It wouldn’t tie right. No matter how he tried, it wouldn’t do right. The shirt was too big, first off. The collar was too big around for his neck, just like the pants were big, but they might shrink, or he could grow. Better too big, he reasoned when he bought them, than too small. He wished he had something other than the cowboy boots to wear with the pants, but he only had the boots, or his running shoes. The boots were better, he reckoned, and looked similar to the pointy shoes the businessmen wore.

The mirror was not kind. He had set a wet washcloth on top of his head while he worked on the tie, but the tie just wouldn’t do right. It was times like this that he wished he’d had a daddy. A daddy could have shown him how to tie it right, but his daddy was long gone, and it wasn’t likely that he would ever come back.

The washcloth on top of his head was on account of his cow-lick. Sometimes a wet washcloth was enough to hold the cow-lick down... sometimes. He hoped that today would be a “sometime”, so he wore the wet washcloth while he tied the tie, but the tie was a son-of-a-bitch. It just wouldn’t do right, no matter how he twisted it around, nor which direction. Droplets of water fell from the corners of the washcloth, soaking the too-big shirt.

He got the tie done-up the best he could and stepped back to look. His nose was a little wide, his lips pouty below dark brows beetled over soft, kind eyes. Above the brows a wild shock of black hair was being tamed by the wet washcloth. Looking at himself, he wondered what in the world he was thinking, buying new clothes? He was never going to impress anyone. Even with the brand new shirt and tie there was something missing, some unknown secret to dressing well that was beyond him. It was the tie, he thought. It would not tie right. He would never look like those men she seated on the sidewalk, those men who looked so proper, and important in their shirts and spectacles. Maybe some glasses would make him look older, or wiser? Mother had some “readers” in her sewing basket!

He watched her from his park bench of a morning, the blue pigeons pecking at his running shoes and laces while he watched. She worked at the cafe across the way, showing the beautiful people with their fancy clothes to whichever table she might choose for them. She was always the one to choose, and she always knew just the right one for every particular people. Before they sat she would carefully wipe the morning pollen from the tables and chairs with a clean, white, magical towel that never dirtied. She would leave them then, returning with coffees and beignets to their street-side tables. She was most beautiful in her short, white skirt and black shoes. She would leave the coffee and curtsy the table, allowing the beautiful people to sip and nibble while she prepared the next table. He watched her there every day, working at the cafe. He watched her pour the coffee and curtsy as the cars and the bicycles passed between them, going where they would. She poured and she smiled at everyone. That was how he fell in love, watching her. “How nice it would be,“he thought as he watched, “to be sitting at one of those tables on the sidewalk sipping and nibbling, instead of being across the street on a park bench with pigeons pecking your feet? How truly beautiful she must look up close, where you could see the white of her teeth and the pink of her lips when she smiled? His heart raced at the thought, and he knew he must do it, even though it was a different world over there, an entirely different world he would be entering only a street away!

He removed the washcloth, only to have the cow-lick spring back. He combed it as straight as possible and headed out early, when there were few customers. He only had seven dollars, and two of it was change, but he had checked the prices on the board by the gate. Seven dollars would buy coffee and beignets. That was really high, but he suspected that part of the added charge was in having “her” seat you and fuss over you. That must certainly make it worth something!

He stepped up to the gate. His heart beat against his chest so that he was afraid that people could see it. His tongue became thick and dry, like it did not even belong in his own mouth. He saw her. She was coming his way, wearing that same smile he had seen her wear for so many others. His head grew light, so light that he felt feint. She was speaking, but he could not hear for the rush in his ears. “Al fresco?” He didn’t know what she was saying. Everything was happening fast... so very fast.

He felt a hand pressing his bicep, pulling him to his senses. “This way, Honey. Follow me.” She started walking. His legs followed of their own accord, as he did not have the power to make them go. She took him to the center table, along the railing, the very best table. His heart returned to it’s normal rythms. She brought the coffee and danish without his even having asked for it, as if she knew what it was he had come for.

