Front Porch Review
A literary magazine for the young at heart and mind

By Donal Mahoney   Sat, Jan 07, 2012

            The priest had been there earlier and the rosary was said and relatives and friends in single file were offering condolences. "Sorry for your troubles," one by one they said, bending over Maggie Murphy, the widow silent in her rocker, a foot or so from Paddy, resplendent in his casket, the two of them much closer now than they had ever been.
            A silent guest of honor, Paddy now had nothing more to say, waked in aspic, if you will, in front of his gothic fireplace.
            The moon was full this starless night and the hour was getting late and still the widow hadn't wept. Her eyes were swept Saharas and the mourners wanted tears. They had fields to plow come morning and they needed sleep, but the custom in County Kerry was that no one leaves a wake until the widow weeps.
            Fair Maggie could have married any man in Kerry, according to her mother, who almost every day reminded her of that. "Maggie," she would say, "you should have married Mickey. His limp was not that bad," but Maggie wouldn't listen. Instead, she married Paddy, "that pestilence out walking," as her mother often called him even on a Sunday but only after Mass.
            Maggie married Paddy the day he scored the only goal the year that Kerry took the trophy back from Galway. That goal was no small thing for Ireland, Paddy would remind us all in pubs, night after night, year after year, until one of us would gag and buy him another drink.
            That goal, he'd shout, was something historians in Ireland would one day note, even if they hadn't yet, and every time he'd mention it, which was almost daily, Maggie's mother would remind her daughter once again that she should have married Mickey and had a better life.
            The final time her mother praised poor Mickey, a screaming match ensued, so loud it woke the rooster the very day her mother, feverish in bed, gurgled like a frog and died.
            This evening, though, as the wake wore on, the mourners grew weary waiting for the tears the widow hadn't shed. Restless in his folding chair, Mickey put his bottle down and rose to give the eulogy he had needed days to memorize.
            "Folks," he said, "if all of us would holler down to Paddy now, I'm sure he'd holler back. Despite the flames and all that smoke, he'd tell us all once more that Kerry winning over Galway is all that ever mattered. We'll always have cold Paddy over there to thank for that. Ireland never had a better man. St. Patrick himself, I know, would vouch for that."
            The Widow Murphy hadn't moved all evening, but after hearing Mickey speak, she began to rock with fury as she raised a purple fist, shook it to the heavens and then began to hum her favorite dirge. The mourners all joined in and hummed along until midnight struck on the mantel clock and then, as if released by God Himself, the mourners rose, one by one, from folding chairs and paraded out beneath the moon, freed by a hurricane of the Widow Murphy's tears.

By Carly Berg   Sat, Jan 07, 2012

            “Nice set up.” Jennifer sat down at the table in the makeshift beauty salon. Cheryl had put it together in her parents’ kitchen.
            “Thanks. All I have to do now is re-take the exam on perms, and I’ll have my license. Mom thought I’d be a beauty school drop-out for sure! So, Missy Thing, what have you been up to?” Cheryl draped black plastic across Jennifer’s chest with a flourish.
            “You know. Work, stuff, the usual.”
            “I’ve missed you.” Cheryl stood behind her, mixing the hair bleach.
            “I know, sorry. I’ve been so busy. Hey, is this a trash bag?”
            “Oh.” She smoothed it over Jennifer’s shoulders. “You can tell?”
            “No problem. Just wondered.” Jennifer saw Cheryl’s engagement ring in the big wall mirror. The stone was huge. “What the ─ ” She jumped up, bumped Cheryl’s arm, and jostled the bowl of bleach. “Ow! Ow, my eye!”
            Cheryl rushed her to the sink. “Okay, now just let that water run over your eye for a minute. It’s probably just fumes, honey; the bleach didn’t spill. Those fumes are strong, though.”
            A few minutes later, Jennifer was settled back into the chair. “I didn’t know he’d get you such a big rock.”
            “What? Well, how would you know, silly?”
            “I mean, it’s gorgeous. I was so amazed I almost fell out of the chair! Sorry about that. Let me see.” Her lips stretched into a smile.
            Cheryl turned her pretty, French-manicured hand this way and that in the ray of sun suffusing her face. Tiny rainbows danced off the stone’s surface. “It’s two carats,” she whispered.
            “My lord. Mercy. Well, goose, burst into song over it, why don’t you?”
            “What?” Cheryl withdrew her hand.
            “Ha, just funning with you. Hey, are you sure it’s real?”
            “Is it real? Of course it’s real!” But a small doubt clouded her face.
            “Just kidding.  Don’t get your tits a-flopping.”
            “Jennifer!”
            After a long, tense moment, the girls burst into laughter. Then, working silently, Cheryl parted off sections of hair, coated them with thick bleach paste, and rolled them in foil squares. The sunflower clock on the wall tick-tocked, and somewhere outside a dog yapped. After twenty minutes she announced, “There, finally. Your aluminum foil hat is finished! You want some peach tea? I’m sorry I forgot to ask you earlier.”
            “That’s okay. And, yes, please.”
            Cheryl came back with two tall, icy glasses of tea, and the timer. “Whoopsie, almost forgot to keep track of the time. I can hardly think straight today.” She did a little half twirl, as if she was so joyous she really might start singing and dancing.
            Jennifer sat up straighter. “Thanks. Mmm, that’s good. My throat was dry. You know… it would look even better if it was clean.”
            “What? I just got them out of the dishwasher.”
            “Not the glass. The ring. Goose.” She almost shouted it.
            “Jennifer, is something wrong?”
            “Oh, no, nothing’s wrong. I was just thinking. You know my cousin, the hairdresser in St. Louis? Well, she cleans her ring every night and, wow, does it sparkle. Guess what she uses?”
            “I don’t know. Dish soap?”
            “Nope.”
            “Toothpaste?”
            “Uh-uh. Hair bleach! Here, give it to me.”
            “I don’t know, Jen. That sounds awful strong.”
            “Nope. It’s the best thing, full of ammonia. It makes a diamond crystal clear.” She jabbed the ice in her glass with her spoon.
            “I don’t really feel like cleaning it right now. Thanks for the tip, though.”  Cheryl twisted her ring so the stone was on the inside of her hand. The timer’s nick nick nick was in rhythm with the tick tock of the wall clock.
            “Listen, I’m not sure how to tell you this. Maybe I shouldn’t. Never mind.”  Jennifer rummaged through her purse. “Shoot. Where’s my lip balm? I swear I have total lizard lips. It’s just so dry out.”
            “What? Shouldn’t tell me what?” Cheryl stopped moving, shears in one hand, sharpener in the other.
            “I heard about your ring, okay? Now, this is just between you and me and the fencepost.”
            “You already knew I had it? How?”
            “From church. I heard Bernice and them talking. Now, I came over here to help you, but I’ve kind of lost my nerve. I don’t want my name in this mess. No way, no how.”
            “What mess? What did they say?”
            “They were saying your diamond wasn’t real. They said your “fancy schmancy guy,” that’s what they called him, was all kinds of things, and none of them nice. And that you were a little fool for falling for him.”
            “They said that?” Her mouth twisted up, as if she was about to cry.
            Jennifer looked her over. “I’m sorry. But you know, sweetie, it really is kind of unbelievably big.”
            “Oh, Jen.”
            “I know, sweetie. Listen, hair bleach is best for cleaning diamonds, true. But, more important, the chemicals in it will seriously mess up a fake.”
            Cheryl twisted the ring around on her finger.
            “Don’t you trust him?”
            Tick nick nick tock nick
            When Jennifer held out her hand, Cheryl dropped the ring into it.
            Jennifer put the ring into the bleach bowl. “There. Now leave it until my hair’s done. And then, I’ll shut the church witches’ mouths for you myself. So. Your “fancy shmancy” man. Everett, is it? When did he propose? You never tell me anything anymore, girl!”
            “I never see you anymore. Anyway, what I’m going to tell you, nobody knows yet. Promise not to tell?”
            “I’m hurt you even asked me that.”
            Pink returned to Cheryl’s cheeks. “Well, I’ll just say it. Everett and I have already got that important piece of paper. We’re not engaged. We’re married! He proposed, and then we decided to go ahead and ─ Are you okay?”
            The timer dinged.
             “Hey, hold your head up so I can get you out of that foil. Come on, time to rinse.”
            Ten minutes later, Jennifer was back in her chair, bleached, shampooed, and combed.
            “Ooh, that’s a pretty color. It’s called California Blonde. Do you like it?”
            “Yeah, sure, it’s fine.” Jennifer’s face was pale next to the bright golden hair.
            “Now, how short do you want it? Oh, the ring! Hold on while I rinse it.” Cheryl took the ring out of the bleach bowl, and ran the tap. “Oh, no! Oh, God. Oh my God. Look!” No tiny rainbows danced on the diamond’s surface now. It was gray, dead.
            “You probably didn’t rinse it enough.”
            “No! Look! It’s not rinsing off at all. It’s ruined! Why did I listen to you? My God!” She sat at the table, buried her face in her hands.
            Jennifer was still pale, but her mouth managed a lively twitch at the sides. “Shhh, okay. I know it’s a shock. But this is a good thing, to find this out now.”
            “It’s good? What? My gorgeous, beautiful, lovely engagement ring is ruined! What’s good about that?”
            “Don’t cry. I know, sweetie. But, it’s much better to find out what he is now.”
            “My ring!” She ran from the room, her hand over her mouth.
            Jennifer shouted down the hall after her, “Don’t worry. You can get an annulment!”
            When Cheryl returned, Jennifer had the engagement ring on.  “I was just looking at that cheap stone he passed off on you.” She slipped it off. “This is just terrible.”
            Cheryl sat and put her head down on the table. “You know what?” She sounded tired. “Who cares if the diamond isn’t real, right? I mean, I didn’t marry the diamond. I just wish this morning sickness would pass.”
            “Morning sickness? Did you just say ‘morning sickness?’”
            “Yes, I’m pregnant. We were saving that bit of news for ─ “
            “Jesus penis guacamole!” Jennifer knocked her drink off the table and covered her mouth.
            Tick tock. Tick tock.
            Cheryl cleaned up the broken glass and spilled tea, as if in slow motion. When it was done she said, “What was that you said, Jennifer?”
            “I said it’s a crying shame. About your ring.” She was in the chair, looking at her new hair color in the mirror.
            “’Jesus. Penis. Guacamole.’ That’s what you said. That’s what Everett always says.”
            “Does he? I think I heard it at church. No, not church. What am I thinking? Maybe at the laundromat. Can you cut my hair short on the sides, kind of angled?”
            “You didn’t hear it at the laundromat.” Cheryl picked up the scissors. “Everett and I made it up. It was at Casa Pollo. On my birthday, we were drinking margaritas. Nobody else says that.” She picked up her ring, flicked it down on the table, clack.
            Gaze met gaze in the mirror. Hard, wise.
            Tick tock, tick tock, went the clock.
            The neighbor’s dog barked, breaking the spell.
            Cheryl said, “Those people and that dog. They refuse to do a thing about it. Just a trim in the back?”
            “Yeah, just shorter on the sides, and those wispy kind of bangs, you know what I mean?”
            “Mmm-hmm.”
            “So, the dog. You’ve talked to them about it?”
            “Yep. My mom did twice, and I did once. They say it’s still getting used to being fenced in.” She trimmed the back, held up the bangs, twisted, cut, and let them fall. “How’s that?”
            “Nice. So they just let it bark day and night. People are ignorant, aren’t they?”
            “Mmm-hmm. How about if I angle it down from here…” She clipped one side, then the other. “Do you like that?”
            “Yes, very nice.”
            Cheryl stopped to admire her handiwork. She put the scissors in place. “Do you like this?” She clamped them down, hard.
            “Sonuvabitch!”  Jennifer  bolted out of the chair, her hand over her ear, blood seeping between her fingers.
            “Whoopsie!” Cheryl helped her up, rushed her over to the sink.
            “My ear! Ohhh!! Oh my God, you cut my ear! Ohhh!”
            “Don’t cry! Here, hold this towel there. Pinch it tight, that’ll stop the bleeding. Let me see if I can find some of that gauze stuff.”  After a few minutes she came back, managed to get Jennifer to stop yelling and splattering blood everywhere, and applied a large amount of gauze and tape. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you really shouldn’t be jumping around where you don’t belong.”
            “I didn’t jump until you cut my ear!”
            Cheryl had actually cut off a piece of ear. She found it while cleaning the blood off the floor and chair. Maybe they could take it to the hospital and have it stitched back on, like that little kid she’d known who’d gotten his finger cut off. But she changed her mind and pushed the piece of flesh behind her iced tea glass. “Well, sit down here a sec, at least. See if your hair’s straight.”
            Their gazes met in the mirror again.
            Tick tock.
            “Here’s some Tylenol. You want some more tea?”
            “No, thanks. I’ve got a ton of errands to run.”
            Cheryl handed her a hand mirror. “Now you can see the back. Like it?”
            Jennifer craned her neck to see around the big, bandaged clump that was her ear. “It’s nice. Much better.”
            “Glad you like it.”
            The dog yapped.
            “Well. Guess I better run.”
            “Okay, then. Give me a call.”
            “Will do. Thanks. Bye, now.”
            The door shut. Cheryl slumped into her chair. The small, crescent-shaped slice of ear lay on the table before her, gray, dead.

