Posted on by Fred

The Haunting of Horace, Part 3

This is the final installment of “The Haunting Of Horace.” Parts 1 and 2 are farther down my blog.

When I whispered I thought I could love her
She just said, “Baby, don’t even bother to try.”


– Seth Justman

“Horace Wimp, this is your life
Go out and find yourself a wife…”


—Jeff Lynne

Orono, Maine

July 10, 1986

3:27 AM

He watched the woman beside him sleeping silently, and then Horace rolled over in the bed and retrieved the remote. The TV came on louder than he had anticipated, and he looked over to her as he quickly turned it down. She was unfazed.

Jimmy Durante was singing while the credits rolled on a romantic comedy whose title Horace couldn’t quite remember. “Make someone happy, Make just one someone happy…”

He flipped the channel and a news reporter began explaining, in a far too optimistic way, a crash that had occurred on Route 1 that afternoon.

At least, thought Horace, he had lost his virginity. He wasn’t stuck with that particular badge anymore. If he ever returned to Rhiannon’s attic, he would be at least a bit closer to her category.

He was 23; she was 43. She was a divorced mother who had been far too drunk at the bar. She had sought him out. Horace never, ever asked anyone to dance. He was no good at it; it embarrassed him. He just liked the band. And tonight, they had let him sit in on drums, because everyone was a little drunk, and this particular crowd would have loved them even if they played polka tunes in Ancient Coptic. Horace wouldn’t hurt anything.

When he came off stage, the woman, a complete stranger to him, had run across the dance floor and thrown her arms around him. She hugged him embarrassingly tightly. She had insisted on dancing with him the rest of the night, and he obliged. They couldn’t really talk. The music, particularly on the dance floor, was far too loud.

There was nothing wrong with her. She was probably a very nice woman when she was sober. She wasn’t unattractive. She had just moaned too much about knowing young flesh would be good. Horace had no clue what he was doing. It just felt wrong to him.

“… and in our final story, a scandal involving local celebrity Rhiannon Stark.”

Horace’s attention went immediately to the television. He turned it up a bit.

“That’s right, Danny, she was Miss Kensington County of 1985, and now she may be disqualified because of rumours of her participation in witchcraft. There are accusations of a practice called Astral Projection…”

The woman stirred, and Horace muted the television while he gazed at Rhiannon’s face filling the screen. “So wild,” muttered Horace as he watched her standing there with her hands in her hair. As she walked from the courthouse steps, past the paparazzi, the breeze blew lightly, and it lifted from her shoulders so that it glowed with the late afternoon sun behind her. Rhiannon was a woman who knew how to ignite cold contempt in the hearts of men toward any woman who had the misfortune of not being Rhiannon.

Horace rolled over, as far from the woman as he could, and laid, shivering, in the dark.




“She rules her life like a bird…”

— Stevie Nicks





“All your life you’ve never seen
A woman taken by the wind”

Stevie Nicks

Today

He was nicely, serenely stoned. Her picture was on the 21.5 inch monitor in front of him. He would have loved to see her in her yearbook pictures from high school, to help him construct The Perfect Rhiannon inside his mind, but these served as a reasonable guide. Her previous beauty had been preserved flatteringly. “Age doth not stale nor custom whither,” he muttered.

Horace smiled unconsciously, and then clicked back over to the essay he was writing. She would like this, he felt sure. It was close as he would ever come to saying he loved her. But it was more than close enough… if she ever read it.

“We’re home!” came Rhonda’s voice.

Horace looked up from the screen and watched the girls come into the library from the kitchen.

“They have me on a whole new set of painkillers,” said Rita. “I’m sorry about last night.”

“We brought you a present,” said Rhonda, handing him a donut.

“Oh, thank you!” Horace was genuinely delighted. He took the donut, and jelly dripped almost immediately onto his t shirt. He collected it onto his index finger, and licked it off. “And it’s fine. It was just a little weird.”

“She doesn’t hallucinate often,” said Rhonda. “In the five years I’ve been with her, it’s only the third time it’s happened.”

“Did you wake up in the middle of the night while you were dreaming or something?”

“No! Your sister sat down on the bed, and she asked me some bizarre question.”

Horace smiled, perhaps somewhat indulgently. “What’d she ask you?”

“I don’t know. I think it was like whether you could make anyone happy without hurting everyone, or something like that. What the fuck does that even mean?”

Horace considered the question a moment. “That would be a hell of an achievement.” He smiled. “And I think you reversed it.”

“It means it was time to change your meds,” Rhonda said to Rita. She turned to Horace. “We’re going to smoke. Join us.”

“Maybe not,” muttered Horace as the girls went outside.

Rita stuck her head back in the door. “What?”

Horace stared into space a few moments. He was thinking of Rhiannon’s candles. There was something he had heard about candles once, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.

Mr. Brown strutted into the library, and looked up at Horace sitting at the desk. There was an essay being written, and Mr. Brown felt obliged to make his contribution. He jumped into Horace’s lap, and Horace reflexively started stroking his fur. He looked once into Horace’s eyes, closed his own for a moment, then opened them again. He hopped up onto the desk, strolled across the keyboard, and the screen glowed with Rhiannon’s picture again. Mr. Brown’s bell tinkled gently.

Rita started to yell at the cat, when her eyes caught the image in front of Horace. “There she is!”

“Who?” He looked from Rhiannon to Rita.

“That’s who came into my room the other night. That’s your sister, isn’t it?”

“No,” said Horace, shaking his head slowly. “It’s not.”

When the cat crossed the desk, and leapt from the mouse to the window above, her status appeared: “Do you suppose you could make everyone happy without hurting anyone?”

Mr. Brown searched the backyard for birds.

Tomorrow

Dear Horace,
Please don’t write about me anymore.

