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A Hole in the Sky

4/29/2015

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 By

Diana Bollmann


She sat at the kitchen table after lunch. Blew bubbles with her straw into a glass of root beer, popped them with the tip of her crooked finger, licked the sweet with her tongue.

“You all right, Alba?” I said, my hands wrist deep in dishwater. My aunt gazed at me with her blue mist eyes, child-like grin, tissue-white cheeks. She seemed together. But I knew better. She was no more at peace than my neighbor’s wild-eyed Rottweiler. Her behavior, as of late, had skittered a fair distance from the usual. The slight tilt of her head, her focus up to the sky, a pining look that wouldn’t go away.

My face averted, I helped Alba into the wheelchair. Didn’t want her to notice my middle-aged mouth pinched tight while I fretted over God-knows-what. She was eighty-four—had her first “episode” less than a year ago. Bad times were coming. Decline, decay, death. Part of life’s great circle, some say. I don’t much care about the circle. It’s the not knowing when she’s gonna croak that’s a bitch.
“Get Birdie,” she said, as we started toward the door. A while back, the doc in Ridgecrest said a pet might help keep Alba sharp. Dogs and cats were out ’cause of allergies. We settled on a zebra finch instead. Got it cheap, for a pity price. The young clerk at the pet shop took a gander at our sorry asses and threw in the cage for free.

“I’m not goin’ to Jupiter without him, Jolene,” Alba said, as we got ready for our daily walk. It was the same routine every afternoon since she got sick: wheelchair, zigzag afghan over the knees, Birdie (cage and all) balanced on her lap.
"What do you mean you’re going to Jupiter?" I said, the first time this chicken bull dribbled out of her mouth.
“That’s right. Birdie and me . . . we’s goin’.”
“How’d ya get that idea?”
“He talks to me while I'm sleeping—says he's takin’ me to Jupiter through a hole in the sky."
My brow scrunched a question, as I pictured a dark and hollow void punched into the sky above our house. "Who does? Birdie?”
“No. That Big Boy bobblehead on my nightstand."
Alba was all I had left, family-wise. I wouldn’t have bought the doll for her that day at the swap meet if I’d’ve known she was gonna carry on crazy about it. But she insisted.
“There’s somethin’ different about this bobblehead,” Alba said. She gurgled, flicked a finger at the Big Boy's fat tomato cheeks. “See—he comes to life when his head jiggles.”
I pulled the afghan up to her chin, kissed her brow like I was her ma. Put Birdie’s cage on her lap, covered it with a tea towel so he wouldn’t get a chill.
“B.B. (Alba’s pet name for the doll) said it’s happenin’ on Friday.”
”It’s all in your mind, Alba. Bobbleheads can't talk."
"This one does.”

Alba wasn’t gonna change her thinking, not for me, or anyone. She was headed to Jupiter, end of story. Been tellin’ me so these past six months. But no matter how hard I tried to pay her no mind, the whole idea sat in my gut like day-old road kill.
Once out the door, I wheeled Alba down Post Street toward the County Road. The early spring air tickled my nose hairs, patted my cheeks with its icy fingers. We traveled along the hard-packed dirt beside the two-lane asphalt highway—trailers and bungalows in open fields to the left and right, snow-capped Sierras ahead. A gray wash hung in the distant sky; silver-lined clouds gathered silently above us.
“What day is it?” Alba said.
“Uh . . . Friday?” I said, gulping.
“Yep, it’s just like he said.” She glanced at the sky.
“What is?”
“Them clouds. B.B. called ’em somethin’ special.” She put her hand to her head as if thinking. “Now what was it?”
My eyes lifted to watch the changes overhead. Clouds, layered in wide bands, now sat above a bunch of upside down saucer-shaped puffs stacked together. What in God’s name is this?
“I remember.” Alba leaned forward, pointed. “They’s the len TIC ’lar clouds.”
“Sounds like a bunch of hogwash to me,” I said.
“Uh-uh. B.B. said most folks think they’s made by the wind. But that’s not true.”
Why haven’t I seen these clouds before? Truth was, I hadn’t paid much attention to anything since I retired early and moved in with Alba. But never mind the past. Whatever was goin’ on right then in that devil of a sky, I didn’t like one bit.
“Take me closer.” Alba kicked her heels hard against the footplates. I sped up, my eyes steady on those clouds.
“I dunno know, honey. It feels like snow. Maybe we should turn around.”
“Nooo, let’s move on, Jolene. We’s runnin’ outta time.”
Strange how none of the folks were out givin' us a wave from their yards that afternoon. Or how I didn’t hear the crows cawing as usual. Must be this cold weather we got today. It made sense to me why no one was around, why we were out there by ourselves.
It has to be the weather, I told myself as the stack of clouds now settled over the highest peak.
Yessiree, it’s this cold, cold weather keepin’ them folks inside.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Diana Bollmann lives with her family and a covey of backyard quail in suburban Arizona. Her story, “Rotation,” was named “Story of the Month” in Long Story Short Magazine. Other works were published in The Sedona Journal of Emergence and Trivia:Voices of Feminism.

Visit Diana at her website: dianabollmann.com (The Road Not Taken).
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Wally Makes His Move

4/28/2015

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by David Chase

I was quite the rake back in the day. Cheek bones, good chin, a confident twinkle in my eye... Good hair, too. I wore it longish, brushed out like a mane. Women noticed me, I’ll tell you, and I was a dancer. Play just about anything and I could make a dance out of it. I could lead, too, a good strong lead, and women love a man who can dance and make them look smooth and graceful. Those were the days, I’ll tell you, and there were a lot of good days.

So after twelve years in the Navy I came back home, ready to settled down. Bob Harris had his window and door company for sale and after a couple meetings with lawyers and accountants, I owned it. Meanwhile, I’d been dropping by the Legion and VFW dances to entertain myself and delight some of the eligible women. It was ho-hum for a few weeks, if you know what I mean, but then one night Jazzy turned up. She was lean and limber, she moved without effort, and she appeared to be alone. You expect to see a woman like Jazzy on someone’s arm or with a cluster of young bucks sniffing around but I watched for twenty minutes and she was by herself, nursing a drink and swaying to the music. I decided to give it a shot. She could only say “no”, right?

