! Time? We have to start this now!” “All right, but…just…a few days for me, a few peaceful days.” “But I’ll get it going, though, Mom. I’ll get it set up.” “All right, Meg, but…let there be a little time first, my time to just…be, or to go somewhere and…I don’t know.”
“Where would you go? And why?” “It sounds crazy,” Heather says. “I’ve been thinking about things I always wanted to do and never did. We were going to do it as a family before that fell apart, and then you and I were going to go….” “Go where?” “To the Arch, remember? In St. Louis, that massive arch, the “Gateway to the West.” “Jesus, Mom.” “Yes, silly maybe, but I want to stand there and look at it.” “Go all the way to St. Louis?” “It’s only about an hour and a half by plane, and I’ll stand there and…. It’s something I want to do. I always wanted to do it, and I feel okay, you know. I really do, so…don’t fight me about this, all right?” Meg stares at her, being still for a moment, and Heather sees the battle in her daughter’s eyes. Will she keep pushing or not? “Do you want me to come with you, Mom?” Heather smiles, “You never gave a damn about the Arch. No. I don’t want to drag you there. I’d be standing there feeling guilty. This is for me. So…two days and I’ll be back here.” “And I’ll have it all set up, Mom, and it’s going to work! You’re going to beat this! Right?” Heather stares and then gives her daughter what she wants, gives her the nod.
They did hug then, a grand one before Meg left, long and tight, a mother pressed against the woman who had come from inside of her and was still, and would always be, a part of her, and then Heather had thought about the word ‘always,’ and then she stopped thinking about it, about anything, warding off thoughts like a swarm of bees and getting her jacket and beginning a long, mid-morning walk to the park.
She’s half-way there now, and this is where she stops. A family passes her, moving around her like water around a rock, but she’s not watching them. She steps to the side and stands there, the engine of her mind moving on, moving ahead, clutching at…. Why not go now, today? Use today. Go home and check the internet for flights to St. Louis. She bats away the misgivings that come: Now? Today? Bats them away and thinks it through and looks at the time. It’s only 10:30. She could BE there in a matter of hours, standing there beneath the Arch. It’s a place to stand, a special place because she wished it, waited for it, and, standing there, time would stop a while, just a while. She’s been feeling…pushed, pushed ahead, through all the medical testing, and now with the chemo that’s looming. She needs to stop in a special place that is just for her and breathe.
She’s walking home now and planning. Find the flight and book it. Find a hotel in the area. Oh, and the school. She hasn’t been teaching because of the testing and the meetings with doctors, and she so misses it, and her chest tightens when she faces the thought that has come and gone for days, the possibility that she might not teach again, ever. How she would long for it, and the students, some of them whom she has taught for the last three years and are seniors now…. She thinks about saying goodbye, or just saying…that she has to take care of some medical procedures so will not be back with them for a while, just that, only to one class, the seniors whom she knows from the past years. A few of them matter more to her, matter like friends. Yes, just that one class at one o’clock, step in just as the hour is beginning, before the substitute starts the lesson, just before that, she would say her brief piece and be looking, especially, at the four or five who feel close to her, so they’ll know, they’ll see how she cares for them. It won’t be in her words. She is not very good at saying such things, but they’ll see it, in her eyes, she hopes, and then she’ll step out, leave the school and drive to the airport.
She’s walking down the so-familiar school hallway now that smells of…what? Smells of itself, of the kids, of the cleaning solution, and the food and the…22 years of her own life. There are still students entering her classroom, though it’s nearly time to begin, and she follows them in and moves toward the substitute who is at the board, a man who has been at the school on and off for the last two years. He is surprised to see her, too surprised, somehow, his eyes going wide and so deep, as if….
“I…Heather, I…I’m so…. It’s good to see you. And…I’m so…. Let me say I’m so very sorry for what you’re going through.”
She stares at him, while students are taking their seats, but quietly, and she follows the thought…he knows, and she comes to her conclusion. “Ellen,” she says. “Ellen Howard was…not supposed to tell….”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry. She was upset and….”
“And now the whole school knows,” Heather says. It’s not a question, but the man nods his head. She takes a deep and shaking breath and turns to the students, who are all staring at her. She sees the ones she cares dearly for. Sees Shana biting her lip, her eyes tearing. Sees Leon, who looks stunned, and Doreen and the others…. She smiles at them all, a deep but nervous smile.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I…I’m going to be absent a while because of a health issue, so I wanted to say...I have really…really enjoyed teaching you, and Mr. Zane will carry on until….”
The bell to begin class interrupts her, though it’s not a bell anymore but I kind of chime, and Heather waits and picks up her speech again. “Mr. Zane will carry on until I come back, so, bye for now and…be well. Have fun.” It’s all she can manage and she has to turn then and walk to the door. It wasn’t what she wanted. It wasn’t “Goodbye Mr. Chips,” but it was all she had. She hears someone approaching her just before she opens the door to leave, and she turns, and it’s Shana, with her unabashed tears, and the girl spreads her arms and hugs Heather, and Heather hugs her, too, though it’s against the rules. She feels a soft jolt as Shana’s body moves in her grip, a single, voiceless sob. They stare, and then Shana hurries back to her desk, and Heather opens the door, upset by the emotion, upset because they know. Everyone knows. She’s moving down the hall when she hears the door open behind her and sees that it’s the boy, Leon, who is walking toward her, so she stops. He doesn’t come close, just stares, and then….
“Mrs. Wentley, I stole that book. I gotta tell you. I kept it and said I lost it, and I’m sorry.” She had taken it from the library for him, “The Catcher in the Rye,” and he had read it and told her it was his favorite book of all and always would be, and told her he had lost it. “I wanted,” he says to her slowly, “to have that very book. The one you handed me, and…not get it at a book store to keep, but to keep that one, but I’ll give it back to you now if you….”
“Leon….”
“I’ll leave it with the school or come to wherever….”
“Leon…keep the book. Please. Keep the book.” They stand and stare then, and she doesn’t want to weep or say something foolish, so she smiles and nods and turns and keeps walking, and as she walks, she thinks of what she could have said, should have said, and is reminded of all the times this has happened to her, the words coming too late, but this time she stops and turns, surprising herself, and he’s still there, still watching her. She takes a few steps toward him and he walks forward to meet her.
“Listen, Leon…I want you to read that book again ten years from now. Promise me, and then read it again ten years later. A book like that will teach you a lot about yourself. Will you do that?” His dark eyes are moist as he nods. She touches his shoulder and then turns and walks on down the hall. She hears him enter the classroom and close the door as she is approaching Ellen’s room, and she hesitates, angry at the woman, angry at the telling of her secret and angry for all the years, for all of Ellen’s talking without listening. She could open the door. She could ask her to come out into the hall. But she doesn’t. She walks on out of the school and approaches her car, where her luggage is stashed, and she slides behind the wheel, and, as she punches in the GPS for the airport, she notices that her hand is shaking, and she stares at that a moment.
During the flight she had been ready to say, “Oh, I’m taking a trip just to see that Arch, you know, the Gateway to the West,” and then she imagined the rest of the conversation, which would not contain her cancer and possible death, but she only traded smiles with her seatmate and the flight attendant, and all the prepared words stayed within her in case she would meet someone at the hotel.
In her hotel room, she unpacks her suitcase, preferring to have her things in drawers, preferring the neatness and also the feeling that she is actually away. She calls Meg, mostly to let her know she is feeling fine, and Meg begins telling her of coming appointments and more tests, and she says, “I’d rather leave that all to you, Megs, okay? And I thank you.” She hopes her daughter might pick up on the old nicknames: Megs and Ma, but she still doesn’t, only asking Heather to please not tire herself.
After Meg, she listens to a new voicemail from Ellen, who has obviously been talking to Heather’s substitute about the school visit today: “I’m so sorry, Heather. You know I’m sorry. I was just so stunned and…I know I wasn’t supposed to tell, but, god, when I heard your voicemail I just broke down. You know me – I’m so easily shaken, and you certainly shook me. You can’t believe how shaken I was, to hear this news on my phone and…I’m not the kind of person who can just…. It shook me badly, Heather, but I made sure…I TOLD people not to say anything. I’m sure I did, so….” The voicemail runs out, and Heather’s finger hovers over the call back area, but instead she kills her phone, afraid she is still too angry and might go overboard with Ellen and hurt her feelings. She considers calling her parents, then, and imagines them taking in the news. There were so many times when Heather had to clamber so hard to be seen by them, felt by them, that she finally gave up and lived her own quiet existence among them. They’ll feel put upon, she thinks. Oh, they’ll be struck by it and saddened by it, but somewhere underneath all that, they’ll feel put upon. She delays calling them.
She doesn’t want any thoughts of conflict now. She wants rest and peace and decides that she will walk around in the area of the hotel, take her time, have a meal, a drink? She will save the Arch for tomorrow, when the sun is bright and she has the full day to study it from every angle, and take the tram and go inside the museum and.… Because, after all, it’s her chosen sight, her chosen place to be before…before it all begins, and before (she couldn’t avoid thinking it) before it all ends, and so she will take her time with the Arch and…take it in like a book, one of her favorites, feel it fill her, slowly, this Gateway, gateway to what? To everything, to whatever comes.
The next day is a perfect sunny day, and Heather now sits on a bench in the Gateway Arch National Park, staring again at the structure as she has stared at it all day from every vantage, and she has already taken the tram and been through the museum and later tonight she will take in the sight of it from a riverboat. She still holds the brochures she has read and the photos she has purchased because they’re better than the images she now has on her phone.
She does love the arch – as a structure, as an art piece, as a bold rendering in metal flung into the sky, a gleaming statement, one hell of an accomplishment. She praises it for all of that, but a four-word line in one of the brochures has put her off, and all her thoughts keep bumping into those words. These thoughts are interrupted by a woman who asks if she’ll take a photo of her and her husband with the Arch as a background. She agrees, and the woman hands her a phone as she and her husband thank her and take their position. Heather stands, moves, and finally goes down on one knee to capture the couple and the top of the arch, her move a kind of genuflection to the structure and the moment.
When they gather over the photo, the couple is very pleased, and the three of them then stand and study the arch because it is thrilling and must be seen and seen again.
“Isn’t it wonderful,” the woman says, and the man says, “Mmm” as he nods, and Heather says “It’s everything I wanted it to be.” They all nod, and Heather wonders if she should mention the brochure and the words that have tripped her, but why spoil the moment, and then the woman says, “And to think of all the covered wagons moving on from here, all those journeys.” “Tough times,” the husband says, and Heather says to herself – what the hell, and then begins. “There are some words, though, in this brochure that…make me stumble. Where it talks about the people moving out from here and “Winning the West.” The couple has moved their stares from the Arch to Heather, wondering. “If something is ‘won,’” Heather says, “that means that it’s also “lost.” Who was it won FROM? Well, it’s obvious it means the Native Americans. It means they lost it and we won it, and that troubles me. That’s a black mark on our history, like…all the black marks where native peoples were…pushed aside or worse. Wouldn’t it have been great if instead of the Winning of the West it could have been the Sharing of the West?”
They stare at her, and then they both nod, understanding, if not pitching in, and Heather goes on. “It’s not that I don’t celebrate the pioneers and their…guts and their journey, the accomplishments and…oh and I’ve loved the various books about those people and their hopes and struggles…. ‘Oh, Pioneers’ and ‘Cimarron,’ even ‘My Antonia,’ and, oh, ‘The Way West’ by, uhh, Guthrie, and…” Now here Heather notices something familiar, something she’s seen for many years in her classroom. The man and woman’s eyes are very slightly glazing over and she’s losing them, and it makes her smile at herself, the teacher, going on and on, and then here comes the glaze. She smiles openly and says, “It’s been very nice meeting you.” And the couple says the same and thank her and move off. Heather sits on her bench and puts her eyes back on that arch winging across the sky. What does it remind her of? She wonders and then thinks, well, kind of like…a wishbone up there, a beautiful, shining wishbone. Ok, then…what should I wish for, and she stares, still slightly smiling and then growing more serious as she finds it, finally, her wish.
She calls Meg before she boards the plane and asks her daughter when she can come over, gives her the flight time and Heather’s expected arrival at her home. When she lands, Meg has left a text: “We’re all set up. I’ll see you at 1 pm. We have an appointment at 3.”
This time Heather hugs her daughter at the door, holds her hand, and walks her to the sofa. Meg is already laying out the schedule for the next few days, but Heather says, “Wait…wait. Let’s take a breath, Megs. Okay?”
“Oh, sorry, I just want to bring you up to date. You said you enjoyed the…Arch?
“Beautiful.” They are seated now, and Heather has made tea and there are cookies on the table, but Meg says she has just finished lunch, and Heather sits back and studies her daughter with eyes that go deep and she wears a small, loving smile and hopes that Meg sees the love. “Megs, I hope you know how much I love you, how…deep and full my love is.” Meg stares and her eyes fill and she says two words that have a liquid quality. “Oh, Mom,” and she knows what Heather is going to say. “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you,” Heather asks, and Meg is fully weeping now, and Heather puts a hand on her daughter’s leg, and Meg speaks again. “Oh, Mom. Jesus. I made appointments, I….” I know, honey, and that means you talked to the doctor and so you understand the choices and….” “But there is that chance, that slim, crazy…. Don’t do this, Mom.” “It’s really okay, Megs. It is. It is.” Meg is slowly shaking her head. One of her hands rises quickly to wipe at tears that are falling, and that hand comes to rest on top of her mother’s hand which remains on her lap.
“It’s really okay,” Heather says again, and she watches how her daughter studies her face, and Heather slowly nods, a kind of final nod that says ‘this is happening. It is.’ This causes Meg to shake her head ‘no,’ but it’s not an argument, that gesture. “Mom…you won’t try. You….”