—Rhiannon

Posted on by Fred

The Haunting of Horace, Part 2

“Said you’d give me light
But you never told me about the fire”


Stevie Nicks

“Rhiannon rings like a bell in the night…”


Stevie Nicks

Biddeford, Maine

Saturday, May 7, 1983

2:43 PM

Horace had bought his mother a candle for Mother’s Day, every year for the last 14 years, but always something basic, from Wal Mart or K Mart. He was in college, now, and it was time to do better. Pier One Imports would, he was sure, have something classier.

The place smelled of strange foreign spices, and the light came from the sunroof in the middle of the ceiling. The store was an eclectic collection of items from anywhere other than Maine. There were strikingly beautiful statues, and there were cheap, tasteless trinkets. He walked through several aisles before he found the candles. He studied them, but none of them stood out. There were a few layered candles, with colors bleeding from one layer to the next, but there was nothing unique. They were all variations of each other.

“Did you figure it out?”

Horace turned around, and his eyes widened to see a singularly beautiful woman standing in front of him. “Rhiannon?” he said after the moment it took him to recognize her.

“You’re… Howard, right?”

“Horace. But close enough.”

“God, I’m sorry. It’s been a long time since last I saw you.” She looked him up and down. “You’ve changed a little.”

“I got my shoelaces to match.”

She laughed a little too hard. While Holden would have found it appalling and phony, Horace found it appealing and charming, nearly enchanting. “Were you funny in high school?”

“I thought I was. But, I’ve always been unreasonably arrogant for someone entirely lacking in social skills or physical attractiveness. So, maybe I wasn’t.”

Her laughter rang like a bell throughout the store, and Horace expected someone to come and see what was wrong. No one did. And that’s when he realized the store was, other than the two of them, empty. “Isn’t it boring to be here with no customers?”

“Sometimes it can be.”

“You should hire someone to come and talk to you when you’re bored.”

“Want a job?”

“No.” He was too frightened to give any other answer, but he was determined not to show it. “I want a unique candle. I’d love one of those weirdly shaped ones you had years ago.”

Her face darkened for a moment. “You won’t find one of those here.”

“Pier One is too commercial?”

“Well, we can’t make everyone happy, so we just avoid hurting anyone.” She smiled again. “None of these candles can be seen as offensive.”

“Or interesting.” He looked around. “Have any artistic ones?”

When he looked back, he saw her head turning as she scanned the entire store. She looked back at him, and he couldn’t help but notice the way she brushed her hair from her forehead.

“We have a carved candle that really is beautiful, but it’s incredibly expensive.” She walked toward the front of the store. Inside a glass case at the front counter sat a candle that must have weighed ten pounds. It was rich, dark green, and there was a cottage, in a forest, in a glade carved onto it with exquisite detail. He could almost see a light on in the attic.

“That’s… incredible…You could never burn that. It would almost be a crime against the Art.”

“If it has a wick, Horace, it wants to be burned.”

He couldn’t keep himself from staring, and he knew it, and he hated it about himself. She didn’t seem to mind. Her eyes were like a singer’s asking if the audience had any requests. He looked back at her like a regular patron asking the bartender for “The Usual.” And, for a moment, she slid her fingers lightly through her hair.

The door opened, causing a bell to ring, and Rhiannon looked away to see who it was.

They were two lost hippies, women who were out out of their time. They wore their very long hair down, they each had a straw hat, long necklaces, and bracelets that jingled whenever they moved. They wore plain gray skirts that nearly touched the floor. “We’ve come for chairs,” announced the taller one.

“Wicker chairs,” said her companion.

Horace watched Rhiannon scamper off toward them.

An old man in a black hat moved behind the display case to which Rhiannon had led him. “May I help you?”

“I want to buy this candle,” said Horace pointing. He pulled out his very first credit card, an American Express, and couldn’t help but watch Rhiannon and the women discussing the comfort of wicker, in its natural state, as opposed to processed material.

When The Man In Black handed him the receipt and the boxed candle, Horace nodded to him and walked toward the door.

Rhiannon was behind a high backed wicker chair, and as she heard the bell ring when he opened the door, she looked around the side of it, smiled far too broadly, and waved to Horace. She was a woman who knew how to wave from behind wicker.

***

“She is like a cat in the dark and then
She is the darkness”


Stevie Nicks

“She comes back to tell me she’s gone
As if I didn’t know that
As if I didn’t know my own bed
As if I’d never noticed
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead”


Paul Simon

Last Night

Rhiannon was beginning to take shape in the flickering candlelight of the 3 AM darkness, as she often did while Horace was half conscious. She wasn’t the 16 year old girl with whom he had been pointlessly in love 40 years ago, but she wasn’t the woman in her current pictures, either. She was a lovely, if foggy, combination of those two memories, and he was beginning to smile without being aware of it. The cat crawled across his slowly rising and falling stomach, laid his head down on Horace’s chest, and yawned wide and long. The bell around his neck tinkled softly.

They both jumped when the banging on the door began. “What’s wrong?” He pulled his covers down. The breeze from the motion blew the candle out. Rhiannon retreated to the depths of his misted brain, and Horace rolled to his right and flipped on the bedside light.

“I need you to get Christine out of my room,” came Rita’s not entirely coherent voice.

Horace frowned. “My sister’s in your room?”

“She’s on the bed. She won’t leave.”

Mr. Brown jumped from the bed to the floor, his tail high. “I really don’t think she’s there, Rita.”

She was almost crying outside the door now. “I just told you she is. Make her go away.”

Horace sighed and got out of the bed. He pushed his feet into his slippers and walked to the door. When Horace opened it, Mr. Brown scampered out of his room and across the hall into Rhonda and Rita’s room. Rita nearly collapsed onto Horace who supported her the best he could.

He walked her back into her bedroom. Rhonda was sleeping deeply on her side of the bed. There was no one else there. Horace pointed that out to Rita.

“Where did she go?” Rita was genuinely surprised by Christine’s absence.

