Author: allen0997

Indie-Trigger Short Stories ~ An Anthology in Paperback

Indie Trigger

Indie-Trigger Short Stories: An Anthology
Now available for purchase on Amazon. 

(My short story “At the River” is in this collection.)

With stories by Adam Moorad, Tom Pitts, Jerry Levy, Dan Nielsen, Phyllis Humby, Bobbi Lurie, Joe Clifford, Allen Kopp, Michael C. Keith, Stephanie Becerra, Jim Meirose, James Valvis. Edited by Elle Pryor.

This anthology features new writers with an impressive list of writing credits from the American Independent Press scene. Tom Pitts and Joe Clifford, two writers who once lived on the streets, focus on the desperation of drug addiction. Dan Nielsen writes about a drifter in need of more beer. Adam Moorad and Jim Meirose transport us to surreal worlds where everything is unexpected. Mental health and therapy, in all its complexity, is explored by Bobbi Lurie and Stephanie Becerra. The vulnerability of old age is laid bare by Allen Kopp and Phyllis Humby. There is dark humor from James Valvis plus dysfunctional relationships from Michael C. Keith and Jerry Levy.

Available for purchase at Amazon for $7 for the paperback and $0.99 for the Kindle version:

by allen0997

Krampus ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Krampus

Krampus ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

If you like Christmas movies and also horror movies, Krampus is a combination of both. A boy named Max lives with his family in their beautiful suburban home. As Max sees all the Christmas superficiality around him, he wishes that Christmas could be the way it used to be. When his creepily androgynous cousins tease him at the dinner table about still believing in Santa and one of them steals and reads Max’s letter to Santa out loud, Max has what my mother would call a fit and says he hates Christmas and all his relatives. That’s when things begin to change for the family. A monster blizzard hits the neighborhood, the streets become impassable, the power goes off, it’s still a couple of days before Christmas and the house is crammed with sickening relatives.

In Austro-German folklore, Krampus is a demonic spirit who is the opposite of Santa Claus. If Santa rewards you for being good during the year, Krampus punishes you for being bad. Max has a German-speaking grandmother who, we see via animated flashback, had her own experience with Krampus when she was a little girl during World War II. Max’s declaration that he is through with Christmas brings down the hideous Krampus, the antithesis of Santa and the opposite of holiday cheer, on himself and his family. Krampus starts out as a shadowy, hulking being that jumps from house to house in the neighborhood, and things only get worse from there. The nearly silent grandmother makes sure the fire is kept burning hotly because she knows that if Krampus enters, it will be through the chimney.

Krampus is full of creepy snowstorm effects (I like snowstorms) and demons galore, including murderous Christmas cookies. Besides Krampus himself (itself?), there is a whole host of hideous elves to help him wreak havoc. In the not-very-likeable family, most of us will probably recognize some of our own relatives, especially in the grouchy aunt and the nasty-at-the-core cousins. With a nod toward Dickens, Krampus resolves itself at the end in the expected way. We’re all going to wake up and everything will be all right, won’t it?

Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Slade House ~ A Capsule Book Review

Slade House

Slade House ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Slade House is a horror/mystery/fantasy novel by English novelist David Mitchell. There’s something very peculiar about the house in Slade House. To the casual observer, it doesn’t even exist in this “small English city.” The place where the house is (or was), however, has been the scene of several unexplained disappearances. On the last Friday in October in 1979, a middle-aged woman, Mrs. Bishop, and her adolescent son, Nathan, disappear without a trace. Then, nine years later, on the last Friday in October in 1988, a young, divorced policeman named Inspector Detective Gordon Edmonds disappears. Then, nine years later, in 1997, it’s an unhappy, overweight college girl named Sally Timms (along with several “friends” who are exploring psychic phenomena). In 2006, it’s Sally Timms’ lesbian, journalist sister, Freya Timms, who is trying to uncover some clues into the disappearance of her sister. We learn that all these people who vanished have something in common: they are all “Engifteds,” meaning they have a special “sense” that allows them to see beyond the veil of the unknown.

