By Reaona Hemmingway
Tall, brown winter grass grew thick in the valley where Samantha, the only child of Orin and Lila, sat watching the family’s flock of sheep. She counted the lambs, the ewes, and the rams. All two hundred and seventeen stood peacefully chewing in the waning sun-light.
Just as she finished counting, a cool breeze filled the valley, making her shiver. She adjusted her headdress and brought the tail end of the cloth around her neck.
“It is unusually cool tonight,” she said.
The sheep bleated in agreement.
“Look,” Landon, her sheep dog, barked. “Maybe that is why the weather has changed.”
Samantha took her eyes off the sheep and watched as the sky took on a heavenly glow. A radiant beam, glittering like gold dust in a stream, touched the earth. She stood up, brought her ram’s horn to her lips, ready to give an alarm. A ball of light descended down the beam. She took a deep breath in preparation to blow, but then the ball of light turned into a boy with wings and a tilting halo. An angel? Not a big angel, but one the same size as her with white robes and carrying a harp.
He reached up and straightened his halo. “Har-hark!” He scratched his head, then plucked a few non-harmonizing notes on his harp while he cocked his head to one side, as if trying to remember something. “Hark! I bring you tidings of great…uh…great joy…”
“Are you lost?” Samantha asked.
His eyes grew wide at the sound of her voice. “You’re…you’re a girl!”
“Yes, indeed, I am. Much to my father’s chagrin.”
He looked around. “Where is the shepherd who tends this flock?”
Samantha took up her crook, which leaned against a tree. She tapped the crook on the ground and posed in an authoritative stance. “I am the shepherd of this flock,” she declared.
“But…but…you’re a girl!”
“Old news. You already figured that out.”
“You can’t be a shepherd.”
“Why not?”
His halo tipped again as he tried to reach for the radiant beam, which was gradually receding back up into the sky. “Hey, come back here,” he yelled. “I’m in the wrong flock.”
“Which flock are you supposed to be in?” Samantha asked.
“The flock owned by Orin, the descendant of Gad.”
“Then, you’re in the right flock. These are my father’s sheep and my father’s name is Orin and my great-great-great-great-and a whole bunch of more greats-grandfather was Gad.”
“But the shepherd of this flock’s name is Sam.”
“Uh-huh. Sam is short for Samantha, daughter of Orin, who, by the way, is totally beside himself that his one and only seed that produced a child begat a girl.”
A frown creased the angel’s brow. “But you can’t be a shepherd.”
“Why can’t I be a shepherd?” Samantha asked, sounding a bit miffed.
He ignored her and raised his arms toward the sky. “Please come back and get me. I can’t bring good tidings of great joy to a girl.”
Landon sniffed at the angel’s feet and growled.
“Hey, get away from me,” the angel said as he backed up a few paces.
“You sure don’t seem to know much about being an angel,” Samantha said.
“He sure doesn’t smell like an angel, either,” Landon barked.
The angel scowled. “How would you know? You’re just a dog.”
Samantha patted Landon’s head. “Being a dog must rank right up there with being a girl.”
“Better a dog than an angel that doesn’t smell like an angel,” Landon barked.
The angel plucked out some more discordant notes on the harp while staring up at the sky as though he expected something to happen. When whatever he was waiting for didn’t happen, he sniffled and ground his foot into the ground. “I wish I was a shepherd instead of an angel,” he muttered.
“What’s your name?” Samantha asked.
Landon growled again. “Answer her.”
“Okay, okay. My name is Thomas. I-I thought I was going to be a shepherd like my father, but then I got sick and when I woke up I had angel wings instead of a shepherd’s crook. This is my first angel assignment and I’ve already messed it up. Now get your dog away from me.”
Although Samantha felt sorry for Thomas, she was still upset that he didn’t want to give his message to a girl. “Well, Thomas,” Samantha put one fist on her hip, “if you can be an angel, then I can be a shepherd. So there!”
Thomas turned his back to her and started counting sheep like an experienced shepherd. “Gabriel says this flock has two hundred and seventeen sheep. I bet you don’t even have half that many.”
“Okay. What do you want to bet?”
His eyes scanned the flock. “Uh…well…I could…”
Samantha’s smile confused him. “If there’s two hundred and seventeen sheep, then you have to give me your harp and the message you came to tell.”
Thomas looked at his harp and looked at her ram’s horn. “If I win, I get your horn and I don’t have to tell you the message.”
Samantha stuck out her hand. “Deal!”
With a shaking hand, he shook hands over the bet. “Deal!”
The angel turned and started counting again. Just as he reached two hundred and seventeen, a ewe gave birth to a little lamb. “Ha! There are two hundred and eighteen. I win!”
“No you don’t,” Samantha said.
“Why not?”
“You said you bet I don’t even have half of the two hundred and seventeen. So I won because they’re all here including one more.”
Thomas frowned. “I did say that. Didn’t I?”
Landon barked in agreement.
With a frown and a tear in his eye, Thomas handed over his harp. Then he took a deep breath and recited his message. “Hark! I bring you tidings of great joy for unto you is born, in the City of David, a savior who will be king of all the earth and bring salvation to every man,” he eyed the shepherd girl and took a deep compromising breath, “and woman. I say to you, go to Bethlehem and witness the Messiah who is Christ the Lord.”
Samantha smiled and gave Thomas a kiss, which turned his cheeks bright red. “Thank you, Thomas. Where do I find this child in Bethlehem?”
He pointed to the brightest star, which appeared only a few days ago. “Follow the star, which shines by both day and night. You will find the child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”
“You did that very well, Thomas,” Landon said. “But I still say you don’t smell like an angel.”
“Yes, he did do it well,” Samantha agreed, as she held the harp out to him. “You can have this back. Any angel worth his salt needs a harp.”
He fingered the ram’s horn hanging from a strap across her shoulders. “Could I have your horn instead?”
Samantha considered his request. She looked out upon the sheep. Only the ram’s horn could be heard across the distance from the valley to the house. If she had the harp and there was an emergency, her father would not hear the alarm.
“No, it’s best you keep your harp. In order to be a good shepherd, I have to be able to sound the alarm in case a wolf comes or one of the sheep strays too far away from the flock.”
