Collected Short Stories: Volume III

by Barry Rachin

  Rufus gazed out the window. The snow was leveling off now with no additional accumulation; like a Frost poem, the pristine whiteness exuded a certain picaresque serenity. “Do you understand how it works?”

  Ava held one of the queer coins up to the light. “Assign the value ‘three’ to each head result, and ‘two’ to each tail, and then add the values. The total will be six, seven, eight or nine. A chart in the back of the book explains how to interpret the numbers and construct hexagrams from the bottom up.”

  Rufus picked up the book and thumbed through the tattered pages at random. “Have you tried it yet?”

  “No, but my brother got himself in a legal mess. My family has been going through a difficult time lately, so I thought I might give it a whirl.” Without further explanation, Ava reached for a switch on the wall and the huge, fluorescent display sign over the diesel pumps went dark, shrouding the entire front lot in silvery shadows. “My boss called just before you showed up. He said I could close early with the snow.”

  She threw a separate switch that killed power to the individual pumps then reached for the three coins. “What do you think, Rufus?”

  The man smoothed his droopy moustache in a repetitive, soothing gesture. “Oh, why the hell not!”

  Ava tossed the coins up in the air and watched them clatter onto the Formica surface of the counter. She added up the numbers, which came to six, took a piece of paper and drew a broken line.

  ____ ____

  “Old yin.” Ava threw the coins four more times and each throw produced another broken line.

  ____ ____

  ____ ____

  ____ ____

  ____ ____

  ____ ____

  “Strange!” Rufus muttered. “How come everything keeps coming out the same?”

  Ava shrugged. “I keep getting six or nine,” she explained, “which is a broken line.” On the final throw, the coins added up to seven.

  __________

  ____ ____

  ____ ____

  ____ ____

  ____ ____

  ____ ____

  Ava ran her finger down a glossary of all sixty-four symbols in the front of the book until she reached the twenty-third. “The Po hexagram indicates,” she read from the accompanying text, “that it will not be advantageous to make a movement in any direction whatsoever. The first six divided, shows one overturning the couch by injuring its legs. The insult will go on to the destruction of all firm correctness, and there will be evil.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Rufus growled.

  Ignoring the questions, Ava returned to the text, but all the remaining broken lines leading to the top held an ominous message. Finally, she pointed at the topmost solid line. “The undivided line becomes the prominent or principle one,” she was reading from a separate commentary printed in smaller script toward the lower portion of the page. “Decay or overthrow has begun at the bottom and crept up to the top. Small men have gradually replaced good men and great until only one remains; and the lesson for him is to wait. The power operating against him is too strong.”

  Agitated, Rufus rose to his feet. “For God’s sakes, what question did you ask?”

  Ava’s face was ashen, her lips compressed in a tight band. “Can’t say.” She slammed the book shut and returned it to the suede pouch along with the brass coins. Putting her hat and gloves on, she said, “I’m going home now.”

  “Did you get the right answer?”

  “Right answer, wrong answer... you don’t necessarily get what you’re looking for,” Ava replied evasively. “The I Ching doesn’t work that way.”

  Rufus held the door open for her. “Would you mind if I stopped by again some time?”

  “No, not at all,” she replied, pulling the door shut and checking to make sure it was properly locked, “though, like I said, it’s a contradiction in terms, for a misanthrope to want to spend time with anyone.”

  Around two in the morning Ava called Rufus. “You got home safely in the snow?”

  “It was a little icy, but other than that… How’d you get my telephone number?”

  “It was on the wallpaper receipt. Would you like to go out with me?”

  There was a short pause. “What did you have in mind?” he stammered.

  There’s a Brazilian film playing all week over at the Avon Cinema on the east side of Providence. The movie is in subtitles.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  “I’m finished messing around with the I Ching,” Ava blurted, almost stumbling over the words. “Caput! I’m returning the green pouch to the Lost and Found drawer.”

  “Okay.” Rufus seemed mildly confused by her persistence. “Whatever you think is best.”

  “I brought it home and, about an hour ago, flipped the coins one last time.”