But she didn’t. She finished her drink, took my hand, and led me onto the dance floor. The band had just begun Sentimental Journey and in less than four bars the magic happened. She was smooth and light on her feet and she could follow my lead as if she knew before I did what I planned to do next. We danced fox trots, waltzes, polkas, and jitterbugs. I even took a chance with a tango and she followed whatever I did.

Her friends call her Jazzy, she said. I could see why. There was a smoothness about her, and a freedom to flow with the music. I suggested we might come together next time and she said she’d like that.
“So. Jazzy. That has to be short for something, right?”
“My full name is Jasmine. Jasmine Toth.”
Oh, Jesus...
“Arthur Toth?” I said.
“He’s my father.”

Whoa. No surprise now that no one tried to cut in. Arthur Toth, his wife, and their little girl moved to town some years ago and settled out at the old Wheeler place out on Covey Road where they kept pretty much to themselves. Arthur brought them into town once a week. The little girl was cute and pretty. You couldn’t call Arthur’s wife beautiful but there was something about her that caught your eye. Occasionally the wife and the little girl would come into town without him. Arthur was away on business, the wife would say. No hints as to what his business was, though. Someone discovered he’d been a Navy Seal so it seemed a natural conclusion that with all the gunfire we sometimes heard from the Wheeler place he was no doubt a contract killer for the government. We made it all up, of course, but if Arthur Toth had any hint of these rumores he did nothing to dispel them. He was polite, quiet, and reclusive. No one I knew had ever seen him smile.

“I remember when you first moved here,” I said.
“I was eleven.”
“I guess that’s why I didn’t recognize you. I was about to leave for for the Navy. Ended up being gone over twelve years”
“I was gone, too. Daddy sent me to private school for junior and senior high school, then to Bennington College. I had a nice off campus apartment in Bennington and a part time job so I didn’t come home much.”
We exchanged phone numbers and she went home.
Arthur Toth’s daughter.
Son of a gun.

The next dance night when I rang Arthur’s bell Arthur himself opened the door. He was older than I remembered but trim and fit. Still wore his hair in a buzz cut.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Wally. I’ve come for Jazzy.”
“Jazzy? You mean Jasmine?”
“Yes. Jasmine.”
“You call her Jazzy?”
“I do. A nick-name. Seems to fit her.”
“You think so?” He looked me up and down and then took a step back. “Come on in.” He led me to what looked to be his den or study. Shelves of books along one wall, photos on another, and three big leather chairs. “She won’t be long,” he said. “Have a seat. Drink?”
“No, thanks.” The big chair wheezed as I sank into it.
Arthur Toth backed up to another chair, put his hands on the arms, pulled his legs off the floor so his feet stuck out in front of him, and then lowered himself slowly into the chair. The noise from his chair was more of a whisper. A massive gun cabinet stood behind him, rifles, shotguns, pistols, revolvers, all oiled and glistening behind glass doors. I must have been staring at them.
“You a gun person?” he asked.
“No, I’m not. I appreciate the mechanism, the machining, the precision, and I admire anyone who can shoot well, but no, I don’t care much for guns.”
“I have twenty-seven,” he said. “Those are the best of the lot. I keep the others handy. Different places around the house. Just in case.”
“Just in case?”
“You never know.” He gave me a few seconds to absorb that. “And they’re all loaded,” he said.
“They’re loaded?”
“Damn right, and everybody knows they’re loaded. Safest thing.”
Didn’t sound all that safe to me.
“So how do you know Jasmine?” he said, now we were clear about the guns.
“Down at the Legion last month. She was alone, I asked her to dance. She’s really good.”
“Yeah, takes after her mother. Her mother was a dancer.”
“Was?”
“Caught the cancer. Moved fast, couldn’t save her.”
“Damn. I’m sorry. That’s terrible.”
“No picnic,” he said. “Jasmine moved back home toward the end. She’s all I’ve got now.”
“Not to mention twenty-seven loaded guns.”
“You tryin’ to be funny?”
“I guess I was.”
“Well, I don’t joke about guns and I don’t joke about Jasmine. Don’t do that again.”
“I won’t,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Damn right.”
Jazzy came into the room then, light and breezy and gorgeous. I clawed my way out of the chair.
“Daddy,” she said. “Don’t go scaring him off.”
“We’re just clearing up a few things,” Arthur Toth said. To me, then: “You a reader?”
“Some,” I said. “Fiction, mostly.”
“Fiction,” he snorted. He waved his hand toward the books lining the walls. “All the great minds, brilliant men and women over the centuries. So much wisdom, true wisdom, captured for us in books. Wasted if nobody reads them. Wasted. But fiction? Well, it’s all made up, isn’t it?”
“Daddy, we’re going to be late.”
“Have a good time, sweetheart.” He said with a surprising tenderness. Back to me, the tenderness gone, “...and don’t be late.”
“The dance is over at eleven. I’ll have her home by 11:30.”
As if he was logging it in, Arthur Toth checked the clock on the mantle.

He came to trust me eventually, even loaned me a book from time to time, and I was careful I didn’t betray that trust. We were in his study again when I told him I wanted to marry Jazzy.
“All I want is for her to be happy and safe,” he said, “and she’s as happy with you as I’ve ever seen her, especially since her mother died. I never want to hear any different, understand?”

So Jazzy and I were married and we had almost thirty happy years. We expanded the window and door company into wall paper, window treatments, flooring, and Benjamin Moore paint. Never any kids but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Jazzy was as smooth and limber in bed as she was on the dance floor but kids never happened. I thought for a while I might be shooting blanks, but tests showed that wasn’t the case. Just one of those things, I guess.

