Author: allen0997

A Niece Visits Her Uncle ~ A Short Story

A Neice Visits Her Uncle image 6
A Niece Visits Her Uncle
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story has been published in The Literary Hatchet with a different title.)

He heard her voice downstairs and her heavy tread across the floor as if a cow had been let into the house. He saw, without seeing, her fat feet in their white old-lady shoes climbing the stairs and her sausage-like fingers groping the banister. He closed his eyes to give the impression he was sleeping but he knew it was no good. Before he knew it, before he had time to take a deep breath, she was in his room and upon him.

“Uncle Jeff!” she screamed. “How the hell have you been?”

“I was taking a nap. Don’t you ever knock?”

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. The smell of her perfume almost made him gag.

“You don’t look very sick to me,” she said with a laugh. “I think you need to get out of that bed and stop pretending.”

“I’m a lot sicker now,” he said, “than I was a few minutes ago.”

“No, seriously, honey, how are you? What does the doctor say?”

“He says I’ll live to be a hundred if family doesn’t kill me.”

“Oh, now, you can’t pretend to be a grouchy old bear with me because I know you’re just bluffing. Underneath you’re just a just the kindest, sweetest old man in the world.”

“What can I do for you today, Vera? I know you want something or you wouldn’t have dropped in unannounced.”

“Can’t a gal stop by and see her favorite uncle without having some ulterior motive?”

“In your case, no!”

She grabbed hold of the nearest chair and pulled it close to the bed and sat down and rested her pocketbook on her knees.

“My, it’s warm in here!” she said. “Do you think we could open a window?”

“No, it aggravates my hay fever.”

“I think that’s all in your head, honey.”

“It looks like you’ve put on a lot more weight since I last saw you, Vera. You need to stop eating so much.”

“I don’t eat any more now than I ever did. It’s just my age.”

“What does age have to do with it?”

“A woman my age retains water.”

“It looks more like you retain chocolate cream pie.”

“Hah-hah-hah! You can’t hurt my feelings, no matter how hard you try!”

“You’re going to get so fat you won’t be able to make it through the door. What will you do then?”

“We don’t need to talk about my weight. I know you’re just trying to embarrass me and it won’t work.”

“Go to the top of the stairs and call Esther,” he said, “and tell her to come up here.”

“Oh, we don’t need Esther, uncle Jeff! I wanted to have a little chat, just you and me.”

“I want my nurse here.”

“She’s not a nurse. I doubt if she even has a high school diploma.”

“You either get her up here like I said, or you can get back into your fancy Cadillac and drive off into the sunset.”

“Oh, very well! But I don’t know why we need to have her here.”

“I might need a witness.”

“Witness for what?”

“In case I decide to rise up out of this bed and kill you.”

“Oh, dear, you are such a card! I’m happy to see you still have your sense of humor!”

She stood up and went to the top of the stairs and shrieked down: “Esther, he says he wants you to come up here! Right away, please!”

“With a voice like that,” he said, “you could go out to the cemetery and wake the dead any night.”

“Don’t you think I would if I could?”

“All right, sit your fat ass back down and tell me why you’ve come.”

She smiled bravely. “I will tell you,” she said, “that no matter how much you berate me with that evil tongue of yours, I will not let you get under my skin.”

“That’s very noble of you.”

“I have more important things on my mind.”

“Hah! I doubt it!”

Esther came into the room just then. “Did you need something, Mr. Talmadge?” she asked.

“I just want you to sit with us for a while and take a load off. I want you to be here to show my niece the door when it’s time for her to go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Esther sat in the chair across the room, next to the window, held her elbows and looked at the floor. She could be as invisible as she needed to be.

“I can’t very well talk over family matters with a domestic in the room,” Vera said.

“Why not?” uncle Jeff asked.

“It isn’t very nice.”

“So? Esther has heard things before that are not very nice.”

“Well, very well, since it seems I have no other choice.”

“You don’t.”

“It’s about Ricky.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Ricky has got himself into trouble with some other boys.”

“Ricky is forty. I think he no longer qualifies as a boy.”

“He’s not forty. He’s thirty-nine.”

“Well, what did Ricky and these other boys do?”

“They were all at the river, drinking and whooping it up. You remember what it was like to be young.”

“If you say so.”

“There were four boys and one girl. It seems they all pleasured themselves with the girl one at a time.”

“Very gentlemanly.”

“The girl was willing, Ricky says. She was drunk as a skunk. She took her clothes off and was dancing naked around the campfire. Well, the boys were all drinking and, with the girl dancing naked as she was, they started to get ideas.”

“Is she underage?”

“Oh, no! She’s as old as Ricky.”

