Collected Short Stories: Volume V

by Barry Rachin

  “I know what it means.”

  The woman stabbed at a lever on the armrest causing the wheelchair to lurch forward banging Bart in the knee. “Go to the kitchen and speak with Alfonzo about extra servings... one for me, one for you.”

  “But I don’t work here. I’m visiting my—”

  “Make sure,” the woman continued, “he warms the cobbler. It never tastes right unless the ice cream softens before it’s served.”

  Bart went out into the main hallway and headed off down the corridor toward the rehabilitation unit. Off to one side was the dining hall where healthier residents ate their meals. The space was arranged like a swanky restaurant with a centerpiece of fresh-cut flowers on each table. The high back chairs were covered in a maroon, floral brocade fabric.

  The place reminded Bart of a Holiday Inn he renovated in the late sixties. Halfway down the corridor was a small reading room with hardcover books arranged neatly on shelves. A copy of Tom Sawyer in large print for the visually impaired lay on an end table.

  “Well, this is cozy,” he mused, “except for the fact that nobody’s here.” At the end of the hall was a spacious recreation room with a flat screen TV showing local news. A dark-skinned, Hispanic woman dressed in a white uniform was sitting on a sofa nibbling an apple. A banner across the top of the television news desk read La Planetera.

  Bart counted thirty doors the length of the hallway but not one solitary human being. Nobody was coming or going, all the doors shut tight. The place was less like a hotel than a morgue, exuding a tedious sameness, a benign gentility, the man found unnerving.

  So where were the residents? Squirreled away in their tidy apartments? Doing what? Reading the newspaper? Watching television? Waiting to give up the ghost with neither family nor friends to bless their soul’s passage to the next world?

  On the wall at the end of the corridor hung a picture done in watercolors of a young girl wearing a sun bonnet and lace shawl as she escorted a herd of cows down a country lane. A very safe and appropriate painting. Bart felt an evil urge to blacken a couple of the girl’s front teeth with an indelible marker and scrawl a bristly moustache over the dainty top lip for good measure. In the morning, how many of the elderly residents would appreciate the bawdy humor?

  A bullet to the brain.! If I ever become that debilitated, get a gun and put me out of my misery. The third week of January Penelope Schroeder died in her sleep. A meager blessing of sorts, the woman never emerged from the coma.

  *****

  God was playing a trick on Bartholomew Schroeder - a nasty, malicious prank. Struggling with his own dark night of the soul, what scintillating message could he possibly offer Holly Heatherton, musical prodigy and social malcontent? He lay down on the unmade bed and fell asleep.

  At noon Bart wandered down to the bar. He found a stool at the far end of the mahogany bar and ordered his drink. Tilting the glass at an angle, he poured the amber liquid. Right brain, left brain – a couple of Heinekens might lubricate the powers of reasoning.

  A message for Holly Heatherton. What message? Someone entered the room and Bart shifted in his seat so that his back was facing the door. He felt a moral obligation to do something for the girl, who reminded him of a frail and utterly defenseless animal caught in a snare. Holly’s life was just beginning while his was winding down. How many close friends had died in the last year alone? If death was simply a culmination, a recapitulation of all the successes and failures of a life well lived, then he ought to be able to tell the child something. But Bartholomew Schroeder was never particularly good with words, copper pipes, blowtorches, solder and PVC being his stock in trade.

  “Retired?” The bartender, a tall, stoop-shouldered man on the front side of forty, was leaning on the bar.

  Bart looked up momentarily. “Five years now.”

  He nudged a plastic bowl of pretzels crusted with salt within arm’s reach. “That’s swell.” The bartender looked bored. There would be little activity in the bar until after supper. Five minutes passed without a word. “Red Sox won last night.”

  “That so?”

  “Five to three. Wakefield the knuckleballer got the win.” It was a guy thing. - a room full of men could stand around scratching their crotches and nursing beers. They didn’t agonize over the inevitable or suffer existential ennui tinged with spiritual angst. Rather, they nibbled pretzels and talked sports. The bartender rubbed at a water spot with a towel and went off to service another patron.

