The Big Brick House in Erie ((1973)(a very short story))

The Big Brick House in Erie (1973)
(A very short Story)



I was invited to my boss' house, worked for Pennsylvania, Electric Company back in 1972-’73, I was young so very young back then freshly out of the Vietnam, and its ongoing war, just got married, had twins: perhaps twenty-five years old at the time; l lived in Erie, Pennsylvania for a year, total, worked for an Iron Foundry prior to getting a job at the Electric Company; had it not been for my origins (being Russian), like my boss’ I’d not have gotten the job. After working at the company for a few months, I hung around with his nephews (not knowing at the time, they were his nephews) and when I saw his big, red brick house, it somewhat startled me: made of: red-brick, smoothly mortared. In-between: a few chimneys on each side of the house, Victorian style. It was a big, red brick huge house with windows everywhere: all around the house, up and down each of the three floors, and a window in the attic to boot.
To a poor Midwestern chap like me, my eyes were mortified, they were shaken (hands fidgeting, legs weakening) had to catch my breath, I even questioned myself, “Did people really live like this?”
On one hand, I was delighted, in that I got an invitation, to see a friends uncle’s beautiful country style house in the city, as big as a mansion down south, let’s say as in Alabama or North Carolina, in which I’ve been to both locations. In life certain things impress you, and you never quite get over them until you somehow wrap them up in some kind of bag for later examination, and if life permits, it haunts you until you deal with whatever causes the haunting.
His wife answered the door, she said hello to us, his nephew and me, and when I walked inside the house, my boss was surprised, yet greeted me well, cheerful, I wanted to say, “You have everything here.” But I didn’t say a word; I just looked and listened, observed and appreciated, without envy getting in the way.
I think he noticed I felt a bit Uncomfortable (I was brought up in an extended family where two bedrooms fitted four families); so, I smiled the best I could, looking about the house it was to me: Buckingham Palace.

I spoke to him loosely about trivialities, very shyly, when we left he thanked me very much for coming, but his mind was already looking forward to other businesses. He appeared to be very eager, and self absorbed. The weather was windy outside, and a chill was in the air, winter was coming on, it was November.
I had heard a few weeks after that experience, he had put his housed up for collateral, he was working on a side project, and it fell through, meaning, it didn’t do very well, and he was losing that beautiful house. When I saw him the few times at work--thereafter, I could hardly lift my head to greet him, but I did, and he was as if he was normal.
A few other times he sat down in his office, on the second floor, I noticed him when I needed to visit the office, he was quiet and reserved self-absorbed sitting alone in that big chair, on the verge of bankruptcy. I guess I was thinking at the time, if I was he, I’d be hollering and throwing things in the air, into the bull ring to fight the bull if necessary, just to make me feel better.
Well, that was a long time ago of course, and writing this, it is 2-23-2006, autumns have come and gone quicker than a clap of an eye.
I am now fifty-eight years old, yes, a quarter century plus, has passed, I owned several big houses a few years ago or so, retired at fifty-two, sold all the houses—one each year, I got two left, one bigger than his, and one smaller than his, the smaller one is in case I have to file bankruptcy or sell the big one; his big house has always been a reminder for me, things come and go, change as years pass, and never did I once forget that big house, in Erie: never once, that’s why I have a plan B.

Written 2/23/06 (St. Paul, Minnesota) revised and rewritten at my home in Lima, Peru, 1-7-2009)

The Great Hillside Massacre near Hanover (242 AD)

The Great Hillside Massacre near Hanover
(242 AD)


The Last Great Germanic Battle

Advance: For the most part, Germany between AD 200-600 was a migrating people, into the early Middle Ages, coming out of the Dark Age. Along the boarders of Austria, Germany all the way to England, Rome’s western provinces, the German people—immigrants for the most part adored to Latin, dialects. It might be fair to say, eventually all the Germanic peoples were Christianized, but not so to the so called, hunters of the deep. While medieval Europe was developing, and the Roman Empire becoming part of it, as a result, common identity, history and culture transcended linguistic boarders.

Segimer II, whose ancestors were present at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, about A.D. 9, a three day battle, was about to repeat, that battle, in what would be known as “The Great Hillside Massacre Near Hanover” but in miniature form. At which time his accusers ambushed and destroyed three Roman legions. Thus, he would try to duplicate this feat. One may even say at this point, the German people achieved something they didn’t really seek, an origin. Oh that battle was a harsh one compared to the one to follow, 20,000-Roman soldiers lost their life, many falling on their own swords. Many were taken as sacrificial offerings by the nomadic tribesmen. Some ransomed, and some used as common slaves. But in the forth coming battle, it would be slightly different.