“I’m so certain of this,” Heather says, still carrying her soft smile. “It’s what I want, what I wished for. It all became so clear, honey.” Meg bites her lip to hold back her weeping. “I don’t think of this as giving up,” Heather says. “It’s the opposite for me. It’s reaching for just a little more. More time with my daughter, more time spent with Nica, time for a bit more of life, not in a…hungry or desperate way. In a loving way, Megs. And I know you’ll help me. I need your help. We can learn all about hospice and how that works and how we’ll know when it’s time….” Meg, still staring, weeps audibly now, and Heather reaches out, sliding closer on the sofa, embracing her daughter, and she feels her daughter embrace her and hold tight, and how Heather thrills at that, how she loves that feeling above all others.
“It’s only the ending,” she tells her Meg softly. “It’s like the ending of a very good book, a book that I’ve treasured. The ending isn’t the whole story. It’s just one little piece. There are all those years, all the days that came one by one, all those thriving minutes. That’s the story, and this is the ending I choose for it, honey, my honey, my Megs. Please tell me you understand. Do you?” Meg, tight in their embrace, nods her head, then speaks a liquid “Yeah Ma,” and moves her body, somehow, even deeper into her mother’s arms.
GON FR GD BANTHAR
Before Wyoming was a state, a meeting, an interruption, and …
Read MorePassage
Here’s the next Short Story For Shut-Ins - a What-If story for a Why-Not world. Anything goes. Enjoy.
Be A Movie
Welcome back to our monthly Short Stories for Shut-Ins. The election’s over and we’re at it again. I think it’s time for a comedy. Enjoy.
Be A Movie
By Gerald DiPego
The marriage of Nita and Jax had a three-week window before the pandemic shut the door. They’re both 31. It’s now six months after the wedding -- two stay at homes, deeply in love. They met in acting class. They performed a play together in a small LA theater, and both have credits on series episodes. If you read the cast lists, they’re usually the seventh or eighth name down, but they were both rising, slowly – before Covid. Both have altered names. Nita used to be Juanita, and Jax was Jackson, but they left those lives behind like worn-out shoes.
Their acting class is now Zoomed. They keep in touch with their agents just in case, and they hope and dream and practice, watch many shows and movies, cook together and take turns vacuuming and doing the laundry in their bungalow that used to be his before Nita left her apartment to move in. She had the best bed, and he had the best TV, so they had a garage sale, though they don’t have a garage. They have long talks, they laugh together, they spat now and then, and they make love. They’re sitting on the sofa now, wondering what to do next.
NITA
I took out the garbage.
JAX
(Surprised) Why? You know that’s my job.
NITA
I’m sorry.
JAX
Now what do I do?
NITA
I could make some more garbage.
JAX
Thank you. (He keeps staring, then) Well?
NITA
Well, it takes time. Do you want another back rub?
JAX
My back is like jelly you’ve rubbed it so many times.
NITA
Mine, too. We were going to read the Albee play.
JAX
Too depressing. Is there any garbage yet?
NITA
No, not yet. Want to wash our cars?
JAX
Again?
NITA
How about a Rummy Cubes game?
JAX
(He stares) Are you insane? If we do that, what’ll we do after supper?
NITA
I’m stumped.
(He chuckles, and she joins in.)
NITA
What?
JAX
Such a funny word: “Stumped.” Where did that come from? From a tree stump? Let’s make up new words! (He thinks, then…). Bathom…many, “BathOmany!” Now…what does it mean?
NITA
Uhhh…when there’s more than one person in the tub?
JAX
Good! Yes. You do one.
NITA
Diss….cum…berd. Discumberd! It’s…when you’ve… discovered a cucumber! It’s been Discumbered!
JAX
That’s terrible.
(They laugh, then laugh all over again, then keep their smiles and stare. He puts a hand on her knee. She’s wearing shorts. He slides his hand upward.)
NITA
Jax…we said we’d take a longer break. We said we were losing the fire, and we needed to…
JAX
I know, I know, I know, but…. It’s been… (He looks at his phone) Almost nine hours.
NITA
Like days, we said days…
JAX
We could make it different. On the floor?
NITA
We did the floor three nights ago. It hurt. That’s what started all the back rubs.
(He removes his hand from her leg and sighs, and they sit in silence.)
JAX
Who can we Zoom with?
NITA
We’ve Zoomed with everybody in the world, and it’s too soon to Zoom again. We would all just sit there saying “what’s new with you, what’s new with you,” and nothing is new with anybody, so…
JAX
What about the Hatners?
NITA
We don’t like them. They’re awful.
JAX
You’re right. Sorry. I was lowering my standards.
NITA
I’ve now emailed everyone I’ve ever met in my whole life.
JAX
Yeah, me too. Oh, I found that teacher I loved in eighth grade and was finally able to tell her how much she meant to me.
NITA
That’s great! What did she say?
JAX
She didn’t remember me. (They sit and stare) Hey, let’s watch your nude scene from “Crashout.”
NITA
Partially nude -- and the lighting sucks.
JAX
We could watch MY nude scene from that “Ozark” episode.
NITA
It’s just you taking a shower, and I’ve seen you taking a shower, and you have no lines in that scene.
JAX
Yeah, but I had to BE that person taking a shower. I think I really came out of myself and found the character in that moment. Hey, why don’t WE take a shower, and I’ll show you how I BECAME that guy.
NITA
Will you stop about sex? We both agreed. We both said we weren’t able to hit that Gong the last few times, that holy Gong, that…
JAX
I know, I know. The Holy Gong. God, Nita, what if we never hit it again?
NITA
We will. We will! We just need some time off. We need to be patient. We just need to…
JAX
To sit here and wait. And then sit here and wait. This is like that French play “No Exit.” What if nothing ever happens again? Ever.
NITA
I don’t know. I’m stumped.
(That gets them laughing, and he brightens.)
JAX
Let’s MAKE something happen. Let’s do a movie.
NITA
“Do” a movie. You mean…
JAX
“Be” a movie. We’ll BE a movie. We’ll do a scene. I mean we’ll act it out. In wardrobe and everything. Right here. That movie we watched last week.
NITA
Planet of the Apes?
JAX
No! No, it was before that, Wednesday or…
NITA
LA Confidential.
JAX
Yes! LA Confidential, 1997, Curtis Hanson…
NITA
With Kim Basinger, who I definitely want to play!
JAX
Of course, yes! And I’ll be Russell Crowe.
NITA
Not a sex scene, Jax. This isn’t just a way to…
JAX
No! No! That early scene where he knocks on her door, she lets him in, they have that talk. It’s so…
NITA
Quiet but powerful, so much going on…. Layers.
JAX
We’ll learn it, we’ll rehearse it. I’ll wear my suit, the grey…
NITA
What can I wear to be a beautiful Kim Basinger who’s impersonating a beautiful Veronica Lake?
JAX
You’ll think of something – and you’re just as beautiful as they are.
(One week has passed, and they’ve learned their lines, chosen the wardrobe, and now Jax is returning, masked, from a friend’s home where he has borrowed the last item they need – a real LAPD police badge. He enters, showing it proudly, along with some toy handcuffs, but Nita is on the phone, having a quiet argument, and he walks through to the bathroom, tossing out his mask and washing his hands and face.
When he comes into the living room, she’s off the phone and looking mildly angry and mildly sad. He notices that the lamp by the sofa has a nearly sheer pink scarf thrown over it.)
JAX
That’s a good effect. The lamp. See what I have. (He holds up the badge and cuffs.)
NITA
Great. Perfect.
JAX
What’s wrong?
NITA
Oh, my mom. She said it again, just before hanging up – like a zinger. It’s something they say. I’ve heard it all my life. “Balance the till, Juanita.” Like the cash register, you know…
JAX
What do they want you to do now?
NITA
They want US to volunteer at the Christmas food bank where they volunteer.
JAX
They want us to drive all the way to Silver Lake? That’s not fair. And we do our part. Does she know that we send money to the food bank -- not as much as we used to, but we have to conserve now, so…
NITA
It’s the same old thing, and it hurts me. I mean…I know they love me. Us. But… they think what I do, what we both…. They think acting is trivial. I swear. She wouldn’t say it, but I swear she thinks I’M trivial.
JAX
Bullshit. That’s ridiculous and wrong. It’s wrong, Nita.
NITA
Is it? Is it, Jax? Today I dyed a dress so it looked more like Kim Basinger’s dress, and you went out and got a toy badge -- while people are lining up for food. It’s just…
JAX
Listen…listen, there’s that old saying: give the people bread and circuses. It’s a kind of put-down, but…if you think of bread as the…staff of life, y’know, bread keeps us alive, but the circus feeds us, too. People need circuses in their lives, and that’s us. We’re the circus -- plays, movies, that’s what WE give, so it’s not trivial. It’s filling a need. Deep down.
NITA
(She stares at him a moment.) That’s brilliant. It is! I should call her back. YOU should call her back, tell her your thoughts.
JAX
Well…it was a podcast…by an acting teacher, couple of years ago.
NITA
But…you remembered it. So…good for you, Jax.
JAX
You…really want me to call her back?
NITA
No. Forget that. Forget it. Let’s DO this movie. I’ll show you how the dress turned out. I changed the bodice. (She rises, and Jax pulls out the badge and cuffs again.)
JAX
Wait. Look. The cuffs are toys, but this badge…it’s REAL. (Pause.) So are we, Nita. (She smiles a big one.)
(It’s twilight of the same day. We see Jax step out of the bungalow and stand on the narrow porch. He’s wearing a suit and carries the badge in his hand. He’s doing some deep breathing, getting into character. He knocks on the door. No answer. He knocks harder, raises the badge. He barks this.)
JAX
Open up -- it’s LAPD!
(Just as Nita is opening the door in her provocative dress and studying him with a bemused smile, a woman named LAURIE rushes out of the dark toward Jax, coming across from the yard of the neighboring bungalow, scared as hell. She’s about 35 and wild-eyed.)
LAURIE
LAPD! Thank God! We need you! Please! Over here! He’s crazy!
(Jax turns to the woman, and Nita steps out on the porch.)
JAX
Wait, I’m not…. Hey!
(But Laurie has turned and is running back to her yard where we see, in the glow of a porch light, one BIG MAN is standing over a SMALLER MAN, and now kicking him, which makes the smaller man cry out in pain, makes Laurie SCREAM and makes Jax and Nita….)
JAX
Holy shit!
NITA
Be careful!
(Both rush across the yards to the fight. CHAOS.)
LAURIE
This is the police! He’s the police!
(The big man turns on Jax. Jax thrusts out his badge. The smaller man rises up and kicks the bigger man in the ass. The big man turns on him. Laurie tries to get in between them. She’s shoved aside by the big man. And that pisses off Nita, who…)
NITA
Leave her alone, asshole!
JAX
You’re going down for assault! Get on your knees, dipshit!
(The big man is angry and drunk, and he stares at JAX for a second and then turns to rush the smaller man. Jax takes a step after the big man and kicks him in the back of the knee, which knocks the big man down in the grass. Jax gets on top of him and pulls one of the man’s wrists to the small of his back. He pulls out his fake handcuffs and tries to put them on the man during…)
LAURIE
He’s drunk! He’s terrible! He’s my ex!
BIG MAN
I’m gonna beat the shit out of him!
(The big man is struggling, and Jax is having trouble with the fake cuffs coming apart. Nita rushes in and kneels down near the head of the big man, shouting.)
NITA
Look at me! Look at me!
(She grabs his hair. He looks at her. She lets go of his hair and puts her face close to his.)
NITA
Listen! Are you listening? You’re right on the edge of ruining everything. This second, right now, is when you decide. Is it prison? Or do you go on living the life you’re living? You have one second. Decide!
(The big man starts to cry. Soon his body is heaving with weeping. The others all look at each other. Jax gets off the man’s back and stands. Nita stands. They all watch the crying man, who is moaning now.)
BIG MAN
I’m sorry… I’m sorry…
LAURIE
I don’t love you anymore! Get it?!
(The big man nods his head in the grass. The small man comes beside Laurie, and they hold each other, looking at the Big Man, and then at Jax and Nita.)
LAURIE
Thank you. Thank you so much.
(Jax and Nita nod and start to walk back to their home. Jax stops, turns.)
JAX
Listen…if he comes back or…anything else happens, call 911. Right? Don’t come next door.
(Laurie and the small man nod. Jax and Nita walk to their bungalow and enter and sit heavily on the couch, staring into space as they speak.)
NITA
That was great how you put him down like that.
JAX
That was from my bit in “Law and Order.” Stunt man taught me. And you! That speech. Great.
NITA
From “Orange Is the New Black.” When I played the social worker….
(They turn to each other, holding hands now.)
JAX
I guess we didn’t get to bring the circus, did we.
NITA
Not exactly, but... You know what we did?
JAX
What? What did we do?
NITA
I think maybe we balanced the till, Jax. I think we did.
(They stare, and slowly, they smile, him in his detective suit, her in her Basinger dress. They’re in the low light of that one lamp. There is a kind of glow in the room that I could try to describe, but I’m not going there.)
#
Dark Road
Welcome to another of my Short Stories For Shut-Ins. This is a spooky month so…here you go.
Dark Road
By Gerald DiPego
Just now I took a deep breath, and I realize this is something I do every time I turn onto this road. I was at my job at the lab until seven tonight, late for me, but I don’t mind. I took the highway, as usual, for 32 minutes and then turned onto a well-lit street, Ball Street, for ten blocks, and left that street for this smaller, darker road, badly paved and heavily weeded along its ditches, and I sighed my automatic sigh because there are no lights here, no signs, nothing but black, cracked road and my headlights whipping through trees, weeds and brambles, and in just 14 minutes down this old familiar road I’ll be home.
Home is my favorite place. I admit that. Oh, sometimes I’ll meet friends for dinner and even go out on a date now and then, only three since Meg moved out, which was… about six months ago. Meg said I had turned into just another piece of furniture in the house. When I’m there, I seldom want to leave, feeling relaxed and…safe, I guess. Not that I’m a worrier, just safe from…commitments, from obligations. It’s not a great house, but I love it, not just because it’s quiet. There are plenty of trees and birds around the place, and I have my books there and the TV, all my collections, games, too. Meg and I loved games and…. Well, all the joy wore off for her. She wanted us to go to counseling. I didn’t want more talk, more…obligation. The parting was sad but it didn’t crush me. She calls now and then. She refers to our marriage as three years in a safe-house. She says she’s happier now. I hope so. I guess I thought she was more like me. We married in our early thirties, and she was quiet, too. She says it was me who changed, dug into that home like a fox hole. She’s good at imagery. ‘Fox Hole.’
