Goldenrod and Roses Harry Buschman She removed her glasses and gently rubbed her eyes. Not having a slip of paper to mark her place in the book, she slipped a rose out of the vase on the table before her and laid it on the page she just read. She was half-way through her third romance novel this week and she just couldn't take any more fiction. Yet, she knew when she put it down that she'd pick it up again in a few minutes and continue reading. She was edgy. It was the month of June and the roses were in full bloom. It was also the month for marriage and fat chance of that happening this year. She'd been going with Barney four years. They should be married by now––but something always got in the way. This time Barney was saving for the loan he needed to buy the franchise for Taco Bell. He was right––of course, it was practical to wait––of course. Barney was the practical one. He was no Lochinvar on a white charger ... but he was practical. She had to admit that their love affair was not 'an affair to remember.' Neither of them excited the other, and she also had to admit that was the main reason she was addicted to romance novels––what did Barney do for kicks she wondered? There was a bright side, however. Maybe she wouldn't carry roses for a wedding in June. Maybe she'd have to carry goldenrod come September, but with a little luck she could get a big bouquet of roses for the birth of a baby next June. She put the rose back in the vase and picked up the book again. _________________

Peppers

Peppers

Harry Buschman

I opened my mouth wide as it would go. I put the depressor down flat on my tongue and looked in the mirror ... it looked bad. I opened the bathroom door a crack and shouted downstairs to Sheila, "Would you get Doctor Levy on the phone, dear?"

Doctor Levy took one look and said "Oh my, Leonard ... looks like the crater of a volcano!

"Feels like one too, Dac."

"It looks to me like chili peppers, Leonard ... where'd you have lunch yesterday?"

"A place called Fishwada House. It's downtown, right around the corner from my office."

"They been in business long, Leonard?"

"Well, no. Just last week as a matter of fact. Couple of fellows in the office said I should try it."

"Friends of yours, Leonard?"

"Colleagues, you know ... fellow workers and such."

"It's one way to get rid of the competition I suppose."

The Westlake Village Strawberry Festival

Harry Buschman

The strawberry festival in Westlake Village is observed on the first "nice" Saturday in June. We observe it outdoors, so we are at the mercy of the weather. Therefore we wait for the first "nice" Saturday. Town Supervisor Bacardi makes this momentous decision personally on the first Thursday in June that forecasts a 'nice' Saturday. It is without doubt the most important decision of his political life, for once he says "GO," he sets in motion an engine of enormous and unstoppable power. Refreshments, amusements, chairs, tables, decorations, sound equipment, press coverage, and most important of all, Bridget O'Riley the balloon girl, all swing into action to observe the first "nice' Saturday of June. Oh!! I forgot the strawberries didn't I? The ladies of Our Lady of Congeniality sell strawberries at the fair––they are, (the strawberries, that is) after all, the star of the show.

We don't grow strawberries in Westlake Village––the Village is not strawberry country. Most of our strawberries come from Mexico. A sobering thought, to be sure––well, you've got to give the devil his due. When Supervisor Bacardi says "GO," his secretary calls Meyer's Trucking and off they go to the wholesale market in Queens. The avalanche of events has begun. With one simple telephone call the great event is underway––the process brings to mind "Operation Overlord" of WWII.

During the next two days Bridget O'Riley will inflate more than a 1000 balloons with helium gas and the congeniality ladies will whip up enough whipped cream to fill a railroad tank car. The speaker's platform will be decorated with bunting and wired for sound. There will be speeches of course––the primary one coming from none other than Walter Bacardi himself. It will be a tub-thumper I'm sure, for this is an election year.

If, by some cruel stroke of fate, foul weather makes an unexpected appearance on Saturday morning, the entire proceedings will move indoors. The church basement is the only alternative to cancellation ... and cancellation is impossible. you can't cancel an avalanche. With that caveat in mind you can imagine Supervisor Bacardi's attention is glued to The Weather Channel two weeks before the event. His only other consuming interest, of course, is his speech. Daisy Donahue, his secretary, tells me he is torn between the two and he sits at his desk by the window writing and casting anxious glances at the sky ... she is a nervous wreck by the end of the week.

