During her thirty year career as a trial and appellate attorney, award winning author Jerri Blair litigated many high profiles cases involving her clients' fundamental rights, some of which had a significant impact on the law. Her cases were featured on many primetime network news shows and made headlines around the world.  Her books reflect the reality of courtroom tactics and the intricacy of legal procedure, as well as her life experiences growing up in the segregated South and her fight for justice in the judicial system. Ms. Blair’s first novel, Justice for the Black Knight, received critical acclaim from Kirkus Reviews and other literary publications. It was awarded the 2015 Beverly Hills Book Award for Best Legal Thriller. She focuses her writing on issues that impact the search for justice and equal opportunity  in the modern world.

​Let’s face it. I needed the job, that‘s why I applied to be a border patrol employee. I did like the idea that I might be doing something to help my country, to protect us from invasion by people who might want to hurt Americans. But that was very secondary to the real reason. I have a six month old baby and the baby’s father skipped town without leaving a forwarding address. I needed money quickly and there weren’t many jobs around.
            It’s not like they didn’t get an excellent employee. I’m probably overqualified. I have a Masters in poly-sci and a BA in math. I can compute the political implications with the best of them and spit out a bunch of statistics to support my position. I’m also multi-lingual. I speak fluent English, Romanian, and Spanish. I also speak a passable Farsi which I picked up on one of my tours while I was still a proud member of the U. S. Marine Corps. That actually helps a lot more than my other credentials when it comes to my day to day duties as a border patrol agent.
Working for the border patrol is like working for a police department or probably any other public service agency. You get some of the best and the worst people with a lot of average Joes thrown in who took the job like I did---because they had mouths to feed. It’s not an easy job because we’re understaffed, and it’s not a job where you get a lot of feel good energy directed your way, especially these days.
I’d been on the job for almost a year when something happened that changed my life forever. I hope I’m a better person now than I was before that day. Of course, I hope that every day of my life. It’s my goal to just keep making myself better. But that day stands out from all of the days of my life.
I think my background in the Marines probably made what happened that day even more memorable. We have a tendency to think of ourselves as America‘s super-heroes, and we all dread the thought that we might be getting too old to take out the enemy in a fire fight. But, hey, age happens. I’m still young enough to take on the worst of the worst, but I can feel the beginnings of the tendrils of age slipping in between my shoulder blades and behind my knees. I get a little ache now and then in those places where I’ve suffered a bad hit or a bullet wound. They speak out and remind me of my mortality.
And you have to remember that none of us wants to be the bad guy. We don’t want to spend our time ripping babies from mothers’ arms. As a matter of fact, I’m a strong supporter of a good system that will keep the arms of America open to the world. My parents came to this country as immigrants. I was born in a reception center just after they arrived from behind the Iron Curtain. They were defectors who sought the protection of Lady Liberty. And I have to say, the Statue of Liberty still brings tears to my eyes when I see it in person. It’s like a second mother to me. My parents always say it was the first thing I saw as we left the center for our new home in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I guess I missed being what they call a Dreamer by a couple of hours and the luck of having parents who had a way to come here legally. My father was a well-known musician behind the Iron Curtain who’d spoken out against communism when the Cold War was still raging. He was able to obtain asylum because his life was in danger. I don’t know if my mother waited on purpose, I don’t suppose she really could have if I’d started pushing very hard. Maybe it was me. Maybe even inside her womb, I knew I wanted to be born in this land I love. Anyway, I was, and my long form birth certificate makes that clear, thank you very much. I hear the story of her giving birth on the floor of the reception hallway has turned into a legend. But---my point is that they would have come here any way they could. I could easily have been a Dreamer in the same predicament as so many others whose parents sought the freedom of this wonderful country.
I tell you these things because I want you to understand that I am a person who supports the Dreamer population and wants a good solution for them. I want our country to remain a refuge for the world, and I’m sorry to see us trying to close our doors the way we have been in recent years. I try to treat every immigrant I meet with courtesy and respect. I don’t care whether they’re here legally or illegally. It’s my opinion that every human being deserves to be treated as I would want to be treated. But I have to do my job, and sometimes that means picking up people who are in the country illegally.
The day it happened was hot and dry. Everybody was sweating bullets and thirsty. We’d set up a check point at a small office we have near the border in El Paso. Our purpose was to give Dreamers an easy place to turn themselves in and fill out paperwork to begin the process that might eventually lead to citizenship. We’d had a few young people come to us and take the plunge. I knew it was hard on them, and I was trying to be as supportive as I could. But Lex, this guy in my unit, is just not good at handling power, and sometimes his macho attitude gets in the way out in the field. I’m pretty sure his sneers scared off a few more that might’ve checked in if he hadn’t looked their way with such disdain.
Lex was acting with his usual disregard that day, but he spent most of his time scanning the crowd, looking for others there who might be illegal immigrants not eligible for Dreamer status. At one point, he was out on the street looking around.
There was an old woman who was helping a child she held in her lap. She’d just finished tying one of his shoes. Lex demanded she show him ID and she asked politely if she could finish with the kid. She began to tie the other shoelace, but he grabbed the child from her arms and started walking away. She started crying and screaming, but she got out her ID which showed she was an American citizen. He let her go, but the damage was done. I was sure no one else would want to even talk to us. I tried to explain that if we did things the way he wanted to do them, we’d never get any Dreamers to turn themselves in. They’d be running as fast as they could away from us. He just laughed at me and called me an idiot.
I could tell by the look in his eye that he would’ve liked to pat my butt and blame my attitude on my gender. I didn’t say anything. I know from experience that his type of man is all bluster with no real guts. He wouldn’t have lasted a minute in combat. It wasn’t worth making anything out of the way he treated me, although I was going to make sure the commander of our unit knew how he treated the old woman that day. He was fast becoming a real detriment to our efforts.
There was something else I noticed that day too. I didn’t mention it to anyone because I didn’t want Lex to overreact. But there was a guy out on the street that had my full attention. He seemed to be just hanging around watching us. He had dark hair that had just a touch of grey around the front and the beginnings of the shadow of a partially grey beard. He was about six feet tall, a pretty good looking older guy in a scraggly Indiana Jones kind of way. He wore a very baggy suit that made it difficult to see what his body type might be, but his John Lennon style glasses seemed to be a prop. I didn’t believe he actually needed them to see which was what triggered my suspicions. There was just something about him. Anyway, this guy seemed to be hanging around for no reason watching us. He didn’t seem to know anyone around him or to have any purpose for being there. So I made it my business to keep an eye on him while I smiled at Dreamers and answered questions.
At one point, I went outside and smoked a cigarette just so I could check him out from a little closer. I saw him talking to this older lady who’d been shopping. She was carrying a canvas bag with groceries peeking out the top. When she got to where I was standing, I offered her a smoke and she sat on a bench with me for a few moments and shared a cigarette.
I asked her, “Was that guy over there bothering you? I saw him stop you.”
She laughed and said, “I think he might be a little loco, but he was polite.”
“Why do you think he’s loco?”
“He wanted to know if there were any phone booths around here. I told him he could use my cell if he needed to make a call to get a ride or something. He thanked me but said he just needed a place where he could be alone for a moment.”
“Alone for a moment? That’s an odd thing to say.” My hackles were up at that point. I began to imagine things that could be under that loose-fitting suit. Bombs came to mind as well as several varieties of guns.
“Oh, si, but it gets even odder. I told him there was a restroom around the corner where he could probably have a moment. That’s when he said the oddest thing.”
“What did he say?” Now I was sure it was going to be the worst---a suicide bomber just a few feet away with a crowd of innocent people between me and him. I’d seen that kind of thing before when I was overseas.
“He looked very sad and said it wouldn’t be very elegant.”
I was flabbergasted. Not very elegant? That didn’t make any sense. I said, “Yeah, what did he expect---bathroom attendants in a free street toilet?”
The lady shook her head and said protectively, “No---it wasn’t like that. He didn’t seem to be---grasping for respect or wanting to impress. It was like he was going to do something. I don’t know. He seemed---good.” She quickly put out her cigarette and thanked me again as she got up and went on her way.
I sat watching the man out of the corner of my eye. I was really curious now, but I knew I needed to get back inside before Lex pulled another boner and stirred things up.
I didn’t like the way he treated women, especially if they were attractive. I tried my best to steer those women who fell into that category to someone other than him for processing. I’d just seen a couple of younger women walk inside. I ground out my cigarette and took one last look at the guy. I wished I could get closer, but I knew I had other responsibilities. I went inside and saw the line had grown a little longer while I’d been smoking. I dug in and forgot about the old guy outside.
Then I got my wish. I looked up and the guy I’d been watching stood right in front of me with his fedora hat in his hands.
I said, quickly, “What can I do for you, sir?”
He hesitated.
I said, “Why don’t you sit down and we’ll talk.”
He nodded and sat staring at me with a determined look on his face.
I said politely, “How can I help you, sir?”
“I---I think I need to sign in as a Dreamer.”
I knew he couldn’t possibly qualify as a Dreamer. He looked to be at least seventy years old, but I decided to humor him and try to get whatever information I could from him. I said, “All right, I need to ask a few questions. Did you come to the United States before you were sixteen years old?”
“Oh, yes. I was an infant when I landed---arrived here.”
“Have you been continuously in the United States since June 15, 2007?”
“Yes---well I actually maintain a home---somewhere else---but America is my true home. I love America and all it stands for.”
Now I was really suspicious. “Where do you maintain a second home?”
“Well, it’s like a home. It’s in the mountains of the Arctic.”
That answer was unexpected. I began to wonder if the lady had been right and he was a little crazy. I decided to keep asking questions and try to figure him out before I let him go back out on the street. “Did you enter the United States without inspection before 2012?”
“Yes, many times. I flew in many times.”
“Where---where did you land when you flew in?”
He glanced at me apologetically and said, “Maybe this was a bad idea. I think I’m going to leave.”
 I wasn’t about to allow this guy to leave yet. “It may have been a bad idea, but you’re not leaving until I say you can, Mister---what did you say your name is?”
“I didn’t mean to cause a problem. I’ll just go.” He stood and backed away.
I put my hand on my weapon. “Sit down right now.”
He sat back down and put his head in his hands.
“My name is Kal-El.”
Shivers ran up my spine. I began to wonder if he was from ISIS or one of the other fundamentalist groups that were trying to destroy my country. My mind was racing, trying to match the name with a country. It sounded sort of Middle Eastern, but it didn’t really match up. It actually seemed more Spanish, but the translation made no sense. The lime?  “Kal-El what?”
“Just Kal-El.”
“Are you a citrus merchant or something?”
He laughed and said, “You seem like a nice person, like a person who really cares about this whole business. I’ve watched the way you treat people. That’s why I’m sitting here. I think you might understand my situation. My name is not Spanish. Nor is it Persian or Farsi.” He hesitated and continued, “My home is under water. I’ve lost everything.”
I tried to think of any floods in the area that might have reached people’s homes, but we were in the middle of a drought. I said, “Your home here?”
“No---the place up north---I can’t get back there. The glaciers have all melted and everything I owned is under water---but I’ve lived in the USA most of the time for years. I grew up here and worked here for all of my life.”
“Where did you work?”
“Oh---I was a reporter. I worked under the byline of Clark Kent.”
Now I knew I had a crazy. He thought he was Superman who used the alias Clark Kent. I was an avid comic book reader so I was aware of all the nuance that surrounded the super-hero every kid loves.
