Auntie's Anti-fiction

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Please note:
The following thread, "Auntie's Anti-fiction," contains several short stories. When commenting on an individual story, please indicate the title of the work in your reply.

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[Here begins a thread of short fiction by yours truly. Since the selections which I plan to post are more or less "self-contained," there is no issue with continuity. Please feel free to offer any comments, suggestions, criticisms and veiled threats (I kid, I kid) after each selection as is your wont. Thank you, and thanks for indulging me.]


A Savage Beast Maybe with Golden Hair

Scattered about the tiny office were containers of various amounts of liquid, which at one time could be called “coffee,” stacks of print-outs describing incident reports from the wild and inter-department memos from the Commissioner’s office, as well as spoor samples encased in plastic sandwich bags and fragments of diverse specimens of flora and fauna from nearly every region in the state which should have never been removed from the lab in the first place. Usually such debris was so much a part of the workplace culture that it was ignored, both by the staff as well as employees of the independent service who came to clean but never touched it -- not out of squeamishness but to avoid disturbing evidence of an investigation or a field study in progress; it was right there in the contract. That morning, however, the two state workers scurried about gathering up every paper cup and packet of stapled pages and depositing them all into a huge plastic bag without the semblance of regard for mandatory recycling.

The impromptu housekeeping arose after a colleague down in the Capital had texted a heads-up that a spur-of-the-moment inspection was imminent. The suit, like the two workers, was a civil servant, but on a much-higher pay tier, naturally-- what’s more, way up in the food chain, just a couple notches under the mighty Commissioner himself.

“Cripes! “ one of the two workers griped. “It’s bad enough we’re up here in the middle of nowhere, hassling with the snow and the wind, and sweatin’ through budget cuts every stinkin’ year! Now we’re being harassed. Don’t they have anything better to do down in –Oh, —!“ Hissing a string of expletives, he tossed the trash bag aside and slammed himself in front of the dusty computer screen. “We gotta delete Minesweeper and Avatar5!”

His co-worker shrugged. “Eh, so what? We can reload later –Oh, crap!” He slapped his own forehead. “The files! They haven’t been updated since –Oh, man! The Lists! Quick – box turtle– does that go under 'endangered' or 'threatened'? "

Two pairs of eyes seldom blinked as one left hand moved the mouse as diverse species of filenames flickered by: “Acidrain,” “Karnerbluebutterfly,” “trillium,” “whitenosesyndrome,” “zebramussels.” Another folder contained inter-department communiques, the printed duplicates of which already littered the room. “You can dump most of that stuff, Mack. ‘Procedures for blah-blah-blah. Health and safety.’ Nobody bothers with that stuff.”

“I don’t know, Dude– it could be the first thing they look for, we better check it!”

For the first time in several years, the file was opened, the contents of whichread as follows:

115-40 (Rev. 2001)
STATE DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION AND
THE ENVIRONMENT

Protocols for Health and Safety

1.0 It is mandated that the SDCE headquarters located the State Capital and all satellite and field offices and research facilities maintain this description of the following health and safety regulations, and a copy of such be accessible in a prominent place.

“See? I told ya. Same old, same old.”

Both of the workers could hear the sound of a vehicle entering the long gravel driveway. Each retrieved a previously abandoned trash bag and in their last-minute scrambling, left the computer alone.

1.1 It is further required that these protocols are maintained and updated on a regular basis //////////
i could ask myself ‘what was i thinking’ but thinking had nothing to do with it. guess if a brain shrinks the thinking capacity would shrink along with it but what they call the reptilian part that controls emotions is working in apple pie order. i remormer apple pie and warm baths and music but i do not miss machines even the one that brings music. i can still make words on this machine but i cannot type. i have to hit the letters with this stick thing oh thats rite it is a pencil in my mouth like humans who are quadripeliacs and crippled cannot hit two letters at the same time so i can not make the letters big. i saw words with pictures when i was little about a cockroach who typed by jumping on the letters and he could not make them big too. why do I remormer that this is selective mormory but i cannot do the selecting myself. i cant come up with most of the things like the right word and i cant forget the things i want to lose. there was a word i heard when people wanted me i think it was lou.

last time walking uprite was the eve of st hubert stubborn fax that strangely stay. still living inside then the den was in a big box that had many dens where others lived. there was a big hole in the wall the size of a mans fist alpha male maybe. he was all abusive and a big scratch on my cheek a black eye. he finally stopped and yelled no more except all snorting and wheezing. quickly then i awoke the little ones all sleepy and confuzed and put them in his machine that moves and took them to the female who had given me my own birth. then in the machine my back started to hurt a 1000 hurts or maybe one monster hurt 1000 times. my back bent over like a boulder on top of it. could not make the machine move but could move my legs and arms. next i was on the ground creeping on what people say all 4s.

as i said i used to have fingers but they left me that night in the second month of the cold season nervember that is what people called it. what used to be hands made marks in the dirt and later the snow. i could still hear maybe better than before but the ears were different then now with points on top of my head. couldn’t stay there
not with the lights and the people and the 100s of machines going back and forth some with big boxes on their backs and frightening roars

north i went do north where my instink told me there would be less of these things that suddenly put fear in me . north I went along the wide sticks where the long machines would move with a clacking sound that tickled my ears. the sun came up got dim went down again and nights and days came and went one after the other. a vicious hunger gnawed at me and water dripped from my mouth. along the gray wide strip of hard ground there were crushed and crimpled things and a round box that had inside it things that were once birds but now crusted with hard bread. from the old life i remormed these and remormed as well howling how the round box came without things to eat them with and crinkly and crimpled sheets to wipe off my mouth. now in my ravinusness i crunched down on all of it with my sharp teeth which cracked and crushed the bones.

there was another hunger - another instink compeling me to hunt for smaller weaker things chase them down and devour them like i devoured the trash along the along the road yes that is what they called it the road. one day i saw a small thing with ears bigger and more pointy than mine and two hungers nearly overpowered me.
the chase becan begin began and the creature ran faster and faster. here i was keeping up and had the poor thing cornered. i sprang forward and stopped mid lunge no i would not eat him i could not no

north i kept going north up the big hills, mountains i guess they call ‘em. night came just as i came to the top and the round thing in the sky showed itself big and golden. all of a suddin i wanted to sing I wanted to give it a song from the earth but i opened my mouth and not a sound came from my throat not an ooo or an owwwwll nothing came

standing there on the peek my long nose tilted upward looking at the tiny sparkling things and the big round – moon that was it, the moon and the stars – i refleckted about this strange change in me and wunnered why I was stuck between these two whirlds what had i done that this should happen to me

that st huberts eve so long ago . the alpha male it was the machines the machine he sits in front of to look at pictures that move and make sounds and the machine I used to suck up dust did to his machine only by axcident that made him rage. how his words tortured me you want to clean then clean yourself up you ugly beast he said. i cant stan the site of you and your constandt demans on me you want to go live out in the country go - go and take those screaming brats with you. then he broke things like I broke his machines except i did it by axcident until he drank the yellow stuff in the brown bottle and fell down on the couch and fell deeply asleep

oh i miss my pups and their softest of skin and their eyes all sparking even when wet with tears and their sweet voices gentle as the autumn sun. they would love the country these places where those who sniff the grass and hide so shy between the trees have always lived. while people congregulated to places with the wooden and boxes stuck close together. they stayed with their own kind except for those who heard the song of the moon and saw the gorgeousness of nature in their souls-- do i still have a soul i wunner. more and more machines came and dug the dirt and took away our feeding places . til those of us were forced from our dens and came down from the hills into their back yards and their rolling green fields where they ride around in little machines to attack a tiny white round thing with skinny sticks. and if they see us they get all panicky and reach for the firearm or a steel blade maybe a weapon blest by st hubert

and oh how they hate us, and imbrew their whelps with fear of us – they say we are big and we are bad and we will swallow your grandmother and blow your house in. never mind that one of us nursed the babe who grew up to find– found that city – that is the word city- of Romulus. never mind that one of us has never harmed one of their own kind in this land ever never

yet we are forced to wander and drift as i do. until i came upon this square building made of rock in a little field between the woods next to a —a--road made of little stones where outside were boxes made of metal where smaller creatures whimpered and moaned. last night i jumped thru the window and found the machine and the pencil and made the words to tell this tale of how i changed and did not no how the change came without a warning and that if it happened to me it can happen to anybody even in the city. I am witting this just in case somebody wants to no whatever happened to the she-person with yellow hair who people used to call lou

“ He’s here!”

In a swooping motion one of the workers clicked the mouse until a message came up: “Are you sure you want to delete this file?” and he clicked it again.

So this is a frame story? Framed by a protocol? To be honest Auntie, I'm a little confused. And it doesn't seem to have a natural ending. I assume there will be a continuation.

My suggestion would be to introduce the characters in more detail before going into the protocol. I can't identify with any of the characters. I think a reader needs to make that connection before shifting into a different section of the story.

It could be me Auntie. I have a hard time reading extended pieces on the computer screen.

I'm strongly in agreement with Virgil on this one, Auntie. You have unreasonable expectations if you think a reader can just pick this up the way it's written, and make any sense out of it.

It was fine until the person called lou started talking.

[QUOTE=Virgil;800853]

I can't identify with any of the characters. [QUOTE]

Gosh, Virgil -- that's a damn good thing. If you, or anyone
else truly were a lycanthrope, I'd be shocked. Shocked!

This little piece of stream-of-consciousness arose from an
idea that haunted me this past Halloween week. The notion in popular culture has him (as it's invariably a male) still walking upright, still basically human, with his (or "its") brain remaining fully functional. As a matter of fact, the only feature in this creature as portrayed by Lon Chaney Jr. (and his latter-day successors in filmdom) that is remotely lupine is growing extra hair at a rapid rate. What's most mind-boggling thing is that he can transform himself back and forth at will. None of that ever made sense to me--

--not that we should expect folklore and mythology to adhere to strict rules of logic. Still -- didn't Aristotle say
that a "plausible impossiblity" is better than an "improbable possibility"? For sure, the plight of poor "lou" is impossible, but I wanted to make her condition slightly less implausible.

Hence, retaining some of the "momory" of her human life,
now apparently lost. Also, she remembers some words, not
all. When her brain shrinks down to the size of that of a
lower mammal, it is would be arbitrary which specific brain cells would be lost.

She has to get her story out somehow. So out in the wild
she gets into the conservation field office and goes to the
"machine." She can't "type" with paws, hence uses a
pencil in her mouth, and hence not being able to use the shift key, or two "letters" at the same time. And
come on, would it be "plausible" to expect a lower animal
to "remormer" the rules of punctuation?

"lou" could have used any file in the computer's hard drive. That it was the file with the "safety protocols" was just random, a joke that "nobody ever looks at those things."

I stole the title from a line in this powerful pem by Allen Tate :
http://personal.centenary.edu/~dhavird/Tate.html#Wolves

and just by chance, I came across this quotation from Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who you may "remormer" from history, for the other half of a pair of immigrants, both of whom were unfairly executed on trumped up charges of robbery and murder. (This statement was disallowed by
the presiding judge. Katzman was the prosecuting attorney.)


"Sacco's name will live in the hearts of the people and in their gratitude when Katzman's and yours bones will be dispersed by time, when your name, your laws, institutions, and your false god are but a deem remomoring of a cursed past in which man was wolf to the man."

[QUOTE=AuntShecky;801076][QUOTE=Virgil;800853]

I can't identify with any of the characters.

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Gosh, Virgil -- that's a damn good thing. If you, or anyone
else truly were a lycanthrope, I'd be shocked. Shocked!

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:lol: When I said "identify" I meant engage.

I too was puzzled, never for a moment entertained the notion of a lycanthrope and wonder, even now, if I had, on what grounds might I have empathized with her/him/it... I hate to say it but I read on mostly because of my respect for you and because I hate to feel stupid and kept hoping that any moment I might get it, but I never did...

Thank you for reading this, Prince. I have a question for
which I'm not sure that I have an answer:
Here's the question, more or less a rhetorical one:

In a work of modern or contemporary fiction, is it really necessary for the reader to empathize and/or identify with the character? For instance, when we read "Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," do we align ourselves with both, one, or none of the two personae? Could there be a quality or a flaw in
one of the characters which we recognize in ourselves? What about situations-- has the reader ever been in circumstance beyond his or her control?

