And This Bag Was Just Dancing With Me

There's a stoy in screenwriting circles about a floating plastic bag and the inspriation for the film "American Beauty."  I like that story, and I found Mr. Alan Ball's script for the film to be extremely well written.  I don't see the what he saw when I look at discarded shopping bags, but it's stuck with me and I've wondered about how he must feel in places such as San Francisco that have declared the ubiquitious liter to be detritus-non-gratta.

The following is a work of fiction and did not occur (to the best of my knowledge).  Any actual quote of Mr. Ball which I did not fabricate on the spot is intended only as an aid for readers who care to search out what he has to say on the topic of plastic bags using "Ctrl-C" and Google.

A Thing of American Beauty
(by Jonathan Stark, 800 words)

Councilman McTaggart yawned as he shuffled the papers on the table in front of him.  The florescent lights overhead flickered and the blueish bulb in the third fixture went out.  Then it came back on.  He looked at Councilwoman Harris on his right, then Councilman Greene on his left.

McTaggart cleared his throat.  Then looked at Councilwoman Harris again.  She looked up from her phone, said, “Oh, right.  Sorry.”

 Harris opened the folder in front of her.  She’d borrowed it from her daughter and the sight of the kitten falling of the tree branch on its cover made her heart skip a beat.  That poor cat.  Driven by duty to her electorate, she pushed aside her concern for the wellbeing of the animal and read from the first paper inside.

“Next order of business is proposition seventeen dash zero zero zero six,” said Harris.  McTaggart snickered.  So did Greene.  They always did when she said “proposition” and sometimes she’d snicker too but not this time.  Zero zero zero six was important.

Harris continued, “The council proposes a ban on the issuance and use of plastic bags within the city limits by grocery stores, restaurants, convenience stores, food carts, Yancy’s Lumberyard, and school lunches due to the unsightly problem of excessive plastic bags on the sides of city streets, in yards, clogging parks, congesting sidewalks, blocking bus grills, and filling the shopping carts of homeless people.”

McTaggart said, “All in favor say, ‘Aye.’”

A well-dressed man transitioning from handsome middle age to distinguished older gentleman, stood and said, “According to bylaw section twelve paragraph ‘C’ you must open the proposition for discussion.”

McTaggart and Greene snickered.  Then McTaggart said, “Everyone is in favor, no need to discuss.”

“I am not,” said the man.  “You don’t realize what you are doing.”

Harris said, in her slightly schrillish voice, “Sir, the plastic bags are an unsightly problem in our city.  This prop-“ she stopped, bit her lip with a sideways glance at McTaggart, “-plan will solve that problem.”

“You may as well solve the problem of flowers,” said the man.  The bluish bulb went out again, but this time with a dramatic pop.

Henry Steed, well ensconced in distinguished gentlemen, attended every council meeting.  His quiet snoring always comforted the councilmembers, reminded them of the importance of their work.  The sudden interruption in the rhythm of the snoring when Henry awoke at the comparison of trash to flowers was disconcerting.

Henry said, “Are you mad?  What do flowers have to do with plastic bags?”

The other man opened his mouth to speak but stopped.   Henry’s face changed, lightened with sudden realization and agreement.  “Councilman McTaggart, my esteemed colleague –“  he paused, turned to face the man, “Sorry, what’s your name?”

“Alan,” said the man.  “Alan Ball.”

Henry nodded his thanks and then went on.  “My esteemed colleague Mr. Ball makes a valid point.  You have not included Shane’s Florist in the ban.”

“The amendment is approved,” said McTaggart, casting a commanding look at Harris who dutifully wrote ‘Shane’s Florist’ in the margin of the proposition.

“That’s not my point at all!” exclaimed Alan.  “Have you ever seen a plastic bag caught in the wind?  Drifting along an alley, dancing on the updrafts and floating down only to be swept further along?”

Nobody had.

“I have,” said Mr. Ball.  “And was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”  They looked at him strangely.  Everyone.  “There’s a Buddhist notion of the miraculous within the mundane, and-“

Steed interrupted.  “We’re all good Presbyterians here, Mr. Ball.  No need to confuse things.”

Alan lost his flow.  McTaggart leaped into the void and dragged the rest of the council with him.

The ensuing debate ultimately resulted in a series of amendments that allowed school children to bring their lunches to school in plastic bags because the council, as eloquently expressed by Councilwoman Harris, “Did not want to discourage the arts among the young people of our great city.”

Henry Steed, who had been to Canada once, expressed his displeasure.  “The plastic bag is garbage, a thing of American pestilence that should be eradicated.”

Mr. Ball said, “You are mistaken.  It is a thing of American Beauty.”

Henry Steed rose from his folding chair, removed a carefully folded plastic grocery bag from the left breast pocket of his blazer, shook it open, and tossed it into the air.

The bag hung for a moment, as if orienting to the room, then gently floated downward only to be caught in the sudden down draft of the overhead HVAC duct.  Just as it was about to crash onto the vinyl tile of the floor, it whooshed toward the council table and rose on an updraft.

Councilwoman Harris squeaked and covered her mouth.  Her eyes were wide, filled with unshed tears, and she shook.  Never, in all her days had she been so moved.

“It’s just Steed’s bag,” thundered McTaggart, oblivious to the miracle he witnessed.

Councilman Greene snickered.

Bad Luck

Finished NaNoWriMo.  Now I need to finish the novel, probably another 10k words or so.  Should be Thursday if I can keep the NaNo pace up.  Also ran a 5k with my family.  It’s been 17 years since I ran in an organized race and this one was very crowded.  It was a little frustrating at first but after about ½ a mile the pack sort of settled and then we spent the rest of the time passing people.  That felt pretty good.

Thought I’d try something different for today’s story.

Bad Luck
by Jon Stark
December, 2014; about 700 words

The Squids came about five years ago, best we can figure.  Bounced off Mars and smashed into the moon.  Broke it and their ship.  Of course at the time we thought they did it on purpose and all those smaller ships descending on us were attack craft.

It didn’t help that they took out a U.S. carrier group somewhere in the North Atlantic.  Or that one of them burned into Beijing.  Sort of galvanized our resistance, global cooperation kind of thing.  It took two years and five billion people to beat them.  Worst luck we ever had.  As a race.  Squids killed clean.

Thing we didn’t know in time was that the Squids weren’t invading – those little ships were lifeboats and they were running.  Didn’t know that until the Cha’ah showed up.  We were trying to put things back together, one hand on the wall and the other on our extraterrestrial blast rifles so to speak, always with an eye overhead.  Wondering when round two was going to start.

