Literary Fictions

Head in a Bottle
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

A girl named Oubliette lived with her grandmother in a remote mountain area in the wildest part of a wild state. The house they lived in was older than anybody could remember and had a hundred or more rooms. Oubliette loved the house, as it was the only home she had ever known. She felt safe and happy there, knowing she never had to venture out into the world. Grandmother had taught her that the world is an ugly and evil place, with myriad dangers waiting to snare the unsuspecting, and those who live apart from it are the luckiest people alive.

Oubliette didn’t miss going to school the way other children do because she always had plenty to do to keep her body and mind occupied. The house was filled with many interesting things. One enormous room on the top floor was filled with specimens floating in formaldehyde in large bottles. One bottle held a pair of smiling Siamese twins that appeared to be hugging. Oubliette liked to think of them as living in the bottle. She was sure they were as happy in their snug little world as she was in hers. Another bottle that she was always drawn to held the head of a man with his hair floating out from his head like seaweed. His eyes were open wide and his lips were parted as if he had been trying to speak at the moment his head was severed from his body. What exactly had he been going to say? Oubliette liked to put her ear against the cold glass next to his mouth in the hope that she would hear him speak but she never did. It was a tantalizing mystery, though.

Other bottles held a heart, a liver, a brain, eyes, and a set of lungs, not to mention a dodo bird that had been extinct for hundreds of years, an octopus, a python snake, side-by-side scorpion and tarantula, a dinosaur egg that was millions of years old, a coelacanth, baby shark and alligator, and on and on. Not in jars but in opposite corners of the room as if they were keeping watch were two complete human skeletons suspended from hooks. The room and everything in it was as familiar and beloved to Oubliette as her own hand.

Another part of the house was filled with departed family members who had walked the earth long before Oubliette was born. One of Grandmother’s sons, the one she didn’t like to talk about very much, had been a taxidermist. His name was Sheridan and he was Oubliette’s great uncle. He had left home many years ago and nobody knew anymore if he was even still alive. Instead of stuffing animals as most taxidermists do, Uncle Sheridan stuffed deceased family members. It had become a sort of tradition in the family that when one died one would be stuffed and mounted instead of being buried in the ground the way most dead people are. And Sheridan prided himself on the lifelike appearance of his subjects: Uncle Julius, for example, was dressed in evening dress, cape and top hat and was just stepping from a carriage as he did so often in life. Baby Margaret sat up in her perambulator, eyes shining and mouth opened slightly in baby laughter, showing tiny, pearl-like teeth.  Grandfather Beauchamp sat in his favorite armchair beside a stock ticker, carefully studying the narrow stream of paper issuing from it. Cousin Grace was dressed in a shimmering gown as Juliet, a part she had triumphed in on the stage. Uncle Cowan, a gifted musician in life (killed by a lightning bolt at age 19), was playing the violin with a look of intense concentration. His sister, Marigold, was sitting at a vanity table brushing her golden hair. Aunt Clytemnestra, Grandmother’s sister, sat at a writing table with pen poised over paper. (She had been a celebrated writer of serials for women.) Eccentric cousin Ludlow, a member of a circus in life, was dressed as a clown with white face paint, a round red nose and a huge grinning mouth. Cousin Melba on Grandfather’s side of the family was on her knees with her hands folded in front of her in an attitude of prayer, asking for forgiveness because she had taken her own life. Melba’s husband, Gustave, having been a doctor, was dressed in a medical gown, with a stethoscope around his neck and a raven on his shoulder (why a raven, nobody could say). Grandmother’s daughter, Meredith (she died on her sixteenth birthday of a brain hemorrhage), was sitting in a rocker beside a birdcage with a book in her hand, looking exactly as she had looked on the day before she died.

Oubliette loved every one of them as if they were alive. She had come to understand at an early age that “dead” is a relative term. Just because you are “dead” in one place doesn’t mean you are “dead” in all places. There are the unseen worlds that living people aren’t supposed to know about. Her only sorrow was that Uncle Sheridan wouldn’t be there to stuff her and Grandmother when their time came. She supposed they would just have to go into the ground the way ordinary dead people do.

She worried sometimes about Grandmother. Nobody knew exactly how old she was, but she had to be over a hundred. Recently she had stopped doing many of the things she loved to do and had taken, about every other day, to staying in bed all day. That wasn’t like her at all. She probably needed a doctor but didn’t like doctors and wouldn’t allow one in the house. She said the only doctor worth anything was nature. When it was her time to go to the other world, she would go, without having any quack doctors fussing around her and expecting to be paid for it.

Oubliette refused to think about Grandmother leaving her. She knew that everybody leaves the corporeal world for the ethereal one, but she somehow believed it wouldn’t happen to Grandmother as long as Oubliette needed her to be there with her. Grandmother was, after all, her only loved one and the only person she had ever spoken to in all her life. They were like two separate parts of the same body. As much as she loved the specimens in the bottles, the skeletons, and the stuffed family members, they were really nothing without Grandmother. She had come to be of the opinion that when Grandmother left the corporeal world, she was going to leave it too.

Grandmother had been thinking along the same lines. One day at tea time she asked Oubliette to come into her bedroom and have tea with her because she had something she wanted to talk to her about.

“I taught you the story of Adam and Eve,” Grandmother said, propped up with a mountain of pillows on her bed.

“Yes,” Oubliette said.

“We all die because of them.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how old I am?”

“No.”

“The clock is winding down for me, as it does for all of us. The moment we are born, we begin to die.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Oubliette said.

“I’ve given you a good life, haven’t I?”

“Of course.”

“Have you thought about what your life will be after I’m gone?”

“No.”

“Because you are so young, the do-gooders will come and get you.”

“And do what with me?”

“They’ll make you a ward of the state. They’ll put you in a home for children without families where you will have to associate with riff-raff the likes of which you cannot even imagine.”

“Can you explain ‘riff-raff’ to me?”

“Girls with bugs and diseases. Filthy-minded boys who want to take away your innocence.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“No, indeed, it will not, if I have anything to say about it.”

“You’re not going to die,” Oubliette said. “You’ll still be here twenty years from now when I’m a grown-up person.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Grandmother said. “I’ve already lived longer than any person has a right to live.”

“What can I do about it?”

“In the corner of your medicine cabinet in your bathroom you will find a tiny bottle.”

“What’s in it?”

