The Dumbwaiter

[Feel free to print the Google document instead of reading the story as a blog post. Photo below by Elliot Margolies.]


When Mr. Hexter died, there was a lot of curiosity, morbid curiosity you might call it, about his artificial leg. Some people thought that it was like false teeth, that nobody would think of removing a person’s false teeth before burial, while others argued that he had died in bed with the leg off and it would be more natural not to strap it back on just for the show.

Actually the question was moot because no one knew where he kept the leg at night when he took it off and was resting in bed. The funeral director said he couldn’t find it.

The other mystery which puzzled people like my brother, who had read all the Sherlock Holmes books, was that Mr. Hexter’s house was supposed to have a dumbwaiter. It didn’t seem reasonable. The house was only one story with three rooms, barely large enough for a bachelor like Mr. Hexter who took his meals at the boarding house downtown and who had no relatives to entertain and never engaged in card parties or otherwise invited anyone save the minister to cross his threshold.

How could a one-story house have a dumbwaiter, my brother and I asked ourselves over and over. No other house in town had such a device. The grandest domestic arrangement we knew of was a backstairs in the home of a former congressman, a person far above Mr. Hexter’s station in life. Yet we had always known about the dumbwaiter the same as we had always known not to ask Mr. Hexter how he lost his leg or how it was he had no family.

“He came here a grown man,” our father said, severely, when my brother brought the matter up. “If he wanted folks to know his life story, he’d have told us.”

“Perhaps no one ever gave him a chance,” my brother said. Like myself he was rather fond of Mr. Hexter, who always seemed glad to see us when we were sent to his shop with our parents’ shoes.

After we had stood respectfully at the counter for a while, he would look up and stop his noisy machine. Then he would limp over and hold out his hands expectantly, fondling the leather at the points of pressure, pushing at the sides for stitching that might have loosened, and finally slipping his hand inside to see if the inner sole had been abused.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he would say and launch into a recital of the deficiencies which must be corrected, giving a financial accounting for each item. While he was making this examination and diagnosis, he would limp restlessly back and forth in the small space behind the counter and giant sewing machine, the stiff leg heaved along by the rest of him.

He limped that way into church too, taking the steps one leg at a time, settling into a pew towards the front, his stiff leg stretched straight out. Invited to rise and fall as the minister directed, most of the infirm and elderly remained seated; but not Mr. Hexter, no matter how awkward. He was a man of observance.

“Too bad he wasn’t more of a mixer,” our mother said after the funeral, helping the funeral director to arrange the flowers over the new mound.

“We could have asked him to Sunday dinner,” my brother said, as if there were something about Mr. Hexter he would like to know in particular.

“A shoemaker must stick to his last,” I said, eager to change the subject for I could not bear to hear it when my brother was being impertinent.

“And now he’s had his last chance,” my brother whispered in my ear, pulling me aside to tell me that the funeral director when he was accused of misplacing the artificial leg had sworn on Mr. Hexter’s Bible (lying open where he had read his last devotional) that he had looked in every nook and cranny and the leg was nowhere to be found. He told the minister that he had no thought but to fix Mr. Hexter up the same as if he were going to church.

Since Mr. Hexter never used crutches, there was no way he would have taken the leg off in one room and then gone into his bedroom and gotten into bed. A person would have to be extremely nimble to hop about like that on one leg and clearly old Mr. Hexter wasn’t, heaving his artificial leg along like a great stiff board, a burden if ever there was one, but still a great invention for a person deprived of the normal leg that most of us enjoy without giving it a second thought. My brother compared him to Long John Silver with his craggy visage and tapping peg leg and we were relieved that Mr. Hexter could wear a regular shoe and hide his maimed body under the long canvas apron which protected him from the grime and messiness of his trade.

On Sunday at church he was often accompanied by some lost soul he had badgered into coming with him. I came into his shop one day when he was after one of these poor sinners and heard Mr. Hexter meeting his protests. “You just get down there to the clothing store and buy yourself a suit of Sunday clothes. They’ll put it on my bill.” And when Sunday came, I saw the man, suitably clothed, sitting with Mr. Hexter. They never came twice these lost sheep, but Mr. Hexter made a rich man of the clothing store owner, my father said.

“Still, it beats the loneliness of sitting there by yourself week after week,” our mother said. “I’ll say amen to that,” our father said, smiling at my brother and me.

I felt at that moment what the Bible meant when it spoke of lying in the bosom of Abraham and I could feel my brother beside me grow tense with the desire to know some other way of life besides our own, to say to our father that not everyone was bon to marry and beget children, that Mr. Hexter might have chosen bachelorhood even if he had not lost a leg.

