The Introduction

It was just a bad feeling. I couldn’t coordinate my limbs. Stepping forward, I would weave right. Reaching out to the fence for balance, I clutched air and staggered in quick-step fashion till I came to an abrupt stop, arms outstretched, weaving like an unstable antenna.

I tried to speak but my words slid, one into another, in an unintended stream of verbal sound.

“Uuuhthinkuuuuhhhhshouldsitdown …”

I was not as articulate as I had hoped. Someone else said:

“Maybe you should sit down …”

“Uhseddthat…”

I dropped like a sack to the ground. Strangely, my ass felt no pain.

Buddha-like, I remained there in a contemplative pose. My mind was utterly empty of thought except for a sense of perplexity. I could not understand why the world was tilting as if the planet itself was one of those Hollywood gimbal machines they use for rollicking special effects films.

My state of tilt-a-whirl peace then vanished as a new sensation swept up through me, along with much of the alcohol I had drunk and the evening’s Japanese cuisine.

“Ah geez …,” I heard a voice cry. “Well he’s sure as hell not getting in my car now.”

“We’ll have to hose him down.”

“Who was the genius who ordered sake anyway?”

I began to raise my hand as a way of indicating that it was I who had ordered the sake but as I did the world, in almost cinematic fashion, faded to black and I fell into the deep, dark and lifeless slumber of the man who will wake, many hours later, to the agonies of the hangover and other consequences.

No, it was not the best way to introduce myself to my future Japanese in-laws. But then it was Utako’s idea that we should meet this way. Surely it was her fault, not mine?

I’ll convince myself of this eventually.

(Originally published on Crazy Ass Planet, Sunday October 30, 2005.)

Tag: Fiction, Flash fiction, Sunday stories, Stories, Short stories

I once knew a man with a hole in his head

"I once knew a man with a hole in his head. He put it there himself. He used a hand drill ..."

The rest of this story (4500 words) can be found here ...

Tag: Fiction, Flash fiction, Sunday stories, Stories, Short stories

Children's games

The children are gone. Roger’s pants are gone. So is his wallet and with it our money.

I can’t help but think there is a connection.

Roger, in his early fifties and with a “paunch,” meaning he’s considerably overweight and very out of shape, stands raging. He wears nothing but an ill-considered thong. I am reminded of the week we spent on a beach in France.

Not very convincingly, I argue that it is just youthful hi-jinks. “Mischief,” as my own mother use to say.

Roger is having none of that. He is already out the door, on the front lawn, his head jerking wildly from left to right as he scans the street in both directions bellowing into his cell phone at some poor unfortunate who fields calls for the police.

Yes, Roger is a bit of an ass. This is probably why my children dislike him so much. Why they are so determined that, contrary to Roger’s ambitions, they feel he and I should be parted as soon as possible.

But what do children know of need and loneliness? Roger … well, he’s better than bloody Celine Dion songs and Chilean red wine by yourself on a Saturday night.

Still, the kids argue that I should be stronger than this. And I can’t help but agree with them.

But being alone is … alone.

Still, Roger in a thong on the front lawn screaming into a cell phone … maybe alone is not so bad?

My kids think so. That’s why they took his pants. I can picture the looks of wicked glee on their faces as they decided to do it.

Taking the wallet? I know Angela and Dez too well (they are my children after all). That was just an added touch. A last minute, “Hey, why not …”

For Roger, of course, the wallet is the whole thing. Nice touch, Dez. (He’s the one who thought of that - I’m sure of it. But Angie, she would have been in like Flynn.)

Though Roger would be focused on the wallet, I know it was all about the pants and the thong we are all too familiar with.

Certain older men have this mistaken notion that the suggestion of exposed genitalia is sexually arousing, hence things like thongs. But really, it is just another argument for youth. You only want those suggestions when there is a reasonable expectation of … well, a degree of fitness.

But it’s funny, you know. As I see Roger, ridiculous on the lawn, thundering madly in his thong, taking impotent swings at the inexorable progress of time, I can’t help but wonder if he is any more comical than me with my sad love songs and wine.

My children, love them though I do, and as much fun and laughter as they bring into my life, don’t get this. And they won’t, not for many years.

Inarticulate though he is, uncomprehending as he may be, it is Roger who, if he doesn’t understand me, at least feels what I feel even if he can’t put it into words (and thus expresses it through ill-fitting underwear and tantrums on the lawn).

But, oh, if he could!

As it is, when Angie and Dez return (giggling, no doubt), we’ll have yet another of our family talks – with me trying my damnedest to keep a straight face.

(Originally published on Crazy Ass Planet, Sunday Octobe6 16, 2005.)

Tag: Fiction, Flash fiction, Sunday stories, Stories, Short stories

Blue

Neil Young was singing about prairie winds and Canada geese and I was getting into a relaxed, perhaps melancholy mood, when Russ said, “I had no idea that’s where that goes.”

“It doesn’t go there,” I said

“Oh.”

“Put it there. With that.”

We were cleaning up my mess. Trying to make sense of things. Or at least put them someplace where I wouldn’t keep tripping over my crap.

I was trying to put everything in a box, an individual, isolated place separate from the anarchy of collected things, which was what I spread had out over the floor.

So why, Russ wondered (I could tell) did I put a blue crayon in a box that had balloons? (And I had a lot of balloons – bags and bags of them.) Why did I put every other crayon in another box that, as anyone could see, was for crayons?

It was, of course, a memory box. Blue crayons and balloons. But Russ had no way of knowing this.

“Why did you put that there? That crayon with the balloons?”

