THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS

Reposted 11/24/12
in response to a prompt at
Write on Edge for the Weekend Linkup:
"Link up any post you’ve written that you’d like other eyes to see.
No word limits, no genre restrictions, and no prompts."

Originally posted 2/20/09

In response to a writing prompt on

PICTURES, POETRY & PROSE:

Include a train in your writing today
and also for
CREATIVE EVERY DAY

Click on the link(s) above to add your own response to the

challenge(s) or to view those submitted by others

        With a sideways lurch of the train, I was jerked into consciousness from an uncomfortable snooze. My neck was stiff, my back in pain, my ankles swollen, and my mouth felt like giant roaches had been crawling on my tongue.

        I opened one eye to see if Tyrone was asleep. He sat against an adjacent wall. "Sleepin' beauty has awaked," he said in his low, resonant voice. His toothless grin was surrounded by a scruffy beard.

        "Yeah," I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. "What time is it?"

        "About six. Just started light'nin' up." He dug in his hip pocket for a match. After exhaling a cloud of smoke, he asked, "Feelin' better, Sal?"

        I rubbed my stomach and sat up. "I don't feel worse." I tried to muster a smile for Tyrone.

        We were three days out of Pittsburgh, heading toward California. We had probably traveled twelve hundred miles forward and twelve thousand miles side to side. The swaying boxcar and the foul odor of whatever must have occupied it recently, made me feel like everything I had eaten was still in my throat, just waiting for one more lurch of the train to dislodge it.

        After midnight on a chilly morning, I had hopped the train as it slowed, almost to a stop, at a crossing in Pittsburgh's West End. I wore my entire wardrobe ---five layers of clothes covered with a shabby winter coat, mismatched gloves, a knit hat, and vinyl boots from the Goodwill Store. I carried the rest of my belongings in a grubby, but sturdy, canvas bag I stole from an unlocked car. The tote held three bottles of cheap brandy, a half gallon of water in a plastic milk bottle, plus plastic utensils and packets of ketchup from McDonald's. I had pilfered a roll of toilet paper from a port-a-john and shoplifted four packs of cigarettes. I found a soggy book of matches on the street. A guy smoking behind a grocery store had given me stale bread, dried-up cheese and a bunch of apples from a pile of stuff he was supposed to throw in the dumpster. My left coat pocket was filled with panhandled change. I kept a rusty pocket knife in the other one.

        After pulling myself into the next-to-last boxcar, I had taken a gulp of brandy, then curled up in a corner, ready to sleep through the rest of the night. A voice from the opposite corner boomed, "Hey. Where you headin'?" Startled, my body twitched. The deep voice echoed in the empty boxcar, vibrating the wooden slats. It sounded like the voice of God.

        "Anywhere this train is going, I guess."

        "Toward San Francisco, I hope. Never ain't much below sixty degrees out there," said the voice. "Leave here soon's the baseball season's over or the weather turns."

        "Baseball? You a fan or something?" I asked.

        The rickety train passed a warehouse with parking-lot lights blazing. By the greenish light that streamed through the open door, I saw my traveling companion's huge eyes and white-tipped hair atop a wide, black face.

        "Hell, no. Man owns a parkin' lot near the stadium. Lets me collect parkin' fees for him. Gives me fifteen dollars. Ten, if I ain't sober. Could stay for the rest of Steeler's football, but gets too cold at night 'round here come October, so's I head out t' California." The man crawled closer to my corner of the boxcar. When he struck a match, I noticed his plaid shirt stretched tightly over his bulky chest. 

        "Why you leavin' town?" he asked.

        "I can't stand being close to my daughter and not being allowed to see her. They took her away 'cause I don't have a place to live. She's in a foster home." I swiped a tear from my cheek. "They said I was an, an unfit parent." I fumbled with the cap of my brandy bottle, then took another gulp. I wiped my mouth with the back of my coat sleeve. "I just want to go someplace far away. Someplace warm."

        "Havin' no place t' live must be hell for a woman."

        "You get used to it."

        "You ain't never get used to that," he said.
       "It's better and worse than I thought. I survived three winters, but don't want to go through another one like last year."
        After a pause, he said, "Name's Tyrone, Miss." He held out his hand for a friendly handshake. A real gentleman, that Tyrone.

        "I'm Sal," I answered.

        We talked the rest of the night. I sipped from my bottle. Tyrone drank some rot gut wine. He told me about San Francisco, the shelters, soup kitchens, and safe places to spend the night outdoors. I told him how I lost my job and then they took the house away and how we lived in the car until they found it an hauled it off, too. 
        "We stayed in a shelter in a church basement for a couple months, but they kicked us out 'cause they smelled booze and cigarettes on me and I wouldn't say grace before dinner. Hell, we had nothing to be thankful for, did we?" I fought back tears, then added, "I promised the judge I'd stop drinking and follow the rules at the shelter, but he said if I loved my daughter, I would have done that in the first place."
        In the morning, I took in Tyrone's massive frame, his worn trousers, and ripped flannel shirt with gray long-underwear peeking through the holes. A black hooded jacket lay on the floor beside him. He had a moth-eaten khaki blanket around his shoulders. His large, dark fingers poked through holes in his filthy gloves.

        I looked at my own hands, so boney and pasty white compared to Tyrone's. After sharing some of my brandy, I dozed off somewhere in Ohio, waking with an upset stomach.

        For the next two days, Tyrone forced me to eat a little bread and drink some water. Despite his intimidating size and appearance, he was real kind. He covered me with his blanket and scraped straw from the floor to put under my head. He politely looked away when I sat on the edge at the open door, to relieve myself.

        The days had grown ugly, the way it does at the end of October. Constant rain and sudden cold turned the world gray and sad. Leaves had changed to dull brown and plummeted to the ground, leaving outlines of hopeless bare branches against the ash-colored sky. The train crawled along real slow, like it had no place to go. 