By John Bolen   Sat, Jan 07, 2012

            Hand drying the wine goblets, the Old-Fashioned glasses, and the beer mugs came so automatically to Mary that she effortlessly daydreamed in her sadness, staring off with eyes not focused on anything. Now in their tenth month of business, Colin and she had been lazy the night before. Exhausted from a hard ten hours serving drinks, they had locked up with dirty barware ignored, a rare but well-needed omission of duty, for everything seemed a strain in not having received an e-mail from Martin.
            During earlier wars when there were no computers or Internet connections, communication from soldiers in the field was limited to letters. Surely there had been less tension when word was not received for days. But with advanced technology came expectations of daily reports from their Marine; and if no e-mail was received for a day, fear began to creep in.  By four days, as was their case, their minds had braced for awful news. Mary and Colin did not speak of this in the superstitious belief that mentioning dreads might cause them to happen.
            A laptop was a regular feature on the bar top ever since Martin was deployed, logged into Google mail, and checked periodically to make sure they had not been logged out.  They used the laptop for no other purpose; it sat there testifying to how technology continuously intruded into the lives of parents of a child stationed in a war zone. They despised the spam that their best efforts could not block, for it would ring the tone of incoming mail and ignite hope that word had arrived only to be dashed with messages about cheap meds from Canada or pornographic come-ons.
            Colin entered the bar from the back office asking, “Did you check the e-mail?” and pulling Mary out of her daydream. The question irritated her. Of course she was checking it at regular intervals and need not be reminded. However, it was a no-win situation for Colin. Had he not asked she would have been irritated by his seeming disinterest.
            “Ten minutes ago when you last asked,” Mary growled in response, and then instantly regretted being so testy. From her frowning face, she forced a smile as she looked at Colin, and it well-served as apology in the tacit communication of this happily married couple. His look back to her expressed his desperation for any word from their son and the love he had for this woman.
            “It’s been four days, should we start to worry?” he asked. A silly question for fear of the worst was evident in them both after only two days had passed.
            “When did we stop?” Mary replied.
            “What did he say in the last one, again? Did he mention anything about leave?”  But these, too, were silly questions. Mary knew Colin had memorized every word of the last e-mail, and these questions were desperate hopes that somehow he had missed something.
            “You know he can’t say much about anything,” she reminded him. Then changing the topic from this torment, Mary asked, “Did you bring up the red wine from the cellar?”
            “Why bother? Nobody’s going to come in on Christmas Eve.”
            “Some of the regulars will,” Mary predicted.
            “What makes you think so?” Colin wondered. This bar was a new venture for them both, and they could only make guesses as to how their clientele would react to the holidays.
            “Because they have nowhere else to go,” Mary answered.  “Not an indictment, just an observation. Molly will want her red.”
            “All right,” Colin conceded, “I’ll go down.” Then he added, “I’ll bring up more of the Cuervo Gold, too.”
            “Since we opened the Captain has never missed a night,” she laughed; just thinking about the odd, old character whose orations created so much fun for all brought a smile. But then back came her frown as she thought aloud, “Maybe I should send another e-mail to Marty? Maybe he never got the last one?”
            “Every day, religiously, since he was deployed,” Colin joined her in her thought. “He has never missed until now.” He was dangerously near to what they both feared to say.
            “Maybe he couldn’t get a connecting line to a server?” Mary continued, although she seriously doubted this explanation.
            “Maybe,” Colin echoed with as little enthusiasm as she held to this possibility.
            The bell on the door jingled. An old woman opened it, stuck in her head to see whether there were any patrons, hesitated for a moment as she decided whether she would enter, and, having decided, stepped inside and carefully closed the door behind her. Then she looked up at the little gold bell. This was her ritual repeated every evening at six o’clock sharp ever since the bar had opened. Never had she opted against coming in, but this procedure signified the guilt she felt being an older woman coming into a bar unescorted, a sentiment the confident younger women of the day would scarce understand. That nice women did not go into bars by themselves had been drummed into her as a child, and it took being a lonely widow for too many years to convince her otherwise, and yet those qualms came to her every time. Nervousness beset her until, like clockwork, Mary and Colin chimed together a warm welcome saying, “Merry Christmas to you, Molly!”
            “If you say so,” came Molly’s response, for boisterousness would not be considered part of her nature.
            “The usual?” Colin asked, although he knew in advance the answer.
            “Yes, but just one,” Molly replied, “I can’t stay long, there’s so much to do.”
            “Give me a minute,” Colin said, “I have to run down to the cellar,” and down the staircase at the back of the bar he headed. Once downstairs, he funneled red wine out of a cardboard cask into a magnum bottle. This little deception he carried out each night as it gave Molly the appearance of getting something better than boxed wine, although it would not really matter to her. Paying as little as she could was of more interest to Molly than the quality of the drink. Surviving several economically difficult times in a long marriage had made Molly a bit of a spendthrift. So although she could well afford to pay for the best wine the bar had to offer, her habit of being thrifty was an integral part of her character; spending less made her happier than the taste of better wine could ever achieve.
            Mary chatted with Molly as they waited for Colin’s return, asking, “Christmas keeping you busy?”
            “Yes, oh, yes,” Molly replied. “I still have decorating to do, and some cards I still haven’t written. There won’t be mail until Monday, I guess, so those cards will just have to be late.”  While idly chatting, Molly’s brain was half occupied on another thought as she looked around the bar one more time to make sure that no other patron was there. Then with deliberation she plopped down on the barstool that was next to the bartender’s station and the only stool around the curve of the bar that faced south, all others facing west. This barstool not only allowed its occupant to slyly steal maraschino cherries from the bartender who was well aware that the cherries were being filched and didn’t care, it also allowed the lucky patron sitting there to face all others during the conversations that filled the bar in a chairman-of-the-board type of position.
            “Now why would you go and sit there again?” Mary clucked.  “You know the Captain is just going to make a big squawk about it.”
            “He can just go to blazes,” Molly responded with indignation at the Captain’s claim to this bit of real estate. “I’m a customer, too.”
            Colin reentered the bar with the magnum of red and a gallon bottle of Cuervo Gold and quickly poured Molly her glass of wine, asking as he handed it to her, “Tempting fate again?”
            “The big blowhard can just stick it where the sun don’t shine,” Molly courageously and loudly answered, coincidentally at the same time as the bell jingle announced that another had entered the bar.
            “The big blowhard is here!” the Captain shouted with a laugh. “And who knows, if you tell me exactly what you want me to stick there, I just might oblige, although if you are referring to my barstool, I don’t think the physics of such an operation are going to work.” He strode over to the bar, stood next to Molly and beamed a sinister smile at the old woman.
            “Hello, Colin and Mary, merry, merry Christmas. I’m back from a day of fighting the world’s greatest ocean, defeating Neptune once again, with a hold-full of fish that fetched a handsome price. There’s money in my pocket, so please keep the shooters and beers coming, and I will celebrate the eve of Christ’s birth in your warm and hospitable, with one exception, company.” Then, in a feat of strength admirable for a man of his years, Captain Mac grabbed Molly up in his arms as if she were some toy doll and deposited her on a chair at the nearby cocktail table. Then smoothly moved Molly’s wine glass to her new location, bounced back to the now-empty barstool and sat on it as if it were a regained throne.
            Molly was flabbergasted and protested to Colin and Mary, “Are you going to let him treat me like that.”
            In response, Colin and Mary, in accordance with a script that had been repeated almost every evening for ten months shot back in unison, “You were warned.”
            Colin set a shooter of tequila and a beer in front of Captain Mac who pronounced, “Now all is right with the world, my barstool beneath me, a shot of Jose’s finest and a beer to chase it down.  What more could a man ask for holiday cheer?”
            “Word from our Martin would be nice,” Colin glumly replied.
            “Still no e-mail?” Mac asked.
            Mary piped in, “Mr. Patriotism here says to him Join the reserves, the benefits are great, and if they call you up, you will be behind the lines.  Well what do you do when there are no lines?”
            “That’s the way it was in Nam,” Mac somberly replied.
            Molly bristled and snidely challenged, “Are you going to brag and tell us you were some hero in Viet Nam?”
            “No hero,” Mac quietly replied, refusing to take Molly’s bait to argue.  “I was just another schmuck of a sailor trying hard not to get killed. I’d been in the Navy for some time, pulling soft duty. Then from ‘69 to ’71 they stuck me on a gunboat in Nam on river patrol.  Changed the hell out of me; killing men is killing men, makes no difference that they call it a war.”
            Disappointed that she could not catch the Captain in a brag, Molly instead chided him, “You have a fine way of cheering up Colin and Mary here.”
            “You’re right,” Mac conceded. “So what are you two doing for Christmas?”
            “With Marty overseas, it doesn’t even feel like Christmas,” Colin commiserated.
            “We haven’t even gotten a tree this year,” Mary added.
            “No family coming over?” Mac asked.
            “Mary’s and my folks have all passed,” Colin replied.  “Mary’s mom was the last to go, and after that, none of her siblings seem to want to put in the effort to get together. And all my relatives live on the other side of the country. No, it’s just Mary and me. Maybe we’ll go out for a nice restaurant meal. Molly, what’re your plans? You got family coming?”
            “No, no family,” Molly said with sadness. “With my Bertram gone, the holidays are quiet time for me. I’ll go to Mass in the morning, and then I always cook a ham and yams and all the fixings. And after dinner a little eggnog with just a bit of rum, and I’ll sit down and watch our copy of A Charlie Brown’s Christmas. That was Bert’s favorite, God rest his soul. He knew every line, and he would be whistling all the music for days.”
            “And you said you were finishing up all of the decorations,” Mary added.  “That is so admirable.”
            “What’s so admirable about it?” Mac threw in a caustic barb.
            “Well, just that she keeps up all the traditions by herself,” Mary defended her.
            “Sounds more like someone keeping busy so that they don’t bore themselves to death,” Mac scoffed.
            “This from a man whose idea of sentimentality is crying when he can see the bottom of a beer mug,” Molly snapped back.
            “Play nice, you two,” Colin gently chided.  “How about you, Captain Mac?  What are your plans?”
            A smile came to the old man signaling to all that they were in store for a bit of oration, “As for Christmas Eve, I’m doing it now. Shooters and beers and conversation with two friends and another person I will not name who I can tolerate.” 
            Then he realized that in talking about the libations he had a thirst for more. “Pour me another, Colin, of that sweet, sweet nectar.” Colin quickly obliged with another shot of tequila which Mac downed, waved for another, and then downed that next shot with a flash of his wrist.  “What better way to celebrate a birthday,” Mac beamed. 
            “Then, come sunrise,” he continued his oration, “when the water in the bay is like glass, and the sounds of the town are still just a murmur, I’ll pull the Persephone out of her slip and head for the breakwater. It’s there your face gets hit with that wonderful mist of saltwater that lets you know you’re really alive. I’ll point the boat south towards warmer climes, and after days of fishing and drinking and basking in God’s great gift, I’ll round the tip of Baja and pull into Cabo for a day. There is this delightful senora who’s always ready to give me some comfort, and she enjoys throwing me into a tub and scrubbing away the smells of the briny.”
            “A senora!” Molly clucked in disapproval.  “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
