Tag: short story

We Don’t Ask Much of You

We Don’t Ask Much of You ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs. Gil ate a plateful, barely tasting the stuff, and passed on angel food cake for dessert. Thinking he was finished, he wiped his mouth and stood up, remembering, as always, to push in his chair.

“Your father and I wanted to have a talk with you this evening,” mother said.

“Can’t it wait? I’m going out.”

“No, I’m afraid it can’t.”

If there was anything Gil hated, it was “serious” conversations with his parents. It usually meant his mother had an ax to grind. Had he failed to straighten up sufficiently in the bathroom after taking a shower? Was two o’clock in the morning too late for him to be coming home?

Father wasn’t hearing anything she said. His attention was focused on the television, where an adenoidal female reporter was blatting about the latest political scandal in Washington.

“Harvey, would you please turn that thing off for a while?” mother yelled into father’s ear.

He looked at her, her words slowly registering, and picked up the clicker and turned the set off.

“What’s the matter with you?” he said. “They were just getting to the interesting part.”

“It’s all shit,” she said. “Everything they say is shit for shit brains like you to lap up. If it was up to me, television would cease to exist!”

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Gil asked.

“Let’s go into the living room,” she said. “I’ll clean up the dishes later.”

Gil went into the living room, followed first by mother and then by father, and sat on the edge of the chair so he could make a quick getaway.

“Let’s make this quick,” he said. “I have people waiting for me.”

“They can wait,” mother said. “This is much more important.”

“Well, let’s have it.”

“When you graduated from high school, we told you you could stay here as long as you wanted, until you found your way in life.”

“Yes?”

“High school was five years ago. You’re twenty-three now.”

“So, you want me to move out. Is that it? I can move out, if that’s what you want.”

“You tried college and you flunked out.”

“I didn’t flunk out. I quit.”

“You’ve tried several different jobs and none of them suited you.”

“I have a job. I’m paying my share.”

“You’re a messenger boy. Do you think that’s a suitable job for a twenty-three-year old man?”

“I’m not a messenger boy. I’m a courier.”

“Do you think you’re living up to your potential?”

“Maybe I don’t have any potential.”

“Do you plan on still being a messenger boy when you’re fifty?”

“No, I don’t plan on anything, mother. When I’m fifty, I’ll worry about it then.”

“With that attitude, you’ll never get anywhere in life.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m pretty worthless. Can I go now?”

“We’re not entirely without hope, though,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“You remember our friends the Byersons.”

“How could I forget?”

“And their lovely daughter Bethany.”

“Yeah, what about her?”

“Will you please get to the point?” father said.

“Well, it seems that Bethany Byerson is in a bit of a dilemma.”

“What does that have to do with my job as a courier?”

Father groaned and shifted his bulk on the couch.

“She’s a year younger than you are,” mother said. “She had an affair with a married man. She thought the man was going to marry her but he didn’t. He ran out on her.”

“She shouldn’t have been so stupid.”

“The trouble is now she’s going to have a baby.”

“I’m sure it happens all the time. Why are we even talking about it?”

“You know how the Byersons are. Very active in the church. While some girls would go out and get an abortion, Bethany Byerson would never do such a thing.”

Gil sighed and looked at his watch. “If you want me to take her to a country club dance, the answer is no. I haven’t been to one of those dances since I was nineteen.”

Mother laughed and looked at father. “We spent all evening with the Byersons last night. They think very highly of you.”

“In spite of your low opinion?”

“They see you as a clean, decent, intelligent American boy.”

Gil looked at father and father looked away.

“All right, out with it!” Gil said. “What have you got on your mind?”

“Well, the Byersons believe, and your father and I agree, that you’d be a good match for Bethany.”

“What?”

“I know it’s probably going to take you some time to get used to the idea, but I want you to keep an open mind.”

“Do you know what people called Beth Byerson in high school? The snitch witch. She’s got a pointed nose and a pointed chin and long black hair and she looks like a witch. She was always reporting somebody for smoking or skipping class. She was so self-righteous! I could never stand the sight of her.”

“Well, maybe she’s changed since high school. People do.”

“No! I’m not dating Bethany Byerson!”

“Well, I’m afraid it’s moved rather past the dating stage.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Byersons thought you’d make an excellent husband for poor Bethany.”

Gil laughed at the absurdity of it. “Are you out of your mind? I hardly know her!”

“It doesn’t have to stay that way, does it? I wrote her phone number on a little slip of paper and put it on your dresser. We all want you to call her. Take her out to a nice restaurant for dinner and see a show. I’ll pay for it. That would be an excellent start. And remember, time is of the essence.”

“I’m not going to call her, mother.”

“It’s your chance to do a real nice thing for another person.”

“Tell him the rest,” father said. “He should expect something in return, shouldn’t he?”

“Oh, yes,” mother said. “You marry Bethany, make a respectable woman of her, and Vernon Byerson will take you into the bank with him.”

“Take me into the what?”

“That’s right! Vernon Byerson will give you a job in his bank if you marry his daughter!”

“There’s more,” father said.

“Oh, yes,” mother said. “The house! Vernon and Gerry own some six rental houses. I’ve seen them and they’re quite nice. They will allow you and Bethany to live in one of their houses rent-free for a year and at the end of the year you have the option to buy! Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

“Is there a garage with exposed rafters?” Gil asked.

“Why, I don’t know. Why with rafters?”

“Because that’s where I’ll be hanging myself.”

“Oh, Gil! Don’t be so melodramatic!”

“And what about the baby? Didn’t you say there’s a baby involved?”

“Well, of course, everybody will believe you’re the father.”

“That’s what they’ll be led to believe.”

“Well, yes, appearances are important to people like the Byersons.”

“It sounds like a real sweet deal,” father said. “A chance to move up in the world. Have some security. Join the country club. Show the world you’re better than a messenger boy.”

“Yes,” mother said. “I think you could go your whole life and never get a better offer than this.”

“So I get a wife, a job, a house and a baby all in one package?”

“How many young men do you know who have ever had such a wonderful offer?”

“I have to admit, mother, I don’t know of anybody.”

“So you’ll at least think about it, then? Give Bethany a call?”

“It suddenly occurs to me,” Gil said. “Why are you so interested in helping the Byersons find a husband for their pregnant daughter? You must be getting something out of it, other than getting rid of me.”

“Go ahead and tell him,” father said.

“Well, if things go according to plan,” mother said with a girlish giggle, “Vernon Byerson will absorb our mortgage.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’ll own the house outright and won’t have any more mortgage payments.”

“So, Vernon Byerson is buying a husband for his creepy daughter and you’re selling me, your son, to pay off your mortgage.”

“It sounds so sordid when you put it that way!”

“Isn’t it sordid?”

“Well, I know you’re a smart boy and you won’t let a chance like this get away. Give it a couple of days and I’m sure you’ll see how much sense the whole thing makes.”

“Is that all, then? Are we finished?”

“Yes, you can go now,” mother said, “but don’t stay out so late. You need your rest. You’re not a teenager anymore!”

Gil drove downtown after his mother dismissed him, met his friends and spent the next six hours playing pool and drinking. After he left his friends, he drove around by himself for hours until a police car began tailing him. He went home at three o’clock, slept for a few hours and woke up with the sun shining in his face.

He wasn’t used to drinking and felt sick at first but after he vomited he felt all right again, only a little tired from not enough sleep. He took a long shower and after he was dressed he packed his two old suitcases with the possessions from his room he especially wanted to keep. The rest of the stuff he would leave behind as a reminder that he once occupied the room.

When he was taking the suitcases out the door, his mother appeared from the back of the house wearing her long bathrobe, hair askew.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“So, you’re running out on us?”

“If that’s the way you want to look at it.”

“In all the years you’ve lived here, we…”

“Yeah, I know, mother. You can tell it to the wall after I’m gone.”

“Once you leave, you’re never coming back.”

“Fair enough.”

“You’re dead to me. Don’t forget that. I no longer have a son.”

With one final look at the old house he had lived in his whole life, he drove out of town and began driving in a westerly direction, because, to Americans, west is the direction of promise. He had two hundred in cash, two thousand in the bank, and a six-year-old car that would take him as far as he wanted to go. More importantly, though, he had youth, health, and a stout heart.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

On Company Time

On Company Time ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Sterling Burgess drove a delivery truck for the Handy Dandy Laundry. He was thirty-seven years old, a short man—barely five feet, three inches tall—and had to sit on a built-up seat to see over the steering wheel of the truck he drove. Most of the employees at Handy Dandy were women and, to these women, Sterling was an object of ridicule. They made fun of him and called him shortstop and half-pint. Any time he walked into the part of the building where they worked, they nudged each other and stopped what they were doing and watched him with a kind of inexplicable fascination.

He had ways of getting back at them, though. For every shortstop and half-pint they threw his way, he countered with swine and witch. And when they failed to see he was in the room, he liked to sneak up on them from behind, get down low and make sudden pig snorts or wolf howls, causing them to jump and scream. This was more effective than name-calling because they knew it was a commentary on their appearance.