In addition to subject matter, what about forms and experimental fiction ?

(Sigh.)
I guess it's time to switch genres, or as the starlets say when they're guests on late night talk shows --"JOHN-rahs."

Jackpot of Jeopardy

Anybody who knows me knows that I'm really a good egg, somebody who goes out of her way to avoid trouble, even though trouble has this nasty habit of hunting folks down. I'm a gal, who, if she had her druthers, would be puttering around the Rudbeckia and the Echinacea, putting up a few dozen jars of apple butter, playing with her grandchildren. Now don't go thinking I'm some doddering old fool – I've “lived,” if you know what I mean. Rather than Enna Jetticks I'm more likely to be wearing Adidas (granted, a pair I'd bought for half-price at Target), and you'd never catch me wielding a crochet hook. Still, I'd be the last person you'd ever suspect to be held captive in an abandoned warehouse and tied to a chair with a twosome of goons holding pistols to my face.

But there I was, just like some stoolie in a straight-to-DVD crime movie. Not only was I shaking in my cross-trainers, I was also wondering if my adamant belief that I'd never need adult diapers might have been a little premature. Don't get me wrong – I still had control of my physical and mental faculties, but the thugs were making inroads.

“Look, we can make it easy for ya,” one of them said. “All ya gotta do is tell us who set you up.”

At that point, I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. Even if I did know, I couldn't tell them anything, not with half a roll of duct tape plastered across my mouth. It was the super-strong kind too, not the flimsy stuff you get at the dollar store. One thing I was sure of – either the crooks had the wrong woman or this was an extremely unfortunate case of misunderstanding.

It’s funny the strange things that go through your mind when it looks as if your number is up. It didn't occur to me to wonder how the kids would orchestrate my funeral or whether I'd reunite with my Rob in the next world. All I could think of was the look on the face of my next door neighbor knowing I'd topped her, for once. Audrey’s bragging rights about her self-proclaimed “brushes with danger” were nothing compared to this. Hey, Haughty Audrey, so you sold off your Enron stock just two weeks before it went down the tubes. So in 1985 you canceled at the last minute a cruise which ended in a tragedy. The lead story on News Center 12 and on page one of the Gazette are both about me. Watch it, read it, and weep.

Let me back up a bit. I'd saved up a couple of bucks and thought I'd splurge it on myself. So on a beautiful October afternoon I signed on for a bus trip going down to Foxhill Run Resort and Casino. Why not? I thought. Live a little. Even if I don't win a dime, at least the drive will be pleasant and I'll get to see the gorgeous foliage.

It was bright inside the casino; the rows of soft overhead lights blended with the autumn sun streaming showers of gold through the huge windows. It was too early in the day for the floor show, but a nice-looking young piano player added atmosphere with a medley of Sinatra standards. Since it was a weekday, the place wasn't super-crowded, and the croupiers and card-dealers mostly stood around the tables with little to do. The slot machines,though, were hopping, singing like cash registers in an outlet store on Washington's Birthday.

There I was, armed with a paper cup full of quarters, wandering up and down the aisles as I looked for a one-armed bandit that didn't already have somebody standing in front of it, inserting coins and yanking the lever at the speed of light. Finally I found an unoccupied slot. A strange feeling descended, bestowing with absolute certainty that this particular slot machine was reserved just for me. It was practically glowing, almost as if it had a neon sign saying “Try me, Laura! ” Well, I thought, far be it from me to spurn opportunity when it hits me in the face. “How little we know,” tinkled the piano tune, as I stepped up, inserted a quarter, and yanked the arm.

What occurred next was a-- well, a miracle – there’s not other word to describe it. To this day, I'm not even really sure what exactly happened. I don't know what kind of symbols had come up – three cherries, three gold bars, or what, but one thing’s for sure, it wasn't a row of lemons, for all kinds of bells, whistles, and sirens went off, and from the ceiling descended huge bunches of balloons as well as a real neon sign that blazed “JACKPOT!!”

Next thing I knew I was surrounded by an entourage of the formerly-bored personnel, including the hunky piano-player and another man who was so expensively dressed that I took him to be the joint’s manager. All of them were patting my back, shaking my hand, congratulating me. Here I was, just a housewife from a backwater town who broke the bank at Foxhill Run.

“Oh my Gosh, I just can't believe it!” I gushed. “I'm gonna faint. I've got to get some air!” I excused myself, telling my benefactors that I needed to step outside for a moment, just to collect myself and let the significance of my sudden good fortune sink in.

Just a few feet from the main entrance, between two healthy young yews, I stood on the decorative gravel and leaned against the fine stonework of the casino’s exterior wall. I hardly exhaled when I felt a beefy hand grab me by my neck and push me forward. Another set of hands threw a black hood over my neck as I was dragged into a vehicle, which sped off the second I was forced into the back seat.

For what seemed to be an eternity, the vehicle drove on and on. The longer we were on the road, the less I was convinced that I was the butt of some kind of joke, or the unwitting star of some prankish reality show. By the time the car stopped and the black hood was removed, it was dark. We were the only ones in a deserted asphalt stretch that was emptier than the parking lot of a fast-food chicken joint the day after Thanksgiving. The two creeps yanked me out of the car and started dragging me toward the cavernous but totally seedy-looking warehouse.

“You're making a big mistake!” I managed to get that out though my mouth was bone-dry and my teeth were chattering like a pair of dice caught in a vacuum cleaner bag. “I have to be back on the bus by six. Seriously.”

“That ship has sailed, Lady,” one of the goons said.

The other one laughed. “Yeah. That perticulah train has left da station.”

“No, you don't understand!” I pled. The folks back at the Southern Tier Senior Citizens organized this trip. They'll be doing a head count. They'll miss me –“

“I'll give ya a shot upside your head, ya old coot. Now, be a good girl and tell us who you're working for.”

“What are you talking about? I don't work for anybody. Cripes, I'm lucky I can get Social Secur–“ Whack! In the form of a stinging slap, the forewarned shot upside my head came down. It was more from pain than fear, but involuntarily and with a force I didn't know I had and at a decibel level I hadn't know I could reach, I screamed. Hence, the ropes and the duct-tape gag.

“We'll take it back off once you're ready to talk, and you will, if you know what’s good for ya, sister!” Fat chance, when I hadn't the foggiest idea how I had gotten into this implausible mess.

I heard a bizarre ring tone that sounded like “The Good Ship Lollipop.” The person calling on the thug’s cell phone was, apparently, the Boss.

“No, they did! The slot was all rigged the night the joint was closed for the carpet cleaning. Yeah, it was set for Number 10,000. Would I lie to you?. . .No, I was looking out. The count was and . . .how the hell do I know where Eddie was? Look, Brad, I wasn't the one who dropped the ball. Anyway, the count was 9999, it was all clear. I don't know. I must've turned my back for a second and then she stepped up to it. . .I know, I know. We think so too. We'll have her singin’ like a canary. Okay.”

The thug returned the cellphone to his pocket, lit up a cigar, and positioned his face maybe two inches away from mine. “Listen, Honey, he said, “ I like ya. You want to be back playin’ Bingo with all your little gray-haired pals, don't cha? Just tell us who axed you to go play that perticulah slot machine at that perticulah time, huh?”

His accomplice suggested a more effective method. “Aw, screw it, Lefty. Why don't you just beat it out of the old. . .” He used a “b” word which I'll tell you right now wasn't “biddy.” He then proceeded to rip the duct tape off my mouth. I'm not going to say how exactly how that felt, but if you can imagine a million Band-aid strips ripped off every inch of your skin all at the same time, then you have a millionth of an idea of how excruciating that was.

But the pain didn't deter me from mentally plotting some kind of desperate escape. What was I supposed to do, grab the creep’s cigar and send smoke signals back to the casino? The stooge’s stogie, did, however give me an idea. When watching his beloved football games, my Rob used to tell me, “Laura, the best defense is always a good offense.”

“All right, all right, I'll tell you what I know,” I said. “But first, you've gotta untie me. Otherwise, no deal.” The second the two of them loosened the ropes, I threw my arms up in the air and knocked the cigar out of the creep’s mouth. “Look! Your shoes are on fire!”

I sprang up like a spring in a cheap watch and dashed out the door. Never before had my sneakers gotten such as workout as I ran across the parking lot. You know, they say that “the legs are always the last to go,” but you can imagine my surprise that the old wheels still had some life in them. In that completely unfamiliar neighborhood I ran until I came to a diner. I rushed in, blurted out “Call 911!” and the rest, as they say, is history.

After that, I did get my picture in the paper and was featured on the news (both at 6 and 11) but not as a victim but as – I'm almost embarrassed to say – a heroine. Indictments came down on the small-time racketeer who'd masterminded the plot and the two henchmen who'd kidnapped me. And by the way, not only did I get my original slot machine winnings, I also received a hefty reward for the information leading to the arrest of the criminals. When the all the excitement tapered off, I thought I'd stroll over to Audrey’s in order to share my adventures with her. Her only comment was “Why, Laura, I'm surprised! You? Gambling?” I wanted to reply, “Yeah, gambling, just like you when you play the stock market.” But in the spirit of charity, I let it pass.

Surely Laura meant to say "the legs are the FIRST to go..."?

A compelling narrative voice but I don't really see what the story amounts to? Maybe I didn't pick up enough about how deep her rivalry with Audrey goes?

[QUOTE=PrinceMyshkin;803982]Surely Laura meant to say "the legs are the FIRST to go..."?

QUOTE]


Nope. When gravity claims every other part of the anatomy, the legs are the LAST to go. (It's a female thing.)

[QUOTE=AuntShecky;804045]

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

Surely Laura meant to say "the legs are the FIRST to go..."?

QUOTE]


Nope. When gravity claims every other part of the anatomy, the legs are the LAST to go. (It's a female thing.)

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You understand, I'm sure, that being male I prefer to let you have the last word, but in the context in which you used that phrase, it seemed that she was surprised to find that her legs were still functioning, efficiently, which wouldn't have applied if she expected them to be the last to go?

[QUOTE=PrinceMyshkin;804059]

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

You understand, I'm sure, that being male I prefer to let you have the last word, but in the context in which you used that phrase, it seemed that she was surprised to find that her legs were still functioning, efficiently, which wouldn't have applied if she expected them to be the last to go?

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She's surprised that her legs work so well when she's running, literally for her life.
Also, don't read too much into the two offhand references to the neighbor, Audrey, which were supposed to sketch in a couple details about the narrator, and not the main focus of this, a parody of the crime story, with the twist of an unlikely
protagonist.

[A seasonal tale written several years ago, now revised]


Little Shop of Quarters


For Frank Merchant, the day after Thanksgiving was uncharacteristically sunny, and he had the day off. What more could a guy want?

No better time to take a short drive down to a town he had often visited as a boy. He hadn't been there in years and thought he'd look around. Just for the hell of it.

After all these years, the area hadn't changed much – - although there were quite a few newly-constructed houses on Route 203. He saw the familiar farms, graveyards, and the stately old churches dating back to Colonial times. A glance to the right at Kinderhook Lake rewarded him with an expanse of blue, broken by twinkling glints of reflected sunlight. Geese etched the time-honored victory sign in the sky. A couple of horses were braving the cold to graze in the fields.

Arriving in town, he noticed that the atmosphere on Main Street had changed. The fine old Victorian houses still stood, but they had been repainted and gussied up. The Mom and Pop pharmacy which decades ago had sold him sodas and penny candy had been swallowed up by a strip mall, occupied by high-end outlet stores. The cobblestone street of old had been repaved to accommodate the high performance SUVs and expensive sports cars, parallel-parked along the sidewalks, where their affluent owners leisurely strolled and browsed. A few women carried trendily-dressed infants in a kind of reverse papoose-style; strapped to their mother’s fronts, the tots were not only unable to see where they were going, but not even where they had been. The men swaggered down the sidewalks as if every last one of them owned the place. The charming little community Frank once loved had become gentrified.

