TWO-FISTED WAR STORIES
My friend Bobby’s grandfather once told us he’d spent a week in Nazi-occupied Holland.
“Were you in the army?” we asked. We were kids. Added up, we amounted to around sixteen. That total would reach eighty-two before Bobby died.
“No,” Bobby’s grandfather said. “I was just hanging around.”
“Did you check out the windmills?” one of us said.
“No. Windmills, tulips, wooden shoes. That stuff is way overblown. I had no interest anyway. Still don’t.”
“So then, what DID you do there?”
“Not much,” he said. “Nothing of importance, anyway.” He stroked his chin, looking at memories in the sky. “You two run along and play now.”
After his grandfather died, Bobby discovered a battered, black and white photograph of him posing in front of a windmill with a smirking dwarf, a stuffed alligator and a pair of Siamese twins, one of whom wore a wedding dress. On the back of the picture, written in pencil, it said simply, Oysters.
I guess that about says it all. Or should.
MYSTERIOUS STORIES OF THE SEA
When I was in the 2nd grade, our teacher, Miss Frumpkin, asked my friend Jeremy what he wanted to be when he grew up.
“Someday I’m gonna be the captain of a big ship!” he said.
Miss Frumpkin rolled her eyes. I giggled into my hand.
When Jeremy finally made it to adulthood, he worked in a warehouse, something to do with auto parts.
A few years ago he won a big medical malpractice suit, something to do with body parts.
He quit his job and bought a house and gathered a family.
Last year he treated his whole family to a cruise.
I can see him standing at the bow of the ship, looking out at where the sky folds into the sea.
Just feeling like a captain is almost as good.
HARD-BOILED CRIME SUSPENSE STORIES
On Sunday the snow turned to freezing rain and then just rain. The slush-covered streets mirrored the sad gray oppression of the heavy sky.
Tom had been kicked out of the apartment again for not contributing to the rent, for drinking too much. For acting like an ass.
He crossed Plane Street, not bothering to avoid the slush puddles. His socks were already soaked with icy water, numbing every step.
He approached the worn, peeling door of his sometimes friend, Yuko. Written in fading blue chalk on the side of the building, to the left of the door, it said, I Adore Barbara Payton. Ask me why! Yuko was always writing chalk graffiti on her building. Once, she wrote, My hole belli is swoll. Don’t look! Sometimes she just made up words and wrote nonsense. The other tenants didn’t care for it. There were complaints. But Yuko was scribbling a transitory chalk mythology and couldn’t be deterred. It was important, supposedly.
Tom knocked on the door.
Yuko parted the curtain in the window. She was a pale, willowy little thing. She lowered, and then shook her head when she saw who it was.
She opened the door anyway.
He gave her a lip-jittering smile. “Jesus, it’s a sloppy mess out there,” he said, walking into the kitchen. “Freezing.”
“Hey, you’re tracking water all over the place! Stay on the mat.”
“Oops. Sorry,” he said, walking backwards until he was safely on the Isle of Doormat.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Joe and Ray kicked me out again.”
“Well you can’t stay here,” she said.
“Aw, c’mon Yuko. It’s freezing outside. And wet.”
“I don’t care. Dave’s coming over later. We have plans.”
Dave didn’t like Tom. Not at all.
“Okay, okay. Could you at least let me have a drink? Just one drink to keep me warm for a little while? Look at me, I’m shivering. It’s really freezing outside.”
“Yeah, and wet. I get it.” She looked at him. “All I have is wine,” she finally said.
“What kind?”
“White Zinfandel.”
“Okay,” he said. “That’ll have to do, I guess.”
She turned toward the refrigerator. “Fine.”
“Hey, can I use your bathroom?”
“Yeah, okay. But take your shoes off first.”
He removed his shoes and walked across the kitchen. His sopping-wet socks went squish squish squish on the linoleum, leaving a trail of water.
As soon as he was in the bathroom, he opened the medicine cabinet and started foraging for prescriptions.
Moduretic, no. Levofloxacin, no. Lisinopril, no.
And then, ah-ha, Percocet! A full bottle. It was like finding leprechaun gold.
He slipped the pills into his pocket, urinated, and then returned to the kitchen.
Yuko handed him a glass of wine. “Here,” she said. “Drink it and go. Dave’s going to be here soon.”
Tom nodded and downed the glass. “Okay, thanks,” he said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. He returned to the mat and put on his wet shoes.
He opened the door. “Have a great day. Tell Dave I said, Hi.” He stepped back into the cold, the rain.
“Yeah, sure,” she said, slamming the door on the words.
He fingered the bottle in his pocket as he walked, the thought of the theft exciting him. He stopped at the corner and looked into his wallet. Six dollars.
He headed toward The Geronimo Pub to buy a beer to go with the Percocet. He decided he’d offer some pills to Joe and Ray if they’d let him back in. He felt fairly certain they would agree to the deal. Everyone enjoyed the odd opioid now and then.
He smiled. Despite the dreary weather, the day was starting to look up.
He never heard Yuko, upon discovering his theft, call him a “Thieving motherfucking scumbag piece of shit!”
And later, at the Geronimo Pub, he never heard Dave coming up behind him.
And all he’d remember about the rest of the night were the weeping sound of sirens and his thoughts collapsing into a numb pinch.
(Originally appeared in the book Leaves from the Smorgasbord)
Crumbling Asphalt 