Then the cancer came, the same cancer that took her mother, and in just a few months it took Jazzy, too. Arthur Toth was a tough old bird but he was shattered when Jazzy died. I drove him home after the funeral and burial. Once we were back at the house the facade fell away and Arthur Toth began to cry. I was quite touched that he let me see that. We were in the room with the guns and the books and he’d broken out the bourbon.

“Only two things ever mattered to me,” he said from deep in his chair. “My wife and my daughter. Two of the loveliest creatures God ever put on this earth.” He took a sloppy sip of bourbon. “Treasured every second I had with them. The rest of this,” he swept his arm around the room, “is nothing.”
I waited. Waiting was always a good strategy with Arthur.
“The books,” he said after a while. “The books. I read them all, you know, tried to make sense of it all, some sense of purpose.” His hand fell with a thump on the arm of the chair. “In the end I suppose none of it matters, does it?”
“Maybe not,” I said. In the past, if the mood struck him, Arthur might launch into long, convoluted rambles that suggested a deep disappointment.
“Was there ever a time,” I asked, “a time when you felt valued, that your work was worthwhile, that it might have had a purpose?”
“Jasmine and her mother,” he said. “I wanted long, happy lives for them. I suppose at some level I hoped my work was important but I doubt it ever changed anything.” He stared across the room. “I did some nasty shit, too. Went places I had no business going, did things most people will never do, all supposed to make the world safe for my two girls. Turned out my real enemy was right here at home. Fucking cancer got’em both.”
He poured himself some more bourbon.

“You treated Jasmine well,” he said after a long silence. “She was happy with you. I always appreciated that and I thank you.”
“She was more than I deserved.”
“No doubt about that. Men are such bastards. We don’t deserve good women.”
The bourbon caught up with him and he eventually dozed off in his big leather chair. I stayed for a while, but finally got up and went home.
He shot himself sometime in the night.
*
Arthur Toth left everything to Jazzy with provision that if she died first it all came to me so I had to sort out both his estate and Jazzy’s. The guns were the first to go, right after I unloaded the damn things. I found photo albums with lots of pictures of Jazzy as she was growing up, family snapshots along with a few school photos. A lot of them were photos of Jazzy and her mom, a striking woman. I could see where Jazzy got it.
There were the records – dance music – probably belonged to Jazzy’s mother. I kept those. I sold a few pieces individually but finally just had an auctioneer come and empty the place. With that done, I sold Arthur’s house, too.
My own place, without Jazzy, was just a big hulk full of reminders so with the cash I had from selling Arthur’s stuff and then my own house and the business Jazzy and I ran together, I bought into Meadowbrook Village, a retirement community out by the golf course. I never cared about golf but the Country Club sometimes had dances and Meadowbrook Village had community nights with dinner and dancing and there were a lot of things I just wouldn’t have to worry about.

I bought a comfortable two bedroom unit. I’d barely got the last of the boxes in the door when a small, roundish woman showed up with a basket of fruit and a large binder of information about Meadowbrook Village. Said her name was Emily. I emptied a couple chairs and got her settled so I could catch my breath and make coffee. I also wanted a chance to take a leak, brush my hair, and tuck in my shirt, you know, be a bit more presentable. I took care of that while the water was heating in the kettle. Emily just smiled and waited. The coffee was instant and the ginger snaps came out of a box.

Emily explained the services and activities offered by Meadowbrook Village and made sure I saw the brochures for each one. Some activities were free, some charged a modest fee, and she stressed several times that so many things were available and handy right here in the village that I’d probably find I didn’t need to leave very often.
“But I can leave if I want to, right?”
“Of course, silly,” she giggled. “This is your home, not a prison.”
*
A Meadowbrook Village dance night was coming up on the weekend and since everyone here was of an age I expected some decent music, you know, a tune you can hum, words you can understand, something you can dance to. I was ready for a little social activity, maybe even a bit of carnal entertainment if the opportunity presented itself. Meadowbrook had a high ratio of women to men which should simplify things but it’s a different game when you’re pushing 70. I wouldn’t have given most of these women a second glance forty years ago but now...
Of course, the dashing young rake was history, too. Still pretty trim, considering, but moving a bit slower. And something had happened to the texture of my hair. VO-5 helped some but there was no more flowing mane.
The buffet was a long table of metal trays over Sterno burners. Everything had labels to help people with restricted diets – low carb, low fat, low salt... At the far end though, they had some real food for people who no longer give a shit and I headed down there. I mean, what the hell? At 70? Most of the damage has been done at this point and it won’t be the salty sea food Newburg that kills me.

I found a table with a man and two women already seated. Introductions all around and the usual “new here?” questions along with some gossip about people I didn’t know. Lots of singles at Meadowbrook, they told me. Some folks had come as couples but then the spouses died and they just stayed. Others, like me, came here by themselves.
“Good to see you out.” one of the women said. I recognized her then – Emily, the Welcome Wagon lady. She finished nearly everything with a little giggle, something she did during the welcome call, too. “We have a lot of these social events. It’s nice to be part of a community.”