You might want to call it one of the last greatest battles between the Roman Empire, and the German Barbarians (or, hunters of the deep) on the other hand you may want to remember it as, the massacre of Hanover. Roma had not given up complete control over the Germanic countryside’s, especially Northern Germany. There was a great tribesman who had no name in particular, but was call after his ancestors Segimer II, with his cohorts lived in the deep of the forest, and had a hand full of warriors. For weeks they had been chased by the Romans, Rome being of course still the superpower of the known world at the time (241 BC), and the barbarians knew with their superior technology, and long range weapons, they could never defeat the battalion of Romans that seemingly shadowed them, like white on rice, like an elephant to a mouse, and eventually they’d become a trophy, in some Roman home hold, should they not use wit and seizure reasoning for a forthcoming battle that no matter what, would take place. As a consequence, about fifty-miles out site of Handover, the Germanic tribe lured the close to five hundred Roman soldiers into the forest (south of the city of Hanover), where the real battle would take place, instead of this cat and mouse chase through the open spaces.
The leader of the tribe, with his fifty warriors, hunters of the deep, swearing to fight to the last warrior, lured the Romans into the forest, by using wit and trick, and their woman (after the battle, many of the soldiers fell almost into a shock seeing the few women they had captured from the barbarians, now dead, they were not accustomed to seeing dead women among the dead men, the sight of a dead woman was quite appalling, but they had given their lives up, keeping the Romans busy drinking, and comfortably saturated with countryside sex; some with extraordinary beauty, they caught the Roman eye, the blued eyed she-devils, were planted, watered and brought to perfection for just this obscure part of the great massacre, it was no small importance) and wine to subdue them slowly, and then came the overnight ambush, when the legion was sleeping, once awaken by human agony, of the Romans being butchered one by one, the man to man, onslaught began right then and there in the campsite. It was a massive grave by the time the battle finished, the Romans being shredded to a company size level, thus, the standoff killed three froths of the five-hundred men, one hundred and twenty-five left, wandering aimlessly among their dead.
As they looked upon their fellow comrades, the dead comrades, and the dead horses, blood colored the ground everywhere. Shovels, spears, arrows, a catapult, crossbows, all unused, allying dormant in the dirt for posterity, to tell the story, that there was a feverish, great battle that took place here, perhaps the last Germanic battle, on a hillside.
The Germanic tribe, left the loitering Romans to bury their own, and so they did, while the barbarians went several miles south to their forfeited city of stone and logs; they knew if the battle didn’t take place, it was just a matter of time when they’d have to uproot, and take their families into another section of the forest—deeper; it was clear the Romans were determined to wipe out the remaining tribes of the area, and accordingly, in the process, the last great Legion, was reduced to a wandering, aimless company size level.
Most of the Roman soldiers were in shock, walking from one dead man to another, the first few days, they couldn’t even smell the rotting of flesh, or noticed the discoloration, and bloating of the bodies even the mules and horses, dogs that they had, they were almost in a trance, couldn’t find their wits, and when they did, most were resigned to going their own way to get out of the deep, lost, hungry, and the leadership torn apart.
They seemed an unfitting sight for a Roman soldier, looking less than incongruous, if not odd and absurd, finding shallow waters to drink from, and their once baggage animals pushed to one side of the river, to die as they were, some mules and horses tried to get away and were drowned in the shallow water, broken legs from running and tripping.
Speaking literally, one hardly could say, they looked like Roman soldiers, it would have been extremely doubtful to an on looker. All in all, the once pleasant, though dusty, ride though the open fields of Germany and the beautiful forest that brought both compensation and reward to the naked eye for their long endurance over those past long miles, now brought unpleasantness of duty, and the changed impression follow him to his death.
The tribesman, leader, left behind a dozen assassins, and during their disarray, wiped out every Roman soldier left, by either leading them to great bogs, and letting them be sucked into to its depths, or by a more warrior like assassination, and as a result, nothing was left to be written of this last, and lost massacre, previously untold, and now told.

