Excerpt

Bus Surfing

“Come on, it’s 3:30,” I said to Elder Deiana, picking up my notebook and Bible. “You ready, Anziano?”

“Si?,” he replied, but headed for the bathroom to brush his teeth. I smiled and opened my notebook, studying the crude map I had drawn a couple of weeks earlier. Elder Deiana and I had tracted out almost half the streets in our new tracting zone in northeastern Rome, no small feat considering that nearly every apartment building was seven or eight stories high. Several doormen, however, had “helped” us speed along in our zone by refusing to let us tract out their buildings. Some wouldn’t even allow us to use the citofono, or intercom, outside.

Deiana was pretty good with portieri, though. We were able to sneak past a few each night, and if we got caught, he could usually laugh or talk his way out of a potentially sticky situation. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he’d say. “We didn’t see you sitting right  there in your desk by the door.” The portieri were never pleased, but my companion’s obvious lie and the twinkle in his eyes would usually get us off the hook without being shouted at too loudly.

Elder Deiana glided into the room then, showing me his clean teeth in a wide grin. He picked up a Book of Mormon and a few pamphlets from off of his desk. “Ready?” he inquired innocently.

After Deiana offered a brief prayer, we headed out of the apartment and down the street toward the bus stop. It was annoying to have to run half a block right after lunch to catch a bus, so we walked quickly down Via Franco Sacchetti and hoped we would be close to the bus stop if the bus suddenly turned the corner. Just yesterday, we’d had to race for the bus, but Deiana had had to pause to avoid being hit by a car. I didn’t realize he wasn’t right behind me until the bus took off and I saw him waving at me. I’d stepped off the bus at the next stop and walked back to my companion. We’d had to wait another fifteen minutes for the next bus.

Resting at the bus stop now, I glanced at Elder Deiana. He was a few inches shorter than I was, about 5′ 6″, with short, straight black hair and olive skin, wearing a stylish Italian suit compared to my cheap American one. He was looking at a pretty, dark-haired girl who was reading a book. Deiana was always pointing out girls reading books. “Antonella read that one, too,” he’d say, or “Antonella told me that one was garbage.” I’d heard enough praise of Antonella to expect her to be swept up in a chariot of fire. “I like a girl who takes care of her body,” explained Deiana, “but she’s also got to use her mind.”

A girl’s mind was about all I cared about when meeting the girl, and I liked that Deiana at least put that somewhere on his list of priorities. I wondered if he’d find me attractive if I was a girl, but I had no desire to be a girl, and I didn’t want Deiana to be one, either. I liked him as he was.

I had never told anyone about liking guys, and I’d hoped two years as a missionary would purge those sinful feelings out of me, make me worth liking as a person. The feelings were still there, though, and I didn’t know what I was going to do about them, but I was sure that God had had a purpose in mind when he’d given me a companion I could really love. Maybe being with Deiana would satisfy that need I had to have at least one man love me during my life.

I looked over at Deiana again. He had a contented grin as he continued to look at the young woman reading her novel. Deiana always smiled when he saw a girl reading a book. He seemed to be sentimental about a lot of things. So was I. I think that’s why I dreaded the next day so much. Transfers. Deiana and I had already been together for two months in the Rome Four district, and I had never stayed with a companion for longer than that. It was almost certain that one of us would be leaving in two days.

It seemed as if those two months had flown by, but I could hardly remember a time without Deiana. We had done so much together. Friendships usually came and went with transfers, but Deiana and I shared something special. We weren’t just compatible companions. We were friends and really cared about each other, especially when we could sense that the other was discouraged or feeling depressed about something. Like that time I had cooked eggs and potatoes for Deiana one morning, the day after he’d received his “Dear John” from Antonella. Or the time he had washed the dishes for me one afternoon when it was my turn. I had been discouraged with our lack of success in the work, and I felt like a failure. But I decided that if Deiana thought enough of me to help me out, I must have something going for me. I hadn’t made many friends back in America, and I certainly hadn’t made many out here. It was refreshing to have someone sincerely care about me now. Especially another man.

I had felt reasonably close to a couple of other companions previously. Nothing too special, but I would have liked to keep in touch after we’d been transferred apart. It was against mission rules to write letters within mission boundaries, though, so when transfers had come, that was that. Maybe we’d see each other again at a zone conference or something, and maybe not. Would I break that rule for Deiana, though, and keep in touch after transfers? Would he be willing to break it as well?

“Anziano Anderson,” my companion interrupted my thoughts. “Here comes the bus.” We crowded in behind the other passengers. Since we didn’t have to worry about tickets, having bought a monthly pass for eight thousand lire, we squeezed by some of the other passengers and made our way to a reasonably vacant spot near the front of the bus, where we grasped a metal bar above our heads as the bus took off.

Sometimes, we talked to the other passengers, trying to get their addresses so we could go teach them, but usually my companion and I just talked to each other. It had been during our on-bus conversations that I had learned a lot about Deiana’s past. Almost every time we passed the army outpost on Via Nomentana, I heard another story of the year Deiana spent as an Italian paratrooper. Even though his service had been obligatory and difficult in many ways (hassles with leaders and rules, mostly-Deiana sometimes had a big mouth), he seemed to enjoy a lot of the things he’d had to do that year. He told me of the times he and his buddies had clogged the bathroom drains in the barracks and had slid naked on their stomachs in the three-inch deep water on the floor, and about how they would terrorize the new “allievi” in the middle of the night by making them leap off of upper bunks in the dark onto mattresses they couldn’t see. He reminisced about using the big guns on the base and the war games they played. Once, due to a miscalculation, a huge shell from the opposing team had landed almost at his feet. Fortunately, the ground was wet from rain and the shell had sunk about ten feet before exploding.

One day last week after relating one of these stories to me, he’d paused, fingered his dog tag which he still liked to wear almost every day, and had then handed the tag to me nonchalantly, but had quickly turned to talk to a nearby man about the Church before I could say anything. Now I wore it every day. Another time when I’d asked about parachuting, he’d told me, “I was scared to death to jump out of that first plane, but since I had to go, I decided I might as well take a picture of myself falling,” and he’d given me a copy of that picture later.

It was also on the way to our tracting zone near Piazza Bologna where I learned about some of Deiana’s hobbies. He liked mountain climbing in the Alps, north of his home in Milano, and he enjoyed camping. I was surprised to find that I was interested to hear him talk about his hobbies because I had little desire to participate in them, though I had to admit that his example with weightlifting had gotten me to work out with him twice a week so far. And his soccer lessons each Preparation Day had made the game at least reasonably fun for me, though I had never been much into sports before.

More than that, though, I think we discovered that we were both simply nice, that because we never tried to take advantage of each other or insist on having our own way, that it was a pleasure to be together. Once, Elder Lucas, our zone leader, had ordered a “work visit” with Deiana, intending to take my place as companion for an evening. But while Lucas was brushing his teeth after lunch, Deiana had pointed silently to the door and led me outside so he could work with me instead. “You’re my companion,” he’d said, giving me a light kiss on the forehead. “I want to work with you.”

“Our stop’s next,” Deiana said, pushing a square red button near a window. We edged over to the two doors near the center of the bus. When the bus stopped, we jumped down and crossed over to Viale XXI Aprile. We usually had to wait for the light, but our timing was just right this time. We passed the blue and white police van, always parked in the same place, and about seven young policemen.

We had been right there by that police van when Deiana told me about the time he was in Milano on his way to school one morning and saw a carabiniere get shot to death by the Red Brigade. The carabiniere had been just a young man serving his obligatory military term, but had had the misfortune of standing next to a higher officer, who had been seriously wounded in the incident. I think it was also as we passed the van, but on our way home one night, when Deiana reminisced about the fights he and his friends in the military used to get in with the local punks in Livorno, where they were stationed, and about the time he was beaten in Milano after refusing to give up his wallet to a couple of thugs. He lost his wallet, anyway, but he said he always loved a good fight.

A few minutes later, we were on Via Pisa, so I opened my notebook and checked to see where the next building we needed to tract out would be. We had to walk about two thirds of the way down the street before we could start tracting. We walked over to the next building on our list, went into the elevator, and pushed 7. At least we didn’t have to pay ten lire each trip up, like down in Napoli. Most of the elevators in Rome were free.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Elder,” Deiana told me as we got out of the elevator on the top floor. “Anything wrong?”

“Oh, just thinking a little. It wears me out,” I replied, smiling.

“I can understand that.” He smiled back and pushed the doorbell of the first door.

A moment later, the door opened. A middle-aged woman answered. “Chi e??”

“Good evening. We’re two representatives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we have a short message we’d like to share with you and your family.” Elder Deiana paused. “Is your husband in?”

“No.” She closed the door.

