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For blankety-five years Dad and his heirlooms have transitioned from chic to shabby, and now a trickle of bargain hunters clutching Penny-Savers are picking through a houseful of incongruous clothing and furniture “priced to move” on little red stickers like drops of blood with penciled numbers, the fours shaped like sailboats, the sevens slashed through as the nuns taught him. It’s Dad’s first and only downsize, a milestone as heavy as the English oak sideboard, $95 OBO you haul it. He wouldn’t hire a service or let me organize the sale, so I worry. I woke this morning from a dream of Dad pirouetting down a catwalk with his walker, doffing his toupee and catching his heels in the cuffs of his old dress pants. His price on every item is ludicrous but appropriate to the year he bought it. Of all the tongue-cluckers, one couple seems motivated, or the wife does. She’s looking for faults in the bedroom furniture while her husband stands, neck broken, scanning the titles in the bookcase. She doesn’t know what to say to Dad, so she lets him spin his yarn. He’s describing the “bedroom suit” and how he and Mom shattered the boxspring with newlywed acrobatics here in the only house they ever owned. A sly grin follows, then a chuckle, then a sob, then silence. She says “I know, I know” and touches his arm, then produces cash from a very tight purse and starts peeling off bill after bill. I don’t think she’s counting. She calls to her husband to bring the truck, then wipes her cheek and sighs and starts removing the wardrobe drawers. I watch Dad’s face to see if he’s all right. He catches my eye and winks, and fans his face with a handful of hundreds.
Original Copyright © March 01, 2007
Revised Copyright © March 06, 2026
My son pulls a line drive through the gap just about every at-bat. Claims he does it by letting the game happen to him, letting the bat meet the ball. Because bat and ball want to collide, he says, and effort skews the alignment. He wears Eleven, as I did, but in every other way. I’m in the hometown bleachers as he watches the ball into the catcher’s mitt, so patient, his whole life ahead of him to waste; he’ll take three strikes looking if they’re not quite where his bat wants them. I’d still be unmarried and undivorced with that attitude, but the game is easy for Eleven Junior. When I played, I wanted to rocket balls over the fence like a man with a vendetta, but mostly they glanced off my bat into the dugout sending teammates scrambling. When my boy’s hittin’em hard, there’s no better place than the ballpark, but I must do two things at once: observe the game and make stories on my laptop, where I’m the All Star. Tappity-tap. My characters play games I invent from positions I assign. Tappity-tap. Spouses and lovers toe the infield grass, relatives and workfriends pace their outfield patches, each with a part in the pageant, everyone focused on home. Senior is pitching to Junior. He shakes off signs until the catcher surrenders and lets him hurl it. I close my computer. Junior’s at the plate in a Bunt Situation while his coach pointlessly taps his earlobes, testicles, and elbows. Everyone glares at me as if I’d shouted out “Take Him Yard!” instead of just thinking it. Dads and coaches can’t just let the game happen to their kids. I watch him shrug and take another strike and wonder whether what he does will be of any consequence.
Original Copyright © FEB 27, 2007
Revised Copyright © MAR 05, 2026
Very Short Novels 