R.I.P.*

(*Winner, 2009 South Carolina fiction Project)

When I was about ten years old, a black woman named Claudia Thompson kept me during the day while my parents worked in the Seminole Cotton Mill in Clearwater, South Carolina. This was summertime; no school. I grew very fond of Claudia, and in concert with my mother’s disapproval of bigotry (without her even knowing what the word meant), Claudia’s love and kindness immunized me forever against racial hatred, though in that place, in that time, prejudice against blacks was part of the white child’s cultural legacy. I still remember my shock and disgust upon hearing a man, white of course, proclaim in earnest, ignorant fervor that “Niggers are just like dogs; they don’t have souls.” Poor, benighted son-of-a-bitch. I swear, I’ve come to suspect that truth is in inverse proportion to the certitude of the declaimer. But I’m straying from the subject.

Claudia’s older sister Shirley “passed over” at home one Saturday after lingering for days in a coma. Her funeral was scheduled for the following Monday, and of course Claudia would attend. Trouble was, Monday was a workday for my parents. So when neither Mother nor Claudia could find somebody else on short notice to keep me, it was decided that I would accompany Claudia to the funeral, a graveside service in a church graveyard way out in the country.

Joined by other mourners, we rode there in the afternoon on a church bus that looked old enough to have hauled spectators to Calvary, but it struggled heroically over the rough country roads, wheezing and bouncing until it delivered its jostled cargo to The Great Awakening Baptist Church. I remember it all as if it happened only yesterday.

The church, a simple one-room wooden building in dire need of paint, sat on a bare patch of ground in the middle of a big field under a blazing hot July sun. Off to one side was a graveyard that stretched from a ravine at one end to the sky atop a small rise at the other end. I see that graveyard now as nothing less than a topological metaphor, a suggestion of Hell in one direction, of Heaven in the other, and I realize how overheated my ten-year-old imagination must have been in witnessing these strange surroundings, this unfamiliar ceremony, this somber ritual.

We parked in front of the church, got off the bus, and walked toward a knot of people, mostly black, but a sprinkling of whites, about fifty yards away, Claudia’s right hand gripping my left, and her other hand holding a limp handkerchief to wipe her tears. She had cried softly during the whole ride out to the graveyard, and her sobs increased as we made our way toward the open grave.

I didn’t know it then – this was my first funeral – but much about this ceremony was unusual. Never again would I see an open casket at the gravesite. Never again would I attend a funeral where all the mourners encircled the open grave. And never again would I attend a funeral where the dearly departed didn’t depart, after all. At least not to the Great Beyond.

I need to pause here to say that as late as the 1940s, it was still possible in many parts of America to bury a body without exciting official attention and oversight. Doctors were few and often busy somewhere else in the county when Death came calling. Hospitals were even fewer and often too far away, and no way to get there quickly anyhow. Thus it was common to die at home in bed and then be laid to rest somewhere on the old home place or in a country churchyard, often without the aid of a mortician. That was the case with Claudia’s sister, and here’s what happened.

As the preacher, a tall distinguished man of ebony hue, gave his eulogy, we stood bunched in a circle of fifty or sixty mourners around the casket, a homemade, unlined and unadorned wooden coffin that still smelled of freshly sawn planks. The casket sat open on a lowering device a foot or two above the yawning grave, the body visible from head to foot. Nearby, on the ground, lay the coffin lid, and on it a hammer and nails awaiting employment.

Speaking with soulful conviction, the preacher assured the bereaved, as I realize now they always do, that they need not worry overmuch about Shirley’s death, for she was not in fact dead but only sleeping, and would, “in that great gettin-up morning,” rise up to meet her Maker.

Well, never have a preacher’s words been revealed as the Gospel truth so quickly, so dramatically. As if on cue the “corpse” sat up! Yes! Claudia’s sister Shirley sat up in her coffin and looked around, obviously bewildered, the expression on her face as legible as words: Where the hell am I? What the hell is going on here?

To say that pandemonium ensued is to feel how limited is the load-bearing capacity of mere words. Those in front, nearest the grave, recoiled in horror, falling back like wheat in a high wind, while those in back surged forward to see what was causing the commotion, and then quickly reversed field when they saw Shirley sitting up, eyes, open, head turning this way and that. The overall effect was of people caught in a human riptide of panic. Cries, ejaculations, and curses filled the air.

“Great Caesar’s ghost!” the preacher gasped.

