A collection of stories that takes the reader from the beginning of the holiday season in late November until the bitter beginning of another New Year. Ranging from the sweetly sentimental to the bitingly cynical, from the blatantly outrageous to the solemnly poignant. Two troubled men stranded in an airport during a blizzard, a son trying to make sense of his father’s recent passing, an artist seeking inspiration on a lonely Christmas Eve, a bum hoping to just make it through another day, an old lighthouse keeper struggling to find a purpose, a doubting songwriter in need of a little love, a memorable Christmas Eve in old Medicine Park, a nephew contemplating the legacy of his famous (or infamous?) relative, a man looking back on a memory from his youth, and an elf on a mission to occupy your sweet ass – they all seem to be seeking the light or suggesting rather strongly that the reader seek it for themselves.
Table of Contents:
1 - Arbuckle Hereford Toad
2 - Aquene
3 - Merry Christmas
4 - Two Hills and a Mountain
5 - Here We Come!
6 - A Solitary Lighthouse
7 - Splendid Isolation
8 - Mercy Pie
9 - An Atheist Christmas
10 - Reflections
11 - Christmas Eve Medicine Park 1907
12 - Levitation
13 - North Woods Bliss
14 - Frank Hagney
15 - Beyond
16 - Happy New Year
Cover Photo: The Christmas Tree Nebula - courtesy of NASA
WARNING: Not intended for the spiritually rigid or easily offended.
September in Albuquerque,
New Mexico is quite different than September back home in the old country. Yes,
there is a slightly different feel in
the air these days, the ghastly summer is at long last over, but out here on
the high desert the splendor of the autumn change is less pronounced. Now up in
the mountains he was certain that the maples and the other leafy trees changed
their color, that their leaves withered and blew away, and down there along the
Rio Grande he could see for himself the change in the cottonwoods. But where he
spent most of his time, uptown closer to the sloping foothills, his own
apartment building was a concrete island surrounded by a sea of rock and the
landscaping was sparse, bereft of color, and anything living was prone to die slowly
unless tended to with an enthusiastic zeal. The only green things around there
were the stubborn weeds that always seem to find a way, to squeeze through some
crack, to bust on out and stretch toward the beckoning light.
It was a Saturday.
Earlier he had taken a bus to Old Town where he enjoyed strolling among the
tourists and sitting on a park bench in the plaza feeding the birds, whatever
few that actually managed to wander by. On certain occasions he would hear that
familiar sound, the thick daggered jolt of his native tongue, and he would
straighten up and bend an ear. In fact, many times he’d fallen in line just
behind those who spoke while trying to act inconspicuous but all the while
eavesdropping and relishing the tasty crumbs of what they thought was a private
conversation. But he never spoke it. It was better to be seen, not heard. In
fact, it was better to not be seen either, and he was good at projecting a kind
of innocuous invisibility, to no longer matter in this world, only living the sad
life of a lonely old man who no one knew or cared about.
But not too sad, not too lonely.
Just sad and
lonely enough to subsist but not officially exist.
For the most part
he steered clear of crowds, kept his mouth shut, and wore the dark sunglasses
that shielded his cold blue eyes, the color of ancient Arctic Sea ice, from all
that intrusive light.
There weren’t many
tourists milling about on this particular day, at least not for a typical
Saturday. Odd that because the weather was wonderful, another deep turquoise
sky yet not too hot, just about right. A nice breeze that kept the clouds
moving and kept the sky interesting and ever-changing while soothing any burn
from a waning sun. A whiskered man walked up and asked him for money, for any
change he could spare, but he ignored the bum and didn’t even look up, he just
kept digging into his coat pocket for seed and continued feeding his winged
congregation, his faithful hungry flock. This angered the whiskered man and he
screeched loudly and kicked his way across the circle of tossed seed sending
the poor birds scattering.
“You got time and
money for those stupid birds but not for me! Real human of you! Thanks, my man.”
The whiskered man
steadied himself, thought about something, and then leaned back in.
“So what are you,
deaf and dumb… or just plain dumb? You got bird shit for brains?” The man
cursed loudly while shaking his head in mock befuddlement, then stormed away,
highly agitated yet already scanning the environs for his next victim.
Directly across
the sidewalk from him sat a couple of tired old Indians who up to this point
had been minding their own business, which by the looks of it consisted
primarily of simply continuing to breathe, but now one looked over at him and
grinned with his four brown peg teeth.
“I guess you told
him, huh?”
