The Parable of Ramón
Ricky Ginsburg – March 2006
Inspired by the song of the same title by Richie Havens
The sun baked his brains from the moment the cool sandy soil turned into an enormous hotplate, until the soft tempering rays of the rising moon extinguished the blaze. Ramón worked his small portion of Mexican farmland with the same homemade plow his father and grandfather had followed. The mule which pulled the plow shared the same bloodline as the ass and mare belonging to his grandfather. Little changed in a land where time was measured in seasons and survival belonged not to the most fit, but the most willing to survive. Ramón was only thirty-two but to look at his face you would give him an extra thirty years just to be on the safe side. His hands, cracked and hardened with the texture of the soil he plowed, had lost any chance to give a woman a tender caress before his twentieth birthday.
His life was all about the future, not years or months away but only tomorrow. To survive the day meant he would see the morning sun rise again. His labor would never be in vain, his crop would bring him the small sum of money he needed for a Sunday dinner of fish or chicken or - if he was lucky to sell enough - a piece of freshly butchered steak. Ramón slept in a hut constructed from the clay of this land and the scraps of the harvest at the western edge of his field. The one room shack was a place to go when the rains came rumbling across the plains on a summer afternoon, his refuge from the heat of the midday sun for a cup of lukewarm water and piece of stale tortilla. The hut was small but it was his and his alone.
Ramón worked his fields every day of the week except on the Lord’s Day, Sunday; a day meant for a short drive down a dusty road in his mule powered cart to the faded white church to offer thanks with other farmers. He had no special clothes for Sunday but he did keep a clean straw hat he wore only one day a week. He prayed with the passion of all the saints in heaven for rain, for an abundant harvest, and for the health of his mule. The farmers spent less than an hour in worship before they continued on to the town square to sell their weekly harvest for either barter or small change.
The four corners of the town square were filled with taverns where, once the day’s trading had completed, the farmers could wash the dust out of their throats with warm cerveza and hot salsa. Some had comfortable chairs allowing the men time to reflect on their toils and discuss matters of great import. Others had simple jean-worn mesquite stools to convince the tourists to drink and move on. The taverns also attracted the local flock of young women, each looking for an afternoon’s pleasure. The unmarried and recently widowed farmers, some much younger than Ramón, but more many years his senior, accommodated them willingly. They would ask for forgiveness next Sunday.
They were men of all ages, teenagers who had never heard the word ‘prom’ and old ones with crooked, creaking backs singing in unison with the rusty door hinges of every tavern they entered. They worked to survive, manual labor pleasing to a gatekeeper in hell. They worked to bring food to hungry families which never stopped growing. And they worked to have the have the right to drink with their friends on Sunday in a bar. They drank warm beer, but it was cheap and often free as the bartenders matched glasses and shots of tequila with their regular customers. Ramón had a stool with soft red leather which molded into his jeans and offered nothing but comfort as the hours slid by and the liquor loosened his soul. The men talked about their sons and how they would be there to run their farms when they could no longer bring themselves to leave the tavern. Most wanted to be buried under the dusty dirt floor so those left behind could pour a shot on them once and while. Ramón would be happy to not die in the field and spend his days being dragged in ever widening circles by the old mule who would never find the tavern on his own. The older men shook their heads in agreement, the teenagers laughed.
The men bought the women as easily as they purchased bottles of tequila; both were there for pleasure and neither ever came home with them. Some of the older women, battered by the dry winds and rough handling, would take a bottle in payment; the younger ones, accumulating a dowry they would never spend outside of this one-light town, wanted nothing but cash. Of course, the wealthy touristas who crossed the border legally unknowingly left behind wristwatches and jewelry which were bartered alongside rice and corn in the local market; it was the women’s crop and it paid their bills when the farmers drank themselves unconscious.
Serene was not the most beautiful of these local girls. Her face had also hardened with the dry western breezes and her skin had bronzed under the same sun pulling the growing corn toward the sky. She had a tender touch and a voice convincing enough to lead an angel to sin. She awoke each morning with an almost constant desire for the feel of a strong man inside her. Serene had bedded all of the younger farmers many times; she had no need for the older men with nothing but memories to offer. Ramón was no stranger to her bed.
“Ramón, will you buy your girlfriend a glass of wine on this hot Sunday afternoon,” she purred in his ear. “Just seeing you here makes my nipples grow hard.”
“And what will you give me in return that I have not already had?” asked Ramón.
“I have clean sheets and bottle of Tequila waiting for us upstairs,” she offered.
“The same sheets Paco screwed you on last week? The same bottle of watered down Tequila you’ve been pouring favors from this month? What do you have to offer I can’t get from someone much prettier and younger than you?”