One day the boss, Mr. Hornblatt, called Sterling into the office. One of the women, Malvina St. Elmo, a former prostitute with a pockmarked face and a head full of springy curls, complained that Sterling touched her on a nether portion of her anatomy and whispered a dirty word in her ear.

“She’s full of shit,” Sterling said. “I’ve never laid a finger on any of those bitches. I’d be afraid of contamination.”

“We can’t have that kind of behavior here,” Mr. Hornblatt said, “or even the appearance of it.”

“I said I didn’t do it.”

“All right. I’ll take your word for it this time. Just watch yourself, that’s all.”

“Did you tell the old heifer who told the lie to watch herself?”

“Remember what I said, Sterling.”

He was hurt that anybody would tell such an outrageous lie. In the future, he would avoid going anywhere near Malvina St. Elmo and the rest of them. He wouldn’t give any of them a chance to tell more lies. He would find some way of getting back at Malvina, no matter how long it took. He was not one to forget a slight. He wouldn’t rest until he had evened the score.

There was one woman who wasn’t like the others. Her name was Irene Tarrant; she had been at the laundry only a few months. Like Sterling, she was small. Unlike the other women, her uniform, hair and hands always looked clean and tidy. She stuck to her work and rarely spoke unless spoken to. The other women hated her for her silence and aloofness. They believed she thought she was better than they were.

When he caught Irene’s eye, she smiled at him and didn’t sneer, so he came to believe there was a kind of connection between them. She seemed sad, though, and he wished he might talk to her when nobody else was around, get to know her better.

What was her life like away from the laundry? Was she happy in spite of her odious job? Did she have a husband? Children? Did she have a cheerful home where she baked cakes and fried chicken and made new curtains for the kitchen? Maybe she used to be a nun and had left after a few years when she decided the monastic life wasn’t for her. The possibilities were limitless.

And when the time came that he could talk to her without interference, he’d tell her to get away from the laundry before it was too late. She didn’t belong there. How long would it take her to become coarse, ugly and cruel, like the others? A year or two, maybe? How long before she told dirty jokes, cackled with laughter, had a cigarette dangling from her lip? How long before she didn’t bother to comb her hair or keep her clothes clean and sneaked nips of whiskey when she thought nobody was looking? He could easily see it happening. We can’t escape our environment.

At home, at the dinner table, Sterling said, “There’s a woman I’m interested in at the laundry.”

His mother’s dull gray eyes lifted from her plate. “I thought you didn’t like the women at the laundry.”

“I don’t. This one’s different.”

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know much about her. Her name is Irene.”

“I knew an Irene once. She was a shoplifter.”

“I don’t think this one’s a shoplifter.”

“Are you going to marry her?”

“Of course not. I don’t even know her. She might already be married.”

“Forget about her. She’s no good for you.”

He laughed. “How do you know?”

“Women will always mess up your life.”

Speaking about Irene, bringing it out into the open that way, strengthened his determination to ask her out, at least for a get-acquainted drink, and if she didn’t drink they’d have a cup of tea or a Coke. If she was married, she’d let him know soon enough. How might he convince her that it was just as a friend that he was asking her?

He continued seeing her every day at the laundry, but she rarely looked his way. She had not the slightest bit of interest in him, he knew, or in anything other than her work.

He continued to keep a watchful eye on Malvina—without her knowing, of course—for any misdeeds. When she did something she wasn’t supposed to do, he’d use it as a weapon against her. His fondest wish was to get her fired.

And then one Friday afternoon when the boss was away, he spotted her going out a little-used side door that opened onto an alleyway. If she only wanted some fresh air, it was nothing, but he was sure there was more to it than that.

The door didn’t close all the way. In the half-inch space between the door and its frame, he saw Malvina standing about thirty feet away with a tall, thin man with dark hair. The man leaned into Malvina and kissed her on the side of her face and she put her arms around his shoulders and laughed. After a minute or so they got into the back of a van parked against the brick wall opposite and closed the doors. Thirty minutes later she was back on the line as if nothing had happened.

Casually, when nobody was looking, Sterling went to the time clock and looked at Malvina’s time card to see if she had punched out when she went out into the alleyway to dilly-dally with her boyfriend in the back of a van. He already knew she hadn’t. The company called it time theft and it was grounds for immediate dismissal.

He couldn’t very well carry a tale to the boss of what he had seen. He needed more than just his own word. He needed some proof. He bought a small camera and learned how to use it and kept it in his locker with his lunch bag and his jacket.

In the middle of May, the boss was out of the office for a week. It was the perfect time for misdeeds. On Wednesday morning when Sterling was getting ready to make some deliveries, it was his good fortune to spot Malvina going out the side door again. He ran to his locker and got his camera.

It was the same man as before, but with a second man this time. Sterling pushed the door open a few inches without being seen and was able to get some clear shots of both men as they greeted Malvina in a way that left no doubt as to their intentions. Malvina cooed and giggled, going from one to the other, her delight altogether obvious.

The scene was repeated on Friday afternoon, but Sterling already had what he needed.

On Monday morning before the boss arrived, Sterling left an envelope on his desk marked Confidential. In it were enlargements of the pictures he had taken of the activities in the alleyway on Wednesday of the week before. On each picture he wrote in block letters the time and date the picture was taken and the words On Company Time.

By afternoon the company was abuzz with rumors. Malvina St. Elmo did something she shouldn’t have done and was in big trouble. Management was plenty worked up about it. What did Malvina do? Nobody knew for sure, but some of her closest chums had a good idea.

The result was that Malvina was escorted out of the building at the end of the day by the sleepy-eyed security guard. She screamed profanities every step of the way and threatened to take legal action for being fired for no good reason. It was the most gratifying sight Sterling had seen in all his years at Handy Dandy.

For a few days after Malvina’s departure, Sterling was treated with more respect than he was used to. The women didn’t call him names and laugh at him. Malvina had been their ring leader. With her gone, they didn’t know what to do so they did nothing.

While Sterling may have considered the score settled, someone else did not. Exactly two weeks after she was fired, Malvina returned to Handy Dandy. She knew exactly where Sterling would be. She found him and fired one shot into his abdomen and ran out the door.

Everybody heard the shot and went running to see what had happened. Sterling was lying on his back, screaming in pain, bleeding profusely. The women stood and gaped at him in fascination, nobody making a move to help him.

Only Irene stepped forward. “Somebody call an ambulance!” she screamed.

 Mr. Hornblatt came out of his office and when he saw what had happened he was the one who called the ambulance and then the police.

“Did anybody see who did this?” he said in his thunderous rally-the-troops voice.

“Malvina,” Sterling gasped.

“Somebody get me some clean towels!” Irene said in a commanding voice that nobody knew she was capable of.

With towels folded to make a compress, she pressed with all her might against his abdomen to try to slow the bleeding until the ambulance arrived.

Time passed. A little or a lot of time, it didn’t matter.

He awoke in a high bed beside a gray wall. His mother was there, dressed in her Sunday best. She smiled at him and he thought he might be dreaming.

“You almost died,” she said with a little laugh.

He didn’t have anything to say, so he said nothing. He closed his eyes, thinking to return to wherever he had been for so long.

“I’ve spoken to Mr. Hornblatt from Handy Dandy three times on the phone,” his mother said. “He wanted me to tell you that everybody at the laundry sends their best wishes and that your job is waiting for you when you’re ready to come back.”

“I don’t know if…”

“You don’t have to think about it now, though.”

“Has anybody named Irene been to see me?” he asked.

“Irene? Oh, Mr. Hornblatt did mention a person named Irene.”

“What did he say about her?”

“He said she saved your life the day that awful woman shot you. She kept you from bleeding to death while you were waiting for the ambulance to get there.”

“She did that?”

“Yes, I tried to call her at the laundry to thank her for what she did, but they said she never came back after that day and they don’t know where she went.”

“Went away?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t worry. Did you see the lovely flowers they sent you?”

He looked in the direction of his feet but saw no flowers. He closed his eyes again then to make his mother stop talking. He knew when she left from the opening and closing of the door.

He slept and woke and slept again. Once when he woke, a small, dark-haired woman was standing where his mother had been earlier. He didn’t know how long she had been there and he wasn’t sure if he had ever seen her before. She smiled a rare smile and put her small white hand on his.

“I knew you’d come,” he said.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

A Cross-Eyed Woman

A Cross-Eyed Woman ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This little all-dialogue story that I wrote in 2015 is a re-post.)

“Did I tell you I’ve got a new girlfriend, grandpa?”

“Is that so? What’s her name?”

“Lucille Meisenbach.”

“How much does she weigh?”

“A hundred and thirty.”

“How old is she?”

“She’s a year younger than me, grandpa.”

“Don’t be in no hurry to marry a person with a name like Lucille Meisenbach.”

“I’m not. I only just met her.”

“Make sure you know everything about her before you marry her. Her people, too.”

“I’m not going to marry her.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing, except that she’s cross-eyed.”

“You don’t want to marry no cross-eyed woman.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“Cross-eyed woman is a sign of trouble.”

“How do you know, grandpa?”

“I’m seventy-three years old. I’ve seen everything and what I haven’t seen I’ve heard about.”

