Tag: short story

Percy Picket Succumbs to Infirmities

Percy Picket

Percy Picket Succumbs to Infirmities ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(Published in Abandoned Towers magazine.)

Mr. Percival “Percy” Francis Harrigan Picket, of Harmony Hill, entered into eternal rest on Thursday, the sixth of September, having attained the age of eighty-five years, four months, and sixteen days. He was preceded in death by his parents, Dewey Alonzo Picket and Alameda Hortense Fredericka (Wicket) Picket; and conjoined twin sons, Alfredo Joshua Torrance Picket and Alphonse Jerome Tyrone Picket. He was also preceded in death by his beloved wife of fifty-eight years, Louisa Maria Helena (Belladonna) Picket, with whom he had ten children.

Surviving children are Victor Hugo Pierce Picket (wife, the former Beatrice Carlotta Pogue Hinchcliff); Tammany Hector Guillermo Picket (wife, the former Magdalena Maybeetle Montclair); Lawson Jervis Wicket Picket (wife, the former Clara Beedle Champagne); George Emmett Grayson Picket (wife, the former Grace Gruber Grudnick); Georgiana Victoria Regina Chinn (husband, Chang Win Chinn); Albertina “June Bug” Dunleavy (husband, Dixie Clement Dunleavy); Alice “Tiny” Wigglesworth (husband, Charles Chandler “Chick” Wigglesworth); and Lucille Lucretia Faith-Winterhaven (wife of Montague Sidney Faith-Winterhaven III).

The deceased is also survived by a brother, Raleigh Gunderson Hartselle Picket; a sister, Adelaide Emmaline Picket Moncrief; and grandchildren Arundel, Woo, Lotus, Astoria, Polly Esther, Brigadier, Judson, Lupé, Xerxes, Chandler, Trixie Bell, Enar, Gunnar, Fritzie, Bongo, Hermes, Echo, Pan, Lou Anne, Jade, Opal, Bean, Babby, Rockwell, Belvedere, Zaza, and twins Jag and Dag. Great-grandchildren include Gaston, Pluperfect, Sasqueesha, Cavendish, Bump, Doral, Horatio, Hector, Eff, Bea-Elza, Vamoose, Lothario, Coriander, Barclay, Oona, Splurge, Penny Ante, Dosie Patootie, Nimbus, Torsten, Lala, Biffy, Maybelle, and quadruplets Choi, Chang, Chen and Ah-Choo.

Also surviving are many nieces and nephews, cousins, business associates, and friends, as well as a special companion with whom he enjoyed white-water rafting and five-card stud, Dinwiddie Oglethorpe-St. Clair, of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Throughout his long life, the deceased was known as a caring and philanthropic individual. In spite of his large family and his successful and distinguished career as a mannequin designer, he was always ready to don his white makeup, glittery nose, baggy tuxedo and red wig to transform himself into the beloved clown, Mr. Peevish Quackenbush. As this well-known clown character, he was often seen riding on floats in parades and lending a hand at charitable fund-raising events. He often stated to friends and family in later years that it was as Mr. Peevish Quackenbush that he felt most alive. He was frequently quoted as saying, “Mr. Peevish Quackenbush is more Percy Picket than Percy Picket is.”

And it was in mid-life that he launched his second career, that of a professional circus clown. Leaving behind family, home, and business, he traveled with the Fitch Brothers Circus for fifteen years as one of its star attractions. Mr. Otto Fitch, owner and founder of the Fitch Brothers Circus, has stated unequivocally that it was Mr. Peevish Quackenbush who saved the circus from bankruptcy. “We would have never made it through the hard times without Mr. Peevish Quackenbush bringing in new customers in every town,” Mr. Fitch stated. “He is what kept us on the rails.” A life-size statue of Mr. Peevish Quackenbush can be seen on display at the National Clown Museum and Hall of Fame.

In keeping with the wishes of the deceased, he will be interred in the clown car that he made famous in the clown section of the Cemetery of the Holy Ghost. He will lie in state in full clown regalia at the Seltzer Water Funeral Parlor tomorrow evening only from seven p.m. until closing. Tickets may be purchased at the door. Bring the entire family.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

City Dump

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City Dump ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This is a repost from November 2015 and has been published in 1947 Journal.)

When I was in the eighth grade, the Dutchman decided our old house needed a new roof. Instead of consulting the Yellow Pages to find a reputable roofer, he decided to save a few greenbacks by—no, not by doing the job himself—but by having a “friend” do it at a cut-rate price.

The price at which the friend agreed to replace the roof didn’t, oddly enough, include any clean-up. That means that pieces of the old roof dating from the time the house was built—boards, shingles, chunks of asbestos, nails, what-have-you—were scattered in the yard on all four sides of the house, looking like the scene of an unspeakable natural disaster. How many houses, I ask you, have a new roof while the old roof adorns the yard in the ugliest way imaginable?

The Dutchman’s solution to the clean-up was simple. He had a thirteen-year-old son: me. I weighed ninety-two pounds but was more than capable of picking chunks of debris out of the shrubs and off the lawn and placing them in a washtub. How many washtubs full does it take to hold the thousands of splintered pieces of an old roof? More than you can imagine.

He didn’t own a pickup truck so he borrowed one from another “friend.” (Where do all these friends come from?) It was an old dark blue truck that had seen better days. It was only a one-day loan, so that meant we only had one day to get rid of all the crap that surrounded the house. I was wishing I would lose consciousness and not regain it until well into the next week. I would rather have thirty hours of gym class than a day of enforced yard clean-up with the Dutchman.

After I got the washtub loaded up with stuff, it was too heavy to lift on my own. “Candy ass,” the Dutchman said. “You’re not worth the powder to blow you to hell.”

“I know,” I said. And I did know, as this phrase had been repeated to me in some form or another almost every day of my life.

The Dutchman saw that I could manage the loaded washtub only if he took the other handle. It occurred to him then for the first time that I didn’t have the strength of a grown man. Who knew?

With about eight tubs full of stuff, we had enough in the back of the truck to make a full load. I had to take a rake and distribute the stuff so we could get more in. Then, when the Dutchman was convinced the truck would hold no more, we headed for the city dump, about two miles outside of town. It felt good to sit down, even if the inside of the truck smelled like an old woman who never takes a bath.

At the city dump, the Dutchman carefully backed the truck as close to the edge of the embankment as he could get without going over the side, and we got out and started unloading. I stood up in the bed of the truck and tossed the stuff over the side but, of course, I wasn’t doing it fast enough to suit the Dutchman.

“Do you want to still be working at this at midnight?” he asked.

“I’m starting to feel sick,” I said.

By the time we got back to the house to begin work on the second load, it had started to rain the kind of rain you get in November: slow, cold and steady. The Dutchman made me put on a hat—not to protect my health but because he was thinking about how much money it might cost him if I got sick and had to see a doctor.

The second truckload to the city dump didn’t go any faster than the first one and, after two loads, we had made very little progress. This was taking a lot longer than the Dutchman thought it would. There weren’t going to be enough hours in the day. I was happy, maybe for the first time in my life, at the prospect of going to school the next day.

It was when we were working on the third load that an old man from the neighborhood stepped into the yard and motioned to us. The Dutchman stopped what he was doing and went over to him. I was near enough that I could hear.

“I know somebody that will take all that stuff away for you for a good price,” the old man said.

The Dutchman thought about it for a minute and shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said. “I can do it myself.”

“Looks like that boy there’s about worn out,” the old man said. He meant me, of course.

The Dutchman looked at me as though noticing me for the first time. “He’s stronger than he looks,” he said with a little laugh.

My mother came out of the house then in her plastic rain bonnet. “You know somebody that’ll do this hard work?” she asked.

“My nephew and his friend,” the old man said. “They’ve got themselves an old truck and will do little jobs here and there to earn enough money to fill it up with gas.”

“Does your nephew have a phone number?” she asked.

The old man gave the number and my mother said she would remember it without writing it down. She thanked the old man and he left.

“You come into the house,” she said to me, “and get cleaned up before supper.”

“He’s not going in,” the Dutchman said, “until the work is finished.”

“Says you,” she said.

She put her hand on my shoulder and drew me along with her into the house. It was one of the few times I ever saw her stand up to the Dutchman.

I took a bath as hot as I could stand it to get the roof grit off and put on my pajamas. I had the sniffles afterwards and there were some bleeding cuts on my hands, but I was happy and was sure I would be all right.

The next day when I came home from school, all the roof junk in the yard had been taken away. Mother told me she paid for it out of her own money and that it had been a real bargain. I was beaming with satisfaction at the dinner table that evening while the Dutchman looked unhappy and defeated, too dispirited even to complain that the mashed potatoes weren’t the way he liked them.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Visitors’ Day

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Visitors’ Day ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

It was a Sunday morning in December. Freda and Julian were in the back seat of Daddy Earl’s car. Daddy Earl careened through traffic with ease, no obstacle too much for him to overcome. He had the radio tuned to some cheerful Christmas music because he knew Freda liked it. Julian held onto his teddy bear, although he insisted he didn’t need it, watching the passing scenery with absorption.

“Are you going to take that stupid bear inside with you?” Freda asked.

“Shut up!” Julian said. “I’ll do whatever I want.”

“Will they have her in handcuffs?” Freda asked the back of Daddy Earl’s head.