“That’s right,” the other woman agreed. “And at our age, we can all use a little social life.”
The man – John, I think – emptied his plate and then waddled off for a refill.
Benny and the Step Stones had set up in a corner near the dance floor.
“This is a nice band,” Emily said. “They only play tunes from the 40s and early 50s. Nothing too vigorous for us seniors.” A small hand covered her mouth as she giggled again.
I don’t know why that annoyed me so much except that I hadn’t yet begun to think of myself as a senior. Yeah, I was almost 70 but seniors are at least 85 have begun to decay. I didn’t want to listen to Emily’s giggle all night either so I said I was going for dessert, got up, and never went back. Instead I went to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic.
“I’ll have what he’s having,” a woman behind me said. “New here, aren’t you?” she said as she joined me.
“Couple weeks. Still getting settled.”
“Quite the crowd.” She leaned back against the bar and looked out over the room. “They hold these dinner dances a couple times a month. Always a good turn out. Some people come to eat, some come to drink, and a few of the nimble ones come to dance. This band is pretty good with the old stuff.” The bartender brought her drink and she took a long pull. “Ahh... I’m Helen, by the way.”
“Wally.”
“Wally? You look more like a Randolph to me.”
“You want to call me Randolph, go ahead.”
“Are you a dancer, Randolph?”
“I believe I am.”
“Show me.”
The tune was Moonlight Serenade. We finished our drinks and I took her onto the floor where I showed her a few of my better moves. When the music finished I gave her my special deep dip. When she stood up again, she was glowing.
“Randolph, I do believe I’ve fallen in love. You’re the first man in four years to show up with some style and a good pair of legs under him.”
“Really?”
“Look around. Tired old men shuffling from one meal to the next. Even the golfers ride around in carts. They were spent long before they came here.”
The band broke into In the Mood.
“Okay, sport,” Helen said. “Let’s see what you can do with this one.”
I warmed her up with a few of the basic jitterbug moves and then showed her a couple of the tricker steps. No aerials, though. I could do aerials with Jazzy because she was so light and limber. Helen wasn’t all that big but she was solid and heavier and you don’t do that stuff without everybody knowing about it ahead of time. We were on the dance floor until the band began to pack up.
“How about walking me home, big fella?”
Why not? The night was clear with just a bit of chill in the air. She had her arm through mine and we took our time.
“So what brought you here?” she said.
I told her about Jazzy and Arthur Toth.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.”
“Yeah. It’s been a tough year. My time with Jazzy was golden, though. Her father was a tough nut – the only thing we ever had in common was Jazzy and I think that was all he cared about. Anyway, they both died and I was left to sort it all out. Sold my house, too. Too many memories.”
“You think you’ll ever get married again?”
“After Jazzy? No, I don’t think anyone else would do.”
No more talk then. Just a couple folks walking home after the dance.
“Number 47,” she said. “My place. I make a wicked margarita. None of that mixer crap. Real limes and oranges. You up for that?”
Why not? I didn’t have to answer to anyone.
She put some slow tunes in the CD player, whipped up a couple killer margaritas, and before the evening was over she found out I had more than a good pair of legs under me.
She cooked a damn good breakfast, too.
She called me Randy.
I expected some talk of commitment or future but it never came up. It was all in the moment.
“We don’t have to answer to anyone at our age,” she said. “Just enjoy it while we can.”
It’s a really awkward conversation to have with your wife, even if she’s dying but when Jazzy learned how sick she was she told me she hoped I’d find someone to be with one day. I started to argue but she stopped me.
“Look,” she said. “No one knows you better than I do. You’ve never done any of the man stuff. You don’t care about sports, you don’t have drinking buddies, you don’t hunt, and you’re comfortable with women. I’ve always known that. So find someone. You make a woman feel happy and appreciated.”

So Helen was a good companion. We enjoyed dancing, she liked to occasionally cook for someone besides herself, and we got on really well in bed. I didn’t feel even close to being a senior.
We were in Helen’s shower together one morning when the stroke hit. She called 911 and they carried me away. I was in the hospital for about a week. My speech was mushy during the worst of it but with some work it came back. My right arm and hand didn’t work right though and I dragged my right foot. And that side of my face – well, it sagged and didn’t quite match the other side.

Helen came to visit often, both at the hospital and after I was home. She was very attentive, encouraged me to do the exercises to get my strength and mobility back, but the progress was slow. I still shuffled and dragged my foot. My right arm and hand didn’t work right. And then, of course, there was my face. Sometimes when I ate I’d discover something had leaked out of my mouth.

Meadowbrook arranged for an LPN to come in, every day at first, but then three days a week. I got around with a walker and eventually moved up to a cane. Helen came less and less. The good pair of legs was gone and so was the dancing. I think I could have managed a roll in the hay but I suspect she wanted someone with more agility than I could manage. And my lop-sided face didn’t help.

I invited her over one night and ordered in Chinese. I even had a bottle of wine to go with it. She came, picked at her food, drank half a glass of wine, and said she had to go. She never came again.
And why should she? We’d always lived in the moment and with no obligation.

I got a good cane and got rid of that god damned four-footed thing that screamed cripple. With some effort and practice I developed a sort of swagger – no more shuffle. Standing straight, steadied with the cane, I felt I might even swagger well enough to walk outside again where people could see me. And that’s where Emily found me.
“Hi, Wally. Nice to see you out again. It’s been a while.”
“Been a while,” I agreed.
“You look like you’re doing really well.”
“It’s coming,” I said. “Kind of slow, but it’s coming.”
“I wanted to come by but I didn’t want to upset Helen. I know you two are close.”
“Not so much anymore,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. She just needs someone more agile, I guess.”
I could see her processing that information.
“Well, I – ” She hesitated, and then: “There’s dance this Saturday. You feel like going?”
“Don’t dance much these days.”
“We could just have dinner. Benny and the Step Stones are playing again.”
Good old Benny.

Emily came by and we walked to the hall together. She settled me at a table not far from the band. Across the room I saw Helen chatting up another man at the bar. Good for her, I thought. Still at it.
Emily produced a little elastic thing to hitch my cane to the chair so it wouldn’t fall and clatter.
“Can I get you a plate from the buffet?”
“Thanks. Not a lot, though. Some pork or beef, some rice if they have it, and something green.”
She bustled off to the buffet and I watched her go. Not bad. A little round and soft, but not bad. She returned with my plate and a glass of water.
“I’ll get you something from the bar if you’d rather...”
“No, this is fine.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I watched her walk away again. Not bad at all. Could be fun.