  A message for Holly Heatherton. Bart Schroeder was getting nowhere fast.

  Earlier in te morning there was that odd incident with the piano.

  Bart Schroeder was heading back to his room after breakfast. As they reached the staircase, Holly Heatherton grabbed his arm. “Just a moment.” In a small sitting room off the dining hall was a baby grand piano. Holly slumped down on the padded bench. Positioning her hands, she began to play an impressionistic passage built on fourths and odd-sounding passing tones. The music was fairly simple, an intermediate level version of the original composition. After only a few, meager measures, she removed her hands from the keys. "Did you recognize that?"

  "Debussy," Mr. Schroeder replied.

  She nodded. "And this?" She offered up a jagged, dissonant theme in a percussive rhythm. The meter kept changing every third or fourth measure so that it was impossible to follow.

  "Not even a clue," Mr. Schroeder said when the uneven tune came to an abrupt end.

  "Bartok." She launched into a third piece that was even more obscure with a series of tone clusters played in the bass as the right hand hammered out single notes in a random, vertical pattern. She played the melody through from beginning to end, including a legato interlude.

  "That was a twelve-tone row by Hindemith," Holly said, turning completely around to face him. A large, egg-shaped tear glistened in the corner of either eye. She reached up and deftly wiped them away. "Very unusual, don't you think?"

  "Not as accessible as the Bartok," Mr. Schroeder said, "but interesting."

  "Few people appreciate Hindemith's music. It's an acquired taste." The tears had reformed but this time she let them be. They quickly multiplied, dripping down her cheeks in thick rivulets. "You do understand what I'm talking about?" Her chest, what there was of it, heaved up and down in womanly anguish.

  “Yes, I understand."

  “So what should I do?”

  Bart Schroeder was beginning to feel edgy again. “I don’t understand the question.”

  “About my miserable life?”

  A young family cut through the sitting room on their way to the dining room. “Let me think about it,” Bart replied, “and I’ll get back to you.”

  *****

  After leaving the bar, Bart rented a three speed bike with a straw basket draped over the handlebars. “You’ll find the bike path up by the dock,” the proprietor noted, “where it winds all the way to Edgartown and the southernmost beaches. “Take it slow, though, in this heat.”

  Bart pedaled out to the landing and watched the afternoon ferry lazing into the dock with a fresh load of tourists, before heading out to the bike path that skirted the harbor. Up ahead, a pink burst of color from a hedge of salt spray roses edged the trail. A seagull resting on a telephone pole watched him pass with stony indifference.

  The plan was to ride several miles south from Oak Bluffs to Edgartown along the winding trail dotted by sand dunes and scenic marshland. Bart walked the bike up the steeper hills and glided down effortlessly with the shift set in first gear.

  A message for Holly Heatherton. Salt air and a tart, late-summer breeze off the ocean accompanied the ride. Yes, this was much better than trying to sort things out in the bar, which reeked of stale cigars and flat beer.

  “Hey, dude!” A teenager with hair down to his shoulders and a goatee was waving at Bart, who braked to a halt. A paisley bandana was knotted around the youth’s neck. “Any idea where John Belushi’s buried?”

  “
The cemetery in Chilmark,” Bart replied.

  “Where the hell’s that?”

  “Fifteen miles that way.” He pointed due east.

  “Way wicked cool!” The youth flung a backpack with an aluminum frame over his shoulders, and headed off down the road. Bart rested the bike on the kickstand and leaned against a scraggily pine. Ten minutes passed. He climbed back on the three-speed and pedaled leisurely back to Oak Bluffs.

  *****

  “The Heathertons, what room are they in?”

  The desk clerk checked the register. “Room 301.”

  Bart took the elevator to the third floor, locating the room at the far end of the hallway. “My name is Bartholomew Schroeder and I’m here to see Holly.”

  “Yes, of course.” The woman stepped out on the landing and closed the door behind her. “I haven’t a clue what you said to my daughter earlier, but she’s so much calmer since breakfast.”

  “I’m a plumber not a psychiatrist,” Mr. Schroeder qualified.

