Tag: Allen Kopp

A New Ricky in Their Midst

 

A New Ricky in Their Midst ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Ethel let herself in at the kitchen door and helped herself to a cup of coffee. She sat down at the table and began nibbling at the bacon that was left over from breakfast. When Lucy came in from the other room, she took one look at Ethel and began crying.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Ethel asked.

“Oh, Ethel, it’s just awful!” Lucy sobbed.

“What happened?”

“I’ve just been frantic since two this morning! I don’t know what to do!”

“You and Ricky have another fight?”

“I don’t know what’s got into him lately.”

“Well, pour yourself some coffee and sit down and tell me all about it.”

“Oh, Ethel, I hate to tell you what I’ve done!”

“It can’t be all that bad!”

“This time it is!”

“I’ll help you get it straightened out, whatever it is. What are best friends for?”

“Oh, Ethel, I don’t know how to tell you this!”

“Just say it. You’ll feel better.”

“I’ve killed Ricky!”

“What?”

“I said I’ve killed Ricky Ricardo. My husband. The famous bug-eyed Cuban bandleader known and loved by millions.”

“Oh, Lucy! You didn’t! I’m speechless!”

“I know! It’s terrible!”

“Are you sure he’s dead?”

“He’s dead, all right. He’s been dead since two this morning.”

“Well, get yourself calmed down and tell me all about it.”

“Well, he came home from the club about one-thirty and I noticed right away that he was acting sort of funny. He wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

“Oh, honey, that’s a very bad sign!” Ethel said, spraying crumbs out between her teeth.

“He took off his clothes and laid them on the chair next to the bed and went into the bathroom. I heard the water running, so I figured he was taking a bath. I gathered up his clothes for the laundry and you’ll never guess what I found!”

“What?”

“There was lipstick on the front of his shirt and, not only that, it reeked of perfume!”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, honey! How do you know he didn’t just brush up against one of the chorus girls from the club?”

“Oh, he brushed up against her all right, and did a lot more than that, too!”

“Oh, honey! Now don’t start jumping to conclusions!”

“That isn’t all. When he came out of the bathroom in his bathrobe, I asked him if he had a pleasant evening at the club and he yelled at me.”

“Yelled at you? That doesn’t sound like Ricky!”

“He called me a meddling old bitch and said he was sick and tired of my nagging at him all the time.”

“Oh, Lucy! What did you do then?”

“I asked him if he had been seeing another woman and he broke down and began crying. He said he had been seeing a chorus girl named Delores for about two years and he couldn’t go on any longer with the deception. He and Delores are in love, he said, and he wanted me to divorce him so he could marry her!”

“Oh, Lucy! I can hardly believe it! I never would have suspected it in a million years!”

“I know! He’s been very good at concealing it, hasn’t he? The louse!”

“What did you do then?”

“Well, we began arguing, saying nasty things to each other. I called him a two-timing pig and he called me a henna-haired harridan. We became more and more angry. When he twisted my arm and tried to slap me in the face, I took a knife and stabbed him in the neck. It was a clear-cut case of self-defense.”

“Oh, Lucy! The neck?”

“I severed the jugular vein in one stroke!”

“Oh, honey! Wasn’t there an awful lot of blood?”

“There was, but I got it all cleaned up.”

“And where is he now?”

“He’s on the floor next to the bed. I have him wrapped up in two leak-proof sheets. There’s not a trace of blood left.”

“Oh, Lucy! I’m afraid you’re in for a lot of trouble!”

“I know! I’ve just been frantic trying to figure out what to do!”

“I think you should call the police and turn yourself in. Tell them Ricky came at you and you were only defending yourself. With a good lawyer, you might get off with a light sentence or maybe no sentence at all.”

“Oh, Ethel! I’ve thought about it from every angle! I want to call the police but I’m afraid they’ll be mean to me. They’re all men, aren’t they? Of course, they’ll take Ricky’s side and make me out to be the villain!”

“Oh, Lucy! What will people think when Ricky doesn’t show up at the club? You’ll have to tell them something!”

“I have a plan all worked out. I think it’ll work, but I’m going to need you and Fred to help me.”

“Oh, no! You’re not getting me mixed up in this!”

“Ethel, I thought you were my best friend!”

“I am, but I’m certainly not going to spend the next thirty years of my life in Sing-Sing in the name of friendship!”

“Oh, don’t be silly! Nobody’s going to jail!”

“But it’s murder, honey! It’s serious!”

“If you and Fred will just do what I say, everything will be all right.”

“Just how far do you think Fred and I are willing to go to help you after you’ve killed your husband?”

Ethel called Fred to come up to Ricky and Lucy’s apartment and, when they had him comfortably seated on the couch with a bottle of soda in his hand, he looked suspiciously from one to the other.

“What have you two dizzy dames got cooked up?” he asked.

“Are you going to tell him, or shall I?” Ethel asked.

“There’s no easy way to say it,” Lucy said.

“For heaven’s sake, just say it!” he said.

“Ricky and I had a terrible fight last night.”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Well, I…”

“She severed Ricky’s jugular vein with a knife and killed him!” Ethel blurted.

“She what?”

“In the heat of the moment, I killed Ricky, Fred,” Lucy said. “That wasn’t really my intention, but it just happened.”

“Have you called the police?”

“Well, no, Fred. You see, I don’t think that’s necessary as long as you and Ethel help me.”

“Help you do what?”

“The furnace in the basement is really hot this time of year. I mean, there’s a big door and a big fire burning inside.”

“Oh, no! I’m not going to put Ricky’s body in the furnace!”

“With all three of us, it’ll be so easy!”

“No, I’m not getting mixed up in a crazy scheme like that! Do you think I want to spend my golden years behind bars?”

“If we do it right, Fred, nobody will ever know.”

“What do you say when people come looking for Ricky?”