And now Wilhelm
did choose to look up, to amiably respond out of a sense of geniality, out of
deference to a member of an ancient, abused tribe. But he only offered the
slightest of nods and a fleeting smile to the old Indian and went back to his
returning birds and the last remnants of seed that were tucked away in the
deepest crevices of his pockets. He respected these natives and in fact felt
some kind of kinship toward them. They had been conquered, vanquished,
marginalized and forgotten. And so had he but he could only hope that he was truly as forgotten.
~~~
When he first arrived here all
those years ago he had immediately hated the culture but loved the dry air and sunshine.
He had acquired an appropriate identity, a proper name and the mandatory
nine-digit number, which understandably can be a tricky business. Not only the
clandestine nature of the task but also the actual choice of picking the right
name. A name like Sam Jones can actually be too mundane, too common, for a man
such as he while the one he actually chose, Samuel Terwilliger, was (he later
deduced) one that nobody in their right mind would ever choose by their own
volition – it was the kind of name that had to be foisted upon the poor soul at
birth. So in a way it was perfect – he had just become the odd man with the odd
name who kept to himself.
He had worked various small
jobs earning small pay and yet even now he’d been retired for many years. A
solitary life has its benefits, namely the lack of all those expenditures that
a family man is required to make. Thus he’d had the opportunity to save
aggressively which he had done but only by hoarding cash and hiding it in his
tiny apartment – no interest earned, no dividends received, and no capital
gains that might elicit outside scrutiny – no, he’d done just fine avoiding the
American capital markets altogether while quietly pursuing his frugal
existence.
There had been few friends, mainly just
acquaintances, and he’d grown accustomed to that. It felt comfortable to him
now. But he had plenty of visitors, both familiar faces and total strangers, who
came calling late at night once his eyes finally closed.
And there had been one woman. Ten years younger, attractive, intelligent – a
local native who had naturally altered his opinion of the region and its
culture. But he had run her off with his paranoid fear that so easily turned to
anger whenever the light shone too bright or her questions probed too deep.
Although he had wanted to love her he couldn’t allow himself to ever be loved.
~~~
The seed was all gone now but some
of the birds still lingered, either those well-fed and contented to hang out
for a spell or those extremely optimistic, and they hopped around and pecked at
the ground, they fluttered their wings as if in bold threat. Go ahead he thought, fly away and be free, you are all too
foolish to comprehend your own good fortune.
It was late
afternoon by now, time for perhaps a cold refreshment, and both knees cracked
as he pushed himself up and off of that bench and now all the birds took
flight, they evacuated with not one more chirp, their loud flapping leaving
behind only silence and the fresh modern artwork of oiseaux de merde sur le béton chaud, or as known to the locals, bird shit on hot concrete.
He strolled down a
little side alley toward a favorite watering hole, a dark tavern where they
actually offered stout European beers, not this lightweight American piss most
others get away with peddling. The place was crowded but it was so dark that he
paid the cramped conditions little mind, all he desired was one polished stool
to slide his weary backside upon and an attentive barkeep who knew how to pour
a decent draw. He was lucky, there was one seat still open at the far end of
the bar, and he squeezed his way past the many boisterous revelers and
announced his official short-term residency with a hard-earned plop and a
relieved sigh.
He was old and
tired but pleased to be right here right now.
What is all this fuss about he wondered
now that he had settled in allowing other matters to garner his attention. Some
of the patrons were yelling, hooting, carrying on like at Oktoberfest, and he
saw that a great many of them were straining to get a view of the televisions
scattered all about the place. In fact there was one just across from him and
he could see that there was some kind of athletic contest being broadcasted
upon it, one of those college football
games that these Americans are so crazy about. Over the decades he’d learned a
great deal about their game, about scoring touchdowns and gaining first downs
and committing fumbles and such, but he still didn’t really get it. Where’s the
grace, where’s the beauty? And all those pads and helmets – the players seem to
want to perform in some kind of protected anonymity. Where he came from real
men played their games wearing hardly anything at all beyond the scowl smeared
across their face and openly boasted of their rugged reputation and identity. Oh well, it’s the modern world, let these
modern men behave like sissies.
He quietly ordered
a pint of Becks and now his cohabitants were almost worked into a frenzy – out
of sheer curiosity, out of wondering what could possibly be so enthralling as
to cause grown men to behave so foolishly, he squinted his eyes and looked at
the television set. It appeared to be a contest pitting the Ohio State Buckeyes
(whatever a buckeye is?) against the
Oklahoma Sooners (again, and for the final time hopefully, whatever a sooner is?). The current score read the
Ohio boys 28 and the gang from Oklahoma only 26.
