Triadic Tales - Recovery - Short Story (Part Two)

Triadic Tales - Recovery - Short Story (Part Two)
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I almost think he smiled at me. It chills me still. I don't know why I touched him. I guess I do. I couldn't believe he could do such a thing and I felt -- I don't know what I felt. 
Someone here is always watching. Security's intense. I am here because this is my job. 
The man sitting there doesn't move. The boy can't move. The whole thing is weird.
I am like that song. 
When I got married, young, and watched it all unravel, and ended up back home with two kids, I lost my religion.  Like the song. Except I was not in the spotlight. Until now. 
Will I go down in history as the nurse who attended him?  Will I have to explain?  Who knows? 
These days everything is  reality. 
Anyway, here is this boy they say is the devil incarnate, heaping language on him to separate him from them. And yes, he can charm the socks off anyone.
I think we could all be mass murderers underneath. And saints underneath. We have everything right here inside us. Meanness and violence. Reason and tenderness. Who's to judge? 
Can a nice person under the right circumstances become a mass murderer? Then go back to being nice? Like it never happened? 
What are the right circumstances for something like this? Is whatever it is understandable? There but for the grace of god, sort of? Why not?
I don't know.
All I know is when I reached out. it was not voluntary.
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I saw her.
She actually touched the son of a bitch. They must have seen it. I'll report it anyway.
Now we'll have to check her out. Does she know the guy? 
Jesus. I don't believe this. 
Here I am, redeemed from the purgatory of pushing paper out in Worcester. Moved in a nanosecond. Here. At the frigging epicenter.
I guess this is the kind of thing that juices reporters. Being there. 
Well right now, no one more there than me.
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Triadic Tales - Pearl - Short Story (Part Two)

Triadic Tales - Pearl - Short Story (Part Two)
Pearl was only eight as the century turned but she had spent four years thinking deeply about her future. Things became remarkably simple. Since there was no money in her future, not even a nest egg, she realized she would need to begin her intended success immediately. She was as motivated as ever. Her father was more and more absent. And her mother was increasingly immobile.  Pearl did as other similarly-alienated children do  She planned an escape that would take her a long way from home and solve all her problems.
Her planning involved deciding on a career. She learned on TV that obscure women, many from places like Tea, had become best-selling novelists. There were other avenues. But one look in the mirror told her that she would never be an actress. And one auto-probe of her modest musculature convinced her she was no athlete.  If she excelled, it would be with her fertile mind and the best possible agent she could find, at least until she could manage her own affairs. 
Her mother's romance hinted at what she was looking for. But they seemed to her insipid, not deep enough to be templates for the sort of saga sold millions and became a blockbuster. She dreamed of some new Elizabeth Taylor-James Dean combo on the big screen, bringing her widely-known words to life.
Pearl planned escape from Tea by the year 2008, when she would be sixteen. She meant by then to have a draft of her first best-seller. She would set it in the future. It would trace a family through many generations. It would grab readers multiple times as they resonated to the lives, loves, crimes and deaths of the Rollins family. That was the name she chose for for the multiple protagonists of her first saga.
Pearl became a regular at the Tea Community Library after school and on weekends. She learned how to use Word and store her work on floppys. Her writing was economical and careful. She never threw anything away. She went forward always. As she wrote, she created an outline that was her bible. Every day she spent time thinking about each person in each strand of her story. By 2004, she completed the first of sixteen intended books. She wanted the book to be heavy.
Pearl could not imagine her name on the jacket of her best-seller. Pearls were the end, not the beginning. She changed it from Pearl to the name millions around the world know, Merla. Pearl from Tea, South Dakota, became Merla T. Morrow of Mt. Vernon Streat, Beacon Hill, Boston, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Merla's hero was J. D. Salinger, not because of his writing which she did not like, save for its apparent commercial appeal. Salinger had become as aloof as she intended to continue being. He transcended the ordinary fate of authors. He was not eaten up and trampled by the demands of the herd. Merla wanted to stay free, think her own thoughts and act according to what she willed.
One might say Merla was the product of a self-made childhood.  
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Triadic Tales - Caught - Short Story (Part Two)

THE LAKE
Sterling had never gambled before save one time in France at Divonne. There he won about $100 playing roulette at a table well stocked with people either richer than hell or doing a good job of dissembling. 
The Gold Strike down the hill from Boulder City, Nevada, was more to Sterling's liking. Seedy. One lonely craps table. And a coffee shop sort of place with a buffet in back. There he could sit as long as he liked with his back to the wall, which he also liked.  He conceived the idea of being a pro gambler. Like many such souls, he automatically assumed no one had ever done the elementary math needed to render casinos powerless in the face of invincible minds. If the stated casino edge varied from a few to many percentage points, that was doubtless a lie put out for the general public. 
It is a redemptive fact that Sterling was not inclined to be really stupid, only a little so. Where someone might plunge in, he would dip a toe. Where someone might be incinerated, he would put his finger quickly through a tiny flame.
He turned out to be not half bad at craps and to be almost sage at the black-jack table. He drove down to Binions in Las Vegas and managed to attract a reasonable amount of attention even though he was betting only a few dollars. 
More than once, when parked somewhere with his notebook, he would be addressed as professor.
 This was in the days when the stars were still visible over Las Vegas. Everything seemed to work. Sterling neither won much nor lost much. He could play or not play. No compulsion. 
When he was asked why he gambled, he said it appealed to him more than getting a summer cottage somewhere. Discretionary income.
Amid all this tip-toeing, Sterling was entirely unprepared, several months into his new life, to return to his Boulder City Motel and find Christy sitting in front of his little room in a folding metal chair. 
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Triadic Tales - The Failed Cleric - Short Story (Part Two)

