Short Stories

Below are a list of Short Stories. Please choose from one of the following stories to read it.

An Elephant Named Olympus
Miss Blue
A Girl Called Tree

Miss Blue

He sat alone and on his side of the porch. He sat away from the side with the three ladies talking -- the side with the glider. Rakestraw watched out the front from the house and up the car and tree lined street. He looked as if waiting for someone to walk toward the retirement home and come searching up the walk.

"You need to be doing something, Mr. Rakestraw," Bigger-One said. He knew the three ladies who sat coasting up and back in the glider only by description anymore: the Bigger-One -- the cushiony looking and overweight one that talked even more than the other two, the Skinny-One -- the one but skin and bones anymore with her cheeks looking as if they were pressing directly against her teeth. And the Patter -- the one with a continual twitch of her hand. Given names for the three had long since drifted away.

Bigger One spoke to him from the other side of the porch. She quit her talking to the other ladies long enough to speak to him and to him only, giving him a quick look, one just to acknowledge that he was there. He glanced back, hoping she wouldn't say anything else, anything he would have to answer anyway. Her knees sat exposed over the front edge of the glider and looking like white colored melons. Her voice squeaked as she spoke like a little girl, but came from a round faced and puffed jowl lady. She sat heavier that either of the men at the house. As quick as he looked over to her, his eyes returned to the front of the house with the cracked concrete walk and the wrought iron rest-home sign and chain-hung name tilting out all so gently from showing itself to the early afternoon breeze.

Bigger One is always talking, ran through his mind. If I answer her, then Skinny-One will say something. If she says something, then Patter will be right behind her. Besides, she has yet to say anything worth paying attention to. He continued his watch as if a silent sentry guarding and watching all that could be seen. He looked from the retirement home porch, first to the street, then all the way up to the old bus stop at the corner of Granden Road.
On that other side of the porch and near the three downstairs ladies coasting in the glider, sat the other man of the home. The only other male sat in a wooden rocker with a book lying open and across his knees. The professor's rocker tapped in a clicking rhythm as it rolled over the edges of the painted floorboards. It clicked in near syncopation with the glider and its own clacking out of a cry when it reached the back of its path and started forward again. Through the harmonics of the tapping of the rocker and the click-clack of the glider, both he and the ladies sat surrounded in their front porch music, the ladies visiting as if no one, or no sound, was around.

"You too, Professor Aspenwall." Patter said. Her twitch continued patting her on her right leg with fingers flitting like butterfly wings. She spoke while looking at the closest man, then back at the two ladies beside her.

One of the three wore a smell of lilac soap that caught itself up in a breeze as it passed, then radiated across the porch and mingled with the springtime smell from the ligustrum hedge at the edge of the yard. The ladies continued swaying in the gold colored, metal glider as their three heads turned toward the professor.

"You ladies are clattering as if you are lost hens running around before a storm," Professor Aspenwall said. He picked up his book then put it back down. He looked first at the glider full of ladies, then across at Rakestraw. "Carroll, if you remember, in one of his pieces spoke about them as loud and cackling. Chickens, I mean." He straightened up, his nose looking longer as he spoke. "The only difference is his hens running around in a Finnish farm yard and all three of you squatting and hollering like nursery rhyming chicken-littles perched up in that glider. And loud . . . " He looked at Rakestraw as if for confirmation. "Listen, you ladies talk like you are saying something to your counterparts on the porch next door -- at the next establishment down the line." He leaned forward and looked over his shoulder to the house beside them; no men but four or five ladies sitting on the porch. He couldn't see them well through the near overgrown ligustrum hedge, but knew from the sporadic laughter or an occasional shriek that they were there.

"Our three are talking loud enough that they and everyone else can hear everything you say and what you are doing," the professor said to Rakestraw, but as talking again to the ladies. My students back in the high school curriculum -- before I moved onto the University in 1959, I mean. They would be cackling horribly when I returned unexpectedly after leaving the room for some reason. But no, I do not think even they talked so much as you ladies." He leaned back but none of the three were watching. "There is no quiet time here, over there, or anyplace else in this world if you egg-laying hens can help it. Is not that right, Mr. Rakestraw?" The three paid him no attention as he did not ask, nor did they quit talking.

