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Fiction
Life And Death
A cold rain beat on the canopy over the grave site. John pulled down the brim of the walking hat she’d gotten him on their ramblings through Ireland. Just before he stepped under the canopy, he glanced up at the sky and recalled when his father had died.
September 1986The Love Story
We swore to do it till death do us part and neither of us crossed our fingers. That, in itself, was rather a miracle. We were hardly speaking at the time. “I will” was a long conversation.
August 1986Three Cities
A dozen men sit in comfortless plastic chairs staring at the floor. No one speaks. No one moves. Sunlight pours through yellow blinds into a room without time. It is clear that one is among the damned.
July 1986Children Kissing
“Ma! Ma, Patty’s up the big tree again kissing Billy! Ma!” I kept looking at Patty’s smooth face across the branch from me in the tree, and hearing Tony shouting into the house.
June 1986Relieving Ramona
I like Ramona. I want to win the lottery, pay her brother back for the car, bounce her and the baby out of the attic apartment.
June 1986Calligraphy Class
The artist speaks of the “muse” and the musician says “I was hot,” but in their hearts there is only mysterious joy: I was present at a beautiful event and yet it was not “I.”
June 1986Juliet
I call her “Juliet.” I don’t remember her name, and it is possible that I never knew it. Her image came to me at six o’clock every evening for years. I went to the upper floor of my house, entered any room, and turned off the light.
May 1986L’chayam
You want I should tell you about Abie — he should rest in peace. Sixty years I know him. . . . A long time. . . . The things I could tell you. You know the Freiheit? No? Of course not. By you it means nothing.
April 1986Cross Country Snow
Sam saw Hannah turn and beckon to him. He had stopped to watch her slide across the snow the way, years ago, those figures in the Munich Glockenspiel had seemed to slide out and turn so delicately before disappearing behind the face of the big clock.
April 1986Tully
Now in the long evenings after dinner she often found herself standing before the bathroom mirror, trying hard to glimpse some of the prettiness her husband had always championed.
March 1986
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