As I drive, I can feel the house waiting for me, a good feeling. I can – HEY! GOD! I just hit the brakes and almost spun out! There was something in my lights for a second, in the ditch, on my right. It looked like…god, it looked like a person, a body. I’m backing up now but…very…slowly…. I don’t want any surprises. Maybe it’s…. It IS a person. I can see blond hair and a…a torn shirt, a torn blue shirt. A boy? No, a man, a young man, I think, but his face is in the weeds. Is he drunk? Is he dead? I’m looking all around, but there’s nobody, unless someone’s hiding, hiding in the darkness. I lower the side window. He’s just…lying there. I see what could be…could be some blood in his hair. Not sure. What do I…. “HEY!” I’m shouting, hoping he’ll move, hoping he’s lying there drunk, sleeping. “HEY!”
He doesn’t move. I can’t tell if he’s breathing. How can this be happening to me?! I don’t want…. I don’t want this! “HEY!” He still doesn’t move. I look all around me and I listen and there’s nothing moving and no sound but crickets, some wind in the… “HEY, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?!”
What am I doing? Shouting on this road. What if somebody hears me? What am I supposed to…? I don’t want any of this. It’s not my trouble. It’s not my business. I don’t want to have to touch him and…I don’t want to call the police and wait for the police and talk to the police. I don’t want to be mixed up in this at all. It’s not fair. It doesn’t involve me. No matter what this is, it’s not any part of me. I’m just passing by. Someone else will come along in a few minutes. Someone else. THEY’LL stop, THEY’LL take care of it. I’m just… I’m not involved at all. I’m just on my way home.
The idea of home grips and pulls me, like hands, like strong hands. I can just go home. I never saw this. I just drove along, and I never saw this. I just… I find that I’m moving. I am, slow movements, look at me, putting the car in gear, slowly, quietly, then driving away. I don’t hurry. I just didn’t see anything. That’s what I can say if anybody…. I just didn’t see it. Didn’t see him. I was just driving home and I saw nothing, and that’s just what I’m doing now. I’m driving home. My chest is so tight. I have to swallow, have to breathe. I’ll be home soon. In just a few minutes I’ll walk in the door and be home.
I’ve made it all the way to my driveway seeing no other cars, not ahead, not behind me. I pull in and park, and I’m out of the car and trying not to hurry, not to run to the door. I have the key ready. I’m inside now, but I don’t turn on a light. Why not? I should turn on the lights. I’m not hiding. I just drove home from work. I didn’t see anything. I’m home now. I turn on the lights and stand there. What am I expecting? There’s no one here, of course. It’s just my home. I take some breaths, put down my jacket and briefcase. I feel like someone is watching me, but that’s just nerves. It’ll wear off – because here I am, in my house, alone in my house. I drop into my chair, my best chair, and put my feet up on the hassock, use my feet to push off my shoes, and they thud on the carpet. I close my eyes and breathe. I’m home. I think those words and even say them out loud, quietly. “I’m home.”
Closing my eyes is a mistake. I see the ditch, the body. So I look around the house and find comfort in the books, in the cases with my collections, in the old polished wood of the furniture, in the warm light on the walls, and I feel myself easing. I’m not relaxed, but I’m breathing normally and…. I have to push away the questions: what’s happening now in the ditch? Is he moving? Is there someone else there, on the road, staring at him? Are they getting out of their car? Are they pulling out their cell phone?
There’s a remote in reach and I turn on the TV. My favorite music channel comes on, light classical. Rossini, I think. I don’t know, but it enters me and I do start to ease. I do. Because it’s fading, what I saw. It’s in the past. I’m home now and my life has gone on.
I take some deep breaths and try to let Rossini in and keep everything else out, but it’s difficult. My mind is being pulled back to that damn ditch. I walk to the small table I use as a bar, and I pour some Scotch. I take the first sip and feel it warming me, loosening me, but I see my hand is trembling, just a little, but…trembling.
I have a med that relaxes me when I feel uptight, and I step into the bathroom and pull the plastic bottle from the cabinet, take the pill and wash it down with more than a sip of my drink, but not too much, not too fast. I need to slow down.
I move back to my chair and sit, let my eyes close again, ease my breathing, give way to…. It’s Tchaikovsky now, Capriccio Italien. I like this one. I surrender to it, move inside of it.
I wake up suddenly, my breath a clenched fist in my chest. I actually slept. I think I remember a Copland piece and then…. I look at the clock. Just over forty-five minutes went by, and I’m glad, so glad I could drift away like that, but what woke me? And why is my chest so tight again, and then the sound comes, and I realize I heard this while asleep. It crashed into my sleep. Someone’s knocking on the front door.
The whole scene rushes at me, captures me, the ditch, the body, the driving away. I stand up quickly, but don’t move to the door, not yet. What if it IS all about that man, that ditch. I didn’t see anything from the road. I have to act calm. I didn’t see anything at all.
I walk to the door, trying to appear normal, a man relaxing in his home. I speak through the door, making my voice pleasant. “Who is it?”
There’s no answer. I wait. No voice. No knocking. I say it again, louder: “Who is it?” Nothing. Then I hear the knocking again, this time at the side door in the kitchen, and I move there, straining to keep calm. Why would it be about the man and the ditch? I passed that ditch…when…more than an hour ago. But who would knock on my door? A neighbor with a problem? I don’t really know them – my neighbors. I can’t even see their homes from.… “I’m coming,” I shout, and now look through the door’s glass, but see only darkness. “Who is it?”
I open the door, and there’s no one, no one on the side porch. “Who’s there?” I’m shouting now. “Hello?” I wait. Nothing. I’m about to close the door when I see movement, out in my yard, near one of the oaks. There’s just enough moonlight…. A man? I think someone just moved out there. I walk out on the porch. “Who is it?!”
There! Someone just stepped out of the moonlight near the trunk of the oak, stepped into the deeper darkness. I SAW this…didn’t I? “I see you! What do you want?!” I come down the steps of the porch, staring at the darkness near the tree, twenty feet away. Yes! Movement again, some slight….
“Why are you on my property?! What do you want?!” Why doesn’t he answer? “I’ll call the police!” I take out my cell phone. “I have my phone ready!” I find that I’m more angry than scared--someone coming here, destroying my peace, hiding in the dark. I take four or five steps toward that tree, my stockinged feet wet now from the grass, hurting a bit from stones and ….
The dark figure moves, a man! About my size! I see the outline! My size, my shape…. He’s throwing something! I’m hit in the chest, and it hurts, something metal, hitting my chest and then falling to the ground. I can’t see him anymore. I look down to where it fell, the metal object that hit me. It’s dark, but I’m feeling around with a palm, and I find it, pick it up. It’s car keys. I look closely and see…. MY car keys! No! Weren’t they in the house? Did I still have them in my pocket? How did he…? I hurry now to the oak, hurting my feet, looking through the shadows, moving around the tree. Nothing. No one. I have my phone in one hand and I’m gripping the keys in the other, gripping so tightly they hurt my hand. I feel the pain but I don’t release my grip.
I look around. There’s no one. No movement anywhere, and in my looking, I see my car. I parked it haphazardly in my drive. I was in a hurry to leave it and get into my house. Yes. I kept my keys in my hand, moved to the door of my house and opened it and went in and…. I think I shoved them into my pocket then. I think I did. So…. What’s happening? What could be…? Is that somebody?! By my car now?!
I run there, not caring about the pain in my feet. “HEY!” I reach the car, but there’s no one there, no one even near…. “Where are you?! WHO are you?!” But it’s silent, not even any wind now, just me standing at my car, my feet wet and sore, my car keys hurting my hand – so I open my hand and I stare at my keys and then at my car. I know what I have to do. I don’t want to, but I have to. There’s no choice at all. I have to settle this.
I get in the car and back out of my driveway, but too fast. I ease up on the gas. Go slow, go…. I move out to the old road and turn the car, heading back, heading toward that place, that part of the ditch, that body.
I drive for ten, eleven minutes, and then start looking, driving more slowly and looking at the ditch, watching my headlights moving along, lighting the ditch. The moon is brighter now, but I don’t see anything but the weeds and…brambles and…. Did I pass the spot?! Is he gone?! Wait… I see something. I stop the car and then ease it into reverse, moving back slowly. There. There’s a cone, no there are two of those…plastic road cones, in the ditch, in the weeds. Are they…marking the spot? So…someone took him away and…put the cones there? I know it’s the spot. I know it.
I drive a bit further up the road until there’s a wide spot that’s large enough for me to park. I start to leave the car but I stop. I reach into the door pocket and find my flashlight and turn it on. Then I turn off my engine and my lights and exit the car and stand there beside it, throwing the flashlight beam on the ditch where I saw…. I don’t see the cones from where I am. I walk back along my side of the road, watching. There! I see a cone – two of them, and I cross the road and shine my beam into the weeds where the cones are.
There’s nothing there, just…tramped down weeds and…. I get closer and settle on my knees to study something. It looks like…yes, it’s blood, a spatter of blood, and then, close by, more blood that has colored the weeds and soaked into the ground. I have to think. What do I do if someone comes by? I’ll say…I’ll say that somebody stopped at my house and said that…they saw a body along the road, and they were afraid…. So.… So I thought I’d take a look. And…. That’s what I’ll say.
So, I guess, after I left here, someone DID come, and see the man and stop and…. Did they call the police or take him in their own car? I look at the side of the road where it meets the ditch and there are the marks of many tires moving over the dirt, the weeds. So…. They got to him. They helped him. Or…was he dead?
I take out my cell phone. There’s a hospital on the highway, not far. They would take him there. What do I say? How can I find out? I think it through, and then I look up the number and take a long breath--going through the words again until someone answers.
“Emergency Room, please. Hi, I’m calling about someone that was picked up on Shannon Road tonight. Someone that was hurt, no, listen, I don’t know the name. Somebody told me that a man was found in a ditch on Shannon Road and they were too scared to…check it out, so they asked if I…. Well, I don’t know. Within the last hour, or… Okay, yes, alright, yes, yes, I WILL speak to the police, but they would’ve taken him to you, so can you just tell me…. Okay. Okay, I’ll hang on. Hi, Doctor, yes, I heard about a man…. No, no I don’t know the man. I just heard…. He’s a what? A John Doe, so you don’t…. No Identification. Is he unconscious?”
The doctor on the phone says “He didn’t make it. He had lost a lot of blood. Head injury. He laid out there so long.” Those words grab at my throat. The doctor asks, “Who was it that came and told you?” I answer that it was someone I don’t know. Someone driving by my house who…saw me in my yard. I live on this road, on Shannon Road, and they told me and then they drove away, so…. Yes, I say to the doctor, I promise to call Sergeant Tate at the police station and give him a description of this person. And then the doctor is called away, and I end the call.
I’m sitting here in the weeds, where HE was lying, the man, the John Doe, where he was bleeding, while I was driving, driving by and stopping and calling out to him and then…then I was driving away, and he was dying, and I left him there. The man was dying, and I left him there. In my mind, I change everything. In my mind I see myself getting out of my car and sitting beside the man and calling for an ambulance and waiting with the man and then hearing the sirens and watching them come and talking to the police while the ambulance takes him away to the emergency room where maybe they save him. Maybe they save him.
I don’t call Sargent Tate at the police station. I just sit here in the weeds. I should get up and go to my car and go home, but, somehow, I don’t have the strength, so I keep sitting here, and I realize how tired I am, I feel an impossible weight on me, so that I can’t keep sitting. I have to lie down, here, in the weeds, and I do, I lie here. My flashlight beam hurts my eyes so I turn it off and I let go of my cell phone, too, and just…keep…lying here. Why can’t I rise? Maybe if I wait a while. Maybe if I sleep, but I don’t sleep. I lay there until I hear…it’s a car, coming down Shannon Road, coming from Bell Street to Shannon Road, just as I did, coming toward this place in the road. Maybe they can help me, just help me rise up and just…. If they can get me to my car, I’ll be all right. I’ll drive home. Home.
I get ready, and as the car approaches, I turn on the flashlight and leave it where it lies, there on the ground, so they can see me. I rise up on one elbow. The flashlight is pointed at me and the moon is bright now, so I know they’ll see me. They come abreast of me and slow down and stop. I can see them now, a couple, about my age, a little younger, the woman driving, the man beside her, they’re staring at me, and they…they look so afraid, so afraid. No, wait! Wait! But they speed away, rushing away, down the road, down the dark road.
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Queenie
Here we go again with the monthly Short Story For Shut-Ins, a small-town tale this time. Hope you enjoy.
QUEENIE
By Gerald DiPego
Let’s see…I’m Dr. Ben Vogel, general practitioner, retired, 74 years old. It’s 1983…May, and I’m sitting on a log here in ‘The World.’ It’s what I call the acre behind our home. I thought someday I’d build a larger house here, but as I explored this place, I found that I didn’t want to touch it, just be in it, visit each season that came to it, and here in Illinois we get our seasons in bold face type: hot as hell, cold as hell, a spring that causes you to keep smiling on and on like a fool, and a fall that makes you pull in a breath in wonder.
The acre is full of greenery today and wild flowers, a whole orchestra of birds, and even a small stream that sounds like a traveling conversation, and the trees: fine, tall elms and some willows by the water, a dozen handsome birches, and four massive oaks, which may be the oldest living things in Indian Lake. I’m not in ‘The World’ alone today. My wife Queenie is walking about here somewhere. She loves it as much as I do, but has her own name for it: Eden.
Thinking about her, I search around, and I see movement near one of the silvery birches and wonder and study and then begin to laugh. She is sort-of peeking out at me, but not with her face. She has raised her skirt and is showing me a bare leg, moving it slowly as I laugh, the kind of hard laugh that hurts your chest but you don’t care. She’s almost as old as I am, but it’s a fine leg, and now she gives me her face beside the trunk, gives me a wink and the stunning gift of her smile.