Rakestraw nodded to Professor Aspenwall without saying anything at all. He looked at the professor, him sitting in the rocker each day, his wooden cane and Skinny-One's walker between him and the glider. The professor would butt in from time to time but most days ended up sitting by himself and reading whatever he brought with him to pass the time. And listening. When he spoke, he would talk to himself out loud, maybe hoping Rakestraw would hear him and say something back.

"They talk only amongst themselves, that's what they do," the professor continued. "They never say anything worth hearing. That is when they bother to speak to either one of us. Isn=t that right, Mr. Rakestraw? No, they just talk to be talking. Mrs. Aspenwall -- God love and protect her. She gave me thirty-two of the best years of my life. She never did like that."

Not at all like Miss Blue either, Rakestraw thought to himself. Miss Blue never rattled on like that. Or looked like that either. Any one of the three.

"It is a kind of inborn duty they have," the professor said. He spoke only to Rakestraw as he tilted forward in his chair again, leaning as if they couldn't hear him when he did. His stretched and bent-over body looked as if it could tilt over even further and fall into the floor. "They must take turns doing their hair the way they do, all too curly and springy looking on the very top. And is it supposed to be blue like that or is it just me?" He leaned back and glared at the three before looking back at Rakestraw. "They talk like it is some kind of duty they are required to do. Like getting up each morning then talking, fretting, living again about their children or things of the past that once was, but is no more. All those stories and remedies they muster up. One cannot live in the past like that. Can you, Mr. Rakestraw? Besides, all they say cannot possibly be true. Can it, Mr. Rakestraw?"

Rakestraw didn't answer, just continued in his look toward the street . . .

Miss Blue never does that. They only stop so they can fall asleep at night . . . But Aspenwall is as bad, it's not just the ladies; him sitting over their playing like he isn't listening to what each one of them is saying. Then, him saying all those brash things, out loud to them like he always does. Even if it is true most of the time. They talk sometimes just to pass the time, is what I think. They start talking first, and then think about what they are going to say later. I quit listening to that years and years ago. Miss Blue never did that.

He watched as Aspenwall stood up, stretched out his still lanky and unbent frame, then walked to the front door to go inside. The professor smiled at him as he walked by, the smile being only partially returned.

"Looks like it might rain again late this afternoon," the professor said as he passed. "When you stand up, step up on something and look over there past the trees if you can. You can see it accumulating over in the west. It always does that this time of the year, you know. I check it in the paper each morning then watch and keep up with it. I know about the weather, all right. That and all the drug smugglers and skirmishes and what President Bush is doing these days. Did I tell you I met him one time?" He waited for an answer but it didn't come.

As Aspenwall walked inside, Skinny-One spoke, the one looking like the bones in her arms were loose and floating and only lightly covered with stark white skin.

"I didn't say anything while the professor was here, but checks are due in this Friday. Do you know it's the first of another month all ready? I wonder if he is going to order us all something from Reingold's Bakery like he did that time? George and I -- George my husband that I buried in '81. George would get us something special from time to time like that. I want the professor to get us a pie. That is what I want. I want a slice of one of those Mince pies like he got us that time before. You remember last month? Or was it the month before? Anyway, they're expensive. But he doesn't mind doing-for from time to time, does he? Did I tell you about the time?

Patter pulled her hand against her chest and leaned forward. "Or ice cream. That ice cream he bought that time, how do they say -- to die for -- at least that's what that middle grand-young un' of mine would say. You know Sarah May's and her William Denton's? Her husband, the out of work podiatrist I mean . . . I have told you about him, haven't I? Well . . . "

After enough time for the downstairs bathroom door to open, shut, then open and close again, Aspenwall pushed open the screened door and stepped back onto the porch. "I did not see anything on television tonight. Nothing worth watching, anyway. I can read something, though. I always have something to read. Dickens. That is what I will read. My classes always loved Dickens."

Miss Blue probably reads books, Rakestraw thought. I don't know about Dickens or any of that. But she probably reads in the evenings.

The gray cat, as if expected, walked across the curb and into the yard. It walked to the three wooden steps to the porch and jumped the first and last steps to the porch itself. The yellow striped one that always followed behind the gray, snuck along and to where the first one led.

