To Build A Fire,, byim Bates, Hot Black Coffee

 

The wind howled down the canyon. Above the granite walls, the leaden sky leaked snowflakes that swirled around the two figures huddled on their knees against the cold. They needed to get a fire going. Fast. Before it was too late.

            "Jerry, how are those matches holding up?" Steve asked. He had his gloves off and was blowing on his frozen hands. His fingers were turning white, and he was losing all feeling in them. "Can you get that kindling lit?"

            "Shit, no," Jerry swore, his frosted breath immediately turning to ice, adding to the cake building up on his beard and moustache. "I've got three left, and I can't feel my fingers to hold them. Can't feel a damn thing." He blew on his fingers to emphasize his point.

            Those were not the words Steve wanted to hear. It was twenty degrees below zero. If they didn't get a fire going in the next few minutes, hypothermia would set in, and they'd begin the slow, agonizing process of freezing to death. He blinked to keep his watering eyes from freezing shut. It didn't help, and he rubbed at them to clear his vision.

            Next to the two men, the rushing water of the Yellow Knife River cascaded over ice-covered boulders on its way to Lake Superior ten miles to the east. Steve and Jerry had been on a winter hiking trip along the trail that ran high above the river when the ledge of snow they were on collapsed, and they tumbled thirty feet down the steep slope into the frigid water below. In just seconds, their heavy winter clothing, Jerry's dark blue thermal pants and parka, and Steve's tan Carhartt overalls and insulated jacket were soaked through to their skin. The wet clothing and the numbing cold was a dangerous combination.

            They had scrambled out and found a level spot in the snow and took stock of their predicament. Their day packs were lost, and Steve had sprained his wrist. Jerry had wrapped it as well as he could with a wet scarf, but it didn't help much. One consolation was that the cold helped numb the pain, but that was all. Steve could feel his beard icing up and, with his face getting numb, it was getting hard to speak. He wasn't much help. It was up to Jerry to build the fire.

            They'd built a small teepee of twigs and pine needles but a combination of wet stick matches and a wind swirling down the narrow canyon walls made getting the match lit next to impossible. With two matches to go, their prospects were grim.

            Steve shuffled on his knees closer to Jerry, their heavy clothes forming a barrier from the wind. Then, in a gesture of profound intimacy, he motioned to his friend, "Here, give me your hands."

            When Jerry balked, Steve said, "Don't give me that macho BS." He motioned again and said, softly, "Here, let me help." Steve took his friend's bare hands in his and, ignoring the pain in his wrist, drew them to his lips and blew on them, warming them with his breath.

            The warm air melted the ice on Jerry's hands, and it dripped onto the snow, freezing immediately. Blood flowed into his fingers, bringing them back to life. In a minute, he could wiggle them. "Hey, man, that feels good. They're better." He flexed his hand. "I can feel my fingers, now."

            Steve blew on last long breath, and then Jerry quickly moved his hands away, took the second match, and struck it against the side of the matchbox. Nothing happened. It was too wet. On the second try, it broke apart and fell to the snow, useless.

            The two men looked at each other. "Here," Steve said. "Give me your hands again."

            Steve again cupped his friends' fingers and blew on them, willing warmth into them. Their faces were windblown and red. Their teeth were chattering and their eyes watering so much they kept freezing shut. Their beards were filled with chunks of ice. And they only had one match left.

            The sun was setting behind the pine trees lining the rim of the canyon. With the lack of sunlight, the cold was settling in deep and hard.

            Steve blew on Jerry's fingers one last time. "Ready?"

            "Yeah." Jerry took the last match, resolve set in his eyes. He looked at Steve. "Let's do this."

            "Go for it, man."

            Jerry struck the match. Both men watched, their lives hanging in the balance, as the flame flickered...then faded... then caught.

            In spite of ice-covered beards and frozen faces, they looked at each other and grinned. Then, they quickly set about building a roaring fire. 

About the author

 Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. He loves to write! His stories and poems have appeared in over 500 online and print publications. To learn more and to see all of his work, check out his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com. 

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Saturday Sample: January by Jim Bates, black coffee

 

From under the covers, I checked my phone for the outdoor temperature. The reading came up and I blinked twice to convince my disbelieving eyes. Oh, wow. I honestly didn’t expect it to be so cold out there, but, minus twenty-eight degrees? Man, that’s brutal.

The curtain on the window at the head of our bed had frozen onto the pane of glass. My wife Meg yanked it free and used her fingernail to scrape ice off the window to try and look outside.

I watched the ice shavings fall to the sill.

‘Cold out, I guess,’ I said, trying to strike a congenial tone.

It fell flat. ‘Geez,’ Meg said. ‘You think? The ice is so thick I can’t see a thing.’

From the next room three-year-old Allie heard us talking and cried out. ‘Daddy, I’m freezing.’

