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Visitors’ Day

Visitors’ Day ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

It was a Sunday morning in December. Freda and Julian were in the back seat of Daddy Earl’s car. Daddy Earl careened through traffic with ease, no obstacle too much for him to overcome. He had the radio tuned to some cheerful Christmas music because he knew Freda liked it. Julian held onto his teddy bear, although he insisted he didn’t need it, watching the passing scenery with absorption.

“Are you going to take that stupid bear inside with you?” Freda asked.

“Shut up!” Julian said. “I’ll do whatever I want.”

“Will they have her in handcuffs?” Freda asked the back of Daddy Earl’s head.

“I don’t think so,” Daddy Earl said. “Not on visitors’ day.”

The parking lot was full and Daddy Earl had to drive around for a long time before he found a place to park and, once he did, they had to walk a long way to the visitors’ entrance.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Freda said, as they waited to be searched and admitted.

Daddy Earl put his finger to his lips to tell her she should stop talking.

A man in a uniform took Daddy Earl, Julian and Freda into a large visiting room filled with people and showed them where to sit. He left and came back in a couple of minutes with mother.

Mother gave Daddy Earl a peck on the cheek and hugged first Julian and then Freda before sitting down.

“How’s my big boy?” she smiled at Julian.

“Mother, I don’t like for you to be in jail,” Freda said, on the point of tears.

“I know you don’t like it, dear. I don’t like it, either.”

“Why don’t you tell them to let you come home?” Julian asked.

“It doesn’t quite work that way, honey,” mother said. “I wish it did.”

“How are you doing, old girl?” Daddy Earl asked. It was one of the many names he had for her.

“I’m just peachy, darling!” she said.

“How are they treating you?”

“Like a queen.”

“How’s the cuisine?”

“Every meal like dining at the Ritz.”

“Do you need some money?”

“It would only be stolen.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Just one thing. To get out of this place and go home.”

“It feels funny having a criminal for a mother,” Freda said.

“I know, baby,” mother said. “And I apologize for it in every possible way.”

“Why don’t you just promise to stop shoplifting so they’ll let you out.”

“I’ll do that and see if it works.”

“Do you have a court date set?” Daddy Earl asked.

“No. You know what the courts are like.”

“Any chance you’ll be out by Christmas?”

“I don’t think so. No bail for me since it’s my third conviction. I’m a flight risk.”

“What does that mean?” Julian asked.

“Nothing for you to worry about, dear,” mother said.

“Is this place a hospital? Are you going to die here?”

“You don’t have a worry in the world, sweetheart. Mother will be home with you soon. If not before Christmas, then pretty soon after.”

“Are you sick?”

“No, I’m not sick. Everything is going to be fine.”

“I don’t know why you have to stay here if you’re not sick.”

“Shut up, Julian!” Freda said. “You’re only making things worse.”

“How am I making things worse?”

Mother took Julian on her lap, even though he was almost too big for it. “I don’t want you to be unhappy,” she whispered in his ear.

“I’m not,” he said.

“I’m so glad you came to see me today. This is the only good thing that’s happened me to since I’ve been here.” She hugged Julian and he hugged back. “The two of you are going to have a wonderful Christmas, with Santa and a tree and everything.”

“Maybe we don’t want those things while you’re in jail,” Freda said.

“Of course you want those things! And you’ll have them, too. Won’t they, Daddy Earl?”

“Santa already knows they’ll be at my house,” Daddy Earl said. “He’s not going to let us down.”

“I knew we could count on old Santa,” mother said.

“I’ve been thinking,” Daddy Earl said.

“About what?”

“Maybe they’d go easier on you if you were married.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I think we should get married.”

“Last I heard, you had a wife somewhere.”

“A minor technicality,” Daddy Earl said.

Mother laughed. “I hear they have a special place for bigamists over in the men’s prison.”

“What does that mean?” Julian asked.

“I know what it means,” Freda said.

“Never mind what it means,” mother said. “I was just making a joke with Daddy Earl.”

“I have the feeling they’re going to let you out in time for Christmas,” Daddy Earl said.

“Oh, baby, I wouldn’t count on that if I were you!” mother said.

“You’ll be calling me to come and get you, and I’ll get here so fast you won’t believe it!”

Mother began crying, no matter how hard she wanted to avoid it. “We have to be realistic,” she said. “I might be here for a long time. I might never go home again. I did such stupid things. I didn’t know what I was doing and I swear I’m done with all that!”

“Of course you are!” Daddy Earl said. He put his beefy arm across her shoulders. “You have to look on the bright side and keep your spirits up.”

