150 Words: Us

Why are you here?

I missed you. I missed us. I thought maybe we should try to be us again.

I will disappoint you again.

No. No, you won’t.

Yes I will. I won’t mean to but I will. Or you will disappoint me. You won’t mean to but you will.

Why are you so cynical? I know you love me. You know I love you. We should us again.

Part of me wants to be us again too. But it will not turn out well. It never does.

We can make it work. We know where we went wrong and we won’t go there again.

Maybe…but we’ll just go someplace else instead. It’s what we do when we’re us.

So are you saying no?

No…no, I’m not saying no.

So what are you saying?

I’m saying…I’m saying come in outta the rain.

You won’t regret this.

Well, we’ll see…

Happy Thanksgiving

The Old Man (a Thanksgiving conversation)

(This Thanksgiving story appeared in this space two years ago. I am re-presenting it because it's still special to me...because many people reading this blog now weren't reading it in '05... and because I don't have time to write a new Turkey Day story this year...at least not yet...things could change :-)

Brian put his feet up on the rail of the porch and relaxed back into his chair, careful not to disturb the glass of brandy on the small table next to him. He took a languid drag on his cigar...one of the Cubans his father had given him with the caveat of “ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies”...and looked up over his neighbor’s roof into the star-spangled blue-black Thanksgiving night sky.

He rubbed his belly, his wife’s amazing turkey, cornbread stuffing, and sweet potato pie still filling the space to just this side of discomfort.

It had been a lovely day.

Upstairs, they were all sleeping the sleep of the content. Janey having willingly made the sacrifice of not talking on the phone to her many girlfriends and hopeful suitors in favor of listening to the jokes and stories her grandfathers loved to spin,

Christopher was doubtlessly sleeping with his beloved basketball. Brian had been willingly drafted into shooting hoops in the backyard for an hour or so in the crisp morning, only being dismissed when some of Christopher’s friends showed up to play.

And his darling little Annie was no doubt still clutching to the bear her maternal grandmother had surprised her with as a gift for her birthday coming two days hence; the plump dark brown bear that was nearly half her size. The bear that had made her eyes glow bright when she saw it; the one she took gingerly out of the box and inspected before pronouncing that “he looks like Daddy”. The bear (having been named Sam after her favorite character in her favorite book) had never left her side for the rest of the day (a place was set for Sam at the Thanksgiving table much to the affectionate amusement of Annie’s grandparents and much to the consternation of Annie’s usually tolerant siblings.)

Brian smiled contentedly.

He glanced up at the window a story above his head. His Ruth was sleeping there after a long day of cooking and being an attentive hostess. Ruth had allowed neither her own mother nor Brian’s his to get too involved with the cooking...this was the first time that both sets of parents had come together for Thanksgiving Day and she wanted them both to relax. She had worn herself to a near frazzle, but everything had come together beautifully. And now she was taking her well-earned rest, snoring daintily where he had left her...with a kiss...when he came down to look at the stars and count his blessings.

The guest bedrooms were filled as well. Ruthie’s parents were in one, his mother in the other.

And in the den downstairs was the old man. Brian’s bittersweet feelings toward the old man crowded up to the surface and he frowned, just a bit ruefully, but then he put them aside. It was Thanksgiving night and there was no place for anything like that.

As if he could feel Brian’s thoughts and energy, the old man...Benjamin Douglas Taylor...shuffled softly through the front door and out onto the porch. He was an imposing man (though, of course, he had seemed that much more imposing to Brian when he was a boy), half a shade lighter than his son.

Brian smiled to himself noting that the old man was still wearing his crisp white shirt and dark slacks held up by the dazzling rainbow suspenders that Annie had picked out for him. The old man was carrying a glass of scotch in one hand, a cigar in the other.

“What are you doing out here, boy?” the old man asked after clearing his throat.

“Looking at the stars, Ben,” Brian replied.

Benjamin nodded, a slight frown playing about his lips. “Thought I would stretch my legs,” he explained, “but if you’d rather be alone...”

Brian reached over and pulled another of the porch chairs forward, closer to his. “It’s okay, Dad,” he said, “come on and sit down.” Brian moved the small table across his body and in between the chairs.

The old man hesitated for a moment and then slowly moved across the porch and eased himself down into the proffered chair. Brian looked at the old man for a short while and then eased back into his own chair and looked up at the stars again. They sat in contemplative silence...staring into the sky, smoking and sipping at their drinks...for what seemed like a small eternity. The winter’s breeze kicked up just enough to make the old tree in the front yard rustle and dance a little.

“Thanks for having me here today,” Benjamin said in a small voice finally. “I know it must have been hard on you and your mother but I do appreciate being with family on Thanksgiving.”

Brian shook his head and sighed inaudibly. His parents had been divorced for more than 25 years but sometimes his father seemed to think it was still a fresh wound that had to be dealt with gingerly.

“It’s not a problem, Dad,” he said quietly. “Mama thought it was a wonderful idea...and the kids were thrilled to have all of their grandparents here for Thanksgiving Day...”

Benjamin grunted noncommittally. “You got some great kids, boy,” he said after a bit. “Makes me wish I had been a better father...”

Brian stifled the urge to agree with him. “What’s done is done, Dad,” he said instead, “and what’s important is here and now.”

The old man turned and looked at his son. “Do you really believe that?”

Brian turned and met his father’s gaze. “Yes, I really believe that...you can only hold on to the past for so long...”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a long time and then Benjamin sighed again and sat back in his chair and looked up into the sky. “Sometimes the past is all you’ve got, Brian...”