But the story I want to write down today took place long before the Queenie era of my life, starting, I suppose when I left my pre-med studies and signed up for the Korean War. I can’t give you a solid answer why. It was more than wanting to be tested or have an adventure. I really did want to help and to learn. So, I trained as a medic and shipped out, with my family worried and even angry at my decision. We were not a close-to-the-breast kind of family, and it caused a tear that never truly healed, made worse by my decision later not to open a practice in the Chicago suburbs where we lived, but to go north to the lake towns, the small towns.
Oh, what did I learn in Korea? Well yes, how to function under a massive weight of pressure and work quickly and exactly, but the moments that stuck, and are still so vivid, are the ones where I saw death occur, where I saw that piece of a second when life leaves and a living entity disappears and becomes what’s left behind, like empty clothing. Life, with all its pain and joy and mighty noise, simply winks out, like the last ember in the fireplace.
Well, later, there I was, the new doctor in Indian Lake, the ONLY doctor, people having to go to Libertyville or Grayslake before my coming. There was a town druggist, Renzo Padilla, and he and I became friends. He brought me into his poker group, so I soon had a structure to my life outside of medicine, and I also had a procession of people coming to my office, many in distress, fear, pain, and some who mostly wanted conversation. And several of these knew of some woman I should definitely meet. I wanted to go slowly down that road. A loner can manage that.
There were a few pleasant double dates with Renzo and his wife and a few awkward ones, but nothing lit me up until the Bower family needed me at the McHenry hospital, and there they were, the youngest, Ellie, 23, broken badly in an auto wreck, the mother, who could only weep and smelled of drink, and the older daughter, Ann, 31, who was in control and used to it, and who gave me a stare that had a whole book inside of it with chapters such as ‘I’m in charge here,’ ‘You will not take advantage of my family,’ ‘You will tell us the full truth,’ ‘We’re poor and have no insurance so figure it out,’ ‘Stop looking at me like that.’
I found her striking, and it was hard to turn away. She was a couple of inches taller than me, and I found myself correcting my posture. She had long dark hair, and eyes that made her beautiful. There was so much inside there, so much depth, and no bottom to it. I did my job, and the news was not good. Ellie had been speeding, driving drunk, there was rain on the road, she would never walk again without a couple of canes, there was no spleen and the possibility of blood clots heading for the brain…. I did my best, and in a month and a half Ellie went home. Ellie never said thanks. She was angry to the bone, and when I mentioned that to Ann, she said Ellie had always been angry, taking after the violent father who had left long ago. So, Ann, at age ten, had taken over the family, the mother captured by alcohol, the father never to be seen again. But Ann Bowen did not seem bitter, and, on the rare occasion when she smiled, she was to me fully and perfectly complete. I loved her from the starting gun.
I spoke of her to Renzo, and he gave me little hope. She was on and off an item with a tough guy in town, a man of petty crimes and fist fights. Why are they drawn to the bad guys? I had pondered that in high school. I didn’t think I was bland. Was I? Renzo agreed that I wasn’t, but can you trust your best friend to judge you honestly?
I did some quiet studying of her sometime boyfriend, Chet Landi, a Korean vet like me, even with a couple of medals and maybe what we were calling battle fatigue. With some it was anger, with some, like me, waves of depression. He was out of town I learned, and so I felt emboldened, and I arranged to be walking out of the building where my office was at just the same moment Ann was heading home from the food store where she worked. Oh, Hi. Mind if I walk along with you? How is Ellie doing? I had that ready and it began a conversation.
She was not talkative, but pleasant enough. Ellie was Ellie and not improving or cooperating. I made the transition smoothly, I thought.
“Wonder if you’d like to stop and have a cup of coffee at Sandy’s?”
She looked at me, studying, then staring ahead again as we walked and asking “Why?”
“Why? To get to know each other.”
“To know what?” She was thoughtful, quiet about this as continued on.
I shrugged. “A chance to see inside of you, Ann.”
“Hm,” she said, moving along. “You want to operate?”
I blurted out a laugh, enjoying this surprise, but the best part was the smile she was carrying now, still staring ahead. Then she said, “I’m flattered that you like me, Doctor. I’m not really available.”
“Who says I like you?”
Ah, I saw my first big-time laugh from this lovely woman, like a cold drink on a steamy day. “You’re okay in a pinch,” I said, and her smile stayed, eyes alight. “And my name is Ben.”
“You’re okay, too, Ben, but like I said, I’m… not exactly available.”
“Hmm. Okay. Just friends then, having coffee?”
“No thanks. But thanks.”
And that was that, a small exchange that I replayed for days, probably weeks, and always smiled at the memory.
Ellie died about a month after that. I could have put down what I suspected: overdose and suicide, but just left it to her damaged body and a very real weakened heart. I went to the funeral. The mother was destroyed. Ann was dark and quiet and handling everything. We nodded to each other, didn’t speak. Chet Landi was there. When they left the cemetery, he was holding her hand. I didn’t like it, but I DID want her to be happy, even with him.
Then I got the call one afternoon from one of my poker friends, a cop. I was needed. Chet Landi, armed with a pistol, had robbed a local bar and gone on the run. Then he was seen leaving town with Ann Bowen. She was driving. But there was more. The cop was calling me because the couple had stopped at the house of Landi’s friend, and a shot had been fired. The police were now surrounding the place. Maybe I could help whoever had been shot. I got there before the ambulance, and I offered to go to the front door. The chief didn’t want to be responsible. I was heading for that door anyway, when it opened. Ann came out. No gun in sight. She looked at me like death, like an ending of everything. “I had to shoot him,” she said. “See if he’s dead.” And she walked toward the police chief while I hurried inside. Two men on the floor. One had taken a beating. The other was Chet Landi. I rushed to him, acting like a medic one more time, and he looked at me, and I saw it again, I saw the life in his look. I saw it go away.
She got three years for aiding and abetting because when he came to her after the robbery, she agreed to drive him to his friend’s home where he could get a car and the cash his friend owed him. He had gotten so little money from the bar.
The friend, Danny Poe, said he had sold the car and had no money to give him, so Landry had begun to beat him. Danny testified that Ann tried to stop Chet, but the man was a maniac. Ann grabbed the gun from Chet’s belt and turned it on him to stop him, and he only laughed and went on with the beating, and so she shot him. Ann Bowen saved his life, said Danny Poe.
No one ever visited her in prison except me, once every few months. Her mother could not take care of herself and was taken to Elgin State Hospital, a warehouse of the poor and mentally troubled from where, I was sure, she would never leave. I always asked Ann if she needed anything and she would always say no for the first year, and after that asked for cigarettes that she could trade with the guards and other prisoners for things she needed. During the second year she began to help in the prison infirmary and had many questions for me and this led to a correspondence that lasted the rest of her term, and gave me an idea that you’re probably already guessing.
She had already written to the people at the food store, wondering about her old job, but they had told her it wouldn’t be possible because she wasn’t wanted back in the town. They said it just like that, with no apology. I had a job for her, I said. I could use the help in my office, a kind of nursing aide that could take temperatures and blood pressure so that my time could be spent doctoring. I said, “It could be a life for you, Ann.” But she said, “No. They’ll hate me, and they’ll turn on you…I won’t let that happen. I’ll go away.”
But she had nowhere to go, and she finally said she would try it. Of course, she was nervous, even scared, and I had never seen her scared before. She did not show her fear to the people who came into the office and stared or gave her angry looks on the street. She looked right at them and went on with her life. But I could see the pain inside, and she had had so damn much pain. There were people who were friendly enough, and there were people who told her outright to get out of town. There were patients who told me they wouldn’t come to my office as long as she was there, and others who were glad I had given her a chance. All the while we were quietly moving along, often having a meal at the end of the day, and then I’d drive her to her room in a motel outside of town and pick her up in the morning.
There were two men and a woman waiting outside my office one morning when we arrived to open up. They said they wanted to talk to me. I asked Ann to go upstairs and get the office ready. When she was gone, they told me all the reasons why Ann Bowen should be made to leave town. She was bad like all the Bowens, and if I kept employing her, they would force me out, and they were already getting the signatures to do it. I told them that she was a good person and I would stand by her. That’s when one of the men, Frank Pulaski, the chairman of the Indian Lake Mens Club and a sometime member of my poker group, said to me, his jaw quivering with anger, “Ben, she may be a good screw for you, but this town will NOT have her kind live here.”
I was carrying my doctor bag. I put it down and then punched Frank Pulaski in the face. My fist hit his mouth and he went down. He sat up, but couldn’t stand. The others were statues with open mouths. “Help me,” I said to them, and I stood the injured man, and they helped me get him to my office where I put two stitches in his torn lip.
I spent six hours in a cell and was fined four hundred dollars. When I was free it was already twilight, and I went to the office and found it dark and locked. I drove to the motel and found Ann outside the office with a suitcase, waiting for the bus. I went to her and we stared a while.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I left you a note in the office. Please leave me alone now, Ben. Please.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone, Ann. I want to be with you. I want to marry you. I want a life with you. I’d say that I worship you, but that would probably scare you. Please stay with me.”
She stared a long time, and while she stared, the bus pulled up. She started to walk toward it. She was taking my heart with her. I could feel the empty place in my body. She stopped and turned her head, still leaning toward the door of that bus, and she said, “Worship?”
“Yes,” I said. “Worship… like a goddess, like a queen.” She smiled then. I’ve called her Queenie ever since.
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Brazil
Here is this month’s Story-For-Shut-Ins. Hope you enjoy. I like writing in different genres. Let’s try a thriller!
BRAZIL
By Gerald DiPego
Here’s how it happened. I’m driving, night time, pretty late, coming from a meeting with my attorney, moving along on the highway, two lanes each way, maybe speeding, not much. I’m hugging the roadside, driving home, thinking hard about this problem, this… more than a problem. Like a bomb going off in my life, but I’m riding it out, and I notice this SUV coming up in the outside lane, coming up fast, about to pass me.
The moon is big and bright, and I see everything clearly. There’s this other car, a smaller car about five lengths behind me, but this SUV is pushing it now, right beside me, weaving on the road, weaving way too close, and I hit the horn and stay on it, but he doesn’t move away, and BAM! God! The SUV hits me, hits the side of my car! I’m heading into the ditch and I see all this like I’m on a merry-go-round, as I’m spinning toward that ditch, frozen, but thinking, he’s drunk! Crazy! Then POW, the car that was behind me is ramming into the SUV, and we’re all spinning out of control.
I roll into the ditch, attacked by an air bag, banging around like a doll. When it all stops, I have to sit a minute. I have to make sure I’m alive and… I’m shaken and hurting and I think my neck might be broken or my shoulder or both, but I find I’m able to deal with the belt, click it open, moving like someone dreaming, and then staring at the door for a while, for an actual fifteen seconds or so, like I’m trying to fix it into my mind, and then I’m trying to open it. I watch myself, and it opens, and out I go. I’m in weeds. I’m on my knees, and I go on my hands and knees up to the road where all the chaos is. The tires are no longer screaming on the asphalt. It’s people now, screaming people.
Mostly it’s the little girl. She’s about eight or nine, out of her car on her knees, bloody nose, her eyes so wide and mouth open with screaming as she stares at the woman, her mother I guess, who’s halfway out of the car, lying on her side, her head down near the asphalt, holding one twisted hand away from her like it’s broken, and she’s screaming, too, her daughter’s name, I guess. “Kelly! Kelly!” The little girl crawls closer to her, but the woman’s eyes are closed, and she keeps screaming for her daughter. “Kellyyy!”
I move toward their car, my neck and shoulder not broken, after all, but aching so that I nearly go down. I see the SUV on its side, the man in there not screaming but roaring. He’s trying to push and pull himself free from the battered car, roaring in pain with every inch he gets.
I do a limping rush to the woman and the kid, and the girl turns her terrified eyes on me. “Help my Mom!!” The girl is shaking, screaming the words. “Help my Mom!” And I rush toward the woman and reach for her as she moves in her slow, slow fall from the car’s seat sliding through the banged-open door, but as I’m reaching, I realize my phone is in my hand, with no memory of pulling it out of my pocket, and I kneel close to the woman while I’m thumbing in the three numbers and then hearing the voice and getting out the words: “Bad accident, people hurt, on the highway just north of… No! Just south of the Banner Road exit! What? Just now! Me too, I’m hurt too! Ben Proffer, but… I can’t talk. Have to help. Are you coming?! Are you sending the… ? I have to help!” and I cram the phone back into my pocket as I’m reaching for the woman who is on her side, inching out of the car, and I hold her and help ease her down on the asphalt as her daughter keeps screaming: “Mom! Mom!”
I don’t see any blood on the mother, just a kind of reddening dent on her forehead and that hand, that broken hand she’s holding away from herself like a claw. Without opening her eyes, she screams “Kelly!”
And I’m shouting: “Listen, Kelly! LISTEN!” I get the girl to stop yelling and stare at me. “What’s your mom’s name? What’s her name?!”
The girl screams the name, “ELLEN!” and I come close to the woman’s face. “Ellen, Ellen, Ellen, can you open your eyes? Ellen! You’re daughter’s okay! Kelly is okay!”
I hear the other driver, the man, roaring again, and I want to go see what I can do for him, but I can’t leave… “Ellen, do you hear me? ELLEN!”
The woman opens her eyes about half way. My face is an inch from hers. “Your daughter is fine! Kelly, come closer, show your…”
Kelly puts her face next to mine. I should have wiped the blood from the kid’s face, from her bloody nose. It seems like her mother sees her and it seems like there could be a faint, shaky smile coming to Ellen’s face, and Kelly hugs her mom, and her mother, with her good hand, touches her child’s hair. I hear the man shout again, and I break away, saying, “I’ll be back to you!” and I hurry toward the man who is free of the banged up SUV now, lying on his back, and I notice, in the moonlight, that he’s all wet, and I think it’s oil or…. But when I get closer it’s blood, so much blood.