“So, she was willing, they were all drunk and whooping it up and they decided to take things a little farther that usual and have a little more fun than they were used to.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Well, what happened? They didn’t kill her, did they?”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that. When the party was over and they all sobered up a little and went back to town, the girl wasn’t so willing anymore. She went to the police and told them she had been gang-raped. She gave them a list of the boys’ names. She had some bruises on the inside of her legs and some fingernail scratches on her arms.”

“All very sordid, I’m sure.”

“I need your help, uncle Jeff. You’re the only family I have left, the only person in the world I can turn to for help. I need eighteen thousand dollars.”

“What?”

“I have to retain a good lawyer to defend my Ricky in court. Eighteen thousand is just the beginning.”

“Why can’t he use a public defender? If he’s innocent, that should be good enough.”

“I don’t want to risk it. I want to get somebody who will really fight for him.”

“If you think I’m going to sit down and write you a check for eighteen thousand dollars, you’re crazier than I thought.”

“It’s not as if you don’t owe me.”

“Owe you? How do I owe you?”

“Ricky and I are your only living family. When you die, we’ll be the only ones to weep over your body down at Hartsell Brothers’ Funeral Home.”

“You flatter yourself, Vera.”

“You’re old and soon you’ll die. We know you have money and you’re not going to be able to take any of it with you.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Just what are you planning on doing with all your money when you die?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know!”

“Don’t you think Ricky and I are entitled to at least some of it?”

“I don’t hear you, Vera! I think I’m starting to have another one of my spells.”

“You live in this big twelve-room house all alone. Why does any old man living alone need twelve rooms, I ask you?”

“Some people need lots of space.”

“I think that’s very selfish of you. There’s a lovely new nursing home opening up downtown. I hear the accommodations are lovely. With just one little phone call, you can get your name on the list and you’ll be able to move in as soon as they have an opening. Doesn’t that sound heavenly?”

“And what would I do with this big house with its twelve rooms?”

“Ricky and I would be happy to move in and take care of it for you.”

“Hah! I just bet you would!”

It was time now for tears. She took a wad of Kleenex out of her purse and dabbed pitifully at both eyes. “I’m afraid they’ll send Ricky up for a long time. It isn’t his first offense, you know. Things will go very hard with him this time.”

“Ricky’s been a habitual criminal since he was five years old. I knew it was only  a matter of time before he was called to a reckoning.”

“Don’t say that! If you had ever been a mother, you’d know what it’s like to be faced with the prospect of having your only child being locked up for life.”

“Do you want some advice?”

“No, but I know you’ll give it anyway.”

“Find out the name of the girl, the woman, who says Ricky and the other boys violated her.”

“I already know her name. It’s Willie Walls.”

“Something tells me she’s trash.”

“What else would she be?”

“Offer her a thousand dollars to drop the case. That’s probably more money than she’s ever imagined having in her life.”

“A thousand dollars?”

“Tell her she can have a thousand dollars to drop the case or risk going to court and losing and not getting anything.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise, uncle Jeff.”

“If it goes to court, they’ll get her on the witness stand and it’ll be her word against the word of the four boys. She’ll be humiliated. They’ll bring up everything she’s ever done or said in her life. They’ll bring in every person she’s ever known who might have any dirt on her, and there’s probably plenty, if she’s the kind of girl who gets drunk and dances naked in front of a bunch of boys at the river.”

“I guess it’s worth a try.”

“It might keep Ricky out of jail this time.”

“So you won’t give me the eighteen thousand?”

“I already said I won’t. I’ll advance you the thousand dollars to pay the girl, but you’ll have to sign a note promising to pay it back.”

“I think that’s very hard-hearted of you.”

“Was that all you wanted, Vera? I’m getting tired.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you, but I think it’s probably good for you to know. I’m dying. I might only have a short time to live.”

“Who says?”

“The doctor says. Who do you think?”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I have a fatty liver.”

“Not just your liver.”

“I might need an operation.”

“Well, have the operation, then.”

“I’ve been worried sick. Not about myself but about Ricky. I’m afraid I’ll die with him in the mess he’s in. With me gone there’ll be nobody to help him.”

“So, what is it you want me to do?”

“Sign your house over to him so it’ll be his when you die.”

“What? Why would I do that?”

“I’m not asking for myself. I’m asking for my child. I could die easy if I knew this fine old house was in his name. And even if he goes to jail, maybe it won’t be for long and when he gets out he’ll have this haven, this refuge, to come back to.”

“I’d laugh if it wasn’t so ridiculous. Do you know how long it’d take Ricky to lose this house in a poker game or sell it for practically nothing to get money to buy drugs?”

“He’s not like that now. He’s grown up a lot. You’d hardly know him. He’s really a very fine young man now.”

“Yes, a fine young man who rapes women at the river.”

“Oh! You can insult me all you want, but I won’t stand by and do nothing while you insult my child!”

“If there was ever a child who needed to be insulted, it’s Ricky.”

