Somewhere Else
Zizzle Literary Flash Fiction Finalist Prize Winner/October 2021
Betty, 1940
Just imagine: I’m running away. I’m doing what I’ve read about in books. I’m stuffing my bed with clothes, creating a body-like lump, tucking it in. I’m opening the window, lifting its old wooden frame, lead paint chips exploding like rain. I’m pushing my duffel bag out first, then my long, gawky teenager legs, squeezing through. I’m out on the roof, crawling along. Just imagine: my feet hitting the ground, falling harder than I thought I would, twisting my ankle slightly, a shock of pain as I hobble-run into the woods. Just imagine me crossing over to the road, sticking my thumb out, steeling myself to get in a stranger’s car, climbing in, breathless, spitting out the words that I have held in my throat for years, “I’m trying to get to Philadelphia.”
Agency
Teenage girl (16? 17?) found sleeping on bench at 30th Street Station, unresponsive at first, exceptionally dirty, confused. Said her name was Betty, pretty, brown bobbed hair, strong, well-shaped nose, high cheekbones. At first, said she didn’t know where she was from, then said, “country.” Awkward feet and hands, very large and clumsy looking. Men’s clothes, very worn, stained, holes throughout.
Betty, 1941
Just imagine: living with all the kids from school who always seemed fun. Eliza with the flowered dresses and James who knew the best card tricks. Imagine talking into the night, trading secrets and dreams while eyelids grow heavy. Imagine getting up together, flicking water at one another while bathing at the sink, eating breakfast, warm rolls with butter and strong tea with milk and sugar. Imagine laughing in class, maybe getting in a bit of trouble from old Mr. Kirk, the math teacher. Imagine having a very best friend, Sarah, who understands everything.
Agency
Betty, showered, properly clothed, seemed to be better at the shelter, less frightened, but still not talking. Growled at one of the other teenagers who attempted conversation. Still no information about where she came from, background. No word from the outside about her, no messages, no one seems to be looking. She enjoys the cat that the shelter keeps, Bell.
Betty, 1950
Just imagine: getting a job in an office, having money to spend on yourself. Imagine an apartment with a window that looks out on the park. Imagine working, typing on a typewriter, unfolding a bologna sandwich wrapped in foil and eating it at a desk. Imagine saying good morning and good night. Imagine family back home missing you, wondering why you are not around to ignore and abuse anymore. Imagine sliding your own key into your own lock, opening the door to your own apartment full of your own things, your own cat coming to greet you, wrapping a warm, purring body around your legs.
Agency
Betty placed in good location, Mr. Stanson’s apartment building. He agreed to give free room and small stipend for housekeeping: cleaning Stanson’s apartment and bathroom, shopping, sweeping hallways and stairwell, running errands as directed. Stanson not the nicest man, but neighborhood safe and apartment comfortable. Outfitted apartment with furniture and household goods from Salvation Army. Stanson does not like pets. Stuffed cat with bell attached to neck obtained for Betty.
Betty, 1980
Just imagine: eating at the Four Seasons, the one on the Parkway, high tea with Sarah. Tiered plates offering tiny sandwiches: egg and chicken salad, tiny celery pieces and onion chopped fine, smoked salmon, cucumber sandwiches on soft white bread. Small iced lemon cakes, strawberries dipped in chocolate, champagne cocktails. Just imagine the light, a shimmery late afternoon light, like the color of the champagne, illuminating the back of smooth, clean hair.
Agency
Mr. Stanson called to complain about the state of Betty’s apartment. Hoarding situation: many newspapers, books, and clothing items stacked up very high, filling rooms, unsafe. Food in strange places (under couch, bed, etc.), refrigerator extremely unhygienic. Mr. Stanson reports Betty behaving strangely, muttering to self in hallways, knocking on other tenants’ doors, “being a nuisance.” Talked Stanson out of eviction. Agency will pay small stipend from this point If Stanson agrees to let her stay. Brought Betty favorite foods: doughnuts and Coke. Offered her a volunteer for visits, help cleaning. She accepted.
Betty, 2010
Just imagine: watching out the window for Sarah. Just imagine buzzing her in, offering a cup of tea. Just imagine Bell jumping up on Sarah’s lap. Just imagine having a gift of a gold mug or an old book, poetry. Just imagine lying back and listening to Sarah read, relaxing into James Herriot’s [LD1] animal stories. Just imagine starting to cry, the stories remind you of being a child in Lancaster. Just imagine pushing any darkness out with the light of a visit of an old friend, a good story.
Agency
Susan, the volunteer, reports cleaning apartment close to impossible, but the two enjoy each other’s company, despite Betty’s moods. Susan talks and reads out loud, plans to bring her cat, Fern, to visit. Betty feeling poorly so much since the surgery.
Betty, 2020
Just imagine: running through summer grass, dew soaking bare feet and legs. Just imagine the evening air cool and clear, the moon full, fireflies flickering. Just imagine a long-lost brother, Jack, grasping onto his small, smooth hand. Just imagine a house in the distance, light in the window, a table set. Just imagine running there with Jack and entering.
Agency
Went to apartment to retrieve something of Betty’s before Stanson called the clean-up crew.
Large mound collected in center of the room. Terrible, rancid smell. Retrieved white ceramic plate, the one used for the doughnuts, and a matching sugar bowl. Found box of pictures, one with Betty as she was years ago when we found her, with the bobbed hair, standing under a tree. Those feet, shoved into big shoes, still the same. Her eyes the same, too, looking off into the distance, looking off to somewhere else.
Ingrid’s Valentine
Penumbra Online/Fall 2021
“It’s not what it looks like,” Ingrid said to Jeremy as the two eighth graders stood outside Ingrid’s small brick house after their usual walk from school. They made their customary trade of her completed social studies homework for his completed math. All the while, Jeremy kept looking back at her house and yard.
Slightly taller than the teens, an army of blow up hearts formed a defensive across the front edge of the lawn, waving in the breeze. Inside the fortress, dead center of the lawn, eye-level inflatable Mickey and Minnie Mouses linked their puffy hands. To the right of the mice, another blow up, an electrified light up snow globe bursting with pink hearts. To the left, Betty Boop held an oversized heart-shaped box of chocolates. The house itself was strewn with cut out heart bunting, every window covered with different Valentine images - Cupids and bouquets of roses and silhouettes of couples kissing and Snoopys hugging hearts.
Speechless, Jeremy wandered away without as much as a goodbye.
#
Ingrid waited next to Jeremy’s locker. As he approached, her eye caught his and she smiled, to which he forced a similar expression. He knew people liked it when you smiled at them, or so his mother said. Jeremy noted that Ingrid wore a red turtleneck and her nubby fingernails gripping her English binder were painted a rather garish pink.
“Oh!” Ingrid said, noticing Jeremy noticing the nails, “I borrowed the nail polish.” Her face turned about as red as her nails..
“It’s really pink,” he said, all he could think of.
“Yes,” Ingrid looked down at her dirty white sneakers and then thrust her hand into her homework folder, pulling out a small red envelope which she pushed on top of Jeremy’s book pile. “Here,” she said, turning and walking away.