“I really don’t know. Maybe you could go back to bed.”

“I wanna have a cigarette.” She started down the hall toward the library, and its backdoor to the patio. Horace glanced at Rhonda, still completely oblivious, and decided to follow Rita. He found her on the best chair lighting a cigarette.

“Was she really beautiful as a little girl?” Rita asked as he stepped outside.

“My sister? Yes, I suppose she was. My parents said as much. I never found her beautiful, though.”

“She looks like she must have been a beautiful little girl. She has the prettiest hair. When she was young, I bet all the boys loved her.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever met her, Rita.”

“Duh. Just now? She kept playing with her hair. It was almost spooky. And she didn’t seem like she was where she meant to be. I think she got the wrong room.”

Horace took a cigarette from his pack. “You talked to her?” He sat down across from her.

“No. I just freaked out when she woke me up and came and got you.”

He watched her silently as she took a drag from her cigarette. In another moment, her eyes drifted shut. He got up, took the cigarette from between her fingers, set it in the ashtray, and then went to wake Rhonda. It was evidently time to change Rita’s meds again.

He locked his bedroom door.

Rhiannon didn’t return that night.

Posted on by Fred

The Haunting of Horace Part 1

This is Part 1 of a 3-part story. Part 2 will be uploaded on April 19. Part 3 arrives April 26.

“For who knows what magic takes place in his world…”


Tony Banks

Wells, Maine

Tuesday, March 13, 1979

10:23 PM

This attic was the only place Horace could find to hide. There were so many people out there, but here, in this empty room, he was alone with the full moon whose light was slipping feebly through the tiny window.

He couldn’t imagine what he had been thinking when he’d accepted Bob’s invitation. It had been so entirely unexpected, though, there was nothing else he could do. The star quarterback of the high school football team had invited him to a party… at the home of the single most beautiful cheerleader who had ever graced the halls of Poe High School. And Horace was the head of the Poe Nothings. Horace knew himself well enough to know that Rhiannon would never actually talk to him, but there was that Glimmer of Hope. Just a little Hope can make the heart beat a bit faster. Horace enjoyed the feeling, so he accepted the invitation. And now he was in the attic, hoping he could find a way out of here.

All of these people were light years beyond his social class. None of them had ever seen an episode of Star Trek. He knew absolutely nothing about the sports that they discussed with the precision of scientists debating quantum mechanics. They were all well built, outgoing, attractive people. Horace was thin, gangly, socially inept, and unattractive in any conventional sense. He was the only virgin in the entire house. What had Bob been thinking?

He didn’t belong. He wanted to leave, but it was awfully cold in March, and it was a 17 mile walk from Wells back to Biddeford. Hiding represented his only chance to survive, and he couldn’t get away with the bathroom for more than about 5 minutes at a time. There were way too many people, drinking way too much, and they all required a restroom. Every bedroom was occupied by a couple insisting on privacy.

But this room looked like it was hiding, too. It wasn’t even a full-sized room. It was accessible only by a narrow, winding staircase at the last corner of a very dark hallway. As his eyes adjusted, he was able to perceive that against the wall to his right, there was an old, worm-eaten wooden table filled with what Horace decided must be an artist’s supplies. There were notched candles. There were cloves. There were strangely shaped bottles filled with various colors of oils. When he walked to it he observed seeds, matches, and a shot glass.

He turned around when he heard the door open behind him, and he moved as quietly as he could out of the light. Rhiannon backed into the room, a round candlestick in her hand. She turned and glided silently across the room, and when she crossed the moonlight, the room seemed to glow with her.

She went to the table, and lit the notched candle using the tall thin one attached to the holder. She mumbled something, but Horace couldn’t make out what it was. He could see her silhouette moving her hands up the bizarrely shaped candle, bottom to top, 9 times. He counted. She sighed confidently.

When she turned around to leave the room she saw him, and they were both startled. Horace, already in the corner, tried to back away, but just smashed his body awkwardly into the wall. She dropped her candle, and it rolled, lit, across the wooden floor toward him. He knelt, nearly falling over, and picked it up. He stood up, and found her standing directly in front of him. He handed it back to her. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered.

Rhiannon smiled compassionately at him. “Me too.” She looked briefly over her shoulder at the strange candle, and disappointment tinted her blue eyes.

Horace couldn’t look at her. He noticed his shoelaces didn’t match.

“I really am trying my best.” She looked back at Horace. “To be a decent person I mean. I know a lot of people think I’m stuck up, or whatever, but, really, I’m not.”

Horace said nothing.

“Okay?” She whispered.

He looked up. “Okay.” His stare, while entirely unintentional, was almost rude in its intensity.

There have been, throughout human history, quite a few women renowned for their beautiful hair. None of them, however, had anything on Rhiannon. Lady Godiva and Rapunzel, for example, were each known for the lengths of theirs. Rhiannon’s didn’t come close to such a ghastly stretch. It fell, seemingly effortlessly, down her neck and covered her shoulders as a quiet brown river lightly licking its banks, or a blanket under which the slender shoulders snuggled greedily.

Helen of Troy and Lucretia Borgia were sufficiently beautiful that they seemed almost to be able to cast a spell on men simply by looking at them. They were Anti-Medusas. Horace was as inspired as any Trojan.

When she saw Horace staring through his hormone haze, she smiled shyly and brushed her hair slowly back from her forehead. Then she nervously moved her fingers through it like a tide stealing sand from a moonlit beach as it slides up and down.

“I mean, do you ever ask yourself if it’s even possible to make everyone happy without hurting someone?”

“No… not until just now.”

“If you ever figure it out…” her eyes shimmered in the candlelight. They both smiled. Rhiannon, he decided, was a girl who knew how to run her fingers through her hair. They were having a moment.

The banging on the door made them both jump, but Rhiannon held firmly to her candle, and Horace slithered back into his dark corner silently.