Gradually we learn the secret of the house, which I won’t give away too much here. There are two “proprietors” of the house and they are twins, Jonah and Norah Grayer, who are well over a hundred years old. They are “soul vampires,” but they won’t be satisfied with just any souls—only the souls of the rare people who are the “Engifteds” will do.

The secret of the house is ingenious: the real house that sat on the site was destroyed by German bombs in World War II. The “house” of Jonah and Norah Grayer exists in what is called an “orison,” which is a “reality bubble.” The people whom Jonah and Norah choose to come to them are able to find the “aperture” in the brick wall in the alleyway; the aperture, a small iron door, is a “portal” into the orison in which the house exists. Each of those lured in have (or think they have) a special reason for wanting to get in. Once inside, they are tricked into eating or drinking a substance called “banjax” that will make it easy for Jonah and Norah to extract their souls. (They must have a soul every nine years to continue to exist.)

Slade House is a fascinating, compulsively readable novel, spare and concise in its 238 pages. It’s also smart and ingenious, not quite like anything I ever read before—a new twist on the traditional haunted house story. Now, if somebody will just make a quality movie out of it that’s as intelligent as the book, that’s a movie I would certainly pay money to see. Just don’t put Sylvester Stallone in it.

Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

If You Don’t Tell Santa What You Want, You Won’t Get Anything

If You Don't Tell Santa What You Want, You Won't Get Anything

If You Don’t Tell Santa What You Want, You Won’t Get Anything ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

We lived in a small town with small stores, where there was no sit-down Santa to talk to. The nearest big stores were in the city two hours away. Every year my mother and grandma took my sister and me to see Santa and do some Christmas shopping.

I was little and didn’t know any better so I liked the city, which was so unlike the town we lived in. I liked the cars and the crowds of people standing on the street corners waiting for the light to change so they could walk across; the tall buildings and the roaring buses that had a particular smell of their own. I liked the whistle of the policeman directing traffic and the clang of the bell-ringing Santa on the sidewalk (not the real Santa, I knew) who was trying to get people to drop money into his pot. Of course, it had to be cold weather (the colder the better) and not raining, or none of this would have held any appeal for me. Cold weather was absolutely essential to get the feel of Christmas.

I was six so I still firmly believed in the myth of Santa Claus. I also believed that if you weren’t able to talk to Santa and tell him what you wanted in the run-up to Christmas, you would be out of luck and would get nothing. No presents, no Santa, no nothing. I already knew the world was a hard place.

Mother had lived in the city before she was married so she knew her way around downtown. As she maneuvered the car through the traffic to get to where she wanted to park, I was still sleepy from the Dramamine I had been given before we left home but I didn’t feel like vomiting, so that was the important thing. She parked in a pay parking lot a few blocks from where we were going and we all got out of the car.

“They charge a dollar now for parking,” mother said. “I don’t know what the world is coming to. Just last year it was fifty cents.”

Grandma helped my sister and me on with our hats and gloves and we began the several-blocks walk down to the department store where Santa was.

This store was famous for its animated Christmas windows. We stopped to take a look at them but there were so many people crowded around that we couldn’t see them very well, so we went on inside the store. I was starting to feel little-kid anxiety about seeing Santa. I might freeze up when I sat on his lap and not be able to tell him what I wanted. I felt my throat constrict at the thought.

To get in to where Santa was, you had to walk through the “Winter Wonderland” that was supposed to be the North Pole. There was a wooden walkway to get through it and there were plenty of elves around to make sure nobody left the walkway and tried to walk on the fake snow, pull on the fake trees (trees at the North Pole?) or try to get a closer look at the reindeer. It was all very pretty, with Christmas music blasting over the sound system, but I couldn’t wait to get through it and in to see Santa.