Bridget O'Riley has her eye on the weather too. Her husband, Max, hasn't had a cooked meal all week and the unfinished basement is wall to wall helium bottles; he says his wife won't let him smoke his pipe in the house until the balloons are filled. Bridget lives next door to Our Lady of Congeniality and when she inflates her balloons on Saturday morning she will tie them in bundles and carry them to the festival site.

... and that's where our story begins.

Last year the third Thursday in June was a lovely day and all forecasts predicted the weather would be fair and warm right through the weekend. Supervisor Bacardi confidently, but with all ten fingers crossed, signaled "Go." The wheels began to spin, and Daisy Donahue breathed a sigh of relief. Bridget O'Riley opened the valves on her canisters and the ladies of Our Lady of Congeniality started whipping cream. By Friday night Bridget had inflated almost 1200 pink, yellow, red and blue balloons. She and her husband tied each of them with a four foot length of string and then tied them again into bundles of six each. It sounds like a lot of work, and it was, but they had volunteers to lend a hand. During the daylight hours of Thursday and Friday neighbors stopped in to lend a hand. Saturday morning was to be devoted to the inflation of the giant strawberry balloon, big around as a beluga whale. It would be tethered to the speaker's platform and everyone throughout the village would be officially aware that the annual Strawberry Festival was underway.

The limp vinyl strawberry was laid flat on the road in front of the cathedral of Our Lady of Congeniality in wait for Bridget O'Riley and her truckful of helium canisters. Even though he knew very little about the procedure, Supervisor Bacardi seemed to be in charge. With much waving of his arms and using his best drill sergeant's baritone, he directed the positioning of Bridget's truck, the connection of the balloon's intake valve to the canister's nozzle and a general warning to everyone in the immediate vicinity to give way to the giant strawberry as it began to swell with helium gas.

It slowly picked itself clear of the ground and everyone on balloon tethering duty cheered loudly and gripped his or her tethering line tightly. The balloon rose slowly, but triumphantly, like some monstrous storybook dragon ... that just happened to resemble a strawberry. A few children cried out in terror. A few elderly ladies clucked their tongues and said, "Did you ever ...?" Young lads pelted it with pebbles––but you can't bring a forty foot strawberry down with pebbles. Or can you?

Yes ... in spite of the glorious weather––faultlessly forecasted by Supervisor Bacardi. In spite of the fascinating trinket booths, the strawberries lavishly lathered in whipped cream offered for sale by the ladies of Our Lady of congeniality, the kiddy carousel, the test your strength sledgehammer apparatus and the intimate fingers of Ernie Wilson and his all too accurate "Guess Your Weight" scale, I can attest that the 44th annual strawberry festival was not without a touch of terror and tragedy.

Midway through Supervisor Bacardi's self-aggrandizement of his many successes as supervisor and the masterful shepherding of Westlake Village through thick and thin, it became apparent to all of us that the inflated strawberry above the speaker's stand was slowly descending.

Could it be that one of those pebbles reached a vital spot after all?

It was not only descending, but it was becoming flaccid as well. The audience was divided almost equally between people who were eager to see it engulf the entire speaker's rostrum and all the town dignitaries, each of whom waited patiently for Supervisor Bacardi to finish so they could have a crack at the microphone, and all others whose better sense prevailed. The result did, however, put an end to the palaver.

In retrospect it was a most successful day. Everyone got his and her fill of strawberries, a few cases of diarrhea were reported, many smaller balloons slipped away from the children and disappeared to wherever it is all balloons eventually die, and everyone couldn't wait for next year.

The Things You Learn

Harry Buschman

When I was young I thought it would be nice to put all the good times I’ve had in one jar and all the bad times in another. Then if ever I was fortunate enough to live to a ripe old age I could sit in a comfortable chair with the good times in front of me and pick them out like cherries and enjoy each of them one by one...all over again.

So I did that. One jar for the bad times and another for the good, and I waited for old age to set in. It came quickly and I never expected to open the bad times jar, just the good times. I even put a lid on the bad times jar. Who wants to relive the bad times?

Well, as I said, old age came all too soon. I’m old enough now to realize how dumb I’ve been.