When she was gone he watched the bicycles pass, and the cars, and he felt very proud to have the center table, the best table. He sat very straight so that everyone passing him would see him there, and see that he was important, that he was somebody. He did not want to eat, as he would have to go when it was gone, so he ate slowly, dipping the beignet in the coffee when no one was looking so that the coffee then dribbled down the front of his shirt. Across the way he saw his bench in the park. An old man was seated there, tossing crumbs to the pigeons. The bench looked very close from here, and he realized that “she” had probably seen him sitting there many times. She could hardly have helped it. She might have even guessed that he was watching for her. She looked older up close, but still beautiful, perhaps even more beautiful for the confidence her age afforded her. His heart accelerated once more, so that he cursed it and the shame the erratic thing had nearly brought upon him, and that it might yet bring.

She returned. “Was everything to your satisfaction, sir?”

Unable to find his voice, he dug into his pocket and tossed his money on the table, suddenly afraid that it might not be enough. She carefully picked it up, every penny, and handed it back. “That won’t be necessary. It is on the house.”

He was ashamed. Somehow she knew that he didn’t have the money. “The manager comes in every day at ten o’clock. You may come in one day per week, any day you like, before ten o’clock and I will see that you get coffee and a beignet so long as you are wearing the tie.” She winked at him.

She was treating him like a child. This was unacceptable. He stood. He could almost look her eye to eye, if he stood on his toes. “But it is not the danish that I love, it is you.” He could hardly believe he said it, but it had to be said! He looked at her through wide, but determined eyes. Her smile was gone, her face very serious now.

His heartbeat slowed as it pumped chilled blood. She started to walk away, but then stopped. She looked back over her shoulder, only her head turning to face him, that beautiful face looking back only for him. “I know that, Silly-boy, but shouldn’t we be friends, then?”

And she was gone.

I watched her coming from a-far off, inching along the face of Clinch Mountain. She was no longer one of us, but to fit in she had put on a plain, gingham dress like all of the rest of the Clinch Mountain girls wore. I was wearing one like it myself. She was coming by way of the North Ridge Trail, which not many used. I knew who it was from the moment I spotted her, and I reckoned she was coming for my baby. I felt a catch in my chest at that thought. After three years of raising and loving it I felt I had a good claim to call the child my own.

I half expected her to draw up at “The Narrows”, as many folks do. The Narrows is a shoulder across the face of the mountain, a fifty foot stretch of trail where she drops off sharply on the one side, while the rest of Clinch Mountain, the very breast of Clinch Mountain, continues upward on the other, baring out her stretch marks and scars for all the world to see. That wall of rock rose up behind Sadie May like a great wave of ancient earth, shrinking down her figure like the ocean shrinks down a whale, or a ship, or even an island, leaving her insignificant in comparison. I would not have noticed her at all but that movement draws the eye, as her movement drew mine. But she did not draw up at The Narrows. She was raised in these mountains too, and had probably walked worse trails. She passed through The Narrows in good time, and would fetch up to the cabin soon enough.

I went inside to where the babies slept, mine and hers. They slept in peace and comfort, with their bed soft and their stomachs full. I didn’t have much to give them, but I could at least give that, and I could give them my all, which was more than anyone else had ever given to Sadie May’s child, and was a hell of a lot more than Sadie May had ever given to anybody.

Sadie May married my brother Emmett three years back. I cannot say that she “was” married to him, because she wasn’t, nor can I call her his wife, because she was never that either, although that he loved her cannot be doubted. In fact some would argue that Emmett died of a broken heart, but I knew better. What killed my brother Emmett was a bad case of stupid. Stupid for loving Sadie May, and stupid for drinking himself to death on her account.