Brian rocked back in his own chair and looked up into the sky himself. “We all make mistakes, Ben,” he said after a long pause, “the trick is not to get too caught up in them...”

“Easier said than done, boy...” his father responded in a weary voice.

Brian started to retort but found that he could not. The old man was right. It was easier said than done. But he also knew that it could indeed be done. He was living proof of that having spent so long jealously hoarding resentments from past slights (both real and imagined) including and especially those assigned to his father, who had been gone from his life a long time before the divorce. They had had no real relationship to speak of until Brian had grown into manhood...past the need for a father in the classic sense, but open (more or less) to the possibility of learning to be the old man’s friend just the same.

“You can’t tell me that you didn’t hate me sometimes,” the old man interjected suddenly, his voice growing thick. “I mean...for not being there...you can’t tell me that...”

Brian took a long drag on his cigar and then stubbed it out in the ashtray on the table. He looked back up at the sky and slowly let the fragrant smoke escape. “No, Ben,” he said finally, “I can’t tell you that...you hurt me...” He paused and corrected himself, “I let myself be hurt...more times than I care to think about...”

“So you told me,” Benjamin said ruefully, referring to a caustic letter detailing a litany of paternal transgressions stretching back to infancy that Brian had sent him years ago. Brian took in a large measure of air and let it out slowly. That damn letter. He couldn’t say that he truly regretted sending it...it was a necessary step in letting go of that stuff...but still a part of him felt bad for having vented so seeing that his father still felt the barbs so distinctly so many years later.

The old man put down his cigar and hung his head. He finished his scotch with one fell swoop and put down the glass too.

“But I’m 40 years old, Dad, the stuff of childhood has long since been put away,” Brian continued, consciously making no direct reference to the letter.. “And I meant it when I said the past was the past. Whatever was done is done...I’m over it...well, for the most part anyway...” he allowed himself a slight smile at that and the old man looked up and over at him. “And you should be over it too...”

Benjamin started to say something but could not.

Brian stood up and walked over to where his father was sitting. He knelt down in front of the old man and looked up into his sad, dark brown eyes. “You’ve been a pain in the butt sometimes, Ben,” he said with a smile, “but you’ve never stopped being my father. Hang on to that...let the rest go.” They looked into each other’s eyes for a long time and then Brian nodded. Benjamin nodded in reply.

Brian rose to his feet and stretched and yawned. “I’m going to bed,” he said, “it’s been a long day. You coming in?”

Benjamin shook his head. “Not yet...think I’ll sit out here a little while longer.

Brian nodded again, reaching over to pick up their empty glasses. “Okay, Dad...don’t forget to lock the door when you come in.”

Benjamin grunted a small, playfully dismissive laugh. “I’m old but no so old as to forget something like that, son.”

Brian nodded for a third time. “Good night, Ben...Dad...Good night, Dad.”

The old man looked up at his son. “Good night, boy,” he said softly.

Brian disappeared into the warm darkness of the house and Benjamin looked up into the Thanksgiving night sky. “It was a lovely day,” he muttered softly.

- for Bud -

150 Words: Butterflies

The wily breeze laughed through the flowers and the little creatures took to colorful wing. And the children, tickled by the wind and delighted by the colorful swarm, laughed and ran happily amongst the dancing butterflies.

The whimsical breeze ebbed and flowed playfully and the children and the butterflies ebbed and flowed as well…carefree and joy-filled on a bright blue afternoon in fields of tall grasses and bright wildflowers. The breeze and the children and the butterflies joined together in youthful abandon.

The warm breeze blew sure and the butterflies…the butterflies soared beyond the tiny fingers of the laughing children. The children watched as the breeze carried the butterflies off to find other children and other flowers and other places to dance….and they turned and ran laughing through the fields, carefree and joy-filled on a bright blue afternoon in fields of tall grasses and bright wildflowers, all the way home.

The "N-Word"

Thanks to a half-wit reality TV star, the “n-word” debate flared up again a while last week. It is a debate that will continue, off and on, for a good long while it seems. The “n-word” (what a precious euphemism that is) has a power and a history that cannot be denied…and should not be forgotten.

It is a word that flows freely (in one form or another) from the lips of both some redneck racists and some black rappers (an odd point of connection if you think about it)…from the pens and mouths of pundits and comedians …and from a certain “bounty hunter” who had no idea that applying the word as a venomous epithet to refer to his son’s black girlfriend would be taped and sold to a tabloid and released to the world. It is a part of the American culture and it never fails to assault the ears and wound the hearts of anyone who understand the ugly legacy of the word.

It’s quite a powerful word indeed.

Like Richard Pryor in his later days (he used the “n-word” with relish for years before having an epiphany about it during a trip to Africa) I have always eschewed the use of the word…this doesn’t make me noble or anything like that, I just never cared for the ugly word and I could never bring myself to believe that co-opting it somehow empowered it (as some black people claim.) But I know that it’s not going away anytime soon.

Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman is doing his mea culpa/rehab tour (following the footsteps of other celebrities caught out throwing slurs…yes I’m looking at you, Michael Richards and Isaiah Washington…who knew their was rehab for being a prejudiced knucklehead? You learn something new every day…) and he will probably get his show back soon (A&E put it on hiatus they didn’t cancel it outright) and life will go on. And the word…the “n-word”…will go on as well. More’s the pity for that.

150 Words: One Million Kisses

Five days after their 53rd anniversary, Eugene and Grace climbed into their bed after a good day. Eugene, 72, leaned over to kiss Grace, 77…long done with the brief scandal of being “the older woman”.