She came back with her own plate, giggled as she sat down, and began to chatter about who knows what. Every now and then she’d giggle for no apparent reason. I decided she was either happy or nervous. Or both. Didn’t matter. She didn’t seem to be put off by my sagging face or my fake swagger. I was really itching to see if I could at least keep up with a slow tune so when the band began Moonlight Serenade I asked Emily if she’d like to dance. She was out of her chair in a flash. I used Emily to steady myself, and we walked out to the dance floor. If I kept the steps small and held her firmly, it actually worked. She let me dance close, too, and it felt good.
A couple dances, though, just about wore me out and I said I ought to call it a night. Emily walked me back home, she on one side, my cane on the other, and all the time employing my fake swagger. We stopped at my door.
“I’ve got some box wine and some records out of the 50s,” I said. “Want to come in for a while?”
“Yes, I’d like that.”
I sent her to get the wine and the glasses while I dug out three LPs and put them on the record changer. The first was Frank Sinatra.
“I know you can get this stuff on CDs now but somehow the old LPs have a mellower sound.”
“I know,” Emily said. “It’s nice to hear the crooners again.”
We clinked the glasses, sipped a bit of wine, then put the glasses down so we could hold each other and sway to the music. We danced through three songs, then sat on the couch to sip the wine. She was on my left and close, thighs touching. I put my arm behind her head and she hunched down a bit so she fit under my arm. Her head was on my shoulder. That left my right hand to maneuver my wine.
It was nice, just sitting there, holding this woman who seemed to enjoy being held. And that could have been enough. We were both old and lonely, after all, so why not comfort each other?
“It’s been such a long time since anyone held me like this,” Emily said.
“Really?”
“A long time. I dream about it sometimes, dream I can feel the warmth, the skin, but it’s always fleeting.”
“Were you ever married?”
“For a short time, years ago.”
“What happened?”
“He hit me,” she said. “A lot.”
“The bastard.”
“I left one night when he was drunk. We were in Nebraska but I had a friend in upstate New York, a friend he didn’t know about. I bought a bus ticket and went to stay with her.”
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much. A lawyer got the marriage annulled. I don’t know how, but he did. I never trusted anyone enough to take that chance again, so aside from a few very occasional dates that was it.”
I wanted to hug her then. People who have been treated badly need hugs. My right arm got around to her other side but then flopped down onto her breast. And my fingers twitched. Emily giggled.
“What are you doing?”
“I wanted to wrap you up in a hug but my hand seems to have other ideas.”
She pressed my hand to her breast and it became still.
“Now I’m having a few ideas of my own,” I said.
“You are?”
“I don’t think I’m nimble enough for the couch, though. And if we end up on the floor I might never get up. But I do have a perfectly serviceable bed in the other room.”
“You’re not just teasing, are you?”
“I don’t tease,” I said. “Come on in, bring the wine and the glasses. I might even find a candle or two.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m never sure of anything. I had a stroke a few weeks ago and thought I was going to die. Now I’d like to share my bed with a woman again. You want to be held. It’s a win-win.”
She stood up then and helped me off the couch.
“Go find the candles,” she said.



 

A free PDF of David Chase's 3 act play "As Fair As You Were" can be downloaded here: http://www.plays4theatre.com/bookdetails.php?pr=800

His novel, "Grants Ferry" is available on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Grants-Ferry-David-Chase/dp/1477538313/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370166826&sr=1-1&keywords=grants+ferry+by+david+chase


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Waters

4/27/2015

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Once a time long ago, Roy recalled how he had gone to the deep south for a stay at his brother-cousin's place: "Hurry Leroy! There's a car coming! Let's run for the woods!

Roy didn't respond.

"Come on boy get moving or we'll be under a tree!" his older cousin Robert E Lee chided while peering over the bush toward the road.

"Keep your fool head down!: the General whispered hoarsely.

Roy hugged the ground as if it were his mother as bobbing red cheeks went by singing a song about an old man called Joe.

"OK, now we can walk again!" the General ordered.

It was so much fun when his cousin said he would show him the "ole water hole". They went to see and the mud on the sides were thick and black.

"Granddaddy Brown once rubbed himself with that stuff and that's why we this way!" the fifteen year old cousin joked with him and then began slapping his leg uncontrollably as Roy continued to look at the mud and rub his arm.

Five year old Roy never again - that whole summer - went back to the old water hole no matter how many times his cousin asked nor how hot it was.

In his mind Roy tried to flood the old water with new water.

by Jerry Villhoti
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Suicide Headache

4/27/2015

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By Richard King Perkins II

 Pain from another life is slowly tumbling me forward through time
like a lava lamp filled with moonshine agony.
If you will simply split open my face and see what remains,
you’ll find only the beast that hides in the cave of my shattered sense.

The cessation of pain is the greatest pleasure and I will gladly
cut off my nose to liberate my face.
Like a hyena chattering with giggles and deadly intent
I will do anything to tame the creature that mocks my life and sanity.

Girded by a heaping scoop of crazed inspiration, I find myself
stripped bare, tying a rope around the balcony railing, making a noose.
I fasten the rope around the base of my pony-tail
then drop myself indelicately over the balcony’s edge.

When I awaken, I’m amazed that my scalp has stayed attached to my head.
But that isn’t the real relief. I feel my pain unclustering,
leaking out the orbit of my left eye
even as the acute burning on my head’s surface increases.

This is no victory. All I can fight for is stalemate. The beast will return.
The best I can do is hang here in the air of neutrality,
hovering in naked suspension, preparing for the next attack
in the unrelenting war of the skull, this crucifixion from the inside out.

