Brad Burt – 1st Place Fiction 2023
After the wife died, I started talkin’ to myself. Not ‘cause I’m some crazy coot who’s lost the cream-fillin’ outta his Twinkie, but just so’s the house wouldn’t be so quiet.
I got in the habit when I’d hike myself onto the barstool in the rec room downstairs an’ see myself in the mirror. I’d pour a shot, raise it high, an’ say, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid!”
Not that I was a kid. I was in my early-sixties when the wife died, an’ my reflection looked every bit of that. For the longest time, I was the only one doin’ the talkin’, but at some point the guy in the mirror joined in. Lookin’ back, I think it was when I told him the wife had always been a nagger, but now I sorta missed her constant yammerin’. “She’d rattle on an’ on,” I said, “but that was okay ‘cause if I got mad, she’d know to shut up.”
Mine, too. Had a nasty mouth when she set her mind to it, but every now an’ then, I’d drop the hammer.
His voice sounded like mine, maybe flatter on account of it was bouncin’ offa the mirror.
The more we talked, the better we got to know each other; an’ the better we got to know each other, the more we talked. Turns out, he was retired, like me, an’ we told each other funny stories ‘bout the jobs we worked, an’ the jerk-off bosses we had.
“I sometimes miss the job,” I said after a long swallow. “But not the bosses!”
Me, too! I actually punched one out after he got on my case for somethin’. Got fired, but it was worth it!
He told me his name was Michael—which is my name, too, what the wife used to yell in capital letters every time she got teed off. I told him I’d call him Mike.
Both of us enjoyed our drinkin’ time, which started around four in the afternoons. Mike was left-handed, which I noticed when we poured our shots, an’ whenever we raised our glasses.
He always arrived when I did, an’ got up to leave every time I headed back upstairs. I always turned at the stairs for one final glance in the mirror, an’ we’d wave. Mike was real good company, an’ I didn’t feel so alone anymore.
“I got two kids,” I told him one day. “But I ain’t seen neither of ‘em since the wife died.
It’s like they blame me for her dyin’.”
That’s exac’ly like my kids! You think I ever hear from ‘em? Not a freakin’ word! I used to call ‘em, but never once heard anythin’ back!
Sometimes we’d sit quiet for the longest time, nursin’ our drinks, thinkin’ our own thoughts. Neither of us ever offered to buy a round ‘cause we always had our own bottle.
We had other stuff in common, too. He was fightin’ with the IRS, like me, over back taxes. He liked the Rollin’ Stones, an’ we both thought the Beatles were fairies. He loved the Red Sox, but neither of us could afford tickets to Fenway. We both still saluted the flag an’ stood up for the anthem, but neither of us went to church anymore.
“I gave that crap up after the wife died,” I said. “Between the church an’ the undertaker,
I shelled out more’n a thousand bucks for her funeral! Nothin’ but bloodsuckers, all of ‘em!”
You got that right! I had the wife cremated, an’ I still hadda fork out for a casket. An’ all’s I got at the end of the whole thing was a little cardboard box, sealed up tight, s’posed to have her ashes inside. How do I know if it does or not? I sure as hell ain’t gonna open it!
“I got the same thing,” I said. “Plus, my kids got twisted in a knot over the wholecremation thing. Said their mother should be buried whole, like she wanted. I hung tough,
though, an’ still got stiffed for the dough.”
The only thing I regret is the wife an’ me had a fight the day she died. Real shame!
“What were you fightin’ ‘bout?”
Nothin’ really. When I came into the kitchen, she started yappin’ at me, so I told her to
stifle herself. She said somethin’ back, wavin’ her wooden spoon in my face, an’ a piece of
whatever she was cookin’ landed on my cheek. Hurt like hell! So, without thinkin’, I hit her.
Not hard, but she staggered back, caught her foot in the floor-mat, an’ fell backwards. Hit her head on the countertop when she went down. I heard the crunch, an’ then she just lay there.
“Holy crap! Was she dead?” I asked.
Stone dead, just that quick.
“So…you killed her?” I said.
No, don’t be stupid! Wasn’t me that killed her, it was the granite countertop.
“Yeah, but you hit her…”
I know, but by mistake. She tripped on the floor-mat!