  “Holly hasn’t cried… not once all today.” The woman reached out and grabbed his hand. “That’s a good omen.”

  “In the morning, I’m leaving the island on the first boat out from Vineyard Haven and wanted to say goodbye.” He gave the woman’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ll wait for her downstairs.”

  Before descending to the lobby, Bart went back to his room, washed his face and combed his hair what little there was of it. Then he bent down and felt the pipe under the toilet tank. The metal was dry. The night he arrived at the Oak Bluffs Hotel a ring of wetness was pooling on the floor near the toilet. Drip, drip, drip. A steady stream of cold water was bleeding out from the compression fitting. He closed the shut-off valve feeding the tank and went down to the front desk.

  “My toilet’s leaking.”

  “Oh, dear,” the desk clerk seemed flustered. “Finding a plumber at this late hour could be a problem.”

  “I am a plumber.”

  The woman’s mouth fell open. “You’re joking?”

  “If you can scare up an adjustable wrench, I’ll fix it myself.”

  The desk clerk fished a toolbox from under the counter. Bart rummaged through the offerings, finally settling on a small pair of pliers. “This should do the trick.”

  Back in the room, he loosened the fitting and separated the flared section of tubing from its narrower counterpart. The metal was mildly corroded but structurally undamaged. After washing the crud from the mating surfaces with hand soap, Bart dried the metal.

  The trick was to secure the fitting, which looked to be about ten or fifteen years old, tight enough to seal the joint and no more. Even the slightest excess pressure might stress the metal and fracture the delicate tubing. Sliding the pipes together, Bart screwed the compression fitting in place, hand tight with a little play, then opened the water supple. Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Grabbing the fitting with the pliers, he twisted the nut clockwise a quarter-turn. Drip. Pause. Drip. Pause. Drip.

  Another eighth of an inch. One final drip then nothing. He wiped the pipes dry and a slick film of moisture quickly reappeared but it was condensation, nothing more. The leak was sealed. He sat down on the edge of the tub. Five minutes later the floor beneath the toilet intake line was still bone dry.

  *****

  Booth Bay Harbor, Maine. Four decades earlier.

  Bartholomew Schroeder and his new bride were settling into their honeymoon suite. A six-foot tall, soft bellied woman of Norwegian descent, Penelope ran the bath water but the tub wouldn’t fill. Using a silver quarter as an impromptu screwdriver, Bart loosened the bolts and pulled the chrome lever and face plate away from the tub. The rod that connected the drain and overflow assembly had slipped off its mounting bracket. He crimped the wire and tightened the two bolts holding the mechanism in place but, when he raised the lever and turned the water back on, the gurgling continued unabated.

  Coming up behind him, Penelope wrapping her arms around his chest. “What’s the matter?”

  “Minor adjustment,” he murmured, brushing her cheek with a flurry of kisses. “No need to panic.”

  Bart removed the bolts a second time, pulling the entire bucket assembly out through the hole in the tub wall. He adjusted the heavy brass plunger three, full revolutions and put everything back together. Yes, that did it! Mr. and Mrs. Schroeder enjoyed their first bath together as a married couple.

  “I’m getting out now,” Penelope said and leaned forward, but her husband held her by the shoulder.

  “Open the drain.” Penelope reached up with her right toe and nudged the chrome lever upright. The soapy water rimmed with lavender scented bubble bath made a loud gurgling sound before beginning its slow descent.

  “Now close it again,” Bart instructed. Curling her toe like a prehensile tail around the lever, she yanked the metal straight down.

  Glob! There was an abrupt noise as the brass plunger slammed downward like a guillotine shutting off the rush of water. Silence. Bart released his grip. His bride of ten hours rose from the warm bath water but, instead of climbing from the tub, turned to face him. Penelope Schroeder raised her elbows high in the air, crisscrossing the forearms directly overhead then nonchalantly squatted, her glistening buttocks coming to rest on his stomach. “Now, if you have no objections, I’d like to go in the next room and make babies.”