  “And how did that work out?”

  “A hell of a lot better.”

  “So you got an answer you liked?” It was the same question Rufus raised back at the gas station, just worded differently.

  “I asked two completely different questions,” Ava qualified so it’s not a fair comparison. “Let’s just say I’m rather pleased with the way things turned out in both instances.”

  There was a protracted silence. Ava had the distinct feeling that Rufus was mulling over what she had just told him. “More recently,” he pressed, “what question did you ask?”

  “It’s a long story. Tell you about it when I see you.”

  Back to Table of Contents

  Small Favors

  As though struck by a battering ram, the bathroom door flew open. "Toilet Paper!" a raspy female voice bellowed. "I need a fresh roll, ASAP!"

  From his vantage point thirty feet away in the den, seventeen year-old Lenny Berman could see the chunky woman hunkered down on the toilet with a copy of the National Inquirer spread discretely across her broad lap. A pair of shapeless, tan panties nestled around her ankles. "Who's out there? Is that the Berman boy?"

  The raucous outburst blindsided sixteen year-old Marcie Callahan, caught the woman’s daughter totally unawares. "Yes, it's Lenny.” Turning beet red, Marcie staggered to her feet. In the hall closet she located a fresh roll of Charmin extra-soft. Her mother unraveled a handful of sheets, positioning the plump roll on the floor next to the bathtub. "Hi, Lenny!" Mrs. Callahan tittered. "You caught me in a compromising situation, if you know what I mean."

  The boy, who wasn't sure about social protocol, nodded. Lenny and Marcie were reviewing notes for an upcoming English test. To Kill a Mockingbird - over the past three weeks the junior class had slogged through the Harper Lee classic. The test was on Friday.

  A moment later, Marcie returned to the living room, her eyes fogged over with tears. "Do Jewish mothers defecate with the bathroom door wide open?"

  "It wasn't that bad," Lenny affected a mollifying tone.

  Actually it was that bad and worse. The woman clearly had no sense of privacy or personal boundaries. Mrs. Callahan wore every vapid emotion on her sleeve like a badge of honor. Privacy was a four letter word with every bit of family business, gossip, scandal and tittle-tattle in the public domain. Scrunched together in a modest, three-bedroom cape far too small for a family with six siblings, the Callahan clan subsisted like bees in an overcrowded hive. The children, even the oldest, were doubled up in bunk beds and the line outside the bathroom at seven-thirty in the morning stretched down the hallway with considerable squabbling and discontent especially from the younger set.

  "My family," Marcie seethed, "they run around the house in their freakin' underwear and leave the bathroom door wide open; they belch and fart and do all sorts of gross and disgusting things." She whipped around and stuck her soggy face up under his chin. "Do you know what it's like living in a sordid freak show like this?"

  Lenny was getting frightened. Shutting the door so no one would hear, he put a hand on her arm but she sloughed it off. “It's like those goddamn
illiterate, dirt farmers in the Harper Lee novel. The Ewell clan… Mayella and Bob. Those inbred, hillbilly morons who don't have a stitch of class, culture, brains or social graces… that's my folks, if you care to know. So what do you say to that, huh?" Marcie tilted her pretty-ugly, tear-stained face at a sharp angle. "What do you say to that, Lenny Berman?"

  Lenny gawked at the maudlin mess that was his best friend since middle school. She had dirty blond hair cut short, a broad fleshy nose and eyes the color of the Atlantic Ocean on a staggeringly sunny day in late August as viewed from the pearly sand dunes of Cape Cod's Horseneck Beach. "I don't care about your debauched family,” Lenny replied. “I’m crazy about you."Slipping an arm around her waist, he kissed her on the mouth. Nothing tentative, he kissed her a second time even more insistently. When the kiss was done, Marcie flopped down on the sofa.

  "I don’t just want to be friends anymore.” Lenny touched the side of her face with his fingertips. I want you for my girlfriend."

  Marcie considered the request. "I'll be your girlfriend, sweetheart, sex slave… anything you want, but I need a small favor and it's a bit complicated."