Serene wrapped her slender, bronzed arms, jangling with silver and turquoise bracelets, around his shoulders and nibbled on the closest earlobe, pleased he had the good sense to bathe at least once a week. Ramón had much to offer, much that she was willing to take.
“I can offer you a future, a child, a boy child who will till your fields and sell your corn when you are too old to push your wooden plow another day. I am ready to have a child, Ramón, your child, your son. I am ready to leave the town square and share your bed in the fields.”
“Why Ramón? Out of the dozens of farmers, some younger, some richer than me, you have chosen Ramón to father your child. Tell me why, Serene.”
“Because you are a good man. You work hard, harder than many of the other farmers. You have a large field, larger than most of the farms in this district. And you are the best of my lovers – no one can please me in the same way as you. With the other men it’s over before I am even ready. They throw me on the bed, tear off my clothes and plunge their erections in me deep and fast, too fast for me to get any enjoyment. But you have always been tender. You wait for me to climax before you are finished. None of the others has any patience. You are a good man and you deserve a boy child to carry on your family name.”
Ramón was stunned; no other woman had ever spoken these words to him. Both he and Serene were orphans. She was offering the one thing he needed to see his name and his farm survive, a boy, his boy; it was a future running so far ahead of him, he was breathless from trying to catch the idea. The thought of a son to take on his farm when he was no longer able to force the old mule down the cornrows was enticing to him. And then, to hear her speak about his sexual prowess and compare him to all the others in such words; he was aroused. He had never talked about sex with anyone, man or woman, so he had assumed everyone did it the same way. To hear her sing his praises in this passionate way made him blush, but it also brought an immediate swelling in his jeans.
“You sing an angel’s song, Serene, but your truth is covered in cobwebs. How can you promise a boy? Do you have one hiding in your closet ready to pop out and call me ‘father’? Have you stolen a baby from some drunken tourist who sweated on your sheets while his wife bargained in the market for straw hats and painted skirts?” Ramón laughed at her as he loosened his belt.
===
The birth of their daughter was a day mixed with frustration and fear for Ramón. Serene had promised a boy. What was he to do with a girl child? There was food for the two of them now, but a mother’s breast would only last the child for a few short years. Who would work the farm when he had given all his strength to the fields? He would have to work harder and do his best to increase his crop or they would all starve. He looked at all the blue blankets in the hospital nursery and spat into a trash can. “She promised me a boy. What have I done?”
He prayed on Sunday to his God for a large crop. He begged for rain. He even asked for his neighbor’s crops to wither so he could sell more and at higher prices. The taverns were out of the question now. There was no time for cerveza, no afternoons with dark-haired local girls and watered down tequila.
Ramón got up long before sunrise and planted corn by the feeble glow of the full moon. He worked late into the night pushing the tired old mule beyond the point of exhaustion. And when he finally collapsed on the creaky iron bed, he had no energy left for his wife. His lovemaking had come to an end; all he had left was survival.
Each day the sun would bake him into a dry shell. His midday break would be in the field with the scorching wind blowing dust into his face as he sipped some warm water and ate the crumbs of a tortilla. In his hut, Serene and the baby girl rested in the cool shade and watched Ramón as he turned the miserable soil. He would see them through the doorway as the mule pulled to the west and the cornrows came closer to the edge of the field. He cursed his life and wondered how they would all survive another season.
At night the baby cried and stole the sleep Ramón needed to gather strength for the following day. When the sun burned the sweat from his back and the buzzards circled, waiting for the mule to drop, there was no water for his thirst, Serene used it to wash the dust his plow kicked into the air from the baby’s face. He could not plow a dozen rows without running to the well and filling her bottle. It was too hot for Serene to carry the infant across the courtyard and back. Ramón’s field was not going to get plowed in time for the next planting. He worked one Sunday, but by noon he was in the red leather bar stool trying to keep pace with the bartender.
His resentment towards the baby girl had been kept deep inside him for several months but, with the necessity of a whale, it had to eventually surface. “She promised me a boy, someone to work the fields with me, to carry on my name. What has she done but given the world another whore for the farmers’ enjoyment on Sunday afternoon. What good is this child? She eats our food, drinks our water, and offers no future to either of us.” He would not speak these words aloud and even resisted the temptation to reveal these thoughts in the tavern. Part of Ramón knew they were evil thoughts but the farmer who lived in his skin sought only survival. “There is not going to be enough for all of us to eat in another year. A boy child could at least fend for himself. A baby girl is of no use on my farm or in my life. She has to go.”