#
“Seems Ingrid Patterson gave you a Valentine,” his mother said, placing the rumpled envelope beside Jeremy’s cereal bowl. He removed the card which read Please Bee Mine! Ingrid. A bee flew around a heart shaped flower.
Jeremy smiled a small smile, then, feeling his mother’s eyes on him, an unexpected heat rose to his cheeks.
“Are you good friends with Ingrid?” his mother asked. Jeremy never told his mother about any friends, because he didn’t have any, and she never asked.
Was Ingrid his friend?
“I help her with her homework,” he said.
“Ah, I see. That’s nice,” his mother said, moving away from the table, calling back, “Those Pattersons are pretty strange.” With that sentence, Jeremy snapped into focus, conjuring Ingrid’s tangled hair, dirty sneakers, and the heaps of Valentine decorations on her house and in her yard.
“Strange how?” Jeremy asked his mother.
“Strange like not someone to be friends with strange,” his mother said, smiling her stiff, controlling smile, an expression Jeremy knew well.
#
His mother gave him her looser, ecstatic, my-son-might-go-to-MIT smile the next morning when Jeremy lied, telling her he joined the robotics club that met before school.
“Well, that’s wonderful, honey,” she said, “ I’ll get your breakfast.”
As he walked to the market, Jeremy thought about the place Ingrid held in his life. Without her, there would be no one at his locker when he left homeroom. Without her, he would eat alone. Without her, he’d have to spend countless hours filling in questions for social studies. Without her, he’d leave school alone. And now, without her, he would not have received one, single Valentine.
#
They usually didn’t see each other until after homeroom. She would not be expecting him. Jeremy grasped the knocker, pulling it up and down to bang bang bang on the door. Finally, he heard footsteps and someone yell Shut up! He jumped when the door opened and a haggard looking woman with pink lipstick and a stained robe opened up.
“Who’re you?” she burped.
Jeremy noted the wall of stacked newspapers and boxes piled up behind the woman, taking up all the space in what would normally be a front hall. “I’m, uh, is Ingrid-”
“Huh? Ah!” the woman held a cigarette up to her lips and took a long drag. Before the smoke was entirely exhaled, Ingrid appeared, pushing past with all her might, not acknowledging the woman Jeremy assumed was her mother.
“There’s my Miss Priss,” the woman said, laughing.
Ingrid’s face turned red. The door slammed behind her.
Jeremy, a little out of breath, held the plant with both hands, feeling the weight of his back pack. Ingrid’s eyes were watery, her eyebrows furrowed.
“That’s what I meant,” she said.
“By what?”
“The decorations, all the hearts and flowers. Love. La La.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s,” she nodded at her house, “not what it looks like.”
“Oh,” Jeremy said, “This is for you.” He handed her the plant, a violet.
“Wow. I love it. I absolutely love it,” Ingrid said, sniffling.
Jeremy turned toward school, prompting her to follow.
#
Later, after he went home to his neat as a pin house, after he let himself in through the side door, after finding his usual tomato sandwich on whole wheat his mother left in a Tupperware box in the fridge, after he watched his allotted episode of The Mandalorian, and after he went upstairs to his room to do his homework and read his PCs For Dummiesbook, he thought about the cold exterior, the emptiness of his own house, and how it really was how it looked.
Jeremy sighed. He thought of Ingrid’s messy house, how she sprouted from that mess, a beautiful flower. He hoped she could find a nice place to keep the violet he gave her, some small place where the sun shone through.
Last Christmas
Hysteria/December 2021
Christmas. It’s Christmastime. I have forgotten.
“We haven’t had a tree for-“
“Right. For a while. We should have. Mom wants it,” Dad says, squinting up at the giant pine we have chosen.
“Who’s going to decorate this huge thing?” I ask.
“We are. But first we are going out to lunch.”
Gavigans-a local place we always went before Mom got sick. Not very fancy or trendy, but a good burger and fries. We slide into the vinyl booth. I shiver with cold, hunching my shoulders and rubbing my hands together under the table.
“You alright?” Dad gives me that overly-concerned look that had become his natural expression.
“Sure. Why?” My tone ripples with annoyance.
“You just look pale,” he says. I could say the same about him.
We talk the small talk, the avoiding the elephant between us talk. The weather. School.
Even his job a little. I show him stupid videos and memes on my phone that he I know he pretends to think are funny.
“You know, Paul, you probably know, things aren’t…”
“I know,” I cut him off.
“Sometimes it’s almost better if-if she doesn’t have to suffer anymore.”
“It’s so freakin’ cold in here,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.
#
The tree is up. I stand in a tangle of lights as Dad walks in, Mom on his arm. She is so thin, so pale, like she is disappearing.
“What a mess, huh?” I say, turning to the tree.
“I think I bought those lights twenty years ago.” She tilts her head back on the sofa, closing her eyes.
“Paul, what should we have for dinner?” she asks.
Meals meals. Adults are always asking about meals.
Dad orders and leaves to go pick it up, a blast of cold air enters the room as the door closes.
Panic in the form of a head rush overtakes me. I dread being alone with Mom.
“Do you want to watch something?” she asks, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, that’d be good,” I grab the remote and start scrolling through Netflix. “This is funny-this comedian, John Mulaney. He’s a riot.”
“Sounds great,” Mom says.
#
We are both laughing hard when Dad returns with the pizza. He actually looks alarmed.
Mom holds her ribs, looking pained, points at the screen. John Mulaney is pretending to be Mick Jagger, jutting his leg
out in the air and strutting around the stage.
Mom and Dad sit together, plates on laps. I wedge myself down beside them on the floor, my back leaning
into the couch. Things feel almost normal.
The tree’s little spheres of white lights glow, compete with the harsher TV glare, the only lights in the room.
“You know what I always wanted to do? Ever since I was a kid? Sleep downstairs, by the tree, all night,” Mom says.
I can tell Dad is about to say something negative but stops himself.
I trudge off to get my sleeping bag, Dad to retrieve the pillows from their bed and a bunch of blankets. He removes the
back cushion of the couch, gently tucks Mom in. Dad smooths her hair and kisses her head. We shut off the TV and
settle in.
In the darkness, no one speaks as we all stare at the light and shadow of the Christmas tree.
“Goodnight, my guys,” Mom says.
“Goodnight, Mom. ” I say, the “I love you” caught in my throat.
The New Coat
Coup of Owls/December 2021
Meryl slid the hangers along a rack, one by one, perusing the hodgepodge of thrift-store duds. She came upon a thin coat, pulled it out to take a closer look – Wedgewood blue with a sort of a raised print. She shrugged it on and looked in the mirror. Admiring its large buttons and swingy cut, she turned this way and that. She felt like an artist, thinking a beret would be a nice addition to the look.
‘That’ll hide a multitude of sins,’ the old man at the cash register commented.
At one point, this probably would have bothered her…
On the Other Side of the Door
heart/h/Fragmented Voices/Fall 2021
A very long time ago, an unusual baby was born to older parents. Albert — the tiniest baby, the size of a child’s hand — a baby with transparent skin, glowing like a small, see-through shimmering stone. At his birth, no one knew what to say or do about this strange baby. After a few weeks in the incubator, once Albert showed signs of eating and sleeping and going to the bathroom, the doctors sent him home in the tiniest baby carrier, really just a child’s shoe box, and they wished his parents well.
