Caleb's Public Writing Journal

Me Caleb. Me write good words.

Literary fiction

I Just Wanted to Help

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It was shortly before one o’clock on Sunday afternoon. I was sipping a cold cup of coffee while reading the news on Facebook, a habit I find pleasurable despite the incessant reports of violence and corruption. The daily phantasmagoria reminds me that, while the world might be losing its way, at least my moral compass still points north. I’ve also become rather addicted to iced coffee.

My wife was busy chopping bell peppers for lunch, and I was doing my best to ignore her, when she suddenly yelped.

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked, not looking up from my iPhone.

“Nothing,” she said in a labored voice. I heard a clink as she set down the knife, and I looked up to see her grimacing as she rubbed her left hip. “It’s just this sciatica pain. It’s bad this time.”

This will be my wife’s fourth and final child. Her previous pregnancies were uneventful, besides the giving birth, of course, and even that was over and done with in one push. But this time my wife has had every pregnancy related malady in the book. (There is a book, by the way: What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Spoiler: Don’t expect anything good.) I’m not sure if it’s her way of cashing in on all the sympathy she missed out on the first three pregnancies or if she really is experiencing chronic discomfort, but she does seem to experience it most often while I’m relaxing.

I took a slow sip of coffee, returning to the news. “Why don’t you take some ibuprofen?”

“I can’t. If we had Tylenol, I would take it, but we keep forgetting to pick some up. It’s really bothering me, though.”

She meant I keep forgetting. She also meant that she would like for me to stop what I was doing and go purchase some Tylenol for her right now. But she’s been terribly oblique and moody this pregnancy, so I didn’t push it. I sighed, took one last drink of coffee, and pushed back from the kitchen table.

“I’ll go pick some up for you,” I said resolutely.

She protested, but only halfheartedly, and soon I was lacing up my shoes. She thanked me and kissed my cheek, which helped relieve my annoyance. But it was Sunday, after all, and I didn’t really have anything else to do. Anyway, I was hungry, and the idea of choking down another bell pepper salad made my stomach clench.

A few minutes later, I pulled into the Smith’s parking lot. I took out my phone and texted my wife:

At Smith’s

Let me know if you need anything else while I’m here

The sidewalk leading to the Smith’s entrance was filled with outdoor swings and hundreds of clay pots in a Southwestern style. When the pots were first set out a month ago, they were ridiculously overpriced at forty dollars a piece, but now each one boasted a 70% OFF sticker, making them only completely overpriced. They aren’t worth half of what they’re asking. It’s just another marketing scheme, another greedy company looking to shake down the American people, another compass pointing south.

When I reached the point on the sidewalk where the pots and outdoor swings forced foot traffic into the street, I became delayed behind an old woman with diaphanous white hair, bent nearly double, pushing a walker with tennis balls on the feet, moving at negative speed. I couldn’t pass her by way of the street because of an enormous pickup that was slowly cruising through the pedestrian crossing.

That’s why you don’t go out when you’re this old, I thought. Doesn’t she have family or a caretaker to run her errands?

After what seemed like an hour, the truck passed, and I skipped around the woman, muttering a sarcastic apology.

As I rounded the last of the outdoor goods, I saw a collection of images that triggered an instant understanding in my mind. A greasy sign made from the side of a discarded cardboard box; deeply tanned skin under filthy, nondescript clothing; a rusty coffee tin set out on the floor with a scrap of paper taped around it — taken together, I knew I was about to encounter one of life’s more pathetic constituents: the homeless beggar.

There were two of them, a young mother and her daughter, who couldn’t have been more than ten. They were both too thin, and the little girl wore a vacant expression that made my stomach feel cold and hollow, the way I imagined the inside of one of those overpriced pots felt.

I reached for my wallet, knowing I had a few dollars on me that I was willing to part with, but then I removed my hand. I waited until I passed in front of them, until they saw me, until the mother said:

“Please, sir. We are hungry.”

Then, I made a show of it. I took out my wallet, grabbing all the bills without looking, and handed over my money with a most saint-like expression on my face.

“God bless you, sir,” the woman said in an accent I couldn’t place. It might have belonged to any of those far eastern countries that no native-born American could identify on a map with confidence. It was an exotic, dangerous accent, and I suddenly felt like I understood everything about this tragic pair’s life.

God bless me indeed, I thought. I don’t believe in God (how can I, the way the world is headed), but it must be uplifting for two degenerates to encounter a man who just wants to help. I replaced my wallet and strutted off without a second glance at them.

When I entered the store, I found a woman engaged in a desperate struggle to separate two small shopping carts, which had become entangled together. She became so agitated that she actually lifted both carts several inches off the ground and brought them back down with a metallic crash. This obscene gesture gained her nothing except a few turned heads from passersby. I shook my own head at the display. Some people just don’t know how to act in public.

I had watched this battle for several seconds, patting my thighs and willing for this woman to either triumph over the carts or to give up so I could collect my own cart, when a young couple, who had just finished their shopping, came up behind me to return their cart.

“I’ll take that, thanks,” I said, grabbing the cart and directing it toward the sanitation stand.

I pulled out several wipes and cleaned the handle bar. I placed the other wipes in my basket, just it case (it truly is disgusting what people do when they think no one is looking). Then I went on my way, leaving that silly woman and her struggle behind.

As I ambled up and down the aisles, I couldn’t stop thinking about the beggars. I wanted to congratulate myself on my benevolence, but now that didn’t seem right. My initial sense of complete comprehension regarding their lives had faded, replaced by an uncomfortable doubt.

Were they really so desperate, or did they make more money at begging than I did at web development? Was it all a scam? Had I been a fool to give them money?

My mind was so distracted with these thoughts that I spent a half-hour touring the store with nothing in my cart to show for it. This won’t do at all, I thought at last. And so I decided that their authenticity didn’t matter. Should I avoid every good deed because of doubt? That kind of attitude is exactly what’s wrong with this country. Who was I to judge? If they were gypsies, so be it. If they were truly in need, then all the better. Anyway, it was only three dollars.

My thoughts turned to my stomach as I spotted some yogurt on the shelf. I lifted a large tub of Chobani to read the label, but the tub was slick, and it slipped from my hands before I could catch it. The top burst open when it landed, and thick globs of yogurt spewed onto the floor.

I glanced around, hoping no one had seen my accident, but saw that I was alone in the aisle. I quickly picked up the tub, replaced the lid, wiped away the excess yogurt from it, and placed it back on the shelf with the others. Then I decided I wasn’t in the mood for yogurt and moved on.

After a few more rounds through the store, I settled on a large baked chicken and a cold soda. I began checking out at one of the self-service kiosks and found myself wondering if my three dollars would actually help that mother and her little girl. I would hope, if it were my wife and daughter, that someone would be as generous as I had been — more generous, in fact. After all, was three dollars really enough? How many people stopped to give them money?

I felt that disturbing, pot-like chill in my stomach again as I fed the machine my money and took my receipt. I left the change (don’t you hate the feeling of change in your pocket?), grabbed my bags, and headed for the exit, leaving my cart abandoned near the kiosk. But before I left the store, I saw the mother and daughter through the sliding glass doors, still standing there with their sign, and I stopped.

As I watched, three people walked by without so much as a turn of their heads to acknowledge them. I felt an uncomfortable heat replace the chill in my belly. I really am too optimistic about the human race, to think that anyone would stop and help. 

I remembered the hot chicken in my bag. I could give it to them, give them a warm meal to go with the money. But no. What if they didn’t eat chicken? (Can a beggar afford to be a vegetarian?) And, also, what would I eat? I looked back into the store, considering. It’s only six dollars for a whole chicken, and it wouldn’t take me long to get it. But as I looked, I saw that old woman, the one with the walker who had blocked my path, standing at one of the registers, making a horrible face and lifting her hands out of her reusable shopping bag with a look of bewilderment.

Her hands were covered in white goo. A phlegmy moan rattled in her throat as she complained in a trembling voice that the yogurt she had just purchased spilled all over a greeting card she had bought for her daughter. The cashier rolled her eyes. She picked up the bag with two fingers, holding it at arms length, and picked up the phone to call a manager. The people in line behind the old woman groaned and rolled their eyes, too.

On second thought, I didn’t need to go back for a chicken. Beggars do alright, otherwise they wouldn’t be begging. I gave them a lot of money — three dollars is a lot to someone with nothing. Yes, there was no need to worry any more about it. All that was left to do was to smile and nod at them as I left, reminding them that there were still some good people in the world. Maybe their gratitude would help ease my mind about the whole thing.

But as I left the store, the mother, in that same slimy accent, said:

“Please, sir. We are hungry.”

I stopped. A man, who had followed me outside a little too closely and had to yank on his cart to stop from colliding with me, sighed his annoyance as he pushed his cart passed. At first I thought the beggar woman must have been addressing him. I stared at her, wanting that to be true, wanting some gratitude in return for my good deed. But in her face, there was none. She was… holding out her hands… to me, looking me straight in the face without a hint of recognition.

“Please, sir,” she repeated, gesturing with her upturned palm.

The heat inside me, which rose a moment ago in pity, flared up in anger. I shook my head and smiled mirthlessly. “No, no, you see, I already gave you money.”

At my negative reaction, the woman waved her hand as if to shoo me away, saying something in her own language that sounded vile. As another customer left the store, she looked past me and delivered her same plea to them.

I wagged a finger in her face, forcing her attention back to me. “I gave you money,” I said, my voice unsteady. “You remember? I gave you three dollars.” I demonstrated with three trembling fingers.

She only flashed her black eyes at me, and then she was asking the next passing customer for money.

I repeated myself, stepping closer to her. She spat at my feet.

Something inside me twisted, a polar flip, and I felt my heart pounding in my chest. This ungrateful, stupid woman. No wonder she had to beg for money. No wonder she was dirty and poor. No wonder she subjected her daughter to such a contemptible life. She didn’t even have the sense to remember her benefactor. She was broken — completely broken — just a shell of a woman, no more human than the chicken in my bag.

“You listen to me!” I said, coming within a foot of her, inhaling her stench. “If you won’t be grateful, then I demand my money back!”

She scowled at me. Her daughter did the same, the expression on her young face no longer vacant, but exuding a hate I wouldn’t think possible in a child so young. I held out my hand, mocking the mother’s gesture, and demanded my money again. She slapped my hand away and began spewing a series of unintelligible imprecations at me, waving her arms hysterically.

I was blind to the world around me, to everything but this hateful pair.

“You worthless bitch!” I yelled, reaching for the coffee tin, intending to retrieve my three dollars by force. But before I could touch it, something closed tight around my wrist and tore my hand away.

I turned to see a huge man, his muscles bulging under a dainty shirt, bald, with a thick goatee and tattoos up both arms, looking down on me in disgust.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Leave that mom and her kid alone or I’ll fix you up.”

I wrenched my arm from his steely grip and stumbled back. I felt all the heat that had occupied my belly rush to my face. Tears blurred my vision.

“I—” I started, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Then I noticed the small crowd that had stopped to watch me, among them, the old woman with the walker and the woman who had battled the carts. Their arms were crossed, their eyes narrowed as they shook their heads and muttered their disapproval of my behavior. They looked at me like I was the problem, like I was the filth. It was too much to stand. I was so embarrassed and indignant that my mind went blank, and I couldn’t do or say anything to defend myself. All I could manage to do was turn and run.