He sat on a large rock and sliced crosses in a thick piece of cornstalk and watched tumbleweed dance in the night’s breeze. A lizard crossed in front of him and Ramón swung his machete slicing off a foot of the animal’s tail. “Bitch,” he spit at the stump as the creature ran off into the safety of the darkened field. He finished his second bottle of tequila and passed out just as a clap of thunder shook the dust from the walls of his darkened shack.
===
The rains came and the corn grew tall and the time to harvest had come at last. Serene tied the child into a harness on her back and followed Ramón into the field. He would slice the corn from the stalk with his machete and she would pick up the fallen ears and put them in a large burlap sack she dragged along the row. There were no words between them.
Ramón moved at a furious pace, hacking and cutting, dropping ears of corn two at a time. He would turn and watch as Serene picked them up and tossed them into the burlap sack trying to match his pace, failing, and falling behind. Twice he bellowed at her to catch up as he stood slapping the blade against his thigh. He sipped from the leather pouch hanging from his shoulder which no longer carried water as he turned away from her furious gaze.
They reached the end of a row and the baby became restless and started to cry. “We have to stop for a few moments while I nurse the child,” Serene commanded, dropping the sack to the ground and unhitching the harness.
“We’ve only done two rows out of thirty. Can’t you leave your annoying baby in the shade somewhere while we work? Does such a mournful child have to be with us all the time?” complained Ramón. “She needs to learn to live like the whore she will one day become.”
“She is your child. How can you speak such words?”
“No, she is your child. My child would have been a boy and some day a man. You have borne a whore, a useless bitch with no future ahead of her except on her back,” screamed Ramón, “I did not ask for this child. This is God punishing me for some unknown sin. Maybe this is God punishing you for your years of whoring and lying. This child does not deserve to live under my roof or eat my food!” He tilted the pouch and let the warm tequila take charge of his thoughts. “You fooled me; you took my will with your lies and liquor. You had no way to give me a boy and you hoped that at my age you could watch me work myself into a grave. You wanted my land, my farm, my crops, and the only way you could get them was on your back. You will always be a whore, Serene. But neither of you are going to watch me fail.”
Ramón was striding towards her as he shouted these venomous epithets at both wife and baby. Sweat formed a swift flowing river down his arms and back as the burning glow of the midday sun cooked what was left of his senses. The machete in his right hand was swinging back and forth, its blackened blade dripping with the sap from the corn stalks. His eyes were wild, steely blue marbles reflecting no light. Serene shrunk away from his approach. There were wild animals that gave her less fear than the sight of Ramón swinging his hideous machete.
“Ramón what are you doing? Have you gone mad?”
“No Serene, I must survive and for me to survive your child must die. You swore to give me a son and you have lied. The child must pay for your sin.” He stepped closer and swung the machete in a wide arc slashing the corn stumps and spraying the milky white sap across the row.
Serene tried to move back out of the way, but stumbled on the burlap sack behind her. As she fell to her side, Ramón jumped and swung the machete in midair at the child’s head. Serene pulled the child out of the path of the knife as he hit the ground. Ramón’s left foot came down on a slippery ear of corn and his leg shot out from under him. As he went down, the machete flew from his hand and spiraled up into the air. Ramón lost sight of the blade in the blinding sun for a moment. He saw the glint of the sun off the razor sharp edge of the machete slice across his neck and then nothing more as he fell to the hard packed soil on which he died.
Serene sat in the cornfield sobbing until the sky blackened and cracked with spears of lightning. She hitched the mule to Ramón’s wooden cart and took her baby back to the red leather stool and the friendly bartender. She was going to need someone else to plow her fields.
© Copyright, Ricky Ginsburg
The night attendant at the hotel, a pear shaped, forty-something clean-shaven bald man with tiny black eyes and no visible eyebrows, was perched on top of a big, sturdy lobby chair on all fours with his nose smashed flat against the window, apparently barking, though I couldn’t hear him with the radio on….
A Terrible Night in the Armpit of America
By Ben Bostick
Route 66 is no longer the main vehicular corridor between Chicago and Los Angeles. Once called the “Main Street of America,” it’s no longer even a road. The only glimpse the modern traveler can get of the fabled highway is the occasional snippet of original asphalt that still remains alongside I-40 in the Southwestern states, found by following the ugly brown signs that say “Historic Route 66 next exit.” At each exit so marked, the intrepid traveler will find a town that long ago came into existence precisely because of that “historic” road that now only exists within their city limits.
The bad news is that these towns have lost all their old vitality—the enterprising first-generation Route 66ers of the 1920’s have passed away and been replaced by their great grandchildren, a strange breed of white trash that has grown up in decaying towns on a doomed highway and become the menacing gas station night attendants and peculiar owners/managers of the town’s excessive amount of creepy, cut-rate motels. The buildings’ cheaply constructed futuristic-style Gernsbackian facades and square rooms with outdated color schemes have aged no more gracefully than would any neglected child denied sufficient food and the occasional bath.
The good news is that the same mythical weirdness that gives the old road its legendary status still exists on these isolated three-mile stretches of motel-and bar-studded pavement that somehow survived the mighty conquest of the American Interstate Highway system. Only, that weirdness that used to be spread out along 2,400 miles has now been compressed into superdense pockets around a relatively small number of interstate byways, prompting a giant aura of eerie uneasiness to vibrate through every mortal inch of the fabric of these towns, occasionally sending rippling omnidirectional pulses of excess fear out over the empty desert, causing coyotes to tuck their tails and run madly through the night, snapping deliriously at every passing sagebrush.
My girlfriend Maggie and I were making our first cross-country road trip: 2,200 miles from Atlanta to LA. The first 1,000 miles of the drive, through central Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and the first half of Oklahoma, was the visual equivalent of listening to a broken John Cage record: tree tree telephone pole tree tree … But the second you break free of the ugly traffic within the city limits of Oklahoma City, the trees go away, the sky opens up, and a powerful sense of desolation sets in. Something about the run down flourmills, the red dirt, and the sunken sallow faces in the broken down towns taps into a long-forgotten stash of vague terrible feelings that have been silently lurking in the bowels of your psyche, waiting to be stirred up and revived.
In the daylight, Maggie and I had long conversations about how glad we were that we didn’t have to live out our lives in these gnarled and scraggly little shitkicker towns full of beaten down bodies and slow talkers. But when the sun went down somewhere west of Amarillo, the conversation switched to how much we didn’t ever want to be anywhere around these forsaken places … not even passing through. Finally, though, at around 11:00, after some thirteen hours on the road, Maggie was asleep in the passenger seat and no longer could even the Allman Brothers blasting out of the back seat speakers keep my eyelids above my pupils. I couldn’t ignore the creeping of the flesh feeling that was telling me not to take the next exit, but my tired body took control of my mind and pulled the car onto the exit ramp to Tucumcari, New Mexico.
Between Oklahoma City and the New Mexico border, Maggie and I had already passed a hundred towns just like Tucumcari, but our experience in these towns was limited to a quick slide of the debit card and a brief handshake with the gas pump at the local fill up station. Things got a little more intimate in Tucumcari.
Tucumcari is about thirty miles due west of the Texas/New Mexico border ... about an hour from anything. As you might expect in a one-horse town somewhere between the edge of Texas and the middle of the desert, there wasn’t much activity on Main St. at 11:00 PM. Visible activity, that is.
The only light in town is provided by the few buzzing light bulbs on the signs of the dozen or so cheap hotels that line either side of the street. “FANCY DESERT MOTEL: $19.95 … MOTEL 66: $22.95 … POOL … FREE ESPN!” I couldn’t believe how cheap these rooms were. They were dumpy looking little shacks, but the nightly rate was unbelievable. But as dirt cheap as these motels were compared to the chain motels that cover the rest of America, something happened to my tired mind around the time I saw the tenth sign for a room under $23. No deal was good enough for me anymore. Even though we had spent $44 on a room in Little Rock the night before, the $22.95 motels in Tucumcari now seemed absolutely unaffordable.
I morphed into a vicious and crazed bargain hunter, in hot pursuit of the best deal in that two-bit, jerkwater whistlestop. Nothing could keep me from fetching the finest fox in all the king’s empire, and just to make sure I wasn’t getting cheated out of a buck, after I had run the main drag a few times, I explored the streets a block on each side. But when I noticed I had wasted nearly a quarter tank of gas, I realized that my bargain hunting had become counterproductive. I pulled back onto Main St. and cried “Tally ho!” as we neared the primest, rarest deal east of the Continental Divide: “The Royal Palacio: $16.95.”
Startled by my passionate fox call, Maggie awoke suddenly.
“Creepy! We’re not staying here tonight are we?” she asked as I pulled into the carport next to the Palacio’s front office.
“$16.95. Best deal in town. Probably in the whole country.” She didn’t really seem to care about my find, and I was about to give her a good, mean lecture about how I had saved her a lot of money. But then I realized that her attention was so focused on something else that she hadn’t even heard what I said.
“What is that man doing?” she asked me, looking past me into the hotel lobby.