“Well, I’ve thought of that, too. I’ll wait twenty-four hours and then I’ll file a missing persons report. After that it’ll be easy to make it seem that he’s run off.”

“He was cheating on her, Fred!” Ethel said.

“What?”

“Yeah, he had a girlfriend named Delores.”

“If we’re lucky,” Lucy said, “we can get the police to believe that tramp Delores had something to do with his disappearance.”

“No less than she deserves!” Ethel said.

“So Ricky was stepping out!” Fred said. “The old dog!”

“I just might kill him myself if Lucy hadn’t already done it,” Ethel said.

“Well, that sort of puts things in a different light, doesn’t it?” Fred said.

“Now are you willing to help me?” Lucy asked.

“On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You give me one-third interest in the club.”

“Fred! I can’t give you one-third interest in the club! I don’t own the club!”

“Freddy, for once in your life do something to help somebody else without calculating what you can get out of it,” Ethel said.

“Well, it was just a thought,” he said. “You can’t blame me for trying.”

“So, you’ll help me, then?” Lucy asked.

“Looks like I don’t have much choice.”

In the middle of the night, with everybody in the building asleep, the three of them loaded Ricky’s stiff body into a large trashcan on wheels and took it down to the basement on the elevator. Fred wheeled the trashcan up to the door of the furnace; he and Ethel hefted Ricky’s body out of the can and into the furnace while Lucy stood by and chewed her nails.

“How long do you think it’ll take to burn the bones and teeth and everything?” Lucy asked.

“We’ll give it until this time tomorrow,” Fred said. “I’ll come down every couple of hours and stoke the fire.”

Lucy called the police at the appropriate time and told them Ricky had disappeared, apparently run off. He had been despondent lately over money, she said, had even mentioned suicide, and there was another woman involved. The next day, all the newspapers ran the story: Bug-Eyed Cuban Bandleader Disappears—Foul Play Not Ruled Out.

Lucy began receiving condolences from friends and business associates of Ricky’s. The phone rang day and night and Ethel stayed with Lucy to keep newspaper reporters from bothering her with silly questions. Lucy’s mother saw the news on television and called Lucy long-distance from Jamestown, New York, imploring her to “come home.”

After weeks, the case was unresolved. Police could offer no clues. They concluded that Ricky had indeed run off. There were reports of witnesses seeing him board a plane for South America on the night he disappeared. At least two people claimed to have seen him on an ocean liner bound for Greece. Others claimed to have spotted him in other locations, including a racetrack in Kansas City and a brothel in Augusta, Georgia.

The club held auditions to find a replacement band leader for Ricky. One in particular, a man named Mickey Richards, stood out because he was so much like Ricky, not only in the way he looked, but in the way he sang, talked, and walked.

Mickey Richards was hired and took over as bandleader at the Copacabana. Lucy watched him with interest and was amazed at how much like Ricky he was. The management of the club even persuaded him to change his name to Ricky Ricardo. Out in front, the theatre-type marquee proclaimed: He’s Back! He Was Never Really Gone in the First Place!”

The club was more successful than ever before, with patrons being turned away every night. People soon forgot that the real Ricky had ever left because there was a new Ricky in their midst, and this one was even better than the original.

For her part, Lucy missed Ricky terribly and was sorry she had killed him. She cried herself to sleep at night, wishing she might undo what she had done. She began making little overtures to the new Ricky, inviting him to the apartment for dinner or to a Broadway opening. A couple of times she left anonymous love notes in his dressing room at the club. She imagined that the new Ricky would fill the void left by the departure of the old Ricky and that everything would be as it was before, in the old days before he grew tired of her and fell in love with that floozy Delores.

Alas, it was not to be. The new Ricky differed from the old Ricky in one very important respect: He didn’t like bottle redheads and in fact didn’t like women at all. Lucy toyed with the idea of killing him, too, but she was afraid she wouldn’t get away with it a second time. She would talk to Fred and Ethel and ask them what they thought about it.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Valley Forge ~ A Capsule Book Review

Valley Forge ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, was where the Continental Army spent the winter of 1777-1778, while waiting for more favorable weather to continue the war with the British, now occupying Philadelphia eighteen miles away. The weather was miserably cold and the army was ill-equipped, with not enough food or clothing to go around. Many of the men went without shoes. A lot of times they went without eating or ate what they could forage. Makeshift huts for shelter were constructed out of logs. More than 2500 American soldiers died at Valley Forge by the end of February 1778, from exposure, starvation, malnutrition, or disease.

Valley Forge is a novel by American writer Mackinlay Kantor. Instead of being a novel in the traditional sense, it’s more a collection of interconnected stories: a young deserter named Mum decides to return to his regiment after being treated kindly by a sixteen-year-old girl (we learn at the end of the book what became of Mum); a seven-year-old slave girl brings General Washington some apples and potatoes because she has heard he doesn’t have enough to eat; a defector is hanged while calling out for his mother; a young cobbler who has his leg amputated wonders how he will pursue his trade after the war; a gang of foragers deals with recalcitrant civilians; a young man with a horse he loves named John must deal with having the horse taken away from him by an officer (the horse John reappears at the end of the book); a group of young girls find what they believe is a litter of puppies, but what they don’t know is the puppies are really wolves and the mother will kill the girls if she finds them messing around with her babies; a young officer has a torrid love affair with an older widow who always keeps her face covered. The one person who appears throughout the book is General George Washington, the commander of the American forces on whose shoulders rests the success or failure of the war with the British. General Washington refuses to have comforts for himself while his men are living miserably at Valley Forge. He is a true American hero.