We didn’t know there wouldn’t be a round two, that we’d destroyed the last of the Squids.  Ironic.  The Cha’ah pulled Pluto into Neptune’s orbit and then recycled it into a forward operating base.  They put an Illuminator in orbit around Jupiter and focused the ten jiggawatt beam on earth.  You want night?  Go underground.  There’s not a dark place left on our planet.  Seasons were messed up, clocks were already fried, we sort of lost track of when we were.

The Squids were NBA sized -- tall aliens with tentacles and beaks – but they had faces and spoke.  They wore suits and carried their weapons.  And we could kill them.  The Cha’ah are bugs.  Big, nasty, spidery things -- all legs and hair and eyeballs.  They’ve got these antennae things that sort of flop around and they chatter.  Clicks and whirs all the time.  They sound like tap dancers or drill sergeants when they walk on our ruined streets, clattering on claws and they swarm everywhere and I’ll tell you, doesn’t matter how you feel about spiders, they are terrifying.

Our weapons didn’t seem to touch them.  Worse, the best weapons we had were captured from the Squids and they had been beaten soundly by the Cha’ah.  You know how in the movies when the zombies or vampires or aliens showed up there was a guy, either one of the heroes or somebody they found, that knew how to kill the evil?  The guy who would say, “Garlic doesn’t work on them.  But Holy water does.”  Well, that guy hasn’t shown up.  Not here.

And if there’s a secret base somewhere with a captured Cha’ah ship that we’re reverse engineering, nobody has told me.  Nukes can’t stop them.  The President of the United States leading a fighter attack can’t stop them.  The unbreakable human spirit can’t stop them.  Even the common cold seems to be powerless against them.

They just march over us.  They suck the life out of you if they touch you.  They call down fire from orbital systems if you run from them.  We’re out of food.  There’s disease we can’t cure.  The oceans have nearly boiled away.  I’m not sure we’ll be able to make it even if we beat them back.

Not that there’s any chance of that.  We’ve been running and hiding and they just keep coming like a line of tanks advancing through the desert.  We run from hole to hole but none of them are deep enough.  There was one place -- might have been Colorado but who knows – where we hooked up with a military unit for a few days.  They had a Colonel who told us that he’d heard about somebody standing against the Cha’ah.  Somewhere in Europe.  Albania or Romania or something.  A group came out of the mountains and when the aliens attacked they were beaten by a man who used their own power against them.  Sounds too good to be true.

Sounds like a dying man grasping at straws to keep up the morale of his troops.  They fought well, when the bugs dropped in on us.  Left us wandering again.  But now we’re wandering east.  It’s a long walk to Moldova but that’s good.  A man needs direction, some sort of purpose, to keep going.  To get up in the morning and not quit.  To fight.

And who knows?  Maybe there is a secret base somewhere.  Or a man that has power against the scourge destroying the world.

Snapping the Pieces Together

Snapping the Pieces Together by Jon Stark
November, 2014, about 1100 words

Blustery is probably the best word, because the wind was fierce and when you’re on the corner of 31^st and Avenue of the Americas it’s hard to find someone to help you.  There was one nice man but he apologized, said he was from Brooklyn, and had no idea where Garrett’s was.

If you have never been to New York City than you can’t imagine how big it is.  Not really.  You can’t sympathize with the man from Brooklyn who didn’t have a clue about the iconic popcorn shop that I hadn’t even heard of before this trip.  And I lived there for years.  Brooklyn, not Manhattan.

Which makes another interesting point.  If you’ve never lived in New York City you don’t know how small it is.  You know how Legos all sort of snap together and make up interesting things but all the interesting things – death stars and Hogwarts and race cars – are made up of the same blocks?  That’s New York.  A thousand small towns where everybody knows everybody all snapped together and connected by a half dozen bridges and tunnels into a 7 million person metropolis.

I don’t live there anymore.  And my girlfriend said that when I came back I’d better have a bag of caramel corn from Garrett’s.  Apparently, to her, Garrett’s is New York.  I have another friend who told me to make sure I had a knish.  “It isn’t a trip to New York without having a good knish.”  For me it is.  I don’t like them.  Maybe a slice from Cosimo’s or D’Angelo’s but I didn’t bother with that this trip, New York isn’t about the food.  Not once you’re from there.

Not that I was ever from Manhattan, but I spent a lot of time in the lower part, down by Battery Park and Pearl Street and the towers.  That’s New York to me.  They’re gone now.  What they’ve put back is a sign of the city’s decline.  They dress it up with fancy language, but the truth is obvious.  If New York was still the center of the universe and a place of opportunity and growth, they’d have built something big.  Real Estate that valuable wouldn’t have been used for a memorial.

Don’t get me wrong, I think a memorial is good.  When I was dating Toni -- when I lived in Brooklyn --she and Mike’s wife had to go across the bridge for a procedure so Mikel and I went too.  And her son Brandon.  He was probably about three.  I didn’t know anything about being a father, wasn’t interested in being a father, but Mike was so it was a good day.  Sometimes I wonder if Brandon remembers that trip or if we were just part of the blur of faces that came in and out of his mother’s life.

The twin towers of the World Trade Center were huge.  You know what I mean if you’ve ever stood at the foot of them and looked up.  I remember one time driving across the Brooklyn Bridge and seeing the towers disappear into a cloudbank only to emerge into bright sunlight a few hundred feet later.  They were like mountains, sheer unassailable cliff faces rising from the bedrock with more concrete and glass than my hometown.  We wandered in their shadow and stumbled across a firehouse.

There was no Dalmatian but the young men working there were friendly and went out of their way to show Brandon everything there was to know about their truck and the garage.  They even took us all upstairs to see the barracks and kitchen.

I think of those men every time I see smoke in the towers.  I hope they transferred before September.  It doesn’t change the tragedy of what happened but maybe the people who died weren’t as nice.  Bad things should happen to bad people.

There was a girl I knew who worked there.   In the towers, not the fire house.  Her name was Tricia and she liked Pinot Noir and I couldn’t afford to take her out again.  We’d meet socially on occasion and I liked to think she always wanted me to ask again.  I almost did a couple of times, but she was out of my league.  Or I was just scared.

When I stood at the construction site of what used to be the towers I overheard an old woman complaining to her daughter and grandchildren that she’d never been to the top of the towers.  She’d had the chance but didn’t want to spend the $17.  It was a regret, she said.  Don’t be cheap when life offers you a chance for something wonderful.

