Tuesdays with Story

Fifth Tuesday stories
January 29, 2019

Writing challenge: It’s January in Wisconsin. We’re deep into winter. Where would you rather be? Maximum length for your story, poem, or essay is 500 words.

Time to Jump In

Brandy Larson

A white brahma bull stands alone on a high hillside—red earth and tufted green grass. We drive past with meadow and acacia trees on either side. The small fruit stand is next to a rocky outcropping on the edge of the road. Stopping for a cold coconut, our vendor deftly hacks off the top of the green husk with a few strikes of his machete and offers a straw—cool and not too sweet—coconut wata. Down to the last drop, he whacks the shell in half and we scoop out the jelly lining with a wedge of green husk for a spoon. Food of the Goddess.

(Time to turn on the space heater in the basement to prevent the pipes from freezing.)

A roadside restaurant trails fragrant smoke. My driver Jefta pulls in and we place our order as we watch the smoke rising from the wood-fire coals roasting half jerk chickens. Sitting at a picnic table beneath a thatch roof, we sip from sweating bottles of ginger beer and Red Stripe. The pretty young woman who took our order calls us up to the counter as she chops the roasted meat into irregular pieces with a cleaver, crunch crunch, on a thick round of wood. She has prepared plates with chopped cabbage and carrot salad and a stack of white bread and butter in a basket. We nibble the meat off the bones, eating with our hands.

(Put on some layers and insulated boots to brave the morning air. I brush off snow here and there to set out some seeds mostly for sparrows, my flock of over 30 birds. I put out peanuts in the shell for a couple of crows that have also been hanging around. The suit is frozen, so they can’t get at any of the much-needed tallow.)

On the back veranda, the sea is visible about 75 yards down our yard and a slope above purple flowering lignum vitae. The narrow path is foot worn. A goat enclosure is on the left, on the gentler side of the hill. The humble gate is tied closed with a bit of fraying rope. In the morning, Miss B—79 and not counting—staff in hand, heads down to let them out to free range for the day. They come up behind her single file with a big nanny in the lead. The kids, many recently born, frisk about exploring, hopping everywhere and butting each other. They are tan and white, spotted tri-colors, some black, some grey and two white ones. Last trip, I named her Milk and her kid Milky. Some are smaller African goats suited to this semi-arid land, but recently some larger goats have come into the herd. The big nanny produces triplets instead of twins. Up in the yard, they drink from buckets and nose around for tossed-out kitchen scraps.

(Clearing the snow off the car again. There is a light crust on the top. I check the food I put out for the rabbit and the opossum last night. It has been covered in snow.)

I walk down the foot path to the bay thinking how long feet have smoothed the way, many bare feet even today. First the Taino people nearly wiped out by disease sometime after Columbus arrived in Jamaica in 1503; the pirates starting around 1655; the Africans, freed in the British Empire by law in 1834, they (the men?) got the vote that same year; and more recently the local folks, some descended more than several generations ago from shipwrecked Scottish sailors who stayed, became fishermen with last names of Elliott, Gordon and Strachan, who bought large tracts of land.

Billy’s Bay, named after a pirate, stretches for a mile to the north, ending in tall sedimentary cliffs and below sharp reef rocks above the water level. I wander down the beachfront, one of only a handful of people, wading knee deep in the surf and planning to go to Frenchman Bay Beach with bigger waves for body surfing and people to hang out with. Pelicans reel and dive for their dinner. I see someone out on the reef with a spear gun. Maybe he’ll stop by B’s later and sell me some fish.

(School cancelled again today, on Monday, for snow and now for the bitter cold and brutal winds. The weather guy said it’s colder here now than in Alaska or even in the Antarctic! Lowest temperature here in 20 years. Even my cat Alsan is getting cabin fever.)

I’m packing my shoulder bag with journal, book and swim suit. Coated in sunscreen, I put on my sunhat. First I’ll walk to the bakery—called the coffee shop by the locals—to hang out with some resident tourists and real tourists. The bougainvillea riots over barbed-wire fences and privacy walls of homes and villas. Tiny lizards dart here and there. There are cacti of many sizes and shapes, huge blue agave plants and flowering poincianas. Later at Frenchman, I hope the surf is up.

Time to jump in.

 

 

Why the Heck Would Anyone Ever Want to Live Anywhere Else Than Wisconsin?

Mike Austin

The weather was fine, Clint told himself when he reached his brother’s house in Florida. But the damn traffic. The traffic and the lines and the retirees all yelling and complaining and looking at him as if he was a foreigner. “I don’t belong here,” he was thinking, just as his cell phone buzzed.