“I wouldn’t want to marry her, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“She’s got six toes on one foot.”

“How many on the other?”

“Just five.”

“Eleven toes is bad luck. It’s a mark of the devil.”

“If you say so, grandpa.”

“You don’t think you’d want to marry her after you’ve known her for a while?”

“No, sir.”

“You say that now, but if she gets it into her head to marry you, she’ll find a way to ensnare you against your will.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen, grandpa.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not very smart.”

“You don’t have to be smart to be evil.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say she’s evil, grandpa.”

“You probably just don’t know her well enough to see her evil side.”

“If I start to see it, I’ll dump her.”

“Maybe she won’t let you dump her.”

“If I want to dump her, she can’t stop me.”

“I see you know very little about women.”

“I know enough.”

“Just make sure you find out everything there is to know before you marry her. If she’s got them two flaws, she’s bound to have others.”

“I haven’t seen any others.”

“Well, she’ll be setting her trap to catch you.”

“I don’t think so, grandpa.”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I went to dinner at her house on Sunday after church. We had fried chicken. Her mother’s name is Vera Meisenbach.”

“How old is she?”

“Forty-three.”

“How much does she weigh?”

“Two hundred.”

“A big woman.”

“Yes, sir. Big and tall. Broad shoulders. A wild look in her eye. Kind of scary.”

“And that’s not all, is it?”

“No, sir. She’s got a hump on her back.”

“Uh-oh! A big woman with a hump on her back has a cross-eyed daughter with eleven toes. Freakishness runs in the family. That’s not good.”

“I can’t claim to be perfect myself.”

“You’ve got the right number of toes, you’re not cross-eyed and there’s no hump on your back.”

“That’s true.”

“Count your blessings.”

“Yes, sir. I also met Lucille’s daddy. He’s a little bitty man like a midget.”

“A pattern has been established.”

“Lucille told me he’s got a metal plate in his head that lets him pick up radio transmissions. I tried to keep from laughing.”

“How much does he weigh?”

“Ninety-four pounds.”

“His wife weighs more than twice what he weighs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not pleasant to contemplate. How old is he?”

“He’s forty-nine years old.”

“And his name?”

“Luther Meisenbach.”

“Any other progeny besides Lucille?”

“A brother named Norland Meisenbach. He’s sixteen.”

“Is he cross-eyed?”

“Not that I noticed, but I didn’t pay that much attention.”

“How much does he weigh?”

“A hundred and ten.”

“That’s small for sixteen, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

“Anything freakish about him?”

“He’s got a turned-in foot and he doesn’t talk much because he’s got a stutter.”

“So there’s something wrong with every one of the Meisenbachs.”

“Yes, sir. I guess you could say that.”

“If you take my advice, sonny, you’ll get as far away from that bunch as you can. They’re not wholesome to be around.”

“Yes, sir. I don’t really care that much for Lucille, anyway. When she looks at me, it looks like she’s looking over my shoulder.”

“She’s probably looking to her satanic master for direction.”

“You sure have opened my eyes, grandpa. I’m glad we had this little talk.” 

“Not at all, sonny. That’s what grandpas are for. And be sure and bring her around some time so we can all get a good look at her.”

“I was thinking about Sunday dinner, grandpa.”

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

When They Come to Get Me I’ll be Gone

When They Come to Get Me I’ll be Gone ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Alva was new to the city and marveled at its wonders: the buildings that reached to the sky, the lines of automobiles that stopped and started and then stopped again, the glittering hotels and restaurants, the crowds of people everywhere, the theatres blazing with electric light, the library that took up an entire block, the department stores, the garish shops and, yes, the soup kitchens. It was 1932 and, in the midst of all this plenty, there were people who had to stand in line to get something to eat because they had no money.

The first time a woman approached him on the street he felt flattered because she wasn’t bad looking. He believed she was interested in him in a friendly way until she started rubbing her hands along his chest and abdomen, and he could tell on close inspection that she wasn’t right somehow. He pushed away from her groping hands and then felt embarrassed that a stranger would have such thoughts in connection with him.

He had always liked books but had never read many. He went into a big bookstore a few blocks from his hotel and spent a long time just walking the aisles, looking at the rows and stacks of books with colorful and interesting covers, more books that he had ever seen before. He hoped one day to live in his own house without interference from anybody and own a lot of books just like these. Even if he didn’t read them, he would enjoy having them on a shelf where he could see them.

A clerk approached. “Can I help you find something, sir?”

He blushed at being called “sir” and shook his head. It occurred to him that maybe he shouldn’t be walking around the way he was if he wasn’t going to buy anything. “No,” he managed to say.

“If you need help finding anything, let me know.”

He nodded his head and then left the store, afraid he might be asked to leave if he didn’t leave on his own.

Down in the next block was a restaurant that touted Italian and American cuisine. He went inside and took a seat at a small table where he could see out the window. A waitress approached and gave him a menu and a glass of icy water. He was still astounded by the freedom of going into a restaurant and ordering whatever he wanted to eat.

Never having eaten spaghetti before, he ordered a plate of spaghetti, and while he was waiting the waitress brought a glass of beer and a little basket full of breadsticks. He began eating the breadsticks and was sure he had never tasted anything so good. The beer tasted bitter at first but after a few sips he liked it and when he emptied the glass the waitress brought him another one as if he was a person of importance.

He took his time eating the spaghetti, savoring its exotic flavor and when he was finished he had a large piece of chocolate cake with pecans. He never knew before that such wonderful things existed in the world.

Any time he did something the mother didn’t like, she hit him on the side of the head, on the left ear, with the flat of her hand. Over time, he developed a ringing in the ear and could no longer hear out of it as well as he could the other ear.

Here was another movie theatre. He slowed and studied the posters. He had never seen movies and wondered about them. Might anybody go? When finally he got up the nerve to buy a ticket and go inside, he was relieved to see how easy it was. Nobody looked at him askance or asked him any questions. Pay your money and they give you a little piece of paper to show you’ve paid and you go inside and give the paper to a boy standing there and then you find yourself a seat and sit down. You may sit anywhere you choose. What freedom! What luxury!

The cartoon began, and in it were picture-book animals that talked and wore clothes. He thought at first this was the movie. The cartoon ended after only a few minutes, though, and then it was the previews of coming attractions to tell the audience about movies that would be shown in the theatre at a future date. The sparse audience watched the previews with rapt attention and then it was time for the feature to begin.

There was a lot of talk at first and arguing among the characters in the movie. They were all men and wore suits and hats. It wasn’t very interesting. After a few minutes, though, it became more so. One of the men shot and killed another man and then there was a scene in a funeral home with a body in a casket and women standing around crying. Then the man who had done the killing was at home with his mother and sister. The mother stood at a stove cooking and spoke in a strange accent so that you could barely understand what she said. The sister was dressed up to go out but the mother pleaded with her to stay at home.

After the first few minutes, Alva was riveted by the movie. He was seeing a side of life he never knew existed. He didn’t care much for the scenes that were mostly talking but he liked the scenes where the characters were doing things, careening through the city streets in expensive-looking cars with machine guns. It seemed so real. He had to remind himself that it was just another kind of make-believe, like reading a story in a book.

When the movie was over, it seemed there was nothing left to do but go back to the hotel. He retrieved his key from the desk clerk and went up to the eighteenth floor in the elevator, another marvel that he never expected to see.

He was tired and his room seemed comforting and inviting. It was his and his alone for as long as he paid for it. He loved the solitude. He opened the curtains and stood for a long time looking off into the distance at the buildings. The lights were like glinting jewels and there were so many of them. He could see no trees, mountains or hills. He was truly in the city.

A siren brought his attention back to the street and he looked down. He had never been so high up before and it was thrilling in a way to be able to look down at the bustling life that never ended, no matter how late. He felt a part of things but also detached.

He opened the window a couple of inches and turned off the light and got into bed. Lying on his back, looking at the ceiling, he listened to the air rushing in at the open window and the faraway sounds from the street. He turned on his side, covered up his head and soon he was asleep.

The father didn’t usually hit him the way the mother did, but he liked to flip his ears from behind with his fingertips and squeeze him painfully at the back of the neck, and sometimes he would grab him by the upper arm and throw him against the wall and the next day there would be the imprint of the hand in his flesh.

In the morning he awoke to the sound of voices outside his door. He got up and dressed and went down in the elevator to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. He took a long time eating, bought a newspaper, and was on his way back to his room when a young man of about thirty years stopped him in the lobby by touching him on the shoulder.

“Might I have a word with you?” the man asked.

Alva looked at him with surprise.

“I’ve been seeing you for several days now,” the man said. “You’re staying here…alone?”

Alva nodded, wary of this stranger.

“Well, my name is Freddie Lindhoven. I…might we sit down?”

Alva went to the nearest chair and sat, placing the newspaper on his knees, and Freddie sat beside him.

“In seeing you alone,” Freddie said, “I thought I might be of some service.”

Alva looked in the other man’s face and shook his head.

Freddie laughed. “I can see you don’t have any idea what I’m getting at, do you?”

“No.”

“You’re from some other place. Let me guess. Arkansas?”

