They Can’t Take That Away from Me ~ A Short Story
They Can’t Take That Away from Me
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~
(This short story has been published in The Literary Hatchet with a different title.)
My name is Charles A. Rilke (rhymes with “silky”). Some people call me Charlie but mostly I’m known as just plain Charles. I had been married for twelve years and had two children. We lived the American dream in a mortgaged-to-the-hilt ranch house in the suburbs. I was a solid citizen, a straight arrow, a model of sobriety, a true believer and a professional man. I figured my life was all plotted out for me until the day I died, without any deviation in any direction. I didn’t expect to find myself in love for the first time at the advanced age of forty-two.
I had a job I didn’t like very much as an editor at a publishing firm. I had been with the company for seven years and had been passed over for promotion in favor of younger, less-experienced people. I hated every minute I spent in the corporate world. I wanted to throw everything down and become a writer. Not practical, you say? You’re probably right.
Every morning I got into my aging Pontiac and drove the twelve miles to work. The morning drive could be fraught with drama, depending on the weather, time of year and traffic conditions. A sudden thunder storm, a little bit of rain or unexpected snow flurries? A cardboard box fell off the back of a truck onto the highway? Any ugly and unexpected occurrence might make me up to an hour late for work. Late again? Don’t worry about it. Make up your time at the end of the day.
My gas tank was nearly empty, so on Monday morning on my way to work I stopped at Gus Gray’s to fill up. Right away I saw there was a new attendant manning the pumps. He smiled at me as I pulled up and rolled down my window. His name, stitched in red on the pocket of his shirt, was Colton.
“Fill it up, sir?” he asked as I rolled down my window.
After he pumped the gas, he cleaned my windshield.
“New here?” I asked.
“Started last week.”
“You like it?”
“Who likes pumping gas?”
“Probably nobody.”
The next time I needed gas and stopped it at Gus Gray’s, Colton was standing beside the pumps as if I was his only customer all day. He gassed up my car and cleaned my windshield and before I left I asked him to check the oil so I could keep him near me for a little while longer.
As he raised the hood, I got out of the car and stood beside him. I watched him as he bent over into my engine. He checked the oil, said it was fine and closed the hood.
“You’re not like the others,” I said, saying what I was thinking without considering whether it was appropriate or not.
“How is that?” he asked.
“You don’t look like you just crawled out of an oil can.”
He laughed. “Nobody notices.”
“Somebody notices. I notice.”
“People just want their gas. They don’t care about the person pumping it.”
He was around thirty, I figured. He had brown hair, what little I could see of it under his cap. His face was covered with brown-blond stubble, just enough to look appealing instead of scruffy. He was broad-shouldered, trim-waisted, shirt tucked neatly into pants. His clothes were spotless and he wore new-looking work boots. He was a perfectly proportioned male specimen. I saw much in him to be admired.
“Gus Gray knows who to put out front to attract the customers.”
“Are you flirting with me?” he asked.
The next time I went into Gus Gray’s was for an oil change. I hoped Colton would be there. It was raining, so he was inside at the cash register. I gave him the keys to my car and sat down inside while he went to move my car. When he came back in, he seemed to have forgotten I was there. I got up and bought a soda out of the vending machine.
“Slow day?” I asked.
“What?”
“I said it’s a slow day because of the rain.”
“Oh, yeah. People don’t get out if they don’t have to.”
“Then why am I here?” I said.
He smiled and shrugged and I felt like the main thing I needed to do was to keep my mouth shut.
I sat back down with my soda and, after I had drunk about half of it, he said, “Gus is off today so I have to take care of any customers.”
“It’s always nice when the boss is gone, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yeah. Gus is all right but he runs a tight ship.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“You know what they say, though. It’s a job.”
“I don’t like my job very much, either,” I said.
“What do you do?”
“I work for Ellis and Peacock downtown.”
“What’s Ellis and Peacock?”
“Publishing house.”
“You’re a publisher?”
“Just an editor and a junior editor, at that.”
“What does an editor do?”
“I make sure copy is ready for publication.”
“What’s ‘copy’?”
“Stuff that other people write.”
“Why don’t you write it yourself?”
“I’m lacking in ambition and enthusiasm.”
“Why don’t you quit, then, and do something else?”
“It’s not that easy. I have a mortgage and two kids.”
