Allen Kopp – Page 55 – Literary Fictions

Tomorrow You Shall Find Me a Grave Man

Tomorrow You Shall Find Me a Grave Man ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This short story was published in Deadman’s Tome and is a re-post on my website.)

I had fallen on some hard times and was forced to hire myself out as a grave sitter. No sooner had I placed my notice in the newspaper than a bereaved family engaged me to watch over, for three days and three nights, the grave of their recently deceased son. The agreement called for me to remain by the graveside and remain unfailingly vigilant through all the hours of darkness. I was to be allowed to leave for short periods of time during the daylight hours to refresh myself, but only on the stipulation that I would be away for minutes at a time rather than hours. I was told that I would be paid for my time at the conclusion of the three days and not one second before. If so much as a clump of dirt was disturbed on the fresh grave, however, I was not to be paid a cent for my seventy-two tedious and uncomfortable hours, and a warrant would be sworn out for my arrest, the result of which would be that I would never hold another job again, of any kind, for as long as lived upon this earth. I had heard such threats before and had a good laugh that people still thought they could bluff me in this manner.

The profession of grave sitter had come into being as a result of the recent illegal and highly unethical practice of “resurrectionists” stealing fresh corpses from graves. The enterprising and unscrupulous individuals who engaged in this activity were able to sell the corpses to medical schools for dissection for a good price. I had heard it said that just one body of a recently deceased, healthy young male could bring the equivalent of a month’s factory or mill wages. The medical schools, of course, denied any involvement in such a ghoulish practice. They claimed to have their cadavers provided to them in a reputable manner by city morgues and by the doctors of indigent patients.

Since only fresh corpses were desired, only recent graves were in danger of being violated. If the body had been in the ground for more than three days, the process of decay had begun and the body was no longer fresh enough to be useful for medical study. A grave sitter was engaged for three days and nights only. At the end of that time he was no longer needed.

I arrived at the cemetery at about four o’clock on a Thursday to take up my post. I found the caretaker easily enough and he directed me to the fresh grave of the boy who had been buried that day. It was near a large tree and also near a little pavilion where I could take shelter if it happened to rain during my three days and nights there. I was fortunate the month was October and the weather still quite warm.

I was determined to make myself as comfortable as I could with the few provisions I had brought. The ground was a good enough resting place for me as long as it remained dry. I had brought a blanket and a little pillow and a canteen of water and some nuts and bread and dried beef; also a couple of books to keep me company and some writing paper and a pencil if I needed it. The caretaker had told me about an old woman named Miss Beck who lived just over the ridge a quarter of a mile away. She would provide me with a simple meal for a reasonable price and also a place to wash up if I desired it. The caretaker would keep a watchful eye on the grave while I was away at Miss Beck’s, as long as I went while he was on duty. He went home every day at about five o’clock. After that I should find the place quite lonely, with only the squirrels, rabbits, owls, field mice, and the occasional deer for company.

I found my surroundings pleasant enough. I installed myself under the tree a few yards from the grave—what I had come to think of as my grave for the next three days and nights—wrapped myself in my blanket, leaned against the tree in a sitting position to help me to stay awake, and began my long vigil. It was so quiet I would have been able to hear anybody approaching from a long way off. I amused myself by watching the clear night sky with its myriads of stars and its three-quarter moon and by meditating on a number of topics that occupied my mind during such quiet times.

I couldn’t help thinking about the poor fellow whose grave I was watching. He was only sixteen, as I had found out from the caretaker, and the picture of health. He had been playing a rough game with three of his friends in a field and had received a sharp blow to his neck, fracturing his windpipe. He was rushed to a doctor but died within minutes from not being able to breath. It was a freak accident that sometimes unexpectedly claims the lives of young people.

From where I sat underneath my tree, I could see almost the entire cemetery. If any other person had set foot inside the gates, I would have seen him in an instant, long before he would see me. It was plenty light enough that I could have read my book to help me pass the time, but I wasn’t in the mood for reading. I had fallen under the spell of the night and I wanted to drink it in and not have my attention diverted away from it by the words on a page. When I grew tired of sitting, I stood up and walked around some, breathing in the smells of the grass and the leaves, but always remaining within sight of my grave. Along about midnight, the air turned decidedly cooler and the wind picked up and I huddled into my blanket. I was so sleepy I longed to stretch out on the ground beside the grave and go to sleep, but this would have seemed a sign of weakness. I was determined to remain in a sitting position to keep myself as alert as I could.

After dozing lightly and waking several times in this upright position, I fell into a deeper sleep. I had slept for possibly three-quarters of an hour when I first heard the sounds that woke me up. It was a light thumping sound and then a tearing sound, followed by a faint cry of distress. I was on my feet almost before I was awake and I looked for the source of the sounds I thought I had heard. Seeing nothing, I decided I had been dreaming; my surroundings had affected the kind of dreams I was having. My mind had played such tricks on me before. Once when I was much younger I woke up in the middle of the night, believing I had been hearing my older brother’s voice, but my older brother had been dead since I was twelve years old.

I stayed awake—or mostly awake—for the next couple of hours. Staying awake all night was more difficult than I remembered. About three o’clock in the morning, though, I gave in to my impulse to sleep and wrapped myself in my blanket like a giant cocoon and lay down next to the grave. The mound of dirt helped to block the wind from me. I was as comfortable and as cozy as I could be sleeping on the ground, and I went to sleep as soundly as I’ve ever slept in any bed in my life.

The next time I awoke it was to a whimpering, crying sound, punctuated by a muffled banging. The ground on which I was reclining actually seemed to move and shake slightly. I jumped to my feet, forgetting for a moment where I was. Then when I focused my attention, it occurred to me the sounds had been coming from the grave. That poor boy wasn’t really dead, only unconscious, and he had been buried alive. He was frantically trying to signal to someone to get him out of the grave before it was too late. How horrible to be buried alive and to suffocate, knowing you would never be able to claw your way out of the grave no matter how hard you tried. Your only chance—and a remote chance at that—was to make someone hear you. Maybe he somehow knew I was there and he was trying to signal to me to help him to get out.

Almost without thinking, I was on my knees clawing at the mound of dirt with my fingers. If I had had a shovel, I would have dug down without stopping until my heart and lungs burst to get to him.

When my mind cleared from the fog of sleep, I realized how ridiculous I must look down on my knees clawing at the dirt. How illogical it was that he could be alive! It was just a dream. I had only been dreaming. Dreams defy logic. A doctor had attended to the boy after he was injured. A doctor would know if someone was alive or dead, wouldn’t he? He would never make the mistake of believing someone was dead who was really alive.

Morning came and the caretaker arrived at about seven o’clock. I was still a little shaken and I had never been more glad to see another human being in my life. I met him as he was coming in at the gate. He greeted me and asked me how I had fared through the night. He asked me jokingly if I had seen any ghosts.

When I told him about the sounds I thought I heard coming from the grave of the boy, he smiled and patted me reassuringly on the shoulder. He asked me if I had slept any during the night and when I told him I had, he said I had only been dreaming. He said it isn’t easy to spend the night alone in a cemetery and the place had been playing tricks on my mind. He offered me a shot of whiskey and when I declined, he advised me to go to Miss Beck’s and get some breakfast; it would make me feel better.

I walked over the ridge, glad to be out of the cemetery for a while, and found Miss Beck’s place. When I knocked at her back door, she came to the door and allowed me into her kitchen. She said she had been expecting me and when I asked how she knew about me, she said the caretaker was a friend of hers. He told her everything that went on in the cemetery.