“So, what’d you do?” I asked. I was completely…memorized, or whatever the word is.
I called 9-1-1, told ‘em my wife was on the kitchen floor, said I couldn’t wake her up. I started bawlin’ my eyes out, was still doin’ that when the ambulance arrived.
“What’d you tell ‘em?” I asked.
Told ‘em I’d been sleepin’ while she was cookin’ dinner, woke up when I could smell the food burnin’, found her on the floor
“An’ they believed you?”
Yeah, no reason not to. I hadda talk to the cops a coupla times, but everythin’ I told ‘em added up, so they called it…death by missed adventure…somethin’ like that.
I poured myself another shot, as did Mike. “Yeah, but still…”
The whole house stunk like burnt food, an’ that’s what I said woke me up, so that prob’ly helped.
“Lucky you,” I said, takin’ another swallow, watchin’ him do the same. Like I said, we both liked our drink.
Yeah, but I never could get those pots clean. Hadda throw ‘em all out.
I didn’t sleep much that night, thinkin’ ‘bout what Mike had told me. I ‘preciated that he trusted me, but I couldn’t shake the idea that what he did was wrong. I mean, it’s one thing to do somethin’ bad, even like an accident, but it’s a whole other thing to cover it up. I think they call that rationin’…some word like that.
Anyways, I didn’t go downstairs for a drink the next day, but while I was gettin’ my supper ready—baked beans on toast an’ a slice of fried ham—I thought some more ‘bout what he’d said. An’ because I wasn’t payin’ attention, my toast got burnt an’ the beans stuck to the bottom of the pot. I pictured myself in Mike’s kitchen on account of the smell, got sick to my stomach, an’ couldn’t finish my supper. Couldn’t get the burnt beans offa the bottom of the pot, neither, so the whole thing went in the trash.
I was on my barstool the next afternoon, though, got there just as Mike did. We poured ourselves a shot, like usual, an’ raised our glasses. After a good, long sip, I said, “You’re gonna hate me, Mike, but before I came downstairs, I called the cops, told ‘em what you told me ‘bout how your wife died. They’ll prob’ly be gettin’ here soon.”
Why’d you do that? I thought I could trust you.
“Yeah, I’m real sorry,” I said, takin’ another sip. “But after you told me what you did, I figured I couldn’t live with knowin’ what really happened. You shoulda kept it buried inside your head, y’know? But once it was out there, I figured I hadda do somethin’, right? So, I told the cops everythin’.”
We stared at each other without talkin’ for awhile, an’ then I saw two policemen enter the rec room, move up behind Mike, put his hands in cuffs behind his back. I got up to leave when he did, feelin’ like they were leadin’ me away, too.
Like always, I paused at the bottom of the stairs, peered over my shoulder at the mirror,
saw my friend lookin’ back at me, a cop on each side of him. “Sorry, Mike,” I said sadly. “I enjoyed knowin’ you.”
I’m not Mike, you poor sod! You are! I’m just your reflection! You’re the one who killed your wife!
“Don’t be crazy!” I cried. “You’re the killer!” But even as I spoke, my wrists were chafin’ from the cuffs, my shoulders hurtin’ under the grasp of the two big cops. As they manhandled me out of view of Mike, I shouted desperately, vainly, “You’re not my reflection! You killed your wife!”
But he didn’t.
Ghosts of Clotheslines Past
Patti M. Walsh – 2nd Place Fiction 2023
You never know the last time you’ve done something until you look back. Like the last
time you went roller skating. Or baked cookies with your grandmother. Or pinned sheets to a
clothesline.
The last time I did that I was living in a mountain cabin west of Denver. It was early
December. The girls were hunting ghosts between the sheets I clipped to the rope Frank had
strung across the yard. Betsy was 9; Francie, 7.
“Boo!” They hooted, wrapping damp sheets around their heads.
“Boo!” I hooted back, pausing to remember that the best part of having kids is playing
with them.
Not that my mother played with me. The eldest of six, I was a helper, not a child.
As I had done 30 years ago, I blew warmth into my hands and closed my eyes. That
simple breath transported me to a second-story back porch in a blue-collar neighborhood.
With fingers frostbitten by the winter, I pinned clothes to a rope attached by a pulley to a tree that
every family used to anchor their clotheslines. Clip. Clip. Push. Hours later, the rhythm reversed.
Yank. Unclip. Yank. Unclip. Just as my mother had taught me.
With laundry fluttering like signal flags on a tall ship, we kids scrutinized the lines to
identify the owners of stiff jeans and brittle underwear.
“I see London, I see France,” someone would taunt, “I see Kathy’s (or someone’s)
underpants.”
Yet the sheets and towels were fluffy, like the ones in my own backyard.
Inhaling a gust of the piney west wind, I opened my eyes to see a sidewinder skitter
across the scrappy backyard. Instead of fearing its sideways motion, I remembered that Frank,
my husband, had adopted the small rattler as his totem. He said it represented adapting and
survive in difficult situations.
Life was good.
Until the next day, when it wasn’t.
“Honey, wake up.” My husband nudged me before dawn. “Pipes froze overnight.”
A cold front had moved across the Continental Divide. Temperatures plunged as snow
mounted. Frank, ever practical, had turned off the outside spigots and left water dripping in the
kitchen and bathroom. Although moving water should have kept the pipes from freezing, our
fragile plumbing was no match for the brutal cold.
“See if you can thaw them, Babe. I’ve already opened the faucets. Start in the kitchen. I
gotta go plow. I’ll get water down at the garage. But bring some snow in.”
I knew the drill. You’d think that you can just melt snow for water, but it isn’t that easy.
Mountain snow is dry. Moisture evaporates if you don’t melt it slowly. Very slowly. Fill buckets
with snow, cover them, and place them near—but not too near—the woodstove. Then, set the
hair dryer to low and hold it close—but not too close—to the pipes. Overwise, they could burst.
As I struggled out of my warm bed, Frank kissed my forehead. “I stoked the fire.”
He was sweet like that. As snow layered itself inch by inch over everything, I watched
him start the truck, hitch the plow to it, and carve a path toward the state road.
Plowing was one of his many jobs. So was welding, carpentry, and hauling wood. Hot
and Handy he called his business. Its logo was a sidewinder. But his trademark was a gutsy
laugh. A fiercely independent mountain man, he provided for his family, adapting and surviving
in difficult situations.
“Don’t flush the toilets,” I told the girls as I scrambled some eggs. They knew the drill,
too. “And go easy on water. Until Daddy gets back.”
Daddy wasn’t their daddy. That man was a mountain cowboy. I had pinned my future to a
dreamer who rode off into the sunset when the going got tough, leaving me with two girls. Then
Frank rambled into town in his pickup truck. Kind and practical, he swept us off our feet and into
his log cabin in the woods, about a mile in from the state highway. We moved in and never
looked back.
We were happy, though life was hard.
The girls and I made a game of opening all the cabinet doors and running a hairdryer over
the kitchen pipes, but no water dripped from the faucets. After a few hours, though, we had about
a cup of water from melted snow, so I bundled up, went outside to fill the buckets again, and
added wood to the fire.
But I hadn’t adjusted the flue correctly, so the cabin filled with smoke. Even though it
was drafty, we all started coughing. We drank the little water we had. Then sucked on
peppermint candy.
When Frank returned hours later with water, he took over the tedious process of heating
the pipes, until water oozed then gushed—not out of the faucet but through a pipe.
“Shit!” Water flooded the kitchen. “Shit, shit, shit.” Grab me some duct tape, Hon, will
you?”
With water leaking everywhere and Frank cursing God, himself, and the pipes, panic
seeped into my toes, then stampeded to my brain. I wasn’t prepared for living without water. In
deepening puddles. With children. In the winter. In isolated backwoods.
Between sopping up water with clean towels, I formulated a plan to get us out of the
mountains.
“How are the roads, Frank? Can we make it to Denver?” He said they were clear. “I’ll
call my cousin. We can stay with her. Just until you fix the pipes.”
We did, but he couldn’t. Although Frank considered himself a universal fix-it man, these
corroded pipes were beyond his abilities. The more he tried to fix them, they more they cracked
and crumbled. The whole place needed to be replumbed.
After staying with Mary for a few weeks, I found an apartment—with a clothes dryer. I
pretended to smell the wind when I did laundry. Frank pretended to like the city in between days
at the cabin. First to work on the plumbing. Then to caulk the cracks around the windows. Then
to chink the gaps between the logs. And then to live there. Until he didn’t. He died one night.
