Author: allen0997

My Week with Marilyn ~ A Capsule Movie Review

My Week with Marilyn ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

In 1956 Marilyn Monroe was at the peak of her movie stardom. She was thirty years old and married to her third husband, playwright Arthur Miller. In spite of her fame and all she had achieved, she was a deeply troubled and insecure woman. She traveled to England at this time to make a movie with Laurence Olivier that would eventually be called The Prince and the Showgirl. While in England, she became acquainted with a twenty-three-year-old production assistant named Colin Clark. The new movie, My Week with Marilyn, is based on Colin Clark’s memoir about Marilyn.

Michelle Williams gives a great performance as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn. She will be remembered when Oscars are being handed out. She doesn’t just do a Marilyn impression, but shows the damaged person underneath the sex goddess persona. Marilyn knew as well as anybody that she wasn’t the person that people thought she was, the woman they saw on the screen. At one point in the movie, she says that as soon as people realize “she isn’t really Marilyn,” they abandon her. She isn’t emotionally equipped to live in the world in which she finds herself.

During the making of The Prince and the Showgirl, Marilyn latches on to young Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), in spite of the executives on the picture trying to keep them apart. She comes to rely on Colin to comfort her; she summons him in the night to come to her. Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Brannagh), Marilyn’s costar in the movie and also the director, finds her impossible to work with. She can’t remember—and doesn’t seem to grasp—the simplest direction or line of dialogue. But, as a character in the movie states, “when she gets it right, you can’t look at anybody else on the screen.” She has a magnetism and an appeal that can’t quite be explained or understood.

Young Colin falls in love with Marilyn, as it seems that most men do who come under her influence. At one point he asks her to leave the movie business behind and marry him, because he believes he’s the only person who really understands her, but he knows it’s impossible.

Fifty years after Marilyn’s premature death at age thirty-six, her legend lives on. She is the unique screen goddess who will be forever young. Anybody who has ever been drawn to her on the screen, for whatever reason, should enjoy seeing My Week with Marilyn.

Copyright © 2012 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

War Horse ~ A Capsule Movie Review

War Horse ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

Steven Spielberg’s new movie, War Horse, is like the kind of movie they don’t make (much) anymore. With its notable absence of four-letter words and its lush, retro-sounding music score, it has a kind of old-fashioned, Lassie Come Home feel to it. It’s a “family” movie (based on a children’s novel by Michael Murpurgo), but that doesn’t mean it’s only for kids. With the proper “suspension of disbelief,” many adults should like it too.

In 1914 Devon, England, struggling farmer Ted Narracott (Peter Mullen) buys a horse at auction that he can’t really afford; he’s about to lose his farm. The horse is more of a show horse than a farm horse. His wife (Emily Watson) tells him to take the horse back this instant, but we know he’s not going to do that. For his teen son, Albert (Jeremy Irvine), it’s love at first sight. He names the horse Joey and promises to train him and take care of him.

Things are not going well at the Narracott farm; farmer Ted is not able to make of the place a going concern. War has broken out between England and Germany, so farmer Ted sells Joey to the cavalry for the little bit of money he can get. Albert is understandably broken-hearted; you just don’t sell something you love as much as he loves Joey. He wants to join up to be near Joey, but he is too young.

A sympathetic officer, Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston), recognizes what a fine horse Joey is. When he discovers what Joey means to Albert, he promises to take Joey as his own personal horse and return him to Albert when the war is over. It’s not the only time that Joey, through a twist of fate, experiences kindness in strangers. Maybe it’s not such a rotten world after all.

When Captain Nicholls is killed in a skirmish with the Germans, Joey falls into the hands of a young French girl, Emilie, and her grandfather. Emilie loves Joey and comes to consider him her own horse; she, of course, doesn’t know his history or anything about him. One day when she is riding Joey over a hill, she comes across the invading German army. The Germans take everything Emilie and her grandfather have, including Joey. They use him for pulling cannons through the mud, work that will eventually kill him. But do the Germans care? When Joey succumbs, they’ll have another horse waiting at the ready.

Joey experiences war at first-hand but, like the trouper he is, he perseveres. At one point he becomes hopelessly entangled in barbed wire on the battlefield with shells going off all around him. In my favorite scene in the movie, a young British soldier risks his life to go to Joey and extricate him with wire cutters. While he is setting Joey free, a German soldier emerges from an opposing trench. The two young soldiers, British and German, have a brief but telling (and beautifully written) conversation.

The war goes on long enough that Albert ends up in the British army. He has never given up on getting Joey back, although he doesn’t know all the terrible things that Joey has been through since he last saw him. Albert is gassed in the trenches by the Germans and temporarily (we learn) loses his eyesight.

Through all the twists and turns that Albert and Joey experience, the story comes full-circle in the end. While there might be a little too much irony in the conclusion to be entirely believable, it’s impossible not to be moved by it, especially if you are the sort who understands the love that exists between a boy and his horse (or the love between any human and any animal). 

Copyright © 2012 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Rain Continuing Tonight and Tomorrow

Rain Continuing Tonight and Tomorrow ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(Published in Writers’ Stories Magazine.)

Louise Eldritch didn’t have an umbrella. By the time she walked the six blocks from the bus station to the hotel, she was soaked through to the skin. She stood there, shivering a little and dripping water on the floor, while she signed her name to the register, a false name that came to her in the moment before she wrote it down. The night desk clerk smiled at her familiarly, as though he knew her. He had the same smile for everybody, no matter who they were.

“I have a nice room for you on the eighth floor, Miss Whitehead,” he said, reading the name off the register.

“It’s Mrs. Whitehead. Don’t you have anything on a lower floor?”

“Not cleaned and made up. With all this rain, you see, we’re short-staffed.”

“I guess the eighth floor will have to do, then.”

“It’s nice and quiet up there and you’ll have a fine view. The elevator is in working order, so you won’t have to walk up the stairs.” He handed her the key.

She took the creaking elevator up to the eighth floor. The door opened on a long carpeted hallway, silent and deserted. On the way to her room, she heard voices coming from behind the door to one of the rooms. She paused for a moment because something about the voices seemed oddly familiar; first a woman’s voice, pleading and crying, and then an angry man’s voice. There was the sound of breaking glass and the woman screamed. A different male voice, higher-pitched than the first one, yelled as if he was calling a dog and then the other two voices were stilled. She wondered if maybe someone was in trouble and needed help, but she had problems of her own and didn’t want to become involved in anybody else’s. She walked on to the end of the hallway.

Her room was as dreary as she expected. The walls were covered with faded green-and-brown wallpaper and the ceiling spotted with water stains. She turned on the lights and stepped out of her wet shoes and draped her jacket over the back of the desk chair. She took a towel from the bathroom and dried herself off the best she could. She longed to get into a tubful of hot water to try to soak the aches out of her body but she was just too tired. The day and a half spent travelling on the bus had taken its toll. She wanted only to sleep.