He glanced at me and his eyes became sad. I could swear he knew what I was thinking. I said, “So, is Kandor lost? Is that why you’re so sad?” I was referring to the city in a bottle Superman kept at his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic.
“Kandor is just a comic book invention, but I’m real. I know I sound crazy---and I know I don’t look like any Superman these days, but that’s who I am.”
“Look, I’m going to make a couple of calls and get someone here who will want to hear your story.”
“I’m not insane. The comic book was written about me. I always kept my deeds as Superman a secret, but my deeds became a myth that people talked a lot about a long time ago when America was suffering during the Great Depression. A couple of young guys heard the myth and made me into a comic book hero, but---that doesn’t make me unreal. I came here today because I’ve lived in the United States for all of my life and never actually become a citizen. I thought I should do the legal thing. I thought maybe if I stepped up, it would help push things along so the Dreamers could get some security about their futures.”
He didn’t sound insane, but---he thought he was Superman. I wanted to get a feel for whether he was dangerous before I called in a Baker’s Act situation. He seemed harmless, and maybe he didn’t need to go through being forced into an institution. I said, “Do you have any family I could call?”
“I never married. It wouldn’t have been fair. I’ve spent my life going to places I thought might threaten our people. I’ve used every ounce of power I had to protect this country and its citizens.”
Now he was really getting to my heart. I said, “You should’ve joined the Marines.”
He smiled. “That’s where you gained the confidence to be a super-hero. I can tell you’re the real thing. It’s in your face and in the way you treat others---with respect and honor.”
I liked the guy more and more. I said, “You have to learn to be there for your brothers in arms---especially in the field of battle.”
“I know that’s true. I flew into Iwo during WWII. I saw the Marines in action. I was just a boy, but I did what I could without being seen---to help our boys.”
“There were a lot of boys who went there, but no boys left that island. They were all men. Were you really there?”
“That’s how I’ve done things all through my life. I can fly---so I just---”
            I was jerked back to reality with his last words. I said, “Mister---El---I need to make a call.”
            “No, you don’t. I know it sounds crazy. I’ve gone this far, so maybe I can show you. I would just fly to wherever our people needed help and do what I could. That’s real. I can show you. Do you want me to fly across the room?”
“No, that’s okay.”
“Just hear me out.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve been there on every field of battle---including the one where you were injured. I couldn’t help everybody. I just did what I could. It’s getting harder because the battles are all over the place these days. That’s made it harder to keep up---and I guess I’m getting a little old to be a super-hero. Maybe that’s the problem, but sometimes I wonder if my failing strength comes from the wounds America has suffered to her spirit. It seems that we’re drifting away from the land we should be.”
It was getting harder to want to call him in. He made a lot of sense in a funny way. I agreed that America was wounded from within. We’d always been the land of the free and the home of the brave. We’d held out our arms to the world and been the beacon for freedom. Now we were closing our borders and hiding like a scared coward. I didn’t like it. I whispered, “What do you mean?”
He smiled and his face seemed younger. He said, “I really like you. I think you know what I mean.”
“Yes---”
That’s when things got out of control. Lex swaggered over to my desk and said, “What do you have here, Barbie?”
“I’ve got this, Lex.”
“Kal-El---maybe we should take you in the back room,” Lex said. He started to grab the guy’s arm.
I said, “Let it go, Lex.” I wondered if he’d been drinking before coming to work. He was much worse than usual that day and that’s saying a lot.
Just then a beautiful young woman with a baby walked in the front door. Lex noticed her immediately and his attention turned from Kal. He whispered, “Now that’s one hot tamale,” and wandered toward the door.
I looked apologetically at Kal and said, “I’m sorry.”
“He’s one of those who give us all a bad name.”
I nodded. “Yes, he gives the human race a bad name.”
Kal looked into my eyes and said, “You and your comrades were on a routine patrol outside of Fallujah. You were advising the Iraqis and weren’t supposed to be anywhere near a battle. Then you heard another group of advisers were pinned down after a freak accident. You went to their rescue. That’s how you lost your leg.”
My mouth was open and I had a terrible churning in my gut. “How do you know---?”
“I was there.”
“What?”
“Remember that sniper. You saw him. He got one round off and hit your leg. You looked at him and saw the second round coming. You were sure you were dead---and then something knocked him out. He disappeared and you probably wondered if you’d been hallucinating.”
I was flabbergasted. I’d never told anybody about the sight I had of the sniper taking aim for me a second time. I thought I’d imagined it. My mind was racing. Was he an enemy spy? How could he possibly know if it wasn’t him that actually pulled the trigger that cost me a limb? I reflexively touched the steel rod that was where my calf used to be as I contemplated his words.
He whispered, “I stopped that second shot. That’s the kind of thing I’ve been doing since World War II. I go where our troops are fighting and give them aid in a way that only a superman can. I caught the second bullet. That’s why he didn’t get to take you out. You weren’t seeing things that weren’t there.”
I looked at him in disbelief. It was causing me a lot of troubling thoughts to consider taking this man into custody. I had liked him so much, but how could he know? And if he wasn’t there with us, he had to have been with them. I was speechless and he took advantage of my silence.
“I can see you don’t believe me. Let’s go outside and you can see for yourself. I can catch your bullet---and even if you hit me, it won’t hurt me. I’m the man of steel.”
“I---can’t do that.”
“You think you have to arrest me. You don’t. You agree with me about everything we’ve talked about. You know I’m not a bad man.”
“But---how could you know?”
Just then, I heard a loud voice from across the room saying, “I will do no such thing.” Then I heard a slap and a baby crying.
Lex shouted, “Get over here, Barbie. We need to take this woman into custody.”
I looked over and Lex was holding a baby while a woman stood in front of him trying to wrest it away.
I said, “Don’t move.” I didn’t want to leave Kal-El, but I had to do something about what was happening across the room. I rushed over and pulled the woman off of Lex. I said, “What’s the problem here?”
She was crying. She said, “He wanted me to perform vile acts or he said he’d take my baby away from me.”
“First things first. Do you have ID?”
The woman blushed and said, “I could go home and get it.”
Lex laughed and said, “I told you. She’s an illegal and she’s just run out of luck. Take this baby and go call social services.”
The woman screamed, “You’re not going to take my child.”
Lex said, “Oh, yes, I am.”
I heard someone move up behind me and glanced over my shoulder. There stood Kal-El. He whispered to me. “I guess I’ll get my chance to show you after all.”
Before I could make a move, he grabbed the baby and the woman and started moving toward the door. There were too many innocent people in the room to justify a shooting, but my hand was on my weapon. I needed some way to control what was rapidly turning into chaos. Then I heard a shot reverberate through the room. Obviously, Lex hadn’t followed protocol. It happened so fast that I thought again I was seeing things. There was a blur like Kal-El had moved up into the bullet’s path and then dropped back to the woman’s side.
Kal-El had a huge grin on his face and he held up a bullet. He looked right at me and said, “I told you so.” He held the woman and child in his arms as he started to rise from the ground. Then he pushed open the door and flew away. He was a little slow and seemed to almost fall a couple of times, but he and the woman and child flew away with everyone watching, all of us with open mouths.
It was true chaos in the room after that. Everyone was shouting, many of them cheering with joy at what they’d just seen. Lex was loudest of all and he was yelling in my ear, “You gave me no back up.”
I couldn’t help myself. I cleared the room and locked the door. Then I turned to Lex and said, “You better be happy we had a superman here to stop that bullet. You broke every protocol there is and I’m turning you in.” I admit it. I was angry, angry at him for all of the things he’s done, angry because of the way my country was treating people who needed a helping hand. I cuffed him and delivered him to local law enforcement for an unjustified shooting. He may get out, but I wanted him to see how it felt to have cuffs around his wrists.
It was just like I felt after the shooting in Iraq. I didn’t know what to believe. I wasn’t sure what happened. I was considering ending my time as a border patrol agent. I didn’t want to deal with any more Lexes and I didn’t want to enforce law I didn’t agree with anymore. Then, as I was working on my report on what had happened at my desk, my phone rang.
I automatically picked up and said, “Agent Johnson.”
“I took one of your cards from the desk where we were sitting.”
It was a voice I’d never forget. “How did you do that?”
“I told you. I’m Superman.”
I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask. “How did you know about Fallujah? I’ve never told anyone about that second shot.”
“I told you. I’ve been there in the background for years through many wars. I do what I can which is never enough. I wish I could take the place of every soldier on every battle field. Bullets can’t hurt me.”
“I admire your bravery. You may have saved that woman’s life---or the life of someone in that room. Lex shouldn’t have made that shot.”
“It’s not bravery for me to do that kind of thing. I can’t be hurt. It’s a different thing for the soldiers whose lives I’ve been able to save. They are all brave just to be there in one war after another.”
“Who are you?”
“I told you---”
“I know what you said, but why do you have these---super powers?”
“The comic book guys got some of it right. I’m from another galaxy I think. Anyway, as you saw, my super powers are diminishing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You saw how hard it was to carry those other people. I almost fell from the sky a couple of times. That’s old age catching up with me. I only have so much time left and I want to use it wisely.”
“It was still quite a show. So, even Superman feels age coming to take away the vitality of youth?”
“I think so---there’s something else too.”
“What?”
“It’s hard to explain. I feel like there’s something happening to the spirit of America. Maybe what gave me strength was the best of what we stand for. Maybe our dedication to raising the possibility of true freedom for the world---maybe that’s what I’m really all about. And I feel like that might be changing. I remember the hope that was everywhere after the war, the dedication to making sure no people were downtrodden by a dictator like Hitler ever again. It feels like we’re turning our faces from the role we need to play in the world---one not centered in selfishness and greed, but powered with the big openhearted sharing can-do mentality that marked our existence in the world for so long. Maybe that’s why my strength is failing. Maybe Superman is the symbol of what we were, something we’re throwing out the window right now.”
I couldn’t help smiling. I couldn’t help feeling a love for this man who might be crazy but seemed more and more like the Superman I’d always dreamed of being. “I know what you mean.”
“Maybe it’s time for me to fade into the sunset.”
I felt tears come to my eyes. “No---you can’t do that. We can’t give up.”
“All right, I’ll keep trying, but only if you promise you will too.”
I had a sudden thought of my daughter at day care right now. I wanted the world to be a better place for her. I said, “I don’t know---”
“Sure you do. If people like you quit trying, we’re lost. If I’m going to stay in the battle, I have to know my brothers and sisters in arms are still fighting too. You can’t leave it to people like Lex.”
“Lex!” I spat out his name. “He shouldn’t ever have an iota of power.”
“Only you can stop that from happening---you and those who believe in the ideals that have made America great for so many years.”
“Okay. You’re right. I’m in.”
“I’m going now.”
“No.” I didn’t want this man to disappear from my life. I wanted to know he’d always be there by my side.
“I’ll be around doing what I do. If you hear about any disappearing bullets you’ll know where they went. But I wouldn’t mention what you saw. It will raise your superiors’ eyebrows.”
“Disappearing bullets! I’ll be screwed if I don’t try to tell what really happened. There’s no bullet to show what Lex did.”
He laughed. “Oh, yes, there is. I went back and pushed it into the wall.”
I felt relief. I’d been worrying about whether my story would be believed because Lex’s bullet left with Superman. “Thanks for having my back.”
“I’ll always have your back, sister.”
And he was gone.
I know it’s hard to believe, but it really did happen that way. I learned that Superman is real and he lives in the heart of all Americans who are willing to stand for truth, justice and the American way. It’s sort of like Santa Claus. It may not be real, but it’s a nice way to make the real world a better place to live. And it’s up to us, brothers and sisters, to keep it going on.

Jagari Mukherjee is a poet and writer from Kolkata, India. She has an MA in English Literature from the University of Pune, and was awarded a gold medal and several prizes by the University for excelling in her discipline. Her writings, both poetry and prose, have appeared in several newspapers, magazines, journals, anthologies, and blogs. Her first book, a collection of poems entitled Blue Rose, was published in May 2017 by Bhashalipi. She is a DAAD scholar (2005), Best of the Net 2018 nominee, a Bear River 2018 alumna, and the winner of the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2018 (book review).