Written (Lima, Peru) 1-5-2009

Old Man Big Bird (...and His Apartment) A Short Story of Aging

Old Man Big Bird
(…and his apartment)



The old man (Stan), they called him Big Bird, he stood six foot six, in apartment three, second floor, side apartment, sat in his room each night, after returning from the bar, trying to read the paper, television loud, a bottle of whisky to his side on an end-table, a pack of cigarettes, by the bottle of whiskey where the ashtray was, he had quite drinking for a spell, but started back up, it was his 76-year on this earth.
Each day he’d go to the bar at noon, eat his lunch, go for a walk—up and down Rice Street (St. Paul, Minnesota), and then go to his apartment, across from the alley, and take a nap, then get back up about five p.m., and start drinking, return to his apartment between 9:00 p.m., and 11:00 p.m., and turn on the television—loud, and start that routine I just mentioned. He had lived in the apartment for fifteen-years. Big Bird, shrieked to anyone who tried to stop his routine, didn’t care for his family all that much, his kids seemed to get on his nerves when they came to visit him, and when his daughter cleaned his apartment up, he’d leave, lest he get in a confrontation with her.
Some times he’d be gone for a few days, and Mr. Murphy, who owned the three-plex apartment house, he had purchased it five-years prior, and would simple say if one of his kids appeared and ask where he was,
“We’d not seen him in days I’ll let him know you asked,” and that was usually that, because Mr. Murphy knew his tenant didn’t want to be bothered with his kids trivialities, or anybody’s for that matter, and for the most part, he didn’t blame Big Bird, they only came around with claws to get something, and the old man was wiser than they thought.
It would have appeared, or it did at least to Mr. Murphy that, Big Bird didn’t want any calamity in his old age, the common heart of humanity to appease them, had strayed away from him long ago, as does a little child, to his parents, once they grow up. He didn’t care to give offence to his children or to anyone in particular, but he was old, and growing feeble, and his ways were strange, if not steep, and he liked them that way.


But getting back to that loud television at night, and his drinking, and smoking, he became pie-eyed nightly, that dirty-faced little devil, and he’d scream loud as it seemed he’d be fighting with his demon. Mr. Murphy, lived in apartment two, across from his apartment, and heard this nightly, and Big Bird would leave the window open, allowing a storm, its rain, and wind—in the winter, snow, to circulate his apartment; sometimes Mr. Murphy would have to go in and close it, Big Bird never locked his place, he had a hard time finding his keys. Thus he made a deal with Big Bird, if he smoked, he couldn’t drink in his room, and if he chose to drink, he couldn’t smoke in his room. Well he chose to drink, and so the smoking stopped for a while, then gradually he started back up again. He wasn’t trouble-making: he just wanted to do what he wanted to do, a bit of a man mislaid perhaps, or perchance, he felt, ‘Why not now, in my old age, it’s bad enough— just being old.’

Disregarding all this, what bothered Mr. Murphy the most, was the television and lights being on all night long, and him being passed out in that sofa chair of his. I mean, Mr. Murphy paid the electric bill, not his tenants.
“Sir,” said Mr. Murphy, to Big Bird leaving his apartment one forenoon, to have lunch, he was at this time the most sober of the day, and he said bluntly, but awkwardly also, looking up into Big Bird’s eyes, for he was eight-inches taller than Mr. Murphy,
“It’s a waste of my money, and silly to leave your television on all night long and be passed out in the chair, I’ve got to pay the bill.”
Then Mr. Murphy was going to say, ‘Forget it,’ because the old man simply looked dumbfounded at the questioning, as if Mr. Murphy was crowding him. Long he stood there thinking, inconsequent surmises, trying to figure out, what Mr. Murphy was after or up to, then said Big Bird with a particular apprehensive grin,
“Here, will this cover the extra electric bill each month?”
He had handed Mr. Murphy a $20-dollar bill, Mr. Murphy had figured it out to be at least seven to fourteen dollars a month more—depending, thus, twenty-dollars was more than sufficient.
“Oh yes,” he said in a softer voice, “that’ll do just fine.”
And that was that. He died of cancer six months later (in 2002), and he paid his last months rent, even though he never got to live in his apartment for those last days, it was all he had left to his life, and if he grieved at all for anything, it was for that apartment and his right to live there as he pleased.

1-4-2009 (Written in Lima, Peru)

The Sad Young Sergeant ((… Agent Orange) (1977, Fort Rucker, Alabama))

His dull face showed a shade of vengeance by some inward self-satisfaction needed, a smugness almost that appeared to offend him, yet gave him content, if not joy—it wasn’t in his nature, but it was there nonetheless, that he found something out of nothing, and now could utter what it was, he had learned the name for it, ‘Agent Orange.’

       “They fired bombs and guns I thought,” he told Staff Sergeant Chick Evens, adding, “I never expected to live through the war, only to come home and die at the hands of some mysterious, infectious chemical agent called ‘Agent Orange.”

       His back against the wall, chair up on its two hind legs, Staff Sergeant Joe Montgomery, from Fayetteville, North Carolina was dying slowly.

