Working on beginning of short stories from real life: Here are a few starts:
Sam was silent. My papaw was like that, unless something came up. And when it did, he could whistle across a whole field. Say he was getting your attention before a train came, or one of the dogs got out and was wandering. Then that whistle would occur. And I say occur, because it was as piercing as church bells in winter. You either thought someone was in trouble, or Jesus was coming back.
Speaking of Jesus, that was the other place my grandfather got loud—at church. He was always given a seat in the Amen corner, where they would cheer the preacher and or The Spirit on. They would get as worked up as the choir in full worship. And he would nearly scream Amen, preach it brother, Amen, give the Word….
Anyway, those are the only two places or times rather, that I heard much out of my Papaw.
//
What happened with you and school? A friend asked. Well, I couldn’t really get good at anything, so I quit I said. Why not? Donna.
All that interested me was girls and a few books and typewriting.
Typewriting?
Yeah, we had a typewriting class, and it was like recess with pretty girls.
Did you actually type?
Sometimes, but mainly it felt like I wasn’t in school any more, so I liked it.
I could even see the exit driveway; and we had a pond I could stare at.
A pond?
Yes, like a small fishing pond, where you could go in the woods and make out with girls, or just skip stones on a more boring day.
//
It’s a stroke of genius, his idea. But I wouldn’t have said so beforehand. We were on the road, as we often were together. He and I shared so many “road” experiences, it had become the only place we really knew one another.
Between Austin and Boston, and later Budapest and Prague, we were always in betweeners.
I’m not sure when it started, maybe when we were kids sneaking out of our bedroom windows to meet up at the corner and look to see whose lights were still on at that odd hour.
Even then, we would try to notice what was a little off—the anomalies, my friend would call then. Look for the anomalies in life. That’s where the keyhole into real things are at. The best of life is a peep show into Reality, he would say later, after his fancy philosophy degree was earned and at times flaunted in front of me.
Even so, I always liked Francis, even when he seemed to think he knew too much. Like all the names of the existentialist in order, for instance. Or, all the major art movements of the 20th Century and their conjoining philosophical systems which informed them.
Still, we just liked one another. I was just more of an artist type, but he was definitely the thinker. Le Penseur incarnate that guy.
He read for ideas, I read for tone; but we both read a lot. And I mean a lot. Sometimes two whole books or collections of essays a day.
This particular day, we were heading to Harvard Square in Cambridge to see some of my dancer friends. They did modern, and as he would say, post modern dance in plain air—you mean they dance outside in the square, I would tell him. So that my other friends didn’t think he was being aloof or pretentious or whatever.
Well, we arrived in the evening when my street performer friend was setting up his high wire act. Which really wasn’t very high, but was more about walking the rope while juggling. Still, it was impressive, and there were limits to how high a wire could be walked in Harvard Square. Limits to art there, but still art.
My friend would bust his boom box and set up his tripods and get right to juggling, once up on the wire.
Another friend of mine, had dated him once. That was a short date, she said, all he wants is to be on the wire. That line stuck with me. And I remembered it tonight as we arrived just in time to see Wayne get up on his wire.
But when we did arrive this time, something felt odd or at least unique. Not ominous, but teeterie. At first, I thought it was the light rain in that weird blue hue that this region harbors. But there was more to it.
We parked in a lot this time, as we weren’t planning on staying long, and walked up and watched from the back of the crowd he had already gathered.
He was playing the beastie boys, and some Prince, and he was mid way through his wonder walk, as he called it. “I will walk you into wonder!” Was the opening line of his act, all these years.
We missed the line, but he was walking the wire well when we arrived, for the record. But just at the end of “Purple Rain” something happened. The wire was shaking like lightening suddenly, and Wayne was looking frazzled. He actually glanced out at his audience, which was a break of his code and habit. Then, suddenly, he fell backward from the small height, and landed right on the back of his head. He wasn’t moving at all then. “Is he dead?” Someone from nowhere shouted. Call 911.
We rushed forwards, breaking through the crown with our elbows. Getting to his body, I put my hand under the back of his head to see if he was bleeding and relieve his neck.
“Wayne are you there? Are you there friend?”
Suddenly he coughed loudly. Every one started cheering.
Then he said something I will never forget.
“Hey man, do I have to fall this hard, to get you here—I mean really here! Well, good to see you nevertheless, but I won’t fall again on your account!”
//
Chavez was in his two toned-mustard and black-For 150 heading to his dad’s funeral. He had managed to bring his son, but not his wife.
She simply refused to support his father’s death.So Chavez had brought a shotgun, not to kill anyone, just to shoot at bottles with his son. That is, to let off steam together. He thought it might be an appropriate ritual, given that his dad was a Marine and all.
So half way to El Paso, he and his son pulled far off the road, and set up some bottles at a distance. “Nobody asks you what you’re doing in that part of the desert.” He had once explained to me. So it’s a good place to blow off steam.
But, this day was more windy than usual, even for that part of Texas.
He had his son Billy set up the bottles at exact coordinates, which he had drawn for him on a napkin.
“A little more to the right or left!” He kept hollering to his son. Ok, perfect.
Come back here.
He drew a line in the sand, and told his son—“Don’t step past this line when shooting!”
And st
and 12 feet away from me, if you are going to fire at will.
His son knew the routine.
They lined themselves up, and began to shoot at the Budweiser cans.
One by one they fell. Mostly by his own gun, but his son’s little riffle was doing well today. He got two out of the 13.
“Go gather the cans son.” He did, and they were back in the truck to head towards the funeral.
They drove another forty miles or so, when the wind picked up to the point, the truck was swaying a bit back and forth in those long shelves or even walls of wind that only Texas can produce.
At one point, he almost wanted to pull off, as the gust felt hurricanal in strength or might.
But he needed to get there an hour early to practice his speech for his father.
So, they just kept driving through it, like a little ship on a bit sea, he thought.
Just about five miles out, something felt odd. There was a shaking on the front right side.
Is it the front tire, he thought, or something up in the carburetor, or what….
And there was a noise with it. Like a rock caught in a glass jar, and then suddenly lots of purple black smoke from the front grill.
Son, we gotta pull off now.
“We may have to wait to bury the dead” he just suddenly said, for no reason.
They pulled off, and got away from the truck for a five minutes until it cooled.
As they were just there, standing away from the truck, his wife called.
“Hey, honey, I’m on the way, I just couldn’t bare the feeling of you two men down there in the desert burying your father by yourselves. How are you. Do you have your speech down? I’m heading down in the other truck. You need anything?”
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