“For a long time I prayed that old Mr. Hexter would grow a new leg from his stump,” I said, wanting to veer the conversation in some safe direction, not caring that my father would look at me sharply and inquire how I knew anything about Mr. Hexter’s poor stump.

“The Bible wants us to believe in miracles and it says if you believe you can move mountains,” I said, grown heady with the knowledge that through my efforts my brother had relaxed and was smiling at the childish nature of my thought. I admired him too much and wanted his approval too much to sit still while he singlehandedly confronted our father with some idea which our father would find unspeakable and forbid us to hold to.

“Mr. Hexter is a mystery man,” my brother said, smiling at me. “A great saver of souls.”

We thought it a wonderful pun and even now I can never hear the word salvation without thinking of Mr. Hexter and his cobbler shop. Only now I think of him as free and mobile, enjoying forever the life of the spirit.

When he died there wasn’t much furniture in his little house, but what there was he left to the church along with the house. Even when the furniture and odds and ends were auctioned off, the artificial leg didn’t turn up. There was a lot of talk then, but by the time the house had stood empty for six months or more, most people had forgotten all about Mr. Hexter and his artificial leg.

I was sure, however, that my brother hadn’t forgotten, that he meant to investigate for himself the inside of Mr. Hexter’s house; and I watched all through the summer for signs of the irresistible itch that I had seen come over him before when a house stood empty for any length of time. Because I had proved my trustworthiness on several occasions, I hoped that he would take me with him when he decided to break into Mr. Hexter’s house. Even though it was church property under the terms of Mr. Hexter’s will and I knew well the penalty for violating church property with an unclean heart, I prayed nightly that my brother would invite me to go with him.

When the day came, he stood in front of our parents with his fingers crossed behind his back and said that he would take me swimming with him if they gave permission. It was late in August just before school started up again and right after lunch when we could be pretty sure that there would be nobody on the streets or busy in their yards. Any neighbors who hadn’t gone to the mountains for the worst of August were at least sensible enough to lie down and be still in the early afternoon.

We headed off in the direction of the ballast pits where we swam in the hot weather and cut through some vacant lots to come up onto the back of Mr. Hexter’s house.

There was a window where the latch had rusted loose, and since nothing of value was left inside the house, nobody had bothered to fix it. My brother carefully raised the window and we crawled into what appeared to be a kitchen; the next room was a small sitting or dining room and the next was a bedroom or so it seemed from the built-in cupboard and the faded wall paper where pictures or at least a calendar had been hung. We shone the flashlight in closets and cupboards, but not even a button or stray pin was left. We looked carefully about the paneling supposed that we would see immediately the place where the dumb waiter would be, but there was no sign of any opening. We felt about for a secret spring that would reveal an opening, but with no luck. Then we looked for stairs to go down to a cellar or maybe a trap door. Nothing. The house was too simple and beastly hot. There was no break in the flooring anywhere. Defeated and perspiring, we crawled outside again and looked around to see if there was some clue we had missed.

“Three chimneys,” my brother said, “and only two fireplaces in the house.”

We knew that there had to be a cellar door. Two old-fashioned rambling rose bushes had been planted in the back; and as we gingerly lifted back the long, intertwined canes, we could see a small wooden cover. My brother got out his jackknife and pried at the edge until it splintered and gave. We crawled backwards down five rotting steps. He shone his flashlight around the room and sure enough there was a fireplace, large enough for open-hearth cooking.

“It was the kitchen in slave times, for sure,” he said. “The poor devils.”

The flashlight beam lit on an open space in the brick; and even though I couldn’t see his face at all, I knew his eyes were shining.

“Look,” he said, pulling at the rope. “They put the food on a tray and there was another person upstairs who took it off and served it.” He tugged again at the rope. At first it didn’t budge; but when he tried harder, it pulled loose and we could hear the sound of the platform breaking loose overhead seconds before it landed with a plop and clatter, raising the dust of years.

When we opened our eyes and took our hands away from our mouths, the flashlight beam rested on Mr. Hexter’s leg. The dumb waiter must have been his hiding place; and what we had thought was the dining room was really his bedroom. Probably the panel was where he could reach it from his bed and along with the funeral director we had been too dumb to spot it.

For a minute we looked at the foot and the toes molded into terrible togetherness, then at the faint glow which came from the upper part of the leg, pink and smooth, the thigh shapely with an ankle as neat as a girl’s. How Mr. Hexter must have laughed with delight every time he strapped that beautiful leg onto the rest of him.

We closed the cellar door as if it had been a tomb, spreading the rose bushes back as best we could in a hurry.

[Undated short story by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

Barking Dog Magna Cum Laude

[Feel free to print the Google document instead of reading the story as a blog post. Photo below by Bright Green Pants.]


