Magellan by JD Clapp, cheap beer

 They’d spend all-day each Saturday at Murphy’s, sitting on the same barstools at the far end, under the red, white, and blue glow of the PBR neon sign. On the big screen, they’d watch football in the fall, hockey in the winter, baseball in the spring and summer. He kept an open tab. He always paid.

            When dark came, she would take him to her apartment over the garage on the alley painted with gang graffiti, home to the homeless, and a nation of rats. She felt safe with him walking the three blocks from the bar to her bed.

In bed she called him Magellan. “Who?” he’d ask, as his hands roamed clueless of any desirable destination. As he grunted atop her, his whisky breath winds carried her away to white sand beaches, lapped by tepid aqua marine blue waters. In her mind she swam, and her body came alive. She basked in the warm embrace of salt and sand.

After, he’d cough and shiver. They would lay silent for a while, then he’d ask “hungry?”

“Sure,” she’d answer. He’d cook her eggs and toast and clean the kitchen while she ate. When she finished, he’d kiss her forehead and say, “early morning at the meat plant tomorrow,” and before he closed the door, he’d say, “next week.”

            Alone on her couch she’d watch the travel channel until she fell asleep, happy for a full day of dreaming ahead before the clock reset on its endless countdown to next Saturday.

About the author

JD Clapp is based in San Diego, CA. His story, One Last Drop, was a finalist in the 2023 Hemingway Shorts Literary Journal, Short Story Competition. His stories have been published in numerous outlets. Twitter @jdclappwrties; www.jdclappwrites.com 

 

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A Nice Day for a Funeral, by JD Clapp, whisky

 On a crisp and sunny October afternoon, the Carpenters stood by a freshly dug grave. Emily Jane Carpenter rested in the simple wood casket her father Colton had made two days prior.

 

The widow Bridger, their neighbor who believed in the Pentecost, agreed to pray over the grave. “Jesus,” she said, “Please take this lost soul into your everlasting embrace. She was sinner like us all. But she got on them pills Satan brung to our holler. And she was sick and tormented by his evil demons.”

           

After the praying, each of them threw a handful of dirt onto the casket. Only Emily’s ma, Tracy, cried. No one made a eulogy.

           

Alone at the grave, Colton used the back of his shovel to pat the loose dirt down around the apple tree sapling he planted to mark it.

 

“It was a nice day for a funeral…goodbye baby girl. Rest in peace,” Colton said aloud.

 

Then he lit a joint and headed back to the little farmhouse for supper.

 

About the author 

JD Clapp is based in San Diego, CA. His story, One Last Drop, was a finalist in the 2023 Hemingway Shorts Literary Journal, Short Story Competition. His stories have been published in numerous outlets. Twitter @jdclappwrties; www.jdclappwrites.com 

 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

A Grave on the Border by JD Clapp, Mexican mocha

Just north of the border, the deer a hunter shot laid dead on a fresh grave. Under a cross made of two sticks tied together with jute rope, a small stone sat on a photo of a man so it wouldn’t blow away in the desert wind.

           The hunter drug his buck from the grave to dress and quarter it. As he worked, the hunter imagined the dead man had a beautiful wife and two young children. He imagined the dead man in his Mexican village telling his family he would go north to make enough money to start his farm. The hunter envisioned a big celebration upon the dead man’s return, how excited his famila would be to see him. He thought of the dead man’s beautiful wife, hugging and kissing her prodigal husband, her breasts pushing into him with want and relief. He imagined the man’s children clinging to his road-tired legs, tugging at his shirttails, begging for candy from el norte.

 But he knew the man’s children would never visit this remote grave on dia de los muertos to have a picnic with the ghost of their father. He knew their father’s memory would fade just like his star had faded when his own kids grew older. The hunter knew with painful certainty the dead man’s wife, who never liked to be alone, would remarry her good for nothing neighbor, the man who had always coveted her. It disheartened him.

 Then he thought, I wouldn’t mind this grave. It is a peaceful and pretty spot. So, the hunter decided not to report it. And he took the photo of the dead man from under the stone, put in his pocket, and hiked back to his camp with his meat and the deer’s rack.

Back home, when sleep escaped him, the hunter gazed at the antlers of the deer that died on the grave and the photo of the dead man pinned below them. He would wonder how the dead man’s wife was getting along with her new man, and what his grown children were up to. He hoped they still thought of him occasionally, missed him on holidays. He wondered if they were always wondering too.

About the author

JD Clapp is based in San Diego, CA. His work has appeared 101Words, Micro Fiction Mondays Magazine, Free Flash Fiction, Trickster Literary Journal, and Sporting Classics Magazine.

 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

One Last Dinner in Positano by JD Clapp, Vermentino white wine

 Nona grew morose the day she turned 93. She stopped eating and perseverated about a dinner she shared with a man named Pietro on her 19^th birthday, back in Positano. Alberto, her grandson and namesake of Nona’s husband, had never heard of Pietro before.

 

 Nona’s melancholy upset Alberto. He desperately wanted her to eat. Each morning, Nona sat at the kitchen table, staring down at her frail hands folded before her.

 

“Nona, please eat some breakfast,” he said.

 

“Nothing sounds good. Just coffee, eh?”

 

He made her a cappuccino and toast.

 

She sipped her coffee.

 

“Have some toast, Nona.”

 

She took one bite.

 

Alberto felt compelled to cheer his grandmother. Before he reached high school, his mother died, and his father moved abroad for work. Nona raised him. Now Alberto took care of her.

 

Alberto went to Nona’s small garden. He picked two zucchinis, a dozen squash blossoms, a handful of fresh basil leaves, then stored the harvest basket in the kitchen covered by a damp cloth.

 

            He found Nona in the living room, sitting in her chair, her eyes closed, listening to Puccini’s La Boheme. Alberto lightly touched her shoulder.

 

“Nona, tonight I am cooking something special for us.”

            “No…No…do not trouble yourself with me. Take your lady out for a nice dinner,” she said.

 

            He kissed her cheek.

 

            “Nona! You are my lady,” he said.

 

            She smiled faintly.

 

            “I’m going to the store. You rest now,” Alberto said.

 

###

 

            Alberto drove to San Remo’s Market and picked up the ingredients he needed to recreate her 19^th birthday dinner. He grabbed a bottle of Vermentino white wine at The Bottle Shop. He went to Gelato Luna and purchased fresh pistachio gelato. Then Alberto headed home and went to work.

###

           

At dusk Alberto escorted Nona to the picnic table set with her favorite dishes on a white tablecloth. Nona overlooked the garden. Alberto lit several candles and a decorative string of lights strung on their fig tree. It was a mild, clear, June evening.

 

            Taking it all in, Nona said, “It’s beautiful.”

 

            He poured two glasses of the wine.

 

            “Salute!” Alberto toasted.

He served the cream of zucchini soup topped with crostini.  

 

            “This tastes like my mother’s soup,” Nona said.

 

            “It’s her recipe!” Alberto exclaimed.

 

            Smiling, Nona clapped her hands. She finished her entire bowl.

 

            Next, Alberto served the fried squash blossoms, the dish she remembered most fondly from her dinner with Pietro.  

 

                 “You made the blossoms! Questi sono meravigliosi!”

 Nona bit into the delicate fried, stuffed flower. It dribbled.

With his napkin, Alberto gently wiped basil and ricotta from her chin. 

               Nona ate three.

               Before dessert, Nona recounted the story of Pietro, a man she loved but her father disapproved of, 

confessing to Alberto she loved his grandfather, but had never been in love with him. 

               “What if I had eloped with Pietro?” 

               Alberto just smiled.

               “Follow your heart, Alberto!”

               Darkness fell as they ate gelato. Fireflies danced in the garden. Nona’s eyes twinkled. 

               “Just like Positano! Grazi!” 

About the author

 JD Clapp is based in San Diego, CA. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in 101Words, Micro Fiction Mondays Magazine, Free Flash Fiction, Trickster Literary Journal, Wrong Turn Literary, Vermillion, and Sporting Classics Magazine. 

 

 Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)