            “Ashamed?” Mac shot back.  “Why would I be ashamed?  We both bring something to the table. Come the next morn, I’ll head up the Sea of Cortez to a small town called Loreto that is a little bit of Eden in this troubled world.  Oh, there are those who have tried to turn it into a tourist hell, but the town just seems to ignore them, staying the same for decades on end. I’ll anchor offshore and take the little boat in. A short way down the road from the town square there is a small motel practically covered in bougainvillea and surrounded by jasmine whose sweet perfume wafts to you when you are still blocks away. On the way I’ll pass a tiny home with some sweet sisters of mercy. A man can find some comfort there.  At the motel, for a pittance I’ll get a comfortable bed and three squares, and, if you are kind to the cook, she’ll turn your day’s catch into the most delicious ceviche on the planet. With that and shooters and cerveza, one can take in the evening with your feet up and be tempted to get one’s land legs again.”
            “My God, that sounds good,” Colin chimed in with his head rolled back as he absorbed in the pictures that the Captain painted. “Take me along?” he begged.
            “Is that so?” Mary scolded her spouse. “And which is the more enticing, the women or the whiskey?”
            “It’s the fishing and the freedom,” Colin defended himself with a chuckle.
            “And you would leave me here to do all the work?” Mary continued her scolding.
            Colin came to his wife, hugged her and kissed her forehead. “We opened ten months ago and haven’t had a day off since. We could both do with some R&R, so what do you say, Cap?  Have you got room for two?”
            “He should say yes,” Molly chimed in with sarcasm, “and save himself from his loneliness.”
            “What’s that?” Captain Mac snapped back.
            “I was just saying your excursion sounds like an old man desperately trying to stave off his sad, lonely existence.”
            “This from a woman who comes in here night after night ordering one glass of wine because she supposedly must rush off to something else, then manages to nurse that glass for hours on end listening on the edge of other people’s conversations, throwing in her occasional acidic remarks. Living your lonely life, you’re going to criticize an expedition through the most wondrous of Christmas presents, our beautiful Pacific with its bounty?”
            “It’s hard to be sure given all the garbage words you throw at a soul, but are you saying you are not lonely?” Molly challenged the Captain.
            “I have friends in every port,” Mac refuted.
            “Be honest for once in your life, you old buzzard, and admit you are lonely,” Molly insisted.
            “Christ, I am lonely all the time,” Mac confessed.  “Are you happy?  Have you won?”
            “C’mon guys,” Colin interrupted this too-intense exchange. “What do you say, Captain Mac, do you have room for a couple of mates? We’ll pay for our keep, and I know my way around a fishing boat.”
            “What about Marty?” Mary voiced her concern. “How would we keep in touch?”
            “I’ve got satellite access to the Internet,” the Captain assured her. “You could stay in touch. And the Persephone will sleep eight.  There’s plenty of room.”
            “And we could keep you company,” Colin added as much trying to convince his wife of the merits of their joining the trip as trying to convince the Captain.
            “Then it’s settled,” Mac agreed.
            And Mary nodded her assent to complete the pact; however, she surprised Mac when she then asked, “What about you, Molly?”
            “What’s that you are saying?” Mac quickly asked, although he well understood, and it was as much a protest as question.
            “Well, you said there’s lots of room,” Mary reminded him.
            “Well, there is but…” Mac started to reply.
            But before he could register his complaint, Mary cut him off, saying, “Then it’s settled. How ‘bout it, Molly?”
            “You expect me to spend two weeks with this blowhard, braggart of a man?” Molly sniped.
            “You’ve spent the last ten months with him every night,” Colin reminded her. “I can’t see that two weeks would be that much different. I think it’s a wonderful idea. You two feel so much like family it would be great. No one should be alone for the holidays. What do you say, Cap?”
            “She’d have to share the load,” Mac hesitatingly agreed. He turned to Molly and sized her up for a second. “Do you know how to cook?”
            “Do I know how to cook?” Molly replied testily. “For twenty-eight years my Bertram always had a wonderful dinner when he got home.”
            “But the man died young,” Mac countered.
            “What a terrible thing to say,” Molly shot back, offended by the suggestion even if in jest. “Do you really think he and I could spend that long on his boat and not be ready to slit each other’s’ throats?” she asked of Colin and Mary, although they could see in her eyes that her protest hid her real interest in the proposition.
            “I think you two might be surprised as to how much you have in common,” Colin observed.
            “Molly and me?” Mac called Colin on his suggestion. “What could we possibly have in common?”
            “You’re both old,” Colin lamely responded.
            “You’re both single and alone,” Mary added with better success.
            “You both seem to delight in sparring back and forth,” Colin added.
            “You’re both pleasant to look at,” Mary added.
            “Well, thank you,” Mac replied to Mary’s last compliment, and looked at Molly in a way he had never before. In his mind, he agreed that the old woman was pleasing to the eye.
            “You need each other,” Colin tossed in.
            “You think I need this big mouthed…” Mac started.
            But Mary cut him off again, saying, “Colin and I opened this bar getting close to a year ago, and most people would say we sell booze to make our living, but that isn’t what we are selling at all. Anyone could sit at home and drink themselves silly. So when people come to our tavern, it’s not for the booze, although it helps. No, it’s for the company. That is what we sell.  There’s no shame in admitting that we humans need other humans. We need their company.  And with the holidays, the greatest gift we can give each other is ourselves, with conversation and jokes and songs and the delight of hearing what is on each other’s minds.”
            “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Colin praised his wife’s observation. “Come on, you two, it will be a great adventure,” he pressed Mac and Molly.
            “Well, there is room on the boat,” Mac conceded.
            “I’m welcome only because there is room on the boat?” Molly challenged.
            “That’s not what I mean,” Mac growled back, and then a side of the old sailor showed up that the other three had never seen.  “Your company would be nice,” he said with sincerity.
            “Nice?” Molly responded, surprised by the compliment.
            “Yes, nice,” Mac repeated with a warm chuckle.
            “Well, if you are all sure,” Molly replied as a smile came to her face.
            “I am the commander of the grill, though,” the Captain insisted.  “You can help with all the other cooking, but the grill is my domain.  Agreed?”
            “All right, you grizzled old thing,” Molly assented.
            Just then the laptop beeped the alert that a new e-mail had arrived. Colin and Mary both dashed to the machine, Mary getting there first to open it.
            “Is it from Marty?” Colin anxiously asked.
            “Just give me a second, now,” Mary scolded his impatience.
            “Here, I’ll do it,” he pressed.
            “Back off, Colin,” Mary snapped back.
            Seldom did this sweet woman ever get that specific tone in her voice, and Colin obediently backed off with an apologetic, “Yes, ma’am.”
            “Here it is,” Mary announced with excitement and started to read the missive.  “He just got off patrol… two days straight… He’s apologizing for not writing.”
            “What else,” Colin pressed again.
            “Let me read it!” Mary glared at her spouse.  “He lost a friend… Whitey Burns from Pittsburgh.”
            “Oh my God, is Marty okay?” Colin begged, impatient for the news he was desperate to hear.
            “He’s not hurt… the patrol was hit pretty bad… he’s being rotated out.”
            “What?” Colin gasped, overcome by the news and needing assurance he hadn’t dreamed it.
            “He’s coming home!” Mary shouted in glee.  “Oh, Colin, our baby’s coming home. He’ll be here in three days.”
            “It’s a Christmas gift if ever there was one,” Mac congratulated them on the news.
            “I’m so happy for the two of you,” Molly added.  “He’s coming home!”
            “He’s coming home!” Colin and Mary crowed in unison.
            “He’s coming home!” Mac and Molly echoed their joy for their friends’ wonderful news.
            “We have so much to do,” Mary reminded Colin with concern. “We haven’t put up a single decoration. He’ll be here for the holidays, and we haven’t done one thing to make it look like it.”
            “We have a few days,” Colin responded. “We can pull out the Christmas boxes and string some lights and garlands and… ”  He stopped himself short asking, “Do you think it’s too late to get a tree?”
            “You’re right,” Mary agreed, “they’ll be closed down by now.”
            “Not a worry,” Molly piped in.  “I have one sitting in my home, just waiting to share in such joy. It’s small, so you can just take it out through the sliding doors with all the decorations on it.”
            “Oh, Molly, are you sure?” Mary asked, bowled over by this generosity.
            “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Molly insisted.
            “Sorry, Captain Mac, I guess we will have to pass on the Loreto excursion this time,” Colin apologized. “It sure sounded like fun.”
            “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” the Captain insisted. “I envy you your joy. There will be another time you and Mary and even Marty can climb aboard the Lady Persephone, and we’ll ship off for that southern Eden.”
            “That would be nice,” Mary replied, warmly smiling for his kindness and understanding.
            “I had better be heading home now,” Molly said.  “Mass is early in the morning.”
            ”What’s that?” Mac asked.
            “Mass. Early morning,” Molly iterated.
            “There’s no time for Mass, we ship out on the morning tide.”
            “You don’t have to keep to that,” Molly replied, giving him an out. “Colin and Mary pretty much compelled you to invite me along.”
            “Compelled, did you say?” Mac came back to her.
            “Yes, compelled.”
            “I wasn’t compelled,” Mac argued.
            “You most certainly were,” Molly argued back.
            “You stubborn, stubborn woman,” Mac chastised Molly. “There was only one time in my life I’ve ever been compelled to do anything and that was on that boat in Viet Nam. I swore after that I would never be compelled again. Not by any boss, not by anybody. And I’ve kept that vow and risked all I had coming out of the service ─ bought   a boat, not just any boat, but a fishing boat, the Persephone, and she has served me well. The only thing that compels me is to go out on that Pacific puddle and face Triton’s forces and scorn to be my own man.”
            “And that’s why you never married,” Molly observed.
            “What?” Mac responded, not believing how the old woman always seemed to twist everything to an insult.
            “That is why you’ve been alone,” Molly echoed.
            “You must be the most frustrating woman on the planet,” Mac shouted at her.
            “If you don’t mind me putting in my two cents in, Cap, I think she wants to be invited,” Colin offered.
            “Invited, you say?” Mac repeated in disbelief.
            “Yes, invited,” Mary agreed.
            “I’ve already said there is room,” Mac stated the obvious.
            “That’s not it,” Colin replied, shaking his head.
            “I said it would be nice,” Mac reminded them getting frustrated.
            “Still not quite there,” Mary observed.
            “All right,” Mac surrendered.  “Molly Fields, would you do me the great honor of accompanying me on an adventurous excursion to my home away from home, Loreto, where we can bask in the sun and drink all night and live like a king and queen and forget that there is any other world beyond?”
            “My, you use a lot of words,” Molly noted, finding it hard to give up her caustic ways.  “What about your senora and your sisters of mercy?” she pressed.
            “Well, they will just have to do without me this trip,” Mac humbly answered.
            “Then, yes,” Molly gave answer.
            “Yes?” Mac pressed to make sure of her decision.
            “Yes,” Molly repeated with a charming little laugh.
            “Well you better get home and get your stuff together,” the Captain issued his first order.
            “Why don’t you come with me,” Molly coyly offered, “and show me what I need to pack.”
            “To your home?” Mac asked her to confirm, a charming blush coming to his cheeks.
            “Yes,” Molly replied.
            “Right now?” Mac stuttered.
            “Yes, you silly man,” Molly giggled.
            “Well, all right,” Mac agreed.
            “But don’t expect any sex,” Molly warned.
            “Molly, you are shocking us,” Mary laughed.
            “Well, he shouldn’t be expecting anything just for a boat ride,” Molly matter-of-factly replied.
            “It’s understood,” Mac promised.
            “Well then, come along,” Molly instructed the slightly discombobulated, usually self-controlled old man.
            “Yes, ma’am,” Mac obeyed, his visage breaking into a huge smile.
            “Colin and Mary, give our love to Marty,” Molly said.
            “We will,”
            Captain Mac offered his arm to Molly as they stepped to the door to leave the bar. And just before passing through that portal, the Captain turned and boomed out, “Merry Christmas and goodbye to our little Eden of the North.”  Then he risked planting a kiss on the old woman’s cheek, and they were gone into the night.