​When our trains cross
on a cold Sunday
between Burdwan and Guskara…
I, sitting at the window,
watching the onset of winter darkness
and the occasional snatches of light,
realize that I have nowhere to go.
The reality of epiphany
settled on me like fog on
the mountainous roads to Thimpu
I once traversed. I had somewhere 
to reach then. A city I adored.

Today, in the plains
the trains are late by hours
and I understand that I have
not moved a bit.
I am incapable of escape
because all roads are leading to 
our trains, constantly crossing
each other in and out.
Still looking out of the window,
I drink some lemon masala tea
and am trapped into wondering
if you are doing the same.
I see that there is a new address
printed on the ticket in my handbag.
The address is a name familiar to you.
 
 

​The other day, I broke some bread --
the lesser half of a cheese sandwich
I tore off for myself, and left for you
the greater half.
Our tea -- mine black, yours sugared –
changed to red wine, and together we participated in the communion.

You are the Messiah and I your disciple
sharing the body and the blood
of words written, of yet more words unspoken.
You are the Christ and I your Magdalene
learning from you how to gift myself with the soul,
cleansing my shamed body in the fire
of your adoration.

Sitting across a table and sharing a sandwich
is not the signified, but a signifier.
Somewhere my love, meanings are not endlessly deferred.
 
 
 
 

​You gave me two blue hearts.
Reds and pinks are for others…
I am a three-dimensional blue.
I imagine you are too.

Nobody imagines blue is love.
Some say it is a tranquil hue
or perhaps the color when one is sad.
Blue films, they opine, are very bad.
Blue is the flame when the stove
is on ‘Sim’, set to low.

Two blue crystal hearts
next to a flower vase --
the lasting flavor of two
blue plums, a reward for
the gardener and his labor.

I am a three-dimensional blue.
I'll contend that you are too.
 

​You
get on
the plane,
 still teary,
 tired. Two
   flight    
attendants,
Dressed
in well-pressed  
blue uniforms
say, “Buenos   días.”  
With   Colgate
smiles, they point
at your seat –7B– 
 next to the aisle. 
You place 
your brand-new 
bolsa de piel
 at your feet.
Reluctant you are

to separate 
from the farewell  
present your mom  
gave you – the present  
only item to keep  
you rooted now. 
You sit, buckle up,
 wait . . . 

Puffy-eyed passengers line up, looking for a place to drop their dragging bodies and rest  for   the   next  ten hours.  The  captain  speaks  words  too  fast  to  grasp.   The crew   starts  a  robot–like  routine  to  the  beat of    a   safety    video.   You                                                                                                                cringe   in   your   seat.

The plane first walks,
then sprints,
and leaves
the ground,
with eagle grace.
You stop
breathing . . .
‘til no more
movement
threatens
to steal
 your sense
 of balance.
You close your eyes . . .

                             In the dark room of your thoughts             you see a part of yourself
                amputated                                                                                                                and left behind.
 
 

​She hides in the crammed attic of my childhood
memories, behind the old wood dresser
with white drawers and orange knobs
where I kept my collection of conch shells –
those filled with waves of ocean whispers
crashing against the silence of my bedroom
on Sunday evenings.
 
Longing to be found, she sits on the cold floor
curled up; her glassy eyes scream
in the darkness enveloping her
like a cloak too big for her nine-year-old body.
Yet, no tears run down her cheeks,
no sobs escape her lips. Subdued they’ve been
by layer upon layer of neglect.
 
I’ve paid for my negligence, though.
I’ve cried her thwarted tears,
I’ve shaken with her choked-back sobs.
I’ve been a puppet of a girl puppeteer
tangled in strings she cannot control.
 
She pulls; I hang;
She yanks; I yank back
‘till sore and breathless,
we hug, sitting on the cold floor
curled up, behind the old wood dresser
with white drawers and orange knobs.
We meet each other’s eyes,
glassy eyes, whose voice will no more be hushed.

At birth, “Sin” was imprinted
on my skin. A capital “S” 
had to be washed up by the baptismal waters
when I was only two months old.
“How much sin can there be in babies’ dreams?”
I asked my mom years later.
“It all comes back to Adam and Eve,”
she said, and I believed.
I grew up scared of sneaky snakes
and the red-eyed devil dressed up as an angel,
alluring us to the dark side
where fire consumes the flesh,
and turns bones and souls to ash.
 
 
I prayed at night - knees down by the side of my bed,
eyes closed, palms touching each other - 
went to church on Sunday mornings,
learned all about guilt, sacrifice,
submission, suffering and forgiveness,
turned to Mary, Mother of all, for compassion
and Jesus, her Son, for strength,
But the “S” always resurfaced and had to be washed away.
 
My first confession happened in the month of May
when I was nine. It stole my sleep the previous night:
I told a lie, I talked back to dad,
I called my sister names, I got angry at mom…
The list got recorded and repeated in my mind.
Was that all?
What if I forget a sin and go to hell? or what is worse,
What if I lie again and talk back,
and insult, and can’t keep myself calm?
Would I have to confess again? 
Isn’t repenting after the fact good enough?
It wasn’t, I learned. Only those clean of sins
were worthy of tasting the body and blood of Christ.
 
Fearful of my human side, I turned inward
and lived in my head, where I was safe from harm.
I made up imaginary boyfriends when I yearned
to be kissed and touched, but I denied my wants.
Wasn’t touching a sin, wasn’t kissing a sign of lust? 
I’m not married, I’m too young to become a mom,
Carnal desire is the snake in disguise…
Get away from it, or the snake will bite.
 
It lasted until the twenty-fourth year of my life.
It happened slowly; I didn’t see it come.
First was the warmth of his hand on mine
while teaching me how to grab the mouse,
his wide and long fingers, his veins
grooving his darker skin, pumping out his blood.
Next was his soft lips brushing my left ear,
when talking to me in a whisper.
Then a poem, hand-written in a paper napkin
secretly placed in between my notes.
Finally, a glass of wine by the harbor,
the sun setting behind the horizon,
his eyes fixed on mine, undressing me,
one garment at a time until I was naked,
wanted to be covered by his arms.
We hugged; he placed his hand
on my cheek; I placed my hand on his,
and caught in a magnetic field of desire,
our lips clutched, locking in our tongues
engaged in a tribal dance.
 
Restless waves crashed against the sea-wall
that witnessed my first taste of Sin. I cried,
          not tears of fear, not tears of regret,
          not tears of guilt, or tears of shame.
They were just … tears,
                                         judgment-free,
                                                                       pure,
                                                                                  Sinless
                                                                                                Sincere.
 
 

A native Hoosier now living in Iowa, John M Donovan explores Midwestern life in the episodic novels The Fraternity and Trombone Answers, and the psychological drama The Rocheville Devil.

