Allen Kopp – Page 72 – Literary Fictions

Never Marry

Never Marry ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Mrs. Shockley had been a widow for many years. Just when she was thought to be past such things, she began “keeping company” with an old man named Wallace Timpkins, who worked as a janitor at the grade school. Nobody was more chagrined at Mrs. Shockley’s recent flowering than her forty-year-old unmarried daughter, Edith. She watched in disbelief as her mother and Wallace sat on the couch on the evenings when he came for dinner, whispering and grappling together like a couple of adolescents. Edith was embarrassed for her mother. She knew that she, of all people, had to rescue her from the spell that Wallace seemed to have cast over her.

When Wallace Timpkins proposed marriage to Mrs. Shockley and she told him she needed a few days to think about it, Edith knew the situation was spiraling out of her control. Having dinner together and sitting on the couch afterwards was one thing, but talk of marriage seemed to be taking it a step too far. She had hoped her mother would come to her senses about Wallace but, if she married him, it would be too late; she would be stuck with him for as long as she lived and where would that leave Edith? She had no intention of being put out of her home.

One rainy Saturday morning when Edith had washed Mrs. Shockley’s hair at the kitchen sink and was putting it up in rollers at the table, she broached the rather sensitive topic of a union with Wallace.

“You wouldn’t really marry him, would you?” she asked.

“I don’t know why not,” Mrs. Shockley said. “He’s free and I’m free. We’re both of age.”

“Yes, but why would you even want to marry him?”

“Why does anybody get married?”

“I know why he wants to marry you.”

“Why?”

“He needs a cook, laundress and housekeeper and he can’t afford to hire one.”

“What a terrible thing to say!”

“How do you know he isn’t already married?”

“His wife died. He told me all about it.”

“How did she die?”

“She was hit by a train.”

“How do you know he didn’t push her?”

Mrs. Shockley sputtered with laughter and turned around so she could see Edith’s face. “Why would he do that?”

“So he would be free to marry you.”

“Oh! This conversation is getting out of hand!”

“You know nothing about him.”

“I know enough.”

“How long as he worked at the school?”

“Six years.”

“Where was he before that? Has he ever been in prison?”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself? He’s coming over tonight for dinner.”

With that revelation, Edith went upstairs to her room and locked herself in, refusing to finish rolling up her mother’s hair. Let her do it herself for once and see how she likes it, she thought.

For the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon, Edith remained in her room. She didn’t come down for lunch but instead sampled generously from a box of chocolate candy she kept in her dresser drawer. After that she took a long nap, waking up to a pounding headache and the smell of cooking food. She went downstairs silently and set the dining room table for three.

Wallace arrived just as dinner was ready. He seemed, Edith thought, to have a sixth sense where food was concerned. As she brought the chicken in from the kitchen and set it in the middle of the table and Wallace pulled out her chair for her to sit down, she thought: the dinner is already ruined for me. Mrs. Shockley was giggling like a schoolgirl and Wallace had only been there for five minutes.

Edith sat and nibbled at her food (what appetite she had was gone), looking coldly at her mother and Wallace. Mrs. Shockley spread some butter on a roll and held it up to Wallace; when he took a bite of it, the butter rolled down his chin. He began laughing to himself and when Mrs. Shockley asked what was so funny, he leaned over and whispered something in her ear, which caused her to erupt into a fit of laughter. When Wallace’s left hand wasn’t engaged in stuffing food into his maw, it was usually someplace or other on Mrs. Shockley’s body. Edith thought she was going to be sick. She needed to say something to remind them that she was also in the room.

“Being a janitor at a school must be terribly exciting,” she said, with an archness that Wallace and her mother both missed.

“What was that?” he asked, taking his eyes off Mrs. Shockley to look directly at Edith.

“I said it must be so exciting to be a janitor.”

“No, it’s not exciting,” he said. “It’s a living, that’s about all I can say. There are the good days and the bad days.”

“How long do you intend to be a janitor?” Edith asked.

“Until I retire, I guess.”

“And when might that be?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Why all the questions?” Mrs. Shockley asked.

“I don’t know,” Edith said. “I guess I’m just trying to get better acquainted.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Wallace said, “since we’re all going to be living in the same house together.”

“Why do you say that?” Edith asked.

“I haven’t told her yet, dear,” Mrs. Shockley said.

“Told me what?” Edith asked.

“I’ve accepted Wallace’s proposal of marriage. We’re going to be married in about six weeks, when school is out.”

Edith wasn’t even mildly surprised. She had been expecting the news. “This is rather sudden, isn’t it?” she asked.

“We decided the time is right,” Wallace said. “We neither one of us are getting any younger.”

“Do you think it’s wise for two people of your age to get married?” Edith asked.

“You’re beginning to sound rude,” Mrs. Shockley said, reaching over and taking Wallace’s hand in hers. “I was hoping you would be happy for us.”

“I am happy for you,” Edith said. “I just think there are some practical considerations that must be taken into account.”

“Like what?” Mrs. Shockley asked.

“Where are you going to live?”

“Wallace is going to move in with us, dear,” Mrs. Shockley said. “He lives in a rented place. We own our home.”

“I see,” Edith said. “And where does that leave me?”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Where am I supposed to live?”

“You’ll live here with us, of course.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“This has always been your home. I never thought of having it any other way.”