“You’ve always been so filled with hatred, uncle Jeff, I don’t know what keeps you from choking on it!”

“Esther, my niece is leaving now. Take her downstairs and show her the door.”

“I don’t need to be ‘shown the door’, you old bastard!”

“Don’t let it hit you in the ass on your way out.”

“All right, I’ll go. I should have known I was wasting my time trying to reason with a senile old fool like you. I want you to know one thing, though. You’re not holding all the cards in the deck.”

“Are you threatening me, Vera? Do you think it’s wise to threaten an old man who holds most of the cards in the deck?”

“I’ve been to see a lawyer about you!”

“About me? How you flatter me!”

“As your only living relative, as your next of kin, I can start a court proceeding to have you declared incompetent. Do you know what that means, uncle Jeff? If the court agrees with me, I gain control of all your assets. I can put you in the nursing home of my choosing or in the state mental institution if that’s the way the wind blows.”

“Oh, my! You’re scaring me now, Vera!”

“Oh, yes, I can put you away, uncle Jeff, and please believe me when I tell you I won’t hesitate for one second! Not for one second! Ever since I was a small child, I knew what a mean, contemptible person you are. When I was as young as ten years old, my poor mother, your sister, used to sit in the front parlor and cry over the way you treated her and, as young as I was, I would pat her on the shoulder and say, ‘There, there, mother, he doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s just been disappointed in the way life has turned out for him and he takes it out on the whole world. I know you love him. We all love uncle Jeff, no matter how mean a son-of-a-bitch he is.’ And she would just smile her sad smile and take my hand and wet it with her tears.”

“All right, Vera. I think you’ve put the fear of God in me. You can go home now.”

She stood up and began gesticulating, growing ever more agitated. “You disapproved of my husband. You always thought you were better than us. And then from the moment Ricky was born you laughed at him and said he looked like a gorilla and wasn’t right in the head. What do you think that does to a child’s self-esteem?”

She gasped for breath and put her hand on the bed post to steady herself. “My greatest fear now,” she said, “is that I’ll die before you and I won’t be there to celebrate when you draw your final breath. I was just telling Ricky a few days ago how I wanted to dance on your grave. How I wanted to…How I want…How I hoped…”

Her mouth gaped open, but the words seemed to have stopped coming of their own accord. She grabbed the middle of her chest with both hands and, with a startled expression on her face, rolled onto the bed to the floor.

“Esther!” uncle Jeff called.

But she had seen and heard all that had happened and was at the ready. She knelt on the floor and rolled Vera onto her back. Vera’s body shook with tremors; she made gurgling sounds in her throat.

“Is she all right?” uncle Jeff asked from the side of the bed.

“I think we need an ambulance,” Esther said.

“It might all be an act. I know what she’s like.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t want that old heifer dying in my house. Call an ambulance and tell them to come and get her and to send about six strong men. She’s roughly the size of a small elephant.”

When the ambulance arrived eight minutes later, Vera was unconscious. She was colorless and dead-looking, her carefully coiffed hair askew. They strapped her onto a stretcher and administered oxygen.

Half an hour after the ambulance had left, Esther went up to uncle Jeff’s room to make sure he was all right.

“You’re not to let that woman into the house again, you understand?” he said.

Esther smiled. “If she decides she wants to come in, I won’t be able to stop her.”

“Then I’ll buy you a gun and teach you how to use it.”

“Yes, sir. I sure would hate to shoot her, though.”

“I’ll come downstairs for dinner. Set the table in the dining room. I’m not sick anymore. I have a long way to go to one hundred.”

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Doctor Dispenses Drugs from His Office ~ A Short Story

The Doctor Dispenses Drugs from His Office image 6
The Doctor Dispenses Drugs from His Office
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story has been published in The Literary Hatchet with a different title.)

Patsy Ruth Quilley moved to a new town, far away from the old one. At age thirty-four, she was looking for a new start in life. Her marriage had failed, her career was on the ash heap, and she had two small children to raise on her own. Summoning all her courage, she loaded all her possessions into her old car and drove the hundred and fifty miles to the new town, barely knowing where she was going or what she would do when she got there.

After spending three nights in an unsavory motel (along with children Cullen and Corinne), she found a small, four-room house to rent close to some railroad tracks on the edge of town. The rent was reasonable and the house seemed clean and decent enough. The previous tenant, she was told, was an old man who had occupied the house for years until the grim reaper came and took him away.

After the move and after paying the rent for the first month on the house, she had only a few dollars left. She was fortunate to find a new job in less than two weeks.

His name was Dr. Boren. He was an older doctor with a booming practice on Main Street. Everybody went to him and he never turned anybody away. He needed an office assistant, somebody to manage appointments, answer the phone, and do anything else that needed to be done. He hired Patsy Ruth after talking to her only a few minutes. He had a good feeling about her, he said, and he was never wrong about those things.

