Dirty Laundry

Millie sat on the back porch unzipping pods and thumbing the peas inside into the metal pot she held between her feet.  She smiled: The peas made a satisfying thunk in the bottom of the pot. 

“Afternoon, Miss Millie.”  Etta Mae stood on her own porch, a wicker basket of laundry held against her hip.  “Hot enough for you?”

Miss Millie nodded.  “I got some lemonade in the icebox, if you want to set a spell.”

“I don’t got to shell no peas, do I?”

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Ophelia

I slip into the black dress; smooth it over my hips. 

“What Mommy doing?”

I glance in the mirror.  “Getting ready for work.”

“Why Mommy work now?”

Because my friends tell me I’m wasting my life, I think, applying eyeliner.  “To help Daddy pay for college.”

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The Place Where Memories Began

The fires lasted for fourteen months.  For fourteen months, we watched flames engulf and devour the houses while their owners looked on, screaming.   

It seemed as though we were always running.

We started, each of us, with our most favored possessions: Carrie, the child from next door, lugged a gigantic teddy bear.  Had it had a skeleton, solid bones to support the weight of stuffing and fake fur and a flopping head and those plastic staring eyes, it would’ve easily stood five feet tall. 

My father carried his box of tools—screwdrivers and a measuring tape; awls and hammers and the chalk line which he used to mark a neat border along the flowerbeds every spring, my brother holding one end, my father the other, arranging it just so before snapping it against the ground to leave a purple guide. I carried the stacks of scrapbooks my mother’d pressed into my hands.  She carried my sister—too young to walk far on her own.

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Harvest

These days, people even wanted to choose their eye color.  Years ago, when he first got assigned to this position, people were happy just to have their vision back.  Now they had demands other than health.  They wanted to live forever.  And they wanted to look good doing it.  Only then, would they be happy. 

He supposed he was a merchant of happiness.  But, by nature, he was also in the business of its corollary.  Wherever he brought happiness, he left sadness strewn behind him like drying petals of a yellow rose, crumpled and lost and forgotten.

He crouched in the bushes, a hundred feet from the entrance to the restaurant and settled in to wait.  Sometimes he waited for hours; sometimes minutes.  He didn’t mind.  The job paid handsomely.  He could afford a home in a gated community.  He had an in-ground pool and an indoor tennis court.  Every morning, he had his choice of seven cars, though he usually took the Jeep.  Less conspicuous that way.  He had everything that money could buy, and nothing that money could not. 

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On the Head of a Pin...

The entrance to the diner opened, sending in a blast of cold air.  Bitsy frowned.  “Lilly Jean, you know we don’t open until six o’clock.  I can’t keep letting you in or everyone else will be coming in for their morning coffee before we get it brewed.”

 “Bitsy, I…”

“I know you and Spank are sweet on each other now.  But that doesn’t give you special privileges.” 

Lilly Jean walked behind the breakfast bar.  She reached underneath the bar and grabbed a filter.  “Regular or decaf, Bitsy?”

Bitsy stiffened.  Of all the nerve.  But the call for coffee was stronger than her indignation.   “Regular.”  Lord, she needed a jolt.  And decaf wasn’t going to do it.    
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Sinners and Saints

“Well, ain’t just you the little saint, Howard Heacock?” Daddy Sheriff sneered.  “Always doing the right thing, the good thing.  Paying for the child’s education.  Working your ass off for Jonathan Fowler and never spending a dime of it.  And always obeying your father, just like I asked you to.  You ever do anything bad in your life, boy?”

Howard nodded, once and neatly.  Daddy Sheriff knew he had.

“You think you’re proving some kind of point with all your goodness?  Well, I got news for you, Howard: You need me.”

No.  Howard had no need of his father.  He remained with Daddy Sheriff to punish him.  To remind him, every single day, of what he’d done.  Every time he looked upon his face, Howard knew, Daddy Sheriff was taken back to that night.  Every day that Howard kept his mouth closed, he shouted guilty.

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Anything But Science Fiction

Howard put the broom into the shed at the back of the diner and tossed the bag of leaves into the dumpster before heading for the IGA.  What the hell was Bitsy thinking, sending a man down to the store to buy plants?  Couldn’t she have sent Ellie?  Or did Bitsy believe, like many of the residents of Medford, that he’d gone soft in the head?  Howard frowned at the thought.  Just because a man didn’t talk didn’t make him stupid.  Bitsy of all people ought to have understood that. 

Inside the Laundromat, one of the Ransom boys stuck a finger into the coin door of the pay phone, looking for change.  His brother stuck a hanger inside the cigarette machine and worked it around furiously.  Their father Travis sat on the washing machine, looking exhausted and defeated.  Raising those boys would take the life out of anyone, Howard thought. 

Travis raised a hand in greeting, which Howard returned.   Many times Travis had sat beside Howard at the breakfast bar, chewing on tobacco and jawing about the difficulty of raising boys without a mother.  “Count yerself lucky, Howard Heacock,” Travis would always say, shaking his head.  But Howard would have given his eyeteeth for children of his own, even if they were like the Travis boys.

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