Tag Archives: short story

The Maples – A short story

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Center Bar

“The maples?”

“Still there,” Lucy smiled. “They look like hell, but they’re there.”

“I thought the hurricane took everything out,” Jeremy replied.

“Actually, the ice storm in February did the most damage. About half the trees split at the trunk, so the whole copse leans to the left.”

Jeremy smiled at her, eyes alight.

“What?”

“The whole ‘copse’?” he teased.

She slapped his arm, causing his rye and coke to splatter. She mopped the mess with her napkin as he licked the alcohol from his fingers.

“Well, it’s hardly a forest. There are what? Twenty trees?”

“Sounds right, from what I remember.”

Lucy sipped at her straw, taking in the new Jeremy as she took in her iced tea. He had come a long way from the torn jeans and sleeveless sweatshirt she remembered from school.

Truth be told, she too was a long way from the matching couture of her younger days, knock-off Gucci and Prada long replaced by Mommy and Dadda.

“So, what kind of law?” she asked.

“Corporate mostly,” he said. “M&As, takeovers, trusts.”

“A real-life Gordon Gecko!”

He laughed.

“Nothing that sexy. No Darryl Hannahs in my life. Although, I am okay with greed…within reason.”

“Still. New York City.”

“Might as well be Albuquerque for all I get to see the city,” he replied. “Most days, I sit in boardrooms watching people talk to tape recorders and then reading transcripts of the same conversation to verify the transcriptionist isn’t an idiot or deaf.”

Lucy rolled her eyes.

“Seriously, if I wasn’t charging $750 an hour to play Tetris, I’d go back to bicycle repair.”

Lucy’s eyes widened.

“I’m sorry. I should have said anything about the money. Sounds like I’m bragging.”

“Bragging?” Lucy repeated. “Surprised you’re not standing on the bar, crowing.”

Jeremy’s smile faded, triggering a flicker of self-consciousness in Lucy. She put her hand on his.

“Tell you what, you can buy the drinks,” she said, trying to make light of it all.

He smiled, and they fell silent for a moment.

Jeremy swished the ice around in his glass, attracting the bartender’s attention. Jeremy shook his head at him.

“So, two kids,” Jeremy finally managed.

“Yes, boy and a girl,” Lucy said, jumping at the change in conversation. “As well as three dogs, a cat and a goldfish that just won’t die. Don’t believe them when they tell you goldfish have the lifespan of a toilet flush.”

“That’s quite the menagerie,” Jeremy responded. “You hear about a big rain storm I should know about?”

“No,” Lucy giggled. “Besides, Dave would look terrible in the long white beard.”

“Your husband?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “Has a John Deere dealership in town. He’s stable.”

“Stable?” Jeremy chuckled. “Not the most ringing endorsement I’ve ever heard.”

Now it was Lucy’s turn to go quiet, adjusting her jacket below the bar.

“I’m sorry,” Jeremy interjected. “That came out totally wrong.”

“No, it’s okay,” Lucy replied softly. “And you’re right.”

Lucy poked at her ice cubes, searching her thoughts for her next words, as Jeremy waited. Something told him, she was actually glad to talk about this.

“Dave’s a good man. A good father,” she explained, adding quickly, “And husband!”

Another moment of silence.

“The best man I could ask for…in Bedford”

Jeremy waited. Lucy would continue when she was ready.

“I don’t know. Maybe I expected too much after high school…” she faded off into her own world.

Finally looking up, Lucy realized Jeremy was watching her, eyes full of concern. She laughed at herself.

“I’m babbling,” she blurted. “Life is good. Great. Really.”

A wistful smile migrated across Jeremy’s face.

“We all have skeletons, eh?”

“And some of them come with mortgage payments.”

“Attention passengers of US Airways flight 7783 to New York. We are now boarding executive and elite status members at Gate 61.”

Jeremy removed his boarding pass from his pocket and threw a $20 bill on the bar.

“Sounds like that’s my cue,” he said, rising to his feet.

Lucy stood, giving him a quick hug, which he returned, not releasing her right away.