Valley Forge is an interesting, little-read book. It’s not about war or warfare but about the small moments in the lives of mostly insignificant people who are engaged in the titanic struggle for independence from a repressive, invading foreign power. Although it’s fiction, it’s well-researched and based on fact, as the bibliography at the end of the book attests.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Call Me by Your Name ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Call Me by Your Name ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

Lanky, dark-haired Elio is not your usual seventeen-year-old boy. He reads books, plays the piano beautifully, transcribes music and swims in the river. Elio’s father is a professor, an American, and his mother is Italian. They are a bookish, sophisticated, enlightened family. At their beautiful Northern Italian home, they host a visiting academic during the summer. In the summer of 1983, that person is a twenty-four-year-old American man named Oliver.

Oliver is handsome and seems completely comfortable with himself, arrogant in a way. Everybody likes him because he’s affable and appealing. Elio is determined to not like Oliver at first, trying to appear disinterested, but the two of them begin spending a lot of time bicycling around the beautiful Italian countryside and Elio is increasingly drawn to Oliver in a way that is, it seems, new to him. If you are averse to a story about a same-sex relationship, this is probably where you’d better tune out.

At first Oliver doesn’t want to get involved with Elio because Elio is so young, but his resolve is soon weakened when Elio, not bothered by shyness, makes it obvious exactly what he is interested in. If anybody does any seducing, it’s Elio who seduces Oliver. Elio’s parents soon guess what is going on between Elio and Oliver and don’t mind very much. As Oliver tells Elio, “You are so lucky. My father would have carted me off to the nearest correctional facility.” If they were in the United States, in states where the age of legal sexual consent is eighteen, I’m afraid Oliver might spend the next thirty years in prison.

Call Me by Your Name is based on a novel by André Aciman. It’s a coming-of-age story where the young male protagonist has his heart broken. It’s usually a woman or girl who brings about the breaking heart, but in this case it’s another man. The movie version of the book, which I read earlier this year, is sophisticated, intelligent, thoughtful and beautifully made, flowing seamlessly from beginning to end. Whether or not you can accept and enjoy the story of a love affair between a seventeen-year-old boy and a twenty-four-year-old man is up to you. It might help you to know that the sex scenes are not graphic by today’s standards. My eighty-seven-year-old mother, however, would swear she’s watching porn.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

What Better Night Than Christmas Eve?

What Better Night than Christmas Eve? ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(Published in Ethereal Tales. This is a repost.)

Agnes Victoriana Wellington was, by all accounts, an incorrigible—some might even say an evil—child. As a baby, she would lie in her crib and scream hour after hour for no apparent reason until the neighbors would believe her mama was sticking pins into her flesh for amusement. At ten years old she was expelled from school because she was a perpetually disruptive influence in the classroom. Her mama and papa took her to a succession of doctors, all of whom assured them she was sound in mind and body, without any discernible physical or mental ailment that would cause her to behave in so frightful a manner. The only explanation that any of them could offer was that she might be possessed of a demon that wouldn’t desist until he had taken her back to hell with him.

Released from the imperative of attending school, Agnes was made to stay at home all the time, where she pushed her mama and papa to the limits of their endurance. She screamed and raged and fussed and threw any object that wasn’t too heavy for her to pick up. She tormented her younger brother and sister, Wallingford and Floretta, without mercy. She tied Wallingford to a tree and attempted to burn him at the stake. When Floretta was asleep in her bed, recovering from the scarlet fever, she glued her toes together and painted her lips with red ink. When her mother refused to buy her a new pair of boots, she took a kitchen knife and cut up her old ones. She called her papa an ignorant old fool. Her most hideous act of all, though, was taking all her clothes out of her closet and piling them in the middle of the floor and setting fire to them, putting herself and her family and all they possessed in grave danger.

After the fire, papa and mama were at the end of their tether. They could tolerate Agnes no longer. If they were to allow her to continue on the same path of destruction, they might very well all end up in a row of graves in the cemetery. They had little Wallingford and Floretta to think of, both of whom were blameless and deserving of a happy and peaceful life. As a final alternative and the only remaining hope, they agreed to place Agnes in the Mountainview Sanatorium for the Criminally Insane, where a certain doctor, a Doctor Pretorius, was known to have helped such patients with his progressive methods of treatment, about which nothing was known to the outside world.

Doctor Pretorius took Agnes in hand. He had her confined to a solitary room on the top floor of the Sanatorium and gave her anything she asked for and lots of good food to eat. After a lengthy period of carefully studying her and analyzing her and filling a notebook with his notes and consulting with a dozen other of his colleagues, he arrived at the conclusion that she was indeed possessed of a demon; a very unusual and rare type of demon that he had never seen before; a demon thousands of years old that was from a very deep and isolated station in hell. And, yes, it was true, as an earlier physician had suggested, the demon, for reasons known only to him, had claimed little Agnes as his own while she was still in the womb, his intention being to take her back to hell with him and make her his consort in evil. Evil was as much a part of her as her leg or her heart or her skin, which was as good an explanation as any that had ever been offered for why she was the way she was.

The question confronting Doctor Pretorius was how he was going to make Agnes the good and docile girl she should have always been and so return her to the bosom of her family to live a normal life. He tried many failed experiments with different anodynes, but nothing seemed to change Agnes for the better. One night, after a long and difficult day, he fell asleep in his study and, while asleep, he dreamed a vivid dream. In the dream, as he was walking along a lonely and deserted country road, he met a being surrounded by a kind of a glow, who told him that the only thing that was going to help poor Agnes was to eat human flesh and lots of it. Human flesh consumed daily was the only remedy that was going to keep the demon at bay and allow Agnes to live the kind of life that a child her age should be living.

Doctor Pretorius wasted no time in serving Agnes large portions of human flesh. In no time at all she began to show marked improvement. She began reading books, playing card games, working puzzles, and doing needlework like other little girls. She stopped having temper tantrums and throwing things and playing mean tricks on people. Doctor Pretorius and his staff were delighted with her progress.