“Rhiannon? You in there?” Horace recognized Bob’s tenor voice.

She took her hand away from her hair. “I’ll be right out.” The moment was over.

“There’s a party downstairs, and you’re being a lousy hostess.”

She smiled, almost tenderly at him, and left the room, the notched candle burning. Horace was alone in the dark.

***

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety…”


Shakespeare


Yesterday

“She’s married?” Rhonda asked as Horace lit his little glass pipe.

He held the hit a moment, squeaking in an unflattering way, exhaled, and then looked up at Rhonda.

“What?”

“Your secret internet girlfriend. She’s married?”

“Yes, she is.”

“So, she’s cheating on her husband?”

“Certainly not. She’s entirely unaware that she is my girlfriend.”

“How stoned, exactly, are you?” Rhonda asked. She lit a cigarette. “To be your girlfriend would require that she has some part in the relationship, wouldn’t it?”

“She does. She accounts for nearly 3% of it. The other 97% exists exclusively in my mind.”

The metal screen door from the house opened, and Rita sauntered into the backyard.

While Rhonda was only in her mid twenties, Rita was in her 40s. They had been together for quite a few years before Horace had stumbled into their lives, and they had, essentially, adopted him.

When one of them was in the hospital (which happened far too frequently; all three of them had health problems. Horace was nearly deaf, Rita had chronic Lyme Disease, and Rhonda had genetic cardiac problems.), Rita and Rhonda identified each other as wives. For Horace, they were roommates.

Rhonda looked up at her instantly, and said, “Your roommate is a weird stalker dude.”

Rita sighed, and sat down in the nearest patio chair. “Where are the cigarettes?”

“I’m nothing of the sort. I shall certainly never see her again. I am, however, allowed to have whatever thoughts I choose, thank you Miss Orwell.” Horace picked up Rita’s cigarettes from the barely standing bedside table they had put on the patio to hold their accessories, and he tossed them unceremoniously to her.

“Who are you calling Miss Orwell?” asked Rhonda, flipping her dark hair off to one side.

“You’re being the Thought Police,” said Rita, opening the pack. “Let the man think what he wants.” She lit a cigarette, and then opened the book she’d brought outside with her. Her blonde hair fell in her face when she looked down at it, and she pushed it quickly out of the way.

“You want to live with a crazy man?”

“I want to read my book.”

Rhonda, unobserved, rolled her eyes at Rita and turned back to Horace. “What’s her 3%?”

“She likes my posts on Facebook sometimes. Once in a while, she even comments. She says she likes my writing.”

“So she’s messaged you? That could be construed as cheating.”

“Oh, heavens no! Nor have I ever sent her a message. That would increase our involvement, and that would ruin it. 3% gives birth to hope. 10% gives birth to hassles.”

Without looking up from her book Rita muttered, “100% give birth to children.”

“So how do you know she likes your writing?” Rhonda glanced back at Rita. Her eyes seemed to be losing focus.

He took another hit, and then, holding his breath, said, “She clicks like.”

“Lots of people like your stuff.” Rhonda seemed a little annoyed.

Horace exhaled. “Yes,” he said as he emptied the remainder of the pipe into the little red measuring cup in which he kept his supplies. He covered the carb, and blew into the pipe to remove any clogs. He began gathering bits from the bottom of the 1 ¾ cup container, and loaded them gingerly into his pipe. “I’m not, however, secretly in love with lots of people.”

“So, what’s the other 97%?” Rhonda watched Rita’s eyes begin to droop.

“The other 97% consists of messages unwritten except in my head, enjoying the intimacy of my thoughts connecting with hers, even if only for a few hundred words on my page or my blog, and vague leftover fantasies from the last time I saw her nearly 40 years ago.” He smiled nostalgically. “She was burning candles in her attic.

Rita’s head fell to her chest.

“Get her cigarette,” Rhonda said. “I don’t want her to burn herself.”

Horace reached for the cigarette dangling loosely between Rita’s fingers, and her head snapped up quickly. “I’m fine.”

Horace watched her another moment to be sure she was coherent, and then he turned back to Rhonda. “And I get to experience great joy when she says or does something nice. I don’t, if you hadn’t noticed, get a lot of joy.”

“You get to live with me. How much joy do you need?”

He picked up the clipboard, pulled the pen out from behind the clip, and began to cross out something on the printed paper. “More than that,” he said without looking up.

“I’m going to throw something at you. And it’s going to hurt.”

“I would very much prefer if you didn’t. That would decrease my joy.”

Rhonda threw nothing. “What’s her name?”

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

The Boxer

Author’s Note: This is a slightly revised version of a story I wrote in 1983. I find it still works well today.

“In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev’ry glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
“I am leaving, I am leaving”
But the fighter still remains…”

Simon and Garfunkel

“Frank, this is your mother.”
“Hi, ma, how ya doin’?”
“We’re fine. Listen, Frank, when are you coming home?”
“I don’ know, ma. Soon. Maybe in a coupla months or something.”
“Are you still fighting?”
“It ain’t fightin’, ma, it’s boxing. It’s a profession. It’s a— “
“It’s a way to get beat up all the time, Franklin, and it’s a way to ruin your body so you can’t ever get a decent respectable job. Now you should just stop that and come home and get a job. Mr. Johnson down at the hardware store says he could use a good strong boy to help him with the stock and such. He’ll pay four dollars an hour, he said. You think about that, Franklin, that’s above minimum wage. That’s an awfully nice offer, if you want my opinion, son.”
“Yes, ma, it is. That’s real nice of Mr. Johnson. You tell him I said that that was real nice and that I appreciate it and all, but I just can’t come home right now is all.”
“Why not? There’s nothing there for you but getting beat up.”
“Ma, try to understand, willya? This boxing stuff, it’s what I do. It’s almost kinda like it’s, I don’ know, like parta me something. I mean, it’s what I do best, ya know?”
“But you always lose, Franklin. I mean, really now, Frank, when did you ever win a single fight?”
‘I’ll win one sometime, ma. I will. Really. But, see, this not winning fights can be good, too, ya know? I mean, it’s real easy fer me to get fights, cuz a lot of guys like fightin’ rookies like me if they think they can beat ‘em. It gives them a good fight on their record, and it gives me some experience. I mean, I learn a little bit every time I fight. Like last week, this guy Shaw beat me, but see I figgered out the way he-”
“Does it pay well?”
“Huh? Uh, well, ya know, in a way it does. I mean it’s not much just yet, or anything, but, when I start winnin’ I’ll start gettin’ the higher paying fights and everything, and it’ll pay off in the end. And Mr. Clancy, here at the gym’s been real nice to me. I got a little room up here above the gym he lets me have for fifty dollars a month, and he helps me get my fights and stuff.”
“What are you eating?”
“Pardon?”
“Are you eating all right?”
“Oh yeah, ma, fine. I eat breakfast and everything here. And I can work out downstairs and all at the gym. No, ma, really, it’s great here.”
She was quiet for a few seconds and then she said, “Your mother misses you, you know son.”’
I know, ma. I miss you and dad, too…Honest to God, I really do. But this is just somethin’ I gotta do, ya know?”’
“Well, we’ll call you on Saturday again. Will that be all right? If we call on Saturday?”
“Yeah, ma, but I’ll be downstairs workin’ out in the morning and then I gotta work over at the grocery store down the block till five, so, if you could call a little later, that’d be good. If ya called a little later I mean. I’ll be very busy and all but you go ahead and call though. If you want to I mean.”
“Why wouldn’t we want to call?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. Just, you know, if you have something more important to do or something.”
“We’ll call about six. Will that be all right?”
“Yeah, ma, six’ll be fine. Really, that’ll be just fine.”
“All fight, Franklin. We’ll talk to you Saturday. We love you, son.”
“I love you, too, ma. And dad, too. You tell him that for me willya?”
“You wanna talk to him? He’s right here.”
“No, that’s okay. You just tell him for me, all right?”
“All right. Goodbye, Frank.”
“G’ bye, ma.” He hung up the phone and walked from the lobby into his room. He went to the small refrigerator he had rented for ten dollars a month, and took out an ice pack. He sat on the cot and then slowly lay down and put the ice pack on his swollen eye.


“I got a letter from Frank today,” said Terry sitting down across the booth from Monica.
“What’d he have to say?”
“He never says much,” she said. She lowered her head and sipped some Pepsi through a straw. She pulled her lips away from the large frozen glass and licked them delicately, getting the sticky cola off of them. “I guess he still hasn’t won a fight. He says his losses aren’t always quite so bad, though.”
“He was pretty hung up on you there for a while, wasn’t he?”
“Who? Frank? I don’t really know. He might have been.”
“Well, I never get any letters from him.”
“Well you’re obviously not as beautiful, witty and charming as I am.”
“Actually, it’s just that dumb guys aren’t attracted to me like they are to you.”
“Hey, come on now, he wasn’t all that dumb. He just didn’t do very well in school, that’s all.”
“Yeah, he was dumb.” She took the cherry off the top of her sundae and held it by its stem just above her open mouth. She slowly lowered it to her mouth and as the fruit got inside she closed it and pulled the stem out. “But if you liked him so much, you coulda been nicer to him, I would think.”
“What’d you want me to do, marry the guy or something?”
“No…I never said you did anything wrong. Nobody ever did anything wrong,” she said putting her spoon into her ice cream. She scooped a large chunk of the vanilla onto it, and then sloshed it around in the hot fudge.
Terry watched her playing with the food, and sipped her Pepsi again. Just as it was reaching the bottom of the glass, she took out her straw, wiped it off and set it carefully on the napkin next to her now empty plate. There was no evidence that there had ever been a cheeseburger and fries on the plate. Even the parsley was gone. “You’re weird, Monica.”

“I know,” she said and sucked the ice cream off the spoon.
“We real1y did like each other there for a while, though I think.”
“You never went out or anything did you?”
“With Frank? You’ve got to be kidding. My parents would have had a fit if I went out with a guy who didn’t even graduate high school. Anyway, he could never have afforded to take me out to even a movie. He never did anything but work out at that gym. Most I ever remember doing is one time at his parent’s place we sort of hugged each other. I don’t know why that happened, but it did.”
“Ya think he was trying to make a move on you or something?”
“God, Monica, is that all you ever think about? I think it just sort of accidentally happened. It was bizarre. We hugged each other for like three minutes I think.”
“And you said I’m weird? If you’re not gonna do anything, what’s the point of–”
“Eat your ice cream, Monica.”
She ate a few more bites and then said, “Hey, lissen, I’m turning eighteen next week and –”
“Subtle…Very subtle. I would have bought you a present anyway, Monica.”
“Oh, no that’s not what I meant. Me and Marcie and Sheila are going to Rick’s Place to celebrate. You wanna come?”
“We can’t get in there, Monica, and you know that. They card everybody.”
“Well, then look what I got myself for my birthday,” she said taking a card out of her purse. She handed it to Terry.
“Your very own license. Gosh… how totally wonderful,” she said sarcastically.
“Look at my birthday, dodo!”
“April seventh, I know… My god, Monica you don’t have t—”
“The year, you imbecile, the year.”
“Hey, you just became nineteen…” She handed it back to her. “Neat.”
“Only cost the five dollars. I can get you one, too, if you wanna come.”
“I can’t. Walt and I are going out this weekend.”
“Walt? Peterson? He’s only a sophomore isn’t he?”
“So? He asked me out, and I’m going.”
“Okay… whatever,” she said and put the license away.
“You know what I think you should do?”
“What?” —
“Call Frank and ask him if he wants to go.”
“You’re the one who likes illiterates, Terry, not me. I don’t like ‘em if they’re dumb. You like him, you ask–”

“Okay, Monica. God! I was only kidding. He’s over a hundred miles away. He wouldn’t have come anyway.”
“Are you done with that?” she said, extending a finger toward Terry’s Pepsi, “cuz I gotta go finish my assignment for English. We’re reading this stupid book called ‘The Catcher in—”
Terry picked up the glass and put it to her lips. She finished the remaining Pepsi, licked her lips again and said, “Let’s go.”

“How’s the eye, kid?” Clancy lifted his Budweiser to his mouth and quickly tipped the bottle upward shooting the beer down his throat. He pulled the bottle away and a little foam flowed over the top of it and onto his hand. He held the beer in his other hand and with his wet hand he wiped his mouth and then wiped his hands on his pants. His face was unshaven and the beard growing randomly on it was somewhat scruffy. Clancy wore a sleeveless t-shirt and smelled of sweat.
“Oh, much better, Mr. Clancy, really. Most of the swelling’s gone down now and all, and I can see better out of it all the time. Be good as new in a coupla days, I’m sure,” he said watching the other fighters training.
“Good kid, I’m gladda hear it.” He swigged his beer again and as he took it away a little dribbled down the side of his mouth. “Lissen, kid, you heard about this Johnson character yet?”
Frank looked back at Clancy now. “Who?”
“Ol’ Ben Johnson down at Matsby’s gym. He’s openin’ it up as a fightin’ arena or some kinda damn fool thing. He needs fighters, kid. He doesn’t give much a damn who they are. I guess he just wansa get people in there bettin’ on the fights and all, ya know?”
“So, how’s it work?” He looked past Clancy and at the door of the gym.
“Both fighters get fifty dollars…Win er lose, Frank, ya make fifty.”
“What if I win?” He looked at him again. “I mean if I win I make more don’t I?”
Clancy smiled. “Sure kid. You get another fifty if ya win. But I wouldn’t count…”
He watched one of the older men lifting on the machine in the corner behind Clancy. His face as taut with effort; his jaw was set firmly. His arms shook as he lifted the bar above him. “I’m gonna win this one, Mr. Clancy.” He looked away from the fighter and back to Clancy. “I can give you two full months rent then. After I win this fight and all, I mean.”
The man drained his beer and threw the empty bottle into a box full of other empties. It clanged noisily against them. “Frank, the guy they want you to fight is Rallings.”A quiet belch escaped his wet lips.
“Rallings? He’s on his way to the big time. Whadda they want me to fight him for?”
“They can get good odds is all, boy. If you fight they’re givin’ seven to one odds. Ol’ Johnson’ll clean up.”
He looked at the floor. “When am I fightin’?” he asked quietly.
“Thirty days… May 7th. You be ready by then?”
He didn’t look up. “I’ll be ready.”
Clancy slapped Frank on the back. “At’s a spirit, kid. Don’t let ‘em get you down. That’s what I always say, anyway. Never let ‘em get you down.” He walked toward the door. “Good luck, kid,” he said and opened the heavy door. “See ya.”

“Mr. Clancy–”
Clancy stopped with the open door in his hand. “Yeah, kid?”
“I’m gonna win this fight, Mr. Clancy. You put your money on me cuz I’m gonna win.”

“Sure you are, kid,” he said and stepped out the door. “Sure you are.” The door made a sort of a ringing sound when it closed behind him.

“Terry?”

“Yeah.”
“This is Frank. How are ya?”
“Oh, Hi Frank. How’s it goin’?”
“Good. Real good. So, really I mean, how are you and all?”
“I’m fine. Nothing really exciting to tell you about or anything. I got your letter the other day. That was really nice. Thank you.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Did you like it or anything?”
“Yeah. I just said I liked it, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, well, ya know. Umm, tell Monica Happy Birthday and all for me, willya?”
“Sure, Frank. So how’s the boxing life going?”
“Oh, great, really. I mean, just fantastic.”
“Oh? Did you win a fight?”
“No, nothin’ like that, yet. But…well that’s kinda why I called.”
“What?”
“Well…a month from today, I mean May 7th and all, I got this fight. And, umm, well I was wondering if maybe you’d like to maybe come and see it and everything. I mean I got this job workin’ at a grocery store now and I got some money saved up, so I could send you bus fare and all if ya wanted to come…”

“I don’t know, Frank. I’m really kind of busy next month, and I just don’t think…”
“I mean, you know you wouldn’t have to stay long or anything. Maybe just sort of say Hi or something after I win, ya know?”
“After you win? What makes you so sure you’re going to win? Who are you fighting?”
“This guy Rallings…He’s pretty tough and all, but I know I can beat him, cuz I’m gonna train real hard for a whole month and everything, and this guy won’t be expectin’ me to be any good, ya know, and I’ll just kinda take ‘im by surprise like Ol’ Rocky did to that Apollo Creed guy and I’ll win and then I’ll be on my way. I mean, when you beat a contender and all, well, then you’re on your way. And, I just kinda wanted you to be there and see it and all, cuz I always…I always kind of…” Frank blushed a moment. “Ya wanna come? I mean I could send you bus fare and all right away.”
“You don’t have to send bus fare, Frank. I’ll drive if I can go. I mean, I won’t promise anything, now, but if I can find the time, I’ll go. Where is it?”
“I got you this whole map drawn out how to get there from the bus station. It’s a real good map. I worked pretty hard on it las’ night and all. I’ll send it to ya tomorrow, all right?”
“Okay. I’ll try to go if I can.”
“Okay, lissen I’m out of quarters and all and the operator is probably gonna cut us off in a minute, so–”
“I thought you had your own phone.”
“No, just this pay booth here in the lobby. But I’m the only one who ever answers it so it’s like my own phone, but not quite. Ya know? Anyway, I gotta go. I hope you come, Terry. I really wish ya would.”
“I’ll try Frank.”
“Okay…Tell Ol’ Monica Happy Birthday and all for me okay?”
“I will.”

“Okay. Bye Terry.”
“Goodbye Frank.”
“That your girlfriend, Frank?”
Frank turned suddenly around, the receiver still in his hand. Tom Rallings stood before him, a good inch and a half taller and probably ten pounds heavier. “No,” he said, quietly. He hung up the receiver. “She’s just a friend.”
“You told her to come to our fight, didn’t you?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to pick up some of my stuff from my locker.”
“You been outta this gym for over a month, Tom.”
“There was some stuff I left behind.” He held up a duffle bag. “You tell her to come to the fight?”
“Yeah,” he said and looked carefully at his own tennis shoes.

“Why don’t you call her back and tell her not to, Frank?”

He looked up. “Why? I got as good a chance as you of winnin’.”
“No you don’t Frank. I’m older, more experienced and stronger. I’ve been at this a while and I’m a good fighter.”
“I’m gonna train like you’ve never seen anybody train, though, Tom. You won’t believe it.”
“That’s good, kid. I’m glad to hear that, I really am. Listen, how ‘bout I buy you a beer somewhere to celebrate the beginning of your training? Whaddaya say?”
“Wish I could. I really do. I mean, I’d like to have a beer with you and all, Tom, I really would, but I gotta get to bed so I can get up real early and train a little before work you know.”
“You’re working? How’re you gonna train when you’re working?”
“Just you wait and see.”
“All right, kid.”
“Lissen, I gotta go to bed now, so I’ll see ya around, Okay?”
“Sure, kid.”
Frank turned and started walking down the hall.
“Frank—” He stopped, and turned around. “You know I like you and I’d really like to let you win, but I can’t. You understand that don’t you?” Frank said nothing. “I’m a professional, Frank. The job and my personal life are two separate things. I can’t show you any kind of favoritism. I’m gonna beat you… That’s just the way it is.”

Frank stared silently at him.

“It’s not personal, kid. It’s strictly business.”
Frank stood there a second and then said, “Good night, Tom.”
“Night, Frank.”
Frank walked inside his room and Tom watched the door close and saw the light in the window go out before he walked away.

He lay with his back on the mat, looking up at the blinding flood lights above him. He heard the official counting, “Seven…”
He squinted to keep the light out of his eyes, but the pressure of doing so opened the cut above his eye again and it began to drip very slowly downward. The light distorted into a shape when he squinted that way, of a familiar, almost recognizable image. A young female face cloaked in the whiteness of the light seemed to take form in front of his eyes, and for a second he drifted into fantasy. The girl walked from the kitchen into the living room. There appeared to be something in her eye but it was only there for a moment before she blinked and it disappeared. He got up from the couch and walked toward the kitchen to get a glass of milk. Neither of them said anything. They nearly collided and neither of them knew if it was intentional or not. They found themselves with their arms around each other in an awkward but still infinitely pleasing and satisfying hug. They were silent, save for a sort of a purring that came from the girl when she first put her arms around him. It was from somewhere low in the throat, or maybe in the chest that the sound came.
“Eight,” and he looked away from the light and into Rallings’s expressionless face.
“Nine,” and he heard a familiar voice from the first row. “Get up, Frank. You can do it!” He put his hands on the mat and sat up. He grabbed one of the ropes with his right hand, and then another with his left and pulled himself up, leaning on them. His left eye was swollen shut and his mouth bled slightly. He let go of the ropes and wiped his mouth with the glove on his right hand. He walked unsteadily forward into the ring, and motioned his opponent with his gloves. He breathed heavily. “Lessgo,” he grunted. Rallings shook his head and walked toward him, almost in disbelief. Frank swung wildly at him and missed, stumbling and landing on the other man. They stood for a moment in a clinch and they were silent save for a sound from low in Rallings’s throat or possibly his chest. He pushed Frank away and hit him again. Frank fell hard to the mat and smacked it with a thud. He got to his knees and grabbed the rope with both hands, facing out of the ring his eyes closed. He slowly opened his right eye and saw Terry, though her face was distorted and red from the blood now
running liberally from the cut. She looked at him for a moment and then to the ground, her face showing disappointment and something resembling betrayal. She reached down below her seat and carefully picked up her purse. She took her jacket from the back of the chair as she stood up, and without looking in his direction again, made her way across the aisle. At the end of the aisle, she turned and walked up the ramp, opened the door and was gone.
The official had been counting all the while. “Eight…Nine.” Frank leapt up and yelled something that couldn’t be heard over the crowd. He lunged at Rallings, who stepped neatly out of the way and let Frank fall face down on the mat. The bell began to ring furiously and the bigger man walked quietly back to the corner and sat down. A moment or so later, while Frank still laid on the mat, the official was holding Rallings’s hand in the air and declaring him the winner by knock out.

Posted on by Fred

Clara: Three Moments

“For Esme, With Love and Squalor”


J.D. Salinger

Brayden slammed his head against the desk hard enough that his eyes actually rolled back in his head for a second, or maybe two, before he pulled his head up off of it and started downward again. His helmet, covering his blond hair and his slightly misshapen ears, provided some protection. Miss Clara provided the rest. She put her hand on his forehead and did her best to keep it from hitting the desk again. Clara was 77; she slowed the blow but couldn’t stop it completely. She grabbed the pillow beneath his desk and set it on top of it before the third thump. Finally, she took him into a full body hug to keep him from hurting himself. He screamed.

“I found it!” came a voice from behind a computer on the other side of the room. “I have the research to prove it. Mozart is what they need. I can send you the link, Arlene.”

Arlene, an overweight woman in her 60s, made something of a snorting sound. “I’ll send you a link proving the Earth is flat, Ms. Pennywinkle.”

“If you can’t accept perfectly good evidence -” Ms. Pennywinkle began before Brayden screamed again. She looked over to him and Clara. “Can’t you hold him properly? My God, you’ve only been doing this forever.”

Clara held him tighter. “Doin’ my best, Ms. Pennywinkle. I promise you I’m doing my best. Brayden just -”

“I know all about Brayden, thank you. That’s probably why I’m in charge, and you’re an aide.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, as Brayden began to calm himself. “I’m sure you’re right.” She wiped the drool off of Brayden’s mouth, and he bit her, not quite hard enough to break the skin.

“Fuck!” she shouted.

“Language!” shouted Arlene.

Clara put her hand to her mouth and sucked on it while she inspected it for holes. “There’s not a kid in this room who understands what I just said.”

“The principal sure as shit would,” said Ms. Pennywinkle. “We need to watch our language.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” Clara looked up at the clock. It was 2:45. Just 8 more minutes until the bell. She might avoid being late if the bus ran on time.

***

Clara got off the bus and walked across the street, the Atlantic Ocean splashing behind her. She used to look out at the ocean on the way into Mike’s Clam Shack, but now she was too tired.

“You’re late!” came a voice sailing across the restaurant before she had even stepped inside.

“Sorry, Pat. I’m doing my best.”

“Car break down again?”

She shook her head and put on her apron. “Repossessed.”

“Seriously?”

Clara ignored him, and she went out to the patio. The diners at her table were new. They were clearly tourists. They were overdressed for the place. The woman, not more than 30, and her companion, probably her husband, who was already losing his hair, were looking toward the ocean. She overheard their conversation as she moved toward them.

“Ask her,” said the woman.

“She’s only a waitress,” her companion replied.

“No, I’m not,” said Clara arriving at the table. “What can I do for you?”

“Ask her!” the woman demanded.

The man sighed. “Fine. That carcass on the beach.” He pointed across the street. “What happened?”

She looked at the skiff to which the carcass was tied. There were only bones left of what had once clearly been a powerful marlin. “Shark, I’m sure,” she replied. “What can I get ya?” They indicated they weren’t quite ready to order yet, and she told them to take their time, and she walked back toward the kitchen.

In an undertone that had no difficulty in reaching Clara, the man said, “I don’t know what that thing is, but it’s sure as hell not a shark. You don’t ask a waitress questions about marine life. I mean, how smart can she be?”

***

It was after 11 when she walked into her house. The smell of unchanged cat litter greeted her instantly. She flipped on the light switch in the kitchen. The dishes were everywhere. She sighed. She really would clean the house someday. Maybe next week.

She went into the bedroom where Horace, the cat, lay waiting for her on the bed. Her Windows XP laptop was on the bedside table, and she scooted Horace over and sat down. She opened the laptop, turned it on, and waited for it to start up. She knew there was no point in doing lesson plans for tomorrow. But she had done them every night of her 35 year career as a teacher, and they gave her the feeling of having some control. She knew Ms. Pennywinkle wouldn’t even look at them; they were, as Ms. Pennywinkle had told her over and over, not the job of the paraprofessionals. They were the job of the teacher, and now that Clara was retired, no one wanted to see what she thought they should do. She did them, anyway, in the same way she prayed every night, long after she had quit believing anyone was listening.

She got a cup of tea while she waited for her computer to warm up. There was only one clean cup left in the cupboard, and there were two bags left in the box.

When she returned, she set her tea on the table, spent 20 minutes writing out her lesson plans, and then she stroked Horace, undressed, put on her nightgown, and went to the dresser on the wall across from the bed. She retrieved the Makarov PM military pistol her deceased husband, Seymour, had brought back from Vietnam. She found the bullet rolling around next to it, and she inserted it into the gun. She set it on the night stand. She shut off the light.

Posted on by Fred

Two Moments

The music of Tom Waits was coming from El Floridita, on the corner of Fountain and Vine, and the sign on the restroom door said, “Out of Order.” She went in, anyway. Mirrors are never out of order.

She looked at herself, dissatisfied. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. It was time to stop acting like one. She unbuttoned the top of her blouse a little. She let her hair down from the bun atop her head. She opened her purse to search for makeup.

There she found her car key, with the little monkey attached to it. Zooey had won it when she was five. Her mother had let her have a quarter to play one of those grocery store games with toys and a forklift. She had retrieved the monkey on her first attempt. She had, over the last twenty years, confided her every childish secret to the stuffed animal. She had others. They were larger. They were more cuddly. But they weren’t George. George was Special. And now, she thought, unnecessary. She would be finding more exciting treasures soon, retrieving them from where they had lain buried for millennia.

She fixed her makeup, she fluffed her hair, and, with George in her right hand, she left the restroom to invite the man she had just met to walk her home.

***

Jim, looking down, walked into El Floridita. It was here he had met Zooey two years ago. She had just graduated from UCLA, and she was already being recruited for archaeological studies in Egypt, and he had just been tapped to be in charge of the new King Tut exhibit at The California Science Center. They fell in love over talk of embalming corpses in the distant past. And it hadn’t been long before they decided to pursue their futures together.

This was the first time he’d been back to El Floridita since he’d left her three weeks ago. The place seemed somehow emptier than it had ever been before, even though there was a large crowd, some of whom were complaining about the restroom being out of order. A plumber, they were assured, was on the way.

He wondered if she ever came back here. It had been, after all, “their place.” He felt almost as though he were cheating on her walking in here without her. But her number had been deleted from his phone, and his from hers, and they had gone their separate ways. She wanted to explore The Pyramid of Djoser, and he wanted to start a family on his curator’s salary. They couldn’t do both. They both had to move on… alone. And he couldn’t stay here another minute without her.

He left as he came in, wondering if she was happy in her life, then looked up to see the sun shine. He walked down the sidewalk, grass popping up between the bricks, and he never saw the car key and the stuffed monkey lying there looking helpless.