“And a wife?”
“Yeah, a wife, too.”
“Most people have at least one wife running around,” he said.
“How about you?” I asked. “Do you have a wife?”
“Not me,” he said.
“Smart man.”
Over the next three or four months I saw Colton every time I stopped in for gas. We usually exchanged a few words of no importance that I recalled over and over in my mind until the next time I saw him. I wasn’t looking for any hidden meaning; I was only remembering the way he spoke the words and the look in his chestnut eyes as he spoke them.
I began thinking a lot about him as I sat at my desk at work. At night when I turned off the light I saw the cleft in his chin, the tiny chip in his tooth when he smiled, the way his trousers clung to the contours of his ass, his laugh, his hands, the hair on his forearms, the hair that spilled out at the top of his shirt collar. All the things about him I liked.
I wished that I might have a chance to know him better, to talk to him away from the station. Would he think I was a lunatic if I asked him to meet me in a bar or a restaurant somewhere? Would he tell Gus Gray and have me banned from the station? Would they call the police and have me arrested?
Being drawn to a good-looking younger man was not a habit for me; it had never happened before, not even in my younger days. Most people left me cold, didn’t move me one way or another. Hadn’t I decided long ago that feeling nothing was the best way to get through life unscathed? Hadn’t I always gone out of my way to fit in with the herd and not draw attention to myself?
And why would I think Colton would ever give me a thought? I was nothing special. I wasn’t especially young or good-looking or interesting. My car was boring. My hair was thinning on top and already I was starting to pack on weight around my middle. I believed I might be on the verge of making a complete ass of myself, as I did in high school when I thought I was a poet and published a poem in the school newspaper that made everybody laugh and hoot because it was so bad.
On a Friday morning, looking forward to two days at home doing as I pleased, I stopped in for gas. I had finally decided to ask Colton to have lunch with me one day or to meet me after work for a drink.
He wasn’t waiting at the pump as usual and he didn’t come bounding out of the station. The weasel they called Johnny Walker Red was there instead. He had long red hair that made him look like Rita Hayworth. I was sickened at the thought of having anybody but Colton pump my gas.
“Where’s Colton?” I asked Johnny Walker Red.
“Who?”
“Colton.”
“Don’t know no Colton.”
“He works here.”
“Oh, yeah! I forgot his name. I think Gus said he’s sick or something. In the hospital.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“I dunno.”
“When’s he coming back?”
“I dunno. I ain’t his keeper.”
I paid for my gas and went on to work. I felt low and unhappy all day long. I only wanted people to leave me alone. I couldn’t wait to get back home in the evening so I could be alone with my thoughts.
I waited a few days and went back to the station, hoping Colton would have returned. This time Gus Gray waited on me.
“What’s happened to Colton?” I asked him.
“He called and asked for a few days off. He’s been sick. In the hospital, I believe.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with him?”
“Nope.”
“Is he coming back?”
“I guess so. He didn’t say.”
It was about this time that I started having trouble at work, which involved enforced overtime. We had missed a couple of deadlines recently and the boss was ready to bring out the guillotine, set it up in the lobby, and start chopping our heads off. We were all going to have to knuckle down and work extra hours every day just to get caught up. It moved me one step closer to quitting but not without punching a few people in the nose first.
Days passed and I avoided Gus Gay’s. When I needed gas, I drove to another station farther away. If I didn’t see Colton, I reasoned, I would stop thinking about him and eventually forget about him altogether and go back to being the fatherly drudge I had always been, the same as everybody else, with none any the wiser.
After two weeks, I couldn’t hold out any longer. I had to know that he was all right and hadn’t died or anything. The next time I stopped in to fill up at Gus Gray’s, he was standing at the pump. I was so happy to see him I could have jumped out of the car and embraced him.
“May I help you, sir?” he asked, as I rolled down my window.
“You’ve been gone,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“They said you were sick.”
“I’m all right.”
“I missed you.”
“I missed you, too, sir,” he said.
“Fill it up.”
When he brought me the change from the twenty-dollar bill I used to pay for my gas, he gave me one of Gus Gray’s business cards. He had crossed through the print on the front and written his name and phone number on the back.
“If you ever want to talk,” he said.