“I’ve got you!” I say to him, but his eyes are wild, face contorted. “Anybody else in there? In your car?!” I’m glad to see a quick shake of his head, so I know he hears me, but he’s trembling all over, and I’m trying to see where he’s bleeding. He roars again, the shakes grabbing him and making him shudder violently. “Where? Where are you hurt?” He moves a trembling hand toward his upper side, and I see the gash, big and deep. “Okay! Okay, I see…,” and I’m thinking Christ, how can I close that, how can I stop that? Then I’m pulling at my belt, pulling it out, fast as I can, and then what, what can I use…? I grab at my shirt, popping the buttons, tearing it off and putting the bunched shirt over the wound that’s chest high on his left side, and I’m using the belt to tighten the fabric over the wound, and when I look back at him, he’s staring at me, and his shaking is easing. His look is deep, deep on my face, and there’s anger there, a kind of sneer, and he says, his words like gravel, “Stupid… bastard.”
“Me!? Me!? You got into my lane! You swiped me, Christ!”
He’s saying more, but I have to get closer to his face to hear the words. “Stupid shit,” he says.
“You side-swiped ME, you drunken asshole…”
And now he’s actually smiling, his face still quivering, breath choppy. It’s a mean smile. I’m sure he’s crazy. He must…. Maybe it’s road rage, maybe he’s a weirdo racist, because I’m a Black man, and so he sideswipes me? Maybe just for that or….
“You know nothin’,” he says. "Friggin' Benjamin Proffer. You know shit.” He starts to gag then and cough, and I’m stunned. My name? Could he have heard me give my name on the police line. No. I was too far away. That ugly smile is still shaking on his face. “You’re the one…. You’re the one supposed to be dyin', not me. Not me. Damn! It’s a… friggin’ fiasco, Benjamin. Look at me, look at me. It’s supposed to be you.” He laughs a broken laugh that brings back the pain, his face contorting. When he relaxes, he just stares. I’m kneeling over him, lost. I think I must be insane because I can’t take this in. He’s smiling again, a sarcastic smile, as he shakes there on the asphalt. “Supposed to be you.” There’s a screaming in my head, and I realize it’s the kid, it’s Kelly screaming for me, saying “Help her! Help her!”
I pull my eyes off the man and rush back to the other car and Kelly and Ellen. “Her eyes went up,” Kelly screams at me, and I kneel and bend over Ellen, who seems unconscious now, god! Maybe she’s gone! The bruise on her forehead is darkening, spreading, but I press hard over her heart and feel it beating, slightly, but beating.
“Ellen. Ellen! Talk to her Kelly -- just talk, keep talking.” I once watched a demo on CPR, no mouth to mouth they said, just press and let up, press and…. So I’m pressing on her heart, trying for a rhythm, and the kid is talking through her tears. “Mom… Mom… open your eyes, please, please, please.” I keep pressing, but I admit that a part of my mind is working over what the man said, that I’M supposed to be dead, that…. He wanted to…. He actually wanted to kill me? Why? And then I know. It’s because of that ‘bomb’ that went off in my life, because I discovered something at work and found evidence, and the head of my company went to prison. Where he belonged. Jesus. Death? For that?
Ellen coughs. It’s one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard. Her heart is a little stronger, and I put my face very close to her, smelling her perfume or her lipstick or something. “Ellen, open your eyes. Open your eyes. Please….” And Kelly comes closer, our heads touching side by side. “Open your eyes Mom, please!” And Ellen’s eyes open, just like that. Kelly lays her head on her mother’s chest, hugging her, and Ellen slowly moves her good hand, puts it on her daughter’s back and holds tight.
“I’ll be back,” I say. “I’ll come back here!” And I hurry to the man and kneel over him. I can’t tell if the blood on him is old blood or if the wound is still…. “So you wanted to kill me?! For that?! For him?!” I’m tightening the belt one more notch and moving his arm to help hold it there while I shout at him. “He was friggin’ guilty! He was using company money for his gambling, for his friggin’ "life style," the bastard, and when we saw the money was missing, he pinned it on three other people, fired them, created phony evidence. He was ruining their lives! What?! You’re smiling at me?! What?!” And he stares with that smile, and even though he’s trembling, manages to shake his head, looking at me like I’m pathetic.
“Listen… Benjamin… he’ll just send somebody else.”
“No! Hell no! I’ll tell the police, about him, about you….”
He shakes his head a while before he says it. “Can’t prove it. I don’t even know the guy. Never met him. Just… got a phone call. He’ll get someone else. You’re dead, Benny. Like me. It’ll just take you a little longer.”
“I’m NOT dead! And what kind of a shit are you?! Taking money to kill somebody?”
“I’m a terrible person, Benny. Admitting it here. Terrible. Wanted the money, all that money. Brazil. Ever been? S’great there.”
“You’re going to live! You’re going to tell the cops the truth! You’re…” I can see that the color is draining from his face. He’s looking so weak, looking grey now. I move his arm from his side and see that the blood is still coming, through the shirt, through the belt. He’s dying right in front of me, still watching me. I hear Kelly shouting again, tears in her voice.
“She closed her eyes! My mom closed her eyes!” “I’m coming,” I shout, and I look at this man on the ground, my would-be killer. “Somebody dying over there?” he asks. “Why,” I say. “You care?” He just stares, no smile now. I should hate him. Maybe I do, but this is IT. Actual death. I’m watching it happen, and I find that I’m reaching for my phone. “Listen, asshole,” I say to him. “Listen, is there anybody you want to talk to, want to… say goodbye?” He just stares now. Surprised. “Benjamin,” he says. “Good… ol’ Ben…” “Think!” I say. “I have to go back to them, so… A wife? Kid? Girlfriend? Boyfriend…?” He says something I can’t hear so I lean close. “Sister,” he says. “The number,” I ask, “Quick, the number.” He rattles it and I thumb it in and wait and it rings, once, twice, and now I’m hearing it. I’m sure. I’m hearing the far and faint sound of sirens. The best song I ever heard.
A woman’s voice says, "Hello,” and I put the phone to his ear and move his hand to support it there, and I rush to Ellen and Kelly. I press on Ellen’s chest, and there is still a beat there. I feel her hands, and they’re so cold. “Is there a coat, Kelly? In the car? We’ll put it over her,” and while the girl is gone, I say Ellen’s name over and over and touch her face, and her eyes flutter, then open slightly, then close. Kelly brings a jacket and we both spread it on Ellen’s chest. She’s blinking, at least she’s blinking. “Hear the sirens?” I ask Kelly, and she looks at me, wondering, and then her eyes widen and she smiles and shouts through her smile. “Yes!”
I stay with them, rubbing Ellen’s good hand, warming it. I glance over at the man. Can’t hear him. Don’t see him moving. The arrival of the ambulances and the police cars is one of the greatest blessings of my lifetime. The sight and sounds of all those people in their uniforms surrounding us, doing their jobs, lifts a weight that I didn’t know was crushing me, leaves me almost floating, gives me such a gift of peace, no matter what’s coming, no matter….
I step back from Kelly and Ellen and let the men and women work. I talk to two of the cops, give them my name and address as I glance over at the man, and that’s when I see it, as if I picked that very moment to turn my head. He’s being lifted onto the stretcher, and they they’re covering him. I watch them cover him, all of him, face and all.
Another cop, who seems to be in charge, is now standing in front of me, and I figure, okay, now, I’m going to try this. I’m going to try to get this crazy story right, so right that he’ll believe me. But we’re interrupted by the EMTs checking me out. I seem okay. I actually seem okay. I ask the medics about Ellen. “Broken left hand and what looks like a serious concussion, but we won’t know till we get her to Emergency.”
The cop in charge is still waiting for me. I don’t have my words straight, but I feel like I better begin. I stare at him and I like his face, his eyes, so I start.
“I know… this is going to sound really strange, but the guy in the SUV, the guy who side-swiped me…. That was on purpose. He tried to kill me. I know. Crazy, right? But I can tell you…” He interrupts me by handing me my phone.
“We know all about it, Mr. Proffer. We’ll need to talk to you at the station if the ER says you can walk out of there.
I’m a statue, standing with my mouth open. Then I ask him. “You… know all about it? About someone in prison sending this guy…?”
The cop is nodding so I shut up, and he says, “The man in the SUV, Edward Coston, he told his sister on the phone all about it, told her to record it, about who hired him, and told her to call the police and play the call, tell the story. She did. Your old boss is now in lockdown. They routed the information to us, said we were picking up a possible felon, but… Coston didn’t make it.”
I just stand there a while, taking it in, then I watch the ambulances leaving, and I say, surprising myself, “Maybe he did make it.” The cop kind of squints his eyes, trying to understand, and I just say, “Brazil.” And that’s that.
#
It's Beige
Here is number four in my story-a-month send-out to you. Time for a lighter one! Hope you enjoy. Be well and stay safe dear people.
IT’S BEIGE
By Gerald DiPego
Ann sits far back in the café where the large front window sends only a weak light, and even that paleness is mostly absorbed by the wooden wall panels, uneven and cracked like old faces. Ann is comfortable waiting there and trying not to think of anything to say. She doesn’t want to have expressions ready like cards to play. She wants this to be as natural as possible, just two people meeting who have never met before. She even tries to drive all the descriptors out of her mind about this “Don” that her friends have been, if not pushing, nudging her toward. “You’ll like him, and… you’re both seventy-two.” As if that were a special prize.
Don is still in his car, parked down the block, fussing with his CDs, but truly spending a few more minutes so that he won’t be early. Well, it’s already three minutes after two, but he thinks that five minutes is a better number for showing up. He doesn’t want to be the first one there or seem too anxious. He’s irritated at himself for agreeing to meet this woman, this stranger, and feels some mild anger at his friends for saying, so often over the past month, “You two should meet. I think you’ll like each other.” And “She’s fun and smart. I’m sure you’ll get along,” and on and on.
ANN
Hello, pleasure to meet you. I’m Ann.
DON
My pleasure. I’m Don.
ANN
Well, we’ve done it, haven’t we, Don. I’m proud of us.
DON
What have we done?
ANN
Our job. We’re here to make Marla and Rasheed happy.
DON
Well, yes, and we’ve done that just by meeting.
ANN
And so now I guess we’re free to go. Thanks, it’s been great.
DON
Oh, you’re right. Yes. Well? You first.
ANN
I still have half a cup of coffee. Wouldn’t you like some coffee before we…?
DON
Might as well.
ANN
Tell me, Don, just curious, did you wait in your car before you came in here?
DON
No…. No, I just…. Sorry, were you waiting long?
ANN
No, I just came in. I HAD been out in my car though, waiting. (He smiles — owns up.)
DON
I may have… waited a bit. (She sips her coffee. They stare.)
ANN
Tell me… am I as you imagined?
DON
Well… actually... I imagined Penelope Cruz.
ANN
Well, then you must be pleased since we look so much alike.
DON
Are YOU disappointed?
ANN
A bit. I was hoping for someone less handsome. Handsome makes me nervous.
DON
I could make a face.
ANN
Please do. (Don makes a face, and they both smile and chuckle.)
DON
When you smile, you know… you’re prettier than Penelope.
ANN
Oh, Don – my heart just skipped.
DON
I have meds for that. (They both laugh, unguarded now. The waiter approaches and Don orders a coffee. They stare at each other, still smiling a bit, interested.)
ANN
I don’t remember what it is you do? I know they told me, but I wasn’t paying attention. Is it juggling?
DON
I’m an engineer. Retired.
ANN
Amazing. It must be so difficult to drive those big locomotives….
DON
Electrical engineer. Not a choo-choo. Mostly computers.
ANN
Oh, Really? My desktop is a mess. Could you help clear it up?
DON
Mac or PC? (She leans forward with a look that says she’s sorry for him.)
ANN
I’m so sorry. Should I create a certain gesture when I’m making a joke, so you’ll know?
DON
Yes. Put your thumbs in your ears and wiggle your fingers.
ANN
It’s okay. Don’t be embarrassed. People who actually KNOW computers, have had less human experience, and time to interact….
DON
I’m NOT a nerd. I’m socially adept. I came here, didn’t I? Unafraid.
ANN
Hmm, I nearly stayed home, thinking I’d mention a sore toe or a stroke or something.
DON
Do you regret coming here?
ANN
Of course. (Ann slowly raises her hands to her ears, slips her thumbs in there, starts to wiggle her fingers, and he’s laughing, taking her hands and putting them on the table. The waiter arrives with Don’s coffee, then asks Ann if she’d like a refill. She says yes, thank you, and he pours and leaves. Don sips and makes a face.)
DON
He actually calls this coffee? You think he was raised by wolves or something? What’s he thinking? Does he ever taste the product? (She stares at him.) What?
ANN
He brought you your coffee. You didn’t say thanks, didn’t even look at him, and now you’re ridiculing him and insulting his family. Are you often like this?
DON
Like what?
ANN
Rude.
DON
(Chuckles.) I’m not rude. Do you actually LIKE this coffee?
ANN
It’s not about the coffee. It’s about you, Don. I’m trying to get the full picture.
DON
Are you serious?
ANN
Are you rude? This is a need-to-know.
DON
I’m not rude. I’m never rude. How can he serve…? (She interrupts by waving to the waiter. The waiter comes over.)
ANN
(To waiter.) I’m afraid he doesn’t like the coffee.
WAITER
Oh, I’m sorry….
DON
Well, it’s just….
WAITER
Why don’t I make a fresh pot? It’s been sitting….
DON
Oh, Thanks. I….
WAITER
No problem.
DON
I’m certainly not blaming you. You’re a fine waiter. (Ann smiles at this.)
WAITER
Thanks, but we prefer ‘waitperson’. (He leaves with the coffee, and Ann and Don laugh.)
ANN
That was lovely, Don. Truly.
DON
The bastard. (They laugh again, then stare again, smiling.)
ANN
What do you do with all your retired time?
DON
We should be talking about you now. You’re in music, right? Let me hear about that, please.
ANN
(She sings this.) What do you do with allll you’re retired time… Donnnnnn?
DON
Well, obviously, you don’t sing.
ANN
(She laughs a merry laugh). I teach music theory. I write about music. I have a book out now about music. “Classical to Jazz, a Musical Journey.” That’s all about me. We segue back to YOU now. Tell me something or I’ll sing again.