They lingered in the kiss as was their wont and then Eugene smiled. “That was our one millionth kiss,” he said. “I’ve been counting.”

Grace smiled quizzically. She thought back on the shy, chaste kisses…the urgent, unrequited kisses…THE kiss that sealed their union…the random pecks, the butterfly kisses… the passionate kisses before, during, and after all the times they made love…the comforting kisses…the celebratory kisses…the apologetic kisses…the “secret” midnight kisses that Eugene thought she slept through. She looked over at Eugene skeptically. One million seemed like an awful large number. “You didn’t really count…?”

Eugene, always a charming scamp, grinned. “Does it matter?”

“No,” Grace conceded truthfully leaning into kiss number one million and one.

The Chubby Girl

“Who’s the chubby girl?” Gabe asked. Everybody in the club seemed to know the woman, softly rounded and quite abashed about it, greeting her affectionately as she sauntered up to the bar and picked up a margarita that was waiting for her. She was wearing a soft blue dress that hugged her breasts and gave ample room for her hips and billowed gracefully down to ankle level. She wasn’t very tall but she still stood out in the crowded club.

Nick smiled; he’d forgotten that he’d never brought Gabe to the club before. “That’s Amanda. She’s very cool.”

Gabe watched as Amanda sipped at her drink while swaying with the music. Her hair was black and long and her eyes were brown and bemused. She wasn’t frowning but she was not quite smiling. “What’s her story?”

“Nobody really knows. She comes here three or four nights a week. Dances a little…chats a little…drinks a little…and then she leaves.”

“She ever leave with anybody?” Gabe asked, a bit more hopefully than he had wanted.

Nick chuckled knowingly. “Nope. She gets asked all the time but she doesn’t do that,” he said just ruefully enough to let Gabe know that he had taken a chance on her himself.

Gabe usually liked his women blonde, willowy, and pliable. Amanda was none of these things and, for some reason, it inflamed him. He watched her move…casually and surely into the beat…while chatting with a thin redhead and a bald guy who looked like he spent every other waking moment lifting weights.

“She’s not your type,” Nick said. “But you want her anyway, don’t you? Happens all the time.” He paused and then said. “Leave it be, Gabe…she’s not looking to get laid…she’s not looking for love…she’s just looking to dance a little…to chat a little…to drink a little. She may dance with you if she’s in the right mood but nothing more.“

Gabe nodded as if he understood what Nick had said but he’d already decided that the chubby girl…that Amanda…would succumb to his charms. He moved closer as the redhead and the bodybuilder melted into the crowd.

There was a space around Amanda that people came into fleetingly. Gabe moved closer and smiled. “Hi, would you like to dance?”

Amanda looked at him with those dark eyes and nodded. “Sure.” She put her margarita on the bar and then took his hand and led him towards the small dance floor.

Gabe was amazed at how warm and soft Amanda’s hand was…how gracefully and sensuously she danced…how she seemed to flow into the music and to draw him into it until they were moving as though their bodies knew exactly the right moves to counterpoint and enhance each other.

And then the song stopped. Amanda looked up at Gabe and said, “Thank you.”

Gabe drew on his courage. “Would you like to go out sometime?”

“No,” Amanda said. “Thank you, but no.” Her tone was firm but not at all unkind. She wasn’t frowning and she wasn’t quite smiling. “Have a good night,” she said drifting back to the bar where her margarita and an old black man in a three-piece suit were waiting.

Gabe watched as Amanda and the old man chatted, bending close to each other to hear over the music, and then chuckled like school children sharing a secret joke. He kept watching as he moved back towards Nick. Amanda and the old man hugged and the old man kissed Amanda’s cheek with chaste gallantry. Amanda finished her margarita and swayed, still feeling the music, towards the door. She exchanged fleeting words and fleeting hugs with some of the people in the club…including the redhead and the bodybuilder…before she disappeared out of the door. Gabe felt a twinge of something dark as he realized that she hadn’t even glanced in his direction. He had an impulse to rush to the door and follow her.

“Leave her be, Gabe,” Nick said, knowing the impulse all too well. “I got you another drink.”

Gabe nodded and picked up the drink.

Gabe frequented the club often after that night. And sometimes Amanda was there. And sometimes she would dance with him…drink with him and chat with him…but she would never leave with him. And in time he understood without completely understanding and he stopped asking her out. And one night she hugged him…as plush and warm and wonderful a hug as he’d ever experienced…as she was on her way out of the club and he luxuriated in that sublime gesture as he watched her disappear into the night.

“Who’s the chubby girl?” a newcomer to the club asked him one night.

Gabe smiled. “That’s Amanda. She’s very cool.”

- for MS, who was (and hopefully still is) very cool -

* * * * *

Other MKW Blogstuff:

Neverending Rainbow

Suspending Disbelief

Me and Lloyd and a Good Halloween

At the risk of sounding like an old man gassing on with pompous proclamations that begin with “in my day…”, I remember the Halloweens of my childhood as kinder, gentler, more magical times than Halloweens seem nowadays.

Trick-or-Treating was a (mostly) carefree endeavor where children went from door to door in a neighborhood that was safe and full of people you knew (and, perhaps more importantly, full of people who knew your parents :-) We compared costumes…some store bought, some homemade…and collected treats delightful (those little bitty chocolate candy bars) and mildly disappointing (those rock-hard ribbon candies that linger in our bags until we could pawn them off to younger siblings or until everything else was gone.) And we could happily take fruit and homemade delights without fear of them containing poison or razor blades or anything else like that (the idea of taking our Halloween treasure to a hospital to have them x-rayed for dangerous things wasn’t part of our childhood experience.) The worst thing that could happen, we assumed, was a childish prank.