When I reached my car, I yanked open the passenger door and threw in the groceries. I smacked the window with my hand and cursed. I glanced back at the group. They were still huddled around the beggars, pointing my way, probably wondering how someone could be such a heartless monster. But they didn’t know anything. They were the problem. Not me. They’re just too lost to see it.

Then I noticed a small scrap of paper pinned under one of my windshield wipers. I was enraged by its presence and irrationally attributed it to the beggar woman and her daughter. I tore the note free and read:

Hey, you dropped your phone by your car. Couldn’t find you in the store. Put it on the front passenger tire. Be careful. It’s a nice phone. Have a nice day.

I stared at the note, wiping the tears from my eyes so I could be sure I had read it correctly, confused and somehow more infuriated than ever. I turned it over. There was no name or contact information, just the note.

I checked the tire and there was my iPhone 6 plus, a little dent on one corner, but otherwise unharmed. I gripped the phone so hard that I heard the eighty-dollar case groan. I kicked the tire, painfully tweaking my toe. How dare they touch my stuff! They should have let it be. They had no right! I bet they wanted to steal my phone, but couldn’t crack my password, and now they’re trying to pass off their failure as a good deed.

I dropped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. I gripped the steering wheel, placing my forehead on it, trying to slow my breathing. Then my phone buzzed in my hand. It was my wife:

Don’t need anything else. Thanks for getting the Tylenol. You’re the best!

I let out an intense scream from my gut that would have sent those beggars and their sympathetic morons running had they heard me. I threw my phone against the passenger window. I beat the wheel with the heels of my hands until they went numb.

I had forgotten the damn Tylenol. But it wasn’t my fault — It was that stupid woman and her stupid little daughter! God damned gypsies! I should call the police on them, I thought, on all of them. I should do something. But what was there to do?

Once someone’s compass is broken, what can be done to fix it?

Everett Ricocheted: A Holiday Tragedy

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Thank you for visiting my public writing journal, and Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it. I have a special holiday story for you today! I had the idea for this prompt a few days ago, but I have been so busy with other writing projects, I didn’t have a chance to sit down and start writing it until this morning. I did most of the planning and plotting yesterday, then started writing this morning at 4am.

As usual, I try my best to keep errors to a minimum for your enjoyment, but since everything on this site is meant to be completed in a timely manner, and are primarily for practice; some mistakes may appear.

I’ve had a wonderful time crafting this exercise for you, but I guess it’s time to get back to the family. I hope you enjoy the read; I write for you!

Everett Ricocheted

tukeytatts

After winning ‘Best New Artist’ at the 2013 National Tattoo Expo, Everett Ortega moved his family to Forking Trails, a full year sooner than his accountant recommended for a young business, but he refused to live another week in that apartment, and the new accolade was keeping the books full for weeks in advance. He claimed the rush had to do with getting settled before the holidays, with Maggie getting used to the new house before all that excitement. By the time November rolled around that year, all of the employees from the tattoo shop had a letter from the boss inviting them to Thanksgiving at his new house. The place was big all right, bigger than any place he had ever lived in. It reminded him of some kind of fortress. He installed a black iron gate over the front door, and spiked bars in crooked angles on all the first floor windows. The lawn seemed comparatively unkempt to his neighbors; the single maple that stood in one corner of the front yard hung his arms, dead; a long, telling gouge running up his trunk, nearly bifurcating him, leaving him gray and rotting where he stood. Inside, the house was bright, warm, and filled with fumes composed of turkey, ham, and other festive delights. The guests gathered around the drinks and refreshments in the kitchen, thanking him for his employment, congratulating his recent success, and complimenting him on his ideal choice of house and community.

At around eight in the evening dinner was served and everyone sat, awkwardly stirring their food and looking to their host for direction. When it was clear that her husband was not going to say anything, Everett’s wife spoke for her husband saying, “We don’t have any traditions yet. But, in my family, we would go around the table and say a quick word about what we were thankful for. I am thankful for my husband, and all the success that the talent God has given him has brought our family. Now that the world is starting to recognize what we all have for so long, hopefully all our lives will change for the better.” There was a small round of applause, then the guests cheerfully began—first was Antony and his family; then the Frenchman, Beau, who does portraits; Wendall the piercer; and Twitch the shop apprentice—and so on. They were all thankful for Everett.

“All right boss,” Antony said, patting Everett’s shoulder and grinning up the guests, “what don’t you have to be thankful for, big guy? Come on now, don’t keep us waiting, Elizabeth wont forgive you letting the turkey get cold.”

Elizabeth shook her head and laughed, waving the comment by. But Everett did not smile. Under his tangled black beard he gently gnawed on the fat of his lower lip, marking each one of the guests with eyes peeking out from under heavy brows. After a moment he widened his eyes and took a sharp breath like the single scrape of a metal pot brush, turned his face up, and put on a watery smile. “Having you all here…” He straightened in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “Having you all here in my new home… I’m thankful that I had… I have people somewhere who care.”

“Well!” said Everett’s wife, “how underwhelming! What kind of thanks is that? That’s all you have to say? After all the wonderful things all your friends had to say about you?”

“Friends?” Everett asked himself.

A unanimous murmur circuited the table.

Everett’s wife pursed her lips, folded her napkin and took a large gulp of wine. “Can I talk to you for a minute Everett?” She asked.

Everett shifted in his seat. “You’re taking it wrong,” he said. “Just forget it. I am thankful,” he backhanded the air, “for all of you. It’s just taken more time to settle in than I thought. The neighbors here; the neighbors are just different.”

“You’re in Orange County bro,” said Antony, “what do you expect?”

“What does that even mean?” asked Everett. “I haven’t even seen half these people and they already hate me. I took the dog out this morning. The family coming down the sidewalk; they crossed the street; wouldn’t look me in the face. Our neighbors haven’t come to welcome us—not one! I don’t know…”

Everett’s wife had enough. She threw her arm over the back of her chair and laughed from her gut. “You have got to be joking! So now—now!—you’re upset because the community is too quiet? Because people give us too much privacy?”

Wendall swigged his beer. “I don’t think you need to worry about privacy, mate. Iron gates, triple pad locks, metal mesh screens on the windows. I’m sure the neighbors get the hint.”

“It’s my home,” said Everett, “I have the right to protect it don’t I? If they’d let me, I’d have done it at the apartment.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t LA either, big guy,” Antony said. “Besides, Elizabeth tells me you got a cop living next door?”

Elizabeth nodded furiously with a mouthful of wine. “That’s right, Murfa’s husband, a few doors down; Robert something? Robert McKinley I’m pretty sure—anyway, the realtor told us he’s been here since the community was built. You can’t get safer than having a cop right next door.”

Twitch shook his head, not looking away from his plate, “Seems to me like anywhere’s safer than where their murderin’ folk outside your door.”

Everett struck the table with his fist and the tableware clattered. “That’s enough about it. Elizabeth doesn’t like talking about that.”

A frown seized Elizabeth. “I don’t mind it at all Sam, it’s in the past now. It’s only you that mind it still.”

He eyed Twitch with the loathing rage that he could not lay on his wife, “Fine. Fine then, I mind it. It’s enough about it anyway.” The table fell silent, and everyone knew it was time to eat.

After the guests had eaten their fills and stayed their duties, Everett took a hot shower and timidly went into the bedroom, letting the cool breeze from the open window dry the steaming water off his back, and slipped open the top dresser drawer where he kept his bed clothes and large .45 caliber pistol he purchased along with the new house. He was aware, without looking, of Elizabeth’s gaze. He felt her brain trying to work him out. He felt the exhaustion of this exercise more and more in the new house. He wondered for how long he could feel her touching him. She lay reposed on their bed, hidden behind deep masquera-sockets. Somewhere in the night, seeming to be perched just outside Everett’s window and far away at the same time, the great horned owl questioned the dark: Whoo? Whoo?

“Did you take your medicine?” asked Elizabeth.

Whoo?

Everett started. “What was that?” his hand was wrapped round the gun. He whirled on Elizabeth. “Did someone cry for help?” His chest popped and collapsed like one of Maggie’s mechanical toys. In the dim light Elizabeth made out the silver spine of the 1911; her husband’s eyes were white and wild; and she was frightened.

“No. No Everett. It’s only that damn owl—sweet-heart? did you take your medicine?”

The gun rattled playfully in his hands as he tried to smile. “Yes.”

“We’re safe here, Everett. You don’t have to worry anymore. This isn’t Dos Lagos. This is one of the safest communities in Southern California. What happened at the apartments; that’s not normal; even for a rathole. I’ve never heard of something like that happening to somebody before it happened to us; you definitely don’t have to worry about it happening here.” She held out a hand.  Everett took a step towards her. Her eyes flicked to the gun at his side. Everett stopped. He wriggled where he stood. His mind wanted to accept his wife’s words, but screams of terror and images of himself and his wife, motionless in the comfort of their beds; affirmation after affirmation built into his head to never let himself forget that day, to never let it happen that way again flooded his head.

Whoo? Whoo?

Everett rolled onto bed near his wife, closing the pistol in the side table drawer, and drawing his thick tattooed forearm over his eyes.

“Do you ever think what would have happened if we would have done something that night?,” he asked. “I mean, anything—opened the door, banged on the door, called the cops, shouted—anything for Christ’s sake.”

“Yes. I used to. When I didn’t want to; when I wasn’t trying to think about it; when I was just cleaning up the apartment, or doing school-time with Maggie. But it didn’t stop me from doing those things. And it didn’t stop me from moving on, from getting past it. I don’t think about it anymore. I can’t ever forget about it completely, but I don’t run through what I could have done to save her anymore. I have my own daughter to worry about. The man who hurt that girl is locked up. And we moved far away from there.”

“I couldn’t forget it.”

“I said, I didn’t. I just don’t want to bring old evil into our new lives.”

Whoo? Whoo?

“What’s so new about it? This house? Our neighbors? All these damn communities are the same; unbalanced and dangerous systems of animals. You can make close bonds based on trust, but these people—God—these people didn’t give us a chance. They didn’t half look at my beard and tatts before they rejected me. How are we supposed to be a part of this place if they won’t have us, and don’t want us? And what about us? We’re not any different. I’m the same, you’re the same.”

“People are never the same, Everett.”

Whoo—aah!

Everett twisted out of bed and landed, crouched like a cat, beside the side-table, already retrieving his weapon. “Did you hear that? You heard that! Ha! You heard it, I know you did!… Shh—There it is again—listen…” Sam put his ear to the open window. Silence…

Then a haunting voice leaped through the window, chased through the hollow night air by a man’s baritone shouts. “No!” it cried. “Stay away from me!”

Everett and Elizabeth gaped at each other. It was impossible. He had changed everything, moved to a safe residential area, they were part of a home owner’s association for Christ’s sake—could it be happening all over again? Here? In Forking Trails? Everett paced the room with the gun pressed to his temple. He groaned and growled at the images of the body of the young woman in the torn red dress, sunken into the cement stairwell at the apartments, a terrified, hopeful expression stained her face, her eyes locked on his apartment door, her lifeless body limp and beaten and pathetic.