Yet there was
still some time left on the clock and, unlike the game he grew up loving and
playing, he knew there could be no extra time.
The bartender slid
over to the set and turned up the volume.
Block that kick! Block that kick! Block that
kick!
The assembled
crowd was chanting in the stadium with their arms in synchronized motion and
their anthem tumbled out of the television reminding him of other long ago
chants, of agitated crowds, of faraway pomp and ceremony.
Block that kick! Block that kick!
Yes, he
understood, the Ohio supporters were chanting their demand, their ardent wish
that somehow a buckeye might break
through and bat away the upcoming kick
goal attempt, but then he viewed the Oklahoma kicker and saw that he had a
German name printed across the top of his jersey. His heart surged. And now
that kicker was standing off to the side as the crowd continued to roar. Block that kick! Block that kick! And
what is this? Now, and this even he
could hardly believe, the young lad was actually orchestrating their chant with
his own arms, he had become their spontaneous maestro, this sooner lad keeping their rhythmic beat
to calm his own nerves.
That’s a smart boy he thought… a smart German
boy.
Wilhelm’s interest
was magnified.
The moment was
almost at hand.
He took off his
sunglasses for a better look as the boy named von Schamann studied the coming
placement of the ball and his projected trajectory. The other team’s players
were jumping up and down, waving their hands, trying to distract him as the
chant grew even louder.
The ball was hiked
back to the player who held it down in its proper place.
Wilhelm wiped his
mouth.
The ball was
pivoted, steadied, as the young, smartGerman
boy approached it.
Wilhelm leaned
toward the television set.
The ball was now
airborne, twisting end over end, heading straight down the middle… and then
Wilhelm sees him.
Over there on the
other side of the bar.
Those eyes – he could
never forget those big brown sad eyes – are staring right back into his own.
There were cheers
in the tavern, a few groans and somewhere a fist banged into some flimsy wood
partition, and everybody was bouncing all around him. Utter mayhem ensued – the
world shook.
And there is a
deeper quake down inside his soul.
With the rest of
his family dead that young man, a much older man now, had stopped begging for
mercy. So Wilhelm’s superior, field officer Schnauz, had decided to let him go,
not as an act of mercy but one of endless torture.
And
yet... and yet...
A thousand miles
away in Ohio the crowd falls silent, they are beyond help, they feel instant
disappointment and what seems like infinite sorrow. While the Oklahoma Sooners
and their brethren celebrate those poor Ohioans collapse into a heap of
collected despair.
And right here not
more than thirty feet away, the distance of one
American football first down, the older man with the big brown eyes, but
not so sad anymore, lifts his mug and nods as if in toast.
To survival.
To life.
To weeds fighting
their way through tiny cracks in search of the light.
Back outside the world has changed.
The sun now hides behind the church steeple and there is a sudden chill in the
air. Winter is really not that far away, and once it comes, this time it will
never leave. Far across the Atlantic there is a forest near Dachau where the
leaves have already fallen, they collect in gold and crimson heaps covering the
cold ground as if trying to conceal something buried not that deep beneath it.
But the wind
blows, it knows, and the gash remains... and
it is so obvious. Wilhelm understands that this man has spent his
entire lifetime running toward the light whereas he’d spent that same time running away from it. And then... bang,
the end times hit you, you are discovered, you are revealed, and once and for all you
find yourself exposed in the most unlikely of places.
He takes off his
sunglasses and gives them to the old Indian.
“Aw, just what I
needed – thanks, my friend.”
Finally, a friend. And he has a
sudden odd thought – those glasses never sat upon a more dignified nose as the one they rest upon now.
Then Wilhelm turns and
walks away into the expanding shadows of the eternal winter.
Meg Simmons was running late.
And the truth was that there was really no good reason for it – no late night
celebrating this or that, no screaming baby waking the dead at the witching
hour, not even a short bout with prolonged consciousness at some unknown
juncture during the long night – it was nothing but a case of old-fashioned can’t-seem-to-crawl-outa-these-sheets
laziness.
And the gal had a spin class to lead at 7
a.m. – imagine that, a sluggish and occasionally lazy fitness instructor!
Still, once she was present and suitably
loosened up, please stand back and watch the girl go!
One cup of coffee while she primped, another
sucked down en route, and by 6:57 she’d managed to screech her way into the
parking lot only to be met there with the unexpected sight of a brood of
ducklings loitering across the most conveniently-located parking space. A quick
toot of the horn, a polite warning, and yet the oblivious creatures hardly seemed
to notice and barely moved. Mother duck was right there staring back at the
rude interloper and with a coolish fluttering hopped up onto the curb and finally
began to lead those ducklings safely away.