It made me think of Tricia.  I don’t usually think of her when I see the towers.  But it did then.  Her office was above the line.  Impossibly high.  I thought about her fear.  Her terrible choice.  I think she would have jumped.  I looked at the street, the broken sidewalk where I stood and wondered if maybe that was where she landed.

Or someone else.  I was suddenly overwhelmed and my knees buckled and the city around me became a blur and I had to get out and I couldn’t understand how the woman could complain about her life being incomplete when she was still alive and how could anyone blow their horn in impatience there, in the cramped quarters of the final resting place of thousands of souls who had loved the city and hated the city and gone to work excited or hung over and had plans for weddings or birthdays or were expecting children or grandchildren and it made me terribly sad.

And that was New York to me, not knish and certainly not Garrett’s Gourmet Popcorn but here I was, wind tearing at my ears and killing time before my train following directions on my iPhone that told me I was right there but I couldn’t see it.  The man from Brooklyn couldn’t see it.

And then I did see it.  I’d over looked the door a hundred times.  You know how it is, if you’ve ever looked for a special place in New York.  No awning.  No real store front.  Just a door and a window and a small sign that said, “Garrett’s.”

The door was open.  A woman held it for a family that must have been from North Dakota because they were in shirt sleeves and the rest of the world was freezing and I saw her face and it was Tricia and she was alive.

Strings Attached

I hope you enjoy today’s no-frills story.

Strings Attached
by Jon Stark
November, 2014

“Just us?”  Stephanie smiled.  His voice had that power.  It did other things too.  If she was fourteen she’d be up until midnight listening to his radio show.  That she hadn’t been fourteen in twenty years and he wasn’t a DJ didn’t diminish the fantasy in the least.

He always dressed well, one of the many traits she admired.  She took fact that he was wearing the tie she’d bought him for his birthday as a good omen.  She said, “You look good in that tie.”

He looked down at it.  “Thank you.  I think my kids got it for me a couple of Father’s days ago.”  She frowned, almost corrected him, was distracted by his eyes.  Oh, those eyes.  He said something about the restaurant being a nice place.

It was a nice place.  She didn’t remember it being so expensive.  She’d wanted nice, but the prices.  How did they stay in business?  There was hardly anyone even there.  When the waiter came she ordered soup.  Not even with a sandwich or salad.

He ordered the Beef au Jus without hesitation.  It made her shiver.  He was a hunter, a strong meat eating man, confident with what he wanted and rich enough to get it.  He hadn’t even looked at the menu.  This was his kind of world.

They made small talk.  Mostly he talked.  And smiled.  He could be reciting the Oxford Dictionary for all she cared.  As long as it was the unabridged version so that it would take longer.  Watching the big words roll off his tongue, between lips that had been sculpted by some divine agent.

He paused when the food arrived.  She made her move.  Asked how he was getting on with his family out of town.  Through a mouthful, slow trickle of au Jus on his chin, he said, “I’m not going hungry.”

Her turn.  A nod.  Then, “You sure?  I’ve got the afternoon off.”  She hadn’t practiced the words, exactly, but she’d been working on the tone.  And the look.  Combined with the outfit she’d bought on Tuesday he got the message.  Knife and fork stopped moving.  She could barely hear him over the rush of blood through her ears.

“Steph, I hope I didn’t give you the wrong idea.”  That wasn’t his line.  He was saying it wrong.  She missed most of the rest of what he said.  The crackers were stale.  $30 for a bowl of soup and the crackers were stale.  It made her so angry.  “… what you’re offering.  I’m flattered, truly, but it isn’t what I want.”

“What about what I want?” she said.  It sounded harsh, even childish.  She hadn’t practiced this at all.  How could he be saying that?

He shook his head.  “What about what Leslie wants?”  Our kids?”  So he’d thought about it.  She tried to get back to before, to when she had him.  “I’m not like that.  Never have been.  Never even thought about it.”

That couldn’t be true.  She didn’t want it to be true.  Those eyes.  They said it was true.  And the crackers.  Could it get any worse?  She needed something.  Tears were dangerously close.  He had to give her something.  “What if you didn’t have Leslie?  What if there were no kids?  What then?”

He did her the courtesy of thinking about it.  She thought he might even be appraising her, appreciating the effort she’d put into her hair.

“If I hadn’t found Leslie?  Was unattached?”  She nodded, encouraging him.  “I think I would probably be very interested.  You’re a remarkable woman.”  The words washed over her, cleansed her, warmed her.  She forgot about the crackers.  Move the conversation on.  Worked on getting back to normal.  He played along.  Nothing had happened.

She thought about what he said, nodding as he spoke now but not really paying attention.  If there was no Leslie he’d be interested.  She didn’t remember slipping the knife into her purse when the check came, but fishing for her keys back at the car, wondering where to go now that she had a free afternoon, it was there.

Somebody, somewhere.

I sat down to work on my NaNo project and remembered it was Monday.  Story time.

Untitled
by Jon Stark, November 2014

Henry drove east.  The fading sunlight blinded the folks coming at him, swerving a bit here and there, creeping over the yellow, not in a dangerous way but he was glad to have it at his back.  Gave him a Red Baron sort of confidence.  And a red tint to the world, maybe more orange.  Either way, it was on the way out and reminded him of the body in the car.

He was okay driving with a body.  He’d been on the detail back in ’90, driving a half-track through the desert loaded down with bodies.  Didn’t know them.  Didn’t want to know them.  Some of the guys freaked out.  Davis walked all the way from Nasiriyah to Kuwait just so he wouldn’t be with the corpses in the truck.  Henry was just thankful to be driving away from the killing and out in the desert there no SCUD drills.

Stateside was different.  He and Donna were married during his tour at Ft. Benning and then with the baby he decided not to re-up.  Didn’t have a lot of call for an infantryman in the civilian world.  School didn’t suit him although he did end up taking a custodial shift at the high school.  He also worked part time for his brother who, for some gruesome and inexplicable reason, had purchased a mortuary business.

Henry did a lot of driving for his brother.  Picked up bodies, delivered bodies.  He made a few runs to Florida.  Even went way out to St. Louis one time.  That was the trip he started talking to them.  It was a long way.  And a soldier.  He felt like they had something, some sort of a connection.  He wanted to encourage the boy, thank him, tell him it was going to be okay down here.

It was a good chat.  He had a few others, over the years, on those long stretches of interstate between bubbles of ticky tacky.  He liked talking to them.  They listened, gave him time to think through what he was trying to say.

Henry didn’t talk now though.  Nothing left to say, really.  Not to this one.  She sort of looked asleep, headlights sweeping across her face.  He drove on long after they should have been home.  The ride was nice.  Traffic wasn’t too bad.  The company was good.  And he’d driven for his brother.  He knew what would happen when he finally did stop.