After we passed through “Winter Wonderland,” There were ropes on poles to keep all the people in a neat line. It was about half adults and half kids. Some of the women held tiny babies or pushed them in strollers. You knew they were too young and would only waste Santa’s time. Most of the kids, you could tell, were trying to hold still and not squirm too much. A few of them looked as nervous as I felt.

In about fifteen minutes, we finally came to the place where we could see Santa on his throne. I breathed a sigh of relief when I was actually able to see him and know he was there. There were still about twenty more little kids in front of me, though, before it would be my turn.

Santa was flanked by yet more elves to keep the line moving and keep any one child from taking up too much of his time. Each child was placed on Santa’s lap, Santa leaned over to let the child speak into his ear for about twenty seconds and then the child was removed in an elfin movement of robotic efficiency.

My heart was beating too fast as I got nearer to Santa. I tried to keep in my mind what I was going to say, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to remember it. I knew my mother, sister and grandma were somewhere behind me, watching me, but I wasn’t thinking about them. I only wanted to get this over with.

Finally it was my turn. A burly elf with acne put his hands on either side of my rib cage and hoisted me up; I swung my legs over and found myself face to face with Santa. He smiled at me and I could see his thick lips through his whiskers. He breathed on the side of my head.

“What would you like for Santa to bring you?” he asked.

“Uh, I want a sled and a pair of cowboy boots and…”

“What else?”

“A Howdy-Doody puppet and a racing car set and some books and…”

“Yes?”

“That’s all I can think of right now.”

“Have you been a good boy this year?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!”

He gave me a candy cane, and the same elf who had lifted me up then lifted me down. I realized then how silly all this was.

After my sister had her turn with Santa, I rejoined mother and grandma. “Did you tell him everything you wanted?” mother asked me.

“Everything I could think of,” I said.

“Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll get everything just because you told him you wanted it.”

“How does he remember what people tell him without writing it down?” I asked.

“I guess he has a photographic memory.”

“He’s really something, isn’t he?”

We had lunch on the mezzanine level where you could look down and see hundreds of people moving around like ants. There was nothing like that back home. Then after lunch it was on to the serious shopping.

Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Victor Frankenstein ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Victor Frankenstein

Victor Frankenstein ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

There have been dozens of movies with the word “Frankenstein” in the title, some of them memorable and some not. The latest variation on the Frankenstein myth is Victor Frankenstein, which stars James McAvoy as the titular mad scientist and Daniel Radcliffe as the person who comes to be known as Igor.

The Daniel Radcliffe character is a nameless hunchback who has always been with the circus, where he’s mistreated and locked in a cage. When a female acrobatic artist named Lorelei, with whom he is secretly in love, has a bad fall while performing, Dr. Victor Frankenstein just happens to be on hand. When he sees how the nameless clown hunchback keeps Lorelei from dying, he realizes what a talented (self-trained) physician the pitiful hunchback is. He arranges for the young man to leave the circus with him and thereafter takes charge of him. He recognizes right away that the hunchback isn’t really a hunchback but is suffering from an abscess on the spinal column with a huge sac of fluid. When he drains the fluid from the hunchback’s spine, the hunchback is a hunchback no longer and he begins, with the help of a back brace, to stand upright. Dr. Frankenstein gives him the name of Igor, after a “flat-mate” of his who, we later discover, has died of a drug overdose and been frozen in a block of ice by the doctor.

Igor soon realizes that he owes everything in his life to Dr. Frankenstein, who rescued him from his degrading life in the circus. (Therefore Dr. Frankenstein is, in a way, the creator of Igor.) When Dr. Frankenstein realizes what a talented, though self-educated, physician Igor is in his own right, he lets him in on his secret of creating life in the laboratory, thereby conquering death. The first example of his laboratory-created life is a hideous, uncontrollable, ape-like creature, but it is just successful enough to attract a wealthy investor, who, we learn later, has base ulterior motives. The wealthy benefactor also has in his possession a family castle in an isolated part of Scotland where Dr. Frankenstein and Igor might conduct their experiments away from prying eyes. From what source might they draw enough electricity to spark life into their new creation? Why, from lightning, of course.