Since the year was getting on to its close and the Christmas season was approaching, Agnes’s mama and papa asked Doctor Pretorius if Agnes might be allowed to return to her home and family for the blessed holiday. Doctor Pretorius harbored serious doubts about returning Agnes to the world and society just yet, but, after careful deliberation and prayer, he decided to allow her to go home for the last two weeks in December if, at the end of that time, she would return to the Sanatorium for continued rest and treatment.

Agnes’s papa, mama, brother and sister were surprised at how much she had changed in the Sanatorium (she had put on a lot of weight from her rich diet), but they were happy nonetheless to have her home again and happier still that she was docile, sweet and kind. The frightening, horrible little person that she had been was, for the moment at least, a thing of the past.

The next few days after Agnes’s return home were happy ones. She discovered she liked helping out in the kitchen and doing housework. She became reacquainted with Wallingford and Floretta, spending many happy hours talking, playing games, romping with the dogs and taking long walks around the countryside. She was never once tempted to eat them. At mealtime, she would decline the slices of roast beef or wedges of pork, saying she had become a vegetarian. She ate very modestly of vegetables and fruits, longing for the chance to leave the house to obtain the kind of sustenance she really needed.

It was after everybody had gone to their rooms and gone to sleep at night that Agnes slipped out of the house as quietly as she could to feed. On Doctor Pretorius’s advice, she walked miles away from home out into the countryside. People in the country weren’t as easy to find as in town, but the ones she found were choice, and she had the advantage of not being seen. She ate a twelve-year-old boy who was walking along the road at midnight (sweet and tender) and the next night a farmer’s wife who had insomnia (stringy but with lots of meat). There were a boy and a girl parked on lover’s lane (a rare double event), a young doctor out on a night call (muscular with a chemical taste), and a young married woman out to meet her lover in the middle of the night (a wild, gamy taste). Always she would get herself cleaned up and return home to her room before the sun came up. Nobody in her family ever knew of her nightly peregrinations.

As Christmas was fast approaching, Agnes and the other children were making excited preparations. They put up a beautiful tall tree that they cut down in the woods near their home and decorated it with as many baubles and decorations as it would hold. Their mama had instructed them to each make a list to present to Santa Claus. Whether or not Santa Claus would comply with their lists was another matter. Agnes wrote on her list that she wanted a family of dolls and a perambulator to push them around in, a miniature tea set and a wooden circus set. In her earlier life, before she went to the Sanatorium, she would have asked for a set of knives, poison darts and a blowgun to shoot them, and a prosthetic leg.

On Christmas Eve, all the presents were wrapped and under the tree. The house was gaily decorated from top to bottom; snow was whirling past the windows, adding to the feeling of Christmas. Agnes went into her room to go to bed at the same time that Wallingford and Floretta and mama and papa went into their rooms, but she was too excited to sleep, and at about a quarter to twelve she went back downstairs. She somehow had the feeling that Santa Claus would arrive at midnight and she wanted to meet him face to face and have a few words with him; it might be the only chance she would ever have to see him up close.

She sat down in papa’s big chair facing the low-burning fire and covered up with a lap robe and went fast asleep without meaning to. The clock chiming midnight woke her up. She opened her eyes and saw a man standing in the middle of the room looking at her. She knew without being told that he was the demon. He looked like an ordinary man except that he had yellow eyes. If he had horns or a tail, she couldn’t see them because he was wearing a Derby hat and a long black topcoat.

“May I extend to you all the felicitations of the season,” the demon said cordially as she pulled herself up in the chair.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “You can’t bother me as long as I’m eating human flesh. Doctor Pretorius said so.”

“Ah, yes, Doctor Pretorius. I have to commend him for discovering my one weakness. Eating flesh is the one thing I cannot abide. It’s something I would never do.”

“Well, that’s why I doing it,” she said. “To keep you away from me. I’m not doing it because I’m a ghoul. I don’t really enjoy doing it.”

“Why aren’t you out feeding your voracious appetite? You haven’t fed since last night and you’re nearly famished.”

“If it’s any of your business, I’m waiting to meet Santa Claus and after I’ve met him I’m going out to feed.”

“Ah, yes, the Jolly Old Elf himself. I know him well.”

“So why don’t you just leave now before papa wakes up and comes after you with his shotgun? You’re not wanted here.”

“I’ve come to take you with me. What better night than Christmas Eve?”

“I’m not going anywhere!”

“Do you think you can go on killing people forever just to keep up appearances? Think how it will affect your family when they find out you kill people and eat them.”

“That isn’t any of your business!”

“When they find out what you are and what you do, it will be the end of them. Do you want that on your conscience? It’s better that you come with me now to spare them the degradation.”

“I can scream and wake everybody up if you don’t leave!”

“How foolish you are! What good do you think that will do? You would just put everyone in danger.”

Just then Floretta came down the stairs on padded feet. “I heard a noise,” she said, “and I thought maybe it was Santa Claus.” When she saw the man standing in the middle of the room talking to Agnes, she stopped in her tracks.

“Who’s he?” she asked. “If that’s Santa Claus, where’s his bag of toys?”

“It’s no one,” Agnes said. “He was just leaving.”

“This doesn’t concern you, little girl,” the demon said. “Why don’t you just run along and mind your own business?”

“Go back to bed,” Agnes said. “Santa Claus won’t come until you’re asleep. He doesn’t want you to see him.”

“I’m going to get papa,” Floretta said.

“I can take two as easily as one,” the demon said.

“What’s he talking about?” Floretta asked. “Take two where?”

“He’s just talking nonsense,” Agnes said. “He’s not right in the head. And he’s just leaving.”

“All right,” the demon said, “I’ll go.”

“Good!”

“If you won’t go with me, though, I’ll take her.” He pointed his long finger at Floretta.

“You’re not taking her or anybody!”

“All right, then. You win. But before I go I want you to show me how it’s done. With her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know it’s past time for you to feed, and you are ravenous with hunger. You have this delicious little creature standing right before you. Show me how you do it and I’ll go away and leave you alone. Forever.”