“103 Brandywine Lane.” Penelope lovingly pronounced the bordering streets, “George Washington Drive, Benjamin Franklin Place, Alexander Hamilton Terrace.” After all the Embarcaderos, Divisideros, El Carmelos, and Loma Verdes they had spent their apartment days on, the names seemed rich in history, evocative, promising a solid future. The house was a mix of architectural styles—a bit of dental work, a patch of fish-scale shingles, and a miniature widow’s walk. Maybe they would take off the widow’s walk at some point, but now they wanted to unpack their boxes for good and settle down. By Sunday night, Penelope’s workroom was set up with her drafting table and paint pots; and Bernie’s closet was hung with his business suits and coordinating shirts and ties.

“I love it,” Penelope said, Monday morning, kissing Bernie goodbye. “If this house were a horse, it would be an Appaloosa.”

Bernie thought about Penelope all day, her sense of humor, her talent, how much she loved him and how much he loved her, how lucky they were to have found the house. It made up for his job, his tortured dealings with Morrison, his boss. Somehow he couldn’t find an area where he felt simpatico with Morrison. He couldn’t zoom onto the right wavelength. They were both talking about Countdown Clothes; but Bernie, who handled advertising, couldn’t connect somehow to Morrison’s concepts. Actually, it was Morrison who couldn’t connect to Bernie’s concepts; but Bernie could not say that to anyone but Penelope, who always was on the same wavelength.

But the minute he walked into the house, he saw that she was close to tears.

“I’m ready to tear out my hair,” she said. “The dog next door barked nonstop all day. I nearly went bonkers.”

Bernie rubbed his hands back and forth over her shoulders until he felt her relax, go soft against his body. How could he have known the neighbors’ dog would bark like a maniac. When they looked at the house, the dog, a beautiful Irish Setter, was sitting quietly on the neighbors’ patio, looking as if he didn’t have a bark in his head.

“As soon as we can, we’ll move, sweetheart.” Bernie would have said anything to make Penelope feel better, anything that would cheer her up.

They both knew that moving was not an option. Their finances were already stretched. It was a double bind. If Penelope weren’t freelancing at home, saving the money that a studio would have cost, they couldn’t afford the monthly payments; and it was because she was working at home that the barking dog was driving her crazy.

“Surely we can solve this problem,” Bernie said. The idea that an Irish Setter was going to dictate their lives seemed ridiculous. Irish Setters were supposed to be even-tempered, good with children. This one seemed singularly dedicated to full-time barking.

Like Morrison. “Orders” he barked. “That’s why we’re here. Never forget it. Orders, orders, orders.”
Bernie wished he could work at home like Penelope. Together outsmart this barking dog and he would not have to hear Morrison barking every minute.

Penelope’s workroom, next to the neighbor’s patio where the dog was left all day, had excellent natural light; and if she could leave the window open, excellent cross ventilation. Their bedroom was on the dark side of the house.

“I felt so irritated today I didn’t get a lick of work done. First I tried ear plugs but they made my ears hurt and then I moved to our bedroom but the light was no good. I can’t meet my deadline if I miss another day of work.”

Bernie did the washing up so that she could get back to her drawing board. “I feel much better,” she said, kissing him goodnight; but she tossed and turned for hours and once she woke him up saying, “Stupid dog.” When he put his arm out, she snuggled against him and sighed in her sleep.

The responsibility! What if she weren’t a “liberated” woman with her own business and her own business card. How had men stood it before women took charge of their lives.

He wondered if Morrison’s wife snuggled up to him in bed. Miss McFadden, the secretary, said she bred dogs. He wondered what breed and Miss McFadden said, “Something like miniature long-haired dachshunds. The next time he was in Morrison’s office, he noticed a picture of his wife holding two puppies. They looked as if they were yapping at the top of their lungs and he told Miss McFadden she should type “Yap, Yap” and tape it to the picture like the subtitles in old movies.

“You are not bucking for a promotion, buster,” she said.

When he described his problem with the Irish Setter, she said, “Make a tape and play it back when they’re at home. Give them a dose of their own medicine.”

“I love it,” Penelope said. “Would it be possible that dog owners enjoy dog barking the way opera lovers love opera singing? Perhaps he’s an Irish tenor and we are simply not tuned into dog arias.”
The worst of it was that they didn’t know the neighbors at all. How could you complain to people you had never met.

ESP didn’t help. They both concentrated like crazy when the dog was let out for the day and the neighbors went off to work. “Don’t bark, don’t bark, don’t bark.” He concentrated so hard that he jumped when the dog started up. “What have we done to you?” No matter what the dog meant to express, his barking sounded to Bernie as if he wanted to chew them to bits, just the way he felt when Morrison spit out, “Orders! Orders!” All day he thought about the problem. He called his friend in the Legal Department and got suggestions Formidable. First they would have to make polite requests, give the neighbors adequate time to comply, etc.