“Everett!” said his wife. “Everett, are you listening to me? Please come sit. Come sit down. It’s probably just kids again. They’re always out at the pool, or haunting the park; don’t worry.” But Everett continue to pace, looking at Elizabeth with wide, confused eyes, like he didn’t know her at all. “Everett, if it’s bothering you, we can call the police, but they’re probably not going to be able to do anything about it. It could be anything.”

“I can’t believe you. Someone could need our help.”

“You don’t know that Sam. And it’s none of our business anyway. You said yourself tonight that these people have made it their M.O. to avoid us, so for right now, for Thanksgiving night at least, my husband can do me a favor, and avoid them too, all right? Trust me, it’s probably some kids playing.”

“That didn’t sound like kids playing.”

Elizabeth shrugged and drew up a corner of her lip. “Maybe it didn’t. It doesn’t matter to us Everett. Please, keep your voice down, Maggie’s sleeping. Just come to bed.”

“Get the fuck back here!” came the man’s voice from outside. It was close; maybe two streets North? The woman’s reply was frantic and breathless; “No, help, don’t touch me, help!”

That’s when Everett heard it; two gun shots sounded in succession; crack-cak! Then the woman’s shrill shriek and an inaudible command from the man. This was the girl from the apartments all over again. He had tried to leave it behind, but it followed him here. He looked to his wife. She sat up in bed, silently picking at her nails, no urgency in her body, she hadn’t even reach for her phone. “I’m going out there,” he said. “I’m not going to let this happen again. Not here. Not to these people.”

Elizabeth still worked at her hangnail. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’ll call the cops, all right? I’ll call the cops, and tell them what you thought we heard—”

“Thought!—“

“And maybe they’ll send someone, but Everett, if you think I’m letting my husband walk out into the night with a loaded gun, especially with what you’re going through right now, to face some unknown armed psychos, you’re dead wrong.”

“What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you learn anything from Dos Lagos? Didn’t you lose anything? Wasn’t anything burnt into your head that day? Jesus, Elizabeth, I mean, Jesus; someone needs us.”

“You’re right. I need you. Your daughter needs you. Your employees need you. The people who look up to you as an artist need you. The people who’s tattoos you haven’t finished need you. You’re the one that tells me that it’s more than just ink and skin; that it’s personal culture, and personal journeys. These are all the someone’s that need you. These people, this community, your so called ‘neighbors’ who treat you like Frankenstein’s monster—are they worth more than all of us?”

Everett howled and beat his chest. He tore at his hair and wept onto the cold steel of the gun, running black grease onto his hands and over the thin golden band on his finger. When he could breathe, he pointed a black finger at his wife and said, “If they are not worth protecting, then no one is worth protecting. And If I am made of mortal stuff, then I will die. And when I die I will sink low in the ground with that poor girl’s life on my back—how much more can I bear before I sink through the earth when I die? and dissolve into full darkness? I already tried to run from the bad. I ran and ran. I ran like a hunted hog. I penned myself in this house. But the bad is in the people. Now the hungry dogs bark at my window again, but this time I’m not going to lie in bed with you and listen while they tear us apart. This time I’ll face the cowardly pack.” Everett checked the clip in the pistol, then smacked it home and yanked the slide. Elizabeth moaned like an ungreased wheel, Everett stole from the bedroom, and she was frantically searching for her cell phone.

Outside, the midnight air was clear and cool. Through the vapor-clouds, the stars and crescent moon spangled the night sky, who copied herself in the pool of rainwater cuddling in the dip of the driveway. Everett’s boot destroyed her visage as he stomped through the clouds and stars, into the street and towards the root of the commotion. The street lamps were lit for only the South half of the street, leaving the Northern section under only moonlight. Everett sweated as he made his way down the sidewalk, the heavy pistol in his overcoat pocket, having to grip it fiercely to keep his hand from shaking his whole body. The rose garden across from his house was cheerfully lit and a few residents were strolling the paths with their dogs.

“Help me!” the voice came. “Joshua, stop! Stop, help! Help!”

Everett picked his pace up to a jog. The people in the garden were unwilling to hear, but he knew that; he could not waste a precious second trying to convert them to his cause. He heard the argument grow louder as he drew nearer and nearer to the fray. When he was three streets North of his house, standing in the dark street with no more voices, struggling to hear anything over his panicked breathing and distant sirens, he heard the third gunshot go off so close; Crack! that he needn’t have heard it at all; it’s muzzle flare lit up a parked car at the end of the cul du sac, a block from where he stood. Everett focused in on the man; a lanky teen in a large grey sweater and wild red hair was stumbling around the middle of the street with a young girl gripped by the wrist, being hauled around like a sack of garbage at his heels while he twirled a small revolver round his head and slurred profanities in intervals. He was a boy. Just a boy. Sam’s whole arm convulsed as he pried at the gun in his pocket. When he held it loose, he had to grip it with both hands to steady it. He watched the gun in the boy’s hand, watched its muzzle trail from the girl’s head, to his own, to the sky, from window to window; and in each one he couldn’t help but see Maggie’s tiny body caked in blood. The sirens blared louder in his head, but Everett only heard the boy now, only heard his voice, his movements, his breathing. Everett blinked the stinging from his eyes and bared his teeth.

“Drop the fucking gun and move away now!” He demanded. He said it with such force that the tremors in his vocal folds were simply blown over.

The instant the boy heard Everett, another shot rang out in the air. The bullet ricocheted off a roof top and the revolver seemed to fly from the boy’s hand. Everett crouched and fought a million times to not pull the trigger. He saw the gun pointed to the sky when the shot went off, and now inert on the asphalt. The boy stared dumbly at Everett, mouth agape. He still held the girl in his grip and she struggled weakly against it. She was obviously exhausted, but when she saw Everett, she became revived and tore away from the boy’s grip. She raced, bloody-legged, into the residential shadows. Everett tried to call out to her, but she only glanced back at him with pale-faced terror as she disappeared into the dark. The sirens were becoming immutable and the adrenaline surging through his body made it hard to think. He put his bead on the boy and started walking towards him.

“Drop the gun!” But the boy had already dropped it… “Drop the gun! Now!” Everett crept closer to the boy. He saw his pale pimpled face contorted in terror and a dark patch of pee dribbling down the leg of his pants. Everett sniffed in the hot fear and it enraged him. For a second his finger tensed around the trigger.

“Yo, please,” said the boy, “I don’t want to die. Please. Just shoot him already! This dude’s fucking crazy; everyone knows he’s crazy; please! he’s gonna kill me!”

Then Everett looked at the boy’s eyes and he realized they were not looking at him. He realized it was not him ordering the boy to drop his gun. The red and blue flashes of light that filled the street flashed memories in his mind. The police lights that plagued his nightmares of the horrible days that followed that night two years ago at Dos Lagos when that poor girl was raped and murdered outside his door. He suddenly felt sick. Like a man with a hangover on the first beer of the night, ready to do it all again. He felt wrong, out of sorts, and misplaced. He suddenly felt the need to reach out and grab the boy, to wrap his arms around him, to talk to him. He wanted to hug his wife too, and Maggie—little Maggie—he wanted to hold her most of all. He wanted to communicate something to them then, something of such importance that he couldn’t find words to shape it, or emotion to hold it in. He needed to tell them. He needed them to know the truth. He did it. He brought it to Forking Trails. It was him all along. But how could he tell this boy? This community? He needed to explain.

Everett Ortega turned to face the officer and held up his left hand to explain. But, before he could say a word, the officer leaped back, shouting for him to drop the gun. Everett held up both hands in defense, the pistol still locked in his anxious grip. The officer didn’t think. He shot Everett three times, once through his upraised hands, leaving him to bleed out on the streets of Forking Trails. Even as Elizabeth came bellowing out of the back of the police cruiser, shouting for Robert McKinley’s to stop, the officer kept his gun trained on Everett’s hunched back, ordering her to stay back, that the man could still be dangerous. And as Everett’s dimming eye’s watched the wild-haired boy slipped into the darkness after the mysterious girl, he felt a strange buoyancy, as if his aching body were floating up, into the silverly night. Then, all was silence.

photo credit: Shannon K via photopin cc

East of Ethan

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Thank you for visiting my public writing journal. This writing exercise was inspired by a passage out of one of my favorite Steinbeck novels. You can guess which one by the title. I spent an hour sketching this out yesterday—the 22nd—and a good hour today—the 23rd—spent revising and editing. The exercise goal for myself here was controlling reader emotions, as well as information release control. Also, I was just having fun writing.

I hope you enjoy the free read. Please check my site often for updates; I write for you!

All Ethan cared about was Sarah then—she just didn’t take to Mission Viejo. If she was angry she did not advertise it, not through the usual petty arguments and passive aggressive tactics that some common eastern women were known to employ during the turn of the century, but then, Sarah was not the same woman that Ethan had married three weeks ago in far away New York.

There, Sarah held his hand as they walked through Central Park, sighing as he recited lines from the tattered leaves of Tennyson. But in Mission Viejo she would not touch Ethan through lace gloves. And if she must look at him, it was with tight, thin lips; a mannequin’s courtesy—and only when it was unavoidable.

On the couple’s third morning after arriving in California, Ethan woke to find his wife not in bed. He followed the sounds of coughing and retching into his tiny hotel bathroom where he found his wife, draped over the toilet, her head sunk deeply in the bowl.

“The shrimp,” she coughed, her voice echoing, struggling to work her throat muscles, tearing up at the sound of her amphibian voice that amplified and echoed out of the bowl. “I can’t talk money now, darling… I’m so terribly—so terribly—oh, just leave me here today, darling. You must go without me.”

Ethan ordered her cold water and an aspirin on the way out of the Queen’s Isle Hotel, found a cab, and went on with the day’s business. At about five in the afternoon, Ethan arrived back at the The Queen’s Isle to find his wife, unmoved from the toilet, her hair and dress both laden with blood. The hotel doctor reached the room quickly and examined Sarah; she was still alive, breathing normally, having fainted from severe loss of blood.

“What’s happened to her?” demanded Ethan, “will she recover?” Whiskey was heavy on his breath, “Please, what happened to her?” Ethan advanced on the doctor with his hands held out

“Mr. Newman! Please! She’ll be all right, I’ve stopped the bleeding—sir, I must insist!” The doctor held up his hands, “But she needs rest. I’ll have her moved to St. Mary’s as soon as she’s able, but for now, she needs rest.” The doctor dropped his head. “You know. I have to tell you, friend.” He couldn’t look Ethan in the eyes; then he could, and when he could he took him by the shoulders and steadied him.

Ethan wished the doctor would stop looking in his eyes; he felt like the doctor had stripped nude in front of him, grown old and feeble. “Now, friend, I have to tell you. Your wife is fine. But her wounds were self inflicted.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you know your wife was pregnant?”

Ethan flinched, breaking eye contact, meeting the doctor’s eyes again. He wanted to say no. He shook his head instead.