DON
First of all, I like your laugh. You seem a bit staid, but then you laugh and… your face… I don’t know… comes apart… in a good way. You should laugh in a mirror and see.
ANN
Thank you. I do make funny faces in the mirror. Only when home alone. Don’t you? Just to crack yourself up?
DON
No, I don’t. I’m too busy thinking up insults.
ANN
You mean – to have them ready, like ammo? Or are they all for a particular person.
DON
Yes, for me. The fool in the mirror. Don’t you think I’m a fool?
ANN
Let me think…. Yes. (She starts her hands toward her ears again for the gesture, but he smiles and stops her hands.)
ANN
Why do you think you’re a fool?
DON
I don’t do well with people. Maybe I am a kind of nerd. I can easily make friends with any computer.
ANN
WE seem to be making friends.
DON
Just wait. Anyway, why should it be so damn hard -- being nice to people. Like the waiter…. I often piss people off. It’s not that I enjoy it. Just…. With my son, my Ex…. Do you get on well with your Ex? You probably do.
ANN
He’s not my Ex. He’s my dead husband. Yes, we get on very well, always did, except for the occasional battle.
DON
Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m so stupid. Rasheed and Marla, they probably mentioned….
ANN
Who listens? Tell me about your son.
DON
No, it’s okay. This is not fair table talk. I had no right to…. Obviously, I saw that you go… beyond small talk and I was taking advantage and making an ass of myself. Forget it. (She’s staring at him.) What?
ANN
Tell me about your son.
DON
(Heavy, edgy sigh.) Oh, come on, now you sound like my therapist. You going to take a shot at making me a better man in the next fifteen minutes? I said too much, like an idiot, and I want to get off this. Let’s talk about… your favorite sport. (The waiter returns with a fresh cup, puts it down in front of Don.)
WAITER
On the house. (The waiter leaves, Don kind of collapses with a rueful smile and a slow shake of the head. Ann stares, a slight smile and a deep look.)
ANN
You did piss me off just then. The ‘therapist’ business.
DON
I know. Sorry. See? Let’s do sports.
ANN
I won an archery award in college. Don’t shoot anymore.
DON
Thank god. (He sips his coffee.)
ANN
How’s the coffee?
DON
I don’t care.
ANN
(Smiles.) Favorite sport?
DON
Pool. I have a table, and… a kind of group….
ANN
A group is good. A group is friends, right? I’m very bad at pool.
DON
Maybe I’ll teach you… I mean someday… if you like.
ANN
Do you enjoy teaching?
DON
No.
ANN
Thought so.
DON
I… tried to teach my son how to play. I was bad at that, too.
ANN
Did you ever let him win?
DON
Well… I... doesn’t matter. He followed his mother into golf. He’s very good. They’re very close. Look, I want to get your book.
ANN
Not just to be polite, though. I mean that’s nice, but… not your cup of coffee.
DON
I read. I read a lot of things. Anyway, I’m getting it.
ANN
When?
DON
(Laughs.) I promise.
ANN
I mean you could get it now.
DON
You sell them out of your purse?
ANN
There’s a bookstore, four blocks away. I was going there anyway. So…? (He stands and she does, too. They walk out of the gloom, into a sunny afternoon.)
ANN
If only Rasheed and Marla could see us now.
DON
Practically engaged. (She laughs a very unguarded laugh. He smiles, walking on.)
DON
What’s YOUR son like? Like you?
ANN
More like his sister. They’re very serious. They describe their mother as giddy. I’m sorry about your boy. It’s tough with divorces, two enemy camps with the kids in between. My sister goes through that.
DON
I’m embarrassed that I mentioned that, and I don’t want to talk about it, so let’s just drop it, all right? I don’t usually… I don’t know why I said it. I hereby erase it. Okay? God.
ANN
(She walks on awhile, then…. ) if you have a list of all your topics that are allowed, I need a copy.
DON
Fine. It’s a list of everything except me. All right?
ANN
Now YOU sound pissed off.
DON
I’m not. Only at me. You see? I AM bad with relationships and an idiot, and not good with human beings which makes me, what…? Difficult. A neurotic. And an ass. That’s just who I am. Enough about that. Is that clear now? (They walk on in silence awhile, then Ann stops, and he stops, turning to her, wondering.)
ANN
(She speaks without anger.) Don… you’re not an idiot. You’re not "difficult," or neurotic. I’m afraid what you are is just one more crabby asshole. (His mouth is open, his throat not working. She proceeds matter-of-factly.) I could be wrong. I hope I am, but if you ARE a crabby asshole, that’s the last kind of person I want to let into my life. You be well. Really. I mean that. Bye. (She turns and begins walking back the way they came.)
DON
Well… wait! Will you wait?! I’m… ANN! Jesus! (She keeps walking. He takes a few steps after her, then stops, stands there, closes his eyes a moment, mouths the word "fuck." He watches her walking away, takes a deep breath, then turns and walks on, looking lost, very sorry and very angry at himself. In a moment, he stops and finds himself staring into a men’s clothing store. He looks through the window at each item there, hardly seeing them. He sighs, walks in.)
(Inside the store he’s wandering, with an empty stare. He sees a large mirror and stands in front of it, studying himself. A woman salesperson approaches.)
SALESPERSON
Can I help you?
DON
Doubt it.
WOMAN
If you tell me what you’re looking for.
DON
I’m… looking for a different person in the mirror. Not this one. Do you have something friendlier? (She only stares. He walks out of the store. In a few minutes of walking, he spots the bookstore and wanders in. Moves to the desk where there’s a clerk.)
CLERK
Hi, can I help you?
DON
Where’s the section on music – books about music?
CLERK
Aisle three, all the way down. You… wouldn’t be looking for the Ann Sampson book?
DON
Well, yes… it’s “Classical To…
CLERK
Jazz, yes. Only reason I asked it that she happens to be here.
DON
She is?!
CLERK
Just came in a few minutes ago. What a coincidence. You’ll find her back there. (Don begins to hurry to the aisle, but then stops short, realizing something, turns to the Clerk and says, “Thank you.” He hurries down the aisle and sees Ann sitting in a leather chair, where patrons can rest and read. She looks up at him, no smile. He walks to her. There is another chair beside her and he tentatively sits there, staring, while she leafs through her book)
DON
Did you… go back and get your car?
ANN
(Ann nods as she continues turning pages.) Came to sign the books. Then I’m going home.
DON
I’m so glad you’re here. Is there… ANYTHING I can do, or say…? (She keeps leafing through her book and doesn’t look up as she speaks.)
ANN
Change. Be a better, kinder man.
DON
Oh, god… well, you say that as if it’s something…
ANN
Change. Be a better, kinder man. That’s it.
DON
Ann, I’m 72 years old….
ANN
(Still turning pages.) Change, old man.
DON
How am I supposed…?
ANN
(Still turning pages.) Get a hammer. Carry it around. Every time you crab at someone, you hit yourself on the head. In a month you’ll either be dead or a better man.
DON
(After a long pause.) Is there, maybe… another way?
ANN
(Still turning pages.) You could start by saying something very nice about me.
DON
(He takes a moment, then) I… really… Iike how you look.
ANN
For instance?
DON
I… find you attractive. Your pretty face, your body….
ANN
(Still leafing.) I’m skinny as a pencil.
DON
…your pretty face, your skinny body, and I like how smart and funny you are, and kind… you’re kind.
ANN
(Turning pages) And?
DON
I… like how you dress. You put yourself together very well. That scarf is beautiful on you… the tiny bees against the… background, against the brown. (She closes the book, hands it to him.)
ANN
It’s beige… you idiot.
#
Emma Land
This is my third “Story For Shut-Ins,” and I hope you enjoy. We’re all in this strange and separate world now, but somehow still together, zooming and calling and emailing and sharing what we can. Be well and safe.
EMMA LAND
A short story by Gerald DiPego
My name is Sharon Best. People tell me I’m attractive and that I look to be about 25 years old. I don’t argue with them. After three hours on a plane, I’m tired and feeling like my clothes are tied in knots. I try to blow my hair out of my face, but it’s too limp. The year is 2002 on a Saturday in May at…four o’clockish, and I’m making my way through a large airport terminal in Chicago, heading for the doors and the cabs, bag strapped on my shoulder and a suitcase rolling behind, traveling light, that’s me. I don’t know if I actually hear the voice or if I just sense that someone is calling to me. This makes me nervous, and I walk, and roll, faster toward those doors.
The voice rises and follows me, and I have to glance behind, can’t help it, a very quick glance. Okay, I see him. Yes, I think I recognize him, about 60 or so, also with luggage, nearly dropping it as he rushes toward me. He’s gained weight. I don’t stop, and he doesn’t give up.
“Wait! Young lady…. Young woman! Wait!”
He’s almost on me, which makes my heart shrink to a stone. I can’t start running, not here, so I stop as he rushes toward me, very intense. He’s still shouting, even as he comes close, putting down his luggage, mostly letting it fall, and people are watching this.
“Please, I….” He’s no more than an arm’s length away, out of shape, breathing so hard, staring so deep. “You look…. You must be…. Do you know Emma? Emma Land? What’s your name?” He reaches out and touches my upper arm, and I take a step back, afraid now, noticing more people watching, some stopped and staring.
“Do you know me?” he asks, still shouting, and he reaches again, and I step back again, shaking my head no. He seems tortured, in actual pain. “You look like a woman…”
“I don’t know you,” I say, and it comes out loud and with fear in it, because there IS fear, tightening my throat. “My name is Sharon, Sharon Best. I don’t know…”
He tries the grab again, and he’s faster, desperate, holding my arm, and people are stepping closer as he shouts again, “You must know Emma…Emma Land.” I’m shaking my head which makes him grow even more intense, uncovering his teeth, shaking. Are those tears in his voice? Yes, his eyes are full. “Emma Land! You MUST be part of her family?! You look…”
I try to pull my arm out of his grip, but he holds on, and a tall man steps close to us, staring at the intense man…. “Hey, buddy – let her go.” A woman comes close, asking me… “Should I call the police?!” She has her phone in her hand. “Let her go,” the tall man says again, taking the man’s shoulder, and the man does let go, just standing there now, vibrating, staring. I speak while I’m backing away.
“I don’t know you! I don’t know this…Emma! Please! Leave me alone!” I turn and start for the doors again, and I don’t look back. I never look back. Sure, I know Emma Land. I know a lot of people.
I don’t begin to relax until I’m in my hotel room, taking a long hot shower, then putting on the fluffy robe, ordering soup, trying not to see his face over and over again, his wild eyes. I take long breaths and pull my thoughts to Amor, my daughter. I’m here in Chicago to see her. It’s been a long time. She’s not well, in a facility north of the city. I’ll rent a car in the morning. I’ll be with her. I’ll actually be with her. I see a tumbling mix of her now as a baby, at two, four, twelve. I feel all the hugs, ten thousand hugs. I sink into that.
It’s the next morning and I rented a car. I’m parking at the facility, but I don’t enter the building. They have me down for 1 pm, and its only noon. I walk through the grounds. The grass is exactly the green it’s supposed to be. The benches are newly painted. There are even flowers. I choose a bench that’s off alone and sit. I’m not breathing well, short breaths, shaky breaths. I ………
We named her Amor because my husband was Mexican-American. It means love, of course, and how we loved her. We had just finished business school, well…a small, inexpensive school teaching accounting at night. We got our diplomas, we got married, we got jobs. We were good at it, and the jobs got better. We had our child, we had our own accounting business, we even hired more accountants. Everything? You could say that. We loved each other and our daughter, didn’t worry about money, had good friends, had very few arguments…that’s everything, right?
When Amor was about twelve, I started noticing the edge. That’s what I call it. At first my husband went along with all the jokes about how young I looked. He was only two years older, just adding a little weight, losing a little hair, and I was still looking…the same. “Robbing the cradle,” all that silly stuff, and he went with it at first, proud of my looking so young, but as time went along, I saw him change. I would catch a look now and then, a serious look, an edge. The worst of it was when Amor began to show the edge, too — a 13 year-old-girl who had a mother who looked like an older sister. Funny at first. At first. It bothered them, and it showed in their eyes, a darkness. I could feel them begin to withdraw from me. Not that they blamed me. They just…couldn’t handle it. It was too…weird, and distancing began. My husband moved out. Amor spent more time with him than me, by choice. What was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life? Yes. I left. I left the people I loved the most, my little tribe. It was a tearing. It hurt like that – a physical tearing away.
I went to a different city. I started a different life. Accounting job? Easy. Taking care of myself? No problem. Friends? What the hell do you do? They thought I was 25. I was 38. I didn’t tell them the truth. The lies began. There were men interested. I was lonely, so I began to date a man, a good man named Lenny. There were friends from work, too…. I began to have fun in spite of the pain and the loss. Because of it. Lenny wanted to marry me after a year. I kept checking myself in the goddamn mirror until I couldn’t stand to look at me anymore. I said no to marriage, afraid that damn edge that might appear all over again, but we kept seeing each other, being lovers. So, I was being held and loved and had someone to laugh and cry with and friends, too. They all thought I was 27 now, or 28, still looking like 25. They were good to me. They were fun, and I needed that because the pain of leaving Amor and my husband – that was still in me like claws. Still is.
Three years later, I began to see it, traces of that damn edge, that slight darkness in the look, almost a fear. He left me, saying that it was because I wouldn’t marry him, but I knew that my looks were starting to feel strange to him, and to my friends. So, did I have to leave again, leave a life behind again, be alone again?
I remember walking out on a bridge, stopping, looking at the rocks and water below. Do I start all over again, or just drop the curtain? I couldn’t do it. Amor was in the world. Maybe someday I could see her, and all the while, my face didn’t change, neither did my body. I FELT like I could be 25. I didn’t want to break my body on those rocks, didn’t want to leave the world.
I went to a distant town. This time I changed my name. I picked Laura Mozer off a grave stone so I could get a copy of a birth certificate. And research? Over the years I’ve read all I could find on aging: ‘cell energy’ ‘skin formation’ Nothing is there, nothing that helps. The skin is 80 percent genetic, but there’s no one like me in my family or I would’ve heard about it. What was the answer? A curse? A gift?