‘Yeah, Dad. It’s like the north pole in here.’ Five- year-old Andy was not known to mince words.

From their muffled voices I could tell they were both huddled under their covers for warmth.

‘Coming!’ I yelled.

Meg gave me a shove to get me going. ‘You see to the kids. I’ll get breakfast started.’

 

‘I’m on it.’ I swung my feet out of the warm covers (flannel sheets, cotton blanket, wool blanket, thick quilt) and onto the floor. ‘God. It’s freezing in here.’ I could see my breath. ‘Damn. The stove must have gone out.’

‘Welcome to the Northwoods,’ Meg said, standing up and pulling her thick robe tight. Then she grinned. ‘Are we having fun yet?’

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head. ‘No comment.’

‘Good,’ she said. To make her point, she blew out a cloud of vapor. ‘None needed.’

She went off to the kitchen while I hurried into the kid’s room. We were living in a tiny, four hundred square foot cabin, on the edge of the small town of Esker, located on the shore of Lake Moraine in northcentral Minnesota. We were on the main highway between Bemidji thirty miles to the north and Park Rapids thirty miles to the south. Our plot of land was one-hundred feet by one-hundred and fifty feet and in a grove of about one-thousand dead or dying jack pine trees, average diameter four inches, average height eighty feet. At one time it might have been dense and lovely, but now it was, frankly, mildly depressing, if you thought about it, which I tried not to. You could see right past the bare trunks of the trees to the boarded-up building across the highway and the empty homes on either side of us. In other words, it was kind of a forest, kind of not.

 

It was January 2021, and we’d moved up here to get away from the pandemic. So far so good. None of us had been infected, but that was beside the point. We hardly saw anyone, let alone interacted with them, so getting Covid wasn’t a huge concern. The pressing issue was that it was so cold the very real possibility of us freezing to death kept rearing its ugly, frozen head.

We’d been here a week, and it seemed like a year. I helped the kids get dressed and got the fire going in the wood stove that provided our only source of heat. I’d done a crummy job banking it with logs when we’d gone to bed the night before and the              fire        has burned      out.      Lesson              learned, hopefully. The kids helped with the re-starting process for about a minute, handing me a stick or

two, before beginning a rambunctious sword fight.

By the time the fire was roaring and the little cabin was starting to heat up, Meg had put together a warm and filling breakfast of oatmeal and pancakes.

The kitchen was small, but we were all four able to squeeze around a table shoved against the wall across from the sink.

‘What’s on the agenda today, Lee?’ Meg asked. ‘Firewood. I’m going to cut some more,’ I told

her, dumping maple syrup all over my pancakes before adding a dollop to my oatmeal. ‘We’re going through it pretty fast.’

 

The woman we’d rented the cabin from, Gladys Hawkinson, initially wanted to sell the one-hundred- year-old structure. She’d had no takers, but when we contacted her about renting, she’d agreed.

‘You’ll have to cut your own wood, though,’ she told Meg on the phone. ‘I’m done with that BS.’

Meg and I agreed to her terms. I mean, seriously, I was twenty-nine and in shape from working out at the health club and running. How hard could cutting wood be?

Well, I’ll tell you, if it were sixty degrees in the middle of October, it’d be fine. But way below zero in the first week of January, chain sawing firewood was another story.

‘Okay,’ Meg said, leaning over to Allie and wiping syrup from her chin. ‘Sounds like a good idea. Make sure you dress for it.’

No argument there.

Our landlady had had ten chords of fifteen-foot logs delivered as part of the rental agreement. It was a mix of poplar, birch, oak and pine. ‘Here’s a chainsaw,’ Gladys told us when we’d met in Park Rapids where she lived to finalize the agreement.

‘Thanks,’ I told her. I’d never run one before, so she gave me a quick lesson. Piece of cake, I thought to myself.

‘Still want to rent?’ she asked.

The pandemic was getting worse. Vaccines were on the way, but because of our age we’d have to wait a while. I looked at Meg and she nodded. We were all in. ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘Bring it on.’

She shook hands with us. ‘It’s a deal.’ And we signed the lease.

 

Later, I will swear on a bible with my frozen fingers that under her Covid mask she was smirking. Suckers, I’m sure she was thinking. You’re signing a year’s lease to live in that dump. It’s your funeral. Just make sure you pay me on time and we’ll be fine.

We waved good-bye and drove our Honda Fit north thirty miles to Esker. It was twenty-nine below. We had no idea what we were getting into.

That had been a week ago. The temperature had stayed way below zero and our days were spent with me cutting firewood and Meg running an at home preschool for the two kids. When she needed a break, she came out and cut wood, and I took over with the kids.

We shared cooking and cleaning and kept reminding ourselves we doing this for safety of our family from Covid. Especially for Andy and Allie. We hadn’t had our shots because the vaccines hadn’t been released yet. My parents had gotten Covid early on in 2020 and Mom and Dad had both died. All over the world, people were dying every day and it was scary, so not many begrudged us moving north, and the ones that did, too bad for them. For us, it was the right thing to do for our children.

That morning, I used the chain saw to cut a good supply of sixteen-inch-long logs. Then, after lunch, the next step was to use my axe and split them. Once that job was completed, I’d load up the wheel barrel and haul split wood to the back porch where I’d unload it and stack it inside, ready to be used in our stove. All of this while navigating through two feet of snow on the ground.

The one good thing? Cutting firewood was hard work but warm work. I actually worked up a sweat even though the day had warmed to no more than ten below. I’d even taken my insulated jacket off.

The bad thing? It was exhausting work and by late afternoon my arms were like two lead weights hanging from my stiff and sore shoulders. I’m sure that had something with what happened. I was coming down the home stretch on splitting the logs and not paying attention. (Another lesson learned, hopefully.) I took a might swing and managed to NOT hit the log exactly dead centre like I should have. The axe deflected and hit me square in the shin bone. Oh. My. God. The pain was unimaginable. Not to mention the blood.

Later that night after we’d gotten the kids to bed, Meg and I sat on the couch in the living room which was the main room in the cabin. It was also where the wood-stove was located and the warmest room we had.

‘How are you feeling?’ Meg asked, sipping from her nightly glass of red wine.

I set my book aside, and, grimacing, tried to sit up straight. I had my leg stretched out, resting my foot on a stool. ‘Not too bad.’ I’d opened a three-inch gash in my right leg. The doctor at the clinic in Park Rapids had stitched me up and said, ‘You’ve got a nasty bruise, but at least you didn’t break any bones. Go home, rest, and let it heal.’

I got the feeling he’d seen this kind of thing before.

Meg looked at me. ‘This is going to make cutting firewood difficult.’

‘I know.’

She was quiet, thinking, then asked, ‘What do you think? Should we break the lease and go home?’

I             didn’t   have    to          think.   ‘No.      We        made   a commitment, remember?’

Meg smiled. ‘We did.’

‘We’ll stay for the kids, even though,’ I pointed to my bandaged leg, ‘it’ll be even harder.’

‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘Me neither.’

‘I still think it’s the right thing to do.’ ‘Me, too.’

She stood up and kissed me and helped me stand. I put my arm around her and we headed to the bedroom. ‘Hold it,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Let’s not forget the fire.’ ‘Right.’

We added more logs and went to bed.

 

Tomorrow was another day. There was wood to cut and bring in. We didn’t have any choice. Somehow, we’d figure out a way to make what we were doing work. We really didn’t have any other choice. We had a pandemic to try and beat. I just had to be more careful outside. Especially with that damn axe.

 

Find your copy here

About the author:

Jim is an award-winning author who lives in a small town in Minnesota. His stories and poems have appeared in nearly hundred online and print publications. His collection Resilience was published in early 2021 by Bridge House Publishing. Additional stories can be found on his blog: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com.

Saturday Sample: Where the Heart Is by Jim Bates, alcohol-free wine

Wearing a pink tank top and tights, Lindsey Copeland danced out of her corner into the center of the ring. Her opponent, a kid named Frankie she knew from her seventh-grade art class, approached her confidently. She could see him smirking and she knew exactly what he was thinking. You’re going down, little girl. Or something like that. He was a bully in school and thought he was tough stuff. Too bad for him.

Lindsey was fighting in the first round of the first fight of her life. Without stopping she danced right up to him and belted him square in the forehead. Even though he was wearing a boxing helmet, his head snapped back and tears came into his eyes. He blinked them away, but it didn’t help. She grinned to herself. Just like Uncle Sid taught me. Take ‘em by surprise.

In a matter of seconds, she hit him twice more, a left in the stomach and then a right cross to the jaw. For a skinny wisp of a thing, Lindsey had muscle, and her punches were like being hit by cement blocks. They were also unexpected, and Frankie stood stunned before reeling into his corner.

The ref put her hand on Lindsey’s shoulder to stop her from stalking him, “Hold it a minute, sister.” Lindsey looked at her. Her name was Skeeter, a well-respected former boxer, retired now for nearly ten years. Skeeter winked. “Nice couple of shots there.” She raised Lindsey’s arm. “The winner! Technical knockout.” The crowd of about fifty or so cheered and applauded. Then Skeeter guided the young boxer to her corner and said to her uncle. “Well done, Sidney. You’ve got a good little fighter there. See you in the next round.”

Uncle Sid helped Lindsey out of her gloves and gave her a high-five. He grinned. “Excellent work. Next time remember to keep your right up a little more. But that first left jab to the forehead was awesome.”
            Lindsey spit her mouthguard into her hand and said, “Thanks, Uncle Sid.” Then she took a long drink from her water bottle. Her heart was pounding, adrenaline running through her like a freight train. Man, that was fun!

Uncle Sid wrapped a towel around her shoulders and prepared to lead her out of the ring. She glanced at Freddie’s corner, hoping he was okay. He was. He had his gloves off and gave her the thumbs-up sign. Good. She liked to box; she just didn’t want to hurt anyone. Not too bad at least.

She was fighting in the U12 class, twelve years old and under. It was a round-robin tournament, and she was the only girl fighting. She was sure all the guys thought she’d be a pushover. Ha! Too bad for them. Talk to Frankie. He still looked a little crossed-eyed.

            At five feet two inches, Lindsey was tall for her age. And skinny. “You’re like a broomstick,” her Aunt Claire had told her when she’d first come to live with them a year ago. “I’ve got to put some meat on those bones.”

            So began meals of pancakes and eggs in the morning, roasted chicken and mashed potatoes at noon, and roast beef and gravy and garden-fresh string beans at night. Or some variation thereof. Lindsey ate it all, happily, because she was always hungry. But she never gained an ounce.

            Uncle Sid smiled six months later when his wife complained about their niece’s lack of weight gain. “Don’t worry about it, Claire.” He turned to Lindsey. “Show her what you’ve got.” Lindsey proudly flexed her arm, showing off her newly developed muscle. “See,” he winked at his niece and gave Claire a one-armed hug. “It’s all muscle.”

            “Humph!” Then she grinned good-naturedly. “Well, I guess that’s okay, then.” She really did want her niece to succeed; after all, her life hadn’t been a bed of roses up until then.

            Claire’s mother, Brittany, was a sales rep for a medium-sized publishing house. She was a free-spirited woman who traveled the country meeting with clients and was only home maybe twenty percent of the time. She’d had Lindsey when she was thirty-five, telling her younger sister when she told her she was pregnant, “I think I’ll give it a try. You know this mother thing.”

            Claire was aghast. “Brit, you can’t approach being a mother like that.” She’d raised three sons and knew what it took. Plus, all the time she’d been raising the three boys she’d had a full-time job doing bookkeeping for Willard’s Construction, the company her husband, Lindsey’s Uncle Sid, worked for.

            “Sure, I can, little Sis,” Claire had said, uncorking a bottle of wine. “Watch me.” She’d poured two glasses. “Here’s to us.”

Claire had dealt with the alcohol demon off and on for years until she’d quit on the day after her thirtieth birthday. That was  twenty years ago. She picked up the glass and poured it down the drain. “No thank you.”

They were in the kitchen on the twelfth floor of Brittany’s townhouse in downtown Minneapolis. Brit paid dearly for the million-dollar view of the Mississippi River and Saint Anthony Falls and the Stone Arch Bridge. Which was a shame, Claire thought, because her sister was hardly ever there. Claire poured a glass of water. “I wish you’d reconsider.”

Brittany guzzled her White Zinfandel and poured another. “I already have, Sis. The light is green for go.”

Claire had had all she could take. “Well, fine. It’s not you that I’m concerned about,” she said, walking to the door. “It’s your unborn child.”

Brittany laughed. “My child?” She drank from her glass and walked toward her sister, swaying slightly. “You mean my daughter, don’t you?”

Claire’s eyes went wide. “Daughter?”

“Yeah, sis. I’ve been checked. It’s a she. I’m calling her Lindsey.”

In spite of her anger toward her oldest sister’s irresponsible behavior, Claire had to smile. After raising her three boys, it’d be nice to have a daughter in the family.

It was good she felt that way, because she became a surrogate mother right off the bat, driving downtown nearly every day from her and Sid’s home in Orchard Lake, twenty miles west of Minneapolis.

Pretty soon, it was clear that Brittany was more than willing to turn over bringing up Lindsay to Claire. Sleepovers at her aunt and uncle’s became long weekends which became a week, then two. Then a month. Then an entire summer.

Finally, Sid said to Claire, “Why don’t we just have her live with us full-time? She could go to school up here. She’s already got a bunch of friends.” He smiled at his wife and gave her a hug. “She could be the daughter you never had.”

Claire laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “She already is.”

Sid grinned. “My point.”

At first reluctant, Brittany finally relented. “Go ahead,” she finally said after relentless pressuring by Claire. It was the summer Lindsay was just starting fourth grade. “It’s for the best.”

Years later, Claire would always remember how happy both sisters seemed. For entirely different reasons. Brittany wasn’t cut out to be a mother. Claire was. And she loved her niece. Even to the point of indulging her desire to become a boxer.

“I just don’t get it,” Claire told her when she’d first broached the subject. “Why boxing?”

“Why not?” Lindsey pointed at her uncle who had just come home from work. “Uncle Sid did.” Which was true. Sid had boxed right up through high school and into college when he’d hung up the gloves for good, saying to everyone he was sick of getting beaten to a pulp. Plus, he was starting to get headaches and boxing wasn’t helping them any. Besides, he’d met Claire.

“I don’t mind you boxing,” she’d told him. “I just mind seeing you get your ass kicked.”

She had a point. Truth be told, Sid had more enthusiasm for the sport than skill. But at least he was smart, smart enough to listen to Claire anyway. He quit soon after.

But he still liked the idea of fighting, especially the one-on-one aspect of it. He watched fights on YouTube and when Lindsey joined him in watching he didn’t think anything of it. Claire didn’t mind. Too, much. Except for occasionally shaking her head and muttering, “I don’t see the point.”

But there was something in Lindsey that attracted her to the idea of proving herself in the ring. She watched a lot of women boxers and had Uncle Sid teach her the rudiments. So, when her high school announced over the summer that it was going to field a boxing team, Lindsey begged and pleaded to be allowed to join. Uncle Sid was overjoyed, Claire less so. But she reluctantly went along saying, “As long as she doesn’t get hurt.” She poked a finger in Sid’s chest. “Train her well.” To Lindsey, she said, “I only want you to have fun. When it’s not fun anymore, tell me, and that’ll be that.”

“Okay, Aunt Claire,” Lindsey had said. She was thrilled.

Over summer she’d trained with Sid and by the time fall came around, it was apparent she was a natural. She was fast on her feet and skillful with her punches. She caught the eye of her coach, Soren Blackstone, a history teacher and former boxer himself. He took her aside that first month and said, “There’s a tournament in Minneapolis in November. Talk to your folks. I think you should be in it.”

She’d talked to Sid and Claire and they’d agreed to let her box. She was ecstatic.

And she’d won her first round.

The second round was against a kid named Bucky. He was tall and thin like she was. He was also as skillful as Lindsey and hit her hard four times to every one of hers. Fortunately for Lindsey, one of her punches bloodied Bucky’s nose and the fight was stopped. They bumped gloves when it was over. “Sorry about that,” Lindsey said, pointing to the towel Bucky was holding up to his nose. It was turning red.

Despite the blood, Bucky grinned. “That’s okay. It was fun.”

Lindsey went back to her corner and drank from her water bottle thinking that Bucky seemed like a good guy.

Sid gave her a high five. “Way to go Tiger. You’re in the finals.”

 The next day, Lindsey found Alex Young. He was a short, muscular kid who hit Lindsey without mercy. She took every hit and gave him more back, punching with four or five left and right jabs to every full-blown swing. She also kept moving. In fact, she wore him out. By the end of the third and final round, after boxing for nearly six minutes, Alex was exhausted. Lindsey could see it in his eyes. He even had trouble holding his arms up. Finally, the moment she’d been waiting for happened. He dropped his guard. Lindsey hit him with a hard one-two punch to the head that sent him stumbling backward. He fell into the ropes and pitched forward, falling to the mat, too tired to get to his feet. She’d won.

Lindsey was awarded a gold medal and a blue ribbon for first place.

That night at home she sat down with Sid and Claire. They were celebrating with pizza and ice cream. When she was finished, she said,

“You guys, I’ve been thinking.”

“About what?” Claire asked.

“About the next tournament?” Sid asked grinning. “You’re quite the fighter, you know.”

Lindsey smiled. “I know. I love boxing.”

Claire could tell something was up. She reached over and rubbed her niece’s shoulder. “What’s up, honey?”

“Well, I have to say that I like boxing. I just don’t like hurting those guys.”

“It’s part of the sport, though,” Sid said.

“I know. It just doesn’t seem right.”

Claire looked at Sid. “We promised to let her decide.”

“I know.” Sid looked at Lindsey and smiled. “Do whatever you want, sweetheart. Your aunt and I will support you.”

Lindsey smiled, relieved. “Good.” She told them and when she was done; her aunt and uncle couldn’t have been happier.

Lindsey continued to box. She also became an assistant coach and helped Soren Blackburn train hundreds of boxers. She went to college and got a degree in physical education and teaches at Orchard Lake High School.

And she has a gold medal she keeps hanging on the wall in her bedroom to remind her of that one tournament. The tournament which she not only won, but also where she met her future boyfriend and then husband and father to her two girls, both pretty good boxers themselves.

Originally appeared in Periodic Stories Volume IV

Find your copy here  

About the author  

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. He loves to write! His stories and poems have appeared in over five hundred online and print publications. His collection of short stories Resilience is published by Bridge House Publishing. Short Stuff a collection of flash fiction and drabbles is published by Chapeltown Books. Periodic Stories, Periodic Stories Volume Two, Periodic Stories Volume Three – A Novel, and Periodic Stories Volume Four are published by Impspired. Dreamers, a collection of short stories, is published by Clarendon House Publishing. Something Better, a dystopian adventure novella, and the novel, The Alien of Orchard Lake, are published by Dark Myth Publications. In the fall of 2022, his collection entitled Holiday Stories was published by Impspired as was his collection of poetry, Haiku Seasons. In February 2023, a collection of flash fiction Dancing With Butterflies was published by Impspired. In July 2023 his YA novella The Battle of Marvel Wood was published by Impspired. In July 2023 his collection of poems The Alchemy of Then was published by Impspired. In August 2023 his novel Conversations With the Dead was published by Impspired. In September 2023 his collection of poems The Metaphysics of Now was published by Impspired. In October 2023 his collection of short stories Old Man Jasperson and Other Stories was published by Bridge House Publishing. In January 2024 his collection of poems The Evolution of Tomorrow was published by Impspired. In January 2024 his novella Eye of the Beholder was published by Dark Myth Publications. In March 2024 his collection of poems The Science of Forever was published by Impspired. In September 2024, his book The Stargazer and Other Stories was published. In October 2024 his most recent collection, On Rainy Lake and Other Stories was published. His short story “Aliens” was nominated by The Zodiac Press for the 2020 Pushcart Prize. His story “The Maple Leaf” was voted 2021 Story of the Year for Spillwords. He was voted the December 2022 Author of the Month for Spillwords. He also reads his stories for Talking Stories Radio and Jim’s Storytime and Jim’s Poetry Corner on his website. He lives in a smalltown west of Minneapolis, Minnesota. All of his work is for sale through traditional outlets. To find out more about Jim, check out his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com.

 

 

In A Plastic Bag In A Shoe Box by Jim Bates, mocha

 The guy behind the counter of the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Department handed me a shoe box and said, " Here you go, buddy. Here are your father's remains."

            Begrudgingly, I took them, not excited in the least to be doing this. I blame it all on Ancestry.com. Two weeks earlier Clayton Redding Jorgenson had died destitute and alone in a tiny dented-up Airstream at Green Valley Estates, a fancy name for a low-rent trailer park in the Sonora Desert on the outskirts of Pyrite, Arizona. I hadn't seen him in over forty years, not since he'd left me and my three younger sisters and my mom the day after Christmas in nineteen seventy-eight when I was nine.

            A week ago Mom had gotten the call. Seems an overachieving intern working for the county coroner's department had tracked down Clayton Jorgenson's family. He called Mom and told her about what had happened to her long-departed husband.

            "Just about gave me a heart attack," was how she explained it to me later when she asked me to come over. "I didn't know what to do, so I called you."

            Thanks a lot, mom, I thought sarcastically, but understood. His leaving so many years ago had drawn the family closer, and, me, being the oldest, was who Mom figured she could count on to talk about it. She was right. "I'll be right over," I told her.

            We made ourselves comfortable with mugs of coffee in the kitchen of her tidy apartment in Long Lake, Minnesota, a small town twenty miles west of Minneapolis. A warm summer breeze puffed through the window, ruffling the yellow print curtains Mom had made. She was handy that way. "What do you think we should do?" she asked.

            It didn't take but a moment for me to give her my two cents worth, "I think we should flush those damn ashes down the toilet."

            She frowned at my suggestion, being a way more forgiving person than me. "Sam! You don't mean that."

            "What? You don't want them sent home, do you?" I blurted out. Jesus, I thought to myself, that would be way too weird.

            "No. No. Nothing like that," Mom said, hesitating only a moment before answering, a pregnant pause that made me think maybe she really did want those pathetic ashes sent back to her. But, I was wrong, thankfully. "No. I just think we should do something nice with them."

            We? Nice? The guy had left my mother and four kids and never looked back. Not once."Really?" I said, hoping I sounded as caustic as I felt. "I'm not sure he deserves anything nice," I said, finger quoting around nice."

            "I know, Sam, I know you do," she said, reaching out and taking my hand. "I just think he deserves something more than being flushed down the toilet."

            "Yeah, well, sorry about that," I said, not feeling very sorry at all.

            Mom continued like I hadn't said anything, "Remember, I was married to him. I did love him, you know. I never remarried. I suppose I thought maybe someday he might even come back to me."

            Really? Come back? I never knew. Good lord, how sad could one story be? "Mom, look, I'll tell you what. I'll go out there and dispose of his ashes in a respectful manner. If I do that will you just try to forget about him and focus on living the rest of your life without pretending he might be coming back? Because, believe me, he's not." Mom was seventy-six and had been dealing with diabetes and a myriad of other health issues for the last ten years. Who knew how much longer she had to live? I leaned across the table and hugged her. "Please?"

            She hugged me back. "I will, Sam. I'll try. I really will."

So that's what brought me to Arizona and the sheriff's department a week later. I took the shoe box after politely thanking everyone who came out of nowhere to stand around and watch the rather macabre transaction taking place. I even thanked the intern, a twenty-something guy with hipster glasses and slicked back hair, wearing dark slacks and a white, short sleeve dress shirt with a skinny tie. He looked kind of like early Elvis Costello. Then I went outside into the one hundred- and fifteen-degree July sun, gasping for breath in the heat.

            I drove out a few miles past the trailer park where he'd lived and turned onto a washboard county road, drove another mile, and then parked. I was probably ten miles from Pyrite out in the middle of nowhere. I tried to picture what it must have been like to live in the desert like he had in an aluminum-covered trailer the size of a child's bedroom, baking in this kind of heat. What must his life had been like? All I could find out from the sheriff was that he lived by himself and worked as a cook in a diner at a truck stop off Interstate 40, fifteen miles away. He apparently didn't have many friends, at least none the sheriff could find.

            I was mad that I had to do this but also surprised to find that I was a little sad that his life had turned out to be so...well, so sad. I didn't kid myself; I could have done more research. I could have looked deeper into his life and found out more about him. I could have done something to get to know the man who planted the seeds in my mother that spawned me and my three sisters. I could have, but I didn't. I'd moved on years ago. Did I resent him? Sure. Did he ruin my life? No. I wouldn't let him. I had a wonderful wife, a good job, and two great sons. I wouldn't have changed a thing about how my life had played out. I didn't need to know anything about him, nor did I want to.

            I stepped out of the car into the blast furnace heat. He'd chosen to live in the desert and that's where he'd spend eternity. I walked in about one hundred feet off the road to a lone spinney cactus. I looked around. I was completely by myself. A more desolate place in a land of desolate places I could not imagine. I opened the shoe box and took out the plastic bag that held his ashes. I undid the twist-tie and held the bag high, turning it to spill the contents out. As I was doing so, a fickle wind blew up and caught the ashes sending a cloud of them over me, covering me with his final remains. I couldn't help it, I laughed out loud at the irony. My dad. It was the closest I'd ever been to him.

            With his ashes finally scattered, I let a minute go by, listening to the wind and listening to the silence of the desert. Then I dusted myself off and headed back to my car. My father was gone. Finally. But his impact remained. Unfortunately. I needed to get home and spend some time with Mom and see what could be done about helping her to get on with the rest of her life; help her to see that now after all these years, out here in the wide-open desert with the hot wind blowing, there was nothing left of him. He really and truly was gone for good.

About the author

 

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. He loves to write! His stories and poems have appeared in over 500 online and print publications. To learn more and to see all of his work, check out his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.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.)

Coyotes by Jim Bates, iced tea

 His brother pointed to the scrub brush area to the left. “The coyotes come down from the hills at night to hunt.”

“Cool!” his older brother said. “I’d love to see them.”

“If we’re lucky maybe we will.”

The two of them were sitting on the younger brother’s back patio watching a sunset turn from fiery orange to molten red. The wind, a gale during the day, had abated now to a whispering calm. By common acknowledgment, the two brothers quit speaking and were silent, listening to the nighttime quiet enveloping them.

Suddenly the silence was broken. An ethereal call pierced through the night like a sharpened knife. It was followed immediately by a wild howling, the rising up of a primeval lament high into the sky, spreading out across the land, echoing off the dark shadows of a long-forgotten time.

Off to the left was a motion. One, two, three, dark shapes came into view loping along, hunched over and secretive, heading down out of the hills. The two brothers watched as the coyotes stepped daintily among flood-cast pebbles and rocks. They were roaming as a pack, and they were hunting.

The brothers sat back and smiled at each other. They didn’t have to speak. Instead, they watched as the coyotes drifted into the night. The breeze picked up and carried with it a whiff of their musky scent, their desert wildness. Then, in a blink of an eye, they were gone. Only furtive tracks of their nighttime passing remained, ghostlike and serene, a fleeting vision of their wild wonder. The wind was blowing harder, but they were in no hurry to go inside. The night was young, and the coyotes were on the hunt. Seeing them was an incredible gift that they would love to see again.

With silent acknowledgment both put on their jackets to ward off the chill and settled in to wait. Who knows? The coyotes just might return. And if they did, the brothers would be waiting for them. Just one more glimpse, that’s all they were hoping for. Just one more. Man, that’d be so cool.

About the author

 

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. He loves to write! His stories and poems have appeared in over 500 online and print publications. To learn more and to see all of his work, check out his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.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.)

The Manure Spreader by Jim Bates, apple juice

I watched my cousin with awe along with a little bit of envy.

            “Man, you’ve sure got a way with that shovel.”

            Stevie grinned and waved the stump on his right shoulder. “Yeah. When you’re born with this bad boy, you learn to make the most of things.”

            I bent to my task. We were cleaning out my uncle’s horse barn, shoveling the manure into the spreader we’d towed into the center between the stalls. Getting the spreader there had itself been an adventure.

Stevie had led me into the shed where they kept an ancient, faded orange, Allis-Chalmer’s tractor. “Cool,” I said when I saw it.

My cousin grinned at me. “You want to try it?”

            Me? Drive a tractor? I was ten years old and only a few days earlier had arrived on my aunt and uncle’s farm. I’d been sent there by my mom from our home in the city where I’d been spending the summer at loose ends learning how to become a juvenile delinquent. In short, going nowhere fast. “You serious?”

            “I’m serious, cousin.” He punched me in the arm with what I could only surmise was his way of showing me we were buddies. “Absolutely. Go for it.” When he saw my hesitancy, he added, “It’s okay. I’ll teach you.”

            “Okay!”

            And he did. He showed me how to get the tractor started by turning the key and pushing a button. He showed me how to put it in gear, back it out of the shed, hook it to the spreader, and drive it to the barn where I parked it between the stalls. We each had one side to do, five stalls each, and at our age, Stevie was ten like me, everything was a competition, mostly friendly. In this race, Stevie was kicking my ass.

            Eventually, I stopped and wiped my brow. I was exhausted. “Okay, okay, okay,” I said, setting my three-pronged pitchfork against the side of the second stall from the end. “I give up.”

            Stevie was a stall ahead of me. “Just a second,” he said, grinning over his shoulder. “I’m almost done.”

            “Funny,” I said, collapsing onto a bale of hay. “Real funny.”

            Steve whistled as he worked. He used a small bladed shovel and wielded it with his left arm like a magician with a wand. I hadn’t seen him in two years and in that time, he’d grown taller than me by four inches and out-weighed me by easily thirty pounds. All of it muscle.

            “It’s all in the wrist,” he said, finishing up and sitting next to me. “And the arm, too,” he added, flexing it. “That helps a lot.” He winked at me.

            I used to hate him. He used to be a squirrelly little kid who played with his sister’s dolls. He liked to read. And he didn’t like any of the video games I liked to play. He was just plain weird.

            But I hadn’t seen him in two years, and I guess in that time he’d changed. I know I sure had.

And not for the best.

Earlier that year my dad left home. Mom was having a rough go of it, and I reacted by doing the only thing I knew how to do that didn’t require any particular skill - be a jerk. I began fighting with my younger brother and younger sister all the time. Davey, my best friend, and I started smoking cigarettes and I began sneaking out at night, running around with Davey, his older brother Frank, and Frank’s friend Walt. The night we spray painted a smiley face on a water tower and got caught was the night Mom said, “That’s it, Joe. I’ve had it with you. I’m sending you to your aunt and uncle’s farm. Maybe they can do something with you.”

            “So what?” I yelled. “See if I care!” I added, secretly caring a lot.

I stomped off to my room and slammed the door. Then I burst into tears. Damn. Already I missed her.

            Five days later I was shoveling manure from the horse stalls and hanging out with Stevie. I was learning that he was a good guy. Lots better than I was, that was for sure. I was already sorry for being such a jerk back home.

            After we’d taken a break, Stevie said, “Let's get this stuff spread.”

            “How do we do that?”

            “Come on. I’ll show you.” He clasped me on the shoulder. “It’s fun.”

            It was. Remember, I was ten, but on a farm, everyone was given a lot of responsibility, and spreading the manure was Stevie’s job. Now it was mine, too.

I got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. Steve stood behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders. I drove us through the doors on the far side of the barn and out to one of the fallow fields where we stopped, letting the tractor idle. Stevie reached back and pulled a lever. He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the spreader.

“When we start driving, that spool with those spikes on it spins, catches the manure and flings it out the back.”

            “Far out.”

            He grinned. “Yeah, it is. Let’s go.”

            I shifted into gear and we set to work, spreading that manure. I’ll tell you, for a ten-year-old, born and raised in the city, being outside on a sunny day, driving up and down a farm field in the country with my cousin by my side whistling some obscure rock and roll song, all the while I’m pretending like I know what I was doing, well, it was a pretty good way to go.

            I stayed there all summer. We spread manure every week and it was always fun.

I cleaned up my act, too, when I went home and was lots nicer to my mom and brother and sister.

 And next summer, when they invited me back, I couldn’t say ‘yes’ fast enough. 

About the author

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. He loves to write! His stories and poems have appeared in over 500 online and print publications. To learn more and to see all of his work, check out his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.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.)