My Flash Fiction

Clever Magazine online has just published three of my flash fiction pieces:
4th Arrondisement
Petals
and Freddie

Enjoy!

New Story

A new story loosely based on Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory:"

We go through life carrying 2 bags: Time and Money
—Mona Howard, quoted by Jeanette Winterson

The keeper of the time is blind
-Stevie Nicks

I used to dream that
You were an angel
You were an angel
And I was a starving child
-Stevie Nicks
 
Pierrot
There are three things in life you can never have enough of:
Money…
Time…
And love.

Money is earned.
Time is lost
And love?
You have to give it away.



It was the first snowfall. One week before Christmas on my sister’s birthday. I sent a text to wish her well.

It was the first snowfall—just three inches, but it covered the ground. White like hope, white like death. I watched from our window—the Advent calendar right before me on the credenza. I opened the new window. It was Melik, the monk and juggler who made the Christ child laugh.

My sister responded: “I’m going 2 be a grandma again! How’s that 4 a birthday present? Luv U.”

Then grandma called. It was her weekly appointment at the beauty shop and she needed to pick up a few last things besides. “Your Uncle David really needs a razor,” she said, “He really needs a shave. Which reminds me. You need a haircut while we’re at the beauty shop. Ruby always does such a nice job with your hair. And you be sure and tip her.”

“Yes, Grandma.”

I walked into the kitchen, passed the end table lined with bottles of pills—pills for pain, pills for sleep, pills for her heart. Passed the table lined with family photos—my aunt and uncle in a family portrait; my cousin’s baby picture the day she was born; Pop and Nan, who I never knew except from the picture that was always there. The picture was taken on the day they married. Pop was a soldier and Nan was a soldier’s girl and the great-grandma I never knew. Just like Grandpa was a soldier and Grandma was a soldier’s girl.

Next to that was a picture of my uncle and his wife on their wedding day.
Funny how the pictures all look the same.

I passed the stereo that has always been there and those old 45’s that have always been there and had dust on them that was older than I am.
Grandma was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of chili. “It needs something,” she said, handing me a spoon.
I tasted. “Tomato….onions….pepper,” I suggested.
“Smart ass,” she said, “You wanna make it yourself?”
“I’m just sayin’” I said, “And you asked.”
“I didn’t ask anything,” she said, “I just said it needed something. If I wanted your opinion, I would’ve asked.”

We ate bowels of piping hot chili. With ketchup added in for flavor.
“It’ll do,” she said.


Then I took her to the beauty shop.
“Lord,” she said,” they must’ve followed a snake when they paved this road.”
We drove her car—a rusted, dilapidated old grey Ford. I got out and shut the door which was about to fall off.
“Well, lock it,” she said, “I wouldn’t anybody to steal this jewel.”

I let Ruby cut my hair like Grandma said. “You know your grandma gave my Rudy his first job?” Ruby asked again, “She did,” she said, “She kept that boy on the straight and narrow.”

I listened to the ladies gossip as Ruby cut my hair. There was one woman—Emmy Something-or-Other—who the women in the beauty shop despised for no other apparent reason than her youth and opportunity.
“That woman is so full of shit,” Grandma confided in a whisper, “It’s a miracle she can walk.”

I tipped Miss Ruby (with pleasure) and we went on our way, Christmas shopping. Leather wallets for the boys, perfume for the girls, a pair of gloves and a book for me.
“You don’t have to get me anything,” I told her every year. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
But she did.





It was Christmas Eve. Just before Midnight Mass. Grandma was making more fudge in the kitchen. She couldn’t afford presents that year, not that she ever could—Christmas was always on credit. Leather wallets for the boys, perfume for the girls, a pair of gloves and a book for me.

She made hot chocolate, “The way my mom used to make it,” she told me every year. It’s a Wonderful Life on the T.V.
She bought a few last things at the corner drugstore where I used to work. Promised Stefanie chicken and greens for dinner the next day.
I gave her a present—a clown dressed all in black and white. “You didn’t have to get me anything,” she told me every year, but I did. “You don’t have to worry about me,” she said.
But I did.

The year passed, days filled with school and work, learning and teaching and making something of myself.
“What is that you read, sir?”
“Words, words, words.”
The year passed and she was gone and you were gone.
“What is it you read, sir?”
“Words, words, words.”

There were days when she couldn’t remember my name. When my aunt arrived from California she introduced me to her as if we were strangers. There days when she couldn’t forget.