“Get a dog yourself and let them bark at each other,” the friend said. For that he needed a law degree? He was so upset thinking how upset Penelope was, he was sure that Morrison would notice; but Morrison was having an off day.

Miss McFadden whispered, “He’s in conference, having a little nappy on his sofa.”
Bernie wondered if Morrison’s wife’s dogs barked all night and kept Morrison awake. Could he be an ally? It was hard to imagine.

Just before five Morrison called him into his office. Bernie made a point of staring at the picture of Mrs. Morrison with the dogs, but he didn’t say anything. There was a report he and Morrison were supposed to go over.

“Your wife work?” Morrison asked.

“She works at home—freelance artist. Or she did until the neighbor’s dog started driving her crazy.”

“My wife breeds dogs,” Morrison said. “Damnedest hobby a person could have.”

Bernie smiled in the direction of Mrs. Morrison’s photograph and held on hard to the chair in front of him. He would be able to recall this conversation for Penelope with no strain. He felt his brain recording it for all eternity. Lately he had felt his brain whirring on and off with the slight sound a computer makes in action, little starts and stops, wait, saving file, etc. Barks at home, bites in the office.

“They’re a noisy bunch—dogs.” He was trying to look neutral, but he wasn’t sure he was doing a good job.

“An Irish Setter I think. Would you be able to tell by the bark? Do breeds have different barks? I could bring in a tape.”

Morrison laughed and stuffed the report in his briefcase. “You’re the sly one.”

“My wife says I have hidden depths, but I’m not sure what she means.”

Morrison frowned. “God knows what it is they want—women, I mean.”

Ben nodded. He hoped the telephone would ring. Where was Miss McFadden? Why didn’t she interrupt?

“I’ll take this home tonight and we’ll go over it tomorrow,” Morrison said finally.

************

Penelope held her hands over her ears. She felt as if her auditory sense had taken over her whole life.

The noise ordinance was confusing. It specifically referred to leaf-blowers, so many decibels allowed. She liked the word decibel. It made her think of a poem by Edgar Allen Poe.

“You might as well try to prevent conversation,” the woman at City Hall said when Penelope described the situation. “Try Small Claims Court.” Do dogs have free speech rights, Penelope wondered. Is speech a survival instinct? The dog only barked when the owners were not there, which was most of the waking day. He must be experiencing loneliness, but why did his vocal chords collapse. Did the constant exercise of the bark increase capacity and strength to bark.

At first she thought it was the garbage truck the dog was barking at, but that would explain only one morning of the week. Dogs were dominated by their sense of smell just as she was dominated by her auditory sense. It was imperative that she develop a strategy.

************

Together Bernie and Penelope worked on a formal letter of complaint, trying to achieve just the right tone. After all, they were going to be living next to these people for a long time. Just as they were putting the finishing touches on the letter and were ready to run it off on their printer, using Penelope’s letterhead to emphasize her professional need for peace and quiet, the phone rang. It was Flora, next door, who introduced herself and invited them over for drinks on Friday.

“Thank you, we’d love to,” Bernie said. “Flora and Lance. And we are Bernie and Penelope. Oh yes, you also have Rusty. We will look forward to getting acquainted.”

“That’s a break,” he said, turning to Penelope. “Now we can address them by their names. If we can’t negotiate something, we can still send the letter.”

“I’ll make a tape of that damn dog barking his head off.”

“They may not believe you, but it’s worth a try.”

The next morning as soon as the dog started, Penelope plugged in their tape recorder and ran the microphone out the window. She filled one side with continuous barking. She listened for nuances of barking. When he stopped for a minute, she assumed he had gone to his water bowl. Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse. She thought of the other Irish Setters she had known. All she could remember was how beautiful they were, nothing at all about barking. Lassie, who of course was a collie, never barked except in extremis. Lassie was so thoughtful and caring and capable that a mere child was his master [sic]. Was she incompetent, at fault in this matter of the barking dog. She put the tape and tape recorder by her handbag.

************

On Friday when Bernie came home from work they went into conference. “What should we do first? How should we go about this?” Planning was essential. He had seen too many sweet deals fall through because somebody had forgotten to take care of the details, decide who was going to say what.

Bernie would bring up the subject of barking, diplomatically. Penelope would play the tape if they needed evidence.

“Never assume anything,” Morrison said and although he hated to agree with Morrison he had to admit he was right on that assumption. When he went into conference with Morrison he felt the carpet had found inches of foam underneath. Unnerving.