  *****

  Holly Heatherton wore a print dress, her hair tied back in a French braid when she joined him in the lobby. Bart led the way back up the main drag toward the Steamship Authority landing where they watched as an endless stream of cars, motorcycles and produce trucks crept out of the belly of a docked ship. When the last vehicle left the hold, the ferry began loading passengers heading back to the mainland.

  Bart turned away from the pier and, in no great hurry, retraced his route toward the town center. He ducked into a building where a crowd of parents and young children were queuing up to ride the musical carousel. The hardwood floor was littered with pop corn, the nonstop calliope music deafening. Riders leaned far forward gripping the horses’ reins with one hand as they lunged for brass rings dangling from a wooden chute positioned at a steep angle. Each time a rider managed to snare a ring, another slid down to take its place.

  Bart bought bags of popcorn. They went out in the street where the sun was almost down. A trawler that might have been the same ship he had noticed on the morning Holly joined him for breakfast was lurching in to shore. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  He led the way back to the hotel and brought the girl up to his room. “Sit there.” He indicated a Windsor chair with curved armrests and spindly legs splayed at a generous angle. Next to the chair was a bedside table that Mr. Schroeder had dragged to the center of the room.

  “Where did you get all this weird stuff?” Holly indicated a collection of plumbing supplies—tube cutters, copper fittings, emery cloth, lead-free solder and rosin flux.

  “Hardware store.” Mr. Schroeder reached for a propane torch. “I’m going to teach you what little I’ve learned about this beautiful and sordid world we live in. Are you ready?”

  Holly Heatherton, folded her hands in her lap. “Yes, I’m ready.”

  Half an hour later he shoved the night table back where it belonged. “That’s all I have to say,” Mr. Schroeder muttered. “Understand what I told you?”

  “Yes, emphatically.”

  Shrouded in a twilight haze, objects in the room were beginning to lose definition, blend and blur. The nautical pictures hanging over the brass bed had shed their vivid colors in favor of more somber, elegiac tones, while the reading lamp was dissolving into the night table. “So what did you learn,” Bart pressed, “about the human condition?”

  “Copper tubing must be properly cleaned, bone dry and heated to the proper temperature,” she said, “before solder can flow into a fitting, sealing the joint.”

  “Patience is a virtue. What else?”

  A muggy breeze from the ope
n window carried with it an acrid potpourri of decomposing fish, slimy seaweed, salt spray roses and fresh-mown grass. “Some plumbers dress the joints by cleaning away excess flux and solder but the final step is more a matter of professional pride, not necessary.”

  “You’ll be alright, then?”

  “Can’t imagine why not.”

  “Here, take this,” he handed her a small piece of emery cloth stained with flux, “to remember me by.”

  “A talisman of sorts.”

  In the morning for his last meal on the island, Mr. Schroeder ordered the salmon omelette with Monterey jack cheese, chive and diced scallions. The ferry departed promptly at eight o’clock. For the first time in over a year, he felt free and unencumbered, as though a slab of stone as thick and weighty as a marble cemetery monument had miraculously lifted from his heart.

  back to Table of Contents

  Kindred Spirits

  Harry Jankowski stood under a flowering dogwood tree in the Brandenburg Arboretum. Directly above his head, a raucous collection of jays was feasting on clumps of wine-colored berries scattered among porcelain petals. Thirty feet away in the trellised rose garden, a middle-aged woman sat on the same bench he had recently abandoned, a familiar, moss green volume with a cracked spine resting on her lap. Bent over slightly at the waist, her lips fluttered in silent accompaniment to the printed text. From his vantage point, the slim, dark-haired woman looked reasonably attractive, but as he drew closer, Harry realized his favorable impression had been premature.

  She wasn't ugly per se. Rather, it was as though, early on, God had become distracted and wandered away from the wet canvas before completing a meager handful of details. The woman's features were drab, colorless. The unassuming face, an aesthetic work in progress, exuded a disconcerting blankness.

  "Is this book yours?" she asked.

  Harry had driven halfway home before realizing the tattered anthology of Persian verse, was missing. He stepped closer. "It's a library book," he noted apologetically. "I must have gotten distracted and…”

  "Would you mind terribly if I read through to the poem’s end."