“Clint! You gonna make it to euchre night on Saturday?” Saturday. Hm. Four days and a thousand miles away. And, when he’d left, almost 90 degrees colder. Plates of braunschweiger and limburger and crackers. Pitchers of cold beer, and a fire in the old stove in the corner. “Bob’s bringing pickled herring.” Damn. Clint looked at his brother, who’d promised him a winter of work, and no snow or cold. Damn. But Clint already knew where he wanted to be.

“I’m sorry, Ronnie,” he told his brother. “I really am. But I just got a better offer.”

An hour later, the cracked bubble compass on his dash, fixed on “N” was finally pointed the right direction.

 

 

 

The Weatherman

John Schneller

The weatherman stared into the camera. “It’s January 29th, my final forecast with WKOW-TV. And before we get started, I need to tell you one thing. Record wind chills tonight. You are all going to die.”

That was my first hint that it was time to skedaddle. My car was already packed and had been running for the last thirty-six hours. Taking no chances on the dead battery scenario. Unfortunately, that meant the gas tank was on E and my first stop was Kwik Trip. My suitcase had the vintage ‘Escape to Wisconsin’ with the ‘to’ crossed out and ‘from’ scribbled over top.

There was no question where I was headed. I had spent a Christmas to New Year’s holiday week in New Zealand nineteen years ago. The dollar was strong then. Currency was seventy cents on the dollar and my inner-Kiwi said, “You should consider buying a house here.”

I didn’t.

That does not mean I hadn’t think about it since. Especially when they finished filming Lord of the Rings and all those earth shelters in Hobbiton became available. I applied for a purchase visa, but the country has a sense of humor. They have a Gandolf department which sends you a voicemail with a crack of thunder and a “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!” message. Then a sweet little voice comes on, “Exceptions are made if you are under four feet tall and can prove you are of Hobbital heritage … birth certificates not accepted. Size 24 foot size is considered sufficient.”

That’s all in the past. In 2019, a month away will do. My friends still live in Kaitaia. Beaches are still beautiful. Seafood is good enough for me to founder once more.

The flight is great except they are playing the same movie as our flight in the year 2000. And only one movie to choose from. Turns out the thirteen-hour flight allows six showings of It’s a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart must have been banned from both New Zealand and the U.S. He now lives in the mist over the Pacific.

As I woke from my attempt to sleep through the last showing, we are landing. My neighbor mutters something about our plane being diverted due to pilot error. I try to ask someone on the jetway, but no one is talking. Once in the terminal I see a Welcome to Australia sign.

Could be worse.

Then … I walk by the first waiting area with a TV and see a weatherman starting his broadcast. “It is January29th, my final forecast with station URiNiT. And before we get started, I need to tell you one thing. Record heat index today. You are all going to die.”

 

 

 

To Cruise or Not to Cruise

Tracey Gemmell

I slam the door and kick the snow off my boots onto the mudroom floor. Damp gloves and a tumbling of snow from my jacket hood leave soggy splotches on the counter. I plop the mail down: envelopes stuffed with Christmas spending documentation. A couple of late Christmas cards—sad and somehow irrelevant. Catalogues.

I unwrap my scarf. “Next time, you get the mail. It’s freezing out there.”

Scott’s sympathy shivers. “What’d you expect?”

“Not much.” Not much at all.

Shaking my shoulders—to warm myself and to break free of the jacket—I survey the counter: Last of the mince pies in a Tupperware container, a floral arrangement dropping petals in the sink, dog hair—of course. It’s everywhere. I groan at the thought of housework. Not that I have a choice. Dragging the Christmas tree across the entire house, out the patio door and into the garden has left a trail of destruction and prickly reminders that will catch in socks for months to come.

The dark months to come.

I flick through the bills but laser in on an aerial shot of a ship sandwiched between the banks of a meandering river—a castle one side, a vineyard stretching away into the distance on the other.

It’s sunny wherever that ship is.

Warm.

“Look at this.”

Scott ambles over. “What? The bills?”

I push the bills out of his line of vision. “No. The catalogue. Viking Cruises wants us to know there’s a two-for-one special on. And airfare is reduced.”

“Viking Cruises wants us to know? Or you want me to know?”

“Both.” I blow on my fingers to incite warmer blood flow. “No harm in looking.”

“Last time you said that, we ended up in Bora Bora.”

“I rest my case.”

Scott shrugs his shoulders. “Point taken.” He looks over my shoulder at the glossy pages.

The Danube. The Seine. The Rhine. The Rhône. River cruise ships trickle past my eyes, pooling in the “Book Now” area of my frontal lobes.

“Why not? No kids at home, no writing deadline. No—”

“—Money left.” Scott looks over his glasses, first at me, then at the New Year greetings from the credit card companies.