I’ve learned there are no good times without the bad ones. The good times weren’t nearly as good as I thought they were before. They couldn’t be enjoyed fully, they could barely be remembered. But if I put both jars in front of me and reached into them both at the same time, being careful to take one of each, I’d be able to balance them in the palms of my hands and look at them together. It was far better that way, the bad times were balanced by the good and it made the good ones even more of a treasure.

Sugar without the salt is not as sweet.

So if there’s a Heaven let there be occasional rainy days, some bad years for the wine and a sour note or two in the congregation.

This is in response to Shadowlight's prompt....

Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:52 am Post subject:
Bride of Elsinore Harry Buschman HAMLET. I did love you once. OPHELIA. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. HAMLET. You should not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it. I loved you not. OPHELIA. I was the more deceived. She was alone with her despair. Her brother far away and her father murdered ... she was pregnant and had no one to turn to for advice or consolation. I saw her running through the grass toward the river, she looked back with frightened eyes as though someone might be following her. I could have called to her––she was alone––she needed someone. What a terrible thing it is to be alone. When she left the castle that afternoon no one stopped her and she walked through the woods to the river. It was spring. The river was in flood and when they found her she was far down stream. She had floated for a time, buoyed up by the fulness of her gown and some said they could hear her singing quietly to herself for a time ... and then there was silence. In death she was as beautiful as she was in life, perhaps even more so. Her secret died with her.

Girl in the Green Shawl

Girl in the Green Shawl

This is in response to Shadowlight's prompt, "When love turns to hate."

Girl in the Green Shawl

by Harry Buschman

Tom Ferguson was a senior guard in the French Impressionist wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He earned his job by right of seniority and he considered it an honor to be given such a trust. The wing contained some of the most valuable paintings in the Metropolitan’s collection. No visitor to the museum left without visiting the world famous collection of late 19th century paintings.

For fifteen years Tom watched over these paintings, ignoring the ache in his lower back -- flexing his knees from time to time to keep them from locking. He often envied the visitors who sat on the benches and enjoyed the priceless collection in comfort. He watched over the paintings far longer than the artists spent painting them. He thought of them as his children and he guarded them like a loving father. He knew them well -- the Renoirs, the Monets and the Cezannes -- but like a father he didn't understand them at all. He couldn't tell you why they were beautiful or why they were valued so highly. He couldn't tell you anything about the men who painted them. He had never been to Paris, or Arles or Avignon; but then, a museum guard is not expected to be a connoisseur, instead, he is expected to know the shortest route to the rest rooms and the elevator.

During these fifteen years Tom Ferguson developed a special affection for one small painting, "The Girl in the Green Shawl," an informal portrait done in a free impressionist style. The artist had painted the girl full face. Her soft brown eyes stared out frankly and openly at anyone who looked at her -- that's what attracted Tom in the beginning. Wherever he stood, her eyes seemed to follow him and watch him as he moved. He grew used to it in time and he was careful to keep out of her sight when he had to do things he didn't want her to see. He would mumble an excuse meant only for her, then when he returned; even if from a different direction, she would be waiting, looking for him -- she seemed to know where he was even when he wasn't there. Even when the gallery was crowded with people she only had eyes for Tom Ferguson.

The "Girl in the Green Shawl" was the only woman in Tom's life, and he fell hopelessly in love with her. When he was at home in the evening he would close his eyes and think of her hanging alone on the wall in the dark gallery of the museum and wonder if she missed him. What did she do alone in the dark? Did she wait impatiently, as he did, for the gallery to open again in the morning? He kept a framed reproduction of the painting on the wall of his bedroom, but It wasn't the same -- it was like keeping a picture in your wallet. A reminder of someone you love, but nothing more.

As the years passed, the painting grew more precious and mysterious to him. Why did the artist choose to paint her and not someone else? Was he drawn to her eyes as Tom was? What secrets did they share? Were they lovers? He was jealous of anyone who looked at her and even though her eyes never left his, he silently resented the visitors in the gallery who stared at her. He often wished he could take her home with him so they could be alone together.

If he were an artist would he have painted her just that way? What must it have been like to live in those days -- to be young and gifted? Maybe some of his pictures would have found their way to the French Impressionist gallery too. When he was alone, he studied every brush stroke in the painting of "The Girl in the Green Shawl." He would remind himself that she was there with the artist when his brush made those strokes.