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retired

4/25/2015

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 By Ronald J. Friedman


“Paul, congratulations. Retirement’s just a dream for me.”
“Thank you. How long do you have to go?”
“A while yet. How old are you?”
“Seventy-two. Today.”
“Hey, happy birthday and double those congratulations for retirement. It’s about time. You deserve it.”
“I’ve been giving some thought to what I deserve. I don’t think this is it.”
“Of course it is. You earned it.”
“I thought maybe something else. Some other feeling.”
“I’ve never heard any complaints about you.”
“The company has nearly two hundred people working just in this building.”
“You know how people talk. Not about you, though. I saw you cutting the cake. Your section buy that for you?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Someone put it on my desk, but no one said anything. Tell me your name again.”
“You know my name. Did you really forget?”
“I just wasn’t sure. Who are you, really? “
“Paul, is anyone here with you?”
“No.”
“Do you have a family? Are you married?”
“My family is scattered around the country. My wife died last year.”
“Do you live alone?”
“Where?”
“I asked if you lived alone. In your home.”
“Oh. It’s just me.”
“Are you okay? You sound like you’re not quite with me in this conversation.”
“Yeah, I think I’m doing all right.”
“Look, this is a big day for you. That can be stressful. I’d like you to do something for me. Lift both your arms over your head straight up into the air. And smile. Big grin.”
“Okay? What’s this about?”
“I’ll tell you in a second. Just do one more thing. Stick out your tongue and move it as far as you can to the right and then as far as you can to the left.”
“Did I pass?”
“Yes. That was just a quick test to see if you had a stroke.”
“Geez. C’mon.”
“Well, you seem to be behaving a little oddly. Are talking to someone?”
“Just to you.”
“Look around. There’s no one else here. I’m not here. Paul, do you own a gun?”
“A hand gun? Yes.”
“Just the one?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a rifle or shot gun?”
“No. Just the one gun.”
“Where is it?”
“Why are you asking about the gun?”
“Because you might be depressed and it would be risky to be around a gun. Where do you keep it?”
“At home I keep it locked in small gun safe in my bedroom closet.”
“Is that where the gun is right now?”
“No. It’s in my locker here at work.”
“Is it loaded?”
“You know it is. Two shots still in the clip. Nothing in the chamber though.”
“Thank you for telling me. How about if you and I go to your locker and you let me take the gun?”
“Are you going to call the police?”
“Paul, who do you think you’re talking to?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m you. You’re talking to yourself. First, I want the gun. If I can have the gun I won’t need to call the police. But I can’t let you go home alone without having a doctor examine you first.”
“I don’t think I should give you the gun. You might use it to shoot someone.”
“I just want to make sure nobody gets hurt.”
“No. You might shoot me.”
“You think I’m the one who is dangerous?”
“You are.”
“You left two cartridges in the clip. Why two?”
“One for each of us.”
“Let’s go get the gun now.”





AUTHOR BIO: Ronald Friedman
Ronald Friedman is a retired psychologist living in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is the author of two books and over 50 nonfiction articles published in magazines and newspapers, but has been writing fiction for only the past three years. His short stories include The New Suit published by Huff Post 50 and Night Orderly published by Barnaby Snopes Literary Magazine. Night Orderly won first prize in the magazine's 2013 "all dialogue" story contest.