“Texas,” Eugene lied.

“Whereabouts in Texas? Galveston? One of the big cities?”

“Small town.”

“Very good! So you are a stranger to the city!”

“I’ve been here almost a week now,” Alva said.

“Well, I’m, uh, not exactly an employee of this establishment, but I help out some of the guests from time to time.”

“Help out?”

“I get them what they want. No matter what it is.”

Again Alva shook his head.

“I could get you a girl if you wanted one. Any kind of a girl. A Chinese or a black. Or a boy. I could get you a boy. An Asian boy or an Italian lad.”

Alva at last had a glimmer of what Freddie Lindhoven was talking about. “No,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. I don’t want anything like that.”

“I can get you any kind of booze you want and only the best kind. Also pills of any kind. Pills to dull pain. Pills to send you off into dreamland. Pills to bring you back from dreamland. Pills to make you happy. Pills to overcome shyness.”

“I don’t think so.”

 “I can get you hashish or dope. Any kind of dope. The kind you swallow, smoke or inject into your veins.”

Alva stood up. “No, I don’t want anything,” he said.

Freddie stood up too. “Well, if you think of anything later, let me know.” He handed Alva a card with his name and phone number and at the bottom these words: Fast. Discreet. Any time day or night.

The next day in the lobby, Freddie approached Alva and asked if he’d care to have lunch with him at his “club.” Alva shrugged his shoulders and accepted the invitation with indifference.

The “club” was a private men’s club where Freddie was a member. They were seated at a little round table with a white tablecloth amid a sea of identical tables, all of them occupied. Freddie asked Alva if he had ever eaten duck and when he said he hadn’t, Freddie ordered it for both of them along with a bottle of white wine.

“So, tell me your story,” Freddie said as they were waiting for the duck.

“I don’t have one,” Alva said. “My life began when I came to the city.”

“So, what you’re saying,” Freddie said, “is you don’t want to talk about it.”

“If you don’t say anything,” Alva said, “you don’t have to regret anything you said.”

“Hah-hah-hah!” Freddie said. “You are a strange one, but I like you.”

While they were eating, Freddie was more than happy to share his own story. He came from a poor family, one of six children without a father. His mother had to support all of them on the meager wages from her job in a laundry. When Freddie was seventeen, he left home to make his own way and never looked back. At the age of twenty, he married a girl named Myrtle. Six months later she died of an infection.

“And I’ve never looked at another woman since,” he said. “Hah-hah-hah!”

Alva told Freddie about the movie he saw, his first movie ever, and about the cool, cave-like theatre and how all the people sat quietly, like in church, and watched the screen, trance-like.

“You never saw a movie before in your life?” Freddie said. “Don’t they have movies in Texas?”

“Not where I come from.”

When they were finished eating and it was time to pay, Freddie signed his name to a piece of paper and that’s all there was to it.

After they left the club, Freddie took Alva to a burlesque theatre, where half-naked women danced on a dimly lighted stage before an all-male audience. Alva thought the whole thing silly and vulgar. He found the women ugly and unappealing but pretended to like it.

The father laughed at him and called him sissy and other names he didn’t know the meaning of. He asked him if he wore women’s underwear and washed his pussy at night and put powder on it to keep it fresh. The mother might have intervened, but she bent over double with laughter. The slatternly bitch in her filthy dressing gown.

Freddie became the only friend Alva ever had. They spent hours talking. Freddie loved talking about himself and loved having an audience. Alva never spoke of his past life or where he came from. When Freddie asked him about his family, he only said he didn’t have one.

They went around the city together. They rode busses, taxi cabs and the subway. Freddie took Alva to places of interest he would otherwise not have seen. They saw movies together, including a “blue” movie at a little out-of-the-way theatre in an alleyway between buildings. They walked in the park and sat on the grass and fed popcorn to ducks. They went to a concert in a beautiful hall where there were a hundred musicians on a stage and thousands of people sitting in the audience listening to them play. In a labor hall they heard a speech given by a Socialist who advocated overthrow of the government. They saw a serious play in which a man murdered his wife for infidelity.

Alone in his room at midnight, Alva counted out his remaining money on the bed. He only had enough left for two more days in the hotel and modest meals. Time was running out for him.

The next day, while he and Freddie were having lunch in a diner that had once been a railroad car, he asked Freddie a question that had been on his mind.

“You said you have pills for anything?”

“I can get them,” Freddie said, his mouth full.

“What about a pill that makes a person go to sleep and not wake up?”

Freddie looked at him searchingly, took a drink of his Coke and belched. “I’ll have to ask my doctor friend about that. Nobody has ever asked me for that particular thing before.”

The next day when they met in the lobby of the hotel, Freddie grabbed Alva by the arm and pulled him outside to the sidewalk.

“I asked the doc what you wanted to know,” Freddie said.

“Yeah?”

“He says there is such a thing, if you want it bad enough.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s expensive.”

“How much?”

“Don’t know yet. The doc won’t know how much until he gets it from his source.”

“Okay. Can you get it for me tomorrow?”

“Sure. I guess. Are you sure you want it?”

“Never more sure of anything in my life.”

At ten years of age, he knew he was nothing like the mother or the father, looked nothing like them. When he inquired about it, the mother told him he was adopted. It was a lie he believed for the next ten years.  

Right before he came to the city, he found out the truth. The mother was making him clean out the closet in her bedroom. He found an old yellowed newspaper, twenty years old. There was a story in it about an eighteen-month-old baby, named Draxton Capers, snatched from his parents in a Kansas City suburb. Police had no clue about where the baby might be and sought the help of the public. He was described as having brown hair and green eyes, a quarter-sized birthmark on his right shoulder.

As Alva looked at his brown hair with his green eyes in the mirror, he knew, finally, the truth about the woman and the man, the mother and the father, whom he had thought were his adoptive parents. They were kidnappers. They were the lowest form of human life. His real name was Draxton Capers. The birthmark on his shoulder removed any doubt there might have been.  

The mother always said she had a bad heart and she was always so fat. She needed somebody to do things for her, to fetch and carry, to wash her back and clip her toenails. All she and the father had to do was kidnap a healthy baby and they had an unpaid servant for life.

When he found out the truth, he couldn’t go on. These people had taken away his life. He would rather they had killed him when he was a baby.

The father was sitting at the kitchen table eating his breakfast. Alva stood at the sink washing the cast-iron skillet in which he had cooked the breakfast. He held the skillet in his right hand and dried it with his left. He looked at the back of the father’s head and, wielding the skillet in both hands like a baseball bat, hit him there with all his might.

The father shrieked and fell forward, slid off the table onto the floor. He was bleeding profusely from the head, but he wasn’t dead yet. Alva hit him repeatedly until he was sure he was dead.

The mother was still sleeping. When he went into her bedroom, she was lying on her back, breathing heavily, one enormous tit escaped from her nightgown. With the skillet, Alva smashed her head to liquid pulp. She never woke up. She never knew anything.  

He knew she had money hidden in the house. Ten dollars here, seven-fifty there. When he found it all, he had almost three hundred dollars. He packed a small bag, took the money and left the house in which he had lived all his life.  

He rode on the bus for a day-and-a-half to get to the city and all that time his mind was blank. He felt no remorse or fear. Nothing. The hatred he felt for the mother and the father was gone. They were in the place now where they belonged.

It would be a while before anybody found the bodies, maybe as long as a week. When they did find the bodies and discovered the son was gone, they would assume he had done the terrible deed. He wasn’t right in the head, people would say. He always kept to himself. Afraid to go out of the house.

They would trace him to the city, he knew. They would find him and put him in jail for the rest of his life, maybe even send him to the electric chair. Time was running out. Any day now they’d come for him.  

He didn’t see Freddie at all the next day and was afraid he had run out on him. He wanted to call the number on Freddie’s card but was afraid of what he’d find out. Freddie didn’t exist. The number was a dead end.

On Friday as he was leaving the hotel restaurant after dinner, he saw Freddie sitting across the lobby reading a newspaper. The relief he felt caused him to smile.

“I’m glad to see you again,” he said and meant it.

Freddie looked up from the newspaper. “Sit down, kid,” he said.

Alva sat down and waited until Freddie stopped reading and looked at him.

“Did you get it?” Alva asked. “What we were talking about?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Freddie said. “I don’t know if I’m going to give it to you or not, though, unless you tell me what it’s for.”

“You know what it’s for.”

“You did a bad thing back there in Texas. Maybe stole some money. Believe me, it’ll be a lot better if you go home and face the music, whatever it is, than to do a foolish thing that can never be undone.”

“I’ve already made up my mind. There’s no other way.”

“I’d talk you out of it if I thought I could.”

“You can’t.”

Freddie sighed and took a little white box, like a match box, out of the pocket of his jacket. “The doc says to get into bed and take all of these at once.”

“I can do that,” Alva said. “So easy.”

From his other pocket he took a fifth of whiskey. “The doc says to drink as much of this as you can. It’ll make the pills work better. Mix it with water if you can’t stand the taste.”

Alva took the box of pills and the fifth of whiskey and put them under his coat. “How much do I owe you?” he asked.