“I see,” Edith said, tears forming in her eyes. “While the two of you are mooning around, giggling and pawing at each other in a nauseating fashion, I’ll be doing all the housework, all the cooking, cleaning, washing and sewing. I’m to be relegated to the role of unpaid servant, is that right?”

“Well, of course not!” Mrs. Shockley said. “What a ridiculous notion!”

“I think she just needs some time to get used to the idea,” Wallace said. “It’s a bit of a shock for her.”

“I just might be getting married myself,” Edith said defiantly.

“Who would marry you?” Mrs. Shockley said with a laugh.

“Do you realize how insulting that is?” Edith asked. “As if nobody in the world would ever want to marry me!”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Mrs. Shockley said. “It’s just that we’ve already gotten so used to the idea that you will never marry. It seems your time has come and gone.”

“Oh!” Edith said. “So that’s what you think of me, is it?”

“I think we just need to calm down and take a deep breath and watch what we say,” Wallace said.

“You don’t need to be giving me orders in my own house!” Edith said.

“There’s no need to be so touchy about everything!” Mrs. Shockley said.

“Let’s talk about something more pleasant,” Wallace said, “and talk about the marriage stuff later. There’s no hurry.”

“My mother and I own this house,” Edith said. “If she dies, the house belongs to me. If she marries you, does that mean you own the house?”

“We haven’t thought about anything like that,” Mrs. Shockley said.

“We can work out those details later,” Wallace said. “Let’s not spoil this lovely dinner.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, with Edith snuffling back tears. When it was time to serve the dessert, Mrs. Shockley started to get up to go into the kitchen.

“You just stay put,” Edith said, “and keep Mr. Timpkins company. I’ll get the dessert and make the coffee.”

“All right, dear,” Mrs. Shockley said.

Edith went into the kitchen and squeezed the tears out of her eyes. She took the banana cream pie out of the ice box where it was chilling and sliced three big pieces. While she was waiting for the coffee to brew, she took the flashlight out of the drawer and went quietly down the basement steps.

She went to the far corner of the basement—shining the light in the murk—behind the furnace and past the hot water heater, to the little shelf where her father used to keep paint cans. Now the shelf was empty except for a box of rat pellets that her mother had bought when she mistakenly believed she saw a rat under the basement steps. She shook two of the pellets into her hand and went back upstairs.

The pellets were hard like stale cookies. She crumbled them up with a butter knife and, after she had poured three cups of coffee, dissolved the rat pellets into one of the cups. She put the three slices of pie and three cups of coffee on a tray—the cup with the rat pellets in it separated from the other two—and took them into the dining room.

Her mother was talking about a murder case she had been reading about in the paper and Wallace was, as usual, hanging on her every word. After Edith set the coffee and pie in front of Wallace, she resumed her seat and watched him closely after he began taking small bites of the pie and sipping the coffee. She didn’t know how many pellets it would take to kill him but, if he was going to die, she hoped he would not die until later, until after he had gone home. Maybe the small amount she had used would only make him sick. Maybe it would have no effect at all.

When they were finished eating, Mrs. Shockley began clearing the table, but Edith told her to take Wallace into the living room and have a nice “visit” with him while she washed all the dishes herself and put everything away. Mrs. Shockley readily complied, believing that Edith was over the “unpleasantness” that had occurred earlier.

While Edith was in the kitchen, she could hear her mother and Wallace talking and laughing in the front room. He played the piano while she sang in her quivery soprano. After a while she heard nothing, so she was sure they were locked in an intimate embrace on the couch. In that way did all their evenings conclude.

She went upstairs to her room and read for a while and then readied herself for bed. She was aware when Wallace Timpkins left to go home about eleven-thirty. She heard her mother come upstairs a short time after that and go into her bedroom and shut the door.

She slept well and soundly and was awakened at dawn by the ringing of a bell. It took her a few seconds to realize the ringing was the phone in the hallway, halfway between her room and her mother’s room.

After several rings, her mother opened her door and come out into the hallway to answer the phone. Edith listened carefully to the voice of her mother as it went from a barely audible murmur to a gasp and a cry of distress. She turned over on her side and covered up her head. When her mother came into her room to tell her the news, she would pretend to be asleep and would not be smiling.

June 25, 2012May 28, 2026 by allen0997

The Borgias, Season Two ~ A Capsule Review

The Borgias, Season Two ~ A Capsule Review by Allen Kopp

The Borgias, on Showtime, is nearing the end of its second season. Anybody who has seen any part of The Borgias knows it is a lavish and beautifully photographed series about the Borgia family during the time of the Italian Renaissance. The Borgia family is not billed as “the original crime family” for nothing; it seems there is nothing they won’t do to get what they want or to hold onto their considerable power.

Pope Alexander VI (played by Jeremy Irons), whose name is Rodrigo Borgia before he becomes pope, is the patriarch of the Borgia family. To achieve his ends and to maintain his position on the papal throne, he is aided by his loyal son, Cesare, who becomes a cardinal when his father becomes pope. Like his father, Cesare will stop at nothing to achieve his ends (or his family’s). Also like his father, he seems driven by the belief that he is always right and always justified in his actions, no matter how brutal or ruthless they might seem. More often than not, he is aided in his dirty work by his faithful friend, Micheletto, who was bred on the streets of Rome and who has some secrets of his own.