“Some white powder to be mixed with water and ingested. I’ve been told it is instantaneous and absolutely painless.”

“Oh.”

“It is, of course, completely up to you whether or not you use it. I know you’re a smart girl and will make the right decision.”

“Do you want me to try to contact Uncle Sheridan to come home and do for you what he did for the others?”

“Sheridan’s dead,” Grandmother said. “I saw it in a dream.”

Grandmother lived for a few more months but finally, one day in the spring, she departed this life, in her own bed, with Oubliette beside her holding her hand.

After a period of mourning lasting one day, Oubliette wrapped Grandmother carefully in a pink blanket like a mummy, using large safety pins, and pulled her off the bed onto the wheelchair. She rolled her into the specimen room and dumped her into a large vat of formaldehyde that she had made ready and sealed it shut as fast as she could.

She wasn’t ready to accept that Uncle Sheridan was dead, anymore than she was ready to accept that Grandmother was going into the ground and she would never see her face again. She would find him and make him come home. Since the two of them shared the same blood, she believed that a bond must exist between them, no matter how slight. She would contact him any way she could.

She called every newspaper in the telephone book (five of them) and placed an ad in the “personals” section of each one: Uncle Sheridan, please come home. Grandmother needs you. Signed, Oubliette.

Of the private investigators in the book, she called the one with the nicest-sounding name, Byron Montague, and asked him to conduct an investigation to find Uncle Sheridan, who might be anyplace in the world, if not dead. Byron Montague asked her many questions, most of which she couldn’t answer, but he agreed to explore every avenue and to send her a bill with the results of the investigation as soon as it was completed.

But that wasn’t all. Being a firm believer in the power of the occult, she conducted a séance. She had only a vague idea of what a séance should be, but she did the best she could with what she had. At midnight in the room with the stuffed family members, she sat before a mirror with a lighted candle between her and the mirror. She stared into the flame until it was the only thing that existed for her in the world. Putting both hands to her temples, she willed (a kind of praying) with all her might to enlist the aid of the departed.

“If Uncle Sheridan is there,” she said, “give me a sign. If he’s not there and is still among the living, let him know in any way you can that he’s needed at home.”

The candle went out at that moment in a room that was absolutely airtight, but she didn’t know what it meant. Was it the sign she asked for that Uncle Sheridan dwelt in the land of the dead, or was it an acknowledgment that she was getting through? The results were inconclusive and unsatisfying.

The next night she climbed all the steps in the house with a hundred rooms to the little flat place on the roof that in olden times had served as a lookout. When she was younger, she loved the lookout because it was so secret and private a place and was impossibly high off the ground. She used to spend hours there in agreeable weather reading a book, surrounded by her dolls and stuffed animals, or looking off into the distance, wondering vaguely what the world out there was really like. Whenever Grandmother couldn’t find her, she always looked for her on the lookout.

A light rain was falling but she didn’t mind. She had always liked the rain and, since it had been an especially warm day, it felt cooling on her skin. She looked into the sky and spoke a prayer to God (if God was anywhere, he had to be there) to send Uncle Sheridan home to her. He could stuff Grandmother the way she deserved to be stuffed and he could keep the do-gooders from taking Oubliette to an orphanage with all the riff-raff. It didn’t seem like a lot to ask.

She caught a terrible cold after that, but she didn’t mind very much. She stayed in bed for three days, napping and reading and wishing that Grandmother was there to keep a watch on her temperature and fix her tempting things to eat.

Weeks went by. She recovered from the cold and kept herself busy in the big, silent house, but she missed Grandmother terribly. She had never understood loneliness before. Now nothing was the same. She took to sleeping on a pallet on the floor of the specimen room next to the vat that held Grandmother, with the smiling Siamese twins at her head and the octopus at her feet.

Summer went by slowly and then it was autumn again. Oubliette was as low as she had ever been in her brief life. She couldn’t stand the thought of a winter alone in the house with its howling wind over the mountain and its dark, abbreviated days.

The day came when she didn’t even bother to get out of bed at all. She slept through the day, dreaming pleasant dreams about Grandmother and the way it used to be, and woke up in the early evening to the dark reality of her life. She knew she had reached the end of her tether and it was time to take the powder.

She cleaned herself up, combed her hair and washed her face, and put on her best nightgown that Grandmother made for her and gave her as a Christmas present the Christmas before she died. She filled a glass with water and took the little bottle of powder out of the medicine cabinet and emptied it into the water. She waited for the powder to dissolve and then drank it down.

She didn’t know how long she had so she hurried and got back into bed and pulled the covers up to her chest. Soon she began to feel a pleasant drowsiness and she knew the powder was taking effect. Her last thought before she passed over into that other realm was that it would be years before anybody found her body and when they did she would be a skeleton in the bed, with mice running in and out of her eye sockets. Maybe her ghost would haunt the house and people would be afraid to come anywhere near it, a prospect she found thoroughly enchanting.

She fell into the oblivion of sleep. Hours later (or was it minutes?) when she awoke she knew that something in the room had fundamentally changed but she didn’t know what it was. She sat up in bed and, turning on the light, saw a man standing at the foot of the bed looking at her. He had a black moustache and green eyes, the same color eyes as Uncle Cowan’s. She took that as a very good sign.

“Uncle Sheridan?” she said.

The man took his derby hat off and held it in his hand. “No,” he said.

“Am I dead or am I dreaming?” she asked.

“Any one of us could ask that very same question,” he said.

She pushed back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed, caring nothing about modesty. “If you’re not Uncle Sheridan,” she said, “who are you?”

“Does the name Byron Montague mean anything to you?”

“The private investigator?”

“One and the same.”

“Did you find Uncle Sheridan?”

“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“You gave me your address to send you my bill, remember?”

“You deliver your bill in person?”

“This is the first time.”

“My next question might be to ask why you are in my room in the middle of the night and if you are really here or if I am only imagining it.”

“It’s difficult to explain.”

“Do the best you can.”

“After I spoke to you on the phone, I started thinking a lot about your situation. It wasn’t what you told me that concerned me but what you didn’t tell me. I knew that you needed help and it came to me that I was the one to help. When I tried to put it out of my mind, it always came back to me, as if I was being impelled in some way, but who or what impelled me, I couldn’t say.”

“How did you even get through the front door? It’s always locked.”