It was music that brought Emmett and Sadie May together. Mountain music. What some called Hillbilly Music. Sadie May was a musician. Giving the devil her due, she was a good one, playing the guitar and singing. Together she and Emmett made the local rounds together, he harmonizing to her melody and accompanying on the banjo, but with him being in love and her being ambitious, Emmett became just a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Little Laurel was simply an unfortunate by-product of the whole unfortunate affair. It was only a matter of time until some rounder who spoke a little bit better, and dressed a little bit nicer made bigger promises to Sadie May than Emmett could make, and away his love flew on the wings of her dreams, leaving he and their baby behind.

I went back to the porch just as Sadie May was crossing through the yard. She stopped in front of the porch, her eyes aimed at the ground. “Hey, ’Lil Bit.” Her voice was soft, ashamed, which caught me by surprise.

I crossed my arms defensively. “Hey, Saddie May. You come up here thinking I’d just let you take her off?”

“No, I didn’t think that, ’Lil Bit. I ain’t got no rights to her. I’d like to see her though, if that’s alright?”

I looked at Sadie May long and hard, smelling for a trick. She had pretty eyes, even if her face was a might long, I wanted bad to see what it was Emmett saw, what it was that made him drown himself in corn liquor on her account. I didn’t trust her, not one bit, but she was Laurel’s rightful Momma, and I guessed I should let her see her, anyways. “Yea, Sadie May, come on in. She’s sleeping.”

“I’m sorry about Emmett, ’Lil Bit. I never meant to cause him any harm.”

I really did not want to talk to her about what happened to Emmett. “No,” I said, “and I don’t reckon you meant to cause Laurel any harm either, running off and leaving her for three years, and her just a little baby.”

“I thought she had a daddy to care for her.”

“Emmett! Are you trying to tell me that you spent all of them days and nights with Emmett Savage and didn’t know him any better than that?”

“Ain’t much I can say to that, ’Lil Bit. It was my chance, was all. It was my chance, and I took it. It didn’t get me much though, did it ’Lizabeth?”

It wasn’t often I heard my given name. I was starting to feel sorry for Sadie May and I didn’t care for the feeling, so I didn’t answer her question, prefering to head inside. “Come on, then.”

Sadie May’s face changed when she saw that baby sleeping. For all of her stupid parents, Laurel was a beautiful baby, with her blond curls, plump lips and pink cheeks.

“My God, ’Lil Bit, is that mine!” Her breath was nearly took away from her, and all of my meaness started leaking out.

“No Sadie May, she ain’t yours. I have loved that child these years, so I reckon she’s mine.”

Sadie May stooped to pick her up. My arms reached to stop her, but it was too late, she had the child cradled tight to her breast, “I have loved her too, all these years, ’Lil Bit. I have loved her too!” There were tears in her eyes, and tears running down her cheeks. I felt an angry, white heat in my gut. She was going to try to take her! I was only five foot, and one inch tall, but I ripped that child from that bigger woman.

“You can’t take her, Sadie May! Not after all this time! I won’t let you.”

Sadie May gave me a long, careful look. For a minute I thought she was going to try it, but she did not. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, instead. “No, I guess I will not take her. I don’t reckon I deserve anything that sweet and nice.”

She bent towards me and kissed the baby on her mouth. My feelings were awash in turmoil. I didn’t want to be mean, but I had to protect what was mine. “Sadie May... I’m sorry.”

“I am too, ’Lil Bit. I’m sorry too.” She turned and walked out across the porch, and across the yard, and toward the North Ridge Trail. I watched her for a long time crossing the mountain’s face, her baby still asleep in my arms. I watched her until she was a speck on the mammoth mountainside, the mountain shrinking her down to insignificance. I watched her start out on that narrow shoulder of a North Ridge Trail. I watched as Sadie May stopped there in the middle of that trail for a long, lonely minute, looking back.

I stood on the porch of that cabin rocking my brother’s baby, watching as it’s mother stepped off into nothing.

Louis L’Amour writes stories that take off like a bullet.