​Calvin Gebz and his 40-year-old son Bobby both had their hands up in full wave when they noticed that for the second time in two and a half weeks a car was coming up the gravel driveway instead of passing on by. “To what do we owe this honor, I wonder?” said Bobby. Calvin said it might be someone asking for directions to Spalding, and Bobby said “Daddy I don’t think they’d need directions to Spalding if they just come out of Spalding.” Calvin said “No, I guess not” and Bobby just shook his head.
            The driveway went past the house back to the shed but the visitor stopped right even with the front porch. The Gebzes watched as the driver gathered something up from the passenger seat. “Nice looking car,” said Calvin.
            “That’s a 2015 Camry,” said Bobby.
            “The hell it is. Might be a ’14.”
            “You don’t know.”
            “I know more than you.”
            “Not about cars.”
            “I know that ain’t a ’15.”
            The driver got out with a stack of Sunday newspapers under one arm. He waved to the men and that’s when Bobby realized it was Dr Hagen, who treated, or tried to treat, Calvin for his diabetes and had recommended the surgeon who amputated the older Gebz’s left leg. “You’re famous,” smiled the doctor, approaching the porch.
            “That’s old Doc Hagen,” said Calvin.
            “What gave it away, Daddy? Besides that he looks and sounds just like Doc Hagen?”
            Calvin had stopped listening after what. “How are we famous, Doc?”
            “Oh, let me show you.” The doctor set the stack of newspapers on the card table between the rocking chairs and went through the one on top until he found the Lifestyle section. He let it hang down so both men could see the headline: Always a Wave from this Friendly Family. There was a picture of father and son on the porch, arms up, fingers fanned, eyes on some imaginary vehicle heading south.
            “How’d they get that picture?” asked Calvin.
            Bobby rolled his eyes. “Gee, I don’t know, Daddy, maybe they got it a couple weeks ago when that skinny guy with the camera was out here.”
            “I don’t recall that.”
            “I bet you don’t. There was that good-looking blond gal with him asking us questions.”
            “Jenna Cable,” said the doctor, checking the byline.
            “You’re saying there was a blond gal out here asking questions?”
            “No, Daddy, I’m saying she read our minds.”
            Dr Hagen had witnessed plenty of these arguments in his office and since they tended to go on and on he jumped in. “Calvin, you must have answered her questions. You’re quoted in the story.”
            “I’m what?”
            “You’re quoted in the story, Daddy. You said something and she wrote it down.”
            “What’d I say?”
            Dr Hagen scanned the story while Bobby took another paper off the stack. “Right here, Calvin. ‘I figure everyone deserves a friendly wave,’ said the elder Gebz. ‘Sometimes they wave back and sometimes they don’t but either way is fine. Waving has more health benefits than watching TV.’ What do you think of that, Calvin?”
            “I’ll be dang.”
            “She made you sound smart, Daddy.”
            The old man was going to contend that that was the only way the reporter could have made him sound (though he had forgotten exactly what he’d said that day and certainly hadn’t said anything about health benefits), but a blast from an air horn interrupted him and he and Bobby threw their hands up to wave at a semi-trailer coming around the curve from the south. “That’s Red Barnett,” said Calvin. “He’s been driving 41 years.”
            “Long time,” said Dr Hagen.
            “Yeah,” said Bobby, “apparently Red Barnett likes driving so much he dresses up like Red Wilson and drives Red Wilson’s rig which has Red Wilson’s name painted right on the door.”
            “That’s who I meant, Red Wilson.”
            “Lot of truck drivers named Red,” said the doctor. “But hey, I wanted to make sure you got some copies of your story. There’s four or five there. Give the extras to your friends or whoever.”
            “Daddy’ll have to make some friends first,” laughed Bobby.
            “Hush up, boy.”
            Two cars came by heading south in close succession. The doctor paused and smiled as he watched the Gebzes jerk their hands in the air, up and down, synchronized, as involuntary as breathing.
* * *
            They’d been sitting on their front porch waving at cars every day for the last ten years, ever since Calvin lost the circulation in his left leg and couldn’t work at Western Illinois Pallet anymore. Bobby had never held a job for more than a week anyway—partly because he weighed 300 pounds and lost his breath walking across the room but mostly because he thought he was smarter than his co-workers and managers and everyone else in the world—so he figured why not just sit and rock on the porch and live a simple life. They waved from sunrise to sunset every day—including holidays, even Christmas—and wore as much more or less clothing to accompany their bibs as needed. Summertime travelers coming out of Spalding for the first time often had to look twice to convince themselves that yes, two big shirtless pasty-skinned men had waved at them. Such amiability to strangers wasn’t common these days, thought the travelers—though the big waving men weren’t as surprising as the fact that only a mile or so separated the shiny urban enclave of Spalding from what might as well have been the back woods.
            “Listen here, Daddy,” said Bobby, but Calvin put up his hand and told him to hang on. The old man could still hear pretty well, and sure enough a car came around the curve heading north. They waved and Calvin said it was Willis Hidenger in his 2002 Nissan Maxima. Bobby conceded that yes, he actually got that one right. “Anyway, listen up. ‘“We love to see people smile and wave back,” said Bobby Gebz, a 1994 graduate of Spalding High. “It wouldn’t be right to stop doing it or even take a day off. People who know us are already waving before we can see them. It’s as much a tradition for them as it is for us.” Aside from bathroom breaks, the only time the waving chores aren’t shared is when Bobby makes his Tuesday-afternoon run into Spalding for groceries and supplies—but his father is always ready to pick up the slack.’”
            “That’s true,” said Calvin, “I do do a lot of the work when you’re gone.”
            “Yeah, but why’d they say that?”
            “Say what?”
            “Why’d they tell everyone I’m gone on Tuesday afternoons?”
            “When did you want them to say you were gone?”
            “Well, how about never? Nobody needs to know there’s a big fat one-legged man out here by himself on Tuesday afternoons. They might say well, hell, I’m going to go rob and kill that big fat one-legged man out there.”
            “Rob me of what? We ain’t got nothing.”
            “Yeah, you and I know that but some robber don’t know it. I’m going to call that Jenna Cable—”
            “Who’s Jenna Cable?”
            “The reporter, Daddy. I’ll call her up and have her print what they call a retraction. I’ll have her say she misheard and that you’re never out here by yourself.”
            “You do what you have to do,” scoffed Calvin, then turned his attention to the highway. “Here comes Jack Swingle on his Harley.” Seconds later the biker Swingle appeared and got his wave in first. The Gebzes waved big and put their waving hands back in their laps. Calvin went back to scanning his copy of the story. “I haven’t even got to that part yet anyway. I’m still up here where it says you were going to be a scientist. When were you ever going to be a scientist?”
            “Junior high, when I had Mrs Flores. She said I should be one and I still might.”
            “Well, you let me know when you go off to your scientist job. I hope nobody robs and kills me while you’re gone.”
* * *
            Two days later Bobby decided he would cross up any robbers who’d seen the story in the Sunday paper. He decided to run errands and buy groceries on Tuesday morning instead of Tuesday afternoon, so he could be back in time to thwart a robbery attempt. He tried to ignore the nagging thought that no robbers are going to be afraid of a couple of big fat guys with three good legs between them.
            He put a clean shirt on, snapped his bibs shut, and asked his father if there was anything special he wanted from town. Calvin said to bring back a bottle of bourbon and a prosty, one of the pretty ones. Bobby said he’d get what he got. He said he’d be back by noon and headed north in their ’92 Bronco, raising four fingers off the steering wheel at every oncoming car, completely unaware he was doing it.
            He stopped for cash at the bank drive-up and the teller inside said “I read that story, Bobby. I didn’t realize you’d been waving for that long.”
            “Ten years. Everybody gets a wave.”
            “That’s real sweet.”
            “We’re just friendly.”
            He refilled a couple of prescriptions at Walgreens but didn’t go to BuyRite for groceries right away. He’d always been curious about that coffee shop on the corner across from the DeKuyper Building, and since coffee was a morning drink, today might be a good day to check it out. It wouldn’t take five minutes and Daddy would be fine if he didn’t get back right away. No robbers were out home-invading on a Tuesday morning.
            Lou’s Cuppa Joe had a big neon coffeepot in the window and Bobby wondered if Lou was a he or a she. The logo showed a smiling waitress with a beehive hairdo but he didn’t know if that was Lou or not. He held the door open for a young bearded man whose hair was done up in a bun. That wasn’t something you saw every day. Or maybe it was, at Lou’s Cuppa Joe.
            The girl at the counter—the barrister, Bobby thought he remembered reading somewhere—had big glasses and a smallish face and a nose ring. Her name tag said Cambridge, which Bobby didn’t know was a girl’s name. “I never been in here,” he said. “I just want sugar and cream.”
            “Dark roast, Brazilian, Caribbean mash-up, or house blend?”
            “House blend sounds good.” Bobby thought it sounded as good as anything else and wasn’t sure how many choices he’d been given. “Just regular size.”
            He paid and then surveyed the scene as he moved down the counter. Couple more guys with their hair up in sort of a bun and sort of a topknot. Half a dozen students peering into laptops. Nice-dressed white-haired woman reading the New York Times. And way back in the corner there was a fellow in a three-piece suit talking to Jenna Cable from the Spalding Journal. She’d been all smiley when she came out to the house, but she looked serious and kind of angry now.
            “House blend,” said Cambridge. “Have a good one.”
            Bobby had intended to take his coffee to go but now thought he’d stick around and watch people, maybe use the opportunity to ask the reporter for a retraction. There weren’t any empty tables, though, so he milled around by the bulletin board and read about some upcoming concerts and the grand opening of a new yoga studio. There was going to be a guest lecturer at MIU, some guy from Guatemala talking about economic instability. 5K Fun Run from Riverside Park to the baseball stadium, which didn’t sound fun at all.
            “So, you’re making Dad do all the work today, hey?”
            Bobby turned around and blushed to see Jenna Cable looking up at him. “Oh. He can handle it.” She smiled and looked even prettier than before. “I saw you over there but you looked busy.”
            She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I was busy listening to the Spalding comptroller deny he’s been fudging his expense reports. Come on over and sit down till I finish my latte.”
            Bobby hadn’t had a girl ask him to sit with her since high school biology, and then it was only because he hadn’t heard who his project partner was supposed to be and was wandering around the room until the impatient and disappointed cheerleader said “Over here, doofus.” He followed Jenna to her table and stood there shifting from side to side.
            “Sit down, sit down,” she said. “Have you heard any feedback on the story?”
            He pulled out the other chair and tried not to bump the table as he squeezed into it. “Doc Hagen brought us some copies and the bank teller said she seen it. Four or five people Sunday honked a couple extra times when they went by.”
            “That’s great,” she laughed. He thought her green eyes looked like diamond sparkles. “I’m glad we got that tip about you and your dad. I never get down that way.”
            Bobby thought there was something he was supposed to ask her, but whatever it was was gone. Instead he said “I just do it to humor the old man.”
            “Nah,” she said, chucking him on the forearm. “You get a kick out of it—you said so.”
            “It’s kinda dumb,” he said. “But Daddy’d get bored if I wasn’t out there with him.”
            “Well, in that case, it’s good that you’re doing it for him.”
            “I probably wouldn’t, otherwise.”
            He didn’t know where any of those lies had come from but thought maybe it was from the way she smiled. She was pretty and smart, probably smarter than him, and brave to confront city officials about expense reports.
            And she’d invited him to sit down.
            He wasn’t sure how to proceed or what to talk about next, but it didn’t matter because she took one last sip of her latte and started gathering her things. “It was good running into you,” she said. “Say hi to your dad.”
            “I will.”
            “How was your coffee?”
            It hit him that he hadn’t actually taken a sip yet. “Oh. Good, I guess.” Then she said she’d see him around and by the time he thought of saying something funny like “Yeah, maybe right here,” she was out the door.
* * *
            The trip to the coffee shop only put Bobby fifteen minutes behind schedule and he got five of those back by zipping through the BuyRite without hitting every sample stand. Back on the road, he thought about Jenna Cable’s green eyes and wished he’d have had more to say to her. He wished he would have said he was probably going to get a job and move into town before long. Right outside of Spalding he noticed an ’88 Chrysler Conquest heading north with a Missouri license plate and a greasy-looking punk at the wheel. He wondered where a punk would go if he’d just robbed and killed an old one-legged fat man—north into Spalding or back down to Missouri? He went ten over the limit the rest of the way home and expected to see a horrible bloody scene on the front porch, but as he headed up the driveway there was the old man, waving.
            Bobby remembered he was going to ask about that retraction.
            He parked and carried the groceries in through the back door, and when everything was put away he poured two glasses of iced tea and took them out to the porch. The old man thanked him and said it had been a slow morning.
            “Tuesdays are slow sometimes,” said Bobby. “Did you get robbed or killed?”
            “Both.”
            Bobby chuckled, not too loud. The old man could be funny as hell sometimes. “I went to this coffee shop in Spalding and forgot to drink the coffee.”
            “Shoulda just thrown your money in the street.”
            “I will next time.” Two cars passed from the north. One driver responded to the wave but the other didn’t see them. “Did you see a Missouri car on its way into Spalding?”
            “Missouri? Hell, I can’t see license plates from here.”
            “Oh.” Bobby paused and listened for another car but the highway was quiet. “I was thinking I don’t know if I’m going to keep waving at folks.”
            “That right?”
            “Yeah. Seems silly. I could be doing other things.”
            “Being a scientist?”
            “Or just other things. Sell coffee, whatever.”
            Calvin just shrugged. A semi came by heading north. The Gebzes waved and the air horn bomped three times. “Three blasts means they saw the story in the paper.”
            “You just made that up.”
            “You didn’t notice that yesterday? Lot more people honking and a lot of them three times.”
            “That could be right, I guess. No way of knowing.”
            “No, not unless we asked everyone why they honked three times.”
            Damn, thought Bobby, that’s something a scientist would say. A blue Toyota Prius glided by from the south. Bobby and Calvin lifted their right arms at the same time, tilted their hands from left to right, and dropped their arms back in their laps.
            “One short beep,” said Bobby. “What do you reckon that means?”
            “Maybe they only read half the story.”
            The afternoon passed pleasant and warm, a little slow like Tuesdays often were, but everyone who drove by got a nice wave and probably always would.
            

​Once a week I drive Dad to Kinko's so he can print and send his novel out.
We got the ritual down pat: I wake and help him get dressed and into his wheelchair. After he tells me that he doesn't need my help and that he's a man and he brought me into this world and he can take me out of it as quickly as he pleases, I leave him struggle for a few minutes. I get dressed myself and have a cup of coffee until I hear him half-laugh, half-shout from his bedroom, "Derek, I was JOKING". This is when Puffy, our chocolate lab, runs in and charges at Dad's wheelchair. They engage in a bit of scuffle until I take a toy and shove it in Puffy's face, to distract him. Then I push Dad out to the the van and off we go.
            Then we make the trek down the highway and I go to play my music but he bellows "Derek, Jesus, you know how much I ADORE Blood, Sweat and Tears" and so I play their first CD. He just dances around until I say, "DAD, I am driving here, can you please keep it still?" and then I realize that's all he CAN do is keep it still, because from the waist down he's got nothing, and I feel bad, until he reads my mind and says, "Well, it's not like I'm going to go tap dancing or anything" and we both laugh.
            About halfway through the third song, he gets sentimental and he says, "This was the last song your mother and I danced to at our wedding.”
I don’t say anything.
Your mother," Dad says.
"What about Mother?" I say.
"Your mother left me because she wanted a man with legs."
"But Dad, you got more than legs. You got heart. And you got hands. You can write wonderfully for a man with no legs."
He pauses. I can tell he’s debating what to say next. “Ahh, we're better off without her, aren't we, Derek?"
"Yes, Dad, of course. We are. Wait until the novel gets published."
“Yes, the novel,” he says, nodding.
            We park at Kinko's finally and I get him out of the van, I stand there and wait until the employee sees us standing there and opens the door. They all know us and they greet us by name and Dad throws some sort of literary quip in there, and I say, "Dad, these guys are going to college, they're going to get all your references" and he grumbles and I push him over to the printer.
"Dad, where's your thumbdrive?"
He pats his pockets and he says, "Derek, did we lose it in the war?"
I take it out of my pocket and say, "Soldier, were this your rations, you'd STARVE."
I put it in the little computer and he feeds his credit card and his novel, The Stars Are Strangers, comes up and he smiles and I pat him on the shoulder. "I'm proud of you, Dad," I whisper. He tells me to print it. So I do. We wait and count the pages print (417 of them), he tells me about Mom again, how she was so against him writing this thing.
"She didn't think I could do it. She thought it would ruin me. She wanted me to concentrate on my therapy. She thought my legs were more important. But Derek, this IS how I learn to walk again. By taking this step." And I nod. Because he's one hundred percent right. Once it's printed, I stack it as neat as I can and I take it over to the table.
            I wheel Dad over to look at it and he reads the first few pages as if they've magically changed overnight and they never do. He says, "We're good to go."
After we pay, I push him out and put him back into the van. He wants to go to lunch. No lunch, I tell him. It's too much of a hassle. He tells me that I'm a hassle so I leave him in the van for a few minutes and go into the used bookstore next to Kinko's. After a few minutes, he calls me on my cell phone and bellows "Derek, I was JOKING" and then I leave and I get back into the van. He's sweating and red-faced. "Are you ready to go home?" And he says yes, he'd like to sit in the backyard for a while.
            On the way home, he gets serious again. He starts talking non-stop and I just listen. There's no other part I have to do. He talks about pain and not being able to walk. He talks about Mom leaving us all, just to fight this world ourselves, how she did not love him, how she did not leave just me but everything, how she did not respect anything we ever did for her. He talks about Puffy. He talks about his novel and how he hopes that it will touch someone, somewhere, for the good of literature is a good that is able to heal. How it helped him think he could possibly walk again when he knows in the back of his mind he may never be able to. He talks about how I've been more than just a son - I've been a gift. I've been someone who he could depend on for anything, how I've been able to completely save him from doing something stupid. How he wrote the novel for me. I want to interrupt and say that the novel is for him, but it's enough for now. Like I said, it's a ritual. We have to follow it.
            I ask him when he's going to write the next one. He says he isn't. Those are his only chance at making his words count. He wants people to read THOSE words. And he wants people to read them now.
            "Dad, we have to wait," I say.
            "I know."
            “And we’re going to do it together.”
            “Yes, we will,” he says. He nods and acts as if he’ll talk some more, but watches the passing road instead with silence.
            And then I take him out of the van and I push him to the backyard and I make him a drink and I sit with him, watching the trees. There is no more talk. There’s nothing left to say.
            *
            

​Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies.  Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian.  The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade.

A coiled wire remained.  It looked so frail yet had held 12 large pages.  December had just been discarded and the spiral had no more use.  Unlike the outdoor trees that had exposed limbs and their trunk bottoms sank into snow but would form green leaves in the spring, this wire had completed its cycle.
            I thought about the parallel with the human cycle.  Yet as I affixed another calendar to the wall, it was also a beginning.  My birth year was getting farther and farther away and those rejected-used pages from decades of numbers was plumping its passage of time.  Less ahead than what passed..... I could look at the rest of my life that way or see each January with unused and crisp paper as each beginning.  The choice was mine. 
            Touching the coil, it seemed to feel as if its strength yet flexibility was ‘me’.  The kindness and attention I’ve shown and the philosophy I’ve passed down will remain with those who have shared that, grown from my listening to them and not merely hearing their phrases, and that’s my ‘spiral’ and my body just the used paper that gets recycled in the blue-box.
            The phone rang.  No longer tethered to a wall, as during my girlhood, nor heavy, I slid my finger to ‘open’ an icon, set it on my desk, and said “hello”.  Penny postcards peeked into a part of my memory when I heard “Grandma, I got your e-mail, and...”  My e-mail.  When a postal card was about to rise to two cents, I was so proud that I’d bought 50 and could use those that I showed my mother how grown I was to think about that in advance.  I had no idea that I’d have to buy 50 additional stamps to use for mailing.  I assumed anything already in my possession was okay.  She didn’t laugh as she explained ‘life’ to me.  Her kindness spirals inside my head although she and my father share a granite headstone.  Few use postal cards today; fewer buy picture cards as camera-phones click and transmit our own time and place and not what someone else deemed was important to record on a mailing rectangle.
            My heavy shellac 78rpm music that woke as a diamond needle touched a groove was obsolete when my children were born.  Their little players were 45rpm with a fat hole in the center and the breakage was not an issue.  Discarded piles of years, now a tiny device holds thousands of songs, cassette tapes have vanished, and CD’s will soon be a memory.  Ah, memory.  That’s the coiled wire that withstands tugging papers from it monthly, and firmly holds page 12 as tightly as it did page 1.
            I affixed 2019 to the wall.  Its blank squares will have scribbles of appointments, events, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, marriages, and so forth.  I’d like to keep the reminders as a diary but they’re more like a log, and logs are just what and where; my diaries were details of thoughts and feelings.  And when I have no more allotted calendars to display, the memories built with loved ones will continue, and their cellphones will be as strange as my tethered one, and their means of communication unique to those upcoming generations.  They’ll have their own ‘penny postcard’ stories tucked inside them as they give their own offspring and partners reason to write on calendar pages although I doubt it’ll be paper.  
 
Published December 30, 2016   ©2016The Write Place at the Write Time     http://inscribing
reprinted: March 2017   Indiana Voice
reprinted winter 2017    Shemom  
reprinted Dec. 2017    Go60.us
 

Robt. Emmett [not his real name of course] has, after retiring from a large international, manufacturing company as a machine design engineer, [he had no engineering degree]. His imagination and the continuing need to create urged him to write over half a million or so words about his early life in the mid-1950s.
He’s published nothing because his short stories are about his high school years [when the world was young, the music was great, the cars were unique, and the young ladies were just that - ladies], and who wants to read stories of what was?

Introduction
​

​I’ll introduce myself, (cuz no one else will). I’m the person everyone almost remembers. I lack drama and charisma. I am, seemingly not very memorable, hence the nom de plume, Vanilla Bob. I write somewhat caustic caricatures of the people, places, things, and the world in general
I am the faceless face in the crowd. You see me everywhere and remember me not at all. I am the guy in the hotel lobby, sitting on the has-been sofa, reading yesterday’s newspaper. You see me looking at the ugly, newly planted, statuary in the city park, obviously donated. Only a moron would pay semi-good money for such a monstrosity. You see me twisting and turning the map, trying to figure out where I am or where I want to go. I am the one looking the wrong way while riding the sightseeing bus. I am cheated out of my seat on an airline flight by a can’t speak a word of English Taiwanese fellow in a cheap suit (I know it’s a xenophobic remark, live with it.) Yet, after landing, his English is better than mine is.

​(Editor: That’s not hard to do!)
 
(Author: Did I mention my editor she hates me?)
 

​My luggage gets lost when I traveled to the left coast - by train!
My writing career started in the fourth or fifth grade. The nun thought I had a gift. Every two weeks she made me read a book and write a report to broaden my outlook.
In high school, I discovered girls. Scratch the writing. I decided I would rather be a doctor - a gynecologist. To further my pre-doctoral studies, I purchased a ’49 Nash Rambler with a rear seat that converted into 47 square foot mohair examination room. The car thing did not work out as well as I had hoped. Most fathers, upon seeing my mode of transpiration, sent their daughters back into the house. I traded it for a ’51 Metropolitan. The back seat would barely hold two Chihuahuas let alone two teenagers in a compromising position. The wool blanket cost me two bucks at the Army/Navy surplus store. It proved to be a very entertaining investment!
My first college medical course, a study of diseases of the Belgian Congo was my undoing. 

​(Editor: The Belgian Congo is in what part of the anatomy?)
 
(Author: It is, was, a country in central Africa. See an old map, circa 1950.)
 

​To continue, I had symptoms of every tropical disease I read about, even Cannabuous fever. There had been only three cases reported. Because of all my illnesses, I missed most of my classes that quarter. The Dean of Admissions did not believe sleeping on a couch in the Student Union was proper recuperating. He released me for Academic underachievement, no M.D.
Now I am hack writer for a rag that makes the Sun-Globe and the National Equistar seems as prophetic as the Bible. They do get a chuckle from some of the things I submit. They don’t pay me much for those items. They are cheap, but they do provide me a per diem. It covers my costs. Life has taught me to live simply. I am not good enough to be on the regular payroll. If (a very large word) I am paid for one of my scribbling’s, I squander it on a glass of local beer. Scotch, the beverage of the gods, hasn’t crossed my lips in a very long while. It might again – someday.
SAM, my editor, sent me here to write about this place that the locals call the Zenith City.
 

Check-in at the Edge
​

It was kind of late when I checked into my new digs; it was after sundown. I was not sure how long I was staying. The sleepy-eyed collegiate behind the check-in counter greeted me with a yawn and a pasted on smile. I filled out the registration card. She looked at it, then at me and inquired why I had left the ‘length of stay’ line blank. I told her my stay would be – indefinite. Obviously, it was a new word for her. Her eyeball tumbled like a cheap one-armed bandit and stopped at triple ’Tilt’. I tried to explain. Her look told me nobody was home between her ears, so I said two weeks. That worked. She smiled, ran my credit card through the black box, and pressed a few buttons. It blinked and so did she. Her world was happy. Good. She tore a map off the map pad, circled room 2204, and handed it to me, along with the plastic room key. The room was on the fourth floor. Room 2204 on the 4th floor, that’s a new one. Most room numbers start with the floor number. But then again I’m now in youper * country. So deep into youper land, in fact, that most sentences end with an “Eh” generated in the back of the throat.
 
I was hoping to get some help carrying my things to the room. I looked around and noticed the ancient bellboy. How can an octogenarian be called ‘boy?’ He was sprawled across two rattan chairs, which obviously came from the Red Shield store. He was snoring up a storm until Sleepy-eyes dinged the dinger. He ran a bony hand over his stubbled face as he unlimbered himself from the rattan. I was not sure whether the creaking sound was sigh of relief from the chairs or from his old bones. Slowly he straightened to a height of nearly six-feet. His uniform looked vaguely familiar. Old memories flashed through my mind like the flickering rotation of the wheels of a one-armed bandit. Wheel one – Clunk. It was the image of the marquee of the Norshore movie theater on Superior Street. The second wheel stopped. It was the high school photo of my date for the evening. She was wonderful, and unforgettable in every way. I sighed. Ah, those were the days. How could I forget the unforgettable Miss What’s-her-name? The third and last wheel slowly spun down and stopped. A kid, in an usher’s uniform. The very same uniform sitting it rattan chair yawning at me. It was also the same face, but with higher mileage. Back in the day, we all called him, Sluggo. I don’t remember why, we just did. 
 
He slowly sauntered toward me. Foolish person that I am, I assumed he would take my suitcase and clothing bag, or at the very least one or the other. No, he picked up my small shaving bag and headed to the door. I grabbed my stuff and hurried after him. Outside I asked him why we did not take the elevator. He stopped, squinted at me, and sighed in a tone suggesting I was an idiot. He explained we could not get from the lobby to my room using the elevator from the lobby. We walked out the door, up a set stairs of questionable quality. Then along a walkway that swayed eerily like the one I’d trod across in the Amazon rain forest.
 
At the room, I stuck the plastic room key in the slot – red light. I tried it again, same results. Try three also failed. What was it Einstein said about doing the same thing again and expecting different results? Sluggo took the key, struck it in the slot, and jiggled it up twice and down once. Wallaha – green light, oh yes, insanity. The king sized bed was not lumpy, but the pillows were. A wonderful start to my wonderful stay in the wonderful Zenith City, one can only hope.
 
*Inhabitants of the upper portion of the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are sometimes called youpers.
 