“We could send your Christmas presents back,” I say. Helpfully.

“Or you could go back to work at the hospital?” Scott doesn’t sound helpful at all.

I pat his shoulder. “That ship sailed a long time ago, my friend.”

“Based on your literary earnings, Viking Cruises may have to sail without us, too.”

I look at the ship, shiny and enticing, then scoop the catalogue into the recycle bin.

“I’d rather stay here and write.”

“I’d rather you did that too.” Scott sighs. “But first, we need to clean up these pine needles.”

I get the broom. Scott drags out the vacuum.

Still cold, I sweep past the thermostat. I add another degree.

 

Winter Elsewhere, a Reminiscence

Larry Sommers

Today is January 29. In four days the Groundhog will emerge and see his shadow—or not. Either way, we here can forget about warmth until mid-May.

So, where would I rather be? The only place I can think of is . . .

The 1950s—where else?

It was not especially cold then. Snow did gleam white—except on city streets, where it sank into a purple-pink paste after public-works employees laid down coal cinders for traction (snow tires, at the time, concealed in the future).

Our house sat on high ground. Behind it, a wooded hill dropped steeply to the river bottoms. From the corner of our backyard, a narrow trail slalomed between ragged maple and willow trees. We called it “the snake path.” Flopping down on your wood-and-steel sled at the top of the snake path, you hurtled down through a patch of meadow, picking up speed; then, suddenly, you entered the trees, where dodging left and right became your sole preoccupation. Sleds had wooden bars for steering, but there was a limit on how sharply the steel runners could be warped through a menacing curve. Kids with short sleds and pointy-toed engineer boots had an advantage; my sled was as long as I was, and I was shod in four-buckle galoshes.

If one made it through all the trees—and we all got very good at it, even those of us with long runners and rounded toes—then one shot forth from the woods like a speeding bullet and zoomed up a mound of earth near the end of the trail. Barely subsonic, we flew off the top of that mogul and sailed as much as ten feet through the air. Those who managed to stay plastered on the sled at the sudden reunion with Mother Earth could wrench the steering bar violently, hang a right angle to starboard like those little cash carriers that skimmed along the ceilings of department stores, and, with no loss of momentum, coast a quarter-mile down an old dirt road to the little bridge that spanned the aptly-named Stink Creek.

This place exists in the 1950s; but not now. The geographic coordinates are still there. There is still a hill and a road and, somewhere out in the boondocks, a sluggish river—but the woods are gone, the snake path is no more. The mound of dirt that launched us so reliably into the air must have been levelled long ago. If you know the history of the place and you stand at the bottom of the hill, you might see the route traced by all those long-ago sled rides, etched invisibly in the air around you. But you have to bring the software for that inside your head. The historical society has posted no plaque.

Other experiences in life have sometimes yielded more excitement—a commodity of dubious worth—but few have ever matched the plain satisfaction of navigating the snake path on a Flexible Flyer.

 

Ahhhh – January in Wisconsin

Cindi Dyke

I am a child who loves snow. Glorious snow. Snow forts. Snowmen. Snow angels. The days when snow falls in feet instead of inches and the obligatory chore of school is legitimately abandoned for the day.

I am a teenager who enjoys snow and tobogganing with friends. The higher the peak, the greater the challenge. The steeper the drop, the colder the wind on my face. The stone fireplace in the warming house. The smell of wet wool mittens. Cedar logs that crackle and pop.

I am a mature woman who does not care for snow. It is too cold. I hate scraping ice from my frozen car after work. Cross country skis and snowshoes now. Not as fast. And not as far to fall.

I am a retired senior who hates the fucking snow and can’t for the life of me remember why anyone would choose to spend the winter in this sun-forsaken tundra. Walking is the only outdoor activity left for old bones easily broken. Ten minutes to haul out the required clothing layers. Twenty to put them on. Another twenty to take them off. Ten to put them away. An hour of tedious exercise. I no longer need the walk.

I am a seasoned elder who heads for the islands every January, each warm respite stretching longer than the year before. Bare toes in sand ground my soul. Ocean air breathes vitality into my spirit.  Sky and water share an astonishing blue by day, an inky shimmer by night, and the demarcation between heaven and earth is blurred.

Each day I walk the beach for miles with Gary and our dog. Tessa is also retired now, from her work with Therapy Dogs International. She enjoyed her job, was good at it, too. Her love, given without restraint or condition, let her reach troubled children in ways that humans couldn’t manage.

Our little trio has traveled far and shared much. We head north each spring with our next winter escape already planned.