I drove on to work, happier than I had been for long time. The good feeling lasted through the entire day. I was kind to my co-workers and felt calm and relaxed. I took an extra long lunch, by myself, and walked three blocks away from the office and had a good fish dinner at a better place than I usually go.
That evening, while my wife and kids were watching TV, I went to the phone with the card in my hand. Heart pounding, I picked up the receiver and then put it back again. I hadn’t planned on calling him at that moment; it was only a dry run to show myself I could do it if I wanted to.
On top of all the overtime at work, I began having trouble at home. My wife and I began arguing about small things. She had a biting tongue and so did I. A lot of the self-restraint I prided myself on had left me. I hated arguing and bickering but I couldn’t seem to help myself. My parents had had a miserable marriage and I seemed to be following their example.
The fight of all fights came on a Sunday. I had been hoping to have a peaceful day at home, resting up for the upcoming week of hell at work, but my wife and I started arguing at the breakfast table. After several hours of anger and tension, I packed a bag and went to a motel so I could be alone.
After I checked into the motel, I had a nap and then a quiet meal in the motel restaurant. After dinner, I sat down on the bed and called Colton’s number. He answered on the third ring.
He knew from the first word who I was. I didn’t have to explain myself. He said he was expecting me to call any time.
“Gus fired me,” he said.
“Why?”
“He thinks I’m too slow. I spend too long with each customer, while other customers are waiting, and I’m not assertive enough. He wanted me to push products to customers. Spark plugs, fan belts, wiper blades, motor oil, and all that kind of stuff. I told him I’m not a salesman, so he fired me.”
“I’m going away and I want you to go with me,” I said.
“What?”
“I’m going to quit my job in the morning. I hate it and I’m tired of being unhappy. I’ll pick you up wherever you say at nine o’clock, so pack a bag.”
“That’s a little impulsive, isn’t it?” he said.
“Probably, but I don’t care.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long will we be gone?”
“I don’t know.”
In the morning I was up at six o’clock. After breakfast, I called my place of employment and instructed the secretary to tell the boss I was quitting. I’d never have to see or speak to that evil son of a bitch again. I’d mail in a letter of resignation later if they had to have it in writing.
I put my stuff in the car and checked out of the motel. I stopped at the bank and withdrew eight hundred dollars in cash from my savings account and arrived at the address Colton had given me at ten minutes to nine. He was waiting outside with a small suitcase. I asked him how he was, but he didn’t seem to want to talk so that was altogether fine with me. I didn’t feel much like talking in the morning either.
I didn’t know where I was going. I went out through town to the highway and headed west.
At lunchtime I had driven a hundred and twenty miles. I stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the highway at the edge of a small town. Colton and I sat across from each other in a sunny booth.
He told me a little bit about himself. His parents, both dead, had been alcoholics. His mother kicked him out of the house as soon as he graduated from high school. He had had an older brother who died from a drug overdose. He had been married briefly at twenty-one to a girl he hardly knew. The marriage lasted less than a year. For the last ten years or so he had gone from job to job, looking for something, he wasn’t sure what.
“A life without much to show for it,” he said.
“No worse than anybody else’s,” I said.
I asked him why he had been in the hospital and reluctantly he told me. When he was three years old, he had rheumatic fever and it left him with rheumatic heart disease, from which he would probably die by the age of forty. He made it clear he didn’t want sympathy or pity.
“When it comes, I’ll be ready for it,” he said.
I drove all day in a westerly direction, stopping only at mealtimes and to fill my car up with gas. Neither one of us talked about where we were going or what we’d do when we got there.
At eleven o’clock that night, after driving for fourteen hours, I had to stop. We found a quiet, inviting-looking motel with red-and-green neon signs just off the highway and I engaged a room.
We talked for a while and watched an old black-and-white movie on TV. When the movie was over, he wanted to take a shower. When he came out of the bathroom, he got into bed naked. I got in beside him and held him in my arms and kissed him. As he kissed me back, I realized I had, finally, the thing I had been dreaming about for months. If I died right at that moment, I would die happy.
After a long silence, he asked, “What state are we in?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, not as long as I’m with you.”
He surprised me by taking my hand and entwining his fingers through mine.
“Do you want to go back?” I asked.
“Nothing to go back for. No home to speak of. No job, either.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll find another job.”