“Everything’s soft until it’s firm,” was one of Morrison’s favorite sayings.

Penelope decided she would wear slacks and sandals for their visit to the neighbors; Bernie changed into his suntans and his Hawaiian shirt. “If you were a dog,” he said, “You would never have to change your clothes.”

“You would have more time to devote to your barking,” Penelope said. “Your output.”

Flora opened the door and led them through the living room to the side yard. Rusty was sitting quietly next to Lance, who said “Stay” and walked towards Bernie and Penelope with one hand behind him.

“Glad you could come over,” he said and extended his other hand. “We’re training Rusty by the Barbara Woodhouse method, but sometimes the hand signals get in the way of other uses you want to make of your hands. Sit down, please.”

Flora appeared with the leash and attached it to Rusty’s collar. She held her hand at waist height, slightly cupped with the leash strap over two fingers and then slapped one hand against her leg as she said, “Walk, Rusty,” and made a quick circle around the patio. “Barbara Woodhouse calls this walkies,” she said. She leaned down and praised Rusty, “Good dog.”

Penelope thought, we’ve lost.

Bernie said, “Is there a command for ‘don’t bark’?”

Penelope pointed to the window of their house where her workroom was. “You see, I work at home and Rusty barks a lot. It’s hard to concentrate.”

“I’m so sorry,” Flora said. “I had no idea. I do hope it won’t happen again. Let him get acquainted.” She stopped stroking Rusty and gave him a push in Penelope’s direction.

He leaped across the patch of grass and sniffed at Penelope’s sandals. She could feel Flora watching for signs that she was flinching. She remembered her English professor explaining how the poet achieves his purpose in a poem by throwing the dog a juicy piece of meat while he gets on with ransacking the house. It was an idea she had intellectually accepted, but never realized emotionally before. It had seemed so vague—though presented by the professor in such a spellbinding way—she felt struck dumb with the clarity of it while Rusty slobbered on her big toe. She reached for one of the cocktail napkins and dried her toe. Then she ran her hand over Rusty’s head. She felt his response and repeated the stroke. He moved closer and rested his head on her knee. “Rusty,” she said without meaning to, or had she said ‘precious’? She looked at Flora, who was smiling proudly.

Lance came out with a tray of wine glasses and a bottle of wine. Flora followed with a tray of cheese and crackers. Tucked under her arm was a folder. She showed them a photograph of Rusty wearing a Mortar Board. “It was a package deal. There’s a fancy certificate with a gold seal. We decided not to frame it. After he graduated from obedience school, we saw the Woodhouse method on television and decided to give him a postgraduate course.”

“You look very intelligent,” Penelope said to Rusty. She struggled to keep a straight face.
“What about the tape?” Bernie asked when Lance went back for ice and Flora took Rusty into the kitchen for his feeding.

“There’s no plug out here and I forgot to get batteries. Somehow it didn’t dawn on me that we’d be outside.”

“No matter, we can save it for later. He’s a beautiful dog. He doesn’t look like a barker.”

“They seem very pleasant, but it’s clear that they don’t believe me since the dog doesn’t bark when they are home. ‘She hopes it won’t happen again.’ She thinks I’m referring to an isolated incident.”

Bernie felt hopeless. He remembered a line Miss McFadden used a lot, especially when he complained to her about Morrison. “Sometimes you can’t win for losing.”

************

The next morning Penelope thought Rusty wouldn’t bark. Now he would know that he had a friend next door. As soon as Flora and Lance drove out of their driveway, the barking began.

“Maybe you could talk to him a little and he would shut up,” Bernie said. He felt guilty leaving Penelope, but Morrison was a bear about tardiness.

“I’ll try,” Penelope said. “I can’t take another day of racket, no matter how educated.”

When she went outside, Rusty was running back and forth along the fence barking as if his life depended on it.

“Rusty, good boy, don’t be upset. I’m here all day. I’ll be your friend.”

He stopped and looked at her. Then he pushed his nose against the fence.

“No, don’t do that,” Penelope said. “You’ll get your nose caught. Wait a minute.” She went into the kitchen and cut up a turkey hot dog. Would he care if it were heated or not? She doubted it. She tossed the pieces over the fence and thought maybe he barks because they don’t feed him enough. She ran back into the house and telephoned Bernie.

“Did it keep him quiet?”

“I don’t know yet, but I just wanted to report.”

“Could you go over to their patio and work on their picnic table?”

“I don’t feel right about doing that. Suppose one of them got sick and came home unexpectedly from work. Or suppose the meter reader came by or who knows what. It sounds too much like a Raymond Carver story, you know the one where the couple tried on the other couple’s clothes.”

“Well, you’ll work it out somehow,” Bernie said. He could see Morrison coming down the hall towards his office. “You can’t let a stupid dog ruin your life, our life.”

“He’s not stupid. He’s like a child being left along all day.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that. I’ve got to go. Morrison’s on his way to bark at me.”

“He’s a very smart dog.”

“Right. Right. Goodbye.”

************

As soon as she hung up she could hear that the barking had started again. Maybe it was squirrels he was barking at. That would be only instinct. She raced around to the gate and opened the latch. “Rusty, old barker. Quiet down.”

Rusty came towards her and waited to be petted. His leash was hanging by the back door. She said, “Sit.” He sat. “Good dog.” She snapped the leash on and said, “Walkies.” Rusty followed alongside her and she brought him into her yard. “What a good dog.”

Shouldn’t she reward Rusty for being a good dog. She picked out the meat from some left-overs and put it on a plate. She found a bowl for water and stroked his beautiful, silky coat. “Just a tidbit, you wouldn’t want to lose your appetite.” She stroked his head again and thought what a wonderful color his coat was. She brought him into her workroom and closed the door. He lay down very calmly on the rug. Penelope thought she heard a sigh of relief. “That makes two of us.” She did a quick sketch of Rusty curled up on her rug, then she settled into her job.

At four o’clock she led Rusty back to his yard, petting and praising him. The minute she closed the gate, he started barking.

************

When Morrison called him into his office, Bernie told him about the photograph of Rusty wearing a Mortar Board.

He waited for Morrison to have the idea. He was sure it would emerge. “You mean barking dog magna cum laude.”

Bernie laughed. Morrison laughed.

Miss McFadden said, “Good boy, Bernie. Good boy.”

************

The next morning Penelope opened a can of roast beef hash and poached an egg to go on top. “I don’t think you’re eating a proper lunch,” she said to Bernie. “You’d better have a good breakfast.”

She set aside half the can for Rusty and put it in a pie tin. It looked a lot like dog food anyway, she thought.

Bernie poured ketchup over his hash and broke the egg. “I’m afraid to eat lunch because I’ll get sleepy in the afternoon and I don’t have a sofa in my office like Morrison.”

Penelope wondered what other things she could cook that Rusty would like. Probably she should get dog biscuits. They were supposed to help keep the teeth lean.

As soon as Bernie left she turned on the TV and flipped channels until she found a commercial for dog food. The dogs were not nearly as intelligent-looking as Rusty.

When she went to the grocery store, she looked in the pet section at the flea collars and toys. A woman stopped and picked up a flea collar. “These are really good,” she said. “What breed of dog do you have?”

“Irish Setter,” Penelope said.

“I like little dogs,” the woman said. “Mine’s a Boston.”

************

When she got home, she didn’t feel like settling down to work. Rusty would probably like a walk. Maybe it was exercise instead of food that would keep him from barking. Maybe it would calm her nerves as well. She has never done a sneaky thing in her life before. She wonders if people who steal babies from buggies feel as excited as she feels now. She attaches Rusty’s leash and starts down the street. Who would know it’s not her dog? She looks like a dog owner, she knows the commands.

[Undated short story by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

Extremely Alert

[Feel free to print the Google document instead of reading the story as a blog post. Photo below: TOMBOLO! by Pat.]


The groom’s mother, shimmering blue watersilk with shoes dyed to match, dabs perfume behind her ears, saving a drop for the lacy handkerchief she slips in her purse, the very same handkerchief she carried when she and John said their vows. “Oh beautiful dress,” she sings, twisting to get a view of herself in the bathroom mirror. “You were there on that rack when I needed you most.” She believes steadfastly in omens of good fortune and looks for them everywhere. “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

She is the something old, the bride is the something new, her dress is the something blue; and if only the bride will ask, her handkerchief will be the something borrowed.

Randy, elder brother and best man, fully and impeccably dressed, stands and folds a tiny square of flannel. The mother fidgets as he tucks the flannel carefully into his shoe kit, recognizing the pattern as belonging to his once-favorite pajamas. That would also be something old, but the best man does not traditionally have superstitions. Perhaps Clifford, the groom, will wear a penny in his shoe for good luck, or should she be the one to wear a penny in her shoe, her luck having deserted her so long ago when the boys were mere babies and she lost their father. Will today be one of her heightened awareness days, she wonders and pours the second cup of coffee that she almost drank down the lavatory drain. Even so, she is likely to remember too much, to see and hear too clearly.

“Extremely alert,” Randy says, “You look extremely alert, Mother dear,” and she asks if he means to bless or curse her.

Clifford, half dressed, opens the hall closet and pokes at a set of golf clubs. “Can’t find my black shoes.”

