Tag: short story

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A Firm Hand

firmhand“That’s not even remotely what I meant,” Christian said before turning away. The others were left to wonder what he did mean, even though it had seemed pretty clear to him at the time. None of them were brave enough, though, to open their mouths and ask him that one simple question, so one by one they exited the room. After they were gone Christian finally allowed himself to breathe — deeply in, and shallow out. It was already a tough Monday.

When he inherited his father’s massive real estate business, he hadn’t known he was also getting three of the crankiest vice presidents in the bargain. It was hard to come into work each day knowing they talked behind his back as constantly as the sun shined down from above, but he couldn’t let them win. If there was one thing his father taught him, it was never let others determine your mood. Control every situation, even when you’re not really in control of the situation.

He sat down behind his mahogany desk and was immediately swallowed up by the expectations that sitting there entailed. It was behind this desk that many of the firm’s most lucrative deals were made, what seemed like a dog’s age before he was even born. The desk had welcomed several famously rich individuals throughout its many years, none more memorable than Nelson Rockefeller himself shortly before Watergate. It was a history that Christian had studied intensively as he prepared to take over the reins of the Hand Group.

They put words in his mouth, too, he had finally surmised nearly two months after his father’s untimely death from emphysema in the fall. As winter rolled in for good, Christian realized he had to make a stand or he would be seen as ineffectual, something that would have made his father roll over in his grave. If there was anything Jonathan Hand craved, it was the symbols of power that he wielded with an iron fist until the very day he died. But Christian didn’t have the innate ability to crush others like bugs in order to get what he wanted.

“Your two o’clock appointment is in the lobby,” his assistant, Brian, buzzed him over the intercom. Continue reading “A Firm Hand”

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Me & Siobhan

SiobhanIt was ’93 and me and Siobhan were doing nothing. We never did nothing on lazy summer days on the avenue, waiting for the rain to drive us back inside. And it rained a lot that summer. It seemed like we were always tiptoeing through the raindrops on our way to nowhere. We would skip in the puddles like we were six years old, but we knew better. It was our last summer together, although we didn’t know it at the time. The summer of us.

The new movie theater had just opened up halfway down the longest block on the avenue, and there was a Taco Bell in the plaza downstairs. It cost three bucks for a matinee and we had money from our allowance burning holes in our pockets. Plus it had air, and air was in short supply on the avenue, even in summer. Ma said it was on account of black folk being our own air conditioners,what with being dark and all. I never got what she was saying, and I sweat like a hog, but none of it ever got us air. So I learned to use a piece of paper like a fan and not complain.

Siobhan lived three houses down from us, in a building that was s’posed to be abandoned. Lord knows how long that sign was in the yard out front. But her ma said it was wrong, and one day she painted over it with white paint left over from the rehab center’s new rec room. Said it made the yard look special, but all I thought was that she should have just pulled it out of the ground. No matter. We never spent time over there anyway, on account of her ma being a drunk. I never asked about it, and Siobhan never said nothing about it, but it was as clear as day. Continue reading “Me & Siobhan”

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Evolution

The stone was ice cold, frigid to the touch, exactly like the other ones that went on for miles in every direction with no end in sight. Between the cracks in those stones, however, lived infinitesimal creatures who had no heartbeats and yet were still alive. They existed in the arctic temperatures like ticks on … Continue reading Evolution

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The Terminal

Schiphol Gate D, Amsterdam, The NetherlandsThe terminal is huge. I should know. I’ve been wandering around it for the past hour, people watching. You’ve done it before. Don’t pretend you haven’t. It’s easy. Just sit down in a spot and pretend to be doing something else. Periodically check your watch, or study your fingernails, or even put on your sunglasses and pretend to be asleep. Then just listen to what’s going on around you. You’d be surprised at what you’re privy to when people don’t know you’re watching or listening to them.

But finding a spot to stop is tricky, because terminals work in cycles, just like anywhere else. Planes aren’t always taking off or arriving, but when they do either of these two things mad rushes ensue at different parts of the vast terminal. There are people running late who are dodging others left and right to try and make it to their gate. There are people who are hurrying to line up because they know how long it takes to board the airplane and they want to be able to relax in their seats as soon as possible. There are people who are waiting for others to get off the plane so they can embrace and appreciate a closeness that has been absent as long as they have been separated.

So I stop at Gate D44 because it’s not crowded with people in line for a flight or with people waiting to greet those disembarking from a flight. In fact, only two small groups of people are in the chairs servicing the gate. I glance briefly at the board and see that the next flight to Stockholm leaves from this gate in three hours. I sit down. I’m not going to Stockholm but I’m interested to see who is. This is the glory of watching and listening to strangers. I put on my sunglasses and lean back in my chair. I am directly across from the nearest small group of passengers, three people who somewhat resemble each other.

“I wish we didn’t have to get here so early,” the girl with blonde hair says. She is probably 15 years old, and already bored with the grand adventure. She is wearing a white t-shirt and short shorts. She pops her gum and I am reminded of when I used to pop my gum. Continue reading “The Terminal”

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Firefly Lights

police-lights-backgrounds-for-powerpointThe lights are obvious, their staccato rhythm mesmerizing against the gloomy backdrop of the highway at night. But they are alone, with no siren to punctuate the otherwise still air, as the old car eases to the side of the road. Steam rises from the car’s exhaust pipe, disappearing into the dark sky as it climbs. Sliding into place a moment later, a police cruiser blocks out the view of the old car as it sits idling on the shoulder, like an old lover tossed aside.

A man emerges into the shadow cast by the blinking lights. He gazes for a brief while at the passing traffic, at all the cars that ease across the lane line in the opposite direction, their drivers splitting their focus between the lights and their own destinations. It’s easy for him to forget the past when the present is so immediate, so sensitive. His cruiser purrs at his back, bringing him back to the moment, and the reason why he stopped in the first place. He approaches the old car, his long stride getting him to the driver’s door in four steps.

The man in the old car sits ramrod straight, but his back is crooked so it hurts him to no end to assume such a position. He just knows it’s expected of solid citizens, something he is not, but something he wants to portray to the officer who is approaching his vehicle. He checks out his eyes in the rearview mirror, and they sparkle with a pent-up mischief that might just be his undoing on this starless night, on a road he’s never been on before, in a county that detests his kind.

He has long, greasy hair that hangs limp past his shoulders, in the fashion he has always preferred, even after the lice were found to have infested that same hair some months back. In fact, he still itches from time to time, what he perceives as a ghost itch but what is in fact still lice doing spring cleaning in the nest on top of his head. There are beer bottles scattered across the back seat of his car, something he can do nothing about. At least it’s not light beer, he thinks, strangely proud of his manly attitude in the face of difficult questions to come. Continue reading “Firefly Lights”

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The Beginning of Hope

OldBlackManThe room is deathly quiet, save for the soft sound of sniffling in the corner. That’s where the baby is, asleep on the floor, atop her favorite blanket. There was no money for a crib, or a mattress, or even a pacifier to soothe the child’s sore gums, so he had improvised. It was something he had experience in, the improvisation, not the child. He is absurdly afraid of the child, which is the reason for the separation, the opposite corners.

The man is a study in contradictions, with his frayed suspenders and designer shirt that do nothing to hide his emaciated figure. Indeed he appears to be wasting away as he sits there staring out the large, clear window. He breathes a sigh of relief that the child is asleep. The previous night had been a long and harrowing experience, punctuated by screams that pierced the static air of the room. He aged a year in one night.

The woman left in winter, during the longest month. He knows because he marks it on his calendar, the old one that he recycles from year to year. It is missing April but April never seems to come when he wants it to anyway so it is not relevant to him. He cannot remember why she walked out the door, but he can remember the vacant look in her eyes, the ones that used to give back more than they took in. She looked at him with those strange eyes and walked out the door.

The baby shifts on the blanket and he recognizes this as a precursor to the child waking up again. He covers his eyes with one large dark brown hand, hoping to preserve this quiet for just a few moments longer, knowing that it is probably an impossible dream. He wishes he were the one who left. He had been thinking about it, of course. The child hadn’t been part of the plan for his life, no more than it had been for hers. But he cannot abandon it now. The stirring continues. Continue reading “The Beginning of Hope”