Thomas nodded, and reluctantly took back his harp and plucked a few awkward notes. As the last note twanged, the radiant beam appeared to take him back to heaven.
“You are right,” he said with a sad nod. “God has given us each a gift and what we need to be His servants. Maybe when I’m older and become a better angel, he’ll let me have a ram’s horn. Then I can be what I really want to be, a shepherd of his heavenly flock.”
“Goodbye, Thomas.”
He smiled at her. “You’re not too bad for a girl, I guess.” He pointed a finger at her. “Now, don’t forget to go to Bethlehem.”
“I won’t. I’ll take the flock to my father and tell him I’ve been sent on a mission to witness the birth of our savior, the Messiah, Christ the Lord.”
As Samantha waved farewell, Thomas ascended on the radiant beam back into the realm of heaven. As he floated upward, a tear fell from his cheek and landed on the palm of her hand. She rubbed it against her cheek and made a promise to speak to the savior about Thomas.
When the sky turned dark again, Samantha whistled to Landon. “Come, let’s get the flock home, so I may begin my journey.”
Five days later, Samantha and Landon entered the stable and saw the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in the manger.
Mary smiled at her. “You have come to see the son of God?”
“Yes, and to ask a favor.”
“You may ask.”
Samantha knelt down beside the manger and let Jesus wrap his little fingers around her pinky. “Can you ask God, your father, to give the little angel, Thomas, a ram’s horn to blow instead of a harp? He really isn’t much good at plucking the harp strings and I think he’d be a much better angel with a horn and a flock of sheep to watch.”
Jesus squeezed her finger and smiled.
“Your wish has been granted, Samantha,” Mary said. “Now go back to your own flock. When the time is right, God will send down his blessing upon you.”
Samantha did as she was told. Seven years later, when she was of age to marry and still watching her father’s flock, which now number six hundred and three, Samantha looked up into the heavens and asked God if he’d forgotten about giving her His blessing. A loud thunder answered her query. Silver rimmed clouds filled the sky.
“Oh, God, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
The clouds soon parted and Thomas descended from the heavens, carrying a golden ram’s horn. The moment his feet touched the earth, his white robe turned to brown wool and his wings disappeared.
“Thomas, is that really you?” she asked.
“Yes, and I want to thank you for asking God to make me a shepherd of his heavenly flock.” He took down his halo, which shrank to the size of a wedding ring. “As your promised blessing, God has sent me to be your groom,” he said, as he slid the ring on her finger.
Samantha looked up to the sky with joy in her heart for no boy would take her as a bride because she worked as a shepherd and never learned how to cook. “Thank you for your blessing, Lord God. I shall work beside this husband you have sent me and bear him many children to worship your son.”
Thomas took her in his arms and held her close. “And I shall work beside this wife you have given me and spread my seed upon her womb to produce many believers who will spread the words of your son Jesus throughout the land.”
Landon sniffed at Thomas and grinned. “I never did think you smelled like an angel.”
(C) 2009 Reaona Hemmingway. All rights reserved.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Centerfold
By Reaona Hemmingway
The night clerk watched Janet Wharton enter the convenience store. His hand hovered over the silent alarm button. She didn’t blame him. Not every customer wore a trench coat and sunglasses at one o’clock in the morning. He expected her to rob the place. Instead, she grabbed all the plastic covered magazines from the top shelf and hurried to the counter.
“How many?” he asked.
“Eleven.” She slid a hundred dollar bill into the tray beneath the bullet proof glass while he rung up the sale. As soon as he gave her the change, she grabbed the magazines and left.
Nine stops later, Janet’s trunk contained every copy of For His Eyes Only’s November issue, except one. With the election five days away, she couldn’t afford to have those pictures hit the streets. Thankfully, Mitch worked for the delivery company Lindmeyer Printing contracted to distribute the magazine to convenience stores in town. Thankfully, the magazine’s owner was arrested for drug trafficking three hours ago, which meant no reprints.
Mitch waited in the garage when she arrived home. As soon as she parked the car, he hit the garage door button.
“Mom, you look terrible,” he said as she climbed out of the car.
She bent down and looked at her makeup in the side view mirror. Mascara was streaked and smudged from where she rubbed her eyes several times during the night.
“Not as terrible as I’d look tomorrow if you hadn’t let your hormones get curious and bought one of those magazines halfway through your delivery route.” She grinned at how red his cheeks turned. It wasn’t every college sophomore who opened a nudie magazine to find his mother the object of male lust. “What did you do with the rest?”
“They’re in my closet. I sure hope my boss doesn’t fire me when he finds out I didn’t deliver the rest of them with the other magazines on my route.”
“Just tell him you were protecting his reputation after hearing about Lindmeyer’s arrest on the radio.”
His face lit up with a smile. “That might work. Are you going to tell Dad?”
“I have to. Hell, he’s the one who took the stupid picture. That’s how we met twenty-five years ago. I went to a fraternity party, drank too much vodka spiked lemonade, and agreed to let him take my picture in the buff. How Sly Lindmeyer got hold of the negatives, I’ll never know. I watched your father destroy all the film and photographs from that frat party years ago.”
The door to the kitchen opened and Gerald Wharton walked into the garage. “What’s going on out here? Why aren’t you two in bed?”
In his blue silk pajamas and plaid flannel bathrobe, he didn’t look much like the randy photography hobbyist who seduced her into taking her clothes off in his bedroom at the fraternity house. He looked like what he was, an overworked district attorney up past his normal bedtime.
Janet opened the trunk and grabbed a magazine. “We were just discussing when to hold the bonfire. Your job tomorrow, Mr. D.A., is to find a way to get the proofs, negatives, and printing plates from Lindmeyer Printing without raising suspicions.”
She watched the confused look on Gerald’s face change to one of horror when he opened the magazine. The color left his face and his hands shook. “How the hell?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Janet said, patting him on the arm. “Your bid for District Court Judge is going to get broadsided if we don’t keep these pictures off the streets between now and next Tuesday. Like I said, if you don’t come back with every last remaining copy of my picture, you can kiss your career goodbye.” She stifled a yawn. “As for me, I’m going to bed.”