Dr. Boren was the type of doctor who didn’t write prescriptions. He kept a well-supplied drug closet in his office and distributed whatever drugs his patients needed, whenever they needed them. The drug closet contained at least three-quarters of million dollars in drugs of all different kinds, Dr. Boren said.

In her third week in the office, Dr. Boren gave Patsy Ruth the key to the drug closet and told her how important it was to keep it from ever falling into the wrong hands. She must guard it with her life and never let it out of her sight. Patsy Ruth smiled solemnly and crossed her heart. Nobody would ever get the key away from her. She’d die before she’d ever let that happen.

She didn’t like the job at first—she felt she was being pulled in a hundred different directions every minute of the day and she was sure Dr. Boren would fire her for the mistakes she was making—but after a few weeks she settled into the routine of the place and found the job more to her liking. She didn’t have to struggle so much to stay on top of things, and she was able to do everything that needed to be done before closing time and was even able to take a lunch break every day of an hour or more.

Finally she was getting her life back in order. Cullen and Corinne were doing well in their new school and making new friends. Every morning they willingly got out of bed and got themselves ready to meet the bus down the street. Patsy Ruth gave Cullen the key to the house, since he was the older one, and told him what to do if he and Corinne got home first. He was to lock himself and Corinne inside and never open the door to anybody, no matter how hard they knocked. He had the number to the police, the fire department and the ambulance. He could call Patsy Ruth at the office if he ever needed to just hear her voice.

Patsy Ruth was resigned now to being a single mother. She told herself she was finished with men, after years of being locked in a miserable marriage. She would always put her children first now and forget about herself. She had given up on the idea of men in all their forms.

Then she met Gale McIlhenny.

He came into the office to see Dr. Boren. He was in town for only a few days, he said; he was away from home and from the doctor he would ordinarily see. He didn’t have an appointment, but he hoped the doctor would somehow work him in. He had picked up a bug on the airplane and felt terrible. He had a cough and a sore throat and he was sure he was running a fever. He hoped the doctor would give him something to keep it from turning into the flu.

She took his name and told him the doctor would see him, but he would have to wait until the doctor was free.

“I don’t mind waiting!” he said with a disarming smile.

He took a seat in the waiting room and she went on with her work. Without looking directly at him, she knew he was stealing little glances at her and smiling.

The next day when she was on her way to lunch at the café up the street, she met him coming toward her on the sidewalk. He smiled as if he knew her.

“Hi, there!” he said, taking off his hat.

“Oh, hello!” she said. “You’re the man in the office yesterday!”

“That’s right!”

“I didn’t expect to see you again!”

“Just doing a little window shopping.”

“Is your cold better?”

“My cold?”

“Yes, you wanted to see the doctor for your cold?”

“Oh, yeah! I feel some better today.”

“I was just on my way up the street to get some lunch.”

“Lunch? Yes, it is lunchtime, isn’t it? How about if you let me buy you lunch?”

“Well, if you have nothing better to do, I guess there’s no law against it.”

She blushed right down to the roots of her hair.

It wasn’t really a date, she told herself. Nothing to get excited about. He was just a nice man and he didn’t know anybody in town. He was undoubtedly lonely. He was just a little too good to be true, though: handsome, well-dressed, obviously educated and cultured. He was about thirty-five, dark-haired, blue-eyed and angel-faced. The kind of man you might go your entire life and never meet.

When lunch was over, he walked her back to Dr. Boren’s office and shook her hand like a business associate.

“I enjoyed lunch tremendously,” he said.

“Me too!” she said. “Thank you so much!”

“I’ll be in town for a week or more. Would you like to have dinner one evening?”

“Yes, of course, I would!”

“All right, then. I’ll call you in a day or two.”

She watched him walk away, expecting never to see him again.

He called her the next day, though, and asked her to have dinner with him the next night at a new French restaurant in town. She readily agreed.

“Tell me where I can pick you up,” he said.

She wasn’t quite ready to divulge to him that she was a divorcee with two growing children. She would save that information for another time. She didn’t want to scare him off before they even got to the starting gate.

“Pick me up at Dr. Boren’s office,” she said.

“Around Six o’clock?”

“Fine.”

The day after the dinner at the French restaurant, she knew she was in love. Gale was everything she wanted in a man, and so much more. She never expected in a thousand years to find anybody like him. He was a gentleman—so unlike Mike, her former husband, and unlike any other man of her acquaintance. He was funny and charming, intelligent and a good conversationalist. She could easily see herself marrying him and spending every minute with him until she died. And when she died, it would be in his arms!

But, wait a minute! She really didn’t know anything about him. In the four hours they spent together at the restaurant, he didn’t reveal anything about himself. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that doesn’t always mean anything. A lot of married men don’t wear a ring. She wanted to ask him about his personal life, but she didn’t want him to think her presumptuous. If he wanted her to know, he’d tell her. Those things could wait until they knew each other better.

The next time they saw each other, she told herself, she would tell him about Corinne and Cullen. How could she keep them hidden? Most people in their thirties have children. Why would he be surprised? If she told him the unvarnished truth about her past, maybe he would do the same about his.

On Friday afternoon, right before closing time, he called her at Dr. Boren’s office. He was going to be in town longer than he thought, at least for one more week, and maybe two. He had a comfortable room at the motor lodge. He wouldn’t be able to see her on the weekend—he was going to be tied up with work—but he’d be sure and catch up with her early next week.

She was happy, of course, that he was going to be in town longer than expected, but a little hurt that he didn’t want to see her on Saturday or Sunday. Not even a shout-out or a phone call.

She spent the weekend at home with Cullen and Corinne, trying not to think about Gale, about where he was and what he was doing. Really, why should she care? He was so noncommittal, so mysterious, and he had said nothing to indicate that he was interested in marriage, or in even getting to know her better. She was acting like a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl with a crush on her English teacher. After all she had seen and been through in her life, she ought to know better.

On Monday she went to work at Dr. Boren’s office in a better frame of mind. She had undertaken a large dose of reality over the weekend and considered Gale nothing more than a chance acquaintance. Just another man out of the many men she’d meet in her life. There was no deeper meaning in anything he said or did. When he went back to wherever he came from, she would forget him in a few days.

He called her on Monday morning at ten o’clock and asked her to meet him for lunch. When they met, he was all smiles and charm. She was happy to see him, of course, but much less the gushing adolescent than she had been. She answered his questions politely, but didn’t have much to say otherwise.

“You seem kind of quiet today,” he said.

“Well, you know, it’s Monday morning. Blue Monday.”

“No, it’s something more than that. Something’s bothering you. I want you to tell me what it is.”

“It’s nothing. You should try the pea soup here. It’s really good.”

“I was going to ask you if you wanted to take a little trip with me, but now I don’t think I will.”

“A trip where?”

“Too late now.”

When he walked her back to Dr. Boren’s office, he again shook her hand.

“Call you in a day or two,” he said.

The next afternoon she received a bouquet of roses with a note that read: Hope Tuesday Better Than Monday. Kindest Regards, Gale McIlhenny.”

Kindest Regards? She wondered if he was real or if she had just imagined him.

She didn’t hear from him again until Thursday morning. He called and asked how she was feeling.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Did you get my roses?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Did they cheer you up?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to have dinner with me this evening? I have a little matter I want to discuss with you.”

“Well, I suppose I do, if I can arrange a sitter.”

“Sitter? You didn’t tell me you have kids.”

“I have two. A boy and a girl.”

“Well, no matter! Can I pick you up at the office about six-thirty?”

“If the sitter isn’t available, I’ll have to bring them with me.”

“Bring who?”

“My son and daughter.”

“Oh, that’s not so good! I wanted to be alone with you tonight.”

“Just kidding. I’ll be alone.”

“Fine. See you then.”

He was a little late, but she wasn’t overly concerned. If he didn’t show up, it would be a chance for her to end the odd little relationship and never see him again. If he were to call her again, she wouldn’t take any more calls from him.

Finally he arrived, thirty-five minutes late.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I got tied up on the phone.”

She wanted to ask him again what kind of work he did, but instead she said nothing.

“Just down the highway from the motor lodge is a steak place I’ve been wanting to try,” he said. “Do you know about it?”

“I’ve been there once or twice.”

“After we’ve eaten, we can go to my room and talk privately.”

They had a lavish, candlelit dinner in a cozy booth that made them feel like they were alone. He ordered a bottle of red wine and made sure her glass was full at all times.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said. “I hardly know you. Do you like working in a doctor’s office.”

“It’s all right. It’s better than some of the jobs I’ve had.”

“What were they?”

“Better forgotten.”

“As we move along in life,” he said, “we discover that much of what we’ve lived through is better forgotten.”

Emboldened by the three glasses of wine, she asked him if he had children.

“Oh, no!” he said with a little laugh. “I’ve never been married. I leave that to the others.”

“Don’t you like women?”

“Sure, I like women! I like everybody! Right at this moment, I love everybody in the world!”

“Why haven’t you ever kissed me?”

“There’s no reason, I suppose,” he said. “I just haven’t.”

“Don’t you like me?”

“Of course, I like you! Why would I be here if I don’t like you?”

“You tell me!”

After dinner, he took her to his room at the motor lodge. They sat and talked for a while and then he ordered a bottle of champagne. When it was delivered, he poured two glasses to the brim and handed her one. She emptied it and he filled her glass again.

“You said you had something you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked. “Isn’t that why you wanted me to come to your room?”

“There’s plenty of time for that,” he said.

“I’m divorced, you know.”