Pope Alexander’s beautiful daughter, Lucrezia Borgia, started out as a young innocent but was soon disillusioned when she was married off to a boorish nobleman in an alliance that was supposed to help her family (it didn’t). She has a dalliance with a handsome, illiterate stable boy, Paolo, that results in a son. Paolo meets a violent end at the hand of Lucrezia’s brother, Juan.

Juan Borgia, Cesare’s younger brother, is an oversexed hellion who is, more often than not, an embarrassment to his family. He is cruel, arrogant and foolish, frequently caught up short by his rash actions. When he is sent away to Spain for a while to get him out of the way, he returns with a wife and a case of syphilis, for which there is no cure.

Pope Alexander was never married to the mother of his children (played by Joanne Whalley), so, to avoid the appearance of impropriety when he becomes pope, he sends her to live elsewhere. She remains a player in the family, however, even though Pope Alexander has taken up with the beautiful Julia Farnese, whom he quickly installs in the papal palace as his mistress.

Pope Alexander has an arch-enemy, one Cardinal Della Rovere (played by Colm Feore), who seems motivated entirely by his hatred of the Borgia family and by his desire to see Pope Alexander removed from the papal throne. He will rally the pope’s enemies against him if he can, or he will see the pope poisoned (or otherwise murdered) if there is no other way.

Another enemy of the Borgias is the religious zealot Savonarola. He despises Pope Alexander (and what he sees as his excesses and extravagance) as much as Cardinal Della Rovere does. He travels around the country preaching fiery, anti-Borgia sermons to anybody who will listen. He and Pope Alexander are destined to clash in one way or another. Pope Alexander will burn him at the stake as a heretic if he has his way.

There’s no shortage of sex and violence in The Borgias, sometimes in the same scene. (In one telling scene, Lucrezia Borgia tries to murder her brother Juan by letting a chandelier tall on him while he is engaged in a sex act with a prostitute). There is also spurting blood, severed heads and limbs, stuffed cadavers, torture and ceaseless warfare. It’s TV for grown-ups. It’s also fascinating to watch, intelligently acted and written, and beautiful to look at. The sets and costumes are lavishly detailed and amazing to see. The photography, especially in the outdoor scenes, is gorgeously reminiscent of Italian Renaissance painting. The Borgias is a feast for the eyes.

June 21, 2012June 22, 2012 by allen0997

Prometheus ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Prometheus ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

The new movie, Prometheus, is a highly speculative (don’t take it too seriously) story about the search for the origins of human life on earth, the premise being that humans on earth originated on another planet in a distant galaxy. It was directed by Ridley Scott, whose impressive credits include the sci-fi classics Alien and Blade Runner and the Oscar-winning Gladiator.

As the movie begins, a spectacular spacecraft called Prometheus is nearing its destination, an alien planet (with an atmosphere sort of like earth) so far away that it has taken nearly two and a half years to get there. The human crew has been asleep, or in a state of suspended animation, during the long flight. Only David, the creepy human-like android, has been awake to keep the ship in order. David (played by Michael Fassbender) is my favorite character in the movie. He is unflappable because he doesn’t have human emotions, but he has a fey quality about him not unlike Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. With his perfectly combed blond hair and his soft voice, he is probably up to something, but we don’t know right away what it is.

When some of the crew members leave the Prometheus to investigate an enormous pyramid-like structure on the alien planet, they find the remnants of a humanoid race that seemed to have died out precipitously for some reason. Did they (the humanoids) sew the seeds of their own destruction with their secret “weapon” that was supposed to help them subdue their enemies? It seems the crew members have stumbled on something they hadn’t bargained for and don’t understand. There is the same sense of creepy foreboding as in the classic Alien. The body count begins to mount. Who will live and who will die? Are the humans a match for what they have uncovered? Wouldn’t they have been better off to remain on earth?

Prometheus is a great-looking movie in 3D. It has some eye-popping visuals, as you would expect from a movie like this. We have plenty of opportunity to see the interior of the spacecraft Prometheus and we see it wouldn’t be a bad place to spend a few years, as long as you’re guaranteed a safe return, which, of course, the characters in the movie are not. My one quibble is the mix of accents. A lot of the dialogue, especially during the action sequences, is indistinguishable. I’m a person who likes to hear every word that’s said. When Prometheus is shown on TV, I’ll turn on the closed captions (or subtitles if it’s DVD) and hear what I missed. I look forward to seeing it again in a year or so.

June 10, 2012 by allen0997

When in Rome…Visit the Palatine Hill

When in Rome…Visit the Palatine Hill

The Palatine Hill is the centermost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the old parts of the city. It stands above the Roman Forum on one side and the Circus Maximum on the other. The world “palatine” is the origin of the world “palace.”

According to Roman mythology, the Palatine Hill is where Rome began. There was a cave there known as the Lupercal, where twin boys Romulus and Remus were cared for and kept alive by a female wolf. The shepherd Faustulus found the infant boys and, with his wife Acca Larentia, raised them. When Romulus and Remus were older, they murdered their great-uncle, who had seized the throne from their father, and built a new city on the banks of the Tiber River. They ended up having a violent argument with each other and Romulus killed Remus. The name “Rome” is derived from “Romulus.”

Excavations have shown that people have lived on the Palatine Hill since one thousand years before Christ. The historian Livy wrote that the original Romans lived there. Many affluent Romans of the Republic Period (510 B.C. to 44 B.C.) had their homes there. During the period of the Empire (27 B.C. to 427 A.D.), many emperors had their palaces there. You might say that the Palatine Hill was the best neighborhood in Rome.