Five years passed before Adam met up with Jim again.  Jim was barefoot in threadbare jeans and a black t-shirt. He sat in a lotus position at the end of a long dirt track. Behind Jim was what seemed to be a mud hut with a door like an arch.
The Beckett-like tourist and Des Moines social worker was now somewhere past Enid, Oklahoma with no neighbors visible in any direction.   "I have everything now," Jim smiled.
"Are you alone?" Adam said.
"Hardly," Jim replied. "Tamara," he called. "Come out. Meet my friend."
She had to stoop to exit the hut. To say she was a sight would right if you thought eccentric finery strange. Adam wasn't up on the subject. There were several layers and multiple colors. 
She was of indeterminate age and beautiful.
It took till six to unravel the story. Tamara was Native American. Like Jim and Adam, had studied theology. She was ten years older than they. She and Jim met at a Quaker retreat which devolved into near mayhem after she preferred Jim to one of the retreat leaders who turned out to be a pugilist. Jim survived and love ensued.  
The land belonged to her. They were very poor. Food stamps and disability income was all they had.
"We have everything right here," Jim said once more.
Tamara was presently concocting an auspicious stew from growing things as the two talked softly at sunset.
"Do you still believe?" Adam wondered.
"Absolutely," Jim said. "We're evolving. Religion is ending. Peace is possible. We celebrate such things daily."
Suddenly, by the outdoor fire, Tamara, now in a drab sheath of burlap fastened by pins, fell to the ground, facing the sky and began to emit cries of inconsolable grief.
"Relax," Jim said quickly.            Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store 

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Triadic Tales - It's Lovely Out There - Part Two Short Story

IT'S LOVELY OUT THERE - PART TWO PART ONE
She heard it all, At 94, Mildred Panflick felt younger than springtime. She was able to tolerate wakefulness with consummate grace. There was no rise in her steady heartbeat when, from down the hall, came the pleasant sounds of  love-making. The ringing phone surprised her. She could  hear every word. Adam sounded cold, as if he was avoiding something. More words. Then the front door opened. Then Adam returned. There was a welcome change in tone.  Then she fell softly  to sleep. 
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Adam sat in the chair by the phone in his underwear. He did not exactly look at Ellie. She watched him. 
Abba whose home in heaven is   Hallowed and holy is your name  Let your realm come your will be done Till earth and heaven are the same 
He sang to himself,  knowing, enjoying an inner exaltation. 
Give us this day our daily bread   Forgive the wrongs that we have done   As we forgive those who do wrong   Lead us not into temptation  
There!  He exhaled audibly, then smiled.  He looked at Ellie.  “Whew,” he said involuntarily.
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When Ellie was fourteen, Terwilliger tried to rape her. He walked in the back door. She was taking a shower. He crossed the floor and stood there.  The house was empty. It was spring. He had been following her forever. He had never seen anyone so beautiful.  He had come close to trying before, but held back. He was scared. He was heavy-set, almost chubby.  He had a wife and kids. He could not speak. At first she did not notice. Then she did. When they finally struggled, she instinctively reached for his finger, the one with the big gold ring, and yanked it back as hard as she could. She felt it break. He was still yelling at her as she ran into the kitchen and called the cops.
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Terwilliger got off with a light reprimand from the chief. The incident served to turn what had been an obsession into a calculated rectitude which served him well as he rose to succeed the chief  and eventually retired with a measure of honor.  The Inn hired him to supervise their security. He watched TV accounts of rapists and abusers of women and girls and thanked the Lord he was not as they.  
||||   Ellie watched Adam and noted the change. 
"What's happening?" she said. "What were you doing?"
"Mm mm," Adam chuckled. "Getting forgiven. Forgiving. It's reciprocal."
Ellie's green eyes opened wider. "What?"
"Terwilliger spooked me. I forgot myself. I needed to sit."
"Would you care to answer my question. What were you doing?"
Adam wanted nothing more than to answer her but it was not something he could say in ten seconds or perhaps even in an hour and he was hardly settled on whether he wanted to carry this on.
"Can you just say one word to explain what you mean by reciprocal?" Ellie said. 
She stood up and walked toward Adam.

PART THREE  PART ONE Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store


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Story of Job - Part Two

Story of Job - Part Two - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com: "Story of Job - Part Two" The completion of the demo I spoke of in the prior note. It makes sense to listen to it if you have already heard the first part. It opens when you open the page. Click the || to zap if you do not want folk asking what is THAT?


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Lord's Prayer Part Two Quatrain

Give us this day our daily bread

Forgive the wrongs that we have done

As we forgive those who do wrong

Lead us not into temptation