“What does he mean?” Floretta asked.

“He’s just making a little joke,” Agnes said.

“You have two choices,” the demon said, “and you know what they are.”

“If I go with you, you won’t hurt her?”

“On my word of honor.”

“And if I were to eat her, as you want me to do, you would go away and not bother me again?”

“Do you have any reason to doubt?”

“It’s not a difficult decision. I’ll go with you, but on one condition.”

“And what is that, dear child?”

“That you never bother her or any of my family.”

“You have my solemn oath.”

“All right, then. I’ll go with you.”

“A wise decision. Come.” He held out his hand and Agnes stood up.

“Tell mama and papa I’ll be all right where I’m going and not to worry,” Agnes said to Floretta.

Floretta opened her mouth to ask Agnes exactly where it was she was going, but a commotion coming from the direction of the fireplace silenced her. She ran and stood in the corner, where she could duck down behind the sofa if she needed to.

With a great clatter, accompanied by a huffing and groaning, Santa Claus came into the room by way of the fireplace, careful not to let the flames touch his boots. When he was all the way in the room, pulling his huge bag of toys, he stood upright and straightened his cap and brushed the soot off his sleeves. That’s when he saw the demon standing across the room looking at him with his yellow eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Santa asked, recognizing the demon on sight.

“If it’s any of your business,” the demon said, “I came to keep a rendezvous with little Agnes here.”

“Is this true?” Santa asked Agnes.

“Well, in a way I suppose it is true, but that doesn’t mean I want to go with him! I just struck a bargain that I would go live with him in hell and be his consort in exchange for his promise to leave Floretta and the rest of my family alone.”

“My, my, my!” Santa said. “You should never strike a bargain with a demon!”

“I know it was stupid but I had no other choice.”

“My dear, you always have a choice,” Santa said and laughed his characteristic laugh.

“It’s been lovely chatting like this,” the demon said, “but it’s time we were going.”

“Whatever possesses you to transact this kind of business on Christmas Eve?” Santa asked the demon. “Have you no delicacy? Have you no respect for tradition?”

“Is there any way you can help me, Santa?” Agnes asked.

“Don’t worry, child! I have a plan.”

“You should just stay out of this,” the demon said. “It’s none of your affair. Why don’t you just drop off your toys or whatever it is you do and then be on your way? I’m sure your reindeer are getting impatient.”

Santa smiled broadly at the mention of his reindeer and opened his black bag and pulled out the corpse of a recently deceased girl-child. He laid her out on the rug in front of the fireplace and gestured dramatically with both hands.

“She got in the way of my sleigh,” he said, “and my reindeer trampled her to death not ten minutes ago. I hated to leave her lying in the snow for the wolves to tear apart, so I stuffed her into my bag. I planned to take her back to the North Pole and instruct my elves to give her a decent burial.”

With a gesture from Santa, Agnes approached the tiny corpse lying on the rug and devoured it whole in the blink of an eye. She had become expert at feeding with no mess and no spilled blood.

The demon bent over double as if he had received a blow to the back of the head. He held his stomach with both hands and retched violently. When he was able to speak again, he said, through clenched teeth, “I’ll get you for this!”

“Hah!” Santa said with a hearty laugh. “You’re no match for me and you never were! Go on back to hell where you belong and don’t bother these children again!”

“All right, I’m going,” the demon said, and to Agnes he said, “You may have won this battle, but you haven’t won the war. I’ll be back. On that you may depend.” Then he disappeared as if he had been a mirage all along.

“What just happened here?” Floretta asked, speaking for the first time since Santa came into the room.

“You really are a saint,” Agnes said to Santa with tears in her eyes.

“I help wherever I can,” Santa said modestly.

“I’m afraid the demon is right, though. He will be back. Maybe not today or tomorrow but when I least expect it. He’ll have his way with me in the end.”

“Wait a minute,” Santa said. “I have something else for you.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out an old-fashioned locket on a chain and handed it to Agnes.

“It’s lovely,” Agnes said, “but what is it?”

“It’s a Holy Relic. It contains a sliver of the shin bone of St. Peter. Wear it around your neck always and I guarantee the demon won’t be able to stand to come near you again.”

“How can I ever thank you enough?” Agnes asked, putting the locket around her neck.

“Make amends with the world,” Santa said. “Make yourself worthy.”

With those words, he went about his business of placing the presents under the tree and when he was finished he climbed up the chimney as nimbly as a squirrel and was gone.

“Imagine that!” Floretta said, not being able for the moment to think of anything else to say.

Agnes wore the Holy Relic locket around her neck throughout her long life and was never bothered by the demon again. To atone for the people she had killed and eaten (never-to-be-explained disappearances), she dedicated her life to helping others. Through her charitable works and her countless good deeds, she saved many more lives than she had ever taken. Floretta, for her part, woke up in her bed on Christmas morning believing the scene she had witnessed involving Agnes, the demon, and Santa had been nothing but a dream.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Immortal Nicholas ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Immortal Nicholas

The Immortal Nicholas ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp 

(This is a repost.)

The Immortal Nicholas by Glenn Beck is an unusual Christmas-themed novel that never mentions the word “Christmas” and isn’t any traditional Christmas story as we’ve come to know it. The main character is a man named Agios (Ah-GEE-os). He is embittered because his wife dies and then his young son dies through what he believes is his own carelessness while harvesting frankincense from trees growing on a mountainside that he himself has protected from intruders with poisonous snakes. He has no hope in life and wants only to die. When he is forced to leave his home, he encounters in his travels a young man named Krampus who is physically handicapped and who has been tortured by the Romans. He immediately takes up with Krampus and becomes his protector and, in a way, his father. His knowledge of frankincense and his possession of a small amount of the precious substance eventually leads him into the company of three “kings” (Balthazar, Melchior and Caspar) who are following a star that they believe will lead to the foretold Messiah who will save the world.