"Here they are," said Aspenwall as he stopped to watch. "You can almost set your watch on them getting here. Every day they walk down from someplace up the street. Do you know where they go when they leave here, Mr. Rakestraw?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Someplace up toward the corner where the buses at one time stopped is what I think. They do not stop there anymore though, do they, Mr. Rakestraw? The buses, I mean. Probably some expert, some efficiency whatever, decided no one gets on or off there anymore and the bus should go on. The bus just picks-up and lets-off someplace else is all. Do not you think that is what has happened, Mr. Rakestraw?"

He didn't comment on what the professor said, but his eyes seemed to tighten as he looked back to the street and to the corner . . .

I remember that last day. That last time Miss Blue got off the bus up on the corner. It couldn't have been more than a week before I had to leave. She can't be the age to retire like I was.

The gray cat leaped into Rakestraw's lap then watched the other one walk to next to his chair. The yellow striped one walked around in tight little circles like matting down grass before it settled at his feet. Nothing else was said as Rakestraw sat with his legs crossed at the ankles, his lap formed just so for the gray cat to sleep, and the striped cat curled at his feet and beside his chair. The one always on his lap would lay there for the afternoon, sometimes stretch, from time to time look up at him, stare as if it maybe wanted to say something itself, then drop his head back into his thoughts, and slumber as if it had said what it needed to say. He and the cat both knew how to do that.

Miss Blue has a cat, he thought. I haven't seen it but I know she does. She's the kind who will have one. You can count on that. It will be a little cat, probably only the size of a kitten. Most likely it is white like it is newly fresh or just washed. Or gray, light gray, like dusted over with a soft powder. For sure it is one that stays in all day. Not one to have to put up with dirt and everything like these two have to do by being outside all the time like they are. No. It probably curls on a windowsill and sleeps in the morning sunshine before it gets too hot. Yeah, it probably does that.

Bigger-One got up so she could go inside and walked by him on the way to the screened door she had opened so many times before. She was one of the first to move into the home and had the choice room on the first floor, the one closest to the bath. She had a lot of calls and visits when she first moved in; aunts and cousins, even a sister. But no one much came anymore.

"You can tell it is afternoon," she said to the air or whoever was listening. "You ever notice how that big gray one will jump into his lap to take his own nap every day and crawl onto his already made bed? Every day, I mean. I still wonder where they go in the evenings."

"Wherever cats go when they are rested," Aspenwall said. "Wherever they go when they are through for the day, or have someone else to go see. You know how cats are, and their apparent need to be around someone or have someone to hold them. Cats are like that, you know. I mean to hold them. To keep them warm."

Bigger-One leaned over in her too small cotton dress, rubbed the cat down the back of its neck, then delicately with one large finger, smoothed the hair on the side of its face. The dress clung to her slip as she leaned over forming a cockeyed "Y" behind her. "That cat belongs to somebody, somebody with money. You can tell just by looking at it. That's too pretty a thing not to belong to somebody with money. And plenty of it, I'm telling you." The cat looked up at him after she left. It curled and returned to its sleep. Rakestraw looked down at the cat as if the two were speaking, then looked out at the sidewalk and back up the street to the corner.

"Mr. Rakestraw there is a widower," said Patter, the one with the patting hand. "And I've been a widow long enough that I can spot them. One gets a second sense about such things." Patter always wore long rayon or polyester pants; she had a pair of each and long sleeved button-up-the-front tops. A worn spot shown high on her right leg where her fingers continually waived. Patter reached forward and carefully pulled up on the sides of her knee high hose. Then, as if no one was watching, she lifted up her pants legs one at a time, tucking her fingers into the top of the hose and giving each leg one more pull.

"You told us one time, Mr. Rakestraw. It's been something like thirty years, hasn't it?"

He nodded his head yes, but didn't speak. Instead he rubbed the cat across its back and looked down the street to the corner again . . .

I know Miss Blue lives in one of those two houses on the end of Dennison Street. She walks that way so I know that is where she goes. Those two houses are the only ones I see that look like where she would live. But then, I've walked in front of each one of them too many times not to see her. . . . I know I'm not wrong. Of course, that was back when I was taking walks each day and when I could walk that far. That's been what? That's been over three years ago now. It looks like age has set me on this front porch and is trying to keep me here alone -- by myself except for those talking ladies and the retired professor over there who reads so much. That and watching television, worrying about the weather, the cats, the buses passing on the corner . . . All that. That and memories, I guess.