“I don’t think so,” Daddy Earl said. “Not on visitors’ day.”

The parking lot was full and Daddy Earl had to drive around for a long time before he found a place to park and, once he did, they had to walk a long way to the visitors’ entrance.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Freda said, as they waited to be searched and admitted.

Daddy Earl put his finger to his lips to tell her she should stop talking.

A man in a uniform took Daddy Earl, Julian and Freda into a large visiting room filled with people and showed them where to sit. He left and came back in a couple of minutes with mother.

Mother gave Daddy Earl a peck on the cheek and hugged first Julian and then Freda before sitting down.

“How’s my big boy?” she smiled at Julian.

“Mother, I don’t like for you to be in jail,” Freda said, on the point of tears.

“I know you don’t like it, dear. I don’t like it, either.”

“Why don’t you tell them to let you come home?” Julian asked.

“It doesn’t quite work that way, honey,” mother said. “I wish it did.”

“How are you doing, old girl?” Daddy Earl asked. It was one of the many names he had for her.

“I’m just peachy, darling!” she said.

“How are they treating you?”

“Like a queen.”

“How’s the cuisine?”

“Every meal like dining at the Ritz.”

“Do you need some money?”

“It would only be stolen.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Just one thing. To get out of this place and go home.”

“It feels funny having a criminal for a mother,” Freda said.

“I know, baby,” mother said. “And I apologize for it in every possible way.”

“Why don’t you just promise to stop shoplifting so they’ll let you out.”

“I’ll do that and see if it works.”

“Do you have a court date set?” Daddy Earl asked.

“No. You know what the courts are like.”

“Any chance you’ll be out by Christmas?”

“I don’t think so. No bail for me since it’s my third conviction. I’m a flight risk.”

“What does that mean?” Julian asked.

“Nothing for you to worry about, dear,” mother said.

“Is this place a hospital? Are you going to die here?”

“You don’t have a worry in the world, sweetheart. Mother will be home with you soon. If not before Christmas, then pretty soon after.”

“Are you sick?”

“No, I’m not sick. Everything is going to be fine.”

“I don’t know why you have to stay here if you’re not sick.”

“Shut up, Julian!” Freda said. “You’re only making things worse.”

“How am I making things worse?”

Mother took Julian on her lap, even though he was almost too big for it. “I don’t want you to be unhappy,” she whispered in his ear.

“I’m not,” he said.

“I’m so glad you came to see me today. This is the only good thing that’s happened me to since I’ve been here.” She hugged Julian and he hugged back. “The two of you are going to have a wonderful Christmas, with Santa and a tree and everything.”

“Maybe we don’t want those things while you’re in jail,” Freda said.

“Of course you want those things! And you’ll have them, too. Won’t they, Daddy Earl?”

“Santa already knows they’ll be at my house,” Daddy Earl said. “He’s not going to let us down.”

“I knew we could count on old Santa,” mother said.

“I’ve been thinking,” Daddy Earl said.

“About what?”

“Maybe they’d go easier on you if you were married.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I think we should get married.”

“Last I heard, you had a wife somewhere.”

“A minor technicality,” Daddy Earl said.

Mother laughed. “I hear they have a special place for bigamists over in the men’s prison.”

“What does that mean?” Julian asked.

“I know what it means,” Freda said.

“Never mind what it means,” mother said. “I was just making a joke with Daddy Earl.”

“I have the feeling they’re going to let you out in time for Christmas,” Daddy Earl said.

“Oh, baby, I wouldn’t count on that if I were you!” mother said.

“You’ll be calling me to come and get you, and I’ll get here so fast you won’t believe it!”

Mother began crying, no matter how hard she wanted to avoid it. “We have to be realistic,” she said. “I might be here for a long time. I might never go home again. I did such stupid things. I didn’t know what I was doing and I swear I’m done with all that!”

“Of course you are!” Daddy Earl said. He put his beefy arm across her shoulders. “You have to look on the bright side and keep your spirits up.”

“Yes, I’ll try,” mother said. She wiped her eyes with his monogrammed handkerchief.

A guard was watching them carefully and then he came over and told them it was time for them to leave; the visit was over.

Mother gave Daddy Earl a passionless kiss. When she hugged Julian and Freda, she started crying again, which made all of them cry.

“We’ll come again just as soon as we can,” Daddy Earl said.

“I want all of you to have a good Christmas,” mother said, “and don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’ll be thinking of all of you.”

“We’ll be thinking of you, too, mother,” Freda said.

On the way to the car, Freda said, “I don’t think we’ll ever see her alive again.”

Julian began wailing, so Daddy Earl picked him up and carried him the rest of the way.

Freda turned to look at the windows of the prison, expecting mother to be there waving at them, but she saw only a gray blankness that told her that nothing good ever came out of there.

On the way home, they stopped and ate a chicken dinner with cherry pie for dessert and then Daddy Earl went to a place where he knew they could get a good, real-live Christmas tree. When they got home, he set the tree up in the living home, strung the lights expertly, and then let Freda and Julian do the rest of the decorating.

In their twin beds in Daddy Earl’s guest room at ten o’clock, they could hear sleet and rain hitting the windows.

“Maybe they’ll call school off tomorrow,” Julian said.

“Did you hear mother say that Daddy Earl already has a wife?” Freda asked.

“What of it?” Julian asked.

“His wife might come back from wherever she is and tell us we have to get out.”

“Why would she do that?” Julian asked.

“She’d be jealous, that’s why.”

“Daddy Earl could always punch her in the nose.”

“Maybe we could sneak mother out of prison and sneak Daddy Earl’s wife in there in her place.”

“How you gonna do that?” Julian asked.

“Didn’t you ever hear of chloroform?”

“No!”

He groaned and rolled over so that his face was inches from the wall. He didn’t want to think about school tomorrow, about mother being in jail, or about anything else. He pictured snow piling up outside, so much snow that school would be called off for the whole week. With that comforting thought, he was able to make himself go to sleep.

Copyright © 2016 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Verisimilitude

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Verisimilitude ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp 

Irene Gribble hit her mother in the head with an iron and sent the old lady sprawling. She hit the far wall of the room, head first, and fell to the floor like a hundred-pound sack of flour. Irene, observing from the ironing board that she wasn’t moving, figured she was pretending, as she had always been a great one for self-dramatization.

“You can get up now, mother,” Irene said. “I know you’re not hurt.”

No sound issued from the recumbent old woman.

“If you don’t get up now and stop pretending, I’m going to pour a pitcher of water in your face. That’s what they always do in the movies.”

She went and stood over her mother, hands on hips, and nudged her with her foot. “Well, at least I got you to shut up for a while,” she said.

She finished her ironing, washed some dishes, threw away some rotten vegetables in the refrigerator, and in another few minutes she checked on her mother again. This time she knelt down beside her and put her ear to the old woman’s chest. She heard no sound of a beating heart but, then, she had always been certain there was no heart there, anyway. When she saw that her mother wasn’t breathing, though, she knew she was dead.

“Well, what do you know about that?” she said.

She stood up and took a deep breath. She felt surprisingly calm, considering that she had just killed her own mother. She sat down at the kitchen table, lit a Lucky Strike and thought about the phone call she needed to make.

“A song came on the radio that she liked and she was dancing,” Irene would tell the police. “She always loved to dance. Her eyes were closed and she had her arms around her imaginary partner. She didn’t see the rip in the carpet, caught her foot in it, and fell backward against the wall.”

No, that didn’t sound quite right. Whoever heard of anybody getting killed while they were dancing?

“I was outside in the back yard,” the story might go. “I found her like this when I came in from outside. She must have taken a terrific fall.”

Or this: “I don’t really know what happened. I was upstairs and I heard a crash. When I came running down, I saw that she had climbed on a chair to change a bulb in the ceiling fan. She must have fallen over backwards off the chair and hit the wall. She was taking a new medication that caused her to black out when least expected.”

A little better. I have to make it sound convincing. Give it verisimilitude. I always liked that word. That will be my word.

As she stubbed out her cigarette, she realized her hands were shaking and she erupted into a torrent of pitying tears, not for her mother but for herself. What if they don’t believe me? What if they suspect I killed her? I can’t let them think that. My own mother. It makes me sick just to think about it.

She felt more alone that she had ever felt before in her life. She had only one living relative, her brother Ernest, and, although the two of them had never been on the best of terms, he might help her to figure out the best way to handle the situation.

She called his number and was relieved that he was available; he answered his phone on the second ring.

“Ernest!” she said. “Something terrible has happened!”

“What?”

“It’s mother! I need you to come over right away!”

“Are you two fighting again? I told you I refuse to get involved.”

“No, it’s not that! It’s more than that! She’s down on the floor and I don’t think she’s breathing.”

“Call an ambulance.”

“I think it’s too late for that. I need some help.”

“With what?”

“Just come over and see for yourself.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”

An hour later he walked calmly into the house, removing his sunglasses. Irene was sitting on the couch in her bathrobe.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“In the kitchen.”

He went into the kitchen and a couple of minutes later came back into the living room. “She’s dead,” he said.

“I know she’s dead,” Irene said. She had taken tranquilizers, twice the recommended dosage, and felt calm, at least for the moment.

“Are you going to tell me what happened? The two of you were fighting, weren’t you? You think you might have killed her and you want me to help you cover it up.”

“That’s not quite true!” she said defensively. “You’re right about one thing, though. We were fighting.”