Before the museum opened for visitors in the morning he would stand in front of the painting and talk to her. It was the only time they had to themselves. She would listen, and they would reach an understanding that would last all day. He named her Colette. A nice French name he thought, and one that suited her well. At ten in the morning the museum would open its doors and the elevator would start to hum, then the murmur of voices would bring him back to reality. It would begin another day of standing in the background -- sharing Colette with the visitors.

In the spring of the sixteenth year of Tom's stewardship of the French Impressionist wing, he found himself at a quarter to ten on a Tuesday morning talking to "The Girl in the Green Shawl." It promised to be a busy day. Three classes of liberal arts majors from NYU were scheduled to arrive at ten o'clock. Tom didn't welcome the competition. Most of them would be young and he was sure they would crowd around her, flatter her, and monopolize her attention. It would be another long and painful day for him.

While they were still alone he made it a point to tell her he loved her and to pay no attention to the young students who would soon be gathered around her. As he did, quite suddenly, as though someone had opened a window, a chill wind blew through the gallery.

He stared at the painting and it seemed to grow clearer -- more like an open window through which he could see her in sharp detail, not as a painting but as the girl herself. The room was suddenly filled with sounds and smells. They were in a restaurant, and he found himself sitting across a table from her. He noticed her green shawl was not new nor was it as bright as it was in the picture -- the air was smoky and there was the smell of onions, sausage and tobacco. There were rude sounds of laughter and argument in the background. Strange -- was she painted in this noisy bistro? He always pictured her in a summer garden with soft music playing in the background.

Suddenly, she spoke to him and her voice was nasal, shrill and complaining.

"What will you do without me in Provence, Thomas -- take up with some local milkmaid I suppose? Why must you go to Provence to paint in the first place?" She pouted and went on, "You can paint here, Paris is full of artists.” She made a gesture of exasperation, “I don't know why you have to be an artist anyway, why can't you be a painter of ceilings and walls instead of an 'artiste', -- walls and ceilings Thomas, that's where the money is. You could buy me things -- you'd be a richer man!"

This could not be the Colette he loved for all these years? No! It was some strange woman -- someone who wanted him to stay in Paris when everyone knew all the really great painters were in the south of France. He had to go!

"When I'm settled I'll send for you, you'll love Provence, Colette, The air is clean and the light is marvelous. I leave tomorrow, let's not spend our last night fighting." He wanted to get out of this foul smelling restaurant and into the night air.

"So then, what? What do we do then, Thomas? You want a good time -- no? Another night with Colette so you can take the memory with you to Provence! ... another notch in your precious palette."

Did she have to shout so? People were looking at her. To think he could have loved her all these years -- where was that magic part of her he loved so long? Yet ... maybe she had a point. Maybe she had the answer, maybe he didn't want her to come to Provence with him after all.

They suddenly stood up facing each other across the table like antagonists. Her shawl parted slightly and he could see the soiled strap of her slip as she shrugged into her cheap cloth coat and tied the shawl tightly under her chin. She was shorter than he thought she'd be. The waiter came over and tried to talk them into dessert, but the thought of eating something sweet in this sausage and onion filled air turned his stomach.

"Three hundred francs monsieur, come again soon." Three hundred francs, my God -- he could have bought a half a dozen tubes of paint for that. Together they hurried from the restaurant and out into the street.

"Your room, I suppose" she said loudly over her shoulder. Thomas didn't answer. They walked to his small apartment without haste or anticipation.

Thomas had never seen his room before. It was dark and smelled of oil and turpentine. Paper was stuffed in the window frames to keep out the draft. There were pictures on the walls, his pictures -- some finished and others in various stages of completion. They were awful! He couldn't imagine painting anything as badly as that. No wonder he wanted to leave for the south of France! No wonder Colette had no faith in him as a painter! He would be better off painting ceilings and walls in Paris than painting pictures like these. He was a fraud, a carnival painter, painting pictures of pictures -- pictures he'd seen before. It was a rude awakening to Thomas.

As she approached the unmade bed, Colette removed her threadbare coat and her shawl. Thomas could not bear the thought of making love to her.