“I knocked repeatedly and when nobody came I was about to leave when the thought occurred to me that a key might be hidden somewhere. People very often do that, you know. I started looking around and found a key high up in a tiny niche—more a crack, really—to the right of the door. I had come this far, so I just had to come inside and look around, although I might have been taken for a burglar and shot.”

“You’re not a taxidermist are you?” she asked. “In addition to being a private investigator?”

“Yes, I am,” he said. “How did you know?”

“Have you ever stuffed dead people instead of animals?”

“Well, once or twice,” he said, “but I think as a practice it’s generally looked down upon.”

“I have something I want to show you,” she said.

She put on her dressing gown and took him into the room with the stuffed family members. At first he thought he was looking at wax figures until he put his face up against their faces and sniffed them like a dog.

“This is very good work,” he said. “Quality craftsmanship.”

“I’ll bet you’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“No, indeed, I have not. Who did it?”

“Uncle Sheridan.”

“I get a chill when I look at them. They’re dead yet still they live. They ought to be in a museum.”

“We would never agree to display them in a museum, Grandmother and me.”

“Is she here now?”

“She’s waiting just down the hall. If you come with me, I’ll take you to her.”

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

Marrying Quintus Cavender
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story was published in The Literary Hatchet.)

Hulga Colley was afraid in the house alone at night. She heard voices and believed someone was trying to break in, even though she double-checked all the windows and doors before going to bed. And it wasn’t just the doors and windows; she was certain someone was hiding in the attic and would come down into her bedroom through the ceiling to get to her. They would spy on her and rob and rape her; they would tie her up and torture and impregnate her and then they would help themselves to whatever food was in the kitchen before leaving. As irrational as these fears seemed during the daylight hours, she seemed powerless to control them at night.

Part of the problem was the old house Hulga lived in. It was a ramshackle, tumbledown pile, to be sure, not conducive to happiness or cheer. There was a ghost or two still hanging on, she was certain. Sometimes she heard them laughing or taunting her. They liked to hide her glasses or the butter or the toilet paper. One day they would kill her in a horrible and unexpected way and her dead body would not be discovered for a long time.

Hulga’s best friend was Irene Peebles. Hulga and Irene had known each other since high school. Irene was a widow who lived in a roomy, two-story house with her brother, a bachelor named Quintus Cavender. Quintus used to work as a foreman in a factory but had to stop working because of ill health and go on government disability. Irene kept house for him, washed his clothes and cooked his food. He was her only family, as she was his.

Irene was always ready to help a friend in need. When she heard that the furnace in Hulga’s house stopped working and needed expensive repairs, she invited Hulga to spend a few days in her guest room, until the furnace could be repaired. Hulga was all too happy to pack her suitcases and fire up the old Rambler and drive on over to Irene’s house in low gear.

Hulga loved the guest room. It was luxurious compared to what she was used to. It had its own bathroom, just like in a fine hotel. The flusher on the toilet always worked and the water came out of the faucets in a lusty gush rather than a brown trickle. The walls were all plumb and the doors hung precisely in their frames. There was no peeling paint, no shredded wallpaper and no furtive sounds coming from inside the walls. It was a little slice of heaven.

Best of all, she stopped hearing the voices that scared her so badly in the night. She stopped imagining that someone was trying to get to her to do bad things. She slept soundly all night long, from the time she went to bed until the twittering birds woke her up in the morning. Who would imagine that a change of scenery could make so much difference?

Every rose has its thorns, though, every bottle of wine its sediment in the bottom.

“I don’t think your brother likes having me here,” Hulga said to Irene one evening when they were washing the dishes after dinner.

“He’s an old crab sometimes, but he doesn’t mean anything by it,” Irene said. “He loves having you here. He said so.”

After a week, Hulga showed no signs of going home. At the dinner table, the only time the three of them were together in the same room, Quintus questioned Hulga bluntly about her plans.

“How much longer do you plan on being here?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, brightly innocent.

“How is the furnace repair coming along?”

“Not so good,” Hulga said. “The man says I need to buy a new furnace. I told him I don’t have the money for that, so he’s sending away to Germany for the spare parts to fix the old one.”

“How long is that going to take?”

“He doesn’t know. He’ll get the parts as quick as he can.”

“You can’t rush these things,” Irene said.

“Do you know the Parklane Hotel over by the park?” he asked.

“No, I don’t believe I do,” Hulga said.

“I’d be happy to run you over there.”

“What are you saying?” Irene said. “Of course, I won’t have my dear friend staying in a hotel when she can stay here! Don’t be ridiculous!”

Alone in the guest room late at night after everybody had gone to bed, Hulga schemed. Irene—but especially Quintus—was expecting her to go back home soon. The truth was, though, that she didn’t want to go back home. She wanted to stay. For good. She didn’t want to leave the wonderful guest room with its luxurious bed, pristine walls, stain-free ceiling and movie-star bathroom. They were hers now (to her way of thinking) and woe to anybody who tried to make her part with them!

So, the question now was this: How might she sell her old house for what little it was worth and live permanently in Irene and Quintus’s house? She might get Irene and Quintus to sign the house over to her and then kill them, but that didn’t seem like a very practical plan; she had never killed anybody and she would be sure to get caught. No, the right way and the legal way to make it her house too was to marry Quintus! Of course, it was so obvious right from the beginning. She and Quintus would become husband and wife and then, according to the Napoleonic code of the state they resided in, the house would belong to her as much as to Quintus and Irene! So easy and so simple!

The key to the success of the plan was Irene. Once Irene saw the good sense and the practicality of it, the two of them could put the idea over to Quintus. He might take some convincing, but he was sure to come around in time.

When Hulga told Irene of her plan over a cup of tea and a slice of apple cake, Irene looked at her in astonishment.

“Are you making a joke?” she asked.

“No,” Hulga said. “Why would I joke about such a thing?”

“Quintus is a bachelor. He was born a bachelor. He will always be a bachelor. He will die a bachelor.”

“He’s not gay, is he?”

“If he is, he’s never told me.”

“Don’t you think you’d know it?”

“I don’t want to know it. It’s his own private business.”

“I see. So, you don’t think he’d marry me?”

“I don’t think he’d marry June Allyson.

“I could make him want to marry me.”

“How?”

“I could cook for him and give him back rubs. When he’s tired, he can put his feet in my lap and I’ll rub them for him. I’ll always encourage him and listen to his stories about his childhood and let him talk about himself endlessly without interrupting him. Men love to talk about themselves.”