“You’ve never put shoes in there,” the mother says. She hears a tinge of hysteria in his voice.

“I’m looking for the flashlight; where is it?” Clifford straightens. “The blooming light’s out in my closet.”

“Flashlight?” the mother says, remembering the flashlight dead and leaking a month ago and writing it down on her grocery list but not remembering to buy one. No point now in making a full confession… Full confessions never make anybody feel better.

Clifford grins, “I had my teeth cleaned. Nobody can say I didn’t have my sweet little old teeth cleaned.”

Randy shakes his head. “The poor bride. Poor, poor Nancy.”

“Don’t say that.” The mother sighs and puts her arm around Randy’s waist. Be quiet, tongue. She cannot stop this banter between brothers. Their father should be here to deal with them man to man. It isn’t fair that widows should be left with everything to do. She hums the wedding march.

“Do shut up,” they say like twins.

“I still think we should have a limo.” Randy holds up his new wallet, a gift from the groom. “I can afford it.”

“I know you can, dear, but I couldn’t. Conspicuous consumption makes me feel ridiculous.”

“Obviously.” Randy looks pointedly at the sofa bed he has slept the night on and at the coffee table pathetically in need of refinishing. He has offered to replace both pieces and been shushed.

She thinks this very minute, when they have not even left for the church he is picturing her returning to this wreck alone—their home sweet home. No apologies. Too late for being in the kitchen baking cookies. Too late for making the children’s beds.

Randy picks up a purplish ashtray and empties it in the fireplace. “I might have been an artist—professionally, I mean. This work shows real promise.”

She watches him handling the precious objects from her desk—his perfect hand in plaster from the Mother’s Day he was five, Clifford’s balsa-wood hotrod painted fluorescent pink. She silently screams, “My collection—don’t touch.”

“Look at that glaze.” He holds the ashtray under the lamp. “The purple blob. Outstanding.”

She remembers the expression of pride on his first-grade face. “You took it out of your bag so calmly and handed it to me as if you made ashtrays every day of the week.”

“The teacher kept saying, are you making that for your father and I didn’t want to admit that my father was dead or that my mother smoked so I said it was for myself.”

He smiles as if the faraway boy didn’t really need the father he was once embarrassed not to have.

The mother frowns and tries to remember how she felt when she was not yet a widow. “I thought you were happy in school. Naïve of me.”

“Not at all. Looking back—as a man of experience… First grade teachers are viewed somewhat uncritically.” He touches her shoulder “… while Mothers are always Mothers.”

“Of course, what else could we be?” She thinks, now it is open to question with surrogate mothers all over the place but for me it was an absolute state. She wants to say, “And you might have had (almost did have) a different mother.”

She checks again to be sure the lacy handkerchief is in her purse, the handkerchief John’s mother gave her for “something borrowed”—still beautifully white and perfectly ironed in case Nancy should turn and ask if she has “something old.”

“Perhaps I do,” she would say and offer the handkerchief. No reason really she should expect Nancy to ask. Weddings were fantasy enough without adding her own, but she would have it if Nancy should want it, though probably brides didn’t have those little superstitions anymore. Nor grooms.

Clifford all dressed now except for shoes, comes into the living room, twirling about in his stocking feet, coattails flying straight out like a turkey cock’s feathers.

“Not in your closet?” the Mother says.

“Did you send them out to be polished? That might be it.”

Randy, as always, thinks of the one logical course of action the bridegroom might have taken and a conversation from weeks ago about dress suits and black patent shoes comes back to her, some vague admonition she gave to have his shoes smartened up and marking that off her mental list of things to mention. He is a grown man, after all, about to become “head of household” or is there any such thing anymore?

“What am I going to do?” Clifford for the first time looks stricken. “I thought I was all set. I did every stupid thing on Nancy’s list.”

The Mother starts. Nancy’s stupid list? Does the bride make a list for the groom? She doesn’t remember making a list. She pats her tiny hat into place and stands back from the hall mirror to check her slip. Hang in there underwear. Don’t give up the ship garter belt. Don’t have a sneezing fit nose.

“I can’t believe you expected me to provide you with a pair of black shoes,” Randy says. “Nancy didn’t give me a list and mine won’t fit you.”

“No, I’m sure I didn’t expect you to provide shoes. I bought the ring.”

She looks at Randy’s watch and remembers John slipping her ring on and how totally married she felt from that moment on.

“What am I going to do? Go barefoot?”

She wonders if Nancy has ever heard that in his voice, a kind of hysterical silliness. John couldn’t stand silliness.

“I know my feet are bigger than yours.” Clifford glares at Randy as if he meant to punch him, but instead brings out from behind his back a pair of black basketball shoes covered with dust.

“Don’t breathe, Mother.”