When I was in the 5^th grade I made the Halloween rounds with Lloyd, my best friend at the time. We were both shy boys but we were quite at ease with each other. Lloyd lived across the street from the north side of Manual Arts High School and I lived about four blocks to the west. Most school mornings Lloyd would be waiting for me and we would walk the six blocks between his house and Menlo Avenue School together talking about things that 5^th grade boys talked about.

On the Halloween evening of that year, Lloyd and I made the rounds of the neighborhood together (my brother Guy was off with his bratty little friends which was just fine with me.) I was dressed in my plastic Batman helmet, my vinyl Batman cape, my cool Batman t-shirt, black pants, and my stylish Batman sneakers; Lloyd was decked out as a cowboy.

We went to my block of 40^th Place first making a beeline for the vaguely spooky house of the old lady who lived across the street from me. She was one of the few white people left in what had at one time been an all-white middle class neighborhood and she mostly kept to herself; but every Halloween she made the most amazing little cakes, meticulously decorated, and handed them out. I knew to go to her house early because there were only so many that she made each year and when the last one was handed out she would shut off her porch light and apparently go to bed. Lloyd and I got there in time and took the precious little cakes over to my house to stash them in the refrigerator for safekeeping.

We circled the blocks we were allowed to visit collecting candy and gum and fruit until our bags were loaded down with sugary, chocolaty goodness. Having collected as much as we could…if not, being 5^th grade boys who didn’t always know what was good for them, as much we wanted to…we stopped back by my house. I took off my helmet and my cape and stashed my loot on my bed while Lloyd retrieved his little cake.

As the hour was growing late I offered to walk Lloyd halfway home and he agreed. We sat off…the cowboy and the unmasked Batman…but as we reached the corner two teenage boys came running out of the darkness howling like banshees. Before we knew what was going on they had snatched Lloyd’s bag right out of his hands were running back into the darkness laughing.

Lloyd was devastated. I offered to share half of my candy with him but he adamantly refused so I took him back to my house and got another bag and we went out again. Trick-or-Treat time was winding down so many houses…including the house of the old white lady across the street…had already switched off their porch lights but we went to every house that still lit. I was, as I said, quite shy but I screwed up my courage to explain to people at the doors what had happened. Lloyd was tight-lipped, afraid that he might cry if he said anything he told me later, but the people were happy to give him more treats even though we’d been to their houses before (a couple gave him the remainder of what they had left in their bowls.

By the time we were done, Lloyd’s bag was almost as full as the first one had been. We went back to my house so that I could get my cousin Philip, who was in High School, to walk us to Lloyd’s house. Though part of me really didn’t want to, I tried to give Lloyd my little cake…sitting in its little box in the refrigerator…but, again, he refused. But when he wasn’t looking I slipped it into his bag anyway.

Philip walked us all the way to Lloyd’s house and then walked with me back home.

The next morning, I met Lloyd across the street from the north end of Manual Arts High School. He handed me a little box with exactly half of the little cake in it. We didn’t say anything about it, we just walked on to school.

It was, all things considered, a good Halloween.

The Street (a Halloween story)

The boys had turned a corner and ended up on a street they didn’t recognize. Bobby, feeling sporty in his Spider-Man costume, and Adam, feeling almost heroic as Luke Skywalker, frowned at each other. Each of them were carrying pillowcases half-full of trick-or-treat loot.

“I think we went too far,” Adam said, looking at the row of big old houses running down the street in front of them. “I’ve never seen any of these houses before.”

Bobby shrugged. “Well as long as we’re here we might as well see if they have some good candy,” he said striding up a walkway lit by eerie Jack O’ Lanterns flickering with candlelight.

Adam, always more cautious than his friend, hesitated. “I don’t know about this, Bobby,” he said looking around the street. “How come there’s no other kids trick or treating on this block? Maybe we should go find your Mom...”

Bobby stopped and, exasperated, spun around. “Don’t be such a chicken, Adam,” he said sharply. “If no other kids have found this block then maybe we can really score. Come on!”

Reluctantly, Adam obeyed and followed Bobby up the creaky stairs. The night was suddenly still and cold and when Adam looked over his shoulder he saw a thick fog creeping up the street. He started to say something but Bobby was already knocking on the door.

After a few seconds, the door opened with an awful, almost human groan.

“Trick or treat!” they both said (though Bobby was more enthusiastic by far.)

“Indeed?” a voice as old as time said in reply. The oldest woman either of the boys had ever even imagined stepped into the dim light. A smell…a mix of cinnamon, rosewater, and something musty...assaulted their senses. “My, what brave young men,” the old woman croaked, her eyes twinkling impishly. Her teeth were brown and seemingly jagged and her dress, which looked like it hadn’t been washed in years, was a dingy black. “You brave boys deserve a special treat.”

She disappeared into the shadows of her house and just as quickly reappeared. In her gnarled hands were what looked like two balls wrapped in gleaming golden foil. “I save the best golden chocolate apples for the bravest souls,” she said, holding out the treats.

The boys glanced at each other and then, warily, they held out their pillowcases. The old woman deftly placed a golden apple in each. “Thank you,” Bobby and Adam said as one.

“Off with you now, you young scalawags,” the woman said. “You don’t have much time to finish your rounds before the witching hour strikes.” The door creaked shut before either of the boys could ask her what that meant.