       It was the summer of 1977

       “It has a delayed reaction, they now tell me, nine-years later, then buff, all of a sudden is called Agent Orange. The government say’s they’ll pay, but you know Evens, that’ll be twenty-five years from now.”

      And how true that would be, Evens would get an $11,000-check in the mail, 35-years later for his dose of Agent Orange that came out of the Vietnam War, a heart problem to boot, and some other neurological issues.

       “It was to me Evens, the final boom! And now it is the last part of the war for me, which I thought was over for me, nine-years ago, evidently I was wrong. Yes indeed, a lost war, that I forgot was still embedded in me, to my death do I part with it.”  Furthermore, added Joe (in a voice of discontent, faint and failing), “…they all fell dead around us, when we went to pick them up, to check out their pockets for papers, and so forth, they were silent, discolored; the dead are smelly, and ugly, and discolored, and bloated, and just awful.”  Joe was now mentally being taken back to war, and Evens listened intently, as they both sat eating in the Army mess hall.

       Then Joe’s hand started to shake, than it shook more rapidly his system was on automatic, like someone under electric shock, his left arm dancing in the air, as he looked at it Evens trying to hold it down.

       “You see, I have no control over it,” said Joe the Evens, his face started to pulsate, and his legs seemed to tap, and his back arched. He had to let go of his coffee cup, then his spoon, he had to wait for his system to cool down, to readjust. He no longer was in control.

       After a moment’s agony, he smiled again, “Everyday now, it gets worse,” he explains to Evens, Evens unknowing at the time he too, had a touch of Agent Orange, it was simply dormant for the moment.

       “No kidding aside, I’ll be dead in two months, so the doctor tells me, and my lawyers say, this substance was used by the army for experimental purposes in several areas in Vietnam, during the time I was there, and I was in one of those several areas, and they are unsure of the effects, but here they are, in full motion, it’s all under investigation, and you know what that means in the Army. Listen up, you need to check out and see if you were in any of these areas, I mean it lays latent for years, and then like an eruption from a volcano, it explodes one day.”

       “How long you been in the Army?” asked Sergeant Evens.

       “Going on fifteen-years, I won’t live to get my pension; perhaps now you understand Staff Sergeant Evens (right then the spoon fell out from under his fingers a second time).”

       Under the stringent circumstances, Staff Sergeant Joe Montgomery, still had remarkable agility, and his large black frame bruised here and there, kept a smile on his face, knowing somehow there was no escape from his fate, yet, with the brief time he had left he was not going to ask for pity, or any such thing, and let it imprison him, he committed no crime, he was the victim, and said, sadly, “Too bad I love the Army so, and it would have been great to get to know you better Evens,” and then Evens noticed across his arm he had a tattoo of the American Flag, underneath it, it read, “The American Flag, with all its Glory!”

1-4-2008 (Written in Lima, Peru) Reedited: 9-2016

The Sad Young Sergeant (a short story, concerning Agent Orange)

The Sad Young Sergeant

((… Agent Orange) (1977, Fort Rucker, Alabama))

His dull face showed a shade of vengeance by some inward self-satisfaction needed, a smugness almost that appeared to offend him, yet gave him content, if not joy—it wasn’t in his nature, but it was there nonetheless, that he found something out of nothing, and now could utter what it was, he had learned the name for it, ‘Agent Orange.’

       “They fired bombs and guns I thought,” he told Staff Sergeant Chick Evens, adding, “I never expected to live through the war, only to come home and die at the hands of some mysterious, infectious chemical agent called ‘Agent Orange.”

       His back against the wall, chair up on its two hind legs, Staff Sergeant Joe Montgomery, from Fayetteville, North Carolina was dying slowly.

       It was the summer of 1977

       “It has a delayed reaction, they now tell me, nine-years later, then buff, all of a sudden is called Agent Orange. The government say’s they’ll pay, but you know Evens, that’ll be twenty-five years from now.”

      And how true that would be, Evens would get an $11,000-check in the mail, 35-years later for his dose of Agent Orange that came out of the Vietnam War, a heart problem to boot, and some other neurological issues.

       “It was to me Evens, the final boom! And now it is the last part of the war for me, which I thought was over for me, nine-years ago, evidently I was wrong. Yes indeed, a lost war, that I forgot was still embedded in me, to my death do I part with it.”  Furthermore, added Joe (in a voice of discontent, faint and failing), “…they all fell dead around us, when we went to pick them up, to check out their pockets for papers, and so forth, they were silent, discolored; the dead are smelly, and ugly, and discolored, and bloated, and just awful.”  Joe was now mentally being taken back to war, and Evens listened intently, as they both sat eating in the Army mess hall.

