Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Junk Man

Jimmy “Two Wheels”—a name he’d picked up in the Army that he couldn’t seem to shake—inched his orange Dodge pick-up down Collier Street. Lined with stately old homes, it had the some of the best picking in town come trash day.

Bob, Jimmy’s retriever, sat in the passenger seat, upright like a person, as Jimmy pulled over at number 629. Out front was an old three-speed Schwinn, a 1960s model, with a black frame and white-wall tires. He’d had one just like it when he was ten.

Energized, Jimmy hopped out of the Dodge and snatched the old bike. The chain was rusted stiff but it didn’t matter. He had everything he needed to fix it.

Jimmy tossed the bicycle into the back of the truck alongside the stacks of old hubcaps and bundles of wire he collected for scrap. He whistled a tune all the way home.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Orchard

Ellie hiked the grassy hill into the orchard, where she and her brothers played as kids. The leaves had gone with the November rain, the apple trees gnarled, black claws against the pewter sky. Under her left arm was the plastic box from the funeral home.

Bill wanted to spring for the urn in the catalog, but their father would have thought it frivolous. He’d asked Ellie spread his ashes among the Roxburys and Pippins, the antique trees he’d spent his last 20 years tending like infants.

At the crest of the hill Ellie saw the entire orchard, all of it hers and her brothers’ now. Inside the house the lights flickered on. The funeral guests had gone, leaving behind lasanga and sympathy cards.

In the heirloom grove, Ellie pried off the lid. Like gray sand, she spread her father’s ashes around the trees like fertilizer, nourishment for his apples.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Coffee House

A university couple sat on recycled kitchen chairs at Martin’s Coffee House—once an old machine shop—studying Russian literature. Their heads bowed toward one another’s cups.

He’d be graduating soon, just weeks, and she hadn’t yet told him: every minute she spent without him drained her soul dry like Mohave sand.

How could she say it? He was older. Brilliant. His girlfriend was stunning.

The tattooed barista steamed organic milk. She bit her lip. Across the table her friend—were they just friends?—looked up from his book and smiled.

Feeling courageous, she reached out for the back of his hand. She opened her mouth to speak.

The flyers on the wall fluttered when the door opened. One of his friends—out of breath—said he was late for something. He’d have to go.

Alone, she remembered his brown eyes.

“Dear, Charlie,” she wrote. And the barista steamed on.