Adam spun on his heels and fairly ran down the stairs and down the walkway. Bobby, full of more bravado, pretended not to be fazed as he sauntered behind his friend.

“Okay, Bobby,” Adam said anxiously, “I think we should get home now.” He glanced around and the fog was dancing all around up and down the street and he realized that he wasn’t completely sure which way they had come.

“Relax, Adam,” Bobby said, finding his courage again. “Did you see the big ball of chocolate that old lady gave us…I’ll bet all of these old houses are giving out cool treats! Come on!”

Bobby marched off towards the next old house and Adam, unwilling to be left alone on the increasingly foggy lane, scurried to catch up.

At each house the boys were greeted by old people with gleaming eyes and wry smiles and at each house they were given delectable treats: bags of chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil, tiny cakes in protectively little boxes, glistening green apples, little wooden chests filled with plump jellybeans.

The fog was down to the ground by the time they reached the last house on the avenue. Adam paused at the gate of the last house because something about it looked so very familiar.

“C’mon, Adam,” Bobby said, “this is the last one and then we can go home.” Bobby wasn’t as confident as he sounded as the fog had spooked him as well but he knew that Adam looked to him to be the strong one and he wasn’t going to let his best friend down.

Adam couldn’t shake the feeling of familiarity as he walked towards the porch behind Bobby. This house was smaller than most of the others and it was well-lit and actually welcoming. As he approached reached the top stairs he smelled a familiar aroma…gingerbread…and his heart started to pound as Bobby knocked on the door.

The door swung open and a woman, with a cherubic face and wearing a neatly pressed white apron, opened the door.

“Trick or treat!” Bobby said, relieved that this old woman looked like a normal person at least.

“My, my, my” the old woman said, smiling warmly, “what marvelous costumes!” She reached to her side and held up two large, meticulously decorated gingerbread men wrapped in plastic. “You young men deserve my best gingerbread men,” she said carefully placing one in each of the boys’ bags.

“Thank you!” Bobby said enthusiastically. Adam looked up at the woman with his mouth agape but he found he couldn’t say anything.

“You boys need to get back on home now,” the old woman said. “It’s too close to the witching hour for you to be here.”

“Okay,” Bobby said, turning to leave, “thank you, ma’am.” He started down the stairs into the gathering fog. “Come on, Adam.”

The old woman smiled at Adam who was still standing staring at her. She bent down and kissed his forehead. “Get along now, sweetie,” she said.

Adam nodded and turned and walked down the walkway. He turned and looked up at the old woman who smiled again and waved as the fog closed in all around. Adam waved back and then turned to Bobby. “Where are you?”

Bobby, his face pale, stepped towards Adam. “I’m here but I can’t see anything in this fog…I don’t know which way to go…”

Unconsciously, the boys took each other’s free hand and started to walk. Their hearts were pounding and there were tears in their eyes as they inched their way through the all-encompassing fog. They couldn’t see anything and their only contacts with reality were the ground beneath their feet, the pillowcases in their hands, and the tight grip they had on each other’s hand.

The fog grew darker and darker and from somewhere close they heard the howling of a wolf and cackling laughter that sent shivers down their spine. The boys stopped, not knowing which way to go and not knowing what was in the fog. They both wanted to cry out for their mothers but they didn’t want to let each other know how afraid they were.

And then, suddenly, there was a spot of golden light off in the distance.

“That’s the way home, boys,” the kindly voice of the last woman they met said softly. “Get along now.”

The boys, still hand in hand, started running towards the light as the dark fog around seemed to grow agitated. They ran and ran until, quite suddenly, they ran into someone. The boys both closed their eyes and screamed expecting to be brutally killed in the next moment.

“There you are!” a quite familiar voice said. “I lost sight of you for a moment.” It was Bobby’s mother, their escort for trick or treat. She was holding the hand of Alice, Bobby’s little sister, who dressed as Cinderella.

Bobby and Adam looked at each other. A moment? They smiled at each other nervously and only then did they realize they were still holding hands. They quickly released their grips.

“Come on, boys,” Bobby’s mother said, it looks like you both have more than enough treats for one Halloween night. Besides, it looks like the fog is starting come in. We’d better get home.”

Bobby and Adam looked into their pillowcases as they followed Bobby’s mother and sister. All of the treats they’d gotten on the strange street were there. Right on top were the smiling gingerbread men the last woman had given them.

“Dude, that was strange,” Bobby whispered. “Good thing that last old lady showed us the way home.”

Adam stared forward. “That wasn’t just an old lady,” he said solemnly, “that was my grandmother.”

Bobby looked startled. “It was? Why didn’t you say something before?”

Adam continued to look forward. “My grandmother died five years ago.”

Bobby’s mouth fell open with surprise and confusion but he didn’t say anything more as they continued home neither of daring to look back where they’d been or at each other.

150 Words: The Right Answer

I swallowed hard and waited. Mr. Lopez, as imposing a man as I’d ever met, stared at me. Rosa hadn’t wanted me to accept her father’s summons and I was beginning to see why.

“So, you’re the boy who wants to marry my Rosa?” he said finally.

I decided to believe that he called me “boy” because of my age and not because of my race. “Yes, sir.”

He eyed me as if he was trying to decide how best to kill me. “And why do you think this is an acceptable idea?”

I swallowed hard again and then looked him in the eye. “Because we love each other.”

The old man stood up and loomed over me. He almost smiled when he put his massive hand on my shoulder. “That’s the right answer, son,” he said, his voice suddenly warm. “It’s the same one I gave to Rosa’s grandfather.”

150 Words: Unexpected Encounter

She smiled warily. She wasn’t sure if she was happy to see me and I couldn’t blame her for that. I was surprised that she was at the party…I didn’t know that she knew Vince and Mary.

I took a deep breath and started to negotiate the throng. She shook her head…pausing for a pregnant moment before she did so. I stopped and lost myself in memory: the first time I saw her smile, the first time I held her, the first time I kissed her, the first time we made love, the look in her eyes when I confessed, the only time she slapped me.

I started again but stopped when the tall man handed her a drink and then kissed her tenderly. He put his arm around her and they disappeared into the crowd. Someone put on a Billie Holiday record. I had another drink before I left.

The Fires This Time

Things are nowhere near to "normal" in greater San Diego County...fires are still blazing in various parts of the areas (new ones are still cropping up even as I write this)...looters and scammers (supposedly representing charities or cleaning services) are starting to crop up here and there...and hundreds of thousands of people are displaced because of evacuations and/or because their houses are destroyed...but things are slowly but surely heading towards "normal" as the air attack beats back the fires and some people are allowed to go home.

The skies are still hazy with smoke but there are expansive patches of blue fighting to reclaim the sky.

The fires this time are being beaten back and the aftermath is starting to begin.

Perseverance furthers.

150 Words: High Dive

Regret flooded Jack’s body before he was completely off the board. The stark terror and insistent screaming from inside his head…”go back down the ladder!”…should have been heeded. But the merciless taunting…Ronnie, Bobby, TJ…from below had tweaked the macho fool who only came out to play with the guys.

Gravity was no friend to Jack as he towards the shimmering water and he started to make a list of all of the things that he would never get to do after they fished his lifeless body out of the pool.

For a split instant he saw himself knifing through the water with grace so heartbreaking that it would bring tears to the eyes of his friends. But then, concentration lost, his body lost all sense of dignity and hit the water at a most ungainly angle. “Ooo,” he thought as he sank beneath the water, “that’s gonna leave a mark.”

Smoke in the Night

We are miles away from the flames but the smell of smoke permeates the air and there is an ominous haze that is evident even in the nighttime hours. There is an eerie orange glow on the far eastern horizon. And ash, cool and black and gray, is falling on my neighborhood. My eyes are burning and my animals are anxious and out in the night brave men and women are putting their lives on the line to try to tame a fierce force of nature.

There are two uncontrolled wildfires…fed and swept inexorably along by the hot Santa Ana winds that sometime sweep in from the desert and bake and blow through Southern California…burning in San Diego County tonight. They started this morning and this afternoon and there is no end in sight. At least one person has already died…more than a dozen people have been burned (including four firefighters) and are in hospital…thousands of acres have already burned…homes are lost…

And the smoke…and the acrid, pungent, forbidding smell…hang ominously over the entire city blown west towards the sea by the aforementioned winds.

Four years ago, a monstrous fire brought havoc and destruction and death to our area and, of course we have not forgotten those days.

And so we watch the skies…we are far away but not so far away that we can not feel vulnerable…and listen to the winds…which have not, as they more often do, abated with the coming of night…and we pray for those in the capricious paths of the flames and for those who struggling to save lives and struggling to bring the rampaging flames to bay.

Blogs of Note: A Writer's Edge

The blog world is populated by, among others, an expansive community of writers. Writers who earn their living by writing….writers who want to earn their living by writing…writers who will never earn their living by writing but who write for the sheer love of it…writers who write because the words filling their minds and their souls and their feverish imaginations demand to be set free…writers who write because that’s what writers do. It’s a gentler madness…a wondrous calling…a sublime compulsion…

A community of writers is almost an oxymoron because writing is, in so very many cases, a solitary endeavor but a community exists just the same. There are many blogs for and about writers…for and about the art and the business of writing…so very many to explore, to learn from, to draw information and inspiration from. Georganna Hancock’s A Writer’s Edge is my favorite of these. It is warm and welcoming, very well-written and wonderfully informative.

A long-time resident on my blogroll, A Writer’s Edge has always been a blog of note to my mind and now it’s a Blog of Note officially :-) If you’re a writer, you’ll find an excellent resource with a compelling and charming hostess…if not, you’ll still find it a wonderful reading experience.

* * * * *

And, of course, the previously featured Blogs of Note are still heartily endorsed:

Worldman

Michele

(The post on Michele's wonderful blog also features links to other Blogs of Note)

150 Words: Brenda's Reverie

(This being the first of a series of vignettes told in exactly 150 words. It's an exercise in brevity in storytelling engaged in mostly to challenge myself. "150 Words" will join "Blogs of Note" and "Talking with Bob" as an (irregularly) recurring feature of Bread and Roses. And, for the record, the words between these parentheses do not count in the total for the story below :-)

* * * * *

In the middle of a boring day Brenda felt herself smiling humidly when she thought of Christian. The buzzing around her faded away as she remembered the way he pulled her to him and then stroked her hair as he was kissing her…roughly but never too roughly…before he left for his trip.

Christian wasn’t the one…Brenda knew that…but he was close enough to being the one to make his absence something that made her heart and her lips and her breasts ache with undeniable longing. In the confines of her four-post bed he was more than close enough for the time being.

Brenda drew in a measure of cool air and closed her eyes. Brenda lingered in the place of longing and loneliness…of memories of passions indulged and expectations of passions to come…until the telephone rudely shook her out of her reverie and dumped her unceremoniously back into her workday.

Mrs. Zimmerman

I was not a very good student in High School. I am neither proud nor ashamed of this, it is simply a fact. I made good grades (I graduated “with honors”) but I really didn’t push myself as hard as I could have. Mostly, however arrogant it might sound, I was bored. Mostly, however foolish it might sound now, I was itching to be done with school and childhood and get to the promised land of adulthood. Being a grownup, I found, was okay but not nearly as magical as it seemed when I wasn’t one…but that’s the way of things when we are young and running too fast to not be young.

My High School (dear old Alexander Hamilton High in a western corner of Los Angeles) was culturally diverse…blacks and whites in abundance with a good number of children of Latin and Asian descent making the school a racial stewpot; a good percentage of the white kids were Jewish as we were reminded anytime a Jewish holiday coincided with a school day (lots of filmstrips and independent reading time on those days because so many of our classmates were away and teachers didn’t want to go over the same material twice)…but full of the same schoolyard politics (cliques and gossip and the like) as any other school.

I found all of that political stuff tedious beyond words and I ignored it as much as I could. I sought out isolated corners of the sprawling campus to read and be to myself but I rarely had them to myself as a stalwart circle of friends…social outcasts, by choice or by happenstance, like myself…gathered and we created an inclusive clique all our own.

Our principal…a diminutive silver haired, eagle eyed woman named Mrs. Jimenez…ruled Hamilton with an iron fist in a velvet glove, easily alternating between nurturing grandmother and unrelenting tyrant as required.

I did the homework for one class while half-listening to teachers talking in another class so that I didn’t have to lug books on the half-hour walk from the school to my house any more than I had to.

I had a small circle of loyal friends (a state of being that continues to this day) and secret crushes that are part and parcel of the existence of a teenaged boy (I think Gina knew that I was smitten with her but I don’t think she ever took me seriously.)

And I had Mrs. Zimmerman. I was blessed to be taught by several motivated and motivating teachers in my school days…Mrs. Levy in the 3^rd grade, Mr. Daniels in the 5^th grade, Mr. McIntosh in the 6^th grade, Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Allen in Junior High, and Mrs. Zimmerman. Mrs. Zimmerman was an English teacher and she kind of took me under her wing and taught much about the one thing that did really engage me back then…that being writing, of course.

I ended up taking 5 or 6 classes with Mrs. Zimmerman over the course of my 3 years at Hamilton and she always challenged me to dig deeper, strive harder, to put my reality into the things I wrote. More than any other teacher I ever had I gave my all to reach for the bar that she kept raising higher…and I loved her for that.

I never told her that, of course…teenaged boys don’t have the words to tell teachers how much they appreciate making them reach for the fullest potential they can…but I hope that she knew it somehow just the same.

Supergirl

We were lying side by side on a blanket in the backyard underneath a buttery moon and a sparkling canopy of early evening stars when the Little Miss chuckled softly to herself. This was, I knew from experience, the prelude to a grand pronouncement.

“I know who I want to be, Daddy,” she said resolutely.

I suppressed a chuckle. Last week she had decided on being a fire fighter; three weeks before that, she was ready to be a pop star, and a month or so before that, after a trip our family had taken to visit my in-laws, she was going to be an airline pilot. The perennial jobs…mommy, doctor, cowgirl, pet store owner, and princess…stayed in the mix no matter what else she was considering. “What’s that, sweetheart?”

“Not ‘what’, who,” she corrected me with as much patience as a five-year-old with a very, very active mind could muster. I thought I heard her sigh…sometimes she thought I was the most amazing man in the universe and sometimes she seemed to wonder how such a moron could be her father…but I wasn’t sure. “I’m going to be Supergirl.”

“Are you now?” I smiled. She liked to look through my comics…a childhood interest I had carried into my dotage…and sometimes we would read them together but I never thought she gave them much thought past that.

“Yes,” she said, “I think what this world needs a good super-hero.”

“And that would be you?”

“That would be me,” she replied without hesitation. “Somebody’s got to be Supergirl and why shouldn’t it be me?”

The logic was, of course, irrefutable. I looked up the lazy moon and smiled. “Why not indeed?” She nudged her little head against my shoulder in the shy way she did when she knew that I was giving her the space to dream whatever fearless dreams she chose to dream. “Maybe one day…when you’re not fighting crime and stuff…you could take me to the moon. I’ve always wanted to go to the moon….okay?”

I could feel her smiling at me but I did not turn my head. “Okay,” she said. “As soon as I have a day off…Supergirl’s got a lot to do, you know.”

“Yes I know,” I replied. “Thank you.”

She snuggled a bit closer and joined me at looking up at the bright and beautiful moon. “You’re welcome,” the Little Miss…my Supergirl…said before we both into the same waking dream…a dream of flying to visit that welcoming moon.

That Afternoon

It was their afternoon and they embraced it greedily. In the genially rambling crevices of her house they shut the rest of the world…their children, grandchildren, parents, friends, and acquaintances…out and luxuriated in each other’s company.

They had never had an afternoon like it before. And they would never have an afternoon like it again. But that afternoon…that languid, sensuous, sensual afternoon…was one that would linger in their hearts long after their passions had cooled and their paths had diverged.

That afternoon…that sweet, silly, amazing, wondrous afternoon…was filled with music (rock and roll to save their amorous souls) echoing through the soft shadows of the charmingly gothic corners of her house and with whispered, romantic, affectionately smutty whispers as they kissed and danced the dance of love in her bed, their energies so intimately entwined that they slipped casually, easily into positions that would have made Sting green with envy and which belied the number of years that they had each spent on the mother planet.