Arachnidville
​

​My aching bladder woke me. I tinkled (more on that later) and dressed for the day, black jeans and white T-shirt that I had received when I toured a pizza factory. Pizza factory! What has this world come too! Pizza dough needs overhead twirling, the tomato sauce needs to be ladled and spread with care, and each piece of pepperoni must be placed with casual precision.
 I opened my door, stepped out - almost. I was immediately stuck in the spider web covering the entire opening. I could barely move. I looked around and noticed half a dozen, silver dollar sized, saber-toothed Arachnids closing in on me. I managed to save myself with my 2-inch switchblade knife. (It used to be 6-inches long before I used it as a pry bar) I hacked myself free just as the first of my lunch guests were about to lay a paw on me. Damn, the office needs to know about these people eaters!
As I stepped into the office, mister Oily glided to the counter next to a very short bottle blond, and asked, “Yeeees? May I help you?” He had a stereotypical, wannabe seven-day-old beard. What did he want to be? I wondered. Then I happened to look at his feet. Do not ask me why, I do not know. I just did. He was wearing cowboy boots with four-inch heels. Question answered, he wanted to be taller than the five-foot-two blond semi-cutey.
I asked him if he knew there was a spider problem
“Room 2204?” He inquired. I nodded. “Well, that explains disappearance of the previous guest and all his stuff’s still in the room.”
“Are you going to spray or something?”
He inhaled, straightened to his max height of five foot three, looked up his nose at me, “This establishment has a strict environmental policy and has no intention of harming the wonderful earth or the creatures on it. We let nature do its thing.”
“Really!”
“Yeeees! The Spiders eat the mosquitoes, the dragonflies eat the spiders, and the bats eat the dragonflies. Therefore, you see, all nature is in harmony. You wouldn’t want the balance of nature upset, would you?”
And what the hell is a missing motel guest or two, I thought. “Of course not. So, what do you suggest I do?”
Reaching under the counter, “Here,” He handed me a large, holey bath towel, like the two in my room, “Swirl this around the door frame as you exit your room.”
I thanked him and turned to leave. Then it hit me, a light bulb moment, I asked Oily, “Where is the nearest gun store and a place to get some breakfast?”
“Did not the night girl tell you that we have a free breakfast in the fourth floor cafeteria, between 6:00 and 10:00 a.m.?”
“Ah, no.”
“Did she give you tokens for free drinks in the Sunrise Lounge?” I nodded. He handed me two aluminum tokens, “They are good between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. After that you have to buy your drinks.”
“Thanks,”
“Might I inquire as to the reason that you are visiting our fair city?” Oily asked.
“I was sent here to do some local color stories.”
“Here, in this town? Ha! Good luck with that.”
 

Cafeteria Ptomaine
​

​The elevator door closed and just for grins and giggles, I press button number 2. Sluggo said the elevator did not go to the floor where my room, 2204, was located. He was correct. The four by four foot cube I was in did not move. I pressed 4. The elevator’s chime, chimed, the number 4 lit and the groan and the vibrations started. When they finally stopped, the door struggled to open. I surveyed the cafeteria. I picked up a tray and some plastic ware. It had a long counter, a milk dispenser, a juice machine, followed by the dry cereal in a clear plastic contraption. It contained twenty-four different types of sugary, non-nutritious types of crap passing as breakfast food. Next was the section with all the good stuff. I was impressed with the hard-boiled egg (singular), fresh-diced fruit of questionable origin and oatmeal (remember the white school paste the girl next to you in the first grade would eat by the finger-full?). Next to the oatmeal was brown sugar and raisins. (Some of the raisins were moving.)
A voice like fingernails on a blackboard startled me. “Do you know that there are tons of things happening in town? Well there are. Really, there are. Did the road construction cause you any problems? No, I don’t suppose it did. It does some people. It does some people. Are you enjoying your stay? My name’s Kathie. Now I need to empty the trash. If you need anything, let me know, okay. Bye.”
Her voice was still ringing in my ear as I slid my tray along the tray rail. It suddenly stopped at the milk dispenser. I my car’s brakes should have that kind of stopping power. I looked at the rails - sticky, splattered milk all over them. I decided I would pass on the milk and have juice instead. I set a plastic cup on the machine, pressed the cranberry button. Water filled my cup. I set a new cup under the orange juice, pressed the button, and a nice stream of juice flowed over my hand. I moved the cup to catch it. Sucking the orange juice from my thumb, I noticed the toast machine in the far corner. I placed a piece of unnutritious white bread on the toaster’s conveyor. After the third time through, it felt slightly above room temperature and was sorta tan.
I turned and bumped into chatty Kathy. My orange juice dumped onto my semi-toasted toast.
“Did you know there are three class reunions scheduled this weekend?” She asked.
“Ah, no I didn’t.” I should give a crap.
“Oh yes. East, West ...”
“And all around the town,” I finished.
“And more,” she continued, “Marshall and that girls school, Stanbrook.”
Girl’s school? This might be interesting I should go. “What year?”
“It’s an all-years reunion, with emphasis on the class of 1961.”
Oh goodie, a convention of ex-pom-pom gals in walkers. I dumped the remains of my soggy toast and juice into the trash. Coffee, I need coffee. At the stainless steel urns, I found one of three still had some amber brew remaining. I filled three Styrofoam cups and emptied the pot. I capped and set the cups on my tray, tucked a copy of the local newspaper under my arm, and turned. Something crashed into my left knee, a three-year-old whirling dervish in short-pants. Rebounding off my leg as my paper landed on his head. I thanked God it was not my scalding coffee. He started to wail. I glared at the mother. I should have told her some people shouldn’t be allowed to breed until they had taken a class on parenting – twice!
I just needed to get to the quiet of my room and enjoy my breakfast. The coffee, it was delicious.
 

All around the town ~ Part One
​

​I finished my coffee and headed out to see the sights. The town’s changed in the last four decades. It is not as I remembered it from my year here in high school. I stepped off the 1919 vintage trolley. I marveled at the peeling paint job.  I was at the midpoint of town. I love the way cities designate the heart of things. Main Street and Center Avenue, gosh, how unimaginative is that. The starting point for the city of Duluth’s is imaginative, Lake Avenue and Superior Street.  

​(Editor: In your opinion, why is that so imaginative?)
 
(Author: The west end of Lake Superior is a block or so away.)
 
(Editor: So?)
 

​The entertainment area now contained a comedy club/bar, a movie house/bar, a live play theater with a bar, and a book store/bar. Why the emphasis on drinking, I wondered? Later, I found out that there was a 5% drink tax, a 5% alcohol tax, a service tax, and a sales tax on the total bill. That figures, this burg only has three months to make its annual profit. Taxation is the easiest method to screwing the tourist out of his money.
Speaking of screwing, the old whorehouse had burned down. However, the old strip joint, Club Saratoga, has upscaled. It’s now a Gentleman’s Club. Meaning, one can wear a suit while leering at females clad only in pasties. A pastie is not to be confused with a pasty, which is a folded pastry case filled with savory seasoned meat and vegetables.
This week’s featured performer at the Club is, Drum roll please – Lightening. I read the billing on the wall as I tried to peek in the double glass doors. “See her counter-rotate her 38s,” the ad said. Oh yes, a real World War II vintage holdover, a defiant must see, but not now.
I walked around the corner and entered the old warehouse district. Now, obviously it is a wearhouse area contained a dozen or so Boutiques. That is a fancy French term for, all manner of cheaply produced, overpriced clothing, made in Pakistan or Malaysia, by child labor. I would walk naked before I would buy any of the crap produced there and sold here, and chance being arrested by the E.P.A. police.
The junk yards of old were gone. New ones had sprung up in their place. They sold genuine, handmade, keepsakes. Indian beaded headbands, toy Birch bark canoes, totem poles, and other junk, labeled “Souvenirs.” All produced and shipped to the United States from China.
My empty stomach suggested that I feed it. I dropped into an uncomfortable wire chair at the nearest sidewalk eatery. The waitress was busy talking to the customer at a nearby table. As I waited, I could not help noticing her cute ass and the tramp stamp above it. Why, I wondered, would any sane person have the price of a shrimp dinner tattooed in a place they could not see and in a language, they could not read? She turned and looked at me. I noticed that she had 27 pieces of decoration stabbed into one ear. The premiere item was in the earlobe. It was a 3-carat piece of glass. The other ear held nothing. Obviously, that ear did not need beautification. Her hand, arm, and shoulder held dozens of unrelated tattooed symbols, in various shades of ugly blue. The vision of her fondling my food leapt into my brain. My stomach did a double flip with a twist and a half to send a message to my legs, “Leave now! I am about to empty and embarrass you!”
 

All around the town ~ Part Fore
​

​My still starving gut insisted it needed feeding. It rested on my large western buckle I’d just bought. It was made in Mexico. (Hey, it’s at least in the Western hemisphere) I spotted a sign, Grandmas Restaurant. Sounds like a family type place. I seemed to remember the building from my youth. At that time, a little bald-headed man named Jim ran the restaurant. He had a cute, young, redheaded waitress that I dated. She moved on and became a success. I just moved on. They served great food and the place was the Sand Bar Cafe. Times change and now the place is a food joint / bar / gift shop / and more. In addition, it is a place to hang all the cast-off memorabilia from the renovated buildings in the center of the city. The first lighted, motorized barber pole in town now lights the way to the head, toilet for you non-nautical types. Being near a large body of water brings out the sailor in me. After all, the only Arial Lift Bridge in the world is only a hundred yards away, and the need to … well, that’s how I saw the barber pole. There were signs from the old hotels, gas stations, and other miscellaneous junk. The owner had found a way to give up the warehouse where he had stored all his stuff and turn it into an attraction. Okay, he can call it that, it is his place.
I sat in a booth with a view and looked at the drink menu. The only beer in bold print on the menu was an 11-ounce tap of St. Louie Brew. Oh yes, it is cheap stuff, fit only for airline stewards and sorority sophomores. For flavor, the brewing water is from the Chicago River. Someone once told me it was how Chi-town removes its sewage. So I have heard. While waiting, and enjoyed the view of the Bridge and the lighthouse at the end of the canal.
Dimple-cheeks, the waitress, arrived, took my order. The way she looked at me, I assumed I had ordered her favorite malted beverage. She started to walk away, turned, and said, “Ya know, fur da same price ya can get 22 ounce Samuel Adams. Da special today, don’t ya know, eh.”
“Change my order,” I requested.
“U betcha, eh. Comin’ right up, fur sure, eh.”
The college English major left me to scrutinize the food menu. I say food rather than salt laden artery clogging pap that lab rats would not eat, because I do not want to demean the joint. I looked out the window and enjoyed the view.
She returned with my beer. “Ja whanna order now, eh?”
“Okay, I’ll have the double deep fried whole onion and the Ship Captain’s burger.”
“Okey-Dokey, ya want cheese on da Ship Captain’s burger, eh?”
“No.”
“Yous a tourist, eh, I can tell from yous accent.”
“And you do not have an accent?”
“Oh no, I talk like everyone else ‘round here. Fur sure, eh. Da reason I’m asken, is det yous order es big ‘nough fur a discount coupon. I be bringin’ ya one, eh.”
“Sure.” The linguist left me to wait in anticipation of the gourmet feast. I return to looking out the window, and enjoying the view.
 
There are no parts 2 and 3. I just called this part fore to screw with the editor’s head, and because it comes be-fore the next part.

​(Editor: I will get even you know!)