“I always said it would come to this. The two of you would end up killing each other.”

“Well, now she’s dead and I’m alive,” Irene said.

“You need to call somebody,” he said. “Call an ambulance, even if she is already dead.”

“How’s Malcolm?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Malcolm. Isn’t that his name?”

“His name is Martin and this is no time for small talk.”

“Are you two of you still living together?”

“Yes! And it’s not a crime!”

“Well, you don’t need to yell at me! I’ve had enough of that from her!”

“I knew it was a mistake for you to move in with her after your divorce.”

“She said she wanted me to. She said she was lonely.”

“The two of you have been fighting your entire lives.”

“I know, but it’s all over now. I feel a deep sense of relief, don’t you?”

“Well, at this moment, I can’t say relief is what I feel,” he said. “I’ve just seen my mother dead on the kitchen floor. That’s rather a shock in the middle of an uneventful day.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Call somebody and tell them what happened. Call the police.”

“I’m scared!”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid they’ll think I was somehow responsible for what happened.”

“Weren’t you?”

“Well, in a way I suppose I was.”

“You’d better tell me exactly what happened.”

“She was a horrible person!”

“Yes, we’ve been through all that many times.”

“She always had to have somebody to fight with. Daddy or Aunt Jo, grandma when she was still alive, you, or me. Of course, now it’s me because I’m the one living with her.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Well, a person can only take so much. She found fault with everything I did. I stay up too late at night and sleep too late in the morning. I smoke too much and I make slurping sounds when I eat soup. I’m not clean enough. I leave grease spots on the stove. I’m lazy. I don’t do my share of the housework. I’m a terrible daughter and a terrible person. I let my marriage fail. I take dope and I’m a shoplifter. I’m not a real woman because I never had any children. It goes on and on.”

“Same story, different day,” he said.

“I can take just about anything she heaps on, but when she accuses me of stealing money from her purse, that’s beyond the pale!”

“She said you stole money from her?”

“Two hundred dollars. Out of her purse when she while she was taking a nap.”

“Did you?”

“Of course not!”

“All right. The two of you came to blows over two hundred dollars that she said was missing from her purse.”

“I was ironing a blouse. She started screaming at me about the money. She called me a thief and whore and she said if I didn’t give it back she was going to call the police. When I told her I didn’t take the money and that she probably spent it and didn’t remember, she pulled a steak knife out of the drawer and threatened me with it. She held it to my stomach and said she was going to gut me like a fish and that it’s what she should have done the day I was born because I had always been a terrible curse to her. She kept on and on in that way and I hit her in the head with the iron to get her to shut up.”

“A hot iron?”

“It was on medium.”

“Then what happened?”

“I guess I hit her harder than I thought. I was so mad. It stunned her and she started falling backwards. It was really kind of funny, like the witch in The Wizard of Oz.”

“I don’t remember any witch falling over backwards in that movie.”

“For a few seconds it was like she was running backwards and then she slammed head first into the wall.”

He groaned and put his hands over his eyes. “What did you do then?”

“She didn’t move for a while. I figured she was all right and only pretending to be hurt to scare me. I finished my ironing and washed the dishes and then I went over to her and nudged her with my foot.”

“And nothing happened?” he asked. “She was already dead?”

“Well, I didn’t believe at first that she could really be dead. You know how melodramatic she’s always been and always making a play for sympathy.”

“When you realized she was dead, why didn’t you call an ambulance?”

“I was going to call, but then I thought how odd the whole thing must look to people who didn’t know what really happened. I was afraid they would come in and take a look around and just naturally assume that I killed her.”

“And you didn’t kill her?”

“No, it was an accident.”

“You have to call the police and let them decide if it was an accident or not. If she was threatening you with a knife, that’s self-defense, isn’t it? Weren’t you defending yourself?”

“It depends on what you choose to believe,” she said.

“I’d like to believe the truth,” he said.

“You know mother was always disappointed in you.”

“I know and I don’t care.”

“She wanted grandchildren,” she said.

“Tough,” he said.

“She called you all kinds of names. Not to your face, of course, but behind your back. To anybody that would listen.”

“Are you going to call the police or do you want me to do it?” he asked.

“She was a terrible person. Aren’t you at least a little bit glad she’s dead?”

“Right now the only thing I’m glad of is that I got away from home before it was too late.”

“You hate me for what happened, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t hate you. I’m worried about what’s going to happen to you.”

“I won’t go to jail,” she said. “I’ll kill myself first.”

“I’m going to call the police and tell them what you told me.”

“I have a better idea.”

“What is it?”

“We can wait until the middle of the night and drive down to the river and dump her in. Of course, we’d have to figure out a way to weight her down first.”

“Are you crazy? Do you think I want to be involved in covering up a murder?”

“I’d do it for you.”

He laughed. “Somehow I don’t think you would,” he said.

“There’s a space below the basement floor that has a metal covering over it,” she said. “Big enough to hide a body in. Nobody would ever find her there until long after we’re gone.”

“You should hear yourself! I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. You’re talking about hiding your mother’s body? What do you tell people when they come looking for her? That she just ‘stepped out’ and you don’t know when she’ll be back? I don’t think people are going to accept that.”

“Always such a pessimist!” she said.

“I’m going to call the police and try to explain what happened without sounding like a lunatic,” he said.

“No, you go on about your business,” she said. “I want to be alone for a while, to sit and think. To grieve for the lady who gave me life. I’ll call the police when I’m ready.”

“So you’re going to handle it on your own?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll do what’s right?”

“Don’t I always?”

“I’m going to leave now. I’ll come back tonight around dark. I hope you’ll have called the police by then and tell them the truth about what happened.”

“Of course. You don’t have a thing to worry about. You’re the guiltless one, as ever.”

“Tomorrow I have a funeral to arrange,” he said, and then he was gone.

She drank a couple of vodka martinis and took a bath, her first in four days. When she was dressed again and her hair clean, she backed her car into the driveway, as close to the back door as she could get.

Taking the two spare tires out of the trunk—new and old—along with a jack and other tire-changing tools, some assorted rags, a flashlight, and other junk, she set them on the ground beside the car.

In the bottom of her trunk was a compartment underneath a panel held in place with thumb screws. She removed the screws and lifted out the panel and after she had done this she went back into the house.

She had thrown a blanket over her mother’s body, but it wasn’t enough. Thinking fast, she went upstairs to the walk-in closet and pulled down a large garment bag containing coats and dresses that hadn’t been worn in twenty years. She emptied the stuff out onto the floor and took the bag back downstairs.

Getting her mother’s body inside the bag and the bag zipped was easier than she anticipated. She dragged the bag to the back door and then, checking to make sure the woman next door was not snooping around in the back yard, she dragged it out the door and the few feet to the car. With one great heave and a shooting pain in her back, she lifted the bag off the ground and into the compartment, quickly replacing the panel with the thumbscrews and putting the spare tires and other stuff back into the trunk. She felt much better now, having removed the body from view.

Going back into the house, she sat down at the kitchen table and, cigarette in hand, wrote a note to Ernest, which he would see when he came by later. The note read, in part: Mother and I are going away for a while. I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll be back. The deed to the house, in your name, is in the safety deposit. Do what you think is right.

She packed a bag containing enough clothes for a few days, locked the doors, turned off the lights, and got into the car and drove away.

She drove all night and all day the next day, into the next state and then the next one after that. At dusk on the second day, she stopped in a small city that seemed like another world and spent the night in a beautiful old hotel on the bank of a river. In the morning, after a restful night’s sleep and a wonderful breakfast, she drove around for a while until she found a place where used cars were sold.

The car didn’t bring as much money as she thought it was worth, but she didn’t care to argue about price and accepted the first offer. She drove away in a newer model, only two years old, in almost perfect condition as if it had hardly been driven at all.

In her not-quite-new car, she continued driving in a westerly direction. She had always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, so she spent a couple of days there, enjoying the solitude and the wide-open spaces.

From the Grand Canyon, she drove to Las Vegas, a place she had heard about and dreamed about but never visited. She had a feeling of excitement to be there, just as she felt as a child when the whole family used to go to the beach or the amusement park.

In Las Vegas she checked into a hotel room with a magnificent view and locked herself in, ordering lavish meals from room service, charging all to a credit card. At night she would lie on the bed in her room, turn off the lights and open the curtains, drinking from a bottle of chianti. Looking out at the millions of other-worldly lights, she couldn’t remember ever feeling so contented and free from care in her life.

When she went out among the crowds, in the casinos or on the streets, she felt safe and anonymous. Nobody paid any attention to her. Everybody was there to enjoy themselves, just as she was.

On her fourth day in Las Vegas, she was walking on a crowded street when she saw an old woman up ahead in a bright yellow dress. It was the same stiff-jointed limp, the left shoulder lower than the right one, as her mother; the same hair tinted the color of apricot jam. She didn’t know how it could be, but she was sure it was her mother. She wasn’t dead after all! She had somehow got herself out of the trunk of Irene’s car and here she was, same as always! Just like a miracle!

In her happiness at seeing her mother alive, Irene started at an almost-run to catch up with her, but still she was two blocks away. With all the people milling about on the street, she lost sight of her for seconds at a time, but the yellow dress was like a beacon that she could not lose sight of.