“I don’t think even that would do it.”

“Well, I don’t have any money, but if I did I’d give it all to him.”

“Money won’t do it, either.”

“You’re not being very encouraging.”

“I’m just being realistic. I know him.”

“The three of us could live together in this beautiful house in happiness and contentment for as long as we live. We could take care of each other. We’d always be together and we’d never be lonely again.”

“I don’t think Quintus is lonely.”

“But you’re his sister. How could you know?”

“He’s always been a solitary person.”

“That’s because he doesn’t know any other kind of life. I could change all that.”

“So, you’re planning on not only marrying him, but also changing him?”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t think men like women trying to change them.”

“You’ll see! I’m a very good cook and housekeeper. He’ll have no complaints on that score. And when it comes to sexual relations, I’ll be willing to do whatever makes him happy.”

“You’re able to think of him in a sexual way?”

“Of course! He’s an attractive man.”

“Quintus? Attractive?”

“I have to admit I’ve always had a little crush on him.”

“A crush? You have a crush on Quintus?”

“I know it’s difficult for you to believe, but it’s true. If he and I were together, I know I could make him happier than he’s ever been before in his life.”

“Why don’t you just ask him to marry you, then?”

“I’ve thought of that, but I don’t want to frighten him to death. I don’t want to overwhelm him. He needs time to think about it. I want you to smooth the way for me first. Give him a chance to get used to the idea.”

The next day Hulga was gone all afternoon. She drove downtown and had a long lunch at Woolworth’s lunch counter and then she did some shopping, which mostly amounted to looking at merchandise she couldn’t afford. When she was tired of shopping, it was too early to go back—she wanted to give Irene ample time to talk to Quintus—so she went to a matinee movie. It was a war movie that she didn’t like very much, but she cried at the end when everybody got killed.

Driving back in afternoon traffic, which always scared her a little, she felt a thrill in her abdominal muscles, radiating out to her arms and legs, because she was sure that Quintus had been thinking all along what she had been thinking and that, yes, he would love to marry her! He had been searching all his life for somebody like her and now the search was over! They were going to be so happy!

When she got back home (not her home, but Quintus and Irene’s), Quintus’s car wasn’t in the driveway or in the garage. She expected him to be there to greet her with open arms. Irene was in the house alone, playing Solitaire at the kitchen table.

“You’ve been gone all day,” Irene said.

“I did some shopping and saw a war movie,” Hulga said.

“Sit down and have a cup of tea.”

“I don’t want any tea. I want to know if you have any news for me.”

She pulled out the chair and sat across the table from Irene.

Irene said, “You should have known, deep down, that Quintus would never want to get married.”

“No? The answer is no?”

“I’m sorry, dear.”

Hulga turned away and started to cry. “I was hopeful,” she said. “I was so hopeful.”

“It just wasn’t a good idea from the beginning.”

“I thought it would be just the right thing for all of us.”

“I know, dear, but we don’t all think the same way.”

“Can I talk to him? Is he here?”

“He left. He won’t be back until next week.”

“Where did he go?”

“He went on a fishing trip.”

“When he comes back, if I could just talk to him myself…”

“It wouldn’t do any good, I’m afraid. His mind is made up.”

“I could at least apologize for being so silly and presumptuous.”

“I think we should just leave it as it is,” Irene said. She took a piece of paper out of the pocket of her sweater and pushed it across the table toward Hulga.

“What is this?” Hulga asked.

“It’s a check.”

“What is it for?”

“He wants you to have a new furnace. He’s going to pay for it.”

Hulga unfolded the check and dried her eyes. “Why, it’s a check for fifteen thousand dollars!”

“He wants you to have a new furnace.”

“Why, I can’t take this!”

“Of course, you can!”

“How could I ever repay him?”

“You don’t have to repay him. It’s a gift.”

Hulga was happy and sad at the same time. “Oh, I get it!” she said. “This money is to get me to go home! You don’t have to drop a ton of bricks on me! I know when I’m being asked to leave!”

Before Irene had a chance to say anything else, Hulga stood up from the table and went upstairs to the guest room. She had her bags by the front door and was ready to leave by four o’clock.

“You don’t have to go now,” Irene said. “Stay and have dinner.”

“I’m not hungry!”

Irene opened the door and Hulga squeezed through with her suitcases.

“I can help you carry those to the car,” Irene said.

“Don’t bother! I’m not helpless, you know.”

Hulga slammed the bags into the back seat of the car and drove off in a cloud of exhaust.

Back in her own cold, dark house, she cried for a couple of hours that her plan to marry Quintus didn’t work out the way she had hoped. After she cried herself out, she heated a can of pork and beans and ate them in front of her erratic television, whose picture came and went according to which way the wind was blowing.

At ten o’clock, she wanted to take a hot bath, but she knew she would just about freeze to death if she immersed herself in water, so she took two sleeping pills and got into bed and listened to the wind outside the window and the strange creaking sounds the house generated on its own.

She slept soundly for three or four hours and then awoke with a start, imagining someone calling her name. She got out of bed and walked around the bedroom in the dark, half-asleep, looking for something without knowing what it was. The cold drove her back to bed and soon she was lost in sleep again; that’s when the ghosts came out of the attic and the walls to do bad things to her. They tried to kiss her obscenely, their tongues hanging out of their mouths, but she fought them off valiantly and refused to let them have their lascivious way with her. One of them, she was sure, had the face of Quintus Cavender.

In running through the house from room to room trying to find an ax (or was it the phone she was looking for?), she fell twelve feet through the rotting floor into the basement. The fall broke both legs and her back and she died in several hours in hellish pain. Her decaying corpse provided a feast for mice, silverfish, slugs, centipedes, roaches, spiders and a hungry rat or two, over many days to come.

Finally, somebody in the neighborhood asked the question that needed to be asked: Has anybody seen the crazy old woman that lives in that old house?

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

A Good Part of the Afternoon
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

She called herself Penelope but that wasn’t really her name. She lived in a small but comfortable third-floor apartment in a large building. She paid her rent on time and never caused anybody any trouble. She rarely went out and knew none of the other people in her building except to pass them in the hallway.

Most of her days were the same but she didn’t mind. She was happy with her life, as narrow as it was. If contentment was happiness and happiness contentment, then she had both.

Her baby, whom she called Alexander, lay in his crib in the bedroom. He was such a good baby. Never caused any trouble at all. And she attended to him assiduously. When she was in the kitchen washing the dishes, she thought she heard him whimper, but when she went in to check on him he was still asleep. A perfect little angel.

Feeling a little bit lonely, she picked Alexander up in her arms and carried him into the living room and sat down with him in the rocking chair. She cooed at him, laughed, and sang him a little song that she made up. She felt him looking at her with his wide eyes, his bow-shaped lips drawn back over his perfect teeth in a sweet smile. He was such a handsome boy. So much like his father.

She held him, rocked him, and sang to him for a good part of the afternoon, thanking the Lord above all the while for giving him to her. Then when she heard the clock chime three o’clock, she knew it was time to start dinner. She took Alexander back into the bedroom and placed him carefully in the crib.

She went into the kitchen and put on her apron. She would fix a casserole with some leftovers from the refrigerator. It would be ready about the time that Alexander’s father arrived home.

While the dinner was baking, she set the little table for two and then fixed herself up some, washed her face, combed her hair and put on some lipstick.

When she knew he would be arriving any second, she felt the blood quicken in her veins. She went into the bedroom and picked Alexander up and carried him to the front door. She looked out the little peephole in the door and, just like clockwork, she heard his footsteps in the hallway. He was dressed in a dark suit, carrying his briefcase just like always.

She saw him through the peephole as he opened the door across the hall and went inside. She held Alexander up to the peephole to get a glimpse of him before it was too late. It didn’t matter that Alexander was made out of plastic, had plastic eyes, and the man across the hall didn’t know her. The day for her was complete. She was as fulfilled as any woman could be.

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

Blanche and Jane and the Hollywood Vampire
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

I worked for the movie studio in the 1920s and ‘30s. I knew Blanche and Jane on a professional level. Blanche started in movies in the late ‘20s, when she was about eighteen. She had her first movie role around 1927. Of course, this was still the silent era. She didn’t become a star overnight, but she did well enough to get offers in other silent pictures. When sound pictures came in, she made the transition easily enough. That’s when she became a star. Every picture she made was a hit, and everybody liked her. She was going places. She was young, beautiful and talented.

Her sister Jane, though, was another story. She was a big deal in Vaudeville, with her singing and dancing, but after she became too big for her little girl act, she was headed for obscurity. Sure, she tried the movies, certain she could match Blanche’s success, but it just didn’t happen for her. Producers and directors hired her as a favor to Blanche, but they soon regretted their generosity. She was drunk all the time, couldn’t remember her lines and cues, and kept everybody waiting and wondering where she was and what she was doing. She was fired from three pictures in a row. She was finished as an actress.

Remembering her success as a child performer, though, Jane believed she was destined for stardom, if not in the movies, then on the stage. She had already had her run in Vaudeville, and Vaudeville was dead. People preferred movies to the corny Vaudeville fare, but that didn’t stop Jane. She practiced her old act night and day. If it worked for her as a child, it would work for her as an adult. The problem was that by this time she was just plain grotesque. The heavy drinking had spoiled her figure and her once-youthful face. Her beautiful blond hair now looked like a mop that had scrubbed too many floors. The more tactful agents told her she didn’t have what they were looking for. The ones who weren’t so kind called her a has-been and booted her out the door.

It was the mid-1930s, and Blanche was riding high. She had just been signed by the studio to a multi-million dollar, seven-year contract. She received sacks full of fan mail every day. She had to hire a secretary just to take care of her mail.

And then, on New Year’s Eve, it all came crashing down.

Blanche was invited to a party at the home of Chester Siler, the director of her latest cinematic triumph. Hating to leave Jane all alone on New Year’s Eve, she phoned Chester and asked if she might bring Jane along. “Of course,” he said. “Anybody you want to bring along will be most welcome.”

Jane was reluctant to go to a party of Blanche’s friends, but after she thought about it for a while, she saw how it might benefit her professionally. There would be producers and directors at the party and she might make some important showbiz connections. If nothing else, she might be able to humiliate Blanche.

The party was a glittering affair, filled with Hollywood luminaries. Everybody wanted to talk to Blanche and sit next to her. Some of the handsomest men in Hollywood waited to dance with her.

Jane was well-behaved at first. She sat with the older ladies, and when a gentleman asked her to dance, she smilingly complied. After hours of steady drinking, though, she became raucous. She stood on a table and announced to everybody that she was Blanche Hudson’s sister, and that she too was an actress. She was just as good as her damn sister, and she wanted the world to know it. She just hadn’t had all the lucky breaks.

When Blanche tried to calm Jane down and stop making a spectacle of herself, Jane socked her in the jaw and began calling her whore and slut and tramp and any other name she could think of. She implied that Blanche only became a success in pictures because she had no morals and would spread her legs for anybody who might further her career.

Finally Blanche got Jane down off the table and, with several of the other women guests, got her into the kitchen, where they had a pot of coffee brewed for her. Blanche was humiliated. The party was ruined for her.

Right after the countdown to midnight, Blanche got Jane into her coat and corralled her out the door and into the car. Jane slept the whole way home, snoring and sputtering, trying to talk but making no sense.

At their home, finally, Blanche got out of the car to open the gate, letting the car idle. That’s when Jane got behind the wheel of the car and ran Blanche down in the driveway, nearly killing her.

Blanche lay in the driveway screaming. Neighbors heard the commotion and called an ambulance. Police came. They tried to piece together what happened, but it made no sense to them. Blanche was apparently by herself. Jane was nowhere to be found. She was located ten days later in a skid row hotel under an assumed name.

Blanche was in the hospital for many months. Her back was broken. Every spinal specialist in the state reviewed her case; they all said there was no chance she would ever walk again. When she was released from the hospital and sent home, she had to have somebody in her family to take care of her. Her only family was her sister, Jane.

Jane moved into Blanche’s big house with her. (Jane insisted the house belonged to her.) Since Blanche could no longer walk, she was confined to her upstairs bedroom. Jane prepared the food in the kitchen downstairs and carried it up to Blanche’s room. She did all the cooking, shopping, laundry, cleaning, etc., that needed to be done. With the tidy fortune Blanche had made in the movies, they could have hired a housekeeper, but Jane didn’t want any strangers in “her” house.

Blanche was allowed one extravagance, her maid Elvira. Besides being a maid, Elvira was also a friend and confidante. She came in two or three days a week and helped Blanche with her letter-writing and with anything else that needed to be done. Blanche paid her a small salary, but Elvira would have done it free of charge.