Most any town can use another accountant, and I had kept up, kept learning. I was good. I am good. When I had left my husband, he gave me half of our savings. I’ve built on that. I’m okay.
I decided, in this new town, that I would be a loner, and maybe that would help. I even bought products that would help me look older. What a switch, right? I also bought a dog. A dog would NOT show me that edge, and of course, it didn’t, but after three years I was too lonely and had to get close to someone. There was a girlfriend, a best friend, so much fun and so much giving between us, giving and taking. We were very close in every way, every way. I was happy. We took some trips together. I felt more free than…than ever.
Of course, she noticed that I stayed young, and she busted me on the ‘aging’ face products. We kind of laughed it off. Kind of. On one of her birthdays, we celebrated in our home, living together now. We both got a bit drunk. She was chiding me again for looking so damn young. I felt so close to her. Yes. That’s right. I did it. I told her, not all of it, but told her I just wasn’t aging, at all, for years, a lot of years, that I had to move away from people, keep moving on. She just stared at me. She said nothing. She drank more, and then she left. I was shouting at her to come back, screaming that she shouldn’t drive. She drove away. She did come back, late next morning, sober then. She stared hard at me and made me promise I would never screw with her mind again, never invent something like that again. I swore and said I was sorry. I didn’t want to lose her. But after another six months the edge was in her eyes, full force. So, I left. I still had the dog.
Next was another large city – get lost in a crowd, right? I kept my Laura Moser name, rose up in an accounting firm, and became very good at investing my money. I was able to work less. What did I do? I learned. I play the guitar now, good enough for open mike. I’m even on a few recordings – with friends. I can’t do life without friends. I speak Spanish and French. I lecture sometimes – not on aging – on accounting. I’ve published a book on the subject. I volunteer at the museum and study art. I dance very well: ballroom, swing and funk. And I still weep over my daughter. Once, while weeping, I phoned my husband and wondered how he, how Amor, would feel about a brief meeting. He said, in a shaking voice, that he was glad I was all right, but please, no meeting. “Amor is teaching now. She has…a full life. It would be devastating to see you. For her…for me, too.” Please. I asked, what about a phone call? “Don’t bring it all back,” he said, “and please don’t try to reach Amor. She couldn’t take it.” A door slammed that day. He couldn’t even stand to hear my voice. My still-youthful voice. I don’t blame him.
Well, there were more cities and towns, more name changes, more dogs, too. And a few lovers. There was a man around forty, and we fell in love. Yes, I know, but try it. Try being alone forever. I couldn’t. It wasn’t torrid and didn’t shake the timbers, but it was love. I kept a door open, saying someday I would need to go take care of my parents who were aging and needing me (they had long passed by then) and they lived in Spain, I said, and I would have to go there to live someday. I faked the calls. Even some letters. By year three he said he would give up his job and live in Spain. He loved me entirely – those were his words and I believe him. I believe him still. He was the man in the airport last night when I came to Chicago. I had been Emma Land with him – so many years ago.
The time is almost here – my visit with Amor. I’m so nervous. I don’t think she’ll know me. She’s losing her memory. I don’t want to make her afraid, don’t want to shock her. She’s 92 and very frail. I better take some long breaths before I go in there, many long breaths. I wonder if I’ll see my child within the aging woman. I wonder if she’ll have a glimmer, even a thought, of her mother, her endless mother.
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Lost and Found
Hope you’re well. This is STORIES FOR SHUT-INS #2! I enjoy writing them and sending them out there for your reading and reflection. Hope you enjoy.
LOST AND FOUND
by Gerald DiPego
The man was old but rather natty, short cloth jacket, new fedora, corduroys, looking down as he walked with a healthy stride for his age of eighty-four. When he stepped into the open-air mall from the street entrance, he raised his eyes and stopped abruptly, changing very suddenly. His chest felt empty, emptied out, except that his heart was beating hard in there, nearly hurting him with its sudden force. He swallowed and looked about and clenched his hands, his jaw, eager to get his bearings, to see where he was, but nothing was familiar, and the knowledge of being lost spread the panic from his chest to his tight arms and his jaw that was shaking now, and he was suddenly sweating, and trying to take hold of his mind and grab on to something, to a thought, any thought, but it was like putting his hands into water and trying to catch a fish. You can see them, you can touch them, but you can’t hold on. All right, all right, all right! Where am I? I’m in a mall. Where is this place? I was walking from… where? I am... I am...
He needed to catch something, some thought sliding by, some memory, some.... There was nothing there, nothing filled him but the panic. I am.... Who was he? His name, what was his name?! Christ, his name was not there. It had to be there. He looked around again for any possible.... He saw that some of the people stared at him as they walked by. He moved then, thinking that movement would bring him something, anything. He approached a store window. He saw himself in the glass, and yes. All right. That’s me. He nearly wept at the knowledge that he knew this man in the glass, this lost man. That’s me, yes. Now... who am I? What’s my life? What’s my name? Where do I live? It has to be there! Everything was just out of his reach, swimming out there. If only he could grab one piece of it, something...
He turned and took four random steps. Should he stop someone and ask? What would he say? I’m lost! They would ask, where do you want to go? Where do you live? I don’t know! He moved toward the soft splashing of a fountain. People sat there on the low wall that surrounded the water. Maybe if he sat, sat very still, it would all come back, if he just let it, if he could be calm, but there was no calm, only the fierce worry and the fear and the giant, staggering loss of everything.
He was only one step from the low fountain wall when he saw her. She was staring at him, and so he looked away. He tried to pretend he was fine. Why?! Why pretend?! He sat not far from her, and felt himself vibrating. He could feel his clenched teeth shaking, clicking, and his breath choppy and his heart still pounding him, like some machine, some mechanics in there about to give way. He was so afraid, afraid of this awful... emptiness. He looked at the woman again. She was staring, and she smiled slightly, or at least her eyes softened. There was gentleness there, maybe concern, maybe help. He looked away and looked at her again, nearly his age, pretty with her silver hair to her shoulders, a scarf that was...
“Hello,” she said softly. He didn’t speak, could not speak, and she asked, “What’s your name?”
He felt he would shatter from his shaking and from his hollowness, he would implode. He made himself speak and was amazed at the loudness of his voice, almost a shriek.
“I don’t know!”
Here she leaned toward him and put a hand on his shaking, knuckled fist, and in her eyes, very soft now and deep, she gave him one small brushstroke of hope as she said, “You will.”
He forced himself to talk to her and found he was not shrieking this time. “I will?” She nodded, so positive. Something began to loosen inside of him, slightly, very.... “When?” he asked her, and he felt some weeping in the word and made an effort to take hold, to hold on to something. Her eyes. He chose her eyes.
“It won’t take long. You think it will. You think it won’t come at all, the memory, but it will.”
“How? How do you KNOW?”
“It’s happened before,” and now she was smiling, not just in her eyes, a slight curving of her mouth.
“Before?! To me! You’ve... seen me before?!
She nodded, her eyes even more tender now.
“Here? I come here?”
“Sometimes.”
“You know me?! Tell me!”
“Let it come to you.”
“Why don’t you tell me?!
“Let it come. It IS coming, you know.”
“I don’t know! I don’t.”
“You have to let it in, the remembering. Let it come. It’s going to be all right.” And he stared deeply, wondering what, what will be all right, what will ever be...
“You need to breathe,” she said, and slid a few inches closer to him.
He tried. He breathed. “I was walking. I got lost. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know WHO I am. I’m... away from where I should be...
“Yes. So that means there are people...,” she said.
“What?”
“There are people worried about you. They’re frightened. Am I right?”
He stared a moment before it struck him, coming through his fear and confusion to shake him. “Yes... Yes! I... Who are they? I feel that. I do, but... who? I...”
He closed his eyes and tried to slow his breath, but he needed to see her, her eyes, the slight smile. He needed her certainty. He opened his eyes and saw she was gently nodding.
“It’s coming,” she said, “Faster than usual. You’re only on eight.” His face twisted with wondering, and she went on. “I’m keeping a slow count. You already realize that people know you and are worried about you, and now you’re only on... nine.”
“And... when,” he said, “When will I...”
“Always by twenty, and it’s only... ten now. Who’s worried about you? A name. Who’s worried?”
He bent his head into his hands. At first it was shaking, shaking no, but it stopped. “I... I think... it’s... I don’t... Bobby!” The name was torn from him, like a bandage removed from a wound. When he lifted his head she was shining a smile at him, deep and rich.
His voice broke as he said it, “He’s my son! Bobby. I have a son!”
“Me, too,” she said, chuckling. “I also have a son.”
“My son’s name is Bobby.” He said this with great pride, said it like the waving of a flag. “I have a son named Robert Allen Praymer!”
“So do I,” she said. And they were suddenly still and staring, and she had tears too, like his own, tears of happiness, and he looked at her with such wonder and a blooming realization and then a love that was deep and old and forever.
“Oh, god...” He was fully weeping now. “Oh, god... Ellie. Oh, Ellie!. I’m so sorry. How could I... ?
“Not your fault,” she said. “You should call him now... Bobby. He drives all the streets while I wait for you here. Call him.” He stared a moment, going over her words, then nodded and began touching his pockets.
“Do I have my phone?
“Inside jacket — left.” He found his phone and stared at it, squinting.
“The... number?”
“Look — where it says Bob. Just press there.”
He pressed, then slowly brought the phone to his ear, as if it was some new invention. He was not fully inside himself yet. Then he took in a sharp breath and said, “Yes... yes it’s me and I’m fine. I... I’m so sorry. I’m okay now. I’m with Mom at the mall, by the fountain. She found me. So sorry. I just... What? Oh, okay. Okay.” He replaced the phone and told her, “He’s coming. He’s coming here. Bobby.” He stared at her smile. She touched his face and he suddenly trapped her hand there, on his cheek, pressed it, kept it there on his skin that was wet from his tears. He drew in a deep and shaking breath, bringing himself up, straighter, fuller now, the emptiness gone. “God, I love you Ellie. And look what do I do to you? I just.... How can it all go away? Everything? How can I... empty out?”
“But here we are. Here we are, Ellie and Ted.” She put her left hand on the other side of his face and held him still and he breathed in her smile, and it filled him. “The man I love. Always and forever. The only one.” They kissed then, and dropped their hands to their laps, still holding on.
He breathed back the last of his tears and stared at her as if he was reading her, the long book of her, of them. “Not... completely true, though, as I think about it. Once... you did love somebody else.”
“You know I didn’t. You Idiot. How can you say...”
They were chuckling now, and he was nodding. “Way back, he said.”
“Who?!”
“Brando. You couldn’t get enough of Brando.”
“Oh, for god’s sake. Maybe for a little while...”
“For years. I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to BE Brando. I was so jealous. Years.”
“Not for that long. No. It was just BBO, remember?
He cackled then, his laughter rising into the high notes. “BBO, yes!”
“Brando Before Obesity. He WAS heavenly for a while.”
“I almost hated him.”
“Oh, bullcrap. You had your Audrey Hepburn.”
He was beaming now, so alive, so fully within himself. “That was different. That was a chaste love. You and Brando — that was lust.” He was awarded her unguarded face of laughter, and her continuing swordplay.
“And you? You were dazzled! Who could compete with her? That wasn’t fair. You have what, four books about her life, her films, all those photos… It isn’t fair that she never got fat.”
“Well, he said,” so happy now, happy to the bone, “we were never unfaithful outside the movie theater.” Their smiles shined like bright mirrors, and then he saw movement over her shoulder, someone approaching, and his grin widened even more. “It’s Bobby! Bobby’s here!” He rose and took three strides to meet his son, a man in his late forties, strong and rugged with a good, open face that was pinched with worry now. “Bobby, I’m so, so sorry, so sorry...” They held each other’s shoulders.
“It’s okay, Dad, but... Jesus...”
“I know... I hate to scare you like that, but it’s alright now. Mom was waiting right here for me. We...” He started to turn to her, but Bobby was holding him, staring, working his throat, very upset. “I’m really sorry, Bob. Let’s get her and go home.” He started to turn, but Bob held on and spoke in a choked voice.
“Dad... Dad! We lost her, Dad.”
“What? Lost her? She’s right...”
“Two years ago. The cancer came back. Sometimes... you forget. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Ted wrenched away from his son and turned to the fountain. Ellie was gone. He began looking about, whipping his vision everywhere, anywhere. “No, she was right...”
“Dad. Dad, look at me. Will ya?” Bob took his shoulders again, gently. “She’s gone. Sorry. We’re all so sorry. She’s gone. Okay... Dad? Remember? Now... let’s go home. Come on.”
Ted hesitated, staring at the fountain again, breathing it all in, breathing in the truth of everything, remembering what he didn’t want to know. With his son’s guidance, with Bob’s arm around his father’s shoulders, they began to walk to the street where the SUV was double parked.
As they reached the car, Bob clicked it open and turned to his father again, and they stared. The younger man troubled, the older man shaken, weak now. “You can’t walk alone, Dad. You just can’t.”
“Sorry.”
“Everybody was so scared. Lacey and the kids were upset. I called her, and Paula was freaking out. You can only walk with us or Paula, that’s what she’s there for.”
“I... I won’t. Okay I won’t. I promise.”
Bob opened the car door, but Ted hesitated, waiting. Bob stared. Ted put out his arms, and Bob came in for a hug, a tight one. While embraced, Ted kissed his son on the cheek. Bob squeezed them together once more and let go, then held the car door open for his father, but again Ted hesitated. “I know you don’t like it when I kiss you. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, Dad. Really.”
“Not in public, I know, but... couldn’t help it.”
“Come on, get in and relax. We’ll be home in five minutes.”
Ted entered the car and fussed with the belt. Bob entered the driver’s seat and helped his father, then started the car and joined the traffic — in silence for a while. Ted found himself taking long breaths. His chest, which had been empty of all but fear, now felt like a great stone. He focused on the streets, the trees, the sunlight, and he asked, in a while, “Can we just... drive a while. Not long, but...”
“Sure,” Bob said. “Beautiful day.”