“I don’t want another job. I’ve had plenty of jobs. I’ve thought about it long and hard and from where I stand it looks like I’m just about finished.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“Ever think about just bringing down the curtain? Ending things on your own?”
“I’ve thought about a lot of things.”
“I read a story once about a suicide pact between two men. It seemed like a good idea.”
“Why?”
He thought for a moment and then he said, “If you do it with somebody you care about, it’s not so lonely.”
I showed him the gun I had in my suitcase.
“I have two bullets,” I said.
He smiled as if he thought I was making a joke and then he knew I wasn’t.
“I see,” he said.
“Is it what you want?” I asked. “Truly?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“You have to be sure. No regrets.”
“I’m sure. I don’t have any regrets. Have you ever fired a gun before?”
“Sure.”
“Make sure the bullet does its job.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Wait until I’m asleep.”
“You won’t feel a thing. And know that I’ll be right behind you.”
I sat there in the chair beside the bed with the gun in my right hand. He turned over in the bed away from me and pulled the blanket up under his chin and went to sleep.
There was just enough light coming in from the window that I could see him. I watched him all night, listening to him breathe and sigh, and I knew he was the only person in the world I had ever loved in the way that I always knew was possible but had never experienced before.
He slept through the night and when he woke up a little after daylight he turned and looked at me.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“Still in the motel beside the highway.”
“What time is it?”
“Time to get up and get dressed.”
We were on our way again in a half-hour. We crossed one state line and then another with dizzying rapidity. I planned to keep driving for as long as I could and for as long as my car and my money held out. When it was time to stop driving and do something else, I’d know. Until then, nothing much mattered except my feeling of being free and the happiness I felt when I looked at the person beside me.
Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp
Your Time, My Time ~ A Short Story
Your Time, My Time
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~
(This short story has been published in The Literary Hatchet.)
Severin Dinwiddie was eleven when his family moved into a different house. And a big house it was, with six rooms upstairs, seven downstairs, a spacious attic and a basement divided by concrete walls into separate little rooms.
Severin was an only child and, since he had always liked being alone, the house was perfect for him. There were more doors in the house than he had ever seen, and they all led to interesting places, sometimes into other rooms and sometimes only to other doors. The ceilings were high and the rooms dark. The attic, reached by steep wooden steps, was cavernous and shadowy, lit by a single bulb that hung down from the ceiling. In the kitchen was a dumbwaiter that was no longer used and a dark, narrow staircase that went down into the basement. It was a house, it seemed, that held secrets of its own and that might even harbor a ghost or two. If there were ghosts, Severin was sure to see them.
It was a house in which Severin might be absorbed and forgotten. His father was gone most of the time, a traveling businessman, and his mother was so wrapped up in her fat self that she forgot from time to time that she was a mother. She was enormously obese, called herself an invalid, and once she had installed herself in the master bedroom upstairs, seldom left it. She had a “girl” to wait on her and bring her her medicine or food from the kitchen. The girl’s name was Karla. She used to work as a bouncer in a nightclub and had spent some time in women’s prison. She had tattoos on her arms and a mustache. Severin avoided her. Whenever he saw her, he ran the other way as if she was a cat and he a mouse.
When Severin played his old-time jazz records, his mother complained.
“Nobody listens to that kind of music, you little freak!” she railed.
He needed a place where he could feel free, at least where he could do what he wanted and be left alone. That’s when he began spending a lot of time in the basement.
In the corner of the basement, underneath the stairs, was the perfect space for a small boy to do as he wished. He set up his card table, brought his record player and a few records down, along with a comfortable chair, a couple old quilts to make a pallet on the floor, a few books, and sundry other items. Luckily there was an electrical outlet nearby for him to plug in his record player and an old floor lamp he found that was left behind by the former resident.
Right away he felt safe and secure in the space under the stairs. His mother wouldn’t be bothered by his music, no matter how loud he played it, and he didn’t have to worry about running into Karla. As for his father, there was no chance he’d bother him because he was never home.
Severin tried to think back to the last time he saw his father and couldn’t remember how long it had been. Where was his father now? He might be anywhere in the world, flying in a jet above pink clouds or getting ready to go to bed in a hotel room in some strange, foreign city.
And no matter how many hours Severin spent in the basement—listening to music, reading, napping, or just thinking—his mother never seemed to realize he was gone. She never asked where he had been or how he had spent his day. In fact, he hardly ever saw her. At suppertime, he went upstairs to the kitchen, where he would find a sandwich, some fruit, or a bowl of soup that Karla had left there for him.