In July 2006, archaeologists discovered the Palatine House, which is believed to have been the birthplace of Augustus, Rome’s first emperor. A section of corridor and other fragments were discovered under the Palatine Hill, which one archaeologist described as “a very aristocratic house.” The two-story house was built around an atrium, with frescoed walls and mosaic flooring, and is situated on the slope of the Palatine that overlooks the Coliseum and the Arch of Constantine.

Extending across the Palatine Hill and looking out over the Circus Maximus is the Flavian Palace, which was extended and modified by several emperors. The greater part of the palace was built during the reign of the emperor Septimius Severus (146 B.C.-211 B.C.). Adjacent to this palace is the Hippodrome of Domitian, which was kind of a small stadium for foot races.

Today the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum beneath it are a large open-air museum and welcome thousands of visitors a day. If you are going to “do” Rome anytime soon, the Palatine Hill should be well worth the time and effort it takes to see it.

May 12, 2012 by allen0997

Amazing! Colossal! Stupendous!

Amazing! Colossal! Stupendous!

France had hosted the 1889 Paris Exposition, and it had been an enormous success, the largest fair ever of its kind. The Eiffel Tower had been built for the Paris Exposition and had quickly become a world-famous engineering wonder. A few years later, America was planning a World’s Fair of its own to be held in Chicago. American prestige was on the line. Would an American fair be able to outdo the Paris Exposition? Would Chicago, the second-largest city in the country, be able to put on as good as fair as New York, if New York had been chosen to host the fair?

The planners of the Chicago World’s Fair wanted a structure built that would rival the Eiffel Tower and become the centerpiece of the fair, as the Eiffel Tower had been of the Paris fair. After considering many proposals, they chose the design of a young bridge-builder from Pittsburgh named George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.

The “Ferris Wheel,” as it came to be called, was, at 264 feet, the largest structure of the sprawling Chicago World’s Fair. It quickly became enormously popular and well-known. As the planners had hoped, it became the symbol for the fair, recognized all over the world.

The wheel rotated on a 71-ton, 45.5 foot axle that weighed 89,320 pounds and was at the time the largest hollow steel forging that had ever been done. There were 36 cars, each able to accommodate 60 people—up to 2160 passengers at one time. The ride on the “Ferris Wheel” cost fifty cents and made two revolutions in twenty minutes.

After the Chicago fair ended, the “Ferris Wheel” was dismantled and stored for a time. It was reassembled on Chicago’s North Side, near Lincoln Park, where it operated from 1895 to 1903. After that, it was dismantled once again and used in the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. After it was no longer needed, the “Ferris Wheel” that had brought so much notoriety to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair was destroyed by controlled demolition in 1906.

May 12, 2012 by allen0997

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

The Tower of Pisa ~ Why Does it Lean?

Have you ever wondered why the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa appears to be in danger of falling over? Is the angle at which it leans to the side intentional or accidental?

The tower is the campanile, or freestanding bell tower, of the cathedral in the Italian city of Pisa. It stands behind the cathedral and is the third-oldest structure in Pisa’s Cathedral Square (the Cathedral and the Baptistry are older). It’s tilted at an angle of 3.99 degrees and stands 183 feet high on the lowest side and 186 feet high on the highest side. That is roughly equivalent to the height of an 18-story building.

Construction on the Tower of Pisa was begun in August of 1173, during a period of military success and prosperity. By the time the very slow construction had progressed to the third floor in 1178, the tower began to sink because of a poorly constructed foundation that was set in unstable subsoil. The Republic of Pisa was by this time engaged in wars with Genoa, Lucca and Florence, so construction was halted for almost a century. (Can you imagine a construction project being halted for a century nowadays?) This century-long delay allowed for the soil to settle; if not, the tower would almost certainly have fallen over.

Construction was resumed in 1272 under the architect Giovanni di Simone. To compensate for the tilt, engineers began building upper floors with one side taller than the other, making the tower lean in the other direction. Because of this, the tower is actually curved. In 1284, construction was halted again when Genoa defeated the Republic of Pisa in the Battle of Meloria.

In 1319, the seventh floor of the tower was completed, but the chamber where the bells were housed was not added until 1372. There are seven bells in the tower, one for each note of the musical major scale. The largest bell was installed in 1655.

The Italian government in 1964 requested aid in keeping the tower from falling over, but, whatever measures were taken to keep it standing upright, the tilt that had become so famous had to be preserved. An international task force of engineers, mathematicians, and historians was assigned to study and analyze the problem. A period of structural strengthening to halt the ever-increasing tilt began in 1990 and lasted about eleven years, after which the tower was declared stable for at least another 300 years. Today the tower is undergoing gradual surface restoration to repair corrosion and blackening caused by wind and rain.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa remains a popular tourist destination for anyone fortunate enough to be traveling in Italy. Seeing the tower and going to the top of it is surely an experience not to be forgotten.

May 12, 2012October 24, 2014 by allen0997

Jupiter’s Moons

The Moons of Jupiter

Earth has one moon, as we earth dwellers know. Jupiter, that mysterious “gas giant” that is the fifth planet in order from the sun and the largest planet in the solar system, has—count them—63 moons. Many of these moons, however, are not moons as we think of moons. Only eight are “regular satellites,” with prograde (a direction of rotation counterclockwise as viewed from the north pole of the sky or a planet) and nearly circular orbits not greatly inclined with respect to Jupiter’s equatorial plane. The other 55 moons are “irregular satellites” whose prograde and retrograde (moving in a direction contrary to that of similar objects) orbits are much farther from Jupiter and have high inclinations and eccentricities.