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a day without dying

4/24/2015

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By Joseph Grant

 We all knew war was imminent but we did nothing to avoid it. There were many signs of war that spring but we chose to imprudently ignore them, championing our self-righteous cause of isolationism and ‘sitting-this-one-out’, but our naïveté and churlish attitude would make sure there would be absolute hell to pay.
It was if in those nascent days that we thought the war could be drowned out by endless glad-handing, backslapping and clinking of champagne flutes and scotch glasses. That the louder we laughed, the more raucous the embassy parties roared that the war couldn’t ever touch us, no. We were the erudite, the refined, the educated fools, actually; dressed in our tuxedos and our dates in their finery, baubles and evening dresses, all heaping praise upon one another with each practiced smile or phony laugh and each potentially hollow f***. We saw ourselves as Defenders of the Old Guard for believing in our Ivy League ideals while the rest of the world had gone shot to hell.
What did we care as long as the Dom was still pouring, the dress straps lowering and the wolves of hostility were kept at bay from our door? This was achieved with great subterfuge by false accords; secret agreements on both sides while espousing autonomous neutrality and slicing up relations like so many endless stale embassy cakes? Let them eat cake, we laughed. It was a sentiment we choked on in the end.
The first indication of war encroaching upon the great city was the hasty influx of feral dogs and cats. It was only standard to look out of one’s hotel window in the morning to see transients and animals looking for unwanted scraps in the refuse of the well-to-do before the metropolis awoke from its gluttony and sloth. I had seen it in every major city of the world, whatever bureau I had been assigned to cover and the lesser municipalities had even greater incidences, it was just that the hungry were not as well fed.
I distinctly remember the early fall mornings when I was assistant bureau chief in Rome a number of years before when I would awake in the cooled air of an Italian morning and look out the open wooden shutters of the room at the back of the old hotel. The window faced a verdant field between the centuries old terra-cotta houses where laundry hung on the line. In the field, invariably on any morning given, roamed a flock of gray and white sheep tended by a herdsman who carried a large staff with a bell affixed to it. The sheep would graze in the wet, dew-laden grass and crane their heads to and fro like sightseers in the early morning fog. I think about that innocent and now ignorant time and wonder if such a pastoral scene even still exists anywhere in Europe, much less the Eternal City.
The second sign that war was imminent were the closing down of the many embassies and innocuously, the cancellation of many parties. These should have been red flags, but we were so consigned to our indulgences, we chose not to notice as there was always another party to go to, one more soiree. In our ignorance, we thought of it as a convenience, if one can believe such now, as it freed up our schedules. As a result, there were many good friends who bid adieu that summer, promising return, never to be seen again, swallowed by the maw of war, one presumes. The faces tend to blur as the names are now as forgotten as their embossed place cards.
The final and most patently obvious sign should have President Calderon’s stepping down in the midst of the military overthrow while he was holiday in Sardinia with his family, a holiday that turned into forced exile. His cabinet minister, the former Army General Juan Milagros assumed full control in an apparent and finely orchestrated coup d'état many months in the planning. Milagros was anything but a miracle of fate, as he virtually handed over the country to the extremists while Madrid burned.
At night, sometimes Paz and I would lie awake listening to the mortar rounds and rockets firing from the distant hills and I would describe the ordinances to her and their capability in battle and how by being situated up on the far end of the hill, the rounds had less of a chance to hit the hotel, as they were designed for short range pounding and less for accuracy and distance. I would hold Paz close to me, as if I could ever truly protect her, as we both believed so then. She would hold me very tight and tell me that nothing could ever separate us, not time or war, but both would have their own even chance in the end.
It’s funny how you are in youth. If you knew then that things were going to change irreparably and how you would never love the same way again you might have held on a little longer, kissed with every ounce of your being and lied a little less, but you don’t have that luxury. Instead, you persist clueless in your daily routine of ignorance; never truly observing with your innate writer’s eye those closest around you. You still go out to cover the story, putting yourself in harm’s way, even though she begs you not to leave. You continue to drink and carouse at the few bars and brothels in town still operating and your vices not sated; somehow you still manage to bed a friend of hers. It is someone she trusted almost as much as you and now you have both betrayed her. You feel rotten about it and the last thing in the world you wanted to do was hurt her, the one who hurt you least of anyone. With male hubris you remind her as she is inconsolable that you once told her that no one can be trusted in wartime, especially those closest to you.
Blinded by your high opinion of yourself, your good judgment clouded and you never see it coming that her friend was never really in love with you and that she was playing the both of you, always planning to tell Paz. With your perception daunted, you accuse the girl of doing it out of spite or jealousy, but it becomes abundantly evident in the end. You never see it coming that your trusted supposedly invincible writer’s observation is actually flawed and has double-crossed you much in the same way when Paz finally and tearfully admitted the reason for her girlfriend’s treachery was to get back at Paz for carrying on an affair with her man.
Devastated, you learn the cruelest irony that fall; that you were right and that no one can ever be trusted; not even yourself. You and Paz spend more and more time apart; always saying you’re going to work things out but things never do and in the night, you know where she’s gone. You’re aware in your never-ending remorse that she’s gone to her new lover’s bed, a Frenchman from Algiers you’ve learned through your intercepts. You find momentary consolation in the tangle of her ex-best friend’s arms, raw emotions and legs but even that feels false as if both are both unleashing some sort of passing excerpt for each other in place of what had been a sum of a greater story.
You know you can never trust this woman as fully as you once trusted Paz and yet while you are cognizant that Paz lied to you as much as you to her in the end, you ache for her without abandon. So much so, you feel literally nothing when the new girl flees the city in fear as they are looting the art galleries, museums and open air markets of this once proud and bustling capital. You feel much more when you hear of the bombing of the café you and Paz used to frequent and even more when you hear the news of Paz and her Algerian that winter.
As you sip your morning coffee at an isolated, still-intact, unmemorable café, an old contact happens upon your exodus from past remembrance and joins you uninvited. You never trusted this black-haired individual who led you down too many blind alleys with too little corroboration and your dispatches suffered for it. You watch his nervous, bird-like eyes as they waver for enemies unseen and as you fold your New York Times in frustration you look at those brown eyes, almost the same color of his wicked, toppled graveyard teeth and even though you hold nothing but contempt for this weasel and his track record of avoiding facts, you find yourself enveloped in his twisted speech, believing him just this once.
He tells you of her Algerian who was spying for the extremists and how they were both accused of espionage and detained and then tried and found guilty of treason by some military tribunal of the moment and consequently lined against the wall in the old city square with students and other undesirables and executed by machine gun. Your heart shreds s at this news and you find yourself not wanting to believe it, but you know in the end that it’s true. You find yourself smiling at the brutal incongruity of how you once read her poetry against that very same wall some nearly forgotten pleasant day long ago and how it is now stained with her blood. You do not wish to believe this account, but you know not even this worthless degenerate with the graying strands could make up such a story if it wasn’t true.
In your grief you hear yourself threatening him for more details but you find yourself loosening your grasp of his greasy lapels from across the table and sinking back down into your chair, broken by it all. The war has come home to you, you mutter. You senselessly add about the absurdity of how Paz and her Algerian were shot by the firing squad in the same plaza that Milagros, having been overthrown by the Ministry, was unceremoniously hanged.
You excuse yourself from one of the few associates left from the old days and you wander the nearly abandoned city in your anguish and stop along the ruins of the world you once had with Paz. The dead have it easy, you think, as wander through your ruined history and you find the power grid has been struck as you enter the hotel you and Paz once made love. It is dark and unseasonably warm in the late afternoon as you wearily ascend the stairs being the elevator is not working in the blackout and you open the door. It is hot and empty in the room where you last saw her and you brush away the dust and flecks of rubble off of her picture you never had the heart to throw away as she was your heart and you start to laugh. You recognize Paz was correct in the end as you look around the room. You notice for the first time that the hotel has been hit, too.
In your vainglorious misery, you wish it was you who had died as you sit on the bed. You learn that while the past stung, so does the present, as you finally feel the ironic chest wound, feel the warm blood against your shirt and see that you’ve been hit. You have no idea when or where but you patch it up the best you can with the first aid kit in the bathroom they gave you when the press corps landed at the airport a lifetime ago. You think of how it is just a scrape, nothing serious and then everything fades to black.
You awake, not in your room but in the hospital after having been found by the hotel maid. You were told you were bleeding out when she found you and her quick action has saved you, but you don’t want to be saved, you want Paz, but once more you can’t have her. You are told by a steady stream of doctors that you are a very lucky man, but you don’t feel lucky without her. You hear them say that the wound is near your heart and that by some miracle your heart has not been injured, but you know better. You listen in the night and think of Paz as you hear the mortar fire getting closer to the hospital basement where they are keeping the wounded. You smile and think of how the doctors only patched you up, explaining that the operation would be too delicate to perform and that such a procedure might kill you, but without her, you are already dead inside.
In the morning you would leave permanently against doctor’s orders, but since they are evacuating the hospital, no one stops you. You ask a cab driver to take you to the railway station but it has been bombed and you bribe him to get you to the airport, but he can only take you so far as the road to the terminal has been hit, too. On the walk to the airport, you think of how there was nothing good about this war. Everyone and everything had been corrupted and compromised. There was no diplomacy left and how a lot of good people had been killed off that winter. You think about all of them, the good and even the bad. The dead speak to you now in memory and nightmare. The war killed them all off indiscriminately and without reason. It spared no one on account of status, responsibility or age. It arbitrarily killed the hero and the coward alike. There would be no glory for the dead and for the living, only the dead to bury, along with the truth.
In late winter of that year a truce was called, which seemed to be an abhorrent idea to those who had been killed. In the end, treaties would be signed, alliances forged in the literal sense of the word, until the next war. There was a sense of putting off the inevitable.
You wanted someone to pay up, explain why so many had to die, but in the end there were no real answers, at least not any that would satisfy anyone. You searched for the truth, but there was none to be found. The truth was covered with peace conferences and each day you hoped for that truth to become known, but so as not to offend any nations still sensitive to the conflagration, you realized that the peace had been as flawed as the war. Too many deals had been struck beforehand and atrocities were glossed over during the proceedings with well-meant platitudes that sufficed as progress. You heard it was history-in-the-making as you went back to cover the conference but you were assiduously aware that history was in effect a glorification of man’s defects and not the contrary and how history is written by the winners; a dirty trick upon the dead.
In the end, you went home and tried not to think about her, but her loss would always be there in the night when you awoke alone. You knew if things had been different, if there had been no war, no Algerian, you and she could have, no would have made it in a world that frowns on such bliss. But the world sought to take her from you and you were always wary of ever truly being happy again in such a world.
With the chunk of metal still embedded in your chest, you were always conscious that you had been spared a death unlike those many others you knew; unlike her. It would always make for a great story with the newbie journalists in the next war, you knew. But with that hunk of shrapnel shifting imperceptibly inside you with the advent of every dawn, you were cognizant that each day could be your last. You knew that with this ticking time bomb next to your already-wounded heart that if the new war didn’t kill you, the old one eventually would. Death would find you. It was only a matter of time.