The doctor described what he found when he examined Sarah; self-inflicted wounds, a twisted copper hanger, and all the signs of a woman with child. He assured Ethan that his wife was stabilized, and offered to check in every few hours. Ethan remained silent, taking in the doctor’s words. The silence was painful when the doctor finished speaking and before he knew what he was saying, he said,

“You know, Mr. Newman, if your wife tries any more, you understand, monkey business; well, California law is against her. That is, you have your rights.”

At the doctor’s suggestion, Ethan’s eyes turned very cold, his brow dripped over them, and the corners of his mouth twitched. “No,” he said. “That won’t be necessary.”

The doctor tried to hide a shiver. He excused himself, then nodded. He had nothing to say to this, no warning or caution; indeed, the good doctor was already forgetting he was ever called on that evening regarding business with Mrs. Newman.

Ethan thanked the doctor and closed the door behind him. He walked to the bed where Sarah lie unconscious. Ethan’s face had changed; his eyes bulged, a purple vein writhing at his temple—and his fingers had locked into metal grip hooks.

It was true; Ethan had dragged this glimmering prize from the East to the Golden shores of a young California, his head full of Swiss cows and windmills and wide open possibility. It was true; his new enterprise demanded his seemingly continuous presence at banquets, business halls, and country homes, and they no doubt had taken their toll on the young Sarah. But this? To Ethan, such a heartless attempt on his child’s life was inexcusable. Ethan brushed aside a cold rat-tail of hair from his wife’s face; he turned his hand and stroked her cheek, but pulled away at the hard, rubber touch; he screwed up his nose and made a soft, sad noise in his chest. No. This wasn’t the same eager woman he married in New York. Not the same woman at all.

“Wake up,” said Ethan. “I said wake up, damn you! I know you can hear me. Why’d you do it huh? Why’d you do it? Open your eyes, I know you’re awake.”

The drowned little doll on the hotel twin closed her mouth and tightened her lips. She carefully opened her eyes and met her enraged husband with a cold stare.

“So you are awake,” said Ethan with a hateful chuckle, “you sick woman, you terrible… Why’d you do it? Just tell me that, why’d you do it?”

Sarah folded her arms over her stomach, her eyes were glassy but without tears. She made no expression of emotion.

“Am I no good for you? I can’t be that bad, no man’s that bad. You devil! And you know what? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Christ you look sick—did you take something? I bet you took something too, didn’t you? Vinegar? Red pepper? Christ! You’re crazy!” Ethan’s face had darkened to a dangerous red. “Well, I got something to tell you, since you don’t want to tell me why you did it.” Ethan went to the bureau and produced a half-empty bottle of whiskey, poured a glass, drank. “Someone upstairs wants us to have that baby because, despite your disgusting attempts, your assault on my child only hurt yourself.” He poured another glass. “The doctor told me the baby is fine.” Drinks. “Your aim sucks. And you’re going to have that baby too. As long as you’re my wife, you’re under my law, and a woman doing what you done here, without her husband knowing, and on her own like this, is certified murder. And if anything happens to this baby—to my child—and I hear about it, then I will testify against you in a court of law and put you in jail to rot. I promise you that. And while you don’t talk much now, I hope you have sense enough to believe me when I tell you I mean what I say.”

Sarah’s mouth, slowly, closed. And her eyes opened, cold and hard. “What do you want from me?”

Ethan set down his whisky, careful not to make a sound, and looked his wife in the face. “Everything I’m going to get,” he said. “Everything. I’m going. To get.”

Detective Jimmy Hallaren of New Mexico

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I wrote this scene sketch this morning to play with my sentence construction. I hope you enjoy the read.

Narcotics Detective Jimmy Hallaren sat in an early model Ford sedan, in the New Mexico desert three miles outside of Santa Fe, his .40 caliber pistol, unholstered, on the passenger seat, his bearded, cracked hand resting beside it, his dark eyes fixed on a dark patch in the road, irregular, like spilt oil that the sun had failed to raise from the dusty highway, a stain set all the more vividly in Detective Hallaren’s memory, set by a sin that a thirty-five year career of loyal duty could not cleanse: his violent, impersonal ending of a young man’s life; all in the name of a paycheck.

Detective Hallaren held a half-burnt cigarette out his open window, the butt between his first two fingers, nails turning yellower in the noon sun. He took a drag of the cigarette, letting the smoke linger in his greying hair, absorbing the aroma; a fitting stench. The police radio gurgled in his ears:

“Yo’ Jimmy,” came a man’s voice over the radio, “you bringing it in soon old man?”

Detective Hallaren lifted the .40 caliber and set it aside, revealing a thin paper pamphlet titled, ‘What Now?’ The author’s name was obscured, but appeared to be of Indian origin.

“Jimmy?” Asked the voice. “Are you there sir? I didn’t mean it about you being old, sir. We were all actually hoping to catch you before you left us for good.” Three or four other eager voices crackling over the speakers echoed the patrol officer’s sentiment.

Detective Hallaren caressed the pistol with his forefinger, then picked up the radio receiver. “Yeah, yeah, I’m here in the boonies; I’ll be at the station in a few; tell the boys I’m just reminiscing about the good ole’ days.”

“Tell them what?” Asks the voice. “Ten-one, you’re transmission’s a bit choppy sir.”

Glancing South, towards Santa Fe, low on the horizon, where the air wavers in the heat, Detective Hallaren saw a flash of green light, but, looking again, he saw… “Nothing,” said Detective Hallaren, “nevermind; I’m out on the eighty-four North; tell them I’ll be in soon. Just do me a favor and don’t let my wife do anything—over the top—at the station; I’m tired.”

“I’ll try sir, but your kids are in town. See you in a few sir; congratulations.” The radio scratched to silence.

Detective Hallaren continued to stare where the flash had been, two or three miles away, where the highway gently sloped, a small dust-devil rising up in its place. Then, like it had been there all along, a crude, yellow van appeared, screeching along the highway at high speed, swerving over the horizon. It was a boxy van, a DIY chop-job for sure; a Chevy truck, it’s bed replaced with a wooden hut, the whole thing hand painted a bright yellow, with black tinted-windows, and a black sliding window cut into the side like an ice-cream truck.

The van swerved so wide that it kicked up dust from either margin of the highway. The rig rattled and coughed so violently as it came that Detective Hallaren was sure its spine would snap any second. The van sped closer and it emitted a red flash that made him blink. A second later, green smoke poured from the windows of the van, accompanied by electric sparks and high-pitched whistles; the whooping spectacle, now no more than a mile from where the detective waited.

“What are you thinking buddy?” said Detective Hallaren, picking up the radio receiver. “Dispatch,” he said, “this is Detective Hallaren, do we have any traffic officers near my ten-twenty?”

The woman’s voice came clear and sing-song over the radio, “Ten-four, detective, units are on their way, now why don’t you ten-nineteen and start on enjoying that retirement? Good afternoon detective.”

Detective Hallaren took a long inhale, hand trembling, then flicked the cigarette butt onto the asphalt and cupped his hand over his quivering lips.

The van was less than a thousand feet out and coming fast; Detective Hallaren knew highway patrol would arrive in the next thirty seconds, and the driver would be long gone by then. But he gave up chasing petty speeders six years ago when they gave him the detective badge. He gave up the heart-pounding stops, the overwhelming questions of safety every time he stepped out of his cruiser; the beat up undercover sedan was a reward hard won. Four hundred feet; orange smoke now too? No front license?

Detective Hallaren felt a rumble in his gut; an explosion boomed from the van, just as it careened past him, horn blaring, a small wrinkled man at the wheel, black ponytail trailing behind, flailing his arms at the interior assailants, lips stretching wide, teeth chomping in terror, glasses fogging white, the cabin full of colorful gasses, white sparks, scattering copper coins and long, red and blue plumage all along the eighty-four.

Detective Hallaren picked up the pamphlet and flipped through it’s pages without pausing, then sighed. “Highway patrol will never make it,” he said.

Detective Hallaren holstered his pistol, crossed his safety belt, punched off his radio, jammed the gear shift into drive, and tore out after the mysterious yellow van.

The Strangest Hat and the Oddest Girl

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Sophie’s wiry fingers quivered violently as they pressed glue in place, attaching a lace veil to a felt bonnet she had laid out on her workbench; her joints swelled; if she stopped now, she might sleep through the night without waking in painful sweats; but Sophie would not take a break; if Sophie stopped making hats for even a moment, she feared all she would do is stare at the old grandfather clock in the corner and count the seconds until her niece arrived to take the horrible creation out of her shop.

Sophie had finished the ridiculous order by three that same afternoon and tucked it beneath the front counter, out of sight of any customers or passersby; so no one might assume she’d lost her sense of taste. She thought she really should set guidelines on what is and is not acceptable on orders for lady’s hats—if not for women’s fashion at large, God help them, then at least in her own shop! In fifty years of ribbons, feathers, nettings and pins, Sophie learned to make the hat you’re paid for, not the hat you’re proud of; but in all those years, there was never such an abomination; such a concoction of trim and contour that made her squirm so much in her own skin. Where was that child?

A tinkling copper bell announced a customer’s arrival and at first Sophie did not know her estranged niece. The last time the old woman saw Ophelia was on her second birthday, when the child wore a bright yellow gingham dress with white ribbons in her hair, bright white socks and polished black shoes. Her sister Agatha and her despot husband managed to raise what Sophie considered a lovely child; just the sort to help an old woman not used to running a shop with one set of hands. The girl before Sophie now looked to be about ten years old, in blue, denim overalls, brown tangled braids, a dirty face and neck, and sharp green eyes. “We’re closed child,” said Sophie.

Ophelia turned to the sign in the window that clearly displayed its ‘Open’ side to the public, then back to Sophie with raised eyebrows and a grin. “Aunt Sophie?” She asked. “I’m Ophelia? Agatha’s daughter; your niece? Mama told me you were needing help since uncle Ralph die—since uncle Ralph. Did you have work that needs being done?”

Aunt Sophie’s face relaxed; she felt her cheeks warm as she felt the weight of the hat leaving her already; she nodded. “You’re very, very late young woman,” she said with a long sigh. Then, as if seeing her as human for the first time, “You are terribly dirty; doesn’t Agatha bathe you girl?”

“Oh she bathes me all right,” said Ophelia, “it’s just, she’s always saying she can’t keep up with me no matter how much she tries. You know Agatha tried to give me a bath three times a day every day for a week once? My skin was so red and sore, I couldn’t pull on a dress without yipping and biting my cheeks. But it didn’t matter anyway, because after the week was up, Agatha gave it up. Somehow I always ended up just as dirty at the end of the day as I did any other day.”

“That’s fine now Ophelia, but you shouldn’t call your mother Agatha. Mama’s all right like you said before; or Mother, or Mom. She doesn’t let you call her Agatha does she? Bless that woman if she does, I’ll have to have a talk with that sister of mine.”

“Oh no! It’s just that you called Mama Agatha, and it’s such a romantic name, don’t you think it’s a lovely, romantic name? and I don’t hear it very often because it’s Mama’s name, and we don’t know a lot of other people named Agatha—that is funny how some people know dozens of people with the same name as them like Ophelia, or Michael, or Aunt Sophie, but then some people like Mama’s got names that you just don’t hear so much? I like Agatha.” Ophelia sighed. “If I could be called anything in the world I think I’d like to be called Gwenvaria.”