By Allen Kopp   Sat, Jan 07, 2012

            Lorene Gauss maneuvered her white Cadillac through town and out onto a country road. She was sweating, her throat felt dry, her tongue was thick in her mouth. These little excursions delivering food baskets to the poor made her prickly and nervous, but it was something she believed she had to do. She couldn’t be the only member of her ladies’ club who didn’t deliver baskets. She wouldn’t have anything to talk about at the meetings when the other women were amusing the members with their experiences. And, besides, she was the treasurer. The treasurer couldn’t just sit out an important charity initiative.
            She brought her daughter, Patsy Ruth, along on this trip. Patsy Ruth wasn’t much good with visits to the poor, but it was some small consolation to have somebody in the car with her, especially when she was going to a place she had never been to and wasn’t certain how to get there. Nevertheless, Lorene felt a certain amount of resentment toward the other ladies regarding this particular assignment. Some of them lived closer, and they all knew very well she didn’t like going that far from town.
            Patsy Ruth stared straight ahead, gripping the armrest. At fifteen, she was beginning to look like her father: receding chin, piggish pink skin, unruly red hair. She would have done better to look like her mother, but we never have any say in these matters.
            “I think you missed a turn,” Patsy Ruth said.
            “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Lorene asked with irritation. She looked in the rearview mirror to make sure no cars were coming, slowed and executed a U-turn in the middle of the highway.
            “Turn on that dirt road where that old fence is,” Patsy Ruth said.
            “Whoever heard of not having signs to mark the streets?” Lorene said, ignoring the simple fact that she was in the country and there weren’t any streets, only roads and turn-offs.
            Lorene followed the winding road for a mile or so until she came to a weather-beaten, two-story house with a sagging front porch on a rise overlooking the road.
            “This has to be it,” she said. “It’s the only house for miles.” She stopped the car and started to get out.
            “I’ll wait in the car,” Patsy Ruth said.
            “You’ll do nothing of the kind!” When Lorene was getting the food basket out of the trunk, a little brown dog spotted her from the porch, gave two sharp barks and then ran toward her, wagging its tail. It nudged her ankle with its nose.
            “I think it likes you, Mother,” Patsy Ruth observed.
            “Get away!” Lorene said. “Oh, I hope it doesn’t have fleas!”
            When the dog attempted to jump on her with its front legs, she gasped and handed the food basket to Patsy Ruth who distracted the dog by making a clicking noise with her tongue and doing a little dance.
            “I think that little beast snagged my hose,” Lorene said as they walked up the hardscrabble slope of the front yard to the porch.
            They held the food basket between them as if they were posing for a picture. When Lorene rapped on the door, it was opened with such suddenness that Patsy Ruth emitted a little scream.
            “Yes?” the dark man said who looked out at them.
            “Mr. Whitlow?” Lorene said with a bright smile, making sure to have the name in her mind so she would get it right.
            He opened the door farther. “That’s right,” he said. “I’m Whitlow. And who might you be? You lost? People that come this far out are usually lost.”
            “Well, no, we’re not lost. I’m Mrs. Gauss, and this is my daughter, Patsy Ruth.”
            “You’re not from the police department, are you?”
            “No, nothing like that.”
            “I’ve already explained that little matter about the snake all I’m going to. If that child was bit by that snake, it wasn’t my fault. I told him about it beforehand.”
            “No, it isn’t anything like that.”
            “Well, what then?”
            “We’re from the Harmony Hill Christian Ladies’ League. We brought you this basket of food as an offering, as a gesture of good will, with our best wishes and our hope that you enjoy it.”
            He looked suspiciously at the basket. “What’s in it?” he asked.
            “Oh, uh, a variety of things, I believe. Potted meat, peanut butter, ginger snap cookies, beans, cornbread mix…”
            “Any cigarettes in there?”
            “Why, no, I don’t think ─ ”
            “Just kidding. Come on in. My wife will have to see this for herself.”
            He went to the kitchen, leaving Lorene and Patsy Ruth standing just inside the door. When he and his wife came back, she looked at them and squinted like a nocturnal animal unused to the daylight. She didn’t as a rule see strangers in her house and, besides, she was very near-sighted.
            “Yes?” she said. “Who’re you?” The corners of her mouth turned down, and her eyes looked worried. She was a person who expected trouble at every turn.
            “How do you do? I’m Mrs. Gauss, and this is my daughter, Patsy Ruth.”
            Patsy Ruth executed a little curtsey in her church dress as if she were a six-year-old rather than a big, galumphing girl on the verge of womanhood.
            “What on earth?” Mrs. Whitlow asked. “What is this all about?”
            “It’s not like that,” Mr. Whitlow said. “They brought this, uh, this thing to give us.”
            “We’re from the Harmony Hill Christian Ladies’ League,” Lorene intoned. “We brought you this basket of food as an offering, as a gesture of good will, with our best wishes and our hope that you enjoy it.” She held out the basket for Mrs. Whitlow to take, but Mrs. Whitlow only stood there with a bewildered look on her face.
            “We won it?”
            “No, not exactly,” Lorene said.
            “We’re supposed to pay you for it, then?”
            “Oh, no, we’re giving it to you. It’s yours to keep.”
            “Why are you giving that to me?”
            “It’s something we do from time to time. Your name came up on our list.”
            “What list is that?”
            “For the Lord’s sake,” Mr. Whitlow said. “Quit asking so many questions, and let’s all of us sit down.”
            He took the basket from Lorene and set it on a chair beside the door. He then gestured for Lorene and Patsy Ruth to sit on the sofa while he sat in a chair next to the sofa, and Mrs. Whitlow sat on a metal kitchen chair.
            “Would you like a drink?” he asked. “A scotch and soda?”
            “You came all the way out here to give us this basket?” Mrs. Whitlow asked.
            “Why, yes.”
            “And we didn’t win it in a radio contest?”
            “No.”
            “What do we have to do for it?”
            “You don’t have to do anything.”
            “I don’t think I understand.”
            “What’s there to understand?” Mr. Whitlow said. “When somebody’s giving you something, just accept it. You don’t need to know everything.”
            Lorene avoided using the words charity or needy ─ poor people could be so touchy ─ but she thought some kind of explanation was in order.
            “Well, you see,” she said, “we have this club with about twenty-five active members. We have bazaars and bake sales and things in which we make money. Rather than use the money for something for ourselves, we think it’s a good idea to help some of the people in the community. It’s a community outreach kind of thing.”
            “Are you satisfied now?” Mr. Whitlow asked.
            “But why us?” Mrs. Whitlow asked. “You don’t even know us.”
            “One of the club members submitted your name. I’m not sure who it was.”
            “We don’t know anybody in your club.”
            “Well, somebody in the club knows of you. Let’s just put it that way.”
            Mr. Whitlow stood up. “I want you to meet the rest of the family,” he said. He went into another part of the house and came back pushing a wheelchair containing an old woman with bright red hair. “This is my mother.”
            “How do you do?” Lorene said.
            Patsy Ruth would have curtseyed again had she not been sitting.
            The old woman showed no sign of awareness; her chin rested on her chest, and her eyes were closed. Her breathing was a painful-sounding rasp.
            “She’s asleep,” Mrs. Whitlow said. “Why didn’t you at least wake her up?”
            “She was awake when I went in,” Mr. Whitlow said. “She went to sleep just that fast.”
            “I just dyed her hair yesterday,” Mrs. Whitlow said. “I think it looks pretty, don’t you? It’s kind of a lot of trouble to do it, but I think looking pretty makes her feel better. We have to lay her on her back on the counter and hang her head down in the sink. She puts up a fuss because she thinks we’re trying to drown her.”
            Patsy Ruth laughed, and Lorene gave her a sharp look.
            “She isn’t well, I take it,” Lorene said.
            “She’s got the TB,” Mr. Whitlow said. “Final stages.”
            “Do you mean tuberculosis?”
            “That’s right. She’s been dying now for about fifteen years.”
            “Isn’t that contagious? Shouldn’t she be in a hospital?”
            Mr. and Mrs. Whitlow both laughed but Lorene didn’t get the joke.
            “Well, all I know is I’ve never caught it from her, and I’ve been living with her under the same roof for my whole life except for the time she spent in jail,” Mr. Whitlow said.
            Mrs. Whitlow stood up and went over to the old woman and shook her by the shoulder to wake her up. “We’ve got company, Ethel Jean,” she said, screaming into the old woman’s ear. “These nice ladies from town brought us this basket of food, but I haven’t been able to figure out the reason yet.”
            “Huh?” Ethel Jean said. “What did you say? I didn’t say nothing.” She looked around the room, confused. “Who are all these people? It looks like a convention of dodo birds!”
            “She exaggerates things,” Mrs. Whitlow said, by way of explanation. “You can’t pay any attention to anything she says. We always just humor her.”
            “She thinks what she sees on the TV is really happening,” Mr. Whitlow said. “It confuses her.”
            “It’s like having a small child in the house,” Mrs. Whitlow said.
            “I think we’d better be running along, don’t you, Patsy Ruth?” Lorene said. “We don’t want to intrude any longer.”
            “All right,” Patsy Ruth said.
            “Oh, don’t go,” Mrs. Whitlow said. “We so seldom have visitors.”
            “She’s right,” Mr. Whitlow said. “You don’t have to go just yet. I want to talk some more.”
            “Pay ‘em whatever they ask,” the elder Mrs. Whitlow said. “I don’t care so much about the money. Just make sure they understand what’s expected of them.”
            “She’s got an awful pretty hairdo, yes she does,” Mrs. Whitlow said in a baby voice as if she was talking to a small dog.
            “You can see what kind of a life I have.” Mr. Whitlow sighed..
            “So,” Lorene said, trying to think of something to say, “it must be awfully quiet living this far out of town.”
            “It gets so lonely sometimes I think I’ll die,” Mrs. Whitlow said.
            “I don’t know,” Mr. Whitlow said. “I’m so used to it I don’t even think about it.”
            “You don’t have any children?”
            “Two boys,” Mrs. Whitlow said. “They both live a long ways off and never come to visit.”
            “Just a distant memory,” Mr. Whitlow said. “They don’t care if we live or die.”
            “Do you have any other children?” Mrs. Whitlow asked.
            “I have a grown son. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and makes it back home about once a year around Christmastime.”
            “Is he married?”
            “No, but he has a lovely girlfriend. I think they’ll end up getting married when all is said and done.”
            “I know where I’ve seen you!” Mr. Whitlow said.
            “What?”
            “As soon as you came through the door, I knew I’d seen you but I couldn’t think where. What did you say your name is?”
            “Lorene Gauss.”
            “What was it before you were married?”
            “Albrecht.”
            “Lorene Albrecht, of course! Didn’t you go to high school here about twenty-five years ago?”
            “Why, yes, I did.”
            “I was in that school at the same time. I was a year ahead of you.”
            “Whitlow? I don’t remember anybody by that name.”
            “Everybody called me Monk, but my real name is Everett.”
            “Everett Whitlow? I’m sorry, I don’t remember. It’s been so long ago. My memory of high school is rather hazy.”
            “I was one of the retarded hillbilly kids you and your crowd looked down on.”
            “Oh?”
            “People called me Monk because they said I looked like a monkey. I never did like it.”
            “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.”
            “My father was Smoky Whitlow, the town drunk. You probably heard of him for all the wrong reasons. He was hit by a freight train one night and cut in half. He was too drunk to get out of the way.”
            “Why, yes. I believe I remember that incident. I’m terribly sorry.”
            “At the time you were all laughing about it. It made for terribly amusing chit-chat over lunch.”
            “I don’t believe I was laughing about such a thing.”
            “Mother, hadn’t we better go?” Patsy Ruth asked. “We have a couple other stops to make.”
            “My mother had to raise five kids on her own after the old man checked out, but, then, he was never much good anyway, even when he was alive. I worked as a janitor’s helper at the school to make a little money to help out at home. Whenever you and your snooty friends saw me cleaning vomit or piss up off the floor, you laughed at me and made monkey noises.”
            “High school was so long ago,” Lorene said. “Are you sure it was me?”
            “Once when I was hitchhiking, you came along driving your light-blue Thunderbird, with three or four of your friends in the car with you. When you saw me standing alongside the highway, you stopped like you were going to offer me a ride. As I started to walk toward your car, you threw a dead fish at me wrapped in newspaper and drove off, screaming and laughing.”
            “I don’t remember any dead fish. Where would we have got a dead fish?”
            “Maybe it would be best to not bring these things up,” Mrs. Whitlow offered.
            “I think I hear that rooster again,” Ethel Jean said. “I want to see it again to make sure it’s the same one.”
            “Do you remember a fat girl named Ella Sue Risley who always wore old-lady dresses because of her religion?” Mr. Whitlow asked. “You and your friends called her Little Orphan Annie because she had funny eyes.”
            “Of course I remember Ella Sue,” Lorene said. “I always felt bad for her.”
            “Why was that?”
            ”I think it was because she never seemed to have any friends.”
            “Ella Sue won the school art competition one year for a picture she painted. You thought you should have won it. You were so jealous you had one of your friends in the art department ruin her painting with black paint. When Ella Sue saw what you did, she had an epileptic fit and nearly died.”
            “That wasn’t me! That was somebody else. I was never in any art competition. I would never ruin a girl’s painting because I was jealous.”
            “I remember it like it was yesterday.”
            “It was such a long time ago,” Lorene said with a forced smile. “I don’t remember the dead fish, a ruined painting, or any of the other things you mentioned, but ─ if I’m the cause of such unpleasant memories from your past ─ I apologize.”
            “There’s no reason to apologize all these years later. I just want you to know what a swine you were.”
            Lorene stood up, as did Patsy Ruth. “Well, it’s been an interesting conversation. There’s nothing like hearing about one’s transgressions from the far-distant past, when, of course, it’s too late to make amends.”
            “Make amends,” Mr. Whitlow repeated, also standing.
            “You never know when you’re going to be confronted with something that happened a long time ago. It seems there’s no living down certain things, no matter how much time passes.”
            “Well, thank you for coming by,” Mrs. Whitlow said. “Maybe we’ll meet up again sometime in the not-too-distant future. Stranger things have happened, you know.”
            “Give a yell out the window,” said Ethel Jean, “and tell ‘em you made it through.”
            “There’s one thing I’d like you to know,” Lorene said, facing Mr. Whitlow. “If you think I was a swine in high school, that wasn’t the real me. I was going through a phase. I was insecure and longed to be accepted. I felt terrible about some of the things I did. But it’s been so long ago. Am I really not to be forgiven? Was I really so terrible?”
            “You thought every boy in high school wanted you, but I never did. I couldn’t stand the sight of you. No matter how pretty you were, no matter how blond your hair or how fancy your clothes, I knew, deep down, you caused misery. If you had cracked up in your pretty little Thunderbird, there would have been no tears shed in certain quarters.”
            “Well, you’re rather outspoken, aren’t you? You have a way of getting right to the heart of things.”
            “Good-bye, Mrs. Gauss. If you ever see me in passing, I hope you’ll have forgotten we ever met. You seem to not have a very good memory, anyway.”
            Lorene and Patsy Ruth went out of the house and down the front yard to the Cadillac. As Lorene opened the door and started to get in, something made her look back toward the house. She saw an object coming toward her in a high arc, an enormous cannonball in slow motion. She could see from its trajectory that it was not going to hit her, so she made no attempt to get out of the way but instead followed it with her eyes, until it landed, with a splintering of wood and glass, about five feet from the car. It took her several seconds to comprehend that the object was, in fact, the reason for the visit: the food basket.
            The next day she canceled her membership in the ladies’ club. She had never liked the club anyway; belonging to it was just one of her affectations. She would never again deliver another food basket to the poor for as long as she lived. The poor were no concern of hers. Let other people worry about the poor.

By Tom Mahony   Sat, Jan 07, 2012

            Seth and Billy stood in their wetsuits near a decapitated harbor seal. A turkey vulture picked at the carcass. The stench was brutal.
            Billy nodded at the ocean. “Who goes first?”
            They did rock-paper-scissors. Seth lost. “Three waves,” Seth said. He grabbed his surfboard and walked to the water. A set reeled. His heart pounded as he waited for a lull. The cove was empty. Nobody surfed here; it was a seal rookery, thick with white sharks.
            The ocean went flat. He jumped in, paddled to the lineup, and peered into the murky water. Creepy. He shook aside the fear and focused on the mission, the deliverance. Three waves.
            “C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered. A wave jacked. He caught it and carved a few turns, exited, quickly caught another wave, and returned to the lineup. Just one more to go. He stared at the horizon and saw a splash in the distance.
            His body tensed. Instinct told him to paddle to shore. Now. But he couldn’t. A minute passed with no waves. Two minutes, three, another splash. As his nerve faded, a wave appeared, and he rode it to the beach. Relief filled him as he stepped onto the sand, but he hid it from Billy.
            “What was all that splashing?” Billy said.
            Seth shrugged.
            “Should I still go?”
            Seth glanced toward the water. Boils churned near the lineup. Something swam out there, something big. It was stupid to get into the water. Billy glanced at him, pleading, looking for Seth to release him. Seth softened for a moment but the rage erupted, beaten into him, defying containment. “It’s your call,” he said. “You can paddle out and catch three waves like a man or you can stand here like a chickenshit.”
            Billy frowned, pale with fear. But he nodded, grabbed his board, and paddled into the cove. A few minutes later he caught a wave, rode it briefly, and pulled out. The ocean went calm. A seal circled the lineup. As Billy straddled his board, water splashed fifty feet away.
            Billy caught another wave, stood up for a moment, then fell. He scrambled onto his board. The seal swam nearby. Billy turned to Seth and held up two fingers: two waves down.
            “Yeah, kook,” Seth grumbled. “I guess that one counts.”
            The water surged and boiled. A shark slammed into the seal twenty feet from Billy, a frenzy of splashing and churning, a slick of blood in the water. Billy didn’t move.
            Seth felt queasy. Enough. Game over.
            “Billy!” Seth pointed and waved, but the kid just held up a finger: one more wave. Water surged behind him, like another shark was circling, sizing him up. Seth yelled but Billy just shook his head. Normally the kid was weak. It had always triggered something in Seth, an instinct to punish, just like his old man, pounding away after a few beers. But now …
            Seth ran onto a rocky ledge. He screamed and waved, shrill and desperate, but Billy ignored him. As the shark tore through the seal, another fin approached from the south, Billy trapped between, seal blood pooling around him. The kid sat there like nothing was happening. A wave jacked nearby, and Billy paddled for it, almost missed but at the last second dug hard, caught it, and surfed to shore. Seth ran to the water.
            “Damn, dude. You all right?”
            Billy nodded and tried to smile and muster some smug bravado, but he just burst into tears. “Who’s the chickenshit now, Seth?” he blubbered. “Who’s the chickenshit?”
            Billy collapsed on the sand, bawling. Seal blood coated him like oil. Seth stood speechless. A wave broke across the cove and whitewater rolled onto the beach and washed back down again. The sobs slowly faded.
            They lingered in silence watching the turkey vulture rip flesh from the carcass, slow and methodical. The sun dropped lower in the west. They shivered in their wetsuits.