“You don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to.”

“I moved to this town to get away from everything I knew and to start over.”

“Most admirable,” he said.

“What about you? Have you ever been divorced?”

“I’ve never been married. Remember I told you that earlier.”

“Oh, yes! You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not used to drinking. It does things to my brain. First wine and now champagne. A lethal combination.”

“Not too lethal, I hope.”

“Oh, no! Hah-hah-hah! I think I’ll live.”

“Would you like to take a nap? You can lie down on the bed if you want to.”

“Oh, no! I have to get home.”

“Why?”

“Two little ones. I told you about them.”

“Oh, yes. Just try to relax. They’ll be fine.”

She went to sleep then, and in a little while she was aware of Gale picking her up and carrying her to the bed. He’ll kiss me now, she thought. He’ll finally kiss me.

She expected him to take off her dress and then and the rest of her clothes, but she blanked out at that moment and the rest of what happened was unknown to her.

It was early morning. The sun was shining through the window beside the bed. The birds were singing in the trees. She gasped for air and sat up, not knowing at first where she was. The first thing she was fully aware of was that she was still wearing her dress and she had been asleep in somebody else’s bed. Whose bed? What happened to that man I was with?

She stood up from the bed on wobbly legs and ran into the bathroom because she was uncontrollably sick, in a way she hadn’t been since she was a small child. When the sickness passed, she wiped her face with a wet washcloth.

The clock told her she still had plenty of time to get to work without being late. It was Friday morning. Dr. Boren was counting on her to be on time. He was a stickler for being on time. She didn’t want to spoil her spotless record.

Her purse was still on the round table near the door. As she approached the purse, she saw a bill sticking out of the top of it: a hundred-dollar bill. Partly underneath the purse was a piece of paper on which a note was written. She picked it up and began  reading: I had to leave early this morning before you woke up. I hope you don’t mind. It’s been wonderful knowing you. Maybe we’ll meet again at some time in the not-too-distant future. I’m leaving you money for taxi fare. All the best, Gale McIlhenny.

She arrived at the office fifteen minutes before her starting time. She thought she would have to use her key to get in because the office wasn’t opened yet, but the door was standing open. She went inside, hearing strange voices coming from Dr. Boren’s private office.

When Dr. Boren heard her, her came out of his office with two uniformed police offices. He looked white-faced and shaken.

“Why, what’s the matter?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

“We’ve been robbed!” Dr. Boren said.

“Robbed? No!”

“The thieves emptied out the drug closet. Three-quarters of a million dollars in drugs!”

“Who would do such a thing?”

“Have you checked your keys?” Dr. Boren asked.

“My keys? What about my keys?”

She took her key ring out of her purse with her house keys, car keys and office keys. The keys to the main door of the doctor’s office and the drug closet were the only keys that was missing. All the other keys were there. Nothing else in the purse had been disturbed. Gale was such a careful gentleman.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Yellow Bird ~ A Short Story

Yellow Bird image 1
Yellow Bird
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story has been published in The Literary Hatchet.)

Lonnie awoke to the smell of cooking food. When he got out of bed and went into the kitchen, mother turned from the stove and smiled at him. She was wearing her red silk dress with the white buttons instead of the usual old chenille bathrobe.

“Sit down and have some bacon and eggs,” she said.

“Why are you so dressed up?” he asked.

“Eat your breakfast while it’s hot.”

While he ate, she sat across from him and drank coffee and smoked her cigarettes.

“What are you going to do today?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Read comics and watch some TV, I guess.”

“Don’t you think you should get outside and get some exercise and fresh air?”

“I might ride my bike to the park.”

“Don’t you have anybody to go with?” she said. “Isn’t it more fun with friends?”

“Sure. Is anything wrong? You’re acting funny.”

“We need to have a little talk.”

“What about?”

“Do you remember my friend Tony? You met him once when we were having lunch downtown.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

She looked down at her hand holding the cigarette. “Well, he and I are going away together this morning. He’s coming by to pick me up.”

“Going away? What do you mean, going away? Where are you going?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Will you be back in time for supper?”

“No.”

“Does father know?”

“I wrote him a letter. He’ll read it when he gets home from work.”

He looked at her searchingly, as if her face might reveal something her voice wasn’t saying.

“So, when will you be back? Next week sometime?”

“I don’t think so, honey.”

“Why not?”

“I think it’s time for father and me to go our separate ways. I’m going to file for divorce so I can marry Tony.”

“Can’t I go with you?”

“Father and I discussed it and we decided it would be better for you to go on living here. Father wants you to stay with him.”

“I’d rather be with you, though.”

“Don’t you want to keep going to the same school you’ve gone to since kindergarten?”

“I don’t care if I go to school or not.”

She laughed and flattened her cigarette out in the ashtray. “You don’t mean that,” she said.

“Yes, I do.”