“Gwenvaria? Now you listen Ophelia: there’s nothing wrong with your name, and I won’t be calling you by anything but what my sister calls you by. I’ve called you here for an important delivery. I need to know you can get it done. We don’t have any time for chit-chat at the moment, and I don’t see any reason a young girl like yourself should talk so much anyway. Now, you’ll need to leave now if you’re going on foot. She’ll meet you at the Rochester II boarding gate, I’ve arranged it all with her you understand?”

“I can get it done Aunt Sophie, I know I can, if you give me a chance. This place is so incredible! I’ve never been inside a hat shop before! I mean, not a real one. I’ve imagined them hundreds of times; they’ve always made the most fantastic visits. It’s so nice to know that the real thing is so much better than the imagination. Isn’t that wonderful when that happens? Does that ever happen to you? Oh, it’s just perfect. I would just love to stay Aunt Sophie!”

“I’m not sure what you are saying Ophelia, but I admit it makes me smile to hear you like the shop. I built it myself. Not the wood of course, I mean the business. And I’m glad to hear you have at least some interest in staying. I can’t say I hear many young people showing interest in working nowadays, especially not in craft trades. But all this can wait. I have lost feeling in my right hand and the cold eats at my bones. Are you ready to go now?”

“I’m ready! Is this the hat here?” Ophelia picked up the black veiled cap from the counter that Sophie had been working on.

Sophie snatched the hat from Ophelia’s hands. “No!” she said; then softer, “No; this is for me.” She bent under the counter and for several seconds Ophelia was not sure if her Aunt would resurface at all; indeed, neither was Sophie. As she knelt behind the counter, she stared at the monstrous hat and contemplated whether it might not be better to just sit down where she was, next to her grotesque offspring, and never come up again. She held her chest; she became aware her vision had dislocated and started to drift.

Aunt Sophie regained her homeostasis and returned with an extraordinary sight: a wine striped ribbon held a billowing cream ostrich feather that drooped over a wide brim. The hat’s woven body was mummified in embroidered silk, pinned in place with long needles, each capped with crystals. Ophelia thought it the grandest, most bizarre hat she’d ever seen in her short life.

#

Ophelia rushed out into the October afternoon; hat held to her chest; this was it, her first real adventure, and this time her Mama wouldn’t be able to stop her. Sure she would worry for a while and wonder where she was, but Ophelia planned to return to the pig farm when she finished with her adventures on the western coast of town. She looked towards the direction the taxi had taken her from the country. The streets were lined with shiny cars and two story apartments. A few local children chased each other along the sidewalks; their little white terrier joining in the romp. The air was cooler here than the farm and it settled salty on her tongue. Her father once told her that no any one town is ever very unlike any other one town, and if one keeps their eyes open and are very careful, one can never really be lost.

Ophelia smiled at her own wisdom. She threw back her head and sniffed the air; she licked a finger then thrust it in the sky; she laid her cheek to the dirt then listened intently. She didn’t know why she did these things, but she’d seen them all done somewhere, and she knew they must be important for getting where one needed to be. She spun herself in three semi-circles, then lowered her finger where she stopped. Finally, Ophelia stopped a passing gentleman on the street and kindly asked him to direct her to the way of the port, to which he gave her simple directions. Ophelia thanked him graciously. Sometimes, plain old asking works too.

Ophelia skipped off in the direction the man had directed until she came across a small market displaying in its window a roll of bright, patterned wrapping paper; the very same shade of candy-cane-red found on the hat Ophelia was carrying in her hands. It was such a perfect match it seemed to Ophelia a disaster not to buy the paper. Even though the gift was not from her, or for her, it is not often that one gets to give gifts as grand as custom made hats, especially young girls, and Ophelia had always hoped that one day she would be able to give someone a real hat; one that was all wrapped in real wrapping paper. There was nothing to be done for it, Ophelia entered the little market.

When Ophelia reached the counter with wrapping paper in hand, the clock over the clerk’s cabbage head read four-thirty. Based on Ophelia’s directions, she would make it to Rochester II with at least five minutes to spare. The clerk was busy wrapping up a dozen bottles of Horse Cellar Scotch in white paper and boxing them in a wooden crate for an enormous patron in a deep wine-red suit and yellow flat-topped straw hat.

The patron spent the clerk’s time half-choking on laughter from confusing idiosyncratic jokes that made Ophelia clench her teeth, and the other half complaining about the various shortcomings of the town and the county. You see, he could not wear his best shoes on outings for fear he’d destroy a third pair; he’d never felt so embarrassed or exposed in relieving himself like a ‘savage’ then he had in the public ‘facilities’ in the town—although Ophelia could not think what other means of relieving himself the man could possibly be used to—and that this poor soul had heard the chowder from the carts along the docks was famous, ordered three bowls the first night in port, but the putrid smell of the inland pig farmers from his brief visit to the butcheries burnt up his nostrils so terribly that all he tasted was onion.

At this, Ophelia could no longer keep quiet. “Maybe the pigs can’t stand the smell of you,” she said loudly, “you ever think of that?” The clerk stopped with the patron’s last bottle of scotch half-way in the crate; his wide, leafy ears twitching.

The enormous patron turned in three, slow rocking movements to face Ophelia. He breathed heavily through his open mouth. Ophelia thought the man looked like a middle-aged infant with dark sunglasses. A silky, sweat covered Ophelia’s forearms. “Hello there little mouse,” said the patron through a wet smile, “I didn’t hear you down there darlin’. Once I get goin’ I just get goin’, you know?”

“I said,” said Ophelia considering, “I said I’m in a hurry, and if you don’t mind hurrying up yourself and stop talking so much, because it’s really very rude to talk so loud about people you don’t know anything about anyway, especially when you’re a visitor in their town, because you don’t know who could be listening, so you don’t know who you could be offending, and especially because you’re wrong, and you’re a mean, big man, and pig farmers don’t smell, and because you want to know how I know? Because I am a pig farmer, and my mama and dad are pig farmers, and I just need to deliver this hat to a very rich lady so I can have a job in the hat shop, so I can work here in town, and then maybe I won’t have to be a pig farmer, but even if I had to be a pig farmer for the rest of my life I wouldn’t care because pig farmers might smell, but at least we’re not rude, hurtful people who say things about other people when they should worry about themselves, and how’s that for a pig farmer?”

The enormous patron wheezed out the beginning of a laugh, then choked on it like he inhaled a sausage; fell against the counter, then in an explosion of hoots and wheezes, had a good laugh. The clerk gave a twisty smile, understanding only that a laughing man warmed his tummy, but looked cautiously at Ophelia when her stare chilled his bowels. Ophelia pressed her thumbs into her fists as hard as she could push. The man recovered himself enough and said, “My, my young lady, who are you and where are you from? I want one of you, where can I get one of these?” he asked the clerk. The clerk shrugged, wide-eyed. “Ew, but what on earth is that?” He asked pointing at the hat in Ophelia’s hands. “We can leave that out of the deal.” He laughed again.

“I already told you all that,” said Ophelia, “and you don’t need to know my name and don’t you dare talk about this hat. My aunt made this for a very important lady. I told you, I’m in a hurry and if you are going to be rude—” Ophelia felt the soda pop rushing through her veins and her bones threatening to shake all her bits loose, so she dropped the paper, took her hat, and left the market with tears in her eyes. Presents and wrapping paper were all very romantic, but they would have to wait for next time. For now a plain old, unwrapped, ostrich-feathered-mummy-hat successfully delivered, and a job successfully done would have to do for Ophelia.

“Young lady!” Called a voice behind Ophelia. “Young lady, excuse me!” The enormous man ran out from the market with his crate of scotch clanking in his arms. “I have a big mouth,” he said. “I have a big everything, I can’t help it. My name is Poins. I’m sorry I offended you darlin’. I didn’t mean to run you out the door. I really dig your attitude. You’re a spirited kid. Why don’t you let me help you out? What did you need in there?”

“I accept your apology, but I don’t need your help; I’m nearly there now. I was just stopping in to match some wrapping paper to this hat my aunt made for a client. I’m supposed to deliver it to a woman at the port at five. I would have been early if it wasn’t for your talking. This is my first job for my aunt and I wanted to wrap the hat, to make a present out of it, you know? I’d never given anyone a real present before, but now that I’m saying it all again I see that it was a silly idea. Anyway, I’m sorry I said you smelled, but I have to go.”

Poins looked around the street. “You’re not going on foot are you?” He asked. “You’ll never make it. I just came from Port Royal this morning, you’ll need a car if you hope to make it there in time at all.”

Ophelia’s face went white and she gripped the front of her dress. Since that morning Ophelia had heard two distinct names used interchangeably; inlanders call all of the western coast of the town the ports. “Port Royal?” She said. “You mean there’s two ports? No! You don’t mean it.”

“Well, I would think you’d know your town better than a stranger. But I’m pretty sure, there is Port Laguna, which is just beyond these storefronts, and then Port Royal, which is a good five, ten minute drive up the coast.”

“Oh no! This can’t be happening; what will I do? If I mess this up, no one will buy hats from Aunt Sophie anymore and it will be my fault and then she will have lost her business and her husband in the same week! Oh, I can’t mess this up, I can’t! I can’t let Aunt Sophie down!” Ophelia went on like this until she collapsed into a stack of trembling knees and sobbing shoulders.

“Shh-shh-shh,” urged Poins. “Hush now, you’re all right, shh, there now, hush, hush, goodness girl you’re stopping people in the street.” Poins shifted his weight and looked around at the onlookers; they stared, but offered no help. “You know,” he started. “I could… I could maybe drive you there myself.”

Ophelia looked up into Poins’s smooth, rounded face; he had removed his glasses, his eyes were a deep chocolate-brown with flakes of rose gold that shrank into the iris. “Would you?” she asked.

#

“That’s Rochester II there,” said Poins, leaning over Ophelia and pointing at one of the tallest liners docked in the crowded port. It was two minutes to five; Poins had a moment of inspiration on the drive up the coast, and in the face of defeating traffic, devised a back route that put Ophelia within running distance of her delivery point. “You’ll have to go on foot from here. The crowd’s too thick.” And it was; boys and girls of all ages in their long coats and caps, knocking into each other with their bulky suitcases, wardrobe boxes, and bloated burlap sacs.

Ophelia held a bright white hat box with a picture of the same hat that Poins then wore on his head. Inside, Ophelia had placed her delivery. She now replaced the lid and took a breath. “This will work perfectly. Are you sure you don’t need it? I don’t know if I can do this. I’ve been on the docks before, but not by myself. Not with so many people. I always thought the docks were so romantic; sea voyages, sailors, pirates. There’s so much adventure, don’t you think there’s so much adventure and mystery about the sea?”

Poins laughed and messed up Ophelia’s hair. “I think I do. I guess I’m just not gutsy enough to say it anymore. Come on, you’re going to miss her, you gotta move it.”

Ophelia got up on her knees and hugged Poins around his large head, which was all she could manage to hold and Poins placed his oversized hand on her back, as gentle as if Ophelia were made of smoke. Then he watched the child slide down from his passenger seat and disappear into the crowd.