“Clifford, look at your knees.”

Randy opens his suitcase and offers his clothes brush.

She holds out her hand. “I’ll do it.” Adrenaline sweeps through her body. She orders Randy, “You get the taxi.”

Clifford stands stiffly for her to brush his suit.

She tries to remember what their father wore on their marriage day and can only remember his sweet smile, his sweet arms around her.

“Are you sure you didn’t take your shoes to the shop? Look in your wallet and see if you have a ticker.”

Clifford turns his wallet out onto the table: credit cards, driver’s license, and small crushed ticket saying Shoe Renew.

They look at one another and smile. If nothing else the shoes exist, did not jump unwittingly into the Goodwill bag or self-immolate.

“Put on your loafers and we’ll swing by and get them.” Randy locks the door and pushes the elevator button.

“They say that stuff about selling things if you don’t pick them up, but they don’t really do it.”

“Right.”

How handsome he is hurrying down the street while Clifford stands serenely gazing at the stone steps across the street. What can he be thinking? She cannot believe that in forty minutes he will stand beside his bride and repeat the holy bonds of matrimony. Should she tell him about the birds and the bees?

“You look lovely, Mother-of-the-Groom,” Clifford says.

She squeezes his arm and thinks how easily she found her white gloves, how perfectly her shoes match her dress, how unlike herself she looks today.

“You’re absolutely psychic,” Clifford said every time she turned up a missing cufflink and she basked in it. Now she is suffering from her eternal mother’s pride. The Groom’s mother has so little to do, she might have remembered shoes. Too late, too late.

They climb into the taxi, mother in the middle, the place she claimed—keeping them apart because each always wanted a window. Now Clifford would have his own ally and she would keep still. No matter what happened she would not speak. They could have babies or not have babies; she would never speak. They could live in Timbuctoo if they wanted—but no, no, no.

Randy leans across her lap. “Do you remember where the shop is?”

Clifford glares back. “I walk by the place every day.”

“Don’t start that.” She puts a hand over each big fist. How small their father would have looked between them. They were huge horses beside him. They would think him too small, too delicate. But he would be with her, not them, and he would not be too small.

“Why didn’t you pick them up if you went by the shop every day?”

In that moment the mother knows that Randy will never marry, that his standards are too high, that he is not foolish and inconsiderate enough to marry, that he can settle for nothing less than perfection, and that she will never see his children.

“Driver, stop right here.” Clifford jumps out of the cab and points triumphantly to the window where finished shoes are lined in a row. He bangs on the door. “Anybody there?”

If this were a movie, she thinks, he would put his fist through and pluck out the shoes, without a scratch, while upstairs over the shop a couple would hear the commotion and frown down at the madman banging on the door and calmly close the shutters.

Randy gets out of the taxi and points to the CLOSED sign. “It won’t matter, Cliff. Nobody ever looks at the groom.”

Clifford lets Randy push him towards the taxi.

They settle on either side of her again, breathing heavily, saying nothing. Closing her eyes, she feels a memory break loose from where it has hovered all day waiting its chance to float free, a story John’s sister told her long after he died, how he courted a young woman for more than a year and planned to propose marriage, how the sister packed a picnic for him and he borrowed the family car to drive to a particularly romantic spot in the country to declare his intentions, and how just after they got started the car broke down totally. In his efforts to repair it, he covered his white linen suit with grease and dirt and was too embarrassed to propose. She looked away quickly from the laughing sister, feeling her heart pierced for poor John and the woman who might have been his bride.

She has never told the boys because she does not want them to think of their father as ridiculous and because they were never the right age to understand how nearly she had not been their mother. Now it comes rushing out, one word tumbling over the other as the taxi gets closer and closer to the church.

Randy pats her hand. “That was a bit of a close call, old dear.”

Clifford stares out the window as if he has not heard one word.

Perhaps she should not have told the story today, or ever. They could care less that they exist quite by chance.

The church looms in front of them, covering a city block with its sanctuary, inner courtyards, library, and fellowship hall. Randy leans over and hands the driver a bill. “Take us to the side entrance and then drive slowly around and leave our mother at the front steps.” He turns to her and whispers, “Our extremely alert mother.”

She watches them enter by the choir door, Randy with his arm around Clifford’s shoulder, showing him with the other hand that the ring is safe in his waistcoat pocket. They turn and throw her a kiss, as if it were a lark, some debutante party they are attending in search of a wife and might yet emerge from with unsettled feelings. She feels quite the wallflower in advance and longs for John to hold her, to give her his arm for the long walk down the aisle.

“Tears, get back where you belong.” She leans back hard against the seat, clutching her purse with an edge of old lace caught in the clasp.

[Undated short story by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]