Maybe it was only Main Street that had been corrupted. With great anticipation Frank headed down the side street of the building which had once housed the upstairs flat of his relatives, where so long ago he had spent many a happy summer. Even though Frank harbored no illusions that he'd run into anyone he knew--his great-aunt and uncle’s friends had undoubtedly since joined them in the other, unchangeable world –- he was nonetheless relieved to see the structure yet standing. But there was something very odd about the two-family house: on the upper floor the windows were missing their shutters and had been boarded-up. The bottom floor was currently occupied by some sort of retail business. There was a shop window, behind which hung a prominent U.S. flag, the field of blue faded, with only 48(!) stars which, along with the white stripes, were overlaid with a yellow tinge, the red ones currently a pink shade, apparently bleached by several seasons of direct sunlight. The glass in the door was all but obscured by an old Camel sign and an ad for “Pepsi Free.” There was also room for a schedule of hours of the store’s operation : for six of the seven days of the week, the hours were the same: “7 am to 9 pm,” except for the box next to Sunday, clearly marked “Closed.” And to underscore the point, there was another sign under an inverted “V” of string which proclaimed in red: “Come in. We're OPEN.”

When he opened the door, a bell tinkled. For what was supposed to be the biggest shopping day of the year, the joint seemed deserted. Counter after counter and and row after row contained funky merchandise grouped together in a kind of hit or miss logic. A flock of plastic-handled feather dusters sat next to a pyramid of canned beef stew, the tops of the cans themselves covered with a fine grey powder. Bin after bin contained obscure brands of toilet paper, floor wax, toothpaste. There was a large bin of paperback books, haphazardly commingled. A dozen copies of a children’s coloring book -- whose cover featured a cartoon character unknown to any American television network, cable or mainstream -- were nestled under a column of a romance novel, each with the identical cover: clones of a woman with a ripped-bodice each in the arms of an identical black-clad adventurer, his nostrils in full-flare. Mingled among these were a ream of copies of the New Testament printed in a language which Frank took to be Portuguese.

The four walls were covered with plastic bags of various merchandise randomly arranged on pegboard hooks. Tiny bags of hooks and eyes were displayed next to bags of wooden pencils sans erasers. Plastic barrettes and polyester ribbons were suspended next to an assortment of holiday decorations, primarily for Easter. Plastic key chains unceremoniously shared part of the wall with fingernail clippers, and nearby foil-wrapped squares of condoms hung.

There was a gentle tap on Frank's shoulder. “May I help you with something, Sir?” The male voice spoke in perfect English, albeit lightly-seasoned with a foreign accent which Frank couldn't immediately categorize. It reminded him a little of that of Bela Lugosi, or perhaps of Gandhi-- or rather Ben Kingsley’s movie portrayal of him.
When Frank turned around, he didn't see a cape-clad Dracula nor a religious role model draped in a diaper but a neatly-dressed man.

“No, thank you. I'm just looking.” That was no lie!


“Ah, but perhaps I can interest you in somethings? Everything here is only one qwarter. Wery inexpensive. Good bargains. Good walue!”

The man took Frank’s elbow in a grip that was both gentle and firm. He guided him over to one of the pegboard walls, reached up and plucked down a small plastic bag. The man cupped the object in his palm as if it were a miniature Faberge egg and not a twenty-five cent piece of plastic.

“It’s a compass, see?” Frank indeed saw – the tiny circle behind a slightly-scratched clear plastic lid held a moving arrow, which pointed not to the usual directions of N, S, E, or W but to “up,” “down,” “right,” or “left.” Frank thought it was just a piece of junk, but suitable perhaps as a Christmas stocking stuffer. His nephew might get kick out of it, and, after all, it only cost a quarter. “Vun feature of this, you take this compass vith you, you don’t get lost.”

“No fooling! Can you beat that! “ Frank said. “Okay, I'll take it.”

“Wery good, Sir. And perhaps you vould like a carrying case for it?” Seemingly out of nowhere, the shopkeeper produced a glossy plastic leather-colored change purse. With some trouble, the man unfastened the metal zipper and popped the compass thingie inside. “Vun thing
about this purse – Vell, I'll let you in on a little secret. Ven you carry this purse, you alvays, alvays have enough money.”

Frank shrugged and nodded. “Can always use that, can't we?”

“Yes! Yes, and another ting we alvays do is vatch our veight. Look.” The man opened his hand to reveal a small foil strip containing four pastel blue discs each under its own tiny plastic dome. “Tese are mints,” he said. “Ven you take one, right before meals, you don't have to vorry about gaining veight. Eat all you vant, no fat.”

“Hmm.” For a second, Frank was tempted to ask the guy if these pills or “mints” had ever garnered FDA approval, but, what the hell, they were only a quarter.

“Wery good, Sir.” He began to walk away, and Frank followed. The shopkeeper lifted up part of a counter, ducked under the board, replaced the panel of the counter and stood behind it. There was no cash register to speak of, and not surprisingly, no mechanism to accommodate credit cards. Instead there was a throwback to the retail world of decades past – - an ancient adding machine, complete with a paper roll and to record and print out past transactions, the shortness of the scroll indicating that they had been few and far between. With long, tapered fingers often described as “artistic,” the shopkeeper totaled up the sale, one by one taping in “Twenty-five, twenty-five, twenty five. Plus tax. That vill be eighty-three cents, please, Sir.”

Blindly feeling through his pockets, Frank came up with three quarters and a nickel. He continued searching for the remaining three pennies. Momentarily he thought of having the man break a dollar, but no cash drawer seemed to be in sight. “Where’s the rest of my change? “ Frank said, “I thought I had some more –“

”Ah!” the shopkeeper said. He unzipped up the little change purse, turned it upside down, and shook it. Three pennies fell out and bounced on the counter. “See? It’s vorking already!” The shopkeeper then whipped open a white plastic bag-- big enough for a pair of jeans and workshirt –and carefully placed Frank’s purchases inside. Settling down in the corner of the bag, the three tiny items seemed like afterthoughts. Taking the bag, Frank rolled it up into a parcel small enough to fit in his pocket. “Okay, thanks, “ he said.

“Have a nice day,” the shopkeeper said, and then inexplicably put his index finger to his lips. The gesture reminded Frank of an illustration of St. Nicholas from a coloring book of The Night Before Christmas which very possibly could have been sold in that very shop back in, say, July.

When he returned to his vehicle, Frank took the bag out of his pocket , so he wouldn't forget that he had it and thus finding an unpleasant surprise the next time he laundered his pants. For some reason, though, he gave the bag a sniff, and noticed that it smelled slightly of iodine. He dumped the three items directly on the passenger seat, rolled up the empty bag – - there was no receipt – and tossed it into a trash bin in front of some trendy coffee shop.

Frank was convinced he knew exactly where he was going as he motored North ; Route 9 blends right into Route 20, the fastest way home. He passed some lovely old houses on the hill on the right, a Grand Union on the left. As he drove onward, a sickening feeling fluttered in the pit of his stomach as gradually the road was becoming more and more unfamiliar, as if he had unwittingly taken a wrong turn. When he found that his car was heading down a bumpy dirt road he knew for sure that he was lost. Suddenly a deer darted out in front of him. He slammed on the brakes and avoided hitting the frightened creature, who by now had reached the woods where it would undoubtedly encounter other dangers, such as trigger-happy hunters.

The all-but-forgotten purchases had tumbled to the floor of the car. Franks picked up the change purse and the tiny strip of pills and put them back in his pocket. When he went to pick up the compass, he noticed that the little arrow was pointing to “up.” What the hell, Frank thought. He had nothing to lose. So he continued up the dirt road. He had gone a mile or so, when he looked down at the compass. It was pointing to “R.”

Frank took his next right, another dirt road, which eventually led him right back to the center of the town he had just left. The arrow still pointed to “R,” so he took the next “right,” which led him over a small bridge over a rushing, rock-dotted creek. The compass pointed “L”, then “up,” and before he knew it, Frank was on Route 203 again, which brought him back to 20, which brought him home.

Later that night, Frank was hungry. After overindulging on the holiday, he was reluctant to gorge himself – - but the remains of the previous day’s sumptuous feast lured him like a siren’s song. It was if the refrigerator was calling out to him. Frank stood up and felt his own stomach to see if the ever-increasing girth had somehow miraculously stopped, and in doing so, he ran his hand across his pocket, and remembered the four pre-dinner mints he had stashed there. He had no idea of how safe those “mints” would be, or their country of origin, or just how long they had sat unsold in that strange little shop. Then again, that magic change purse had worked. So had the low-tech compass. So what did he have to lose? What the hell. Frank pushed plastic dome and the blue pill-like disk popped out the back of the aluminum foil strip. He chewed the thing, which indeed tasted minty, but a little “off,” like the last squeeze from an old tube of toothpaste. Frank went to the mirror and stuck his tongue – - no blue film on his palate. He then went to the kitchen and filled the microwave with paper plates heaped with copious amounts of leftover turkey, and gravy, and dressing, and all the accompanying vegetables. He wolfed it down like a coyote on a fresh kill, finally finishing the heavy meal with a slab of squash pie the size of an old Betamax video tape.

The next morning, Frank hightailed it to the bathroom ; he couldn't wait – to step on the scale. To his delight, Frank discovered that since Thanksgiving, he had not gained a single ounce; if anything, he had actually lost a pound or two. This was something! He raced to back to bedroom, took the second of the four pills, and hastily dressed. Fighting the Saturday morning traffic, he drove to the nearest “Family restaurant” and ordered the Lumberjack’s Breakfast. Having polished that off, he ordered the Hunter’s Special. When he finished that, he figured it was enough for now, even though he didn't feel bloated or anything. As a matter of fact, he felt like a billion bucks. Even more so, when he went to pay the check and found he was a dollar short – until he opened the change purse and four quarters bounced out.

On Sunday, he repeated the process. This time he felt like a trillion bucks. This was something, really, really something. These mints could plant the seeds of a dietary revolution. Imagine being able to eat everything you wanted and not gain a pound. It was the American Dream come true!

The storms in Frank’s brain kicked into cyclones. Maybe the concept could be imported to all of those starving Third World Countries – maybe it could be reconfigured to work in reverse – so that you could never, ever eat anything, and in the throes of a famine, you'd always feel full! But that wouldn't be a problem, anyway – with those magic change purses – - just mass produce those and ship ‘em all over the globe. Everybody, everywhere would finally and always have enough money to buy food! And if they lost their way to the market, they'd have those compasses to guide them.

“Holy crap! “ Frank said. “I'd be the World’s Greatest Humanitarian. They'll put me on the cover of Time, just like Bill Gates.” All he needed to do was convince that fabulous shopkeeper to become his business partner.

Even though they had been idle for years, the wheels inside Frank's heat wouldn't stop turning. After the sleepless Sunday night, he called his boss to tell him he'd be a little late, and then wasted no time heading back down to a certain town in Columbia County.

After parking his car in front of where the Mom and Pop pharmacy used to be, Frank jogged down the side street, and in his haste did not notice that the slippery material of his change purse enabled it to bounce out of his pocket, roll over to the curb, and fall into a sewer. He did notice some construction equipment blocking the street. When Frank approached the site of the little shop, his stomach again got the queasy, sinking feeling. Where the little shop of quarters used to be was now a vacant lot, the center of which was occupied by a huge backhoe, its serrated maw in mid-bite.

“What the –? Where’s the?” Frank scratched his head in confusion. Maybe he had lost his way again, had taken a wrong turn. With shaking hands, he reached in his pocket for the compass, which he immediately dropped. Before he could turn to pick it up, he heard a crunching sound.

Frank turned and looked up at the hard-hatted head of a burly construction worker. Then he looked down to see the broken bits of the magic compass under a heavy-booted foot.

“Street’s closed!” The construction worker said. “Sorry, buddy, but you'll have to move it along.”

“Uh, what happened to that store? It was just here on Friday!” How could a whole shop totally disappear over the weekend?

The construction worker looked at Frank as if he were an unlabeled unrecognizable Thanksgiving leftover. “Huh? What stores? Just turn back on Main Street. They got plenty o’ stores. No stores here.”

That was for sure. The fantastic shop was nowhere to be seen, gone without warning. No Closing Sales, no “Everything must go!” signs, not even the tell-tale hint of soaped-up windows.

“ As I said, you've got to like beat it, Sir.”

"Jeez, who starts a construction project this time of year?" Frank muttered as headed back to his car. By the time he reached the hoity-toity Main Street, he became philosophical – - after all, what had he expected? It was unrealistic to think for that guy could stay in business where nothing cost more than a quarter in a town populated by self-absorbed gentry folks who wouldn't dream of purchasing anything unless it had a three-figure price tag.

On the one hand, Frank still was in possession of that last blue mint. Who needed that strange guy? Frank could fly solo: take the mint to a chemist, have it analyzed, and then he'd be just a patent away from billions!

On the other hand, he could put the pill in a very safe place for use next Thanksgiving.

Aw, what the hell.

"Aw, what the hell" indeed! I was enchanted all the way through and ABSOLUTELY mystified a) by the strange turn of events on the street and b) by what his decision is...

You've REALLY done it this time, sister!

Thank you, Prince, but even though it's been "revised" I don't think it's as good as it could have been because -- all together now -- it doesn't take risks.

[Author’s Note: A primary characteristic of post-modern literature is that it is chockablock with “references,” not only to itself, in that it breaks down the so-called “fourth wall” between the work and the audience, but to other “pre-existing” works through parody and/or allusion. In this way, the post-modern story, novel, or play pays homage to the classics of the past. The following story owes much to two masterpieces of the mid-twentieth century: the extraordinarily moving yet hysterical short story, “The Jewbird” by Bernard Malamud and “One Froggy Evening,” the award-winning animated short film by the immortal Chuck Jones. Another acknowledgment is to a radio program which flourished long before most of us were born, though audio excerpts are available via the Web--the brilliantly written comedy series, The Bickersons, portrayed with impeccable timing by Frances Langford and Don Ameche.]

Teach Your Parrot to Talk

Outside the large window above the kitchen sink, empty branches swayed in the merciless wind as almost imperceptible flecks of white floated through the air. Inside, it was no tropical paradise, although the heat had been cranked all the way up to 78.

“Turn that thing down!” John’s demand had come from way out in the attached garage, where he was still unpacking his golf clubs and garden tools. He wasn't referring to the thermostat this time but to the volume of the video from a combination TV/DVD player going full blast on the counter.

“Hel-lo, folks! Hel-lo, folks!” the audio chanted behind a picture of an exotic pet, a bird that had gone Hollywood in that it had been all groomed and glammed up to meet the unforgiving challenge of high def. The bird on the screen rocked its head back and forth and then, as if on cue, gave a piercing whistle and said, “Hello, folks!”

Blanche craned her neck and peered into the face of the real bird who was more-or-less perched in front of the portable tv. “Come on, baby. You can do it. Say ‘hell-o folks.’ “ The parrot moved its chicken feet across the counter, raised his hooked beak and gave the screen a quick, half-hearted peck. When the on-screen bird responded –“Hel-lo, folks!” the live-action bird sprang backwards in alarm, and flapped his wings, before returning to a neutral corner of the counter.

Although his first language lesson wasn't yet successful, Blanche could not believe her good luck in having acquired him, especially since John had never allowed her to have a pet. It had been sheer serendipity, in that the parrot literally came with the house; he'd been left here by the previous occupants. Oddly enough, Blanche felt more pleased by the parrot than the property itself, which they'd purchased dirt cheap, shortly after the real estate bubble had burst. The deal had gone down through a most unfortunate foreclosure upon the former owners, who'd been caught by the “adjustable percentage rate” bombshell. Blanche’s husband had been savvy enough to insist upon a fixed mortgage rate. John did not like surprises.

“Want a cracker? Want a cracker?” came Lesson 2 from the DVD, another item left behind by the family forced to make the quick exit.

The kitchen door swung open hard, and Blanche felt a chill from the blast of air from the unheated garage. She hoped that the parrot hadn't caught the draft. “Where’s my tool chest?” John wanted to know.

“I don't know, John. Didn't it get loaded on to the van?”

“It’s not here. Where is it?”

“Why don't you look upstairs, John? Maybe it got mixed up with the bedroom stuff. By the way, did the cable company call when I was at the store?”

“How the hell should I know?” he said.

“They said they'd hook us up today sometime between 9 and 5. Oh, I wish they'd get here! The Petrified Forest is on tonight. ”

“Yeah, well. Right now I'm looking for my tools.”

Cable service was one of the sore spots between them. It wasn't all that expensive, and John could well afford it, but he kept telling Blanche that he didn't watch television enough to justify the expense. Blanche, however, lived for cable television, even if it meant she had no one to stay up and watch it with her. Her favorite channels showed old movies that had been made decades before either one of them had been born. She would stay up at night and watch them by herself. Blanche enjoyed everything: love stories, gangster movies, even westerns. She wasn't crazy about John Wayne, but she loved Gary Cooper and Alan Ladd, even though he was a little on the short side. This was a weakness of which Blanche would still blush to admit– there was something irresistible about the strong, silent type.

“And where are my keys?” John searched through his pockets while simultaneously putting on his parka.

“Going somewhere?”

“What're ya, writing a book? I'm heading over to the old place to see if somebody forgot to pack them on the van.” The sentence sounded like an accusation. “Maybe that crate of dishes could be put away while I'm gone.”

Quoth the DVD: “Pret-TEE bird! Pret-TEE bird!” Blanche thought she heard something else as well: “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

With furrowed brow, she opened the kitchen door. The car wasn't in the garage; John had already left. Then she heard it again. She put her ear right next to the tv, but in addition to the DVD, someone else was talking. Blanche quickly hit the mute button on the remote.

“Jeez, Blanche, I don't know why you put up with that guy.” Like a sudden pain striking deep in her gut, absolute terror took hold. Someone was in the house! Blanche ran from room to room, opening and closing closet doors, looking behind the futon, and up the fireplace. Finding nothing, no invasive stranger, she was shaking and sweating when she returned to the kitchen. “I hope you don't mind my telling you this, but you're too good for him. Seriously.”

With her eyes growing nearly as wide as the dinnerware she still hadn't put in the cabinets, she turned around and looked at the parrot. She slowly raised her index finger and pointed at the bird. “You?”

The parrot bobbed his head. “Who else? Who else would be talking to you?” Then in a DeNiro impression that rivaled that of any Vegas opening act, added “There’s nobody else here.”

Blanche’s gaze froze upon the bird. She stepped back woozily, as if she were about to faint, and just by chance landed on one of the two, high-legged stools lined up by the kitchen counter. The creature could talk, no doubt about it. But unlike the popular conception of cartoon parrots, it didn't sound like a pirate. Nor did it whistle between phrases. The voice was both classy and raspy, a mix between Ronald Colman and George Burns. Of course, the remarkable, miraculous thing was that the bird was so articulate. A talking bird is a rara avis indeed, for, aside from chirping, most birds sound like Marcel Marceau.

“This is so wild! You sound so, so human! I can't believe it! You must've been a person in a previous life.”

“Reincarnation, you mean?” Except for the fact that he had no cigar nor twitching eyebrows, the parrot nonetheless transformed himself into full Groucho mode: “That’s ridiculous! Now they're recycling everything! ” Then back in his “normal” voice: “Nah. I've always been a proud member of the order of Psittaciformes. Besides, what parrot in his right mind would ever want to be a human being? Seriously.”

“But, but you're so smart and–“

“Uh, uh, uh! Careful, darling. You don't want to be guilty of species-ism.”

With her face-filling smile, Blanche looked as if she hadn't been guilty of anything in her entire life. “Forgive me, but I've just got to ask. How on earth did you ever learn how to talk?”

“Same way everybody learns. From my parents. They didn't tell me about the birds and bees, though. I learned all about that on the street corner.”

Suddenly Blanche slapped her forehead. “Gosh! Where are my manners? I never asked your name.”

“It’s Newton.”

“Newton? Like the cookie, as in fig –?“

“No, as in Robert, the man who played Long John Silver in Treasure Island. Hey, I'm surprised you didn't catch that, Blanche. I thought you were a movie fan! Actually my former keepers named me after the first modern physicist because they thought my. . .uh, digestive habits defied gravity.” Newton rolled his beady eyes and looked vaguely in the direction of the ceiling. “Nah. I'm just tugging your feathers.”

“Your owners, were they nice? How did they treat you?”

“Like a cockamamie artifact from the Pottery Barn. Pah! Those folks were no different from the exhibitionist walking down the street with an 8-foot python coiled around his neck. When the novelty wears off, they just throw it down the sewers with the rest of the discarded reptiles.”

“Oh, that’s not true, Newton. Those snakes are really big around, aren't they? They'd probably just clog up the toilet.”

“Well, who said I was an expert on plumbing?” Newton’s eyes briefly went ceiling-ward again. “Enough of this– time for a song! How about a little ditty from Good News? Back on your heels/up your toes. . .”

Blanche nearly fell on the floor! “Oh my God, you sing too?”

“On second thought –Newton’s “normal” speaking voice switched to a deep baritone.“We are poor little lambs/who have lost our way/Bah! Bah! Bah!”

“I know, I know! Don't tell me–The Nincompoop Song, right?”

“Actually, dear, it’s ‘The Whiffenpoof Song.’ A whiffenpoof is somebody who has to stay in New Haven rather than going the remaining hundred miles up to Harvard.”

“See? Not only can you talk, you're nice, even when you're correcting me. Imagine if John heard me make a goof like that. When he finally finished laughing his head off, he'd go on for half an hour telling me how stupid I am. But you-- you're not like that, Newton.”

“You're right. I don't judge. I may poop all over your ceiling, but I don't judge. But Blanche, honey, why don't you leave him? I mean, it’s not like you'll miss his scintillating personality.”

“Where would I go? How could I take care of myself? I don't have any skills. No self-esteem. None! I haven't had a job in twenty years!”

“No? What kind of work was it that you used to do?”

“Oh, I was a motivational speaker.” A mischievous grin spread across Blanche’s face. “Nah! I'm just yanking your –‘tugging your feathers’!”

With that, Newton broke into another number. This time he strutted back and forth on the counter, with a little fancy footwork, a little buck-and-wing.“Mention my name in Sheboygan/ But don't tell ‘em where I–“ As the door swung open, Newton suddenly clammed up tighter than a hostile witness in front of the RICO committee in Congress.

John, red-faced and fuming, marched around the kitchen. “They're gone! Somebody stole ‘em. When I find out who took my tools, I'll –and those crooks running the moving vans, I'll sue those bastards!” He stopped, turned around, and glared at Newton. “Why is this. . this animal still here? I don't have my tool box, but we have that!” John tried grabbing Newton by the neck. With a choking squawk the parrot shook its head from side to side and managed to break free. He flew into the living room and up the chimney, over the roof, and through the still-open garage door back into the kitchen. Blanche could hear John stomping around every room of the house in furious pursuit of a creature who'd never done him harm.

Blanche only had a split-second to make her urgent plea. “Newton, save yourself! Say something to him!”

“What am I supposed to say? ‘My oatmeal’s cold?’ ”

“Anything! I don't know, Newton. Please!”

Newton looked Blanche straight in the eye. There was something chilling about his gaze, showing an emotion that would be frightening even if it had emanated from a human. Right before John returned to the kitchen, Newton finally said something: “I don't want your god-damned cracker.”

In one hand John held the cage which the former owners had left behind; with the other hand he grabbed Newton, successfully this time. Carelessly he put him in the cage and carefully he locked it. Without even covering it with a warm blanket –even a dishtowel would have been better than nothing – he toted out the cage as if it were a bag of trash.

“Where are you taking him? A shelter? Why are you doing this, John?” She started to cry, and the tears surprised her at first, but soon she just let them flow. “Please, John, let me keep him. You don't understand, he —“ She followed Newton and John out the garage door, down the driveway, to the sidewalk, where she remained standing as the car zoomed away. “He talks, you lousy species-ist!” The snow had started falling for real by then, but Blanche stood there in the strong wind and in the silence.

:lol: Oh Auntie. How funny. Newton finally said something: “I don't want your god-damned cracker.” :D

But I'm not sure about the ending. It doesn't seem like the type of story the villain should win.

{Author's Note: This particular story appeared once before as an entry in the LitNet's Short Story Competition.
It must have been quite some time ago, as the typeface in the original file typeface was different from the font I've been using for the past year or two. In any event, I'm re-posting this thing in the fond hope it might generate some replies. If there are any replies, there are two issues or problems I have with the story which I'll 'fess up to if anyone posts a comment. Then maybe you and I can fix 'em. In any event, here 'tis --}

The Myth of Generations

It was risky for the boys to be in the alleyway behind Krause’s Butcher Shop. For all they knew, at that very moment their mother could have been inside the store buying a “nice piece of meat” for the sauerbraten she'd occasionally prepare according to her late mother-in-law’s recipe. Were she to spot her sons in a place they weren't supposed to be, first she'd chew them out and then command them to do some silly chore. As far as Fred could tell, no one had seen them. So far.

With anticipation and disgust, Fred lifted the lids of Krause’s garbage cans and rifled through their contents that “stunk to high heaven”-- despite the blessing of the crisp air of March rather than the blood-thick miasma of July. At last, an earthy grail: a good-sized mutton bone with a promising portion of fat, gristle, and even a vestigial scrap of flesh. He hoisted the greasy spear like spoils plundered by a Greek warrior on the vanquished plains of Troy.

Thus armed, the duo began its quest. Fred stalwartly led the mission, as his little brother Karl, like a devoted Myrmidon, tagged along. From the alley down two blocks, a quick climb down a hill, a hop-skip-and-jump over the shallow creek, and they'd reached their destination: the City Dump -- their quest: to seek and maybe find.

Previous experience had taught Fred that a certain mutt guarded the entrance. The dog knew its job and did it in no-nonsense way. Kids did not attribute the terrifying reputation of this modern-day Cerberus to its bite; the bark of this particular working dog rivaled the legendary wail of the three-headed cur. Any trespasser foolish enough to venture anywhere near the dump would hear the ungodly howl and believe that he had stumbled down to the dark outskirts of Hades. That’s where the mutton bone came in.

A quick over-the-shoulder toss of the bribe made the monster turn his head just long enough for the boys to slip by. Fred mentally dismissed the other potential deterrent, the policeman assigned to the relatively-easy beat of guarding the city’s trash. That cop was no Charybdis, for even the rock assigned to hide that sea-monster would harbor a more conscientious attitude toward its assignment. Some choppiness, alas, still lurked in Fred’s secret sea. He was in that time of a young man’s life when it seemed crucial to steer his sails far away from the whirlpool of neighborhood gossip. Although most people in his parent’s social stratum were no better off than his own parents in terms of wealth and prestige, the chance of being spotted and subsequently teased as a “rag picker” was a possibility painful to contemplate. To avoid such a peril, he took Karl by the shoulders and gave the order: “Don't you dare let anyone see us!”

Soon the critical focus shifted, for it seemed as if they'd go home empty-handed. The fat piles of junk offered few gems: slim pickings indeed. The boys wandered across the still-frozen ground, the icy wind a mocking reprimand, each bursting gust a warning. Here and there were scattered the discarded relics of the relatively-recent past: a skeleton of a unicycle, a dented washboard, a couple of Victrola records which looked nearly new, except for fatal cracks that cut clear through the grooved sides to the smooth ones. Karl cheered at the sight of a rusted length of pipe which to an impressionable kid could be the spittin’ image of a weapon one of our dough boys deployed against some stooge from Kaiser Bill’s army. Karl picked up the narrow cylinder of hollow metal, its oxidized flakes crumbling in his hand, aimed it skyward, and made a sound approximating a report: “Pa-shew! Pa-shew!’

The unnecessary noise which Karl created with his makeshift toy irked Fred, also vaguely bothered by the trivializing effect of make-believe combat. Underneath this irritation he was vaguely aware that the all-too-real conflict so cavalierly evoked was relatively fresh in his country’s mind. Although Fred himself had suffered no direct effects of the Great War, folks around his father’s ethnic sphere divided their silent mourning between the heroes of their beloved -- albeit adopted -- country and the sons of their original homeland -- all in a way, buried side-by-side, enemies and allies, one and the same. Naturally, nobody ever talked about it.

The amorphous angst completely vanished when an object caught Fred’s eye. Atop an unimposing molehill of rubble sat a shoe box which looked like a recent acquisition to the dump. The oblong container proclaimed itself as a vessel for the classy merchandise sold at an exclusive leather goods store downtown. The glossy cardboard, whose colorful patina and fancy lettering had somehow escaped the ravages of the elements and the contamination of its decaying neighbors, looked – miraculous to say – brand new. Here be pirate’s treasure blatantly deposited on a beach! No siren singing sweetly on some shore could have been as alluring as the mysterious contents of the box, tantalizing beyond the resistance of any mortal man.

But why would anyone throw away a new pair of shoes? Fred's heart leapt at the thought that perhaps the purchaser of these golden slippers had been such a spendthrift that upon discovering that the shoes were the wrong size, had simply thrown them away rather than take the time and trouble to return them. The spendthrift’s extravagance could be redeemed by Fred’s dump-combing diligence. By a mere whim of Fortune, Fred could be a hero with the discovery of him a new pair of footwear that could conceivably fit his father or Karl or even -- were the gods to be smiling in his own particular direction – Fred himself.

He raced the few yards to the hillock and knelt down. He picked up the box and shook it, like a gift left under the Tannenbaum by St. Nicholas, but in the act of shaking it, Fred experienced a touch of queasiness. The unknown contents didn't “feel” like shoes, not two halves of a pair, but something singular.

With more trepidation than hope Fred gingerly lifted the lid. At first glance, it looked like an extremely dilapidated doll wrapped in a piece of pill-flecked, white flannel. But with a closer look came an instant shock, initially brief but indescribable, a little like the way his cheek would wink at the first taste of sour cream atop his mother’s potato pancakes, or like the zzzst-zzzst buzzing his fingers the time he tried to plug in that old lamp with its frayed, wool-sheathed cord . A catalogue of similar startling experiences raced through Fred’s relatively-sparse memories.

Something was wrong. The thing in the box was once a living thing, had at one time drawn breath, had briefly inhabited the same world as Fred and Karl. But the color of the tiny cheeks was not the pink of his little sister nor the light tan of Karl or himself nor the nut-brown of his schoolmates who lived on the other part of First Street. Instead it was a somber gray, like the soot from the coal in the furnace, the refuse of which it was Fred’s responsibility to go down cellar and scoop up and leave in the cans for the ash man to retrieve.

Fred’s first instinct was to look for Karl, who, in a matter of seconds that seemed to take hours, appeared behind him. Never before had anyone heard the brave voice that gave Karl the order: “Go get that cop.”


“What? You must be crazy, Fritz! What d’ya wanna him for? He'll get us really in Dutch –“

”Go get him. Now.”

Fred was still shaking by the time the constable arrived. Despite the neighborhood scuttlebutt about his laziness, the officer in his double-breasted uniform and blue serge hat looked at least physically imposing. As he chomped on the knockwurst sandwich in his hand, he looked like a Cyclops swallowing some legendary mariner who'd fatally lost his way.

Wordlessly, Fred pointed to the shoe box. The cop heaved a exasperated sigh, but when he lifted the lid, he shrank back as if a multi-headed hydra were lurking inside. “You punks oughta know better than to be hanging around the dump. Now get home the both o’ ya before I run yas in for trespassin’.”

Quickly the boys dispersed. Unlike a too-curious Orpheus, Fred never looked back.

The Fred in that tale was my father, and I am his son, Fred Reinhardt, Junior, also called Fritz. I dropped the Junior decades ago when Fred Senior, aka “Fritz” died. I know the story only by the fragments of its bare bones, with the embellishing flesh grafted on by my imagination.

Rare are the times I recall that incident from my father’s childhood, but occasionally it shows up like an uninvited guest, such as now, as I hold my newborn grand-daughter for the first time. I wonder if the tale also periodically returned to my dad himself with the births of each of his own children.

Whenever he wanted to snap a photo of “all of us” with his Brownie Instamatic, he would line us all up like descending notes in a scale or steps in a staircase, youngest to oldest, tallest to shortest–Fred Junior, Karl, Thomas, John, and Gretchen. Years later I'd look at those black- and-white photos showing five pairs of eyes suspended in mid-blink by the startling flash of the bulb and think that we looked like targets in an amusement park shooting gallery.

A chronic sadness often befalls me, and it’s not only the sorrow for long-lost parents or the two sets of grandparents we'd never met. My siblings and I miss a precious legacy, bereft of family folklore, a body of myths never passed down through the generations. For reasons unknown to me, my parents zealously said virtually nothing about the past. They dug a moat and built an impenetrable wall around their castles, the bridges between years irreparably burnt.

My paternal grandfather could have been a latter-day Achilles, my maternal grandma a modern Deirdre, but no oral epics, no traditional tunes survive to ensure my ancestors’ immortality. I would give the world for an excerpt of our family’s Das Marchen, for one line of an Irish lyric, a fragment of a Dead Sea scroll unveiling a scrap of history about my father and mother. We grown-up children are left wondering: how is that a Fritz could grow up to marry a Celtic demi-goddess, who, for all we knew, had one day suddenly surfaced out of a swirl of sea-foam? To this day none of us knows for certain whether she came from County Cork or Kilkenny.

In terms of their respective autobiographies, compared to my mother, my dad was a little less stingy. For instance, he'd tell us that as a little boy he once “got in Dutch” with the principal of P. S. #21 for having decided to raise the school’s flag at half-mast because a fireman from the First Street station had died. Or he'd try to hide his pride whenever he told us about working in the local munitions factory during World War II, when the plant’s supervisor personally went down to the draft board to plead “Do not take this man! He’s too valuable here.” Those twin tales were among only a handful of anecdotes that my father deigned to share with us. He compensated for their lack of quantity and quality with a predictable frequency. Rather than bestowing on us a rich legacy of lore, he told the same couple of anecdotes, over and over again.

But that story about the dump – the time he found the baby in a box - he told us only once.

When life (such as it is)

http://www.housingwatch.com/2010/03/...akes-parrot%2F


follows art (to use the term loosely)
http://www.online-literature.com/for...382#post812382

Hi Auntie,

This story contains some beautifully thought provoking moments and atmospheric description.

There are, though, a couple of things about it which trouble me.
It is not until two thirds of the way through the story that the reader realises that he is reading reminiscence. Although the reference to the Great War indicates that it is set in the 20’s or 30’s, the narrative appears real-time. The transition from this to the revelation that we are reading a second-hand memory is rather abrupt, and jars, at least with me. I feel that an opening paragraph setting the scene would be beneficial.

I also feel that the classical references are slightly over-used. The Cerberus one was good but Charybdis I feel is superfluous.

Oh and by the way, Hades was the God of the underworld, not the place itself. It was he who was married to Persephone. It is a common misconception though. People say Hades or Tartarus, (who was also a personality) although they both became synonymous with the deepest level of the underworld, probably due to a Homeric reference in the Iliad. You may be a grammar geek, but I’m a classical one.)

Over all though, I like what this piece has to say and enjoyed reading it.

H

Re Teach your parrot to talk.

This was quite definately brilliant, a great story, deftly handled and witty and amusing to boot. (I just wish the parrot had won)

Only one thing though, Parrots shouldn't be described as having 'chicken feet.' They are zygodactyl with the first and fourth toes pointing backwards with the 2nd and 3rd pointing forwards. Chickens have three forward pointing toes with the 4th pointing backwards. Still, there can't be much wrong with a story when someone can only complain about one word!

Thanks for sharing it.

H

Thank you, Hawkman, for your observations concerning"The Myth of Generations." I hope you believe me when I tell you that much of that haziness in the time frame references were deliberate, in order to establish the son as an unreliable narrator. This stems from the absolute point of the story--or my intention for it, at least-- in which the narrator tries to piece together a family history from the paltry snips and fragments his parents left him.

And thank you especially for reading the parrot story which few people bothered reading and which, in addition to you, only one LitNutter commented upon. I'm glad you told me about the avian feet. I searched all over for an answer on the Web, and as is customary on Internet sites, the information was sketchy, if not specious.

Hi Auntie,

I guess my familiarity with birds put me ahead of the game with this, We used to keep chickens, when I was a kid. I was also required to make a short film about poultry farming a few years ago. Wickipedia has a good entry on parrots and you could google zygodactyl and find diagrams of avian foot configurations.

H

“I Don't Care If I Never Get Back”

The grounds crew was taking its sweet time rolling up the tarp. They must be paid by the hour, Ernbacher thought, since the cause of the 92-minute “rain” delay had been nothing more than a wimpy sprinkle to begin with. Now the mid-afternoon sun was in full-blaze in a spotless sky to lock in the proverbial “beautiful day for a ball game.”

Kratchlow didn't know what he was missing. With a self-satisfied grin, Ernbacher pictured his partner scrounging around to fill a foursome on a course undoubtedly much wetter than center field. The only downside had been being shut out of the corporate skybox after that bizarre lightning strike coming from out of nowhere knock out the AC. But, even though he had to sit in the stands (albeit the front row), the ballpark was still a damn good place to be.

“Guess we lucked out with these seats, huh?” The voice came from the ill-kempt occupant of the seat next to him.

Ernbacher shrugged. “Season tickets.”

His neighbor pursed his lips and let out a low whistle as well as an unidentifiable odor. “Whoa! Too rich for my blood! But you can't get too much of a good thing, right, Pal?”

Aggh! The bad luck in having to sit next to a scruffy fan brought Ernbacher back to his pre-Lear days when he flew commercial. How many times had he been bumped from first-class to business and got stuck next to some loquacious simpleton. The seating capacity for Viagra MegaStadium was at least 85,000 with plenty of unoccupied seats, so why did this joker have to sit here? Scanning the venue’s vast expanse, Ernlacher noticed that even though it was a family-friendly Saturday, there wasn't one fan younger than middle-aged. Very odd.

Meanwhile the visiting New England Glaciers had suffered a strike-out, a pop-up, and a can of corn dented by a one-handed catch in left field. Bottom of the first, the World Champion Mid-Atlantic Oceanics had a lead-off walk, a strike-out by the third baseman, and with the star player grounding out to second, an inning-ending double-play.

“No score,” announced Ernbacher’s new pal. The status remained unchanged throughout the next five innings, during which time the devoted fan regaled Ernbacher with his entire repertoire of opinions regarding the state of the grand old game. To wit, the ever-evolving compression plan of the majors had reversed the expansion of the previous decades and merged the smaller markets into the more profitable larger ones. From an all-time high of 30 teams, the two leagues were down to 19. There were still two leagues, both each only with two divisions; take your pick, Chicago – East or West, with the venues transplanted into megalithic stadiums whose capacity rivaled the populations of medium-sized cities. Good pitchers yet commanded high salaries, so to protect the investments, the National League had been more or less “persuaded” to adopt the position of the Designated Hitter. Smiley here thought this was a “great” idea. “More hits, more HRs, Buddy!”

The fan’s heart’s desire wasn't yet forthcoming, as there was still no score in the bottom of the sixth. “How about our guy Todman there?”

Ernbacher couldn't argue. “Looks like he’s got a no-hitter going.”

The fan looked as if he'd been beaned with a foul ball. “Bite your tongue! Don't you know it’s bad luck to mention –“

“Well, then I'll mention Casagrandi. Nobody’s hit off him so far as well.” Ernbacher was working up a powerful thirst. Once again Ernbacher hated the fact that his skybox was inaccessible; there the libations flowed like inexhaustible fountains. Here slaking one’s thirst necessitated purchasing a beer from the inattentive vendors, and custom required that if he bought a brew for himself, he'd have to buy one for his neighbor. That’s just common courtesy. Aw, what the hell. Maybe he wouldn't talk with a mouthful of beer.

Top of the seventh, two outs, nobody on, Todman was taking an eternity between pitches, finally letting go with a fastball, which McTeague crushed. The Glaciers’ third baseman, savoring his home-run trot, didn't rush. Ernbacher’s buddy looked as if he was going to cry into his free beer. So much for the no-no. To make matters worse for the Oceanics, Casagrandi continued to hold the lead.

By the bottom of the Ninth, the Glaciers’ manager still hadn't gone to the bullpen. It seemed as if Ernbacher and companion would be witnessing sports history–a complete game no-hitter. Smiley looked ill. “This stinks! Why can't we get a hit, a walk, at least a base runner!” Relatively speaking, the sun had made better progress as the late-day shadows had begun to darken the field.

Two outs, last chance for the Oceanics with LeMange up, 301 lifetime batting average, .237 lately. The count, of course, was 3 and 2. Casagrandi reared back and released a horizontal meteor which headed right over the middle of the plate. LeMange’s eyes looked shut, but his bat was a blur as it sliced through the air –and made contact
with that incomparable sound, as the little white sphere scaled over the mountain-high stadium wall and, presumably, into orbit. The crowd sat in stunned silence for a parsec, then erupted into pandemonium. LeMange took his trip around the bases as slowly as a amateur marathon runner struggling to finish Mile Number 25.

Ernbacher’s neighbor jumped up and down and attempted a clumsy, elated embrace. “Tie score! Extra innings!” With as much dignity as he could muster, Ernbacher extricated himself from the fan’s exuberant hug. Turning his back, he punched a key on his cellphone. Nothing. Dead.“No signal?” Ernbacher’s partner asked. “Must be sun spots.” Regardless of the cause, the dinner at Shannon’s would have to wait. She'd be livid for his not calling, though, and have one of her scenes again, threatening to “tell” Nancy on him, her lawyer, Nancy’s lawyer, Page Six, the whole ball of wax. She was a good kid, though, reminding Ernbacher of Wife Number One – he had to think a minute to remember her name. ( Man, was he ever glad that the pre-nup had been iron-clad.) Still, Ernbacher hoped that there would be only one “extra inning”, two at the most.

Still 1-1 top of the 13th. By now the stadium lights were all on, joining forces with the city’s ambient luminescence to block out the stars. Ernbacher thought that his neighbor would've run out of topics by now, but he continued to drone on with his thoughts on steroids and performance-enhancing pharmaceuticals. “More power to ‘em, I say! “ The fan opined. “Hey, anything that makes a player more. . .more better, bring it on. But I'd sure like to get my hands on that little rat Ainsberg for spilling the beans.”

For reasons not immediately known to Ernbacher, he was bothered by a memory he couldn't shake. There was that middle-manager in accounting, what was his name, who'd been bitten with civic spirit to become a whistle-blower to the SEC. It took an army of exorbitantly-paid attorneys to spring the Firm out of that one. Wonder what he’s doing now, the little twerp. Not using his MBA at all, that’s for sure. Ernbacher had taken care of that.

It was edging toward midnight when the game reached the top of the 21st inning. Or maybe it was the 22nd. Ernbacher and company had lost count. The score remained 1-1. “Can you believe this?” Smiley remarked, part in disbelief, part in awe. “Botshawk’s changing pitchers again!” True, it was a bit incredible. Where were all the Oceanics’ relievers coming from? With the Great Compression, team rosters had expanded to 45 players for regular season, but still. Maybe behind the clubhouse the Oceanics grew them like tomatoes, a row for right-handers, a row for lefties. Back in his youth Ernbacher had seen a Ray Harryhausen movie in which a Greek warrior was battling an army of skeletons; as soon as he slew one bony figure, another one sprang up. That was the Oceanics bullpen.

Despite the occasional switch, the players, understandably, were looking exhausted. They struggled to go through the motions. At one point the Glaciers’ right field collapsed, but it took at least twenty minutes for trainers to get a stretcher and remove him from
the diamond; another forty for the game to resume. “Well,” Ernbacher yawned, “I don't know about you, but I've had enough.”

At the exit two uniformed men with folded arms guarded the door. “Sorry, Sir,” one them announced. “New security rules. No unauthorized personnel may leave until the final out.”

“The final out? And when, pray tell, will that be?”

“Why, it could be any time now, Sir.”

“Absolutely!” The other guard said, half-sarcastically. “Lopendi might hit us a homer.”

“Now, see here! You have to let me leave. Don't you know I am?”

The less-friendly guard grabbed Ernbacher’s necktie and yanked it hard. “I don't give a damn who you are. Nobody leaves until the final out.”

Ernbacher tried escaping through five more exits. Same story. Finally he returned to his seat and hung his head. “Hey! Look who’s back! Want me to tell you what you missed?”

Ernbacher shrugged. “Not really. But I'm sure you'll tell me anyway. Did I miss anything?”

“Not really.”

Top of the 40th, maybe it was the 41st, score still 1-1. Every drop of beer in the entire megastadium had been gone by the 33rd inning, and already the vendors had had run out of coffee. The sky was beginning to lighten, if a dark gray could be described thus. Could those be clouds, rain clouds? Maybe they would bring real precipitation now, real rain, calling for not a mere delay but a suspension! A downpour would allow them all to leave wouldn't it? Wouldn't it? Alas, already the sun was making its climb and re-firing its furnace. It was going to be a rainless day, and by every indication, a hot one.

That first sentence kills the story-- too long.

Hypotactic too.

Hypotaxis thwarts the narrative by dependence upon the
subordinate clause.

Shouldn't be that way.

HH

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hayseed Huck

That first sentence kills the story-- too long.

Hypotactic too.

Hypotaxis thwarts the narrative by dependence upon the
subordinate clause.

Shouldn't be that way.

HH

---

No comprende. Could you show me the subordinate clause in this. It looks like a simple declarative sentence to me:
The grounds crew was taking its sweet time rolling up the tarp.

This story ...

I didn't mean to say a subordinate clause can be
found in this paragraph.

I failed to write clearly.

In fact this pragraph is more paratactic than hypo-
tactic.

But there is a stall.

The relative functions as a subordinate without the forn
of a subordinate. It certainly is a confused construction.

Other notes--

'various amounts' is a pleonasm. 'Amounts' is sufficient.

'containers of various amounts.-- containers are not
'of' amounts. Not scattered about, but sitting upon
a counter or table.

Scattered about the tiny office were containers of various amounts of liquid, which at one time could be called “coffee,” stacks of print-outs describing incident reports from the wild and inter-department memos from the Commissioner’s office, as well as spoor samples encased in plastic sandwich bags and fragments of diverse specimens of flora and fauna from nearly every region in the state which should have never been removed from the lab in the first place.

The last 'which' placed late.

'the lab' no reference of a lab. Can't write 'the' lab.

'diverse specimens' is also a pleonasm.

'diverse' is one of those elegant but meaningless words.

HH

HH

I thought you were writing about the latest story in the thread,"I Don't Care If I Never Get Back." That's why I was thoroughly perplexed by your reply.

In any event please read the reply immediately following this one.

The following posting would be an appropriate topic for my "A Word With You" blog, but a previous reply in this thread has endowed me with what the media loves to call a "teachable moment."

If you heard "hypotaxis" spoken aloud you might think it has something to do with excessive levies. Maybe a Yellow Cab on steroids? Actually hypotaxis and its adjective, hypotactic, is a rhetorical device. According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms by Chris Baldick, it refers to the "use of connecting words between clauses or sentences explicitly showing the logical or other relationships between them: 'I am tired because it is hot." My trusty American Heritage Dictionary also includes "if" clauses (a dependent clause) with its example: "I shall despair if you don't come."

Nowhere is it written that it's verboten to begin a work with a hypotaxis expression. In fact, Virginia Woolf's revered novel To The Lighthouse begins: " 'Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow,' said Mrs. Ramsay."

The opposite of hypotaxis is parataxis, which is, according to Baldick again, "the juxtaposition of clauses or sentences without the use of connecting words: 'I'll go; you stay here.' A paratactic style has the effect of abruptness, because the relationship between one statement and the next is not made explicit." Baldick cites another example from such distinguished a writer as Thoreau, who was kind enough to his readers' intelligence by using subtlety and allowing us to "connect the dots," to use the media's buzzphrase du jour.

Generally speaking the literary device that involves "verbal compression" is called asyndeton. Asyndeton omits all connecting words which are substituted with a comma. The classic asyndeton is Caesar's "Veni, vidi, vinci." Another example courtesy of the Oxford Concise Dictionary is from Conrad's Heart of Darkness: "An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was thick, warm, heavy, sluggish."

And after randomly opening Ms Woolf's To The Lighthouse, I found this on page 96: "There was freedom, there was peace, there was, most welcome of all, a summoning together, a resting on a platform of stability."

The opposite of asyndeton is polysyndeton, the repeated use of conjunctions to link together a series of words, clauses, or sentences As an example, Baldick cites Endymion, the 1818 poem by Keats: "And soon it lightly dipped, and rose, and sank,/And dipped again." The second stanza of "Christ Climbed Down" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti is my choice for an effective use of polysyndeton. And if you happen to have a copy of Ulysses hanging around the house, pick it up and look at Molly's section, entirely free of paragraph breaks or punctuation. Yet look at all the "ands" sprinkled throughout the concluding nine lines of the book.

So we can see that there are numerous sterling examples of these literary tools employed by some of the finest writers of western civilization. This concludes our lesson on hypotaxis and its cousins.

(You're welcome.)

Well, I was as much bewildered as you may have been by the replies to what I supposed was "I Don't Care If I Never Get Back," but I found I had trouble with the meaning (pardon the expression) of the story, wasn't at all sure how I ought to feel about Ernbacher or that epic ball-game, although the story flowed as easily as yours always do.

Thanks for the lesson dear Aunty...

I cannot disagree with your references.

I botches my reply.

Sorry.

I was drunk.

HH

I cannot disagree with your reference.

I botched my reply.

I was 30% drunk.

HH

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hayseed Huck

That first sentence kills the story-- too long.

Hypotactic too.

Hypotaxis thwarts the narrative by dependence upon the
subordinate clause.

Shouldn't be that way.

HH

---

Her first sentence: "The grounds crew was taking its sweet time rolling up the tarp." That's too long? And what subordinate clause?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hayseed Huck

This story ...

I didn't mean to say a subordinate clause can be
found in this paragraph.

I failed to write clearly.

In fact this pragraph is more paratactic than hypo-
tactic.

But there is a stall.

The relative functions as a subordinate without the forn
of a subordinate. It certainly is a confused construction.

Other notes--

'various amounts' is a pleonasm. 'Amounts' is sufficient.

'containers of various amounts.-- containers are not
'of' amounts. Not scattered about, but sitting upon
a counter or table.

Scattered about the tiny office were containers of various amounts of liquid, which at one time could be called “coffee,” stacks of print-outs describing incident reports from the wild and inter-department memos from the Commissioner’s office, as well as spoor samples encased in plastic sandwich bags and fragments of diverse specimens of flora and fauna from nearly every region in the state which should have never been removed from the lab in the first place.

The last 'which' placed late.

'the lab' no reference of a lab. Can't write 'the' lab.

'diverse specimens' is also a pleonasm.

'diverse' is one of those elegant but meaningless words.

HH

HH

---

This is all gibberish.

Quote:

---

Thanks for the lesson dear Aunty...

I cannot disagree with your references.

I botches my reply.

Sorry.

I was drunk.

HH

---

Well, that explains it.

Dear Virgil,

I don't know why I care.

I'm 76 years old-- had my day.

But I want to know why you find my reply
gibberish-- my mild inebriation notwith-
standing.

... and I seek no confortation.

By the way-- is the Aeneid predominte hypotactic
or paratactic?

Please show me how 'various amounts' is not a
pleonasm.

Show me the article 'the' is incorrect.

Sentence too long? The first story in the
collection.

Show how the hypotactic does not stall action
in a story.

Teach me about the correct uses of 'which.'

Improve my language skills-- I wish not to
write gibberish.

Often my writing is dense, but I hope never
gibberish.

Please tell me your credentials that you make
this claim.

I find as I grow older I am more possessive of
my eighth-grade education. I guard it-- along
with the Irish whiskey in my right desk drawer.

I will make mistakes, many-- maybe answering is
one of them.
**

Subject forever closed.

No ned to reply.

It's not my life and it's not my wife.

HH

Hi Auntie,

I interpret this tale as a vision of purgatory, the sly, incidental reference to the lack of spectators below middle age indicating that perhaps everyone is dead and in their own personal torment.

I’m sorry to say that my knowledge of Baseball and its customs is sadly limited, so I may be missing out on some of the fun you are undoubtedly having. Your description of the big hit was very inventive. Your use of the word parsec in this context is creative, some readers may not be aware that a parsec is actually a measure of distance, (a parallel second, or 3.26 light years) but the meaning in context is clear and expressive.

I confess to having been utterly confused by some of the comments but I consider your response to have been both courteous and informative and exercised with admirable restraint.

As always Auntie I enjoy your strands and look forward to reading your next offering.

Regards, H

Thank you Prince, Virgil, and Hawkman for coming to my rescue.

And Hawkman, as far as the theme of the story goes, you hit the proverbial nail on the head. It could be Purgatory that Ernbacher's in or perhaps some place hotter. The story can be interpreted as an allegory of eternity.

The inspiration, if you call it that, came from two events in the current baseball season which began in early April. Recently an umpire (one of four referees per particular baseball game) complained quite rightly that some of the Major League Games drag on much too long. This umpire, Joe West, was referring especially to the games played by
the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. But since Boston and New York are such fierce rivals and both cities are highly populated, their games do seem protracted. My long-suffering spouse, Uncle Shecky, who is a life-long Red Sox fan, thinks the reason for this is to cram more commercials into their televised games. The other event that inspired me to write the story was a game last weekend between two National League teams, the New York Mets and the St. Louis (birthplace of T.S. Eliot) Cardinals. A regulation game is supposed to last only 9 innings, but because of a tie, it went to "extra innings, in this particular game, 20. It started at 4 p.m. and didn't end until a little after 11. As a life-long Mets fan, I was glad the Mets eventually won, but gawd, was it long!

And thanks for citing the use of the word "parsec." I used it because it sounded futuristic. Actually, on these shores we do tend to measure distance in terms of time, as in "Visit the Country Mall -- it's only 30 minutes away!"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

{Author's Note: This particular story appeared once before as an entry in the LitNet's Short Story Competition.
It must have been quite some time ago, as the typeface in the original file typeface was different from the font I've been using for the past year or two. In any event, I'm re-posting this thing in the fond hope it might generate some replies. If there are any replies, there are two issues or problems I have with the story which I'll 'fess up to if anyone posts a comment. Then maybe you and I can fix 'em. In any event, here 'tis --}

The Myth of Generations

It was risky for the boys to be in the alleyway behind Krause’s Butcher Shop. . . . .

But that story about the dump – the time he found the baby in a box - he told us only once.

---

I remember that story from the competition very well, and voted for it. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was the last story I voted for. I could tell immediately that it was written by our very own Auntie, whose fingerprints were all over it. We weren't able to comment on it during the competition, so I'm glad we can do so now. This is one great story.

I'm curious as to what the problems you mention might be.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

“I Don't Care If I Never Get Back”

The grounds crew was taking its sweet time rolling up the tarp. . . .

Bottom of the first, the World Champion Mid-Atlantic Oceanics had a lead-off walk, a strike-out, a foul ball caught by the third baseman, and with the star player grounding out to second, an inning-ending double-play. . . .

---

I regret to say that you lost me early on this one, Auntie. How can you ground into a double play when there are already two outs? I think this is the first time I've ever stopped reading one of your magnificent stories before reaching the end.

Maybe I'll try again later, when the shock wears off.

And my technical advisor (Uncle Shecky) didn't catch it!
I'll fix it. Thanks!

[The following rule-breaking piece of anti-fiction is a long short story or short novella. The three parts have been posted here consecutively. The author will be grateful to all of those who have enough patience to plow through the entire thing and to post their comments.]



Three Septembers

1.

It was the second Saturday in September, but nobody told the weather, just as sticky as it had been in mid-July. Christine --the lucky stiff!-- was now out of school and working. She got to sleep late on weekend mornings, so the job of referee passed down to me. So there I was sweating in the back seat of the Dad’s second-hand Plymouth, with the ugly, scratchy upholstery.

“Ewwww! Mom! Dwight broke the wind!”

“No, you did. He who smelt it dealt it!”

Each twin reached across me to swat or poke the other, for what must've been the fortieth time since we'd left the house.

My mother turned around. “Laura! What’s the matter with you? Can't you keep them quiet?” (As if they'd listen to me!)

“You stink!”

“No, you stink, Dwight –ooooo.”

The high-pitched bickering suddenly ceased, lasting for the two minutes or so it took to cross the bridge, strangely paved with thin, metal ridges that not only made a comical sound as our car drove over it, but also set off bizarre vibrations that tickled us inside.

During the all-too-temporary truce while Davy and Dwight reveled in the physical sensations of the bridge, I tried to look out the window at the river. Sometimes you could see a couple of gulls sweeping slightly above the surface, or if you happened to have hit the right time, a tugboat or a barge moving slowly downstream. I had to crane my neck like a periscope in the attempt to glance over the top of Davy’s crew-cut, but even more difficult was seeing anything between the closely-set vertical girders of the bridge. I thought I had a fleeting glimpse of the slim ribbon of water, but by that time the funny noise and the tickling had stopped, we were back on conventional macadam, and the brats had resumed their flailing and slapping.

We headed north on Broadway to a department store nicknamed “Monkey Ward,” our second trip there in a week, when we had made the annual trip to buy “back-to-school” outfits. This subsequent trip had a two-fold purpose. My mother held an unshakable faith that her eight-year-old twins were absolutely “identical,” yet despite her efforts to reinforce that notion by rearing, feeding, and dressing them alike, reality often superseded her deeply-held --almost religious -- belief. To everyone except my mother, Dwight was a taller, fatter copy of his twin. Both new pairs of pants only fit Davy, none fit Dwight, so one pair of the week-old corduroys had to be exchanged for an exact replica in a larger size. For the time being, the unusable pants with the tags intact and the receipt still in the flimsy, blonde-colored paper bag remained for the time being on my lap.

More pressing was to purchase a replacement for an end-table lamp broken that morning by one or both of the boys. Neither would confess to the crime nor finger the other, thus collectively escaping punishment, at least for a while. Normally, my parents, staunch devotees of the “make do” philosophy, would have postponed buying another lamp, but in this case, putting it off wasn't an option. That evening the living room had to look presentable, because we were expecting “Company.”

Once more the calendar had turned round to the time of one our family’s traditions, watching the country’s biggest beauty pageant on my father’s beloved Crosley. According to custom, we expected my mother’s brother, sister, and her husband to join us.

In the past couple of years we had all crammed ourselves into the living room to view this spectacle, which inexplicably captivated the adults. Early in the proceedings they'd pick their favorite to win the tiara, and if our state’s representative failed to make the cut in the semi-finals, they'd switch allegiance to a gal whose midriff-crossing banner indicated the name of a state geographically closest to ours. Such devotion baffled Christine and me. Two hours of sheer corniness could only be survived through irony, a term neither of us would have recognized at the time. Yet we'd roll our eyes and whisper mocking comments to each other over how the contestants, between the ages of late teens and early twenties, were gussied up to look like thirty-year-old women who'd already been around the block at least once. In the “swimsuit” competition we pondered whose bright idea it was to have the gals wear incongruous high heels that would sink deep down into actual beach sand, while the “swimsuits” themselves made them resemble trussed poultry. The misnamed “talent” segment was a treasure trove to strip-mine for laughs, from nasally-delivered aria to ventriloquism acts during which we'd crack up over which performer was the dummy.

“Christine,” I'd hiss, “what’s a ‘dramatic monologue’?”

“It means ‘She left her cheerleader’s baton on the bus.’ ”

To me the strangest part of the show was always the finale, with its phony suspense, overblown dramatics, and especially the lack of logic in which the third place finisher, the “second runner-up,” received special recognition and her own round of applause, while in the feverish rush to announce the new, the one in the middle, the real “Runner-up,” received barely an acknowledgment. This year, however, now that Christine had reached the age when she could openly slip out on a Saturday night, there would be no one to joke with. I'd have to suffer alone.

Of course, our typical family get-together invariably involved food in massive quantities. This particular occasion called for my mother’s famous golumpkis as well as her special dessert concocted with a can of crushed pineapple and an envelope of Knox unflavored gelatin, then allowed to “set,” like a prisoner doing time in a cold cell. Once sprung from the refrigerator, the spongy loaf was inverted onto a plate and ceremoniously crowned with copious squirts of ersatz whipped cream from an aerosol can. Aunt Margaret customarily brought the side dish, occasionally macaroni and cheese with tomatoes, or her home-made potato salad with its “secret” ingredient which everyone knew was mayonnaise laced with ketchup. None of these dishes appealed to me, (though I would have enjoyed the macaroni and stewed tomatoes served separately) but I'd pretend to ingest a little of each dish, more to avoid the inevitable reprimands than to be polite.

Needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to that evening’s events, but first we had to get the Monkey Ward business out of the way. My father never wanted anything to do with shopping and often said he wouldn't put one foot into the A & P even if they were giving away free T-bone steaks. He was always willing to drive us to wherever we were going, but otherwise, we were on our own. Dad would stay in the Plymouth and stare out the windshield as he smoked one Lucky Strike after another. He didn’t even look as we hiked across the parking lot and climbed the huge flight of steps up the massive grey building.

With the scene the twins had caused the previous Saturday still painfully fresh in my mother’s mind, this time she announced an emergency procedure for maneuvering through the revolving door. “All right, Laura, you have Davy go ahead of you and as soon as you get inside, grab his hand. Then wait,“ adding, “and don't lose that bag.” The momentary relief from the heat was short-lived, as the interior temperature was undoubtedly just a few degrees lower than that of the heat-absorbing asphalt outside. The only perceptible difference was that the air was a tad less still, coaxed to move around by grudging ceiling fans.

We marched through the store like enemy invaders who'd captured two diminutive prisoners. Although my mother’s oversized pocketbook intermittently banged against her hip with her every step, she seemed to be handling Dwight better than I was. “You're holding my hand too tight!” Davy whined, and to underscore his point, it felt like he was pulling my arm out of its socket. At any moment I knew the flimsy bag I held in my other hand would crumble to sheds and the pants would tumble to the floor, to be trampled beyond any hope of an even exchange.

First stop, Home Furnishings. The pieces of furniture were set up as they might be seen in a hypothetical “home,” except every bed was completely made and none had piles of folded laundry, newspapers, or toys on top of it. The dining room chairs all matched their corresponding tables, some of which were covered not with flannel-backed oilcloth but real linen. The dinner plates on each table were the same size and pattern, and not one piece of silverware was missing. While I admired the elegance and remarkable consistency, my stomach sank a couple of feet the very moment I caught sight of a ring of shimmering crystal goblets adorning one of the tables. Only a skilled magician, perhaps, could have yanked that tablecloth and have the glassware land intact. Introduce a couple of rambunctious eight-year-old boys into the scene and next thing you know the Governor is calling in the National Guard.

Real panic set in when I momentarily lost my mother. With a protesting Dwight still in tow, she had somehow drifted over to the housewares section, where shelf after shelf over shimmering cookware and ingenious kitchen gadgets had lured her into wistful rapture.

“Mom? The lamp?”

Without a word, she pulled herself and Dwight away as the four of us backtracked across the entire sales floor. Unlike the furniture “suites” arranged with a quasi-artistic flair, the various merchandise was grouped according to an efficient pragmatism, like with like. The space in front of an entire wall was devoted to bathroom fixtures, including a phalanx of bone-dry toilets lined up like soldiers, their lids in full salute, a sight that sent the boys into an extended giggling fit. A long line of automatic washers, front-loaders segregated from top-loaders, flanked a corresponding row of dryers. The inventory was subject a subtle hierarchy designed to separate the well-heeled prospective customers from those whose circumstances kept them within the confines of the euphemistically-termed “budget.” Each appliance bore one of three tags indicating its relative status: “Good,” “Better,” or “Best.”

When we finally arrived at the section reserved for table lamps, I hoped that my mother wouldn't get that tell-tale browsing gleam in her eye and prayed that she'd find what we'd come for quickly. This was just about the last place on earth to bring Dwight and Davy, given their recent history.

Then, at last: “Christine–Laura, I mean– look at this. Isn't this the spittin’ image of the one that –“ sotto voce “– broke?” She was right, of course, the lamp could have been the twin brother of the one whose ceramic pieces and tangled wires had been laid to rest in the dustbin on our back porch.

“Yeah, you're right, Mom. Let’s buy it and get out of here–“

“Well, we don't want to have to lug it all the way to the boys’ section, do we?” she said.

“Tell you what. I'll bring Dwightie down to try on the pants, then we'll meet you and Davy back here.”

The words had scarcely left my mother’s mouth when Davy’s jaw dropped in exquisite indignation. “What? Why can't I go too? You're gonna buy Dwight somethin’ and not me? It’s not fair!”

Both my mother and I tried to explain that no, Dwight wasn't going to get something new, that we were just getting a different size of pants that they both already had.

“I don't care. It’s not fair! I'm not staying here. I'm coming with you.” Davy stomped his feet so hard that the lamps wobbled, and I was sure the vibrations even threatened the glassware on the fancy tables way back on the other side of the floor.

Meanwhile Dwight had joined the fracas. “Why does he have to tag along?” he whined. “I'm sick of him going everywhere I go!”

“Quiet, boys! Please don't make a scene–“ My mother’s reprimand did nothing to defuse the trouble. If anything, the noise escalated a few decibels. Then, through gritted teeth yet over-enunciating every syllable: “Listen, you ungrateful brats– we're going to go to the boys’ section and exchange these lousy pants or on the First Day of School Dwight will be wearing nothing but his underwear!”

Such a possibility plunged Davy into a seizure of giggles, just as loud, though as his screams had been. “Oh, you think it’s funny, do you? Well, you'll be wearing the very same thing!” Now both boys were stunned into silence, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

All this time my father had been waiting out there inside the sweltering Plymouth. Besides that we had to get home with sufficient time to tidy up the flat and finish cooking. My mother made her trademark noise of disgust: clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth: “Tsk! ”

The surrender surprised me. Usually she hated “giving in” to the boys’ demands and often bragged to her friends about her “strictness” as a disciplinarian. I took Davy’s hand.

“What're you doing? I'll take both boys. You stay here and keep an eye on the lamp. Don't let anybody else buy it.”

“Ma, it’s ninety degrees. Nobody’s going to come out and–“

“You heard me.” With that she grabbed the pants peeking out of the split bag and tucked it under her arm. I watched the trio make their way to the elevators.

Left to my own devices, I wandered around the lamp department for a while. It didn't take me long to realize that if you've seen one lamp, you've seen them all. One old-fashioned model, though, which had a metal tier in the middle to which a circle of prisms had been attached with tiny little hooks. To amuse myself I idly flicked one of the hanging glass points with my index finger and watched the chain reaction, each slim pyramid hitting the other and tinkling, until the swaying gradually slowed to a stop. I was hot, tired, and painfully bored, with the upcoming evening promising more of the same.

It wasn't so much that my mother’s relatives were bores, it was just that each visit was so predictable. At the arrival there would be a multilateral frenzy of greeting in the same loud voice which my father used during long-distance phone calls. The first sentence out of my Uncle Bob would always involve a detailed description of the traffic coming down on the Thruway. In a bellowing voice which he'd tell interminable jokes whose tardy punch lines never failed to escape my understanding. The adults, however, roared in delight, even Aunt Margaret who had no doubt heard him tell the same endless story a million times before. Early on, Uncle Art would quip with his signature line about being the “odd man out” or the “fifth wheel.” In his absence my mother sounded nearly apologetic when she'd refer to her brother as a “confirmed bachelor.” A family folklore had it that years ago Uncle Art had been deeply in love with the hometown beauty, that she had strung him along up to the point at which he was about to propose only to jilt him to elope with a vacuum cleaner salesman. Though we were forbidden under pain of death ever to mention our uncle’s “broken heart,” there was a slim chance the subject would ever come up. Because of his natural reticence, he was not a man with which a kid could comfortably converse, but Uncle Art was pleasant enough. Put a beer in his hand, and for the entire evening he was happy. Once in a great while, he would pat one of heads and remark, “What a nice crop o’ kids,” or when no other adults were looking, reach into his pocket and each of us a quarter.

Aunt Margaret would go down the line for hugs, and I would feel her fleshy cheek pressing against our faces and her scent, a mixture of powder and perfume, would linger in my nostrils long after she had sat, with a theatrical flourish, on the end cushion of my mother’s freshly-vacuumed davenport. Aunt Margaret would tell the twins that she couldn't believe how much they've grown, despite the fact she’d seen everyone scarcely two months previously.

Last year, after reminding Christine was “becoming quite the beauty queen,” she remarked on what a “tall girl” I was. I'm sure she meant it kindly, but I took it the opposite way. My height made me look older than everyone else in the class, as if I had been kept back a couple of grades. It made me feel dumb. Giving me a look more serious than the topic warranted, Aunt Margaret asked, “How’s your love life?” (“Love life?” I hadn't started high school yet!) Then she made fun of my blushing. “What’s the matter, Laura? Cat got your tongue?” This of course, only deepened the red in my face. A well-timed important segment of the televised pageant got me off the hook.

The MC was announcing the winner of the friendliest contestant. Christine and I always believed that this consolation prize was a back-handed compliment, like a description of a blind date: “Well, she’s not much on looks but she’s got a great personality.” My mother and her sister questioned the judges’ choice in this category. “Look at that one,” Aunt Margaret snapped. “Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.” With the prospect of enduring that again this year, I'd almost prefer wrestling an alligator.

At that point I endured the torture of a secular Limbo: with no great desire to be home, but hanging around the lamp department was no fun, either. Still, over and over I sent my mother a telepathic message that almost was a prayer: “Come on, Ma. Hurry up.” Once more I wandered through the aisles and looked at the same lamps for the fifteenth time. Then I saw something I hadn't noticed before – a pole lamp as nearly as tall as I was. Here at last was a piece of merchandise that interested me. It would look really nice behind a comfortable chair with smooth upholstery with an adjustable footrest. I'd sit in the chair with a stack of library books by my side and read to my heart’s content, while a good-natured cat silently snoozed in front of a warm fire. We didn't own such a chair, our lease forbade pets, and of course, our flat did not have a fireplace. (Every Christmas Eve the twins would tape their stockings to my mother’s china closet. “Don't worry,” my father would assure them. “Santa will know where to find them.”)

Even though I knew the pole lamp would never be mine, I reached up and turned the switch. It worked! When I turned the switch again, the light didn't go off, but got brighter, and brighter still the next time. A three-way bulb! “Bright, brighter, brightest.” Idly playing with the switch and watching the wattage increasingly improve itself mesmerized me. “Good. Better. Best.”

I felt someone tug on my ponytail. Turning around, I saw a middle-aged salesclerk in a short sleeve shirt and a clip-on bow tie. “May I help you?” I gave him the standard answer. “No, thank you, I'm just looking.”

“Well, I beg to differ with you, young lady. I've been watching you and I know you're not ‘just looking’– you're tampering with my stock.”

My stomach descended as if on the elevator down to the bargain basement. “No, no, I'm not – No, really, I'm sorry, I didn't mean –“

“This is just as bad as shoplifting! I'm going to report you to the Manager! What is your name?”

“This is just a misunderstanding. My mother–“

“ Name?”

“Uh, uh-- Julie Nixon!” I was just about to make a break for it when I heard two unmistakable, screechy voices. Then I saw the twins and my mother making their way through the small appliance section.

Evidently the never-ending argument was still going on, though the topic had changed.“I told you. You're not getting anything school until the teacher tells you what you need. That’s final.” The sternness of her face softened ever so slightly when she spotted me. “ There you are. And the lamp’s still here, I see.”

The look on the clerk’s face was a mixture of relief and confusion. “Oh! I'm terribly sorry, ma'am. I didn't know you were interested in making a purchase.” He put his hand on the pole lamp. “This is a floor model. I'll just check the lot number and get you one that’s boxed up.”

“Not this one,” my mother said, then pointed across the aisle. “That one.”

By the time he rang up the sale, the clerk’s attitude had brightened considerably. “Nice boys,” he said. “Are they twins?” If I were my mother, I'd have been sick of the question by the time they were toddlers. But she just smiled and nodded. “There you go, ma'am. Thank you for shopping at Montgomery Wards.” The cellophane-wrapped shade was bulky, but I managed to grip by its narrower top. The clerk thrust the oblong box under my other arm. “And nice meeting you, Julie.”

Davy wrinkled his brow. “Mom, that man called Laura by the wrong name.” Because my hands were completely full, I gave him a swift kick in the shins. It did the trick.



[Parts two and three continue below.]