“Yes, I’ll try,” mother said. She wiped her eyes with his monogrammed handkerchief.

A guard was watching them carefully and then he came over and told them it was time for them to leave; the visit was over.

Mother gave Daddy Earl a passionless kiss. When she hugged Julian and Freda, she started crying again, which made all of them cry.

“We’ll come again just as soon as we can,” Daddy Earl said.

“I want all of you to have a good Christmas,” mother said, “and don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’ll be thinking of all of you.”

“We’ll be thinking of you, too, mother,” Freda said.

On the way to the car, Freda said, “I don’t think we’ll ever see her alive again.”

Julian began wailing, so Daddy Earl picked him up and carried him the rest of the way.

Freda turned to look at the windows of the prison, expecting mother to be there waving at them, but she saw only a gray blankness that told her that nothing good ever came out of there.

On the way home, they stopped and ate a chicken dinner with cherry pie for dessert and then Daddy Earl went to a place where he knew they could get a good, real-live Christmas tree. When they got home, he set the tree up in the living home, strung the lights expertly, and then let Freda and Julian do the rest of the decorating.

In their twin beds in Daddy Earl’s guest room at ten o’clock, they could hear sleet and rain hitting the windows.

“Maybe they’ll call school off tomorrow,” Julian said.

“Did you hear mother say that Daddy Earl already has a wife?” Freda asked.

“What of it?” Julian asked.

“His wife might come back from wherever she is and tell us we have to get out.”

“Why would she do that?” Julian asked.

“She’d be jealous, that’s why.”

“Daddy Earl could always punch her in the nose.”

“Maybe we could sneak mother out of prison and sneak Daddy Earl’s wife in there in her place.”

“How you gonna do that?” Julian asked.

“Didn’t you ever hear of chloroform?”

“No!”

He groaned and rolled over so that his face was inches from the wall. He didn’t want to think about school tomorrow, about mother being in jail, or about anything else. He pictured snow piling up outside, so much snow that school would be called off for the whole week. With that comforting thought, he was able to make himself go to sleep.

December 7, 2016December 7, 2016 by allen0997

Manchester by the Sea ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Manchester by the Sea ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

Manchester by the Sea is a somber study in loss and tragedy, set in bleak New England winter with gray skies and a gray heart. Lee Chandler (played by Casey Affleck) is a working-class man with a foul-mouthed wife and three small children. He drinks more than is good for him and it’s while he’s under the influence of alcohol that he makes the terrible error in judgment from which he will never recover.

As the story moves back and forth in time, it takes us a while to know who is who and what is what. Lee Chandler’s brother, Joe (played, coincidentally, by an actor named Kyle Chandler, who was the unhappy husband of a lesbian in the movie Carol last year), develops a heart condition in early middle age and dies. He has one child, a sixteen-year-old son named Patrick. Joe’s wife, Patrick’s mother, is an unreliable, drunken shrew, so Joe leaves guardianship of Patrick to his brother Lee. Lee, now divorced, works as a janitor/handyman, living in one room, and he has plenty of problems of his own (including alcoholism), so he probably isn’t the best choice in the world to take care of a confused, sexually precocious sixteen-year-old boy. Patrick probably isn’t going to be happy in any circumstances, with his father dead and his mother “away.”

The Manchester of Manchester by the Sea is Manchester, Massachusetts, and not Manchester, England, as the title would seem to suggest. It’s a contemporary story, so that means there’s lots of foul language and naturalistic acting, with parts of the dialogue mumbled and unintelligible. The outdoor scenes are wintry scenes, with piles of dirty snow everywhere and cloud-covered vistas, so there’s nothing pretty to look at, even the sea. There’s nothing happy about this movie, including the way it looks, but it’s an engrossing, immersive movie; its two hours and sixteen minutes race by with barely a thought of how much longer it’s going to take, and when the end comes we were probably wishing for a little more.

December 3, 2016December 4, 2016 by allen0997

The Medici Boy ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Medici Boy ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (better known as Donatello) was one of the most gifted sculptors and artisans of Renaissance Italy. He lived from 1386 to 1466 in the politically volatile city state of Florence. His bronze statue of David is among his greatest works and one of the most famous works of the Italian Renaissance. He shows David as a beautiful, delicately nude youth, a shepherd boy who has just slain the giant Goliath. We see David’s foot resting on Goliath’s head, a sword in his right hand, his left hand on his left hip and his left knee canted out. He is an almost androgynous figure with long, curling hair and a slight frame. He looks like anything other than a slayer of giants.