There was one window in the room and beside it a small door that opened onto a tiny fire escape landing. The window and door were both covered with a heavy green curtain, the kind that completely shut out the light. She pulled back the curtain and looked out at the rain, which hadn’t diminished and was, if anything, coming down heavier than before. She looked down the eighty feet or so to the street but couldn’t see much of anything, other than a streetlamp at the next corner and the lights of an all-night drugstore in the next block.

It could be any one of a thousand different towns in America. In the two days she had been traveling, she crossed several states lines and had lost track of where she was. If she had known the name of the town when she arrived there, she had forgotten it, but she derived a sort of perverse pleasure in not knowing where she was. If she didn’t know where she was, didn’t it follow that nobody else would know?

The room, for all its shortcomings, was warm and dry, and for that she was thankful. After she smoked a cigarette, she took off her clothes and got into the too-soft bed underneath the pile of peculiar-smelling covers and switched off the light. She could still hear the voices coming from down the hallway but underneath the soothing sound of the rain they seemed detached and far away.

She lay on her back in the dark for perhaps half an hour, smoking one cigarette after the other. As tired as her body was and as much as she needed to sleep, she knew she wasn’t going to go to sleep without a struggle. She had the sensation of still being in motion; her head reeled and she had a knot in her stomach. She got out of the bed and switched on the light and opened her suitcase and took out some pills, one to calm her down and another to make her sleep. She washed both pills down with a swallow from a bottle of Kentucky bourbon that she had bundled among her clothes to protect it from breakage.

While she had the suitcase opened, she took the diary out of a zippered compartment and opened it and sat down on the bed and held it open on her lap. The diary was for her more than just a book; it represented the end of her old life and the beginning of a new life, the kind of life she had always wanted.

In the diary, in Byron’s own handwriting, was his own confession. She didn’t know why he would confess in writing to having two business associates killed in five years, but that was just his way. He was thumbing his nose at the world. He believed he could get away with anything and outsmart anybody; he believed he was infallible. He kept the diary locked in a safe to which only he had access and he believed nobody would ever even know of its existence.

He slipped up, though, and she found the diary and read it, as wives sometimes will. She recognized it at once as a gold mine. Byron would pay a lot to get it back. She had wanted to get out of the marriage for years and now here was her chance, as if dropped into her lap from heaven.

When she got a safe distance away—and she didn’t know yet exactly where she was going—she would contact Byron and make him an offer. She would start at five-hundred thousand; she didn’t want to be overly greedy. That amount would be enough to keep her comfortably well-off for the rest of her life. She could travel and keep a nice apartment and have friends and give parties and never have to worry about anything; live the kind of independent life she had always wanted.

Byron would kill her too, though, of that she was certain. He would use any means at his disposal to get the diary back. She wasn’t certain that he hadn’t been following her or having someone else follow her—a hired killer, perhaps. For that reason she had taken a meandering course across four states, had changed buses five times, and had stopped at a dreary old hotel on the edge of nowhere—a place that wasn’t even on the map. She didn’t think she was being followed, but still one could never be certain of anything, especially when dealing with a man like Byron Eldritch.

Almost immediately the pills began to take effect and her eyelids began to feel heavy. She put the diary away carefully for safekeeping and got back into bed again. Soon she was asleep.

She dreamed she was walking along a flat country road. She didn’t know where the road was but it seemed somehow familiar, as if she remembered it from her far distant past. Looking down at her legs and feet, she saw they were covered with the dirt of the road.

As she walked along this road to an unknown or uncertain destination, she heard a car coming up behind her. She stopped walking and turned around and faced the car. She was interested in knowing who was driving, but apparently no one was, or, if there was a driver, he was invisible. An invisible driver didn’t make any sense, so it was easier to believe the car was moving on its own.

The car was bearing down on her and she had the sudden sickening realization that it meant to run her down in the road and kill her. When it was no more than thirty or forty feet away, coming toward her very fast, she jumped out of the way just in time and it went on past her in a cloud of dust.

She was awakened from the dream at that moment by a crash down the hallway, as of something being thrown against the wall, and then a scream. After that she could hear the voices, louder than before, as though the argument was still going on and had intensified. She tried covering up her head with a pillow but it was no use; she could still hear it. She got out of bed and turned on the light and picked up the receiver.

“Night clerk,” the voice said.

“There’s an argument going on down the hall from my room, loud voices and shouting, and it’s keeping me awake.”

“What room are you in?”

“846.”

“Oh, yes. The eighth floor. I believe they’ve been celebrating. I’ll call them and tell them to keep it quiet.”

She heard the phone ringing faintly down the hall and the murmur of voices, followed by laughter and the slamming of a door, and then stillness. Whoever they were, they seemed to have finally stopped the arguing and settled down for the night. She switched off the light and covered up her head and went to sleep again.

It might have been ten minutes or an hour or two hours before a knocking on the door jerked her violently awake. She sat up in the bed, her heart pounding, uncertain for the moment where she was. When the knocking came again, she got out of bed and went to the door.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Mr. Mendel calling for Mr. Sloan,” a raspy voice said.

“What?”

“I said, ‘Mr. Mendel calling for Mr. Sloan’.”

“I don’t know who you are,” she said. “You’ve got the wrong room.”

“I need to see Mr. Sloan right away.”

“There’s nobody here by that name.”

“He said room 846.”

“You’ve got the wrong room.”

“There came one day a lovely box of flowers.”

“What?”

“Will you let me in?”

“You’ve got the wrong room.”

“So you say, but can you give me a good reason why I ought to believe you?”

She heard a huff of breath and faint footsteps as the man turned from the door and walked away. A few seconds later she heard the elevator door open and close and then the faraway creaking as the elevator descended.

The next time she awoke she could still hear the rain, but underneath that was some other sound. She pushed back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed and stared into the darkness. It took a few seconds before she was awake enough to know that she had been hearing someone calling her name outside the door to her room, softly yet insistently. She went to the door and put her ear against it.

“Who’s there?” she asked softly. “Is anyone there?”

There was no reply but the unmistakable sound of someone breathing in air and letting it out again.

“Who is it?” she asked, louder this time. “What do you want?”

There was a long pause, after which a man’s voice said, “Aren’t you going to tell me I’ve got the wrong room?”

“Who is it?” she asked.

“What’s the point of asking such obvious questions?”

“I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it.”

The man laughed. “All right, all right,” he said. “No reason to get excited. So I’ve got the wrong room. No need to shoot me!”