"Make it a good one Thomas ... you're not going to find anything like this in Provence." She stretched out on the bed, crossing her legs. He could see bruises on her thighs and stretch marks on her hips. She clasped her hands behind her head and revealed hairy underarms. He had never made love to a woman in his life and during the lonely nights in his apartment he often fantasized how wonderful the act of love would be with Colette. Now he was appalled with the reality of it. He couldn't -- his fifteen year old memory was too precious to waste on this woman.

She stared impatiently at him -- her eyes were harder and colder than those of the girl in the picture. She uncrossed her arms from behind her head and said "what's the matter 'artiste' -- you going to make love with your clothes on?" He closed his eyes in anguish and when he opened them he found himself in front of the picture again.

A group of a dozen or so noisy art students had just stepped out of the elevator accompanied by a loud elderly gentleman who was obviously their teacher.

"Stay with me -- stay with me students, I want you to see the French Impressionist exhibit under strict supervision. You must see it in its proper perspective, it will be a hopeless jumble if you don't." They surrounded him noisily and started off for the Cezannes. "He was the beginning you see, he started it all. He is the bridge between the Romantics and the Impressionists. You will note his outlining of his compositions in blue -- he sketched the basic outline of his subject in this way.”

Tom backed off placing one foot behind the other. He was shaken. He was aware that he had just been transported into the past and back again. What he had seen there was disturbing and alien -- unfriendly, not like he thought it would be. The teacher's voice droned on through the Monets and the Seurats until the group finally crowded around "The Girl in the Green Shawl."

”This is a Dufy” the teacher said, “a minor impressionist, but note his treatment of the woman's eyes. He has painted the pupils in such a way as to make the eyes focus on anyone who looks at the picture. It is a technique discovered by painters of the Renaissance. Wherever you stand, the eyes will follow you." He walked up and stood between the picture and his students and smiled. "Just think, I can only look at one of you at a time -- but 'The Girl In the Green Shawl' can look at all of you together. This effect cannot be achieved in sculpture -- in sculpture the subject, carved in stone, is three dimensional, as you and I, and it will focus its attention on a single subject.”

Tom knew very little about such fine points of art. But he knew he loved Colette faithfully and truly for fifteen years and thought she loved him. In all that time he thought they had eyes only for each other. Now he knew she wasn’t at all what she seemed to be, and that if the teacher was right, her eyes had looked just as lovingly at every casual visitor of the French Impressionist gallery.

He waited until the group had finished their tour of the gallery, and as they drifted off to the Post Impressionist wing "The Girl in the Green Shawl" still hung on the wall looking at him, but now her eyes seemed to hold a hint of fear.

“You bitch!” he whispered, “You little bitch, all these years -- all the things you meant to me. I was just another face in the crowd, wasn’t I?” He approached her in the nearly deserted gallery and clenching his fists he muttered, “I was nothing to you -- nothing -- little innocent eyed Colette. Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, would it?” He reached up and lifted the picture from the hooks on the wall, and holding it at arm’s length he looked at it one last time, then he turned it over and slammed it to the floor face down and drove his foot through the back of it. The taut canvas burst open with an audible pop and his foot went through to the floor.

He stood and looked around at the other paintings around him, he began to shout -- ”What are you looking at? You’re all alike. Liars! all of you!” He limped clumsily like a man with a foot in a block of cement. He had one hand on Van Gogh's “Potato Eaters,” when Earnest, the guard in the Renaissance Wing came in to investigate the noise. “My God, Tom what are you doing!” He wrestled Tom to the floor and in doing so the two of them damaged "The Girl in the Green Shawl" even further.

Tom slowly regained his senses and with horror he realized what he had done. Colette’s portrait was ruined. He had driven his foot through her face. “I wanted to go to Provence, Earnest. She wouldn’t let me go. I think she must have driven me mad. I loved her, Earnest -- I trusted her and she was a whore -- I could tell you such things ... his voice trailed off and they slowly got to their feet.

“She's been looking at you, hasn’t she?” Earnest said. "Straight in the eye, right? It’s a trick they have Tom, the women in these paintings -- I wouldn't want to work in this wing -- too many of them -- too real. But over there, on my side, I’ve got them too, I’ve got Madonnas staring at me all day long. Blessed Virgins and God Almighty knows what else. Sometimes they try to drag me back with them into their time, then I find they’re not the blessed virgins I thought they were. They’re hookers the painters picked up in the street to pose for them.”