        The fifth morning, three others joined us during the predawn hours, two tough-looking men in their twenties and a girl who must have been about fourteen. They were three long-haired blonds dressed like identical triplets in black T-shirts, denim jackets, jeans with split knees, earrings, and high lace-up boots. B.C. and Hog drank out of a whiskey bottle and munched from white bags of generic pretzels and chips. The guys ignored us. The girl, Candy, sat beside me for a while and told me she had left home because her stepfather beat on her.

        "Shut up, will ya'?" Hog yelled across the boxcar rubbing the stubble on his chin. "I'm sick o' hearin' that crap about your old man. You're a real pain in the ass, kid. Probably deserved it."

        Candy sulked between Tyrone and me for about an hour huddled under Tyrone's blanket while Hog sharpened and resharpened a large hunting knife, then she timidly tiptoed over and nuzzled up to Hog, begging him to forgive her. Tyrone and I exchanged glances as the two fondled and kissed. B.C. smoked a joint near the open door. He sat with his back to the cozy couple watching the gray landscape pass by.

        Hog alternately smacked Candy and petted her like a puppy, calling her "Stupid", "Bitch", "Honey", or "Babe". He ordered her to shut up, sit down, or retrieve a bag of chips. I didn't like it, but I was afraid to say anything. B.C. said nothing either, but I could tell he was steaming inside about something. For hours, Tyrone stared at Hog with a look that could melt ice, but Hog paid no mind to him.

        That night, the rain finally stopped. A full moon peaked through misty clouds to create a hazy glow. Low fog spread across the ground outside our temporary quarters. Tyrone and I sat smoking, drinking, and whispering while the train lurched onward. Finally, when my speech was slurred, I dozed off to the clacking rhythm of the rails with my head on his huge thigh.

        Before dawn, I heard rustles and groans from the far corner of the boxcar. Hog's body pumped up and down over the girl. I lifted my head and fidgeted nervously. Tyrone patted my arm with a reassuring hand. When I couldn't stand it any more, I sat, covered my ears and yelled, "Stop it. She's only a child."

        B.C. jumped up and screamed, "Let her alone, you rotten bastard." His foot landed on Hog's back with a dull thump.

        Pulling up his fly, Hog leaped to his feet, then circled B.C. with clenched fists. In the dim light from the moon, two dark shapes wrestled. Silhouetted against the open door, they struggled, swaying side to side with the movement of the train. Tyrone patted me on the arm again, then slowly rose, leaning against the wall of the boxcar to steady himself, inching his way toward the men who looked so much alike, I couldn’t tell them apart in the dark. Finally, one broke loose and pushed the other backward through the open door into the foggy night. Leaning on the frame of the door, Hog yelled, "Good riddance, you wimp." He howled a devilish laugh. "The little whore is all mine now."

        Before Hog had a chance to turn around or catch his breath, Tyrone thrust his huge arms at Hog's back, pushing him through the opening. He stood in the doorway, watching, then announced, "They're too far back t' climb back on." He turned toward the girl. "You okay, kid?"

        "Uh huh," she answered, sobbing.

        "Okay, then," Tyrone said, rubbing his big hands together.

        "Thanks," I said, pulling myself unsteadily to my feet. I handed Tyrone my almost-empty Brandy bottle. Staggering toward the girl, I said, "You're going to be okay, Candy."

        I sat beside her. Then I removed one glove and stroked her hair. "Tyrone and me, we'll take care of you. You can stick with us as long as you want." I reached into my pocket. "Or when we get to a town, you can call home. I'm sure your Mother misses you," I added, folding her fingers over a handful of change.

        Looking very much like my own little girl, she fell asleep with her head on my lap, rocked by the movement of the rambling train.

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

This is a work of FICTION.

It is not based on actual persons or events.

THE ROAD TO HEAVEN - mini non-fiction

This post is in response to

FRIDAY FLASH 55

The idea is to write a story in exactly 55 words.

Click on the yellow link above to join the fun or read others’ stories.

The Road to Heaven

The dusty road meandered through small towns. Tiled roofs made each village appear red from a distance. The road wound between fields of corn and feijão, the black beans Brazilians ate daily.

We stopped the jeep when my Peace Corps site came into view. It didn’t look much like Heaven, but that was its name.

------------
I served as a PC Volunteer in Brazil from 1967 to 1969. You can read about my experiences on my other blog: A Little “Peace” of Brazil.

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

LAUGHING IN THE RAIN - Short Fiction

This short story is in response to

RAVEN’S SATURDAY

WORDZZLE CHALLENGE

Click on the above link to join in or read other entries.

How it works: Raven supplies two sets of words (or phrases) to use in a piece of writing. One can choose the ten- or five-word challenge ---or combine both into a fifteen word mega-challenge.

Mega Challenge: Chorus line, clam chowder, apples, jack-in-the-box, puddles, Iran, quarry, housekeeping, speed, letter, motorcycle, grandiose, summer, flying off the handle, blue jays

(Words from the challenge are in bold face in the story.)