Igor, in his transformed, non-hunchback self, reunites with Lorelei and she acknowledges that she owes her life to him and falls in love with him. They all reconvene to the castle in Scotland where the two mad scientists, in a sort of anti-climax, do in fact create a gigantic “homunculus” that has the potential to change the world. It needs a little more work, though, doesn’t it? It only wants to kill and maim. This is not good.

Victor Frankenstein is not one of the best movies of the year, but if you like escapist, period films set in the Victorian era about mad scientists who challenge the accepted order or things, then you will find it passable entertainment, better in the first half than in the second. If nothing else, it’s pretty to look at.

Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Last Days of Hitler ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Last Days of Hitler

The Last Days of Hitler ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp 

One of the most compelling and improbable chapters in the history of the twentieth century is the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany in the 1930s. Hitler had no formal education to speak of and no military training (he had been a soldier in the First World War), but with surprising ease he was able to take control of the government, industry and military, and transform Germany into a Nazi state. His goal was to destroy European culture and create a new barbaric empire, with world domination his ultimate objective. His early successes made him believe he was the greatest military strategist the world had ever known. Everybody would bow down to him, he believed; he could do nothing wrong and was, in fact, a god in mortal form. The people who could have stopped him before he got started stood by and did nothing, but that’s a different story.

In 1944 and 1945 the Nazi empire began to unravel. Germany was losing the war and, in spite of the self-delusion of Hitler and his inner circle, there was to be no turning tide that would change their fortunes. The Third Reich that was supposed to last a thousand years came to a hellish end in April 1945 when the Russian army invaded Berlin and Hitler killed himself. The Last Days of Hitler by British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper is a fascinating account of the last ten days of Hitler and his inner circle in the Fuehrerbunker fifty feet below ground in Berlin. This small group of corrupt, inept and self-serving individuals who once believed they could not lose now saw that the end was near. Some of them sought to end their lives, while others ironically hoped to continue to serve in a reformed Nazi government that would survive after the war. They didn’t seem to realize that they would be viewed by the world as villains and war criminals and, no matter what they did or what they promised, they would never be able to redeem themselves.

Hitler was bitter at the end. He believed he was let down by his generals and betrayed by some of his most-trusted confidantes, including Heinrich Himmler. He wanted to punish the German people for not doing more to win the war. When he saw the end was coming and that the army that would arrive to save him was only one of his delusions, he envisioned a grand, Wagnerian “Twilight of the Gods” ending in which he and some of his followers would die a ritual soldier’s death. After he married his long-time (possibly purely platonic) girlfriend, Eva Braun, the two of them committed suicide, she by poison and he by gunshot to the mouth. When it was all over, he instructed his people to take his and Eva’s bodies outside and burn them with large quantities of gasoline so that his body would never be displayed, vilified or exploited by the enemy. Before his death he was able to envision, or at least to believe possible, a rebirth of Nazism with himself as its ritual, martyred head. The scariest man in the world is the  megalomaniac who believes he can do no wrong.

The Last Days of Hitler is a readable 270 pages, focusing on the end of the Nazi dream (a dream for a few and a nightmare for millions of others). The end was inevitable from the beginning, and the fact that it took place in a hole in the ground in Berlin is altogether fitting and appropriate. In the history of the world, dictators are successful in the beginning, if they are successful at all, but they never last. There is no such thing as a dictatorial government lasting a thousand years. Dictators always come crashing down, done in by their own hubris and corruption or by the belief in their own invincibility.

Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Brooklyn ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Brooklyn

Brooklyn ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp 

Brooklyn is a small movie, an “art film,” set in, you guessed it, Brooklyn, New York, in the early 1950s. Saoirse Ronan (who was in Atonement, The Lovely Bones and Grand Budapest Hotel) plays Eilis (pronounced AY-lish), a sweet, decent Irish girl who leaves her devoted sister, Rose, and her widowed mother and goes to America in search of a better life. She is seasick on the boat going over because nobody bothered to tell her she shouldn’t eat on the first day and, once she gets to America, she finds it a disappointment. She lives in a rooming house with several other girls and a bossy landlady named Mrs. Kehoe (Julie Walters) who takes it upon herself to provide moral instruction for the girls. The landlady likes Eilis, though, and after a while she gives her the best room with its own entrance.