Like Easter Eggs those words turned up on any flat surface where my father found a quiet moment away, popping up magically on nightstands, coffee tables, and toilet tanks around my boyhood home, moving about as though upon invisible gremlin legs. Those words were as much a part of my Dad as the beer in the fridge, or the Mustang under the tree in the backyard. There were different books, but always that same heading in bold print across the back cover. When my parents separated, “Louis L’Amour writes stories that take off like a bullet” left with my father, and Louis L’Amour disappeared from my concerns... for a while.

The summer following the fifth grade was spent with my father. I had just read “Shane” and “The Red Badge of Courage” in school, and loved them. Having little to do while my father worked, I picked up a book from his bedside table one morning. It was a short paperback, similar to “Shane.” I read it through before my father returned home from work that day. When he did come home I couldn’t wait to ask if he had other books similar to this one?

He led me to a long shelf with paperbacks lined neatly across it, each with the name Louis L’Amour below the title, giving the appearance of a huge matching set. They were thin novellas with exciting titles like “Hondo,” “How the West Was Won,” and “The First Fast Draw.” He slid one from the shelf entitled, “Down the Long Hills.” I was hooked from the first paragraph, as Louis’ books do indeed “take off like a bullet.” The hero was a boy my age who gets lost on the prairie with a young girl and his father’s horse to care for. What got me hooked though was not so much the great plot, but the telling of it. I smelled the Sioux camp as the boy approached it; leathery, and wild. I felt the cold, lowering sky, and I watched as gray tendrils of smoke rose from the teepees to meet it. I shivered with Hardy as he looked longingly from outside the camp at his captured horse while slow, heavy snowflakes whispered down between them.

I read book after book that summer, and continued on with them when summer ended, and my sister and I were back home. I found a used book store which swapped two-paperbacks-for-one, so I started my own Louis L’Amour collection. During those many times when I could not afford a new book, or even a swap, I read those I had collected over again until the covers cracked, and the bindings failed.

Little did I know that I was receiving an added bonus from those exciting tales. Louis’ characters were the American pioneers; men and women who worked to survive. For them failure meant death. His characters were honest because the land demanded it. They worked hard, and fought hard because those were the right things to do. I was reading about those characters during an impressionable time, a time with no male figure in our house to guide or discipline a rebellious adolescent. Louis’ characters showed me the way.

Ten years of my life were spent with a paperbacked book tucked into my jeans pocket, readily available. I wanted to be like the characters Louis L’Amour created. Forty years later I still strive to be like those characters... hard-working, honest, and brave. His characters mentored me, showing me the importance of dependability. It wasn’t the pay that made them men, but their acceptance of responsibility. If you agree to take the job, then give it all you have... you “ride for the brand.” I wanted to be a man too, so when my opportunity arrived I showed up every day like they did. I gave it all I had, even when I thought the job was worth more than I was being paid. That work ethic instilled in me by a not-so-simple cowboy writer has paid-off in spades for me throughout my life.

I seldom read Louis anymore. I moved on to more challenging, if not better, reading, but I treasure those days and nights spent in Shalako, or Ulvade, or Under the Sweetwater Rim with Tell Sacket, Nita Riordan, or “Hardy”, the boy in “Down the Long Hills” who felt compelled to go find his lost horse.

So, if by chance you are looking for a light read, or a descriptive author who will carry you away to another world... or better yet, if you are a young man who needs direction, do yourself a favor. Try the man whose stories, “take off like a bullet.”

They say connection is a drug

a buzz that binds the soul anew.

The oxytocin fills his brain

and fuses his heart onto you.

But then connection starts to fail

and desperation makes him fear.

You hide your tears behind the veil

because he always wants you near.

Attachment has become a cell

you’re locked away without a key.

To outside viewers all is well

you’re drowning in your misery.

What once were harsh words now are blows.

You hide your pain behind a wall.

The worst thing is that no one knows

how much you ache, how far you’ll fall.

While he’s afraid he’ll lose his clout,

you are fearing for your life,

but he will never let you out.

You are his victim and his wife.

#fear #attachment #separation #divorce #domesticviolence #connection #violence #lonliness #metoo #addiction #spousalabuse

I’ve been told every writer has that notebook that they can never write in. But somehow I feel like this isn’t the same thing. A sense of betrayal rests over these pages and I can’t pick up a pen to ink over it without a sudden feeling of guilt. This blank notebook is a complete piece of art without any writing in it. To write in it would be to ruin the memory of you and me, no matter how terrible it may be. I can’t look at this notebook without a sense of dread because there’s only one story to be written within its pages— ours. And somehow, without writing a word, I know that this story has been told. The only two people who need to hear it are you and me. I don’t know if you’ve replayed it in your mind like I have, but I do know that it is not a story I ever want to write. But, despite this, I get a feeling that I don’t have a choice. Our story has been written in these pages, whether I want to do it with a pen or not.

The skin on her face is sagging away from the bones, thinned out and drooping as though it’s barely hanging on. Her hair is wispy and her eyes are slightly glazed over. I wonder how much of her is still in there. Despite this, she is still happy to talk to me, as she does now in the courtyard where we are sitting on an old park bench, enjoying the sun. We can chatter on happily for an hour or so, though little of what she says ever makes much sense. Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of who she may have once been. Something unbeknownst to anyone but her will trigger her memory, and, for a brief moment, she will seem to experience a return to lucidity. These are short lived moments though.

I have worked at this memory care facility for 3 years now; I know just about every resident personally, though they may not always remember me. Olivia was here already before I got the job. She’s 87, suffering from Alzheimer’s for about ten years now, though it’s hard to give an exact number. She has been at this facility for 6 years.

I know that she worked in some old department store, like a Macy’s, for most of her life. She has two adult children, and a brood of grandchildren too. Her husband passed when she was 75, and she began to go downhill after that. Long retired, alone in an empty house, children gone, tenuous connections with the neighbors and similarly aging friends on the edges of their lives.

Her children still visited, in the beginning thinking her to be competent and without much need for them. But with each visit they slowly began to reluctantly notice her deterioration. First something innocuous like a slip up on someone’s name. Then something a little more concerning, like a confusing argument about how long it’s been since the last visit, for she wouldn’t believe that they were there just last week. Eventually it grew more serious. They worried about her driving alone. Her body became more frail, shaky hands that perhaps should not have been handling boiling water or pulling baking sheets out of the oven.

So it was for her as it was for so many other residents. The children couldn’t take her in to their homes, for they had jobs, children of their own in school, and no one to help her throughout the day. It was the best decision for everyone, most of all her, a potential danger to herself as she deteriorated, to have her in a full time residential center where there would always be people available to take care of her throughout the day.

And we do take care of her. Her and all the other residents we have, who find companionship and new lives here. We facilitate activities and take them on trips, keep them engaged. I like to think they’re happy here, most of them. Olivia’s favorite activity is the dance lessons we have every couple of weeks. A guest instructor comes in and works with the more agile and physically adept residents, a group that Olivia is luckily still a member of. The music reinvigorates a little more life back into her, and she enthusiastically tries to learn the simple steps from the ever patient instructor, who always keeps a cheery voice as she repeats her instructions each time over and over just as happily.

Today there are no special visits but we had an arts and crafts activity before this. Most of them made a mess with the paints, but everyone had a good time. Olivia still has the remnants of purple and blue pigments on her fingers where the paint didn’t quite wash off fully. She is rubbing at them now, frowning with concentration and wrinkling her brow in apparent confusion as she struggles to fix this most pressing issue. I try to distract her by drawing her attention to the little sparrow hopping towards us.