“Now, I need you to be a good boy and not a difficult boy. This is hard enough as it is.”

“But why can’t I go with you, wherever you’re going?”

“See, that’s the thing. Tony and I are going to be unsettled for a while. I don’t know where I’ll be while I’m waiting for my divorce.”

“Can’t you stay here while you’re waiting for your divorce?”

“It doesn’t work that way, honey. One of us has to leave and it has to be me.”

“Is it something I did?”

“Of course not! I don’t ever want you to think that.”

“Is it something father did?”

“No, it isn’t anything father did, either. It’s grownup stuff. I wouldn’t know how to explain it to you if I could. When you’re older, you’ll understand better.”

“But why Tony?”

“Because I love him and I believe he loves me. He’s the man I should have married in the first place.”

“Then why did you marry father?”

“I was young and I didn’t know him very well.”

“So, is that what grownup people normally do?”

In a little while there was a honk out front. Mother went into the bedroom and came out carrying her suitcase and the jacket that went with the red dress.

“I want you to come out on the porch and see me off,” she said, taking Lonnie by the hand.

Tony had parked his shiny blue car at the curb. When he saw mother and Lonnie come out of the house, he got out of his car and smiled and waved. He was wearing a coat and tie like church. He stood beside the car smiling, looking like a picture in a movie magazine.

Mother let go of Lonnie’s hand on the porch and bent over so that her face was close to his. She didn’t have to bend very far because he was almost as tall as she was.

“Everything will be all right,” she said with what she thought was a reassuring smile. “I just need to get away.”

“But for how long?” he asked. He was about to cry but didn’t want to with Tony looking  on.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“When will I see you again?”

“I don’t know that, either. I’ll call you just as soon as we get to where we’re going and we can talk on the phone. I’ll know more then.”

He nodded his head and looked away.

She opened her purse and took out some money and put it in his fist. “Here’s a little mad money,” she said. “Buy yourself something special. Something impractical.”

She laughed for no special reason then and gave Lonnie a kiss on the cheek and held him for a few seconds in a squeeze and when she let go of him she ran to Tony like a schoolgirl.

On any other day, Lonnie would love having the house to himself, but with mother leaving unexpectedly it felt lonely and empty. He tried watching TV but wasn’t used to watching during the daytime and wasn’t interested in any of the shows that were on, so he took mother’s advice and rode his bike to the park.

He saw some people he knew but didn’t speak to them; he didn’t want to have to talk to anybody. He went to the most secluded part of the park near the war memorial and sat under a tree. It was so quiet and breezy that he almost went to sleep and ants started crawling on him, so he got up and went back home.

He hoped mother would somehow be there, having changed her mind and forcing Tony to bring her back, but everything was just as he left it. He ate some leftover fried chicken for lunch and wondered how to spend the rest of the day.

When father came home from work at the usual time, he found the letter from mother on the kitchen table. He unfolded the letter and pulled out a chair and sat down and read it.

“Did she tell you about this?” father asked Lonnie.

“A little,” Lonnie said. He shrugged and opened the refrigerator door to see what they would have for supper.

“Did you see what’s-his-name?”

“You mean Tony? Yeah, I saw him.”

“I have grounds for divorce now,” father said. “She ran off with her lover.”

“She said she’d call.”

“I don’t know what to think about a mother who abandons her only child.”

“It’s all right with me,” Lonnie said, “if it’s what she wants.”

“When she calls, tell her I’m going to see a lawyer to start divorce proceedings.”

“I think that’s what she wants, anyway.”

“I hope she rots in hell.”

In August for his fourteenth birthday, Lonnie  received a large bird cage with a yellow parakeet inside, delivered by a white truck that pulled up out in front of the house with a screech of brakes. It was a most unusual and unexpected gift. Mother wrote on the card: Thought you could use a pet. Much love, as always.

He didn’t know how to take care of a parakeet so he walked downtown and bought a book on the subject and a couple of different kinds of birdseed that the woman in the store said any bird would like. If he won’t eat none of it, the woman said, bring it back and we’ll try something else.

In the attic was an old birdcage stand with a hook. Lonnie had seen it before but never knew what it was for. He was surprised somebody hadn’t thrown it out long ago, but he was glad now they didn’t. Everything eventually has its purpose if you wait long enough.

He named the bird Toppy. It didn’t mean anything; it just seemed like a good name for a bird. Toppy hopped around inside his cage, sang little musical trills, drank water, ate birdseed and pooped aplenty. He seemed happy enough.

Lonnie hoped every day that mother would come home, but he knew it was an unrealistic hope. In the real world, mothers didn’t return home after running off with another man. It didn’t even happen in the movies.

Everybody thought father would get married again after the divorce, but he liked being single, he said. When marriage-minded ladies called to invite him over for a home-cooked Sunday dinner, he told Lonnie to tell them he was in Moscow or in the hospital for a lung operation.

He got an old woman, a Mrs. Farinelli, to come in two or three days a week and clean the bathroom and the kitchen, wash the clothes, shop, and usually cook a little food. She had a son on death row in prison and another son who was a priest. He paid her money in cash so she wouldn’t have to pay income tax on it. She was neat and quiet and never complained.

Mother called Lonnie a couple of different times when she knew father was still at work. When Lonnie asked where she was, she said they were still moving around, still unsettled. She sounded distant, preoccupied, not the mother he remembered. He believed at last that she didn’t care for him and was trying to phase him out of her life because she had a whole new life now.

Summer ended and Lonnie started ninth grade. He mostly didn’t like school—he never had from the very beginning—but he knew he had to make decent grades and get through to the end; there was no other choice anymore. Only dopes and losers quit high school.

A couple of times, on his way to and from school, he thought he saw mother in passing cars, but he knew later it couldn’t have been her. She would have at least waved to him.

On Christmas and birthdays, he always received cards from her with money in them. He couldn’t send a card to her in return because he didn’t have her address, but he knew that’s the way she wanted it.

As the months and years went by, he stopped thinking so much about her. He stopped thinking long ago that she would return and father would forgive her and everything would be just as it was.

Lonnie and father never had much to say to each other. They had occasional arguments and disagreements but for the most part they stayed out of each other’s way and got along as well as any father and son living alone in a house had a right to.

Toppy lived inside his cage and thrived and seemed happy. Lonnie sometimes felt sorry for him because he lived in such a small space and didn’t have the company of other birds. He thought about opening the window and letting him fly away, but he knew the world would be too much for Toppy and he wouldn’t survive on his own for very long.

Lonnie came to the end of high school and was glad for that that phase of his life to be over. Father dressed up in his one blue suit and came to the graduation ceremony by himself and sat toward the back of the auditorium surrounded by strangers. Lonnie thought several times about mother and wished she could be there to see him get his diploma.

He didn’t care to go on to college, at least not right away; he had had enough of school for a while. He thought vaguely that one day he would get married and have children of his own, but he was in no hurry and didn’t much care one way or another. He didn’t like the idea of having a marriage that would one day end in divorce.

A few weeks after graduation, he got a job in a hardware and paint store. He didn’t like it very much, but he got used to it and after a year or so he got a promotion and a raise in pay. He moved into sales and found it more to his liking than working at a counter and answering questions from customers.

As for mother, Lonnie didn’t hear from her again after the card he received on his nineteenth birthday. He didn’t know where she lived or if she was alive or dead. The best thing he could do, he told himself, was to stop thinking and wondering about her.

The years went by and Lonnie found himself at age twenty-one. He still lived with father in the house he grew up in. He went to work every day, as did father, and the two of them went their separate ways and lived their separate lives.

On a Friday morning in October father collapsed soon after arriving at work. He was rushed to the hospital, where he died two hours later. He had an enlarged heart and had smoked cigarettes, a lot of them, since he was thirteen. He was forty-seven.

The funeral was well-attended, despite a steady downpour. Relations of father’s that Lonnie had never seen before came from out of town, with stories of father when he was a child. The company father worked for sent an impressive arrangement of flowers. Father’s boss and a couple of his coworkers came and introduced themselves to Lonnie, slapped him on the shoulder, expressed their condolences, and told him what a great guy father was.

At the gravesite the rain kept up. Lonnie wore a raincoat and an old man’s hat he found in the closet and used a borrowed umbrella to keep himself dry. The minister droned a few words and the casket began its slow descent into the earth, indicating that the service was concluded and it was time for everybody to go home.

As the crowd was dispersing and Lonnie was about to make his getaway, a woman emerged from the crowd and approached him. She was wearing a long coat, dark glasses, and a scarf wound around her head like a refugee. It wasn’t until she came toward him, stopped and smiled that he knew it was mother.

“You’re all grown up now,” she said.

He looked at her, feeling almost nothing. He brought the umbrella down in front of his face to keep her from looking at him, sidestepped, and sprinted for his car as fast as he could before she had a chance to come after him.

At home, he felt a tremendous sense of relief now that the funeral was over and all those people had gone away. He was truly alone now, for the first time in his life, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with himself. The house was his now and there would be some insurance money after the funeral expenses were paid. He was a family of one, a free agent. He might never return to his job at the paint and wallpaper store.

He went into his bedroom and closed the door and took Toppy out his cage and lay on his back on the bed, holding the bird on his chest. Toppy tried his wings a couple of times as if confused at being out of the cage and then settled down and nestled on Lonnie’s sternum contentedly. His little eyes blinked and he looked with what seemed like comprehension right into the eyes of the only human person he had ever known.

“Don’t ever leave me,” Lonnie said. “Please don’t ever leave me.”

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997