I swung my head around to look, and what I saw made me lurch backwards in fright, causing my seatbelt to lock and dig into my side so hard it made me bleed through my white undershirt. The night attendant at the hotel, a pear shaped, forty-something clean-shaven bald man with tiny black eyes and no visible eyebrows, was perched on top of a big, sturdy lobby chair on all fours with his nose smashed flat against the window, apparently barking, though I couldn’t hear him with the radio on. When he saw me start so violently, he threw his head back in delight and howled with laughter.
If it hadn’t been the cheapest motel I had ever seen, I would have peeled out of that parking lot in nothing flat ... but I kept my wits about me and told myself that sometimes you have to make a few sacrifices to get the best deal. Interacting with this lunatic would be an interesting cultural experience.
Maggie wouldn’t go into the lobby with me, so I went to deal with the dough-faced mental defective myself. I took a deep breath to steel myself against what may come, but as soon as I opened the car door, I felt a rush of sleazy Tucumcari air pour over me, leaving a strange, scummy film on my skin and in my hair. I hesitated for a moment, but thought better of myself, for the predator can sense the fear of the prey in any unsure movement. To make sure the attendant knew I wasn’t scared of him, I puffed out my chest, swaggered up to the door, and kicked it open.
“Whoa, there, cowboy! You ain’t gotta come through here like an earthquake now,” he said to me in a high, excited voice.
I mustered my deepest growl, “Gimme a room. One bed.”
“You sure are a whole lot tougher now than you were a minute ago, cowboy. I thought youse gonna jump straight through the roof when you saw me barkin’ in here.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“You just want the room, or you want some company, too?”
“Just the room,” I said quickly, accidentally breaking back into my normal voice. What did he mean by “company”? A whore? Himself?
“Just checkin. Sometimes we get some lonesome rollers blow through here lookin for a little ‘sump more than a place to sleep.”
“Just what the hell kind establishment are you running here?” Back to my tough voice.
“Cool your jets, cowboy. We keep those rooms separate from the ragalur guest rooms. That’ll be $19.34 with tax.”
I slipped him a twenty and told him to keep the change. Thoroughly creeped out myself, I knew Maggie would pitch a fit if I told her what really transpired in that seedy office, so I went back out to the car with plans to tell Maggie the guy was “normal” to avoid any protest. But she was already fast asleep again when I got in the car.
We had room eleven, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The color scheme was circa Eisenhower administration, but there were no conspicuous stains on the mattress pad or the walls. As long as the door and window were closed, providing a flimsy but reassuring layer of defense against the heavy rotten effluvium that composes Tucumcari’s air, and the curtains were drawn, staving off the ultraviolet rays of the raw floodlight right outside our window, our room was downright cozy ... well, tolerable is probably a better word. It was downright tolerable.
The smart thing to do in our situation would have been to lock and latch the door, watch the day’s sport’s highlights, slip underneath the covers for a refreshing six hours of silken repose, then get up, check out, and hit the dusty trail by daybreak. But I like to get a taste of every place I stop when I travel. You know, feel the place out so I have something by which to remember it. In Tucumcari I knew the only kind of pleasure I could get from mingling with the natives would be of the perverse nature, but I had seen a little 24 hour diner when I was driving around bargain hunting that didn’t look too scummy, so I decided to give it a try.
Maggie was in her pajamas practically as soon as we stepped through the door, and my efforts to talk her back into her street clothes were quickly shot down. So I hopped in the car and rolled on over to “24 on 66” all alone. Painted on the door when you walk in is the restaurant’s motto: “We do it all nite every nite!” I remember wondering what all “it” implied.
When I walked in, the waitress was smoking a cigarette.
“Anywhere you like,” she said, gesturing to all the open seats in the place.
Besides me, there were two withered looking male customers sitting on opposite ends of the building, both smoking cigarettes. I sat down somewhere in between the two, and the waitress yelled to me, “What’ll it be?”
“What do you recommend?” I always ask for the server’s recommendation. Trying to get a feel ...
“Here?” she chuckled. “Nothin.”
What pride, I thought. I ordered a cup of coffee and tried to make conversation.
“So, what do you do here for fun in Tucumcari?” I asked the waitress.
“We go somewhere else,” she replied, looking out the window.
The two regulars started to give me funny looks after I asked a few more questions, and I could tell my presence was becoming less and less appreciated. I’m not exactly sure what I was interrupting, but I decided to make myself scarce and let them get back to it.
Back at the Palacio, things seemed serene as I pulled into the parking space in front of room 11. I opened the door and fumbled around in the dark for the lamp and turned it on. I started getting undressed and then I looked over at the bed, and where the hell is Maggie? The bed was empty. I stopped dead with my jeans around my ankles, hair standing up on my neck, jaw clenched in anxiety.
“Maggie?” I whispered, shrinking. I could feel my legs turning to rubber, my muscles becoming weak, useless.
“Maggie?” I whispered a little bit louder, hoping for an answer.
“I’m in here.” I heard her whisper coming from the bathroom.
“Oh, thank God!” I exclaimed in my regular voice. “I thought you had been abducted by some redneck.”
“SSHHHH! Come here.” I kicked my jeans off and walked into the bathroom. It was dark. Maggie shut the door behind me. “What the hell took you so long? Someone has been tapping at the window.”
“What? At our window? I just went to that little diner down the street. What are you talking about? Who’s been tapping at our window?”
“I thought it was you trying to play a trick on me, but I was too scared to check. And then it kept on going.”
“It was probably the wind knocking something against the pane.”
“No! It was human. It was tapping out patterns.”
“Okay, just calm down. I’ll listen for a few minutes, and if I hear something I’ll go check on it.” I was trying to calm her down and be brave, but I could tell she was really honestly spooked and that scared me. After several minutes of silence, I convinced her (and myself) that it was safe to go back out into the room.
I mustered all my courage and ran over to the bed and hopped under the covers. Maggie quickly followed. We were both on edge, so we were holding on to each other to create some feeling of safety. A few minutes passed.
“Maybe I was just imagining things,” Maggie said.
“I guess so.” I hope so, I was thinking. Ten minutes had passed since we got into bed, and so had most of the anxiety. I was just about to fall asleep when—tap tap tap.
Before she even said anything, Maggie was out of bed and back in the bathroom. I wasn’t far behind.
“Is that it?” I asked her when she let me in. I was shaking.
“Yeah. It’s the same tapping.” She was shaking too.
“It’s gotta be the wind or something. Let’s just wait to see if it stops.”
Tap tap tap ... tap t-tap tap t-tap ... It didn’t stop.
“Go see what the hell that is, Bobby,” Maggie commanded me.
“Maybe it’ll stop.”
“It’s not gonna stop. Go check it out. You promised.”
“One minute.”
“Now, Bobby. It’s freaking me out.”
She was pushing me out the bathroom door, but I couldn’t seem to make my legs carry me over to the window. I was frozen stiff with cowardice.
“Go!” she yelled in a hoarse whisper.
I decided the best thing to do would be to use the band-aid method: just run over there a rip open the curtain as fast as I could and most likely I would find nothing there. Just a loose wire from the floodlight being blown by the wind, knocking on the windowpane. Worst case scenario, some sort of strange desert squirrel trying to eat its way through the window. Creepy, yes, but I could shoo it away.
Tap tap t-tap tap ... tap tap.
No, these were human patterns.
“GO!” the tension was getting to be too much.
Before I could second-guess myself, I ran over to the window and threw open the curtains.
I hardly remember what happened next.
Before my mind registered that it was the dough faced pervert from the front desk with his nose pressed up against our window tapping out crazed rhythms with his overgrown fingernails, shattered glass was everywhere and my right hand and arm were bleeding badly. Everything was moving very slowly. I looked out where the window used to be and saw a crimson flower blooming on the sidewalk around the head of the dough faced desk attendant. He was bleeding very badly from his face and his neck. He wasn’t moving.
I was just standing there, my right arm bleeding, looking, not comprehending, not acting. Maggie, behind me, was frantically gathering our things together, screaming something. She handed me my bag, pulled me out of the room, and pushed me into the passenger seat of the car. I remember being very tired. And then suddenly very aware. I had a towel from the Royal Palacio wrapped tightly around my arm. I could feel the arm pulsing along with my heartbeat, but the cuts didn’t hurt very much. We were moving fast, ignoring stop signs and stoplights. Maggie was driving. We were getting on the freeway.
“We need to call 9-1-1, Maggie.”
“No. We were never there.”
“I think I killed that guy, Maggie.”
“That place doesn’t even exist.”
© Copyright, Ben Bostick
Elspeth lowered her voice and leaned forward over the table. I wish she would stop leaning forward over the table like that….
Elspeth's Trick
By Jerry Watson
Even with the window closed, you could still hear the bees buzzing around the hydrangeas and the jonquils. The noise wasn't enough to drown out Elspeth Higginbotham though. Everyone at the Senior Center agreed Elspeth used up more than her fair share of oxygen. I put an eight of spades on the table and Elspeth dropped the Queen of spades right on top of it. "Elspeth...!" I said. But she was still talking.