But there were a couple of stragglers, be
them defiant or only dumb it matters not, and an irked Meg leaned on that horn
a little more purposely and then slowly inched forward in her vehicle. The
little guys just stood there hugging the right side of the space so that Meg eventually
found herself parking upon that left white-painted line, but no worries – there
were plenty of other spaces available for all other arriving vehicles to park. The
rest of the lot was still empty, at least for now.
6:58 – she slammed it into park and fled
inside.
By the time April Fleming turned into the parking lot Meg had already disappeared. But there sat Meg’s green
Forrester, for some odd reason parked slightly askew to the left and for all
intents and purposes taking up two coveted parking spaces. Now how the hell
could anybody pull in right there next to that Forrester and then expect Meg to
clamber back inside without first depositing a righteous ding as delivered by her
affronting car? Typical selfish
entitled bullshit from good old Meg, April thought.
But she let it go and parked smack dead center
in her own chosen space. Because that’s
good karma, bitches!
And so on it went with other
gym enthusiasts coming and going all morning long, and it should be noted that parking
at this new facility was at a premium, especially nearby parking on cool windy
days such as this one, and so what unfolded was somewhat of a domino effect,
all future parking being affected by that original and obviously self-interested
wrongdoer. Everybody was blaming everybody else who in turn was actually
wronged by someone else altogether. And if you thought that you were the victim
then how you parked (because you had to, what other choice did you really
have?) couldn’t help but victimize the very next guy or gal who thought you
must be some kind of egocentric idiot. Oh the looks that were exchanged in that
parking lot! By 10:37 when Meg sauntered back out into the blustery day she saw
that she would need to suck it in and shimmy sideways into the driver side
door, and she wasn’t happy, not one bit, because by now she was physically spent
and emotionally drained (dealing with a handful of smartass slackers like April
Fleming will do that to you). But suck it in and shimmy she did because there
was nothing else she could do and she even took what she considered excessive
care not to push her door into the black
paint job of the vehicle squeezed in next to her (and btw, she did notice that the driver of this black
Hummer, no friend of hers she assumed, had plenty
of room to get out on his or her own driver’s side), and she landed in a
heap with a sigh and it didn’t bother her too much that despite all efforts when
she did so her left knee accidentally pushed her door in an outwardly direction
where it came to rest firmly stuck into that offending shiny black symbol of
mindless excess.
Oh well, she had tried to play nice.
Meg had already backed out and been absorbed into our paved tributarial world when the next vehicle in queue whipped
around the corner already ogling for the coveted just-vacated spot. Could I really be that lucky thought
Oliver Johnson, fiftyish local real estate guy with the shiny red Jag (you MUST
play the part of successful dealer in this town), and he was royally pissed to
see that black Hummer spilling over into his
space!
The
nerve of that fucker!
It hadn’t been a good day. It hadn’t been a good week.
The month was almost over and he’d only sold one ratty little two bedroom dump on
the other side of the tracks. He really wasn’t in the mood for this. With all
that said, with all that felt deeply
in his gut all the way down to his manly gonads, it wasn’t that difficult a
decision to allow his own precious car door to swing wide permitting that pointed
red corner to make contact with virgin black paint.
Ding!
Dong!
Dang!
Screw it!
Fate only exists in retrospect and the
rational man can’t blame God either. But the fact of the matter is that Billy
Ray Thompson had completed his Wednesday mid-morning routine (consisting of
thirty minutes on the treadmill plus a complete upper body weight-lifting
regimen) and had just emerged from those swinging doors in perfect time to
witness the just-described transgression perpetrated on his brand new Hummer.
Barbed words shouted loudly as launched by bursting
adrenaline and pumped-up hormones escalated into two grown men circling one another
only a couple of feet apart. One of them puffed out their chest, the other tried
to push it back in, and what ensued was an unfortunate episode highlighted by
Thompson whirling around and kicking the door of the little red sports car
followed by an extremely short round of pathetic old-white-guy put-up-your-dukes
fisticuffs exquisitely topped off with an even shorter round of some really
weird wrestling.
The result: two grown men left panting on
the pavement as the amused crowd slowly began to disperse.
Well lookee over there, here come those baby
ducklings again. They are so cuddling cute, so doggone sweet, absolutely
oblivious to the machinations of our foolish world, but one thing they are not
my fellow car-parking brethren is innocent.
~ ~ ~
(and now, for your listening pleasure, something not entirely different but actually in the same vein... Emperor of the Highway)
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