She heard him walking away, followed by silence. She longed to open the door and look down the hall toward the elevator, but she was afraid he was playing a trick on her and when she opened the door he would force his way in.

She went to her suitcase and took from underneath the jumbled clothing the little .22 caliber handgun that Byron had given her in happier days when he traveled a lot and she was left at home to fend for herself. Having a gun nearby had always made her feel safer, even though she had never had any reason to fire it.

Clutching the gun to her breast, she got back into bed and sat against the headboard and pulled the covers up and stared into the darkness. The rain blew in gusts against the window. She went to sleep again.

She awoke to the phone ringing. She dropped the gun to the floor, forgetting she was holding it, and grabbed the receiver to silence the ringing.

“Yes?” she said, her voice breathless.

“This is the night desk clerk.”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to ask you if you’ve been bothered any more by the guests on your floor. We always follow up on these things.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s exactly one-forty-seven, Central Standard Time.”

“There was a man knocking on the door a while ago. He was looking for somebody he thought was in this room.”

“Did you open the door?”

“No.”

“If he comes back, don’t open the door. You never know who might be lurking about. We try to keep people out late at night who aren’t actually paying guests of the hotel, but sometimes they come in unnoticed for one reason or another.”

“Do you have the number of the local police force?” she asked.

“The police? What do you need to call the police for?”

“Well, I can’t say for sure. I have an uneasy feeling.”

“You don’t need to be calling the police, ma’am. I’ll be here all night, until seven or so, and if you’re bothered again pick up the phone and call me. Just don’t call the police.”

“I’m going to leave this place. I don’t feel safe here.”

“Where would you go in the middle of the night in the pouring rain? The dam might be breached and if it is this whole area could be under water. You wouldn’t even get a cab.”

“I’ll sit in the lobby or I’ll go to the all-night drugstore down the street and wait there until morning.”

“No need to do that, ma’am. Just go back to sleep. Everything will be all right.”

When she hung up the phone, her hands were shaking and she felt dizzy and short of breath. She took two more pills and drank the rest of the bourbon in the bottle.

Suddenly a pounding at the door brought her to her feet. She stared at the door in the darkness, as if expecting to see through it to the other side.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

This time a different male voice (with a hint of a foreign accent) said, “Open the door and stop fooling around!”

“I said ‘who’s there’?”

“If you don’t open this door, you’ll have to answer for it later.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s the middle of the night. I’m trying to sleep!”

“Do you know how silly that sounds?”

“You’ve got the wrong room.”

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll open the door.”

“Go away!”

For good measure, he pounded on the door again and kicked it with both feet.

She returned to the bed and pulled the covers up over her head, hoping to shut out any further disturbances. She longed to be at home where everything was certain and where nobody would dare bother her in the middle of the night. She was thinking about getting out of bed again and checking to make sure the door was double-locked, when the phone rang again. Unlike before, she let it ring ten or twelve rings before she picked it up.

“Yes,” she said groggily into the receiver, holding it several inches from her ear.

“You’re not fooling anybody,” a voice said quietly, followed by a click and the dial tone.

“Who is this?” she said, even though she knew no one was there. “Why are you doing this to me? What is it you want?”

When she hung up the phone, she felt ill and took two more pills to calm herself down. Unable to remember how many pills she had taken, she took two more. She then pulled all the covers off the bed and piled them on the floor and lay down on them and tried to cover herself up. She would make herself small on the floor underneath the bedclothes and no one would even know she was there. She would roll herself up in the corner and make herself invisible if that’s what she needed to do. She was more resourceful than people were willing to give her credit for.

There came then a rhythmic pounding on the ceiling and then on the wall behind the bed and then on the opposite wall. It was coming from every place at once and no place at all. She let out a scream and wrapped herself in the blankets on the floor like in a cocoon and covered her ears with her hands but she could still hear the pounding, loud and then soft like tapping and then stopping altogether and starting up again in a different place. When she could stand the pounding no longer, she stood up and made her way to the phone and picked up the receiver.

“Night clerk,” the voice said.

“What is that terrible noise?” she asked.

“This is the lady on the eighth floor, isn’t it?”

“Someone is bothering me, harassing me!”

“How so, ma’am?”

“It sounds as if someone is hitting on the walls and the ceiling with a lead pipe.”

“That’s just the plumbing, ma’am. Air gets trapped in the pipes. This is an old building. You hear all kinds of strange noises.

“It has to be something more than that.”

“Just try to ignore the sound and get some sleep, ma’am. Nobody is deliberately trying to bother you.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Good night, ma’am.”

The pounding continued for some time, growing louder and fainter and then stopping altogether. When all was quiet again, she went to the door and put her ear against it. She imagined she could hear blood coursing through the veins of whoever was standing there, just on the other side of the door. She wanted to call out to the person and ask who they were and what they wanted with her, but her own heart was pounding in her chest as if to strangle her and she seemed to lack the breath to get the words out. She backed slowly away from the door and, as she did so, the doorknob turned quietly one way and then the other. Someone was trying to come into the room.

She picked up her gun and, holding it in both hands, lay down again on the blankets on the floor and covered up, leaving only her eyes exposed.

From her vantage point on the floor she could see the crack underneath the door that admitted a sliver of light from the hallway; in that sliver she could see shadows as people moved silently back and forth, in and out. She had stopped trying to figure out who they were and what they were doing. She trained her gun on the door, holding it in both hands, ready to fire when needed.

She focused all her attention on the door for the remainder of the night, determined to stay awake to protect herself. She lay on the floor in the dark, listening to the rain, waiting for the next thing that was going to happen.

The pounding on the wall had stopped. People were no longer moving about in front of the door. There were no more phone calls, no more voices. She began to feel toward morning that everything was going to be all right. The awful night was almost over. She could get up in a while and get dressed and order some breakfast and catch the next bus out of town. With these thoughts in her head—and in this more relaxed state of mind—she fell into an exhausted sleep.

She had been asleep for only a few minutes when the door to the room opened slowly, without making a sound. A small sound—a footstep or a sigh or the clearing of a throat—woke her up. When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t terribly surprised to see two men in the room with her. They were wearing dark clothes and had no faces; they were only outlines in the dark. She reached for the gun but was unable to find it. She stood up and made her way around the bed to the far side of the room.

Standing in front of the door to the fire escape, she turned and looked at the men. They seemed for the moment to not know she was there. They weren’t looking at her but were instead intent on rifling through the clothes in her suitcase. She believed that when they turned their attention on her they would kill her, so she must somehow get out of the room. Since they were blocking the way between her and door, there was only one way out.