"We are talking about Mr. Rakestraw, I think I heard," said Bigger One. She spoke to the others as she returned from inside to take her place again on the glider. "Talking about him being a widower for all those years and nobody catching him."

"You said something one time about your children," said Skinny-One. "Boys, weren't they, Mr. Rakestraw?"
He shook his head no. "One boy," he muttered.

"That's nice. That's always nice when you have a boy. Every man needs a son I always said. He is married and moved away, I suppose? And everyone is doing fine? Has it been long?"

"I have grandchildren."

"Oh, that's not what I mean, "she said. "I mean, since you have seen him, silly. Since he and his family went to wherever he went, I'm saying."

"He is busy," Rakestraw said. He looked back at Skinny One after watching the other two chuckling behind hands held over their mouths. "I get cards sometime."

He looked down the line at the other two but nothing else was said by he or Bigger-One . . .

It's okay that he's not close, he thought. He needs to have his own family, I suppose. That's what a man is for. His wife, his children; that is what he needs. I'm okay right here where I am. He calls at Christmas and most of the time on my birthday. Besides, he doesn't understand about Miss Blue. If he could have somehow met her instead of just hearing me rattle on about her. It's been over thirty years since his mother passed away. I know he will understand if he ever meets her.

"He was such a catch," said Bigger-One. She squirmed from side to side trying to find her place again in the corner of what amounted to almost half of the glider. "I remember the first time he came to this house. It was right before you retired, wasn't it Mr. Rakestraw? I remember you wearing your Captain's hat and you in uniform and all."

"Captain's hat?" Patter asked. I didn't . . .

"It was with the bus company," Skinny One answered. "He retired from the bus company. I remember. It was something like forty years you drove wasn't it, Mr. Rakestraw? You looked so nice and so official like; your silver hair making you look so distinguished. It's a wonder of mankind why some lady never trapped you. I mean, you with retirement pay for all those years and all."

"Is that why he always stares up at that old bus stop?" she asked again.

"I know what I know because his boy told me when he was here Christmas before last. Or maybe it was the year before that. Who can keep up with them the way they come and go so fast? Anyway, he drove the Granden Road route for the better part of his last ten years. That's right, isn't it, Mr. Rakestraw? Before then he drove routes all over town and whatever routes the bus company assigned him. He got to do all that. But those last years, before they said he was, you know, retirement age, it was always Granden Road. Isn't that right Mr. Rakestraw?"

He looked at each one of the three as if verifying what was said, then looked back to the street . . .

I saw Miss Blue before I actually started the route full time. It was one of those times when somebody was sick, or off on vacation -- I forget which. I suppose it really doesn't matter. But I remember her even that far back. It would be too hard to forget.

She caught the bus each morning at eight-o-five on the dot then returned home that day at five-sixteen -- almost the first stop in the morning and near the last at night. Rain never slowed her. Or cold. I worry about her but she was always there . . . Miss Blue is a thin lady. Yeah, thin and almost frail someone could say. Not like other people I see; these ladies around here like Bigger-One or Patter; these that put on weight and wear huge clothes made for heavy people to wear. Or so skinny; not thin, but grotesque like Skinny-One over there -- those that can't fill up what they wear. No, she is not like that. Miss Blue is more like . . . like fragile but tough china. That is what she is like. And she is like something that is always quiet; something that you seldom see but stare at when you do. She is delicate like she never eats anything at all. Oh, I'm sure she does but I can't imagine what she would ever eat. Or even her sitting down somewhere besides on the bus or maybe at her work. I still want to take her out to a fine restaurant to eat some time. And this time, oh yeah, this time if I have a chance I will definitely ask her . . . Some day she will walk by here. Some day she may even turn up the walk. I will be here when she does. Yes, I will definitely be here.

"I always admired those jaunty hats," Professor Aspenwall said. In times of pomp in academia -- those occasions when we wear hats with our robes -- they are more English in design and intent. And definitely not to be taken frivolously. But I must admit I have admired Ronald Coleman when he wears one like you must mean. As he walks along the tundra surveying a flight line before a midnight take off. The hats that are rounded down on the sides, I mean. And for when one wears those teardrop shaped eye glasses."
He heard what the professor said but immediately looked away from him and back toward the corner . . . Are they sitting here talking about themselves and what is their's, then saying things to me just because I happen to be sitting over here? The old has-beens. No, never-weres is more like it. If they really want to know, I guess I could tell them.