After spending time at Miss Cowpepper’s, helping her clean up after a flood, I realized she was not the only one who needed help with house cleaning.
As a right-brained artist, I am organizationally impaired. Sometimes I drive Parker crazy. I’m lucky he isn’t the type to be flying off the handle all the time or we would be in a constant battle over the housekeeping.
My sister Marigold helped me create a weekly task list to get my house under control. I was already weeks behind, because what would take her a day to accomplish, took me two weeks.
This week’s task was to clean the closet in the spare room and get rid of anything I hadn’t used in two years. I found old clothes and old tax returns. I pulled out dusty tapes and CDs, including my parents’ album of A Chorus Line. There were copies of high school and college yearbooks. In a corner, I located a toy motorcycle my nephew had left there the summer he was eight. Now he’s twenty-one. I found figurines of blue jays I never liked but kept because they had been wedding gifts. I’m not sure why I had never thrown out my childhood jack-in-the box. The music grinder on the side no longer turned and the broken spring had prevented Jack from jumping up for years.
I found a box of letters sent to my mother from my uncle who had served in the Peace Corps in Iran, before the Shah had been deposed. I appreciated them when my mother gave them to me, but now my uncle might like them as a record of his experiences there.
Finally, when the closet was nearly empty, I found what had been my real quarry, the wedding album I had stored away years ago and couldn’t find.
I chewed on a couple of apples while I browsed through the photos which depicted a nearly perfect wedding. Just as we had left the reception, after changing out of our wedding garb, the sunny April day had turned to rain. At the back of the album was a photo of Parker and me, holding our shoes, running barefoot through puddles to our car, laughing in the rain. It was my favorite photo from that day. It reminded me that through even bad times, Parker and I have always been able to laugh.
Speed was not my forté when I sorted through old things. I stopped to look through books and letters. Then I had to decide if each item was destined for the trash or the Goodwill, worth enough to sell online or had enough sentimental value to keep. So my grandiose plan to complete my task in one day was dashed. By the time Parker arrived home from work, the closet contents were scattered throughout the room in piles.
My husband shook his head as he entered the room, knowing it would take days to get the guest room back in order, but he gave me his usual smile.
“Look what I found.” I held up the wedding album. By the time he browsed through it with me, it was nearly eight o'clock and we hadn’t given one thought to dinner.
“Hey, Rosie,” he said. “I’m in the mood for clam chowder. How’s that sound?”
It sounded perfect to me. I took a few minutes to change out of my dusty shirt and apply a dab of lipstick. Then Parker and I walked hand-in-hand to Neptune’s Palace for cold beer and hot soup.
We laughed like hyenas on the way home when my groom and I were soaked by a sudden rainstorm.

(©2009 C.J. Peiffer)

STORMY WEATHER Part 7 - Short Fiction

(click on images for larger views)

This short story is in response to

RAVEN’S SATURDAY

WORDZZLE CHALLENGE

Click on the above link to join in or read other entries.

How it works: Raven supplies two sets of words (or phrases) to use in a piece of writing. One can choose the ten- or five-word challenge ---or combine both into a fifteen word mega-challenge.

Mega challenge:
sow, close, console, lives, minute, polish, bass, pussy, complex, resume, bow, sewer, house, import, intern

(Words from the challenge are in bold face in the story.)

This is a continuation of previous entries:

STORMY WEATHER Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6

STORMY WEATHER Part 7

(the final episode)

The vault was dark inside. While Parker ran to our house for flashlights and other tools, Miss Cowpepper and I looked on the shelf close to the left of the door. We found a crossbow. Next to it, an antique rifle and several swords. I lifted one sword from the shelf and pulled the blade from the scabbard. It was shiny, as if it had been polished recently. I surmised that if the safe were airtight, metal might not tarnish.
“So this is where my father hid the rest of of his military memorabilia,” she said. “I thought there had been more when I was a child.”
I pulled a box that sat on the floor of the safe into the basement. A grate over a sewer drain clanked as I dragged the box away from the safe’s entrance.
When I heard Parker return, I called to him to request he bring a kitchen chair for Miss Cowpepper. Inventoring the vault might take hours, possibly days.
With the flashlights, we saw stacks of frames, dozens of old books, and what looked like a bass fiddle at the very back of the safe.
Parker went upstairs. He returned with a floor lamp from the living room and an extension cord he had brought from home. He returned to the first floor to clean up the lunch dishes and install window locks and dead bolts.
While I pulled more boxes from the safe, Miss Cowpepper sat near the first box, sorting through old photos. She gasped, holding up a picture.
“What?” I asked.
She showed me the photo of a small pale girl holding a white cat. “I thought this photo had been lost. It’s me and my first pussycat named Whiskers.”
“That’s the name of the one that just died, isn’t it?”
“I name all my cats Whiskers. Too bad cats don’t really have nine lives. I do miss him. He was a sweet boy and looked almost exactly like my first Whiskers.” She sighed and set the photo on the lid of one of the other boxes.
I patted Miss Cowpepper’s arm to console her while I looked at the small black and white snapshot. “Would you like me to make you a larger version of this. I can do it on my computer?”
Miss Cowpepper decided that would be wonderful.
We found boxes of imported figurines, mostly stamped “Occupied Japan” wrapped in yellowed newspapers from the 1940s. I knew some of those might be in demand on eBay.
There were stacks of papers, mostly complex legal documents neither of us understood. Miss Cowpepper told me the grandson of her father’s lawyer was her attorney who handled the trust her father had left her. She’d have him look at them.
Parker called down, asking if we’d like to take a break for tea. Miss Cowpepper nodded.
I answered, “Start the water boiling, we’ll be up in a minute.”
After bathroom breaks and tea, I had to tear Miss Cowpepper away from another detailed discussion with Parker about old films to convince her to resume our inventory.
We found lots of military books. One was written by a Union soldier who had been interned at Andersonville during the Civil War. The only books I thought might be of monetary value were two volumes of The Personal Memoirs of General Ulysses S. Grant*. A handwritten note inside one cover, which Miss Cowpepper verified was in her father’s writing, said simply “First Edition, 1885.”
It took us a few more days to go through everything. We contacted Miss Cowpepper’s lawyer to help with the legal papers and stock certificates we found. I called my friend Kathy who was an antique collector to help us decide what, if anything, might be of value.
The next day Miss Cowpepper allowed Kathy, her attorney, and me into her house. Miss Cowpepper didn’t care if anything was valuable. She was simply glad to have the old family photographs. She had decided what she wanted to keep and asked us to give anything that might be valuable to a museum or sell it and give the money to an animal shelter. She requested that her will be updated to do the same with the rest of her belongings after her death.
Then she asked us to go away and leave her alone for a few days. She had seen more people in a week than she had in fifty years and had had enough of other people for a while. My sister Marigold would be arriving the next day to help me sow seeds for my first herb garden, so I needed to take a break from Miss Cowpepper anyway.
A week later, the garden had been planted and Marigold had returned home. One morning, I carried a wrapped package and a picnic basket to Miss Cowpepper’s porch. After several knocks, she answered the door.
“I have something for you,” I said.
The tiny woman invited me to the kitchen for a cup of tea.
I asked her if I could visit her once in a while. She didn’t answer while she concentrated on pouring hot water into china cups.
When she turned back to the stove to return the tea kettle, I set my basket on her table and opened the lid. When she was ready to sit down, she stopped when she saw what was in the basket. Miss Cowpepper’s pale eyes shone as she gently lifted the six-month-old white cat I had found at an animal shelter.
“He has all his shots, is litter trained, and has been neutered. Here are his papers,” I said placing an envelope on the table. “Parker will leave a bag of cat food on the back porch this evening. I saw you still have a a bag of litter and a box. Do you need anything else?”
She shook her head, then placed the small cat on the floor to explore his new home.
I tore the brown paper off the package and showed her the photo of her and her first cat which I had enlarged and enhanced on my computer. I had placed it in one of the empty frames we had found in her vault.
“Oh, Rosemary. Thank you. These are far better than ten vaults full of old papers,” she said stroking the fur of the kitten which was rubbing his face on her ankle. She reached across the table to grab my hand. “You’re welcome to visit Whiskers and me anytime.”

(This is the end of this long story, but

Miss Cowpepper, Rosemary and

Parker will appear in future stories.)

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

*Historical note: In 1884, Ulysses Grant was broke after being swindled by his investment partner. (Former presidents were not granted pensions until 1958.) He was dying of cancer and distraught about his family’s future. Mark Twain convinced him to write his memoirs and to allow the book to be published by Twain’s own publishing company, promising 75% of the book’s proceeds as royalties. Grant completed his autobiography in June, less than one month before his death on July 23, 1885.
The first volume was published in December 1885. Within three months, the first check sent to Mrs. Grant was the largest royalty paid on a book up to that time, over $200,000. Additional royalties paid over the next few years brought the total earned for Grant’s family to almost $450,000.
Grant’s autobiography has been compared to Caesar’s Commentaries and described as the finest writing produced by a participant in the Civil War.
The final words of Grant’s memoir are, “Let us have peace.”

STORMY WEATHER Part 6 - Short Fiction

(click on image for larger view)

This short story is in response to

RAVEN’S SATURDAY

WORDZZLE CHALLENGE

Click on the above link to join in or read other entries.

How it works: Raven supplies two sets of words (or phrases) to use in a piece of writing. One can choose the ten- or five-word challenge ---or combine both into a fifteen word mega-challenge.

Ten-word challenge:
nausea, everything is on sale, expect great things, frying pan, pledge, birds of a feather, stick, Saturday morning, liver and bacon, caterpillars

(Words from the challenge are in bold face in the story.)


This is a continuation of previous entries:

STORMY WEATHER Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5

STORMY WEATHER Part 6 

        On Saturday morning, Parker and I headed for Miss Cowpepper’s house. The night before I had told him about the safe the workers and I had found in the basement. We worried that with a few people now knowing that the elderly woman had a huge, bank-vault-sized safe, she might be a target for thieves.
        Parker’s father had been a locksmith and Parker had helped him during school vacations, so he knew a bit about locks for doors and windows. We decided he would check Miss Cowpepper’s house to see how secure it was.
        Meanwhile, I still had to inform Miss Cowpepper of the safe that had been hidden in her basement. She had been napping the day before when I left. I was both worried about her and excited for her, causing me a bit of nervous nausea that morning.
        Miss Cowpepper opened the door a crack, but scurried away when I told her Parker was with me. She was an albino recluse who didn’t like visitors.
        I helped Miss Cowpepper up the stairs, then I continued my work from the day before, organizing things in the dining room after the recent flood had filled the basement and left an inch of water on the first floor. Parker had been helping the Jennings down the street, but their grown children were visiting from out of town for the weekend to help their parents, so he wasn’t needed.
        After checking the doors and windows and measuring the opening where the safe sat, Parker made a list for Lowe’s™. He would buy locks, hardware, and materials to create a new door to cover the opening where the safe sat in the basement.
        Before he left, I went upstairs to ask Miss Cowpepper if she needed anything else. She sat in a rocking chair in her bedroom watching TV.
        “Why thank you, for asking,” she said. “I just saw an ad for Shopper’s Market. It seems that nearly everything is on sale. You know, I have had a craving for liver and bacon for the longest time. And onions, too. Those Meals on Wheels dinners are good, but they never have liver. Can you cook the liver for me?”
        I wasn't much of a cook, but I assured her I could.
        At the front door, when I handed Parker the shopping list, he said to me, “Now Rosie, don’t expect great things from that safe. It may be empty.”
        “I know. I know,” I said. The night before I had been fantasizing about what might be in Miss Cowpepper’s vault. He knew how I could build things up in my head and then be disappointed.
        “Promise?” he asked.
        Held up my right hand. “I pledge not to get my hopes up or let Miss Cowpepper get hers up until we check the contents of the safe.”
        He kissed me on the cheek and left.
        In the kitchen, I found a frying pan and other things we would need to make lunch, then set the table for three. Upstairs, in Miss Cowpepper’s bedroom, I sat on the floor, leaning against the bed and watching a program on the Discovery Channel while the eighty-year-old snoozed in her chair. I dozed off in the middle of watching caterpillars inch their way along a stick.
        I awoke when Parker called from the base of the stairs. I helped him to cook liver, mashed potatoes and green beans as Miss Cowpepper had requested.
        When I went upstairs to wake her for lunch, Miss Cowpepper was watching a program about humming birds. She told me that besides old movies, her favorite shows were about nature, especially animals.
        “You and my husband are birds of a feather,” I told her. “That’s exactly what he likes to watch. I think you’d like him. Would you be willing to meet him?”
        She looked dubious.
        “Actually, I’m not nearly as good in the kitchen as he is. When he returned from the store, he started to cook all your favorites for lunch.”
        “Well, I do smell the bacon and the onions.” She sighed. “I guess if he went to the bother of cooking for me, I can meet him. He won’t laugh at me, will he?”
        I assured her he would not.
        Over lunch, Miss Cowpepper and Parker discussed old films. It was as if she had been wanting to discuss all the films she had ever seen, but there had been no one for her to talk to. Miss Cowpepper left nothing on her plate. We finished our meal with chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce.
        While Parker cleared the table, I told Miss Cowpepper I had some exciting news for her. She just nodded, so I went on. “I think I discovered what the key thing is for.” Her eyes lit up. “Can you come with me to the basement?” I asked.
        I stopped in the dining room to remove the key from the wall. Miss Cowpepper hobbled with her cane to the basement. Parker and I followed behind.
        I steered the woman to the opening in the wall to show her the safe which had been hidden behind rotten wood that the workers had removed when cleaning up after the flood.
        “Oh my,” she said. I never knew anything was behind that old piece of wood.”
        I inserted the key into the hole in the vault door. It slipped in easily. I tried to turn it clockwise, but nothing happened. When I turned it in the opposite direction, it clicked. Parker came over to help me pull on the heavy vault door, but I didn’t need his help. It was so perfectly balanced that, with a light touch it swung wide open.