She opened the door and stepped out onto the tiny rain-slicked fire escape landing. She felt the cold sting of the rain on her face as she gripped the railing and looked down into the darkness for the steps that would lead her down to the ground and to safety. Hanging onto the railing with both hands she eased one foot down on the top step and then the other foot. When she stepped down to the next step, she misjudged the distance and her feet slipped out from under her. Try as she might, she wasn’t able to regain her footing. She held on for as long as she could but it was no use. The railing slipped from her hands and she was gone.

The awning over to the entrance to the hotel broke her fall. She was only knocked unconscious and would have survived if she had not fallen face-down into the water that had accumulated in the awning and drowned. Her body was discovered in the daylight and retrieved by firemen with hooks.

When interviewed by the police, the night desk clerk was voluble. Enjoying the unaccustomed attention, he disclosed everything he noticed about the woman. Something about her seemed terribly amiss. She seemed unusually nervous and appeared to have been drinking. He spoke to her several times in the night and she seemed distraught; believed somebody was bothering her for no reason. She complained about noise that only she seemed to hear.

After completing their investigation and establishing the identity of the woman, the police ruled her death a suicide with no indication of foul play. Since she had left no suicide note, maybe she hadn’t intended to commit suicide, but if that was the case what was she doing out on the fire escape before dawn in the rain? It was just one of those silly things that people do for which there is no logical explanation.

Copyright © 2011 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Never Let Me Go ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Never Let Me Go ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

A 2010 movie that got little or no play in my area is one called Never Let Me Go. It’s about ten times more interesting and compelling that most of the crap that plays at the seven-screen multiplex in my neighborhood, but nobody asked me. It is currently available for viewing on HBO. Otherwise, I would probably have never seen it.

Never Let Me Go is about a group of kids at an English boarding school called Hailsham, specifically three kids: Tommy, Kathy and Ruth. The kids at Hailsham are just like kids anyplace else, with one striking difference. We learn about thirty minutes into the movie that they exist for one reason only. They are “clones” (although that word is never used); when they are at the appropriate age, their organs will be used to save the lives of others. Most of them will make two or three “donations,” at most, until they reach “completion,” which is a polite way of saying their sad lives will end at a young age.

Since the Hailsham kids have no family and no ties outside of school, all they have is each other; they don’t learn skills in school that will help them cope with the outside world because they won’t need them. Kathy and Tommy (played by Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield as older kids and as young adults) are drawn to each other from childhood. Under different circumstances, they would have fallen in love, married and lived happy lives. Ruth (Keira Knightley) witnessing the attraction between Tommy and Kathy, is jealous and afraid of being left behind; she decides that she and Tommy were meant for each other. She takes Tommy away from Kathy; Tommy seems more than willing to be taken. As Tommy and Ruth embark on donating their organs one by one, Kathy becomes a “carer,” meaning that her “donations” are delayed for a number of years so she can help to care for the donors as they undergo the horrific surgeries that will ultimately end their lives.  The question becomes: How much of a “normal” life can young people in such circumstances reasonably expect to have?

Never Let Me Go is based on a novel by the English novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s a memorable and intelligent little movie with poignant characters that seems to have been mostly overlooked. Too bad, because it might just be the best movie of 2010 that you never saw.

Copyright © 2011 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

My Favorite Christmas Movie

My Favorite Christmas Movie ~ Remember the Night

I don’t have to tax my brain very hard to think of a bunch of Christmas-themed movies, movies that are either about Christmas or that revolve in some way around the Christmas season.  Movies that immediately come to mind are Meet Me in St. Louis, Miracle on 34th Street, The Bells of St. Mary’s, A Christmas Story, A Christmas Carol, Meet John Doe, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Apartment, Christmas in Connecticut, Holiday Inn, The Polar Express, and many others. My favorite Christmas movie, though, and one that I’ve seen maybe thirty times, is a little gem from 1940 called Remember the Night, with Barbara Stanwyck as a girl thief who runs afoul of the law at Christmastime, and Fred MacMurray as the straight-arrow prosecuting attorney who just might redeem her. 

The character Barbara Stanwyck plays is a charming and not-quite-decent girl named Lee Leander, who is caught stealing expensive jewelry right before Christmas and ends up in jail. Her trial is being held over until after the holidays, so it seems she’s going to have to spend Christmas behind bars. John Sargent (played by Fred MacMurray), the prosecutor in her case, takes pity on her and bails her out at least until her trail will resume after Christmas.  Since she has no place to go, he offers to take her with him to Indiana to spend Christmas. It turns out that Lee is also from Indiana, so she is eager to return there with him. 

After a memorable road trip and one stop along the way at Lee’s hateful mother’s house, where it turns out Lee isn’t wanted, they end up at John’s Indiana home which, as it turns out, is everything a home should be. John has a mother (played by Beulah Bondi), and an aunt, (played by Elizabeth Patterson) and they have an odd but lovable hired man named Willy (played by Sterling Holloway). These are warm, quirky characters, and you will immediately feel a connection with them. They are the kind of people we have all known in the past, or wish we had known.

John’s family welcomes Lee with open arms and treats her like family during the few days she is with them. They gradually come to learn of her troubles back in the city and that she is likely to end up in jail. John’s well-intentioned mother has a talk with Lee and makes her promise she won’t do anything to spoil John’s career, which he has worked so hard to get. Lee assures her that there is nothing between her and John and that when they return to the city she won’t ever see him again. 

On their way back to the city after Christmas, Lee and John discover they’ve fallen in love. The Christmas she has spent with decent John and his decent family has changed her and has made her want to go straight after her life as a thief. What happens in the courtroom when her trial resumes might not be what you expected, but it is fitting to the characters and the situation and we see that it’s exactly the conclusion they’ve been headed toward all along.   

Remember the Night has sentiment but is never hokey or heavy-handed. It’s sweet but not overly sweet. The characters and situations are believable and the dialogue is crisp and funny. It’s one of those rare movies where all the elements come together in a perfect blend.  Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray appeared together in several films, but I think they were never better than in this one. If it’s a Christmas movie you’re wanting—and likely one you haven’t seen before—it’s Remember the Night from 1940. You might even want to see it more than once.

Copyright © 2011 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

“Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost

 


Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening ~ A Classic American Poem by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not mind me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
 
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
 
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
 
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
 
by allen0997

“Snow Flakes” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

Snow Flakes ~ A Classic American Short Story by Nathaniel Hawthorne 

There is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning, and, through the partially frosted window-panes, I love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm. A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air, and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere. These are not the big flakes, heavy with moisture, which melt as they touch the ground, and are portentous of a soaking rain. It is to be, in good earnest, a wintry storm. The two or three people, visible on the side-walks, have an aspect of endurance, a blue-nosed, frosty fortitude, which is evidently assumed in anticipation of a comfortless and blustering day. By nightfall, or at least before the sun sheds another glimmering smile upon us, the street and our little garden will be heaped with mountain snow- drifts. The soil, already frozen for weeks past, is prepared to sustain whatever burden may be laid upon it; and, to a northern eye, the landscape will lose its melancholy bleakness and acquire a beauty of its own, when Mother Earth, like her children, shall have put on the fleecy garb of her winter’s wear. The cloud-spirits are slowly weaving her white mantle. As yet, indeed, there is barely a rime like hoarfrost over the brown surface of the street; the withered green of the grass-plat is still discernible; and the slated roofs of the houses do but begin to look gray, instead of black. All the snow that has yet fallen within the circumference of my view, were it heaped up together, would hardly equal the hillock of a grave. Thus gradually, by silent and stealthy influences, are great changes wrought. These little snow-particles, which the storm-spirit flings by handfuls through the air, will bury the great earth under their accumulated mass, nor permit her to behold her sister sky again for dreary months. We, likewise, shall lose sight of our mother’s familiar visage, and must content ourselves with looking heavenward the oftener.Now, leaving the storm to do his appointed office, let us sit down, pen in hand, by our fireside. Gloomy as it may seem, there is an influence productive of cheerfulness, and favorable to imaginative thought, in the atmosphere of a snowy day. The native of a southern clime may woo the muse beneath the heavy shade of summer foliage, reclining on banks of turf, while the, sound of singing birds and warbling rivulets chimes in with the music of his soul. In our brief summer, I do not think, but only exist in the vague enjoyment of a dream. My hour of inspiration–if that hour ever comes–is when the green log hisses upon the hearth, and the bright flame, brighter for the gloom of the chamber, rustles high up the chimney, and the coals drop tinkling down among the growing heaps of ashes. When the casement rattles in the gust, and the snow-flakes or the sleety raindrops pelt hard against the window-panes, then I spread out my sheet of paper, with the certainty that thoughts and fancies will gleam forth upon it, like stars at twilight, or like violets in May,– perhaps to fade as soon. However transitory their glow, they at least shine amid the darksome shadow which the clouds of the outward sky fling through the room. Blessed, therefore, and reverently welcomed by me, her true-born son, be New England’s winter, which makes us, one and all, the nurslings of the storm, and sings a familiar lullaby even in the wildest shriek of the December blast. Now look we forth again, and see how much of his task the storm-spirit has done.

Slow and sure! He has the day, perchance the week, before him, and may take his own time to accomplish Nature’s burial in snow. A smooth mantle is scarcely yet thrown over the withered grass-plat, and the dry stalks of annuals still thrust themselves through the white surface in all parts of the garden. The leafless rose-bushes stand shivering in a shallow snow-drift, looking, poor things! as disconsolate as if they possessed a human consciousness of the dreary scene. This is a sad time for the shrubs that do not perish with the summer; they neither live nor die; what they retain of life seems but the chilling sense of death. Very sad are the flower shrubs in midwinter! The roofs of the houses are now all white, save where the eddying wind has kept them bare at the bleak corners. To discern the real intensity of the storm, we must fix upon some distant object,–as yonder spire,-and observe how the riotous gust fights with the descending snow throughout the intervening space. Sometimes the entire prospect is obscured; then, again, we have a distinct, but transient glimpse of the tall steeple, like a giant’s ghost; and now the dense wreaths sweep between, as if demons were flinging snowdrifts at each other, in mid-air. Look next into the street, where we have seen an amusing parallel to the combat of those fancied demons in the upper regions. It is a snow-battle of school-boys. What a pretty satire on war and military glory might be written, in the form of a child’s story, by describing the snowball-fights of two rival schools, the alternate defeats and victories of each, and the final triumph of one party, or perhaps of neither! What pitched battles, worthy to be chanted in Homeric strains! What storming of fortresses, built all of massive snowblocks! What feats of individual prowess, and embodied onsets of martial enthusiasm! And when some well-contested and decisive victory had put a period to the war, both armies should unite to build a lofty monument of snow upon the battle-field, and crown it with the victor’s statue, hewn of the same frozen marble. In a few days or weeks thereafter, the passer-by would observe a shapeless mound upon the level common; and, unmindful of the famous victory, would ask, “How came it there? Who reared it? And what means it?” The shattered pedestal of many a battle monument has provoked these questions, when none could answer.

Turn we again to the fireside, and sit musing there, lending our ears to the wind, till perhaps it shall seem like an articulate voice, and dictate wild and airy matter for the pen. Would it might inspire me to sketch out the personification of a New England winter! And that idea, if I can seize the snow-wreathed figures that flit before my fancy, shall be the theme of the next page.

How does Winter herald his approach? By the shrieking blast of latter autumn, which is Nature’s cry of lamentation, as the destroyer rushes among the shivering groves where she has lingered, and scatters the sear leaves upon the tempest. When that cry is heard, the people wrap themselves in cloaks, and shake their heads disconsolately, saying, “Winter is at hand!” Then the axe of the woodcutter echoes sharp and diligently in the forest; then the coal-merchants rejoice, because each shriek of Nature in her agony adds something to the price of coal per ton; then the peat-smoke spreads its aromatic fragrance through the atmosphere. A few days more; and at eventide, the children look out of the window, and dimly perceive the flaunting of a snowy mantle in the air. It is stern Winter’s vesture. They crowd around the hearth, and cling to their mother’s gown, or press between their father’s knees, affrighted by the hollow roaring voice, that bellows a-down the wide flue of the chimney. It is the voice of Winter; and when parents and children bear it, they shudder and exclaim, “Winter is come! Cold Winter has begun his reign already!” Now, throughout New England, each hearth becomes an altar, sending up the smoke of a continued sacrifice to the immitigable deity who tyrannizes over forest, country side, and town. Wrapped in his white mantle, his staff a huge icicle, his beard and hair a wind-tossed snow-drift, he travels over the land, in the midst of the northern blast; and woe to the homeless wanderer whom he finds upon his path! There he lies stark and stiff, a human shape of ice, on the spot where Winter overtook him. On strides the tyrant over the rushing rivers and broad lakes, which turn to rock beneath his footsteps. His dreary empire is established; all around stretches the desolation of the Pole. Yet not ungrateful be his New England children—for Winter is our sire, though a stern and rough one—not ungrateful even for the severities, which have nourished our unyielding strength of character. And let us thank him, too, for the sleigh-rides, cheered by the music of merry bells; for the crackling and rustling hearth, when the ruddy firelight gleams on hardy Manhood and the blooming cheek of Woman; for all the home enjoyments, and the kindred virtues, which flourish in a frozen soil. Not that we grieve, when, after some seven months of storm and bitter frost, Spring, in the guise of a flower-crowned virgin, is seen driving away the hoary despot, pelting him with violets by the handful, and strewing green grass on the path behind him. Often, ere he will give up his empire, old Winter rushes fiercely back, and hurls a snow-drift at the shrinking form of Spring; yet, step by step, he is compelled to retreat northward, and spends the summer months within the Arctic circle.