If they asked specifically, I would tell them all about her, anything they want to know. I would do that. I would first say that she isn't tall but she isn't short. That she isn't heavy, but she isn't skinny either. I would say that she wears lace and taffeta and things that look soft. That's the best way to describe them. She wears lots of blues or grays, all looking and smelling like coming from a satin lined armoire. One with two closing doors and white pearl looking knobs. And with a tiny tin of crystals sitting in the corner to keep everything fresh and delicate. And silk hangers; those padded silk hangers that smell so nice. She uses things like that. Then on special days; or just days it is pretty, or in the spring, she will wear a rose; probably from a bush she has grown, one with a new bud reaching out for her each morning after it has washed open in the morning dew . . . Then, on those overcast days, or days that are sad, she will wear her soft-blue rain coat; sky-blue it is as if a reminder for the sun and for the clear sky to return. It must be for others to see; see and feel better for seeing it, is what I think. She is like that.

On misty mornings I still remember her standing at the bus stop and seeing her all the way from the corner where I turn off of Hope and onto Granden . . . She will be wearing her blue raincoat and holding her umbrella; it tilted and leaning back and jaunted to the side like some southern belle with her parasol, or like someone in a movie, in a painting hanging in a museum showing people in a park on a Sunday afternoon. Even in a picture in a fine magazine.

And I would specifically tell Bigger-One about those dressy days, those special days when Miss Blue wears her blue flowered dress with little white flowers on it. But most often she wears skirts; skirts that sometime swish as she walks. And blouses with her skirts. The blouses are always long sleeved and lacy in front. Even in the summer she wears long sleeves. And with a broach; it is always centered just so -- ladies know how to do that. Then her gloves -- she, of course, always wears gloves. In the winter she wears warm and heavier gloves because of the cold. But even then, they always seem like something only a lady like she would wear. In the spring, then on around until the next hard cold, she wears her laced gloves, them thin and white and lace on the top and rows down the top of her fingers. There is a button across her wrist and at the palm of her hand. I remember that. She has other gloves but they are all nearly the same. She must change them at home in the privacy of her room or something. She never shows her hands, or her fingers, or anything like that in public. Just those thin white gloves.

"It's hard," said the one with the patting hand, interrupting his thoughts as she spoke toward him. "Oh, how I know that it is hard. It's been eight years now since my Charles passed on -- since he went on ahead of me, I mean. He left me okay, mind you. I guess that is the main thing. Not well off mind you, but not to where I have to worry about things either. No, not like that. I'm okay and don't have to worry. I'm thankful every day for that. That is the main thing, isn't it?" She looked to each of the men first, then the other ladies. "After the first couple of years I thought about maybe getting out, and, you know, meeting some people. You know what I mean? Some nice gentleman. Someone Charles would approve of. But over thirty years, Mr. Rakestraw. I'm sure I would have met somebody else in all that amount of time."

He didn't comment back to Patter but locked his gaze again toward the corner . . . She works down town, somewhere in one of those gray stoned government buildings. Other ladies from those buildings will be standing outside at five o-five each day; talking, with sun tan and red lipstick on their faces. Their hair is loose and blowing if there is any breeze at all. But Miss Blue will always be standing there and be standing alone, her umbrella up if it is drizzling or maybe even if the sun is bright and the outside is too hot. She is always standing there with every hair staying right where it is supposed to be and looking just as fresh and new smelling as, . . . as . . . What does it smell like?.... like smelling white lace and opened-out roses.

Most of the time she will sit next to the window in the third row and on the right. I remember when someone beats her to her seat, some passenger who doesn't know any better. I will gawk at the intruder through the rear-view mirror and wish at the person so hard and stare so long that they will get up and move right then into some other seat. It works every time.

He shifted his weight, picked up the cat, recrossed his legs, and put the cat back across them.

She buys a weeks worth of tokens when she gets on each Monday morning. After those first few times, I don't even have to ask if that is what she wants. She will give me two crisp dollar bills and I will have her ten tokens all ready for her. I will hold her dollars for her fare in my pocket; all folded and kept away from the other money thinking maybe it is somehow special or different from the dollars other people give me. Then, and when the day is over, I will exchange them for two of my own.