“Oh, well. Good evening,” he replied.

“Not your type, Elder.” I pushed the next doorbell. “What is your type, anyway?” I wondered if his type had changed any since Antonella.

“Can I give a long answer?” He laughed.

“Sure.”

“Well, she’d have to be pretty, have auburn hair-”

“Auburn?”

“Uh-huh, and be fun.”

I pushed the doorbell again. I wasn’t sure if I heard anything, so I knocked. “What do you mean by ‘fun’?”

“Oh, you know. Crazy. We can joke and laugh and have fun.”

“Oh.” We started down the stairs.

“But,” he added, “she has to be serious at the right times.”

“Like when?” I pushed the first doorbell on the sixth floor.

“In the park or in the car.”

The door opened. “Chi e??” said a guy about our age.

“Hi! We’re from the Church of Jesus Christ. Is your father home?” I asked.

Before I even finished my question, the father was at the door, but he wasn’t interested in our message. At least he was nice about it, though. He closed the door and Deiana pushed the next doorbell. “So what kind of car did you have?” I asked him.

“A Fiat 500,” he said, looking indignant when I snickered. The “cinquecento” was probably the smallest car made by Fiat, so tiny it made a Volkswagon bug look big. “Better than a moped!” he added defensively.

“I’m sure! So, just how serious do you like to get in the park or in your 500?”

We heard some rustling in the apartment in front of us, so we knew someone was looking at us through the peep hole. Deiana decided to give his approach to the door, but he got no response. We went down to the next floor. I pushed the first doorbell.

“Well, if I know her well enough, we’d probably French kiss.”

“Yeah?” I paused. “I hate to sound ignorant, but I’ve never kissed a girl before. Just exactly how do you go about French kissing?”

Deiana looked incredulous for a moment, but he knew me pretty well after two months, though I was sure he didn’t know why I had never kissed a girl, and I would have preferred to die rather than ever tell him. “Well, when you kiss,” he said, “you just put your tongue in her mouth and tickle the roof of her mouth. Girls love it.”

“And what does she do?”

“Chi e??” said an old, female voice from the back of the apartment.

“Good evening!” I said loudly. “We’re two-”

“Chi e??” the old woman shouted, a little closer to the door. It was useless to answer yet. “Chi e??” she shouted again. Now she was almost close enough. “Chi e??” she repeated yet another time, right at the door. I explained who we were and our purpose, but she was sure we were thieves and told us to go away. I pushed the next doorbell.

“Oh, girls do the same thing,” Deiana continued. “Guys love it, too.”

“I’ll have to try it one day.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.”

In the next building, we discussed relatives. Deiana almost died when he heard the country names of my Southern relatives, my Uncle Buford and Aunt Betty Jo, and my cousins Mary Lou, Thelma Rose, and Bertha Sue. A woman opened her door as Deiana was laughing, but fortunately, she was good-natured and liked to see two boys who seemed pretty decent. Since her husband was home, she let us in and we taught them our first lesson, about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. They weren’t terribly interested, but we left a Book of Mormon and a couple of pamphlets along with our card, which had the address of the local congregation and the missionaries’ phone number. Who knows? At least we planted a seed.

Of all the different things we did as missionaries, tracting was one of my favorites because my companion and I were able to contact a lot of people and still have time to get to know each other better. We could discuss the work and new ideas, experiment with different door approaches, and get to meet with people in their homes where they felt most comfortable. It had taken me a while before I learned to enjoy it, of course, but it had almost always been better than referral taking was for me.

Not that tracting was always fun. After all, there was the time that woman had chased us out of her building with a pair of scissors, and over near Piazza Sempione last month when that man had pulled a gun on us, and there were a couple of doors shut in our faces each night along with being kicked out by portieri. But even those experiences were okay when shared with a friend.

I had always been afraid of having to be with a companion for twenty-four hours a day, every day. Surely there would be habits and characteristics that wouldn’t blend well. That was true, I’d found out, but after a year and a half, I had learned to tolerate an awful lot of habits. I’d had a couple of rough companionships, but Deiana was not only okay, he was absolutely the best companion I’d had out of twelve so far. We had a lot of good times, but still there were days when having a good friend by my side constantly was the only way I survived emotionally or spiritually.

We had always been told, “Love the country, love the people, love your companion. Then you’ll be an effective missionary.” I’d always tried to put that into effect, and I’d found that it was true. All of that came together in my present companion, which made me appreciate him more than my other companions. But no one had prepared me to be separated from the people I had learned to love.

Love was a weird feeling for me, one I hadn’t felt often, and it scared me a little. Once, when I was a child, my Sunday School teacher had asked us all to go home and tell our fathers that we loved them, saying that our fathers needed to hear that once in a while. That night right before I went to bed, when my father was in the kitchen getting something to drink, I’d said, “I love you, Daddy.” He hadn’t even looked at me. I supposed he’d felt awkward, but at the time I thought it meant he didn’t love me at all.

I grew leery of the word “love” just after the one incident, and when my aunt told me she loved me a few years later, all I was able to manage in reply was, “I sure appreciate you, too.” And whenever I felt particularly close to any other friend or relative, which hadn’t been all that often, the only thing I’d been able to say was, “I like you.” The word “love” just wouldn’t come out of me. I felt it for Deiana, but I wasn’t sure I’d actually be able to risk saying it again. I had tried a couple of times during the past few weeks, but the words simply would not come.

Now Deiana and I were probably going to be split up. I only had six more months before I went back to America. Why, I might not ever see Deiana again after two more days. Ever! I slipped my left arm around Deiana’s right arm as we turned onto Via Livorno. It was common custom among Italian friends, even guys, to hold hands or walk arm in arm. I had quickly picked that up during my time with Deiana, although I knew I’d be clobbered if I ever tried that with an American companion.

The first time Deiana had held my hand was during a district meeting with the other elders and sisters all around us. I’d been so surprised I didn’t know what to do. I could feel my face turning red, but I liked holding his hand, so I didn’t pull away. Then one evening, I had casually been rubbing my neck to get a crick out of it, and Deiana had come over and given me a massage. To feel his strong hands against my skin was wonderful. Wonderful. I was so afraid I’d fall in love with him, and yet I never felt that any of the contact we had was sexual. It was the touching between two friends, and I thanked God he’d sent me to a country where I could actually touch another man, and it was all right.

It was time for a break, so Deiana and I walked over to a nearby bar and ordered two glasses of Ferrarelle orange soda, my favorite. We watched a teenaged kid playing a pinball machine for a few minutes, and we talked to the bartender for a moment. He said he’d had the missionary lessons a few years ago, but he didn’t care to hear any more. “Keep on working, though. I believe what you’re doing is good.” He wouldn’t let us pay for the sodas. Thanking the bartender, we left and headed back to Via Livorno.

Deiana suggested a pee break then, but there was no place nearby with a public bathroom other than the bar we’d just left, which Deiana didn’t want to return to. So he led me into the next apartment building and up to the top floor. Then he found a door which led up to the roof of the building. It was dark up here, but light enough to see because of the street lights and apartment buildings all around. Deiana walked to the edge of the roof and unzipped his pants. “Come on,” he said, smiling.

I had a hard time peeing in the presence of another man, and even using a public restroom by myself was difficult because I was always afraid someone else was about to come in. But this was Deiana, and I felt more comfortable with him than I ever had with anyone else, so I walked up to the edge of the roof and unzipped, too.

“Let’s go,” he said, and started urinating, right over the edge of the roof. I couldn’t believe it. But a thrill went through me as I contemplated being so naughty, and I soon followed his example. When we finished, he laughed, and we headed back for the door leading down to the stairwell again.

The rest of the evening went fairly well. We only got in one more door, and that for only fifteen minutes, but we did have some good talks with people in the hall. One man said he’d come to church on Sunday, but of the hundreds who had said that to me, I had yet to see someone actually come out to church. There was always the chance, though. We’d see.

Deiana and I also got to talk some more to each other in between doors and buildings. I thought I knew almost everything about him already, but I did learn a couple of new things. For example, he could say some English curse words quite well. That jerk on the moped who spit at us didn’t know what was going on, but I sure did. He had that pronunciation and accent just right. I wondered who’d taught him.

We left our zone and started back to the apartment at about 9:00. We only had to wait a few minutes on Nomentana before a 136 came along. There weren’t many people on the bus, so Deiana grinned at me and said in English, “Bus Surfing, U.S.A.”

“In bocc’al lupo, Anziano,” I said. It was an expression used to wish one luck, which translated literally to “in the mouth of the wolf.” Legend had it that Rome had been founded by Romulus and Remus, two orphans who had been raised by a wolf, so the expression was a wish that the recipient would be as fortunate as Romulus and Remus had been. The phrase had sounded ominous to me the first time I heard it, but I’d seen that a lot of things which seemed negative at first could turn out to be positive in the end.