Such fantasies, intermixed among graver toils of mind, have made the winter’s day pass pleasantly. Meanwhile, the storm has raged without abatement, and now, as the brief afternoon declines, is tossing denser volumes to and fro about the atmosphere. On the window-sill, there is a layer of snow, reaching half-way up the lowest pane of glass. The garden is one unbroken bed. Along the street are two or three spots of uncovered earth, where the gust has whirled away the snow, heaping it elsewhere to the fence-tops, or piling huge banks against the doors of houses. A solitary passenger is seen, now striding mid-leg deep across a drift, now scudding over the bare ground, while his cloak is swollen with the wind. And now the jingling of bells, a sluggish sound, responsive to the horse’s toilsome progress through the unbroken drifts, announces the passage of a sleigh, with a boy clinging behind, and ducking his head to escape detection by the driver. Next comes a sledge, laden with wood for some unthrifty housekeeper, whom winter has surprised at a cold hearth. But what dismal equipage now struggles along the uneven street? A sable hearse, bestrewn with snow, is bearing a dead man through the storm to his frozen bed. O, how dreary is a burial in winter, when the bosom of Mother Earth has no warmth for her poor child!

Evening–the early eve of December–begins to spread its deepening veil over the comfortless scene; the firelight gradually brightens, and throws my flickering shadow upon the walls and ceiling of the chamber; but still the storm rages and rattles, against the windows. Alas! I shiver, and think it time to be disconsolate. But, taking a farewell glance at dead Nature in her shroud, I perceive a flock of snow-birds, skimming lightsomely through the tempest, and flitting from drift to drift, as sportively as swallows in the delightful prime of summer. Whence come they? Where do they build their nests, and seek their food? Why, having airy wings, do they not follow summer around the earth, instead of making themselves the playmates of the storm, and fluttering on the dreary verge of the winter’s eve? I know not whence they come, nor why; yet my spirit has been cheered by that wandering flock of snow-birds.
by allen0997

“One Christmas Eve” by Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

One Christmas Eve ~ A Classic American Short Story by Langston Hughes

Standing over the hot stove cooking supper, the colored maid, Arcie, was very tired. Between meals today, she had cleaned the whole house for the white family she worked for, getting ready for Christmas tomorrow. Now her back ached and her head felt faint from sheer fatigue. Well, she would be off in a little while, if only the Missus and her two children would come on home to dinner. They were out shopping for more things for the tree which stood all ready, tinsel-hung and lovely in the living-room, waiting for its candles to be lighted.

Arcie wished she could afford a tree for Joe. He’d never had one yet, and it’s nice to have such things when you’re little. Joe was five, going on six. Arcie, looking at the roast in the white folks’ oven, wondered how much she could afford to spend tonight on toys. She only got seven dollars a week, and four of that for her room and the landlady’s looking after Joe while Arcie was at work.

“Lord, it’s more’n a notion raisin’ a child,” she thought.

She looked at the clock on the kitchen table. After seven. What made white folks so darned inconsiderate? Why didn’t they come on home here to supper? They knew she wanted to get off before all the stores closed. She wouldn’t have time to buy Joe nothin’ if they didn’t hurry. And her landlady probably wanting to go out and shop, too, and not be bothered with little Joe.

“Dog gone it!” Arcie said to herself. “If I just had my money, I might leave the supper on the stove for ‘em. I just got to get to the stores fo’ they close.” But she hadn’t been paid for the week yet. The Missus had promised to pay her Christmas Eve, a day or so ahead of time.

Arcie heard a door slam and talking and laughter in the front of the house. She went in and saw the Missus and her kids shaking snow off their coats.

“Ummm-mm! It’s swell for Christmas Eve,” one of the kids said to Arcie. “It’s snowin’ like the deuce and mother came near driving through a stoplight. Can’t hardly see for the snow. It’s swell!”

“Supper’s ready,” Arcie said. She was thinking how her shoes weren’t very good for walking in snow.

It seemed like the white folks took as long as they could to eat that evening. While Arcie was washing dishes, the Missus came out with her money.

“Arcie,” the Missus said, “I’m so sorry, but would you mind if I just gave you five dollars tonight? The children have made me run short of change, buying presents and all.”

“I’d like to have seven,” Arcie said. “I needs it.”

“Well, I just haven’t got seven,” the Missus said. “I didn’t know you’d want all your money before the end of the week, anyhow. I just haven’t got it to spare.”

Arcie took five. Coming out of the hot kitchen, she wrapped up as well as she could and hurried by the house where she roomed to get little Joe. At least he could look at the Christmas trees in the windows downtown.

The landlady, a big light yellow woman, was in a bad humor. She said to Arcie, “I thought you was comm’ home early and get this child. I guess you know I want to go out, too, once in a while.”

Arcie didn’t say anything for, if she had, the landlady would probably throw it up to her that she wasn’t getting paid to look after a child both night and day.

“Come on, Joe,” Arcie said to her son, “let’s us go in the street.”

“I hears they got a Santa Claus downtown,” Joe said, wriggling into his worn little coat. “I wants to see him.”

“Don’t know ‘bout that,” his mother said, “but hurry up and get your rubbers on. Stores’ll all be closed directly.”

It was six or eight blocks downtown. They trudged along through the falling snow, both of them a little cold. But the snow was pretty!

The main street was hung with bright red and blue lights. In front of the City Hall there was a Christmas tree but it didn’t have no presents on it, only lights. In the store windows there were lots of toys—for sale.

Joe kept saying, “Mama, I want…”

But mama kept walking ahead. It was nearly ten, when the stores were due to close, and Arcie wanted to get Joe some cheap gloves and something to keep him warm, as well as a toy or two. She thought she might come across a rummage sale where they had children’s clothes. And in the ten-cent store, she could get some toys.

“O-oo! Lookee…,” little Joe kept saying, and pointing at things in the windows. How warm and pretty the lights were, and the shops, and the electric signs through the snow.

It took Arcie more than a dollar to get Joe’s mittens and things he needed. In the A&P Arcie bought a big bag of hard candies for forty-nine cents. And then she guided Joe through the crowd on the street until they came to the dime store. Near the ten-cent store they passed a moving picture theatre. Joe said he wanted to go in and see the movies.

Arcie said, “Ump-un! No, child! This ain’t Baltimore where they have shows for colored, too. In these here small towns, don’t let colored folks in. We can’t go in there.”

“Oh,” said little Joe.

In the ten-cent store, there was an awful crowd. Arcie told Joe to stand outside and wait for her. Keeping hold of him in the crowded store would be a job. Besides she didn’t want him to see what toys she was buying. They were to be a surprise from Santa Claus tomorrow.

Little Joe stood outside the ten-cent store in the light, and the snow, and people passing. Gee, Christmas was pretty. All tinsel and stars and cotton. And Santa Claus a-coming from somewhere, dropping things in stockings. And all the people in the streets were carrying things, and the children looked happy.

But Joe soon got tired of just standing and thinking and waiting in front of the ten-cent store. There were so many things to look at in the other windows. He moved along up the block a little, and then a little more, walking and looking. In fact, he moved until he came to the white folk’s picture show.

In the lobby of the moving picture show, behind the plate glass doors, it was all warm and glowing and awful pretty. Joe stood looking in, and as he looked his eyes began to make out, in there blazing beneath holly and colored streamers and the electric stars of the lobby, a marvelous Christmas tree. A group of children and grown-ups, white, of course, were standing around the big jovial man in red beside the tree. Or was it a man? Little Joe’s eyes opened wide. No, it was not a man at all. It was Santa Claus!

Little Joe pushed open one of the glass doors and ran into the lobby of the white moving picture show. Little Joe went right through the crowd and up to where he could get a good look at Santa Claus. And Santa Claus was giving away gifts, little presents for children, little boxes of animal crackers and stick-candy canes. And behind him on the tree was a big sign (which little Joe didn’t know how to read). It said, to those who understood, MERRY XMAS FROM SANTA CLAUS TO OUR YOUNG PATRONS.

Around the lobby, other signs said, WHEN YOU COME OUT OF THE SHOW STOP WITH YOUR CHILDREN AND SEE OUR SANTA CLAUS. And another announced, GEM THREATRE MAKES ITS CUSTOMERS HAPPY—SEE OUR SANTA.

And there was Santa Claus in a red suit and white beard all sprinkled with tinsel snow. Around him were rattles and drums and rocking horses which he was not giving away. But the signs on them said, (could little Joe have read) that they would be presented from the stage on Christmas Day to the holders of the lucky numbers. Tonight, Santa Claus was only giving away candy, and stick-candy canes, and animal crackers to the kids.

Joe would have liked terribly to have a stick-candy cane. He came a little closer to Santa Claus, until he was right in front of the crowd. And then Santa Claus saw Joe.

Why is it that lots of white people always grin when they see a Negro child? Santa grinned. Everybody else grinned, too, looking at little black Joe, who had no business in the lobby of a white theatre. Then Santa Claus stooped down and slyly picked up one of his lucky number rattles , a great big loud tin-pan rattle such as they use in cabarets. And he shook it fiercely right at Joe. That was funny. The white people laughed, kids and all. But little Joe didn’t laugh. He was scared. To the shaking of the big rattle, he turned and fled out of the warm lobby of the theatre, out into the street where the snow was and the people. Frightened by laughter, he had begun to cry. He went looking for his mama. In his heart he never thought Santa Claus shook great rattles at children like that—and then laughed.

In the crowd on the street he went the wrong way. He couldn’t find the ten-cent store or his mother. There were too many people, all white people, moving like white shadows in the snow, a world of white people.

It seemed to Joe an awfully long time till he suddenly saw Arcie, dark and worried-looking, cut across the sidewalk through the passing crowd and grab him. Although her arms were full of packages, she still managed with one free hand to shake him until his teeth rattled.

“Why didn’t you stand where I left you?” Arcie demanded loudly. “Tired as I am, I got to run all over the streets in the night lookin’ for you. I’m a great mind to wear you out.”

When little Joe got his breath back, on the way home, he told his mama he had been in the moving picture show.

“But Santa Claus didn’t give me nothing,” Joe said tearfully. “He made a big noise at me and I runned out.”

“Serves you right,” said Arcie, trudging through the snow. “You had no business in there. I told you to stay where I left you.”

“But I seed Santa Claus in there,” little Joe said, “so I went in.”

“Huh! That wasn’t no Santa Claus,” Arcie explained. “If it was, he wouldn’t a-treated you like that. That’s a theatre for white folks—I told you once—and he’s just a old white man.”

“Oh…,” said little Joe.

by allen0997

The Truth About Lizzie Shennick

 

The Truth About Lizzie Shennick ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(Published in Yesteryear Fiction.) 

Every morning Miss Frid opened her book and called roll, going down the list: Harry Abbot, Maxine Abernathy, Beryl Barrister, Donald Best, Roy Brewster, Virgie Carrow, George Crawford…and so on to the end.  Every morning at least one or two were absent, but every morning there was one who was always absent.  

“Does anybody know Lizzie Shennick?” Miss Frid had taken to asking the sea of slack-jawed faces staring at her. “Has anybody seen Lizzie Shennick? Does anybody know the whereabouts of Lizzie Shennick?”

Since any inquiries had failed to provide a satisfactory explanation, Miss Frid decided to do some investigating on her own. When she was in the principal’s office one morning before anybody else had arrived, she took a forbidden look into the registration file. She found the address she was looking for, memorized it, and went back to her classroom and wrote it down before she forgot it.

A few days later, on a sunny Saturday morning, she got into her old Nash Rambler and drove across town. With the aid of a map, she found the street she was looking for and drove along it slowly, looking for the right number. The houses were big and old and in some places boarded up or falling down.

The house she was looking for was set back from the street and obscured by trees and thick foliage. She parked the Nash and got out and approached the gate of the chain-link fence that surrounded the property. When she tried to open the gate it fell off its hinges but she didn’t let that stop her. She walked up the front steps to the door and rang the bell.

In a few moments a woman came to the door and opened it. She was, Miss Frid thought, Lizzie Shennick’s mother. She was thin and rather on the young side with strange beet-red hair parted down the middle of her head. The hair swept out in waves on both sides away from the part and crashed over each ear like a huge wave in suspended motion. How she achieved this effect was not immediately apparent.    

“Yes?” the woman—she went by the name of Griselda—said to Miss Frid in a voice that indicated she had rather been expecting her.

Miss Frid identified herself and explained she was Lizzie Shennick’s teacher from school. “Are you the mother?” she asked Griselda.

“Well, some would say yes and some would say no.”   

“I wonder if I might inquire why Lizzie is enrolled in school but never attends,” Miss Frid said, careful not to sound priggish or inflammatory.

Griselda motioned Miss Frid inside and closed the door. “Lizzie isn’t like other children her age,” she said.

“Is she ill?” Miss Frid asked.

“It’s not an illness. It’s a condition.”

“Maybe you’d better explain to me what you’re talking about.”

Griselda motioned for Miss Frid to follow her through the dark house and into the kitchen, where a large window opened onto the back yard. She directed Miss Frid’s attention out the window.

Miss Frid saw, or believed she saw, a gorilla dressed in a red dress with little white flowers on it jumping up and down on a trampoline. The gorilla jumped very high, with grace and precision, and landed delicately on first one foot and then the other, and then on both feet. With each jump her dress billowed out to reveal white underpants.

“Why, that’s astounding!” Miss Frid said. “How do you get a gorilla to do that?”

“It’s not what it appears to be,” Griselda said.

“Why, what do you mean?” Miss Frid asked.

“That’s our Lizzie.”

Miss Frid looked at her with disbelief. “Wait a minute! Are you telling me your daughter is a gorilla?”

“She hasn’t always been a gorilla. Sit down and I’ll make you a cup of tea and try to explain it the best I can.”

She set the water on the stove to boil and the two of them sat down at the table. Griselda lit a cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke; she seemed to be trying to think of how, or where, to begin.

“We just moved here from a long way off a few months ago,” she said, picking a particle of tobacco off her tongue. “We had been noticing a change in Lizzie for some time, but it was very gradual. The doctor said it was a hormonal thing. He said she would get over it.” 

“What kind of a change?” Miss Frid asked.

“At first it was hair growing on her face and arms and then all over her body. We tried to keep the hair off using depilatory creams, but it was no use. The hair came right back, thicker than before.”

“I can see how that would be a problem,” Miss Frid said. “For a young girl, I mean.”

“Then her body began thickening through the arms and shoulders. Her head got bigger and her mouth widened; her teeth grew longer and more ferocious looking. Her strength increased every day; she could bend a metal bar in half without even trying. She didn’t seem to be aware at first at what was happening to her. She would look at herself in the mirror and see herself as she used to be, before she started changing. We started keeping her in the house all the time so people wouldn’t stare and laugh at her and ask questions. There was really nothing we could do except hope the situation would reverse itself, which is what I prayed for every day. After about a year and a half of very slow change, the transformation speeded up—became more pronounced. You could see her becoming a little more gorillafied every day. And then, by the middle of the summer, the change was complete—she was all gorilla. After that, I gave up all hope she would ever change back into a regular girl again.”

“I see now why she didn’t want to go to school with all the non-gorilla children,” Miss Frid said sympathetically.

“Oh, she wants to go to school, all right, all right! We just thought it would be too cruel to send her to a school where she was the only gorilla. Think how she would be stared at! Children can be so cruel!

“Have you thought about sending her to a special school? A place where she could be with her own kind?”

“And what kind is that exactly? Do you have a name for it?”

“Well, I—“     

“Neither do I. We’ve given up on the idea of school altogether. She’s training now for a circus career.”

“The trampoline?”

“The trampoline is part of her acrobatic act—she also does a song and dance routine—but I figure her best chance for success is with the freak show. She could headline with Crab Girl and Skeleton Boy and the Human Sponge. With the proper buildup, I think she could be quite the sensation. If people are going to stare at her and point and laugh and be amazed, they’re going to have to pay a price for the privilege.”

“A child should go to school, even if she is a gorilla.”

“She can learn everything she needs to know in the circus. Besides, they have an old woman that teaches the kids their lessons, even the freak kids. The circus is in her blood. I was in the circus as a clown when I was carrying her. Something happened to me in that circus that I believe—that I know—is the reason for Lizzie being the way she is.”

“What could possibly–?”

“We were performing one night to a full house. I was in the main ring going through my routines with a couple of other girl clowns. We were juggling bowling pins and doing some acrobatic stunts when suddenly there was a loud scream from the audience. Everybody stopped what they were doing and turned toward the scream. That’s when we saw that one of the gorillas—his name was Hugo—got loose from his trainer. He was running frantically, swiping at people with his big hands. Nobody knew what had provoked him. Everybody was running and screaming, trying to get out of his way. He came running toward the ring where we were as if he knew what he was after. I ran from him, the same as the other clowns, but he caught me by my back hair and dragged me down. Everybody who saw it happen thought I was a goner. I thought I was a goner too.”

“What did you do?”

“There I was on my back on the ground. I knew not to scream or struggle; I pretended I was dead. Hugo had me pinned with his upper body; I could feel his hot breath on my face. The trainers were yelling to try to get him away from me and leave me alone, but he just ignored them. When I dared to open my eyes a little, Hugo’s face was just above mine. I saw he was terrified and confused; he didn’t know what to do. It was him against everybody else. And then suddenly he did an unexpected thing: He began whimpering and stroking the side of my head. When the trainers approached him, he growled at them and flailed out his arms.”  

“How did they get you away from him?”    

“They were going to throw a net over him and pull him away, but he began nuzzling the side of my head with his snout and nibbling on my ear. They thought he was hurting me, biting me, but he wasn’t doing anything of the kind. And then he leaned all the way over and kissed me on the mouth. It was the sweetest, gentlest kiss! You would never know that such a huge monster of an animal could be so gentle. In just a few seconds he had developed this—I don’t know—kind of protective bond with me. I felt it too and was no longer afraid of him as I had been. I just knew then that he wasn’t going to hurt me.”

“Were they able to get him away from you then?”

“One of the clowns—the one named Beauchamp—always carried a small gun wherever he went. Beauchamp was standing about fifty yards behind Hugo and couldn’t see what was really going on. Like everybody else, he thought Hugo was hurting me. He took out his gun and shot Hugo in the back and killed him. I saw the surprised look on Hugo’s face when he was hit. Of course he fell forward on top of me but they pulled him off before his body crushed me to death.”

“And that’s why Lizzie turned into a gorilla,” Miss Frid said to herself.

“When she was born a few months later, she seemed normal in every way, but I always knew in my heart that she would be marked in some way.”

Before Miss Frid left, she wanted to speak to Lizzie (never having conducted a conversation with a gorilla before), but Griselda thought it best if Lizzie didn’t know about Miss Frid’s visit. The less she was reminded of school, the quicker she would be able to forget about attending. Miss Frid told Griselda she hoped they would reconsider sending Lizzie to school, gorilla or not, but Griselda said they had already made up their minds that Lizzie was going into the circus as soon as she could, when the new season began. Having no reason to stay any longer, Miss Frid thanked Griselda for telling her the long-in-coming truth about Lizzie Shennick and stood up to go. As she was going out the door, she said with regret that she would tell everyone at school that Lizzie would not—and would never—be coming to school. She wouldn’t tell people the real reason for Lizzie not coming to school, but she would tell them something they would be able to believe and comprehend. She had always been able to make up a good story. 

Copyright © 2011 by Allen Kopp   

by allen0997

Happy Thanksgiving!

Psalm 100 ~

 

“Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before His presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name. For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endureth to all generations.”

 

by allen0997