Eilis experiences acute homesickness in her strange new world and is unhappy. She gets tearful letters from her sister, Rose, but they don’t help much. She works as a saleslady in a department store and has a hard time making the customers feel important so they’ll keep coming back. She doesn’t want to spend her life behind a sales counter so she goes to night school a couple nights a week with the thought of someday becoming an accountant. Soon she meets Tony (Emory Cohen), a sweet, decent Brooklyn boy who is a plumber. Eilis and Tony fall in love and this is when her unhappy life begins to take on a different hue. Things go along smoothly for her until she gets word that her sister, Rose, has died back in Ireland of an undisclosed ailment. Eilis is heartbroken because she can’t be there for the funeral. She decides to go soon after Rose’s death and see her bereft mother, who isn’t very cheerful to be around. Before she leaves Brooklyn, though, her boyfriend Tony insists that she marry him so she’ll be sure and come back.

When Eilis goes back to Ireland for what is supposed to be a brief visit, she doesn’t tell anybody she married Tony back in America. Her mother and her old friends begin to expect that she’s back to stay and won’t want to return, since her mother now has no one left but her. A boy in Ireland named Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleason, who was in Anna Karenina and Unbroken) becomes interested in her. She likes him but doesn’t want to encourage him too much because she’s secretly married. Then an accounting job opens up for her that she can have on a permanent basis if she’s willing to stay. Ireland suddenly seems so much more appealing than it did before and she is faced with a dilemma: will she stay in Ireland where things are finally working out for her, or will she return to her husband in Brooklyn?

Brooklyn is about the immigrant experience and about finding oneself. It is like the period in which in is set, the 1950s: sweet and innocent and so much different from what life is like now. Like all art movies, it is for a “niche” audience, so it’s not for everybody. If you’re looking for laughs or thrills, you won’t find them here, unless it’s the thrill of solid storytelling.

Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Looks Like Wally Fay

Looks Like Wally Fay image 2

Looks Like Wally Fay ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

“Did you get a good look at the man?” Officer Miggles asked.

“Oh, yes,” Miss Dragonette said.

“Can you describe him for me?”

“Well, he was kind of heavy-set without being what I would call fat, if you know what I mean.”

“So he was moderately overweight?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Did you notice anything else about him? The color of his hair?”

“He was wearing a hat so I couldn’t see his hair. I would imagine it would be dark, though. Underneath the hat.”

“How tall was he?”

“Rather on the tall side. About six feet and one inch, I’d say.”

“What was he wearing?”

“A long brown topcoat that came down to his ankles. Cashmere, I think.”

“Cashmere?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Can you tell me anything else about him?”

“He was wearing a brown tie with little yellow birds on it, like parrots.”

“All right. How old would you say he was?”

“If I had to guess, I’d guess late thirties. Thirty-eight or thirty-nine.”

“How would you describe his face?”

“Well, let me think, now. He needed a shave. I did notice that right off.”

“So he had stubble on his face.”

“Yes, dark stubble. The color of the stubble on his face was what made me think he would have dark hair, even though I couldn’t see his hair because of the hat he was wearing.”

“Can you tell me anything else about his face?”

“He looked like that actor in that movie about the woman with a spoiled daughter who shoots the woman’s husband.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, ma’am.”

“I know! It was Joan Crawford!”

“So, the man looked like Joan Crawford?”

“No! It was a Joan Crawford movie. The man looked like one of the actors in the movie.”

“Do you know the actor’s name?”

“No, I can’t think of it offhand. It wasn’t the playboy who was Joan Crawford’s second husband and it wasn’t the first husband, either. It was the other man. The one in business with Joan Crawford’s first husband.”