Miracle Baby
Stories of Life/Fall 2021
At forty-three I’d accepted the idea of not having children and Jose, my husband, had already had a vasectomy when we’d met, so our baby was a stunner from the get-go. Having defied such odds, we were hopeful the repeat ultrasound would put an end to the doctor’s suspicion that part of his brain was missing.
Instead she said, ‘It’s definitely not there.’
‘Can it grow?’ we asked.
‘No. If it is not there now, it never will be.’
That bitter March day, my husband and I walked out to the parking lot silent, tearless. We went to Red Lobster and repeated short words and phrases to each other.
‘What did she say? Maybe she’s wrong?’
When we got home we started googling and that’s when the panic set in. Hydrocephaly, seizures, autism, blindness, profound learning disabilities, lifetime incontinence, inability to speak, inability to walk...
The following week we went to see the priest. I sat in the rectory meeting room and sobbed to Father R, certain I was the cause of our son’s disorder.
Father R stopped me mid-bawl. ‘This. Is. Not. Your. Fault.’
Jose stood against the wall, speechless as Father R rubbed my hands with the oil for the sick and told me all my perceived sins were forgiven.
At 30 weeks, our son showed signs of early arrival and having lost all my amniotic fluid, I was hospitalised and put on extreme bed rest.
‘Whose heart is that?’ asked the doctors, checking the heart rate strips out at the main desk.
It was our son’s, the strongest heart on the maternity floor.
The night before our son was born, a colleague sent out an email requesting that people show their support, prompting hundreds of emails, picture after picture of lit candles.
Still, my body trembled. I’d done my best to banish dark thoughts, but now profound fear seemed to radiate deep from my core. Seven neo-natal intensive care (NICU) nurses and doctors were lined up, ready to whisk our newborn son away.
It wasn’t until Jose entered the delivery room decked out in scrubs, fully energised, that I began to relax. If he could be brave, then I could be too. We were in this together.
Minutes later, I heard Jose rejoice, ‘Look, Maggie, look!’
Held above me, in the hands of the doctor, I found our baby. Pedro. I reached out my finger and touched his; he grabbed on, and I released a flood of tears.
‘He looks good, Maggie,’ said the NICU doctor.
That evening, we held onto this strand of hope as Pedro, hours old, was taken for an MRI. I imagined him, a tiny, unknowing bundle beneath the huge magnet.
Within a few days, it was official. Our son’s brain was full, complete, perfect.
Eight years later, I still say our Pedro came to Earth on a lightning bolt, jettisoned by all those prayers, led by the shimmer of one hundred candles.
Even Jose, who is not a religious man, calls our son a miracle.
Toby
Intermissions/Grattan Street Press/October 2021
*Grattan Street Press is an Australian publication, hence the Australian spellings and single quotations marks.
We sprang up from the crouch by the fire. The boy appeared, rising out of the darkness, drawn by the flickering light. His shining face was surrounded by wide, scared eyes. His sweatpants had holes in the knees and streaks of black along the thighs. Despite the warm weather, he looked cold, his fists jammed into the front of his hoodie. I didn’t know if Lizzy was going to attack or embrace him. She was cagey like that, wiry and reactive. The abandoned house we called the Shack, where we secretly met on a few nights a week, loomed behind the boy.
He stared past us. I could see he wanted something. The warmth of the fire, maybe.
‘You got food?’ he said, moving closer.
Lizzy reached down and pulled out her stash of Morning Glory Muffins. The boy lurched forward and snatched the Tupperware container. He started shoving the muffins into his mouth one at a time.
‘So, where’d you come from?’ I said.
The boy made a gesture toward the house behind him.
‘You’re living in there? Why?’
‘Because it’s fun,’ said the boy, smiling.
‘How? What do you eat? What do you–’
‘You guys throw out some nice food around here,’ he said, looking around. ‘Wasteful.’
‘What’s your name? I’m Lizzy and this is Grey.’ She thrust out her hand.
‘I’m Toby,’ he said, shaking Lizzy’s hand.
* **
We met Toby at the Shack a few nights later. Toby took Lizzy’s flashlight and showed us around the house. The floorboards creaked under our feet.
‘How long have you been here?’ Lizzy said.
‘Since April. Things got real bad at my Mom’s, so I just left. Walked all the way here from the city.’
Lizzy and I exchanged glances. There was garbage strewn around and some blankets bundled in the corner.
‘Is this really better than living with your mother?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Toby said.
* **
Toby loved all the food and clothes we brought him, but he especially liked the National Geographic magazines and the podcast Reply All. He liked listening to our stories.
‘What about you, T?’ I asked. ‘Who’re your friends? Family? Don’t you miss them?’
‘Naaa. I could either have family and friends or be alive. I choose being alive,’
* **
When school started, Toby grew restless, pacing around the Shack. We were busier, so he was alone more.
‘You’ll need some warmer clothes for the winter,’ Lizzy said.
We tried to keep Toby distracted with lessons. We taught him algebra on a whiteboard and assigned problems for homework. He liked watching the numbers narrow down to a single value.
‘I like that about math’ he said. ‘There’s always an answer.’
* **
Thanksgiving was around the corner. We didn’t say a word about all the preparations or the amount of food. Toby refused to go to a shelter, despite the icicles forming off the Shack’s gutters. We reviewed our options, and considered asking an adult to help.
‘Who knows what our parents – what the neighbours would do if they found out?’ Lizzy said. ‘They’d be more upset about someone squatting than a kid suffering. It’s too risky.’
We brought more blankets, but Toby just couldn’t get warm. Lizzy cried one night as we walked home.
‘It’s like there’s nothing we can do,’ she sobbed. ‘There’s no way to fix his problems.’
Lizzy would be going to her aunt’s house in Ohio. She felt terrible leaving Toby.
You have to bring him some Thanksgiving dinner, she texted.
Definitely, I replied.
* **
It snowed the Sunday after Thanksgiving, something I usually enjoyed. I forced myself to forget Toby. Eventually, it felt like it never really happened. I was busy playing Xbox and eating leftover stuffing and pie.
Hey. How’s Toby? Lizzy texted.
Dunno.
What? Be there. Tonight.
* **
The grass was frosty as we walked that night, and the sharp air burnt our faces.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t check on him!’ Lizzy spat out.
I slouched in shame.
Lizzy took her gloves off and banged out the secret knock on the window. The house remained dark and still.
He was gone.
* **
It was spring before I noticed my bike was missing. Then they came to demolish the Shack. Rumours spread around the neighbourhood that there were squatters living there.
Lizzy and I investigated the dumpster outside the Shack, finding the cans of fruits and vegetables Lizzy brought, and the blankets and clothes.
‘At least we kept him a secret. We kept him safe,’ Lizzy said.
‘At least we didn’t get in trouble,’ I said.
Lizzy’s head drooped as we walked away, her arms limp.
We returned to our homes guided by the moonlight, hoping the same moon was leading Toby somewhere better too.
The Harbinger
Black Cats are Good Luck Contest First Prize Winner
Honeyguide Literary Magazine/October 2021
The Neighborhood Picnic
Halloween Frights and 100 Word Fiction/October and July 2021
tiny frights/Fall 2023
Shortlisted for the 2022 Brave New Weird Award
First, the Very Old
Neighbors stand in the street, in driveways, on sidewalks, they grab drinks and paper plates. The sound -the crash - a large noise- comes from the oldest house, the house with the drooping shutters, the one covered in ivy. Neighbors freeze, look at each other, the house, back at each other. Inside, Mrs. Stipley gasps from the floor, stretches her wrinkled arm up from below, presses a sweaty hand to the glass, leaving a print, outstretched fingers. The sun twirls, changes color, the air is hot and still. The neighbors unfreeze and get back to the business of the party.
The Lonely
Spying on the party through her window, Molly eyes the ice-filled garbage cans overflowing with alcohol. Baby Fox is always crying and will just keep crying. Eddie, gone for the Saturday shift, will never know. Molly places Baby Fox in his crib, leaving his red mouth raw and open, fists punching, legs kicking. The front door closes softly behind her, relief sweeps as she steps outside into the almost unbearable bright light, snaps the tab, feels that first gulp of sweet alcohol. Better already, Molly approaches the beckoning circle of women who open their arms to receive, to swallow her.
Those Who Will Not Be Missed
Mike sits alone, one of the few single people at the picnic. The tub of Mich Ultras looms under the dead apple tree, darkened by a shadow. He reaches in, sits the closed can on his knee, imagines putting it back. He misses his kids. Years ago, they’d be yanking on his sleeve, needing him for something. Last year, he sat here with Janice, whose mood memorably worsened with each sip he took. He feels a certainty: everything that matters is gone. Mike grimaces, fixing his lips to the cold tin, knowing this bad choice is the last one left.
Finally, the Children
The large young woman, the one who wasn’t invited, singles out three little boys playing stick fight in a side yard. She lumbers closer to the oldest boy who stands looking solemn as she approaches. “You want to see something cool?” she says, already moving toward the deck, as though she expects all three will follow, like baby ducks. Leaning over, she points underneath. “See? There? A bunny with her babies.” When they line up, she says, “You need to scoot forward!” The solemn boy’s face reacts with fear as something like arms reaches out and pulls the boys down.
The One Who Remains
After wandering the yards of his abandoned neighborhood, 12-year-old Gavin cannot find his family and cannot escape the fireworks’ finale. “Too loud,” he cries, rocks, holds his hands to his ears as he stands alone. The booms and sputters of colored spark light up the sky and yards around him, but Gavin responds only to the noise, running from it. Finding the closest house, he punches through glass. Shards explode, cut his skin, blood runs in streams. His face turns upward as he howls into the emptiness. The fireworks persist, insist on celebrating the end of this, all of it.
Friends
Ogma, Summer 2021
I never expected my volunteer experience with the elderly to be anything other than a kind of bootcamp, a preparation for caring for my parents someday. I feared old people, their illnesses, their loneliness, their pain. I wanted to get toughened up.
“Can I have someone, you know, easy?” I asked Maris, the director of Corp Communicare in Philadelphia, an agency she founded to connect the young -in my case, about 27 -with the very old. We squatted on small stools in the preschool Maris rented as her evening headquarters.
Maris, not much younger than my parents at the time, half-smiled in either amusement or disbelief.
“I’ll see what I can do,“ she said.
***
Dorothy’s apartment sat on the top floor of a bleak rowhouse. Every Sunday I rode my bike to the street outside her building and looked up to her third floor window. Since she didn’t have a phone, we arranged for her to give me a thumbs up if she felt well enough to have me visit. She always felt well enough. There also wasn’t a buzzer, so her crabby landlord agreed for some reason to let me in each time. He awaited my arrival, perched in his defunct jewelry store window. I climbed the front steps, he turned the lock, we mumbled unenthusiastic greetings, and I stepped into the darkness.
Trudging up the three stories, most of the overhead lightbulbs burned out above me, I’d find Dorothy at the top, waiting beside her open door. Her mischievous blue eyes and matching smile beckoned me inside. The sight and smell of the junk-filled apartment often hit me like walking into a wall. There were piles of books, clothes, papers, books, stuff, everywhere. A pervasive rotten, fecal smell caused me to gag, turn away. Most of the time I could manage it well enough to maintain composure and find a place to sit on her newspaper-covered couch. She offered me tea in a dirty flowered cup and a muffin found amidst the decades of dust bunnies under the couch.
My main job was to read. Dorothy loved to read-hence the piles of books and papers all over the place-but her eyes couldn’t see well enough to do so. She also loved cats, but, as she wisely stated multiple times, “I can’t take care of myself, how can I take care of a cat?” So, she clutched a grey stuffed cat she named Bell, for its silver bell attached to its collar, while I read her stories about cats from a book she found in a garbage pile somewhere. Week by week, I spent my hour first making small talk about my work, my life, Dorothy’s work (She’d once been a receptionist) and life (Although she kept her long past, her family, a tight secret). Then she’d lay back on her cluttered couch and listen to me read. I found myself enjoying the soothing cat stories, too. We’d smile, trade looks, laughter together.
The years passed. We kept talking and reading. I picked up her groceries she left at the bottom of the stairs, or anything else too heavy for her to carry. Dorothy gave me gifts: a pair of golden mugs, articles clipped from old newspapers, books, so many books. I kidded her about her landlord, “He’s such a sweetheart!” I’d say. She had a particular interest in my library assistant job at the all-women’s college, Bryn Mawr. She asked me to describe the library, the campus, to tell her about the many characters amongst the students and faculty. I think she wished she went there. I brought friends in to meet her, my cat, and her favorite foods: doughnuts and Coke.
Over time, I saw all the sides of Dorothy’s personality. When the Philadelphia summer heat and humidity rose to extremes, she answered the door either naked or topless, a funny smile on her face, acting like nothing was unusual. She liked to tease me. When I asked her if she thought I’d marry someday, she smirked and said, “No I think you’ll die an old maid.” But once, after I entered her apartment and was confronted by a particularly bad wave of odor, she said, “I’m sorry if I’m so disgusting,” hiding her face in sadness and shame.
One day, after many years, Dorothy asked me to bathe her. We moved into the bathroom, where she undressed and sat on a chair in the shower stall, naked, hot water pressing down, steam rising up in both of our faces. I took soap and a ragged wash cloth and moved it around her body. When I finished, I turned the water off and helped her dry and dress. In this quiet moment she exposed her deepest need, and by doing so helped me grow beyond my fear and limitations.
***
Dorothy eventually had to move into a nursing home. Her landlord called to tell me to look over her things because he would soon throw it all in the trash. I rushed over, disgusted by the way he said he’d piled everything she owned into one garbage heap. Not knowing what to take, I reached into the mess and pulled out a box of pictures and a matching white and pink floral china cake plate and sugar bowl – ephemeral, breakable things-like Dorothy, like me. I still use them.
A few years later, when Dorothy died, Maris and I attended a small memorial for her at her church. There were about five of us there who knew Dorothy, but I was the only one who called her a friend. I brought the pictures and showed everyone how pretty the young Dorothy had been, how once her apartment had been neat as a pin, something she felt proud of, something she wanted to remember by taking a photo. She must of known, it could not, would not, last.
The New Leaf
Jaden Issue 2, Summer 2021
“So, your boss finding you asleep prompted this sudden drive to change?” the shrink asked, shooting a Nerf basketball into a net affixed above Larry’s head.
“Yeah,” Larry gnawed on the red licorice always in abundance on the coffee table. He didn’t even like them, a nervous habit, he couldn’t smoke at the shrink’s. “Maybe I’ll quit smoking,” he said, dreamily.
“I’d take things one small step at a time,” the shrink suggested.
Larry thought of his small bodily part and its large problem, a side effect of the meds. Mind blowing sex. That would be a cool change.
“Maybe I could just improve my attitude about work a bit?”
The shrink smiled. Larry reached for another licorice.
After leaving the shrink’s office, armed with the article they found online and printed out about how to add energy and enthusiasm to story times, Larry got a text from a workmate.
Hey. I might have a girl for you.
The romantic in Larry considered this a possible uncanny watershed moment.
The “girl,” Cheryl, lived in Philadelphia. She worked at a library once. A Catholic! Maybe she wouldn’t care about sex, Larry thought. Maybe they could read in bed, eat chocolates, watch movies, cuddle.
She already said it’s ok for you to contact her. Go for it!
The very next day, after scanning the library’s public services area from his desk, viewing no spies, and having all Cheryl’s contact information, Larry decided he would go the old- fashioned route and opened his Gmail.
Dear Cheryl, This is Larry Jones, Would you care to chat? Best regards, LJ.
He thought using his initials sounded manly. His heart raced as he clicked send.
Larry! It’s nice to “meet you”! LOL. I heard you work at a library. I loved my library job! What do you do there?
Thus began an intense email volley, full of half-truths, hyperbole, and, Larry hoped, charming self-deprecation that would go on day and night, for almost a month.
Larry’s story times went from uninspired to straight-up distracted, but he felt excited, and sometimes even, during and after the emails and texts from Cheryl, aroused. Day and night he tapped and clicked away on his keyboards, responding to Cheryl. Larry learned that Cheryl loved the color green, rode her bike to work, made really good pancakes, and talked to her sister every day. Larry told Cheryl true-enough stories about drinking with buddies in college, camping with his sister in Yosemite last summer, and his passion for fudge. Of course, he never mentioned his meds, shrink, or, God forbid, his smoking.
During the weeks of Cheryl, as he would always remember them, Larry thought constantly of skipping the shrink but feared if he did, the shrink would call his father, so he stuck to his usual appointment.
“Hey, you seem up, man, real up,” the shrink said, shaking Larry’s hand at his office door.
“I guess that article really helped my story times,” Larry said.
Cheryl said she thought it romantic that they had only written so far, and had never even talked on the phone. Larry, of course, agreed. But, she said, the time had come, it had been a whole month already. Cheryl wanted to meet. In person. No phone. No Facetime. The real deal. The excitement stirred in his lower regions, giving him hope for sustainability. He considered his problems:
1. Money (none)
2. Fears (many)
3. Erectile dysfunction (chronic)
4. Secrets (Shhhh)
5. Sleeping arrangements (see problem #3)
I’m a little short of cash this month, Larry wrote. Cheryl, also short of cash, suggested the Chinatown bus. A straight shot from DC Chinatown to Philly Chinatown for 20 bucks. She signed that email Love. Larry followed suit, almost giggling as he did so, looking up from his screen and closing his eyes, imagining taking Cheryl for dinner, making love to her.
But something about the Chinatown bus plan made Larry’s leaf turn again, his Cheryl-inspired arousal drooped to despair and lethargy. Larry’s default seemed to be autumn, despite his urge for spring. Overcome by drowsiness, those late night messages finally caught up with him. The week they were meant to meet, Larry reached for his phone, bowed his head to its small screen, and texted, simply, Goodbye, blocking Cheryl’s number, feeling the pressure building in his ears retract and fade.
Grace
Why, who makes much of a miracle? -Walt Whitman
Gazing out the window into her backyard, Abby stood at her sink washing dishes. A kind of blurry light ball emerged, pulsing in the corner of her patch of garden. It slowly grew in size, intensity. Abby dropped her sponge and went out to investigate.
***
“What’s with you?” Sadie, Abby’s sister, asked, panting the words out while walking on the treadmill.
“Nothing. Tired.”
“Tell me about it,” Sadie said, sharp bobbed hair moving in tandem with her body. “So, I said to him, ‘Why are you even here?’ I mean why do these guys even go on dates? Are you going out with anyone this week? Did Mom get that guy to call you, Ben or something?”
“Uh, no,” Abby said. Ben, the son of one of Mom’s bridge students, came through her brain fog.
“What’s with you anyway?” Sadie shut down her treadmill and headed to the locker room.
***
The light appeared weekly, sometimes daily, rain or shine, morning, noon, or night. Abby kept her glasses on, checked and rechecked, searching in the back garden for that gorgeous glow ball. When it was there, she drifted outside, got close, basked. Time passed, Abby had no idea how much.
Abby, you are enough, the light said, a woman’s voice.
Abby could not respond with words. She could only stare into it and allow hot tears run down her cheeks. She would awake from the spell shivering in the darkness, yearning for more.
***
“Everyone has baggage. First wives. Children. A drinking problem,” Sadie said, flicking her yellow Splenda bag to loosen up the sugar substance inside. “Remember the dieter?” She rolled her eyes.
Oh yeah, I know about baggage. I have a mystical visitor in my backyard, a soothing orb, Abby thought.
“The dieter?” Sadie asked.
“That guy Jon without an h. He told me I couldn’t have a waffle with ice cream on it once. That was it.”
“Seriously,” Abby sipped her coffee, noting the fading autumnal splendor, the increasing chill.
***
Google searches:
Synonyms for light: illumination, brightness, luminescence, shining, gleam, gleaming, brilliance, radiance, luster, glow, blaze, glare
Light appearing in back yard
Apparition
***
Mom had been talking about Ben for months.
“I can’t believe I’ve got a cute doctor waiting to go out with you and you haven’t called him, or texted or whatever you guys do these days.” Mom made great sweeping motions as she raked dead leaves from the beds. “Abby, are you listening? What are you dreaming about?”
***
Abby thought she was having a hot flash. Her face burned red and her armpits soaked with perspiration. Despite the cool night and even though she had a date, a first date (Ben), she could not control her desire to be with the light. Pulsing and warm, addictive.
You are loved ,it said.
Who needed Ben?
***
Ben had freckles across his nose, laughed easily, and was proficient with chopsticks, three things Abby considered good traits in a man.
“You shine,” she told him three dates in, a little tipsy from too much red wine, “like a big ball of light.”
***
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” Sadie said, using her best fake southern drawl, dramatic sobbing, mimicking Julia Roberts. She and Abby were watching Steel Magnolias for the twentieth time. When Sadie returned from a bathroom trip, she found Abby sobbing.
“What the--? What is it?”
Abby swung her head back and forth, back and forth.
“It won’t stop. It won’t stop. I can’t get it to stop,” she said.
Sadie’s voice lowered, “What honey? Get what to stop?”
Abby kept crying.
“Her. She keeps coming. And I love it. But I hate it, too.”
“What is it? You’re scaring me.” Sadie faced her, held onto Abby’s forearms.
***
Accustomed to Abby’s usual low self-esteem issues, Mom issues, her body confidence and self-absorption issues, Beth the therapist, legs always crossed, face serious and concerned, said she was surprised by these new apparition issues.
“Well, you said you went to see the rabbi. What did he say?”
“He said it was grace. Grace raining down on me,” Abby noticed the light in the room, how it filtered through the curtain, how it shone on the fine hairs on her wrist.
“What the hell does that mean?” Sadie, who insisted on coming, said.
“Are you having any other loss of reality?” Beth asked.
“No. I’m just worried about what it means. What people-what Ben-would think.” Abby glanced at Sadie. “I love her, the light. I don’t want her, or I guess it, to go away.”
***
Of course, Ben kept calling, kept texting. Having said the L word on their last date, without reciprocation from Abby, he obviously wanted a response.
Hey, missing you, what’s up?
Abby wondered why he liked her so much. She wasn’t a doctor or a professor type. She had an undergraduate degree in marketing but didn’t finish her MBA. She worked in the admissions office at a small college. She thought of herself as not that skinny, not that pretty, not that funny. And, she was in love with that ball of light talking to her in her backyard.
***
The next time the light appeared, Abby stopped folding laundry and opened her back door, instantly warmed by its presence. With the setting sun changing the sky orange, the gold globe appeared in all its splendor, exuding its strange peace and energy.
Do you love me?
“Yes, Yes,” Abby found words, at last, fell to her knees, muddied her jeans.
***
Ben gobbled up the carbonara and salad Abby made him, then he gobbled up her.
“So what took you so long?” he said, running a finger along the side of her face.
“With what?” she asked.
His face reddened. “With reconnecting? Were you mad at me?”
“No. I love you,“ Abby said.
Ben’s hazel eyes stared, shards of gold shot through brown.
“So why’d you disappear?” he asked.
“Do you know anything about apparitions?” Abby asked.
His eyebrows went up, clearly not what he was expecting.
She described the light, how it made her feel, how she loved it, how it frightened her. His lips made a crooked half smile.
“Show me,” he said.
Abby led him out the backdoor to the garden where she had marked the apparition site with a white stone.
***
May was the last time. Abby saw the light from the window and moved toward it with a fearless urgency. It vibrated and swirled this time, turning different shades of yellow, orange, red.
Do you believe?
Abby knelt down, forgot everything else, melted into the experience.
***
Abby and Ben sat in half darkness, drinking red wine.
“She asked me if I believed,” Abby said.
“What did you say?”
“I said I do. Absolutely. But then- I -I said goodbye.” She glanced at Ben, expecting to see relief.
He pulled her in, held her close.
She leaned in, to him, this - the love, loss, grace, all of it, whatever it was.
She let go.
The Art Farm
The End
The installations, every one of them, burned all night. No sign of Sam. Sharye pictured him driving his beat up Honda, down route 92, windows cracked to dilute the smell of gasoline, the cold air flowing through his long hair, a crack of a smile lingering around his lips.
Before
Sam appeared out of nowhere, tapping on Sharye’s window, causing her to jump as she stood at her sink.
“Morning, Mam,” he called through the glass.
Sharye opened the door to face the stranger. He was about her age, maybe a little older, she couldn’t tell.
Herb growled, unusual for the dog.
“I’m Sam. Looking for work,” he said.
She laughed. There was lots of work, just no pay. “We’re on a really tight budget.”
He scratched his beard, crouched, held his hand out for Herb.
The dog approached, changing his attitude and licking the welcoming fingers.
“Do you need anything fixed?” Sam smiled, crinkles forming around bright blue eyes.
Sharye wanted to get back to her coffee and watercolor of the robin’s nest she’d been painting.
“Ok, I get it. I was just in the area. I always liked this place,” he said, responding to the pause, Sharye’s hesitation.
Sharye forced a smile.
The draft from the cooling weather blew in around her legs, something shifted.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” She pulled at her sweater.
“I’d appreciate it, ” Sam said, stepping forward, looking around as if to assess the space, sitting down at the table.
Sharye found a mug in the cupboard and pulled out a plate for the Pepperidge Farm cookies she always had on hand.
Sam took one mint Milano, sipped his black coffee.
“So where do you live?” Sharye asked.
“Oh, in town.” His eyes scanned past her shoulder, something her ex always did when she was in the middle of a story. Sam stood up, moved to her easel, squinted at the half-finished nest. He put his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and smiled.
“This is good. Yours?”
“Yes. It is.”
“I’m an artist, too.”
“What do you make?”
He smiled, “Whatever you need.”
***
Sam’s offer would not be acceptable by the board of the Art Farm, the struggling outdoor art park she received free housing to oversee. Sharye had no idea who he was or what his art was like. She could not Google him because she did not know his last name. He offered no photos, had not brought the sample he promised. She waited. She forgot about him, it.
One morning, on the verge of securing local artist Jose Ramirez (who made somewhat sickening giant insects and had offered one on loan), something caught Sharye’s eye. A disjointed, impossible pile of books stacked up, rising high. She wondered how could they stand there, a breath of air would topple them, or how they would fair in the rain, the wind, the snow. The next morning the books had risen even more. They bent into an arch—a mysterious, seemingly unsupported arch of books.
Sam.
Days later, she hailed him down as he bumped along the gravel road.
“Hey!” she shouted, waving arms.
“Hey, Sharye.” His slight southern twang audible in the ‘a’ of her name.
“That’s really something with the books,” she said, putting her hands on her lower back. She peered into the backseat of the car. No books, tools. Nothing.
“You like it?” he said.
“Uh yeah, but how’d you do it?”
“Magic,” he said, eyes twinkling.
***
Like Field of Dreams. Cars lined up, hands reached into pockets, stuffing the donation box with cash.
The next time Sharye spied Sam’s beat-up white Honda, she asked him to dinner. He came with a bottle of whiskey and wore what Sharye considered his version of dressy: a threadbare tweed sport jacket with a black tee underneath, jeans, and dirty white Converse. He smelled of ashes and charcoal, like a fire, like the outside.
She made him pork chops, applesauce, apple pie. This was central New York in September after all, apple season. He held up the whiskey bottle and she consented, offering a glass with some ice.
“So how’d you do it?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “I told you.”
“Magic?” She smiled, questioning him with her eyes.
“Yup.”
She felt warm and woozy. When it was time to get dinner she reached out for his knee and let her hand linger there before wobbling up from the couch.
At dinner, she pulled out a dusty bottle of red wine.
“It must be wine o’clock,” said Sam.
“You sound like my ninety-year-old father,” she replied.
They were back on the couch for the pie and Sharye felt drunk enough to lean into him and bury her face in his neck. He turned toward her, moving her hair away from her face, strand by strand, observing her, like he was going to eat, or paint, her. Then he kissed her, the taste of wine and apples suspended between them.
“Magic?” she asked.
“Yup.”
In the cold silence of the next morning, she made him coffee. He drank it too quickly and left.
***
The only thing Sharye could count on Sam for was an occasional, unpredictable show-up, holding his bottle of whiskey, engaging his deft lips, and shedding his nice embery smell.
In between the loving, book installations continued to appear. A stack of books shaped like a Sphinx. Rows of books assembled like bar graphs, reflecting some unknown data. Books arranged to create a bouquet of flowers. Always books.
Where did he get them all? What did it mean? He would never tell her.
Meanwhile, the cars kept coming, the donations started piling up, and the board had questions.
“These installations have not been approved, Sharye,” the Board Director said.
“I know. I know. He didn’t tell me he was going to do them. But people love it. And now we can afford real artists. We can have all the things we want.”
“We don’t even know who this man is.”
Sharye thought of the lovely things she knew about him. That mole under his left arm.
“The board has met. These...these, book things need to go. ASAP.”
Sharye sighed. “I think it’s a big mistake.”
“You are not in a position to think anything.”
Sharye could not disagree, but her face burned with anger, shame.
She resolved to tell Sam the next time she saw him, but since he had no phone, no address, no email, she really didn’t know when that would be. She would just have to wait.
***
The last installation, his crowning achievement, the one that brought the newspapers, the requests for school visits, and more widespread questions, an outdoor library which seemed to have grown out of dirt overnight. The whole thing, built on uneven ground with aged wood shelves, leaned and lurched though remained upright. Already-tattered books packed the swaying structure forming a kind of altar overlooking small seats made from the same greying, withering wood. Covers of books flapped in the breeze, each volume shedding its pages, molting in real time. Sharye imagined it as a library for ghosts, woodland spites, fairies. A library that, even at conception, she realized, made of paper and wood, was vanishing, melting into nature before her eyes. It was beautiful and heartbreaking and perfect.
Sharye pressed her lips, shook her head. When did he do this? Why didn’t he stop by? Why did she never see him coming and going? Maybe it was magic? She looked down and saw the book Travels with Charlie on one of the benches. She picked it up and held it close. Smelled it. Placed it in her coat pocket. Winter was coming.
***
He slipped into her bed one night, without knocking, without speaking.
Unsurprised, she turned toward him, whispered in his ear, “The library is beautiful. The best one yet.” She could see his smile by the faint light of the dying fire. “The board wants to meet you,” she said.
“Naaa.” His stubbled cheek scratched hers. Sharye left his few words hanging in space, without a response.
***
She awoke thinking he was beside her, but the smell in the air was something different. Outside the window, wafts of smoke. She stretched her arms into her robe, stuck her feet into her rubber boots and ran out the door, Herb close at her heels.
She couldn’t help but be breathless, from the frosty air pouring into her lungs, the light snow falling, all six of Sam’s installations ablaze, tongues licking the December air. She stopped and took it in - the sacred purity of flame, the fragility of life and art, smoke wafting like incense, going nowhere, or everywhere, perhaps back from wherever it came. She would never know.
Note: Sam’s final installation is inspired by “Stacks” by artist David Harper, located at the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, New York.
Martin’s House of Miniatures
Moonshine Review, Spring/Summer 2021 (Volume 17, Issue 1)
Blood & Bourbon #12: Companionship
The short, dreary-looking man walked up to the counter, introduced himself as Seth, removed a square of green velvet from a plastic shopping bag, and began unfolding and unfolding, eventually revealing a tiny group of books.
Ray, the third-generation owner of Martin’s House of Miniatures, noticed Seth’s thin hands shaking slightly.
“It’s a pristine set of Shakespeare’s sonnets, in miniature. At least one hundred years old.” Seth said, adding that they were left to him by his aunts, who owned a bookshop. He stopped talking, stared at Ray.
Ray reached for and put on his special magnifying glasses, taking the books in hand, examining each. “I have some of these, but not a whole, complete set—and not pristine, of course,” he said.
“My aunts were pristine people,” Seth said.
Ray looked around at his messy shop and snorted, not knowing what to say to that. He didn’t normally receive “donations”—as Seth called the books—so he offered fifty bucks or a percentage of whatever he got for them if they sold.
“No,” Seth responded, “I know my aunts would appreciate the idea of supporting a local, an independent business.”
“I’m independent, if that’s what you want to call it.” Ray smiled. “Sold—or not!” Feeling embarrassed by his own joke, he quickly rewrapped the books. “Well, Seth,” Ray summoned his most professional speech, “it certainly has been a pleasure.”
“Oh, one more thing,” Seth said.
“What?”
“Maybe you could try to sell them to someone nice, someone who’ll take care of them.”
“I’ll do my best.” Ray said, adding a quick “sir,” thinking that ended things well.
Yeah, the highest bidder.
The bell on the door jangled as Seth exited, leaving Ray standing at the counter, the soft sound of the oldies station playing Tears of a Clown filling the silence.
Ray wondered why. Why did he carry on this business, started by his grandfather, collecting and selling things just because they were tiny? Tiny china sets, tiny pieces of food, tiny furniture, tiny paintings, tiny animals. Ridiculous.
Little things for a guy with a big mess of a life: three ex-wives, no kids, a store full of junk.
Late August—the dog days—the window air conditioner choked with exertion, something else Ray could not afford to replace. But the donation from Seth made him feel a little less glum, a bit lighter, even a tad celebratory. He turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED, went to the bathroom, snapped on the light, and splashed water on his face. Staring at his blood-shot eyes, missing front tooth, and five o’clock shadow, he shook his head. I am one full-sized, non-miniature, awful-looking bastard. He applied his shaving cream liberally.
His skin felt cool and tight as he walked back into the store, passing cluttered shelves of tiny trains, cars, planes, dollhouse furnishings. Surveying all the mess, he shuddered. The shop’s musty smell crawled deep under his skin, conflicting with his fresh shave.
Ray couldn’t fathom how it’d happened, how everyone had died before him.
Go figure. Family dies, wives leave, work sucks you dry.
A feeling of lethargy in his brain and body once again took over.
So much for celebration.
He’d seen photos of the shop in its heyday. Immaculate. Pristine. Ray wished he had the energy, the stamina to clean it all up, make sense, order, maybe put his stuff on the internet and sell it.
I don’t even have a computer, for god’s sake.
Restless, Ray knew he couldn’t stay at the shop, needed to go for a swim. That’s what he did on days like this. He had to store up energy for Bouckville on Saturday. So, leaving the tiny Shakespeares on the counter, covered in their green velvet, he turned off the lights and went out the door.
***
Bouckville—known as “the biggest antiques and collectibles market in the northeast, maybe the world”—dominated Ray’s entire year. Martin’s Miniatures endured as the only miniature dealer at the huge antiques market held annually in a large field about twenty miles outside of town. Ray believed the extent and history of his family’s collections ruled over Bouckville, but this had never been proven. His display drew a fair bit of attention, especially from children, even if it didn’t draw a fair bit of revenue. He needed to pick his best sampling for the show and try to display it in a neat and attractive way. His second wife, Sandy, had excelled at this particular chore. Recalling this, Ray had a stab of regret. Then he remembered her bad breath and awful sister.
Ray loaded the truck the morning before Bouckville, recollecting the many trips to the market in his youth, when his Dad and brother, Guy, had packed the truck carefully. Each box number corresponded to its placement on the display tables. Ray had no such organization.
The antique fair jumbled the rare, the beautiful, and the downright pathetic and awful. Some merchants displayed the worst junk—tangles of plastic, wood, jewelry, hair clips, stray marbles, forgotten political campaign buttons. All marked for the low, low price of sixty bucks per item, since the market persisted in notorious overpricing. These messes spilled across miles of folding tables, hovered over by quirky dealers wearing large sunglasses and even larger sunhats. Collectors, dressed basically the same, pushed grocery carts between the tables, making comments without hesitation or care of who might hear. “What a bunch of junk!” Ray often heard collectors shout as they passed the different displays. People could be so insensitive.
Ray attended Bouckville not so much for the antiques as the food. He spent the few dollars he made on Sid’s fried chicken or the Taco Taco truck’s enchiladas, and always on Lila’s pies. Once, on a buying trip in Philadelphia, Ray and his dad had a huge piece of apple pie as big as Lila’s, but not nearly as good.
Lila, a strange sort of woman, was not just overweight, as one might expect a baker to be, Lila was big in all ways—six feet tall, huge brown eyes, giant hands, feet, everything. And she favored large, psychedelic, floral prints, so much so Ray knew the other vendors cruelly referred to her as “the couch.”
Ray tried to talk to her each year, but she had little to say beyond “thank you.” Still, she always shared a reserved smile, lips painted ruby red curling in the corners, when he paid his ten dollars for a giant piece of pie and lemonade. Ray loved her lips. He sometimes thought of them smiling just for him.
***
With his display set up, Ray made his way quickly to Lila’s truck—huge in itself to accommodate its owner and her product. Lila always opened before the market to give dealers a chance to savor her sweet and savory pastries before the onslaught of customers.
Not an ordinary food truck, Lila provided an outdoor restaurant with folding tables and chairs, floral print table cloths, silverware, cloth napkins, and even servers. Antique people love anything old-fashioned, so Bouckville customers loved sitting down properly under Lila’s awning, enjoying a satisfying piece of pie, and drinking lemonade with frozen strawberries floating on top from Lila’s long, pink, Depression-era glasses. Ray heard the muttered comments about the giant woman who made it all happen.
How does she fit in the kitchen?
Does she eat all this pie herself?
Ray assumed Lila remembered him, since he came year after year. He fantasized about striking up a conversation, but just couldn’t find the guts. He wanted to tell her that he recognized her true talent and entrepreneurial spirit. Ray cowered beside Lila’s greatness, identifying himself as a grandson, a son—someone left things, someone left behind. And there was the problem of his looks. He was aware he was not easy on the eyes, while Lila shimmered. Thinking of Lila felt like remembering a really good dream, the kind that evades memory, the kind that needs to be snatched as each fleeting bit blows quickly away.
Graceful in her large body, Lila moved between her tables with deft precision. Ray had no idea what it would be like to be that busy, no idea how she did it all—baking, serving, cleaning, receiving payments, giving change. Of course, she had a few kids that served and helped clean up.
Ray noticed Lila smiled at everyone the way she smiled at him but didn’t talk much to anyone. She didn’t have time to blather on like Ray did to his passersby—he hesitated to say customers—or gossip with neighboring dealers like old Ed the Mattel toy guy. What a bore.
This year, Ray promised himself he would make friends with Lila. He would try. He would write her a note, had even stopped at Target on his way to Bouckville, buying cards he thought she would like. On one, a retro cherries print, he wrote an effusive thank you, a rambling appreciation of her pies. Not exactly an ‘A’ student in English, Ray had a penchant for run-on sentences. He told her how he came every year, gladly waiting in line for her pie. He told her about a book he remembered his mother reading to him called The Blueberry Pie Elf, about an elf who struggles to tell his human family of his obsession with blueberry pie. He asked if she knew the book, hopefully inspiring a response. He had wanted to write more about his mother, how she died too early, how much he missed her, how she understood him, but stopped himself. Too much.
He left the note on his dirtied table that first day, hoping she would find it and write back.
Returning to Lila’s the next day, Ray waited in line, watching for her anxiously. When she finally approached, she remained terse. She said nothing about the note, offering only her, “One for pie? This way, sir.” He smiled like a goon, following her silently.
***
On the third day of the market, a cooler day than usual, Ray decided to veer from his normal order—blueberry, like the elf in the book—and get a savory ham and cheese pie. As Lila took his order, his heart beat wildly in his chest. She looked him right in the eye, an extra bit of attention signaling his change in habit. He smiled weakly and shifted in his seat but felt something loosen, come apart, sway. Before he could stop it or put down his lemonade, his seat collapsed beneath him, taking the table cloth, the table, and all the china down with him. The Depression-era glass shattered on the cement. Ray lay there, the pathetic sight he always believed himself to be. Lila, silent, walked away and returned with her dustpan and brush.
The line grew as Ray stood and brushed his pants off. She looked tense, hot, maybe even angry.
“I’m so sorry, Li—mam,” Ray stammered.
She simply nodded and continued working.
He lifted the mangled chair, which a neighboring customer took from his flaccid arms. Reaching into his pocket, Ray pulled out the twenty he put aside that morning for pie and placed it on the table. As he left, he overheard a server say, “Those glasses were her mother’s!” He returned to Martin’s Miniatures display with an empty, sick belly, accepting a packet of peanut butter crackers from the kid he’d hired to cover.
***
That night, tangled in sweaty sheets, Ray’s mind lit up like an inextinguishable torch. An idea shone so brightly once it arrived that he jumped out of bed and rushed to the shop counter. He would give Lila a gift, and not just any gift but Seth’s miniature Shakespeares, wrapped in the green velvet they came in.
On the final day of the market, Ray sweated as he waited in line. When Lila saw him, her face softened a bit,
“One for pie?”
“No pie today,” Ray said. “These.”
Those behind him in line huffed in annoyance as Lila took the time, right there, to unwrap the velvet, unraveling the package delicately until the small stack of gilded treasure sat upright in her expansive palm. She held the first book up to her large brown eyes and examined it, pulling her red cat-glass readers up from their chain.
“How sweet,” she whispered. “What a sweet, tiny thing. Poetry?”
Ray nodded, smiled his toothless grin, and returned to Martin’s House of Miniatures—feeling, for once, like a success.
Roommates
Mason Street, May 2021
I should have known about Holzer right away, but his odd qualities, and my and our other college roommate, Lafferty’s, awareness of them, emerged gradually. In the beginning, he kind of cast a spell over everyone, so we didn’t think too much about any of his oddball tendencies, like obsessively locking his bedroom door…
Bad Teachers’ Camp
Funny Pearls, April 2021
I entered Bad Teachers’ Camp (BTC), the name I quickly assigned to the conference, and was immediately surprised by the wide field of allegedly bad teachers.
‘Why are you here?’ a woman whose nametag said Donna asked, quickly offering, ‘I flipped out on this kid for making a bow and arrow out of my yard stick and a rubber band.’
‘I get bullied by twelve year olds,’ said Jess, a small young woman who emerged from behind Donna…
(Read the rest at link above.)
