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My Street Brother, by Richard Hartwell

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:20 -0700

My Street Brother, by Richard Hartwell

Enjoy this slice of life on a tough neighborhood street that not be all it appears to be. Fiction Editor.

I see on a page of poetry by Thomas Merton, the line “My sweet brother.” What I read and process instead is the line, “My street brother.” It sticks in my mind and becomes mixed with the street scenes and people on Base Line Street in San Bernardino. I travel this route twice daily and I see many of the so-called street people. And yes, they are my brothers and sisters; perhaps not by blood or birth, but by the shared humanity we must all have in common.
There are the dealers: drugs, sex, hot items of all kinds, religions, cultures, and philosophies possible. There are the users: drugs, sex, hot items of all kinds, religions, cultures, and philosophies available. And there are the refusers: drugs, sex, etc. One quickly memorizes the picture. But there are unique individuals growing through the cracks of the asphalt and concrete.

I noticed one morning the typical gang-banger walking down the sidewalk with his friend. The pants were slung low; the oversized, blazing white tee shirt was covered by the long-sleeved, flannel shirt buttoned only at the collar. He wore a thin strip of bandana around his head and across his forehead. His hair was oiled back and pulled taut into a short ponytail. He swaggered and loped from side to side down the sidewalk in unison with his similarly dressed friend.

Of a sudden he turned and ran diagonally across the street, back towards what I presume is his home. He had heard a cry or someone had yelled to him or he had merely felt the impending loss of something that mattered to him. In any event, he dashed back across the street and scooped up the tiniest of kittens from the sidewalk. He strode purposefully back through the open gate to deliver the kitten safely back into the house and off the street -- my street brother.

I noticed one morning the newspaper vendors selling the local newspaper, “The Sun,” for a quarter from the corners where there are traffic signals. They make only pennies each sale and yet they cooperate, sharing the same intersection, ducking and dodging the traffic like ricocheting pool balls bouncing from sale to sale.

There is one who stops and pauses and then dashes for the rear of a pickup truck momentarily stopped at a red light. Some might be inclined to think he intends to grab the ladder protruding from the opened camper shell, or to grab one of the available gallons of paint sitting on the bed just back from the open tailgate. He doesn’t. All he wants to do is retrieve a loose rope trailing behind the truck, unwound somehow from holding down the ladder, and stuff it back into the center of the pickup. He doesn’t even await a “thanks” or even try to sell a paper to the driver that might easily have been his natural due. He turns and dashes back across the street, dodging the starting traffic, to resume his calling -- my street brother.

These are the simple joys of my morning; the unique people I see each day on Baseline. Yes, I can and do see the pimps and the whores, the pushers and the users, the drunks and bums, the homeless and those with even less than empty homes. But I can also see the gang member save his kitten and return it (so I like to think) to his little sister -- my street brother. But I can also see the newspaper hawker stop to help another without working the angles for a nickel or a dime, but only because it needed to be done -- my street brother.

In Christianity there is an ill-practiced theory of treating every stranger as if he were the Christ. I know that a similar outlook is held in Buddhism and I believe, but do not know, that such holds true in Judaism. I am not knowledgeable as to Islam, but I would warrant that there is a similar precept there. And probably such is taught in myriad other religions too. From my perspective, of limited travel and views and streets, I try to see my street brothers and sisters for who they are and what they do. I try to carry their small kindnesses forward. I try to live the life I see on the streets.

Tax Day! by Jeanne Cook

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

This piece was written several years ago, but, as with all IRS-related humor, it still holds up. We thank the author for allowing us to reprint it here in honor of the Internal Revenue Service's Annual Mid-Year Christmas Party. Humor Editor

Tax Day! Or What Will Uncle Sam Send Me THIS Year?, by Jeanne Cook

There is one thing that unites us all -- men, women, children, animals, celebrities and most corporations -- we all have to pay taxes and none of us really want to.
As we approach the biggest party day of the year -- at least, if you are the Government or the fine people who inhabit Internal TakeAllYourRevenue ServiceLand -- my mind turns, as it always does, to fear.

Me, personally, I don’t just dislike taxes. I fear them. I fear the entire process.

In the olden days, when I was young and foolish (and, no, they weren’t all THAT long ago), I never paid taxes. I just didn’t file. Tax Day came and went and I just skipped along with my life, with nary a blip.