Abandoning all caution, she stepped off a curb into traffic. She didn’t see the taxi cab that knocked her down and ran over her. The driver screeched his brakes and jumped out. A crowd gathered. Traffic became snarled. An ambulance came to take her away, but there was nothing to be done. She didn’t have any identification on her, so it took a while to piece together who she was and why she was running. Nobody had seen a thing out of the ordinary.

Copyright © 2016 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Percy Costellos

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The Percy Costellos ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This short story is a continuation of “At the Mannequin Factory,” posted on September 4, and “The Celestial City,” posted on Sept. 16.)

She was without illusion. She was ugly. She would never be anything but ugly. Ugly was not without its compensations, though. People didn’t ask her for directions or to lift things down for them at the grocery story; they looked through her as if she wasn’t there. She had heard about women (mostly from watching the eye, which she didn’t bother with much, anymore) having terrible problems with boyfriends and husbands, or just men in general. And, then, of course, there were the children that resulted from the relationships with these men; the children were a whole different set of problems that one might avoid by being ugly. She didn’t choose to be ugly; it was just the way things happened. If she had been given a choice, would she have chosen to be beautiful with all its attendant problems? No, she would have chosen not to be born at all.

Shakespeare might have had any of a dozen women at the mannequin factory—and not just mannequin women, either, but real ones. He was, if not exactly good-looking, at least passable, with a good smile, abundant hair, clean fingernails and a flat stomach. Why he would pay any attention at all to Elma the Ugly was beyond her ken.

She was sitting at her desk when he came in and placed a chocolate bar with nuts in front of her. Her first instinct was to say she didn’t want it, but when she saw the way he was smiling at her she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“What’s this for?” she asked.

“You don’t like chocolate?” he asked.

“Why me?”

“Because we’re friends.”

“No, we’re not.”

Her voice didn’t have quite the edge that it had before. She was softening toward him.

“Have lunch with me today,” he said.

“I never eat lunch.”

“I have something I want to discuss with you.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Mr. Hilyer is out of town at a mannequin convention.”

“So?”

“Nobody will know if you step out for lunch today.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’ll come by about a quarter to twelve. We’ll go to a spaghetti place I know.”

“I don’t like spaghetti.”

 “I’ll see you at a quarter to twelve.”

She spent ten minutes in the ladies’ fluffing up her hair and painting her lips with a lipstick she had taken to carrying around with her. At a quarter to twelve, her heart was pounding and she felt nauseated.

He showed up exactly on time and she was waiting for him.

The spaghetti restaurant was a ten-minute walk from the mannequin factory. He walked leisurely, as if he had all day. She worried about how much time she was going to be away from the mannequin factory but said nothing.

Over a plate of spaghetti, he leaned forward and said, “You look different now. Better.”

“There is no reason for you to make personal remarks about the way I look,” she said.

“You saw the Celestial City,” he said. “That’s why you look different.”

“I will admit that I took the stupid pill you gave me because I was feeling very bad.”

“And you were looking for an escape.”

“I thought I was going to die and I wouldn’t have cared much if I had.”

“You saw the Celestial City.”

“I saw something. I don’t know what it was. I won’t ever do it again.”

“It made you feel better, though, didn’t it?”

“I don’t know why I don’t call the police and report you for the drug dealer that you are.”

“That’s not what I am.”

“I have to get back to the mannequin factory. I shouldn’t even be here.”

“Nobody will know you’re gone.”

“Thanks for the lunch,” she said. “Let’s not do it again.”

“I have something important I want to discuss with you,” he said.

“No matter what you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

“I want you to meet me after work on Friday.”

“How do I know you won’t murder me?”

He surprised her by laughing. “If I wanted to murder you,” he said, “I could have already done it. Remember, I know where you live.”

“Let’s just forget the whole thing,” she said. “Forget you’ve ever seen me. Forget you know where I live.”

“It’s about your parents.”

“You don’t know anything about them. They keep to themselves and so do I.”

“I don’t want to say more now than what I’ve already said. Meet me on Friday at five o’clock.”

“I won’t,” she said.

“Yes, you will.”

He was waiting for her at the door as she exited the mannequin factory on Friday. She sighed when she saw him but went with him to his Cadillac.

He drove out of the city into the country and stopped at an old cemetery, the Cemetery of the Holy Ghost.

“Is this where you’re going to kill me?” she said.

“If I was going to kill you, this would probably be the place to do it,” he said.

They got out of the car and he led her past a myriad of grave monuments, down a hill and then up another hill to a recent grave that didn’t have a headstone. The dirt was still mounded up and there were some remnants of old flowers.

“I need to get home,” she said. “I have things to do.”

“I’ll bet you’d never guess whose grave this is,” he said.

“No, and I don’t care.”

“It’s my mother. She died almost four months ago.”

“All right. Now that we’ve seen it, can we go?”

“Not just yet. She made me promise before she died that I’d find you and tell you the truth.”

“The truth about what?”

“Let’s find someplace to sit down.”

“I’d rather stand. That way I’m closer to leaving.

“Suit yourself. Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Do I have a choice, now that you’ve dragged me out here?”

“Your father is Percy Costello and your mother is Estelle Costello? Is that right?”

“How do you know their names?”

“When my mother was young, she was a baby snatcher and she was never caught.”

“She was a what?”

“Just let me explain. She made her living as a baby snatcher. She was never married to my father and she needed money to raise me.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Percy and Estelle Costello are not your real parents.”

“Are you crazy? What are you talking about?”

“When you were nine months old, my mother kidnapped you from your real parents and sold you to Percy and Estelle for a thousand dollars.”

“That’s not true.”

“The police looked for you but after about three years they figured you were dead and gave up. Your real parents were dead by then, anyway, killed in a plane crash, so there was no reason to keep up the search.”

“I don’t know what your game is, but I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”

“My mother told me all about it from the time I was old enough to understand. She never stopped feeling guilty over it. She used to sit at night and cry about it. She had newspaper clippings about your disappearance as a baby and how the police never had any leads.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Your real name is Paulette Merriman. Your father was a policeman and your mother a high school teacher. You were an only child. You lived in Lincoln, Nebraska.”

“I was never in Nebraska.”

“Percy and Estelle wanted you to help around the house because they had trouble walking and doing things for themselves. They promised my mother they would never mistreat you and would give you a good home, like a puppy or a kitten. She told them she’d keep an eye on them to make sure they kept up their end of the bargain. If there was any reason for her to think you were being neglected or mistreated, she threatened to go to the police and tell them the whole story.”

“I think you have me confused with somebody else. I never knew anybody named Paulette Merriman. That’s not my name.”

“When I was in high school, we lived about three blocks from you and we both went to the same school. I used to see you at school every day. You were so shy you wouldn’t even look at me.”

“I don’t remember.”

“My mother used to park on the street and watch you go in and out of your house. She would ask me almost every day if I saw you at school. She would want to know what you were wearing and if you seemed clean and happy.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That you were like a little mouse afraid of being eaten by the cat.”

“I don’t believe any of this.”

“There was an English teacher with a fake nose. Her name was Miss Jilson.  I’ll bet you remember her, don’t you?”

“That doesn’t mean you went to the same school.”

“A boy a grade ahead of us got drunk and passed out on the highway at midnight and was hit by a car and killed. Everybody talked about it for weeks.”

“Ellis Persons,” she said. “That was his name.”

“Now do you think I’m lying?”

“Just because you know about Ellis Persons isn’t proof that what you’re saying is true.”

“Just think about what I’ve told you. I think it’ll all start to make sense after a while.”

“You’re a liar. Take me home now.”

“Ask Percy and Estelle if they’re your real parents. Ask to see your birth certificate. Ask them where you were born and when.”

“They’d only pretend they don’t know what I’m talking about. I’d never get the truth out of them.”

“Didn’t you always having the feeling there was something missing in the way Percy and Estelle behaved toward you? They didn’t mistreat you, but not mistreating you was the only good thing you could say about them.”

“How do you know so much about it? I want to go home now.”

On the way back to town, despite her objections, he stopped at a road house. They went inside and sat at a back booth, had chili and ribs. The place was quiet. She had her first beer out of a bottle and then a second.

She didn’t say anything for a long time and then she said, “All these years I’ve cleaned up after them, taken them their snacks, breathed their cigarette smoke, helped them to bed and to the toilet, and I’m not even related to them.”

“So, do you believe me now?”

“If it’s true—and I’m going to have to see some proof—I’m going to kill them.”

“No, you’re not. You’d go to prison.”

“Not if I do it right.”

“I have eighteen thousand dollars. That’s enough for you to go far away and live decently until you can find a job.”

“I don’t want money from you.”

“It’s not from me. It’s from the person who kidnapped you and ruined your life. I told her I’d see that you got it. She thought it would square her in heaven.”

He didn’t take her home until eleven o’clock, and when he pulled up in front of her house he shut off the engine.

“I want you to see my people,” Elma said.

“Percy and Estelle?”

“No. I mean my real people upstairs in my room.”

Momma and Poppa were sitting in front of the eye, puffing away in a fog of cigarette smoke. When Elma came into the house with a person they didn’t know and had never seen before, they didn’t even look up.

“Get me some cheese crackers!” Momma said.

“About out of smokes here!” Poppa said.

“Good evening, sir!” Shakespeare said. “How are you, ma’am?”

“They don’t hear you,” Elma said. “They’re in a trance. That’s what the eye does to them. And the Marlboros.”