All around the town ~ Part Last
​

​Two gray-haired, senior women plunked into the booth behind me. They talked so loud I assumed the batteries in their hearing aids needed charging. It was distracting my thoughts of the view. The shoulder length, chestnut hair, was bobbing to something the woman sitting across from her had said. The back of the booth was blocking my scrutiny of the rest of her. True, I couldn’t see all of her, but I have an above average imagination. I had a good view of her girlfriend, a mutt. Why do beautiful chicks hang out with mutts? Not that the diminutive, plump, bronze-red, spiked haired, chatty, sweat thing was a non-looker, oh no, she was definitely a 10, on the Kelvin scale!
Dimple-cheeks shocked me, “Wanna nother beer?”
I looked at my stein. Surprise, it was empty. “Yes.”
“U betcha, comin’ right up, fur sure, eh.”
Ah, Jeezs, the View and the mutt were holding hands. I really hate that kind of public affection. It shattered my mental vision of the View. The mutt slid out of the booth, the View followed, and I got an eyeful. She had long, slender legs in tight jeans, trim waist, and a neatly trimmed Van Dyke! Damn. He sure had me fooled.
Now all I had for entertainment was the two gray-haired chatterboxes in the booth behind me. Another gray-haired couple, a man and, I assume, his wife, sat in the booth across the aisle from me. This must be a local meeting place for the gray panthers. The linguist zipped in and handed them menus. Fur sure, eh. As she left them, the old man ogled the swing on her back porch. I had my thoughts. What would an old stud like you do if she said, ‘Yes?’ The look on the wife’s face hinted at her thoughts. There’s not enough Viagra in the world to bring your old Lazarus to life!”
“Here ya go, eh. I had da cook put somma Swiss on dat, fur free, fur sure, eh.” she said as she set the double deep fried whole onion and the Ship Captain’s burger in front of me.
“Jeezs eh, dat wassa nice a yous, tanks a bunch fur sure, eh.” I don’t know why I talked to her that way. Oh yes I do, 22 ounces of Samuel Adams, fur sure, eh.
She looked around. None of her customers needed her. “Mind if I sit witch ya?”
“Suit yourself.” I had my mouth under control again.
She did, on the bench opposite me.
Between burger bits, beer swallows, salt crunching, and belching, we talked. I found out she was from the Iron Range. It sounds like a kitchen appliance. She assured me that it was an okey-dokey place to live. She wanted to be a teacher. She planned to return to her hometown of Coleraine and instruct the local kids about English. I asked her, what in retrospect was a very dumb question, why?
“Jeezs eh, everyone up dar speaks Finn. Da kids needa learn English, so da can go tada main campus an get an education, doncha know, eh.”
I was about to respond ...
“Whoopsies,” the multilingual waitress jumped up and headed to the kitchen, “gotta get da food fur dem silver-haired ladies, eh.”
I finished the burger, but not the double deep fried whole onion. It was a bit much and had killed all my salt tasting taste buds, U betcha, fur sure, eh.
 There is one more part. Therefore, this is not the last, but I am not going to change the title.
 

​All around the town ~ Epilogue *

​More gray-haired senior women and couples plunked into the booths around me. This must really be the local meeting place for the gray panthers. I raised my beer glass as Miss Dimple-cheeks, my server from the Iron Range, as she walked past. The linguist promptly returned, set down a fresh steinful of Samuel Adams my table, and zipped in to wait on a pair of gray-headed couples in a nearby booth. I finished this 22 ounces of Samuel Adams I would be well passed my limit of beer.
Have you ever eavesdropped on the conversations of old farts? You should. Be warned, you need to get to the food joints early. They get there at 2:45 and are mad as hell because they have to wait until 3:00 to order the early-bird special. You can tell where they are eating. Look for parking lots filled with newer big Buicks, Chryslers, or white Ford pickup trucks with a fifth wheel rigs in the box for pulling an eighty foot long, twenty wide, house trailer. Just knowing they are ziggin’ and zaggin’ down the road makes me glad to fly my favorite generic friendly skies airline’s DC what-ever wide-body. 
They only talk about two topics. No, they do not talk about their children or grand kids, yet. The number one subject matter before eating is the other places they have dined. They do the pros and cons of every meal and every eatery within a hundred miles. They know them all. Which ones have specials and on which day and at what time. They discuss the food quality, the wait staff, and the comfortableness of the seating arrangements. They never talk about the drinks, unless it is lemonade. Then they wax nostalgic about the nectar of the citrus world. They even talk about the water, the glass it comes in, and if the ice is clear or cloudy. They do this before their food arrives. These folks need to get a life.
The do talk about their children or grand kids. In their vernacular, it is dessert conversation. Meaning, they are talked-out and are about to bring out the photo albums, yes albums. Gray-hairs carry them in a separate, large purse.  
After their food arrives at their table, the conversation turns medical. They entertain the listener, and all those within in ear shout, (Yes, ear shout. Batteries not includes) of their latest medical procedure. Gray-hairs love to regale their fellow diners with the blood and the gore, in detailed minutia, stories of their latest operation. All this while the listeners are glopping excess ketchup all over their super tenderized ground beef. Dentures discussions are a sub-set of the medical conversation. Usually they are an interruption interjected into the conversation when someone bites into a tough piece of mashed potato or asparagus spear.
Women are far more detailed than men are. Their explanations of their lasted trip to the doctor are far more colorful. A woman at the next table interrupted the man, chocking on a baby carrot. She visited her gynecologist about a fungus that had developed in her ….
I left half a glass of my friend Sammy, ran to the nearest phone, and called the motel to request their limo (it had started life as a 9-door, ’49 Chevrolet, Airport Limousine) pick me up. It was on its way, the sweet voice said. As I waited, I browsed the over-priced China-made trash in the gift shop. I decided not to get the coffee cup with a simulated seagull splotch in the bottom. On the limo ride, I decided to take an afternoon nap. Wait, was the simulated seagull splotch simulated? Yes, I think. At the motel, I quickly fell asleep. No, I did not pass out.
 
* Epilogue, is a fancy word that, in old Greek (I think), means I have a bit more to say.

Hockey 101
​

​After my nap …

​(Editor: You were drunk and passed out, weren’t you?)
 
(Author: I did not pass out.)

​As I started to say … I was sitting behind the unwatered, scruffy, evergreen thing near the dark end to the balcony overlooking the swimming pool and entertainment area. I use the term loosely. It’s a mini-golf overgrown with weed and sticker bushes.
Anyway, she must have gone down the large blue, inflatable slide – headfirst. One would think a woman on the sunset side of fifty would know better. Her scream got my attention. I do not think she likes snacking on pea-gravel. She spit it all out. Then she turned and looked at the twelve-foot high slide. I thought for a moment that she was going to try again. She shook her short, soggy, bottle-made copper-red hair, and walked away. We both heaved a sigh, hers was resignation, and mine was relief. I found no joy watching someone embarrass herself, himself, and/or theirself.
 As she left, I noticed the three SUV’s desperately trying to squeezing into four parking places. The car’s plates were from out of state, way out of state, Utah, Arizona, and California. They unloaded half a dozen young teenage boys, who promptly went to check out the swimming pool and the teenage girls lounging there by. The moms headed to the rear of their vehicles to start unloading their luggage. The SUV’s were so over loaded than when the hatch audibly popped open, things spilled onto the grass studded gravel parking lot. The desperate moms called down to their boys to help haul the large bags stuffed with all manner of hockey equipment.
It seems the sight of the bikinied girls had caused the boys to lose their hearing. The moms, therefore or therefive, had to lug the bags up the flight of stairs to the second floor without the help of their sons.
And just how, you ask, did I know the large bags held hockey stuff? Simple, the bags said Hockey Stuff. No, actually, I’d over heard the two bellboy (yes, real boys) talking. They knew the hockey kids were coming and made plans to be anywhere but the lobby. When I discerned the large leather bags and the nine or ten hockey sticks, my mind leaped to the obvious conclusion. 
Before supper, as I’d been sitting behind the dead plant in the lobby and learned there was a large, 200 plus, contingent of young hockey players in town for a clinic. There would be two days of seminars, practices, and instruction. Teams would then be formed and spend the rest of the week competing against each other. Generally, it would be the left coasters against the youpers. Those were the kids from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and central Canada.
I overheard Pennie the Slider, talking with the hockey-mom in the room next to mine. She is from Utah (Mormon, I would guess). Slider’s last name was Nickels and she was talking to the collegiate behind the check-in counter. Moms really need to think through this whole kid-naming bit. Later in the evening the hockey moms, Mormon, Sue-1, and Sue-2 were outside my room. Sue-1, a.k.a. Loudmouth, was extolling the skills of her two great sons. She assured all within ear shoot, that the left-coasters and her sons in particular would be opening a can of whoop-ass on these mid-westerners and show them what hockey was all about. If the young youpers knew what was in store for them they would have been trembling, not in fear, but with laughter.
 

​Hockey 101 (cont.)

​It is another sweltering day here in the Zenith City. Yesterday, the temperature reached 78. All major appliance stores sold both air conditioning units they stocked for just such an emergency as the city is experiencing. Today’s high temperature was predicted to be 79-1/2. There is not a weatherman …

​Editor: You forgot add ‘and weatherwoman.’)
 
(Author: Can the sexist crapola, will ya?)

​… In town who will publicly utter the dreaded number – eighty. Yet, the hockey season is in full swing in this part of the country. Yes, it is sports fans. I know you believe winter is the proper time to play Hockey up here in da Nort-lahnt. (I learnt dat verd from the linguist at lunch the odder day. U betcha, fur sure, eh.) Technically, it is a winter sport. However, summer is the time for hockey CLINICS. Point of fact, up here there are four seasons. Spring, whenever the temperature stays above zero for more than a week. Road Construction season is the time of year for family vacations far, far away. Fall is Road Construction on steroids because of the month long union strike that annually starts July 5th. Winter, or Vinter, as the locals say, is the time of the year between Labour Day, (Dats da Canadian influence on spelling, fur sure, eh) and Memorial Day. Or whenever there is more than two hundred inches of snow on the ground. Really, measuring snow in inches is a joke, a sick one. Snow is depressing enough, unless you own a large hill, like the Indians who own Spirit Mountain.
Hockey is not limited to the freeze-your-ass-off-cuz-you-didn’t-head-to-Gulf-Shores-when-you-had-the-chance-season-of-the-year. No, it can be played year round.
How did this happen. One (or two) might ask. Like duh. The Valley girls had ah, like well, a change of mind. They stopped dating the blond haired melanoma seeking, surfboard riding Dudes and decided to get bread. No, not bred, bread – money. You know, Moolah, Shekels, filthy lucre. They stopped doing the beach thing and attended the Univ of So Cal, and found themselves nerdy dweebs that ah, like well, did not say ah like well, but rather spoke in a cryptic, pre-computer, dialect. The young college lads hadn’t read the rules, so they didn’t follow them and bit by byte they became millionaires. Or billionaires, ah, like well, whatever.
Meanwhile, the Valley girls …

​(Editor: Deleted graphic material unsuitable even for mature adults.)
 

​Damn! I hate it when she blows away two great paragraphs of finely crafted obscene material. She does that just to irritate me.
Okay, anyway, the Valley girls are now grandmothers with grandchildren. (I so dislike stating the obvious) These grandchildren need something to occupy their time, keep them off drugs, and out of jail. Enter – Taa-dAA – Hockey Moms. Yes, I know there is no snow in So Cal, but there are rich grandfathers. They need to please the rich grandmothers by …

​(Editor: Enough of the overly graphic stuff, okay?)
 
 (Author: I need a break.)

​Hockey 101 (cont. some more)

​I was about to say to this is a win, win, and win deal. Grandpa gets to have his name on a building in neon lights. Grandma can brag about her name, on a building, in neon lights. And the mothers (daughters of parents whose name is on a building in neon lights) have a place to hangout with their kids at three in the morning and not have to pay a cover charge or tip the valet parking guys. They get to spend thousands of dollars on hundreds of pounds of hockey equipment that they carry up two flights of stairs while their macho little darlings carry two, one-pound hockey sticks.
A note on hockey sticks, the cheap sticks cost less than thirty-bucks. The expensive ones, are made with the same exotic material as an F-22. They will set you back two hundred smackers, or more. They are made in Tijuana, Mexico. Yes folks, the really good sticks are made south of the border. Jeezs eh, who’d thunk it!
The last win is the kids. These grandsons …

​(Editor: Sexist remark.) 
​

and granddaughters
​

​(Author: There, I hope that makes her happy.)