In The Medici Boy, John L’Heureux has written a purely fictional account of Donatello’s creation of his bronze statue of David and his obsessive and destructive love for the model, one Agnolo Mattei. Agnolo is a male whore, a bardassa. He prowls the streets at night, looking for men who will pay him to perform sex acts. (Donatello is, of course, a real person, while Agnolo is a fictional construct.) For all his physical appeal (some people don’t see it at all), Agnolo is a trouble-maker. He exerts a kind of spell over Donatello, a physical attraction that develops (for Donatello) into an all-consuming passion. Sodomy is, of course, a terrible sin and a crime in Florence, referred to as the “Florentine vice.” Men who engage in the forbidden practice are subject to severe punishment, including imprisonment, fines, or even death. (The penalty for each conviction is more severe than the one before.)

The Medici Boy is told in the first-person voice of one Luka Matteo, a worker in Donatello’s workshop (bottega). He is himself an artisan, but he also keeps the account books for the enterprise and handles other details that Donatello is too busy to handle himself. He has a wife, a former prostitute, and four children, two of whom are “carried off” by the Black Pest, a terrible disease that seems always to be lurking in the background in fifteenth century Italy.

Luka is a sort of step-brother to Agnolo, the male whore who has stolen Donatello’s heart, but he hates Agnolo for all the trouble he causes. (He is also a little bit jealous of Agnolo because he ingratiates himself with both men and woman.) When a political conflict erupts between the different factions in Florence, the opposing side hopes to use Agnolo to inform on Donatello, in an attempt to bring down the powerful Cosimo di Medici, a long-time associate and patron of Donatello.

For a speculative story about a real person (Donatello) in a real place (Florence, Italy), The Medici Boy is convincing and believable. We can easily believe that this is what “might have happened.” It’s obvious that the author has done a lot of research to render the time and place just right, although he has filled in the details of the lives of the characters with fictional details. It’s an easy and fascinating book to read, especially if you like historical fiction that removes you from your distasteful surroundings and transports you to another time and place. The sexual content is never graphic or offensive (after all, it was not written by Jacqueline Susann) and is handled in good taste and never sensationalized. Now that we have that out of the way, go and get the book and read it.

November 26, 2016November 26, 2016 by allen0997

Arrow Collar Man

Before Norman Rockwell became famous, there was Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951). J. C. Leyendecker was one of the most influential American illustrators of the twentieth century. His illustrations were seen in clothing advertisements, recruiting posters and hundreds of magazine covers for Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s. With his Arrow Collar Man, he idealized the American male.

November 22, 2016November 22, 2016 by allen0997

Arrival ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Arrival ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

A huge pod-like object, obviously an alien spacecraft, has landed in the farm fields of Montana. We soon learn that there are eleven other pods in different locations around the world. Have aliens come to destroy human life on earth? If not, what are they (the aliens) here for? They seem to be trying to communicate in a non-human language but, of course, humans don’t know what they’re saying. The military engages the services of a renowned teacher and language expert named Louise Banks (Amy Adams, superb in any movie she’s in). She is taken to the alien pod in Montana where, it is hoped, she will be able to figure out what they are saying.

Louise Banks is a recent divorcee with plenty of heartbreak in her life, having lost her young daughter to disease. This, of course, means that she is provided with fellow language researcher and love interest in the person of Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). Louise and Ian ascend into the alien spacecraft to confront the aliens and try to discover what they hope to accomplish by coming to earth.

Right away we see the aliens as Louise and Ian see them. They aren’t acid-slobbering killing machines as in the classic sci-fi movie Alien, but they are not pleasing to the eye. They resemble octopuses at the bottom of the sea, except that they have no eyes or mouths that we can see. The researchers right away dub them “heptapods” because they are about seven feet tall and seem to have seven legs or tentacle-like appendages. Louise discovers that they have names and they communicate in a strange language that, unlike human languages, is not based on sound or symbols but on thought. Inside the alien spaceship, she removes her bulky hood and breathing apparatus so the aliens can get a clearer picture of what humans are like. Ian does the same. This helps to establish a connection with the aliens.

The aliens communicate by extending their tentacles and writing before them, in an ink-like substance, in large, semi-circles with feathery extensions. After studying these “writings,” Louise begins to get a clearer picture of what the aliens are trying to communicate. She learns, for one thing, that time for the aliens is not “linear,” as it is for us. (This is a difficult concept for humans to grasp.) The aliens want to help humans because they will need help in the far-distant future (this is very vague.) Louise also learns that her own life has taken, or will take, a non-linear course and that this will allow her to know what will happen in the future. Her past, her life, and her future are somehow bound up with these strange creatures from an alien place.