“This is no way for a person to live,” Shakespeare said.

After Elma got Momma and Poppa the things they wanted, she took Shakespeare up the winding stairs to the rooms above and, once they were inside, she locked the door.

Shakespeare’s enthusiasm for the mannequins was equal to Elma’s own. He admired all the figures in her collection, their clothes and especially the way their faces made you feel that everything was going to be all right.

“I paint their faces, you know,” he said. “They speak to me in my dreams.”

Frankie, in the bed in the silk pajamas, was her favorite, she said. She pulled back the covers and picked Frankie up and set him on his feet beside the bed.

“I have another pair,” she said. “I want you to put them on and take Frankie’s place tonight.”

She took a pair of yellow-and-red silk pajamas out of the dresser drawer and handed them to Shakespeare. As he undressed, she turned away and prepared herself for bed.

So now she lay in bed, with Shakespeare beside her in Frankie’s favorite silk pajamas. She turned off the light and lay back and pulled the covers up to her chin. She didn’t need the Celestial City or anything else as long as he was there beside her, living and breathing.

(To be continued.)

Copyright © 2016 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Celestial City

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The Celestial City ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This short story is a continuation of “At the Mannequin Factory,” that I posted on September 4.)

Elma awoke, more than ever conscious that Frankie, in the bed beside her in silk pajamas, wasn’t a real person, but a mannequin with movable arms and legs. She groaned and sat up and covered Frankie with the blanket so she wouldn’t have to look at him. It was Monday morning and a squinty-eyed look at the clock revealed that it was already later than she thought.

On this morning she took more pains with her appearance than usual. She stood under a spray of scalding water and washed her hair; after it was dry, she brushed it vigorously in an attempt to give it some body. She had found an ancient tube of lipstick and this she dabbed to her lips, sparingly, to give her face a little color. When she was dressed, she tied a red-and-blue scarf around her shoulders, looking at herself in the smoky dresser mirror to determine if any of these little blandishments had made a difference.

At the mannequin factory, she didn’t say a word to anybody. She went to her desk and began doing the work that had been left to her by people she never saw and who treated her, not badly, but like a piece of the furniture.

In the middle of the morning, she was aware of somebody standing in the doorway looking at her. She turned toward the wall and blew her nose loudly into a wad of used tissue. When she turned back around, the person was still standing there, making clucking sounds with his tongue to get her attention. She looked up and when she saw it was Shakespeare, her heart gave a little lurch in spite of itself.

“Are you looking for someone?” she asked.

“Only you,” he said.

She bit her lip and said, “Humph!”

“You’re looking radiant today,” he said.

She knew how hideously ugly she was; she believed that anybody who suggested otherwise was making fun of her.

“Do you want me to tell Mr. Hilyer you’re here to see him?” she asked.

“I’m not,” Shakespeare said. “I’m here to see you.”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” she said. “I’m not interested in your little games.”

“You don’t mean that,” he said. “Your heart cries out.”

She stood up and walked to the door of Mr. Hilyer’s office and put her hand on the knob and started to open the door. It was the cue for Shakespeare to leave.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, waggling his fingers at her and disappearing around the corner.

She sat back down at her desk and Mr. Hilyer came out of his office. He was unused to hearing her speak at all, so he asked, “Who were you talking to?”

“Nobody,” she said. “Nobody here.”

At lunchtime she went down to the lunchroom to get a little carton of milk to have with her roll and apple. Shakespeare was sitting at one of the tables and when he saw her he jumped up and came toward her. She got her milk as fast as she could and turned her back to him, but he followed along behind her.

“Stay and talk for a little while,” he said. “Have a cigarette.”

“No!” she said. “Some of us have work to do!”

“Don’t you want to ask me anything?” he asked.

“Only why you’re bothering me!”

“So you want me to leave you alone, then?”

“Yes!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” He laughed and was gone.

When she left work at the end of the day, Shakespeare was waiting for her at the door, as if it was something he did every day.

She groaned and said, “I don’t want to see you!”

“I have a car today,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

“I don’t want it!”

Nevertheless, she let herself be led to his car, an old black Cadillac, and got in on the passenger side when he unlocked the door.

“At least it isn’t raining today,” he said as he got in and started the car. The car made a vroom-vroom sound and he said, “This is a classic. They don’t make them like this anymore.”

“You can let me out anywhere,” she said. “I’m used to walking.”

“You don’t want to have a drink with me?” he asked.

“No! I don’t drink!”

He turned and looked at her with a smile and she turned her face away.

“You don’t much like the way you look, do you?” he said.

“What business is it of yours?”

“I can help you if you’ll let me.”

“Let me out at the next corner.”

“All your life you’ve been told you’re ugly and they’ve got you believing it.”

“That’s enough. Let me out!”

“No, I don’t want to,” he said.

“Why do you persist in bothering me?” she asked. “Just look at me!”

“You know I spray paint mannequins at the mannequin factory?”

“I’m so happy for you!”

“No, you’re not. You’re very unhappy.”

“You know nothing about me.”

“I know more than you think I know.”

“If you don’t stop bothering me, I’m going to tell Mr. Hilyer.”

“What do you think he’d do? Is he your boyfriend or something?”

“You can let me out anywhere,” she said. “I’ve had enough of this and I’m going to walk the rest of the way.”

“Did you take the pill I gave you on Friday?”

“Pill?”

“Don’t you remember? In the bar after work I gave you a pill and told you to take it when you got home.”

“I remember saying I was going to flush it down the toilet.”

“Did you take it?”

“I flushed it down the toilet.”

“I wanted you to take it.”

“Why?”

“Because it will make you happy and beautiful, at least for a little while.”

“I was going to call the police and tell them you’re distributing illegal drugs, but I couldn’t remember your name and I didn’t think you were worth it, anyway.”

When he pulled up in front of her house, she realized she hadn’t told him where she lived. “How did you know?” she asked.

“I’m a good guesser.”

She opened the door and started to get out.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “I have something I want to give you.”

“I don’t want anything you have,” she said.

He took a pill out of a little bottle and put it in the palm of her hand. “Don’t flush this one down the toilet,” he said.

“What is it?”

“It wouldn’t help you to know the name.”

“You’re not going to make a dope fiend out of me, if that’s what your little game is.”

“It’s not like that,” he said.

“What will it do to me?”

“It won’t hurt you, I promise.”

“What will it do to me?”

“You’ll see the Celestial City.”

“Does that mean I die?”

“There is no death in the Celestial City.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but the main thing is I don’t give a shit.”

“You will,” he said. “Give it time.”

For the rest of the week she didn’t see Shakespeare at the mannequin factory. She was both relieved and alarmed.

By the time the work week was over, she was sick. She had caught a cold and ached in every part of her body. When she tried to eat a little breakfast on Saturday morning, she threw up on the kitchen floor. After she cleaned up the mess, she locked herself in her room and went back to bed.

As she lay there, she remembered the pill that Shakespeare had given her. Without thinking too much about it, she arose from the bed, took it out of its hiding place in the dresser drawer, and swallowed it.

She lay back down on the bed, composing herself for death, legs straight out and hands over her abdomen. She knew she was taking a terrible chance by swallowing a pill that a person like Shakespeare had given her, but she was past caring. If she died, she would never have to see Momma and Poppa again or the mannequin factory, which had lately become more and more odious to her.

She felt nothing for a few minutes, but then the room began to move, not in a vertiginous but in a joyful, musical way. The people around her, the mannequins she had rescued from destruction at the mannequin factory, began to move around her in time to a beautiful melody. They were fluid in their motions, even the mustachioed outdoorsman and the little boy at play. She felt herself—saw herself—being lifted up from the bed, suspended in the air, surrounded by the mannequins in a circle of light and love. And just above her head, where the ceiling had been, the Celestial City opened up in a burst of brilliant light and untold beauty. A man stepped forward from the light, perhaps a mannequin and perhaps not; she wanted to go to him but was for the moment unable to move her arms and legs. Slowly the man dissolved into nothingness and she fell back on the bed in blackness and utter despair.

(To be continued.)

Copyright © 2016 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

At the Mannequin Factory

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At the Mannequin Factory ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Poppa’s face was dry and lined, like old leather. The red pouches under his eyes made his eyes look half-closed, even when they were open all the way. His mouth was a thin, lipless line in which a Marlboro cigarette was inserted. For sixty of his seventy years, he had smoked Marlboros, an untold and uncalculated number of them.

He reclined in his chair that had molded itself to the shape of his body—or his body had molded itself to the shape of the chair. The room was dark and low, the perpetual cloud of smoke hanging like a pall between Poppa and the ceiling. A small lamp with a little cluster of red flowers painted on the lampshade, the only color in the room, sat on a table between his chair and Momma’s.

Poppa and Momma both puffed on their cigarettes. For them, puffing on a cigarette was part of the act of breathing. A breath wasn’t a breath without a puff to complement it. And while they puffed away they both kept their eyes on the screen a few feet in front of them. The screen was the eye on the world, the only eye, to which they had given their fealty. It didn’t matter what was on—a boxing match, a train wreck, news of the world, cowboys and Indians, romance, dancing, drama, music or laughter—it was all the same: they regarded everything the eye brought to them with the same fish-eyed blankness.

The door opened and Elma entered. Momma and Poppa didn’t look up but instead kept looking at the eye. Elma took off her coat and hat and stood in the middle of the room; she looked expectantly at Momma and Poppa, though the eyes through which she saw them were only slits.