My reasoning for not filing was that they, the Government, owed me money, based on the very small amounts I had time to earn as a full-time student, and that they, the Government, were probably grateful I wasn’t nagging after them for my cash. I thought it might put me onto their good side, at least, a little bit.

However, the main reason I never filed was that the forms scared me. Yes, the E-Z 1040 form scared me. I don’t like forms of any kind at all, and the Government’s forms are the worst of all. I would prefer never to see a form from the Government ever again.

Time went on, and I met Steve. As Party Day approached that year, he asked, in passing, when I was filing. I replied that I didn’t intend to file, had never filed before, and saw no reason to start now. He had a conniption fit.

He also snatched all my tax stuff and did my filing for me. I got something like $60 back. Steve’s comment, as I opened the check and ooohed and ahhhed at it, was, “See? Don’t you wish you’d been filing all this time?”

I looked at him almost as you’d look at some new, exotic creature in the zoo and without missing a beat replied, “Well, no, of course not. I didn’t know YOU before.”

He was flattered, I think, and from that point on, Steve became my Tax Man. He became all my girlfriends’ Tax Man, too, because most of them had been following my lead and not filing, under the impression, due to my lurid and hard-earned reputation in other areas of life, that the Government would come after me, first, if we were really doing something wrong.

Steve also became my husband, so clearly he could get past my inability with forms in general and aversion to taxes in specific. I think that lurid reputation helped me out a bit there. That and picking him up at work in a pink teddy, a micro-mini silk flowered skirt, four-inch high heels, and nothing else. Hey, it was the Eighties. But I digress…

Over time, in those pre-Internet days, we would try various folk to help us with our taxes, for the usual reasons someone has to go for help -- started a business, didn’t make any money in the business, stopped a business, got laid off, moved, and so on. Most of them were nice enough folks, but none of them managed to remove my terror of The Forms. In fact, most of them made me more afraid of them. Steve got a lot of pitying looks during those meetings. He also went back to doing our taxes himself, after he had to teach the representative from the biggest tax prep agency around how to DO taxes during our session and then got to pay for the privilege.

Then we bought a house and knew that we had to find someone who could actually handle our taxes and who Steve also did not have to teach how to do so.

We were recommended to a CPA by our realtor and proceeded to have a meeting. Steve was perfectly normal, our daughter was along, but all she did was her homework, and that quietly. And I was curled up in the office chair in the fetal position.

I got quite a few looks from the CPA. Steve had to mention frequently that taxes freaked me out more than a little. I mumbled something and just stayed curled up.

Mary the CPA was efficient without being overbearing, and she was also reasonably priced and got us money back. She also was a firm believer in never cheating on your taxes -- not that we ever had, but we’d been advised to in the past. Mary’s comment was that cheating led to unpleasant meetings and special gifts from Uncle Sam, and we rejoiced that we’d found the right CPA for us.

Mary also took a chance that I wasn’t a total loser and we’ve gotten so close she’s become my ‘mom’ (pathetic has its benefits!). But even that didn’t get me over the fear.

What finally did wasn’t getting money back, or becoming family-like friends with the CPA, or even growing up a little and realizing the forms aren’t all that terrifying (because, um, well, they still are that terrifying). It was owing money big time.

A relative passed away and we inherited some money. Not enough to stop working (I don’t have relatives who are doing THAT well) but enough to take the edge of fear off.

And then we filed our taxes. And Mary told me what we owed the Government.

It was a five-digit number, before we got to the decimal point. It was a number that, in years past, we hadn’t brought home before the tax man got his due. And it was due that DAY because we, like 99.9% of the rest of America, file as late as possible.

I may have fainted. I know I screamed. But I also managed to write the check. Then I went home and cried, because I feared that I would owe this amount to the Government every year from now on, and I didn’t have any other relatives who were even close to dying.

For five years after that I would creep into Mary’s office every April and go, “How bad is it?” It was never that bad again. In fact, that horrible number kept decreasing, rapidly, year after year. After a while, I realized that I’d gone through the worst that I was likely to through, provided we continued to never cheat and the Government didn’t make any errors in processing that we would somehow end up responsible for.

These days, I can walk into Mary’s office like a normal person. I hand her my Victoria’s Secret bag filled with our paperwork (because, you know, I’m classy that way), and she handles it all. We almost have it down, to where we owe one side of the Government about what the other side is giving us back. And it should remain this way unless we land another windfall somehow.

So this year, what I’m doing to celebrate Tax Day is simple. Our daughter got her first job last year and so has to file taxes now. I’m going to teach her how to do them.

She’s good with ignoring stuff until the right guy comes along. I think she’ll do just fine.

Kinross Lane, by Richard Hartwell

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

How to figure out how much living space you really have, by one of our regular contributors. Humor Editor

Kinross Lane, by Richard Hartwell

I live in a house on Kinross Lane. Pleasant sounding, as if it invites you to stop and chat on the front porch, which it doesn’t have, or to visit over a picket fence, which it also doesn’t have. What it does have, besides Sally and me and our children, Jaime and Joshua, is Joshua’s ex-wife and baby, Catrina and Ca’Jaya at twenty months, and their thirteen-year-old son Te’Juan, going on fourteen, or sometimes forty. It also has the ghosts of two dead dogs, one dead cat, and even a dead pet snake, all buried outside in the backyard or in a brass urn or polished mahogany boxes, but I don’t think the ghosts, if there are any, take up too much space or air.

It’s a larger house than the apartment five of us moved from in Tustin -- technically 1,498 square feet, which includes living room, family room, kitchen, dining alcove, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a laundry room. It fitted us so well, 24 years ago when we moved in. The children were in their rooms, and Sally and I were in the master suite. It’s shrunk since then. Now we each have less than 180 square feet to ourselves, less if you count the cats.

Let’s see, if every breathing entity in the house is counted, 18 as of the moment, if my math skills haven’t deserted me in my declining years, then each of us now has slightly over 83 square feet of living space. This, of course, isn’t a completely accurate accounting; often I have two cats in my lap and then there is the dog – did I mention the new daschund? – supposedly outside. Anyway, it’s not so much a matter of square footage as of breathing space, cubic footage.

However, the house has steeply slanted ceilings so I think a reasonable average might be about 10 feet; I’m being generous. So . . . 1,498 square feet times 9 feet in height, then divided by 7 humans, comes out to 1,926 cubic feet of breathing space. Seems far better than the International Space Station! Ooooorrr . . . divided by 18 breathing creatures, only some of which are sentient beings, results in 749 cubic feet of personal air. Perhaps a bit less than most penal living quarters, which actually seems appropriate, now that I think of it.

I’m very glad I’ve run the numbers. I’m convinced the dog should stay inside. In order to promote peace in the family, maintain a higher level of human kindness for the canine and feline occupants (not to mention my kith ‘n kin), and to clear my mind for higher-level thinking, I will forego my 749 cubic feet and move to the “open air” back patio. I’m not at all certain that I will have sufficient breathing space, but I’ll try.

Once upon a Dime, by Jack Healy

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

A lesson learned at the cost of a dime. Fiction Editor

Once upon a Dime, by Jack Healy

A medieval writer once wrote that he would rather feel compunction than define it. He points to a psychological reality, I believe, that is true across the board for young children but even at times for adults, namely, experiencing feelings without knowing how to name or define them. As a grade school boy growing up in the Bronx, I remember a very distinct event which bears out what the medieval author wrote. Only later could I label it.

In the 50’s the south Bronx was a fortress of five story apartment houses with large circular alleys in between. Like riggings on a ship, clothes lines strung across the alleys with sheets and towels suspended like sails and flags, along with odd shaped items peculiar to women. I remember the bag of clothes pins—wooden soldiers without arms—that hung outside the kitchen window. My mother would lean out over the sill and impale the soldiers to fasten the wet items to the line. Sometimes she would commission me to retrieve the fallen heroes on the alley floor below. Otherwise my excursions to the alley were limited to bringing the apartment trash to the grimy metal bins there. They reeked with decaying garbage; a true cornucopia for rats which in turn attracted the famous “alley cats.” Caterwauling never made it into our school vocab books but at an early age I knew the reality first hand. When the din got particularly loud, especially in the wee hours of night, people would yell from an open window, “Shat ap!” or dump pots of water on the miscreants. The alley had a strange emptiness about it and while not a forbidding place, seemed meant to be uninhabited.

From this concrete cavern, a song periodically would rise, reverberating off the brick walls. With the waning of the war economy, jobless men literally sang for their suppers. There was nothing smiling about their Irish eyes; many songs were doleful like “Kathleen Mavorneen” or “I Hear You Calling Me.” Some men accompanied their songs with a violin or a cantatina—a ”squeeze box,” as it was called then. The maneuver was simple: a window somewhere would open a few inches and a disembodied hand appear tossing a coin out. No face ever appeared which I later reasoned was a respectful gesture lest the donor be seen as “looking down” on somebody already down-and-out, so to speak. I can still hear the “ting” of the coins—usually pennies and nickels-- hitting the pavement. Quarters, which were very rare, had a heavier sound, while dimes were nearly silent. It was the dime in the alley that was my undoing.

I should mention that in those days of tight money not everyone could afford lose change for the alley. My grandmother who lived with us had a meager social security check. I suppose that as a survivor of the depression she had a soft spot for the unemployed. I see in retrospect--though at the time it caused me embarrassment--that hers was a truly humane response to those who sang in the alleys. While my parents were at work, she would invite the alley minstrels up to the apartment for a cup of tea and a slice of bread. As soon as I entered the apartment, I knew one of the singers was there even before I saw him; I caught a whiff of body odor. It has lingered in my memory along with a mix of feelings that went with it, one feeling in particular.

One late afternoon when my grandmother sent me down with the trash, I found myself sharing the alley floor with an old gent with shoulder length grey hair and a guitar. He had a mellow voice for which the momentary “tings” about him must have been for him delightful harmony. When finished singing, he tipped his hat and took to bending over to collect his coins. I spied a dime he was overlooking and for a tiny moment thought to point him to it. I didn’t, though. He left to take his melancholy songs elsewhere and the prize was mine!

That night I thought of all the chocolate covered malt balls I could buy or, better, the black licorice sticks that dyed your teeth black. Despite school, tomorrow was to be a sweet day. It nearly wasn’t when my mother, folding my trouser that night, discovered the dime. I told her I found it in the street—a fib evidently not lost on my grandmother who glanced up from her newspaper. The next day, to the amazement of my classmates, I sported black teeth.

The endless routine of school continued thereafter, interminable weeks spent in confinement with the teacher containing the pent-up energy of inmates waiting for release at three o’clock. Entering the apartment one afternoon, I was hit with that foul smell which signaled a visitor. I tried dashing past the kitchen but my grandmother blocked my way. She excused herself politely, leaving the gentleman at the table, his guitar propped up nearby. I followed behind her into the living room.

She reached into her house dress and took out a shiny dime. My eyes widened at what I thought momentarily was to be my good fortune. “The man out there is about to leave,” she said. “Give this to him.” My face must have registered my surprise, if not, reluctance. “Give this to him!”

The man with the long grey hair towered over me as I held out my open palm with the dime in the middle. Staring at me, he put his coarse finger tips upon it and curled it into his hand. “You’re a good lad,” he said appreciatively. I don’t know how the words came but I muttered audibly, “No, I’m not.”

While changing into my street clothes, I looked through the window into the alley below. No linens fluttered and except for the tangle of clothes lines, it was empty—terribly empty. I half expected, indeed, almost hoped, to see the man with the guitar. Maybe within an hour or two he would return to sing for his supper while we were having ours. I could toss him some pennies. He never returned. But what he left behind, I have never lost and only later came to define, unfortunately too frequently: compunction: "a feeling of guilt or moral scruple that follows the doing of something bad; e.g., 'spend the money without compunction.'"

I Remember Mama, by Richard Hartwell

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:54:00 -0700

Enjoy this memory of motherhood. Fiction Editor

I Remember Mama, by Richard Hartwell

I remember mama. No, not that old movie! I remember a mama who wasn’t. Or was she?
I find that I am quite consistently reminded of the things that Tina -- I called her Tina from a very young age; sort of as an older sister -- liked; either physical things or scenes or concepts: lilacs, Broadway musicals, pictures of fall in New England, Sinatra songs of solitude, Daschunds, San Francisco, family Thanksgivings. I keep toying with the idea that this is some form of guilt-punishment that I am inflicting on myself as the one-year anniversary of her death passes by. I don’t know if this is an accurate description, but I keep coming back to it, so I guess it will have to suffice.

Somehow this all seems tied to my ongoing consideration of monastic living. I do believe I have some form of latent leaning to such a life, or am possessed by a form of “other” to whom or which I continually look. I certainly do not have a firm grasp of this concept, but the shadow thoughts keep flowing around me, making me dance and turn to try and catch a glimpse of what I believe it should look like. I go on like this partly because I do not want to not think about it, her death, or her, the mother-cum-sister. My recollections of her form a place in my heart -- and I wonder if that is the right organ -- that seems right, regardless of how ridiculous it may seem to others who think they know me, or knew her.

Perhaps there is a small clue of understanding in the recognition that Tina, as mother, was fallible. Mothers, as well as many others -- teachers, clergy, even ascetics -- are not supposed to be fallible. The acknowledgment that she was, or even could be, somehow makes the issues I now face easier to deal with, and her difficulties – alcoholism, overt racism, emotional abuse of her children, even assault on my younger brother with a knife -- more manageable in memory. In this way, at least, I can re-collect bits and pieces and acknowledge the good elements of her life, while not ignoring or neglecting the ugly, but merely putting those in perspective.

Yes, I remember mama, the good as well as the bad.

Satisfaction, by Richard Hartwell

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0700

An essay about how satisfaction can come out of our most dire moments. Fiction Editor

Satisfaction, by Richard Hartwell

I believe we do best with these daily transformations. On one most memorable day this past summer, my daughter informed me that it was supposed to be 103 degrees in Riverside later that day. She then went on to inquire if it was going to be even hotter in our own city nearby. I responded that yes, it probably would be. It had not been so very long previously that we had wanted the gray goblins of June driven from the gate and knew with certainty that we would feel much better with a touch of ultraviolet to reinvigorate our veins and stir the juices of our brains. It had not been so very long since it was cold, drab and overcast and we had been searching for the sun. For my daughter, her “yesterday” had been hot, but not oppressively so. For my daughter, her “today” was likely to be that hot and more as well. With that, my mood then became fiery and I became short-tempered, and then we all became lethargic. Most of us have had experiences when something happens to us that initially appears difficult or even catastrophic, but eventually leads to a positive or even a life altering change. Such ultimate outcomes, however unexpected, provide that clichéd “spice of life” that is so memorable. In my own case the situation of being laid off by Hughes Aircraft after nearly six years and then four years later by Toshiba was distressing in the extreme: psychologically, emotionally, and financially. Yet, in the long run, it created a setting in which I returned to school, cleared my lapsed teaching credential, and returned to teaching, a first love, which I had left nearly twenty years previously. I needed this transformation, traumatic though is was.

It seems easy to say now that this life change was fortuitous or, from a different perspective, that I salvaged a life from out of the proverbial gaping jaws of adversity. What is most intriguing about this series of events is the recognition that the flow of life is always in a state of flux or impermanence and, like reactions to the weather, those involved seem to appreciate the change more so than the stasis of even the most beautiful day. It seems that our lives are driven more by change than by attainment or satisfaction.

We seem to be such creatures of mood and mood swing. I think we need it -- the change that is -- just in order to validate our presence and our participation in this process called life. Personally, I know I love especially those blustery days of great cumulous clouds billowing ever higher to where the blue thins out to space and the threat of rain or storm descends torrentially. But even those wonder days can become all too stale and static without juxtaposition against other days of calm and bland assurance.

I think what we need – certainly what I need -- is not any specific environment, but the change itself, the revolution from one barometric swing to another. Within our fragile human limitations, we are creatures of great adaptability and we constantly strive to exercise an internal adjustment in order to balance change. I look forward to the sun and heat today, but I look forward even more to its change on some gradual or sudden tomorrow. Then I will be satisfied . . . until the next day.

Susan E. Lindsey

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:19 -0700

Susan E. Lindsey is a freelance writer, book editor and publicist, and owner of Louisville-based Savvy Communication LLC. Her work has appeared in Underwired, Calliope, and The Highlander. She is the winner of the 2011 Bluegrass Literacy Contest, and took second place in the spring 2011 Writers’ Weekly 24-Hour Short Story Contest, and the 2010 Cooking Comfort writing contest.

Ruby�s Valentine, by Susan E. Lindsey

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0700

A lovely and moving true story from a new contributor, perfect reading for the holiday of love. Fiction Editor

Ruby's Valentine, by Susan E. Lindsey

Several years ago, my grandparents celebrated their seventieth wedding anniversary – a remarkable occasion made possible by marrying young, living long, and nurturing patience.
Franz had met Ruby at the drugstore where she worked. He was a smart, well-read young man; charming, but used to getting his own way. Ruby – a lithe, dark-haired beauty – was energy personified. She worked hard, loved socializing, and always looked her best, despite a meager income. She was only nineteen, he twenty-one, when they married on a frigid winter night in Minnesota.

They had survived the Great Depression, hard times, and a grueling cross-country move during the worst of the Dustbowl days. They raised two daughters together and had buried one of them – my mother – a few years earlier. Now nearing the end of their lives, Ruby had heart problems and had recently suffered a stroke. She had declined mentally and emotionally after the stroke, although she was not physically debilitated. Franz had lost his sight in his late sixties and was legally blind. Always stubborn and opinionated, he had become belligerent in his later years.

He adored her; she endured him.

Shortly after Franz and Ruby’s anniversary, members of their church who were planning the annual February “Sweetheart Banquet” invited them to be king and queen of Valentine’s Day. The banquet, cooked by the ladies church group, was to be served in the church’s reception hall. The men’s chorale would serenade the diners.

Franz and Ruby were thrilled and talked of little else in the weeks leading up to February 14. But the week immediately before the banquet, Ruby had several days where she was confused and disoriented. She wasn’t eating enough and while she recognized faces, she often forgot names.

Although they had always lived on a modest income, Ruby had continued to dress with impeccable style. Thanks to her sewing skills, honed by decades of work as a professional seamstress and tailor, she and Franz were always well dressed. In her more lucid moments, she was determined not only to attend the banquet, but that she and Franz would look their best.

Over the years, we had all seen Ruby in her beautiful handmade suits at church and dressed for formal events in copies of couture gowns. We remembered, too, all the sewing she had done for us and so many others – flannel pajamas, school clothes, prom dresses, wedding gowns and baby layettes. We wanted to help them look their best on their special day.

My sister-in-law, a former hair stylist, trimmed Ruby’s hair and gave her a permanent a few days before the banquet. My aunt sorted through my grandmother’s closet and selected a tailored black suit with a vivid red blouse, made by Ruby. The day of the banquet, family members arrived early at my grandparents’ small wood-frame house. Some of my brothers and a sole male cousin (known collectively as “the boys” despite the fact that they were all in their thirties and forties) helped Franz with troublesome buttons, suspenders and a tie. They eased a jacket, tailored by Ruby, over his now-thin shoulders. One of the boys vacuumed the car and filled the gas tank.

My sister-in-law and I carefully shampooed Ruby’s thick white hair and curled it over bristly rollers stabbed with pink plastic picks. We smoothed moisturizer and foundation over her deeply lined and much-loved face, added some powder, a bit of cheek color and some lipstick. Ruby picked up the mirror – the make-up brightened her face and her spirits. She smiled.

When Ruby’s hair was dry, we removed the rollers and styled it. My aunt helped her into her suit and blouse, and fastened jet beads around her high collar. We clipped matching earrings on her ears and she slid her feet into black pumps. We were ready.

Slowly and cautiously, with family on either side, Ruby and Franz descended the front steps. They settled into the car’s back seat; the drive to the church didn’t take long.

Red paper hearts and crimson tulips brightened the reception hall, which was crowded with family, friends, neighbors and church members. Dinner was served, then plates whisked away. The men’s chorale harmonized on a medley of songs and, at Franz’s request, ended with, “I Met a Million-Dollar Baby in a Five-and-ten Cent Store.”

Ruby and Franz were then enthroned in their seats of honor as the king and queen of Valentine’s Day. A receiving line formed, and like royalty, they graciously accepted the congratulations and good wishes of their guests. Ruby was more lucid than she had been in weeks. With the dignity of Queen Victoria, she smiled beneficently and greeted each guest. Unable to recall names, she instead bestowed hugs and kisses on all.

At evening’s end, we bundled Franz and Ruby into their coats for the trip home in the inclement February weather. In the car’s back seat, they beamed. Franz held Ruby’s hand.

A few weeks later, Ruby died. She was eighty-nine years old. Her service was held at the same church, the pews filled with many of the same people. Franz sat in the front, surrounded by family, tears streaming from his sightless eyes.

Churches across the country have sweetheart banquets – it wasn’t an unusual or fancy event. But this particular dinner was a final, shimmering valentine to my grandmother from her family and friends, and from the church that had been such a strong part of her life. Even so, it could not equal Ruby’s valentine to us – decades of gentle and generous love, and countless memories of a remarkable woman.

A Raphael's Village Contributor Has a New Short Story Collection!

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Another one of our regular contributors with exciting news to share! Editors

Regular contributor Jeff Gardiner has a collection of stories, A Glimpse of the Numinous, available now from Eibonvale Press.

A girl born with a number for a name, destined to become a new messiah...a seagull who becomes a household pet and national celebrity... flashing patterns of light as a key to your darkest fears...an impoverished family with a murderous secret... In the fourteen stories of his first collection, Jeff Gardiner shows a startling range of styles and imagination, from visceral horror to lyrical literary prose. Keen psychological insight is allied to a shrewd knowledge of ancient myth and mysticism. Gardiner’s recurring interest is in religion and spirituality and the strange traces these almost outlawed strangers have left on modern urban life. His characters are often dangerous and unreasonable, their actions unpredictable, a far cry from the rational universe we like to think we share. Look again at your world and let Gardiner show the glimpses you’ve been missing of the doors that beckon you to other ways of seeing. The ominous, the luminous… the numinous.

Available from: http://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/books/books_numinous.htm or from www.jeffgardiner.com or from http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=glimpse+numinous

Support our contributors and get your copy today!

No Cause to Remain, by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Another cute story about the wisdom of little children from one of our regular contributors. Humor Editor

No Cause to Remain, by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Siegfried’s mum had not yet picked him up. Mrs. Tharasus bit her lip. Of all of the children in her care, Siegfried was the most likely to squeal, to cry, or to otherwise emphatically telegraph just how displeased he was with a situation. Yet, for reasons beyond the teacher’s ken, that child sat, soldier still, watching the daycare’s doorway.
Bobby, in balance, was already hysterical. Worse than disparaging the limited staff for not catching the imaginary gelatinous monsters, which lurked behind his classroom’s garbage can; worse than decrying the small school for not exterminating the invisible hedgehogs, which stole his friends’ lunches; worse than deprecating the student teachers, who confused attendees’ sets of mittens; was his condemnation of this new dreadfulness -- abandonment. Bobby and Siegfried carpooled.

Mrs. Tharasus phones Siegfried’s mum. The poor woman, up to her eyebrows with florists, with dressmakers, and with other professionals relevant to Julie, Siegfried’s sister’s, wedding, had straight out forgotten the preschoolers. Cursing and apologizing in turn she promised to be on site in ten minutes. For the time being, all she could do was to offer Mrs. Tharasus a free dye and curl at her beauty emporium. Mrs. Tharasus graciously accepted.

That sixth of an hour was eternity for Bobby, and, consequently, for his teacher. He deconstructed the castle that Emmy Lou and Sandra had spent two weeks building. He took all of the toilet paper out of the potty training room. He tried to eat a piece of chalk.

At last, complete with pink hair set tape stuck to her forehead and her small poodle yipping at her heels, Siegfried’s mum arrived. Bobby burst into fresh tears. Siegfried, though, casually regarded the puzzle piece in his hand before returning his attention to the table in front of him. He had gotten bored with counting cars.

Bobby made a linebacker’s lurch for the knees of Siegfried’s mum. Siegfried, though, nonchalantly put back the pieces of his project and restored that box in its correct place on a shelf. He gathered his backpack, his cap and his jacket.

Mrs. Tharasus tried to pry Bobby from Siegfried’s mum, but made due with giving his accoutrements to Siegfried. A tad burdened, the five year-old walked a few paces behind his parent and his friend. That lag gave Mrs. Tharasus the means that she needed to settle with the intrepid young man.

“Siegfried, why weren’t you upset when your mum didn’t come?”

“Didn’t have to be.”

“You trusted me?”

“No.”

“You knew someone else would get you?”

“No.”

“You didn’t care being left here?”

“No.”

Mrs. Tharasus grabbed her own coat, her tidy briefcase and her ring of keys. She took Siegfried’s hand as they crossed the street and walked into the parking lot, where Siegfried’s mum and Bobby were waiting.

“But, you were so brave.”

“Not really.”

“What, then?”

“Grandma woulda’ killed Mum if she left me here forever.”