Tom picked up the picture and turned it over. "Funny," he said -- "she's not looking at me now." It was true, the eyes no longer looked at him. The damage seemed to have changed her focus. Indeed, she seemed to turn her full attention to Earnest.

"Gosh, she is a pretty little thing, isn't she," Earnest said. "Those eyes -- I’d swear she was looking directly at me."

©Harry Buschman

Quarter of Two

Harry Buschman

Seems to me it's been quarter of two forever, but it don't make a particle bit of difference in this town––nobody's goin' nowhere anyhow. Nobody's meetin' nobody neither. In fact, in this town if you got somewhere to go, you'd better not be here. It's hard to get someplace from here.

That there clock used to be in front of 1st Royal Trust National Savin's and Loan until somewheres back in the thirties it went belly up. Right after FDR told everybody we had nothin' t'fear but fear itself, it went bust. Well, I don't reckon it meant a lot to FDR but it sure was a kick in the ass to a lotta folks here in Fort Royal.

All that was eighty years ago and you'd think by this time we folks would have forgotten all about it. We woulda, too, exceptin' we're right back in the same kinda thing again. Along comes another depression and we're left holdin' the bag. There's a pizzeria where the bank used'ta be and that's gone bust too––only thing that's left is the clock out there on the street tellin everybody it's a quarter of two. That's the same thing as tellin' everybody there's nothin' t'fear but fear itself.

Eve's Unequal Children

By Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Translation by Harry Buschman

When Adam and Eve were driven from paradise, they were forced to build a house for themselves on barren ground somewhere east of Eden. Life was hard and they earned their bread by the sweat of their brow. Adam hoed the field, and Eve spun the wool, and every year Eve brought a child into the world. Some were beautiful – some were ugly.

Many years later God sent an angel to them, announcing that He himself was coming to visit their household. Eve, delighted that the Lord could be so gracious and forgiving, cleaned her house diligently, decorated it with flowers, and even swept out the corners. Then she brought in her beautiful children. She bathed them, combed their hair, put clean shirts on them, and cautioned them to be polite and well-behaved in the presence of the Lord. They were to bow down before Him courteously, offer to shake hands, and answer His questions modestly and intelligently.

She didn't want God to see her ugly children, however. She hid one of them beneath the hay, another in the attic, the third in the straw, the fourth in the stove, the fifth in the cellar, the sixth under a tub, the seventh behind the wine barrel, the eighth under an old animal hide, the ninth and tenth beneath the rags from which she made their clothes, and the eleventh and twelfth under the leather from which she made their shoes.

There was a knock at the front door. Adam looked through a crack and saw it was the Lord himself. He opened the door and the Heavenly Father entered. There stood the beautiful children all in a row. They bowed before Him, offered to shake hands, and knelt reverently.

The Lord blessed each of them. He laid his hands on the first child, saying, "You shall be a powerful king," He did the same to the second, saying, "You a prince," to the third, "You a count," to the fourth, "You a knight," to the fifth, "You a nobleman," to the sixth, "You a burgher," to the seventh, "You a merchant," to the eighth, "You a scholar." Thus He bestowed His richest blessings upon them all.

When Eve saw the Lord had been so generous, she thought, "I will bring forth my ugly children, perhaps He will bestow His blessings on them too." So she ran and dug them out of the hay, the straw, the stove, and wherever else she had hidden them. In they came, the whole coarse, dirty, scabby, sooty lot of them.

The Lord smiled, looked at them all, and said, "I will bless these children as well."

He laid his hands on the first and said to him, "You shall be a peasant," to the second, "You a fisherman," to the third, "You a smith," to the fourth, "You a tanner," to the fifth, "You a weaver," to the sixth, "You a shoemaker," to the seventh, "You a tailor," to the eighth, "You a potter," to the ninth, "You a teamster," to the tenth, "You a sailor," to the eleventh, "You a messenger," to the twelfth, "You a household servant, all the days of your lives."