Agios finds himself in Bethlehem with the three kings at the stable where Jesus lay as a tiny baby. He wholeheartedly believes in the promise of Jesus’ birth and from that moment vows to protect Jesus, Mary and Joseph from those who would do them harm. He and Krampus follow Jesus around through the years, always staying in the background. He loses sight of Jesus until Jesus is a grown man and is going around ministering to the masses. Agios hears of Jesus’ ability to heal the lame and sick and he somehow believes that Jesus can cure Krampus of whatever is wrong with him if Agios can get him close enough to him. Agios and Krampus are present at the Sermon on the Mount but are not able to get very close to Jesus because of all the people. Finally, after all they go through to keep an eye on Jesus while staying always on the fringes of what is going on, they are there to witness the crucifixion. Agios is deeply stirred by the cruel death of the savior and goes away an embittered man. He believes that is the end of the promise that the birth of Jesus Christ gave to the world.

For some reason Agios doesn’t die but lives for centuries, to watch Krampus die and everybody else he ever cared about. While living as a hermit in the mountains centuries after the death of Jesus, he befriends a shepherd boy named Nicholas and learns from him that Jesus arose after his crucifixion, proving that his promise to the world was true and that he overcame death. From that moment on, Agios’ life is different. Despite his desire to not want to be near other people, he and Nicholas become close and Agios becomes a surrogate father to him. As Nicholas grows into adulthood, he becomes a priest with a very generous spirit and out of that the legend of Saint Nicholas grows, with a direct link back, through Agios, to the ministry of Jesus Christ.

The notes on the dust jacket tell us that Glenn Beck expanded The Immortal Nicholas into a novel for adults that started out as a children’s story. It’s simply written but smart and engaging enough for adults. It took a few surprising turns for me. When I started reading it, I didn’t know how a story about a man who lived at the beginning of the Christian Era could have anything to do with Saint Nicholas. I deliberately didn’t want to read any synopsis or summary while reading the book because I wanted to find out for myself where it would lead. Think what you will of Glenn Beck and his conservative principles, he is a very effective fiction writer.

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Darkest Hour ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Darkest Hour ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

British actor Gary Oldman has played Beethoven and Dracula on the screen and now he plays Winston Churchill in the new movie, Darkest Hour. Winston Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain in May of 1940, almost by default, when the country and its politicians were unhappy with the way the elderly Neville Chamberlain was managing the war with Germany.

As the new British Prime Minister in 1940, Winston Churchill had an almost impossible job on his hands. He had a brusque, bullying manner, and a lot of people, even people in his own political party, didn’t like him. As King George V says to him, “You scare people. You scare me.” Personality problems were the least of his worries, though. Germany had assembled the largest fighting force in the history of the world, they were superior in tanks, air power and weaponry, and they were winning the war against the Allies. They were conquering all of Western Europe and were invading France, only forty miles across the English Channel from Britain’s shores. German invasion seemed inevitable. It seemed the war was already lost. American forces were not able to help at this point because, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt tells Churchill, “my hands are tied” by the Neutrality Act. The U.S. wouldn’t enter the war until the stakes became higher.

Britain could fight it out and almost certainly be crushed. Germany would very likely annihilate the entire country and its culture and then step in and make it its own. The other alternative was a “negotiated peace” with Germany, which “Hitler’s puppet,” that delightful fellow, Benito Mussolini of Italy, would help to facilitate in Venice between Britain and Germany. This amounted to a surrender, which a lot of powerful politicians (including former Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain) advocated. They were unable to understand why Churchill would not even entertain the idea of “peace talks” with Germany.

The best scene in Darkest Hour (or, anyway, my favorite scene) is when Churchill, who has almost decided that capitulation to Germany is the only way to keep Britain from being crushed, goes off on his own and rides the “Underground” (London’s subway). While on the train, he meets and engages in conversation with some of the “common people,” bricklayers and housewives. He asks them what they think about negotiating an end to the war with Germany, mostly on German terms. Would these common people like for their country to become a puppet state of Nazi Germany? Would they like to see a swastika flying from Buckingham Palace? Their answer is clear: We will never surrender!  Churchill then gives his famous speech to Parliament, in which he states irreconcilably: We will go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to rescue and the liberation of the old.

If you, like me, are fascinated by the high drama of World War II, where truth is truly stranger than fiction, you will love Darkest Hour. Gary Oldman dominates the screen every second as Winston Churchill. If those dumbbells in Hollywood don’t award him an Oscar, they might as well fold their tents and go home.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts ~ A Capsule Book Review

Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts by Carolyn Chute is set in Maine. Big Lucien Letourneau is the patriarch of a large family of uneducated miscreants and malcontents. Big Lucien has had many wives and many children. Whatever else these characters may be lacking in life, they always have plenty of children. Big Lucien has a “heart of gold.” He has lots of cats and he will give a place to stay to just anybody who needs it, family or otherwise.

Big Lucien owns a salvage yard containing rows and rows of wrecked cars. He barely makes enough money to keep going, but he employs several earthy men. As one of Big Lucien’s employees says, the salvage yard is the “goddamndest hellhole I’ve ever worked in.” I’ve felt that way about some of the jobs I’ve had, so I know exactly what he’s talking about.

Blackstone Babbidge (“Gene”) is one of Big Lucien’s employees at the salvage yard. He lives in a trailer park called Miracle City. His wife, Lillian Greenlaw, is one of Big Lucien’s former wives. Lillian’s freewheeling daughter, Junie Greenlaw, is one of Big Lucien’s many children. Gene Babbidge is Junie’s stepfather. Junie has been “messing around” with her stepfather (these people don’t bother with social conventions), so she is pregnant by him. Her mother doesn’t know who the father of Junie’s baby is, only that she is pregnant with a pregnancy that makes her sick a lot of the time.