“Good seeing you, again.”

“You, too,” Jeremy replied. “Give my best to Bedford.”

Lucy remounted her bar stool as Jeremy grabbed his bag and headed toward the concourse.

“Hey Jeremy,” Lucy called across the bar.

Jeremy turned back, confused.

“I didn’t think you liked me.”

Jeremy smiled and winked.

“I didn’t,” he laughed. “I like this you much better.”

Lucy blushed as he dissolved into the crowd.

 

(Image is property of owner and is used here without permission because I had to fly.)

Flight (part two)

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Life-jacket-floating-in-sea

(See previous post for Part One)

The plane vanished from radar screens about 400 kilometers southwest of Bristol. The last report suggested that everything was proceeding nicely. A particularly strong tailwind had put the flight almost 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

The rescue planes first picked up the escape chutes at 10 PM, the yellow bulks bobbing on 6-foot swells. Whatever happened to US786, it resulted in a controlled water landing. And the escape chutes suggested at least some of the passengers had gotten out before the fuselage went under.

It would be an hour or two, however, before the helicopters could get close enough to see.

* * * * *

Jocelyn was cold. Colder than she thought humanly possible as she clung to the surface of the chute.

Time had ceased to have any meaning for her as she had been awaken from a dead sleep by the crash and had no idea if the sun had just set or was about to rise. The absence of a Moon said she might not know for some time.

All she knew was that her left arm hurt like hell and her right leg didn’t feel at all. Whether from cold or injury seemed moot at this point.

Jocelyn slowly unclenched her left hand, letting the key chain and keys dangle from her palm, the key ring encircling her ring finger.

In the darkness, she could really see the inscription on the plate, but she knew what it said: Best Daddy. A token of remembrance, perhaps, of the man who’d forced her onto the chute as she floundered, drowning after the crash. She’d felt it press painfully into her arm as she scrambled atop the limp plastic. By the time she’d finished spewing water from her lungs, though, the man was gone and her hand fell onto the keychain.

For now, the pendulous weight gave Jocelyn some deep comfort as she felt the keychain rock on her finger as she rocked on the waves.

* * * * *

Captain Teresa Wei strained her eyes, searching the darkness for the yellow blobs she knew were down there. Somewhere.

The roar of the helicopter rotors had ceased long ago to be a distraction for Teresa. Her attention was focused and intense.

“We don’t have much time left,” the pilot called.

“A few more minutes. The current was strong but steady,” she replied. “They have to be somewhere around here.”

Before the last word even dissipated in the rotor wash, Teresa’s second spotter tapped her shoulder.

“Over there!”

Teresa turned just in time to see a glint of yellow roll down the backside of a wave. She took a deep breath and willed one or more people to be attached to the chute. This wouldn’t be like the last fiasco. There was no way she would leave people to die like she had on her last flight.

* * * * *

A flurry of fish roiled the water around the chute as Jocelyn’s vomit dispersed on the current. She wondered if there could be much left in her stomach as she hadn’t eater much more than a canister of Pringles since the airport.

Her tongue could feel her lips as they pruned from the salt. The light was only now cresting above the horizon, so she couldn’t have been out too long, but those lungs full of brine hadn’t helped.

And the only thing she wanted more than a bottle of water was a blanket.

“Oh, to be warm again,” she thought to herself. “Snug in bed or under a throw in front of a fire.”

Jocelyn felt a sudden downdraft, which sent a wracking chill through her, and caught a furtive movement and splash to one side.

Shark!

Something was moving toward her in the water. Something big and dark.

Jocelyn did what she could to move from the edge of the chute, but all that accomplished was to sink the middle, filling it with icy water.

She considered her rubberized platform and quickly surmised whatever was approaching could easily puncture the chute, submitting her to the ocean’s swells and its own appetites.

Her terror pounded in her head, pulsating as the downdraft continued.

* * * * *

Teresa manned the lift herself, hauling the woman achingly toward the hovering helicopter, knowing she’d repeat the process with the rescue diver. Step one, however, was getting the woman stabilized and hydrated.

* * * * *

Jocelyn felt as though she were an angel ascending to heaven, although her real angels were above her and still down in the water.

She was serene, at peace, and oh so tired. But she wasn’t about to release her grip on the guide wire, despite the pain in her left palm where her grip was embedding the keychain into her flesh.

If you looked really closely at her palm—even months later—you could just make out the faintest of words: Best Daddy.

Jocelyn was marked for life.

(Images is property of owner and is used here without permission because I float that way)

Flight (part one)

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His shoulder kept throbbing and it seemed there was nothing he could do about it. He wanted little more than to sleep, the flight to New York having left ridiculously early and his sales meeting having ended quite late, if you call a cab ride from bar to airport ending.

Terry’s body wasn’t as young as it used to be and he seriously started to wonder if 32 years in sales was 2 years too many. The awards that lined his shelves said no. Salesman of the Year. Millionaires Club. Best Daddy.

The last one had come from his daughter Ronny almost 25 years ago and it was the one he cherished most, perhaps because it helped him forget that it was a lie. Terry had been a terrible father and an even worse husband, but no one could say he’d been a bad provider. The family wanted for nothing, save perhaps for time with Terry.

He tried to convince himself that he’d spent so much time on the road for them, but he knew better. He wasn’t cut out to a husband or a father, the marriage had been a mistake of hormones and responsibility.

Terry looked up to see the flight attendant awaiting a response. Apparently, he had zoned out.

“Can I offer you a beverage?” she repeated, her smiling eyes betraying no sense of impatience. She would wait for him as though she had nowhere else to be.

“Coffee, please. Black, no sugar.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Terry watched her as she located the carafe on the cart, the way she slid the cup from its tray. Her hands were delicate but purposeful.

Her hair was short, brown, tucked behind her ear to expose the tiniest stud earring. Just a hint of down along her jawline and the back of her neck, which was paler than her face. She’d recently worn her hair longer.

Just a touch of makeup, to accentuate rather than disguise.

Rather than let her place the cup on his tray, Terry took it from her, his fingertips grazing the backs of her fingers as the weight shifted from her hands to his.

She smiled at him as she released the cup and quickly followed with a tray of biscotti. Terry took two, despite abhorring the stone-like biscuits.

His eyes lingered on her as she served the passenger on the other side of the aisle. She was shapely without being too curvy and her calves said she worked out. A regular spin class, perhaps, or a runner. Again, fit but not muscular.

At another time, he might have ended his flight with her number and managed a bit of exercise of his own during his business trip. Despite being confident he still could, Terry was presently content to sip his coffee and let the caffeine revive his sense of humanity. Besides, he needed to keep his focus if he was going to make this his last flight.

* * * * *

Dave could feel the eyes of the other passengers on him as he laughed raucously, but he didn’t care. Just like when he was a kid, Rocky & Bullwinkle made him laugh. He couldn’t help himself. The moose was just like his younger brother and the squirrel his mother, right down to the voice.

As Dave tapped the volume button on his arm rest, his seat mate smacked her book closed in annoyance and shoved it into her seat sleeve. She unbuckled her seat belt, and stared at Dave to let her by. Reluctantly, he yanked his ear buds and unclipped his seat belt, pulling himself to his feet using the seat in front of him. Navigating the narrow aisle, he let the woman pass to the back of the plane.

The row now empty, Dave shuffled to the window and gazed into the abyss. The sun was nowhere to be found as the plane sped toward morning. The sky was largely cloudless, so Dave could only guess how high they were, lines of waves barely visible on the ocean below.

This was Dave’s first time over such an expanse of water. He’d flown the Great Lakes and the length of the Mississippi, but an ocean was something else, indeed. A vast expanse of nothing. No boats. No land. Dave didn’t even see another plane. It was like that Kevin Costner movie.

“Water?” a voice asked over his shoulder.

“And plenty of it,” he responded, before turning and realizing it was the flight attendant with a stack of plastic cups and a two-liter bottle of water.

With a sheepish grin, Dave slid back to his seat and reached for a glass. If this was going to be Dave’s last flight, he wanted to grab all the amenities he could, even if it was only free water.

He wondered what the boys would say back home to see him living it up. Free drinks and free movies. Riley’s Pub may be cheap, but this was like an open bar.

He could still hear his boss’s voice: “Don’t embarrass us over there!”

His boss had always treated Dave as something of a retard, so Dave played along. If nothing else, it meant he had pretty light duties and medical insurance. His buddies wanted him to stand up for himself, but he didn’t see the point.

By the time the plane reached Europe, all of his problems would be over.

* * * * *

Jocelyn slept fitfully, her head and arms resting on her tray, memories of her last fight with her fiancé rousing her with a jolt. Turning, she found the bear in the next seat was still snoring for all he was worth. That the plane’s fuselage hadn’t disintegrated from the sonorous vibration was a surprise, but that wasn’t the way things worked for Jocelyn. No, her pains had always been slow and lingering.

She had hoped to be an Art Director for a magazine or ad agency, her art teachers had always said she had the talent, but an indiscrete moment in the back of Jake Bentley’s dad’s Camry had changed all that. Despite a quick visit to the next State, Jake’s parents insisted that they get married and weren’t the type to support a woman who had more than their boy.

Within a year, they had their first two grandchildren—a boy and a girl—but not from the same mother and neither of those women was Jocelyn. It would seem that Jake specialized in indiscretions.

Even with all that, it still took Jocelyn more than two years to get her freedom, but it was too late to reclaim her life. Her family was more invasive than ever, and her dad made sure she got a job in his factory.

That’s where she met Darryl, the dick.

Life had been bearable until Darryl started to get serious. Suddenly, every man who talked to Jocelyn was trying to get into her pants and every woman was trying to talk her into leaving him. The pressure was on to cloister her in the house so that he could feel more secure.

The slap was the final straw. But alternative plans take time, and Darryl’s growing aggressiveness didn’t give her much. Luckily, Jocelyn was pretty good at makeup and just looked like she hadn’t slept much, which was true.

The only thing Jocelyn knew about Sweden was Ace of Base, ABBA and those horse meatballs from Ikea. That, and it was thousands of miles from home.

Today, Jocelyn’s world was going to change.

* * * * *

Part Two to follow in next post

(Image is property of owner and is used here without permission because I grabbed it on my last flight)

Doug – a stupid short story

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Holey hat

Doug had never been aware of his third ear, but it did help him understand why his hats didn’t fit very well. That he had a third ear wasn’t really the problem, though. Rather it was the shape of the ear. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

Where it attached to his head, it was cylindrical, but not smooth. A series of concentric rings ran perpendicular to the cylinder and whenever he would touch one, he would hear a mild, not unpleasant tone.

As the rings disappeared, however, the cylinder branched into a series of flower-like appendages. Tulips, if Doug was pressed, but gardening wasn’t really his thing.

Doug stood in front of the mirror, watching his reflection in the mirror mounted on the opposite wall. He had installed that one specifically for this purpose.

Over the course of the past hour, Doug had discovered that he could control the opening and closing of the ear petals with his cheek muscles. A strong squint and they all closed. More modest inflations and they would open and close in groups.

What use this new skill provided, he couldn’t tell. At the moment, it was just helping him occupy a Thursday afternoon for which he had no other plans.

“Gotta pee.”

The sound came out of nowhere. Doug just heard it, or at least thought he did.

“Gotta pee.”

Whatever the source, it was insistent, particularly as Doug had no real urge to pee.

Claws scraped against a metal sheet, snapping Doug from his thoughts.

“Gotta pee!”

Doug left the bathroom, following the scraping noise, and eventually ended up in the kitchen.

Beulah, his basset hound, turned slowly toward Doug as he entered the room, her tail wagging gingerly.

“Gotta pee!”

“Beulah?” Doug barely whispered.

“Peeing.”

Beulah looked sheepish but relieved as the amber puddle spread across the floor.

Doug raced to the door, stepping carefully over the dog, and threw the door open to the backyard. Beulah just looked up at him.

“I’m good.”

She waddled back to the den and her bed, trailing a pattern of damp footprints behind her.

Doug felt the breeze come through the open door.

“Licking myself clean.”

That’s it, Doug thought, that third ear had to go.

(Images are property of owners and are used here without permission because I heard nothing from them)

The Shoe – a short story

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asics-white-men-casual-shoes-asisaaronm0cm

The shoe just sat there in the middle of the platform, taunting Joanne. A slight wearing of the laces through the eyelets and a long black scuff mark to the left of the toe, the only signs that it didn’t just arrive there by some act of God. Whoever had owned the shoe hadn’t owned it for very long.

Joanne wondered if he or she was limping down a road somewhere or if the shoe’s partner was lying somewhere nearby, alone or perhaps still connected to a dormant leg.

Inserting a pencil into the shoe like she’d seen done on TV a thousand times, Joanne held the shoe in the light to get a closer look.

A sneaker. ASICs. White with blue stripes. Size 9½. The wear pattern uneven, more pronounced to the outer edge. The owner pronated. Or was it supernated? Joanne would look it up later.

“What do you think?”

William always asked the obvious questions.

Joanne did her best to replace the shoe exactly as she’d found it, before turning to face William.

At four foot two, William wasn’t very imposing, and the green baseball cap didn’t help, skewed slightly to the left on his head.

What William lacked as a brother, he more than made up for as an investigative assistant. Today was no exception as his pen sat poised above a tiny flip pad.

Joanne was the brains of the operation, while William provided the…penmanship. Brawn was still a few years into the future.

William wasn’t stupid. He played dumb way too well to be considered stupid. But he was frugal with his intelligence, saving it for answers shouted full volume at Alex Trebek. He had yet to get an answer right, but you had to admire his tenacity.

Joanne scrutinized William as she formulated her response.

“We’re looking for a man wearing one shoe,” she said slowly, giving William time to write. “A white ASICs with a blue stripe. New. If he’s not dead, he’ll walk with a limp.”

“How do you know it’s a man?” William asked, as he finished his notes.

“Because the shoe is too big for a boy,” Joanne responded with an unspoken “gawd”.

William wrote this down too. You never knew what would be important later.

“I meant, what if it—“

“I know what you meant,” Joanne snapped.

That was good enough for William.

“The shoe points East,” she added. It did. “Meaning he was waiting for a Westbound train.”

But whether he was travelling west or awaiting the arrival of someone from the east, she could not tell.

“He may also have owned a dog, because I detect the faintest odor of dog poo,” Joanne noted, wrinkling her nose even as she took another deep whiff.

“That’s probably me,” William offered, lifting his right foot forward to expose rivers of brown slurry coursing through the grooves of the shoe tread.

It was all too much for Joanne.

“You’re contaminating my crime scene,” she bleated. “Mo-o-om, William is contaminating my crime scene.”

“Get over here, both of you,” Mom replied. “The train is coming. And leave that shoe.”

She was right. The train was indeed pulling into the station. It would mean playing the odds, but Joanne was going to bet the man with one shoe was travelling west.

As the train stopped, Mom herded first William and then Joanne onto the train.

“Why do I smell dog dirt?” she asked, sniffing the air.

This must be where William learned that annoying habit.

Joanne ignored the question, immediately scanning the car for anything suspicious.

Typical commuters. Some talking quietly. Others immersed in a book. Still others faking sleep but clearly listening to music through ear buds. And all wearing two shoes, except…

There, at the other end of the car, was a man with only one shoe. A white ASICs with a blue stripe. Joanne couldn’t be sure from her vantage point, but everything screamed it was size 9½.

On the man’s other foot was…nothing.

Not even a foot. Or shin. The man only had one leg. Ingenious.

Joanne swatted at William to get his attention, but caught nothing but air. Mom had apparently taken him to the second level of the train car. Joanne was on her own.

Slowly, she slid into the first available seat that gave her an uninterrupted view of the man with one leg.

How he’d gotten off the earlier train and onto Joanne’s was something she still had to figure out, but clearly this was a cagey customer. She would have to watch him closely.

At least until Port Credit, when she, William and her Mom would get off the train to visit her grandmother.

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(Images are property of owners and are used here without permission, but please don’t tell Joanne.)

Final Exam

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stock-photo-21365991-large-group-of-college-students-at-lecture-hall

The lecture hall drained of students as though a giant plug had been pulled, chattering bodies sluicing through a doorway meant for half as many people. The dwindling echoes of students bounced off walls of silence as the doors hissed shut.

“Is there something you need, Miss Pepper?” Professor Kawai asked as he wiped the blue and red notes from a board that had long ago ceased to be white.

Jess stared intently at the open chemistry book before her, willing the sticks and letters to form the words she sought.

Kawai cradled the eraser onto the ledge and packed his belongings into an ancient valise. Stopping another moment to examine the lone tableau figure before him, he snapped his bag shut, the click reverberating off the walls.

As his hand depressed the door handle, he felt more than heard the words directed at him.

“You said something, Miss Pepper.”

Without moving, the words fell out of Jess’s mouth and into her book. “I studied.”

“Apparently, the wrong chapters,” Kawai responded without emotion, as though reciting a number from a phone directory.

The indifference drew Jess to face Kawai, her eyes registering something between shock and incomprehension.

“Perhaps you’ll do better on the final,” Kawai added, as if by rote.

“I won’t be writing the final,” Jess responded, slowly pulling her bag to the next seat and closing her text.

Kawai sighed and turned back to the door. “Then maybe next—“

Kawai was unable to finish his though, his focus drawn by the loud noise and the searing pain as two ribs shattered from his back to his chest, splattering the door with blood.

Kawai’s cheek slammed against the door, his knees buckling below him and he slid down the slick door.

As Kawai’s body flopped sideways and his head struck the floor, the lecture chamber filled with another explosion.

Other than the odd drop of blood, Jess’s mid-term exam paper remained largely unscathed, the purple “84%” clearly emblazoned in the upper right-hand corner.

Jess’s parents had sacrificed so much for her to succeed at school. Her failure in chemistry would be unacceptable.

(Image is property of owner and is used here without permission.)

The phrase was “club members”

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(The results of another writing exercise…and this time, it’s a complete story! Woohoo!)

Club members. Sid couldn’t believe it, but it was true. The sign on the door read “club members”.

“They can’t possibly get away with that,” he complained to his sister, who sat quietly, fumbling absent-mindedly with the window latch.

“Jessica, you’re not listening to me,” he said impatiently. She sighed, adjusted herself and rolled her head languidly to face him.

“I’m not not listening to you, Sid,” she replied, as much an exhalation as exhortation. “I’m not paying attention to you. It’s totally different.”

She then went back to fumbling with the door, smacking on yet another piece of stale Double Bubble as he stared silently back at her.

The moment’s silence, however, was broken suddenly with a “fuck you” that apparently came out of Sid’s mouth based on the change in Jessica’s demeanor.

“Look,” she said angrily, “I didn’t ask you to come on this stupid little outing. You asked me, if you remember. The only reason I’m sitting in this car is because this sounded more interesting than ‘O.C.’ reruns. And so far, I was wrong.”

“You said you’d help me with my civics assignment,” he protested.

“I will, but moral outrage in a beat up Toyota Corolla does not a civics assignment make,” she replied sarcastically. “If you don’t get something on paper, Mrs. Berkowitz will have your ass.”

And before he could finish the movement, she added, “And pointing at the front gate of the country club and spouting on about the downtrodden masses, excluded from the perks of society, shunned by the elite, and…and…” She was at a loss, but never for long. “And kicked to the curb by uber right-wing industrial fat-cats cum 21st century royalty is going to get you nowhere.”

“But wealth is the new fascism,” he cried.

“Bullshit.”

They sat quietly again, letting the echoes of their exchange die quietly in the luxurious folds of the polyester fibers that comprised Sid’s faux Guernsey seat covers. His right hand flailed as though waiting for his mouth to make a stunning riposte and struck the steering wheel whenever it realized that his tongue was determined to remain silent. Jessica peripherally watched him conduct the silent symphony before trying to engage him one more time.

“What I’m trying to say is that almost everyone in your class is going to write the same bloody paper you’re thinking about,” she said, slowly and calmly. “And the rest of your class is just too damned retarded to know what to write at all. Do you want a good mark in this class?”

“Yeah.”

“And more importantly, do you want to knock Berkowitz on her smug Yiddish ass?”

That got a smile out of him.

“Then pull a Swift on her,” she said, conspiratorially.

“A what?”

“Not what; who. Jonathan Swift.,” she responded. But when the penny still hadn’t dropped, she added, “Eat the fucking poor.”

Okay, Sid thought, now she might as well have had antlers.

Jessica rubbed her forehead in frustration. “If you want to stand out in a crowd, go the other way. If everyone else is going to bitch about the evils of the elite, you should celebrate them.”

Oh my god, they weren’t antlers, they were horns—devil’s horns. And the smile on her face just kept getting bigger. It made him uncomfortable.

“In fact, you might go as far as to argue that the poor should be happy to serve the elite for the good of everyone.”

There was no air. Sid couldn’t breathe. Somebody had hooked the car up to a vacuum pump and he was asphyxiating.

Finally, he mustered enough breath to blurt: “Are you fucking high?”

“What?” she replied, her smile belying the innocence of her tone.

“I can’t do that. What about the downtrodden?”

“Who do you think trods on them, you silly bugger?” she asked. “Well, okay, not you and me—not directly, anyhow—but Dad does. He’s a corporate lawyer, for Christ’s sake.”

It was getting warm, too. Warm and airless. That’s it! He was in Hell. Was that sulfur? He thought he could smell sulfur.

Sid just started shaking his head, and the more Jessica spoke, the more violent the shaking became.

“We’re rich, Sid,” she mocked. “Not lower middle class. Not middle class. Not even upper middle class. We are rich. We are richer than a 20-pound box of Nanaimo bars.”

He couldn’t take it anymore. He had to make her stop.

“No, I’m not rich,” he yelled. “Maybe you’re rich, but not me. I shun all worldly goods.”

Jessica snorted derisively and smiled. It was her turn to shake her head.

“Shun worldly goods?” she chided. “Oh sure, you dress like a street person and drive the worst beater in the school parking lot, but I would hardly call you a Buddhist monk. You—we—live in a very nice house, eating very nice food, and get a very nice allowance. Try another one, Gollum.”

Pitch clogged his lungs. Brimstone burned his flesh. And fire blinded his eyes. Hell consumed him until he thought he’d started talking in tongues. It was gibberish to his ears, but it was definitely coming out of his mouth.

“Alright, you win,” he spewed and then slumped in his seat. He had succumbed. “I hate the poor. They smell, and they’re lazy.”

“Whoa, tiger, slow down a little. I’m not pushing genocide here. I’m just saying we’re not poor.” Jessica waited a moment for Sid to calm down. “So take advantage of that. Use our connections to write the most controversial paper Berkowitz will ever grade. Be the anti-Marx.”

Something flickered in Sid’s mind as he returned his gaze to the sign on the door. Club members.

“Wealthy people own the companies where poor people find employment,” he whispered to himself. “And without jobs, they’d starve.”

The flicker took hold.

“And rich people pay a lot of taxes, which help support the social safety net.”

“And most of them don’t even use the services,” Jessica added, fanning the flame. “They go to the U.S. for their healthcare and don’t receive a penny in government subsidies, leaving their share for the poor.”

It all began to crystallize for Sid. It made so much sense. He had a purpose in life.

Later that day, he went down to City Hall to register as the founding member of the Republican Party of Canada. A scant eight years before the invasion…but that’s another story.