“Okay, ma’am. I don’t think we’re making much progress here.”

“I remember now! His name was Wally Fay.”

“Whose name?”

“The man in the movie with Joan Crawford. The name of the character he played was Wally Fay. I can’t think of his real name, though. It’ll come to me later, I’m sure.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t much help.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Can you tell me anything else about him at all?”

“He was in another movie where he played Paul Newman’s brother.”

“No! Can you tell me anything else about the man who fired the gun?”

“Paul Newman was married to Elizabeth Taylor and he had this brother they called Gooper. I suppose that was a nickname, though.”

“I don’t need to hear about a movie.”

“Gooper was married to a coarse fat woman named May. She and Gooper had a lot of little kids, and Paul Newman’s wife, the character played by Elizabeth Taylor, didn’t much care for them because they made so much noise.”

“That won’t help us to catch the man we’re looking for, ma’am.”

“Well, I’m trying to remember! I’m cooperating with you. It seems the least you can do is be patient and polite.”

“I’m sorry if I seem impatient but I don’t need to hear about any movie.”

“Where was I? Oh, yes. Paul Newman and his brother Gooper had a rich old father who didn’t like anybody in his family. Well, the entire family was gathered because the father had just found out he had a fatal disease and the two sons—especially Gooper—were worried about who was going to inherit the estate. It was in the South, somewhere. Mississippi, I think.”

“Okay, that’s enough about movies. Can you describe for me what you saw the man do?”

“Well, I was just walking along the sidewalk, minding my own business, on my way to buy a new pair of shoes. I heard a commotion in the street and I stopped to see what it was. I saw a bunch of police cars with flashing lights. It seemed to be something terribly important, but I didn’t know what it was.”

“Then what happened?”

“A bunch of people had gathered along the sidewalk to watch, but I stayed back. That’s when I noticed the man in the cashmere coat come out of an alleyway.”

“What made you notice him?”

“He just stood there, looking very dignified. He wasn’t trying to elbow in to get a closer look, the way the other people were. He just looked straight ahead as though in a trance or something.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, after all the police cars had passed with their lights going, I saw the big black car of the governor. I could see him in the car smiling and waving—I recognized him from his pictures—and I knew then what all the commotion was about. All the people were trying to get in to get a closer look at him.”

“So you didn’t know until that moment that the governor was going to be visiting here that day?”

“No. Why should I?”

“Don’t you read the newspapers? Don’t you watch the news on television?”

“Never.”

“Go on.”

“When the car carrying the governor came about even with where I was standing on the sidewalk, the man in the cashmere coat took a few steps forward.”

“Toward the car?”

“That’s right.”

“Then what did he do?”

“I looked away for a moment and that’s when I heard the gunshots.”

“How many gunshots?”

“Three, I think. Some of the people screamed or ducked down as if they thought they were going to be shot, but I wasn’t afraid because I saw where the bullets came from and I knew they weren’t directed at me.”

“All right. Then what?”

“After the man fired the shots, he just simply disappeared.”

“People don’t disappear.”

“I know they don’t, but that’s the way it seemed to me. He was there and then he wasn’t.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“The governor’s car stopped and all the police cars stopped and everybody was running around trying to find out where the bullets came from. There were more people than ever now crowding around to get a better view. You know what people are like.”

“I suppose I do.”

“Well, the police spotted me standing on the sidewalk and, well, I guess it seemed to them that the bullets had come from about where I was standing, so they asked me if I had seen anything and I said I had and that’s when all these questions started. Can I go now? I’m feeling a little shaky after all the excitement.”

“It seems you were the only one who saw the man in the cashmere coat.”

“Yes, that’s because I was the only one standing back where he was standing. Everybody else was crowding toward the front.”

“As the only witness, you’ll need to make yourself available for further questioning.”

“Please, I’d rather you kept me out of this, if you don’t mind.”

After Office Miggles took her name and address, Miss Dragonette continued two blocks up the street and stepped off the curb between two parked cars. Looking around to make sure she wasn’t being observed, she took the gun out of her purse and threw it down a storm drain from which could be heard the sound of rushing water.

Satisfied that she wasn’t seen, she snapped her purse shut smartly and crossed the sidewalk to a store window where two high-fashion female mannequins in fur coats stood side by side. She looked into the face of the mannequin on the right and returned the artificial smile. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to make your acquaintance,” she said before continuing on her way.

Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp  

by allen0997

Bridge of Spies ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Bridge of Spies

Bridge of Spies ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

In the 1950s and ‘60s, the United States and the Soviet Union are at war. It isn’t the kind of war that’s waged on a battlefield, but a war of intelligence. Both sides are desperately trying to get military and strategic superiority through secret information that has to be stolen or gained surreptitiously by spies. It is a game of one-upmanship: If you can steal our secrets, we can steal yours.

In 1957 American agents capture a Soviet spy named Rudolf Abel (played by Mark Rylance) in Brooklyn. He isn’t what you would expect a spy to be. He is in his mid-fifties, soft-spoken, self-effacing and an artist who paints pictures. When a Brooklyn lawyer named Jim Donovan (Tom Hanks) takes on the unpopular job of defending Rudolf Abel (on the theory that everybody, no matter what they’ve done, is entitled to due process and a fair trial), the two men become unlikely friends. When Abel is tried and found guilty, the popular sentiment is to send him to the electric chair, but Jim Donovan argues, successfully, that Abel might be used as a bargaining tool in the event that the Soviets capture an American spy.

American pilots are at this time flying spy missions over the Soviet Union in U2s. The U2 flies at 70,000 feet and is supposed to be undetectable, but one of them is shot down and the pilot, Gary Francis Powers, is taken prisoner. The Soviets hope to get all the valuable information they can from him before they let him go. The American side proposes a spy swap: we’ll give you Rudolf Abel if you give us Gary Francis Powers.

Bridge of Spies is about the negotiations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to swap one spy for another, which turns out to be a delicate balancing act and one that might never come off, even when it seems it will. The Soviets, after all, are as tricky as they are allowed to be and don’t always play by American rules. Jim Donovan, the lawyer who defended Rudolf Abel, is the unofficial negotiator for the American government without being employed by the government in any capacity.

The spy swap is further complicated by the capture of an American college student in East Berlin named Frederic Pryor, just when the wall is being built. He’s in a very bad place at a bad time; the Soviets believe he is a spy and are in no hurry to release him. The American negotiator in the Abel-Powers spy swap makes the release of Frederic Pryor a condition of the trade. Will the Soviets comply, or will they engage in some of their nasty Cold War games?

Bridge of Spies is a weighty movie (as opposed to fluffy or brainless) on a weighty subject, so, if you’re looking for laughs, this is probably not what you’re looking for. It’s a “prestige” picture, directed by Steven Spielberg, the most famous of all current movie directors. (It’s interesting that Joel and Ethan Coen wrote the screen play.) It’s a thoroughly satisfying movie, beautifully made in every detail, for the serious-minded among us. Talky at times but talking the talk that is worth hearing. You’re looking at a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk.

Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

City Dump ~ A Short Story

City Dump image 1

City Dump
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

When I was in the eighth grade, the Dutchman decided our old house needed a new roof. Instead of consulting the Yellow Pages to find a reputable roofer, he decided to save a few greenbacks by—no, not by doing the job himself—but by having a “friend” do it at a cut-rate price.

The price at which the friend agreed to replace the roof didn’t, oddly enough, include any clean-up. That means that pieces of the old roof dating from the time the house was built—boards, shingles, chunks of asbestos, nails, what-have-you—were scattered in the yard on all four sides of the house, looking like the scene of an unspeakable natural disaster. How many houses, I ask you, have a new roof while the old roof adorns the yard in the ugliest way imaginable?