Arrival is dark, in the way it looks and in its tone. There’s a sense of foreboding throughout much of the movie, a feeling that we don’t know what the aliens are going to do—or what might be done to them while they’re on earth (some countries are calling for aggressive military action). If the ending is unsatisfying because we don’t learn as much as we’d like to know about the aliens, we forgive it because the rest of the movie is so much more interesting than the rest of the stuff that’s playing at the multiplex.

November 19, 2016November 21, 2016 by allen0997

Mommie Dearest Thanksgiving

Could we just get through this meal without any slapping or hissy fits?

November 19, 2016November 19, 2016 by allen0997

The Power of Words

“When considering the power of words, remember that wars have begun with words, marriages have been wrecked by hateful words, and the cemeteries in the nation are filled with individuals whose lives were taken prematurely by a bullet, shot from the hand of an angry person whose argument with their victim sent them over the edge and cost two lives: the future of the victim and the future of the manslayer who now serves life behind bars. Words birth ideas, images, and imaginations. Words live on beyond our brief earthly time span and will be repeated both to our delight and our dismay. Think before speaking, and remember that what has been said can never be recalled from the atmosphere.”

~ ~ ~ From Opening the Gates of Heaven by Perry Stone.

November 15, 2016November 15, 2016 by allen0997

Legends: Paranormal Pursuits 2016

(My short story “When He Saw They Were Dead” is in this just- released anthology available from Amazon.)

From Grey Wolfe Publishing
Legends: Paranormal Pursuits 2016

Some of the most entertaining works of fiction are those very strange stories… those oddities that aren’t easily explained by what common sense teaches, and what scientists know about nature and the world. You know the ones we have in mind… angels, demons, hauntings, UFO sightings and abductions, monsters, ghosts, spirits… those experiences that depart from what is usual or normal, especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature. This special 2016 edition of Legends will introduce you to a collection of scary, odd, ethereal, transcendent, and unearthly accounts. Some of the stories, poems and anecdotal narratives contained within these pages may delight or bewilder the reader. Others may cause trepidation or produce an unnerving influence. Whatever the effect, we are certain that these Legends are some you’ll not soon forget.

426 pages. Available for $25 from Amazon at this link:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1628281715/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

November 14, 2016November 15, 2016 by allen0997

Hacksaw Ridge ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Hacksaw Ridge ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

I’d rather have Mel Gibson behind the camera where I don’t have to see him. His latest directorial effort is Hacksaw Ridge, a gripping World War II story with a conscientious objector from Virginia as its central character. When Desmond Doss sees that his country is in trouble, he can’t sit out the war and do nothing. He wants to enlist, but there’s just one thing: he’s a Seventh Day Adventist with very strong principles against carrying a weapon. He enlists, anyway, though, and soon finds himself in unexpected trouble in the military. His officers and fellow soldiers can’t and won’t understand his religious principles. How can he be such a fool as to believe he can go to war without killing the enemy or at least defending himself with a gun? He is harassed, beaten, called a coward, and yelled at (I would crumple under the yelling and name-calling) and finally given an easy way out, but he is not to be deterred. He wants to serve and he believes the best way for him to do it is as a combat medic. He will be the one to put people back together, he says, while everybody else is taking people apart.

He is about to be court-martialed for his refusal to pick up a weapon, but his drunken father, a World War I veteran, produces proof from somebody he knew back in the day that shows his son’s religious convictions are protected by the good old Constitution of the United States. (We can’t let politicians shred it!) He goes to war with his division and soon finds himself fighting the battle of Okinawa. Okinawa is of strategic importance to the U.S. war effort. If it can be breached, the next step is Japan.

The fighting on Okinawa is as close to hell as anybody has ever seen. (Bloody and graphic battle sequences, showing mutilations and head wounds.) Casualties are heavy on both sides. As a medic, Desmond Doss displays bravery beyond what anybody might have ever imagined. He selflessly rescues about seventy-five of his fellow soldiers from the battlefield under heavy fire from the Japanese. He manages to get each injured man down a cliff, using a butterfly knot that he learned in basic training. The man who was labeled a coward for his refusal to pick up a gun becomes an unexpected hero.

Actor Andrew Garfield (memorable in The Social Network and Never Let Me Go) plays real-life Desmond Doss with sweetness and sincerity. He goes to war armed only with a small Bible his girlfriend (later his wife) gives him with her picture in it. As modest and quiet-spoken as he is, he is never willing to compromise his principles under pressure that would make most of us buckle. We need more people like him.

November 4, 2016November 4, 2016 by allen0997