When Eve heard this she said, "Lord, how unequally you divide your blessings. All of them are my children, whom I have brought into the world. Shouldn’t you favor them all equally."

God replied, "Eve, you do not understand. It is right and necessary that the world should be populated by your children. But if they were all princes and lords, who would plant grain, thresh it, grind and bake it? Who would forge iron, weave cloth, build houses, plant crops, dig ditches, and make clothing? Each shall stay in his own place, so that one shall support the other, and all shall be fed equally."

Then Eve answered, "Oh, Lord, forgive me, I spoke too quickly. Let your divine will be done with my ugly children as well."

This is in response to Shadowlight's prompt ...

A Hasty Retreat

To put the lie to that ancient maxim "always second guess a first impulse," let me relate a personal anecdote. I had occasion in my youth to visit the wife of the sheriff of Medicine Hat in Alberta. Her husband spent a great deal of time away from home ... chasing outlaws presumably. His wife was a neglected and lonely woman of surpassing beauty. It was my pleasure to fill the void, so to speak – although it was foolhardy, for the sheriff was an excellent shot.

One particularly warm and starry night in August, Sheila, (the wife in question) and I sat on her porch swing gazing at the heavens and taking sips in turn from her husband's home brewed bourbon. As we swung idly, gazing at the night stars, we tried as best we could to choose the one among them we chose to call our 'wishing star'. It would be our lucky star and one that would bring the two of us together when her husband met the rustler, Black Bart a far quicker man on the draw than he.

Our tryst was rudely interrupted by the sudden appearance of Sheila's husband on the stepping stones that passed for a walkway to their front porch. I realized immediately that my presence would be difficult to explain. Gathering my scattered clothing together as quickly as I could I kissed the lady goodnight and beat a hasty retreat. There would be no turning back that evening.

Had I paused to second guess my first impulse to take my leave, I'm sure I would not be alive to tell my story.

One Way Street

Harry Buschman

We always knew Ralph was crazy, but it wasn't until we were in eighth grade that we decided Ralph was really crazy. He wanted to be a taxidermist and he had already stuffed a cat and a canary.

When we reached the tenth grade, Ralph got an offer to stuff a dog. It was the coming of age to his young career, and maybe ours as well.

He stuffed a lot of things before that. I remember a canary that hung in its cage from a hook in the stair hall because it belonged to my mother. The cat belonged to my grandmother ... and Ralph stuffed the two of them. Taxidermy was only a hobby to Ralph then, and he said and he got the idea after spending hours in the the Museum of Natural History looking at the dioramas of the African wildlife.

I think the canary was his first try. Ralph was only a beginner and it wasn't a very life-like canary. He simply scooped out the insides and sewed the little thing back up again, then wired its feet to the perch it had previously sat on for nearly four years. Its eyes fell out one by one, then it drew flies so my mother threw it out.

I only saw my grandmother's cat once after it died, and that was when my grandmother kept it on a satin pillow in the living room. Ralph tanned the hide to preserve it and then stuffed it with cotton and bent wire. He made it look as though it was all curled up asleep on the pillow.

When the cat died, my grandmother wrapped it in rags, put it in a shoe box and buried it. I suppose she said some kind words over its sudden end and what it could expect in the hereafter. I'm sure it never expected to sleep on a satin pillow while it was alive. Ralph must have dug it up again. My grandmother was a gentle lady, an understanding lady, and she thanked Ralph sweetly, but you could tell she wasn't happy about it. Furthermore she had already adopted a new cat. Ralph never knew grandmother threw the cat out a second time. She asked me not to tell him and whenever Ralph asked me if my grandmother still had her cat I'd tell him yes.

The dog was another story. It was a wire-haired something or other and it belonged to Rudy Fleisch, the grocer. He called it "Turnip." The dog stayed home during the week because Rudy's customers didn't like the idea of a dog nosing around in the vegetables, but on Sundays Rudy and Turnip were inseparable. They would go to the park sometimes. Occasionally Rudy would take him for a ride in the car, they even went to McDonald's on Sunday mornings for breakfast and they’d eat together in the car. Rudy loved the dog as much or maybe even more than he loved Mrs. Fleish, that was apparent to anyone who saw the three of them together. As to whether Mrs. Fleisch felt left out or not I was too young to know. It didn't come as a surprise to any of us, however, when we heard that Turnip came to a violent end.