“Beer, beer, beer!” Papa said.

“Popcorn, popcorn!” Momma said. “Peanuts, Peanuts!”

Elma went into the kitchen to get the things they wanted and took them back into the living room. When she set the bottle of beer on the table next to Poppa’s arm, he didn’t look up, but his arm reached out, seemingly of its own accord, and brought the bottle to his lips. He took a long drink and smacked his lips and set the bottle back down.

Elma had mixed the peanuts and popcorn together in one bowl, the way Momma liked them. Momma grabbed the bowl and began eating hungrily, never looking away from the eye. Elma opened a new carton of Marlboros and stacked the packs on the table, five on Poppa’s side and five on Momma’s, and when these things were done she went up the winding stairs to her own people.

The room seemed crowded now with twelve of them. They sat or stood about in different poses. Elma had dressed, wigged and hatted them according to her own whims. There was the society lady with the fox fur, the businessman with a pencil-line mustache, the small boy standing beside the dresser in play togs, ready to catch a ball, the lady with one leg canted out, hands on hips. They all had beautiful, painted-on, perfectly proportioned faces, luminous eyes and pearl-like teeth.

Some had movable arms and legs so they might be posed sitting or reclining. Elma liked these best because they seemed more real. To amuse herself, she would sometimes dress a man in a lady’s dress—including a hat with a veil—or a lady in a man’s work clothes or overalls. She also tried different wigs and hats to get a different look or feel. In this way she amused herself for hours and kept from being lonely.

There was one man in particular she liked to whom she had given the name Frankie. His arms and legs moved and his head swiveled from side to side. His skin was soft and pliable and warm to the touch. Elma dressed him in silk pajamas and put him beside her in the bed and covered him up. On cold nights, with the light off, she would have almost sworn there was a living, breathing man in the bed beside her. It gave her a feeling of well-being unlike anything else.

For twelve of her thirty-nine years, Elma had worked in the office of a mannequin factory. All day long she sat at a desk and typed letters or did small errands for the two bosses. They liked her because she always did what she was told to do without complaint, worked for very little money, never missed work, and didn’t mind working an hour or two over when the work was piling up. She was the very rare woman who had little to say and didn’t believe that her opinions were of any importance. If they could have ordered a dozen more like Elma, they would have.

Anytime a mannequin couldn’t be used or was defective in any way, Elma asked if she might have it to keep for her own. Nobody at the mannequin factory ever asked her why she wanted the mannequins or what she did with them, but they were always willing to comply. These mannequins that Elma rescued from the trash heap she added to her collection. When she carried one of the mannequins home, people stopped to look at her, but nobody ever suggested that she was doing something she shouldn’t do or that she should be stopped. Poppa and Momma, of course, never noticed what she did and never went up the winding stairs to her rooms.

One day Elma noticed a man looking at her at the mannequin factory. She discovered his name was Alexander A. Alexander but he went by the name of Shakespeare. She thought at first that he was looking at her because he was new and didn’t know anybody yet, but a week later he was still looking at her, although she didn’t know any reason why he should.

She was delivering a typed report to one of the bosses when she met Shakespeare face to face in an otherwise deserted hallway. Instead of veering away from her and keeping on his side, he stepped in front of her and stopped her in her tracks. He put his hand familiarly on the underside of her wrist and smiled.

“I believe I know you,” he said.

All she could do was shake her head and step around him and walk on. When she got back to her desk, she was breathless and a little confused. No man had ever paid any attention to her before and when she looked at herself in the mirror she knew why. By the kindest and most generous assessment, she was hideously ugly. Her nose was crooked, her hair mouse-brown, her eyes small and ferret-like, her teeth misshapen and brown. She could never remember a time in her life when she had cared much about the way she looked or about the effect that she might have on other people. If Shakespeare spoke to her again, she would ignore him or register a complaint.

On a blustery day in fall when she was walking home in the near-dark, she realized Shakespeare had fallen into step beside her. She hadn’t seen where he came from; he was just there.

“Leave me alone!” she said. “You don’t have any business bothering me!”

She looked at him and when she saw the hurt in his eyes, she knew she had been more unkind than she needed to be.

At home it was always the same. Momma and Poppa never looked at her or spoke to her. They just sat puffing and looking at the eye. She brought their food, which some days was only pretzels, candy, popcorn or beer. When she fixed them a sandwich or a bowl of soup, they hardly ever ate it and she ended up throwing it out.

In the evening after she saw they only wanted to be left alone with their cigarettes and with the eye, she retreated to her rooms and to the people there with whom she felt comfort and peace. She began to ask herself: What kind of life is this I’m living and do I plan on doing these same things every day of my life until I die? The answer, if there was one, did not make itself known.

For the first time in her life, her sleep was disturbed by nightmares, and during the day at the mannequin factory she began to be nervous and tense. She took much longer to do her work than usual and any time one of the bosses sent her on an errand, she usually managed to find a private place, in the ladies’ room or elsewhere, to stand quietly and stare at the wall for a half-hour or so in a trance-like state before returning to her desk.

She didn’t see Shakespeare for several days and wondered what had happened to him. Maybe he wasn’t suited to his job, spray-painting mannequins, and had already been fired. She was more than willing to put him out of her mind.

The next time she saw Shakespeare, it was not at the mannequin factory but on the sidewalk down the street. When she saw him coming toward her in a crowd, she looked away but, again, he stopped her in her tracks and put his hand on her arm.

“I believe we knew each other once,” he said.

She stepped around him and kept going, eyes to the ground.

“Have you ever thought about trying a little makeup?” he said in a loud voice.

“Mind your own business!” she snapped.

Then one day Elma found herself on a tiny elevator with Shakespeare, going up to the fourth floor. For a couple of minutes, at least, she was stuck with him in close quarters and couldn’t walk away.

“We knew each other in school,” he said.

She looked at him with distaste. “I don’t remember,” she said.

“It was a long time ago.”

“I never saw you before,” she insisted.

On a rainy Friday as she was leaving work, Shakespeare was going out the door at the same time she was.

“Would you like to talk?” he asked.

“No!” she said.

He walked along beside her and there was nothing she could do but keep walking with her eyes down and pretend he wasn’t there. When they came to an establishment where liquor was sold, he looked at her and inclined his head to indicate they should enter. Without knowing why, she let herself be led inside.

They sat side by side at a bar. She had never been inside a barroom before and only wanted to leave. When a beer in a glass was set in front of her, she looked at it and didn’t seem to know what she was supposed to do.

“It’s a small world,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

“I don’t know why you’re bothering me,” she said, “but I want it to stop.”

“Do you think whenever a person speaks to you, they’re bothering you?”

“I want to be left alone,” she said. “I have to be getting home.”

“Wait a minute,” he said. “I have something I want to give you.”

“I don’t want it.”

He gave her a tiny pill that he took out of a little brown envelope in his pocket. She looked at the pill in her palm and started to give it back. “What is it?” she asked.

“It’s something that will make you feel better. About the world and about life. Take it and see if it doesn’t.”

“You’re a dope dealer?” she asked.

He laughed, showing his long teeth. “All things are relative,” he said.

“I don’t know what that means,” she said. “I have to be getting home.”

“Put it in your pocket and take it with you. Tomorrow is Saturday and you don’t have to go to work. Take the pill in the morning when you’re alone and see if you don’t have a wonderful day.”

“I won’t take it,” she said. “I’ll flush it down the toilet.”

He laughed again. “Suit yourself!”

When she walked into the house, she was more than usually disgusted by the sight of Momma and Poppa sitting in their chairs staring at the eye and puffing on their cigarettes. She wanted to leave again but the thought of the bleak, wet, lonely streets leading nowhere stopped her. Without acknowledging to Poppa and Momma even that she was home, she went up the winding stairs to her rooms and to the only people in the world who knew and loved her.

(Continued in “The Celestial City”: https://literaryfictions.com/2016/09/16/the-celestial-city/

Copyright © 2016 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The End is Not as Good as the Beginning

The End image

The End is Not as Good as the Beginning ~ A Short Story
by Allen Kopp

“It’s a beautiful day,” Harmon Bracegirdle said as he approached Chaz Spurlock. He put his arm over Chaz’s shoulders and pulled him closer. “Thank you so much for meeting me here today!”

“Not at all,” Chaz said. “I’m free this afternoon.”

“I love the park, don’t you?” Harmon said.

“Indeed, I do!” Chaz said.

“I asked you here today, not so we could take in the scenery, but to have a little talk, just the two of us. A little private talk. There are so many interruptions at the studio, people coming in and out all the time.”

“I understand how it is, Mr. Bracegirdle, sir!”

“Please, Chaz! Call me Harmon!”

“All right, sir! Harmon!”

They walked a little way and sat down on a bench at the edge of a scenic pond, home to a flock of geese and ducks.

“They’re so beautiful!” Harmon said. “Nature is so beautiful!”

“I quite agree, sir,” Chaz said.

“Whenever you begin to feel dehumanized by what you do for a living, just come here and forget your troubles and in a little while you’ll begin to feel inner peace.”

“Inner peace, sir. Yes, sir!”

“But I digress. I didn’t come here to discuss nature.”

“I didn’t think you did, sir.”

“The picture business is a cruel business,” Harmon said, looking over his shoulder up the hill to his car, where his two associates and his driver were waiting. “It’s 1935 and there have been so many changes.”