Within minutes after entering Lindmeyer Printing’s establishment, Gerald Wharton found the galley proofs, printing plates, negatives, and thirty sample copies of For His Eyes Only’s November issue. First, he carefully removed the centerfolds from the magazines and then, using skills learned during his college poker playing years, slipped every image of Janet inside his briefcase.
As District Attorney, it wasn’t difficult convincing the Chief of Police to allow him to accompany the investigating team on this evidence search. His participation would show his constituents how serious he was about punishing criminals from either side of the bench.
“How’s it going, Mr. Wharton?”
Startled, Gerald looked up to see a police officer standing in the doorway of the storage room. “Fine. Have you found anything significant yet?”
“Not much. Clancy found some receipts for chemicals, some of which are used in making methamphetamines. Other than that, we’re running dry.”
Gerald flipped another page in the November issue’s file and blinked. Did he dare mention what he just found before completing his search through the file? He didn’t have a choice if he wanted Lindmeyer to stay behind bars.
“Tell Clancy and Ingman that I just found evidence of child pornography.”
After the officer left the room, he pulled the picture from the file. His stomach felt raw with knowing the identity of the sixteen-year-old girl. Sure enough, when he flipped open the magazine he found the same picture on page sixty-two. How on earth was he going to explain the thirty missing centerfolds or why his wife bought up every retail copy without confessing what he’d just done to protect his campaign?
He shuffled through the file as fast as he could and felt relieved when he didn’t find any further copies of Janet’s picture. He stacked the photographs, negatives, and printing plates for page sixty-two on the table next to the stack of magazine samples.
“What you got there?” Clancy asked when he entered the room.
“Nude photographs of Sandra Mandrake that were published in the November issue of For His Eyes Only,” Gerald said, pointing to the stack.
Ingman slapped him on the shoulder. “Nice work, Wharton. You’ve ensured that sleaze ball Lindmeyer stays in prison until he’s wearing false teeth and knocked your opponent off the judicial ballot all in one swoop.”
Gerald shook his head. “We’ve got to keep her identity out of the papers.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“She’s sixteen and obviously needs counseling. Knowing the way kids think, this was probably her way of getting her parent’s attention. Ruining Mandrake’s run for the bench won’t solve her problems. More than likely, it will make them worse and ruin the kid’s future entirely.”
Clancy nodded his agreement. “As always, you’re right. Under the safeguards of child protection, we can charge Lindmeyer with child pornography without dragging Mandrake’s name through the press.”
“I want to go with you to break the news to Mandrake,” Gerald said, as he nervously watched Ingman flip through a copy of the magazine. “With the way we’ve been at each other’s throats on legal issues during this campaign, I want to make sure he knows any leak won’t come from my direction.”
Ingman bagged and tagged the evidence along with one magazine copy before they headed out the door. “If you ask me,” he said, “it’s not much of a nudie magazine. Heck, it doesn’t even have a centerfold.”
Gerald sat quietly in the back seat during the ride to Mandrake’s office. Clancy skimmed through a copy of the magazine while Ingman drove the unmarked police car.
“Something sure seems odd about this rag,” Clancy said. “Not only does it not have a centerfold, the page numbering is all messed up.” He held the magazine open to the center. “Look here. Page thirty-eight is facing page forty-three.” He flipped back a few pages. “And page twenty-six is facing page thirty-three.”
“Sounds like Lindmeyer got the pages out of order,” Ingman said. “Kind of makes you wonder if that sorry son was high on his own meth when he sent the fool thing to press.”
For the first time since walking into the garage and learning about the centerfold, Gerald felt like he could relax. If Lindmeyer printed and bound the pages out of order, maybe no one would question the missing centerfolds. Now all he needed was for no one to question why the magazines weren’t on the store shelves.
Donald Mandrake’s secretary did her best to protest their intrusion into the attorney’s office. Flashing his badge, Clancy opened the heavy oak door and led the way inside Mandrake’s private sanctum.
The criminal attorney who lost the district attorney’s race three terms running to Gerald jumped to his feet. “What’s the meaning of this?” he asked as he pushed a remote control button.
Gerald glanced at the video screen and felt his stomach flop around again as he viewed a blurry image of Janet wearing a trench coat and sunglasses while standing at a convenience store’s checkout counter with a stack of magazines.
He studied Mandrake’s reaction as Clancy explained how Gerald found Sandra’s pictures in the magazine. The furry in the man’s coal black eyes burned holes right through Gerald’s already stressed out stomach.
“Just say the word, and I’ll have some uniformed officers confiscate every available copy of For His Eyes Only from the magazine racks in town,” Clancy said.
Mandrake stared right into Gerald’s eyes and laughed. “You don’t need to. Janet Wharton already beat you to it.”
Everyone stared at Gerald. It took every skill he learned in high school drama class to appear innocent.
“She is your wife, isn’t she?” Mandrake asked, pointing at the video screen.
“Yes.”
Ingman grabbed the remote and rewound the tape to where Janet entered the store. “What’s going on here Wharton?”
Gerald rubbed his forehead. “Mitch was making magazine deliveries last night and bought a copy. He called Janet when he saw something in the magazine that upset him. Then, without my knowledge, they secured nearly every copy Lindmeyer sent out for retail sale.”
“So that’s why you wanted in on searching the printing press?” Clancy asked.
Gerald nodded. “There’s been enough mud-slinging in this campaign. Right now Mandrake and I are even in the preliminary poles. Something like this would put an uncontrollable spin on the campaign. I don’t want that. What I do want is to see Lindmeyer prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If we do this properly, no one has to find out the sixteen-year-old in the photograph is Sandra.”
“What if Lindmeyer’s attorney insists on putting Sandra on the stand?” Mandrake asked.
Gerald studied Mandrake’s face. The man knew he was hiding something, but refrained from challenging him in front of Clancy and Ingman. “Like Clancy said earlier, Sandra’s a minor, we can protect her.” He grabbed the magazine Clancy carried and held it out to Mandrake. “But only you can intervene and get her away from sleaze balls like Lindmeyer.”