"You should have seen Marjorie Jean! I can't believe she would wear something like that at the flower show. I have a dress like that but I wouldn't be caught dead wearing it at the flower show. But that Marjorie Jean thinks she can wear anything!" Elspeth took a sip of coffee and said, "I can't stand the coffee here! You ladies know what I bet?"
Elspeth lowered her voice and leaned forward over the table. I wish she would stop leaning forward over the table like that. Every time she does, Dorothy drops her cards and stares and it's embarrassing. I know Elspeth is well endowed but I wish Dorothy would stop staring like that. Well, anyway, Elspeth lowered her voice and said in a whisper loud enough so everyone at the tables on either side of us could hear, "I bet they are letting Louise make the coffee again."
Elspeth laid her cards down on the table and crossed her arms. I noticed Dorothy staring again. I do wish she would stop staring! That Elspeth went on saying how everyone knows Louise is married to a South American and how she bet Louise's husband grew coffee beans down there.
"I bet that's why they let Louise make the coffee," Elspeth was saying. It was my turn again, so I laid the Ace of spades on the table and gave Elspeth my most intense, hinting look. She ignored me and threw down the three of clubs!
"Elspeth...!" I said. And she kept right on talking about Mrs. Brunamaker's son Richland.
"Everyone knows they call that boy 'Richie' but I'll never understand why," Elspeth said. "Why, I don't know of a person alive who doesn't know that 'Richie' is short for Richard and Mrs. Brunamaker's son's name is not Richard, it's Richland!"
It was Elspeth's turn to deal and she pulled the pile of cards over and began to shuffle them. All the other ladies at our table began to smirk at Elspeth because they didn't think she was going to be able to shuffle and deal the cards and keep on talking; they haven't known Elspeth Higginbotham as long as I have. Elspeth dealt the cards and we all counted ours because Elspeth was talking about the sermon at the Presbyterian church and we were sure she had misdealt.
"That new pastor they got is way too young to preach in a church that size," she said, "but those Presbyterians think they're so up and coming! Why, I heard from Matilda Watson over at the grocery store that they are even starting a young people's mission trip to South America. Can you imagine that? I bet they'll probably get Louise's husband to act as their chaperone! Maybe they won't even have a chaperone," Elspeth said, "Hmmmph. Those Presbyterians think they're so up and coming!"
"Don't you go to that Presbyterian church, Elspeth?" I asked.
"Well, I used to. But my Bert says that pastor they have over there is too young to be preaching in a church that size. He says he thinks those Presbyterians are getting a little uppity. He says if they have the time and money to send those young people to South America, they don't need our time and money anymore. By the way, did you know that Matilda Watson was to the doctor the other day? She told me they told her to eat more roughage. She told me that right in the vegetable aisle at the grocery store but do you know what I saw she had in her cart? Well! I can tell you for sure it wasn't roughage!"
There Elspeth went again! Leaning forward over the table and lowering her voice so everyone in the room could hear her. And that darn Dorothy. I do wish she would stop staring!
Elspeth and the bees kept droning on and on and I put the Ace of hearts on the table. There! I thought. Let's see that gabby Elspeth Higginbotham take that trick.
© Copyright, Jerry Watson
COMIC FICTION
I absentmindedly picked up a pair of her sheer panties out of her laundry basket and asked, with a smile, if she needed any help folding her clothes.
LAUNDROMAT
Carmen Diode
I found myself in a Laundromat outside the city of Chicago. I don't know why I was there. I live in Chesterton, Indiana, and I have a perfectly good washer and dryer at home.
I had nothing with me to wash, and I was a little fearful of being pegged as a loiterer, so I purchased a small box of Tide out of a vending machine. The Laundromat attendant sauntered over and naturally, I engaged in conversation with him. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but reeked of cheap wine and Downy.
He told me that his name was Todd. He said he was saving his money for a sex change operation. Todd also claimed to have microcircuits implanted in his head and he said he is being monitored by Alien Dadaists from the planet Centaur, who had ordered him to confiscate any Dockers that were brought into the Laundromat.
It was cold and overcast day, outside. The temperature was probably around 28-- maybe 21 if you factored in the wind-chill factor. The Barometer reading was around 99.28 kPa, and rising. The wind speed was probably about 10.3 km/h. I would guess the dew point was around 21 C. The relative humidity had to be around 75%. There was no precipitation at the time, but I was forecasting a 45% chance of sleet and snow before the day was over.
My curiosity became aroused by a young, attractive Caucasian woman. She was dressed the way that I remember my mother having dressed, when I was little--in a skin tight, red leather micro-mini skirt, a thin and narrow white cotton tube top that barely covers her ample, braless breasts, dark nylons and 5' spiked high-heels. I walked over to the large industrial dryer where she was removing her clothes. I absentmindedly picked up a pair of her sheer panties out of her laundry basket and asked, with a smile, if she needed any help folding her clothes. She then went ballistic on me and proceeded to beat me quite viciously with a white tennis shoe that was not yet dry. Then, to add insult to injury, she took my box of Tide as I lay writhing in pain on the floor.
As I started to leave the Laundromat, I saw the lemmings, without hearing their cries. There were maybe fifteen in all. Dancing pirouettes, playing leapfrog, humming Jimmy Buffet songs. At times the lemmings looked as if they were headed for the White Hen Pantry, next door, but just as they were about to exit, a single lemming would break rank and lead them back. On one of their trips back I opened the door to one of the dryers in operation and watched as they dutifully followed their leader, single file, inside. I closed the door and the dryer began to run again. As I left, I thought to myself, boy, will these people be surprised when they come to retrieve their clothes.
© Copyright, Carmen Diode
TALL, TALL TALE CONTEST
An Old Man Story
by Dan Sullivan
Sull30@aol.com
Joe Bartholomew hobbled into the Kenney Retirement Home lounge as quickly as he could. Wheezing and clutching his cane, the 79-year old managed to grasp his way to an old, beat-up recliner, where he carefully lowered himself to the seat.
“You won’t believe what just happened to me,” he announced to the lounge occupants. No one responded. In fact, no one even turned toward him. Of the seven elders there, most concentrated on the large window overlooking the rear yard of the complex.
“I must have been gone for days! Hasn’t anyone noticed?”
“Quiet! Bewitched!” someone yelled. It was 72-year old Ruth Lukenson who was staring at a television mounted on the wall. Everything she said was at a really loud volume, so in her mind, she wasn’t yelling.
“You’re yelling again, Ruth,” responded Joe. “Never mind Bewitched, you’ve seen that episode six million times. Never mind that nonsense, listen to this instead.”
“Listen to you?” asked 80-year old Alice Atkins. She sat in the chair next to Joe and was about to take a nap when Joe entered. “You have about a hundred different stories a day, Joe. We’re tired of listening.”
“But this one’s different!” Joe exclaimed. “I was just out with my nephew.”
“Which one?” asked Alice.
“I don’t know which one; I’ve got about a thousand nephews. He took me to that mall across town. You know, the one that’s about fifty stories high with … I’d guess around … nine thousand stores?”
“Deed ya git t’all of ‘em stores?” It was Jeremiah Strug, a 69-year old retired farmer whose accent could not be placed by anyone. “’Cause eef ya deed,” he continued,
“you’d a spint ‘bout a hundred thousand dollars. My cousin, he spint that much once een one a ‘em malls somewhere.”
“A hundred thousand isn’t even a lot of money,” replied Joe. “My nephew and I spent about seven hundred thousand dollars today.”
“Then where are the things you bought?” asked Alice.
“Well that’s what I’ve got to tell you. But first I’ve got to tell you about the mall. My nephew took me there in his new car. A great car; it has around three thousand horsepower or something.”
“I heard a dat car, they’s nice,” said Jeremiah.
“’Course they’re nice,” said Joe, “and the lot at the mall, was filled with millions of cars. The parking lot must have stretched for miles and miles. They had trains that could sit a thousand people and take you from your car to the mall entrance.”
“Trains in parking lot?” asked Peter Diefendorf, one of the window gazers. He was a 70-year old immigrant from Germany. “Never heard such a thing. Belong on track.”
“I saw them, Pete, with my own eyes,” replied Joe.
“You mean eye?” Peter inquired. Joe had lost one of his eyes to cancer about nine years ago.
“Yes, yes, eye. With my own eye! Now, we entered the mall through these fifty-foot tall doors made out of stained-glass. Beautiful, I tell you, beautiful. And the lobby was huge, shops immediately to our left and right, and down the center was…a pool! A giant pool with a fountain shooting water up about a thousand feet. And all these kids were going down a water slide. My nephew said the slide started at the top floor, twenty-eight stories up, and spiraled all the way down.”
“I can’t hear Bewitched!” screamed Ruth.
“Ruth: lower tones please,” said Peter. “Now Joseph, I thought you said mall was fifty stories high, not twenty-eight.”
“Well,” said Joe, thinking, “that’s because the other floors are underground. So that means … twenty-three stories were below us when we walked in.”
“Twenty-two,” chimed Stanley Benson, who stood by the window. Stanley was a 77-year old former accountant. “And I’ve hear