Elvira’s plan was to get Jane “put away.” She saw how unstable she was and how she was habitually drunk. She believed that Jane would someday “hurt” Blanche in some vengeful way, maybe even kill her. Elvira envisioned Jane setting the house on fire and leaving Blanche upstairs to burn to death.

Elvira and Jane disliked each other with equal fervor. Jane was always looking for a reason to fire Elvira, but it was out of her hands. Blanche paid Elvira’s salary and all the rest of the bills for the household. Jane didn’t have a dime to her name except what Jane gave her. It was just another humiliation added to all the other humiliations she had had to endure.

Elvira was never shy about giving her opinions.

“That sister of yours is like a volcano waiting to erupt,” she said to Blanche one rainy Saturday afternoon when the two of them were alone in Blanche’s room.

“She’s not as bad as she seems,” Blanche said. “I’ve talked to her many times about her drinking. She tries to control it, but sometimes it’s too much for her.”

“You’re too easy with her. If she was my sister, I’d slap her in a mental hospital where she belongs.”

“Life hasn’t been easy for her. She showed great promise as a young person, but she’s been disappointed so many times.”

“I know all that, but it doesn’t excuse her behavior. She’s got a barrelful of liquor bottles in the corner of the kitchen.”

“I know, but we have to be kind with Jane.”

“She’s bad for you! She shouldn’t be taking care of you! You could afford to hire a real nurse and a good housekeeper to boot.”

“Jane and I get along quite well.”

“You could have her committed! You are the only person in the world to do it.”

Blanche laughed merrily. “Have Jane committed! Don’t you think that’s a little drastic, Elvira? Who would treat their own sister that way?”

“Do you know she’s hired a pianist? She’s been rehearsing her act night and day, just the way she did it when she was a little girl!”

“Yes, she still dreams of being a star.”

“It just isn’t healthy.”

“Well, I suppose we must indulge her in her whims.”

“Speaking of whims, I have one I want you to indulge me in.”

“What is it?”

“I have somebody I want to you to meet.”

“Another movie fan?”

“No. This is somebody who can really help you!”

“Another doctor? I think all the doctors agree I’m a hopeless cripple.”

“No. Not a doctor in the way you mean.”

“It’s not a faith healer, is it?”

“No, not a faith healer.”

“What is it, then?”

“All right, now, honey! Get ready for this! He’s a vampire!”

“Oh, Elvira! Not a vampire! You know how I feel about supernaturals.”

“Yes, but you need to keep an open mind.”

“Absolutely not! I will not agree to see a vampire!”

“What have you got to lose?”

“Will he want to drink my blood?”

“Not if you don’t want him to.”

After a sustained argument, Blanche agreed to meet the vampire for ten minutes.

The next week on a Tuesday evening, Jane went nightclubbing with her pianist friend. She might not be back home until morning, she said. It was the perfect chance for Blanche to meet the vampire.

Elvira was waiting for him downstairs. He arrived punctually at seven o’clock. She took his coat and hat and escorted him upstairs to meet Blanche.

She was sitting in her wheelchair in the middle of the room, waiting for him. He advanced toward her and took her hand in his.

“So this is the divine Blanche,” he said. “In preparation for this evening, I watched all your movies, even the silent ones. You have a special radiance that’s unique to the screen.”

“Thank you,” Blanche said. “Won’t you sit down?”

He was not what she expected. He was old Hollywood. He was more Adolphe Menjou than Bela Lugosi. He was dressed in a dark, old-fashioned, double-breasted suit. He wore a white carnation in his buttonhole. His eyes were piercing and his skin white, but there wasn’t anything frightening about him. His name was Ramon Valentino. No doubt a Hollywood alias.

He pulled the guest chair closer so that their knees were almost touching. Again he took her hand.

“I can help you,” he said. “If you’ll let me.”

“How can you help me? Every doctor has told me I’m a helpless cripple.”

“You’re withering here. You’re wasting away. I see it in your eyes.”

“My sister Jane takes care of me.”

“Where is this sister?”

“She’s out for the evening.”

“I believe your sister is a large part of your trouble. She is not good for you. You need to get away from her.”

“How am I going to do that? She takes care of me. She’s the only family I have in the world.”

“Why not take care of yourself?”

“I’m not able.”

“What if I told you I could make you able?”

“I wouldn’t believe you.”

“With your permission, I’m going to give you an injection.”

“An injection of what?”

“Vampire blood, among other things.”

“Will it turn me into a vampire?”

“No need to worry about that now.”

He wheeled Jane’s chair over to the bed and helped her onto the bed. When she was settled comfortably, he administered the injection.

“This shot will make you sleep soundly and peacefully. You’ll wake up in the morning feeling better than you’ve felt in a long time. I will return in one week and give you another injection. There are ten in all. At the end of the ten injections, you will see a miraculous difference.”

“How much is this going to cost me?”

“I don’t care about money. If you’re not happy with the results, you pay me nothing.”

“It sounds too good to be true.”

“You must embrace the fantastic!”

After ten injections, Blanche’s spine fused and healed and she was able to walk again, to dance again if she cared to. She was young and beautiful again. She would be able to resume her screen acting career again that was so cruelly interrupted. When people heard about her miraculous recovery, she would be the toast of the town. Every producer would want her for his next film. People all over the world would be enthralled by her story and would eagerly anticipate her return to the screen.

Jane also benefited from Blanche’s recovery. She wouldn’t have to take care of Blanche anymore, but, better than that, her career was also revived. Introduced to vampire audiences by Mr. Ramon Valentino, she began dancing and singing in vampire theatres all over the world. Vampire audiences loved her act. What’s better than a worn, middle-aged, white-faced woman singing and dancing to songs from a bygone era, in the style of a woebegone child? What a sensation she created!

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

Where Men Are Men
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

The new gardener came in late summer. His name was Geoff Tallis. He wasn’t like the others. He wasn’t a grizzled old man with a sour smell, dirt under his fingernails and hair coming out of his nostrils. He was trim and light on his feet, like a boxer who knew all the moves. He hardly ever spoke and when he did his voice was quiet and confident. He cleaned up the lawn in record time, after a summer of neglect, without complaint and without excuses. And when he was finished for the day, he put away the tools and left without fanfare; never left anything out to get rained on.