Miss Blue will have to stand there beside me on some days -- those days when there are people in front of her on the bus and going back to their seats. That's when I can smell her perfume, a perfume with a faint smell, not the too sweet smell of fragrance counters in department stores. It is an aroma that lingers behind her and overcomes the sour smell of the bus diesel and the hot tires and make the bus smell like . . . I don't know, -- open fields and sunshine. I will for sure tell Skinny-One about that.

When she first gets on, she will snap open her change purse with her long glove-covered fingers then take one of the tokens and drop it in the fare box. She will then put the little blue change purse back into her pocketbook. Oh, I'm careful to wait each day until she had closed her purse, smiled politely the way she does, and then walks back to her seat. She will take hold of the handrails with her glove-covered hand as she walks. I will make sure she is sitting and only then, and when I think that she could probably motion, will I start the bus and pull out into traffic.

Yeah, I will tell those three when they go on and on about money, that always in her purse is a handkerchief. I remember looking for it sometimes when her purse is open and she is reaching for her token. It is always a lace handkerchief. It will be lying all bundled up, not pressed or smoothed out, but more like a flower laying flat. In the corner of the handkerchief will be tied a dime. Like the two dollars for the bus for the week, she must deal out her dime along with her other money each payday as to what she needs to spend, and where it will have to go.

She doesn't stare at other people as they get on or off the bus, though sitting where she does she can see them all. Only occasionally will she flick her eyes toward someone or something. Then, and even quicker, she will look back to something in the window and on the outside.

Each week, mostly every week on Monday, she will see someone, maybe even someone in the back; a boy perhaps with a school book under his arm, a girl maybe with a bag that no one knows what could be inside. Or sometimes a young mother holding her child. She will take out the handkerchief - I watch her through the mirror - she will untie the tiny knot, and take out the dime.

She will wait until the bus is stopped, and the others are getting off and standing near the side door. Then she will quietly get up and walk up to the one she picked. I will keep the bus still for her as she walks along grabbing hold of the railings on the back of the seats. She will speak then and talk almost hushed so you can barely hear her; at least so none of the other passengers can hear. She will say that she found the dime on the floor and wondered if it was their's. Most of the time they will take it, but if they won't, she will smile her little smile and say something to them -- something like, "it's for the baby," or "I want you to buy something you want to have." Then they will clutch the dime in their own hand and Miss Blue will return to her seat.

All that has changed somehow with the bus company and their outdated rules about getting too old. Whoever told them what "too-old" is? But with no bus to drive and no place to be by seven-fifteen each morning, I still think moving closer to the end of Granden Road and within walking distance of where Miss Blue must live is the right thing. Oh, I've looked for her. The Lord knows I've looked for her. Back when I could walk alone, I did it a lot.

Sometimes I even stood alone at the bus stop on Granden Road in the evenings. The professor always wanted to say something but he never did. I would wait, the bus would stop, but the lady with the white lace gloves never got off.

I don't know why I don't see her getting off the bus anymore. I still watch each day just in case. I am always here in case she remembers, or when the bus stops again, or if she wants to ask me something and walks down the street and up the walk to see me. But if she doesn't come today or tomorrow, I will still wait each day, just the same. I will walk down the steps at five o'clock each day, down the walkway from the porch and out to the center of the cracked sidewalk. From there I can look up the street toward Granden Road even better. I can look for the bus to pass, watch it if it stops, then watch it until it starts again and pulls away from the curb . . . Yeah, I do that every day. And that is what I will tell them. They may not understand, but I will tell them anyway.

As if called, he suddenly set up straight in his chair. He looked around then tilted his head to the side and listened. He only heard the sound of a reminiscing kind of quiet. He listened to the stillness of the glider and the absence of the talking, the ladies, the professor, and the cats. They are all gone.

He checks the time then pushes himself up, takes hold of the banister, and walks down the three steps to the walkway and down the walkway to the sidewalk. When he finally stands on the sidewalk, he turns to his left and looks again. He looks all the way up the street to the empty corner and where the bus had at one time stopped.

He looks for a blue raincoat on the corner and maybe an umbrella. He stands there until the sun starts to go down and looks for a lady with a lace handkerchief;

A white one tied in a knot on the very end; a handkerchief hiding a dime.

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