Tuesday night after the voting poles closed, Gerald’s cell phone vibrated against his leg. He pulled it from his pocket and walked to the quietest corner of his chaotic office. “The tallies aren’t in yet, so you better not try gloating.”
“I just wanted to thank you,” Mandrake said. “Sandra and I are making real progress. I think everything’s going to be okay.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I also wanted to let you know that Janet was one fine looking college coed. Never saw a better looking Miss November. The way I figure it, paying my computer geek buddy to destroy the computer files of her picture makes us even. And, as an added bonus, if Lindmeyer gets convicted without Sandra’s name getting mentioned, I’ll mail you the last magazine copy.”
A cheer went up as the election tally showed Gerald the winner by a thousand votes.
He rubbed his stomach. An appointment with his doctor was the first thing he planned to put on his new judicial agenda. He was certainly going to need some heavy duty antacids.
(C) 2010 Reaona Hemmingway. All rights reserved.
The night clerk watched Janet Wharton enter the convenience store. His hand hovered over the silent alarm button. She didn’t blame him. Not every customer wore a trench coat and sunglasses at one o’clock in the morning. He expected her to rob the place. Instead, she grabbed all the plastic covered magazines from the top shelf and hurried to the counter.
“How many?” he asked.
“Eleven.” She slid a hundred dollar bill into the tray beneath the bullet proof glass while he rung up the sale. As soon as he gave her the change, she grabbed the magazines and left.
Nine stops later, Janet’s trunk contained every copy of For His Eyes Only’s November issue, except one. With the election five days away, she couldn’t afford to have those pictures hit the streets. Thankfully, Mitch worked for the delivery company Lindmeyer Printing contracted to distribute the magazine to convenience stores in town. Thankfully, the magazine’s owner was arrested for drug trafficking three hours ago, which meant no reprints.
Mitch waited in the garage when she arrived home. As soon as she parked the car, he hit the garage door button.
“Mom, you look terrible,” he said as she climbed out of the car.
She bent down and looked at her makeup in the side view mirror. Mascara was streaked and smudged from where she rubbed her eyes several times during the night.
“Not as terrible as I’d look tomorrow if you hadn’t let your hormones get curious and bought one of those magazines halfway through your delivery route.” She grinned at how red his cheeks turned. It wasn’t every college sophomore who opened a nudie magazine to find his mother the object of male lust. “What did you do with the rest?”
“They’re in my closet. I sure hope my boss doesn’t fire me when he finds out I didn’t deliver the rest of them with the other magazines on my route.”
“Just tell him you were protecting his reputation after hearing about Lindmeyer’s arrest on the radio.”
His face lit up with a smile. “That might work. Are you going to tell Dad?”
“I have to. Hell, he’s the one who took the stupid picture. That’s how we met twenty-five years ago. I went to a fraternity party, drank too much vodka spiked lemonade, and agreed to let him take my picture in the buff. How Sly Lindmeyer got hold of the negatives, I’ll never know. I watched your father destroy all the film and photographs from that frat party years ago.”
The door to the kitchen opened and Gerald Wharton walked into the garage. “What’s going on out here? Why aren’t you two in bed?”
In his blue silk pajamas and plaid flannel bathrobe, he didn’t look much like the randy photography hobbyist who seduced her into taking her clothes off in his bedroom at the fraternity house. He looked like what he was, an overworked district attorney up past his normal bedtime.
Janet opened the trunk and grabbed a magazine. “We were just discussing when to hold the bonfire. Your job tomorrow, Mr. D.A., is to find a way to get the proofs, negatives, and printing plates from Lindmeyer Printing without raising suspicions.”
She watched the confused look on Gerald’s face change to one of horror when he opened the magazine. The color left his face and his hands shook. “How the hell?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Janet said, patting him on the arm. “Your bid for District Court Judge is going to get broadsided if we don’t keep these pictures off the streets between now and next Tuesday. Like I said, if you don’t come back with every last remaining copy of my picture, you can kiss your career goodbye.” She stifled a yawn. “As for me, I’m going to bed.”
Within minutes after entering Lindmeyer Printing’s establishment, Gerald Wharton found the galley proofs, printing plates, negatives, and thirty sample copies of For His Eyes Only’s November issue. First, he carefully removed the centerfolds from the magazines and then, using skills learned during his college poker playing years, slipped every image of Janet inside his briefcase.
As District Attorney, it wasn’t difficult convincing the Chief of Police to allow him to accompany the investigating team on this evidence search. His participation would show his constituents how serious he was about punishing criminals from either side of the bench.
“How’s it going, Mr. Wharton?”
Startled, Gerald looked up to see a police officer standing in the doorway of the storage room. “Fine. Have you found anything significant yet?”
“Not much. Clancy found some receipts for chemicals, some of which are used in making methamphetamines. Other than that, we’re running dry.”
Gerald flipped another page in the November issue’s file and blinked. Did he dare mention what he just found before completing his search through the file? He didn’t have a choice if he wanted Lindmeyer to stay behind bars.
“Tell Clancy and Ingman that I just found evidence of child pornography.”
After the officer left the room, he pulled the picture from the file. His stomach felt raw with knowing the identity of the sixteen-year-old girl. Sure enough, when he flipped open the magazine he found the same picture on page sixty-two. How on earth was he going to explain the thirty missing centerfolds or why his wife bought up every retail copy without confessing what he’d just done to protect his campaign?
He shuffled through the file as fast as he could and felt relieved when he didn’t find any further copies of Janet’s picture. He stacked the photographs, negatives, and printing plates for page sixty-two on the table next to the stack of magazine samples.
“What you got there?” Clancy asked when he entered the room.
“Nude photographs of Sandra Mandrake that were published in the November issue of For His Eyes Only,” Gerald said, pointing to the stack.
Ingman slapped him on the shoulder. “Nice work, Wharton. You’ve ensured that sleaze ball Lindmeyer stays in prison until he’s wearing false teeth and knocked your opponent off the judicial ballot all in one swoop.”
Gerald shook his head. “We’ve got to keep her identity out of the papers.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“She’s sixteen and obviously needs counseling. Knowing the way kids think, this was probably her way of getting her parent’s attention. Ruining Mandrake’s run for the bench won’t solve her problems. More than likely, it will make them worse and ruin the kid’s future entirely.”
Clancy nodded his agreement. “As always, you’re right. Under the safeguards of child protection, we can charge Lindmeyer with child pornography without dragging Mandrake’s name through the press.”
“I want to go with you to break the news to Mandrake,” Gerald said, as he nervously watched Ingman flip through a copy of the magazine. “With the way we’ve been at each other’s throats on legal issues during this campaign, I want to make sure he knows any leak won’t come from my direction.”
Ingman bagged and tagged the evidence along with one magazine copy before they headed out the door. “If you ask me,” he said, “it’s not much of a nudie magazine. Heck, it doesn’t even have a centerfold.”
Gerald sat quietly in the back seat during the ride to Mandrake’s office. Clancy skimmed through a copy of the magazine while Ingman drove the unmarked police car.
“Something sure seems odd about this rag,” Clancy said. “Not only does it not have a centerfold, the page numbering is all messed up.” He held the magazine open to the center. “Look here. Page thirty-eight is facing page forty-three.” He flipped back a few pages. “And page twenty-six is facing page thirty-three.”
“Sounds like Lindmeyer got the pages out of order,” Ingman said. “Kind of makes you wonder if that sorry son was high on his own meth when he sent the fool thing to press.”
For the first time since walking into the garage and learning about the centerfold, Gerald felt like he could relax. If Lindmeyer printed and bound the pages out of order, maybe no one would question the missing centerfolds. Now all he needed was for no one to question why the magazines weren’t on the store shelves.
Donald Mandrake’s secretary did her best to protest their intrusion into the attorney’s office. Flashing his badge, Clancy opened the heavy oak door and led the way inside Mandrake’s private sanctum.
The criminal attorney who lost the district attorney’s race three terms running to Gerald jumped to his feet. “What’s the meaning of this?” he asked as he pushed a remote control button.
Gerald glanced at the video screen and felt his stomach flop around again as he viewed a blurry image of Janet wearing a trench coat and sunglasses while standing at a convenience store’s checkout counter with a stack of magazines.
He studied Mandrake’s reaction as Clancy explained how Gerald found Sandra’s pictures in the magazine. The furry in the man’s coal black eyes burned holes right through Gerald’s already stressed out stomach.
“Just say the word, and I’ll have some uniformed officers confiscate every available copy of For His Eyes Only from the magazine racks in town,” Clancy said.
Mandrake stared right into Gerald’s eyes and laughed. “You don’t need to. Janet Wharton already beat you to it.”
Everyone stared at Gerald. It took every skill he learned in high school drama class to appear innocent.
“She is your wife, isn’t she?” Mandrake asked, pointing at the video screen.
“Yes.”
Ingman grabbed the remote and rewound the tape to where Janet entered the store. “What’s going on here Wharton?”
Gerald rubbed his forehead. “Mitch was making magazine deliveries last night and bought a copy. He called Janet when he saw something in the magazine that upset him. Then, without my knowledge, they secured nearly every copy Lindmeyer sent out for retail sale.”
“So that’s why you wanted in on searching the printing press?” Clancy asked.
Gerald nodded. “There’s been enough mud-slinging in this campaign. Right now Mandrake and I are even in the preliminary poles. Something like this would put an uncontrollable spin on the campaign. I don’t want that. What I do want is to see Lindmeyer prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If we do this properly, no one has to find out the sixteen-year-old in the photograph is Sandra.”
“What if Lindmeyer’s attorney insists on putting Sandra on the stand?” Mandrake asked.
Gerald studied Mandrake’s face. The man knew he was hiding something, but refrained from challenging him in front of Clancy and Ingman. “Like Clancy said earlier, Sandra’s a minor, we can protect her.” He grabbed the magazine Clancy carried and held it out to Mandrake. “But only you can intervene and get her away from sleaze balls like Lindmeyer.”
Tuesday night after the voting poles closed, Gerald’s cell phone vibrated against his leg. He pulled it from his pocket and walked to the quietest corner of his chaotic office. “The tallies aren’t in yet, so you better not try gloating.”
“I just wanted to thank you,” Mandrake said. “Sandra and I are making real progress. I think everything’s going to be okay.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I also wanted to let you know that Janet was one fine looking college coed. Never saw a better looking Miss November. The way I figure it, paying my computer geek buddy to destroy the computer files of her picture makes us even. And, as an added bonus, if Lindmeyer gets convicted without Sandra’s name getting mentioned, I’ll mail you the last magazine copy.”
A cheer went up as the election tally showed Gerald the winner by a thousand votes.
He rubbed his stomach. An appointment with his doctor was the first thing he planned to put on his new judicial agenda. He was certainly going to need some heavy duty antacids.
(C) 2010 Reaona Hemmingway. All rights reserved.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Revelation
By Reaona Hemmingway
“Cider, how old are you?” Revelation asked.
“Done lost count after sixty. Why’d you ask?”
“I think you’re gettin’ senile draggin’ me up this mountain to freeze my ears off. What I should be doin’ is takin’ you to Denver City to see a doctor.”
Cider laughed. “Well, Rev, guess it is odd climbin’ a mountain with a bullet in my chest.” He looked at the red stain on his buckskins. “I’ll die anyway. And when I do, I want to rest beside Whispering Tree.”
“Is she really the only gal you ever loved?”
“Prettiest Blackfoot gal ever walked this earth.” The gray horse stopped when they reached the top. “I used to trade furs with her pa. Gave him two pack horses for her.”
“Ever have any kids?”
“Three. Two of them died.”
“What about the third?”
Cider looked at Revelation. “Whispering Tree died givin’ birth to him. I buried her right up here on top, facin’ the morning sun.” Cider swiped his arm at the vast world below. “To the north, west, and south all you see is mountains, to the east the plains. You’ll never see more land at one time than you can at this moment.”
Revelation pulled the fleece coat collar coat over his ears. Cider handed him a shovel. “Let’s get digging,” the old man said. He paced off from a boulder and pounded a pickax into the frozen earth. Revelation finished digging after Cider passed out.
“I found her!”
Cider opened his eyes and looked down at the bones showing through holes in the rotted Indian blanket. “That’s your ma, boy. Sorry I left you at that children’s home. Your real name’s Stanley after my pa, but the mother superior named you Revelation.”
Revelation peered into his father’s eyes. “How come you never told me?”
“When I found you starvin’ on the streets, you swore you’d shoot your pa if you ever met him. Figured we’d get along better as partners. Forgive me…”
Cider stopped breathing. Revelation wrapped him in a Hudson Bay blanket and laid him beside Whispering Tree. As he filled the grave, he thought about all the times he saw love in the old man’s eyes.
Early the next morning, he returned to the trading post. Stella met him, her raven hair blowing in the wind. “Hey, Rev, where’s Cider?”
“Buried him on the mountain next to his wife.”
“Chase Lassiter shot him bad then, huh?”
“Yep. But Lassiter didn’t make it far, either. He died from Cider’s bullet.”
“Did Cider leave you anything?”
Revelation looked up at Pike’s Peak. “Well, I got what was left of his poke. And he let me know I was never really alone in this world.”
(C) Reaona Hemmingway. First published in the 2010 Kansas Authors Club Yearbook.
“Cider, how old are you?” Revelation asked.
“Done lost count after sixty. Why’d you ask?”
“I think you’re gettin’ senile draggin’ me up this mountain to freeze my ears off. What I should be doin’ is takin’ you to Denver City to see a doctor.”
Cider laughed. “Well, Rev, guess it is odd climbin’ a mountain with a bullet in my chest.” He looked at the red stain on his buckskins. “I’ll die anyway. And when I do, I want to rest beside Whispering Tree.”
“Is she really the only gal you ever loved?”
“Prettiest Blackfoot gal ever walked this earth.” The gray horse stopped when they reached the top. “I used to trade furs with her pa. Gave him two pack horses for her.”
“Ever have any kids?”
“Three. Two of them died.”
“What about the third?”
Cider looked at Revelation. “Whispering Tree died givin’ birth to him. I buried her right up here on top, facin’ the morning sun.” Cider swiped his arm at the vast world below. “To the north, west, and south all you see is mountains, to the east the plains. You’ll never see more land at one time than you can at this moment.”
Revelation pulled the fleece coat collar coat over his ears. Cider handed him a shovel. “Let’s get digging,” the old man said. He paced off from a boulder and pounded a pickax into the frozen earth. Revelation finished digging after Cider passed out.
“I found her!”
Cider opened his eyes and looked down at the bones showing through holes in the rotted Indian blanket. “That’s your ma, boy. Sorry I left you at that children’s home. Your real name’s Stanley after my pa, but the mother superior named you Revelation.”
Revelation peered into his father’s eyes. “How come you never told me?”
“When I found you starvin’ on the streets, you swore you’d shoot your pa if you ever met him. Figured we’d get along better as partners. Forgive me…”
Cider stopped breathing. Revelation wrapped him in a Hudson Bay blanket and laid him beside Whispering Tree. As he filled the grave, he thought about all the times he saw love in the old man’s eyes.
Early the next morning, he returned to the trading post. Stella met him, her raven hair blowing in the wind. “Hey, Rev, where’s Cider?”
“Buried him on the mountain next to his wife.”
“Chase Lassiter shot him bad then, huh?”
“Yep. But Lassiter didn’t make it far, either. He died from Cider’s bullet.”
“Did Cider leave you anything?”
Revelation looked up at Pike’s Peak. “Well, I got what was left of his poke. And he let me know I was never really alone in this world.”
(C) Reaona Hemmingway. First published in the 2010 Kansas Authors Club Yearbook.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
A Box Marked Shoes
By Reaona Hemmingway
Memoir, July 2004
On the first morning in my new house, I started looking for a box marked “Shoes” so that I could get dressed for church. Every muscle and joint in my body ached and complained about all the packing, moving, and unpacking I put it through during the past month. The fibromyalgia and tendonitis warred against my conditioned habit of waking up on Sunday morning to spend two hours away from the bed my fatigue craved. I ignored the magnetic draw of the bedroom and continued to look because without the box, the only shoes available for me to wear were the old, worn out, holey sneakers my feet refused to wear another minute.
As I searched, I thought about how compared to some women, I possessed a limited footwear supply. All the shoes I owned fit into a three-foot by two-foot box about eighteen inches high. My shoe wardrobe included one pair of dressy black pumps, three pairs of flats, three pairs of casual shoes, one nice pair of tennis shoes for wearing with summer outfits, green flip flops, three pairs of slippers, three sets of boots, and my moccasins.
After spending Saturday unpacking, there weren’t many boxes left in the house, but the box marked “Shoes” eluded me. I thought about my grandma’s shoe supply. When we moved her from Dodge City, the moving van came loaded with fifty-three wardrobe boxes filled with clothes, purses, hats, and, you guessed it, shoes. There were black, brown, white, cream, red, blue, green, and every color including rainbow. There were pumps, flats, tennis shoes, sandals, slippers, boots, and stilettos. All made from either suede, patent leather, snake skin, canvas, cork, calf skin, nylon net, and just about anything except cheap vinyl. They came in four different sizes and in all the fashionable brands while most of my shoes were bought at Wal-Mart. I often refer to Grandma as the Imelda Marcos of Dodge City, Kansas.
During the first yard sale my family held after Grandma’s two-bedroom apartment ran out of room to hold what used to fit into a four-bedroom house, we sold seventy pairs of shoes. One man bought fifty pairs at two dollars for his wife. After we moved Grandma into an independent living facility, we held another yard sale where we sold off another sixty pairs of shoes. Certainly the supply would dwindle. It didn’t. With Grandma, shoes multiplied like rabbits.
With all those shoes, Grandma could have worn a different pair every day of the year and never wear the same pair twice. But no, not Grandma. Every time I picked her up to go shopping, she wore the same pair of black patent leather pumps. The pumps were too big and clunked when she walked. She frequently complained that her shoes flopped. She often shuffled her feet to keep her floppy shoes from falling off. When I asked her why she didn’t wear a pair of shoes that fit, she said, “I don’t know.”