(to be continued in Part 7, the final

episode of STORMY WEATHER, next week)

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

STORMY WEATHER Part 5 - Short Fiction

This short story is in response to

RAVEN’S SATURDAY

WORDZZLE CHALLENGE

Click on the above link to join in or read other entries.

How it works: Raven supplies two sets of words (or phrases) to use in a piece of writing. One can choose the ten- or five-word challenge ---or combine both into a fifteen word challenge.

Ten-word challenge:
swashbuckler, heads-up, dry martini, recovery, jungle gym, whiskers, bathing suit, spade, circular reasoning, abrasive

(Words from the challenge are in bold face in the story.)

This is a continuation of previous entries:

  STORMY WEATHER Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

STORMY WEATHER Part 5

        When I returned to Miss Cowpepper’s the next day, she seemed happy to see me. Only the day before she didn’t want to let me in.
        The days after the flood had been cool, but it was finally as hot as one expects in June. I would rather have had a glass of cold lemonade, but I accepted the hot tea Miss Cowpepper offered me.
        As the small albino woman heated water, I noticed a very old TV on the counter airing a black and white swashbuckler film.
        I sat at the kitchen table. “Do you like old movies?” I asked, just to start a conversation.
        “Oh my, yes,” she said. “I like those channels that show classic movies.”
        Remembering all the military memorabilia on her walls, I asked, “Do you like war movies?”
        “Oh, no. I don’t like to see all that killing.”
        “But you have so many military photos on the wall, I thought...”
        “Those were my father’s. His grandfather was a captain in the Civil War and he just loved that old stuff. My mother hated it. Once she threatened to throw it all away. My father had a heart attack the next day. After his recovery, my mother never mentioned it again. And now, I don’t have the heart to get rid of it either.”
        “How long have you lived here?” I asked.
        “I was born in this house. I lived here when I was little, but the neighbor children made fun of me. When I was old enough, my parents sent me to a special school. Everyone there was in a wheel chair, or lame, or had one arm, so no one was nasty like the neighbors. I came home just for holidays.
        “I was supposed to leave after I finished school,” she continued. “But I stayed on to be an assistant. I had to come home when my father died. I was about thirty then. My mother was devastated, so I stayed with her, but I remembered how everyone treated me when I was little, so I always stayed in the house. When she wasn’t well enough to shop, I called a neighbor who had a teenage son to ask if he would deliver groceries? Each Wednesday, I left a list inside the back door. He left the bags and a receipt. I left him a check for the groceries plus ten dollars. And do you know who that boy was?” she asked.
        I shook my head.
        “Bobby Jennings. He and his wife still buy groceries for me. But I give them thirty dollars now. Do you think that’s enough?”
        I told her I thought that was fine. I picked up my tea cup and Miss Cowpepper’s. I washed them at the sink and placed them in the dish rack while Miss Cowpepper told me about her mother’s death forty-five years ago.
        As I wiped the sink, Miss Cowpepper asked, “Honey, could you get that spade from the back porch and return it to Mr. Jennings?”
        I wondered to the closed-in porch at the back. I moved a curtain aside. In the yard next door, three children ran through a sprinkler and climbed on a jungle gym in their bathing suits. One of them looked my way. He stopped in mid-slide to point at me. “I saw her. I saw her,” he yelled, running toward the house. I quickly dropped the curtain over the window, deciding the boy was the abrasive type who would make fun of Miss Cowpepper if he had the chance.
        I placed the spade near the front door while Miss Cowpepper explained that she had borrowed it to bury Whiskers, her cat.
        “I buried him late at night so no one could see me,” she explained. Her voice shook when she talked about the cat who had died of old age a few weeks earlier.
        I helped Miss Cowpepper replace things where they belonged in the living room. I started to make a list of items she needed and offered to buy them for her. She told me that price was no problem because her father had been a successful banker and had set up a trust fund for her. Apparently she hadn’t spent even half of what was allotted to her each year.
        In the dining room, I stopped in front of the buffet to look again at the strange object hanging there. Miss Cowpepper had called it “the key thing” and had told me it was the most valuable thing she owned.
        “What is that?” I asked.
        “I don’t know.”
        I raised my eyebrows. “Then why is it so valuable?”
        Miss Cowpepper motioned me to the living room. She pointed to the huge family Bible on the mantle. I pulled it down and set it on the coffee table. We sat side-by-side on the couch. Miss Cowpepper slowly opened the book to the front page. “My father wrote that when I was a girl.”
        In careful longhand, in blue ink, it said:
               “The key thing in life is that it is the most valuable thing you own.”
        I nodded my head. Poor woman, she thought he was referring to an object.
        “The key thing is valuable because it’s worth more than anything else I have,” Miss Cowpepper said proudly.
        I ignored her circular reasoning. “But what is it for? Is it really a key?”
        “The only thing I found that looked like a key was that. It was taped to the bottom of my father’s desk. So it must be valuable. But I don’t know what it will open.”
        Soon workmen arrived to pressure wash the basement and Miss Cowpepper headed upstairs to hide. I watched TV in the kitchen while waiting for the workers to finish. Finally one of them called me to the basement.
        “Heads-up,” he said. “The ceiling is low down here.”
        Where pipes ran under the ceiling, I had to bend to prevent banging my head.
        “We cleaned everything, but look at this wood here. It’s all rotted. We ought to remove it.”
        I told them to go ahead. The wood was about four feet wide and covered a section of wall from floor to ceiling. I figured I would measure the opening and then Parker and I could buy a piece of plywood and install it ourselves. I waited as the men pried it loose with crowbars.
        Finally, it fell free, revealing the door of a huge safe, the kind one expects to find in a bank. It didn’t have a combination lock on it, but it had a huge hole that a very strange key just might fit. “Could it be....?” I asked myself.
        I waited for the workmen to finish, then ushered them out the back door.
        I ran upstairs to find Miss Cowpepper, but she was snoring under a colorful quilt while a wildlife program ran on her TV.  I left a note to say I would be back the next morning and quietly left the house, leaving a few lights on for the elderly woman and carefully locking the doors behind me.
        When I arrived home, I made myself a very dry martini while I waited impatiently for Parker.

(to be continued)

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

STORMY WEATHER Part 4 - Short Fiction

This short story is in response to

RAVEN’S SATURDAY

WORDZZLE CHALLENGE

Click on the above link to join in or read other entries.

How it works: Raven supplies two sets of words (or phrases) to use in a piece of writing. One can choose the ten- or five-word challenge ---or combine both into a fifteen word challenge.

Ten-word challenge:
parasite, meals on wheels, crows, it's my fault, everything but the kitchen sink, on sale, patriotism, the love of my life, library card, common sense

(Words from the challenge are in bold face in the story.)

This is a continuation of previous entries:  STORMY WEATHER Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

STORMY WEATHER Part 4

        After the fire department pumped water from Miss Cowpepper’s basement and a crew of volunteers moved her furniture and removed her soaked carpets, several of the volunteers and I scrubbed her floors with disinfectant and cleaned the legs of her furniture. At its high point the water had filled the basement and left an inch of water on her first floor.
        Her living and dining rooms held everything but the kitchen sink, old books and magazines, piles of papers and photographs, old lamps, vases, knickknacks, stacks of china plates,  antique guns, framed shredded flags, military photographs. I wasn’t sure if it was all junk that ought to be on sale at a flea market or museum-quality goods. Luckily Miss Cowpepper had been able to move all but the large furniture from the floor before the water rose.
        We arranged for someone to pressure-wash the basement the next morning, so I would have to be there to let them in. It seemed that I was the only person who had laid eyes on Miss Cowpepper in more than fifty years. She was a diminutive, elderly and reclusive albino who fled upstairs when the other volunteers arrived.
        After they left, I gave her several gallons of bottled water and made sure she had enough food. Miss Cowpepper normally received Meals on Wheels deliveries, but they had been suspended for a few days due to the flood. Her pantry held cereal and several dozen cans of soup. She had milk and cheese in the refrigerator, bread in the bread box, and bananas in a basket beside the sink. She told me her neighbors, the Jennings, delivered groceries each week.
        Miss Cowpepper might have been a recluse, but she seemed to have enough common sense to take care of herself and ask for help for the things she couldn’t do.
        I was not used to so much physical work. Late in the afternoon, I couldn’t wait to get home for a hot shower.
        Parker arrived home a few minutes after I did. We talked a bit about the damage at the homes to which we had been assigned. The Jennings were a little closer to the creek than Miss Cowpepper so they had about 3 inches of water on their first floor.
        I described the enormous amount of old stuff at Miss Cowpepper’s home. “There were lots of military memorabilia, swords, Civil War photos. An ancestor must have been in the military,” I concluded.
        “Maybe Miss Cowpepper is a military aficionado or simply full of patriotism,” Parker said, steering me toward the bathroom.
        Then, the love of my life and I stepped into the hot shower together. We seemed to be doing that a lot lately. I just wanted to scrub off every microbe, parasite, contaminate, bacteria, spore, contagion, infection, or germ that might have crept into Miss Cowpepper’s home with water from the overflowing sewers. I had worn rubber gloves and a mask, but still, I felt like things were crawling on my skin.
        After dinner, we grabbed our library cards and strolled the half mile to the local branch to return books that had been due the day of the flood. All fines were forgiven.
        As we crawled into bed, I said, “You can’t tell anyone anything that I’ve told you about Miss Cowpepper. The neighbors have been speculating about her for years. She wants to be left alone.”
        Then I suddenly remembered 'the key thing,' as Miss Cowpepper had called it, hanging on her wall. I closed my eyes and saw it in my head. I described it to Parker. The top was a round disk with a cylinder about two feet long below that and rod-like things at the bottom.
        “I can’t picture it,” said Parker.
        “I’ll draw you a sketch,” I said, grabbing a pad of post it notes and a pen from the night stand. “What could it be?”
        “Well, in a way, it does look like some kind of key, but what could be that long?"

        "It looks almost medieval, doesn’t it, like it might unlock a large iron door to a cell? But still it’s awfully big.”

        Parker scrunched up his eyes, like he always did when he thought, emphasizing the crows’ feet that that I loved. “She didn’t say what it was for?”
        As Parker turned off his light, I said, “It’s my fault for not asking. I just stood there trying to figure it out. I was about to ask when the firemen arrived and she scooted up the stairs so they wouldn’t see her. But she did say it was the most valuable thing she owned. Isn’t it odd she would have something so valuable hanging on her wall?”
        “Mmmmm,” Parker hummed. That was the sign that he was trying to listen but was drifting off to sleep.
        As I set my alarm and turned off my light, I thought, “But then no one is ever in her home to see anything, valuable or not.”

(To be continued.)

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

STORMY WEATHER Part 3 - Short Fiction

This short story is in response to

RAVEN’S SATURDAY

WORDZZLE CHALLENGE

How it works: Raven supplies two sets of words (or phrases) to use in a piece of writing. One can choose the ten- or five-word challenge ---or combine both into a fifteen word challenge. Click on the link to join the fun or to read others' entries.

Mega challenge - all fifteen words:
albino, trench, marble, assistant, Indian, What's that supposed to mean?, sound first principles, the key thing, moat, curtain, under the surface, doomed, grand design, temple, aspirin (Challenge words appear in bold face in the text.)

This is a continuation of previous entries:  STORMY WEATHER Part 1 and Part 2

STORMY WEATHER Part 3

        The day after Maple Creek overflowed, the water had receded but it was still a foot deep at our end of the street, deeper toward the creek, as if we were surrounded by a moat.
        Our house sat on a small rise, but our lower neighbors had gotten the worst of the flood. I hoped their homes would not be doomed to a wrecking ball. From our windows they looked fine, but who knew what damage was hidden under the surface.
        In my basement office, Parker helped me set up the computer equipment I had moved from harm’s way. After the electricity came on midmorning, I completed my grand design for Clarence Bubbler, the bubble gum king. He was an annoying man who had turned The Big Bubbler into a small fortune. After making back up copies and preparing a priority mail folder for him, I popped two aspirin tablets.
        That evening, pulling back the curtain, I saw that the street was finally free of water. Parker and I walked to the car two blocks away, dropped Bubbler’s package in the mail, and drove to a megamarket where we purchased a ton of cleaning products, cases of bottled water and cartons of protein bars. We spent half of Bubbler’s expected fee, but we were happy our home had been spared and felt empathy for neighbors with damaged homes.
        The next morning we drove to the corner of Aurora and Washington to donate supplies and offer our services.
        The police chief gave us an overview of our duties. “We have several sound first principles for such a situation,” he said. “Protect yourself, clean everything thoroughly, and clean yourself when you are done for the day. Wear masks and rubber gloves. Use bleach where you can. Go home and take a hot shower.”
        Parker headed toward the Jennings, a delightful retired couple to whom he had been assigned.
        The police chief called me aside. “I hope Miss Cowpepper will let you in. I talked to her through the door this morning. She said she might talk to a woman.”
        “What’s wrong with her, I asked?” It was a question the neighbors speculated upon constantly.
        “I hope you’re going to find out.”
        With a face mask hanging around my neck and a dozen pair of rubber gloves in my pockets, I climbed ten steps onto Miss Cowpepper’s porch. It was damp and muddy, so the water had probably reached her first floor. I knocked lightly and called, “Miss Cowpepper? Are you there?”
        Of course she was. The chief told me she hadn’t left home, nor had anyone laid eyes on her, in fifty years.
        “Who’re you?” asked a shaky voice from the other side of the closed door.
        “I’m Rosemary, from the last house at the dead end. I’ve been assigned to be your cleanup assistant.”
        “What's that supposed to mean?” she asked.
       “I will see what kind of damage you have and help you clean.”
        “It’ll dry,” she said.
        “The sewers overflowed, so the water was full of microbes. We have to clean everything so you don’t get ill. You might have to go to the hospital if you get infected by the water.”
        She didn’t respond to that.
        “Please, can I just come in to see what needs to be done?”
        The door creaked on its hinges and I saw an eye, barely at the level of my waist, peeking through the tiny slit.
        “You won’t look at me, will you?”
        “Not if you don’t want me to,” I said.
        Hiding behind the door, she opened it. I stepped into what looked like the dusty storage room of a museum. I think it always looked that way, but Miss Cowpepper had obviously moved everything she could from the floor to the tops of furniture and the marble mantle in her living room. Almost every square inch of wall space was covered with sepia photos. In the corner stood a cigar store Indian. Floor lamps with stained glass shades sat on a table. End tables were stacked on a worn couch. The rugs were soaked and smelled like sewer water but it looked like the water had been only an inch deep.
        “What about the basement? What’s down there?”
        “Nothing.”
        “Nothing?” I asked.
        “Just water, I guess. Once when it flooded, my nephew closed in the back porch and put a new furnace and water heater there and a washing machine in the kitchen. I haven’t been in the basement for years.”
        I nodded. We’d still have to inspect it and pressure wash it with a disinfectant. “Can your nephew or anyone else help?”
       “My nephew’s been dead for years. There’s no one else.”
        “Oh. I’m sorry.” It felt odd, not looking at her when I spoke. “We’re going to have to bring a crew in here to pump out your basement and move your furniture so we can remove your rugs,” I said.
        “No one can see me.”
        With my back toward her, I suggested, “How about, when they come in, you go upstairs and they can work down here?”
        “They’ll take my things.”
        “I’ll make sure they don’t take anything,” I assured her. “Miss Cowpepper, I dislike talking to you when you are behind me. Can I turn around?”
        “If you promise not to laugh,” she said.
        I promised. I didn’t know what to expect. I steeled myself to show no expression of horror. I turned slowly. Miss Cowpepper slowly moved from behind the door.
        When I saw her, I smiled. Miss Cowpepper had the palest skin I had even seen. Her hair was white, her eyes light blue with pink rims. I realized she was an albino and not more than four feet tall. She must have been in her eighties, yet she was an oddly cute little person, like a chubby china doll. She wore a gray sweater over a brown dress and leaned on a cane.

        I removed my trench coat and hung it on an empty clothes tree.
        I stepped into the dining room, which too was filled with junk. On a low buffet, Miss Cowpepper had set up what looked like a temple shrine with candles which gave the room a golden glow. A brass object, circular at the top with a cylinder at least two feet long with short rods sticking out of the bottom, hung on the wall above the flames. Miss Cowpepper saw me staring at it.
        “Don’t let them take the key thing,” she said. “It’s the most valuable object I own.”

(To be continued.)

(Text ©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

STORMY WEATHER Part 2 - Short Fiction

This short story is in response to

RAVEN’S SATURDAY

WORDZZLE CHALLENGE

How it works: Raven supplies two sets of words (or phrases) to use in a piece of writing. One can choose the ten- or five-word challenge ---or combine both into a fifteen word challenge.

Ten-word challenge:

green goddess, shampoo, filibuster, please and thank you, Operation Marigold, throw pillows, up the creek without a paddle, spandex, ubiquitous, wedding ring

(Words from the challenge are in bold face in the story.)

This is a continuation of  last week's entry:  STORMY WEATHER Part 1

STORMY WEATHER Part 2

Short Fiction

        It was barely light enough to see my way around the house. We should have kept a flashlight in a set location, but I couldn’t find one anywhere. I was on the verge of panic, feeling like I was up the creek without a paddle. In a way I was. Hurricane Ruth had caused Maple Creek to overflow and it was coming my way.

        The last thing I had seen on  TV before the power went out was a wall of water sweeping a news reporter off her feet. Sirens blared. Through the window, I saw flashing lights from emergency vehicles reflected in the windows of houses closer to the creek. Aurora Lane rose slightly at our end, so I hoped the water would not rise enough to reach the house. It was still raining hard.  

        I plowed through every drawer and closet in the house, eventually finding two  huge scented candles in glass containers. I never used candles because I thought they were fire hazards, but I had received several as gifts ---useless I thought, until I needed them. The apple pie aroma would have been great under different circumstances.

        I hadn’t heard from Parker. I tried my own cell phone. It worked, but I couldn’t get through to my husband.

        I called my sister Marigold. Parker always referred to Mari as the Green Goddess, because while he and I had black thumbs, Marigold could make a palm tree grow at the north pole.  She was scheduled to fly in the following week to visit and help me plant an herb garden. Parker called her annual garden-project visit Operation Marigold. 

        Mari lived 500 miles to the west. The storm was just a gentle rain in her area. My sister worked for a cell phone company and assured me towers have back-up generators and batteries, but, she explained, each tower can hold only so many calls. During a major storm, they can't accommodate the overload.  We finalized our plans for the next week, provided we weren’t under water.   

        I swear my sister would make a good senator. She could single-handedly keep a filibuster going for a week. Our  phone conversations usually ran for hours, but I rang off after thirty minutes, explaining I needed to move things to higher ground.

        Our home sat on a hill. The water would have to rise five feet above the street to enter the basement, but if it did the computer equipment I used as a freelance graphic artist in our family room would be ruined.  By the light of my two candles, I unplugged the computers, scanners, monitors, and printers, placing them on the highest steps I could reach. I gathered all the small items, the mouse, keyboard, wires, papers, backup disks and external drives into a large box and carried it upstairs. 

        Every few minutes, I looked to see what was happening outside while I tried to reach Parker. Each time, the water seemed closer than the last time, but since there were no street lights, it was difficult to tell.  By then, water was probably more than a foot deep where Aurora met Washington, the only way to drive to our house which sat at the dead end of Aurora. I tried calling my husband again. The call went to voice mail. I hit the redial, saying to myself, “Please answer, please, please, please” and “Thank you,” when he finally picked up.  He had just pulled into the school parking lot two blocks from home.

        “What’s going on out there?” I asked.

        “Traffic was crazy. They have Washington blocked off.”

        “I thought they would. Did you hear anything about that the reporter?”

        “The radio said she broke her wrist. Except for a few other bruises, she'll be okay."

        I waited at the window until I saw a flashlight bouncing up the street.  I opened the garage door to find Parker, soaked trench coat over trousers folded to his knees, his shoes, socks, and the flashlight from the car in hand. 

        “Come see,” he said, setting his shoes on the garage floor. I rolled up the legs of the pajamas that I had put on after being soaked in the rain earlier. I pulled on Parker’s high rubber boots and the rain slicker I had hung in the garage to dry. 

        The water had reached the bottom of our driveway. We waded down the street until the ubiquitous water reached mid-calf.  We could hear the distant motor of a generator. By flashlight, we saw the creek had flooded basements and was inching up porch steps. It looked like everyone close to the creek had evacuated. I could only imagine the messes they would return to after the storm. I wanted to cry.

        “Let’s get inside,” I said. “I’m freezing.” On the way back to the house, the rain died to a drizzle, but we knew that water from the surrounding hills would still flow into the creek which might continue to rise for hours. 

        Parker had been walking through water that might have overflowed from sewers, so he wanted to shower. He dumped his wet clothes on the garage floor and pulled me toward the bathroom where I peeled off my PJs and jumped into the shower with him. Quickly, we soaped and applied shampoo, then rinsed before the warm water ran out. 

        Parker put on fresh jeans and T-shirt while I opted for spandex leggings and a turtleneck. We ate sandwiches at my work table in the family room.  Parker occasionally took the flashlight to the door to see the water creeping up the driveway. He lit a fire while I anxiously watched the water lapping at the sliding glass doors where the basement floor was at its lowest point. At first water seeped into the room only an inch from the doors, then three, then seven. After we moved the first three pieces of furniture upstairs, the water stopped inching forward and began to recede.

        The power was still off. With our hectic schedules, it was a rare treat to prop ourselves on throw pillows in front of the fire and talk for hours like we used to do. We sipped mugs of hot tea, made with water heated in the fireplace. 

        In front of the fire, my husband’s face looked soft and young. His clothes took on a warm glow. His wedding ring sparkled with orange light. When he looked at me, Parker’s eyes reflected flames as if they, too, were on fire. 

(2009, C.J. Peiffer)