Crude, foul-mouthed Maxine Letourneau is also one of Big Lucien’s former wives. Her children by Big Lucien include Norman, who marries a hippie woman, and Little Lucien, a sullen fifteen-year-old bodybuilder.

Severin Letourneau is Big Lucien’s half-Indian nephew. When he is sixteen, he impregnates Gussie Crocker, also sixteen, and they get married. Severin is also one of Big Lucien’s employees at the salvage yard. Severin and Gussie don’t have the money to pay their rent and are evicted. Big Lucien sets them and their two small children up in a thrown-together house in the woods that doesn’t pass code. That’s another of Big Lucien’s problems: the “code man” is after him for his various code violations.

Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts is a funny and engaging exploration of the lives of people living at the bottom of the socioeconomic heap. I read this book once before and fondly remembered it enough through the years to go back and read it again. We wouldn’t want the feckless Letourneaus living in our neighborhood, but we can wallow in their lives on the printed page and come away unscathed. That’s the magic of books.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp 

by allen0997

He’s Going to Kill Me

He’s Going to Kill Me ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

“You’ve just got to let me stay here for a few days, honey!” Madge Rapf said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Irene Jansen said.

“Why not? The place is plenty big enough for both of us.”

“It’s not that. It’s…”

“I’m scared to go home! Vincent Parry has escaped from jail. He’s going to kill me for testifying against him in his murder trial!”

“If he has escaped…”

“Oh, he has!”

“Well, if he has escaped, I don’t think he’ll stay around here. He’ll get as far away as he can.”

“Oh, no, honey! He’s out for revenge!” Madge said. “He’s already killed George Fellsinger!”

“Why would he kill George?”

“I don’t know, but George’s head was smashed in with his trumpet, and the only two sets of fingerprints on the trumpet were George’s and Vincent’s.”

“That probably isn’t true,” Irene said.

“Do you think I’d make up something like that?”

“I don’t know, dear. Would you?”

“Oh, Irene! You’ve got to listen to reason! I can’t go home! I’m scared half out of my wits! I’m so scared I don’t know what to do!”

“Why don’t you call the police?”

“And what would they do?”

“I don’t know. Assign somebody to guard you, I guess.”

“They don’t care about me!”

“Well, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re going to do, but you can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“Because Bob is coming over. He’ll be here any minute. We have a date.”

“Oh, Bob! What do I care about Bob? I’ll just hide myself away upstairs in your bedroom and Bob will never know I’m here!”

She started for the stairs, but Irene stopped her. “You can’t do that, Madge!”

“Why not? Have you got somebody up there?”

“Just try to calm yourself down, dear. I’m sure you’re all worked up over nothing. Help yourself to a scotch and soda. Take a few deep breaths and I’ll call you a taxi.”

The doorbell rang and it was Bob. Irene let him in. He was smiling until he saw Madge.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Oh, Bob!” Madge said. “You’re the last person I wanted to see!”

“What’s going on?” Bob asked Irene.

“She’s heard that Vincent Parry’s escaped from prison and she’s convinced he’s going to kill her.”

“He has escaped and he is going to kill me!” Madge said.

“It’s highly unlikely,” Bob said.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone our date tonight, Bob,” Irene said.

“All right,” Bob said, “but I don’t like it.”

“Oh, who cares whether you like it or not?” Madge said. “You make me sick!”

“No, I’ll tell you about sick,” Bob said. “When I think that I almost married you, I want to jump out the window and kill myself!”

“Oh, why don’t you go ahead and do it? I’ll stand by and enjoy every second of it!”

“Will you take her home, Bob, and try to calm her down?”

“Only for you,” he said.

“I don’t want him to take me home,” Madge said. “I think I’d rather have Vincent Parry get me.”

“Madge, that isn’t very nice,” Irene said.

“Well, I’m just not a in a very nice mood right now,” Madge said.

“If I have to take her home, I will,” Bob said, “but I don’t guarantee that I won’t kill her myself.”

“Oh, you just go ahead and try it!” Madge said.

“Well, let’s get going,” Bob said. “The quicker I can get her home, the quicker I’ll be rid of her!”

“And don’t expect me to ask you in, either!” Madge said.

“Oh, boo-hoo!” he said.

“Well, how about if I call you tomorrow, then, hon?” Madge asked Irene with a bright smile.

“I think I’m going to be busy tomorrow,” Irene said.

“How about the next day, then? We can have lunch.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, maybe next week,” Madge said.

“You’re going to have to hit her with the sofa to get her to take a hint,” Bob said.

With Bob and Madge gone and the door triple-locked, Irene breathed easier. She went up the stairs and knocked lightly on the door to the bedroom.

“Yeah!” came the voice from inside.

She pushed open the door and there was none other than prison escapee Vincent Parry sitting on the side of the bed.

“They’re gone,” she said.

“Who’s Bob?” Vincent asked.

“Just a guy. He used to be engaged to Madge.”

“Until you cut in?”

“No, nothing like that. I really don’t know him very well. We’ve been out together a few times. Nothing serious.”

“It’s none of my business,” he said with a shrug.

“Did you kill George Fellsinger?” she asked.

“No, but I was there right after it happened and I saw George on the floor. It’s true my fingerprints were on the trumpet, but I didn’t kill him. I was there earlier and he wanted me to see the semi-precious stones inlaid in the keys. If my fingerprints and his were the only ones on the trumpet, then that means that whoever used it as a murder weapon wore gloves.”

“I knew there had to be an explanation.”

“I would never have killed George. He was going to hide me out at his place for a few days. He was my best friend.”

“Did you kill your wife?”

“No, but it was Madge’s testimony that got me convicted. She lied.”

“I followed your trial all the way through. I was there every day.”

“I know,” he said. “I saw you.”

“I wrote letters to the editor of the newspaper about how unfairly you were being treated in court.”

“Why did you even care?”

“Because the same thing happened to my father. He was convicted with lies and false testimony. He was innocent.”

“You know that for certain?”

“Yes. He died in prison after only six months. He had a bad heart to begin with. I knew that being in prison would break him, and it did. It was a blessing, really, when he died. His troubles were over.”

“I’m going to kill Madge,” he said. “Every day and every night when I was in prison I dreamed of squeezing the miserable life out of her, watching the fear in her eyes when she knows she’s going to die and there’s no taking it back.”

“Revenge will avail you nothing,” Irene said. “Read your Bible.”

“I’m not good like you.”

“You don’t want to kill Madge just yet. I have a feeling she holds the key.”

“Key to what?”

“I think she’s the one person in the world who knows who killed your wife and George Fellsinger.”

“Do you know something I don’t know?”

“No, it’s just that I know Madge. I know her type. There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do.”

“Madge was there on the day Gertrude was killed. She left behind one of her gloves but, not only that, I could smell her awful perfume all through the house.”

“Your wife and Madge were friends?”

“I think it’s safe to say they hated each other. Gertrude saw Madge as a rival.”

“You were once in love with Madge?”

“No, but she had it in her head that I’d marry her.”

“The plot thickens.”

“But where does that leave George?” Vincent asked. “Who killed him?”

“I think she knew that you and George were friends and that you probably would go to him after you escaped from prison. She killed him so people would think you did it.”

“Poor George. I was the only friend he had in the world.”

“His funeral is tomorrow. I think I’ll go and take some flowers.”

“I’d go myself if I wasn’t the leading suspect.”

“Just rest for a while and I’ll fix us some dinner.”

“You’re too good, Irene. I don’t deserve you.”

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans ~ A Capsule Book Review

Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Thirty or so years after the American Revolutionary War, America fought the Second War of Independence with the British. This was the War of 1812. The hero of that war was Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, an Indian fighter who didn’t have much experience as a strategic war planner, but who possessed a natural instinct for defeating a mighty foe. The British army was the best equipped and best trained army in the world. They had defeated the mightiest armies of Europe (the Battle of Waterloo was yet to come, in 1815). They had their sights set on New Orleans, a city of strategic importance at the mouth of the Mississippi River. If they could conquer that city—and they were fully confident they could—they could take possession of the entire country west of the Mississippi and make it their own…or so they thought.

The British forces assembled a few miles to the east of New Orleans and prepared to move on that city. The wealth and plunder that New Orleans possessed was to be shared by all of the invading force. They expected only token resistance from the Americans, as they had when they burned the city of Washington. After all, weren’t they (the British) skilled in warfare and superior in numbers and in weaponry? The one element the British didn’t count on was General Andrew Jackson.

The area east of New Orleans known as the Chalmette Plain is where the Battle of New Orleans was fought. General Jackson pulled together a diverse amateur army of farmers, old and young, country people and city people of all nationalities, blacks, woodsmen, riverboat men, and even some pirates who pledged their support to protecting the country from British invasion. Some of them didn’t even have weapons. This “inferior” army overwhelmed the British forces through tenacity and strategic planning on the part of General Jackson. Though he was wounded and far from well, he fought side by side with his men and wouldn’t allow them to become discouraged and complacent.

The terrain—boggy swamps, marshes and bayous—was unkind to the British; they weren’t used to fighting in three feet of water. General Jackson and his army stopped them from advancing on New Orleans. British losses were heavy, while American losses were minimal. Demoralized and defeated, the British army withdrew.

Andrew Jackson was the man of the hour. He was seen as saving, not only New Orleans, but the Union. He was to this war what George Washington had been to the Revolutionary War. The unpopular war was at last redeemed in the eyes of the American people and President James Madison left office on a high note. And, of course, Andrew Jackson a few years later himself became the seventh president of the United States.

Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans, by Brian Kilmeade, is American history made entertaining. In under 270 pages, we get a glimpse of wartime America in 1812-1814 and of the resolve that won a war against overwhelming odds. The British, after two wars fought on American soil, would not come calling again.

Copyright 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

With the multiplex given over almost entirely to comic book super heroes, sequels, and animated films for the kindergarten set, it’s hard sometimes to find a movie for grown-ups. Such a movie is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. It’s a wry look at the after-effects of a murder in a small town.

Middle-aged mother Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) will do almost anything to find the person who murdered her daughter, Angela, seven months ago. Mildred is tough and fearless; if you have a confrontation with her, she might hit you in the stomach and humiliate you in front of your friends. When the local police in all that time don’t have a suspect, Mildred decides to take some drastic action. For $5,000 a month she rents three unused billboards on the old highway that hardly anybody uses anymore to advertise her message: “My daughter died while being raped. Why no suspects?”

People sympathize with Mildred over the loss of her daughter, but most believe the billboards are a bad idea. Mildred’s belief is that the police will work harder to find the murderer if their laxity is made public via billboard advertising. The foul-mouthed police chief of the town, Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), has plenty of problems of his own. He’s dying of cancer and doesn’t have long to live. A glimpse inside the police station shows us that this police force is anything but efficient. Maybe it is time for somebody to hold them accountable for something. Their bumbling is personified by dim-witted officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), who lives with his strange mother and makes Barney Fife look like a genius.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was written and directed by Martin McDonagh who, despite being English, seems to have a feel for small-town Americana and the American way of speaking. Despite the movie’s somber theme (trying to find a murderer), there’s lots of clever dialogue and some funny lines. Some of the plot twists are implausible, such as the no-consequences torching of the police station, but the whole thing is so unexpected and original that we don’t care. Originality is a rare quality these days in American movies. There’s even a town midget and a middle-aged divorced father with a ditzy nineteen-year-old girlfriend who turns every statement she says into a question. What more could you want from a movie?

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997