Rochester II was a straight run. Ophelia was small enough to avoid most contact if she was careful. The giant clock above currency exchange told Ophelia time was up, so she tucked the box under her arm and took off toward the ship. She weaved through carts of salted cod and beef tac, she skirted past a banana stand where the men were catching tarantulas the size of small dogs, and when a crew of lifeboats broke down and blocked the rest of Ophelia’s passage through the docks, she managed to squeeze under a Gordon’s Fresh Potato Chips trailer, out into the open, and make it to the Rochester II.

“Stop right there you!” Demanded the boarding master, holding his palm in Ophelia’s face. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Ophelia was breathing heavily. “Oh please… tell me there’s time… I have… a delivery… a hat for a passenger… on your ship…”

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t let you on the ship deary,” said the man.

Ophelia shook the hat box weakly. “I just… need to… deliver this hat. Please.”

The man took a long hard look at the odd little country girl; a filthy sight; scraped and bruised and muddied. “I’ll tell you what. If you give me the hat, I’ll deliver it for you.”

“That would fine I suppose.” It would have to be; she was out of options. If it could not be delivered by Ophelia, she would have to settle for it being delivered by not-Ophelia.

The man took out a notepad from his vest pocket along with a charcoal pencil. “If you give me the name,” he said, “I will bring it to her once we leave port.” He put the pencil to the pad and waited for Ophelia.

Ophelia’s eyes rolled and fluttered; oh, no… the name… what was the name? Did she have a name? Of course she had a name, everyone has a name, but what was her name? Did she write it down? She didn’t think she did. The man looked up at Ophelia. Ophelia grew more anxious. “Um,” she said. “I’m not sure of the name.”

“Well you can’t expect to get a delivery done if your don’t know who the package is being delivered to, can you?” The man smirked and shook his head; slapping his open fingers with his notepad, then replacing it in his vest.

#

Ophelia dragged herself a few feet from the boarding master and let herself collapse onto the side walk. She didn’t cry; she thought she might be all out of tears. She didn’t speak, or moan, or do anything. She just focused on the wet grey street and the jet black cracks and tried to find the tears again. The tears did something at least. But now, Ophelia felt empty and grey and wet…

“Awww, no she looks so sad, Sammm.”

“What?”

“Dooo something. She’s just been staring at the ground for five minutes.”

“Seriously? We’re just visiting, keep out of it—Ouch! Frick! Really?”

“Um,” the voice is close; a male’s. “You okay sweet-heart?”
“Sweety,” the second voice; a female’s. “Can we do something for you hun?”

Ophelia looked up to see a young couple leaning over her on the sidewalk, one of them wore the same wicker flat top that Poins had recently purchased. Ophelia thought it fit the enormous man better than this thin, angled man. The woman had a soft, doll’s face with black eyes and exactly three freckles on either cheek. Or maybe she was a doll. Maybe this was Poins. Maybe she had finally slipped into the depths of despair, and these angelic figures were just the players of her mind. Ophelia reached out a hand to touch one of the doll’s black eyes, but the doll shrieked and drew back.

“I’m so sorry!” cried Ophelia, I thought you were manifestations of my deepest sorrow.

“You poked me in the eye!” Said the woman. “We were trying to see if you were okay!”

“Ophelia Corbronte!” Ophelia turned to find an old woman in a bright yellow dress standing by the boarding master. She held a feathered parcel over a terrible greenish hair. Ophelia thought it was the worst hair color she’d every seen. “Are you Ophelia Corbronte or aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“And you are the niece of Sophie Corbronte?”

“I am.”

“And your aunt told you to to be here no later than five this afternoon? I don’t know how they do it in the country young lady, but where I come from, punctuality is character. I don’t know what happened. I don’t much care. I am an old woman and I am tired. You’ve made me remove myself from my cabin and once again brave this ridiculous plank. I find it terribly rude and disrespectful that a bad little girl like yourself could take such a generous opportunity and disappoint so profoundly. Well dear, I think I’ve said my mind on it. Now, don’t cry, don’t cry. I’ve had my say. You’re here now aren’t you? There, there. That’s better. My goodness girl, you are emotional aren’t you? I’ve been expecting you for some time. There, there, I’m Ms. Noose, I believe you have a hat for me?”

Ophelia forgot all about the hat. She ran straight to Ms. Noose, put her arms around her waist, which took the old woman much by surprise, and squeezed. “Oh Ms. Noose!” Ophelia cried. “I know you’re angry with me, but I’m just so happy to have found you. I didn’t think I was ever going to! I mean, I did at first, I really did. I wouldn’t have told Aunt Sophie I could have helped her if I thought I couldn’t have. But things just started off so well Ms. Noose! I mean the hat shop! The patterns and buttons and ribbons and lace and, oh Ms. Noose! You tell me if you were a young girl again, and you came to work at a hat shop, and you were ten and you were used to working with pigs all day long, then you tell me how that would make you feel; I bet you would tell me it makes you feel like you can do anything, and that’s exactly how I felt Ms. Noose; honest! But I thought getting around town would be like the country, but it wasn’t. Then I wanted to wrap your hat in pretty paper because I wanted to make a present of it—I know it’s silly, but I wanted to make it special for my first delivery—but I met a mean mountain man who ran me out of the store, and then it turned out I was at the wrong port, but the mountain man turned out to be more of a moon man after all and he’s the one who drove me here, and he leant me the nice box to put your hat in so that it won’t get crushed on your journey to America—Oh my goodness, your hat!” Ophelia turned, just as a blaring horn sounded through the port.

“Ma’am,” said the boarding master, “we need all passengers on or below deck, we’ll be departing any minute.”

Ophelia returned to Ms. Noose with the hat box in hand. The woman took the parcel like a newborn in her arms. She thanked Ophelia again for her loyal service. “You have more manners than to say anything about my poisoned hair,” said Ms. Noose, “and I thank you for that dear, little one. But I’ll tell you this; I’ll tell anyone who will listen who the best hat delivery girl in the county is.” She warmed Ophelia with a last smile, then creaked up the plank and out of sight.

#

“Aunt Sophie!” Called Ophelia, bursting into the hat shop as Aunt Sophie was putting the sheets over the last of the hat racks.

“Ophelia?” Said Aunt Sophie. She tossed the sheet to the ground; hands loosely shaking with excitement. “Where in the devil have you been my girl?” She took Ophelia in her arms. “Ow, ow, ow;” her spine and hips popped and clicked; but Ophelia held them both together. “You silly girl! You left before I could tell you who you were delivering your package to.”

“I knew I didn’t forget it!” Said Ophelia. Then she told Sophie all about her adventure in the market and Poins and the docks and the couple and Ms. Noose.

“I’m very impressed with you Ophelia,” said Sophie. “I didn’t know what to expect at first, but ever since you took that dreadful hat far from here, I’ve had a fine feeling about things Ophelia, a fine feeling. I doubt we’ll have an ounce of trouble working side by side, the two of us.”

“Really?” Asked Ophelia. “You mean it? Oh, Aunt Sophie you don’t know what this means to me! I’ve been dreaming and dreaming of moving to the ports since, since, well for a while now, and I’m so grateful it’s finally coming true!”

“Well, it sounds like you earned it,” said Sophie.

“Oh, that’s not even the best part,” said Ophelia. “I forgot to tell you what Ms. Noose said she was going to do for us! Ms. Noose said that I did such a good job for you as your new hat shop assistant that she was going to tell every living soul she knows about me—and the hat shop of course—but about me and the shop too! Isn’t that great?”

The shop’s copper door chime sounded before Ophelia finished speaking. A young woman entered holding a white box in her hands. “Excuse me?” she asked. Ophelia recognized her at once as the doll-faced woman at the docks that she nearly blinded.

“I’m sorry ma’am,” said Sophie, “we’re just about closed for this evening, but we will re—”

“Actually,” said the woman pointing at Ophelia, “I’m here because of her.”

Ophelia felt ice water seep through her gut into her thighs. Sophie turned to Ophelia in surprise. Ophelia pointed to herself in surprise, “You see?” Ophelia said shakily. “Ms. Noose must be very influential.” Sophie did not look convinced, and she did not look away from Ophelia.

“It’s about this hat,” said the woman, holding out the hat that Ophelia knew to be the same one that should be on its way to America on the green nest of Ms. Noose’s head. The ice dribbled through her knees to her toes and began to tingle. “I’m afraid you and my husband mixed up hat boxes at the docks sweety,” said the woman. “Luckily, my husband was wearing his hat, but it looks like your’s was still in its box.” The horrible woman took the hat with both hands, so it was unmistakable, and lifted Sophie’s monster from the box. “It’s very… different. Anyway, I asked the boat guy and he had that old lady tell me where to find you. We just arrived, so…” the tingling turned to boiling and Ophelia needed to run. The woman leaned into the store, stretching in one foot, and placed the box on the closest shelf. Sophie’s stare was visibly heating Ophelia’s skin to uncomfortable temperatures; without another word, the doll-faced woman stole out the door and into the dark October night.

Sophie’s stare never left Ophelia’s face, but Ophelia could not meet it. “Does this mean,” said Ophelia after ten painful seconds, “that you’re not going to let me stay? Aunt Sophie? . . . Aunty?”

Thank you for reading. This scene sketch ended up at around 5k words. I started this yesterday around 10am; my goal for this exercise was to develop a story from scratch and develop a scene or sequence of scenes with clear intention and design focused on an imprudent little girl, then attempt to sketch out a draft that came close to that plan. This is different than most of my sketches, which are ‘from the seat my pants’ sketches, that give me more freedom, but are less structured.

I apologize for any errors in this sketch. This is basically draft 1.5 and I just don’t have the time or manpower to edit these properly, but I do my best. This is being published hot off the presses (just finished the last read through before typing this message); sorry for the delay, I could have kept working and working on this sketch. I enjoyed working on it; I hope you all enjoyed reading it. Please ‘Like’ my page of Facebook, and connect with my Twitter, Google+ page, and Linkedin for more free weekly reads. Thank you for reading; I write for you!

Cheers,

Caleb

At the Old Ball Game

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Old Kramer Lindorf struck the mound with his cleated toe — two outs, one batter up. The Baltimore Tigers were closing in on their first victory of the season and it was all thanks to Kramer’s seasoned pitch; twisting over the plate at speeds over 100mph. The only thing he needed to do was keep the batter on the plate; when who else should stride to it but young Smithy Smithers; fresh from his trade out of New York, cocky as hell, hat turned back, and black chew steaming in his cheek.

Old Kramer didn’t look upset to see Smithy. He didn’t seem interested, but we could tell. He must have been angry — we were all so angry with Smithy’s smug swagger. All the true fans felt shame at Smithy’s impudence after what Old Kramer had done for him.

In 1985, Old Kramer broke Smithy into the game, introduced him to the manager of the Minnesota Rocketeers, then of course to New York. But the first chance Smithy got he turned on Kramer, and let him get traded in his place over an offense with debated perpetrators. Kramer, to this day, publicly claims that Smithy gave false testimony against him, placing him with people and at places that he was not. This was their first face-off in three years. Before game time, Kramer tried to clear the air with Smithy, but was skillfully ducked.

Smithy leaned over the plate, unwilling to look Old Kramer in the eye. He waggled the bat round his ear. Kramer stared Smithy straight in the face. Smithy wore a greasy grin, mouth full of tar. He spat into the dust, stirred bat and rear-end in mocking rhythm, and gave Old Kramer not even the courtesy of looking him in the eye as he met him. No doubt, Smithy expected a meatball; Kramer gave him a cannonball.

Old Kramer offered his own subtler grin then curled the ball tight in his fist. He twisted his hat, his face lowered, he drew up his knee, wound back his shoulder and launched a backdoor slider over the field straight into Smithy’s fa— smack! Smithy lurched back and grabbed his face. His hands shook. They turned red with blood. Yet, Smithy calmly walked to a place by the batter’s box, leaned over his knees as if to catch his breath, and stood quite still.

After a shocked silence, the crowd swelled with cheers and overflowed with jeers. I watch the huge Smithy leaning over the bloody dust swamp he created by the batter’s box, and I replay the impact in my mind — whack! How is he still standing after taking Old Kramer’s famous 100mph pitch to the nose?

On the way home, I thought it couldn’t have been Old Kramer’s famous pitch. No one could survive that. No. But the best answer I could figure is that Kramer was reprimanding Smithy; a slow pitch to show things still weren’t right. And I thought that Smithy’s impotent reaction was something like an apology. I thought about the crowd roaring, their teammates rushing afield, auxiliary quarrels breaking out, medical units dispatching; and that these men alone; Kramer and Smithy, were smiling. And I’ll be damned if Smithy wasn’t laughing through that gruesome new maw of his. But I guess he had even more reason to be grateful to Old Kramer for that; and perhaps some new incentive to show it too.

Shame

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Crying Teen

Crying Teen

The house’s front door bangs shut, clipping out the evening sun. I listen from a narrow half-hall on the second story. I recline at the foot of my parents’ bedroom door—an idiosyncratic delicacy much missed this past month—rocking my knees together and flexing my jaw, attempting to relieve air pressure the thirteen hour plane ride stuffed in my ears. I hear socks sweep over carpet from the room. The door squeaks open, releasing a cloud of bitter cologne that settles in my mouth; I wipe my tongue on my T-shirt to get the taste out. “Thanks for that Mom,” I say.

“What the heck’s going on out here,” Mom says. “Slamming doors? Shouting? You two were just as happy as little muskrats in your room half a minute ago. What’d you do, tell her horror stories from the trip?” Mom fiddles her fingers through a slippery, purple blouse then folds it on itself. She smiles; not looking at me.

I can’t respond right away. My throat sticks together when I try to suck air, a metal ball-bearing slides up my throat from under my collarbone and I sweat. How can this woman possibly know the things she knows? I say, “No Ma’, Alex’s just being weird today. I thought we were alright, but, you know, it’s just whatever now. Either way, she’s being ridiculous about it.”

“Mm.” She points to my wrinkled jeans—the last pair that didn’t smell like last year’s PE lockers—and says, “Do you want me to wash those for you?”

“No, Mom!” I say. I paw her away, shaking my head. “Jesus, I just want to think right now okay? Is that like, not okay in America?”

She blows a laugh through closed lips, turns, then walks back into her room, stopping a few feet in to shut the door with a foot, but before she does, she says, “I just hope you didn’t do anything you’d regret.”

Now my thoughts were crashing together. Why should I let this get to me so much? I had to break it off. The truth is the truth: two years is too serious right now. I mean, I’m sixteen! I’ve been out of the game for two years, and for what?

I groan and stretch the skin down my face. Kate hears me and lopes over. She presses her nose against mine and I sputter. I flail my hands and she startles. I wrap my arms around the old lab and wrestle her to the floor. I look down at her huge drooping smile, jiggling spotted tongue, and eyes full of raw excitement to have me home. My stomach warms and I bend to let her lick my face. “Why can’t girls be like you Kate?”

Kate didn’t know. The change in my expression must have been severe, because the dog closes her mouth and turns her head in a question seeming to ask, “What’s wrong Sam?” I roll on my back again and study the stuccoed ceiling. “Well, ol’ girl,” I say, “It happened like this . . .” I tell Kate everything.

A few minutes later, Kate watches me sullenly, sitting very still with the side of one lip curled up on the same side as one flared nostril; just how Alex looked when she listened to me tell her why we couldn’t be together. “Kate,” I say, “why am I pretending to be upset about this? Who am I angry with? I didn’t have a choice. Four weeks in Europe; four weeks! And I’ll tell you girl, those Euro chicks were not digging this.” I gesture to my reclining body.

“But I got it wrong you see? I went on that class trip to get out of California, to get crazy and meet girls and live life, but I didn’t need to run to Europe to do it. I live in California baby!” Kate looks unimpressed. “Anyway, it turned out to be a sweaty old bus with a bunch of dorks with sour-smelling clothes. Four weeks without so much as a hookup. What did she expect me to do when I got back? She is my girlfriend. Well, was my girlfriend. Just because the timing was bad doesn’t mean that it was my fault . . . does it? . . . Ugh, I think I’ll just die here.” I turn my cheek to the carpet and stick out my tongue.

“Saaam!” Mom calls, “have you unloaded your luggage from the van yet? I want to get it all washed this evening.”

“No,” I say, “can’t I have an hour of rest? I got you some stuff.”

“Like the bottle of wine you promised?” Mom says, her voice changing from muffled to clear as she came close to the door. “Please tell me you got your mama her Italian wine.”

I pull at my hair, glad she cannot see my reaction behind the door. What should I do? I gave Mom’s bottle to Alex when we first got home, before we—well, I forgot to get her something and things were getting heavy and the only thing I could think to do was sacrifice Mom’s wine. “Wine?” I say. “Oh, you know what . . . shoot Ma’, you know, they wouldn’t let me take it on the plane.”

Mom frowns comically then shrugs, “It’s okay,” she says, “I’ll just skip your Christmas this year.” She laughs and closes the door.

Then something strange happens. I feel—something . . . in my cheeks. A sort of warm tingle. I have the urge to turn from Kate and hide my face in the moulding. What’s wrong with me? “Why do I feel like this?” I ask, gripping my gut. What is this feeling? I feel so . . . so . . . I don’t know. I feel like maybe . . . Kate whines and struggles to her feet. She pants in my face, gives me a parting lick and turns her back to me. Shame? I feel, ashamed?

I hope you enjoyed this sketch I wrote today. Please check back for more free reads and updates on my future work.

Cheers,
Caleb

Two Lovers in a Field

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The afternoon sun has the cowboy squinting his eyes. A woman stands next to him, twisting her hips and smiling into his leather face. Both recline against a gray wooden cow fence. A warm breath lifts from the heat-soaked dirt and grass. The cowboy breathes in the prairie. His scent is rude and distinct; hard-labor and brine; a spicy, musky cologne from his button-down; he scowls. It disfigures the woman’s subtle bouquet—her’s is too delicate. He sniffs it up and lets it play on his tongue. He repeatedly taps his heel against a fence post, trying to guess what happens next. He had never made such fuss over a woman, even a fine one like Estrella. Why start now?

“What are you thinking?” asks Estrella. She dips her ear forward to see the man’s face. She squints an eye in the sun and smiles at him, eyebrows slightly raised.

The man looks to his boots then rearranges his hands and heels against the fence. He wishes they were not standing so close. He can’t move away now; she’ll think on it—the cowboy stops fidgeting. His cheeks and eyes wrinkle into his smile. “I’m just thinking,” he says, “that grainin’ won’t be so tough this year.” Christ his back aches in this position, but he is committed. “Not with you and Tommy here.” Estrella turns from the man and inspects her cuticles. “I mean,” he continues, “Tommy’s all right with his hands, but the crew ain’t never been so—together; and laughing. Not before Tommy and you—”

Estrella kicks a toe-full of dust, laughing. “Don’t. Please. Don’t say his name. It’s so nice here now.” She gazes over her shoulder into the horizon, nothing but flat land; hard land. The two sit looking each their own direction for a minute, then, since the man has said nothing, she says, “What are we doing out here?”

The cowboy tips his hat up and surveys the fields; heads of cattle, an ancient tool shed, a little tan house on a hill with red clay roofing. “I don’t know,” the man says. “We’re just talking’s all; taking a rest—”

The woman protrudes her chin and scoffs, shaking her head. “Darn you Fernando,” she mutters. She leans forward and covers her eyes. She laughs softly into her palms.

The cowboy presses his large hand to her back and starts to pat. His calloused palm catches on the shirt’s soft fabric and the feeling brings memories of little toes on cotton blankets and the man feels a tremor in his gut. “Aw, I knew what you meant,” he says. “I just didn’t know what to say is all. I’m not good talking about these things. What do I say?”

The woman frowns at the man, but it fades quickly. “Tell me the truth,” she says. “Tell me what to do, just tell me how, and I will, but not if you don’t want to, not if you don’t—if you don’t want me.”

“Goodness . . .” says the man. “You talk like it’s my choice. If it was my choice, my way, we wouldn’t be on this silly errand. I wouldn’t have to sneak you away for a few moments of looking into your eyes without feeling your—your husband breathing behind me. I don’t blame the bastard either, but I don’t play games when I don’t know the rules.”

“Is that what this is? A game? Fernando, this is serious. What are we going to do?”

“We aren’t going to do anything. We’re going to head back to the farm. If your husband’s there—well, you have two choices,” counting on thumb and forefinger, “you can tell him how you think you feel, how you’ve been telling me, and telling me you think you have for me, or you don’t say a thing; we keep on working like it never happened, and I don’t lose the best hand I’ve had in years.”

“You would do that? Pretend we didn’t—”

“As far as God and I’m concerned we did something.” He grips her hand and turns it so the tiny stone blinks. “Ha. But I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known.”

“You wouldn’t have loved me because of him?”

“That’s right, I wouldn’t have loved you. I wouldn’t have let myself love you. Think I’m the kind of man who watches out for other men’s wives? Sneaking around the shadows?”

“Well, are you? that kind of man?”

Fernando sighs; a long release. Then he steps away from the fence, swinging out his arms and arching his back. “I don’t know. But we’ll find out back at the house won’t we?” He holds out his hand. They both walk along the crooked fence toward the shack on the hill.

After a long time, the woman asks, “Do you love me?”

The words enter the cowboy’s head and beat around until all his other thoughts and feelings tumble out his ear. He watches the posts coming; going. Nearly reaching the farmhouse now; Fernando sees a green pickup kicking up dust out front; he hears its horn sounding loud and long, then quick, quick, quick, then loud and long again. He looks down to Estrella’s brown neck, at her slender collarbone, her swaying gait—“Hell,” he says, “I just might.”

The Beast, The Boy, and The Red Shoes

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Prompt: Write a scene in which a boy asks for new shoes.

Old Red Shoes

The Red Shoes

His mother’s home was always kept clean and warm and bright; but those days were many months gone. . .

Tonight, the house was all shadows and sawdust and the sugary stink of moonshine. The boy peeked out from behind the molded door jamb and eyed his father wearily before entering the kitchen; he held a pair of red shoes with canvas tops which were torn and patched and so covered in the winter mud that they couldn’t truly be called red any longer; and said in a small, questioning voice, as if each word could tear down the plaster walls around him, “Father? Sir?”

The man sat on a metal stool screwed into the tile floor, leaning over the laminated countertop, and cradled his face in his hands.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“It’s Tomas, sir,” said the boy.

“Who’s that?”

“Your son . . . sir.”

The man lifted his wet face and glowered at his son through quavering red eyes. “Yes,” he said. “One of my son—” He choked on the word and stopped up his sobs with a long drink from an unmarked bottle of liquor then brought it down with a crack. The boy recoiled and held the shoes close to his chest. “Don’t,” said the man. “Don’t do that.” He beckoned the boy with a lazy hand gesture and pat of his knee. “Come.”

Tomas’s hair was silky black, four inches long around the top, closely clipped above the ears and neck. His hands were small, even for a boy of nine, and he twisted the shoes like he was squeezing lime juice for his father’s drink as he stepped forward.

“What do you got there, eh?” asked the man.

“Nothing,” Tomas said, “My shoes is all.” He displayed them for his father. The man shakily leaned in so his nose almost touched the brown laces.

“I see them,” he said. “God they smell. What are you putting them in my face for?”

Tomas pulled the shoes close again and took a step back. He had come this far—farther than he believed his heart could take him—and unless he planned to avoid his friends all winter break, or lose a few toes doing it, he had to finish what he came to do. He took a long draw of breath, then said, “Father, they’re falling apart and I can’t walk outside with them anymore and they can’t hold on to the slippery sidewalks and I feel the wind blow through the holes and when I come home I have to crunch the ice from my socks and—” he blew out the air and tried to continue, but his father pinched his brow together, squeezed his eyes shut, and shook the whole mess from his ears.

“Sh-shush’ it,” he said. “Shush it up. I don’t see nothing wrong with those shoes. We’re not going to spend twenty dollars on new shoes. Do you pay rent?”

“I’m nine,” said Tomas, flaring his nostrils.

The man took another swig from the bottle. Two streams of stinking syrup dripped down his jowls that he didn’t bother to wipe away. “You’re telling me we don’t have one damn pair of shoes you can wear? Not one?”

“No,” said Tomas. “Well, there are . . . Nevermind.”

“What?” asked the man. “Dang it son, you tell me!”

“There are some shoes, newer shoes, Benny’s shoes.”

The man floated back in his stool with the look of a man who has just awaken from a deep sleep. He lifted the bottle to his lips then lowered it again. With a terrible sob and a bestial cry, he hurled the bottle over his son’s head and it shattered against the white moulding where Tomas had entered the room. Tomas began to cry.

“Don’t,” said his father. “Don’t you even think about touching your brother’s things. You hear me? Do you?”

Tomas turned and ran weeping from the room, bounded up the stairs, and slammed his bedroom door. Father or no, toes or no, friends or no; he knew it was his last night in that house.

Can You Observe The Calving of the Does?

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Somewhere on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, six-thousand feet above sea level, on a hill shaded by giants, my father waits for death.

Job tosses my mom’s suitcase onto a deeply polished countertop alongside a chrome microwave, sleek single-serve coffee brewer, and several other shining kitchen appliances; some with tags still attached. “Beautiful isn’t it?” He says. “What do you think Rahab?”

“Oh, yes,” Mom says. She reaches up to crown her husband with a gray wooly hunting cap. The drooping side-flaps struggle to hide Job’s unusually large ears, but can do nothing for his long crooked nose and lipless grin. “It’s perfect! Everything you promised my love.”

The cabin’s wood is polished, floor and walls, to a high gloss. The armchair and couch that sit before the fireplace are covered in plastic. A chemical lemon scent sticks to my lip and waters my eyes. “Jeez,” I say, “I didn’t think a cabin could be so . . . clean.”

Mom wraps her arms around Job’s neck. “Will you take me on a walk tonight? Before sunset? Oh, I’d love to walk the forest at sunset.”

Job unlocks Mom’s arms. “You don’t walk around here after dark, Rahab. Not in this wilderness.”

“I just thought,” Mom started, then growing a small smile, “but never mind. Not if it’s too dangerous, I understand.”

“Too dangerous?” Job laughs and grips her around the waste, thrusting his hips into hers. He flicks his head toward an old redwood rifle hung on the hood of the stone fireplace. “Dangerous for the beasts you mean!”

She laughs hard and too long. “Yes, I nearly forgot: my husband the genius lawyer, and mighty hunter.” Give it a rest Mom…

Job gives her an approving smile. “Well, not here anyway—damn park regulations. But you don’t have to worry about the wildlife out there with me here. All the same, if you want to walk in the woods, there’s more to see during the day. Okay?”

“She said she wants to go at sunset,” I say.

Mom looks to the floor and winds her wedding band round the knuckle. Job doesn’t look away from her. “If it’s going to make you that upset,” Job says, “we’ll go.” Mom beams at him and rests her delicate hands on the waterproof micro fabric of Job’s hunting jacket. “But I didn’t buy this damn cabin—with a perfectly good view of the trees and butterflies and whatever—just to freeze outside in the dark.”

Every summer when school gets out, and Mom gets time off, we take a few weeks to ‘get the heck outta’ dodge,’ as she says, and travel up the California coast chasing our expectations. This time is my last year of high school and we had planned to take a drive north to Hollywood, or maybe even to San Fran—like so many of my friends have drooled over for months—but instead I’m stuck in my new stepfather’s love shack that he’s no doubt seduced many a secretary at. That is until he got so old that all the money in the firm couldn’t reverse the effects on his body—then he married my mom.

“What about Ole Sherman?” I ask, pulling out a wrinkled page I printed out before we made the drive out of San Diego. “General Sherman, I mean. When can we see him?”

Job scowls at me like a man unable to ignore the foul smell of a clogged toilet any longer. “It’s not a ‘he,'” he says, “It’s just an old tree. It’s too far down the road. What is with you two? I thought we wanted a vacation in a real log cabin, remember? Now we’re here, all you can do is go on about filling the vacation with chores.”

“What’s the point of being in nature if we can’t see the nature?” I say.

“Look!” Job backhands the sliding door that looks out to the deck and down through the brush and evergreen. “There! There’s your nature! Christ, if I wanted to dance around in the woods, I would have gone hunting with Jack and the boys, with my ass stuck up in some tree, waiting for deer. At least I’d have a pair of antlers to show for it.”

“Job,” Mom says, “do all deer have antlers?”

“What? No, that’s ridiculous, why?”

“Oh, I just thought I saw something down the hill, there, that looked like a big dog with a black tail.”

Job and I join Mom to look. “Are you sure?” I say, embarrassed that I can’t hide my excitement from Job.

“No,” he says in his lukewarm groan, “I seriously doubt that you—wait—yes, there!” Job shoulders me away from the slider, whips it open, and clomps out to the deck. “Well I’ll be damned, it’s a doe.” For a moment, he stands with hands on hips, just looking. “Well, they’re common enough around here.” Then he turns to come back inside, but Mom and I shuffle out to meet him before he can.

“Where?” Mom says. “I don’t see her.”

Job sighs, turns his head to the clear sky and nods slowly, then slides his hand down Mom’s mid back, guiding her gaze with his other hand to a spot down the hill. Then with a firm squeeze of her butt, “Bingo, you see? In that patch of fern there.”

Mom giggles like Sandy Preachily every time Professor Mineack tries to cram another terrible joke into his chemistry lecture. She did get an A this year. I’m still not able to see the deer, and I start to think that Job might be making it up when she reveals herself to me; resting in a bed of lady fern and crisp pine litter; her tall ears twirl to catch my gasp, then away to unheard noise in the woods. She licks at the base of her dark tail that contrasts beautifully with her downy copper back; quiet and alone. “Wow,” I say.

“Just a doe.” Job says. “Nothing worth looking at really.”

“Is she hurt?” Mom says. “She keeps licking at her side.”

Job takes a few steps toward the edge and blocks the sun from his eyes. He tongues something out of his teeth then in a flat tone, “Yep. She’s in labor.”

“What!” Mom and I say together.

“She’s about ready to burst.”

“Oh my goodness,” Mom says. “Should we do something?”

“We can shoo her out of my backyard if you want. She’ll make a mess.”

“Job!”

“Do something Job,” I say. It’s more aggressive than I planned, but Mom’s face mirrors the sentiment.

“Jeez you two, there’s nothing to do, these rats breed like crazy up here. It’s a shame they don’t let us help control the population.”

“She’s not even making noise,” I say. “Why isn’t she crying or something?”

“They don’t have feeling like that,” Mom says.

“Really?” I say. “But shouldn’t she feel pain? I mean look at her, she’s got a water-balloon hanging out.”

The doe stretches her neck and her boney leg rows in the air like a dog with a slow itch. She can’t be more than two-hundred feet from where we stand. I can see a swollen patch of skin under her tail, like a red pear, flare up, then a pair of black sticks slip out and stop.

“Oh my God! Mom she’s freaking pushing out the baby now, what are we doing, we need to help her.”

“What is that coming out?” Mom says.

“It’s the legs,” Job says. He picks at a hangnail, then bites it off. “What are you going to do? deliver the kid? Hah! No, you know what? Why don’t you go down there and deliver the kid Dr. Peter.”

The doe stiffens her tail and the legs are followed by a dripping mass that couldn’t be the baby’s head.

“Isn’t there something we can do?” Mom says.

“No.”

I try to jail my response through clenched teeth, but, “To hell with you Job,” I say and crouch down at the edge of the deck. I measure the distance to the ground. “I’m going to help her.”

“You watch your mouth boy. Now I told you there’s nothing—”

I let my feet pop off the deck and drop six feet to the grass. My legs buckle when I land and I collapse on myself. I hear mom shout something. The blood rushes hot and sharp in my neck. Job’s laughter just lifts me to my feet faster. I smack the dirt from my sleeves and jeans, and wade out through the scaly tendrils of the underbrush toward the laboring doe. Closing in on her, I start to run. I can see that the baby is nearly out, she lets out a powerful groan that chills my back and drives my feet harder into the soft earth. I smell every passing dogwood flower, taste every gnat on my tongue, hear every bird cry out overhead as I tear through the woods; but I do not see the buck. Not until his six foot silhouette is rearing from behind the fat sequoia whose roots the doe labors on. There is a commotion at the cabin. I hear mom shrieking my name again and again as the sharp hooves, like volcanic glass, tear through my cheek, my jeans, break my nose. I’m on the floor. A wet membrane-covered calf wobbles on its front knees, and stares at me curiously as another blow shatters my jaw. Then a gut popping report cracks through the trees and the barrage ends.

I can’t breathe. The towering giants turn red overhead. I squirm on the pine needles and my whole body is buzzing and numb and I know I’m hurt bad. I hear a thud and Job calling after Mom. My head is full of helium now and I feel it lifting away from me. The mother does not stay after the shot. She bounds stiff legged through the dogwood, her hind squashing and extending with each powerful leap. Beside me, the newborn rocks to its knees, ears hung askance, and shakily gains his feet just as the buck collapses before it, honking a final parental protest as his doe’s black tail flitters down the slope, and disappears into the dark wood.