“Good God Almighty!” a woman screeched.

“Jesus Fucking Christ!” another mourner shouted.

Then, because people were pushing and shoving so hard this way and that, some of the mourners fell against the coffin, screaming, while others toppled into the open grave – and screamed even louder.

Not to worry. They scrambled furiously out of the grave and away from the coffin when they saw that Shirley was climbing out of her casket. At that, the mourners, old and young alike, broke and ran, scared out of their wits, streaming this way and that down through the field, but mainly toward the woods, about seventy yards away, probably because it was downhill and of course aided acceleration.

Claudia, bless her heart, was leading the pack, having left me behind to fend for myself – I, who was too ignorant to be afraid. For all I knew, this was how funerals were supposed to be conducted. But I remember being surprised that old people could run so fast, especially with walking canes, one even on crutches. Of course, all adults are old to a mere child; still, I knew I had never seen Claudia move much faster than molasses in January, and she could have been no more than forty.

No matter; all of them ran even faster when Shirley, still bewildered, I guess, saw everybody else running and, though she didn’t know why they were running, figured she’d better take off, too. Then when those fleeing saw Shirley running behind them, and even gaining on them, they somehow found the strength to run even faster, and soon disappeared into the woods amid the sound of crashing branches.

Seconds later, in something of a daze, I stood near the grave alone except for a distinguished-looking old black man who stood nearby as calmly as if waiting for a train.

When I looked at him, puzzlement showing on my face, I’m sure, he chuckled and said: “You’re not going to run, too?”

I didn’t know how to answer. Was I supposed to run? Should I have run? I said the only thing I could think of. “You didn’t run.”

He smiled, shrugged. “No need. He pointed in the direction of the woods. “They think they saw a ghost. But there’s no such thing as ghosts. It was just a woman waking up from a coma. Just in time, too.” He stepped forward and held out his hand for me to shake. “I’m Dr. Jamison. I believe you’re the Blakes’ little boy. I saw you come up with Claudia.” He laughed. “Before she took off.”

I nodded. “Yes, sir.” I shook the hand. “What’s a coma?”

“State of unconsciousness. Sometimes it looks for all the world like the person is dead. No detectable heartbeat, breath, or signs of life. Just like Shirley. I got here early and looked at the body. She was stiff as a board. Fooled me, and I was a doctor for fifty years. Understand?”

I nodded, but all this was news to me. Until that very day, I’d never seen a dead body. Still hadn’t, now that I thought of it.

“Will she be all right?” He knew I meant Shirley.

He laughed. “If she doesn’t kill herself running.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Come on. I’ve better give you a lift home.”

We began walking back toward the church’s parking area, toward a Model-A Ford, black of course, the only color the Model-A came in. “What about Claudia?” I asked.

Dr. Jamison laughed again. “I’ll bet we see Claudia on the way back to town.”

He was right. We’d gone no more than a mile when we saw both Claudia and Shirley, shoes in hand, trudging wearily on the red-clay road toward town. Their clothes had gotten ripped in the woods, their hair was a mess, and they were gleaming with sweat. They looked to be dog-tired, too, but I doubt that anyone will ever see a happier reunion of sisters – at least on this side of the grave. One minute they were hugging and crying, and next minute they were crying and hugging.

The doctor had stopped the car beside them, and when they finally acknowledged our presence, he addressed them with elaborate politeness. “Would you ladies like a ride to town? Better to rest in peace in an old Ford than back there in the graveyard, eh, Shirley?” He laughed. Shirley managed a weak smile. Claudia did, too.

The sensational story of Shirley’s narrow escape from being buried alive swept the county, of course, and both Claudia and I were entreated again and again to tell about it to those who weren’t there. We both left out the part about Claudia’s running off and leaving me. After all, I had been in no danger, thanks to the kindly doctor, and Claudia had always been good as gold to me, anyhow, far too good for me to want to get her into trouble.

All this was years ago, of course. Last time I heard, Claudia was dead, died at fifty or fifty-five of a heart attack. I’m no expert on souls, black or white, but I’ll tell anyone this: if there is a Heaven, Claudia Thompson is in it.

And Shirley? Last I heard, Shirley was still fit as a fiddle. Had buried three husbands and was engaged to marry again. To a man ten years younger than she.