“It’s taken care of,” Freddie said.

“What?”

“The last thing I can do for a friend.”

They shook hands, Freddie wishing Alva good luck on his journey, and then he left in a hurry.

It was too early to go up to his room. Not just yet. He still had the rest of the evening.

He took a walk, with the object of making himself tired, but, more importantly, to say goodbye to the city. He walked an impossibly long way from the hotel. He felt calm and happy, kindly disposed toward everybody he saw, even the drunks who asked him for money.

When he got back to the hotel, it was nearly eleven o’clock. He went up in the elevator to his room and took a bath and washed his hair and, when he was finished, dressed himself in his pajamas and turned back the covers on the bed.

He filled a glass half with water and half with whiskey and went to the window and looked out as he drank it. He watched the lights twinkling off and on, heard the traffic down below, and was thankful for the wondrous time he had had in the city and for the friendship of Freddie Lindhoven. All that came before was nothing, or soon would be.

He drank the whiskey mixed with water until the bottle was two-thirds empty. He sat on the edge of the bed and dumped the pills from the little white box into his hand and swallowed them and covered himself up in the bed and switched off the light.

As he drifted off to sleep, he thought of a dog he had when he was little and how much he missed the dog when it ran away. The dog would be over there waiting for him, he knew. He could already see his bright eyes and his happily wagging tail.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Human Blood

 

Human Blood ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This is a re-post.) 

School was out. Arlene Buck walked home by herself through the quiet streets of the town. It was a cloudy, warm day in late October. Leaves and debris swirled along the sidewalk in the wind. Arlene turned her head to the side to keep the wind from whipping her in the face.

When she got home, her mother and sister weren’t there. She didn’t like being the first one home with nobody there. She went into the kitchen and had a chocolate chip cookie and a drink of cold water and then left again. She would walk down to Jesus Saves and when she came back her mother and sister would be there.

Jesus Saves was at the bottom of a hill, where the street dead-ended. It was an easy walk down and a harder walk back up. Anybody in the neighborhood who went out for a walk went down to Jesus Saves and back. There weren’t many other places to walk, unless you wanted to go a lot farther.

Since Jesus Saves was where the street ended, people were always using the parking lot there for turning around because they didn’t know until they got to the bottom of the hill that they couldn’t go any farther. Today it was deserted, though, with nobody turning around and no cars parked on the lot. That meant nobody would be getting saved from their sins tonight.

Arlene was superstitious and believed that when she walked down to Jesus Saves, Jesus wouldn’t save her until she touched the low wall on the far side of the parking lot with her foot. She did this and whirled around, when a dark spot on the asphalt caught her eye, glistening and wet as if somebody had spilled a bucket of paint and gone off and left it. She approached the spot to see what it was. She was studying it when the door of Jesus Saves opened and a man came running out. He approached her at a run and for an instant she thought he was going to tackle her like in a football game.

“Hey, you there! What do you think you’re doing? Get away from there!” the man said.

She looked from the spot on the asphalt to the man and back at the spot. “What is this?” she asked. “Did a dog get run over by a car?”

“No, no, no!” he said. “It’s nothing for you to worry about!”

It was Reverend Pearl, a fussy little man in black who preached at funerals and saved souls from going to hell. He wore glasses on a string around his neck. He was no bigger than a thirteen-year-old child but he had broad hips and the mannerisms of a woman.

“I want to know what this is,” she said. “It looks like blood.”

“You go on home, now!” Reverend Pearl said. “You have no business here!”

“I can be here if I want to be. You don’t own the world.”

The door of Jesus Saves opened again and two Sisters of the Church came out, lugging buckets of water and mops. They were large, homely women, wearing loose sack-like dresses and diapers on their heads.

“Over here!” Reverend Pearl called to the women. “Here’s where the mess is!”

The Sisters of the Church went to work, dipping their mops in the water and then swabbing at the spot. They moved the blood around until they had a sloppy pink mess. The water in the buckets, after they had dipped the mops a couple of times, looked like blood.

“We need something to soak it up,” Reverend Pearl said. “You’re just making it worse. Dump this water out and go inside and get some fresh. Jesus! I never saw so much blood in my life! The police left the mess for us to clean up! How do you like that?”

Arlene stood back a few feet and watched as the Sisters of the Church worked over the blood. Reverend Pearl forgot about her for the time being, but when he saw she was still there he advanced on her again.

“Didn’t I tell you to go on home?” he said. “There’s nothing here for you to see! Didn’t your mother ever teach you to obey your elders?”

“You’re not my elder,” Arlene said.

One of the Sisters of the Church stopped mopping and leaned over and whispered into Reverend Pearl’s ear, holding her hand over her mouth.

“Oh!” Reverend Pearl said. “Oh, I didn’t know. Oh, my!”

“What did that woman say?” Arlene asked. “She whispered something in your ear about me, didn’t she?”

Reverend Pearl changed his tone now; he even attempted a smile. “I’m sorry if I was cross with you, little girl. A very bad thing happened here last night and it has my nerves on edge.”

“What bad thing?”

“It isn’t my place to tell you,” he said. “You run on home now and I’m sure you’ll hear about it soon enough.”

As she began walking up the hill toward home, her heart beat in a funny way and she felt sick like when she had to go to the doctor. She knew something was wrong. Momma didn’t come home last night. Could the blood on the Jesus Saves parking lot having anything to do with that? What had the Sister of the Church whispered in Reverend Pearl’s ear?

She ran up the hill and when she got home, out of breath, her sister Camille was waiting for her.

“Where were you?” Camille asked.

“I’m afraid a very bad thing has happened,” Arlene said.

“Don’t be silly,” Camille said. “Nothing bad has happened.”

They waited all evening for momma to come home or at least to call them and let them know where she was. Camille fixed fish sticks and macaroni and cheese for dinner and while they were eating Arlene told her about the blood on the parking lot at Jesus Saves and what Reverend Pearl said and how he acted mad at first and then sympathetic.

“The blood of Jesus cleanses us of our sins,” Camille said.

“It wasn’t that kind of blood,” Arlene said. “Something bad has happened. I just know it.”

“You worry too much,” Camille said. “Everything will be fine.”

“I think we should call the police and tell them momma didn’t come home last night.”

“She’s stayed out all night before. She likes to have a good time.”

“But she always came home the next morning,” Arlene said. “Here it is night again and we haven’t heard a word from her.”

“We’ll wait until nine o’clock,” Camille said. “If she hasn’t come home by then we’ll call the police.”

They washed the supper dishes and were watching TV when there was a loud knock on the door. Arlene got up off the couch and went to the front door and, opening it, was not very surprised to see her grandma standing there.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Arlene said, standing aside to let grandma come inside.

“I’m afraid I got some bad news for you,” grandma said, crying and wringing a handkerchief. “Your momma this day has joined the angels.”

“What?” Camille said.

“She fell prey to the ravening beast and the beast hath slain her. Oh, Satan! Ruler of the world! What is going to become of us?”

“She was killed?” Camille asked, disbelieving. “By a beast?”

It was worse even than Arlene imagined. It was ironic (although she wouldn’t have known that word) that she just happened to be the one to walk down to Jesus Saves on that day of all days and see the blood. It was as if God or somebody had meant her to see it.

Grandma sat on the couch and wailed while Arlene and Camille packed overnight bags to go home with her. When they left the house, strangers were outside gawking at them.

“What do they want?” Arlene asked.

“There ain’t nothin’ here for you to see!” grandma called out to the strangers. “If you don’t beat it, I’m gonna call the sheriff! Leave us alone in our grief!”

At grandma’s house, the police came and talked to them. All Arlene and Camille could tell them was that momma had a lot of different boyfriends and had stayed out all night before on dates. She had always come home in the morning, though, almost always before Arlene and Camille left for school.

After the police were finished examining momma’s body, they released it to the Sutcliff Brothers’ Mortuary. Momma was laid out in her best navy-blue dress that she always saved for weddings and funerals. Now she was wearing it to her own funeral. She looked fine, as if nothing bad had happened to her. That would erase the terrible image, grandma said, of her being butchered by a savage killer.

Just about everybody momma ever knew came to the funeral home to see her off. Distant relations from other states. People she had grown up with that she hadn’t seen for twenty or thirty years. There were lots of strangers there, too. People who had read about the murder in the newspaper or seen it on TV and wanted to witness a little part of it themselves to be able to say they had been there and seen the grieving next of kin. And now it had the added attraction of being a murder mystery because police still didn’t know who did it or why.

At the funeral home a strange man with pale skin and tousled hair introduced himself to Arlene and Camille. They were sure they had never seen him before, but it so happened he was there father. He had left when Arlene was three and Camille six and neither of them remembered anything of him. All momma had ever said of him was that he was in prison and should be forgotten.

Now that momma was dead, this strange man, their father, wanted Camille and Arlene to come and live with him. He had a new wife, a baby son, and he was ready to be a real father to Camille and Arlene. He lived in a small town in a distant state and they would need to leave their school and all their friends and start over in a new place.

“I don’t want to go!” Arlene said. “Momma would want us to stay here!”

“We’ll talk about it later,” grandma said, putting her hand on Arlene’s arm.

On the day of the funeral it rained. Momma’s casket was removed, not to Jesus Saves, but to the Methodist church for the service. The church was full one hour before the service began. People had to be turned away or made to stand out in front of the church in the rain. The front row was reserved for Arlene and Camille, grandma, and the man who said he was their father. To Arlene none of it seemed real.

There were flowers, soft words, organ music and Bible talk that Arlene barely noticed. When the service was finished, everybody got into cars and made a slow procession in the rain the two miles to the cemetery, where momma was laid to rest alongside her own baby brother who died when he was four years old.

During the graveside service, with all the people standing around the open grave, Arlene noticed a tall man standing behind everybody else, looking on. He was wearing a black hat pulled down almost to his eyes. He looked directly at Arlene and smiled and, as if the smile wasn’t enough, he winked. While everybody else was looking sad, he was smiling and winking.

“There’s something about him that’s not right,” Arlene told herself.

Maybe he was one of momma’s boyfriends and maybe not, but Arlene knew all at once, as well as she had ever known anything, that he was the beast, the Satan, who had spilled momma’s blood on the parking lot of Jesus Saves. It was written on his face.

She watched the man during the rest of the service, without seeming to watch him. When the service was over and momma’s casket was being lowered into the ground and everybody was making a dash for their cars in the rain, she kept her eyes on the man until he was out of sight.

She lost him in the crowd but kept watching and saw him again. He was getting into a black car on the far side of where all the cars were parked. She couldn’t see his face but saw the black hat he was wearing and knew it was the same man.

As the crowd dispersed, she had a clear view of the black car as it drove away. She tried desperately to read the license plate, but she slipped in the mud and fell on her backside. When she got up again, the black car was lost among all the other cars trying to get out of the cemetery in the rain.

She turned and began running back to where the others were waiting for her. She had to tell somebody–but most of all she had to tell momma–what she knew and what she had seen. She swerved around a large tree and jumped over some standing water and then, in a flash, it came to her: momma was dead and she’d never be telling her anything, ever again.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

If Mr. Shinliver Dies

If Mr. Shinliver Dies ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

I arrived late to work and as soon as I walked into the office I heard laughter and loud voices. I knew something unusual had happened. Ramona Sugarman, the receptionist, sat at her desk filing her fingernails.

“What’s going on, Ramona?” I asked.

“Mr. Shinliver had a heart attack,” she said casually.

“Oh, my gosh! Is he all right?”

She shrugged her shoulders and trained her cross-eyed gaze on her little finger. “How should I know?”

As I proceeded to my cubicle, all the way in the back by the window, a football whizzed by my head, followed by a burst of laughter.

“Uh-oh,” Chick Chapwick said. “Tremaine is here. Do you think he’s going to tell on us?”

Irvine Beasley caught the ball, gripped it with both hands and pretended to throw it right at my face. “No, Tremaine won’t tell,” he said. “Not if he knows what’s good for him.”

“I’m not seeing this,” I said.

“That’s the spirit!” Chick Chapwick said.

I entered my cubicle and set my briefcase on the desk. Felice Belladonna poked her head up over the partition that separated my cubicle from hers. She held a lighted cigarette in the corner of her mouth like a death row convict.

“I didn’t know you smoked, Felice,” I said.

“I don’t. Until now.”

“Why now?”

“Haven’t you heard the good news?”

“No, I haven’t heard any good news this morning.”

“You know that Mr. Shinliver had to go to Fairfield on business this week and took with Miss Wagstaff with him, don’t you?”

“Who doesn’t know?”

“Well, Mr. Shinliver had a heart attack. Can you believe it?”

“Oh, my goodness!” I said. “Is he all right?”

“They say he was in Miss Wagstaff’s room when it happened. You can only imagine what they were doing.”

“I’d rather not.”

“He’s on one of those machines that does his breathing for him.”

“Sounds serious.”

“It’s the best thing that’s happened around here in a long time.”

“Depends on how you look at it,” I said.

“He’ll be out at least for a couple of weeks. That is, if he doesn’t die. If that happens, he’ll never be back! Hurray!”

“You’re terrible, Felice!

“If the old buzzard dies, you should become the boss.”

“Not me,” I said, yawning. “I don’t want to be the boss.”

“If you want to go back home and go back to bed, I’ll cover for you.”

“No thanks, Felice. Now that I’m here, I’ll stay.”

Nobody was doing any work. Everybody was excited, talking and laughing but mostly speculating about how bad Mr. Shinliver’s condition was and, if he should happen to die, who would take his place.

I heard Ramona Sugarman scream, following by a crash. I figured the football had hit one of the ornamental planters in the reception area and knocked it over.

Somebody went for donuts and then everybody converged on the break room for a donut party. I waited a few minutes and then I went in for my morning cup of tea.

“Did you hear the good news?” Ricky Spears asked me. He was eating an iced jelly donut, jelly dripping down his chin.

“Yes, I heard, Ricky.”

“If Mr. Shinliver dies, you should be the new boss.”

“I don’t want to be the boss, Ricky. Maybe it’ll be you.”

“Not me,” he laughed. “I miss too much work.”

While I heated the water for my tea, I stood and looked over the tray of donuts. I was happy to see that there was still one left that was oozing red jelly out the side like a glorious wound. As I picked the donut up and bit into it, somebody clapped me on the shoulder from behind.

“Well, well, well!” a booming voice said. “Look who bothered to show up for work today!”

“I’m always here, Melville,” I said as I turned around and tried to smile. “I never miss work.”

It was Melville Herman, of course. Mr. Big. The blowhard. The blatherskite. The man who managed to make himself offensive to everybody in the world, including a string of ex-wives.

“Did you hear the good news?”

“About Mr. Shinliver, you mean?”

“If the old boy buys the farm, guess who your new boss will be?”

“I wouldn’t even venture a guess,” I said. I took a step away from him so I wouldn’t have him breathing in my face.

“It’ll be me, you fool!” he said. “Who else?”

“What makes you think so?”

“It’s all but in the bag. Who’s the person with any competence around here? Who keeps this place afloat?”

“I don’t know. Miss Wagstaff?”

“Wagstaff’s just a puppet! And she’s a lesbian, besides.”

“Really? I didn’t know that. I heard that she and Mr. Shinliver were an item.”

He laughed his hyena-like laugh. “You are so funny!” he said. “Nobody talks like that anymore!”

“Like what?”

“I’m going to take some measurements in Mr. Shinliver’s office and see how my furniture is going to fit in there. I think I’m going to want some new curtains, too. The old ones smell like old man Shinliver.”

After Melville left, I sat down at one of the little round tables in the break room and looked out the window. I envied the birds flying across the sky because they were free and didn’t have to work in an office.

In a few seconds, Flora Upjohn was upon me like a charging rhino. Any time I ever found myself near her, I always imagined she was going to crush me. She weighed three hundred and fifty pounds and had an elaborate Louie the Fourteenth hairdo.

“Well, look who’s here!” she said, smacking her hand down on the table, causing me to jump.

“Leave me alone,” I said.

“Heard about Shinliver?”

“Everybody has heard, Flora.”

“Nobody is doing any work.”

“Including me,” I said. “And you.”

“So, what do you think is going to happen with Shinliver?”

“I don’t know, Flora. I left my crystal ball at home this morning.”

“I heard that if Mr. Shinliver dies, you’re going to get a big promotion. I’ll bet you’ve already been in his office taking measurements, haven’t you?”

“That’s Melville Herman,” I said. “He’s picking out new drapes.”

“That clown? He’ll never be boss. Nobody likes him.”

“Nobody likes Mr. Shinliver either, but that hasn’t kept him from being the boss.”

“You’d make a good boss. Everybody looks up to you.”

“No, they don’t. They hate me because I hate them.”

“Hah-hah-hah!” she said. “You were always so funny!”

“I can’t be the new boss because I’m leaving this place.”

“What? Have you found a better job?”

“I didn’t say that. I said. I. Am. Leaving. This. Place.”

“Well, you don’t have to be so smart-ass about it.”

“I’m not being smart-ass. I just don’t like having people asking me questions.”

After lunch we were in full party mode. Somebody brought in a radio and put it next to the coffee maker and tuned it to a dance station. One person began dancing and then two and then just about everybody in the office. Men danced with other men and women danced with woman. I think there is nothing more disquieting than seeing mousey accountants dressed all in black and white—one of them wearing red socks—shaking all over, tilting their heads back and closing their eyes in ecstasy.

“They’ve all gone crazy,” I said.

“Their oppressor is gone,” Flora said. “They’re experiencing a heady moment of freedom.”

“It won’t last. Mr. Shinliver will be back or somebody even worse, like Captain Queeg.”

“Captain who?”

A few minutes after three o’clock, I received a call. When I picked up the phone, it was Bertha Wagstaff on the line, Mr. Shinliver’s right-hand man.

“Is this Tremaine?” she said in her foghorn voice.

“Yes, ma’am! What can I do for you?”

“Bertha Wagstaff here.”

“Yes, Miss Wagstaff!”