She provided me with a simple yet satisfying meal of strong tea, cornmeal mush, and eggs with little squares of potato cooked in with them. When I was finished eating she told me I could wash up in the spring house if I wanted to. I would find everything there I needed.

I returned to the cemetery in a calmer state of mind than when I had left. I was happy that I had concluded my first night and was heartened to think that my three days and nights would soon be up and I could return to my own home, which at that moment seemed more inviting to me than it ever had before. I didn’t see the caretaker or anybody else upon my return, so I thought to take advantage of the solitude by sitting against the tree and dozing, with one eye, so to speak, on the grave of the boy.

The day passed pleasantly enough, without incident, and then it was night again. I felt my apprehensions returning when I saw the caretaker leave for the day. I had discovered the night before that a cemetery is the most solitary place in the world at night. I was sorry I had ever signed on to be a grave sitter, and I considered giving up and going home before dark came, but I had promised the boy’s father I would remain for three days and nights and I didn’t feel right about going back on my promise. More than anything else, though, I needed the money I was going to get at the end of the three days.

The sky had turned cloudy and darkness came earlier than expected. The air was very still and I could hear every sound within a hundred yards of where I sat underneath the tree. I tried reading for a while, but my mind couldn’t absorb the words on the page so I gave it up. Since no one was around, I tried singing to myself, but my voice sounded so hollow and foolish to my own ears that I blushed with embarrassment and looked around. If anybody had heard me singing they would have thought I was insane.

As I had done on the previous night, I slept lightly against the tree and awoke and then slept again. Once when I heard a rustling sound in the leaves near me I opened my eyes with alarm and saw a small fox standing a few feet away. When I held out my hand to the fox, which seemed as docile as a kitten, it eyed me suspiciously and bolted into the brush.

Whereas the previous night had been clear and moonlit enough to read by, this one was cloudy and dark. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see some rain before morning. Several times I stood up and walked around among the headstones down the hill to stretch my legs and help to pass the time. I had never seen a longer night and I longed for the morning.

Finally, very late in the night, I wrapped myself in my blanket and lay down on the ground next to the grave, as I had done the night before. My last thought before going to sleep was that this was my second night and that when I woke up it would be morning and there would be only one more day and one more night to get through, and part of the day after that, until I could get my money and go home.

I slept for a couple of hours—I don’t know exactly how long. I was dreaming I was in a boat on the open sea when someone touched me roughly on the shoulder and I awoke with a violent start. I sat up in a panic. I think I said something incomprehensible, but I don’t remember what it was. My first waking thought was the awareness that somebody had been able to come upon me and I hadn’t seen or heard them. When I opened my eyes and looked around me, I saw that I was surrounded by three men I had never seen before. I tried to stand up but one of them pushed me back to a sitting position. The second man shone a bright light in my face, while the third one brandished a rope.

When I saw they meant to tie me to the tree, I grunted like an animal and tried to get away from them in a blind panic, but I was outnumbered and easily subdued. When I started to speak to ask what they meant to do, or at least to attempt to bargain with them not to hurt me, the first man—who was the youngest of the three—brandished a gun in my face.

“You see this?” he asked. “If you so much as make one sound, I’ll blow your head off and we’ll put you in the grave that we take him out of.” He gestured with his thumb toward the grave of the poor boy and I knew at once that they meant to steal the body.

“You can’t do that!” I began, but when he held the gun six inches from my nose, I knew he meant business and I would do better not to speak.

They dragged me to the tree and tied me to it in a sitting position. They made the ropes so tight that I felt a crushing weight around my heart and I thought I would probably die. When they had me securely in place and helpless, two of them set to digging, while the one who had spoken to me—obviously the leader—stood and watched them and held the light.

I figured they were going to kill me, anyway, whether I spoke or not. I had seen all of their faces and would be able to identify them if they let me get away. Maybe, I thought, their tying me up was a good sign. If they had meant to kill me, why hadn’t they done so at the outset? They could easily have squashed my head like a melon while I slept and I would never have known anything.

With the two of them digging fast and efficiently, they had unearthed the coffin in a very short time. When they had piled all the dirt beside the grave, one of the diggers disappeared into the hole and tied ropes to the handles of the coffin, and in a couple of minutes they had hoisted the coffin out of the ground.

“Hurry up!” snapped the leader. “We haven’t got all night!”

One of the diggers was on his knees trying to pry the lid off. The leader brought the lamp closer and I realized with a little thrill that I was going to get a good look at the face of the dead boy whose grave I had been sitting beside for all those hours. I had never seen a coffin unearthed before and I had to admit I felt a personal interest in this one. It was almost as if the boy was a long-standing friend of mine or a member of my family.

When the man had the lid ready to open, he paused for a moment and looked up at the leader, almost as if he wanted to make sure that everyone was ready before he revealed what it was they had come to steal. I started to say something foolish and banal, such as, “You’ll never get away with this,” but before I could get the words out the man lifted the lid and the contents of the coffin were revealed.

There in the coffin lying on a bed of satin was a wax dummy of a man dressed in evening attire with a painted-on face. His mouth was a rosy cupid’s bow and his cheeks as red as apples. Black hair was painted on the head in the semblance of curls.

“What is this?” the leader asked as though he had been duped. He raised the gun and pointed it at me as if he thought I was the one who had duped him. He knelt down and picked up the wax dummy by the lapels of its suit. When he had confirmed to himself that it was indeed what it appeared to be, he threw it back into the coffin. Its arms and legs splayed crookedly.

I started to speak but the words wouldn’t come. I had no explanation. I was as surprised by what I saw as the three men were. I was thinking that now they would be sure to kill me, when I heard a sound and twisted my head on my neck to try to see around the tree to which I was tied.

Several men were approaching. They had obviously been hiding and observing in the brush off to the edge of the cemetery without me or the three grave robbers knowing they were there. When the men were closer, I recognized the one in front as Mr. Sage, the grieving father who had engaged me to watch over his son’s grave.

The men with Mr. Sage were carrying rifles, which they pointed at the grave robbers. The leader of the grave robbers pointed his gun at Mr. Sage and the men and acted as if to fire, but when he saw all the firepower arrayed behind Mr. Sage he desisted.

“Good work!” Mr. Sage said.

His men subdued the grave robbers, who put up no resistance. As they led them away, Mr. Sage pointed at me and instructed one of his men to untie me.

“What is this all about?” I asked as soon as I was on my feet.

“You just helped us to apprehend a gang of body snatchers,” Mr. Sage said.

“Do you mean none of this was real?” I asked. I punched him on the shoulder to keep from hitting him in the mouth. “Those men could have killed me!” I said.

“Oh, come now,” Mr. Sage said with a laugh. “You were never in any real danger.”

“You’re a policeman?” I asked.

“That’s right.”

“Well, why then?”

“We circulated the story about the death of the sixteen-year-old boy. It seems that healthy young males bring a better price. There is no boy. I have no son.”

“Why did you involve me in this?”

“We needed a sitter who knew nothing about what we were doing. If there had been no sitter, the snatchers would have been suspicious.”

“I want my money!” I said foolishly, not knowing what else to say.

I discovered later that the caretaker and Miss Beck were both involved in the business of stealing bodies. The caretaker informed the body snatchers when there was a likely candidate to be had, while Miss Beck acted as a lookout and provided a good hiding place whenever one was needed.

And so began and ended by brief career as a grave sitter. After that, I would rather have died than to spend another night alone in a country cemetery.