In short he fell out the window of the Fleisch's fifth story bedroom window one afternoon while Rudy was at work in the grocery store. I was in the store buying potatoes for my mother when a friend of his ran in to tell him. His eyes went glassy, he turned as white as one of his cauliflowers, and without even so much as emptying the cash register he left the store and ran for home.

He found his dog in the alley ... still warm, but dead, and looking up he saw his wife looking down at him.

"He jumped," she said.

Without another word, Rudy carried the dog three blocks to the veterinarian ... a fruitless effort of course, then seeing no further course of action, he waited for Ralph at the schoolyard with the dog in his arms. We were in high school by then and it was well known to all of us that Ralph had his career mapped out ... he was going to be a taxidermist. No doubt about that. He was already going part time to "Hide'n'Hair," a school downtown for mounting deer heads and fish for sports clubs. The rest of us were just getting interested in girls and none of us had the slightest idea what our futures might be, or even if we were going to have one, but Ralph was into stuffing animals full time.

In tears Mr. Fleish held out his dog to Ralph ... "Look what that woman went and done," he sobbed. "She says he jumped. Dogs don't jump. Cats jump ... he ... he was pushed. Ralphie, make him look like he was. You remember little Turnip, dontcha?"

We were all standing in the background, but we could catch the conversation word for word and I remember Ralph saying he would stuff Turnip so he'd be a dead ringer for the way he used to look. But that was the whole thing, he told Mr. Fleish ... he'd be a dead ringer.

"I can keep him in the store with me. I'll stand him on the counter by the cash register ... people can pet him when they buy their fruits and vegetables.”

"Whatever, Mr. Fleish," Ralph said. "It'll take a month though ... he'll have to be cured first."

"He's dead Ralphie, how can he be cured?"

"It's a term we use in the trade, Mr. Fleish."

Ralph took the dog from him and looked away ... and tentatively cleared his throat. “ ... and Mr. Fleish ... there’s a few things.”

“I don’t think I wanna know everything Ralphie.”

“It’s about where you’re gonna keep him ...”

“... on the counter, so people can can give him a pet on the head.”

“No, Mr. Fleish.” Ralph shook his head slowly and with a finality that belied his fifteen years. Looking back on it now I can see what was in the back of Ralph’s mind. No petting on the head. Life is a one way street and when it’s over it’s over. You have to change the routine. You can’t go back. You have to start with a new deck.

“He won’t put up with pettin’, Mr. Fleish. There’ll be parts of him that ain’t his ... and they fall off easy. You’ll have to keep him in a glass case.”

“Like a goldfish, You mean?”

“Yeah Mr. Fleish. Somethin’ like a goldfish without the water.”

Rudy reached out and took the dog back in his arms. “Give him back, Ralphie. That ain’t the way I want him back.”

Mr. Fleish took Turnip back to the vet and had him cremated. The urn, no bigger than a can of Campbell’s soup, stood on a shelf behind the cash register on his grocery store, and as long as I can remember, he’d give the can a pet or two from time to time.

©Harry Buschman 2010

(1190)

Frances Tucker’s Account

This morning Frances Tucker showed up at Citibank a few minutes after it opened and walked up to the writing desk. There, she dug into her purse for her fountain pen, unscrewed the cap and wrote out a withdrawal slip for her entire account. She replaced her fountain pen in her purse and took the slip to the teller's window. She passed the withdrawal slip and her identification card through the window, smiled politely, and said ...

"I would like to withdraw my account."

No. 2

She squared her shoulders and faced the Reverend Wesley Parkinson. "I am a woman of 33 years, Reverend. You might have reason to think that a woman of that age would no longer expect a proposal of marriage. You'd be right. I am not expecting such an offer and I am past the age where such a proposal interests me."

The Reverend Parkinson was disappointed. He knew for a fact he would never get the appointment as Pastor of the Windmill Farms Methodist Church as a single man. Who would handle the cake fair, the attic sale, the strawberry festival ... and the children's Bible study class during the Sunday services? He must have a wife, and the quicker the better. He was sure he would be mired at the seminary forever if he didn't get himself a wife.