Elder Deiana and I started bus surfing then. We balanced ourselves in the back of the bus and tried to stand without holding onto or leaning on anything. I cheated on a couple of curves and almost fell at one stop, but Deiana had been practicing longer and was really rather good. My balance had been getting a little better lately, though, since I’d been practicing more with Deiana. A few odd stares did come our way, especially from one old, large woman in black who scowled at us several times, but we were so used to being stared at as missionaries that it didn’t bother us at all. We either ignored the staring people or smiled back at them.

Within twenty minutes, we were back on Franco Sacchetti, so we pushed the button and hopped off the bus. At least at night we could get off at the same stop. Last week, when we had been coming home for lunch at 1:30, the bus had been so crowded that only Deiana could squeeze off at the right stop. Then I’d had to battle for a minute with a “pasta mamma” and some young teens and get off at the next stop a couple of blocks away.

As we were slowly walking back to the apartment, Deiana looped his right arm around my left, and he rested his head on my shoulder. We looked up at our building and saw that the lights were on in our apartment. The other elders were already home. We rode the elevator up to the third floor and started to walk down the hall toward our apartment.

Deiana didn’t slow down as he spoke. “Ti voglio bene. Sai?”

I didn’t hesitate, either, in my reply. “I love you, too, Elder.”

Read more about The Abominable Gayman and Johnny Townsend HERE.

Copyright 2010 Johnny Townsend. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1
Her mother Alma had told her about him, how he deserved being hunted down by the soldiers out there in the Yuro Ravine. And so Ofelia had thought quite a bit about Señor Guevara.

She had even dreamt of him, that he had been thrown out of heaven and was falling through the increasingly darkening flames to Hell. As he fell, his hair and beard caught fire and swirled about his face. The flames resembled water. He beat at them with his hands, until the hands caught fire as well. The expulsion took a very long time, so that Ofelia was able to study Señor Guevara’s disgrace, the way his clothing fell away from him in ashes, long strings of ash left floating above, carried away on the air. He tumbled, his skin bubbling. It tightened and split into pieces, curling away from the musculature underneath, which itself began to sear with the increasing heat. One of Señor Guevara’s feet was bloodied, and both were badly scratched, as though he had had to walk for miles, for days, over rocks and through the thorny underbrush of the hills around the village.

The señor was not alone in his descent. Many soldiers fell with him, all falling separately, quickly and without order. Their uniforms caught fire, and the lines of sweat seemed to conduct the flames through their clothing and to adhere them to the soldiers’ skin, as though the flames were made of thick, acid-filled petroleum.

CHAPTER 2
When they had brought Señor Guevara into La Higuera, Ofelia hid in the kitchen of her mother’s house, terrified that he might kill her. This is the way Communists were, she knew, especially Communist guerillas, and she didn’t want to have anything to do with the señor. They ate people’s hearts. They took your house away and gave it to rapists. The worst of it was that they wouldn’t let you go to Mass. So she worried about poor Father Javier, the travelling priest who came to La Higuera once a month, who was so skinny and whose gums oozed blood from around his teeth, and with whom Ofelia loved to eat lunch because he was always so grateful to her when she served him.

She sat at one of the wooden tables in her mother’s kitchen, staring at the doorway that led out to the track between her house and the schoolhouse, where the army had put Señor Guevara.

There had been four men, actually. Señor Guevara and Willy, who had helped him walk up the path into the village. Willy had appeared very frightened, a bum dressed in rags, his old boots scuffed with age and long use, muddied. His left arm extended across Señor Guevara’s back, who would be taller than Willy were he able to straighten himself up. Señor Guevara was hunched over as though he were having trouble breathing. He appeared younger and even more frightened than Willy, as though he didn’t know what to do and was horrified by the soldiers. Señor Guevara had been shot in the leg. His walking was hardly walking at all. As his eyes had moved from right to left, frightening Ofelia with the intensity of their murderousness, his scummy hair decorated with twigs and dirt, and his feet, in their ragged sandals, cut and bruised so that he could barely walk at all, she had retreated to the doorway of her house, where she had stood with her mother.
The third prisoner — she learned a few minutes later that his name was Pacho — was very badly wounded, and was carried to the schoolhouse on a stretcher. Blood dripped to the mud from the canvas, and his face had been burned. The fourth prisoner followed behind the stretcher, a Chinese man to whom one of the soldiers spoke with quite evident anger, pushing him into the schoolhouse with the butt of his rifle.

“Hurry it up, chinito,” the soldier grumbled.

It was just as the radio had said. Señor Guevara was the devil. He was so dirty and possessed that he could only be The Malignant One, The Demon. “Shit itself,” as one of the soldiers had said. His eyes had been electric with the intention of torturing his captors. Tossed into one of the schoolrooms by himself, he was the worst person on earth.
But why are they putting him in my schoolroom? Ofelia asked. How could they jail him in so respectable a place, the place she went every morning with her mother, where she prayed and said the pledge of allegiance to the President of her own sacred Bolivia?

Where she read the few books that they had, such interesting books, about elves in snowy forests, about numbers and how to spell, about pretty gringas awakened by the lump of a single pea, about jet planes and enormous dams and the United States in general.

Read more about A Kiss For Señor Guevara and Terence Clarke HERE.

Copyright 2010 Terence Clarke. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt
I needed to get back on track, so I took Highway 99 heading toward Modesto and floored it, still stewing in my own angry juices. Attempting to blow off some steam by driving it off was a total contradiction of what I used to teach, but that was not my concern. I had a raging mad-on and I had to get rid of it somehow. Unfortunately, the road ahead of me had not been clear. In the fast lane, being the wrong place at the wrong time was an elderly gentleman in a Mercury sedan, traveling way below the speed limit. Semi-trucks occupied the other lanes and there was no way around him. Naturally, in the crazed state of mind I found myself in, this brought me to the boiling point once again. It became necessary for me to encourage him to pick up the pace, right on his rear bumper.

“Excuse me, sir? Sir? You are in the FAST lane. You’re supposed to drive FAST. Why are you driving SLOW? LET’S GO! TOO SLOW! LET’S GO! Would you like a PUSH, HMMMMM????”

I slowly accelerated my vehicle so that it could kiss the rear bumper of Old Man Driver. From fifty to fifty-five to sixty to sixty-five to seventy in mere seconds, I could see him grasp his steering wheel in a death grip. We locked fenders and I pushed the outside of the envelope even further as I took Chuck Yeager here for a blast from the past.

“Mach one!” I cried.

The sound barrier broke as we screamed down Highway 99.

“Mach two!” I bellowed as the glass from the instrument panel exploded into a thousand shards.Sparks sprayed from all sides of our conjoined cars and I laughed as only demons can. Old Man Driver was frozen in fear. It was all he could do to keep his Mercury in control. The stupid old fart! Didn’t he know that I was in control?

“Mach three!” I cheered as I slammed on the brakes, separating our vehicles and Old Man River was set free.As if shot out of a cannon, his car was propelled on its own and at even greater speed, veering off to the right and onto the off ramp of an overpass. Up it flew like a raging comet as Old Man Driver and his Mercury ignited into a giant fireball and launched into space, sailing into the heavens like an authentic Mercury astronaut. Jetting skyward toward the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, Old Man Driver suddenly exploded into a Fourth of July display.

Observing the spectacle from below, I led the crowd in a chorus of “Ooh! Aah!”

Copyright 2010 Scott Cherney. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt
A Prologue

Even at his best, a man is a mess. He’s strong-willed and impatient, gets dirty at work and play, and often doesn’t smell good. However, if you’re one of those who suspects that life has some purpose other than filling one’s belly and stirring up the bed lint, you might have seen, on occasion, something else under all that male bluff and bluster. You might have discovered a warm, humane creature that has, at times, given serious thought to the more meaningful things of life. Such a man is the one I’m going to tell you about. His name is Heck Tennel. Heck was my best friend back when  the Great Depression bore down on East Texas farms. Both of us were as poor as winter weeds and dumb as mud about some things, but that didn’t stop Heck from wanting to improve his life.

What is the meaning of life anyway? Does it have a purpose? Perhaps not, but if it doesn’t, why do so many folks keep asking that question?

Heck’s main purpose back then was taking care of his sick little brother and his sisters, saving money to pay down on a piece of good land and finding a proper girl to marry. Fate didn’t give him enough time to make the money he needed, but he came real close to hitching himself to a proper girl. It was his love for that pretty girl that almost got him killed.

Heck is old now, like me; but when he was young, his hopes and plans made lights pop on and whistles blow. He believed, as did all other men inclined to be sentimental about such things, there is no love like the first one early in life. (It might be that way with women too, but since I’m not a woman, I don’t know.)