October 25, 2014October 25, 2014 by allen0997

A Good Part of the Afternoon

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

(This short story was published in Cease, Cows and has appeared on my website before.)

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.

October 23, 2014 by allen0997

In a Cemetery on Halloween Night

In a Cemetery on Halloween Night ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This short story was published in Creaky Door Magazine and is a re-post on my website.)

When we were younger, the three of us were fascinated by the subject of death. We had lengthy discussions about the possibility of a continued existence after life has ended. We all wanted to believe in such an existence. Since Halloween is the one day in the year that the veil between the living and the dead is supposed to be at its most transparent, we decided to put all talk aside and conduct a little experiment.

There were no fewer than eighteen cemeteries in our county, some of them tucked away in forgotten corners. Each of the three of us would select a cemetery to spend the night in—the night of October thirty-first. We believed it was important for each of us to be alone, as spirits were more likely to make themselves known to an individual rather than to a pair or a group. We would meet the next evening and discuss our experiences. We hoped that at least one of us would have the proof we longed for.

I chose the Cemetery of the Holy Ghost because I remembered my grandmother telling me when I was a child that some of her family were buried there, and I also had a vague recollection of being there a time or two with my grandparents when I was in grade school.

It was a once-fine cemetery that had fallen out of vogue about a hundred years ago. It contained many interesting mausoleums, above-ground crypts, stones and monuments. Some of the illustrious (but now forgotten) inhabitants of the cemetery included governors of the state and their “consorts,” a United States senator or two, a celebrated writer (all of his books out of print for fifty years), several war heroes, an actress who appeared on the stage in both New York and London, and a notorious multiple murderer. In checking the records, I discovered that the cemetery had not received a newly deceased person in almost fifty years.

In the early evening of October thirty-first, I drove my car out into the country. I made sure I knew the way before I started and found the cemetery without any trouble. I parked the car in a low spot where it couldn’t be seen from the road (if anybody happened to be passing by, which was unlikely), and went in. There was an iron fence all the way around the cemetery that had fallen down in places. Nobody who wanted in was going to be kept out. I walked around for a while, taking in the sights as much as I could before it was too dark to see.

I found a good place under a big maple tree to sit down where the ground was covered with fragrant, dry leaves. The spot had the advantage of making me feel safe from anything or anybody that might approach me in the dark, so I planned on staying there most of the night until daylight when I would get back into my car and go home again. I took the things out of my backpack that I had brought—a flashlight, some drinking water and snacks, a lightweight blanket, a paperback book in case I became bored with the whole scene—and as I made myself comfortable on the ground under the tree, I realized just how peaceful and lonely an abandoned country cemetery is on a beautiful autumn evening.

I sat with my back against the tree as night came on. I wasn’t especially afraid of the dark but I had to admit that every sound I heard made my heart beat a little faster. Was the snap of a twig or the crunch of leaves someone—or something—coming toward me? What if I really did have an encounter with a spirit of some kind? Would my nerve fail me? Whatever happened, I promised myself that I would leave and go home if the situation became too unpleasant.

Once when I heard a sudden rustling sound right above my head, I jumped up with a little yell, ready to defend myself. When I realized that it had only been an owl—in fact, a pair of owls—I felt a little foolish and was glad nobody was there to see how skittish I was.

I sat underneath the tree for what seemed several hours. I had to get up several times to get the circulation going in my legs and to keep warm. The balmy evening had turned into a chilly night. I was a little disappointed—but not altogether surprised—to see that a country cemetery on Halloween night is the same as on any other night. The dead are sleeping peacefully and there is nothing to be seen or felt. The only thing I was sure of was that it was without a doubt the loneliest place I had ever spent a night in.

When I looked at my watch and saw it was only a few minutes before midnight, I longed to go home and go to bed, but I didn’t. I just didn’t want the night to end that way, with my leaving long before I was supposed to because I wasn’t having any fun. Instead I wrapped myself in my blanket like a cocoon and laid down on the bed of leaves with my head a couple feet from the tree. If I could spend a few hours sleeping, it would be dawn when I woke up and I could go home and have a good breakfast and sleep until noon.

I was more tired than I thought and lying on the ground was more comfortable than I expected it to be. In a very short time I was lost in sleep.

I woke up long before dawn to what sounded like the strings being plucked on a musical instrument. I gasped, believing for a moment I was choking, and sat up.

“That’s Edith playing her ukulele,” a male voice said.

Since it was too dark for me to see anything, I reached for the flashlight but wasn’t able to find it. “Who’s there?” I asked.

“I’m right here,” the voice said.

I squinted into the darkness but couldn’t see anything. Then, as my eyes seemed to adjust a little bit, I could see what seemed to be the blurry outline of a person. After a few seconds I could see the features of a face—nose, eyes, a mouth—but they were very faint. I seemed to be looking at a person who was there and not there at the same time. Lit from within, he seemed to be, as when you put a small lighted candle inside a large paper sack.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I belong here,” he said. “You don’t.”

“Who’s Edith?”

“She’s my daughter. Ukulele player extraordinaire.”

As soon as her name was mentioned, a small girl “lit up” beside the man. Apparently they were able to turn the light on and off at will.

“Is there anybody else here?” I asked stupidly, running my hand across my eyes.

“My son Tom is here and several others who are just now hearing about you.”

A boy of about fifteen made himself known to me the way Edith had done. Then several others behind him did the same thing. As I looked out at them over the man’s shoulder, I saw that they were not quite touching the ground but “floating” above it.

“What are you doing here?” the man asked. I could hear the amusement in his voice.

“Do you know what day it is?” I asked.

“Time doesn’t mean anything here,” he said.

“Well, it’s Halloween,” I said.

“Oh, that,” he said, as if disappointed.

“So you understand the significance of the holiday?”

“Yes. And you are one of those who believe that Halloween is the one day in the year you will be able to see for yourself that we exist.”

“It sounds rather silly when you put it that way.”

“Are there others here also?”

“No. I’m by myself.”

“Are you some kind of medium between the world of the living and the world of those who have passed over?”

“No! Oh, no!”

“Then why are you seeing us right now?”

“This isn’t really happening. It’s just a dream. I’m afraid I’ve fallen under the spell, the romance, of being in an old country cemetery on Halloween.”

There was a murmur among the spirits behind the man. He listened to them for a moment and then turned back to me.

“They’re saying we can’t let you go like this,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“They think, and I agree, that you’ll go back and spread the word that you’ve seen proof of life after death and then this place will never be the same. There’ll be people coming out here in droves—curiosity seekers like yourself and newspaper men and the like. I haven’t been dead so long that I don’t remember what people are like!”

“I won’t tell a soul.”

“No, indeed, you will not!”

I couldn’t help noticing that the spirits had increased in number. Before there were just a few but now there were dozens and behind them dozens and maybe hundreds more. I began to feel a little afraid at what they were going to do to me.

“Why are there so many of you here?” I asked.

“They all want to get a look at you,” he said.

“That’s not what I mean. Why haven’t you moved on in the spirit world? Do you have to stay here because this is where your bodies are interred?”

I heard faint laughter but couldn’t see who was doing the laughing.

“Of course not,” he said. “We’re everywhere. We can go wherever we want. There are no restrictions. That’s what being a spirit is. Some choose to stay here because their loved ones are here; others don’t want to leave because they’ve been here so long they don’t remember any other place.”

“You don’t like living people like me coming around bothering you, do you?”

“Most spirits choose to remain solitary or with other spirits. We would prefer that you left us alone. Nothing good comes out of it for us when you try to prove that we exist.”

“So, are you going to scare me to death so I won’t go back and tell people that I’ve seen you?”

“No, I have to tell you that a spirit can’t kill a living person unless it’s by suggestion. I’ve also heard of spirits causing heavy objects to fall on living people, but that doesn’t happen very often.”

“Well, I think I’ll get into my car now and drive home, then, if it’s all the same to you. And I promise you I’ll forget I was ever here.”

“You’ll go back to sleep. You’ve never really woken up. At dawn you’ll wake up and leave this place. You’ll forget any of this ever happened. You’ll have nothing to report to your friends.”

“I won’t remember any of this,” I said, “because it’s a dream and I never remember dreams after I wake up.”

Just as the sun was coming up I awoke to the enthusiastic singing of birds. As I stood up from my bed of leaves and folded my blanket, I was relieved that morning had arrived, I had survived the night intact and it was time to go home. I had done what I said I would do, which was spend Halloween night alone in a country cemetery. I wondered if my friends had fared as well as I had.

I walked to my car, started the engine, and turned on the heater. By the time I got out to the highway, morning was well on its way and the sky a brilliant autumnal blue.

I didn’t see the deer that came rushing out of the brush toward me like the angel of death. All I saw of it was its back legs as it sailed over the hood of my car. I suppose I had been thinking too much about bacon and pancakes and wasn’t paying as much attention to my driving as I should have. I swerved the car sharply to avoid colliding with the deer. Since I was going about sixty miles an hour, I lost control and ran the car off into a deep culvert that, lucky for me, had no water in it. I hit my head and was knocked out cold.

Somebody passing by on the highway saw my car in the ditch and called for help. An ambulance came and took me, still unconscious, to the hospital. The police had my car towed into town.

While I was still unconscious, I could hear a song being played on the ukulele. I didn’t know what the song was, but it was the same song over and over. A ukulele is not an instrument I’m used to hearing or would expect to hear. It forced me to recall in vivid detail the dream I was supposed to forget. When I regained consciousness, I asked for a pencil and some paper. I knew I had to write it down while I remembered it or risk losing it forever.

October 23, 2014October 23, 2014 by allen0997

Celeste

Celeste ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This short story was published in Gothic City Press: Gas Lamp and is a re-post on my website.)

She owed everything to M and F. They brought her into the world, fed and clothed her, educated her, gave her a wonderful childhood. When the world was against her, M and F were always in her corner.

After she grew up, she married and left M and F. The marriage didn’t last, though, and after it came to its sad end she moved back home. M and F were growing old by then and needed her in the same way she needed them when she was a little girl growing up. She would never leave them again.

She did everything for them. They were helpless without her. She got them up in the morning, dressed them, sat them in their chairs, turned the TV or radio on for them. She read the newspaper to F and helped M with all the housework. She loved them so much that she told them all her secrets, like the time she pushed a girl down a long flight of stairs or the time at the lake when she could have saved a drowning boy but instead let him die.

On a beautiful autumn day, when the leaves were bright colors and the air held that wonderful crispness that can only mean the end of October, she bundled M and F up in their coats. F looked so sweet in the knit cap she made for him and M seemed to glow with the prospect of the fun they were going to have.

With M and F snuggly secured in the back seat, she drove out to the country road that she remembered from her childhood. They used to take long drives on Sunday afternoons in autumn, stopping to pick bittersweet or wild flowers or a few persimmons off a scraggly tree. She laughed to remember how eating a persimmon would make the inside of her mouth so puckery that she would have to spit it out on the ground. Autumn was her favorite time of year.

The road was just as she remembered it, the hills, curves, and sudden dips that made the stomach turn over. In fact, everything was exactly the same. There was the old red barn, there the grain silo and over there the horses grazing in a field behind a fence. The rickety old bridge still spanned the creek and the old country store still sold ice-cold drinks and pumpkins.

She looked away for a moment and when she looked back a porcupine was running across the road in front of the car. Porcupines don’t run very fast. If she had run over it and killed it, she would have been upset for the rest of the day. She swerved the car too much and lost control. The car careened off the road, across a ditch and into a tree.

Her first thought was for M and F. They had slid off the seat onto the floor but were unhurt. After she tended to them, she got out of the car to assess the damage. She had hit the tree squarely; water was dripping out of the radiator. She could not drive the car another inch in its present state.

It was too far to walk to town and, besides, she couldn’t leave M and F in the car alone. She could think of nothing else to do but stand by the side of the road and wait for somebody to come along and help.

There wasn’t much traffic and the few people who went by just stared at her as if she were a lunatic and went on past. Finally a police officer in a patrol car came along and, seeing her and the car smashed into the tree, pulled off onto the shoulder and got out.

“Anybody hurt?” the officer asked.

“No,” she said.

“I’ll call a tow for you.”

“Thank you.”

He spotted M and F in the back seat of the car. “Are they all right?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said.

He went closer to the car and leaned over to get a better look. “Why, they’re wax figures!” he said. “Aren’t they?”

“They’re…my family,” she said.

He straightened up and looked closely at her to see if she was making a joke. “Are you made of wax, too?”

“They’re surrogates.” she said.

“They’re what?”

She was wearing an old coat that belonged to F. She thrust her hands into the pockets and felt in the right-hand pocket a small knife that F used to use for whittling. She brought the knife out and stabbed the officer in the forearm.

He yelped with surprise. When she saw the knife sticking into his arm, she turned and started to run, but he grabbed onto her and wrapped his arms around her to subdue her. He pushed her toward the patrol car, opened the back door and shoved her inside.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she said. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Shut up!” he said.

He slammed the door, locking her inside.

“Let me out of here!” she said. “They need me!”

The officer went over to her car and opened the back door. F tumbled out onto the ground head-first in a very undignified manner. The officer picked him up by the arm and tossed him back inside.

She winced as if she had been struck and then laughed at herself because she knew then that it wasn’t the real F. They—the real F and the real M—were asleep in a big trunk in the basement. Only she knew where they were. Nobody else would ever know. She was so much smarter than she had ever been given credit for.

October 22, 2014October 22, 2014 by allen0997

On the Face of It

On the Face of It ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This short story was published in Gaia’s Misfits Fantasy Anthology and is a re-post on my website.)

In the morning when Blanche Mims stepped outside to sweep away the autumn leaves that had gathered around her front door, there was a very small man dressed in black formal attire, a midget, standing in the yard looking at her. She stopped sweeping, adjusted her glasses, and snorted through her nose.

“Looking for somebody?” she asked.

“I’ve found her,” he said.

So, he was one of those! He had heard about her in town and wanted to see for himself. She went back inside as fast as she could, slamming the door. She peeked out at him as he got back into a long gray car and drove away. Oh, but he had an evil grin!

She was not like other women, so she had good reason for caution. She had what was, by any measure, a monstrous deformity: her face was not in front of her head but on top. Her nose was exactly at the top of her head, her mouth tucked in underneath her nose. Since her eyes were always pointed skyward, she had to wear a special kind of glasses made with tilted mirrors so she could walk upright and see in front of her. On the sides of her head, all the way around (covering her ears), was thick hair, the color and texture of a lion’s mane. For several years she had been a headliner in a traveling freak show and was, for a time, billed as The Lion Woman. (To her credit, she was, except for the misplacement of her face, exactly the same as anybody else.)

She continued to see the midget every day for nearly two weeks. He either drove by slowly or stopped the car and got out and stood looking at the house for a while before driving on.

“There’s been a strange man hanging around outside for several days now,” she said casually to her mother, Olga Mims, one evening when they were getting ready for bed. “A tiny man.”

Olga laughed. “I’ve seen the little bastard,” she said. “That’s a hearse he’s driving. He’s an undertaker.”

“What’s he looking for?”

“Maybe he’s trying to drum up some business.”

“In Scraptown? Nobody comes to Scraptown if they don’t have to.”

“Why don’t you ask him the next time you see him?” Olga said as she removed her wig and put it on the head of the mannequin that she kept by her bed to keep her company at night.

All day long the next day Blanche kept an eye out for the little man, but she didn’t see him. The day after, though, he parked his hearse under the trees across the road and got out and stood in the front yard and looked up at the house. He was wearing a top hat and a cape as if he thought he was Spencer Tracy in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and was smoking a cigarette in a long holder. She decided it was time to confront the little son of a bitch. She ran her fingers through her mane-like hair to smooth it down and went out the door.

“May I help you?” she asked in a too-loud voice.

He took off his hat, took the cigarette holder out of his mouth, made a sweeping gesture with his arm and bowed. “I am so pleased to finally make your acquaintance,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ferris Peabody, mortician. At your service.”

“What makes you think I need a mortician?” she asked.

“I don’t,” he said. “This is purely a personal call, rather than a professional one.”

“All right,” she said. “I think you’d better state your business and be quick about it, or I’m going to call the sheriff and have you removed from my property.” She bent over from the waist so she was really facing him, rather than looking at him through the mirror glasses.

“You have a lovely face,” he said. “It’s too bad the world doesn’t see more of it.”

“What’s the gag? Do you have a hidden camera somewhere?”

“Nothing of the kind, I assure you.” He bowed again as though addressing a queen.

“If this is some kind of trick, I don’t think it’s the least bit funny and I want you to know that I keep a loaded gun in the house.”

“No gag and no trick,” he said.

Hearing their voices, Olga came out of the house. She was wearing a seventy-year-old sailor suit that was too big for her, complete with hat. She smiled at the little man and saluted like a real sailor.

“How-do, ma’am,” he said. “Ferris Peabody at your service.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Olga said.

“You are, I take it, the young lady’s mother?”

“I was the last time I looked.”

“You have a sense of humor, ma’am, I can see. I like that and I think it’s so important in this cruel world we live in.”

Already Olga was fascinated by the little man and found him inexpressibly piquant.

“You still haven’t told me what your business is,” Blanche said.

“I come to pay a social call.”

“Why would you do that? I don’t even know you.”

“So that we may come to know each other.”

“If you’re selling funeral plans, we’re not interested.”

“I’m not, I swear.”

“Well, come on inside,” Olga said. “We don’t have to stand out here like a bunch of statues.”

Blanche opened her mouth to object but she saw no reason to be overly rude and, besides, she was curious enough to want to know what the little mortician was going to say.

They went into the parlor and sat down, Blanche and Olga on the old horsehair sofa and he on the overstuffed easy chair facing the sofa. Since he was about the size of a three-year-old child, he had some difficulty getting on the chair but, once he was settled, he smiled broadly, pleased to have been asked inside.

“I have some beer on ice, if you’d like one,” Olga said.

“I’d love one,” he said.

Blanche sat upright on the sofa so that when he looked at her all he could see was the lion’s mane. She was deliberately being cold to him, which he could read in her posture.

“You’re probably wondering how I drive the hearse,” he said to Blanche with an ingratiating smile, “being deprived of height the way I am.”

“I haven’t given it a single thought.”

Olga came back from the kitchen. She had poured the beer into a glass, which she only did for special guests. She handed it to him and watched carefully as he took a sip of the beer.

“Ah, so refreshing!” he said.

She smiled, ever the gracious hostess, and sat back down.

“Now, to get on with my story,” he said.

“I didn’t know you were telling one,” Blanche said.

“I became acquainted with your cousin, Philandra Burgoyne, about a year ago when she came to me for her after-death needs.”

“Oh, yes,” Olga said. “How is dear Philandra?”

“She’s fine,” he said. “She’s dead.”

“Isn’t that odd? I hadn’t heard that she had passed over.”

“She was very large at the end of her life. There was no coffin available that would accommodate, so we had to bury her in a piano crate.”

“I would have gone to the funeral, had I only known.” Olga said.

“The funeral was quite spectacular, if I do say so myself, but that’s not what I came to tell you. To get right to the point, I had many deeply heartfelt conversations with Philandra in the last few months of her life. I was her spiritual advisor, in a way, as there was no one else to fill that position.”

“You must have been a great comfort to her,” Olga said.

When Blanche sighed with boredom, he turned and faced her. He had no way of knowing if she was even listening to him. It was rather like talking to a mop. “When Philandra told me about you, I knew I had to come and pay you a visit, get to know you any way I could.”

“How flattering,” Blanche said. “I still don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

“I have a successful business,” he said. “I began The Ferris Peabody Mortuary and Funeral Parlor from the ground up. I have a very select clientele. People like us.”

“People like what?”

“Unique people. People like you and me and your cousin Philandra. People that the world thinks of as freaks.”

“Oh, well, thank you very much for calling me a freak!”

“To the world that’s what we are because the world only sees what’s on the outside and never considers what’s on the inside.”

“Ho-hum,” Blanche said, covering her mouth to yawn.

“I’ve taken care of the after-death needs of Hortense the Hippopotamus Girl, Isador the Invisible Irishman, Allesandro the Monkey Boy, Lulu the Flipper Baby, and Otto Osgood the Only Human on Earth with an Exoskeleton, to name but a few.”

“Otto and I used to be sweethearts,” Olga said. “He was very proud of his physical endowments.”

“I don’t believe you ever knew him,” Blanche said.

“Well, maybe not.”

“The point I’m trying to make,” he said, “is that my business is successful and getting more so. I have everything I need, except for one thing, and that’s where you come in.”

“You want me to die,” Blanche said, “and let you take care of my after-death needs so you can drop my name whenever and wherever it’s convenient, the way you drop the names of those other freaks? You little name-dropper, you!”

“I want someone to share my success with.”

“Get a dog.”

“The clock is ticking away. I’m no longer young and neither are you.”

”Speak for yourself!”

“You would complement my business in a way that nobody else could. My clients would feel comfortable with you. The women folk like it better if a woman is seeing to the arrangements. You know, what shroud goes with the casket lining and all that. What panties to wear. What shoes.”

“Are you offering me a job?”

“More than that. I’m offering to marry you.”

“Phht! And wouldn’t we make a fine pair! A woman whose face is in the wrong place and a man who doesn’t even measure up to the yard stick! We could put on a show for Halloween, but I don’t know what we’d do the rest of the year.”

“You’ve been hurt by life and so have I,” he said.

“Me too,” Olga said. “I’ve been hurt by life a lot.”

“In my world you wouldn’t be an outcast. You wouldn’t have to hide yourself away in a little house built into the side of a hill because you wouldn’t be any more freakish than anybody else.”

“Oh, and where is this world, anyway, where everybody’s a freak but doesn’t know it?”

“It’s closer than you think.”

“It sounds delightful, your world, but there’s just one problem.”

“What?”

“How can I believe you? How do I know you’re not just some evil dwarf come to carry my soul to hell?”

He laughed heartily. “I assure you I’m not,” he said.

“I think you should listen to what he’s saying,” Olga said.

“I want to show you something,” he said. “Maybe it will help to convince you.”

He took her by the hand and led her to a mirror on the wall. After he had positioned a chair behind her to stand on so they were of more or less equal height, he placed his hands on both sides of her head and said, “Watch closely.”

She adjusted her mirror glasses and sighed. All she saw was her lion mane of hair, which is what she expected to see, but after a few seconds she saw something different. Her face was somehow projected on the front of her head so that she looked like a normal person whose face was where it should be and not a freak.

“How do you do that?” she said.

“Never mind how I do it. Just know that I can.”

The image in the mirror faded and she turned around and looked at him as he got down off the chair. “That’s just a trick,” she said. “I’ve had enough tricks in my life.”

“I think there’s something to that,” Olga said.

“Come with me now,” he said.

“I can’t marry you without knowing anything about you.”

“We can put off marrying for as long as you like.”

“And you won’t touch me?”

“You’ll have your own private boudoir with the strongest lock you ever saw on the door.”

“And I can come back home if I so choose.”

“It’s not a prison.”

“Can she come too?” Blanche asked, tilting her head toward Olga.

“I can’t leave now,” Olga said. “Poor Butterfly is about to have her babies.”

“She loves her cats more than anything,” Blanche said.

“We can come back and get her and her cats, too, just as soon as she’s ready,” he said.

“That will give me time to get my wig washed and styled and get my nails done,” Olga said. “What should I wear?”

“You can wear whatever you want,” he said.

“Can I come as a clown? I’ve always loved clowns.”

“You can come as a clown, a sailor, a chicken, or anything you want.”

“I have the cutest clown getup you ever saw!”

“Do I need to pack a bag?” Blanche asked.

“No,” he said. “You’ll have everything you need when we get to where we’re going.”

“What are we waiting for, then?”

Suddenly Blanche Mims seemed in a hurry to leave her little house built into the side of a hill in the section of town known as Scraptown. She gave Olga a little squeeze about the shoulders and followed the tiny mortician outside to his long gray hearse waiting for them under the trees.

Olga stood and watched as they drove away, waving and blowing kisses. She saw the hearse as it disappeared from view down the hill in the lane. Unlike other cars, though, it just never reappeared at the top of the next hill.

October 21, 2014 by allen0997

Gone Girl ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Gone Girl ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

Gone Girl might more appropriately be titled Gone 33-Year-Old Woman. It’s a slick mystery filmed in and around Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and directed by David Fincher, who directed The Social Network and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It’s a story about a mismatched couple and the disastrous consequences of their terrible marriage. Ben Affleck is Nick Dunne, the feckless husband, and Rosamund Pike is Amy, the not-what-she-seems wife.

Nick Dunne is a small-town, average man. He owns a not-very-successful bar with his twin sister, Margo. His blond wife, Amy, is everything he’s not. She comes from a wealthy family, is sophisticated, cultured, and accomplished, a Harvard graduate and author of a series of children’s books. After the sexual attraction between the two of them wears thin, Nick and Amy discover they can’t stand each other. Nick grows increasingly more hostile toward Amy and she claims to be afraid of him. On their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick is going to ask Amy for a divorce, but when he comes home he finds she is gone; the house is in disarray, suggesting a struggle. Nick goes to the police and a large-scale search for Amy begins.

The apparent abduction of Amy becomes the subject of intense media scrutiny and a kind of national obsession. Nick Dunne is a little too glib and facile; he doesn’t seem too broken up over the disappearance of his wife. (He admits in private that he is relieved she’s gone.) He is, in fact, found to have been having an adulterous affair with a woman half his age. He becomes the most hated man in America. He has, in a way, been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.

We (the audience) aren’t kept guessing too long. I don’t want to give away too much here, except to say that, as much of a jerk as Nick is, he’s relatively blameless compared to Amy. She is a despicable, manipulative monster, a regular psychopath. In the unsatisfying ending, we are left with the impression that Amy is exactly what Nick deserves. These are not likeable characters and there’s nothing here I care to see. I think I want my money back and the two-and-a-half hours out of my life.

October 18, 2014 by allen0997

The Spoils of Poynton ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Spoils of Poynton by Henry James ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Henry James was an American writer who lived from 1843 to 1916. If he seems more an English writer than American, that’s because he did most of his work while living in England and, late in his life, gave up his American citizenship and became a British subject. He wrote about twenty novels, the most famous of which are The Golden Bowl, Wings of the Dove, and Portrait of a Lady. He is one of the key figures of nineteenth century literary realism.

The Spoils of Poynton is a short (for Henry James) novel first published in 1897 that touches on the themes of greed, friendship, the nature of love and the strength of familial connections. Mrs. Gereth is a headstrong widow who lives on her estate called Poynton. Poynton is filled with “treasures” (these are the “spoils” of Poynton) that Mrs. Gereth and her late husband collected, including furnishings, tapestries, old china, paintings, object d’arts, etc. According to a silly and unfair English law, all the things in Poynton (including the house and estate) belong (upon the death of Mrs. Gereth’s husband) to her son, Owen. Owen can do as he pleases with his mother. He can put her out of the house of he wants to. He is under no legal obligation to her.

Owen is engaged to be married to one Mona Brigstock, whom Mrs. Gereth, his mother, loathes. Mrs. Gereth can’t stand to see Mona installed in Poynton with all the “things” that she considers her own. She would do almost anything to keep Owen from marrying Mona. This is where Fleda Vetch enters the picture. She is a friend of Mrs. Gereth’s and Mrs. Gereth’s choice for Owen to marry instead of Mona. After Owen and Fleda meet a few times, they admit they have “feelings” for each other. Could it be love?

Mrs. Gereth moves out of Poynton at the prospect of her son’s marriage to Mona and takes up residence in a place called “Ricks.” Ricks is all right in its own way but far inferior to Poynton. To mollify his mother, Owen tells her she may have a few (a dozen or so) of her favorite pieces from Poynton. She surprises everybody by taking literally everything. Owen is outraged and threatens legal action. (Apparently the desire for earthly possessions is more important than the mother-son bond.) Mona tells Owen the marriage is off until the things are returned to Poynton. She wants to marry Owen, it seems, only if Poynton and everything in it are part of the bargain.

Mrs. Gereth’s friend, Fleda Vetch, is faced with a dilemma. She loves Owen and he apparently loves her, but she believes it would be improper for her to take him away from Mona. The only way she will get Owen herself is if Mona chooses to break off with him. Owen believes it his duty to follow through on his marriage to Mona, even though he seems at times to prefer Fleda. Which way will he go? Will Mona tell him she no longer wants to marry him? What will happen to the “spoils” of Poynton?

Somebody once said that Henry James could find more drama in a raised eyebrow than most people could find in an earthquake. The Spoils of Poynton is a simple and engaging story told in Henry James’s inimitable grand literary style. If a thing could be said in five hundred words, he will more than likely use five thousand. Let’s see…how many ways are there to say the same thing?

October 7, 2014October 7, 2014 by allen0997

On This Day

On This Day ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Traffic was light. Billie Rose Flint arrived at the cemetery at five minutes after three on a bright October afternoon. She knew the cemetery well and parked the car in the same familiar spot, underneath an old oak tree that at the moment was so suffused with sunstruck color that it was as pretty as any picture in a magazine. She breathed deeply of the pleasant leafy smell and, not even bothering to lock the car, walked up the hill that she knew so well, past the gravestones whose names she knew by heart.