Afraid that she would trip and fall in her floppy shoes, my dad took Grandma to Dillard’s to buy a new pair that fit. The salesman measured her foot and Dad walked around with her in the shoe department as she tried on new shoes until they found a pair that fit just right. But the next time she came to church, she wore the floppy shoes. I asked her why she didn’t wear her new shoes and again she said, “I don’t know.”
Unless Dad reminded her, she never wore her new shoes. On one Saturday when I picked her up to go grocery shopping, I told her to wear her new shoes, but she didn’t know where they were. I looked all over her apartment and found boxes and boxes of shoes under the bed, in the closest, and stacked in corners. The shoe rabbits were breading again.
When I finally found her new shoes and took her to the store, she complained that they hurt her feet. I asked her why she bought them if they hurt her feet. All she said was, “I don’t know.”
A few months later, we moved Grandma into an Alzheimer’s facility and held another sale. We counted nearly a hundred shoe boxes. Most of the shoes were never worn. We separated them onto tables in four different sizes. When the sale ended, we still packed a dozen cardboard cartons with shoes for the charity thrift store to pick up. Finally, the shoe rabbits were spayed.
With a shoe supply like Grandma’s I probably would have made it to church that first Sunday after I moved into my new house. Instead I sat down on the couch with my tired, sore joints and muscles and fell asleep with visions of shoe fairies dancing through my head.
Later that evening, while unpacking more boxes, I finally found my one lonely box marked “Shoes.”
(c) 2010 Reaona Hemmingway
Memoir, July 2004
On the first morning in my new house, I started looking for a box marked “Shoes” so that I could get dressed for church. Every muscle and joint in my body ached and complained about all the packing, moving, and unpacking I put it through during the past month. The fibromyalgia and tendonitis warred against my conditioned habit of waking up on Sunday morning to spend two hours away from the bed my fatigue craved. I ignored the magnetic draw of the bedroom and continued to look because without the box, the only shoes available for me to wear were the old, worn out, holey sneakers my feet refused to wear another minute.
As I searched, I thought about how compared to some women, I possessed a limited footwear supply. All the shoes I owned fit into a three-foot by two-foot box about eighteen inches high. My shoe wardrobe included one pair of dressy black pumps, three pairs of flats, three pairs of casual shoes, one nice pair of tennis shoes for wearing with summer outfits, green flip flops, three pairs of slippers, three sets of boots, and my moccasins.
After spending Saturday unpacking, there weren’t many boxes left in the house, but the box marked “Shoes” eluded me. I thought about my grandma’s shoe supply. When we moved her from Dodge City, the moving van came loaded with fifty-three wardrobe boxes filled with clothes, purses, hats, and, you guessed it, shoes. There were black, brown, white, cream, red, blue, green, and every color including rainbow. There were pumps, flats, tennis shoes, sandals, slippers, boots, and stilettos. All made from either suede, patent leather, snake skin, canvas, cork, calf skin, nylon net, and just about anything except cheap vinyl. They came in four different sizes and in all the fashionable brands while most of my shoes were bought at Wal-Mart. I often refer to Grandma as the Imelda Marcos of Dodge City, Kansas.
During the first yard sale my family held after Grandma’s two-bedroom apartment ran out of room to hold what used to fit into a four-bedroom house, we sold seventy pairs of shoes. One man bought fifty pairs at two dollars for his wife. After we moved Grandma into an independent living facility, we held another yard sale where we sold off another sixty pairs of shoes. Certainly the supply would dwindle. It didn’t. With Grandma, shoes multiplied like rabbits.
With all those shoes, Grandma could have worn a different pair every day of the year and never wear the same pair twice. But no, not Grandma. Every time I picked her up to go shopping, she wore the same pair of black patent leather pumps. The pumps were too big and clunked when she walked. She frequently complained that her shoes flopped. She often shuffled her feet to keep her floppy shoes from falling off. When I asked her why she didn’t wear a pair of shoes that fit, she said, “I don’t know.”
Afraid that she would trip and fall in her floppy shoes, my dad took Grandma to Dillard’s to buy a new pair that fit. The salesman measured her foot and Dad walked around with her in the shoe department as she tried on new shoes until they found a pair that fit just right. But the next time she came to church, she wore the floppy shoes. I asked her why she didn’t wear her new shoes and again she said, “I don’t know.”
Unless Dad reminded her, she never wore her new shoes. On one Saturday when I picked her up to go grocery shopping, I told her to wear her new shoes, but she didn’t know where they were. I looked all over her apartment and found boxes and boxes of shoes under the bed, in the closest, and stacked in corners. The shoe rabbits were breading again.
When I finally found her new shoes and took her to the store, she complained that they hurt her feet. I asked her why she bought them if they hurt her feet. All she said was, “I don’t know.”
A few months later, we moved Grandma into an Alzheimer’s facility and held another sale. We counted nearly a hundred shoe boxes. Most of the shoes were never worn. We separated them onto tables in four different sizes. When the sale ended, we still packed a dozen cardboard cartons with shoes for the charity thrift store to pick up. Finally, the shoe rabbits were spayed.
With a shoe supply like Grandma’s I probably would have made it to church that first Sunday after I moved into my new house. Instead I sat down on the couch with my tired, sore joints and muscles and fell asleep with visions of shoe fairies dancing through my head.
Later that evening, while unpacking more boxes, I finally found my one lonely box marked “Shoes.”
(c) 2010 Reaona Hemmingway
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Wrong Turns to Tallgrass
By Reaona Hemmingway
June 25, 2010
Welcome to the first post on my new blog. The business of this past week has brought to Emporia, Kansas for the 25th Annual Tallgrass Writing Workshop craving relaxation. My original purpose for coming to Emporia happens in the morning, Saturday, June 26, 2010. The Towne Crier bookstore here is holding their 3rd Annual Kansas Authors Extravaganza and I will be there to sign copies of my book along with forty some odd other authors who live in or originate from Kansas. As luck would have it, the Tallgrass Workshop is also this weekend, so I get to do both with one trip.