Roddy was fifteen and just starting tenth grade. Summer was over and school had taken up again. Sitting in class all day long listening to people talk about things that didn’t interest him left him with a lot of pent-up energy. After depositing his books in his room, he liked to spend time outside, breathing pure air, walking around in the yard or just sitting quietly underneath the trees in the front yard listening to the birds twitter.

When Roddy saw Geoff working in the side yard, he approached him shyly, not knowing how he would take to being disturbed. Realizing Roddy was nearby, Geoff looked up from his work and smiled and gave a little wink. It was the wink that lifted Roddy’s heart and made him smile for the first time all day. Nobody had ever winked at him before.

Emboldened by these outward signs of friendliness, Roddy began speaking to Geoff whenever he got the chance. Roddy opened up to Geoff in a way that was rare for him. Geoff listened when Roddy spoke, never interrupting him or seeming impatient. They talked about clouds, animals, mountains, South America, Mars, the War of 1812, and anything else that came into Roddy’s head. He was amazed at how the words poured out of him and he didn’t have to worry about sounding stupid or being embarrassed. And, when all other subjects were exhausted for the moment, the talk inevitably turned to Roddy’s family.

“Watch out for my mother,” he said. “She’ll smile to your face and then stab you in the back. She fired the last gardener for cutting back the hibiscus bush too much. She didn’t even give him any warning. He was here and then he was gone. There were no goodbyes.”

“I’ll try to keep her from stabbing  me,” Geoff said.

“Have you met my sister?”

“I’ve seen her.”

“She’s a viper.  You don’t want to have anything to do with her. Her name is Janice. She’s seventeen and a senior this year. She’s ten times worse than my mother.”

Geoff laughed. “She can’t be as bad as all that!”

“You’ll find out if you’re here long enough. And then there’s my father. He’s a lawyer. He works all the time. He doesn’t want to be bothered with little domestic details. He leaves everything to my mother. He might come out of the house and fire you, but he’ll be polite about it.”

“I’ll try not to give him any reason.”

“Well, how about you? What about your family?”

“I don’t have any to speak of. My father died when I was five years old. My mother got married again and moved away. I had one older brother but he died.”

“What made you become a gardener?”

“I don’t know. I like being outside and watching things grow. I don’t plan on being a gardener forever.”

“What will you do then?”

“I don’t know. I’m open to all possibilities. I can do carpentry, house painting, and I’ve worked as a machinist.”

“Do you like doing those things?”

“I have to make a living. I like it as long as it pays me money.”

Another time Roddy talked to Geoff about school. He never talked to his parents about school. They only lectured him about applying himself and getting good grades. Geoff spoke to him as an equal, never talked down to him and never gave out with platitudes about staying in school and becoming a success in life.

“I don’t like school very much,” Roddy said. “I don’t fit in very well.”

“Why not?” Geoff asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I’m not like other people. I can’t wait to finish with school and get away from my family and everybody in this town.”

“Where will you go?”

“Out West somewhere, I think.”

“Where men are men?”

“Yeah. Wide-open spaces.”

Roddy began looking forward to seeing Geoff in the afternoons after school and was disappointed when he wasn’t there. He was afraid his mother would fire him or he’d quit without saying anything, and he’d never see him again. He didn’t know where Geoff lived or anything else about him, so that would be the end of that.

On a Friday afternoon, Roddy found Geoff in the yard with his hand bleeding.

“Why didn’t you knock on the door and ask my mother for help?” Roddy asked.

“I didn’t want to bother her.”

“You need to wash that out.”

He took Geoff into the kitchen and held his hand under the faucet. Then he gave him a cold root beer out of the refrigerator and told him to sit at the table while he went to get some antiseptic and a bandage.

The next day Geoff gave Roddy a little gift. It was an insect trapped in a nugget of amber.

“It’s for helping me yesterday,” Geoff said. “I’ve had it since I was twelve years old. I thought you’d like it.”

“It’s beautiful!”

He held it up to the light so he could see the insect better.

“It’s just between you and me,” Geoff said. “Don’t tell the others.”

“No, I won’t.”

He put the nugget in his pocket and went into dinner with a happy smile on his face. Janice couldn’t stand for him to be happy.

“When you’re smiling, you’re up to something and I bet it isn’t anything good,” she said.

“Mind your own business,” he said.

“I saw you out there talking to the gardener.”

“So what? I’m the only one in the family who treats him like a human being.”

“What were you two talking about?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Mother, I think you should fire that gardener,” Janice said.

“Why?”

“I don’t like his looks. He looks at me funny.”

“He doesn’t look at you,” Roddy said. “He looks through you.”

“We’ll only fire the gardener,” father said to Janice, “if you’ll do all his work after school and do it as well as he does.”

“Has he said anything to you, Janice?” mother asked.

“No, he hasn’t said anything, but he looks at me funny.”

“Funny how?”

“Like he’s thinking things.”

“Well, if he says anything inappropriate, you let me know.”

“He would never look at you!” Roddy said. “He has better taste than that. You’re only jealous because he doesn’t look at you!”

“Neither one of you should be associating with him on a personal basis,” mother said. “He’s a grown man and we don’t know anything about him.”

A few days later, Roddy’s mother accosted him in the hallway when he came inside after spending a half-hour or so talking to Geoff.

“What is that man saying to you?” mother asked.

“What man?”

“The gardener.”

“He’s not saying anything! We’re just talking!”

“He’s not trying to get you to do drugs, is he?”

“Of course not! Do you know how ridiculous that is?”

“Is he telling you dirty stories?”

“Why would he do that?”

“I want to know what he says to you!”

“He doesn’t say anything! We’re just talking!”

“We’ve all noticed how much time you’re spending with him. Even the neighbors have noticed. You need to stop hanging around him. You’re keeping him from his work!”

Roddy the next day told Geoff what his mother had said.

“I have to stop talking to you so much,” he said. “My sister is jealous if she thinks I have a friend. She sees me talking to you and then she goes and tells my mother made-up stories. She’s a natural-born troublemaker.”

“I get it,” Geoff said. “I don’t want to be the cause of any trouble.”

“I didn’t want you to think I stopped talking to you because I was mad at  you.”

“I’d never think that,” Geoff said.

“If she fires you, please don’t go away without saying goodbye.”

Roddy began having trouble in school. He was caught cheating on a geometry test. When he got into an argument with a history teacher and she told him to shut up, he threw a book across the classroom and went outside and smoked a cigarette.