The house was filled with the savory aromas of food…seafood and sauces and pastas and salad greens…prepared in graceful tandem wearing only undergarments and secret smiles…and the steamy musk of enormously indulgent and gratifying sex lingered in passionately and with no care or need for time limits.

It was their afternoon…unplanned and unstructured and all the more magical for that…and they basked in it even as the evening crept over the horizon, through the windows, and all through the expansive comfort of her grand old house.

That afternoon…their afternoon…they had never had one like it before…they would never have one like it again…but it was, in the perfect measure of time, as magical an afternoon as the lovers could have dared to have imagined.

Okay

He slipped, warily, expectantly, out of the shadows and into the soft light. She didn’t look up.

“Hey,” he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.

She took a sip of her wine and put the half-full glass back on the end table. She sat back and looked up at him. She hoped her expression was more noncommittal than she felt. “I wasn’t sure that you’d come home tonight.”

He sighed heavily and nodded. “Me neither.”

She allowed herself a wry, weary grin and stood up. “Oh so now you’re into honesty.”

He curbed the urge to snap off a cutting retort to her naked barb. “I can go if you want…”

She stood up and took three steps towards him. “You can go if you want…”

He winced. The old feints weren’t going to work this time. He held out his hand but she waved it off with casual, wounding grace. Taking a deep breath, he took three steps towards her. He could smell the tart sweetness of her perfume dancing with the intoxicating tartness of her own wondrous feminine aroma, he could almost taste the bouquet of the chardonnay coloring the warmth of her even breaths, he could feel the tension sparking off her aura like tiny pricks of cold lightning.

She looked up at him. He smelled of sweat and soap and scotch and guilt and arrogance and longing that he would never have words for. She loved him. She hated him. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to hold him and remind him…yet again…that no one would ever love him the way she loved him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He meant it. He meant it this time as he had meant it before.

“Yes you are,” she agreed. She stepped into him and even as he stepped into her; he wrapped his arms around her.

“Are we okay?” he asked as she put her head against his chest.

“Not yet.”

It wasn’t the answer he was praying for but he tried desperately to keep his composure. “Are we going to be okay?”

She could feel his heart beating a staccato rhythm underneath his sturdy chest. She fought back the urge to wound him anew. “Yes, we'll be okay,” she said. She meant it. She meant it this time as she had meant it before. She closed her eyes as he, enormously grateful and enormously relieved, gently kissed the top of her head and then lifted her up into his strong, welcoming arms.

What Kind of Blogger Are You?

a morning in the life

…woke up, got outta bed,
dragged a comb across my head…

Okay, I continue to shave off my hair on a regular basis so I didn’t drag any combs anywhere…but it’s a lovely October morning here and I’m doing my best to enjoy it…or at least appreciate it…after having dragged (see, I knew dragging was involved somehow) myself out of bed.

I have a low grade fever and a sinus thing so I slept fitfully…staccato bursts of intense dreaming alternating with sudden (but thankfully fleeting) returns to the waking world…and I’m achy (but strangely not cranky…”go with the flow” is the motto I always endeavor to live by and it actually seems to be working even as I sit here waiting for the Tylenol to make the soft but insistent pounding in my head go away.)

I’m one shower and a second mug of tea (Twinings’ Irish Breakfast…a lovely brew) from possibly becoming a productive human being today…wish me luck (and send me any positive healing energy you can spare), gentlefolk…

Thank you for your attention to this feverish ramble…and, as always, thank you for dropping by this here blog o’ mine. Enjoy the day (or the night if you’ve suffered through this while the golden moon was languidly dancing across the starry sky.)

Namaste, y’all.

“A Day in the Life”
words and music by John Lennon & Paul McCartney

waging peace (we are walking)

We are walking…slowly, surely, not needing or wanting to look over our shoulders…walking towards the golden near horizon. The bright sun is beaming down as if it understood us and approved of our collective change of heart.

We are walking…watching old men and old women waltzing gracefully in autumn fields, listening to children laughing and running unabashedly on verdant summer lawns…walking towards the valley where the people are singing joyfully. The languid clouds are sailing high above and waltzing and laughing and singing in happy tandem with all of us.

We are walking…throwing open our doors and our hearts and letting foolish cares go free, embracing the wind and reaching for the distant stars…walking, alone and together, with faith, with courage, with the knowledge that strength is at its finest when it need not be used.

We are walking…glorious fools waging peace with all of our might…walking in the soft light of dreams just one heartbeat out of reach.

The October Road

The years winds into its final quarter and we're on the October road heading towards Halloween...towards Thanksgiving...towards Christmas...towards New Year's Eve and the new year and all that it will bring.

The October road seems to beckon more rapidly with each passing year. This is doubtlessly not true...time flows as it flows...but it feels that way just the same.

But still we welcome wise, thoughtful, kindly, patiently impatient Autumn...a time of harvests and rebirths, of lovers and poets; a time of cool blue moons and joyous celebrations of frivolity, family, a time of faith, love and brisk days and healing moonlit nights...and dance, openly and guilelessly, in its burnt orange and soft golden musics.

We're on the October road...like we've been so many amazing times before...and it's a quietly amazing, utterly wondrous place to continue our journey down the magical, mundane, bittersweet, awe-inspiring path that each of our lives is.

Namaste, y'all.

- thanks and apologies to JT -

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Comic Books: Suspending Disbelief