Heck’s first real love was special because it fulfilled all his expectations about beauty, tenderness and grace, and all those other things that make life better than it has to be. It also gave him his first real chance to escape the unpleasantness that had troubled him up to that point in his life.

When I mention love, I hope you don’t think I’m talking about the physical part of it that men are often accused of thinking about too much. That part can happen with any woman, is over in minutes, and is often forgotten. The other part, the part that puzzles us the most, won’t let a man forget, not even after he’s old enough to know better.

Some say it’s foolish to dwell on things that appear to have slipped away forever. You’ll have to decide if that applies in this story about Heck Tennel which begins in May, l934.

Copyright 2009 Calvin Bowden. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Ol’ man Angelo walked out of his wooden shack and onto the gravelly entrance-way and through the monstrous, iron gates. He stood on the leafy street and took a swig off his bottle of whiskey. He took in the desolation and isolation and forsakenness. He did a jig and tapped his right foot three times, and unbeknownst, unlocked a doorway. He closed the monstrous, iron gates for the night and stepped back into his wooden shack.

In the middle of the leafy street flat cellar doors appeared. Average size cellar doors. Six feet in width. Twelve feet in height. Rusty. Dry orange rust. Rusty door handles. Headlights appeared in the distance. Approached. Drove over the rusty doors. They momentarily vanished, and when the car disappeared in the distance, they reappeared. The cold wind blew the red and yellow and brown leaves. They paused over the rusty doors, stirred, danced, like they had little feet. The snow fell at a tranquil pace. The moon shone up for work again, no vacation time, ever, waxier than the night before.

Beneath the flat cellar doors slow harmony like stretched-out soft organ chords drifted towards the heavens, serene and easy. A swirling dark abyss appeared and dark flames raged everywhere. It resembled an angry tornado that came to life and protruded dark hands and grotesque dark faces and flying dark spears, turned inward, on the stirrings held captive inside. However, slow harmony like stretched-out soft organ chords drifted towards the heavens, serene and easy. Soaring, soaring, soaring like a dove in a storm’s eye! From the depths of the bottomlessness the dark flames stretched and missed. Soaring, soaring, soaring! Dark flames chased, reached out, missed. The gigantic hand of dark gravity, unbiased, ripped everything down a thunderously silent tier. Somewhere in the middle of the bottomlessness, struggling, fighting, escaping, and then . . ., soaring, soaring, soaring! The dark flames chased and reached, missed. The dark flames on the sides like askew vampire pterodactyls fell into the center of the swirling abyss, chasing, chasing, chasing! The gigantic hand of gravity ripped thousands down, but the soaring soared, higher and higher and higher, chased, racing faster than light, chased by the dark flames, soaring, higher and higher and higher! The swirling dark abyss raged and darker flames fell from the sides and joined the pack, chasing, chasing, chasing like packs upon packs upon packs of dogs chasing a white rabbit! The unyielding soaring beat its wings as fast as they beat and ascended higher. The linked lightning bolts, chained to the ankles and the wrists and through the holes in the wingtips like pierced ears, broke! She shot through the cellar doors and they smashed into the pavement and broke it to asunder and it sounded louder than a million pieces of thunder! She flashed up into the sky and raced like a comet and disappeared towards the heavens.

Copyright 2008 J P M. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

“Good dough is the foundation for everything we create,” explained the baker. “If the dough isn’t right, nothing will work. You must learn to make good dough first.”

“How long will it take me to learn to make the dough?” asked Jacob.

“It will take as long as it takes,” replied the baker. “Always take the time to learn a skill right.”

“Go to the pantry and get the flour, salt and yeast,” instructed the baker. Jacob retrieved the items as instructed and placed them on the counter.

“What else do I need?” he Jacob.

“That is all for now,” said the baker.

“We’re going to make dough from just these three things?” asked Jacob.

“Oh yes,” said the baker, “we’ll need some warm water.”

Jacob went to the facet and ran the water for a few moments until it began to get hotter. “How warm?” he asked.

“Luke warm is fine,” said the baker. “Feel your arm.”

Jacob felt his arm and turned to the baker. “When it feels as warm as your arm,” said the baker, “it’s ready.”

Jacob brought the water over to other ingredients on the counter. He looked at the baker for further instruction.

“Mix the yeast with the water,” instructed the baker. Jacob mixed the yeast with the water until it dissolved. “Good,” said the baker. “Now take some of the flour and make a small mound out of it.”

Jacob began to clumsily pile up the flour. The baker shook his head. “You’re not concentrating enough,” he said.

“It’s just a mound,” said Jacob. He tried to pile up the flour in random sweeping motions.

“Making dough is deceptively simple,” explained the baker. “There are only four ingredients and six steps. But the simplicity makes each of the elements that much more important.”

“How can it be simple and complex?” asked Jacob. In his mind he had pictured large mixing bowls, big metal spoons and a vast array of exotic ingredients. He looked down at the lop-sided mound of flour.

“Flour, water, yeast and salt,” continued the baker. “The importance of a thing is more than just its complexity and the complexity of a thing is more than just the number of its parts.”

Jacob thought about this for a moment. He had always been taught the importance of a job was related to the number of your responsibilities. The more you had to do the more important you must be.

“Who is more important,” asked the baker, “the man who does many of the least important jobs or the man who does the few most important jobs?”

“I suppose the second man,” said Jacob.

“Making the dough is the most important job,” said the baker. “Flour, water, yeast and salt are the most important ingredients.”

“I see,” said Jacob.

“There are only six steps,” continued the baker. “Mix, mound, knead, rise, punch and rise again. But that makes each step very important. Mounding is just as important as rising or kneading.”

“I think I understand,” said Jacob. He began to shape the flour into a mound again, this time much more deliberately and carefully.

“Good,” said the baker. “Do not be distracted; do not rush. Always concentrate on the task at hand as if it is the most important.”

“Because in that moment it is the most important,” added Jacob.

“That is right,” said the baker with a smile. “You are ready for the next step. Make a small pocket in the center of your mound.”

Jacob followed the baker’s instructions. “Pour in the water?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the baker. Jacob poured the water into the center of mound. “Now place some flour on your hands and begin to knead the dough. Push the dough away with the heels of your hands. Then pick up the opposite edge and fold it toward you.”

Jacob tried pushing and folding the dough a couple of times with limited success. “You’re rushing again,” corrected the baker. “Go slower and concentrate on each move. Push and fold. Push and fold.”

Jacob did as the baker instructed and started to maintain a steady rhythm in his kneading. “How long?” he asked.

“What does it matter?” asked the baker.

“But how do I know when it’s ready?” asked Jacob.

“When it feels ready,” said the baker. “It should be soft and smooth but not too dry. It stops sticking to your hands and springs back to the touch.”

“Okay,” said Jacob. “If it gets too dry should I add more water?”

“Kneading is about balance,” explained the baker. “The right amount of flour, the right amount of water and the right amount of air.”

“Air?” asked Jacob.

“Yes,” answered the baker. “While you knead you allow air into the dough. The air is food for the yeast and provides a better rise.”

The dough felt dry so Jacob added more water. This made it feel too wet so he added more flour.

“Are you feeling with your heart, your head or your hands?” asked the baker.

“My head,” said Jacob. “No wait, probably my heart.”

“When kneading, feel with your hands,” said the baker.

“Oh,” said Jacob.

“You’ll know when to use your heart and head,” said the baker. “For now add a pinch more flour and you should be back in balance.”

After around ten minutes the dough started to feel right to Jacob. “I think it’s ready,” he said and looked at the baker tentatively.

“Good,” said the baker. “Shape it into a ball and place it in that bowl. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise.”

“How long?” asked Jacob. He regretted asking as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

The baker laughed. “Until the dough doubles in size,” said the baker. “Probably about two hours.”

“I suppose we need to be patient,” said Jacob.

“Yes,” said the baker. “Or we could make up a batch of sweet dough while we wait.”

Copyright 2008 Dominic R. Villari. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

“Afterlife delivers a story crawling with heart, humor and hope. Packed with a cast of characters who surprise with insights, integrity and insults, this book made me more curious about life’s after-party. We can all hope that Guy’s vision can light the way, because we’ll be laughing and learning on that path while we wait for our turn at care that’s critical.” Ron Seybold

“imaginative, funny and smart.” Heidi Springer

—- early reader reviews —-

Guy Smith’s story of a newly dead ghost’s travails is told in such a witty way that it seems impossible there could be any poignancy to the book. But on the contrary, it’s a sort of Texas-style, stiff-upper-lip, telling that attempts to mask, but can’t hide, a very moving and vulnerable story. Sounds just like how we often try to gloss over the most profound issues and challenges in life. And it is just like that. Funny and moving, it’s a great read.