Of the eight “regular satellite” moons, four are called the Galilean moons because they were discovered by the astronomer Galileo in 1610. They are among the largest objects in the solar system and would be considered dwarf planets if they revolved around the sun instead of around another planet. They are Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede and were the first objects discovered to orbit a body other than the earth or the sun. (The other four “regular satellite” moons are much smaller and closer to Jupiter, serving as sources of the dust that makes up Jupiter’s rings.)

Ganymede, the largest of the four Galilean moons, is the largest natural satellite in the solar system (larger than the planet Mercury) and the only satellite known to possess a magnetosphere (a region of space surrounding a planet that is dominated by the planet’s magnetic field so that charged particles are trapped in it). Ganymede is made up mostly of silicate rock and ice. A salt-water ocean is believed to lie underneath its surface, sandwiched between layers of ice. The surface has two types of terrain—highly cratered dark regions and younger (though still ancient) regions with many grooves and ridges. There is a thin oxygen atmosphere that includes ozone and some atomic hydrogen.

The second largest of the four Galilean moons is Callisto, ranking as the third largest moon in the solar system. Callisto is made up of approximately equal amounts of rock and ice, which makes it the least dense of the Gallilean moons. It has a very thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide and molecular oxygen. The likely presence of a subsurface ocean of liquid water suggests that Callisto can or could harbor life. Callisto is the most likely place for a human base for future exploration since it is farthest from the intense radiation of Jupiter.

Of the four Galilean moons, Io is the one closest to Jupiter and is the fourth largest moon in the solar system. With over 400 active volcanoes, it is the most geologically active object in the solar system. The surface of Io is dotted with more than 100 mountains, some of which are higher than Mount Everest on earth. Most moons (or satellites) in the outer solar system have a thick coating of ice, but Io is made up primarily of silicate rock surrounding a molten iron or iron sulfide core. Io has a thin atmosphere and is bombarded with radiation and magnetic fields from Jupiter.

Europa is the second closet to Jupiter of the four Galilean moons and is the smallest of the four—slightly smaller than earth’s moon. It is one of the smoothest objects in the solar system, with a layer of water surrounding the mantle of the planet. The smooth surface includes a layer of ice, while the bottom of the ice is theorized to be liquid water. The smooth appearance of the surface of Europa has led scientists to believe that a water ocean exists beneath it, conceivably serving as an abode for life. The prominent reddish-brown markings that crisscross Europa indicate low topography, meaning that few craters exist because its surface is tectonically active and young. Europa is made up primarily of silicate rock and likely has an iron core. Its tenuous atmosphere is composed primarily of oxygen.

All four of the Galilean moons are bright enough that they could potentially be seen from earth with the naked eye, but the brightness of Jupiter obscures them. They are, however, visible with even low-powered binoculars if the person looking through the binoculars knows where Jupiter is and knows exactly what he or she is looking for.

May 12, 2012 by allen0997

The Raven ~ A Capsule Movie Review

The Raven ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

The new movie, The Raven, is a fictional and highly speculative account of the mysterious final days of Edgar Allan Poe. Nobody has ever been able to figure out exactly why Poe died at the relatively young age of forty in Baltimore in 1849, so it’s a subject that lends itself to invention and speculation. He was found on a park bench, critically ill, and died a few days later in a Baltimore hospital.

John Cusack plays Poe. He was, to paraphrase an editor of a newspaper that published some of his work, a man to whom God gave a great gift, with more than his share of misery thrown in. His genius as a poet and inventive creator of murder stories is entirely at odds with his private life. He was plagued his whole life by what was in the nineteenth century called melancholy. (The truth is he probably suffered from some kind of undiagnosed mental illness.) He was also an unregenerate drunk who never seemed to have any money—he lowered himself to cadging drinks from the local saloon whenever he was short of funds.

In the movie, Poe is in love with a young woman named Emily Hamilton (Alice Eve), whose father (Brendan Gleeson) violently disapproves of Poe. Emily might be the only thing that can save Poe from his demons. He has already lost one young wife and longs to marry Emily, but her father would gladly kill Poe if given the chance.

A “serial killer” (a phrase that wasn’t a part of common English usage in 1849) is at work in the city of Baltimore. The killer, whoever he is, is using methods of killing described by Poe in his stories. A twelve-year-old girl and her mother are mutilated for no apparent reason. A literary critic who unkindly criticized Poe’s work in the past is sliced in half by a pendulum, as in the story The Pit and the Pendulum. A murder victim’s tongue is sliced out and replaced with a pocket watch. The police suspect at first that Poe is behind the murders, but he is soon found to have had nothing to do with them. He can, however, assist police in finding the murderer. He is especially motivated to help the police when the murderer kidnaps Emily and keeps sending Poe cryptic messages about the horrible things he might be doing to her.

The story is neatly wrapped up at the end, with a conclusion that seems as logical as any conclusion might have been. It’s not a happy ending, but we find out who the murderer is, and, in a neat twist at the end, the police detective (Luke Evans) who befriended Poe in the course of the investigation exacts a satisfying revenge.