“Look, Olivia, isn’t he a cute little guy?” I take one of her hands in mine and point to the tiny bird eyeing us warily from a couple feet away. She looks first to my hand, holding hers, and then to the bird. Muttering something indistinct, the hint of a smile appears on her face.

Seizing this new point of interest, I continue to hold her attention on this distraction as best I can. “Wow, wouldn’t it be neat if he jumped up here with us? I hope he doesn’t fly away,” I babble on while her eyes follow the bird happily.

And then, a rare cogent sentence from Olivia. Not even just one, but two.

“Where is Dakotah? Is she going to visit today?”

Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t better that their memories are gone, that they don’t have to miss their children, their spouses, their independence, their lives. Or, is it just that it makes it easier for me? Working with a child in an aging body is far less emotionally taxing than explaining to a diminished adult why they won’t be seeing their family today. Or tomorrow. Or the next day.

Dakotah, her oldest daughter, used to visit several times a week, bringing her own children with her usually too. But then she got a promotion at work, a much needed pay raise to support her three children better, but it necessitated a move to a satellite location the next town over. It’s an hour’s drive away, which is actually still pretty close for Olivia. Many of the other residents don’t have any family members within such easy reach. Still, the move has meant that Dakotah comes only once a week now. She comes on the weekends, usually Sundays after church. Today is Monday.

“Dakotah comes on Sundays now, Olivia. She was here yesterday. Remember the children brought you those drawings they made for you at school?”

This doesn’t seem to register with her. She looks at me confused, expecting me to say more, as though the sentences I’ve just uttered are a foreign language.

“Is she coming?”

When getting exasperated with the residents, sometimes you just have to tell them what they want to hear to help keep everything simple and harmonious. Their capacity for reasoning and memory is so impaired that sometimes there isn’t much more you can do. They can’t follow logical trains of thought, and sometimes their confusion will make them angry. I know it’s necessary, but every time I have to tell one of these lies I feel a surge of something like guilt, mixed with pity. Some day I could be there, with people far younger than me coaxing me with happy lies to keep me complacent.

“Yes, she should be here soon,” I tell Olivia. She smiles and diverts her attention back to rubbing the leftover paint from her fingers.

Let's just say that I've spent some time living under a very large slushpile of flash fiction. 

If you're not sure what a slushpile is, let me explain.

*Slush - the unsolicited submissions received by a magazine; like the weather, it's a mix of everything: good, bad, amazing, dire, profane, cringeworthy, and ready for publication*

My non-Prose life is spent running a professional, paying flash fiction market. Let's just say I read a LOT of slush. I can't even begin to calculate how many thousands of flash fiction submissions I've read. I'm also the one who sends out the contracts and the paychecks. So yes, I know what sells. In my own author-life, I do write flash fiction and I have sold quite a bit at a professional level. 

IT IS HARD AS CRAPOLA TO WRITE FLASH FICTION WELL. 

Never let anyone tell you that because flash fiction is short, it is easy. If anything, it is the opposite. Because you have so few words with which to convey your story, every single word has to work towards the intended effect. 

I've been cruising around on the Flash Fiction portal and there's some good work over there. So to all of your flashers, well done. Let me clarify one point: I'm not talking about prose poetry or free verse. I'm talking about narrative story--either traditional or experimental (ie email/text/reddit/grocery list, number sequences, alphabets, whatever). Prose poetry is, for me, an entirely different creature and one that I'm not all that qualified in.

However, flash, I know. Usually I can tell within the first paragraph if a story is sellable or  not. That sounds brutal but it's true. And if the first paragraph is fabulous, I look at the last paragraph. You have to stick that ending like Simone Biles off a vault. No wobbles. Stick it. Bam.

I promise to write more tidbits and tips about flash fiction. Right now my dog is snoring on the couch beside me and it's a good sign I should call it a night. Feel free to leave questions you'd like answered in the comments section and I'll try to answer them for you in later posts. 

Now go write something! 

Except me...I'm going to bed. 

All my best,

Ree