Aged Six Years.
I was paging through a writing journal of mine from December of 2003. I came across a short story that I nearly forgot I had written. After finding it, I can now vividly recall sitting in a Starbucks on a Friday or Saturday night six years ago, in another city, and just letting this story flow from my pen. It came to me entirely while sitting in the oversized chair. And never edited, after.
Here it is. An untitled, stream of consciousness short story from 25-year-old, 2003 Bruce. Sure, it’s flawed. I’d do things differently. But it was an experiment in techniques and voice, and there are some elements that I’d consider stripping out and using to form a better story, some day.
In Stanford Falls, you didn’t have a drinking problem until you had at least three empty bottles of whiskey in your recycling bin, every Monday morning. At least. Per household member.
Small towns were like that, during the winter. Hibernating. Eight hours of daylight, sixteen of darkness. Keeping company with friends, around a bottle of cheap whiskey was the new night out playing Bridge. Stanford Falls. Population, 776.
“The school bus stuttered again, this morning,” announced Ray. Ray sat around a tree trunk turned kitchen table, thanks to some handywork. His wife returned from the kitchen with a new glass for her guests.
Laura and Hank were usual fixtures, here. Enough so that everyone assumed the same seating arrangement around the table, just out of familiarity.
Ray fingered the rim of his glass in a circular motion, creating a squeaking hum. “Some day that bus ain’t gonna start, and the district’s gonna have twenty-four kids to thaw out from the bus stops.”
Laura handled the glass that Shelly, Ray’s wife, gave her. “I’m surprised they didn’t call class this morning. If my kids were still in school, I’d a raised a stink. Ya know?”
“That’s not so much the problem,” said Ray, shrugging off the notion. “I walked to school in much colder. Now they have this ozone thing, it’s not as cold. It’s about the school giving us working equipment – let’s see teachers teach with unsharpened pencils!
“And when the bus stalls,” Shelly added, “or doesn’t start at all, then look at who they like to point the fingers at.”
Ray waved Shelly off.
“I caught a two-foot Pike last night,” said Hank.
Ray drank his whiskey and glanced out the window, but could only catch his own reflection in the glass.
“I tell ya, Ray, a shanty’s the way to go. You can sit out there all night, listening to hockey and ice fishing.”
“Tell the wife that. Christmas is only eleven months away.”
Every one chuckled. Laura and Hank had moved into the neighborhood three years ago. Like Shelly and Ray, their kids had graduated and moved out onto their own. Even after years of the same fireside whiskey bottle chats, they were rarely at a loss for conversation.
Laura had the uncanny ability to already turn red in the face and struggle with multi-syllabic words after just one drink. At two drinks, she was known to don the lampshade, and by the third drink, she found great humor in the mere recitation of the alphabet. Her current drink total was one and a half.
“They still haven’t been able to get that body out of Shadow Lake, over there in Buckwalter,” said Ray, still without a hint of any buzz after drink three.
Hank helped himself to a refill.
“I haven’t kept up with that. The subscription passed on the paper some time ago.”
“I don’t know why they don’t just go in and get the poor man,” said Shelly.
“They can’t find it, I’d imagine,” said Hank.
“They know where it is. He’s belly up under the ice somewhere near the bay,” said Ray.
“I didn’t hear that. I gotta get the paper again. So they found him?”
“An ice fisherman did. The body’s staring right up at people, through the ice. It’s like a tourist attraction, now.”
“Like that Soviet fella!” said Shelly.
Laura laughed hard enough to force whiskey out her nose. “That’s so hideous!” Why haven’t they fished it out? Hank, go fish it out of there. You have your shanty!”
“They can’t get him, yet,” said Ray in that way. That way he had of declaring anything and making it sound like fact rather than opinion. “They’ll have to take a chainsaw to the ice to get to it, and they can’t risk the ice. Next week’s their big jamboree. You have any idea how much it would cost them to close that much ice off during the jamboree weekend? It would cripple them. Just cripple ‘em.”
Shelly reached for the bottle of whiskey with a shaky hand. “That’s just not right.”
“If it was me down there, I’d want you to do just what they’re doing,” declared Ray. “I’m already stiff, why cripple the town’s income to thaw me out two weeks early?”
“My brother Pete and me are gonna be in the jamboree. After we get a hole, we’re gonna have to look for that guy,” said Hank.
“Twenty-four inch Pike, huh?” said Ray, glancing up at Walter, on the wall. Walter was a forty-nine and five-eighths inch Muskie that Ray finessed out of one of the thousand-plus Minnesota lakes and had mounted. Walter watched over Ray and Shelly’s bowling league trophies. “I might have to invest in a shanty.”
867-5308 Jerry
I feel sorry for Jerry. He lives on the corner of the subdivision, next to Jenny. A complete coincidence that neighbors would also share a phone number that differs by just the final digit.
Jenny’s a girl with the kind of charisma that makes happily married men hold the door upon her arrival, and wordsmiths craft songs around her digits. Meanwhile, Jerry lives a life of solitude, magnified particularly in its loneliness from the excessive amount of foot traffic his neighbor gets in contrast.
Jerry has taken to sitting in his favorite tattered, green-strapped aluminum folding chair at the front of his garage, drinking warm Pabst by the bottle and committing to the solid gold oldies on the AM dial of his passed-down portable radio while shouting at Jenny’s suitors to stay off his lawn as they cut across.
For all the good times that Jenny has had on most weekends and the occasional Tuesday afternoon, Jerry quietly spends his alone in his tool shed. Woodworking and crafting under the guidance of a lone 75-watt bulb overhead, swaying back and forth just enough to cast shadows of faux friends that have joined Jerry in his hobby.
Once or twice a year, Jenny and Jerry’s paths cross as they look to fetch their mail.
And when this happens, he goes back to his garage and picks up his phone. Jerry’s tried to call her before, but he lost his nerve. He instead hangs up, shakes his head and mumbles to himself, “Jenny, Jenny.”
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