The Raven is a mainstream movie and is not a serious examination of the life and work of Poe. It is lightweight entertainment and would not be nearly as interesting if not for Poe. If you like a fast-paced cinematic mystery with lots of period touches and atmosphere (not to mention an interesting music score), however, it’s probably going to be well worth your time and effort to see it. You could do a lot worse.

April 28, 2012April 28, 2012 by allen0997

The Midnight Hideaway

The Midnight Hideaway ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

The phone rang several rings before Tully was awake. He had been dreaming about when he was seven years old and saw a fat woman in a blue flowered dress having an epileptic seizure on the street; she lay on her back and twitched and moaned like a ghost but the thing that scared him the most was the foaming at the mouth. He was still having nightmares.

He picked up the receiver without turning on the light and almost dropped it. He could still see the woman’s face, the twitching. “Hello,” he said. “Tully here.”

“Tully, is that you?” a man’s voice said.

“I just said it was,” he said. He managed to look at the clock and see that it was nearly two in the morning.

“Got a job for you.”

“Who is this?”

“Wellington.”

“Couldn’t it have waited until morning?”

“Manners says it’s urgent. You know how he is.”

“Don’t you ever sleep like a normal person?”

“Yeah, I sleep sometimes.”

“Well, what is it then? I want to go back to sleep and see how my nightmare turns out.“

“You’re not going to like this job, I’m afraid. It’s the sort of thing you hate.”

“Just tell me what it is without the editorial comment.”

“They want you to kill a guy.”

He felt a contraction in his chest. “I’m listening,” he said.

“His name is Sidney Keen. He’s twenty-three years old. I’m going to send you over a couple of pictures.”

“Anything else I need to know?”

“He works at the Paradise movie theatre downtown and gets off work around midnight. He sometimes goes to a bar on his way home and stays there a couple of hours. Should be easy for you to pick off.”

“Who wants him dead and why?”

“You know we’re not supposed to ask.”

“When am I supposed to do this dirty deed?”

“Tomorrow night. You know the drill.”

“Okay.”

“Call me when it’s finished. And no slip-ups this time!”

Tully was still awake a couple of hours later when the runner slipped the envelope under his door. He got out of bed, turned on the light, opened the envelope and studied the pictures of the person he was supposed to kill. The first was of a young man in a tuxedo with a blonde in a black dress on his arm, all smiles, off to the country club dance. The other picture was of the same young man dressed in a baseball uniform with a big smile, standing at home plate swinging a bat; obviously just a pose because the uniform was too clean to be real and the young man’s hair too perfectly combed. He was a kid like a million others, not ugly and not pretty. No distinguishing characteristics but a good face with a strong chin and a straight nose.

Tully had killed anonymously before, but not often, and he hated doing it. Each time he had to tell himself there was nothing personal in it; he hoped somehow to convey that sentiment in the last few seconds, without words, to the person he was killing.

He stayed at home all day the next day; went out about seven o’clock in the evening and bought a newspaper. After checking the time of the last show at the Paradise theatre, he had a steak at his favorite restaurant and after that still had plenty of time to go to a hotel bar not far from the theatre and have a couple drinks to give him courage.

Ten minutes before the last show started, he walked to the Paradise and stood in line and bought a ticket. As soon as he entered the theatre lobby, he saw Sidney Keen, smiling at people as he took their tickets. There could be no mistake it was him: the same face as the one in the pictures, the same lock of dark hair falling forward on the forehead.

“Good evening, sir,” Sidney said to Tully as he tore his ticket in half.

“Show any good tonight?” Tully asked just to have something to say.

“Everybody’s crazy about it,” Sidney said. “I’ve seen it three times myself.”

“Must be good, then,” Tully said as he moved on.

About half the seats were filled; a fairly large crowd for the late show. Tully took a seat on the aisle in the shadows close to the back and took off his hat and rested it on his knee.

The picture was about a group of misfits pulling off a jewelry heist. They were naïve enough, or dumb enough, to believe they were going to succeed. The main character, who was the head of the gang, was going to go straight after he made the one final haul that would allow him to get away from all the things in the world he hated, such as women who wear too much lipstick and people who mistreat animals.

When the picture was over, Tully stood up, put on his hat and filed out with the others. He stood out in front of the theatre and smoked a cigarette and waited. In a few minutes the marquee went dark and the ushers and other people who worked in the theatre came out and, saying their good nights, went their separate ways.

Sidney separated himself from the others, took a few steps and stopped to light a cigarette. Then he walked briskly off into the night, trailing a stream of smoke. Tully waited until Sidney was about fifty yards away and then began following him.

The street after midnight was deserted, so Tully could have popped Sidney in the back right then and there without being seen, gone home and gone to bed and reported the next morning that all went well. It was too easy, though—he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Killing an unarmed, unsuspecting man that way just seemed too dishonorable. There had to be a better way, one that would let him sleep nights and live the rest of his days in relative peace.

Sidney came to a small bar about three blocks from the theatre called The Midnight Hideaway and went inside. Tully waited about five minutes and then went in himself.

The place was smoky and dark, lit by blue lights that barely allowed people to see where they were going. There were a few drunks sitting at the bar, some couples sitting at tables. Canned jazz music played softly in the background, punctuated by low conversation and drunken female laughter.

Sidney had taken a seat at the bar. Tully sat in the seat two over from Sidney and lit a cigarette. When the bartender asked him what he wanted, he ordered a scotch and soda.