       Then Joe’s hand started to shake, than it shook more rapidly his system was on automatic, like someone under electric shock, his left arm dancing in the air, as he looked at it Evens trying to hold it down.

       “You see, I have no control over it,” said Joe the Evens, his face started to pulsate, and his legs seemed to tap, and his back arched. He had to let go of his coffee cup, then his spoon, he had to wait for his system to cool down, to readjust. He no longer was in control.

       After a moment’s agony, he smiled again, “Everyday now, it gets worse,” he explains to Evens, Evens unknowing at the time he too, had a touch of Agent Orange, it was simply dormant for the moment.

       “No kidding aside, I’ll be dead in two months, so the doctor tells me, and my lawyers say, this substance was used by the army for experimental purposes in several areas in Vietnam, during the time I was there, and I was in one of those several areas, and they are unsure of the effects, but here they are, in full motion, it’s all under investigation, and you know what that means in the Army. Listen up, you need to check out and see if you were in any of these areas, I mean it lays latent for years, and then like an eruption from a volcano, it explodes one day.”

       “How long you been in the Army?” asked Sergeant Evens.

       “Going on fifteen-years, I won’t live to get my pension; perhaps now you understand Staff Sergeant Evens (right then the spoon fell out from under his fingers a second time).”

       Under the stringent circumstances, Staff Sergeant Joe Montgomery, still had remarkable agility, and his large black frame bruised here and there, kept a smile on his face, knowing somehow there was no escape from his fate, yet, with the brief time he had left he was not going to ask for pity, or any such thing, and let it imprison him, he committed no crime, he was the victim, and said, sadly, “Too bad I love the Army so, and it would have been great to get to know you better Evens,” and then Evens noticed across his arm he had a tattoo of the American Flag, underneath it, it read, “The American Flag, with all its Glory!”

1-4-2008 (Written in Lima, Peru) Reedited: 9-2016

Aunt Mary (And the Water-pistol, 1958)

Aunt Mary
(And the Water-pistol)
1958


Mother and me, the two of us, went walking through the back way, through our backyard that is, and through Zackary’s backyard, which had a pathway to Granite Street, there on the sidewalk, we crossed the street, walking up hill to Patron’s store, a small grocery store in the neighborhood. I don’t recall exactly whaat the walk was for—that is to say, once we arrived at the grocery store what our purpose was, what we or she intended to purchase, or what we were to buy at the store, mother seldom took walks like that—she usually went to the larger stores and bought in quantity, such as several loafs of bread, and milk, and fifty-pounds of potatoes, and a crate of pears—it was cheaper that way, so I must assume it was in need for a distraction of her weekend routine in cleaning the house, and perhaps to buy me a popsicle, and an item or two she needed for cooking. And we bumped into Aunt Mary, she was my mother’s aunt, and thus, making her my great aunt. She was in her late 70s, I was eleven years old at the time, and my mother was thirty-eight; she, Mary, lived a few blocks away from us, and it was the first time I saw her, the very first time we met, I hadn’t even know she lived where she lived prior to this quick and rippled meeting.
So, to Mother, me and Aunt Mary, talk, they rambled on about what was, updating one another, you know, loose talk for the most part; whenever Aunt Mary asked mother a question, the conversation went on longer, then it came to a standstill, no one was talking any longer, and Aunt Mary was just looking at me, that was all.
“What can I buy for you?” asked Aunt Mary.
I invoke her consideration of the present scene somehow.
There was clearly nothing to be said because Aunt Mary was somehow set on buying me something. All the same, my mother clearly said,
“He’s fine, he doesn’t need anything.”
Looking in a exquisite visible way, mother wanted to cater to her wishes I gathered after she, Aunt Mary, produced a light delicate laughter—and, if you will, a bend of the eyebrows, hoping she’d not be refused with her frankness: thus,
“No,” she said, “I want to buy him something, here I have a dollar,” and a dollar in 1958, was likened to $10.00 now (or in 2009, as I write this short-lived story out), and she was on a pension, and lived alone in a big house.

Aunt Mary finished her demand that I take the dollar, and buy want I wanted, which was a squirt-gun (or water-pistol), one you squirted water out of, and at your enemy, or if not enemy, someone familiar, like my brother Mike, which I would do later on that day, and get hollered at for doing so, with a hot lecture by my mother for abusing Aunt Mary’s gift.
Nonetheless, she gave me the dollar, and stood waiting down the block for me and my mother to return with the gun, and my mother with her groceries, and we did, and I had the gun. She looked at my smile; it was greater than she had calculated.
In consequence, to buy a present for a dollar, and to have many happy hours with it thereafter was a bargain at anyone’s planning, which I assume she didn’t plan but had good insight at the moment, or so it seemed, so it would have appeared to an onlooker, but of course it was instantaneous, but something fine, and rare, and I never ever forgot her happiness in giving it to me, or my delightfulness in receiving it.
Perhaps I learned that day, happiness is a byproduct, in saying that I mean, it is something sterling when you give, even if it is a little, and it is worthy of the honor of being or receiving, happiness in return.
Her eyes were shinning brilliantly, her face lost its oldness for a moment, and she pulled out her lungs to take in a full length breath, and both of us mighty proud over a simple plastic water gun.

I would see her once more before she died, which was not long after that, perhaps three or four months. People know when they have but a short time left maybe that was what she was doing, planting a seed, before she pass on. Feeling somehow, confident that it would be delivered to the right chambers of my mind; that was of course, fifty-one years ago, and I still have not forgotten that charming warm summer day.

Written 1-3-2009, Lima, Peru

A Winter's Evening in Augsburg (1970)

A Winter’s Evening in Augsburg
(1970)


Inside the nightclub (disco) it was warm and lit up, sections, the lower, and the rounded balcony. The mugs of beer glowed with the wood of the tables, waitress were cleaning some off, and young customers were eating pretzels, popcorn and chips, seated and gazing about for girls, everyone appeared to be happy and content. Outside the nightclub, it was a chilly winter’s evening.
Two American soldiers (Ski and Christopher Wright) sat together at a side table, overlooking the dance floor; there was a clock that was way high on the wall. A waitress took their order, and brought Christopher a large cold beer, and Ski, who sipped on his, while the other Christopher downed his like water.
After a few more drinks, Ski was still on his first, but Christopher was on his third, “Can I bring you coffee, sir?” asked the waitress to Ski, thinking perhaps he was the driver for the two of them, and didn’t want to get in an accident.
“No,” he said, “I’m fine.”
“She thinks the coffee will keep me awake,” said Ski to his friend.
“Bring me another beer,” yelled Christopher to a passing waitress.
“Thank you Fraulein,” he said as she picked up two marks from the table.
“Do you speak German,” she asked Christopher, since he and Ski looked like they may have some German in them, “No,” Christopher said, “Maybe a little,” he added with a smile.
“Oh, yes, sir, I speak English, some.” She said and moved on another table.
“Look over there,” said Ski, “That gal is checking you out,” and he looked, “should I ask her if she wants to dance with you?” he asked Christopher.
“No,” I can if indeed she is directing those looks at me, perhaps its coincidental, she’s just looking about.”
“Mademoiselle!” yelled Ski, catching her attention through the loud music and dancing, she was two tables away.
“Yes sir,” she said, with a cleaver smile.
Christopher watched her close, she looked thin, a few years older than he, perhaps Jewish-German with a little hook on the nose, pretty, with blue eyes, and brownish hair, and she had a glass of wine in her hands. She spoke English, and looked interesting to Christopher.
“Stop speaking for me,” said Christopher to Ski, kind of direct, but not hatful.
“I can’t talk to you over this noise, come here,” she yelled, then with two and a half finger she waved Christopher on.
“I don’t necessarily like the way she’s waving me on, it’s kind of like a doggish, you know—to its master.”
The waitress came over, asked,
“Do you want me to move your drinks over to her table?” evidently, she was watching the movements, and Christopher pretended not to understand her broken English. She then went away.
“She wants you to come to her,” said Ski.
The waitress came over to their table again, “How much is her wine,” asked Christopher, “Four marks, sir,” she said, then he counted out the money slowly, put it on the table, “Then here, bring her whatever she’s drinking.”
“Cheers!” she said, holding up her glass of wine, looking at Christopher and Ski.
Christopher stood up this time, as she again was waving him on with those two and a half fingers, “Mademoiselle,” he said, “Would you like to dance?”
“Well of course, I’ve been waving you on for fifteen minutes now.” She said almost provokingly.
“Matter-of-fact, I don’t like the way you’ve been doing that finger thing, it looks like I’m suppose to be your trained dog.”
“Oh,” she said with a chuckle, “that’s kind of an ugly thing, you Americans are touchy,” she said, grabbing his hands before he changed his mind to dance, and holding him tightly, as if he was a rail, or post.
They danced several dances, and that was how they met, Chris Steward, and Christopher Wright.

“Have a cigarette,” she said, then offered Christopher one from her pack, he took it, she lit it, and they at down and laughed.
“I don’t smoke much,” said Chris, “It’s a dirty habit I’ve been trying to stop.”
“I smoke too much,” said the soldier boy, taking a puff of the cigarette, and drank his beer glass empty. He looked at the clock, and then his watch, his was a bit faster, “I should be going, it’s 10:00 O’ clock, and we have headcount, or bed check at midnight, I got to get a taxi or bus back to the base.”
Chris called the waitress, “The bill please,” and she paid it, said, “I have a car, don’t worry about getting back to the base, I’ll get you there in time, but let’s go to another club, I know one a mile or two from here.”
“If you like,” he said.
“You would like to stay with me, wouldn’t you?” she asked.
The waitress blushed as she gave her back some change.
“I mean, no disrespect,” she added, knowing he was sensitive, “but two make a party, not one, night loafer in Augsburg is velvety, I have friends I’d like you to meet.”
“That sounds interesting, but I also have a duty to be at the base by midnight, I must be in bed, myself in person.”


They were now in the car, and he asked, “Where did you learn you’re English?”
“At an English School, I am a manager of a café, among other things, and it helps because we serve a lot of GI’s.”
“Tell me about it,” asked Christopher.
“The school or the Pizzeria?” she asked as she drove deeper into the center of the city.
“You’re an awfully good looking soldier,” said Chris, “and let’s just keep it on the first date scale; I’ll tell you more about me if we go on a second date, ok?”
“Yes,” said Christopher….




Originally written in 2002, St. Paul, Minnesota, for the book, “A Romance in Augsburg.” Rewritten for “Days without Women,” shorter form, 1-2-2008.

Days without Women (A short story of a young man's drinking life)

Days without Women


It wasn’t any serious conversation, nothing much at all, mostly about not seeing him for a long time, and then he sat down by her in the Monetary Bar, off the corners of Sycamore street and Acker, the Jackson Street bridge in the front of the bar, a few hundred feet away, that cross the railroad track underneath it, he sat on a stood, hadn’t seen Jennifer St. Clair, for a very long time, perhaps 15-years he being thirty-eight years old now, she about thirty-five.
Everybody else around the bar was too drunk to notice him at first, someone was hammering on the bar for another drink, an old friend he noticed; then he noticed another old friend, who hadn’t noticed him yet, was bragging how he was a Black Belt now in karate. Then he ordered a coke. The girl looked at him strangely, but she had heard he had quite drinking some five-years back, his brother had said it to someone, and someone mentioned it in passing to someone else, and she picked up on it, someplace along the line.
“All right,” said Jennifer, “what’s up, what brought you back to this corner bar?”
“You mean, why I am here if I don’t drink anymore?” said Lee.
“I guess that’s what I mean. You got out of the neighborhood, you’re one of the few, and if you stick around here you’ll be like us again, drunks, busybodies, and gossipers.”
“I did stay away for a long time; I guess I wanted to simply say hello, and goodbye.”
It was early evening, Friday, and the counter of the bar was full of people, at the far-end of the counter, to his right, was a group of people, they looked familiar to Lee, but older of course, he stared at them, they looked out of place to his mind, his new world of sobriety. The girl next to him, her husband waved, his name was Johnny, and kept on talking to the folks at the end of the bar, then the karate man, waved, but kept a serious look, his hair was cut short, Lee knew him when he was a kid, they hung around together, his sister always had a crush on him, and Jennifer looked away from them, she was more lovely then he had remembered her.
“They’ll wanting you to go over there in a few minutes and drink with them, you know how they get,” she said, then hesitated, adding, “please Lee get out of here.”
Her hands were slim and brown and lovely, she was of the Chippewa race of Indians, like Johnny her husband.
“I will, I swear I will go after I finish my coke, Ok?”
“It won’t make you happy staying here,” she commented with a half smile, her puerperal vision, catching her husband’s eye looking at Lee, as if to try and persuade him to join the guys.
“If they want you to join them, what you going to do about it?” asked the girl.
“I told you, leave after I drink my coke.”
“No: I mean what really are you going to do, go join them, or what?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “They can join me I suppose.”
She glanced at him, and put out her hand, and he held it lightly, then let go quickly (as she picked up her glass of beer and drank it half down), “I always liked you Lee,” she said, adding “you were always different.”
“Want a beer Lee?” said Johnny from afar.
“No, thanks,” said Lee.
“It doesn’t do any good to stay, they’ll keep on needling you until you have a drink with them,” said Jennifer.
“Yes,” responded Lee, “I know how it is, I suppose this proves it.”
“I’m sorry Lee, but nothing has changed here since you’ve been gone traveling around the world I hear? Although it’s nice you haven’t forgotten us. I care for you very much, I’m stuck here, and you aren’t.”
“I understand.” He said.
“Yaw, that’s the trouble, you do understand,” she said with a sigh, and finishing off the other part of the glass of beer, then yelling at the barman to bring her another.