———–

Guy Smith is acerbic, bizarre, and utterly deranged. I mean that in the nicest possible sense, of course. In this novella-length work, he equally offends both Christians and atheists. I suspect Buddhists might take exception, as well.

“Afterlife” took a few twists and turns that surprised me, which is hard to do because I am fairly well twisted myself. Smith’s conception of life after death is not too far removed from Bruce Rubin’s, but the ending is much less idyllic. Demi Moore superfans will get that reference. You know who you are . . .

Independent film makers take note: I see a great script attempting to claw its way out of this book. Hollywood won’t tackle it; the cloyingly sweet ending is absent. Tom Waits, maybe. Or Jim Jarmusch.

Buy the book. It’s cheap – tack it on to your next Amazon order. You won’t be sorry.

————

This book, Afterlife, by Guy Smith, a new writer, is a winner, five stars plus: 1) Because of its human depth of touch, Afterlife engages the reader in a much larger way than its novella nature might suggest; 2) The story line is riveting with its unfolding plot, twists and turns, surprises, insights and pleasures; 3) Character presence of both main and incidental figures is remarkable in presenting the individuality of their life and death story; 4) I would not call the story humorous. It is written with good humor. My eyes were often wet with tears of sadness, joy and enthusiastic cheering; 5) Much of society keeps death’s possible discomfort distant, whether by incarceration, white sterile settings, condolences by platitudes, thinking death is elsewhere, later or not for me. Afterlife has us there with the flesh of death, and the plethora of society’s forces and professionals who appear to the bane (often under the guise of caring) or enlightenment of survivors; and, th
en, Plus) There is a pervading warmth and love within this text which is rich with a freedom offered to the reader to explore his or her own intimacy with the subject.

————-

I always welcome a good interpretation of the afterlife, but this book was one of the most interesting I’ve read. You have to appreciate a man who demonstrates such a love for his wife. Without saying too much–don’t want to spoil the fun–the main character may ooze love for his wife but his wicked sense of humor makes for a titillating read. There were a couple of things I didn’t like so much, like the harshness of some of the characters, but I suppose that was essential to move the plot along. Every book has its flaws. Regardless, this is an entertaining, short book for a weekend at the beach or a long plane ride.

If you are a fan of loose, breezy — and especially snarky — prose, you’ll love this little wise-a$$ handful of a book.

The subject matter almost doesn’t matter — the character insights and interactions are just fun — even when (maybe especially) when tragic. It is perhaps the dissonance of tragic/snarky that makes the book compelling.

Copyright 2008 Guy Smith. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

A photograph captures one’s image but is incapable of containing their essence.  Before Tony lay a camera created impression of Janet Mitchell.  In his mind were countless other pictures he had mentally processed.  Visions of how she walked, and spoke, and smiled.  The song her laughter played, the oasis of her eyes.  The stuff of dreams.
Dreaming was something he did much of, not only with Janet as subject.  Each day as he gazed out his bedroom window, Tony looked beyond what his eyes could see.  To another place in a time yet to come.  Far away from the ironclad grip of the projects.
As sweet as his dreams were, he would awaken to the sting that they were only fantasies.  Pictures that in spite of their clarity, also held no essence.
Present day reality showed a greatly contrasting portrait.  Long lines of brown bodies waiting impatiently at the welfare office.  Equally long lines of teenage girls at abortion clinics. Food stamps serving as currency, except when it came to the purchase of narcotics, which was strictly a cash or sex business. To every side of him were faces that showed hunger and longing to be no longer filled with hunger and longing.  Single mothers struggling to keep their babies fed, anonymous fathers in search of another bed.  Sex, alcohol, drugs and church the most frequented routes by which one might find God and ask Him why.  When a thunderous silence served as reply, it was translated as “why not”.  No use arguing with that logic.
Where Tony wished to be was more of an idea than a zip code, since it had not been experienced firsthand, merely glimpsed on television, in magazines, and books.  Tomorrow appeared as a montage of popping champagne bottles; yachts setting sail for tropical locales; tuxedos and evening gowns twirling under chandeliers made of diamonds; luxury cars; luxury suites; the luxury of laying down one’s head on a bed soft as a cloud, content that the world had been conquered and would service all needs, satisfy every desire.  These things were “seen” by Tony through a shimmering haze, in the center of which one vision shone bright and clear.
“Still jerking off to the picture of that white chick?”
Tony slammed the yearbook shut as if caught leafing through a pornographic magazine by his bible toting grandmother.
“I can’t believe you spent good money on that bullshit when you aren’t even a senior.  Just so you could drool over Barbie.”
Tony looked up from his bed towards his younger brother, C.J.  The young men were three years apart in age, possessing near identical cheekbones and matching sets of midnight clear eyes, C.J. having slightly more melanin in his skin tone, Tony with deeper waves throughout his hair.  Their physical resemblance to one another was not matched by their senses of fashion.  Tony was dressed comfortably in a pair of Khaki pants and a ribbed tee shirt.  C.J. was clad in a plaid flannel shirt and a pair of jeans sized well beyond what his waist required.  This provided a clear view of the Loony tune characters adorning his boxer shorts. Atop his head was a black bandanna decorated with skull and crossbones.  The foreboding image was replicated on his right forearm by an artlessly rendered tattoo.  Around C.J.’s neck were three gold chains of varying widths and styles fighting to out-sparkle each other.
Rather than respond to his brother’s prodding, Tony opened a textbook.  He had a trig exam the following day.  Without further studying he felt confident that he could probably get a grade in the low eighties.  He intended to do considerably better than that.
On the opposite side of the cramped room, C.J. lay down and adjusted the fit of his faux diamond studded watch.  It was the latest addition to a collection of timepieces that was nearly sizeable enough for him to war a different one for each week of the year.  He then began tapping on his bed’s headboard to the beat of a song playing in his head.
“Do you mind?” Tony snapped after a minute.  “I’m trying to study.  You might try it yourself for a change.”
“Nigga, please.  I don’t need that bullshit to get mine.”
Tony tried returning to his schoolwork, but was forced to stop reading when a shadow blanketed the page he was focused on.  C.J. stood directly in front of him, having approached without being detected, a neat trick that he frequently put to mischievous use.  He yanked out the yearbook that Tony had tucked beneath his chest, then flipped it to the page it was accustomed to being opened to.  On it was a close-up photo of Janet in her cheerleading outfit.
“Don’t you get it up for sistas no more?”
“What?”
“Don’t play dumb, you know exactly what I mean.  I’m not saying it’s bad to get with a white girl.  Pussy is pussy.  But you’re drooling about more than just waxing that ass, I know you are.  A white girl is all you need to completely cross over, and this one, fine though she may be, is as white as they come.”
C.J.’s first word on a topic like this one was rarely his last, so Tony knew that attempting to ignore him would be futile.  Instead, he addressed the accusations with the best comeback that came to mind.
“You might want to wipe away the shit before talking out your ass.”
C.J. snickered.  He was bored and his big brother made a convenient target.  Irritating Tony was as good a way to spend some spare time as any.
“Just admit it.  You want to sell out completely.  You want to go to some white college.  You want a white suit and tie job.  You want a house in a white neighborhood with a white wife by your side.  Tell me I’m wrong.”
Tony shook his head.  “I’ll give you this much, C.J.  It’s true that I don’t have anything against being educated.  Nothing against getting paid well either.  And I happen to look damn good in a suit.”
“Why am I suddenly in the mood for an oreo cookie?”
The wisecrack slowed Tony’s momentum no more than a mosquito ramming into a windshield.  If C.J. wanted to wage a verbal battle, Tony was happy to oblige him.  Trigonometry could take a temporary back seat.
“You’re damn straight I won’t be living in the projects my whole life.  And when it comes to the girl I choose, I happen to be color blind.”
“Blind like hell.  Your little jimmy knows exactly what color it wants.”  C.J. tugged lightly on the crotch of his jeans.  This was done out of habit rather than a gesture intended to accompany his statement.  “Don’t think for one second you’re fooling anyone,” he continued.  “I know what the real deal is.  You want to prove that you’re as good as them, and what better way than by having one of them on your arm?  But you can’t prove what people refuse to believe.”
C.J. drowned out any chance of a rebuttal by turning on his boom box.  The volume as usual was at maximum.  Their room became filled with a thumping bass line and a rapper bragging in rhyme about the women he had bedded and the men he had killed.
Taking another glance at his watch, C.J. noticed that it was no longer running and the glass casing was cracked.  The kid he took it from had surprisingly put up a fight, even managing to get a shot in.  C.J.’s retaliation destroyed the very thing he was trying to obtain.  He tossed his prize into the waste paper basket.
Tony reached over and lowered the radio, which had been acquired by C.J. from someone who committed the cardinal sin of being smaller and less battle tested than him, not to mention the folly of being insufficiently observant in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Tony sadly understood that what C.J. didn’t forcibly take for himself, he purchased with money earned on the streets by preying on the weaknesses of crackheads and other assorted addicts.  This left him with very little interest or time for matters such as trigonometry.
“You got a problem with white people?” Tony asked, determined to finish what had been started.  “You think they look down on you?  Then don’t allow the insult to ring true.  Don’t trap yourself in a little box and then accuse them of stuffing you in there.  The only one who can limit you, is you.”
Tony was saying nothing that C.J. hadn’t heard from him before, though he did manage to sound even more self-righteous than usual.  This probably had something to do with the white girl in the yearbook photo.  C.J. pulled a stack of bills from his back pocket and began sorting through it.
“Whatever,” he said nonchalantly.  “I’ve got better things to do than argue with you.”
Tony shook his head.  “So you got a few bucks on you.”
“A few hundred is more like it.  Better study your math a little harder.”
“That supposed to impress me?  Congratulations, you can rob people and sell them drugs.  What’s the next act in your minstrel show?  Cotton picking, tap dancing, or watermelon eating?”
C.J. twirled a chain around his index finger, another subconscious habit, but this one seemed more symbolic than the others, emphasizing that he was satisfied being the person he was, regardless of approval.  “It definitely ain’t doing impressions, cause you’ll never find me imitating Whitey like you.  I’m not ashamed of who I am.”
He. put the money back into his pocket, then lay down and closed his eyes.  C.J. had grown weary of the argument he’d initiated, for he believed words to be a futile method of persuasion.  Two things made the world go round.  Fear and money.  The rest was just what people tried to be satisfied with.  Some even managed to delude themselves that they were happy.  That was their choice and their lives, but not his.
“Wanting to be successful doesn’t make me any less black,” Tony said.  “No matter what garbage Dad would have you believe.  And it doesn’t make me ashamed of who I am.”
“Don’t bother trying to convince me.  Tell your little fairy tale to that white girl.”
Giving up on ending the argument on his word, Tony sighed and returned to his studies, refusing to acknowledge C.J.’s self-satisfied grin.

Copyright 2008 Roy L. Pickering Jr.. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt
“Whoa, you’re talking so fast, you must be pretty excited about this. How about I do it for a free rib eye? And I have to be done by 6:30 ‘cuz Amy and I have a date.”
“Serve steak to a bunch of women? Are you crazy? I was thinking more of tilapia with citrus salsa.”
“What part of a cow does tillpappa come from?”
“You’re hopeless. I’ll have a rib eye for you, Jack. Thanks. I gotta run. Bye.”
Maria took the back stairs two at a time, unlocked her door, kicked off her sandals, and tossed her purse on the bistro table. Mr. Becker had just okayed her use of his grill for the following weekend. She revved up the laptop to e-mail four girlfriends she’d enjoyed from her art history classes. Checking her inbox, she noticed an unfamiliar sender: bilberry@aol.com.
“Bilberry?” She envisioned gaunt Pilgrims writhing in pain in the hold of the Mayflower. “No, that’s beriberi. No wait””that was scurvy. Bilberry . . . hmmm,” she mused aloud. She vaguely remembered giving someone her e-mail address recently. Curiosity bested caution, and she opened the e-mail.

Hi,
Remember me? from blueberry picking last weekend? I know I said I wanted to continue our conversation electronically, but I have a better idea. I’m coming to Chicago next weekend on business. I’ll be free after 3 on Saturday. Could we get together?
Bill Berry

Maria’s heart raced. She got up and did a little jig around the ottoman. She could invite girlfriends over another time.

Hello, Bill,
It’s nice to hear from you. I’d be glad to meet you Saturday. Where in Chicago will you be?
Maria

Her phone rang.
“Oh, hi, Mom. No, I don’t think church will work for me tomorrow. Thanks anyway. Glad you liked the blueberries. Say, is Jack there?” A momentary guilt pang reminded her this was the umpteenth gentle invitation to church she had refused in the last year, but she squelched the guilt to focus on the pleasure of next Saturday.
“Jack, m’boy, you will be relieved to know the barbecue’s off.”
“What, no rib eye reward? To what do I owe this grand disappointment?” Maria could picture the mock shock on her favorite ham’s face. She told him about her date with Bill.
“You’re meeting a stranger? Alone? You’re not telling him where you live, are you? Are you meeting him in the city? Maria, I don’t like this. He doesn’t even live in our state. I’ll exchange my chef’s toque for a chauffeur’s cap.”
“Jack, you’re sweet to be protective, but you’ve got a date with Amy. I’ll be okay. I’m twenty-five.” She was tempted to remind him what a good judge of character she was, but then she remembered Travis and said instead, “I’ve dated more than a few men.” The Travis travesty had damaged her confidence more than she cared to admit, so when Jack suggested they double-date, she agreed.

Copyright 2008 Jane Hoppe. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Chapter One

A COPY OF the Pathology Report – promised, and ambivalently awaited – has arrived in my absence. For some reason that upsets me, though I can’t think why. What possible difference can it make? By its very nature a Post Mortem is posthumous. And death brings an end to influence and change. Doesn’t it?
I’ve dragged myself round the usual early morning circuit – beside the vapid, dust-strewn waters of the canal basin, through St Kit’s to the Thames footpath and the muted early summer sounds of the river, under Tower Bridge and back home again – driven by a half remembered sense of the comfort to be derived from routine, familiarity, activity. That’s how it’s been for the past ten days: the routine of being; of breathing – in and out; of forcing a response from reflex swallowing muscles that appear to have lost spontaneity; of sipping, without revulsion, the scalding sweetened liquids with which I’ve been plied; of seeing, without registering, familiar faces etched with unfamiliar expressions – pity? sorrow? concern?
Activity has come easier: planning a funeral – an event that can have no date until the body is released; helping in preliminary enquiries with the police; learning that an Inquest has been opened and adjourned. Keeping on. Keeping going. Feeling in control of a spiralling situation. Or at least kidding myself that I am. The role of grieving mother might not be an everyday occurrence, but it’s one I’ve rehearsed many times in my mind.
The package, protruding from the cubby hole for Flat 7, is visible the moment I let myself in through the front security door. My stomach heaves. A large brown envelope – on top of the customary wad of junk mail, flyers, and business letters addressed to Mr Richard Lombard – the handwritten scrawl is instantly recognisable as Mark’s. Claire Lombard, it reads. No title, then! No Mrs, or even a despised Ms. As if, even after all these years and the precedent of his own remarriage, Mark is indicating his disdain of mine to Richard.
A prickle of frustration seeds itself in my mind: the faint flowering of remembrance of myriad, similar, small humiliations planted, bindweed-like and pervasive, in the soil of my marriage to Mark, which, over a fourteen, fifteen year period, all-but choked me of meaningful life. I give myself a mental shake to loosen its hold.
The small cramped hallway in which I’m standing is communal to the four flats in this section of the low-rise building. Unwilling to be engaged in small talk by any of my neighbours, I pick up the package and the remainder of the post and make my way upstairs to my own front door. The apartment, purchased by the pooling of resources when Richard and I married, is on two levels: hall, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and master bedroom on the first floor; and under the eaves a large lounge, small study-cum-second bedroom and adjoining toilet and shower.
With no high rise building in the immediate vicinity, the entire living area is filled with a wonderful sense of airiness and light which, when we were property-hunting, immediately appealed to my need of space and tranquillity. Both are rare commodities in the city, and I’ve enhanced the illusion of outdoors-come-in, through a combination of window boxes, indoor plants, and a décor of winter white with highlights of sharp limey greens and citrus yellow. Since privacy is not an issue, calico curtains suffice at the windows, softening the contours with their billowing folds.
The furnishings are now faded and worn, but in all the nine years that we’ve lived here, the different nuances of sunlight by day and lamp light by night have never failed to surprise and delight me. Today, everything jars!
Once inside, I drop the mail on the dining table and, as if it has no significance, turn my back on it and walk through to the galley kitchen. My chest feels tight, but I tell myself that this is due to my run. When the churning in my belly has receded and I can breathe more easily, I take the water-filter jug from the fridge and fill a tumbler from the draining board. Turning to face the dining room door and table beyond, I lift the glass to my eye, study the distorted view, then lean back against the counter top and drink deeply.
When I’ve finished, have washed and dried the glass and replaced it in the cupboard, I immerse myself in the small daily activities of domesticity: sweeping little piles of crumbs into my hands from around the toaster and breakfast table, to-ing and fro-ing between kitchen and dining room, giving a wide berth to the mail in general and the brown envelope in particular.
Oh hell! This is absurd. I am dismayed by my lack of courage, but can’t help myself. I wish the package had not been delivered; wish I’d never agreed to Mark’s suggestion that he send me a copy; wish that the circumstances were different, that Katya’s death had not occurred, that I’d not been thrust into this nightmare.
The telephone rings. It’s Richard: his customary call home to catch up on the morning’s news.
‘It’s arrived.’ My voice is strident. ‘The Pathology Report from Mark.’
‘What does it say?’
Pulling out a chair at the dining room table, I seat myself, lacing the telephone flex through my fingers.
‘I haven’t opened it.’
‘Are you going to?’
‘I don’t know if I want to.’
There’s a pause. I picture Richard standing in a telephone booth – perhaps in some restaurant or hotel – his brow furrowed as he thinks through the implications.
‘I suppose it’ll be full of medical details,’ he says, at last. ‘Could be upsetting. Perhaps you’d better leave it until I’m home? We could look at it together, if you like. I’ll try and get back early.’
I’m grateful – pathetically grateful – for his insight, and grasp at his suggestion. For some moments after I’ve put the phone back on its cradle, I continue to sit at the table. My breathing is fast and shallow. Emotion knots my throat. Then my fury explodes into the silence of the empty flat.
‘Why did you have to die?’ I shout.
Instantly, I’m enveloped with hot guilt and confusion. I know from a friend who offers bereavement counselling that anger is a normal reaction to loss. Anger against the deceased for letting go of life; for causing pain to those they’ve left behind. Anger against God, all-powerful and all-seeing, for permitting – or failing to stop – the events that have led to this end. Anger against yourself for your lack of foresight; your stupid, helpless, useless futility. I understand the concept! I’ve simply never considered that I might succumb.
Action is called for: a shower. I cross the hall to the bedroom, find clean knickers and bra, and pause in front of the mirror to peel off my joggers and drop them into the dirty laundry basket. The woman who looks back at me with fading hair and red-rimmed brown eyes seems to be perceptibly nearer the half century that will soon be upon her, than the mid-forties that I actually inhabit. With a grimace I make my way back across the hall to the cloakroom shower.
The scented lather with which I begin to soap myself eases the ache of well-exercised muscles, the gush of water rinsing away the furrows of a sleepless and over-active mind. For a moment, I’m deluded into thinking everything is normal. But suddenly, the protective elements of numbness and the passage of time are sluiced away. Ten-day old memories cascade through my brain.

IT’S JUNE. EARLY Saturday morning. Richard’s and my ninth wedding anniversary – and there he is applying the last coat of paint to the kitchen ceiling!
‘Half an hour,’ he calls. ‘Promise! Quick shower and we’ll be off. Get your glad rags on. We’re going to be tourists for the day, then up to the West End for a show.’
‘Yeah, yeah!’ I retort, plumping up pillows and smoothing the duvet on the bed. ‘Half an hour, my foot. When have I ever known you to manage a shower in half an hour?’
Had the day really begun so benignly filled with affection and expectation? The recollection brings with it a renewed stab of pain that hits me just below the ribs.
The phone begins to ring as I am about to leave the bedroom. What if it hadn’t rung until after we’d left home for the pleasures of our day? What if we’d been on the river with my bridesmaids of nine years earlier, Richard’s best man, and their families? Or in Piccadilly, alone at the theatre? But it didn’t happen like that. I pick up the receiver, stand at the bedroom window, look down at the once functional – now purely decorative – docks below, and listen to a voice which, though clearly that of one of the girls, is not immediately identifiable as to which.
‘Mum?’
‘Katya? What’s wrong?’
The assumption that it’s my younger daughter is a natural response to the tension that crackles down the line. A less frequent caller than her sister, Rosie, Katya rings only in extremis, the tremor in her voice indicating that she’s in need of money, refuge or sympathy – sometimes all three in equal measure – which need she will later, obstinately and independently, refute. Aged twenty-five, Katya has recently split with her partner, the father of her baby daughter, Zara. She has already phoned home several times that week.
‘Katya?’ I repeat.
The voice at the other end of the phone is high-pitched and rasped with the resonance of shock.
‘It’s Rosie. Mum, is Richard with you?’
I turn from the window.
‘What’s the matter, darling? It’s not Steve again?’
A year older than Katya, Rosie lives in the West Country, Molvelly Abbey, an inland hamlet half an hour from Katya’s coastal home in Compass Quay. Steve, Rosie’s husband for the past seven years, and father to three of my four grandchildren, has recently had surgery for an inflamed bursa.
‘It’s not Steve,’ Rosie responds breathlessly. ‘It’s Kat. Is Richard there?’
I sink onto the bed, oblivious of the crumpled duvet I’ve smoothed only moments earlier. The persistent enquiry for Richard’s whereabouts begins to seep into my thinking. My heart pounds.
Did I know then? Is it true, as I’ve heard said, that some sixth sense applies; some inner antennae between a mother and child that, from conception through birth and life, goes on transmitting and receiving without thought or action on the part of either, without being perceptible? Until it’s broken. When the imperceptible clamours for attention; transmission ceases; a persistent crackle and hiss intone inside: an incessant, cacophonous white noise. And you know. You just know!
But I didn’t know. That’s the point. After all these years, this scene, this death scene, so long imagined, so fervently rehearsing itself in my mind, has been put to death. R.I.P. I’ve allowed myself hope, and hope has become surety, surety, peace. How could I know? What inner sense could have detected that the peace was about to be shattered?
‘Katya?’ I echo, stupidly, down the phone line. ‘What’s happened Rosie? Have the two of you had a row?’

ROSIE BACKED THE Range Rover out of the yard. Behind her stood the stone cottage that had been her home for the last seven years. To one side, beyond the thick Leylandii hedge, lay the adjoining Garden Centre and Nursery – heavily mortgaged to the bank – from which she and Steve scraped a living. She tooted her horn to let him know she was off.
‘You haven’t forgotten that I have another doctor’s appointment this morning, have you?’ she’d asked him, earlier, before breakfast.
Tall, lean, and tanned, he’d paused in the act of lathering his face prior to shaving, and eyed her, quizzically, in the mirror.
‘You alright with that?’ he asked.
Her eyes flicked up and over him, as a sudden recognition filled her – warm and wholly unexpected – that here, in Steve, was the security she’d craved as a child.
Severe stomach cramps in the months following Erin’s birth – her longed-for and cherished daughter – had prompted the original appointment ten days earlier. But with Steve worried about an outbreak of black spot among the hybrid roses, and the twins acting up as only four year old boys could, she’d almost convinced herself that the pain didn’t warrant the doctor’s attention; that it would right itself, soon enough; that she should cancel the consultation.
‘Go!’ Steve had urged her. ‘Marjorie can take the twins on a tour of the new aquatics, while I organise a spraying programme of the roses.’
Marjorie was one of the staff in the tiny café area, which abutted the conservatory that housed the potted house-plant section. A grandmotherly woman, whose rich dialect delighted the boys, she was more friend than employee. It was she who, as the day evolved, had taken them home with her and kept them over the weekend so that Rosie could concentrate on other things.
Other things had begun with Rosie’s arrival that Saturday morning at the surgery in Compass Quay.
‘Rosie Timbline for Dr Wharton,’ she’d announced, presenting herself at the counter.
The Receptionist, Pauline, looked up from her desk. But instead of checking off the appointment in the diary before her, to Rosie’s acute embarrassment, she came round the counter to her side.
‘You won’t be seeing Dr Wharton this morning,’ she said, her voice hushed and slightly nasal. ‘Dr Morris wants a word with you. He’s running rather late so he’s asked me to take you into the Clinic to wait.’
Conscious of the curious stares of other patients, Rosie’s cheeks flushed and her mouth felt dry. She seemed to have been back and forth to the surgery no end of times in the last few years. If it wasn’t a pregnancy or a miscarriage, it was some minor ailment or other; either her own or those of the children. Was this to be a reprimand for wasting surgery time? An old childhood guilt that could never quite be assuaged, an irrational fear of having failed the expectations of others, gnawed at her insides.
She allowed herself to be steered away from the doctors’ surgeries towards the newly-built annexe, which housed the Clinic.
‘Will the doctor be long?’ she asked, indicating the sleeping baby. ‘It’s such a palaver getting out and back home in time for feeds these days.’
Pauline showed her empathy in a half-smile half-grimace, pushed open the double doors of the annexe and switched on the lights.
‘Sorry. Shouldn’t be too long now. He particularly wants to see you.’
Rosie’s heart missed a beat. Something must be afoot. She set the baby chair on the floor and perched on the edge of her seat as if for flight. Pauline hurried back to the Reception Desk.
The Clinic – usually packed with the subdued chatter of ante- or post-natal women awaiting scans and other minor miracles of obstetric care; mothers, with pre-school infants mercifully unaware of the terrors of the needle ahead; or the elderly and disabled juggling exercises of body and mind – was, that morning, silent and foreboding. The emptiness, the shadowless ceiling lights, the grey walls, and red plastic seats rigid in their attempt at informality, felt cold and cheerless.
Rosie shivered.
When, at last, Dr Morris appeared at the door of the Clinic, she had no sense of how long she had waited. The doctor shook her hand, leaned over the baby in her chair and made the right noises, then seated himself at right angles to Rosie.
He was not Rosie’s GP and was known to her only by hearsay. Somehow, his appearance didn’t match the image Rosie had formed. She thought him unkempt, his eyes bleary, his jowls dark and unshaven. He leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs, the flesh on his face falling into crumpled folds.
‘I’m sorry to have kept you,’ he began. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’
Rosie’s heart began to thump. It thumped so loud she thought it would leap from her chest. All she could hear as the doctor started to speak was an endless drumming in her ears.

THE MEMORY OF that morning, ten days earlier, brought a sharp reflux in Rosie’s chest and throat. She came to a halt at the junction at the top of the lane, scrutinised the traffic conditions to right and left, then turned onto the main road that would take her into town. Even now, after more than a week of assimilating accumulated information, she found it difficult to recall the details of that Saturday. She cast her mind back.
Dr Morris had been called out by the police at four o’clock that morning, he told her.
‘I’m so sorry Mrs Timbline – Rosie, if I may? There’s no easy way of saying this. Your sister, Katya, was found dead in her home.’
The blood surged and pounded in Rosie’s ears. Strangely, Katya had been the last person on her mind when the doctor had warned her of bad news. Such was her state of confusion, that she’d thought, initially – was convinced, in fact – that Dr Morris was about to tell her of some disaster that had befallen her mother. A road traffic accident on the way down to the river for their celebratory pleasure cruise? A drowning? From a boat they had not yet boarded! How stupid was that?
‘Katya?’ she repeated. But her brain refused to give up its image of Mum.
Little by little, his voice resonant with kindness and fatigue, the doctor relayed what he knew of the situation. Little by little, like arrows fired at ramparts and falling short, the blunt facts barely penetrated the thick layer of insulation that Rosie’s mind had erected around her intellect.
With some effort, she recalled the facts. Kat had been to a party – a barbecue – on the Friday evening. Her estranged partner, father of fifteen-month old Zara, had stayed over to baby-sit. It was he who had found Kat in the early hours of the next morning, slumped on the sofa downstairs. In a state of extreme shock he had telephoned the emergency services, who had then contacted both the police and the Duty Doctor, Dr Morris.
‘I’m afraid there was nothing I – or anyone else – could do,’ said Dr Morris. ‘She’d been dead for some hours before anyone got there.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Rosie said repeatedly. Illogically. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Even to her own mind she was unsure to whom and for what she was apologising.
The doctor was kind and understanding. Kat’s death was due to asphyxiation, he said. But a Post Mortem would have to be conducted before the full facts could be known. Shaking off the shock that engulfed her, Rosie roused herself.
‘I need to let my mother know. And can I see her? Kat? Mum will want to know how she looked.’
Dr Morris arranged for a cup of tea to be brought to Rosie, for her to see the body at The Chapel of Rest, and then for her to make whatever phone calls she deemed necessary.

TEN DAYS LATER and here she was again!
At the outskirts of Compass Quay, Rosie slowed to the obligatory thirty-mile limit. She would have to pass the end of Locket’s Lane, where Kat had lived – and died – in order to reach the doctor’s surgery. Her heart lurched at the thought.
She drew a sharp breath and, to calm herself, turned her head to smile at the baby in her rear-facing car seat strapped to the passenger seat beside her. Rewarded with a windy grin on the tiny, puckered features, she lingered too long before returning her attention to the road. Heart racing, she slammed on the brakes to avoid a collision with the car in front.
Claire’s response to her phone call from the surgery to convey the news of Kat’s death had been equally unnerving. Should she – could she, Rosie wondered – have broken it any better?
‘Mummy – I’m so sorry. Kat’s been found dead at home.’
There was no easy formula; no pat phrase; no acceptable tone of voice. Besides, she had been in shock, herself. It had been all she could do to force the words out past her teeth and lips. The cavity of her chest felt empty, as if her lungs had deflated; as if there was insufficient breath on which to convey the sound and meaning of her message. How did you tell any mother of the loss of her child? How could you cause such pain to your own? Her teeth chattered.
‘I’m so sorry, Mummy. I’m so sorry.’
Over and over, her guilt spilled out, inane, irrational, unstoppable: for being the harbinger of bad news; the cause of pain and anguish; for every hard thought she had ever harboured – against Kat, their mother, their father; for being hundreds of miles away from dispensing and receiving a hug; for feeling utterly, devastatingly, helpless.
And then – silence.
She’d imagined her mother sitting on the sofa in the lounge. Or perhaps on the edge of her bed. She tried to get her mind round what it would be like if someone were to tell her, Rosie – one day, in the far off future – that her precious Erin was no more.
Are you okay, Mummy? I understand how you must feel, Mummy.
The crumbs of comfort she had been about to offer were never uttered. Instead, an inhuman moan, which emanated from Claire, began to echo down the phone line. It grew to a crescendo, and became a wail that filled Rosie’s head.
Immutable, it had filled her head for the past ten days.

STEPPING OUT OF the shower and beginning to dry myself, I realise that I have little coherent memory of the day of Katya’s death. Is this the nature of grief? A savage slash across a known territory. A ripping, searing pain. And then – nothing? Nothing but the blurred edges of reality, like those left by softly falling snow; the blotting out of familiar landmarks until – yes – almost nothing known remains.
Patchworks of disconnected impressions burn bright and clear in my mind, but it’s as if they are the borrowed memories of some other entity – a character of whom I’ve read, perhaps; a photograph of some past event that has been vividly brought to life by the descriptive powers of its participants, or observers.
That’s how I feel: a spectator of something outside myself; something that touches me empathetically, but fails fully to involve me. It’s as if the events unfurling before me, however dramatic, are not grounded in my understanding of reality, but have a dreamlike quality about them. There are two minds at work: the one that has left its lived-out abundant life at home but continues to operate at the level of banality: sustenance, sleep, self-preservation; the other that brings into play the detached watchfulness of an interested bystander.
Like a photographer accompanying a journalist to the scene of a disaster, the camera of my mind merely records the victims and helpers; their actions and reactions; the mood and emotions of the occasion. But it’s not my disaster. And its importance seems ephemeral.
I apply deodorant and talc and pull on my underclothes, sweater and jeans.
The news that Rosie broke that Saturday morning hit me like a body-blow. But the shock I felt was not simply that of Katya’s death. This shock took the form of astonishment: disbelief that a death so long anticipated should elicit so predictable a response, when I’d thought myself inured. Or cured!
At some point, a howl broke the sleepy Saturday morning feel of residential Dockland. But though reason told me it must have originated in my throat, I felt no sense of ownership.
It did, however, bring Richard running. Poor Richard, I thought, regarding him from the edge of the bed as he appeared at the door, paint-laden roller still in hand, red-faced from the contortion of looking ceiling-ward for so long. Had he truly understood what he was taking on when he married me, a thirty-six year old divorcee, with two teenage girls? And I realised, with that other mind – the spectator-mind – that there was no incongruity in my concern for him; that anxiety for others was a buffer, a kinder reality than the realism that had thrust itself, cruel and barbed, into the soft underbelly of sorrow, pain and disappointment which, together, amounted to self-concern.
Richard’s face was etched with fear.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked. ‘I thought you’d fallen. Thought you must’ve killed yourself.’
Wordlessly, I passed the phone to him.
A drop of white paint fell from the roller onto the polished oak of the bedroom floor. Viscous, like blanched blood, it remained perfectly round. I stared at it, unseeing. Did Mark know of Katya’s death, I wondered? He was her father, after all. I hadn’t thought to ask Rosie. It hadn’t seemed to figure in my thinking at the time.
I bring to mind other occasions when I’ve had to break news to him of some disaster or other concerning Katya. There was purpose, then. A reason for the two of us to leave our respective spouses and go haring off together in an attempt to avert greater catastrophe. The morning of Katya’s death, there was none. Just an empty, gaping void.
He would hear soon enough, I told myself. Just as I tell myself, now, ten days later, that there’s no need for me to ring in respect of the Pathology Report. My reluctance, I fear, is palpable.

Read more about A Painful Post Mortem and Mel Menzies HERE.

Copyright 2008 Mel Menzies. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.