Previously published in Matchbook, 2009

By Jerome Long   Fri, Jan 06, 2012

            Francine Gilmore smiled at her brother Thomas, sitting across the dining room table. She had invited him to share Christmas dinner as she had for the past several years. Francis was a sprightly seventy-four and Thomas a banged-up eighty, as his cane and staggering walk suggested. Both were widowed. Her two children lived far away; one in California, the other in France, where her son had met his wife and decided to stay.
            Tom was glad to be with Fran. He and his wife never had children, and his memories of Christmases past ─ eating a huge meal that seemed to go on forever while peeking at the Christmas tree with brightly wrapped presents sitting in a heap beneath low-hanging boughs ─ came mostly from his childhood, which, of course, he had shared with Fran.
            Neither had been particularly fortunate in retirement. Fran’s husband had owned an odds-and-ends kind of shop that sold cheap trinkets. No one wanted to buy the store when he died, and he had saved only a few thousand dollars. Now she was dependent on a small, monthly Social Security check. Tom was no better off. The company for which he had worked, a stationery store that stocked inkpads, business forms, envelopes and reams of paper, had sold out to a larger concern. With the sale, his pension went out the window, and so he, too, was getting by on a small government check.
            Fran had carefully planned this Christmas meal. She bought a chicken at half price from Dominick’s, an advertised holiday special. String beans, mashed potatoes, and canned cranberry sauce bought during an after-Thanksgiving Day sale constituted the side dishes. For dessert she divided a pint of vanilla ice cream, which she topped with chocolate syrup she had been saving in the fridge. She also managed to find a bottle of white wine in the discount bin at the Foremost liquor store. They managed to drink only half. Maybe she would have Tom over for snacks the following day when they might finish it.
            Now, with the meal over and the dirty dishes stacked in the sink, they turned their attention toward the decorated Christmas tree and the presents piled underneath.
            “A nice looking tree,” Tom said. “Where did you get it?”
            “The hardware store,” Fran answered. “They always sell Christmas trees on the sidewalk.” She didn’t bother mentioning that she had waited until the very last minute on Christmas Eve, just before closing, when she could bargain over the soon-to-be superfluous fir.
            Tom sat on an overstuffed chair which Fran had shoved close to the tree. She didn’t want him limping back and forth fetching presents. She settled down on a cushioned stool, handy to the gifts.
            “Do you remember how Mother always used to save the Marshall Field’s boxes?” she asked. “She used them the following year for presents that she bought at Goldblatt’s.”
            “Yes. That was one of her favorite tricks. Another was saving all the wrappings and fancy bows.”
            “She was a saver.”
            “I guess we know where we learned how to stretch a nickel.”
             Tom deferred to Fran for the right to open the first present. “It’s only fair. You made the meal. Take that nice-looking present with the red Santa Claus wrapping. Did you save paper from last Christmas?”
            “Actually, I found a roll that somebody had tossed out. Can you imagine? There had to be a yard still on it. Some people just don’t know how to make a little go a long way.”
            She unwrapped the box carefully, folding the paper along the established creases. When she removed the cover, her face lit up although the box was conspicuously empty. “Oh, my, it’s a blouse.” She held up the imagined garment so that her brother could see.
            “Pretty fancy,” he said. “White with mother-of-pearl buttons. Long sleeves.  A fancy, going-out kind of blouse.”
            “Yes, that’s exactly what it is. It’ll go perfectly with the long black skirt I got last year. Thank you, Tom. Now it’s your turn.”
            She handed him a present wrapped in green tissue paper tied with a red bow with curlicue ends. “Somebody’s gone to a whole lot of trouble making those fancy curls,” he said.
            Fran almost blushed. “Go on,” she said. “It’s easy. You just run the ends along the edge of a scissors.”
            He carefully slid his finger inside the tissue paper. “Wow!” he said when the empty box was open. “What a sharp-looking burgundy sweater! It’ll go great with my blue sports jacket. I do appreciate it, Frannie.”
            And so it went, a dozen boxes, neatly and sometimes extravagantly wrapped, held up, shaken once or twice and opened to oohs and ahhs. An array of imagined presents emerged from the evocative voids: a monogrammed shirt, a muffler that went all the way to the floor, leather gloves with rabbit fur on the inside, a pair of slippers, a bottle of perfume.
            Finally, two small gifts remained. “One for you and one for me,” Fran said. “I wonder what they could be?”
            When they opened the empty packages, they imagined a pair of cufflinks for him with his birthstone embedded in each of the silver sterling discs and for her a small brooch with a lady’s head caved in an oval of ivory.
            “I think this is the best Christmas we’ve ever had,” Tom declared.
            “I can’t remember one I enjoyed more,” Fran agreed.
            They returned to the table for a cup of tea and looked back at the opened boxes scattered on the floor. “I think Mother would have enjoyed it, too,” Fran said.
            “I have no doubt,” replied Tom.
            The two of them sipped their tea and basked in the holiday’s afterglow.

By Charles Shepherd   Fri, Jan 06, 2012

            “I declare. Why, I just didn't know we were worth that much money, darlin”, drolled Savannah Williams after she and her husband walked out of their lawyer’s office. “Sure feel like a different lady.”
            “What makes the difference now?" asked her husband, William Williams. “Money has never been an issue in your life since we've been married. You've never wanted for anything. Aren't you a candidate for Visa's Hall of Fame? Now don’t you worry your pretty little head about money. OK?”
            “Well, it doesn't make much difference, I guess. But when that lawyer said that we had to sign all those wills and trust papers and all, I got so confused, except that I know it was about money and taxes. From what I could tell, if you die before me, I will be one rich lady.”
            "You got it, Savvy,” the nickname her grandmother gave her some forty years ago when she was a toddler. "You'll have more men chasing you than a possum being chased on a hunt in your hometown.” Savvy was born and raised in Possumville, GA, the self-appointed capital of the sport of possum hunting.
            Savvy knew what he meant. She had always drawn a crowd of stares from the opposite sex. She was a tall, slim filly with long, honey blond hair. Everything that a woman has that is supposed to be big and admired by men, she had. Especially her baby blue eyes, and when she turned them on the opposite sex, she always cornered her possum, which is how she cornered William Williams, who turned into mush the first time he laid eyes on her.
            They were both freshmen in college when they met. Savvy and Swing, which was his nickname, fell in love at once. He had striking good looks, even by Hollywood standards. Blond hair, blue-eyed, handsome. Swedish type. Self-confidence oozed from his pores. He had the rare capacity to make everyone like him from the first time they met him. Savvy loved to describe their courtship. "I fell for that cute fella faster than an Elizabeth Taylor I do". She never failed to chuckle at her attempt at humor.

            They were wedded their junior year of college and had a happy marriage since. Much of their marital success was tied into the knot of interests they both loved. William's nickname, Swing, had much to do with his obsession. Not tall enough to play basketball, not big enough for football, didn't like baseball, he took up golf when he was a tyke. He developed into an outstanding golfer ─ especially his smooth, textbook swing, and that's how he got the nickname.
            The swing also got the Swing his first job. He was recruited by a prestigious bank in Atlanta to do nothing but play golf with the bank's major customers at one of the most exclusive clubs in the country. The customers loved playing golf with him, loved the bank as a result, and the bank loved Swing. He rose in the ranks faster than his contemporaries and was soon made a Vice President.
            Savvy was an asset, too. Her big “everythings,” her sweet accent, and southern charm, when combined with Swing, made them a unique team to entertain the bank’s customers and entice business from them. They soon had a big house on the country club grounds, big cars, and big bank accounts to go along with their big lives. And Savvy knew what to do to occupy her time and to make her happy while Swing played customer golf. There wasn't a salesclerk within fifty miles of Atlanta whom she was not on a first name basis with. She liked to be kidded by her friends that she had so many clothes, shoes and jewels that she made Imelda Marcos look like a rank amateur.

            As they were driving home, Savvy was unusually silent. Finally, she said, “Honey, I sure as the devil didn’t like that lawyer’s suggestion that we discuss plans for our funerals. I don't like thinkin’ about that buryin’ part. I just don't think I could stand bein’ put in some ol casket and havin’ dirt throwed on my face. It would just smother me to death.”
            Swing chuckled and said, “Savvy, you won't know the difference. You'll already be dead. Maybe you should be cremated. I've decided that’s what I want.”
            "Settin’ me on fire gives me the creeps, too. Why in hell’s damnation would you want to do a thang like that?”
            “Now think about it for a minute. What do I like to do more than anything in life?”
            She looked at him sexily, wrinkled her lips into a pucker, and blew him a kiss.
            “No. Not that. Play golf, right?"
            "You can't play golf when you’re dead, so why ─ ?”
            Swing interrupted, “After I’m cremated, I want the club pro to drive around the golf course and spread some of my ashes on every hole. When he’s done he’ll go to the seventh hole in front of our house and bury the urn there. Then you’ll remember me and my love for golf every time you look out the window at that hole."
            She thought all of a hummingbird minute and said, “That sounds good enough for you, but I don't know what I would do with my ashes so’s you'll remember me?”
            “I know exactly what you should do, and it’ll help me remember you and your favorite love in life."
            "Do tell me, sweetheart. You going to put my ashes in a night gown and make love to it?” she cooed.
            “No, darlin’. Here’s what I’ll do. I'll put your ashes on my desk right next to your picture. Then once a month when I pay the bills, I'll buy a dozen red roses and put them right beside your picture and your ashes.”
            ”What good will that do? You know that I don't love roses much ‘cause they make me sneeze."
            "Well, let me finish. When I look at your picture, and smell the scent of the roses and look at their beauty, I’ll be reminded of my love for you. Then when I pay the Visa bill, I’ll sprinkle a little of your ashes into the envelope along with the check. Then, sweetheart, I’ll be sure to remember you and what you most like to do. Believe me, honey, it will be my most cherished memory of you ─ one that I will carry to my grave.”

By Sarah Kendall   Fri, Jan 06, 2012

            During the course of the phone call, the afternoon faded from bright to dim to dark. Steely clouds and rumbling thunder drifted over the building like a pall. As her office filled with shadows, Dana clicked on her desk lamp in order to read the contracts stacked before her. A second call beeped over the line, and she asked her client to hold.
            “Mrs. Harraldi? This is Heather from the Y. Are you Chris’ mom?”
            Her heart cinched like a slipknot up her throat. Dana told her yes.
            “I know it’s only our second day of Summer Blast, but we’re closing early on account of the hurricane. Could you or your husband come pick up Chris as soon as possible?”
            Last Friday, a day before her husband moved out, Richard signed Chris up for summer camp. He’d slid a refrigerator magnet over the brochure, smiled at the little boy arcing a basketball toward a hoop, and raved about all the activities at the YMCA. Richard had torn off the camper section from the pamphlet, checked the box for “small” next to t-shirt size, and written out a check. When Dana asked how Chris would get to the camp, he said it would be fine, no hassle. He’d taken care of it.
            “Nadine – the neighbor’s kid from across the street – she works at the drugstore right across from the Y.” He’d twisted off the top of a beer and tossed the cap in the sink. “She told me she’d be more than happy to help,” which meant he’d flirted and negotiated the pick-up and drop off arrangement on charm alone.
            Now Dana would need to wrap up her client call and send out a few quick e-mails. She would have to reschedule her meetings, maneuver through car-clogged highways, and eventually reach the Y.
            It took two hours, three detours, and half a dozen curse words hurled at other drivers before Dana arrived at the tall brick building off Route 43. Jogging through the parking lot, her umbrella collapsed under the force of the downpour. She threw it into a trashcan as she entered the crowded lobby. Adults barked into cell phones as camp counselors in goldenrod t-shirts corralled children into groups and down various hallways. A few teenagers pressed their foreheads against the front windows as they watched branches skid across the lawn. Dana waited in line for her turn at the front desk.
            “I’m here to pick up my son from Summer Blast.”
            “Most Summer Blast parents picked up their kids around noon,” she said. The woman wiped dripping bangs off her forehead and exhaled loudly, as if she knew stress; as if she’d experience real panic. By the look of her, she hadn’t yet graduated college. She hadn’t yet felt the weights of mortgage and marriage, clients and kindergartens, in-laws and aging resting squarely on her shoulders. She had yet to slide on the top hat and act as ringleader of the circus known as family.
            “So,” she said, “They’ve moved all the outdoor camps inside, along with the other indoor programs, and nothing’s where it’s supposed to be. Imagine that. Looks like Summer Blast is in Gym 3. Take the stairs through those doors, go down three flights, make your first left and follow the signs to Summer Blast. Someone should have taped them up by now.”
            Dana squeezed through the crowd to the double doors and started her descent. Down, down, down, the railing vibrated under her palm each time thunder clapped. Wind whipped against the sides of the building, sending out long, droning whistles like a somber song. During the last big storm, Chris had screamed whenever she tried to leave his bedroom. He jumped at the banging thunder and whimpered at the sight of lighting slicing across the sky. In the middle of the night, after everyone had gone to bed, Dana woke to Chris calling her name. Richard turned over and placed a firm hand on her elbow as she shifted to get up.
            “You can’t go running every time he cries,” he’d said. “Sometime he’ll have to push through the fear on his own.”
            She hurried faster down the dank stairwell.
            The sharp smell of chlorine and damp socks grew stronger as she traveled lower. Slick with footprints, she slipped on the last landing and fell, her knees scraping against the stone floor. Soon two small splotches of blood seeped through her pants. Crouched on the ground, she let the stinging rage take hold. Richard should be here. Or he should be at the store buying batteries, or setting up a board game for everyone to play together when they got home. Lightning flashed across the sky, and then left her in the red glare of the Exit sign. She looked up at the crinkle-cut pattern of the stairs rising above her like a crag. She willed herself to breathe. Two little girls raced past her in a blur, and she followed their shrieks to the first hand-written sign for Summer Blast.
            She found a boiler room, two maintenance closets, the women’s locker room, a volleyball court, and the swimming pool. Each hallway looked identical to the next. She heard shrill laughter and the screech of quick-turning sneakers around every corner. Eventually her next left ended in a large gym next to a small weight room. A Summer Blast sign clung to the cinder block wall with a single, ill-placed piece of tape. She walked the carpet perimeter and stopped by a water fountain to scan the room. A man hunched over the spout to fill a plastic gallon jug. His large, tattooed arms looked glossy with sweat. A curly black ponytail clung to his neck, and pinprick craters covered his cheeks. A small zipper-like scar ran across his left eyebrow.  “You’re looking for your kid, right?”
            She tried to understand what he had asked, but she couldn’t stop staring. Dana nodded, and he glugged a mouthful of water.
            “It’s a zoo in here,” he said. His raspy voice labored, pausing slightly after each word.
            “Seriously, I could barely find the signs, never mind the right group,” she said.
            “Well, what’s his name, maybe I’ve seen him.” He wiped at his neck with a towel that he’d freed from the waistband of his shorts. He was pushy, but not overly aggressive. She smoothed out her suit jacket and tried to hold a determined, self-assured expression. But the cacophony blared in her ears – pattering rain, rattling backboards, the hollow boing of balls against mats. The harder she searched the crowd, the more every child started to look the same. She’d had nightmares like this before, where a sea of unblinking Chris clones swarmed around her. When she knelt down to speak to one, he would cackle and melt or crumble.
            “Look lady, I’m not a creep, I’m just here a lot. They all wear name tags the first week, and I got a weird memory for details.”
            “Chris,” she said, taking a step onto the gym floor. Her heels clicked and thunder boomed. A new batch of children jogged into the gym, and she saw Chris run right past her carrying a cardboard box. Dana screamed his name. When he saw her, his eyes widened with recognition, but not relief or happiness.
            “I wasn’t sure you were coming,” he said.
            She hugged Chris hard, and the edge of her ID badge dug into his nametag. She untangled the lanyard from her hair, slipped it off, and shoved it into her purse.
            “Of course I came. Are you okay?”
            A boy with cornrows gridding his scalp called for Chris from across the room. Another shorter, chubbier boy wearing a tight blue sweatshirt frantically waved him over.
            “I gotta go finish this, mom.”
            “You can finish whatever you’re doing tomorrow. We have to go home.”
            “Please, mom,” he whined. “We’re almost done.” He folded his arms across his chest and switched approaches. “If you got here before, I wouldn’t have started it.”
            A few feet behind her two dumbbells crashed to the floor. The only other occupant of the small room, a middle aged woman reading a tattered copy of Better Housekeeping, quickly dismounted her stationary bike and left. The man studied his arms in one of the hazy weight room mirrors and then grunted at the next machine.
            “Fine.” She spat out the word like a rotten piece of fruit, and Chris sprinted to the table of boys. “Five minutes!” she yelled again, “I’ll be right here.”
            Dana leaned against the waist-high glass divider separating the gym from the weight room, too exhausted to search for a chair. She should have held firm. Richard would have laid a hand on Chris’ shoulder, looked him in the eye, and told him they were leaving now. No arguments, no complaining.
            When the man in the weight room saw her, he tucked a pen behind his ear and tossed his small notebook next to a pile of black bands. He picked one up and coiled it around his wrist as he approached her. “You know a woman named Barbara Thesi?”
            The question took her by surprise. “Yeah, I think so,” she said, hesitating. “I mean, I don’t know her personally, but I know who she is. She’s a paralegal, right?” The band snapped against his forearms. He didn’t flinch. “Why do you ask?”
            “You had one of those county ID necklace things on before. She’s my ex-wife and works at the Union County Courthouse.” He picked up his notebook and wrote something down, probably scribbles on the need for higher reps or heavier weights. His hands seemed to tremble when not pulling or pushing or lifting something. He reached for a red kettle ball and swung it high above his head, then swooped it inches above the ground, defying gravity. He glared into the mirror. “She kept her maiden name after we got married. It was just the modern thing to do, or some bullshit.”
            He wasn’t speaking to her anymore, she realized, but she couldn’t tear herself away. She leaned against the cool wall and thought about the first time she’d written down her new married name, after all the official papers had been signed. Parked in her driveway after work, she wrote Dana Harraldi in careful, looping script on the back of a coffee receipt. She remembered how she giggled alone in her car. It had looked just right.
            The man climbed into a metal contraption that looked like some sort of steel cage. With chest and forehead pressed against a black pad, she couldn’t see his eyes. “I shoulda known…” A stack of weights surged up as he pushed against the metal arms. The machine resisted. He let the weights clatter down with fury. “I shoulda known right then when she wouldn’t take my name.”
            Dana tried to recall in that moment what she knew about Barbara. She had looked perfectly coifed the two times they’d sat in a conference room together – tailored suit, angular, chin-length haircut, pearl earrings: refined, if not slightly pretentious. She never raised her hand to speak during the meeting, just announced her opinions without hesitation. Not in the most remote, darkest corner of her mind would she have imagined Barbara married to this man. A part of her wanted to know what had happened between them; what was the last fissure that caused the final break?
            He opened the notebook, and jabbed at the page, nearly tearing the cover off. Three rows of fluorescent lights flickered in the ceiling, and a collective gasp rang out across the gym. The man seemed unfazed. “No ring,” he said, pointing to his finger. “You divorced?”
            “Separated.”
            “Same difference,” he scoffed.
            “Actually, you don’t know anything about it.” She stood up straighter, taller, and folded her arms across her body.
            “Whatever you gotta tell yourself to sleep at night,” he said.
            “Wow,” she mocked. “Tell me what you really think.” She cupped her hands and yelled for Chris to get his things; they were leaving.
            “Was it his fault or yours?” he asked.
            Dana could be just as gruff and blunt. “His,” she answered. “But I guess you wouldn’t believe that.”
            “I do,” he said. He’d started pacing the rubber floor, as if tethered to the next piece of equipment.  “He couldn’t even stick it out for the kid?” He pointed out at the gym. “That fuckin kills me. I would give anything to see Nate every day. Every other weekend…what is that? That’s nothing.”
            Dana recalled the past week. Each day after work she’d sat on the floor of their bedroom and watched him fold his clothes, stack them on the bed, and transfer the piles into suitcases. She kept asking him about Chris.
            “I’ll see him plenty, don’t worry about that,” he’d said.
            “Dammit, Rich. Plenty isn’t enough.” She told him kids need structure, that it would be a huge change for Chris not to see his father every day. Then she’d started to cry, and he stopped folding to sweep his hand across her hair. She hated that she loved the feeling, the comfort. It only made her heave harder, until she couldn’t sit there anymore with him. In the downstairs bathroom she splashed her face with cold water and studied her bloodshot eyes in the mirror. Why couldn’t she make this work?
            The notebook landed with a smack against the wall.
            Chris arrived by her side, placed a box in front of Dana’s feet, and immediately rushed past her into the weight room. “Whoa, your tattoos are awesome! How many do you have?”
            “Chris, that’s rude,” she sighed. “Where’s your stuff?”
            He slapped the side of the backpack slung over his shoulder.
            The man lumbered down to one knee and toured Chris through the various sleeves, animals, and words. He spoke to him in a lower, softer voice, tracing a finger over his son’s initials “NC” inked on his ankle. Dana marveled at the coarse hair that covered his arms and legs, even his knuckles. The dense, fur-like layer masked many of the designs, but once she knew where to look, some of the scenes were quite beautiful. When he slid his t-shirt up to show Chris the dove flying over his bellybutton, Dana swore she saw the black outline of Barbara’s face on his ribcage, peering out from behind the fuzz. The man dropped his shirt when he caught her looking.
            “No way!” Chris pointed to the back of the man’s hand. “Is that a tiger?”
            “You bet,” he said. The man snarled into the mirror and curled his fists up to his face.