The great part about coming to workshops or conferences is the opportunity to meet with and swap stories with fellow authors. The horror comes in trying to leave home with everything you need: Clothes, laptop, toiletries, directions to the hotel and conference, and so on. To give myself plenty of time I took half a day off from work to give myself time to get packed, deliver books to the Hastings store in Topeka, drop poetry contest entries into the mail for this year’s judges of the 2010 Kansas Authors Club Literary Contest, get cash from the bank, and leave town in time to arrive in Emporia before supper. That was the plan, not the reality.
The first time I left home around 3:15 I made it six blocks when an AT&T cellular phone commercial came on the radio. The horror of listening to this ad was remembering that I had plugged my cell phone in after I came home so that it would be charged up by the time I left. It was still on the kitchen counter sucking up juice from the wall socket. A few right turns and loops around circulars brought me back to the house where my new tenant was just settling down to work on the computer and my yellow Lab was just settling down to an afternoon nap. I retrieved the phone, went back out the door, and headed to Hastings.
Things were going good again as I dropped off my new published book off at Hasting, drove to the Post Office and mailed the poem to my judges—I’m the poetry contest manager this year, and then headed to the bank. Four blocks from a bank branch on the south end of town near the freeway, I realized I left my checkbook and credit card case at home. Bummers.
I looped around on the freeway heading north instead of south to Emporia and drove back to my section of town, waded through the circulars again, and disturbed the sleepy dog, again, in order to get what I needed to pay for my hotel and meals for the weekend. Such are the hazards of not carrying your checkbook and credit cards with you. The bonus of leaving such things at home is that you can’t so easily impulsively buy things at the store. Purchases take thought, a trip home, and a return to the store. Usually, by the time I get home, I decide I don’t need the item bad enough to make another trip to Wanamaker Road where all the malls and stores congregate in Topeka.
As I finally headed south again, I stopped for the gas and, because it was dinner time by then, I swung through Wendy’s for chicken wraps, ice tea, and a coffee shake. Now if I wasn’t so full from eating all that and an hour behind schedule arriving at the first workshop event, I could have enjoyed a Mexican buffet with my fellow writers.
Now don’t think I’m one of those people who would misplace their head if it wasn’t attached. If you ask anyone who knows me, I’m generally well organized. The trouble comes in adding the poetry contest management with settling in a new roommate and getting on the road with everything you need into a week of working full time, sprinkle on a few physical challenges and bake long enough to in high temperatures and even higher humidity and you have a recipe for taking wrong turns on your way to a writing workshop.
By the way, the program tonight was great. We were entertained by the Tallgrass Express String Band. If you like folk music about Kansas, I highly recommend you check out their website at www.tallgrassexpress.com. Truly a Kansas born and Kansas bred sound for celebrating the beauty of our Flint Hills.
(c) 2010 Reaona Hemmingway
June 25, 2010
Welcome to the first post on my new blog. The business of this past week has brought to Emporia, Kansas for the 25th Annual Tallgrass Writing Workshop craving relaxation. My original purpose for coming to Emporia happens in the morning, Saturday, June 26, 2010. The Towne Crier bookstore here is holding their 3rd Annual Kansas Authors Extravaganza and I will be there to sign copies of my book along with forty some odd other authors who live in or originate from Kansas. As luck would have it, the Tallgrass Workshop is also this weekend, so I get to do both with one trip.
The great part about coming to workshops or conferences is the opportunity to meet with and swap stories with fellow authors. The horror comes in trying to leave home with everything you need: Clothes, laptop, toiletries, directions to the hotel and conference, and so on. To give myself plenty of time I took half a day off from work to give myself time to get packed, deliver books to the Hastings store in Topeka, drop poetry contest entries into the mail for this year’s judges of the 2010 Kansas Authors Club Literary Contest, get cash from the bank, and leave town in time to arrive in Emporia before supper. That was the plan, not the reality.
The first time I left home around 3:15 I made it six blocks when an AT&T cellular phone commercial came on the radio. The horror of listening to this ad was remembering that I had plugged my cell phone in after I came home so that it would be charged up by the time I left. It was still on the kitchen counter sucking up juice from the wall socket. A few right turns and loops around circulars brought me back to the house where my new tenant was just settling down to work on the computer and my yellow Lab was just settling down to an afternoon nap. I retrieved the phone, went back out the door, and headed to Hastings.
Things were going good again as I dropped off my new published book off at Hasting, drove to the Post Office and mailed the poem to my judges—I’m the poetry contest manager this year, and then headed to the bank. Four blocks from a bank branch on the south end of town near the freeway, I realized I left my checkbook and credit card case at home. Bummers.
I looped around on the freeway heading north instead of south to Emporia and drove back to my section of town, waded through the circulars again, and disturbed the sleepy dog, again, in order to get what I needed to pay for my hotel and meals for the weekend. Such are the hazards of not carrying your checkbook and credit cards with you. The bonus of leaving such things at home is that you can’t so easily impulsively buy things at the store. Purchases take thought, a trip home, and a return to the store. Usually, by the time I get home, I decide I don’t need the item bad enough to make another trip to Wanamaker Road where all the malls and stores congregate in Topeka.
As I finally headed south again, I stopped for the gas and, because it was dinner time by then, I swung through Wendy’s for chicken wraps, ice tea, and a coffee shake. Now if I wasn’t so full from eating all that and an hour behind schedule arriving at the first workshop event, I could have enjoyed a Mexican buffet with my fellow writers.
Now don’t think I’m one of those people who would misplace their head if it wasn’t attached. If you ask anyone who knows me, I’m generally well organized. The trouble comes in adding the poetry contest management with settling in a new roommate and getting on the road with everything you need into a week of working full time, sprinkle on a few physical challenges and bake long enough to in high temperatures and even higher humidity and you have a recipe for taking wrong turns on your way to a writing workshop.
By the way, the program tonight was great. We were entertained by the Tallgrass Express String Band. If you like folk music about Kansas, I highly recommend you check out their website at www.tallgrassexpress.com. Truly a Kansas born and Kansas bred sound for celebrating the beauty of our Flint Hills.
(c) 2010 Reaona Hemmingway
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