 

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the last rhino

4/24/2015

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 By John Kaniecki

His eye is on the sparrow
Your song says that is so
Your Creator He created me
I was born
Born to be free
Like the lions who hunt pray
Like the monkeys who jestingly play
Like the ants who march in line
Like zebras running so fine

Adam he was your first
I have known your worst
They have slain me in scorn
My body desecrated
My spirit hated
Their prize---my horn

What shall they do with it?
That cost my life to forfeit
Hang it as a trophy upon their wall
To tell glamorous stories to recall
How in an utmost cowardly act
They shot a gun from behind my back

I am animal yes it is true
Far different we are from you
True we kill, some of us to feast
But you, you are the beast
On Africa’s fields I lay rotting dead
As assassins bullet inside my head

His eye is on the sparrow
I know that is so
He enjoys their song in morn
It was the reason they were born
In me too He had His delight
I too was precious in his sight
Once our herds were without number
Now in death, extinct we slumber
I of all creatures would surely know
For you see I am the last rhino
Hear my words let them not be vain
Humanity is captive by those insane
Hear my words as softly I explain
Your job it was to tend the garden
But greed your heart it did harden
Take your prize that you lusted for
A notch on your belt, another score
And I, I am no more

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
A horn for a horn
In fire creation it shall die to be born
On that day you shall weep, wail and mourn
Feel the horror of your wicked woe
These words are true they are so
Spoken by the last rhino
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the probable answer

4/23/2015

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The Probable Answer
by Richard King Perkins II

Here he is,
hopping around the room in a soiled hospital gown
telling me he’s got far more serious problems
than the diagnoses listed in his chart.

It’s not the schizophrenia that he’s worried about
nor the coprophilia,
he’s just trying to prove that the university
didn’t give him due process when they let him go
after they found him intentionally clogging toilets
so he could more easily collect specimens.

Though it’s been difficult, he thinks he’s finally
figured out a way to show the deans and chancellors
how his study of recent human coprolites
directly relates to teaching classical literature.

On a spreadsheet filled with graphs and cryptograms,
hangman puzzles and anagrams,
are the lyrics from the Go-Go’s song “Head over Heels “

and the line
I must be losin’ it, ‘cause my mind plays tricks on me
is circled so severely that the paper has torn through.

He lets me study his work for a while and then
eagerly asks what I think of his solution.
I point out the line
…no time to think, looks like the whole world’s outta synch.

He nods slowly, solemnly, then produces a pen he’s had
concealed somewhere on his person
and begins a furious restructuring of multiple theories.

I turn to leave. He asks if I’m leaving
because I have to use the bathroom.
He tells me his toilet is broken
but it’s fine if I have the urge to go.

Silverfish lie exposed. The entire planet has shifted
out of alignment one foot
to the left.


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magazine creation software reviews 

4/15/2015

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In my quest to find software to create my magazine, I first tried lucidpress, which was user friendly and customer support was prompt and polite.  There is no free version though, only a free trial, so I tried Joomag.

So far I am not impressed with Joomag.  It is not user friendly and customer support is not friendly or helpful.  I will give them one more try when I create the next edition but if I still don't like it I will continue my search.
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please do not weep

4/8/2015

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FROM THE AUTHOR: I have written a poem that I used in my newly published book Breaking The Silence. My book, based on a true story, has been endorsed by a sexual abuse counselor who wrote a review that was published on its front cover. My aim is to help other sexual abuse victims and victims of substance abuse and domestic violence.


Diamante Lavendar's book can be found at: http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Silence-Diamante-Lavendar/dp/1502381257/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428556631&sr=1-9&keywords=breaking+the+silence

PLEASE DO NOT WEEP
 Do not fret
For your grievous loss;

Do not feel
Like a wave that is tossed;

Do not weep
By yourself, so alone;

For I am with you,
Soon you will be Home.

The things of this world
Are transient and brief;

I will be your comfort,
Your ease and your peace;

Notice the good
And perceive not the bad;

Observe what you’ve learned,
The lessons you’ve had;

For everything you’ve been through
Has come at a cost;

There is good in the bad,
You have won and not lost.

I have set you here, love,
And you shall I keep;

Do not lose hope,
And please do not weep.

-Diamante Lavendar (from my novel, Breaking The Silence).
Visit her blog: diamantelavendar.com
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