The Dutchman’s solution to the clean-up was simple. He had a thirteen-year-old son: me. I weighed ninety-two pounds but was more than capable of picking chunks of debris out of the shrubs and off the lawn and placing them in a washtub. How many washtubs full does it take to hold the thousands of splintered pieces of an old roof? More than you can imagine.

He didn’t own a pickup truck so he borrowed one from another “friend.” (Where do all these friends come from?) It was an old dark blue truck that had seen better days. It was only a one-day loan, so that meant we only had one day to get rid of all the crap that surrounded the house. I was wishing I would lose consciousness and not regain it until well into the next week. I would rather have thirty hours of gym class than a day of enforced yard clean-up with the Dutchman.

After I got the washtub loaded up with stuff, it was too heavy to lift on my own. “Candy ass,” the Dutchman said. “You’re not worth the powder to blow you to hell.”

“I know,” I said. And I did know, as this phrase had been repeated to me in some form or another almost every day of my life.

The Dutchman saw that I could manage the loaded washtub only if he took the other handle. It occurred to him then for the first time that I didn’t have the strength of a grown man. Who knew?

With about eight tubs full of stuff, we had enough in the back of the truck to make a full load. I had to take a rake and distribute the stuff so we could get more in. Then, when the Dutchman was convinced the truck would hold no more, we headed for the city dump, about two miles outside of town. It felt good to sit down, even if the inside of the truck smelled like an old woman who never takes a bath.

At the city dump, the Dutchman carefully backed the truck as close to the edge of the embankment as he could get without going over the side, and we got out and started unloading. I stood up in the bed of the truck and tossed the stuff over the side but, of course, I wasn’t doing it fast enough to suit the Dutchman.

“Do you want to still be working at this at midnight?” he asked.

“I’m starting to feel sick,” I said.

By the time we got back to the house to begin work on the second load, it had started to rain the kind of rain you get in November: slow, cold and steady. The Dutchman made me put on a hat—not to protect my health but because he was thinking about how much money it might cost him if I got sick and had to see a doctor.

The second truckload to the city dump didn’t go any faster than the first one and, after two loads, we had made very little progress. This was taking a lot longer than the Dutchman thought it would. There weren’t going to be enough hours in the day. I was happy, maybe for the first time in my life, at the prospect of going to school the next day.

It was when we were working on the third load that an old man from the neighborhood stepped into the yard and motioned to us. The Dutchman stopped what he was doing and went over to him. I was near enough that I could hear.

“I know somebody that will take all that stuff away for you for a good price,” the old man said.

The Dutchman thought about it for a minute and shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said. “I can do it myself.”

“Looks like that boy there’s about worn out,” the old man said. He meant me, of course.

The Dutchman looked at me as though noticing me for the first time. “He’s stronger than he looks,” he said with a little laugh.

My mother came out of the house then in her plastic rain bonnet. “You know somebody that’ll do this hard work?” she asked.

“My nephew and his friend,” the old man said. “They’ve got themselves an old truck and will do little jobs here and there to earn enough money to fill it up with gas.”

“Does your nephew have a phone number?” she asked.

The old man gave the number and my mother said she would remember it without writing it down. She thanked the old man and he left.

“You come into the house,” she said to me, “and get cleaned up before supper.”

“He’s not going in,” the Dutchman said, “until the work is finished.”

“Says you,” she said.

She put her hand on my shoulder and drew me along with her into the house. It was one of the few times I ever saw her stand up to the Dutchman.

I took a bath as hot as I could stand it to get the roof grit off and put on my pajamas. I had the sniffles afterwards and there were some bleeding cuts on my hands, but I was happy and was sure I would be all right.

The next day when I came home from school, all the roof junk in the yard had been taken away. Mother told me she paid for it out of her own money and that it had been a real bargain. I was beaming with satisfaction at the dinner table that evening while the Dutchman looked unhappy and defeated, too dispirited even to complain that the mashed potatoes weren’t the way he liked them.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997