I considered the question, then said, “Her name was Sherrie. When I met her the first time she was with her daughter. Her daughter’s name was Erin.”

“No one’s named Sherrie now.”

“No. You just don’t meet them anymore. I wonder what happened to all the Sherries?”

“I don’t know. I guess people got tired of them.”

“I never did,” I said.

It is peculiar, you know, the way names come and go. For a while it seems there are oodles of people with certain names. And then they’re gone and you can’t find anyone named that anymore. I wonder why that is?

“Sherrie use to say if you see something in blue or with a blue background, like sky or water, then it was like, whatever it was, it was okay. Because there was blue and you can’t be sad or angry or frustrated or anything except kinda happy when you had some blue.”

Russ looked at me in sort of a funny way, like he wasn’t convinced but would go along with it just to be agreeable.

“I guess that explains your place,” he said.

He was talking about my house. There’s a lot of blue. Russ even called it my Little Blue House. Walls, couch, towels – all shades of blue. I like to have a lot of it around.

Who doesn’t want to be happy?

Sherrie explained it when I saw her that day with Erin and they were colouring. Both were kneeling over, colouring. Erin had a bunch of balloons floating up behind her, bouncing lazily together, all on a string that was tied about her waist. When I asked why all the blue Sherrie said, “Because blue is our happy colour. Right Erin?”

Erin kept colouring, very intently, but I saw her head nod. The balloons waved in the air above her with the movement.

“Some people think blue is sad,” Sherrie said. “But it’s not. I suppose it can be but I can’t see how. I mean, if you’re singing the blues, the blues aren’t really blue. Not if you sing them right. If you do you probably feel pretty good because … well, you’re singing the blues. But blues, as in something sad, aren’t blue. They’re black.”

It sounded convoluted enough to be true.

I had met them at a folk festival. They were having a fine time colouring under a tree while someone up on the stage, I don’t remember who, was singing about a tragic love that involved liquor and knives and a woman named Betty who had loved “too well, too long.”

Erin and Sherrie weren’t listening. They were drawing and colouring. And all their crayons were blue.

So I asked why and that’s when Sherrie told me about blue and afterwards I told her my name and after that, well, things progressed.

Later, things kind of went to pieces. I’m not really sure why or how.

* * *

There was a knock at the door. I opened it and saw a young woman standing there. She was dishevelled in a fashionable way.

We shared what the novels would call a pregnant pause, then she said, “I’m Erin.”

“I know,” I said.

And I did know. I would have recognized her anywhere even though I hadn’t seen her in roughly twelve years. She was a budding young woman now with a keen, if wary, intelligence behind her eyes.

There was another long pause during which she looked past me into the house. From a distance, she was studying it. Learning it. Finally, she said, “That’s a lotta blue.”

“Yup,” I agreed. “I like it. Blue that is.”

She turned to me and looked directly in my eyes in the challenging way some young people can have.

“It wasn’t the blue, you know. It was Mom.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. But blue is all I have.”

She nodded. “Crayons. For me it was crayons.”

Reaching into her pocket she pulled out a handful of them. They were all blue.

(Originally publishd in Crazy Ass Planet, Sunday October 2, 2005.)

Tag: Fiction, Flash fiction, Sunday stories, Stories, Short stories

Does it ever stop raining in this town?

“It’s raining.”

“Yes.”

“Will it stop?”

“Eventually.”

“When?”

“Dunno.”

“Shit. So why do you like this town so much? All it ever freakin’ does is rain.”

“There are places in Africa where this would be proof of God’s beneficence.”

“God’s what?”

“Beneficence.”

“What’s that?”

“Kindness. Goodness. A helpful gesture.”

“Well, this isn’t helping me. If it’s from God, I think he’s saying this place sucks.”

“No. Beneficence. God knows exactly what he’s doing. Doesn’t he?”

As he spoke, he turned to the rest of the crowd. Soberly, they all nodded in the affirmative.

The stranger, who did not care for the rain, sensed he was missing something the others all shared.

“So …” he began haltingly, wondering what it was everyone but he knew, “So what’s God know that I don’t? What’s he doing?”

The man he had been speaking to smiled at him. “He’s making a suggestion,” he said.

“And a damn good one!” he laughed, again nodding to the crowd.

They laughed with him. The stranger quickly developed a sense of discomfort that soon evolved into anxiety.

“Well, I think I’ll head back to my hotel now …”

“Oh, no, no …”

The crowd drew closer.

The stranger felt hands on his shoulder. The clasp of firm grips anchored on his limbs. The crowd of locals lifted him. The stranger remembered his youth and mosh pits.

But this was different.

They were moving him outside into the rain.

“Hey! Put me down! What’s the hell’s wrong with you people? Put me down!”

They did not put him down. Rather, they carried him aloft, almost as if he were a sacrifice, and carried him down to the dock.

They tossed him in the water.

Sputtering, he cried out, “Fuckers! Asshole fuckers!”

He swam back. But he could not get out of the water. Dozens of arms reached out to him. Unforgiving palms slapped down on his skull and forced him beneath the surface.

He struggled. He swallowed water. He lost consciousness and ceased resisting.

The crowd moved away.

As they left the dock someone said, “Look. I think it’s beginning to clear up. God, I love this town.”

Someone else laughed, and shouted, “Hey! I’ve got ‘Blonde on Blonde’ on my iPod!”

(Originally posted on Crazy Ass Planet, Sunday September 25, 2005.)

Tag: Fiction, Flash fiction, Sunday stories, Stories, Short stories