“If I ever have to fight a guy, the sucker will be staring right at this beast until BAM,” he shot his fist out in a jab. “Knock out.”
            A voice crackled over the mounted speakers announcing that the Y would be closing in one hour at 5 p.m. Chris walked over to Dana, finally acknowledging her presence, and pulled something out of the cardboard box. “That’s so freaky! We made this out of all the extra junk they had in the craft room. It’s mostly clay, but there’re beads and rocks and fake fur on there, too.”
            The tiger’s head had been poorly modeled and drooped to one side. White glue seeped from the seams where arms and legs had been attached to a deformed body. Dark orange glitter made the animal appear silly, not fierce.
            “Chris, we should really get going,” Dana said. She didn’t want the man to say anything about the sculpture or her son.
            “Here, you can have one, too,” the man said. He grabbed his pen and rested his hand on Chris’ shoulder. It took him only a few seconds to sketch a tiger’s face. “Don’t worry,” he said, not lifting his eyes from his work. “It’ll wash right off.” When he finished, he held out a beefy hand for Chris to shake, as if following some serious protocol.
            Two more parents burst through the doors looking restless and relieved that they’d finally found the Summer Blast group. They wandered to the center of the gym. A little girl darted away from a game of tag to leap into her mother’s arms, and the three of them scurried out of the gym.
            The man looped a thick, braided rope around a corner post, holding both frayed ends, and made waves in the air. He counted strokes in a whisper. His forearms pulsed, and he moaned with fatigue.
            “Shouldn’t you be getting out of here?” Dana asked, reaching a hand into her purse to ferret out her keys.
            “What’s so great out there?” He didn’t glance at the high windows or the storm, but kept his eyes steady on the undulating line before him.
            Chris navigated the winding hallways with ease and eventually led them back up the staircase and to the lobby. The counselor behind the front desk still shuffled back and forth in a frenzy, tapping on her keyboard, and speaking brashly into her headset. The sky had lifted slightly from charcoal to ash, but rain still poured down in unrelenting sheets.
            They ran through the parking lot together. Bringing her arm up to her face to shield it from the rain, she looked down at her son. One of his hands held the cardboard box, the water pushing through and seeping in, demolishing his creation. The other shielded his shoulder. She watched him lift up one finger, making sure none of the lines had smeared.

By Mike Ellman   Fri, Jan 06, 2012

            I come out at Thanksgiving. The holiday get-together is a family tradition. We sit around the food-laden table for hours, great food, good company and verbosity. I’m in charge of the sweet potatoes. I bake them whole, mash them by hand and, when still warm, add brown sugar, honey, Jack Daniels, and a touch of thick cream. It’s my own recipe and, in spite of the sweetness, the children ignore it.
            Melba Lee, my sweetheart, adds fresh cauliflower to her cranberry sauce. No one likes it, but they’re too polite to say anything, scooping up a tablespoonful and burying it under the turnips. I fill my plate with the stuff, cup my fingers around her ear and whisper that it tastes as good as she does. I like to see her blush.
            “Everyone,” I say, “attention everyone. I have an announcement,” banging my coffee cup with a silver-plated teaspoon just before the post-dinner somnolence settles in. It’s a Wedgwood cup, airy bluebells on a pearly white background, but for every day. I bang it several times because Aunt Ida and Uncle Ed are arguing, mouths full of pecan pie, nut fragments spraying each other.
            “I’m becoming a rose,” I say.
            There’s hearty laughter all around.
            “Jim’s joking again ─ he’s such a kidder,” they say in unison.
            “You see, plant genes function perfectly well when transferred into other hosts such as yours truly,” I inform them.
            “You’re different, I can tell,” Uncle Ed says, his breath short from the spousal battle. “You’ve gained weight.”
            I had lost ten pounds.
            “You didn’t eat the turkey ─ that’s different,” Aunt Ida chimes in.
            I had stuffed myself with the drumsticks.
            “You smell different, Uncle Jim,” said the observant Agnes, the seven-year-old. “But that’s OK, I don’t mind,” followed by a beatific smile and an arms-around-the-neck hug, after all Christmas is just around the corner.
            “A rose, is that what he said?” Grandpa Chuck asks.
            “He’s becoming a rose,” replies sister Judy, always the helpful one.
            “That’s nice, Jim, God bless,” Grandpa Chuck beams.
            “That sure explains a lot,” Melba Lee tells me. “Good thing you’re not becoming a lily, the kind that smells like a corpse. Or ragweed. Think about the sneezing all day and night. Count your lucky stars.”

            The mutation began when I fell on a narrow, cobbled pathway during the neighborhood garden walk. “Yikes, I’m bleeding,” I cry out to Melba Lee after landing flush on a rose thorn. I dab at the miniscule drop of blood, fussing as if stemming a hemorrhage. Handsomely dressed garden fanciers sidle by, cluck at my clumsiness and ask if I need help, but pray for no response. Melba Lee looks askance at my suffering.
            It was also the third day of my summer cold. My nieces and nephews, always wet with snotty noses, kiss me as instructed, coming and going at our family gatherings, spreading our infirmities faster than the Spanish Flu. It’s another family tradition.
            Changes arrive quickly: dark skin, reddish hair, buds poking-up on my limbs with pesky thorns masquerading as beauty marks. Dreams of aphids and mites. “Stay healthy, friend,” they tell me. They tattoo a “good eats” sign on my belly.
            The doctor rifles through a thick, well-thumbed medical textbook, his steel-rimmed glasses nestled far down on his nose, eyes dart from the illustrations to the text and back to me, trying to fathom the puzzle. He calls me “fascinating,” even though that name isn’t listed on my insurance form. The doctor freezes my skin with anesthetic and with gloved hands and scalpel removes one of the growths.
            “The pathologist says plant material,” the doctor informs me at the follow-up. His fingers purposefully tap over the curly, yellowish fax paper, intoning the summary: “This patient needs Miracle-Gro with weed killer.”
            “It’s happened before,” the doctor tells me, shrugging his shoulders, palms out in resignation, “the cold virus combines with plant material and inserts it into your DNA.” That peanut farmer from Plains was one of them. He wasn’t exactly a rose. Of course, his wife Rosalynn was, and she was a winner. The doctor offers me the standard Advice to the Patient Becoming a Mutant pamphlet, while removing the sutures and mouthing medical babble.

            Roses have flourished for 32 million years and have been cultivated for 5000. Empress Josephine was known as Rose, svelte, shapely, silky chestnut-brown hair, hazel eyes. Some say her devotion to roses surpassed that to Napoleon. She commanded the most magnificent roseraie and merged a new Asian rose with local varieties. Roses from the Orient possessed the trait of remontancy, they bloomed all summer, their prodigies becoming Hybrid Perpetuals and Teas.
            Roses propagate by grafting or from cuttings. The former fuses a rootstock variety with a beautiful modern hybrid. Continuing the species by marrying a gorgeous partner keeps my pleasure centers celebrating.

            The librarian admires the books I check out. They have Sunny Jane or Minnie Pearl or Fragrant Cloud on the covers, gorgeous roses all. “More garden books. You must really love flowers,” she says to me. “My dahlias are prize winners, you know,” her eyes scan my face with interest.
            I nod, she isn’t my type. I’m a strict rosarian. We’re the royalty of my new world, the pinnacle of the hierarchy. Higher even than the “sliver group,” the fellow mutants who evolve after the DNA leaches out from the splinters of oak or maple or redwood that remain under the skin too long. The nettle and prickly weed contingents aren’t even invited to our conventions.
            Milling around the flower and garden shows are people eyeing me. It reminds me of my first high school dance held in the main gymnasium, the one normally reserved for other humiliations. I don’t know what to say or who to say it to. “Rootstock,” mumbles one guy, barely audible, and the prissy one with tangled red hair responds “hybrid.” But they aren’t a good match, too much alike, thin and nervous, no synergy there, and they keep walking, furtively searching for Mr. or Ms. Right. Each one hopes to form a Mister Lincoln or a Maiden’s Blush, superstars in my new world.
            The highlight of the show is the rose judging. The contestants pace around the circular stage like an Alice in Wonderland Tea Cup ride. The lovelies stride counterclockwise then twirl around 360 degrees every few seconds, allowing their gowns, red, yellow, orange, white and mixtures and combinations to billow horizontally, exposing their lovely stems. The beautiful people intensely watching the contest are the happy crowd, the stalwarts, the “okay, I’ve become part rose, so let’s live with it” contingent. They don’t second-guess their fate. A lesson I’ll need to learn.
            I attend the “plants anonymous” program. We sit in padded folding chairs forming a semicircle around the speaker, Ms. Crab Apple. “My boyfriend complains about my sour behavior,” she says, “and he’s repelled by the skin lesions,” stopping her soliloquy just long enough to display the small, well-delineated red growths erupting from her limbs. “We rolled around only once or twice under that awful tree, and sometimes I wasn’t even on the bottom,” she trills, barely audible to the rapt audience, followed by louder sobs, her arms flapping in exasperation. “Later, when we dozed, we wrapped ourselves in a blanket, and our skin never even touched the ground. And nothing has happened to him. The jerk hasn’t called me in weeks.”
            In tears, she’s led back to her seat.
            “My name is Jim, and I‘m becoming a rose. I’m lonely and confused.” I speak with firm voice, standing tall, seeking eye contact with my compatriots who have traveled this road. “Screaming doesn’t help. Advice columnists won’t tackle the issue. Too controversial, they say. And the phone-in program mavens hang-up when they see my caller ID. Yet I’m experiencing physical and mental vigor. The sun, rain, and the smell of the earth bring back the pleasure of that first camping trip, the first day of summer, the July rain that sweetens the garden. My deep sleep and rested awakenings relive my childhood, when life was simpler.” Heads nod.
            “My girlfriend is struggling with my desires,” as I shake my head in sadness. Her name, Melba Lee, sounds like one of those squishy confections with apricot jam and candied almonds stuffed in the center. Instead, think rock-hard Italian biscotti soaked in anisette. She offers me no slack with my antics and doesn’t cotton to me lolling around with garden books or preening in front of the hall closet mirror instead of working through the household chores. ‘Mornings are for house cleaning, dusting, mopping, you know the routine,’ she says.
            “But that’s the time when my sap, I mean juices, is beginning to flow,” my head down with shyness as I quietly add: “I have certain needs, too.” The alarm rings. My time is up. Polite smiles from everyone, but no answers.
            A tall man, my age, with a name tag declaring Mr. Just Joey in block letters pinned below his heart, intercepts me. “You’re not alone; soon you’ll make a name for yourself, rediscover romance, become assertive, and revel in your gift of extra genes. My own fragrance and large petals have established my reputation. Indeed, I’ve become quite popular in certain circles.” He backs away so I could better take in his appearance ─ scrawny limbs, handsome face, exuberant hair and a smile reflecting inner contentment.
            “You’ll spend summers in your backyard, entrenched in the rose garden, conversing with your companions. In winter, you’ll renew your strength with long sleeps, and trips to South America. Just picture your sinuous tango, as you entwine your partner from head to toe.” With that, he departs with a casual wave, leaving only an ambrosial rose scent.