“You were following me from the theatre, weren’t you?” Sidney said, turning to his left to face Tully.

“What’s that?” Tully said. Playing innocent was easy.

“I said you were following me from the theatre.”

“No, not at all.” He downed his drink and the bartender served him again.

“Then why are you here?”

“Everybody’s got to be someplace.”

“How did you like the picture?”

“I was a little disappointed in the ending. I’m always hoping the crooks get away with it and live happily ever after.”

“They can’t do that. Have stories turn out that way, I mean. It’s against the code of morals and ethics. People who commit crimes have to be punished.”

“You seem to know a lot about it.”

“I’ve been in the motion picture business now for two years, first behind the candy counter and then as an usher.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a real career going for you.”

“No, I’m going to quit soon. I don’t have to work if I don’t want to. I’ve only been doing it this long to have someplace to go in the evenings to get out of the house.”

“Independently wealthy?”

“My father is in the final stages of heart disease. I’m the principal beneficiary of his will.”

“Why are you telling all this to a complete stranger?”

“I’m not sure. I think I felt some kind of connection with you the minute I first saw you in the lobby of the theatre. You were looking at me in a way I’ve never been looked at before.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not that sort.”

“What sort is that?”

“If you don’t know, I’m not going to explain it to you.”

“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s on a higher plane than that.”

“I don’t know anything about planes. But I do you know you should be careful who you spill your guts to. The enemy is everywhere.”

“That’s an odd thing to say.”

“I’m an odd sort of a fellow, I guess.”

“I have this stepmother, though. She’d like to see me dead.”

“Why do you say that?”

“My father’s will stipulates that I get the bulk of his estate. I think it has something to do with guilt over the way he treated my mother. There’s this other woman, though, that he’s has been married to for about five years, my darling stepmother. While she’s mentioned in his will, she’s not sitting as pretty as I am. The only way she can get the whole caboodle is if I die.”

“If something happened to you, wouldn’t the stepmother be the first to be suspected?”

“Well, yes, but she’d make sure there was never a shred of evidence connecting her to my death. People could suspect all they wanted to, but it would never go any farther than that. If she could arrange it, she’d make it appear that I was killed randomly by a crazed escapee from an insane asylum or in an accident. A runaway bus that just happened to run up onto the sidewalk where I was walking and flattened me would be the answer to her prayers.”

“Maybe she’s not as bad as you think.”

“She’s ten times worse. She’s Satan’s doxy. She’d sell her own young to the highest bidder.”

“Why did your father marry her?”

“He was afraid of being alone. She was available.”

A drunk fell noisily to the floor, pulling a chair over with him. Everybody turned to see what the disturbance was. Sidney took advantage of the lull in conversation to stand up in preparation for leaving.

“It was a pleasure talking to you,” he said. “I hope I didn’t bore you too much with my problems.”

“No, it’s all right,” Tully said. “I wasn’t bored.”

“Could I give you a lift somewhere? I have my car.”

“No, thanks. I’ll get a cab.”

“You won’t be able to find a cab this late, I’m afraid.”

“All right. You can drop me off downtown.”

When they left the bar, Sidney told Tully to wait for him on the street corner while he went to get the car. Tully waited so long he believed Sidney wasn’t coming back, but finally he pulled up at the curb and stopped for Tully to get in.

Tully, sitting on the seat two feet away from Sidney, fingered the gun in his pocket. He thought about how easy it would be to shoot Sidney in the head and be done with it. He thought about the freshly laundered sheets on his bed and how good it would feel to get between them and shut out the world, to have his work behind him and have nothing to think about.

“Now, maybe you can tell me who you really are and why you were following me,” Sidney said.

“I already said I wasn’t following you.”

“What’s your racket?”

“I don’t have a racket.”

“Did she send you to kill me?”

“Of course not.”

“I knew you weren’t there to see the show. All we get for the late show are smooching couples and giggling adolescents. People like you have better things to do than come to a third-rate theatre late at night to see a second-rate feature. What’s your story?”

“I don’t have one.”

Sidney surprised him by pulling a gun out of his clothing and pointing it at him.

“Put the gun away,” Tully said with a little laugh. “You don’t need it.”

“I started carrying a gun when I realized my life was in danger.”

“Why don’t you go someplace far away where nobody knows you? Change your name if you have to. Then when your daddy dies you can collect your inheritance and give the evil stepmother the boot.”

“It’s not that easy. I need to stay around and keep an eye on things.”

“Why don’t you go to the police and tell them your stepmother is trying to have you killed?”

“I don’t have any proof. They would just say I’m imagining things.”

“Look, just drop me downtown and I’ll forget you threatened to shoot me.”

“You still haven’t told me who you are.”

“I’m nobody.”

“What brings a nobody like you to this part of the city this late at night?”

“I have trouble sleeping. I’m a roamer. I like to roam around and go places I’ve never been before. I stop at a bar I’ve never been to before and have a couple of drinks and then I go back home and go to sleep.”

“I don’t believe you. Why were you at the theatre tonight?”

“People usually go to a theatre to see a show.”

“That’s not why you were there. I could see it on your face. When you saw me, you recognized me. Have we met someplace before?”

“No.”

“Are you a friend of my stepmother’s?”

“Of course not.”

“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to shoot you in the leg.”

“Why don’t you just stop the car right here? I’ll get out and we’ll forget we ever had this conversation.”