By the time she came to her son’s grave, she was winded and her legs ached; she was, after all, getting old. She spread the blanket on the ground, kicked off her shoes and sat down facing the gravestone. It was a simple red-granite affair, not as showy as some of the others, with the name, Randall Wallace Flint, the date of his birth and the date of his death.

As always when she was in the cemetery and there was no one else around, she began to feel sleepy. She reclined on her back and looked up into the trees. The breeze on her face was fragrant and cooling. A little hump in the ground pressed comfortably into the small of her back as if it had been placed there especially for that purpose.

She dozed and in a moment she was aware of someone standing beside her. She opened her eyes and looked up into his face but the sun kept her from seeing him. He smiled and sat down beside her on the edge of the old quilt.

“How have you been keeping yourself?” he asked.

“Just peachy keen,” she said.

“I had a feeling you’d be here today.”

“It’s a special anniversary,” she said.

“Anniversary of what? You can say it.”

She looked at him and saw he was trying to keep from laughing, as if it was all a joke to him.

“Thirty years ago today,” she said, “you hanged yourself from a rafter in the garage after school.”

“Go on,” he said.

“I found you when I opened the door to pull the car in. You were just hanging there. There was a tipped-over chair. I knew right away it was too late.”

“And then what did you do?”

“I screamed. The woman who lived next door, Doris Ellsworth, was in her backyard and heard me. She came running to see what was wrong. When she saw what had happened, she closed the garage door and took me into the house and called an ambulance.”

“And then what?”

“They came and cut you down. By then, all the neighbors had gathered around to watch. The paramedics carried you out on a stretcher and put you into the back of the ambulance. They were moving very slowly because they knew there was nothing to be done.”

“What did you do then?”

“I drank a glass of scotch and called your father and told him he needed to come home.”

“And did he?”

“He was there in a few minutes. At first he didn’t believe you were really dead. He wanted to see to make sure for himself. They let him see you, with all those people watching, and then he turned to the ambulance driver and very calmly told him to take you to the funeral home. Then he made me get into the car with him and we drove there behind the ambulance and bought you a casket. Your father wrote a check to pay for it.”

“It was some funeral, though, wasn’t it?” he said.

“Yes, it was a big funeral.”

“Everybody from school was there. Standing-room only. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Suddenly everybody likes you when you’re dead.”

“They liked you before you were dead but you didn’t see it.”

“I was going through an adolescent phase. I thought I couldn’t go on.”

“If only there had been some way to help you before it was too late.”

“It doesn’t do any good to think that way. What’s done is done.”

“Was your life really so unbearable?”

“I was a misfit. I was failing algebra. I had acne. I couldn’t take being chosen last for basketball any more. Do you know how much I despise basketball to this day?”

“Those things would have passed. If you had only talked to me about what was bothering you, I could have helped.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “Who knows?”

“Insanity has always run in my family,” she said.

He laughed. “Do you think that’s what was wrong with me?”

“Who can say?”

“If that helps you to understand what I did,” he said, “I guess it’s as logical an explanation as any.”

“Do you think about all the things you missed?”

“Not much,” he said. “ I think more about the things I avoided. Like having to get a job, paying taxes and having a bad marriage.”

“What makes you think you would have had a bad marriage?”

“I don’t know. Aren’t all marriages bad in one way or another?”

“It depends on who you talk to, I guess.”

“You and father had a terrible marriage.”

“I wouldn’t say it was terrible.”

“You fought all the time.”

“Did we? I don’t remember.”

“I call that ‘convenient forgetting’,” he said.

“Anyway, it’s all in the past now and no longer matters.”

“Yes, all in the past.”

“I’m just glad you’re not in torment for what you did,” she said.

“No, not in torment. Not in heaven, either.”

“I won’t ask you what it’s like where you are because I don’t want to know. All I want to know is that you’re not being made to suffer for what you did.”

“Of course I’m not. There isn’t any such thing as hell.”

“Now you’re forty-five,” she said. “Or you would be if you had lived. When I look at you, I see a forty-five-year-old man. You look a little like your father but more like my side of the family.”

“You see what you want to see,” he said.

“The unhappy fifteen-year-old is gone. I can no longer even see his face.”

“Good riddance,” he said. “I never liked him much, anyway.”

“Are you sorry for what you did? I mean, ending your life before it even had a chance to begin?”

“If you say so, mother.”

She heard voices and when she turned her head to see who it was, she saw two very old ladies hovering over a fresh grave nearby. When she turned back to her son, he was gone. The spell was broken. He wouldn’t have wanted anybody else to see him.

She picked up her blanket and walked over to where the old ladies were and greeted them. One of the old ladies had an excess of makeup caked on her face and the other wore a man’s hat and suit, as if they had just come from a costume party.

“Lovely day,” the woman dressed as a man said.

“Fall is my favorite time of the year,” makeup face said.

“A sad day for me,” Billie Rose Flint said. “My son died thirty years ago today.”

“Oh, my!” makeup face said. “How sad! How old was he?”

“Fifteen.”

“Aww.”

She picked up a lily from the flowers that were left on the fresh grave and handed it to Billie Rose Flint. “In remembrance,” she said.

Billie Rose Flint took the flower and, in spite of herself, began crying uncontrollably, trying to cover her face with her handkerchief to keep the old ladies from looking at her. She opened her mouth to speak again but instead hurried off with the flower before she felt compelled to tell them the whole story.

September 28, 2014September 30, 2014 by allen0997

Absalom, Absalom ~ A Capsule Book Review

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

William Faulkner (1897-1962) is arguably the best American novelist of the twentieth century, the supreme literary stylist. His works are deep, cerebral, rich and complex. His style is dense, sometimes fragmented, wordy and difficult to read. He has the longest sentences and the longest paragraphs of any other writer. If you are trying to follow the thread of a sentence, you might have to go back and break it down into its many parts to figure out exactly what is being said. If reading a novel by Faulkner is frustrating and tedious at times (a painful slog), you must also know that it is worth the effort or you wouldn’t be doing it.

When I first started reading Faulkner’s 1936 novel, Absalom, Absalom, I found the first chapter (told in the voice of Miss Rosa Coldfield in 1909 when she is 64 years old) so difficult that I almost gave up. If you are able to make it through the first chapter, however, the following chapters are easier. Not easy, but not quite as difficult. (There’s no linear structure to the novel.)

Absalom, Absalom is the multilayered family saga of the Sutpen and Coldfield families in the American South in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Thomas Sutpen confounds the town of Jefferson, Mississippi—and particularly the Coldfield family—when he comes from nowhere and acquires a huge tract of land, called the Sutpen Hundred (square miles, not acres), and builds an enormous house on the edge of a swamp with the help of his band of wild black men and a French architect, who he more or less treats as a captive.

For years after the house is built, Thomas Sutpen entertains a band of his male friends with wild hunting and drinking parties and wrestling matches, until the day arrives when he decides he wants to acquire respectability in the form of a wife and children. He drives away his male friends and proposes to a town girl named Ellen Coldfield. (Faulkner compares her throughout the novel to a butterfly.)

To the unlikely union between Thomas Sutpen and Ellen Coldfield are born Henry and Judith. (Thomas Sutpen also has a half-black daughter named Clytemnestra, or “Clytie,” that he had with a slave woman.) Ellen Coldfield has a sister, Miss Rosa Coldfield, who is twenty-seven years younger than she is (younger than her own children). The first part of the story is being told by the elderly Rosa Coldfield to Quentin Compson, whose grandfather was the best friend of Thomas Sutpen. The part that Rosa Coldfield plays in the novel is more of an observer than active participant in what is going on.