​… Have a place to play where the sun never shines. The hockey moms have other very important roles to play: chauffeur, trainer, first aid, cheerleader, and fight promoter/stopper.
What, exactly, is a Hockey-Mom? From my observation, they are a sub-set of the female human species. Imagine, if you will, a cross between the tall Amazon woman of legend, and an operatic soprano in a Wagnerian Norse tragedy wearing a white tank top that could be mistaken for a ‘56 Caddie Coupe DeVille with its Dagmarish bumper guards. Okay, they don’t wear a tin cap with cow horns. Then neither do the Minnesota Vikings football team. 

​(Editor: Lacks relevance.)
 

​Also, they all wear a foot-long ponytail and it’s blond. Some are, obviously, of the bottle variety, while others are not. It takes an expert to be able to tell the difference. In the main, they are rather nice people. 

​(Author: See Post Script.)
 

​So what happened when east met west on the ice at the Marshall High School field house? The youpers took away So Cal’s can of whoop-ass and taught them what the side boards are used for. Namely, injuring and maiming the other team.
 
P.S. I had to add that last sentence. Why? As I was about to send this story to SAM, my editor, to be destroyed by her large red lumber crayon, Lilly, the director of Fun & Games at my hotel, cornered me, literally, in the lobby, and asked what my latest story was about. I, being honest and forthright, foolishly told her all about the story above. Grabbing a handful of my shirt, she lifted me to my tiptoes, squished me farther into the corner as her nose pressed against mine. She looked me straight in the face, and her minty breath said, “Remember Bucko, I am a Hockey Mom!”

​Cement Mixers
 
(Author: Not to be confused with the soft-serve confection of the same name.)
 

​Most of the Motels guests were out having supper. (Don’t you like that vernacular for, you’ve just paid a hundred-fifty bucks to spend one night and you are a guest, wonderful.) The Hockey moms have taken their whiny, sunburnt, pampered brats to one of the local gut-bomb purveyors.
Calling eating at Burger K, or the Golden A’s, a meal, makes me want to up-chuck my own recent repast. I had dined at the Schwarz Hölzer. I had ordered a fifteen syllable something. It cost eighteen-fifty. I could describe the delectable Teutonic bit of gastronomy in lavish terms, but I won’t. It was a hot, open-faced, beef sandwich, of questionable genealogy, with lumpy, out of the box-mashed potatoes. For an additional three bucks, I bought a dessert with an appetizing name. It came with a cute little spoon. Those of beading and class would call I a demitasse spoon. The dessert, according to the server was Apfelkuchen. It was server by the server in a triple tall shot glass. Said spoon curved in such a manner that it was nearly impossible to hold comfortably in either hand. The topping was a teaspoonful of artificial whipped cream, topped with a two drip drizzle of something that looked like chocolate, but wasn’t. Three dips of the demitasse spoon later, the concoction was gone. It, however, was not forgotten, even now, an hour later, every burp reminds me of it.
A boisterous trio interrupted my quiet reverie as they burst through the door onto the patio near where I was sitting. Their attire tagged them as guys who toiled in the heat for their daily sustenance. In other words, they were sweat-stained, T-shirt wearing, out of town, construction workers. The leader, Goldie-Locks, was carrying a large red and white beer cooler. How, you ask, did I know it contained beer? Simple, they didn’t look like tea-sippers. The second guy, fortyish, was wearing a cap with a NASCAR style number 24 on it. He had a deck of playing cards in one hand and a half a bottle of beer in the other. The last member of the group looked to be on the good side of thirty and wore no wedding ring. He sported a week-old, exotically trimmed red beard. He glanced at the unpopulated swimming pool and remarked to his companions about the lack of bikini scenery. Goldie-locks and 24 agreed with red-beard. Faster than I can type, they had the cards shuffled, dealt them, opened their beers, and fired up their cigarettes.
 24 dealt another round of 3-handed Euchre. Red-beard lifted his Okleys and started to drool. The motel limo squealed to a stop and blocked our view of two chicks in bikinis heading to the swimming pool. Red-beard flipped open his rotary dial cell phone and dialed. Moments later, the limo driver emerged from the office. He moved the vehicle just in time for us to watch the bikini bottoms disappear through the green crust covering the pool. They never resurfaced, and the Euchre game continued until 24 announced he’d scored 11 points and won the game. He won because he was keeping score. Next game, new scorekeeper, and he won. Every game of chance has a rhythm. The rhythm of this Euchre game seems to be – the scorekeeper wins. The thirty-pack of beer finished, it was time to call it a day. These men work hard, play hard, and enjoy the moment. The three workers sauntered to their room.
 
I’m forced to add – Duluth is a fun place to visit and has a lot neat things going for it. Someone paid my editor handsomely for forcing me to add that last sentence.

(Author: I’da done it for half price.)
–  the end –
​

​Babies and young lovers
kiss in much the same way.
Open mouthed
receiving 
full of love
and willing to
take in everything.
When does the face seal up
in a manner to
stop the flow
of love and knowledge,
vulnerability and tenderness?
Why do we become guarded, wary,
timid and judgmental?
We begin life,
love
and lust
with submission,
rolling onto our backs,
exposing the soft flesh of our bellies.
Then we turn to jade,
slowly,
a process that involves betrayal,
mistrust,
little murders
and colored lies.
We die,
tightlipped,
underwhelmed, secrets buried;
our goodness tied up in old photos,
winners’ ribbons,
perfume tainted with age.

​My skin betrays me in its apathetic rage
While I face my future with a sense of doom
I cannot deny although I detest my age,
I’ll hold beyond arm’s length the sight of tomb;
Though witness conceited youth with heaving sighs
And those I nurtured at now withered breast,
Weary sit with elbows propped on tired thighs;
Watch while autumn sun drops in the west.
Some think and perhaps are right that I am mad
But I think suffer from a simple case of blues;
Cast away all things laced, buttoned and plaid,
Shuffle to meet you in my orthopedic shoes.
Make one thing clear, Ponce de Leon must not fail
To send me drops of elixir in the mail.

​Halfway down the steps close to the church
behind the mercería
where she bought thread in late afternoon
after she tells papi her stockings need mending,
Jasmin García Guadalupe
spreads her skirt into a fan,
folds it across her behind
first left, then right,
this for a little cushion
keeps her tender skin
from the dusty, cracked cement.

Her lips gather the corner of one small plastic bag
filled with water, nectar, jarabe,
sucks like a baby.

Leans her cheek on warm rough wall 
watches buses rumble below, 
going places she will never know.
Jasmin García Guadalupe 
dreams of a seat 
in the window
of the big blue bus...
Jesus painted on the back
arms spread wide
oversized palms 
with rusty centers.
Jasmin would say
if anyone asked her
that the Bus Jesus says
“Why follow me?”
eyes rolled up to heaven
oily black smoke blowing out his feet.

Lovers steal kisses in shadows;
Señora Diego leans out her window, pulls at her moustache;
niños plucking mangos over a broken fence…
juice runs down their chins, between fingers,
laughing, cussing, shoving, “Ánimo!”

Ignacio makes the knees of Jasmin García Guadalupe tremble;
bent weary, he comes up the stairs,
work shirt thrown over shoulder
dangling from wiry hanger
he keeps it spotless 'til he gets to the sizzling café. 
Ignacio's undershirt with soaking armpits
so white the sun lives in it.

He comes to where the girl sits
whose father would like to kill him
and stops to find his breath.

“You are the delicious peach. 
I think to sink my teeth into your skin.
I think to lick your seed.”

Ignacio passes, 
Jasmin shivers,
church bells clang.

I am white.
You are also white.
But you have a palette of other colors I do not have.
We both come from Mother Africa but you have the beautiful genes that document your claim. Mine have been washed away over decades, centuries, travels and time.
Danish butter rolls through our veins, you and me, and you also have Norwegian, making you more of a Viking than I.
Your skin is the color of honey… well made bread… fine sand, ground to softness by tides controlled by the moon.
My skin is old now but when I was younger, my skin was taut and inflexible. Now it gives you something to tease me with.
You were born blue. Your eyes were black like the depths of an underworld cave, and sparkling like an ancient fire. You turned pink within moments after your entrance and later, you began to take on the hues of an Egyptian Queen.
We are Cherokee, you a little more than I, making you braver, more stealthy and able to lean into the wind.
We are French, and English and maybe a wee Irish and German. We are many colors, shapes and sizes.
In our bones, we have the ability to break chains, sail tall ships, write ghazals of love, wipe tears off the face of defeat, leap in the name of victory, count stars and follow comets.
We are connected, like a fragile feather to a wing.
We are the threads of a tapestry and we are here to protect the colors.
 

Ruth Z. Deming has had her work published in lit mags including Literary Yard, Blood and Thunder, Pure Slush, O-Dark-Thirty, and Your One Phone Call. A psychotherapist, she lives in Willow Grove, a suburb of Philadelphia. She's always proud to be published in Scarlet Leaf Review. ​​

Shooter dead!
Who cares?
He shot my girl
Ducking under the tape
I went inside our favorite bar
A crime scene now
What horrible words
Like in a western
by Peckinpah

Her blonde curls
turned crimson red
I pretended she had
fallen asleep and would
carry my MaryBelle home
to bed. Chicken soup
would fix her up.

Officer Murphy took my shoulder
and led me out, out into the
world that mattered no more.

The shooter was dead. If 'n he wasn't
I would have gotten my hunting rifle
and drilled his body with more holes
than on a Swiss cheese sandwich

Life don't matter no more.
​

tand at ocean-side, exhale screams
cut through dense air, her throat tightens
releasing weird screeching caterwauls.
The ice melts and Sibyl climbs the tower;
in gown of white with gold lace; coat-less,
barefoot and cold, warm sunrise is soon.
Covered in darkness, within the icy dream
cursing those of pious dogma and reform
wearing a studded gemstone black collar;
gifted from her knight now dearly departed.
Deep within the throes of welcomed death,
Whydah Sibyl reaches with gnarly fingers;
breathless as water drips from castle walls.
Reciting, "as the dead are never truly gone;
unless they are totally forgotten by the living.
My life; a coolish sea breeze, stormy at dawn;
entranced, raving mad as a boiled chicken."
Whydah Sibyl still sings her lovelorn sonnet,
and now rises high into the clear black sky,
whispers echo in a soft light, 'your knight waits'.
Cast in a verse of silent night, she disappears
into the crest of a rolling wave, never forgotten.
 ​

​With shallow labored breaths
a kiss in the chill of predawn,
rattle and hum; a crispiness within,
wish for sleep during cold times.
Rainbow orbs dart all about trees,
acorns drop from the tip of sprigs
landing below in the old garden
I try to reach out and catch them;
but roll away from wrinkled hands.
The buggy takes us into the gates
grass glistens in the carriage-lights
touches of frost left upon naked leaves
skies of today bear dreams of tomorrow.
The Grey Wren's flutter in old cedars;
the Vicar delivers penance by a rosary.
Moldy smell of freshly shoveled earth
thoughts linger within lofty reflection of
the things that can never be unseen.
Atoning solace within old memories;
prayers answered with a lilac scent.
I'm cleansed in this time of my passing
majestic oaks of King's Walden bow as
the fragrance of Roses whisper to me.

​Adrift in dark clouds then a sun dog
high sky diving towards the ground
a drizzle, fog then a summer storm,
a raucous deluge all the way down.
Raindrops greet a spattered roof
upon all at night is a scarlet haze
gutters spew a torrential wash
truth be known, I'm sad today.
Forever arrived in a lightning flash
missing a lifeless breath sensation;
sweet sip of a fruity cold daiquiri
equal only to a chilled brain freeze.
Into the spongy ground it seems;

then I’m back inside a thirsty cactus.