When quarterly grades came out, it was worse than he expected. He was failing geometry and almost failing two other classes. If he didn’t get himself “straightened out,” as his father said, he was going to “flunk out” of school, and then where would he be? He’d end living at the city dump, a worthless hobo, without family and friends.

His father engaged a tutor, a former college professor named Mr. Hatley. Two evenings a week Roddy spent three hours with Mr. Hatley in his “study” in the basement of his home. Mr. Hatley believed the only way to save a slacking boy was through hard work and military discipline. He drilled Roddy relentlessly on the finer points of higher mathematics. Roddy hated him instantly.

One evening when Roddy was returning home from a tutoring session, his heart gave a leap when he saw Geoff standing in the front yard close to the house.

“Are you looking for me?” he asked.

“I need a place to stay tonight,” Geoff said. “I thought I’d stay in the storeroom of your father’s garage, but I wanted to tell you about it first.”

“You can have the guest room.”

“The storeroom is good enough and I’ll be gone in the morning before anybody even knows I was here.”

“You’ll get cold.”

“I don’t mind.”

“You can stay in my room with me.”

“And how do you think that’ll go down with your parents?”

“They won’t have to know about it.”

“I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

“You won’t. It’ll be all right.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“My parents go to bed at ten. Come to the kitchen door at ten-thirty and I’ll let you in.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Roddy went to his room at ten o’clock when his parents went to bed and, true to his word, he went downstairs to the kitchen at ten-thirty and opened the back door. Geoff was standing outside in the dark.

Roddy held his finger to his lips to indicate silence and the two of them, with Roddy leading the way, crept up the stairs in the dark and along the hallway to Roddy’s room.

“You can relax,” Roddy said, after locking the door. “Nobody comes in unless I say.”

Geoff took off his coat and sat down in the chair and untied his shoes. “If you have an extra blanket,” he whispered, “I can sleep on the floor.”

“Nothing doing,” Roddy said. “You’ll sleep in my bed.”

“I’m not taking your bed.”

“I meant both of us.”

Roddy turned off the light and they both got into the bed. They went to sleep to the sound of the rain on the roof and the wind gently pressing against the windows.

When Roddy awoke in the morning, Geoff was gone; there was no sign he had even been there.

In school all day long Roddy was more calm and courteous than usual. He smiled at the history teacher with whom he had been feuding and admired her expensive leather bag. He passed a geometry quiz and was hating geometry a little less. A girl in his class invited him to a party on Saturday night; he didn’t want to go but was pleased to be asked.

When he got home, his mother was out for the afternoon and Janice was waiting for him.

“I know what you’ve been up with to the gardener,” she said. “I can’t say I’m a bit surprised.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about! I know you sneaked him into your room last night. How many other nights have you sneaked him in? I can only imagine what’s going on in there!”

“It’s none of your business!”

“I heard you creeping past out in the hallway last night and when I opened my door to see what was going on, I saw you take that man into your room in the dark.”

“What of it? It’s none of your business!”

“Do you know that what you’re doing is a crime? They’ll put you in jail for it!”

“Oh, shut up! You don’t know the first thing about it.”

“I suppose you just ‘talked’!”

“I don’t have to explain anything to you!”

“I’m going to tell mother and father! They’ll be appalled that such a thing is going on in their own house after they’ve gone to bed!”

“Nothing is going on! He’s my friend, that’s all. You’re just jealous because he doesn’t want you!”

“Mother will call the police and they’ll come and take your ‘friend’ away and lock him up for the rest of his life. You’re a minor and he isn’t. Do you know what a serious crime that is? There are names for men who do that sort of thing!”

He pretended to shrug off the conversation with Janice, but in truth he was badly shaken. She could cause all kinds of trouble if she wanted to. He had always hated her but never more than now.

At the dinner table she looked at him smugly but didn’t say anything. He knew she was waiting for the right time to ruin his life.

He didn’t see Geoff for three days. When he asked his mother where he was, she told him he needed to forget Geoff. He wasn’t an appropriate friend for a high school boy.

On the fourth day, when Roddy was walking home, Geoff was waiting for him on the corner down the street from the school.

“Where have you been?” Roddy asked. “She fired you, didn’t you?”

“No, she didn’t have to fire me. I quit.”

“Do you have another job?”

“I’m going away. I wanted to say goodbye. You’ve been a real friend to me.”

“I’m coming with you!” Roddy said.

“Do you know how far we’d get? They’d come and get you and they’d lock me up. They’d say I abducted you.”

“I’d tell them the truth!”

“It wouldn’t make any difference. You’re a minor.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“When you’re older.”

“Do you know…”

“What?”

“Never mind. I won’t say it now, but I’m sure you know what it is.”

“I wanted to give you this.”

He reached into his pocket and took out a small object and placed it in Roddy’s palm.

“What is it?”

“It’s an 1877 fifty-dollar gold piece.”

“You’re always giving me things. I’ve never given you anything.”

“Keep it to remember me by.”

“I’ve never had such a wonderful thing. Thank you.”

“I’ll write and let you know where I am.”

“I hope you will.”

They shook hands and then Geoff walked away quickly.

Father hired an old Italian man to take Geoff’s place. Janice never mentioned Geoff’s name to Roddy again.

Roddy never stopped thinking about Geoff. He knew they would see each other again, that Geoff wouldn’t forget him. He kept the gold coin and the amber nugget in the drawer by his bed and took them out and looked at them almost every night before going to sleep. He never told anybody about them.

The high school years passed in a blur. In his senior year he turned eighteen right before his graduation. While his classmates were excited about going to college, getting married or starting jobs, he was silent about his future plans. He told his parents he had booked passage to North Africa to join the Foreign Legion. He was going away for good and they would never see him again.

A week after graduation, he received a letter postmarked Denver, Colorado. He always knew the letter would come at the right time.

He took the gold coin to a gold merchant and was surprised to discover it was worth a lot more than he thought. After he bought his bus ticket, he had enough left over to buy himself a sturdy suitcase, some warm clothes and a pair of cowboy boots.

Geoff met him at the train in Denver. He still looked amazingly the same—the same dark eyes and thick hair—but Roddy had changed from boy to man.

Roddy and Geoff lived together for the next sixty years. Geoff died in late winter, an old man, and was buried under the wide western sky, with an empty grave beside him for when Roddy needed it. They had both known from the beginning that this was how things were always going to be.

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp