Tag: short-story

Swamped

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excerpt

“Have you heard anything?” Eteo asked him
“No, nothing so far,” Richard admitted.
“When did you call last?”
“Yesterday afternoon. I guess they must still be working on it.”
“I wouldn’t assume that. I don’t like this at all. Why don’t you
take a quick flight down there and check things out for yourself?”
“Go to Texas?” Richard’s voice sounded alarmed.
“Why not? It’s your money they’re spending.”
There was an uncomfortable silence at the other end of the line
before Richard said, hesitantly, “I’m actually not that fond of airplanes
and flying.”
“Okay, send one of your directors.”
“There must be another way,” Richard replied. “Let me call the
finder, the man who brought me this deal. I’ll talk to him.”
“All right, but let me know what you find out. Who is it anyway?
Do I know him?”
“It’s Walter Cooper.”
“I know Walter. I could talk to him. Yes, it might be better that
way. Leave it to me. I’ll call him and get back to you,” Eteo said and
put the phone down. He noticed he was breathing fast. It upset him.
Then he saw the big trades of Platinum stock, big chunks all
bought by Nomura. He smiled and relaxed. The market looked clean
even beyond the three-dollar mark. He had hit a good one, he knew,
and if Mario’s Nostra is agreed on by this group, he had better keep
as much stock as he could for his accounts and give lots of it to his
key people, the ones who did most of his business. Eteo had a large
number of accounts, but only about fifteen percent of them traded
often. Those were the clients he needed to reward when a good issue
came along. Mario’s Nostra Ventures was beginning to look like it
could be one of them.
Eteo started making a list of where the big chunks of Nostra
shares should go, starting with Yannis, Angelo, Spiro and his brother
Michael, Herbert, and then Eteo’s personal accounts, Ariana’s,
Logan’s, and Mitch’s. George and Peter, whom Eteo had used as directors
of his shell companies a couple of times, should also be there…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562976

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX

Water in the Wilderness

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Tyne held her breath, partly from anxiety, partly to avoid breathing in the stale, musty odour coupled with an even stronger smell of cigarette smoke than she had detected in the lobby.
“Here it is,” Arthur said suddenly with a slight tug on her arm, “room 312.” He rapped lightly on the door and waited. When there was no response, he raised his hand and rapped louder and longer.
They heard the creak of bed springs followed by a low groan. Arthur rapped again. A muffled voice from inside the room rasped, “Whatdaya want? Go away.”
“Corky Conrad,” Arthur boomed, “is that you?”
The answer was drowned out by several doors along the corridor opening simultaneously. Tyne swung around to see three grizzled heads peering out. A woman from the room across the hall pulled a threadbare dressing gown around her and whined, “Why don’t you shut up? It’s enough to wake the dead. Whatchadoin’ here, anyway? It’s the middle of the night, and you won’t get any response from old Corky for hours yet.”
Arthur ignored her and banged on the door again. “Come on, Corky, open up. There’s someone here to see you.”
From inside the room they heard a shuffling sound accompanied by angry muttering. “Can’t ya even wait till a man gets his pants on? All right, I’m comin’, I’m coming.”
Tyne felt weak in the knees. She longed to lean against the wall for support, but one glance at the greasy, peeling paint changed her mind. She wanted to yell at Corky to hurry up; she could stand the suspense no longer.
Finally, the door opened a crack, and Tyne saw an unshaven face with bloodshot eyes below rumpled graying hair. Corky Conrad had deteriorated even since she saw him in December. Holding tight to the door with one hand and the waist of his pants with the other, he glared at Arthur, then squinted hard at Tyne.
“Wha … Tyne? What’re ya doing here?”
Tyne started to answer but Arthur took her arm and propelled her through the door. “We’d like to come in if you don’t mind.”

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

Jazz with Ella

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“Just close your eyes and think of something else,” he told her.
Paul’s a good buddy, she thought, and he stuck with me through all of the Michael years. She realized she was already thinking of Michael in the past tense and wondered if that was a sign of healing. The last time she had been on a plane she and Michael had flown to California for their first wedding anniversary. That had been just one year ago.
As instructed, she shut out the sight of the storm clouds and retreated into her thoughts. She wondered for about the fifth time why Paul had not been selected to assist Chopyk in leading this Soviet Union trip. It meant prestige and academic advancement. Paul was at least as well educated as she was with all the same qualifications: experience as a teaching assistant and going for his Ph.D. Besides, he was a man and the department favoured men in positions of authority. The graduate women often got no farther up the tenure track than lecturer. Jennifer was a loose cannon; she knew that was her reputation around the department. She was not one to toe the party line—or to sleep with the chairman to improve her grades.
Could it be, as her women’s lib friend had told her, it was because she would accept less money for the job? Just the cost of the trip and a small daily stipend—that was all she was receiving. Paul would have held out for a real salary, she thought uncomfortably. But she had to take this trip. It was ridiculous to think she could continue as a University of Vancouver graduate student in Russian Literature without actual exposure to the Russia of today—the Soviet Union. The department had been trying to organize this language immersion tour, a first for any Canadian university, for years. It was time to damn the expense and go.
This plan had seemed pretty clear until a warm day in May when the departmental chairman, Dr. Hoefert, summoned her to a meeting at Professor Chopyk’s office, and he had hinted to her on the phone that he might have some good news regarding the language tour. It turned out that she had been summoned not so much to Chopyk’s office as to his adjacent waiting room. She spent three quarters of an hour glued to a sticky orange vinyl chair, feeling her hair frizzing wildly in the humidity of the overheated building, one foot bobbing in time to the tapping of the secretary’s typewriter.
Occasionally, Chopyk and Hoefert had glanced through the glass panel as if to determine that she was still there. At first she mentally railed at professors who expected papers to be turned in on time but couldn’t be bothered being punctual for appointments…

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

The Unquiet Land

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The old woman knew that Caitlin and Michael had started sleeping together again sometime after the night that Caitlin had not come home, and Padraig had been beaten up in the church. Even if Caitlin had not told Mother Ross the full story of that night, the old woman would have known without any doubt everything that had happened.
Poor Caitlin. There’ll be fingers counting soon and they won’t make it to nine. Respectability holds us all to ransom. And we have to pay something in the end. The dearer we regard respectability, the higher we have to pay. I got off lightly, I suppose. But I can recognise respectability for the blackguard it is. And yet I too paid a price in the end.
Mother Ross sat down on the iron bed. One of the brass knobs shook, fell off with a thud on the floor and rolled under the bed.
“You can stay there,” she said.
She rubbed the finger of her left hand where her ring used to be. It had been her mother’s wedding ring, then her own, and yesterday she had taken it off and given it to Michael. Today Michael would use it to bond the two lives, the two bodies, the two souls, of Caitlin and himself.
And Caitlin. Sick and straining with the baby already unfurling inside her like a sticky little bud in spring. Wearing her white gown like the thorn tree on the hillside. The white gown she had stitched herself in the evenings by the fireside.
Mother Ross heard Caitlin climb slowly up the stairs and go into her room to prepare herself for the wedding. The motor-car would call in a couple of hours: Liam Devlin’s newest Ford. Michael had been proud to hire it for the afternoon to drive his bride to church. Liam was proud to drive it. Half the village would line the road, not just to admire Caitlin, but to marvel at the new miracle of the machine age: Liam Devlin’s Model T Ford. Soon every man in the village would want one, and Liam’s ambition was to open a garage on the Lisnaglass road to sell new motor cars, the petrol that made them go, and all the spare parts that likely would be needed after miles of bumpy travel on the rough and muddy roads of the country hereabouts.
Caitlin left the door of her room open, and Mother Ross could hear her sobbing. So rarely did Caitlin weep that it moved Mother Ross all the more when she did. Like hearing a man cry. Mother Ross sighed a sigh that pulled her heart up with it into her throat. She swallowed it painfully and wanted to cry herself from the agony she felt.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562888

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

Fury of the Wind

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…and Sarah did not complain. The old house had no insulation,
and the wind found its way in through walls that, in other seasons,
appeared sturdy enough. It was not unusual for them to awaken in
the morning with the flannelette sheet and blankets, where their
breath had dampened the material, frozen against their chins. Each
night Sarah moved the house plants – geraniums and begonias
that Ben said his mother had lovingly tended – to the centre of the
kitchen table where she covered them with a light cloth. She did the
same with the pitchers of milk and cream, carrying them from the
pantry to the kitchen where the cookstove would provide enough
warmth until the early morning hours to keep them from freezing.
The weeks passed slowly. No one came to the house, and Sarah
was unable to ride Flicka or drive the old pickup truck to the Mc-
Neill farm. She spent the days sewing new curtains and knitting
socks and mitts from the wool she had bought on her last trip to
Nimkus in late October. She wrote endless letters to Margaret and
Elizabeth in Ontario, and waited impatiently for the mail that Ben
brought home from his infrequent trips to town with the team and
sleigh.
For the most part they lived by their own resources on the provisions
they had in the house. But Sarah looked forward to the vegetable
garden she planned to plant in the spring. She had searched
out Mrs. Fielding’s canning jars so that she could preserve everything
she could get her hands on through the summer months.
These plans and activities helped to pass the long days and the
even longer evenings. But she missed the companionship of others,
especially Penny. What would she give to be able to sit down to a
cup of tea in Penny’s cheerful kitchen? And how she longed to see
little David who, when she had last seen him, was beginning to take
a few faltering steps around the furniture. By now he would be running
all over the house.
She thought of David when she read Margaret’s latest letter. It
was four pages of the delights of motherhood, along with every
detail of her new daughter’s first two months of life. As she read,
Sarah felt a familiar ache deep inside her where she had been sure
that, by now, new life would be growing. Why wasn’t it? Could there
be something wrong with her? Ben never spoke of a family and,
although she had once casually mentioned that he needed a son to…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073530

In turbulent Times

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Six people crowded the car as it sleeked through the night, climbing into the mountains on winding, unlit roads. Nora sat in the back between Susan and Ian. Ian smelt her perfume, and it tantalised him. He pressed closer to her in the shadows. His left arm rested along the top of the seat. Nora, leaning her head back with a contented sigh, touched Ian’s arm and sat up straight again.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘That’s all right. Lie back if you want to.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ she said disingenuously.
Clifford slowed the car almost to a stop, then swung it to the left down a steep, stony, track not much wider than the car, its headlights illuminating the constricting dry-stone walls. He eased the car round a corner into a grassy yard in front of a small, two-storeyed, white-washed, slate-roofed cottage.
‘Home from home,’ he said. ‘Country style.’
Clifford cut the car’s bright beams, plunging the passengers into pitch darkness. Then the interior lights came on as the Bentley doors opened. Ian took Nora’s hand and helped her out.
‘Thank you, kind sir.’ She bobbed him a little curtsey. Even in the gloom Ian caught her captivating smile.
The cottage was dark. Everyone stood in a huddle inside the door till Clifford located and lit an oil lamp. Then they moved into the room and looked around at the white-washed walls; the old, dark-toned, wooden table; the dresser; the chairs; the big, deep, well-used armchair beside the hearth. In the spacious fireplace a fire was already set. All it took was a dash of paraffin oil and a lighted match and the flames and sparks were leaping in a crackling frenzy into the large, blackened chimney. On the mantelpiece an old pendulum clock stood at rest between two creamy china dogs. On the dresser shelves an array of blue, willow-patterned plates and cups and large, stout mugs with blue rings gleamed in the light of the fire and the lamp. Fiona lit a second lamp.
‘This is just heavenly,’ Susan exclaimed in a high, excited voice. ‘John, wouldn’t you just love to live in a place like this?’

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

Straits and Turns

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FROZEN SALMON

…worst of all had occurred when a passenger couldn’t hold his or her
bowel and the cab would turn into a crapping space, which would
take two good hours of disinfecting and cleaning before one would
be allowed to take another fare. It happened to Costa once, when he not
only lost most of his shift, but he also had to do the cleaning, to boot.
The driver’s thoughts kept him busy as he travelled over the Granville
Street Bridge, and upon reaching Broadway, he turned to the right,
and after two miles of distance, he turned left on Blenheim Street, which
would take them to the reservation. He noticed that his customers were
half-asleep; yet the stench of their breathing forced him to open his
window to get some fresh air. Night had fallen when they arrived at the
Indian reservation community, although towards the west, there were
some bright gleams of the sunset that no one paid attention to. Such
romantic images weren’t important since his customers struggled as
they searched their pockets for the money to pay the fare.
“Where is your money?” the white man asked the Indian, who
pretended he didn’t follow his buddy’s question, and he started getting
out of the car.
“Where are you going?” the driver asked angrily, “Who’s paying
the fare? Eleven sixty…” he indicated to them, pointing at the meter.
They stared at each other. No word was spoken. No fart or any
other foul smell was detected. Then, the Indian showed his middle
finger, as if to say, you know what a man means when he raises his
middle finger to someone and now Costa was angry since the fare
turned into something dramatic. Nonetheless, he had not the slightest
inclination to forego his fare for these two assholes. Costa grabbed
the white man by the sleeve and yelled,
“Eleven dollars and sixty cents, or I call the cops.”
They both started searching their pockets again. No money was
found.
“I don’t have a dime…” the Indian said.
“I don’t…” the white guy said, “you knew I had nothing left, I
bought the last round, don’t you remember?” he said in a questioning
way, then he suggested, “Ask your wife for a twenty-dollar bill.”

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763866

Ken Kirkby: A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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Bruce Davidson assessed the spectacle and said, “You’re an agent’s
dream. Usually we have to concoct all this crap and get the artist to go
along with it. But here – man, it’s hard to keep up with you. It’s never going
to be boring.”
“No,” Ken said. “It’s never going to be boring.”
When the fuss died down he had the boulder removed and put the ten
thousand dollars back into his bank account. Summer turned to early fall
and Nick’s symphony for Isumataq neared completion. The rock CD had
been recorded. But they still had no site for the unveiling and the more
they discussed it the more they came back to the idea of Parliament as the
venue. But how do we get our foot in the door there? Bruce asked. Ken
scheduled a breakfast meeting with the Honourable John Fraser, Speaker
of the House and they met a few days later. Over bacon and eggs, Ken laid
out his ideas for the unveiling of Isumataq.
“I know it’s not done,” he said. “People don’t take over the Houses of
Parliament for exhibitions or art openings.”
“Well,” John said. “Let me think about it. I think it’s a wonderful idea.
We’ll have to get approval from all the parties, because you have to have
everyone on board when you do something like this. If you’re going to
do something that hasn’t been done before you don’t want to just shove
it down somebody’s throat. You want to get everybody on side, so the
story has to be told very well. I know your story and it’s wonderful. You’re
the one who should come and tell it, but then there are the logistics of
getting all those people together. And then, depending on the particular
day, they may be angry with each other – it gets so complicated. Let’s just
work away at it.”
The winter of 1990 settled in, and Ken received a call for help from
Keith. As president of the Arctic Tourist Association, he was scheduled to
make a presentation in a downtown Toronto convention centre to Tom
Hawking, the Federal Minister of Arctic Affairs. The snag was that as he
was driving his caterpillar over the ice to his island airstrip, the machine
had crashed through and he had to get it out before it leaked diesel fuel
into the river. Would Ken make the speech in his place, and would he
present the Minister with one of his paintings?
The comedian Dave Thomas emceed the event. Ken was the last to
speak and he talked about the importance of tourism to the Arctic and
how important it was to allow those who lived there to make the decisions
about the infrastructure – let them build it in their own way. Let
Nunavut be their land and a land of their ideas.
Hawking requested a private talk and they met for a drink the next
day. He asked to hear his story – the long version – all the details of his
travels through the Arctic and the road that had led to the creation of
Isumataq.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562830

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

The Qliphoth

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Version 1.0.0

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He still won’t talk about Nick, he won’t talk about Tanya, his own dear
mini-model girl, his lost dream. He is fatter; and insists on wearing a regulation
striped shirt and one of Her Majesty’s grey jackets. Pauline chides him for
showing off.
“They’re good, these porridge-jackets. Cult collectables, as soon as I get
back in the business. ” But he won’t say what business, or discuss concluded
business, except in general terms. He smiles wrily at the thin brown curtains,
the broken Dansette record player, a chaos of books and one small picture, a
last retrieved treasure, on the damp wall —an ancient engraving of a bearded
man holding a complex structure, like triangulations of spherical retorts, radiating
light. She asks him about it —an old alchemist, a cabbalist or whatever?
She has to say something. He forces a hollow laugh and taps the dusty glass.
“I’m told it’s by Paulus Ricius, Augsburg 1516. Beautiful, isn’t it? God
knows what it means. All my alchemists turned to fool’s gold. At one point, I
had a guy with a PhD. brewing pure acid for me, I had two guys specialising in
THC oil, and they all turned rotten on me, turned Queen’s Evidence. You
wouldn’t believe I had a gold Ford Thunderbird, and whole wardrobes of
money . . . I could have given you enough bread to ransom Lucas three times
over.”
But in Larry’s professional opinion, Lucas hasn’t been kidnapped. The boy
might be on a little caper, perhaps, he’s at an age when the nerves are good. But
he’ll be back, give him a chance. Larry believes that Lucas is more stable than
Nick.
“It’s your civilising influence,” he says softly, with a slow smile that transforms
his rough-cast mock-up of a face. She wonders if he’s remembering
their distant dark-age act of hurried unbuttoning, A tiny moment swirling into
non-being. She’s let go. But has he? “That’s the trouble with inside—no
women. Just piles of demented men.”
She hopes he’s going to say more about Nick and Lucas but he’s back to a
re-run of prison life. It was a monastery with real mediaeval penances. This
vicar was a nonce who spanked young choirboys, so they made him run
around barking on all fours with a burning blue paper up his arse. Branded on
the bum, as old Geoffrey Chaucer puts it.
“Larry, I really need your help . . .” She goes into explicatory overload, the
whole construct sounding more and more implausible as her words fill the
dingy room and the clock ticks.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562839

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186508

Swamped

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When Saturday finally arrives, it is a beautiful, hot summer day,
so hot Eteocles goes to the sea twice, early in the morning and again
in afternoon. He meets Antonia on his morning visit to the sea, and
she tells him she is planning to go to the party with her girlfriend
Koula. Eteocles sends her a kiss with a movement of his lips, and Antonia
responds in kind, then they dive into the water together and
swim well out from the shore. Eteocles swims close to her and puts
his arm around her waist, but Antonia isn’t a good swimmer. She is
uncomfortable in deep water, and his touch makes her nervous. She
asks him to let her swim in peace, then says, “Tonight … tonight at
the party.” It is a promise.
Hesperus, the lone evening star, bright as ever, gazes down at the
earth later that day, watching the little ants that scurry about searching
for a common goal, a common word, a common future without
perils or famine or devastation. Bright as ever, the evening star gazes
at the land below and wonders how long it will take before its inhabitants
figure things out and settle on the concept of people helping
people rather than bombing and obliterating each other.
Under its gaze Eteocles and George walk together down the road
along the hillside toward the shore where the house of the party girl
is located. When they reach there, they find a crowd of boys and girls
already gathered in the backyard that faces out toward the sea no
more than about thirty meters away where the elevation dips sharply
down to the seashore with its sand dunes and lapping waves.
All the partygoers gather around the boys who have brought the
music from Athens, waiting for Eteocles to put a disc on so they can
dance, and as soon as this is done, all the boys and girls suddenly become
couples. George quickly pairs off with Maria, his favorite girl
in the village, and pulls her tight while the music, the latest hit by a
popular Italian singer, tuneful and modern, excites everyone and mixes
with the heady smell of the sea to create an exhilarating atmosphere.
At that moment Antonia enters the yard with Koula, a girl with black
eyes and black hair tied in a bun on top of her head.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX