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Joseph E Bird

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Short Story

Why this hillbilly wears shoes.

I’ve got a few ideas I want to tell you about, but there’s something distracting me right now and I need to get it off my chest. (That’s a weird expression. Remind to look that up.) You may not be able to relate to this, but I live in West Virginia, and most of us don’t wear shoes, what with us being hillbillies and everything. But my office has a dress code. We’re required to wear shoes, except on casual Fridays when pert near anything goes. I just threw in that “pert near” as typical hillbilly lingo to add some local flavor to my story. Most of us don’t really talk like that.

I’ve had my shoes on all day. And my knee’s been hurting from running too much. Either that or just one of them getting old things, so I didn’t run today. So I really have had my shoes on from about 7:12 this morning until now, which, according to the clock Steve Jobs gave me, is 8:13. I’ve been home since about 5:24. I stayed a little late because after everyone left the office, I wanted to try out my new guitar amp. There was a guy who used to work for us, but he got tired of having to wear shoes all the time, so he got himself a job in Florida where all he has to wear are flip-flops, or as we used to say back in the olden hillbilly days, thongs.

Rob – that’s the name of the guy who went to Florida to wear thongs – I mean flip-flops (don’t want to plant any untoward images in your mind) – was a guitar player, too, and he had an electric guitar in the office that he’d play around with on his lunch hour. When he left, I told him he had to leave his guitar. Since I was his boss, he had no choice. So he left me the guitar and a pick. But no amplifier. I went up the street the other day to the Fret N Fiddle. That’s what we call music stores here in hillbilly West Virginia. I asked for the smallest amplifier they had. The young feller (more hillbilly lingo) showed me one for $40. Said it ran on batteries. Well, that wouldn’t work, so he showed me another one for $100. I’m way too cheap to spend that kind of money. Then I saw a little amp on the way out that had vacuum tubes. I should have known better. $500. I blame that on the millennials. Even in West Virginia, we have millennial hipsters.

I ended up getting an amp from an online store for $25. I know what you’re thinking. It couldn’t possibly be any good. But I forgot to get a chord. So today I went back up to Fret N Fiddle. They’re closed on Thursdays. Just some random day to be closed, I reckon (lingo). Up the road I went to Gorby’s Music. I had time since I wasn’t running because of the aforementioned sore knee. Gorby’s has been around forever. I got my high school trumpet there, I think. Or maybe it was Herbert’s Music.

I asked the guy at the counter, who looked like a Gorby, if he ever got any Harold Hayslett cellos in the store. Harold Hayslett is also a hillbilly from nearby (actually, he’s the furthest thing from a hillbilly, but I have a theme going here, so we ask that you bear with us) who makes world class cellos and violins out of gopher wood. Just kidding about the gopher wood. The rest is true. I know this because my sister has a cello that he made when he was starting out. The Gorby fellow says he hasn’t seen one in a while and tells me old Harold is still up on the hill. I told him I thought he died. There was a piece on the radio the other day about Hayslett and I thought they said he died but I was wrong. He’s 99 years old and still going strong. It was John Lambros who died. Lambros was another prominent figure from my sister’s cello days in the area and I guess I got them mixed up. Lambros was 98. There might be a connection between music and living a long life.

So I said my goodbye to Mr. Gorby and went back to the office (still wearing my shoes). My lunch hour was over but I plugged in the guitar to make sure my $25 amp worked. It did. At one point in the afternoon I was tempted to take off my shoes and stick my feet under my desk, but at the time, it just seemed like too much trouble. At 5:02, most everyone had left the office so I plugged in the guitar again. At 5:13, someone hollered from the other side of the building to see if I was still there. In West Virginia, we holler, even when we have telephones. I hollered back and said I was, then he left. I had the whole place to myself, so I cranked it up. Then pushed the little button on the amp that made the distortion sound. All of sudden I sounded like a rock star. It was so cool that I kept playing for another fifteen minutes. Then I went home.

I kept my shoes on even then, because once, a few years ago, I took my shoes off at home and was going around in my socks (it must have been winter). And believe it or not, I stubbed my toe on my shoe. One of those freakishly bad stubs. On my shoe. Ironic, yes? Kind of like throwing your back out when you pick up a pillow, which I’ve done. I thought I broke my toe. The big toe, of course. Ever since then, I always wear some kind of shoe until I go to bed.

Ok. I’ve been writing this little story now for 26 minutes. It’s 8:41. My socks are all bunched up in the toes of my shoes and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t wait for that moment, maybe an hour from now, when I get to set my toes free and they can breathe again and escape their leathery prison. I might write a poem about it. No, I won’t.

I sat down here to make some New Year resolutions and I couldn’t get my mind off my uncomfortable feet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.

You didn’t remind me to look up “get it off my chest.”

8:58.

Good night.

5

Static

Electronic vacuum tube

“…for in my radio with all its static I could hear, over and above Beethoven, the progress of a lightning storm a thousand miles away.” – from Prelude, by Mark Helprin.

Do you remember listening to the radio, late at night, and hearing that intermittent crackling?

Things have changed, of course, especially when it comes to how we listen to music.

Back in the day, my dad would occasionally tinker with our old-school television set when it would act up.  Televisons used to be big consoles that sat on the floor, and you would pull on a knob to turn it on, then wait while the vacuum tubes and the cathode ray tube (the tv screen) warmed up. Radios used to be like that, too, until the invention of the transistor. The glowing tubes went away.

Well, they’re back.

So are vinyl records and turntables. Audiophiles (if you play music using a turntable, you’re an audiophile) use words like “warmer” and “richer” to describe the musical experience they claim to hear.

I grew up listening to records on turntables, ranging from the cheap turntable in a cardboard suitcase that we played Beatles 45s on, to my college turntable that I bought after extensive research at all of the high fidelity stores that used to abound. As kids, we’d play a record so much that it would start sticking. So we taped pennies to the tone arm to hold the needle down so it wouldn’t jump the grooves in the record.

Of course with my high-end Yamaha turntable, the needle was referred to as a stylus and there was great debate over the merits of direct drive versus belt drive. I chose belt drive and was surprised to learn that the belt was little more than a rubber band. I wiped each record clean before and after playing with a special record cleaning pad and record cleaning solution, allowed a suitable amount of time between playing to allow the grooves to cool, and never, ever taped a penny to the tone arm.

Then along comes the CD. Digital music. Clear and perfect every time. No scratching from an overplayed record. If I wanted to play a song repeatedly, no problem. It was just as good as the first time.

Next, we started downloading music over the internet. But in order to keep files manageable, they need to be compressed. Some music quality is lost. This is when the audiophiles start to sing the blues.

Now we’ve come full circle in the quest for the ultimate stereo experience. Records, turntables, and vacuum tubes are back. And if I weren’t so cheap, I’d jump on the bandwagon, if for no other reason, than the fun of it.

But I can’t help but think that you’ll hear some crackle and pop from the stylus rumbling over the vinyl grooves, just like we used to, no matter how much you take care of your records.

I was reminded of all of this today as I was reading  Mark Helprin. His character was lamenting the bludgeoning march of progress and its effects on the simple things in life, and he says this:

“…for in my radio with all its static I could hear, over and above Beethoven, the progress of a lightning storm a thousand miles away.”

Maybe there’s truth in that.

Maybe a life is richer with a little static. And scratches. And imperfections.

Maybe perfect is too good.

photo credit: iStock Photography

 

 

 

0

A Dangerous Place

She sat in front of me off to the side, this woman. Her years were twenty-something, maybe thirty, and so she was not yet tainted by the disappointments in life and like all of us at that age, she was the embodiment of optimism and hope. At least that’s the way I read it. But I tend to be overly philosophical and maybe find too much meaning in such things. This is true: she was youthfully and innocently pretty. Not that her appearance has anything to do with what happened. It’s just that I noticed.

And I wouldn’t have noticed had she not turned her head slightly to the right and away from the singer on stage. Something had her attention. My natural reaction was to look in that direction. I didn’t have to turn much, but from my perspective, there was nothing to see. Just more people, listening and watching the young man on stage. None of my business, I thought, and got back into the music.

Still, she stared. Almost unblinking. It was more than a curiosity. She had slipped into a state of para-consciousness, aware of what she was seeing, but unaware that she had become so transfixed. It’s a dangerous place to be. There’s no physical threat of course, but there is a distinct possibility that whoever has created this vortex of cognition will sense that they’re being watched and well, you know what happens. At the very least, it’s awkward, and sometimes threatening. The longer it goes, the more dangerous it gets.

Still, she stared.

I looked again to my right. Again, I saw nothing unusual.

And then I saw it.

A person. A young girl. Six, seven, maybe eight years old, hair in a pony tail. She was moving slightly to the music, but instead of watching the singer and smiling, as a young girl might do, she was looking down to her left, almost pensive. She was hearing the music, but she was also thinking. About the song? Maybe, though it was just a Christmas carol. About something else? More likely. School work? Family? Who knows.

I looked back to the young woman.

Still, she stared.

The young girl contemplated, glancing up every now and then, but lost in her thoughts. It was unusual.

Maybe the young woman saw herself in the little girl. Maybe she too, was a thinker, a sensitive soul who had also wrestled with the mysteries at a young age. Maybe she was worried about her.

Still, she stared.

You know what happened. We all have that sixth sense. Maybe it’s a subconscious observation that’s rooted in the first five senses, but it’s so much easier to claim the sixth sense. That intuition that tells us something’s not right. Or that feeling that someone is watching. The little girl looked over her left shoulder and made eye contact with the young woman.

Hers was a reflex that could have been measured in milliseconds. She immediately turned away, as did the young girl.

I felt bad for both of them. Embarrassed for the young woman and sympathetic for the girl.

But almost as soon as they had turned away, they both, instinctively it seemed, turned to back toward each other. The young woman smiled. The little girl smiled back.

Two smiles that said so much.

I understand. You have a friend.

Thank you.

At least that’s what it seemed to me. But then again, I tend to see too much in such things.

copyright 2016, joseph e bird

1

The well.

From the Chris Offutt story, A Good Pine.

“He couldn’t recall the last time he had laughed or cried.  Both came from the same well with different buckets, but his water table had dropped forever, the spout long sealed shut.”

 

0

Ramon’s Fortune

Author’s Notes:  My fiction tends to be a little somber, but every now and then I’ll get crazy and write something just for the fun of it.  Such is the story below.  It’s total whimsy and comes complete with annoying sentence structure and shallow character development.  It will never win any awards, but I don’t care.  It’s one of my favorites.

 

Ramon’s Fortune
by Joseph E Bird
copyright 2104

 

Shelly Wallingford was sitting by herself at a small table for two in the shade of the eucalyptus tree on the patio of Bel Cibo’s when she heard the muffled thud of the collision of the waitress and the customer, followed by the sound of lead crystal wine glasses breaking on the terra cotta tile, and the soft clink, clink, clink of coins bouncing and spinning, finally stopping to lay flat, glistening in the mid-day sun. Shelly Wallingford turned her head just in time to see the waitress with the white blonde hair apologize to the man in the Armani suit, who, at that precise moment was throwing his hands in the air in exasperation, when a busboy appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and began picking up pieces of Cabernet-stained glass.

Shelly Wallingford felt a tap on the side of her foot. She looked down to see a shiny penny spiraling to rest one inch beside her black, Salvatore Ferragamo pump. She reached down and picked it up, holding it between her thumb and index finger, while her other three fingers formed graceful, crescent-shaped arcs, as if in polite salute to her actual working digits. She looked for the man in the Armani suit, holding the penny in the air as if it were a treasure from Tutankhamun’s tomb, forgetting that it was, in fact, only a penny, and of so little value that its existence was likely meaningless to the man in the Armani suit – a reality that fell upon her like the gentle breeze wafting through the eucalyptus leaves –as she saw him hurry from Bel Cibo’s with a final wave of his hand.

Shelly Wallingford smiled in self-amusement, her hand still raised, as if returning the farewell gesture of the man in the Armani suit. She dropped her hand to the table and looked for the waitress with the white blonde hair, but she too, had disappeared. Of the three participants in the drama of human conflict, only the busboy remained. He stood, blue plastic tub under one arm, and stuffed the clinking coins in the pocket of his blue jeans.

Shelly Wallingford dropped the penny in the side pocket of her Prada handbag.

* * *

Shelly Wallingford walked through the lobby toward the elevators of the Stafford Centre.

“Shelly!”

Shelly Wallingford stopped and turned to see Harold McCormick walking toward her.

“Shelly, do me a favor,” he said. “I was going across the street to get a bagel. I thought I had a dollar on me, but all I’ve got is fifty-seven cents. Can you spot me forty cents so I don’t have to go back upstairs?”

Shelly Wallingford reached in the side pocket of her Prada handbag and scooped out all of her change and gave it Harold McCormick.

Harold McCormick loved bagels. And he loved cappuccinos. But Harold McCormick had put on fifteen pounds since Christmas and his cholesterol was up to 245 by February and both his wife and his doctor were getting a little concerned, so Harold McCormick gave up his post-lunch cappuccino and only allowed himself the indulgence of a plain toasted bagel.

Harold McCormick stood at the corner, waiting for the traffic light to tell him he could walk with reasonable assurance that he would not become an accident victim.

“Excuse me, sir,” the voice to his left said. “I really hate to ask, but is there any way you could spare some change? I need to catch a bus uptown and I’m just a little short.”

Harold McCormick sighed. He knew he was a soft touch. Somehow, they all knew it. Harold McCormick was sure that the homeless and indigent held morning briefings with photographs and dossiers of likely panhandle targets and that one Harold McCormick was on their most-wanted list.

He looked at twenty-seven year old Joshua Riggins, his dirty brown hair falling past his shoulders, and reached in his pocket and gave him all his change.

“I didn’t need that bagel anyway,” he said as he turned and walked back toward the Stafford Centre.

* * *

Joshua Riggins took the change he had collected in ten minutes and counted it as he waited for the two o’clock bus.

“Two dollars exactly,” he said to himself. “Now I don’t have to break the ten.”

He boarded the bus, and listened to the clink, clink, clink of the change dropping in the box as the bus eased into traffic. Joshua Riggins, pulled the ten dollar bill from his jacket pocket, looked at it briefly, making sure that it was Alexander Hamilton and not George Washington grimly looking back, then stuffed the bill back in his pocket, and did not realize that when he once again pulled his hand from his pocket, the ten dollar bill came with it and fluttered like a eucalyptus leaf as it fell to the floor before disappearing under the folding doors of the bus.

* * *

Antonio Marcelli looked up and down the street searching for a pay phone, which had become increasingly hard to find with the advent of wireless telephone technology.  Antonio Marcelli had a cellular phone in his backpack when he arrived in the city at noon for his two-thirty interview at Ramón’s, but his backpack had been stolen as he was buying a cup of coffee from the newsstand on 48th Street. There was no way Antonio Marcelli was going to be able to walk the ten blocks to Ramón’s and get to the interview on time so he had to call – and then he saw a ten dollar bill in the gutter next to an empty Coca-Cola can.   He picked up the ten, hailed a cab and made it to the interview with Ramón Oliverio. Antonio Marcelli was hired as the head chef of the first Ramón’s restaurant.

* * *

Ramón Oliverio’s restaurants were greatly successful and four more restaurants opened in the city the following year, and the year after that, ten restaurants were franchised in the state and the year after that thirty-three restaurants were franchised along the east coast. Ramón Oliverio became a very wealthy man.

* * *

Ramón Oliverio leaned back in the plush leather chair as he sat across the table from the Mergers and Acquisitions lawyer of Taft and Oppenheimer.

The Mergers and Acquisitions lawyer said, “Our accountants and appraisers have completed the valuation of your fifty-six restaurants, twelve coffee shops, three hotels, and your numerous property holdings in Florida and the Carolinas and have determined that their total estimated value is one hundred thirty seven million, four hundred eighty three thousand, five hundred seventeen dollars and one cent.”

Ramón Oliverio laughed heartily, as only a man is his position could.

“That’s the estimated value?” he asked as he leaned toward the table, resting his meaty forearms on the glass top.

He paused, and then reached into the pocket of his faded jeans, pulled out a coin and tossed it on the table. “I’ll give you the penny,” he said with an even bigger laugh, as the coin clinked twice on the table, before rolling in the direction of the Mergers and Acquisitions lawyer. “But I’m not going below two hundred million.”

Shelly Wallingford watched as the dull, dirty penny rolled down the glass table-top one inch from her black leather Gucci briefcase, where it spiraled flat, Lincoln side up. She picked up the penny and placed on top of the stack of accountants’ and appraisers’ valuation forms.

Shelly Wallingford smiled at Ramón Oliverio.

“It’s a start,” she said.

3

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