Like he’d done for 40 years, he placed their breakfast on the table. Since the stroke his wife had little appetite for food. He watched the morning news and she stared out the window. Later, in the garden he picked tomatoes and she watched the sun fall below an orange horizon. He said, “I love you.” She had no reply. As darkness crept in, they undressed and went to bed. When he awoke the next morning she was not at his side. In his frantic search, he found the check from the life insurance company lying unopened on the table
“There’s absolutely nothing good that can go on after midnight, there’s no movies, no restaurants, no school dances. Only one thing happens and you don’t want any part of it if you want a normal life.”
If anyone knows about not having a normal life, it sure
as hell is going to be me. My piece of shit father was a man of few words and
never the right ones. I never once in my life heard an “I love you”, gotten a
hug or even a smile from the rotten bastard. He preferred to let his belt do
his talking for him.
The woman that I called mother just hid away in the bedroom,
sniveling like a child herself, with never a word or lifting a hand to try to
stop him. One day, in a drug induced moment of courage, she pointed the sleek,
cold steel of my dad’s .45 at the wrinkle just above her nose and pulled the
trigger. As far as I was concerned, it was just another coward’s move from a
weak minded piece of shit. The powder and lead might have driven away her pain
but a lot of good it did for me.
So I fled into the night and let the darkness seduce me.
Where I could feel the coolness of the shadows against my naked skin dance with
the heat from whoever was willing to pay for my passion.
My dear daughter Leanna, you were born on my seventeenth
birthday. That day, I vowed to make a better life for you, my precious baby
girl. I was going to give you all the things I had never gotten from life; a
home, love, compassion, support and honesty.
I just forgot that all those things came with a price.
That all the money in the world couldn’t give you those things, only time
shared with each other can do that.
Now, all I can do is bring flowers to your grave.
“I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you while you were
being seduced by the night.”
Death is a natural occurrence, like drying leaves dropping from trees in the waning days of autumn. We don’t mourn their absence but we do remember them for their brilliant colors. At times during the despair of our winter when the cold turns our hearts icy and the landscape bleaches into shapeless shadows, we may think of them. But for every winter there comes a spring and with the warming of our souls, the memories of them step aside and each blossom of the new beginning smells the sweeter for it. Celebrate the time you have with those you love.
When loves gives us a call, we have to answer the door. Part of that love it seems is the need to pour our souls out onto paper.
Is it because we are so inspired by the feeling we have that we can’t resist it? Or, as I believe, is it the fact that we know our partner is going to goo goo ga ga over each and every word. Because love is also blind and deaf.
William is only in his mid-thirties but already has a
receding hairline and a thin spot on the back of his head that shines in the
sunlight. He’s more than a few pounds overweight and can barely walk down the
block without stopping to catch his breath.
Every workday at noon, for the past month, William has
eaten at the Main Street Cafe. He always sits at the table in front of the
window and reads another book by Ivan Doig, James Joyce, or E. E.
Cummings. Or perhaps he’ll just sip his
cinnamon latte and slowly eat his tuna salad or chicken salad on rye and watch
the crowd stroll up and down Main Street.
Now the cafe itself isn’t anything special. It’s the same
one as in every other small town spread across America. Just another rundown
café in another rundown town. You know the one with the cute little hand
painted special written in neon colors on a whiteboard displayed on an iron
tripod just outside the front door.
Inside the shop, the walls are covered with license
plates from all over America and even a few from Canada and Mexico. Old photos
of all the Little League ball teams they’d sponsored over the years hanging
behind the counter along with amateur photos of people holding up huge catfish
or posing with an eight pointer.
For William, the coffee is always a little weak and
definitely overpriced. So most people wouldn’t even go there if it wasn’t the
only café on the square.
But coffee isn’t what brings William here every day
anyway. He’s here because he’s in love with Martha. Because he sees the real Martha,
the way her curves bulge against the seams of her uniform. Her fish hook smile
that can catch his heart and reel him in every time she flashes it at him. He’s
here because of the warmth he feels in his cheeks every time she looks at him
with those brilliant blue eyes.
He’s here because of the way he feels his heart pound
against his rib cage when she walks close. Or the way the lump gets caught in
his throat whenever she greets him each morning. The way his hands shake like
an inmate on death row if she accidently brushes against him while clearing the
table.
William has tried a hundred times to make the words come
out but they just won’t dislodge from his throat. So he always lays a $10 bill
on the table for a $5.99 tab and smiles at Martha before he heads out the door.
“What’s the deal with that William?” Charlotte asks.
“I don’t know, but I wish the hell I had the nerve to ask
him out.” Mary whispers.
Life is a patchwork of moments — laughter, solitude, everyday joys, and quiet aches. Through scribbled stories, I explore travels both far and inward, from sunrise over unfamiliar streets to the comfort of home. This is life as I see it, captured in ink and memory. Stick around; let's wander together.
Jerry Brotherton 