On the night she died her nails were done, her hair was combed and brushed, she wore a silk gown and had a diamond ring on her finger. If she was going to meet her maker, she was going to be dressed for the occasion.


Her things were scattered among us. Jewelry with stones more precious now than ever. Dishes, dolls and family photos. That stereo and those dusty 45’s. I took that clown dressed all in black. And there are other things. A ticket stub from a movie we saw. A necklace she had made for me. A photo of her with her head piled high and dyed red to hide the grey. A photo of her in the kitchen dressed in green standing beside the aunt she forgot I knew. A photo of her sleeping, hair done, nails polished, diamond ring on her finger on the night the took her away to meet her maker.


She was a piece of my heart.
Like you…
And you…
And you....

In A Lover's Heart

(9 of 30 Villanelles Inspired by Enya's song, "Hope Has A Place")

Buried within a lover's heart,
A whisper weaves a sigh.
Nothing animated is apart.

Humankind is made to chart
The Atlas of the sky
Buried within a lover's heart.

Souls ripen into Works of Art.
All spirits are made to fly.
Nothing animated is apart.

A simple word may stop or start
A hearth glowing bright,
Buried within a lover's heart.

The Beloved is invariably smart.
Sweethearts are in ample supply.
Nothing animated is apart.

If love should depart,
There's no such thing as goodbye
For concealed within a lover's heart,
Nothing animated is apart.

P.D. Gourlais

New Prose Poem

Three Chords and the Truth

I used to dance alone in an empty room. Just me and three chords and the truth. Songs I sang at seventeen. When all I wanted was to run away. Dance with a stranger. Lose my name. Shed my skin. Jump in the river.

I tried it once. Hitch-hiked southbound. Down 65. Across the Ohio River. Across the Kennedy Bridge. We stopped at King’s Record Shop. Found Elvis sitting in the corner strumming a guitar. Johnny Cash behind the counter. Dylan smoking in the doorway. Cohen rambling about some girl in the Chelsea Hotel. I bought a copy of “Double Fantasy,” and wandered off down Fourth Street.

I made it down to the water tower. Down on River Road. There was reggae, blues and barbeque. Then the sun went down and it was time to go home. Across the Kennedy Bridge. Across the Ohio River. The same river, but never the same river twice. The River City in my rearview at last. I returned home to find that nothing changed. I have discovered that nothing is lost. That everything that was, is, and ever will be.

My First Villanelle

Written as a radical revision of another poem, here is my first vilanelle

There is more to life than life
More to love than loving too
There’s more to time than time passing by

Daddy said miracles were my birthright
He told me, I’m telling you,
”There is more to life than life,”

he used to say, “As sure as day turns into night
you’ll work your life away, but remember too:
There’s more to time than time passing by.”

Daddy drank himself to sleep at night
Paying dues was more than he could do
”There is more to life than life,”

he said. It was me he loved on the day he died,
passing on as we all must do.
There’s more to time than time passing by

I sat at his bedside late at night
And watched the sun rise—violet and blue
There is more to life than life
There’s more to time than time passing by.

More Flash Fiction

Freddie
What becomes a legend most?
Crowns and jewels and leather pants. A new name, a stage presence and rumors of indiscretion. An operatic style and a four octave range. One man with a future and another with a past.
There were many as becomes a legend. Countless without names. Some without faces. Just dirges in the dark. But there was one. His name was Marc, or Mike, or something like that. The man with the backstage pass and the strange eyes—one blue, one green. An image of his icon sewn onto the back of his jacket. He said he was an actor—community theatre—but was really a sales clerk at a local bookstore.
“I don’t read,” the Icon said, “What a bloody waste of time.” He walked to the window and stared out. He recalled the Five Hills and the streets of Bombay and his first crush (he never told her or anyone else). He remembered Barcelona and the first time he kissed another man.
“Are you all right,” Marc or Mike or something like that asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” the Icon answered. Another man, another room. There had to be more to life than life. “Champagne?” he asked.
Champagne and cocaine and a game of Scrabble. Then a confession when all was said and done. A death sentence and an autograph.
“Love, Freddie,” it read.
 

Michael
He told me his name years ago, but I’ve since forgotten it. So I called him Michael after Michael Toliver because I still have his copy of Tales of the City. I suppose he thought that giving me the book—his phone number scrawled on the inside cover—would ensure my return, but he was wrong.

I never saw him again after that weekend.

What was his name? Martin, Marvin, Mark. Something with an M. Michael will do.
I remember his lips and the dimple on his chin. I remember those strange eyes—one blue and one green. I remember him because it was the first time I heard Leonard Cohen. He told me the girl in “Chelsea Hotel,” was Janis Joplin.
“I love Janis,” I confessed.
Big mistake.
He started singing “Mercedes Benz.” Badly.
“God gave me a voice for a reason,” he said.
“He made you tone-deaf for a reason, too,” I teased.

He laughed. He kissed me. He took my hand and led me down the narrow hallway to his room. There was a poster of Dylan on the wall above the unmade bed. “Do you know Dylan?” he asked.
“No, we’ve never met,” I answered.
“I love Blood on the Tracks.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“His divorce album,” he explained.

I have it here—that Dylan CD. Of all the CD’s I’ve taken from ex-lovers it’s my favorite. Except maybe that Ani Difranco I stole from David.
Just call me shameless.

He piayed Joan Baez as we made love. “Love Song to a Stranger.” I suppose he thought it was apropos. He told me about “Diamonds and Rust”—her ode to Bobby Baby. He told me about “Amsterdam,”—the song, not the city. And now whenever I hear it, I think of him. I suppose that makes it our song.
What was his name? Marcel, Marcello, Marco? Michael will do.

“So… John…”
“Jake.”
“Jake. Sorry,” he said, “Can I see you again?”
“Not if I see you first,” I said.

Weeks later, I consulted a doctor.
He said, “I condemn you to life.”
I consulted a priest.
He said, “The wages of sin are death.”
I consulted a poet.
She said, “Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.”
I consulted a painter.
She said, “The keeper of the time is blind.”

A year later I saw him. In a corner, at a bar.
“We had something special,” he said.
“Did we?”
“It’s water under the bridge,” he said.
“More like blood on the tracks.”


Rosa
Rosa walked into the vacant room and sat on the bed; she brushed out the crease in the black skirt she wore and slipped out of her muddied black shoes, staring at them as they slid from her feet to the floor. She listened to Martin in the kitchen below—the tap water running as he filled the kettle to make tea for her; the sound of the running water echoed up the stairs and down the hall and then stopped suddenly and silence filled the empty space where she sat.

Rosa ran her hand along the blue cover of the bed, the cover she had knitted for Rafa just last winter; the soft wool grating her skin. Beads of sweat gathered at her brow and on the back of her neck as she tried hard to breathe. The heat of late August in mid-afternoon and the scent of cheap after shave that lingered in the room overwhelmed her; made bitter by Rafa’s absence.
And look—the window had been left open while they were gone. What if someone had broken in, taken his things? She glanced quickly around the room—everything seemed to be in place.
Would she even know if something—some small thing, like a comb he might have kept in his pocket or a stone he carried for luck and kept to himself telling no one about—went missing? How would she even know?

Rafa had left his shirt lying on the floor and his ball sitting in the chair, leather jacket hung over the back. Wasn’t that just like the boy, to leave things thrown about?

She picked up the shirt, folded it neatly and laid it on the bed beside her; her hand—a bit shaky—rested on top of it. Perhaps the shirt needed washing—it was grass-stained where he had played. She looked over and now saw the shorts hanging over the clothes bin where he’d tossed them so carelessly. Rosa stood up to peer inside—yes, she’d need to do the wash…but not today.
Still, she gathered up the clothes her son had discarded and turned towards the door to his room.

She stopped.
And started to cry.

Jake climbed the stairs, his hand gripping the rail. He looked around the house—this house he had passed a hundred times, never caring what went on inside; the lives lived there.

The silence wrapped around him. He looked at the pictures along the wall as he walked up the stairs. He recognized Raphael—that boy he had seen in the halls at school, in the cafeteria where he often ate alone. Didn’t he work in the drugstore on the corner of Tenth and Gibson one summer?

He played baseball? Jake was surprised, seeing the photo of Raphael in his uniform with a ball and bat. Had they ever played against each other? Jake couldn’t remember.

Raphael had been an altar boy a photo revealed—Jake wondered which Parish they attended.
Jake made his way up the stairs; a wedding picture sat atop a table in the hall on the second floor; a faded black and white photo. Raphael’s grandparents? Were they still alive, Jake wondered.
Jake felt like a thief.

Why had he come here? What was he thinking? He looked back down the stairs. He should leave, he thought. Just go. What difference did it make? What was he going to say? “I’m sorry…?”

What an idiot!
And then he heard crying.

He walked slowly to where the door stood open and the low sound of sobbing from within echoed in the hall.

A thief—he felt like a thief. Taking what wasn’t his; breaking in where he didn’t belong; intruding where he had no right.

He stood in the open door and watched the woman standing in front of the window—her back turned to him.

He had turned his back on Raphael—turned his back to him when Raphael needed him. And Jake left him there…alone.

He should leave now…

Rosa turned to him, wiping the tears with the back of her hand; unmoved to find him standing in her son’s room.

Jake moved closer, taking her hand in his; wanting to comfort her—if only he knew how. He thought the truth might console her—give her a reason; an answer for Raphael’s suicide. The illness had become too much. His sanity slipped; he failed to recognize friends. Friends—including Jake—failed him, unable to withstand the rage that often overcame Benny over things of little significance. And there were the lovers—like Jake—who felt betrayed by Benny’s silence once they learned the truth. His silence equaled death.
But now—what difference did the truth make?

Many months later, sitting in a crowded bar watching young men as they danced with each other or drunkenly groped for the fleeting company of a twin soul; or sitting in the pews of yet another church at yet another funeral he would think how right he’d been to spare Rosa; how lucky Raphael was to be gone and not have to endure the living death of perpetual adolescence; his soul wasting in the idolatry of stunted pubescence. He would watch his elders—gray-haired men spending their money on men half their age abandoned at three A.M. and leaving the bar alone with their pockets emptied and he would think how fortunate Raphael had been to escape. Many things would make him think of Raphael over the years—not least of which the few men who resembled Raphael and found their way into Jake’s arms and then discarded him carelessly. But he tried hard to always love them; even as he let them go; even after they were long gone.

“I’m so sorry,” he said to Rosa; for what else could he say? On the back of the chair was his own jacket—the one he had given Raphael the night that Raphael died.

On the street outside the open window, a car drove by. Children played. The mailman carried the mail: advertisements, bills to pay.
Life went on.
And on….
And on…

New Short Story-- More Flash Fiction

4th Arrondissement

L'Imprévu is a quirky bar on the Right Bank, owned by two American boys. And I used to see you there, chatting with Martin or Buck, the American owners, talking about America and Chicago and debating which was better, American football or soccer. The three of you complained about the froggies so much I wondered why you stayed in Paris.

To be in Paris, I suppose.

I saw you at Raidd, watching the shower boys. I watched you at L'enchanteur. Karaoke is bad enough in English; in French it’s a little taste of Hell. But at least you noticed me. Or so I thought. I got up to sing and I think it scared you off. Maybe “Son of a Preacher Man,” was a bad choice.

One night, watching a mime at Pompidou, I saw you again. A bottle of Bollinger in your hand. “Would you like to join me?” you finally asked.
“Sure.”
We walked along the Quai de Seine. You asked my name.
“Alex. What’s your name?”
“Serge,” you said as you sat beside me. “So, what brings you to Paris?”
“Paris.”
You laughed. You told me that you wrote a play and that I should come and see it.
“What’s it about?”

Love, of course. Stories compiled from interviews you filmed in bars and cafes. You asked couples—women and men, men and men, women and women—how they met and they told you. And you made up the rest. You called it, Chagriner et la possibilité. One young American boy was homeless his first night in Paris. He missed the train to the town where he was working and had to sleep in the train station. There he met a man and they started talking. They walked through Paris and eventually went to L'Open Café. The American was tired and planned to return to the train station, but the froggie insisted on getting him a room. They agreed to meet the next day beneath the Eiffel Tower before the boy left. But the bottom of the Eiffel Tower is huge and he couldn’t find the froggie so he gave up. He never saw the froggie again.

“So you’ll come tomorrow?” you asked.
“Sure,” I promised.

I spent the morning sleeping late and eating the last of the eggs for breakfast, which was actually lunch. I spent the afternoon at Les Mots à la Bouche listening to some British writer talking about his novel that wasn’t a novel because the novel is dead.

We met at La Curieux for spaghetti, but we were asked to leave when you kissed me. It was an impulse, it was desire, it was possibility and pain.
“Pas ici,” the waiter told us as he pushed us out the door.
“Not here,” you translated.
“Not anywhere, I guess.”
“Here,” you said and kissed me again, there on the street for everyone to see. It was an impulse. It was desire. It was possibility and pain