“I have some news about Mr. Shinliver.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to speak to Melville Herman?”

“No, you’re the one,” she said.

“The one what?”

“Everybody looks up to you. Everybody likes you.”

“No they don’t!” I said defensively.

She imparted her news and then at the end of the conversation instructed me that I was to call everybody into the big conference room and tell them what she had told me.

It took about ten minutes to round everybody up and when I had them all in the conference room, about fifty in number, they thought it was just part of the ongoing party.

I didn’t like euphemisms or stringing people along for dramatic effect, so, after I got everybody quieted down, I told them straight out: “Mr. Shinliver died at eight minutes past noon today.”

There was a stunned silence. The room became so quiet I could hear the blood coursing through my veins. The loud mouths like Melville Herman were quiet for a change. After they had had a couple of minutes to absorb the news, I told them the rest.

“The company ceases to exist as of today.”

“What?”

“Mr. Shinliver was the company,” I said. “With no Mr. Shinliver, there’ll be no company. It’s the way he wanted it.”

“Where does that leave us?” somebody asked.

“Unemployed,” I said.

“What?”

“I’m sorry to be the one to deliver this news, but somebody had to do it.”

There were no goodbyes for me. I got away as quickly as I could and, as I left Shinliver and Company for the last time, I felt light with happiness and relief. I stopped at a bakery and bought myself a strawberry pie. I gave a five-dollar bill to an old fellow who asked me for change. All at once I loved the world and everybody in it.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

And That Includes Cab Fare

And That Includes Cab Fare ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Mrs. Deal was eighty-five and had more cobwebs in her head than the basement and attic combined. She could no longer be trusted to stay at home by herself. She had been known to leave the front door open all night in the winter or turn the burners on in the kitchen and let dangerous amounts of gas escape into the room before she noticed the blue flame hadn’t come on the way it was supposed to. Her daughter, Patsy Ruth, age sixty-three, left her latest husband in the city and went to live with Mrs. Deal in her old-fashioned house on a corner lot in a small provincial town a good five-hour drive away.

Patsy Ruth had smothering emphysema from a lifetime of smoking Camel cigarettes, but her more immediate problem was her fragile nerves. She took little yellow pills her doctor had prescribed, sometimes twice the number she was supposed to, but still, no matter how many pills she took, Mrs. Deal tried her nerves almost beyond endurance. Mother and daughter had never been on the best of terms anyway, going all the way back to the beginning, and it was an almost impossible situation with them both living under the same roof. Mrs. Deal was stubborn on principle; it if was mealtime, she wasn’t hungry and refused to eat. At bedtime she refused to have the light off. Patsy Ruth thought at times about taking the whole bottle of yellow pills at once and getting into her big four-poster bed and going to sleep and never waking up, or going down to the railroad trestle and jumping into the shallow, muddy water a hundred feet below.

“I’m not a well woman,” she was fond of saying to anybody that would listen. “I still have my own life to live.”

To have an occasional “day off,” Patsy Ruth had to engage the services of a “woman” who was willing to spend a day, or at least part of an afternoon, sitting with an impossible old woman and keeping her from doing any harm to herself or to the house. When Mrs. Ida Stroud answered Patsy Ruth’s newspaper ad the first day it appeared, she seemed ideal; she had sat with old people before, she said, had some nursing experience, and lived only a short distance away. Patsy Ruth would have to pay for her to take a cab, though; Mrs. Stroud was fat, had painful varicose veins, and wasn’t able to walk very far.

“I guess we can manage the cab fare,” Patsy Ruth blatted into the phone, delighted that she had found the right person so easily and on the first day.

On Saturday, Patsy Ruth was going to visit the dentist, meet a friend for lunch and see a two o’clock matinee movie. She arranged with Ida Stroud to come on that day.

Patsy Ruth was gratified that Ida Stroud arrived on time on Saturday morning but was a little dismayed to see that she had brought her thirteen-year-old daughter, Stella, along with her.

“Stella don’t cause no trouble,” Ida said. “I can’t leave her at home by herself. She gets into too much mischief.”

Stella Stroud was a pale, skeletal girl with a permanent scowl on her face and dark circles around her eyes. Refusing to say hello to Patsy Ruth or to Mrs. Deal, she slumped down on the couch, folded her arms and yawned.

“We’ll all get along just fine!” Ida gushed. “We’re going to have a fine time, aren’t we? Everything will be just fine.”

“I’ll be back around six,” Patsy Ruth said.

“Don’t give us a thought!” Ida said. “We’ll all be just fine!”

“Do you mean I have to stay in this hell hole all day until six o’clock?” Stella asked after Patsy Ruth was gone.

“Find something to do,” Ida said. “Go outside and commune with nature.”

“I don’t want to go outside!” Stella said. “I didn’t want to come here in the first place!”

“Sit there and be miserable, then! I don’t care!”

“You’re just a horrible old woman, you know that?” Stella said.

Of Ida’s eight children, Stella at thirteen was the youngest. Mr. Stroud had been dead for many years, the victim of a bad heart passed down to him through father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

Ida beamed at Mrs. Deal. “You certainly are a lucky woman,” she said. “You have your daughter to look after you and you live in this fine, big house. That’s as much as any Christian woman might expect.”

“I’m a Methodist,” Mrs. Deal said.

“Where’s your husband?” Stella asked.

“He died.”

“What did he die of?”

“Shut up!” Ida said. “You’re not supposed to ask questions like that!”

“Well, I just wondered!”

 “Would you like a piece of butterscotch?” Mrs. Deal asked. “My daughter buys this butterscotch candy for me when she goes to the store.”

“No, thank you, dear,” Ida said.

“Haven’t you got any peppermint?” Stella asked. “I hate butterscotch.”

Ida gave Stella a warning look. “If you can’t be nice,” she said. “I’m going to slap you silly.”

“Well, let’s talk about something interesting,” Stella said. “I have sleep apnea. I could die in my sleep any night.”

 “Nobody wants to hear about that,” Ida said.

“Well, I don’t know why the hell not! I think it’s very interesting!”

“You think it’s interesting because it’s about you! You need to learn that the world doesn’t revolve around you! And I told you not to use words like that!”

“Words like what?”

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about!”

“Well, pardon the hell out of me! I have to go to the bathroom! Where is it?”

“Ask Mrs. Deal,” Ida said. “It’s her house.”

“All right. What’s her first name?”

“You’re not supposed to use her first name, silly! Call her ‘Mrs. Deal’.”

“All right. Mrs. Deal, honey, I need to use your bathroom. Is that okay?”

“What?” Mrs. Deal said.

“She wants to know where the bathroom is,” Ida said.

“Oh. Go through the dining room into the back part of the house.”

Stella leapt to her feet. “It’s always so interesting to see other people’s bathrooms!”

“And don’t break nothing, either,” Ida said.

When Stella had gone out of the room, Ida gave Mrs. Deal a sad smile. “Kids!” she said. “This girl has given me more trouble than all my others put together. From the time she was born, she was trouble with a capital T, morning, noon and night. She would lie in her crib and scream all day long and all night. I told my husband I wasn’t having any more children because I was afraid they’d turn out like her. He didn’t care if we had another dozen because I did all the work of takin’ care of them. He made the living for the family, but that was all he ever did. At home he never lifted a finger.”

“I had three children,” Mrs. Deal said, “but only one of them is still alive.”

“All of mine are still alive!” Ida said. “I rue the day! Now, let me tell you, that Stella has had a rough time of it her whole life. When she was just a baby, she had yellow jaundice, whooping cough and I don’t know what all. You name it, she had it. And from the time she started to kindergarten, it’s been one problem right after another. She wet her pants just to defy the teacher and she refused to sit still and pay attention. Finally the school gave her a test and they said she wasn’t right in the head and they put her out! Can you imagine putting a child out of school? Then we had to send her to a special school in another town and, believe me, it cost a lot!”

“Maybe it’s just better not to have any children,” Mrs. Deal said. “I had three and both my boys are dead. One died two days after he was born.”

“Oh, isn’t that a shame! But it’s such a blessing to you that you still have your daughter. She lives with you and takes care of you.”

“She wants to put me in a nursing home so she can get married again. She’s been making a lot of calls, asking questions. She thinks I don’t know what she’s up to, but I’m not as stupid as she thinks I am.”

“I’d have you come and live with me,” Ida said, “but we live in such a small house. Not big like this one.”

“She’s still married to that last husband of hers, but here she is scouting around for the next one. She’s had I don’t know many husbands.”

“No!” Ida said. “And she seems like such a nice woman!”

“One of them she was married to twice.”

“Some people is like that. Can’t seem to find what they’re looking for.”

“My son was married two different times,” Mrs. Deal said. “He was an alcoholic and died at age thirty-five. Even younger than his father.”

“Isn’t that sad! Well, I guess we learn tribulation through our children if nothing else.”

“That’s what I mean,” Mrs. Deal said. “It’s probably better not to have any children at all.”

“Then we’d be alone, I guess, and that might be even worse.”

Stella came back from the bathroom smiling and wiping her hands on the seat of her pants.

“What were you doing in there so long?” Ida asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“You weren’t smoking, were you?”