“Don’t I know it, sir!”

“First sound and then color, and God only knows what’ll be next.”

“You roll with the punches, sir. It’s all you can do.”

“It isn’t easy being head of the largest picture studio in the country.”

“I don’t imagine for a second that it is, sir.”

“I’m responsible for hundreds of jobs. My decisions affect hundreds of workers and their families. If I don’t make the right decisions, a lot of people will suffer.”

“I wouldn’t want that much responsibility on my shoulders, sir.”

“The studio isn’t as profitable as it once was. Competition is fierce!”

“Terrible, sir! I’m sure it’s just terrible!”

“You were one of our most bankable stars for five or six years, Chaz, but your last three pictures have lost money.”

“Not my fault, sir! Those pictures just weren’t right for me.”

“I know. Each person has his own version of where things went wrong.”

“The studio is picking the wrong properties for me.”

“Do you think you could do better choosing your own scripts?”

“I’m sure I could, sir!”

“Well, that isn’t the way our system works. When you’re a contract player in a large studio, those decisions, whether right or wrong, are made for you.”

“I have high hopes, though, for my next picture.”

“The one based on the Russian novel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Literary adaptations haven’t done well for us in the past, I’m afraid.”

“We have a couple of top-notch directors interested in the project and I’m pretty sure we can get Lola Lola to play the female lead.”

“Lola Lola won’t be available to appear in that picture.”

“I just spoke to her yesterday. She said
”

“She has commitments abroad.”

“Oh? She didn’t mention
”

“In fact, we won’t be making that picture at all, Chaz. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”

“We just received word this morning that another studio has started production on that same story, using a different title.”

“Oh.”

“I know you’re disappointed, Chaz, but that’s the way things are in the picture business. As I said. Cruel.”

“There’ll be something else come along. What about that Western that everybody’s talking about?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I know I can be on top again with my next picture if I’m given the chance. I know I can!”

Harmon put his hand on Chaz’s leg and squeezed his inner thigh. “I’m afraid you’ve come to the end of your run, buddy. I’m sorry.”

“What are you saying? I’ve been with the studio twelve years! I have two years left on my contract!”

“We’re going to buy out your contract. Our lawyers are working on it now.”

“What if I say no?”

“The decision has already been made. I wanted to give you the news myself before you heard it from somebody else.”

“This is so unfair! My pictures have made a lot of money for the studio.”

“You’ve had three flops in a row. Last year alone, Intemperate Stranger and Rascal at Arms were our biggest box office flops. You’re only as good as your last picture.”

“I hope you’ll reconsider.”

“I’m afraid not. The die has already been cast.”

“Just one more picture. One more chance.”

“You have the very best wishes of all of us at the studio.”

“I’m just stunned. I don’t know what to say.”

Harmon gestured to his two associates up the hill, who were at that moment standing beside the front fender of the car smoking cigarettes. They came down in a wide arc so Chaz wouldn’t see them from where he was sitting.

“It’s going to be all right, buddy,” Harmon Bracegirdle said. “Just drink in the splendor of nature arrayed before you.”

“I think you’re making a big mistake,” Chaz said.

“That’s the nature of my job, kiddo. I have to make these hurtful decisions.”

Like children playing a game, the larger of the two men went up behind Chaz so as not to be detected. He waited for a signal from the other man, indicating that no one was watching, and when he received the signal he crept up behind Chaz, took a gun from inside his coat and shot him in the back of the head. One shot and Chaz lurched forward, dead before he hit the ground.

“Get his wallet and his wrist watch,” Harmon Bracegirdle said, standing up quickly. “That’ll satisfy the press.”

The news spread all over the world: Movie Star Shot Dead in Park. Robbery Suspected Motive.”

The funeral was well attended. Leading the pack of motion picture luminaries was studio head Harmon Bracegirdle, in dark glasses and tailor-made suit. On his arm was the great star Lola Lola, looking stunning as she wept behind her lace handkerchief. The picture of her placing one lily on the casket made all the pictures the next day.

Copyright © 2016 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Before His Time

Before His Time image

Before His Time ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

What can you say about addicts? That they engage in irrational behavior to get whatever it is they are addicted to? That they will kill if necessary, even if they don’t see themselves as killers? Did he really believe that going into a pharmacy with a gun and killing a woman and shooting another person was the right thing to do? Did he think nobody would know it was him? Did he really believe he would get away before he was caught?

His name was Gerald Lashley, but that wasn’t his real name. He broke his back in an accident. (It hurts so bad!) Doctors thought he might never walk again but he did. A long, slow recovery. He took pain killers for two years and came to depend on them. After two years, the doctor said to him, “You’re well enough now that you’re on your own. I will give you no more pain killers.”

Except that he still had pain. A lot of it. He tried to get along without the pain pills but he just couldn’t do it. He drank prodigious amounts of whiskey to take the place of the pills. Whiskey dulled the pain some but not enough. He began laying around all the time, drinking and not eating. Not washing himself and not speaking to anybody.

He saw himself many times going into a drugstore and stealing the pills he needed but he was afraid. He wasn’t the type of man to steal. He had been brought up in the church and had the fear of God in him.

Finally the pain got the best of him. When he called his doctor once again to try to get some help, the young girl who answered the phone told him the doctor was on vacation. (Do people still do that?) He slammed down the phone and sat on the couch and sobbed. He was thinking about the various ways that he might kill himself, but this, also, was against his moral beliefs.

He didn’t remember who the gun belonged to. Somebody in his family. It was still in an old wooden box in the basement along with some other junk. Also some bullets. He loaded the gun and put it in the pocket of his bathrobe and in that moment he felt better than he had felt in a long time. With hope in his heart, he went to sleep and when he woke up he knew exactly what it was he was going to do.

Except that it would never work without careful planning. There were drugstores anywhere but he would have to pick the right one. Not one in his hometown, either, where people knew him, but away, in some other town. And he would take the loaded gun along, of course, but never use it. It would just be to make sure people knew he meant business and to scare them. Not to hurt anybody.

After two weeks of planning he arrived at the “when,” the “where” and the “how.” The drug store was about twenty-five miles away in a town that was connected to the town he lived in by an old, seldom-used country road. He knew they had the kind of pain medicine he needed because he had called and asked. Yes, sir, the lady said, we have in a fresh supply; always happy to oblige. The pieces were falling into place for him.

He chose a Saturday morning at the end of winter. The sky was gray, threatening rain, like so many other days. He wore a lightweight coat with zip pockets and a knit cap pulled down to just above his eyebrows. That would make it harder for people to identify him later, if it came to that. He put the gun in the right-hand pocket—he was right-handed—and zipped it up.

Traffic was light, as he knew it would be. Not a lot of people out stirring on a dreary Saturday morning. He tried to look at the sky and concentrate on the scenery because when he thought about what he was about to do he felt light-headed and breathless. He believed his nerve might fail him, but only if he let it.

The town was nearly deserted. There were a few cars parked at the drug store and other businesses in the block, but not many. He drove around the block and parked on the street in the direction he would need to take to get away. He checked the gun in his pocket one last time and went inside.

The prescription counter was all the way in the back of the store. As he approached it, a female worker came forward, smiled, and asked if she could help him. He handed her the note he had written out beforehand and showed her the gun, holding it close to his side so nobody else would see it. She nodded her head, one time, and then turned away.

When she was gone for more than thirty seconds, he began to panic. She was taking too much time. She was telling somebody else what was happening. She would try to stall him while somebody in the back called the police. But then she reappeared from the back bearing a white plastic bag of the stuff he wanted and he felt relieved for the moment.

“Anything else?” she asked, and he knew she said this to every customer.

Before he took the bag from her, he said, “Put all the money from the cash drawer in there with the medicine.”

At that moment he was jumped from behind by somebody he didn’t see. His gun discharged with the reflex of his hand and he was aware that the bullet struck the female worker and she went down behind the counter as he was being pulled back.

The pain from the weight on his back nearly tore him in two, but he was able to throw the person off, which, he saw in just a moment, was a small old man with bent back and white hair. As the old man got up from the floor and began to charge him again, he fired the gun again. The bullet struck the old man in the upper thigh, taking him down.

Before the female worker went down, she had put at least some money in the white plastic bag with the stuff and the bag lay on the counter. He grabbed for it and ran for the front of the store, hearing gasps and screams as people in the store realized what was happening.

His hands were shaking as he opened the car door and started the engine. He sped away from the curb without even looking to see if the way was clear and drove through town.

As he was about to make the left-hand turn on the edge of town to get onto the highway, two speeding police cars appeared, their sirens deafening. One of them pulled around in front of him and stopped at an angle to keep him from going any farther and the other one stopped behind him. Officers swarmed from both cars and in a moment had him facedown on the ground. The whole thing had taken seventeen minutes.

He was taken to the town jail and then to the county jail. He was wailing and blubbering and couldn’t speak, so he was put on suicide watch and given a shot that made him feel like he was falling down a black hole that had no bottom. When he woke up he was questioned by a roomful of officers whose job it was to piece together what had happened.

During his various court appearances, he didn’t understand what was being said, but he knew there would be no trial since he had given a full confession. There would only a hearing to decide what to do with him. His lawyer told him it didn’t look good for him. The old man would recover, but the woman, mother of three, had died. The prosecution was seeking the death penalty.