When Henry Sutpen is grown (or almost grown), he goes away to college in Oxford, Mississippi. There he meets and becomes good friends with one Charles Bon. Charles is older and more worldly-wise and sophisticated than Henry. (Henry is clearly infatuated with Charles Bon. Faulkner later suggests more than just simple friendship between the two, especially on Henry’s part.) When Henry writes home about Charles Bon, his mother immediately sees Charles as a likely husband for Judith. Charles visits the Sutpen home with Henry on more than one occasion. His interest in Judith seems perfunctory. Will he propose to her or won’t he? We learn later a dark secret about Charles Bon, which I won’t reveal here, and that his association with the Sutpen family is part of an elaborate scheme of revenge. This element of the story drives the narrative for much of the second half of the novel.

The Civil War obtrudes upon the lives of the characters. The three principal male characters (Thomas Sutpen, Henry Sutpen, Charles Bon) all find themselves in battle. (Thomas Sutpen achieves the rank of colonel.) The war, of course, doesn’t turn out the way many Southerners hoped it would or expected it would. (Faulkner points out that the Southern army had the highest mortality rate of any army in history.) The men who survive, defeated not only in war but also in spirit, return home starving and in tatters to discover that everything they loved or cared about has been swept away. It is this defeat that is subtext to everything else.

Absalom, Absalom (the name derives from a character in the Bible) is a dark story, full of revenge, incest (or almost incest), miscegenation, family secrets, hubris, intentions gone awry, class distinction, loss and suffering. There’s no redemption for anybody, no life-affirming conclusion. Nobody writes about these things (or about the South) the way Faulkner does.

September 21, 2014September 24, 2014 by allen0997

A Conversation Between Two Mothers

A Conversation Between Two Mothers ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(I posted a slightly different version of this short story in April 2013.)

It was Madge’s turn to host the card party and she still had much to do. She had put her hair up in curlers and was tying a scarf around her head to make herself presentable to go and buy some last-minute items, when there came a knock at the back door. She huffed with impatience, snuffed her cigarette out in the garbage pail, and opened the door to a short, toad-like woman with frazzled red hair.

“Mrs. Simple?” the woman said.

“It’s Semple,” Madge said.

“Well, Simple or Semple or whatever it is, I need to have a word with you.”

“What about?”

“You have a son named Dakin?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s been picking on my Leslie.”

“Picking on your what?”

“On my son Leslie, dodo bird!”

“Oh. And who are you?”

“My name, if it should happen to be of any interest to you, is Mrs. Felton. My son is Leslie Felton.”

Madge sighed and stepped out the back door. “Maybe you’d just better tell me what happened,” she said.

“Leslie was riding his bicycle on the sidewalk, minding his own business. Dakin jumped out from behind a tree and yelled and scared him and caused him to wreck his bike. He cut a big gash in his leg that was pouring blood.”

“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.”

“And that’s not all. When Leslie was lying on the ground howling in pain, Dakin took his bicycle.”

“Oh, he’s just playing. That’s what boys do.”

“Oh, is that so? Well, if you want to know the truth, I think Dakin is a lunatic! Only a lunatic enjoys inflicting pain on others.”

“Now, hold on a minute!” Madge said. “You don’t have any right to speak to me that way about my child!”

“Then when Leslie finally got his bike back, it had some scratches on it that weren’t there before. Caused by your brat!”

“Wait a minute!” Madge said. “Did you see Dakin do any of this?”

“He did it all right!”

“Did you see him do it?”

“Well, no, I was in the house, tending to my little girl. She’s got a rash all over her body and we don’t know what’s causing it.”

“If you didn’t see Dakin do it, how do you know he did?”

“Because Leslie said so. If you could have seen how upset he was, it would have broken your heart. If you have a heart.”

“Maybe Dakin didn’t do it. There are lots of boys in the neighborhood.”

“Leslie said he did it and if Leslie says a thing, it’s true! He came into the house crying with the blood dripping down his leg. He was so upset he couldn’t speak. When I held him on my lap and got him to calm down, he told me what happened.”

“So, you’re taking Leslie’s word that Dakin did it?”

“Hell, yes!”

“You can’t always go on what kids say. They have a way of distorting the truth. Sometimes you have to find out what happened on your own.”

“So you’re saying my boy is a liar?”

“Look, Mrs. Whatever-your-name-is, I’m very busy at the moment and I don’t have time to stand here and jaw with you all day, as lovely a prospect as that is. When Dakin comes home, I’ll speak to him and I’ll find out what really happened. If he did what you say he did, he will be made to apologize.”

“And that’s all?”

“You want a written confession in blood?”

“I have a good mind to call the police.”

“They’ll just laugh at you for being so trivial.”

“You tell that little ham-handed troglodyte of yours to stay away from Leslie and Leslie’s bike and anything that belongs to Leslie.”

“You’d better watch who you’re calling names! You’ve got a lot of nerve coming to my door and raising such a fuss over nothing!”

“So now you’re saying it’s nothing? First Leslie is a liar and now it’s nothing!”

“I told you the matter will be taken care of! Now, so help me, if you don’t get off my property right now, I’m going to throw something at you!”

“My, aren’t we hoity-toity, though? You think you’re better than me, don’t you? Well, I’ll tell you something. I have no intention of getting off your property until I’m good and ready.”

“Oh!” Madge said. She ran into the kitchen, looking for something to throw. The first thing that came to hand was a bag of grapefruits. She carried the bag out the door and began lobbing grapefruits at the woman, one after the other. The first one hit her in the chest but the rest missed her.

“I see where Dakin gets his craziness from!” the woman said. “Only crazy people throw fruit!”

When Madge had run out of grapefruits, the woman, as deft as a monkey, rushed her and punched her in the chin with her fist. The blow almost knocked her off her feet but she caught herself on the doorframe.

“I’ll give you fifteen seconds to get off my property,” she said. “That’s how long it’ll take me to go to the bedroom closet and get the loaded gun my husband keeps there.”

“Oh, my!” the woman said, taking a few mincing steps and waggling her hips in a demonstration of hoity-toity. “You can see how scared I am, can’t you?”

“You are the most repulsive woman I’ve ever seen!”

“Well, that goes double for me!”

The gun was in the exact spot in the closet where Madge thought it would be, high up where the kids wouldn’t find it. She checked to make sure it was loaded and then before she knew what she was doing she was outside again, pointing the gun at the woman.

When the woman saw the gun, she didn’t leave as Madge hoped she would but bent over from the waist and made a raspberry sound with her tongue and lips. Then she stuck her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers.

“Hah-hah-hah!” she said. “Are you supposed to be scaring me with that little pea shooter? I’ve had bigger guns than that pointed at me!”

The first bullet struck the woman in the breastbone, the second knocked her off her feet. She was lying on the ground, struggling to stand up, as Madge fired all the bullets in the gun at her, six in all.

When she was sure the woman was dead, she dragged her body by the ankles into the bushes in the overgrown neighboring yard where the house just happened to be vacant. It would be a while before anybody found her and, when they did, they wouldn’t know what had happened.

She put the gun back in the closet and checked herself in the mirror. No, she didn’t look as if she had just killed somebody. She went out to the garage and backed the car out and zoomed up the street, waving and smiling at some of the neighbors. It was getting late and she had to get to the store before they were out of the best cuts of meat.

September 20, 2014 by allen0997