And he wasn’t ready for that yet.

What Guy?

It’s November, that magical time of year when thousands take to the proverbial quill and parchment to craft the next great American novel.  But not me, I’m going for the next commercially successful American novel.  If you have any interest at all in writing the long form, please give serious consideration to participating in NANOWRIMO.  There is something magical about the shared experience and there’s a ton of encouragement floating around.  You might not write something great, but you have the best chance ever of finishing and that really does mean something.  I’m off to a reasonable start and it’s funny how different year 2 is.

I plan to keep the blog going during the month.  I remember last year getting a bit short on time and skipping out on a couple of entries.  This year I’m more professional.  And I fully expect to get blocked along the way so I’ll have plenty of opportunity to write posts instead of prose.

Anyhoo, on with today’s original fiction inspired by a conversation I had with #4 over the weekend.  For background, he and his brother like watching – and mocking – the “survival” shows on Netflix.

What Guy?
by Jon Stark
November, 2014

I was waiting for the train, as I often do, and heard a cell phone ringing.  I hate that.  People should have the decency to mute their phones when sharing public spaces.  But we can’t have everything and this wasn’t so bad, it was Frank Sinatra singing, “Same Old Saturday Night.”  One of my favorites.  In fact, I like it so much that I… oh.  Made it my ring tone.

I answered the phone.  It was Martin and he had an emergency.  It was a typical emergency and involved both being late and a girl.  Not what you just thought.  He was late for work and had gotten drawn into a long conversation with his favorite barista.

I asked, “Why was she so talkative?”

“Don’t know,” he said, “But from here on out I’m going to get just plain coffee.”  We shared a laugh.  “Traffic is awful today, I’m never going to make it.”

“Sure you will.  You always do.”  I wasn’t sure, but it was my line.  We had this conversation three days out of five.  “And you’ll get the same coffee you always do tomorrow.”

He laughed.  “Maybe. “  There was a moment’s silence.  I’m never sure if he is changing lanes or thinking of something clever.

“You guys want to come over this weekend?” he asked.   (He must have been changing lanes.)

“Probably.  I don’t think we’ve got anything going on.”  I heard the train whistle.  “I gotta run.”

“Sure – whoa, this guy is crazy.  What is he –“  There was some sort of noise but I had to jerk the phone away from my ear.

“Marty?”  No response.  I looked at the phone.  Call ended.  I tried to get him back.  Got voicemail.  Odd, I thought, but the train had come and I sit in the quiet car.  No calls.  But I was curious.  What guy?  What was he doing?  I sent a text.

Martin never answered.

Smoldering

Smoldering
By Jon Stark
October, 2014

Levi did what anyone else would do.  He pretended not to see.  But some problems don’t go away by themselves.  That’s what Hannah would say.  He still wasn’t ready to admit she might be right.

Things were out of hand now, though.  He couldn’t ignore that.  Fall was well on its way to winter.  Time to gather up the mess.  Time to get on with it.

Levi didn’t know how to do that, though.  The trash can was out, he’d never fit it all in.  A gust of wind stirred the mass of leaves in his yard.  Spun them up into a spectral shape that danced a hundred yards before dissolving, drifting back to the ground.  He shivered.

There were branches down in the yard too.  An idea formed.  Then the shape of a fire as he gathered sticks, broke them to size, and constructed a teepee within a log cabin.  That should do it.

No, it wouldn’t.  Levi gathered more wood and stacked it beside the carefully laid fire.  He crumpled newspaper and hid it inside the sticks.

More leaves fell.  Clouds roiled in the sky as night crept upon him.  He glared at the faces of his neighbors, peering from the windows of their warm houses, judging him with their immaculate lawns and orderly bags of debris stacked at the ends of driveways that got fresh sealant every summer.

He didn’t like being judged.  He’d told Hannah that a hundred times.  She had a problem though, involving judging, talking, and not listening.  The quiet was nice.

Dark had come when he was finally ready.  Those who knew him would say it was because he was lazy and started too late in the day, not because he’d planned it that way.  Others would suspect that he labored over the fire, adjusting everything just so, because be he sick in the head.

Once he had a good blaze going he headed to the house and dragged out some of the trash bags.  The rooms were packed with garbage, a warren that both comforted and horrified him.  The neighbors had complained unsuccessfully -- the homeowner’s association only had rules for the outside and to see his mess you had to be a nosey Nancy and look through his windows.

All the same, he’d blocked the windows.  Hannah didn’t like that, but she was too busy running her yap to do anything about it.

A pair of eyes watched Levi from his neighbor’s upstairs bedroom.  He stared back until they went away.  The fire flickered and the rising shadows turned his face to a grotesque parody of a man.

Levi heaved one of the bags onto the blaze.  It sputtered for a moment, hissed, then burned with a sudden furry.  He wasn’t prepared for the smell.  He’d thought it would be horrible but it was more like grilling steak.

Flashing lights caught his attention.  He rushed around front.  A sheriff’s deputy walked from the curb toward the house.  “What can I do for you, Officer?” asked Levi.

The deputy stopped, shined his 6 cell flash light at Levi, then walked over to him.  “Had a call about a fire.”

“Just burning some stuff I cleaned up,” said Levi.

“You’re supposed to call before you burn,” said the deputy.

Levi cursed under his breath.  How had he forgotten that?  “Sorry.  I was rushing to get it done, didn’t think of it.”

The officer nodded.  “That’s alright.  Just don’t let it happen again.”

“It definitely won’t happen again,” said Levi.

The man walked back toward his car then turned.  “What are you cooking?  Smells great.”

Levi stared at him.

“You okay?” asked the deputy.

“Dinner.  I’m hungry.”

The deputy frowned, shrugged, and went back to his car.  “Be careful with that fire.”

Levi didn’t wave.  He ran into his house and through the piles of collected junk to the freezer.  He grabbed a package of meat and put it on his grill out back near the fire.

The grill wouldn’t start.  He cursed.  He hit it.  Again.  He threw it around his deck.  It didn’t start.

The fire settled into coals.  He threw on another trash bag.  It caught quickly with a sickening hiss.  This time flames didn’t leap up, they crawled low and blue.  He watched them dance.  The way he watched Hannah dance.  He felt the same stirring.

It took some puttering but he wasn’t upset about the cop anymore and he got the grill going.  He wasn’t sure anyone ever grilled a roast but nobody would be that close.

He threw more wood on the fire.  He couldn’t afford to let it go out.  Then he dragged out a half dozen more trash bags, one at a time, carefully so that they wouldn’t rip.

One of his neighbors waved from her back deck, a can of something in one hand, a cigarette in the other.  He ignored her.

“You and Hannah having a late night barbeque?” she asked.

Levi snapped his head around.  The woman had come to the edge of her lawn and was watching him.  He glared at her, the fire casting a deep red tint on them both.

She caught her breath and stumbled back inside.

Levi spent hours at the fire, adding wood and trash bags until he was out of both.  He poked at it with a long stick, shifting the ash and bones.

He dozed on a rusting folding chair.  The moon came up and played hide and seek with the clouds.  Still the fire burned.  He startled awake, a curse on his lips.  He looked around.  Nothing.  And the fire.

The flames rose up, formed and reformed.  Arms stretched out and retreated.  A face laughed at him.  The wood was gone but still it burned.  He poked at it again.  He was tired.  How long would it take?

Dawn crept into the sky and the fire burned.  He sprayed it down but the fire kept burning.  He could clearly see the bones now, fire fliting in and out of the empty eye sockets of the cracked skull.

He ran to the garage and fumbled for a rake.  He worked feverishly and dumped piles of leaves on the fire, smothering it.  Smoke poured out, vile, acrid, thick.

Levi went inside.  He ate.  Outside, the fire burned through the leaves.  He went back to work, feeding the fire with leaves and fallen branches.

Every time it burned down he would sift and stir and each time he found the bones still burning, no hint that they were being consumed.  All day and into the night he labored.  He burned all of the leaves.  Still the bones looked untouched by the fire that clung to them.

His phone rang.  He ignored it.  A few minutes later his neighbor was back, with a fresh can and cigarette.  “Where’s Hannah?  I just tried to call and she didn’t answer.  Haven’t seen her in a few weeks.”

“Gone,” said Levi.  “Maybe to her mother’s?”

“Why would she go there?”  A drag on the cigarette.

“Didn’t say.”

“Or you weren’t listening?”  It was playful.  So was the subtle unzipping of the sweatshirt she wore.  “She say when she was coming back?”

Levi shook his head.  He threw some books onto the fire from where he’d moved the stack in the dining room to a pile beside the fire.  “I told her to shut up.  She said I couldn’t make her.  I stopped paying attention after that.”

His neighbor nodded sagely.  Finished her can.  “You let me know if there’s... anything I can do.”

“You can go home and leave me alone,” said Levi.  He threw the rest of the books on the fire.  She zipped up the sweatshirt and huffed away.

The fire burned all night.  He tried soaking it with the hose but the water just hissed and mocked him.  The fire danced and leered at him.

He emptied the house, burning decades of collected treasures but each time the trash was consumed, it left only the bones.  The sheriff’s deputy came back.  He chased the man away.  Promised he was almost done.

But he wasn’t.  When the trash in the house was burned he started on the garage.  Then the furniture in the house.  Then he tore up the floors and broke up the walls.  The fire consumed all of it.

The fire department chief came by and suggested that maybe it was time to put out the fire.  Levi told him he was on it.  His eyes blazed and smoke clung to him and the fireman retreated, shaken.

Levi tried burying the fire.  The bones moved together then, hiding from the dirt.  Scurrying out of the pit and onto his lawn.  He hacked at them with his shovel.  They danced out of reach.

Exhausted, he stopped for breath.  They came together.  Feet, legs, pelvis, ribs, shoulders, arms, hands.  He watched in horror as the bone fingers lifted the skull and set it in place.

A voice, harsh with smoke, hissed at him from the broken jaw.  He fell to his knees, covered his ears.  But he still heard her.

“You can’t make me,” said Hannah.

A new story and and a new contest

I hope you don't consider this cheating.  I wrote a piece for Wendy Strain's new contest last week and now that it doesn't have to be anonymous anymore, I'm using it for the entry today.

Please consider entering the contest.  It's 500 words or less, to prompt, to be posted on Friday with voting over the weekend.

Here's the story -- mine is the one about the fork.  http://www.writeonwendy.com/perspectives-wow555-writing-challenge-story-time/

The Swimming Hole

Happy October Exploitation Day.  Let’s celebrate with a story.

The Swimming Hole
by Your’s Truly
October 2014

Mr. Webster flipped through his manuscript again as the frown that seemed to be permanently etched into his face grew even more pronounced.  “Blasted tarniverous obfuscation,” he muttered.

The woman seated in the chair beside his work table looked up from her needlepoint and peered down her hawkish nose, across the rims of her spectacles, and on to the trouble form of the man who’d won her heart a half century earlier.  “What is it, Dear?”

“I’m missing something,” he said.

She considered his words, then the bulky collection of papers covered in his perfect script.  “I don’t see how you could have.  That book must be a thousand pages.”

“It’s more than that, but there are so many words.”  He thumbed through it again.  “So awfully very many.”

“Then it’s to be expected that you’ve missed a couple and no one will mind.”  She was a sensible woman which was why he’d chosen her over the flighty Mabel.

He considered Mabel for a moment.  Wondered how long she’d be content to sit in a chair with skein and needle.  Once more he counted himself fortunate to be with Merriam.

He looked down.  His breath stopped.  There it was.  “Ahh HA!” he cried out.  “I knew something was missing.  Right here between swill and swindle.”

Merriam, God bless her soul throughout the eternity to which she was predestined upon her baptism at Courtland Abbey, rose from her chair and ambulated to her husband’s side.  “What’s missing?”

He scratched his chin.  Then he scratched his lower back where something had bitten him in the night.  “I don’t know.”

“It seems to me that one word doesn’t make that much of a difference,” she said.

He looked over at two covers for his opus, identical but for the word “Abridged” attached as a subtitle to one of them.  “Sometimes one word makes all of the difference.”

The Jolly Old Party Snack

I think I know what it is to be a professional writer.  I have a large project I’m working on – the script, a short story that I just have to write inspired by the most remarkable wedding I attended over the weekend, and a blog post which, being Monday, must be a work of original fiction.

I don’t want to write the work of original fiction for the bog.  I want to write the short story, even as the script tugs at me as says, “Get me done.  You’re going to love the end.”  The discipline that lets me finish any of my writing insists that the blog must come first.

I know, I’ll just copy an entry from Washington Orville Hampton’s diary.

May 12, 1983 – Budapest.

This is truly a remarkable age we are living in.  I’m staying at the Prague and Pony, unspeakable thousands of miles from home, yet this afternoon upon waking – it was a very late night of  draw – so hungry I couldn’t stand it but between shifts in the hotel kitchen, I found a sort of delicatessen across the street and was able to get not just a pastrami on strange brown bread but also a cup of Pringles.

I remarked to the man behind me how much I loved the processed potato snack and he smiled before buying my lunch.  I thanked him and he suggested we take one of the sidewalk tables and enjoy the early afternoon together.  It was the least I could do for a fellow traveler and he spoke the Queen’s English with such charm that I could think of no more entertaining way to pass the time.

He also had a cup of the Pringles and devoured them with the sort of passion generally reserved for confections coated in chocolate.  The conversation worked its way around, as conversations do and in a moment’s pause I took up the cup and commented on the snack food being labeled a Crisp rather than a Chip.

For his part he shook his head and wondered, obviously not for the first time, why we insisted on calling crisps chips on the other side of the pond.  In good natured fun I assured him that it was because they were chips, not crisps.  We’d invented them first.

“But not the Pringles,” he said.  I thought on that.  On the bottom of the package it said they’d been made in Jacksonville, Florida.  “Is there a Jacksonville in Spain’s Florida?” I inquired.  “No,” he assured me.  “They are made in your Jacksonville.  It was the only place I could find the right ingredients.”

Now, I must admit that my curiosity was aroused. He’d only introduced himself as Christopher.  I looked at him again, could it be?  He beamed back at me and, with a flourish, said, “Lord Christopher Pringle the Second, at your service.”

That made more sense.  He was the heir, not old Chris Pringle himself.

You Can Win for Losing

Lydia couldn’t believe it.  Toni lost.  It was a close race all the way and several times she thought her friend was about to pass the lead car – even had a good line to pass – but then somehow she fell back.  She watched as everyone got out.  The winner was tall and his eyes were the special sort of blue that made Lydia dizzy.  Toni laughed with him.

Toni came over.  “Let’s play mini-golf.”  Lydia wasn’t sure.  “It’ll be fun.”  Toni’s gaze followed the tall boy where he and a friend were renting clubs.  Lydia followed Toni.  So did several other girls that he was ignoring.

Toni was very good at mini-golf.  So good that it wasn’t fun to play with her – the reason that Lydia had been hesitant – but for some reason she was off that night.  The tall boy, turned out his name was Justin, offered to help her the third time she hit him with a wild ball.

The four of them finished out the round together.  Under his watchful eye Toni did much better, but he still won.  And his eyes still made Lydia dizzy.

They played 8 Ball next.  Toni told him to watch out.  “Pool is my game.”  Justin caught up from way behind and then Toni scratched shooting the last ball.  Lydia couldn’t believe it.  “You never scratch.”  Toni shrugged.

Justin got bored halfway through the third game of air hockey, it was a close game – they all had been – but he was tired of the crowd.  “Let’s get out of here.”  Toni took his arm.  Lydia looked at the score.  “What’s up with you tonight?  You never lose.”

Toni winked at her.  “Winning is different than never losing.”

A Tisket

It’s Monday already.  I’m tempted to tell you about my weekend and call it an essay but that would be cheating, the tag, and promise, is for original fiction and while I may occasionally exaggerate in my reports, they are, at heart, true.

My stories are not.

A Tisket
by Jon Stark
September 2014

Donovan figured this was pretty much it.  If he didn’t say something now, he never would.  They weren’t at his father’s house, he hadn’t been there since he’d left, so the timing now was important.  He could have gone over to the house but that would have meant a special trip.  He could have called, but some things need to be said eye to eye.

Donovan had a list of those things.

He stood in the back of the room and watched – there was always a throng around his father.  Always had been.  The man had a knack for claiming center stage.  Everything was always about him.  Donovan thought about the first item on his list.  Fishing.

Then he wondered if maybe it would be better to start with Mel which got him thinking about Donnie, jr.  What kind of man pretends he doesn’t have a grandson?  That was it.  Actually, no.  He’d close with Donnie.

Mel put her hand on his shoulder.  “You don’t have to do this, Baby.”  He nodded.  She nodded.  They looked over to where the crowd had thinned, a break in the press of courtiers just wanting to be near him.  He sighed.  She squeezed his hand.  “I’ll be right here.”  He nodded again.

There was probably something to the set of his jaw because when Donovan reached his father everyone else scurried off.  It was the two of them.  Alone together for the first time in decades.  Donovan steeled himself.

He cleared his throat then met his father’s unfeeling gaze.  Donovan faltered.  His father waited.  He started and it came out as a squeak.  He braced for his father’s laughter, ridicule, a tirade about his failure to live up to the family name.  But his father remained still, patient, encouraging him.

“You never took me fishing,” began Donovan.  He didn’t make it to Donnie.  Mel came to him after a while, led him to a chair.

“Do you want to go home?”  She held him as he convulsed against her.  “We can go home.”

He pushed away.  “No,” he said, looking at the casket.  “I need to finish this.”

Of Pelicans and Men

I’m a day late on this post.  Sorry.  I kept thinking yesterday was Sunday.

Of Pelicans and Men
by Jon Stark

When I was a boy I went to a camp for a week or two each summer.  It was a splendid place and unlikely the sort of experience that modern children would care for – we played outdoor games, carved shrunken heads from apples, and sang a lot of silly songs.  One of them was about a polar bear named Percy.  He lived in the land of ice and snow where the temperature dropped to 40 below.  Eventually he wound up in a zoo but that was okay because he met his girlfriend there.

This story is not about Percy or the camp.  It’s about Jorell.  Not Superman’s father (still not a fan of DC), no, this Jorell is a Pelican.  Pay attention because in actuality, this story isn’t even really about a Pelican but you’ll have to figure out the true meaning for yourself.

Jorell was tired.  He had been flying for what seemed like a very long time – and it had been, in fact, a very long time – and his wings were tired.  His chest was tired.  His neck was tired.  (Yours would be too if you had to hold up a beak – bill? – like his.)

“Let’s stop to rest,” said Jorell to his mother’s back.

“Can’t stop now, Dear,” she said.  “We’re out over the ocean.”

“We can float on the ocean.”  Why this simple fact always eluded his mother, Jorell didn’t know, but every negotiated rest stop started with the same argument.

“We’ll lose our bearing, Dear,” she said.  “Let’s go a bit further.”

“We won’t lose our bearing.”  Jorell sped up a tad to fly next to her.  “The beach is a straight line, we can follow that.”

His mother shook her head.  “I don’t know about that.  A stop here isn’t on the schedule.”

“It looks very nice down there.  Probably even some fish. Let’s just rest for a little while.  It’ll be fine.”  Jorell pulled ahead and then began to descend.  His mother was not happy, but instinct forced her to follow him.

They glided closer to the waves.  The swells broke as they approached the beach and it was very pretty.  She could see activity.  “I don’t think that’s a good place to stop, Dear,” she called.  “Looks like sharks.”

Jorell looked.  Could be sharks, but could be dolphins too.  Or cloud shadows.  “I think it’s fine.  Let’s go closer for a better look.”  They went a bit further down.

A young boy on the beach looked up and saw them.  He pointed and shouted excitedly.  “Pelicans!”  Lots of people looked, from the sand, from the edge of the water, from the decks of their rented condos.  They liked pelicans.

The boys mother looked dutifully before pulling him away from the edge of the water.  “I told you not to go in there.  You’re uncle said there were sharks.”

The boy scowled.  “He isn’t even here.  I haven’t seen any sharks.”  It was true.  Nobody had seen any and people were starting to go further and further out into the water.  Some of the older kids were even body surfing.

Jorell hollered over his shoulder.  “No sharks, Ma.  Look, even the people are in the water.”  The coasted over the beach.  Sand pipers flitted about.  Crabs dug in.  People pointed up.  Jorell’s mother had to admit that everything looked normal.

The pelicans glided between the swells and settled onto the water.  Jorell sighed in ecstasy and immediately went to sleep.  His mother was too nervous but soon the rocking waves and aching muscles overcame her better judgment and she too nodded off.

“See?” said the boy.  “The pelicans are floating out there.  No sharks.”  His mother had to agree.  The birds wouldn’t have settled in if there were sharks in the water.

“Okay.”  She said.  “You can go out there.  But be careful.  There’s an undertow.”  He cast a last, ‘are you for real?’ glance at her and dove into the water.

A trio of dolphins was slinking along the coast, fearful of the sharks that frequented the beach.  It was dark and tiring work and they wanted to play.  But it was too dangerous.  The splashing of the children near shore caught their attention.  “The people wouldn’t be in the water if there were sharks.  Let’s jump some waves, Dudes.”

People generally think that dolphins are smart.  I’m not sure why.

It turned in to a bit of a party, just off the beach.  People jumping and splashing, dolphins hopping wave, and pelicans hanging out, snagging the stray fish and catching some zzz’s.  It was just the sort of thing that a shark, groggy from sleeping in and hungry after a late night out with the guys, dreamed of.

But Roy, the hungry and hung-over shark, stayed back in the deeper water.  What did those people, dolphins, and pelicans know that he didn’t?  Was it a trap?  What horrible fate awaited him?

His stomach grumbled.  Then he caught the smell of something in the water.  One of the people must have stepped on a shell.  Hunger rose.  Caution fled.  A shark is as a shark does and Roy was, above all else, a shark.  

The New Plan

I’m supposed to be writing a Christmas play.  Actually, it’s supposed to be done already.  I didn’t think it was going to be a big project, a dozen pages or so and I already had it pretty much figured out from when I was writing one last year.

Turns out that I was way off.  My idea didn’t work when I started writing.  Maybe it’s because Falling Star was too fresh and they are too different.  Maybe it was a bad idea.  I tried a different idea.  Still no dice.  Then a third.  And still nothing that worked.  Scarry.  Is it that my standards for a first draft are off?  Am I too critical of the idea and it was actually good?  Am I actually facing writer’s block?  I have to confess I never thought it was real.

I was thinking I might just let it slide.  You know, “pretend” that I was too busy.  Which is a crock, of course, because writing is about the only thing that I consistently have time for thanks to the reality of a fairly long commute and the inability to retire yet.  Besides, that’s unprofessional and against my nature.  Last night I had a conversation with a young woman who rendered an outstanding flute performance of my favorite hymn and she asked about the play.  I confessed that I was blocked.  She made a joke that jolted my thinking and released a torrent of inspiration.  I am hopeful that this will work and I can have a workable draft by the end of the week.

Either way, it inspired today’s fiction that was originally going to be about flatware, another idea that likely wouldn’t have gotten very far.

The New Plan
by Jon Stark
August, 2014; 475 words

It was the perfect day to be somewhere else.  Gus was tired of chucking rocks.  The summer had drawn on just a tad too long.  School wasn’t exactly what any of them wanted next, but change – any change – would be better than the status quo.

“You know we never came up with a name,” said Roy.  He was the only one of the three that was standing, the sun slightly in his eyes so that he squinted in a manner suggesting a person with below average intellect.

“That’s because all of your ideas are lame.”  That was Stan.  The heat and boredom had sharpened his sarcasm to the point that Xacto blades seemed dull by comparison.

Roy wasn’t dissuaded from the topic.  “How about Renegades, Rebels, and Rogues.”  Gus didn’t bother to look up.

Stan replied, “Or Lameboy and his two ex-friends.”  That got a chuckle from Gus.

“The summer’s almost over, we’re out of time.  Next year we’ll be graduated and out in the world and it will be too late.”  Roy’s voice sort of squeaked at the end.

“We could go to the movies.”  Stan.  Always wanting to go to the movies.  Even though they’d already seen everything.

“We’ve already seen everything,” said Gus.  “Besides, I don’t feel like walking downtown.”

“I’ve got a transit card,” said Roy.  “But I don’t feel like the movies.”

“What do you want to do, then?” asked Stan.

“I don’t know.  What do you feel like doing?” said Roy.

“Don’t be coy.”  Stan stood up and kicked at the gravel on the side of the street.  “I guess we could just ride around.”

Gus shook his head.  He’d had a bad experience two summers ago riding into town.   They’d picked up a homeless woman, wrapped in some sort of quilt despite the heat, and she smelled like Stan’s feet.  Worse, actually.  It was awful.  His mother had said that’s what the corpses smelled like in Iraq.  Gus had spewed violently and nobody could even smell that.

In the distance they could see an approaching bus.  “Now or never,” said Roy.  Stan shook his head.  So dramatic.  But he walked toward the stop.

“I wonder where it goes,” said Stan.

“Lafayette,” muttered Gus.  “Says so, right on it.”

“I’ve never been all the way down to Lafayette,” said Roy.

“Me neither,” said Stan.  “Let’s do it.”

Gus shook his head.  The bus pulled up.  He didn’t move.  Stan and Roy stood at the stop.  The doors opened.  Roy got on, handed over the pass.  Stan got on, waited.  Gus didn’t move.  “Come on, Gus,” said Stan.

Gus shook his head.  “Not happening.”

The bus driver cleared his throat.  Stan said, “We’re going to the end of the line.”

Gus held his ground.  “You need a new plan, Stan.  I’m not hopping on the bus.”

Roland on the River

This is not what I was going to write until I got in my truck to drive to the train station this morning.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  It reminds me of the sort of story I wrote when I was in high school although, hopefully, it's a bit better.

Roland on the River
by Jon Stark
August, 2014; 1200 words

Roland had grown old, but he still loved the river and he hadn’t forgotten.  Three days a week he walked down the hill to the edge of the water, the sand and driftwood long given way to boardwalks, piers, decay, revitalization, and now the very grand Promenade.

He set up his easel, placed the canvas, laid out the charcoal, and let the sun seep into his weary bones.  The river flowed and he remembered.

His hands drifted over the blank canvas for a few minutes and then he took up his colors and sketched, eyes closed, memory pouring out.

A passing couple paused to watch him.  “She’s beautiful,” said Tina.  “You make it look so easy.”

In the beginning it was always easy.  It wasn’t until later that it got rough.  In the beginning he was a boy, playing here with his friends.

#

The three boys carried sticks and smashed them against everything they found.  Roland had an old rag of a shirt, salvaged from the flotsam on the shore, tied to the end of his.  They were loud and in the depth of summer.

The girl was sitting on a giant piece of driftwood staring across at Indiana.  “Hey! Girl!  You can’t sit there,” said Roland.  It was, after all, not her adventure.

“My name is Mary, not Girl and I can sit here if I like,” she shot back.  The other two boys looked at Roland.  Roland looked at Mary.  Mary packed a lot of defiance into her 8 year old body.

“Okay,” said Roland.  “But watch out for the pirates.”

“There ain’t no pirates,” said Mary.

“If you’re going to sit there, you need to watch out for the pirates, they’re chasing us,” said Roland.  He looked back for dramatic effect.  She wasn’t buying it.

“You should come with us,” said Rick.  Roland shot him a look but he pressed on.  “We can keep you safe from the pirates.”

“There ain’t no pirates,” repeated Mary, “And even if there was, I wouldn’t need you to keep me safe.”  But she went with them, down the river and through the thickets and mud, racing the paddle wheel that ran between places that were just names.  And she went each day after that too.

#

Roland answered his door and found Mary standing on the stoop.  “Let’s go,” she said.  Her hair was still short, rough and uneven from cutting it herself, but she had grown while he hadn’t and now towered over him.  It didn’t matter.  He was smitten.

“We’re going,” Roland hollered over his shoulder.

His mother came into the hallway, a dishtowel over her shoulder.  “Who is we?”  Then she saw Mary and waved.  “Hello, Mary.”  Mary waved, then grabbed Roland’s hand and pulled him into the afternoon.

#

They were sitting on the stoop drinking lemonade when Roland’s father pulled into the driveway.  Roland was speechless.  He father climbed out of a silver Thunderbird, grinning from ear to ear.  “Give me a hand with the top, Sport?”

Roland leaped up.  “Is this ours?”

His father beamed at him.  “Sure is.  I got a promotion today.  Off the line and into the office.”

Mary frowned.  “Office?  I’m never working for the man.”  It would have sounded funny coming from someone else, but to Roland, it made the rest of the world make sense.  He wondered, in that moment, if a brand new car, blinding with chrome, was worth working for the man.

But he didn’t have long to think about it.  “Come on,” said Mary, suddenly up and jogging across the lawn.  Roland’s father watched them go.

#

The fair charged admission but they didn’t need to use the gate.  Roland and his friends followed Mary through a hole in the fence and were engulfed by the carnival.

Mary watched the Ferris Wheel turning.  “I bet you can see the river from up there,” she said.  Roland agreed.  They ran over to get in line but then Mary stopped.  “I don’t have that much money.”

Roland dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his change.  “I’ve got enough for both of us.”

She scowled at him.  “I don’t want your money.”

“But you want to ride.”  He still didn’t always understand her.  “I want you to be able to go.”

Mary shot into the crowd.  “I’ll ride it, but not on your dime.”

Roland lost sight of her.  “Forget her,” said Rick.  They wandered the stalls and cheered when Harry knocked over all of the milk bottles and won a stuffed bear.

They finally spotted Mary again, bussing tables at Cleo’s Fair Faire.  “What are you doing?” asked Roland.

“I’m going to ride the Ferris Wheel,” said Mary.  An hour later she caught up to the boys.  “Let’s go.”  Mary pulled Roland away and, as the sun set to their west, they rode the Ferris Wheel.  She was right.  She could see the river.  She could even see Indiana.  Roland saw Mary.  And she let him hold her hand.

#

Roland and Mary had 5^th period civics together when they were juniors.  Mr. Ross told Mary that she couldn’t be president.  Told her it was a silly idea for a girl.  Governing wasn’t like mending dresses or baking cookies.  Mary told him that the world would be a better place if the president did bake everyone cookies.  Roland agreed.

Mr. Ross didn’t and Mary found herself on the wrong side of his red pen for the rest of the year.

#

Mary didn’t leave for college when Roland did.  She never answered his letters.  When he came home at Christmas she was gone.

#

The three boys, home on summer break and with an afternoon off from work, crashed along the bank of the river.  They came across a collection of flotsam carefully laid out and, hidden in the shade nearby, was Mary.

She looked terrible, even for her.  Roland tried to give her a hug but she shooed him away.  “This is my place now.  You boys need to run along.”

“What are you doing?” asked Roland.  “I thought you were going to be president.”

“I am president.”

Roland tried to talk to her, to catch up, but she wasn’t interested and finally walked away from him.  When he followed, she dove into the river and swam away.  “Where are you going?”

“Indiana.”

#

Roland didn’t see her again for nearly 10 years and then it was even worse.  Some boys had been playing by the water and found her washed up among the logs and trash.

He couldn’t explain the emptiness.  Somewhere inside he’d thought she would always be there.  Strong, rough, the embodiment of growing up along the river.

He paid for the funeral.  Nobody else had stepped forward to claim her.  The mortician had taken his time.  She was beautiful.  He paid for her to be buried in the cemetery north of town, where she could see the river and, in the winter when the leaves had fallen, all the way to Indiana.

#

Roland sketched lightly.  He was nearly done.  The lines were distinct, sharp but with an unmistakable grace.  You could almost see the water lapping against her, the wheel turning in the background, and smoke rising from the stacks.

“They don’t make them like that anymore, do they?” asked Tina.

Roland shook his head.

“What’s her name?”

The finishing touch.  He scrawled “Proud Mary” across the stern.