After much wrangling between lawyers, he was spared the death penalty—due to “mitigating circumstances”—and sentenced instead to life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Twenty-two years went by in prison. He was an old man before his time. He walked with a terrible limp or not at all. One morning when he woke up he was too sick to get out of bed and was moved to the infirmary. That same day, as he lay dying, he saw a hill on his grandfather’s farm from his childhood. He looked up the hill and shaded his eyes to see if he saw there any sign of the forgiveness that he wanted more than anything else on earth.

Copyright © 2016 by Allen Kopp  

by allen0997

Sylvia Dell

Sylvia Dell

Sylvia Dell ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

In 1926 Mrs. Bertha Indelicato of Burbank, California, took her son, Sidney Indelicato, to a movie studio to audition for a part in a motion picture. She dressed him up in a light-blue jumper and a yellow shirt, with pork-pie hat and strapped, patent leather shoes. With Sidney’s cherubic face and naturally curly blond hair, he looked as much like a girl as a boy.

At the audition the casting director, a man named Perkins Belmont Perkins, wearing knickers and argyle stockings, separated the boys from the girls so he could get a better look. When Sidney was herded in with the girls, Mrs. Indelicato didn’t dare object, afraid that doing so might cost him a part in the movie.

When Perkins Belmont Perkins, eyeing Sidney critically, asked for the name, Mrs. Bertha Indelicato stepped forward quickly and gave the name as “Sylvia” Indelicato.

“She’s rather fat,” Perkins Belmont Perkins said, “but I think she has the “look” we’re looking for.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” Bertha said.

“Have your daughter here at eight o’clock sharp on the fourteenth and I believe we’ll be able to use her.”

“Oh, thank you!” Bertha said. “We’ll be here! Of that you can be sure!”

After they left the studio, Bertha took Sidney to a drugstore down the street to get a banana split.

“Just think!” she said to him as he stuffed ice cream into his mouth. “We’re in!”

“In where, mama?” he asked.

“Why, didn’t you hear the nice man say they were giving you a part in the movie, honey?”

“What do I got to do?”

“Just look sweet and the director will tell you everything to do. Mama will be right beside you every step of the way.”

When Bertha’s husband, Buster Indelicato, came home from his job as a Ford salesman, Bertha told him the good news: Sidney landed a part in a movie.

“There’s just one thing,” she said. “They think Sidney is a girl.”

“What?”

“I had to think fast. I told them his name is ‘Sylvia’ Indelicato.”

“And they believed that?”

“Yes.”

“You always did dress him more like a girl than a boy.”

“If that’s the only way he can get a part in a movie, then a girl he will be!”

“Well, I always wanted a daughter, I guess,” Sidney said, reaching for a beer.

In the few days she had before the fourteenth, Bertha took Sidney shopping and outfitted him with complete feminine attire, down to the lacy bloomers. She fluffed out his hair and gave it some extra curl, insisting that she and Buster call him “Sylvia” at the dinner table and refer to him at all times as “she” and “her” instead of “he” and “him.”

“You’re going to confuse him,” Buster said, “and then we’ll have a mental case on our hands.”

“He’ll be fine,” Bertha said. “I guarantee it.”

“Why do I got to be a girl now?” Sidney asked.

“Because you are an actor,” Bertha said. “You will someday be a great actor. This will be your first acting lesson. Great actors pretend to be who and what they are not.”

“I don’t think I like being a girl.”

“Just remember that underneath the laces and frills you are still a boy. It’s only to the outside world that you are a girl.”

“If I’m an actor,” he said, “I want to be a cowboy.”

“That will come later, dear, after you are an established star.”

“What’s ‘established’ mean?”

On the morning of the fourteenth, Bertha had Sidney at the studio an hour early and was forced to wait nervously in an outer office to be called. Finally, when Sidney was called for a wardrobe fitting, Bertha was given a copy of the script. It was up to her to familiarize herself with the story and tell Sidney, as Sylvia, what he (she) was supposed to do.

The picture was called Baby Bountiful and starred that lovely young motion picture star, Arlette Joseph. She played a young mother who, when she loses her own baby to illness, goes with her handsome young husband to an orphanage to pick out another child. There are so many adorable children to choose from that the young couple can’t decide which one to take. That’s when the orphans show off their singing and dancing talents to help them make up her minds.

The young couple still can’t decide, so they go home, assuring the orphans they will return later and will, most assuredly, choose one of them to take home with them. That night, all the orphans dream of being the chosen one. The next day the young couple returns to the orphanage with some very exciting news. The young mother’s rich uncle has died and left her his millions. Since she will have all that money, she can take all the orphans and they will all live together on a fabulous Long Island estate with their new mommy and daddy.

Sidney was the orphan named Lulu. He wore a white dress and white stockings, a long wig with a large white bow. When the director told the orphans to jump up and down with excitement or to act sad, they did exactly as they were told.

Bertha stood behind the director and the camera, watching. She believed, of course, that Lulu stood out from the other orphans and that her acting was the most realistic. Her eyes brimmed with tears and her heart ached with pride. After all her years of dreaming, her own little Sidney was finally in motion pictures!

When filming was completed for Baby Bountiful, Arlette Joseph thanked all the children personally for playing orphans and everybody packed up to go home. A few days later Bertha received a fat check in the mail for Sidney’s appearance in the film. When she showed the check to Buster, he whistled and said, “That’s more than I make in a month!”

A week later the casting director from the studio called Bertha and asked if Sylvia was available to act in another picture. Bertha nearly dropped out her dentures on the kitchen floor in saying yes.

They hired Sylvia an agent, who promptly changed her name from Sylvia Indelicato to Sylvia Dell. The agent procured parts for her in five pictures the first year and seven the second year, with each part progressively larger than the one before it.

Buster quit his job and began staying home all the time, “seeing to things.” He managed Sylvia’s career from the sidelines with useless advice that nobody listened to. He began wearing double-breasted suits, smoking big cigars, and hosting luncheons at all the fancy restaurants around town.

Sidney, for his part, went along with what was expected of him. When he was at home he could be Sidney, but the minute he went outside the house he had to be Sylvia. Any time he became downhearted, Bertha presented him with a big bowl of ice cream and waved the most recent studio check in his face. When she went to the bank to cash his checks, she always took him along so he could see the big stacks of green and come to know how important they were to his family.

In 1929 the Hollywood studios stopped making silent films and converted to sound. Prepared as she was for any contingency, Bertha hired a diction coach to work with her Sidney. After all they had been through, she wasn’t going to let the advent of sound end her baby’s film career.

The diction coach, aware of how much money was to be made, declared Sylvia a “natural” after a few lessons. If he knew that Sylvia was really a boy instead of a girl, he never let on. He was accustomed to the ways of movie people and wasn’t squeamish about such things.

Sidney’s first sound picture was a big success. He had five lines, which he spoke with a convincing girlish intonation. After that, there were more offers for parts in other motion pictures. The money mounted up as Sylvia’s fame and popularity increased. Sylvia Dell fan clubs sprang up around the country. There were Sylvia Dell coloring books and dolls, an entire line of Sylvia Dell merchandise.

Sidney began to put on a lot of weight. The doctor advised Bertha to put him on a low-calorie diet, but she refused, certain the “pudginess” was part of his appeal. People had come to know him as fat and if he was no longer fat they would no longer know him.

When Sidney inevitably began to show outward signs of becoming an adult male, Bertha and Buster began to panic. They took him to a doctor and wanted to know if there was some way he, the doctor, could medically “alter” Sidney to enhance his feminine qualities and subvert the masculine ones.

“Are you suggesting I castrate him?” the doctor asked.

“If that’s what it takes,” Bertha said.

“Ask him if he wants to be castrated and I can almost assure you what his answer will be.”

“But he’s too young to know what’s best for him,” Bertha said. “He’s only a baby.”

“Good day to you!” the doctor said.

Luckily Sidney was fair-haired and the whiskers on his chin and cheeks could easily be covered up, but his deepening voice was more of a concern. Bertha began plying him with pills that she bought from a “medical consultant” and giving him cognac and whiskey toddies to “calm his nerves” and help him to sleep. In a few months he was a child alcoholic. He took to smoking prodigious numbers of cigarettes, even when he was in character as “Sylvia.” The sweet little girl had turned into a monster. The movie offers began to dry up.

Right before Sidney’s sixteenth birthday, he disappeared. Bertha believed he had been kidnapped and that soon the kidnappers would make their exorbitant demands for his return. She would pay any amount—every cent if she had to—for his return.

The police searched for Sidney but found no sign of him and after a year they gave up. They would keep his file on record, though, and if anything came up they would reopen the case. Bertha began walking the streets at night, looking for him in alleyways. She was certain he was all right and wasn’t very far away. All he needed was for her to find him.

Thirty years went by and Sidney didn’t return home. Bertha and Buster spent all the money and then there was no more. Buster died, leaving Bertha alone in her home with her memories. Her walls with lined with “stills” from Sylvia Dell movies. She never stopped thinking about Sidney.

Small packages began appearing on her doorstep, a packet with fifteen dollars in it and then one with twenty, a potted plant, a loaf of pumpernickel bread. She didn’t know who was leaving these little gifts, but when a box of chocolate-covered cherries appeared, she knew it had to Sidney. Only he would know that had always been her favorite kind of candy.

Copyright © 2016 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997