Ted’s stare went everywhere: the side windows, the rear-view mirror, his son’s face. “Listen, Bob, if you don’t mind, can I get in the back, so I can stretch out a little?”
“Sure. Sure. You must be really tired. I’ll get us home.”
“In a while, okay, Bob? Let’s take a little while.”
“Sure.” Bob pulled over and got out of the car, leaving it running. He opened Ted’s door and helped his father out, then he opened the back door for him, but Ted stood still and Bob stared at him.
“One more hug, okay?” he asked his son. They embraced again, Ted pressing the man to him tightly, and for a long while. In the midst of the embrace, Bob kissed his father on the cheek. They parted then, both of them smiling slightly. Ted got into the back seat and Bob closed the door, walked around to the driver’s side, got in and drove along as the sunlight blinked in and out of the trees.
Ted did not lie down, but slowly turned to the side, not to the window, but across the seat, and he saw just a bit of her coat and hair, and turned back again, excited. He had caught a glimpse of her in the rearview mirror, and there she was. He didn’t want to stare, worried that his stare would make her uncomfortable and she would leave, so he glanced again. She was relaxed, looking out her window, and then staring forward. He sat a while, smiling, and took one more glance, lingering a moment on her face, and she turned to him, no smile, just looking at him. She wasn’t the Audrey Hepburn of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” but older, warmer, deeper. This was the Audrey Hepburn of a later time, the time of “Robin and Marian,” and there she was, just riding in a car beside him, looking at him, and he thought to himself that this day was not all bad, not all of it. He had had spent some time with his late wife. He had had a kiss from his son, and now he was sitting with Audrey Hepburn in the car, and his thought was this: This could not possibly be a better day. And then she smiled.
We're Not Alone
Sending out the hope that you’re doing all right in the midst of this emergency and that you’re staying safe and connecting as well as you can with friends and loved ones. I’m doing a lot of walking and otherwise sheltering. Shut-in, we have more time for reflection, for memories, time for reading, too, and at least I can offer you a story to occupy your thoughts, something to ponder that I hope you enjoy.
“TWO DREAMS AT ONCE”
By Gerald DiPego
I wonder if it’s possible to be inside two dreams at the same time. When we’re asleep and having a confusing dream, maybe we’re actually experiencing two intertwined dreams, both happening together – like this.
It’s Thanksgiving morning, and I awake slowly because of a rich and remarkable scent that I know immediately, even though it comes to me only once a year. I’m twelve and still deep in the womb of the bed, not sure where the bed ends and I begin. I don’t want to be fully born into this day, not yet, so I lay there and find I’m beginning to smile softly, my face still pulpy and creased from sleep, and I’m happy and growing happier, and this is because my mother makes the best turkey and gravy, and, more importantly, the best stuffing anywhere in this world, and this is the scent that has entered my knowing and given me this deep sense of pleasure even before I’m fully conscious.
I could stay in bed. There’s sure to be more cooking needed in the kitchen downstairs, but pleasure and even excitement make me rise, and I begin to dress. It’s chilly on this Illinois Thanksgiving morning so I dress quickly. We have already had several snows. There is frost on my window.
But, I’m also 78 and driving a car. This is one dream, mixing with the other. I’m dressed in a thick coat, wearing gloves, driving along the skinny highway that links the lake towns of northern Illinois, and, now, slowing and turning off the paved road onto gravel mixed with dirty snow, and I know where I’m going. I still know how to get there, the house on Idyllwild Drive where I grew up from age six to 19, and I’m excited to be going there, but why? I’m not sure. There is something there. I feel this strongly, something important.
I walk down the stairs and into the kitchen, and my mother, without looking up from the stove, tells me, “Have some toast, but no cereal. I don’t want you to spoil your appetite.” As if, I think, as if I would even slightly dent this all-engulfing hunger for the planet’s finest stuffing. I keep looking out the frosty windows. Something is drawing me outside. Why? It’s warm in the house. Icy out there. “Snowed again last night,” I tell my mother, but she‘s having her own conversation. “In fifteen minutes go wake up your brother. Look at the clock.”
I don’t look at the clock. I look out the window and see that there is a car parked by our mailbox, its exhaust smoking the air. I don’t recognize the car, and…there’s no mail on Thanksgiving.
I’m 78 and driving down the graveled hills I use to tear over on my bike, some of them steep. Even at this age I probably still carry some bits of stone in my knees from several spectacular falls. I see the house, and my breath cuts off, and I feel the silent machinery of tears forming. I pull over and park on the side of the house where the mail box stands. My breaths are shaky now. All those piled up years are tumbling out of order, tumbling in my mind with shouts and laughter, pain and bright joy, and my jaw is shaking, and I’m grinning a trembling grin, and now the door to the house is opening.
I’ve put on my jacket and I’m snapping my galoshes into place over my shoes. I don’t even reach for my hat, and I don’t know why I’m hurrying. The cold hits my face. Even my teeth are chilled. I close my mouth and ball my hands deep in my pockets and stare at the car. I have never seen a car like it. Its engine is still running, and I can see the driver, but not clearly. He seems old.
From the car, I stare out at the child I used to be. And he stares at me. I recognize him not from the old mirrors, but from the old photographs where he is captured so many times. There are tears on my face, but I don’t touch them. This is him. This is me. I was shy, and I see his shyness, understand his pause. In a moment, and with an effort, I make my arm rise and wave him toward the car. He comes closer, but slowly. There is a ditch before the road, and he trudges into deep snow and pulls hard to take the next steps, and I can feel exactly what he’s feeling, what I felt so often in so many winters here, in this same yard, the heavy pull of the snow. He’s closer now, and I make myself lean across to the passenger side and lower the window.
The man in the car waves me over, and I think maybe he’s lost and needs directions, but mostly, as I walk on, I’m staring at the car, so low to the ground and…sleek. I see him lean over to roll the passenger window down, but it doesn’t seem to roll. It just glides down, and I know my mouth is open because my teeth are chilled again, and I look at him, without the frosty glass between us, and even though there’s something familiar about him, I can’t find his face in my memory, and I wonder what he’s going to say. He’s smiling and seems to be…emotional, and I stay quiet, still wondering.
My young self stands three feet from the car window, stopped there. I swallow and then say these words to him, “Hello, Jer.” And these impossible words ring in my brain and grip my heart like fingers. He makes a small nod, full of wonder. I can see that he doesn’t quite find himself in me, but he’s troubled, so I try to relax him and I ask...“How old are you?” He pauses a moment, then says, “Twelve. There’s no mail, right?” I answer “No, I have no mail.” And he nods and says, “Thanksgiving.” And then I nod and wonder what to say. Why am I here? I ask that question and know the answer immediately – to give him something. To give him something important. I’m not sure what. I don’t want him to be troubled and confused, so I stumble on and make my smile as comforting as I can. “I…just have something to tell you, that’s all.”
The man in the car says that he has something to tell me, and I’m nervous because I don’t know who he is, and I’m trying to figure it out. Some relative from Chicago? Some old friend of my parents? And why not just knock on our door? “Do you…want to come in?” I ask him, but he shakes his head, and, still smiling at me, seems to be working out what he wants to say.
I look at the boy’s face, my young face, and see the worry and want to take it away. I want to tell him…what? That it’s going to be okay. Life. His life…is going to be okay, but that’s not saying anything he can truly understand. What is it he needs to hear? I know he’s afraid of bullies at school and makes himself ready in case they try to shame him as they do others, and I could say…don’t be afraid. It’s not going to happen. But why would he believe it? Something any old man might say to any boy. I know that at his age he’s beginning to feel just the first slivers of sexuality, certain girls, older girls, how they look, women in movies, in the books he reads. Some of the scenes stir him in a new way, and I could say, don’t be worried about girls. It’ll be okay with girls, and you’ll grow up and you’ll marry. But I don’t say that because I remember being him, being twelve, and hearing those words would have only embarrassed me. There must be something I can say. What else is happening in his life now? What does he love? He loves his books, Kipling’s stories and “Tarzan” and “Treasure Island,” and tales of the old European armies, the uniforms, the “Charge of the Light Brigade,” the pure adventure of it all. The adventure. The far-off places. He imagines this. He can taste it. It fills him. I remember. It filled me. “I better go in,” the boy says, then goes on, “It’s Thanksgiving, so…I better…” He starts to back away, but the idea comes, and I say, “Wait. Listen. Just…”
The man is excited now, and wants to tell me something, but it’s all so confusing. Who is he and why is he here? He’s staring so hard it scares me.
“Thanksgiving” I say to the boy, gripping the idea as if in a fist, sure now of what to say. “Yes. Yes, listen, listen, Jer, there will be another Thanksgiving, many years from now, another Thanksgiving morning, and you’ll wake up because of a sound, a strange sound, and you’ll get out of the bed where your wife is still sleeping and you’ll move to the door to listen, and you’ll be thrilled, you’ll be thrilled by the sound, the sound of the rhinos fighting in the tall grass, thrashing and fighting in the tall grass just fifty yards from your tent. It’s true, Jer. It’s all true.”
The man is almost crying and saying crazy things about…rhinos, and I can’t even think, and I’m backing up in the snow, but I can’t turn around yet because his eyes are holding me, and I’m trying to understand. He says it’s about me! He says I’ll be there…with the rhinos! I’ll be right there, and it’ll be Thanksgiving, and I don’t understand, and I turn then and hurry to the house.
I’ve frightened the boy. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it, but I wanted to help him. I wanted to make him feel good about what’s coming, what’s out there for him. But…I wonder. Now It’ll be in his mind. Is that all right? Maybe it shouldn’t be in his mind – that moment, it should be a surprise, and now I’ve spoiled it. Haven’t I? I don’t know. I’m confused, and I pull away from the house and drive on and make a turn and then another, and I drive too fast over the gravel and the dirty snow and find, then, in this old warren of country streets and homes, that I’ve lost my way.
I hurry inside the house, and hear my mother shout, “Why did you go outside? Come and help me.” And I pull off my jacket and unbuckle the galoshes, and now I’m smelling that scent again, and it’s drawing me, taking me away, and I don’t know why I went outside. I don’t know. And what happened out there in the cold? What happened? Something happened, but the memory of it is melting, melting away like the snow on the galoshes, melting and gone. “Smells great, Mom. Great.”
Comedy, Story, Poetry
TWO SHOWS - 5 & 7 PM
So, where you from?
So, where you from? Immigration seen through two families who came here and joined into one family and brought me into the world so I could write this brief story of one American man’s heritage, because we’re either Native Americans or we came here from somewhere else and we’re still coming, with the same hope and promise.
So, where you from?
My father was born on a cattle ranch in Argentina. His father had come from Italy and found work there and soon fell in love with one of the servant girls who worked in the great house. She had also emigrated from Italy. They lived in barracks on the large rancho, then married and had their first child, my father.
When my father was ten, he and his parents moved back to Italy, to Camigliano in Tuscany, and took over a grocery store that was owned by the extended family: ‘DiPego Alimentary’. After nine years in Italy my father finished high school and, being the oldest, he was the one to travel to America to find work and help some of his siblings join him there.
He was 19 and spoke almost no English when he boarded the ship in Genoa. He travelled alone with only the name and address of a cousin he’d never met who lived in Cicero, Illinois. He made his way there on the train. The cousin took him in and found him a job in a factory.
My mother’s parents also came to America from Italy. Aboard that ship my grandmother was pregnant with her first child, and the child was born during the passage. There was no doctor in steerage. A Spanish woman helped her give birth, and my aunt was born and named Inez, because that was the name of the woman from Spain.
Once settled in Chicago these grandparents had three more children, one of them my mother, named Alfonsina. They lived in an Italian neighborhood on the South side, and my mother spoke no English until she went to school. She never forgot the shame she felt as the kids made fun of her as the girl who couldn’t speak the language, and then as the girl who spoke ‘broken English’, and then, by the fourth grade, she was fluent, but still carried the pain, and later she rejected that beautiful name Alfonsina and called herself Margaret, which became Peggy, an American name.
My father met my mother’s uncle, and they opened a candy store. Because they sold pineapple candy, the two men were given the nicknames, Little Pineapple (my father) and Big Pineapple (my great uncle who was overweight). My father worked hard and sometimes relaxed by shooting pool, sometimes with Al Capone’s brother, but our family bloodlines go back to northern Italy, not southern, and my relatives, like most Italian-Americans, stood apart from all mob business.
Through his partner (my mother’s uncle) my father met my mother, joining the two families by their marriage. My father and mother lived in an apartment with my mother’s parents. My dad was the wage earner, then half owner of a bar. My mother’s mother did not speak English, but I remember her as a warm, loving presence. My mother asked of my dad that he speak English in the home, and so he did. They spoke Italian to my grandparents and to each other when saying what they didn’t want their children to hear. I regret not growing up bilingual, but I understand my mother’s wishes. Though she seemed to turn away from the past and her “old country,” she certainly honored that heritage with her cooking.
My brother Paul was born, then me, and in 1942 my father was drafted into WWII, even though he was 35 then. So many men were needed. He opted for the Navy and was shipped to California, driving officers around the base at Port Hueneme. On leave in Hollywood he was hit by a car and nearly killed. My mother, who had seldom left the neighborhood, had to get on a train and travel across the country to the Long Beach Naval Hospital to be at his side. It was weeks before he knew where he was, and weeks more mending. In time he was discharged and back to running his bar again, but our neighborhood had grown dangerous. So, when I was nine my father sold his interest in the bar and moved us northeast to the country, to small and peaceful Round Lake, Illinois. My mother’s parents stayed in the city, moving in with my aunt, Inez.
Like his father in Italy, my dad now owned a grocery store where my brother and I worked after school and on weekends: Tip Top Food Mart. It was as if a circle had been completed. By the time I traveled to Italy, my grandparents there had died, but I was welcomed with great affection by all my aunts and cousins. I traveled there several times, once coinciding with a trip my parents had taken to see the family, just outside of the town of Lucca. I watched my parents during that visit, saw my father’s joy, and saw my mother embracing her heritage again, another circle completed.
We’re all from somewhere, and we all have a story, whether we are Native Americans or those who came to live here only last week or 400 years ago, Americans every one, entitled to the promise of this country.