♦

Lee started thinking about his drinking days, his Army travels, there were many of them, twenty-years of drinking, eight-years in the Army, he stopped drinking back in ’84, he told himself he ought to get whatever there was out of life, sober now, instead of bar after bar life. Women were plentiful, but he was too drunk to do anything with them half the time. He had come a long way. He saw the bar he used to drink in, while stationed at Fort Rucker, Alabama, back in ’78, the vision was clear, there was this girl kind of sticking on him—or trying to, every time he came into the bar she’d sit by him and say, “Why is a nice looking soldier like you getting drunk every night here?”
She was a good looker, fine shape, some years younger than him, but a pest he thought, trying to reform him, when he didn’t want to be transformed or reformed or taken apart and put back together.
He had come close to telling her off many times, but this one night he did, all drunk eyed and under a dark cloud, he said in so many words, “Why is a nice girl like you lying about here waiting for me, drinking beer only to insult me, you’re a glass fixture in here just like me, just not so drunk. Shut up and beat it.”
She left, not sure if she was hurt, or wounded because of the words, but he added as she walked away, “You’re no saint baby!” And she never looked back, matter of fact; she drank her drink slowly, and disappeared, never to return.
Then there was the girl in the bar downtown Minneapolis, back in 1982, that one sat by him all night trying to tell him to go home with her—to bed with her, pretty as a peacock, but he sculled back in his chair, as if it was a boat, and lashed out at her like a viper, looking though his beer glass, she must have been rich he thought, but he wanted his drinking time, and he didn’t want to be uncomfortable, her hair was floating as the fan overhead circulated the warm air in the bar.
She left confused, her charms didn’t work, alcohol won, her face looked hard, her head and noise up in the air, dingily like, and there were a handful of more girls, in a hundred more bars, but it was all the same: you bumped in to one, was like bumping into the all, he told himself, one was just like another, but he wasn’t looking for girls, he was looking to get drunk and if a girl wanted to be quiet and submit to his style, ok, if not adios.
There was even a time when he went home with a girl, and they were in bed, and he said wait a minute, and vomited all over her bed and floor, that completed the night, and he passed out in his car.
It was a hell of a thing all right, to get drunk daily, and chase the women off nightly, and pass out, wake up, it was a hurricane hit, each twenty-four hours.


“Come back Lee wherever you are,” said Jennifer.
They hadn’t said a word for a while, Lee had zoned out of the present, and she noticed that.
Johnny had yelled for Lee to have a beer with him, and so did Mr. Karate man, and Big Ace, and a few of the others, of the one time gang members that were now aging, said Jeninifer back to them, “What do you want with him?”
“Have him come and have a drink with us,” said a voice from the group.
“No,” she said, “Were talking about old times, you know that.”
“All right,” said the unnamed voice.
“This place is all wrong for you Lee.”
“Yes, I got to go, but I’ll come back visit you folks again,” said Lee.
“No, you won’t, and I don’t blame you.” She said.
“No, really, I’ll come back.”
“We’ll see,” she commented.
“Yes,” he said, “That’s the hell of it, my curiosity: it will probably entice me to do so. I like to see how every one is.”
“Really.” She could not believe he said that, her voice was happy and sad at the same time.
“You better go then,” her voice sounded hurt, and yet, undamaged.
He looked at her, the shape of her face, there was still youth in her eyes, she had three children now, so she had said, her cheek bones curved outward, in another five years, she’d be unable to find her beauty, he knew that, funny she still had some he thought. She had a thick head of dark hair, and a nice forehead he thought.
“Oh, you’re too sweet,” he said.
“And when you come back, you can tell me of all the travels you done since then.”
Her voice sounded stranger, not recognizable, yet settled in the fact it was as it had to be.
“Yes,” he said ominously, “if the good Lord’s willing.” Adding, “you’re right, I’m a different man, and at times I’m even a stranger to myself.”
He looked at the door, at her, he saw that she was a tinge uncomfortable with him now, the forth glass of beer in front of her, half gone, and he was to her likewise, a different looking man. The group down at the corner of the bar moved a little ways closer to them, as if working their way down. Then looking into her beer glass, it was like a mirror, he saw his past it was all quite true, he was out of place here.
Next, he started to leave the bar, she said, as he passed her,
“You look very well, Lee; you must be living a very good life.”
He never looked back, he knew if he would he’d see the group, and then have to have that drink, and it just wasn’t worth it.


Written in Lima, Peru 1-2-2009