Award-winning Short Story

 

Black Coffee
By Robert Lamb

 

The young waitress, bottle blonde, was back again. “Made up your mind yet?” She sounded impatient and indifferent at the same time.
            Just coffee, I told her. Black. No cream.
            “I need something stronger,” Jenny said. “Do you serve wine?”
            The waitress nodded, chewed gum, checked her nails. Red.
            “Chardonnay,” Jenny said. “House is okay.”
            The waitress, wordless, went away. Jenny studied the wall at my back, her solemn hazel eyes fixed on a pastel wallpaper. I studied Jenny studying the wall at my back. We were the only customers in the place.
            “What?” she said, meeting my eyes at last, defiant, distraught.
            “Nothing.”
            “Well, it’s hard.”
            I said I knew.
            “No, you don’t. It’s not your mother.”
            I said I knew whose mother it was.
            Jenny went back to staring at the wall.
            The waitress brought our drinks. She put the wine in front of me, the coffee – with cream – in front of Jenny, and left the bill on the edge of the table. The wine was a blush, not Chardonnay, but when I started to call the waitress back, Jenny stopped me. “Never mind,” she said.
            Swapping drinks, I nodded toward the waitress. “Hope Miss Congeniality there doesn’t depend on tips for a living.”
            “Huh?”
            “Nothing,” I said.
            Jenny sipped her wine. “I don’t think I can do it,” she said, a pink flush rising at her throat.
            “Well, go back over there and tell them that.” I nodded toward a big gray building across the street.
            “I just can’t,” she said, sipping again.
            “Look, if you can’t, you can’t. They’ll understand. You won’t be the first who couldn’t do it.”
            “I don’t see how anybody could do it.”
            “I could do it. I could do it because it ought to be done. When a thing needs doing, it’s best to go on and do it.”
            “I’m not like you.”
            “Then don’t do it.”
            “I’d hate myself if I did it.”
            “Then don’t do it, for Christ’s sake. Go on over there and tell `em.”
            “I’ll finish my wine first.” She sipped again. “Maybe if I drink enough of this I can do it.”
            “Do it and then drink,” I said. “Then you’ll have a reason to drink.”
            “I have a reason now. Will you order me another glass?”
            “I read somewhere that memory and judgment are the first things clouded by alcohol.”
            “Memory would be okay,” she said.
            “Suit yourself.” I started to call for the waitress.
            “Wait!” Jenny said. “You’re right. I need a clear head for this.” She pushed the glass away. It was still nearly full. “What time is it?”
            “Two-thirty.” I signaled toward a big white-faced clock on a nearby wall. You couldn’t miss it.
            “How long did he say he’d be there?”
            “Till three.”
            She made a face. “Will you tell him for me?”
            “Tell him what?”
            “You know,” she said.
            “No, I don’t know.”
            She reached for my coffee. “Mind?”
            I pushed the cup and saucer toward her. The cream, too. I didn’t use the stuff.
            Stirring in the cream, she said, “It’s for the best, don’t you think?”
            “What I think’s not important here,” I said.
            She sipped the coffee, now a caramel-brown. “I can’t do it. She’s my mother.”
            I reached for her wine. “All the more reason you should do it,” I said. “Should want to do it.”
            “Was it this way with your mother?”
            “No.”
            “See.”
            “Proves nothing.”
            She shrugged. “You’re right. What time is it?”
            I finished her wine while glancing at the clock. “Two minutes later than when you asked before.”
            “Don’t be smart at a time like this.”
            “Don’t be dumb at a time like this.”
            She made a face again and heaved a sigh. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll do it.”
            She started to get up. I thought I saw tears. “You sure?”
            “I’m sure. As sure as I’ll ever be.” She got on up, smoothing wrinkles from her navy blue skirt as she rose. 
            I stood up, too. I left enough money on the table to cover the bill and give the waitress a good tip.

This story appeared first, in print, in the summer/fall edition of Ep;phany, A Literary Journal. For an account of the story’s origin, go to http://robtlamb.author.googlepages.com. On the right, click on “new story.” “Black Coffee” also was voted the best story of July 2008 among those posted on The Elder Storytelling Place: http://www.timegoesby.net/elderstorytelling/2008/07/black-coffee.html or  http://www.ronnibennett.typepad.com/elderstorytelling/

Spring break with a good book

I’m back from spring break at Pawleys Island, S.C., where besides long walks on the nearly deserted beach I read a very good novel: The Secret History, by Donna Tartt.

The novel, some 600 pages, was longer than it needed to be, and parts of it, sometimes long parts, could have been (and should have been)  trimmed. But Ms. Tartt may be forgiven because she writes beautifully and tells an absorbing tale of dissolution and madness among students at a college in Vermont that sounds very much like the one she attended, Bennington. In fact, one of her main characters sounds very much like novelist Bret Easton Ellis, who attended Bennington at about the same time and who befriended Ms. Tartt. 

I highly recommend The Secret History to the uninitiated – and I’d like to hear from readers as to what they thought of the novel. Me, I can’t wait to read more of Ms. Tartt’s writing. Indeed, I’m heading to the library tomorrow to see if her novel The Little Friend is available.

P.S.: I’ll have more to say about this later in continuing my discussion of the Western Literary Canon, but I consider Ellis’s Less Than Zero to be a small masterpiece. (I also consider his novel Lunar Park to be a large disaster, but, hey, nobody bats a thousand.)      

Children’s author pens memoir

Karen Petit, noted author of children’s stories (see her web site at www.theivybooks.com), will publish her first book for adults this spring (2008). Titled A Paw on My Heart, the book tells the author’s true story of how, in the aftermath of a horrendous divorce, she reluctantly acquired a dog for companionship – and discovered the amazing healing power of pets. Ms. Petit’s publisher is Red Letter Press, Columbia, S.C. The author, pictured here with her dog Ivy, invites comments on her work.

Prologue (from A Paw on My Heart)*

I

vy rescued me.She didn’t jump into the water and pull me to safety. She didn’t find me lost on a mountain trail. She didn’t push me out of the way of an oncoming car in a pedestrian crosswalk.

Ivy saved me by being herself: a dog.

My rescue began in June 2003, nearly eight months after my divorce from a man whom I feared would kill me. But that’s another chapter.         

Ivy helped me survive the aftermath of a cruel marriage, the death of my mother and the murder of a family friend. She’s been the calming presence in my life as I’ve struggled with the chaos caused by my sister’s emotional problems – more gut-wrenching than a divorce or the deaths of people you love. And she’s been the inspiration for a mystery series that launched me as an author.

All of this – and more – happened in the space of only five years.

Because of the circumstances surrounding my husband’s departure, I was relieved when he exited my life. But my home seemed entirely too quiet even though I had more than enough to keep me busy – a full-time job at the University of South Carolina and a part-time job in sales at Parisian, a former store of Saks Inc.

The candidate for filling those quiet hours wasn’t a man. I wanted a dog. Other people enjoyed having a dog. Maybe I would, too.

But there was a problem: I couldn’t figure out how to find a dog that would suit my dash-from-here-to-there lifestyle. For some reason, I assumed that having a dog meant having a “puppy.” I had visions of a darling Bichon Frise or a smart toy poodle that I could carry in a stylish tote and dress in fun, funky clothes. But how could I train a precious pooch when I was seldom at home long enough to eat meals?

My brain had become so clogged by the disorder of my miserable existence that I didn’t realize the many ways of  acquiring a pet – adoption being the best. But I never thought about looking at the classifieds and notices at vets’ offices or pursuing the choices from rescue groups, animal shelters, and friends who know someone with a pet that needed a home.

My only thoughts were “puppy” and “impossible,” and I squelched the desire to bring a new-to-this-world dog into my home. At least I still had that much sense.

I went on with my no-dog-to-love life. Then, one morning in June 2003, I was walking down the hall of my office building when I heard Pam in the Office of Special Events saying, “But Jane doesn’t know what she’ll do with her dog when she moves.

”Surprisingly, I heard myself asking, “What kind of dog does Jane have?”

“Part Lab, part Chow,” Pam said.

“A big dog,” I said, recoiling at the thought.

“Yes.”

For more than 40 years, I had cowered in the presence of big dogs, and I certainly had not given a thought to having one in my home. Suddenly, however, I heard myself telling Pam that I would like to talk to Jane and arrange to meet her dog, whose name was Ivy. I wasn’t promising to take her home to live with me, but I would think about it.

On the second Saturday of June 2003, I climbed into my Ford Explorer and set out for my arranged first date with Ivy. Jane Sharer and her husband, Greg Evans, were moving to Charleston, and I arrived in the middle of their packing. Brown boxes were stacked to the ceiling. Although I had known Jane for seven years, I hadn’t met Ivy.

As soon as Jane opened the door and we began talking, Ivy – as if on cue – appeared. A huge ball of black fur rushed toward me. The fur ball was astonishingly beautiful. From studying Ivy, I realized that she had gotten the best traits of the two breeds from her background. She had the long body and exquisitely sculpted face of a Labrador retriever and the thick, lustrous fur of a Chow. She also had the Chow’s majestic, swooping tail – a tail that she wagged happily over and over and over. It’s a wonder that it didn’t fall off!

Ivy never barked at me, the stranger, and I was amused because she kept running back and forth in front of me.         

“She’s showing off,” I said to Jane, who laughed.         

It was as though Ivy were auditioning to be my new companion, and she wanted me to see that she was energetic, spirited and fun-loving. She came to put her head against my hand, and then she bumped it with her head. I soon discovered that this was Ivy’s signal to be patted. In fact, Ivy insists that she be petted many, many times during the day and night – and she will not give up until she gets the pats and hugs that she wants.         

As I studied Ivy, I realized that Ivy was studying me, too. I’ll never know what she thought, but I knew that this dog was very special.          

Though she clearly was living a life of love and leisure now, Ivy hadn’t come into the world that way. She was born somewhere in rural South Carolina and taken to a flea market to be sold with her siblings. At the market, Jane and Greg saw the black puppy with the fluffy fur and swooping tail, and as they walked around they kept going back to look at Ivy and her siblings. One by one the dogs were sold, and Jane and Greg debated whether they should take this last one home, the one that had caught their eye.

Their decision was made when the man who was selling the dogs said that he was going to tie a rock around the pup’s neck and throw her into a river if she weren’t sold by the end of the day. Jane and Greg paid Ivy’s asking price – a meager $5 – and took her home. As I tell people, the man at the flea market was either a marketing genius or really mean. I’d like to think that he was an expert salesman using an extreme sales tactic, but I’m not so sure. Nevertheless, a good deed was done, and Ivy went to live with Jane and Greg.

She didn’t have a name when she left the flea market. She acquired her name because of the couple’s love of gardening. As Greg worked in the yard of their lovely home, the new puppy would run along with him and pull the ivy from the ground. That’s how the puppy, saved from drowning, came to have her sweet name.

Now, for the second time in the seven years of her life, Ivy needed a home. I arranged to return and take Ivy home for a trial run.

When Tuesday came, I arrived at Jane’s house after dark. Jane had packaged Ivy’s food, and Pam was there also for the sendoff. Jane, the queen of planning special events and parties, took pictures of Ivy and me as we headed off for our first night together. The moment was preserved for history.         

As I backed out the driveway and headed to my home, about five miles away, I was seized by uncertainty. The dog in the back seemed awfully long and big.

What have I done? I asked myself. This dog probably will shed all over my house. She’ll probably get on the furniture. She’ll probably want lots of my time and attention.         

I was upset that I had talked myself into taking a dog that perhaps was more dog than I could handle. What have I done? I asked myself again. 

And how could I return Ivy if this experiment of living together didn’t work? What would I say to Jane and Greg, who wanted Ivy to have a good home? What would happen to Ivy if I rejected her?

With these doubts swirling in my mind, I reached the corner of Trenholm Road and Forest Drive in Columbia – a busy intersection even at night. When I stopped at the red light, I turned around and looked at the dog standing on the back seat. Ivy was staring at me. In the glow of the intersection’s traffic lights, street lights and store lights, I saw Ivy’s amazing navy blue eyes shining in the dark at me.         

Then the unexpected happened: My “no-pets” heart melted, and I fell in love with the furry, four-legged creature that was looking intently at me. I reached back and patted her head. It was a done deal. Ivy was about to take up residence in another part of the city. She wouldn’t be going back to the life that she had known.
“You have no idea how your life is getting ready to change,” I said to Ivy. “You don’t know anything about me. I’m taking you to a new home. Miss Jane and Mr. Greg, who have loved you for seven years, are leaving, and you’re trusting me to take care of you.”         

It seemed like a heavy responsibility for someone who hadn’t had much of a heart for pets before.

But I knew that I had to do this. I promised Ivy that I would take good care of her. She deserved that much in life.

For her part, Ivy probably was already two paws ahead of me. She had sniffed out that this was a new adventure, and she probably was thinking: This woman talks too much. She seems anxious and unorganized, but she appears to be nice enough. No sweat. I can get her trained in no time.         

She looked at me and wagged her swooping tail. Back and forth. Back and forth. It seemed like a vote of confidence for our future together. I began to feel better.

Even if I had no idea how to make this new relationship work, Ivy had won my heart. Completely. I took a deep breath and vowed to let our union take its course  – for better or worse.

But in the darkness of that night and the uncertainty that we faced, there was one more thing that I didn’t see coming: Ivy was about to help me write a new chapter in my life!

                                ### *(All rights reserved, Karen Petit, Copyright 2008)

       

Genre vs. literary fiction

An interesting article in the January 2008 issue of The Writer pointed out that genre authors dominate the best-seller lists, while literary authors rarely show up on them. I’ve often said as much to my students.

The article argues that “commercial success isn’t a curse, nor obscurity a perverse badge of honor.” That’s true, of course. But inveighing against literary snobbery seems to me less important than what this “false dichotomy between art and commerce,” as it is labeled by the article’s author (Chuck Leddy), portends for the literary novel. In a publishing industry that has seen nearly all of its old-line houses absorbed into big corporations concerned mainly with return on the investment dollar, the literary novel has become the stepchild at the family reunion. I shudder to think what damage is being dealt to literature by this near-exclusive emphasis on profit in publishing.

Virtually any writer shopping a manuscript around these days has seen how nearly impenetrable Publishers Row has become over, say, the past 20 years. Publisher after publisher has stopped accepting submissions and even queries, opting for agented material only, and gradually even agents have adopted the same policy. Those agents still inviting queries often limit the author to a synopsis only and/or the first few pages of a manscript, seldom more than a chapter, often as few as five pages. No seasoned writer needs to be told that this approach to auditioning new novels (not new talent, mind you, but novels) is worse than useless, borders on insult, and is downright cynical. And in case you somehow missed that point, they usually advise that you won’t hear from them at all unless they’re interested in your submission, and they sometimes add that they routinely accept no more than one percent of all submissions.

Think what that means for the literary novel! Think snowball in hell and you’ll have a good idea. Think further and you’ll realize that novels like Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby almost certainly could not find a mainstream publisher today, or even an agent – not least because you also can’t find editors like Maxwell Perkins in Publishers Row these days.

But here’s something worth remembering: Though reviewed favorably when first published, in 1925, Gatsby didn’t sell well at all. Both Fitzgerald and Perkins, his editor, were very disappointed.

Today, however, Gatsby is considered by many to be The Great American Novel. And today, nearly a century later, it’s still selling!

I wonder how the commercial hits of 1925 are doing these days.

  

    

A short-short story

Here’s a new story by friend and fellow-writer Don McCallister, author of King’s Highway, a coming-of-age novel published June 2007 by Red Letter Press (http://redletterpress.googlepages.com). Don’s web site is www.jamesdmccallister.com. I know he’d like to hear your comments on his story. A short story he wrote last year won a recent Pearl magazine contest and a $250 prize.

*CUTIE PATOOTIE

By James D. McCallister

I‘m 42 and she’s 17. 

I know what you’re thinking. And you wouldn’t be wrong, at least in the sense that I’m in love with her. I’m dying inside, bit by bit, for every moment that she’s away from me. I’m sitting here bouncing a knee up and down, drinking cup after cup of decaf that’s been sitting far too long in the pot. The decaf part is fine—I certainly don’t need any caffeine to stay awake, as I’ll be on pins and needles until she again walks through the front door. 

People tell me I shouldn’t worry so much, that I should get used to the hollow space that is her absence, that before I know it she’ll be gone anyway. I don’t care. For the moment, she’s mine, and I want her close to me all the time. 

If you saw her, my cutie patootie, you’d understand why I feel the way I do. She’s an angel, a blue-eyed cherub who has lost her way and fallen to the earth to dwell among we mortals, we imperfect automatons of flesh and bone and heartsblood. She is life itself. 

But: I’m 42 and she’s 17.  

All things considered, what else can I do but worry? She’ll eventually meet someone else, someone who can do for her what I’ve done, and probably do it better—of course, that’s the way these things work, or at least that’s the way they ought to. Not always. But not everyone cares for someone like her the way that I do. And that’s a shame. They don’t know what they’re missing. 

I flip through the channels, hundreds, now, in the modern digital age. I’m trying to take my mind off the fact that she’s not here, but it’s not working. I told her, I sure hope you won’t be gone too long. She replied that I wasn’t to fret, and that furthermore, my worry-wort pestering was quite efficaciously pushing her away from me rather than keeping her close. Those words were a shock, a moment in which my gut turned to ice and my heart to granite.  

But it’s not as though she’s out with another man—or a boy, I guess, which would be more apropos considering her age. She’s with a couple of girlfriends, gone out to see a silly Hollywood rom-com with the latest cute young actor and the hottest young actress. Me, I don’t care much for the movies the dream factory turns out anymore. Give me an old black and white film noir, or maybe a classic, silly Woody Allen. I can’t relate to much of what passes for entertainment these days, whether it’s movies or music or television shows like the ones flickering before me in ephemeral lassitude. 

I’m 42 and she’s 17. Come to think of it, that’s a line from a Woody. I laugh and shake my head. How fitting, and yet it isn’t, not if you know the movie in question. 

The seconds pass by one after another, just as they always do, but now the hands of the old grandfather clock in the living room move as if underwater, as if burdened by the very task that is their only reason for existence. I wonder if she’s thinking about me while she’s out like this, wondering how I feel, what I’m doing, understanding just how much I love her—it’s a unique sort of love, one that burns like the sun and twinkles in crystalline perfection like the stars in the opaque, velveteen night sky. Love like this doesn’t come along every day, even though men just like me populate the world. Do they love like I do? Do they worry so when their girls are out of sight? Do they care so much that it is like an ache, deep in the bones? Many do, I’m sure. But not all. It’s difficult for me to imagine not feeling this way about her—monstrous, even. 

I stare at my phone, a silver capsule on the coffee table. I want to call her so badly that I’m shaking. I feel as though if I don’t see her face soon I’m going to collapse.  

Again, it isn’t as though I don’t trust her—she’s smarter than I ever was at that age. And her friends are levelheaded and nice and proper just like her: She’s not into anything stupid like drinking or smoking cigarettes, at least as far as an old man like me can tell. When I hold her close to me—as often as I can, as if I need to point that out—I smell her hair and skin and clothes and there is no hint of impropriety, only the sweet scent of her youth like the first bloom of honeysuckle on a springtime afternoon. I smell her all over me right now—I gave her a hug before she left, held her close to me for so long that she said: you’re embarrassing me. 

I go to the bookcase in the family room and pull down an old yearbook—mine, not hers. I flip through the pages and look at the faces—including my own—unlined by stress and the march of the years that only go by faster with each turning of the calendar’s page. Was I ever that young? I stare at my senior picture, my silly, shaggy haircut, the ruffles of my tuxedo shirt. So long ago, and yet in many ways I am the same person. Perhaps that’s why I relate to her so well, why we get along so famously, almost like best friends rather than what we actually are.  

The march of time. I’m 42 and she’s 17.  

Am I being foolish, you might ask? No, I say. This is perfectly normal—but even still, she calls me silly and clinging. Says I need to start letting go, but I can’t, not yet. She completes me.  

I turn the TV off. A gray rectangle, now. Silence but the ticking of the clock, the beating of my heart. How long? How long until I can see her and feel her and know that she is safe by my side? 

The rumble of an engine outside, her friend’s mother’s SUV. Calm immediately descends upon me, never more so than when I hear the jangling of the keys in the heavy front door.  

And now we will be together again.  

I wish we could be together forever, her and me, but it’s not realistic to expect such an outcome. Not normal. What we have now is normal as normal can be, though, even though I’m 42 and she’s 17. I know what you’re thinking—but trust me on this. 

She comes into the living room, sees me sitting there, shakes her head, gives me the smile that melts my heart, fulfills me, makes me whole. 

“Daddy,” she says, “what on earth are you doing still up?” 

“Waiting for you, cutie patootie. Waiting for you.”         

                                                ### 

*(All rights reserved, James D. McCallister, Copyright 2008)

S.C. Writers Workshop

I’ve been invited to be on the faculty and be a panelist at the S.C. Writers Workshop Oct. 24-26 at the Myrtle Beach, S.C., Hilton. Can anyone out there tell me what to expect? I was an attendee at last year’s workshop, but that only. And I was a panelist once at the S.C. Book Festival (on the crime novel, if I recall), but there I did little more than answer a couple of questions from the audience, and probably poorly, at that, since I’m not a crime novelist. My latest novel, Atlanta Blues, was actually a literary novel in a crime setting.

Editor’s Note

If you have an interest in fiction writing, books in general, literature in particular, you’ll find me a kindred spirit.