After he ate, he would go upstairs to his room and get ready for bed, lingering for a few seconds outside the closed door of his mother’s room, where he would hear her television or the low murmur of her voice as she spoke to Karla. He didn’t much like his mother and didn’t feel any special connection with her. If she died, he wouldn’t feel very sad, except that his father would probably put him into some kind of a children’s home because he didn’t know how to be any kind of a real father. Severin looked forward to the day when he was old enough to leave them.
One afternoon, after he had spent all day since breakfast in the basement, he went to sleep on his pallet on the floor. When he woke up, he noticed a trap door in the ceiling above his head that he had never noticed before. Where did the trap door lead? He wasn’t going to be able to put it out of his mind until he found out.
Standing on the card table, Severin found he could just reach the trap door. He pushed it and it opened easily. There were footholds and handholds enough that he was able to pull himself all the way through. When he stood all the way up, he saw he was standing in the kitchen, but it wasn’t the same kitchen. It was the same, but somehow different. To begin with, the refrigerator was different, the stove, the kitchen sink and the linoleum on the floor. The most striking difference, though, was that four people were sitting around a table: a father, a mother, a son and a daughter. He didn’t know who they were and had never seen them before. The father had a bald head; the mother was a blonde; the girl was about nine and the boy about thirteen.
Severin was confused but mostly he was embarrassed that he was intruding. They were having dinner and they wouldn’t like it that he, a complete stranger, was in their house. He couldn’t explain it even if he tried. He didn’t know what to say to them, but he believed he should say something.
He approached the table. The four people were eating and talking. When he stood close to them, he could see their mouths moving when they spoke, but their voices were muffled and he couldn’t understand what they were saying. It was as if something had suddenly gone wrong with his hearing.
“Hello!” he said, thinking they would all look at him in surprise, but they went right on eating and talking and didn’t look at him at all.
“I’m sorry to be in your house this way,” he said, “but I thought I was in my own house and I don’t know how I got here. I know that sounds crazy, but…”
He stopped talking when he realized they couldn’t see him or hear him and didn’t know he was there. He must be having a dream, he thought, but if it was a dream it was the most realistic dream he ever had.
He went back down through the trap door into the basement, dropped down onto the card table, and went to sleep again on the pallet on the floor.
He didn’t think about the four people again until, asleep in his room in the middle of the night, he woke up and remembered them. No matter how much he thought about them and tried to remember, he didn’t know who they were or where they came from. Did he just think them up out of his imagination? Were they out of a book he read or a movie he saw? Were they ghosts?
The next afternoon, in his basement hideaway, he was going to forget about the trap door, but his eyes kept going up to it. Before he knew it, he was standing on the card table, shimmying his way through the small opening again.
The house was still, as if nobody was at home. He stood quietly in the kitchen for a minute or two and heard nothing. When he was reasonably certain no one was there, he proceeded into the living room and dining room.
Those rooms were the same rooms he was familiar with, but everything else was different: the dining room table and chairs, the sideboard, the couch and overstuffed chair, coffee table, lamps, pictures on the walls, rugs on the floor. All the furniture was neat and straight, everything in its proper place. There was no television, though. (What kind of a family didn’t have a television?)
He went upstairs, his feet sounding too loud on the treads. He didn’t think there was anybody at home, but if he did happen to meet one of them, he would try to explain (explain what?), or he would turn around and run and hope he wasn’t seen.
He made a circuit of all the upstairs rooms, checking the bathroom and each one of the bedrooms. All the bedrooms had beds in them and other furniture he had never seen before. His own bedroom was the same room, of course, but his bed and chest-of-drawers were gone and in their place furniture he had never seen before. He opened the closet door and saw his clothes were gone and somebody else’s clothes in their place.
Believing he heard a door opening downstairs, he crept back downstairs, through the living room and into the kitchen. He was making for the trap door, when he saw, hanging on the wall, something that stopped him in his tracks: a calendar showing the year 1937. He didn’t know much about history, but he knew that 1937 was a long time ago. That would explain why there was no television in the house. Nobody had televisions yet in 1937. Also, that would explain the old-fashioned furniture and drapes and all the rest of it. These people, whoever they were, were from a long time ago, but they were living in his house, or what seemed like his house.
He went back down through the trap door and into his familiar basement hideaway. Out of breath, he sat on the floor with his back against the wall, having the feeling that he had just barely escaped. He had been in somebody else’s house and they were going to come after him. He had seen things he wasn’t supposed to see. Something bad was going to happen if he wasn’t careful. He would never go through the trap door again. He would put it out of his mind.
But he wasn’t able to put the trap door out of his mind. He kept thinking about it again and again. He woke up several times in the night thinking about it. He woke up in the morning thinking about it. The trap door was inviting him to climb through.
And climb through it he did, right after lunch. Since it was Saturday, all four members of the family were at home. The mother was in the kitchen baking a cake; the father was in the living room reading a newspaper. The son and the daughter were nowhere to be seen, probably upstairs in their rooms.
Feeling bolder now, Severin walked up to the mother in the kitchen and stood three feet away, where she was sure to see him. She didn’t see him, though, but went right on mixing her cake. When he went into the living room and stood in front of the couch, the father went right on turning the pages of the newspaper and didn’t look up, even when Severin made little popping sounds with his mouth. That’s when it occurred to Severin that maybe he was the ghost and not them.
Just then the little girl came down the stairs and said something to her father. Severin stood right in front of her where she would be sure to see him, but she walked right past him and went into the kitchen. He had never felt invisible before and found it a most agreeable sensation.
After that Severin began visiting the family every day. In time, he learned their names. The boy’s name was Gunner and the girl’s name was Phoebe. The mother was Marcella and the father Clyde. Their last name was Pettibone. Clyde Pettibone taught history in high school.
After six or eight of these silent and anonymous visits, Severin began to feel more comfortable with the Pettibone family. He sat with them when they were eating or listening to the radio and he had to admit he liked them. He listened to their talk and their laughter and he saw how free and easy they were with each other. There were no temper tantrums, arguing, tears or hurt feelings—all the things he was accustomed to with his own family.
On one of these visits, the mother looked directly at Severin, smiling, and said, “We hear your music.”
Her voice still sounded to him like a voice under water, but her smile told him she didn’t disapprove of old-time jazz.
A few days later she asked him if he’d like to stay and have dinner with them. He nodded his head and she set him a place at the table.
She put the food on a plate in front of him. He saw the food, picked up a fork and tried to eat it, but by the time he put the fork to his mouth, the food had disappeared because for him it didn’t exist. He tried to pretend he was eating when he wasn’t, but he didn’t think he was very convincing.
On succeeding visits, Phoebe and Gunner were able to see him, and then when their father came into the room, he acknowledged that he could also see him.
“Where do you come from?” Phoebe asked. “We haven’t ever seen you before.”
“I live here!” Severin said, but he knew it wouldn’t make any sense to them.
After a while, Severin knew he was beginning to become like the Pettibones. He was fading from his own world and being absorbed into the world of 1937, the world of the Pettibones. When he ate with them now, the food seemed real to him. He put it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed, and it made him feel full. And when they spoke, he could hear their voices more clearly now without the underwater sensation.
“We love having you here,” Marcella said to him. “You don’t have to go back to that other place if you don’t want to. We have plenty of room for you here.”
“Yes, I think I’d like that,” Severin said.
“I always wanted a brother about my own age,” Gunner said. “I’ll show you my stamp collection and we can have a lot of fun together.”
“I’ll teach you to do the waltz,” Phoebe said, “and you can help me with my arithmetic homework.”
“I wasn’t planning on having another son,” Clyde said with a laugh, “but those things happen!”
Severin had much to tell them about his own time, which to the Pettibones was the future, but the more time he spent with them the more he became like them and forgot about his own time. He took the name Severin Pettibone and after a while he forgot he had ever been anything else. Clyde was his father, Marcella his mother, Gunner his brother and Phoebe his sister.
As for the fat-lady invalid upstairs in the master bedroom, it took her a while to realize that the old Severin Dinwiddie was gone and wasn’t coming back. She cried and wailed and called the police and insisted they find her little boy, but secretly she was glad he was gone.
Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp
A Niece Visits Her Uncle ~ A Short Story
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
The Doctor Dispenses Drugs from His Office ~ A Short Story
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
Literary Fictions 