“And then you’ll come back tomorrow night and finish the job?”

“You’ve been seeing too many movies, sonny.”

To Tully’s surprise, Sidney shot him in the thigh. Tully pulled his gun out from where he had it hidden against his chest and pointed it at Sidney.

“You little bastard!” he said. “I’m going to blow your head off!”

“I’m driving fifty miles an hour. If you shoot me, and, if you survive the crash, don’t you think you’d have some explaining to do?”

“Just pull over and I’ll kill you properly, the way I should have done when I had the chance.”

“Now we’re getting down to cases. You are a hired killer, aren’t you?”

“I’m an operative. I do what I’m told.”

“And that involves killing people you don’t know?”

“It beats working in a factory. I’m going to bleed to death if you don’t stop the car and let me out so I can see a doctor.”

“It’s a flesh wound. I could have shot you in the knee and you would have walked with a limp for the rest of your life.”

“What makes you so tough?”

“It’s a rotten, stinking world. You’re either tough or you’re dead.”

“You’re just a kid. That’s why I didn’t kill you as soon as you left the theatre. I felt bad about killing somebody who looks so young.”

“How much did my stepmother pay you to kill me?”

“I don’t know anything about that, or even if it was your stepmother. It could have been somebody else, maybe your boss at the theatre or a girl friend you’ve wronged. The higher-ups make the arrangements and then give the assignments to the operatives to carry out.”

“If you don’t kill me, they’ll send somebody else?”

“There’s always somebody else.”

“Just go ahead and kill me, then, but not in the car or on the street. I’ll get a room in a cheap hotel and lie down on the bed and you can plug me in the head and leave quietly afterwards. Just make it quick.”

Tully put his gun away. “Drop me off at the hospital. My leg hurts like hell and I’m bleeding all over your upholstery.”

“And you’ll come back tomorrow night and kill me?”

“I won’t but somebody will. If you want to go on living, you’ll take my advice. Don’t go back to the theatre or the bar. Go into hiding for the time being. Hire a couple of body guards. Somebody paid ten thousand dollars to have you killed. That’s all I can tell you. When that much money is involved, there’s determination to get the job done.”

“And what about you?”

“I’ll be fine after I get the bleeding stopped.”

After Tully had his leg wound treated, it was seven o’clock. He stopped by a diner and had breakfast and then went home. He hadn’t been home more than a few minutes when the expected call came.

“Everything go all right?” Wellington asked.

“Couldn’t have been easier,” Tully said.

“The subject was dispatched as we discussed?”

“You have nothing to worry about.”

“I’ll let Manners know.”

He figured he had at least a day or two before they discovered the truth. When they came looking for him, he would be so far away it would be as if he never existed.

April 14, 2012April 14, 2012 by allen0997

The Hunger Games ~ A Capsule Movie Review

The Hunger Games ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

The new movie The Hunger Games is set in a post-apocalyptic, far-distant future America that is now called Panem. Each of the twelve districts of Panem is required, once a year, to select, by lottery, one teenage boy and one teenage girl to travel to the Capitol and participate as contestants in the Hunger Games. These games are like the gladiatorial contests of ancient Rome in which the participants—through cunning, skill, and endurance—kill each other: Twenty-three will die; only one will survive. Everyone is required to watch the games on TV. It’s sort of a national yearly celebration that everybody seems to enjoy tremendously, except, of course, those who will die like hunted animals.

When the movie begins, participants are being selected in District 12 for the 74^th Annual Hunger Games. When a young girl named Primrose Everdeen is selected to represent her district as the female contestant, her older sister, Katniss (played by Jennifer Lawrence), volunteers to take her place. She doesn’t want to be a contestant anymore than anybody else does, but she sacrifices herself to save her sister. Katniss wants to win so she can return home to her mother and sister, and she just might have the “fire” and the will to live that it takes to survive the Hunger Games. Whether she wins or not, we can see she’s going to make her mark.

The male contestant from District 12 is Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). He and Katniss know each other but don’t seem to like each other very much. They are taken in hand to prepare for the games by the very odd Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) and a gone-to-seed previous winner of the games, Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson). Haymitch would rather get drunk than anything else, but he makes sure Katniss and Peeta benefit from his experience so they might have a real chance of winning—and surviving.

The games themselves take place in the wild, or in a virtual wild that the people back at the command center have complete control of. They can create a forest fire for the contestants to deal with, poison berries, a nest of deadly hornets, vicious animals, or any number of other obstacles. Every move the contestants make while in the “wild” is being eagerly watched on TV by the entire country. Within the first eight hours, eleven of the twenty-four contestants are killed. When a contestant falls, a cannon booms.

The Hunger Games is a lot of fun, even though the ending is going to seem kind of predictable to a lot of people, with enough of a twist, though, to make it interesting and believable. The games themselves seem to go on a bit too long; the movie seems to sag about three-quarters of the way through but revives for the conclusion.

My favorite part of The Hunger Games is when the action shifts to the Capitol. It is in complete contrast to the place where Katniss and Peeta come from. It’s interesting to see how movie makers portray a city of the far-distant future. The fashionable people of the Capitol are a spectacle that must be seen. The hairdos and makeup seem to have a decidedly 17^th century influence. The unctuous TV host of the games (Stanley Tucci) has a blue hairdo that defies description. It must be seen to be appreciated.

March 29, 2012March 29, 2012 by allen0997