But this year, there will be no escape. One of us can’t make the long journey to sunny shores. Tessa is nearly fifteen, over one hundred in human years. It doesn’t yet show in her efforts, but we see aging in her cloudy eyes, her white muzzle, her inability to jump up on the couch and lean into me. So I drag pillows to the floor and lean into her. We huddle together, bracing ourselves against the blizzard outside our door. Wind churns snow into drifts and chills the air to minus thirty as we try to remember the melodies of waves and gulls. The dance of sea oats on the dunes. Does she remember rooting out sea shells for me? Or sand between her teeth?

My own home feels inexplicably unfamiliar in January, but as I pet the sleeping head in my lap there is this certainty. There is no place on earth I would rather be.

 

Day from Hell

Bob Kralapp

It’s not a call I want to make, saying I’ve lost my car keys. That they’re somewhere in a snow drift. And the last thing I want to put out there is the poor-me thing. No one wants to hear that. But that’s what it’s going to sound like. Poor me.

Jan laughs. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll send Cathy over with the spares.”

“Thanks. We’ll go for breakfast, okay?”

“My choice?”

“Of course.”

She’ll say things like that, vaguely cute, that open onto something else. Way out there, vibrating the atom’s core.

City busses are down. Jim lives closest, so I call him, and he drives me to work. Everyone’s gone for the afternoon, so I vacuum the place, fold clothes, call the police, let them know what’s what. The men who live here arrive. Four men of varying competencies. Macaroni and cheese, which they love, is dinner, so I get that started. I count out their medication. Light is bleeding from the air. Clouds hang dark and wooly.

Half an hour before my replacement’s supposed to arrive, the phone rings. It’s him. I can barely listen. I’ve heard it all before. It’s going to be a long night.

Jim picks me up in the morning, sun in a sky the shade of a robin’s egg. His is just about the only vehicle on the streets.

“I didn’t mind getting that call last night. Not a bit.”

“Snow was coming down by then.”

“I would’ve gotten stuck. I was glad to get it.”

It was a hard call to make. Until then, I was flailing. Listening to the kid whine about crashing his car and not having a way in, I kept thinking: Don’t you have any friends? Isn’t there anyone you can ask? Resolve came again that I needed a job where I didn’t have to work with these kids up out of Chicago.

Ahead on the median strip, as if to verify something obvious, is a Volvo hatchback. There’s a yellow tag fluttering from the side mirror.

Jan is waiting with the keys, holding them out the screen door.

“There you go.”

“Everything okay?”

“Just got back from the grocery. Ready for another blizzard. Take care.”

I jingle the keys. “Thanks.”

Now I’ve got four sets. Jan gave me the car when her mom couldn’t drive. One dollar. It always starts. All kinds of weather, but not like this. When we get in the downtown, there it is, tucked in a drift.

Jim slows to a stop, says he could use a bottle of Grey Goose.

“Sure thing.” I shut the door, and he’s gone down the street.

With my gloved hand I touch the fender, the driver-side mirror, unlock the door, get in. The old engine catches first thing. While it’s warming, I brush snow from the back window and the front. There, under the wiper blade is a narrow piece of paper. A ticket. Twenty-five dollars.

 

North to Alaska

Jerry Peterson

He knew it was his lucky day when he found that twenty-dollar bill in the Sears parking lot, and he knew what to do with it.

Invest it.

He slopped his way through the slush, across the street to the Kwik Trip. “What can I get for twenty bucks?” he asked the clerk.

“The lottery’s got a new scratch-off game,” she said. “Hit It Big. Scratch off six numbers and you could win two hundred thousand dollars.”

He looked at his bill, at the first six numbers on it, considered them, then ran a finger down the list of winning numbers next to the Hit It Big game. There they were, not the first six numbers on his twenty, but the last six numbers, the seventh set of numbers down the Hit It Big’s list, his lucky number seven.

He inserted his twenty into the machine.

After a moment, it burped out a ticket.

One lonely ticket.

With a dime he found beside the lottery machine, he scratched off the first number. A four.

Then a seven, a two, an eight, a one, and another four.

He threw his ticket into the air. “I’m a winner!”

The clerk hustled around. She snatched up his ticket and proceeded to check the numbers on it against the numbers on the winner list. She whistled. “Dicky Bob,” she said, “you’re gonna get two hundred thousand dollars. Well, a hundred thousand after the tax man takes his cut.”

A hundred thousand dollars. That had to be one huge pile of twenty-dollar bills, he thought. He’d never seen that much money.

He, too, whistled. “Know what I’m gonna do with this?” he asked. “I’m gonna get myself out of this puny Wisconsin winter weather and go up to where it really snows. I’m gonna go to Alaska, buy me a dog team and a sled and run the Iditarod. Ten days to cover a thousand miles of ice and snow. Man, that’s my idea of heaven.”