            In the days that follow, I take Mr. Just Joey’s advice to heart and become more outgoing. I corner the busy salesclerk at the flower section of the nursery. “Tell your patrons that over-watering their potted roses depletes the soil of nutrients, and a smidgen of fertilizer should be added weekly ─ just the right amount.” I point to myself. “See how shiny my buds are with the addition of phosphorous.” I pirouette, showing off my new growths, but she backs away, eyes fixed on me, hands and elbows up in a defensive posture, exactly as she was taught during orientation when encountering a crazy person.
            I join a political action committee. The youngsters want to inherit the planet ─ “We’re pushy,” they proclaim, “constantly spreading our roots, reaching for the sun, expecting to be waited upon, what with our incessant need for pruning and watering and nutrients.” They preach floral supremacy, global warming and free will. “Multiply, take leadership roles, run for office, use your brain power. There are more of us than you know,” they declare.
            “Let nature run its course,” I respond. “Darwinian principles will apply to us, just as it does to everyone.” That’s what I say. But I don’t really know what’s going to happen. Funny how little we know about the whims of evolution.
            We end the sessions by chanting the prayer to our founder, Gregor Johann Mendel ─ the son of Anton and Rosine.

            Thank you for the discipline,
            Thank you for the knowledge,
            Thank you for the understanding,
            Thank you dear Gregor and Mother Rosine.
            Always and forever

            Mendel discovered the Laws of Inheritance. He explained just about everything, carriers, traits, brown eyes ─ and that was with garden peas! His brilliance came from his maternal side. Priesthood and life in the Augustinian Abbey of St. Thomas emanated from paternal genes. Monastic life is never part of floral DNA.

            It’s my flower shop. I’m the guy with the great hair, the sun-wizened features, and sweet disposition who coos to the merchandise. Every day new shipments of roses arrive. Long stems, miniatures, red, yellow, white, pink, there’s a dozen of the beauties for an anniversary or a single Hybrid Tea for your first love.
            After Melba Lee left, my dreams turned shallow and cold; her letters more upbeat than I: “Dear Friend,” she wrote. “Every time I come down with the sniffles, I prick myself and let the blood dribble on those blessed thorns from Mr. Just Joey ─ what a charmer he is, or sometimes it’s with Madame de la Roche-Lambert, so regal with her platter-sized crimson blossoms. I’ve seen the wisdom shine in your eyes and your joy of life. Sincerely, ML.”
            I specialize in growing Cardinal de Richelieu, one of the darkest of all red roses. Its color coincides with my isolation. The darkness of the bloom is surprising because the buds are pink, like hope and sunshine. And the season of soft rain and the smell of the sweet earth has arrived ─ it’s the time when wishing just might mean something.
            That’s when she walked into my store. “Just looking,” she said. Looking, sure, but she inspects my friends like an obsessive mother cat grooming her kittens after a romp in the mud. Her eyes and nose settle an inch from the blossoms, as if I might be substituting peonies for roses. She saunters over, sniffing and touching, and, without a how-do-you-do, kisses me on my mouth, drawing the taste onto her lips, rolling her tongue as if admiring the flavor of a fruity Rhone wine.
            “Rootstock, I want you,” she says.
            “No, my name is Jim,” I stop her, countering her haughty demeanor. But it’s clear who’s in charge, when she cups my mouth with a perfumed palm.
            “Shush, darling.” Her shoulder-length, white streaked hair, deep sea-blue eyes, and her elegantly shaped figure covered in snug white linen reinforce her regal presence.
            “I’m Icekügel, a late season bloomer, all white, fragrant beyond your wildest imagination, and long stemmed.” She directs my eyes to her gorgeous legs. “I’m a Marlene Dietrich descendant. My blossoms retain their sweetness for weeks. But I’m very demanding.” Her eyes bore into mine as she cradles my hands in hers. “I need a strong person. Be my knight in shining armor. Return victorious from the joust, sweat soaking through your tights, hair matted to your scalp when you remove your helmet, eager to please the Icekügel.”
            Without warning her face softens, and the severe and stately beautiful Ms. Icekügel, becomes Heloise to my Abelard, melting in front of me and squeezes my fingers hard, desperately, her words soft and tremulous: “I need a grafting and soon. Please say yes, Mr. Handsome Rootstock.”
            I’m silent, conjuring up our handsome progeny, as I turn the “yes, we’re open” sign around, pull down the wooden blinds, the pitted weathered slats falling politely in place, double lock the front door, click-off the overhead lights, all the while smiling at my ice pastry.
            “I have a bed in back. There’s wine in the cellar. Help me say goodnight to my friends,” I whisper to my beauty. And we deliver the evening benediction to our happy flowers. Our fingers intertwine, lightly, as soon-to-be lovers do.

By Robert Weston   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

            Alonzo had bad teeth, and he knew it.  It wasn’t that they looked bad, the way some people’s teeth look ─ stained, rotten or missing. They looked OK. Nevertheless years of lack of proper care and subsequent decay had eaten into the enamel of almost every tooth. Now seven were dead and had had root canals. Six more were capped, and there was a bridge filling a gap in the middle of his upper jaw where three teeth had been extracted and the underlying bone dug out to clean up the leach of old amalgam.
            Now Alonzo thought a lot about his teeth and took pretty good care of them: brushing two or three times a day, flossing, rinsing and cleaning below the gum line where invisible bacteria continually tried to erode what enamel was left. He hated the evidence of decay he carried with him. He felt he had been mutilated by the dentist who had carved into his jawbone, leaving a gap between the artificial teeth and what was left of his upper gum. He believed his root canals leaked poison into his body and that the bi-metal fillings he carried in the acid bath of his mouth created electrical currents that interfered with his meridian lines of energy. To say nothing of the mercury oxide he emitted each time he chewed ─ enough to have his mouth declared a toxic hazard, he was sure.
            One night at church Alonzo was listening to a visiting preacher talk of miracle healings in his native land of Malawi. He spoke of a boy who had grown bones in his legs and had risen from the wheelchair in which he had lived since birth. Suddenly Alonzo knew what to do. Standing, he went forward and stood before the altar. When the minister reached him, the seventh of those who sought help, Alonzo looked him straight in the eye and said, “Can Jesus give me new teeth?” 
            The minister stopped short, looked at Alonzo’s eager and pleading face and said, “Jesus can do anything!”
            “Good,” said Alonzo. “I want new teeth. Mine are rotten.” 
            The minister looked at Alonzo’s teeth and said, “They don’t look so bad to me.”
            “But they are,” insisted Alonzo. “They’re full of decay covered over with poisonous metals. And some are dead, and some are missing. I’m asking God for new teeth!” he said and raised his arms expectantly.
            The minister paused for a second and then laid his hands on Alonzo’s head. “Lord, hear the prayer of this your child. He wants new teeth, Lord. I ask in Jesus’s name that you grant his request. Restore what locusts have eaten and give this servant ... a new set of teeth.” He faltered slightly in pronouncing the petition.
            Alonzo looked at the preacher. “Don’t you think He can do it?”
            “Oh, yes, He can do it,” replied the preacher. “I have no doubt that He can do it. Now you just wait and see what the Lord will do!”  With that he moved down the row of supplicants, leaving Alonzo standing with a huge smile on his face. Indeed it was a smile unlike any Alonzo had smiled in many a year, ever since his teeth had started to decay.
            When Alonzo reached home his wife, Sarah, asked him about the service. “It was great,” replied Alonzo. “The Lord promised to give me new teeth.”
            “New teeth?” replied Sarah. “What’s wrong with the ones you’ve got?”
            “You know how bad they are,” he said.  “I need new teeth.”
            “Well, if they’re that bad, why don’t you get some dentures? Insurance would pay for ‘em.”
            “I’m not talking about dentures,” Alonzo said. “I’m talking about real teeth ─ a fresh set.  I’ll keep them really clean this time, and they won’t decay or die.”
            His wife looked at him with bemusement. “Well, come on and let’s eat.”  During the meal Alonzo smiled a lot, not at anyone or anything in particular, almost to himself; but his wife noticed and smiled back.
            Alonzo waited expectantly for his new teeth. He wondered if he would feel them come in, pushing gently through the gum and pushing out the old ones. He imagined waking up one morning with a mouth filled with his old teeth and spitting them into the waste bin beside his bed.  Or would they just sort of slowly recover, fresh white enamel replacing the silver, gold and porcelain fillings? Each time he brushed and flossed, he looked to see if the gap in his jaw had filled in or if a cap or crown had disappeared.
            All the while he continued to smile in anticipation. When friends or family noticed him smiling and asked him why, he would always say, ”Cause I’m getting new teeth!” At first they thought he was talking about dentures and wondered what there was to smile about in that. But soon they came to understand that he really meant new teeth ─ natural, living teeth. When they pointed out that humans don’t grow teeth after the age of thirteen, Alonzo would smile even more and say, “I know. But Jesus is going to give me my new teeth.”  At that they, even those who shared his faith in Jesus, grew strangely quiet.
            Alonzo never went to the dentist again. When the postcards came saying it was time for his six-month checkup, he ignored them. Why check teeth that were slated for destruction?  He did continue his dental hygiene, however, since he knew that even his new teeth would be subject to attack by the demons of bacteria.
            After several months passed and no dramatic push-through of new teeth occurred, Alonzo decided that the replacement process would be more subtle and probably occur one-by-one rather than en masse. So each evening before bed he examined his mouth carefully, looking for a single molar or bicuspid or incisor gleaming in newness of enamel and dentin and root. It became a standing bit of repartee with Sarah.
            From the bedroom she would call out, “Anything happening in there?”
            He would reply, “Not yet. But it will. I know it will. Just you wait and see.”  And then he would come to bed smiling.
            After many years, Alonzo died, naturally and peacefully.  By then he had raised a large family and acquired many friends, all of whom loved him dearly, though they thought him a bit cracked because of his constant smile and ready avowal that he was going to get new teeth.  At the funeral the pastor’s sermon highlighted Alonzo’s faithfulness to his family, his friends and his church. “This man, with his constant smile and open faith, touched many souls. He wasn’t a great preacher or evangelist, but because of his willingness to share his faith in Jesus and because of the love of God that he obviously felt and shared with everyone who knew him, many were brought closer to faith in Christ and trust in God.”
            After the service, Sarah spoke to the pastor. “Thank you for those kind words about Alonzo,” she said. “I know what you mean about how his faith touched many. But I just don’t understand how he managed to keep that faith.”
            The pastor was shocked.  “What do you mean, Sister?”
            “Well,” she replied, “Alonzo waited for over forty years for Jesus to give him new teeth. He woke up every day of his life and checked to see if it had happened. He checked his mouth every night for new teeth. But he never got any. Nothing ever happened, and now he’s gone.”  She started to cry.
            ”Sister,” said the pastor gently, “I don’t know why Jesus didn’t give Alonzo new teeth. Maybe he’ll have to wait until he gets his new body at the resurrection.”
            Sarah looked at the pastor.  She sighed but didn’t say anything.
            Later that night the undertaker was closing up the room where Alonzo had been laid out for viewing.  His assistant, who had performed the embalming and prepared the body, came into the room.  “That was the damnedest thing I ever saw,” he said.
            ”What’s that,” said the undertaker.
            “That old codger, what’s his name?”
            “Alonzo?”
            “Yeah, Alonzo.  Did you see his teeth before I sealed his lips together?”
            “His teeth?”
            “Yeah, his teeth. I’ve never seen anything like it. Guy must have been seventy-five or eighty, right?”
            “He was eighty-two.”
            “Eighty-two. Right. Well, I’ve never seen an eighty-two-year old who had all his teeth, much less perfect teeth.”
            “What are you talking about?”
            “I’m talking about Alonzo’s teeth! This guy had every single one of his teeth, and there wasn’t a sign of decay or stain on ‘em. Damn best lookin’ choppers I ever saw. I thought they were store bought until I tried to take ‘em out.”
            “Humph,” said the undertaker.
            “And did you see that smile he was wearing? It didn’t look natural to me, but I couldn’t get it off him for the life of me. It was just like he wanted everybody to see his teeth.”

By Joanne Faries   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

swollen purple flesh
stretches limits of cotton slippers
she shuffles to the kitchen
remembers satisfying clicks of
silver patent leather heels
stilettos worn on New Year’s Eve
to swanky dinner parties at the
country club. Gams the gents eyed
flashy footwork filled her past
wincing, she soaks her feet in Epsom
reflects on the last dance

By Steven Gulvezan   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

I slump down
Upon my ancient bed

I drift into
A state of torpor

Then resignation
Till finally

I give pause to wonder
About my life

And involuntarily
Feel my body

Tensing up
Now that I am really free

From all responsibility
Nothing and no one at all

To beckon me
Or force me into action

Or reaction
I wonder

What is there
Left for me to do

On a cold winter’s midnight
Alone in my bed

Without you?

By John Middlebrook   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

When the seeds of my body rose
and swelled my bones,
a constant presence remained
behind the facade of my aging.

Like a candle moving
from window to window
inside someone else’s home,
the creature of my youth restlessly paces.

By John R. Shaw   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

The stratum is peppered
with pockets of time,
periods of strain unearth the crazing
that flows beneath the soil,
turned and tilled with different hands.

Interludes of thoroughness
each pebble placed
with mindful precision.

Episodes of confusion
littered
with shards
and rubble ore.

Time stopped watching
and let things happen,
like when the earth opened
and eruptions ruled.

Friction and tectonic movement
may smother growth,
but in the aftermath,
the remnants, like fossils, tell a story.

By Itala Langmar   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

And Socrates on the day
of his death conversed
with his friends
about sophrosine,
moderation, self-control.

He spoke with
consummate grace
of essential virtue, equity
true goodness, suspension of
earthly desires, complete excellence.

He said: our soul is the
charioteer of two horses
one wild, one docile;
one needs love, one freedom.

On the day of his death
Socrates said: do not confuse
desire and desperation,
goodness and the will to be good;
do not complain or lament but
strive to be prepared
to die well.

By Tobi Cogswell   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

Mottled gray, colors
marbled as if they’ve
been shirking in the
cellar for seasons,

and not breathing in
the scent of spring from
their hammock held by
firm, sunlit branches.

They hide a secret.
A vibrant ruby
secret. Sweet. Sexy.
And that is Emma.

Ripe and redheaded
Emma. So street smart,
she can order beer
in five languages

but crumbles after
basic math. She will
make you want to cry
“Uncle” and marry

her at the same time ─
she is your desire.
As long as she calls
you “honey” and not

some other guy’s name
she’ll be your passion,
your reason and your
nightmare, the woman

of all your wild nights.
Her hair the color
of poppies in spring,
she’s been around some

but you could care less.
Emma. Feed her plums.
Return her to spring.
Retreat there yourself.

By Douglas Polk   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

left out when sides picked for play,
ignored in class if arm raised,
education completed at an early age,
an outsider.

By Michelle Reale   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

She decided to explain the pluot thus: not a peach, not a plum. Not your mother’s jam. Like your favorite uncle wearing your aunt’s polka dot dress. Because he said he grown used to it, she would clarify the taste of brine, but none would be found in the vicinity. Instead she’d go on and on about the velvety consistency it had when spread on a fresh loaf. Convince him that the reddish sweetness was something he could not live without, this man who she just slept with on crimson sheets, in a room she’d fashioned after what she envisioned Versailles to be. The imagination can only take one so far. Now she would have to rip it all apart and start from scratch. He lay curled onto himself in the bed and felt a great shame in waking someone from such a deep sleep. She’d phone a discreet friend instead and collect on a favor that had been gathering moss. So much depends on the ability to begin again. She’d lay the breakfast table with precision and toast the bread. Lick the sweetness from her fingers. Leave the back door open. Gallup into the yard and set those fruit bearing trees on fire.

By Jim Kuperstein   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

A sharp blade is opportunity
Potential
Energy stored
Arcing from a beveled knife edge
Released into onion, celery and carrot

My “Chef’s Choice”
Faithful after all these years
Whirring and grinding
Diamonds honing metal
Spitting out gray dust
Carbon like
Building blocks of my life
Humming the song of satisfaction

I keep waiting for us to break
How long will we last
Who will choke on gray
seize up
burnout
first

By Kenneth Gurney   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

Indebtedness ─
which is delayed annihilation,
which, ironically, is hope ─
wraps as a blanket around a man
and chills him to the bone
as he heats up and focuses
his actions
or
leaves him overwhelmed
to sit in a corner
or in a corner of his mind
as he dithers through the day
when
he could turn elsewhere ─
not to Peter to pay Paul ─
to another word
for what he calls indebtedness:
a word such as connection
or community
or love.

By David Hart   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

“We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.”
Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot

Yes, fire is chemistry, though
it has a touch of magic, makes things vanish,
years transformed into ephemeral gas.

Fire illuminates secrets, like candling an egg to see
the embryo, alive or dead.
If held up to a secret, it reveals its silhouette, but only in a code.
Here are some shadows I have deciphered:
a scarab ─ refers to ritual, one that leaves scars
a quarter moon ─ portends unreadiness for a coming ordeal
a bent twig ─ a search for water
a climbing vine ─ someone is pregnant
a lyre ─ a story.

Here is a story
about fire.
When I was young the library burned,
the public one, just off the square,
across the street from Dave’s newsstand,
near Bradshaw’s pool emporium.
I watched the flames rise
behind the windows, not knowing they would burst.
Oxygen like gasoline poured through the gaps
and as each book flared up, pages curled at the edges,
like a dying spider
then swelled like an intake of pride and spread wide its covers
as if welcoming destruction.

Rescued books were stacked in the street in jagged piles
like a long grin of broken teeth.
The tendons of hose that snaked in through the doors were flaccid.
Somewhere up the line the water had chosen
not to get involved.

Helpless lights spun on helpless engines
and onlookers jabbered like nervous blackbirds.

We were aware that fires unseen burned beneath our feet.
This was coal country.
Abandoned seams were subterranean furnaces
that could burn for a century.

Fire finds its own way.
I’d heard stories of trees that began to smoke and then exploded
into flames.
People sitting, reading a book or discussing last week’s sermon,
flamed suddenly from the shoulders and the scalp.

No one could predict such fire. The seams of coal
spread out in deltas of possibility.

The library burned until the fire was satisfied.

Afterward it rained. The ash sank to a cushion of gray
that soundproofed our sadness.

The hulk of bricks, the skeletons of twisted shelves, became
an exotic destination, like the tar pits of La Brea.

Fire creeps on beneath our consciousness and our dreams,
smoldering retribution for our sins, uncommitted and unrepented.

By Joe Glaser   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

she woke me before six
with a glass of fresh-squeezed
orange juice
─ no chemicals allowed in our house
and then she was gone

off at six to the el platform
for an hour's ride
down to her job
at the Flip-It factory
deep in the crotch of lower Manhattan
relentlessly to sew
cartons of linings
into cartons of caps
─ dreaming of buying herself a Persian lamb coat

he had already gone
to the el platform at five
for a two-hour train and bus ride
always first to his union shop
then on to a high building
carefully balanced on a hanging scaffold
methodically glazing windows
with hand-squished putty
whose stink he would carry home
─ dreaming of victories over dead chess masters

the dog was growling menacingly
─ as usual
some exotic treasure
like a dirty sock
clenched in her mouth
under the bed

when I left at seven
it was getting light
and I raced to the el platform
for my one-hour train ride to school

if lucky
I got a seat
and could scan a book
fretting again over my
perverse refusal to
ever study at home

if extra lucky
the press of bodies
would offer up
a shapely female creature
hanging from a strap above me
─ her legs pressed against my knees
and I would pretend to sleep
as I savored the tingling sensations
─ a sensual stroke delivered with every lurch

heaven on the train

By Bob London   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

By Denny Marshall   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

By Eric Cooper   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

By Pat St. Pierre   Thu, Jan 05, 2012

By Itala Langmar   Wed, Jan 04, 2012

By Joe Glaser   Wed, Jan 04, 2012

Listen carefully

Tour guide

Temple cat

By Roy Slovenko   Wed, Jan 04, 2012

Butterfly gardening

Looking out for others

Greeting a glacier

By Flo Hayes   Wed, Jan 04, 2012

Most wrens are small and rather inconspicuous, except for their loud and often complex songs. They have short wings which are barred in most species and often hold their tails upright. As far as is known, wrens are primarily insectivorous, eating insects, spiders and other small arthropods.

By Sue Ellis   Tue, Dec 27, 2011

          On a recent trip through Spokane, Washington, road construction caused my husband and I to detour to a street seldom traveled. We passed a huge, warehouse-like complex of buildings with an antiquated, abandoned look. There were only two cars inside the chain-link fence ─ probably security, I thought.
          "What do you suppose that place used to be?" I asked.
          "That's the old R.A. Hanson Company," my husband said, then launched into a history lesson spiked with his memories of growing up a farm boy.
          R. A. Hanson was an inventor from a vast, hilly, agricultural region in southeast Washington who came up with a self-leveling device for combines. Prior to his 1942 invention, harvesting in hill country was hazardous business. R. A.'s invention kept combines from tipping over without the need for the farmer to hire an extra man.
          Before self-levelers, hillside farming was most safely accomplished with a tractor and a pull-type combine. The set-up required two operators: the tractor driver and the guy who punched header. To compensate for the cant of a hillside, the header puncher sat up on the combine and worked a lever that maintained the machine's center of gravity so it wouldn't tip over or disrupt the mechanism that separated grain from chaff. As if that wasn't enough, the operator also had to adjust the header for the height of the crop, which varied between damp gully and dry hilltop.
          By the time harvest rolled around, late summer or early fall, it was hot outside, and the air was thick with dust and bugs. It's wasn't uncommon for crews to put in long, uncomfortable days. The guy punching header had reason to stay alert because he was busy. By contrast, the tractor driver, after days of watching heat waves dance, often had trouble staying awake.
          That's when a bucket of dirt clods came into play, at least according to my eye-witness. The guy who punched header not only had to keep the combine level, he had to make sure the tractor driver had his eyes open. If he caught him nodding off, he'd pelt him with a dirt clod from the bucket he kept at his feet.
          Nowadays, self-propelled combines designed for hill country are all self-leveling. The air conditioned cabs are comfortable, and the operator can listen to Chopin while he harvests or rock to Charlie Daniels. If he gets bored, he can text his wife or Google the stock market for wheat prices.
          Much as I enjoyed the story, my prerogative, as a wifely student, is to perversely take what I want from a story. Resigning R.A. Hansen to glory, I focused on the ingenuity of the ordinary man, the guy who'd never be famous, but who had enough sense or whimsy to grab a bucket and fill it with clods of dirt.

By   Sun, Jan 03, 2010

            Front Porch Review is a quarterly online literary magazine. It is the creation of Glen Phillips of Park Ridge, IL, who toiled in the vineyards of educational and IT publishing as editor, writer, product designer, subject matter expert, business manager, and other menial roles not worth mentioning. After forty years of such effort, he decided that the best he could do for the common good was to build an electronic front porch displaying the significant artistic work of our older generation, men and women coming late to the creativity game but still with something of value to express.
            A front porch ─ typically a formal, mannered appendage can also be concrete steps, wooden planks, iron railings, cardboard boxes, even a wool rug at the entrance of a Bedouin's tent. Whatever its form, a front porch is where we, young and old, congregate; where we assemble, gather, mingle, congeal, where we get together. And once there we speculate, pontificate, prevaricate, and expostulate; occasionally we speak words of universal truth.
            A front porch is not a kitchen table. A kitchen table is for family matters, a front porch is for societal issues, those concerns which transcend time and space, about which we all have opinions but rarely a viable solution. Through short fiction, poetry, essays, and photography, these opinions describe the world from the vantage point of acquired knowledge and experience, assets not yet earned by younger creators. The message, not stylistics, dominates.
            Envision its contributors sitting on a porch of your own device, each offering a manuscript or photo intended to intrigue, beguile, fascinate. Sit beside them, attend to their words and pictures, and discover shards of wisdom.
            And in the words of my attorney: All future rights to material published in Front Porch Review are retained by the individual authors and photographers.

Glen Phillips
Publisher

By   Tue, Jul 21, 2009

We publish thoughtful, provocative fiction, poetry, essays and visual arts.

∙ Submissions are accepted year-round.
∙ If accepted, submissions may appear in any issue.
. Biographical information will be requested for accepted submissions.
∙ If your submission was previously published, please cite a reference.
∙ Simultaneous submissions should be accompanied by a statement stating so.
∙ If your work is accepted elsewhere prior to our evaluation, please notify us.
∙ No erotica or works which rely on explicit language or gratuitous violence.
∙ All work must be original and in English.

∙ Fiction and essays can be up to 5000 words.
∙ No novel excerpts
. No memoirs
∙ No genre fiction; e.g., horror, science fiction, mysteries
. Fiction should deal with critical, universal aspects of human nature.
∙ Essays should treat a contemporary topic and express a reasoned opinion.
∙ Poems should have strong images and concise, evocative language. 
∙ Photos which elicit the comment, "How interesting!" are desired.
∙ Submit photography as .jpg files; do not send .tif or .bmp files.
. Accepted photos may be cropped or reduced to fit the available space.
∙ Prose and poetry may be accompanied by one or more relevant photos.

∙ Mac users, please be sure that your files are readable by Windows 7.
∙ This magazine does not currently pay upon publication.

Accepted material will be edited. If changes are deemed significant, the contributor will be notified and given an opportunity to accept the changes or request that the piece be withdrawn from publication.

Send submissions to glenhphillips@att.net. Send 1 prose piece, 1-5 poems, or 1-4 photos at a time. For prose or poetry, type or paste your submission into the body of the e-mail message. We will not open any unsolicited print attachments. Photos, however, should be sent as attachments. Include your name and e-mail address.

Please expect to wait up to one month for a reply. Occasionally, with e-mail, there are technical difficulties. We cannot be responsible for delay or loss of submissions. To check on the status of your submission after one month has passed, please send a message to glenhphillips@att.net

By submitting your work to Front Porch Review, you grant us the right to archive your work online for an indefinite period of time. You retain all other rights. Once the issue featuring your work has been published, you are free to republish your work as you wish, online and/or in print. You are also welcome to create a link to Front Porch Review (http://www.frontporchrvw.com/) from your personal Website.   

By   Mon, Jul 20, 2009

As they are free, online versions of Front Porch Review do not cover production costs. Excellent issues are the result of generous reader support.  If you are interested in contributing a donation, please send your check payable to:

Glen Phillips
837 Parkwood
Park Ridge, IL  60068

Thank you, thank you for any amount.

By   Sun, Jul 19, 2009

I want this magazine to be appropriate for the intended audience. Therefore, I hope you, the reader, will react to the published material. I hope you will send your reactions, questions, concerns, or suggestions for improvement to me at glenhphillips@att.net. By doing so you will help the various contributors improve their skills, and you will help me publish the magazine my audience wants.

If this is your first experience with this magazine, and you want to be notified when the next issue is available, e-mail me at glenhphillips@att.net.

Glen Phillips
Publisher