Carbon monoxide.
The girls and I moved back East, to be closer to my folks. And here I was, a dozen years
later, on a train to New Haven. Betsy was graduating from college. Francie was in her second
year. Both on scholarships. I had a good job. We had done well. Frank would be proud.
Passing through an anonymous, rundown city in the Northeast industrial corridor, I
noticed clothes hanging from dingy backyard clotheslines and—clip-clip—I was yanked back.
To my childhood. To fingers frostbitten by the winter. To the cabin. To the freshness of windblown sheets. To Frank.
You never know the last time you did something until you look back. You say, in
wonder, that was the last time … I went roller skating. Or baked cookies with grandma. Or
pinned sheets to a clothesline.
Overcome by the urge to run like a ghost through wind-blown sheets, tears oozed then
gushed, like broken pipes flooding a drafty cabin.
Somewhere in England, 1952
Pauline Hayton – 3rd Place Fiction 2023
A timid knock on the front door interrupted Edna’s ironing. She pulled the plug from the wall socket and checked the kitchen clock. “That will be him,” she told Tweetie Pie chirping in his cage.
She strode down the hall, her heart dancing the conga with relief. She desperately needed a handyman and it seemed she had found him. The day after her bank manager husband retired, he died in his sleep, blood clot to the brain, leaving Edna a widow these past six years. Finally emerging from her grief, she was mortified to find the home that used to be her pride and joy with its stained-glass bay windows and immaculate garden, had become, in her eyes, a run-down hovel.
She opened the door. A tall man stood on the doorstep, nervously shuffling his greasy cap
round and round in his hands. His lined, careworn face made him look much older than the thirty-five years she understood him to be.
“Thank you for being prompt. Stanley, isn’t it?”
The man nodded.
“Would you like a cup of tea before you start?”
“No, thanks, Mrs. Had breakfast wi’ the nuns,” he said gruffly. “Show me what you want and I’ll get to it.”
Edna’s thoughts flew to the nearby nunnery where men queued every morning to get a free breakfast. It started when many of the men returning home from the war could no longer fit into their previous lives, men who were lost and damaged beyond repair, men who, most nights, slept in a cot in the Salvation Army hostel. Being a church-going, generous woman, Edna asked the nuns if any of the men were capable of doing repairs. As luck would have it, the nuns did give some of the ex-servicemen work to do around the nunnery. It helped the men feel useful. The nuns introduced Edna to Stanley, who was eager to earn some money.
Edna stepped outside. “How are you with woodwork?”
“I can do a fair job wi’ the right tools.”
“Good. I’ll show you some rotten window frames.”
At the back of the house, she pointed to the bottom of her leaded windows. “As far as I know, the tops of the frames are fine. My husband had some tools. I think they’re in the garden shed. I’ll get the key.”
Edna left Stanley prodding the window frames. She returned to find him shaking the wobbly fence that looked as if it was about to fall down from the battering it took in the recent March gales.
“Yes, Stanley, that’s another job on the list for you. If you need to buy wood or nails or whatever, you can get what you need at Appleton’s Hardware on the High Street. I opened an account there and told them to expect you.” She handed him her list of tasks. “So, I’ll leave you to it,” she said and went indoors.
At twelve-thirty Edna placed a bowl of leek and potato soup and two thick slices of bread on a tray, alongside the large pot mug she bought specially for Stanley to use instead of her delicate china cups. She carried the tray outside, glowing with the pleasure that came from once again ministering to a man’s needs.
She found Stanley sanding the new frames. “These need a coat of primer, Mrs., before it rains.”
“Like I told you, get whatever you need from the hardware store. Now take a break and eat your lunch.”
Living on a widow’s pension, Edna had little money to spare. However, her need for a handyman was greater than the need to eat three square meals a day. Edna employed Stanley Mondays and Thursdays. He arrived at nine, she handed him a list of jobs, and he got on with the work, fortified by Edna’s lunch of home-made soup and two chunks of homemade bread. After years of living with emptiness, her heart filled with excitement. Her home was returning to its former glory. Soon, only the front door and outside woodwork remained to be painted and the garden to tidy.
Edna got into the habit of joining Stanley and drinking a cup of tea while he ate his soup. She steered conversations to his war service even though he resisted. However, with gentle coaxing, she discovered he had spent years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He admitted, “I returned home a broken man.”
One day she blurted out, “My son, George, was taken captive at Singapore. Was he in the same camp as you?”
Stanley’s head jerked up. He looked at her, really looked at her with piercing eyes, before
silently shaking his head.
At the end of this lunch break, noticing Stanley’s shaking hands and tight jawline, Edna said, “I hope I didn’t distress you with our little talk.”
Usually, Stanley remained silent, but this day he reached the end of his tether and the dam burst. “Now you listen, Mrs. I’m never talking about the war again. You’ve got all you’re going to get out of me.”
Chastened and flushed with embarrassment by Stanley’s anger, Edna touched his
forearm. “I just believe it helps to share a heavy load.” “It doesn’t help me,” Stanley shouted, shaking off her hand. He slumped down on the doorstep.
Unnerved, Edna turned on her heels and returned indoors. Oh dear, what have I done? Is he shaking from awakened rage? Despair? Painful memories of comrades viciously killed in the camp. She wondered if he cried out in his sleep. She sat on the hall bottom stair and covered her face. Would George be in this state if he had come home?
Stanley didn’t analyze himself so closely. He only wanted to keep upright, placing first one step then another to move the shell of himself from point A to point B. But now, with the money Edna paid him, he was able make a detour to the pub for a few beers to add a smidgeon of numbness to his life.
The day arrived when Stanley finished painting the house, leaving only the garden to tidy and vegetables to plant. Tension had been building inside him as his work moved nearer and nearer to completion. The unfairness of it all, an empty, unfulfilled life after fighting for king and country, fueled the flames of rage. No more soup lunches. No money to spend on beer. Life looked bleak, and it was her fault. She had no right to take it away from him. He bristled when she ordered him to lay out the garden a certain way. Too bossy. It reminded him of the Japanese
guard’s treatment of him. Not fair!
Garden finished, Stanley returned the gardening tools to the shed, then knocked on
Edna’s back door to return the key and receive his pay. She came outside to inspect his work and pointed to a rake leaning against the wall. “You forgot to put the rake away, Stanley.” She spoke more sharply than she meant to. A bad habit. Being annoyed or angry was her way of hiding sadness. And she was sad. Stanley’s visits were at an end. She would miss him.
Stanley began shaking, his mind invaded by memories of Japanese guards’ cruel
treatment of their prisoners. In the camp, inspection of work was usually a prerequisite to finding fault, an excuse to amuse themselves by punishing prisoners. Vicious beatings were followed by tying prisoners to posts, hands strung high above their heads then leaving them for hours to suffer under the hot sun.
He grabbed the rake, swung it high, then brought it down on Edna’s head again and
again. Blood spurted everywhere. Her broken glasses flew off to land on the brick path. At first, she cried out, flailed her arms; then she crumpled to the floor.
Chest heaving, Stanley burst into tears. Disgusted with himself, he threw the weapon across the newly planted rows of onions. He found a dry corner of Edna’s pinafore and wiped his face. He wanted to find oblivion in sleep, but no time. With awareness returning to the present, he needed to hide his crime.
Stanley dragged Edna’s body into the kitchen. Casting about, he caught sight of her
handbag on the table. A look inside revealed a folded ten-shilling note. He removed it, after all, he was due his wages. He stared at the body with its disfigured face and right eyeball hanging down on her cheek and shuddered. Was she watching him with her swollen left eye? Stanley turned his back on the almost unrecognizable body stretched out the green linoleum. He opened her purse, took out notes and coins and shoved them in his jacket pocket. Suddenly hungry, he opened the bread bin, took out the loaf, cut doorstep size slices and spread them with jam. Tweetie-Pie’s singing caught Stanley’s attention. He opened the cage door to let the bird fly free then left the house, jam sandwich in hand.
Terror in December
Leah Miller 1st Place Fiction 2022
I’m asleep on the bottom bunk in the room I share with two older sisters. Exhausted as
usual, Mommy sleeps soundly on the other side of the wall in her bedroom. Daddy is in Mexico
on a fishing trip with his buddies. Earlier, my shoulders ached from the day’s tree climbing.
Now, I can’t tell where my muscles end and the sheets begin because I’ve slept one-with-the-bed
for hours. Not fully aware of my actions, I start to turn over.
As I roll to face the center of the room and settle into a comfortable slumber, I bump
against Flea, my sock-monkey companion. My eyes slip open. Even though I don’t intend to
look at anything, I glimpse a large shadow that doesn’t quite make sense. I’m groggy as I blink,
expecting the mirage to waste away before my eyelids separate again, but the odd form is still
there. I blink again and again, each time more intently, wider, as consciousness invades my
inner sanctum. I see the image more clearly each time, an alien figure in the room. And it’s big.
I force myself awake but keep my head on the pillow. Only my eyes move. The partial
moon outside veils objects in the room with just enough gray. My eyes adjust as dim swimming
shapes coalesce in their proper positions. All is in place except this strange looming mass across
the room. I dare not sit up as I stare at what appears to be a man standing on our dressing
counter.
Wha…? Can it be?? It looks like a man. Why is he there? Why isn’t he moving? WHO
IS HE??
As imperceptibly as possible, a millimeter at a time, I slide the covers up over my nose. I
leave my eyes exposed so I can see. Outside the blankets, the man endures the stinging
December chill of the room. Shielded from it within my shroud, warmth comforts me and helps
me feel protected. Somewhat.
I must see who this is. I need to know who this is. Why is he just standing there? Why
doesn’t he move? Should I ask him his name? I’m fully awake now.
I decide against speaking. I don’t want him to know I’m here. Does Melody see him also?
She must ‘cause she’s just above me. But I haven’t heard her moving so maybe she’s sleeping
through this. Am I the only one awake? I think I’m the only one who sees him. Elaine probably
can’t see him from where she is. I don’t hear her moving either. Oh dear Lord, what do I do?
I want him to go away. I’m terrified. I blink and blink but he’s still there, standing, facing
the center of the room. He doesn’t leave. He doesn’t speak.
I watch for ten minutes but there is not a twitch from him. I feel sleepy again and I’m done
seeing. I close my eyes, clinging to hope he’ll be gone when I open them again. I hide beneath
my blankets. I sleep. A half hour later, I wake up to discover he’s still there. The nightmare
continues. Is this what it is, a nightmare? Am I really asleep? Again, I blink and blink and look
and look, harder and harder. No, I am awake and this isn’t a bad dream. There is a man
standing on our dressing counter! And he’s paunchy.
I want the world to end. I want the madness to stop. But it doesn’t. I throw myself to fate
and decide to move. I crush against the wall and dive into my bedding, shuddering. Nothing
happens. The man doesn’t speak to me and he doesn’t walk over to me. I dig my head into the
pillow, wishing I would sink into oblivion. Sleep rescues me.
I wake again. It must be several hours later. Dare I peep? I do. Out of the cocoon of my
blankets I want to scream because the man is STILL there! Oh, horror of all horrors. Don’t
scream! You’ve made it this far. Surely morning is coming soon. Then I won’t be the only one
awake and everyone will see the man and we can all fight him together and find out why he
broke into our room.
I keep one eye on him as I drift in and out of sleep. Each time I wake, he is anchored,
resolute. I battle believing this is happening. The ebony of night slinks away, dispelled by
twilight all too slowly etching outlines into the landscape of the room. Silver shapes emerge
where various gray blotches had been. I start to see more clearly vague, familiar features of my
belongings and those of my sisters, profiles now apparent that before were lost in blackness. The
dark silhouette of the man pales along with them. I’m desperate for it to be morning so I can see
him clearly, but I’m tired. I fall in and out of sleep while waiting. I dream of a consoling ride on
our pony.
***
I wake. At last enough time has passed. My sisters are not stirring but dawn is finally
washing the room with light. Objects now boast a palette of cloudy pastels. I’m braver now that
I can see more clearly. I jump up and turn to see the man. There he is, still. Standing atop our
dressing counter, staring into the center of the room. While I rub my eyes, it takes me a minute
to make out who he is. He is stiff. He sports a white beard and wears a black belt, black boots,
and a vermilion suit with white trim and matching stocking cap, but he’s covered in confetti. My
fears evaporate. I rocket from terror to joy. IT’S A SANTA PIÑATA. Daddy’s home!
Counterculture
Mary Charles – 2nd Place Fiction 2022
No one was injured when the old school bus rear-ended Dad’s car on that drizzly May
afternoon in 1968. The occupants of the bus were a bedraggled young couple in dirty bell-bott
jeans with frayed hems. She wore a wrinkled peasant blouse and buffalo-skin thong sandals. He
was shirtless and shoeless. Both were scrawny and in their eyes was the look of hunger.
The van’s driver was on the verge of tears. “Sorry, man, I just lost focus when I dropped
my joint.” His female companion exuded hostility, a scowling subscriber to the “Don’t trust
anyone over 30” mantra. I stood aside, fascinated by their filthy feet and their tear-inducing body
odor.
I was only 15, but Dad was far into the suspect age. And the look aimed at Dad by the
emaciated girl hippie was poisonous. I couldn’t understand that antipathy. Dad was smiling,
conciliatory.
“Do you want to get estimates of the damage?” he asked the young driver, who paled at
the mention of repair costs.
“I know I owe you for this, man,” said the scrawny stranger. “I’ll do the right thing.” His
companion glared, first at her boyfriend, then at Dad.
Then to my shock Dad invited this pair of strangers to come home with us, have supper
and stay the night.
What? These smelly aliens in our house? At our dinner table? Overnight? I was
embarrassed and uneasy. I couldn’t see how this could be a good idea.
As soon as our two-car caravan got home, Dad was on the phone with his friend who had
a tree-trimming service, arranging a job for the young man to fund repairs for the car and gas for
the bus.
Mom was less congenial than Dad. Her smile of greeting was paper-thin. Suddenly she
needed to stretch dinner to feed five, fluff the spare bedroom and find fresh towels. I suspect she
also spent a bit of time hiding pawnable objects.
But she rose to the occasion as she had done many times with Dad, whom she called her
collector of lost souls. She added another can of beans to the meal, and Dad kept the dialog
moving with unintrusive questions about their lives. The young man, who called himself Don,
said the couple were on their way to The Farm, a commune near Summertown, Tennessee.
Around the supper table, Don and Dad found common ground. Dad spoke about his faith
in the divine. Don said The Farm was a spiritual destination. The girl, who had by now provided
the name Daisy, offered to help clear the table. Mom began to thaw at this gesture.
Early the next morning, I heard the hippies quietly leave the house. I watched through the
kitchen window as they headed out to their bus. Then I saw Dad appear in the driveway carrying
an armful of books: a Bible, something by C.S. Lewis, Viktor Frankl’s memoir and a few other
inspirational texts. I recognized this gesture as classic Dad. He knew this couple was making a
getaway, and he intended that they should not leave without fuel for the soul.
That encounter faded from my young mind, except for vague speculation about hippies
and how they seemed so alienated from all I considered normal. Only much later did I realize
what a sheltered childhood mine had been. Viet Nam, protests, LSD – none of those topics had
occupied conversation space at my parents’ 1960s dinner table. Only much later did I realize
how my ignorance had robbed me of wisdom.
One fall afternoon decades later, as my 85-year-old dad and I sat watching his maple tree
shed its brilliant golden leaves, I asked if he remembered the day the hippies smashed up his car.
“Like yesterday,” he said. “I believe that young man was sincere about making it right.”
“But you never heard from him again, huh?” I recalled.
“It didn’t surprise me. The counterculture didn’t engage with the establishment. I
represented all that was wrong with the world.”
“How did you feel about being stiffed?” I wondered.
“The whole incident made me sad. I wish I knew how life turned out for them.”
I recalled the Tennessee Williams line about the kindness of strangers. Dad had treated
those young strangers with such decency, and he hadn’t borne a grudge when their own
humanity failed them. It made me proud to be the child of a do-gooder.
A year later at Dad’s well-attended funeral, a couple I didn’t recognize singled me out.
They were an elegant 60-ish pair. His look was comfortable and confident. Her vibe was sincere
and discerning. The man said, “We’re Don and Daisy Larson. One day long ago your dad
showed us the meaning of kindness. We’ve never forgotten, and we came over from
Summertown to pay our respects.”