“Don’t be re-dick! I don’t have any cigarettes!”

“Mrs. Deal and I were just swapping stories about our children.”

“I bet you told her how awful I am, didn’t you?” Stella said.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I’m not ever having any kids. I don’t want the little son-of-a-bitches.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Ida said. “You don’t know what the future holds for you. You’ll meet a wonderful man.”

“Hah-hah! Where?”

“You’ll get married and live in lovely little house and you’ll realize after a while that something is missing and that something is little ones. After you’ve had one, you’ll want another and then another and then another.”

“You are so full of shit!” Stella said.

“Hey! I warned you about using that kind of language! One more word like that, and you’re going to have to wait outside on the front porch until six o’clock. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“Oh, you know what you can do, don’t you?”

“I don’t want to hear another word out of you!”

“I just remembered,” Stella said. “Today is my birthday.”

“No, it ain’t, either,” Ida said. “Your birthday is in April. This is October.”

“I can make today my birthday if I want, can’t I? It’s such a boring, terrible day, I can say it’s my birthday just to help make it a little bit special, even if it’s not really my birthday.”

“No, you can’t, or if you do, just do it silently and don’t say anything!”

“I wonder if I’ll get any presents?”

“No, you won’t, so just forget about it!”

“When I get a little older, I’m going to run away from home!”

“Why wait?” Ida said. “Go now! Go anytime! You have my blessing!

“I’m not going to hang around this stupid, dead town and have a bunch of ugly babies and be just like everybody else. I’m going to Hollywood and I’m going to be a big movie star and when that happens, you’ll be sorry you were ever mean to me!”

“Send me a postcard!”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to be rid of me!”

“You try the patience of a saint!”

Stella said to Mrs. Deal, “You see what a crazy old bitch my mother is, don’t you? And she never stops being crazy! She’s crazy twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week! It’s a wonder I just don’t shoot myself!”

Ida stood up, took three elephantine steps, and in one deft motion, slapped Stella across the mouth. “I don’t want to hear another peep out of you for the rest of the day!”

Stella sobbed and rubbed her cheek and was sullen for the rest of the morning.

At noontime, Ida went into the kitchen to fix lunch, leaving Stella and Mrs. Deal alone together.

“My mother says you’re a tiresome old woman,” Stella said.

“She can leave any time,” Mrs. Deal said.

“Did you ever see anybody talk as much and not say anything at all? She’s like a big gas balloon with a leak. And did you ever see anybody so fat in all your life? Lord God! I’m embarrassed to be seen walking down the street with her.”

“Stick a pin in her,” Mrs. Deal said.

“Did you know I have a boyfriend? I’ll bet you’re kind of surprised to hear that about me, aren’t you? He’s sixteen and he has his driver’s license. He hasn’t got his own car yet, but he can borrow his brother’s car any time he wants. He’s coming to pick me up tonight. My mother doesn’t want me to go out with him, so I’ll tell her I’m going to a girlfriend’s house. She’ll never know the difference. And me and my boyfriend? We’ll drive out someplace to a secluded, romantic spot, and when we’re sure there’s nobody around we’ll get into the back seat and make love. Doesn’t that sound romantic? I’m a very romantic person, but I guess you can tell that just by looking at me.”

When lunch was ready, Ida took one of Mrs. Deal’s arms and Stella took the other arm and helped her into the kitchen.

“I’m not helpless, you know!” Mrs. Deal said.

Lunch was canned tomato soup and dainty little baloney sandwiches with the crust cut off. Ida was of the opinion that bread crust made old people choke.

“I don’t like tomato soup,” Stella said.

They ate in silence. Stella discovered she could eat the tomato soup as long as she soaked bread in it first. When Mrs. Deal was finished eating (hardly anything at all), she said she was sleepy and wanted to take her nap. Ida helped her into her bedroom, covered her up with an afghan and went back into the kitchen.

Stella was still sitting at the kitchen table, looking at something she held in the palm of her hand.

“What is that you’ve got there?” Ida asked her.

“Nothing,” Stella said.

Ida grabbed Stella by the wrist and made her drop what she was holding. It was a pair of little gold earrings.

“Where did you get those?” Ida asked.

“I found them in the bathroom.”

“Stole them in the bathroom is more like it.”

“It doesn’t concern you.”

“It concerns me if that daughter knows that you’ve been stealing from them and fires me. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s all I have coming in right now.

“She’ll never know I took them.”

“Put them back right now or I’m going to shake your head so hard it’ll fall off your shoulders.”

“Not on your life! You get paid for sitting around this dump all day, while I get nothing! Isn’t my time worth something? I’ll be lucky to get five dollars for these. I’m not even sure if they’re real gold.”

“It breaks my heart to know I have an unrepentant thief for a daughter.”

“There’s worse things.”

“If Mrs. Deal and her daughter find out you do such things, they’ll think you’re just terrible!”

“They won’t find out.”

“When that daughter comes back, I want you to tell her you found those earrings on the floor and then give them back to her. Then she’ll know you’re acting in good faith.”

“Screw good faith! I’m not gonna tell her anything!”

“If you won’t tell her, I will! Do you want her to know you’re a thief?”

When Patsy Ruth returned home, she was in a happy frame of mind, with smiles all around. “I’ve had the most relaxing day,” she said. “Sometimes all a person needs is to get away from home for a few hours.”

“I know just what you mean,” Ida said. “We had a lovely visit with your dear mother and the time just flew by.”

Patsy Ruth paid Ida, plus cab fare, plus an extra five dollars since everything went so well.

“Now I can pay the light bill,” Ida said.

Ida and Stella put on their coats and made ready to leave.

“Stella has something she wants to tell you before we go,” Ida said to Patsy Ruth.

“What is it, dear?”

“Go ahead and tell her while I call the cab,” Ida said.

Stella hesitated until Ida was in the kitchen, where the phone was. “I just wanted to say…”

“Yes?” Patsy Ruth said.

“I just wanted to tell you there’s a bad smell in your bathroom. I think it might be coming from underneath the floor.”

“Oh, really? I haven’t noticed any smell.”

“Some people can smell things that other people can’t.”

In just a minute, Ida came back into the room. “The cab will be here in two shakes,” she said.

“Finally, I can go home!” Stella said.

Patsy Ruth opened the front door and gave Ida a friendly pat on the shoulder as she passed through. Stella refused to look at her or return her smile.

Patsy Ruth sat down on the couch facing Mrs. Deal and lit a cigarette. Her smile had turned into a scowl, the scowl that Stella wore as she went out the door. The happiness she felt when she came home had left her. The good day was at an end and now it was time to return to the ugly reality of living in the same house with her mother.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

A New Ricky in Their Midst

 

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

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

“What’s wrong, honey?” Ethel asked.

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

“What happened?”

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

“You and Ricky have another fight?”

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

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

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

“It can’t be all that bad!”

“This time it is!”

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

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

“Just say it. You’ll feel better.”

“I’ve killed Ricky!”

“What?”

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

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

“I know! It’s terrible!”

“Are you sure he’s dead?”

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, Lucy! What did you do then?”

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

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

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

“What did you do then?”

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

“Oh, Lucy! The neck?”

“I severed the jugular vein in one stroke!”

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

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

“And where is he now?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Well, I…”

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

“She what?”

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

“Have you called the police?”

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

“Help you do what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

“Yeah, he had a girlfriend named Delores.”

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

“No less than she deserves!” Ethel said.

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

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

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

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

“On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

What Better Night Than Christmas Eve?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m not going anywhere!”

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

“That isn’t any of your business!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good!”

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

“You’re not taking her or anybody!”

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

“What are you talking about?”

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

“What does he mean?” Floretta asked.

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

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

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

“On my word of honor.”

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

“Do you have any reason to doubt?”

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

“And what is that, dear child?”

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

“You have my solemn oath.”

“All right, then. I’ll go with you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is this true?” Santa asked Agnes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t worry, child! I have a plan.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

He’s Going to Kill Me

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

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

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

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

“It’s not that. It’s…”

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

“If he has escaped…”

“Oh, he has!”

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

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

“Why would he kill George?”

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

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

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

“I don’t know, dear. Would you?”

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

“Why don’t you call the police?”

“And what would they do?”

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

“They don’t care about me!”

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

“Why not?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

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

“What’s going on?” Bob asked Irene.

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

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

“It’s highly unlikely,” Bob said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Only for you,” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, boo-hoo!” he said.

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

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

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

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, maybe next week,” Madge said.

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

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

“Yeah!” came the voice from inside.

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

“They’re gone,” she said.

“Who’s Bob?” Vincent asked.

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

“Until you cut in?”

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

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

“Did you kill George Fellsinger?” she asked.

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

“I knew there had to be an explanation.”

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

“Did you kill your wife?”

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

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

“I know,” he said. “I saw you.”

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

“Why did you even care?”

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

“You know that for certain?”

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

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

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

“I’m not good like you.”

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

“Key to what?”

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

“Do you know something I don’t know?”

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

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

“Your wife and Madge were friends?”

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

“You were once in love with Madge?”

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

“The plot thickens.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997