  After she explained herself, Lenny said, "Okay, that’s fine… what about Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird?"

  "It's been almost five minutes," Marcie observed. "I'm sure my lovely mother is finished moving her bowels; we should be able to study without further distractions."

  Yes, I'll be your girlfriend, sweetheart, sex slave… anything you want, but I need a small favor. After the flurry of kisses, Marcie Callahan told Lenny that she desperately needed to understand how 'normal' families functioned.

  Lenny tried to explain that all families were dysfunctional, but Marcie wouldn't hear it. The Jewish holidays were the following week. She wanted to spend time with a family that neither belched nor farted, people who didn't have to tie a string around their index finger in order to remember not to do gross, lewd and disgusting things when they crawled out of their simian cave each morning.

  Later that night after supper, Lenny approached his mother as she was clearing the table. "There's this girl from school, Marcie Callahan."

  Lenny's sister, Elsie, wandered into the room. Dark-haired with a pear-shaped physique and wide, mannish jaw, she was a year younger. "Yes, a girl from school," Mrs. Berman repeated absently.

  "Could I bring her to Passover Seder?"

  "Who is this girl?"

  "Marcie Callahan… she's in my English class."

  "A frumpy blonde with a family of knuckle-dragging buffoons right out of the stone age," Elsie interjected. "The father stops by here at least once a week."

  "How's that?" Mrs. Berman placed a chafing dish in the sudsy sink and turned to face her daughter.

  Either Elsie did not hear the question or was in too much of a rush to share additional damning gossip. "An older brother got suspended for bringing liquor to a high school football game last year."

  Lenny cringed. This was vintage Elsie. Given the choice to say something nice or run a serrated bread knife across Marcie Callahan's guileless throat, she always opted for the latter. "Marcie gets good grades and is president of the French club."

  Elsie made an ungracious, snorting sound through her beaky nose. "Better hide the silverware and anything else of value."

  "A disadvantaged child joining us for the holidays," Mrs. Berman weighed the request. “Consider it a mitzvah, an act of charity."

  "She's not disadvantaged, at least not in the way you're thinking."

  "If she earns good grades," Mrs. Berman continued, "the girl shouldn't squander her potential. She needs to expose herself to enlightened values."

  "Expose herself?" Elsie erupted in another fit of shrill laughter. "Such an interesting choice of words!"

  Mrs. Berman began scrubbing the chafing dish with a dishrag. "Just have Marcie's mother call to confirm and I'll set another place at the Passover table."

  * * * * *

  Just have Marcie’s mother call… Would Mrs. Callahan be calling on a cell phone from her strategic vantage point in the bathroom, door ajar and latest edition of the scandal sheet spread across her mountainous thighs? Later that night after her shower, Elsie padded into her brother's bedroom. Her fresh-washed hair was wrapped turban-style in a crimson towel. "The Callahans… they're trailer park trash, the whole lot of them. They got no class, no pedigree."

  "Dogs have pedigree," Lenny corrected. He was lying on top of the comforter reading near the end of To Kill a Mockingbird where the townsfolk, intent on lynching the black man, Tom Robinson, converge on the jail.

  "You damn well know what I mean," Elsie hissed. "Her freakin' father drives a garbage truck. Why are you hanging around with the likes of her?" Lenny stared at his sister. Elsie was the sum total of everything Lenny detested in humanity and it was his great misfortune that, by some sardonic quirk of fate, she was his sibling.

  "Can you keep a secret?" Elsie lowered her voice several decibels. She snugged the towel wrap more firmly on her wet hair. ""Joel' and Miriam are getting divorced."

  "What?" Joel was their older brother. After completing his residency at medical college, he married Miriam Rabinowitz, an intern. The newlyweds were living in Upstate New York.

  "They been fighting like lunatics. The marriage is over, kaput… fini la comédie.”

  "They've been together less than a year!"

  "Well, the novelty wore off, and now they hate each other's crummy guts. There was a horrible fight and Joel gave her a black eye. The police came and removed him from the condo. Dad had to send money so Joel could rent a room at the local motel until he finds more permanent lodgings."

  "When did he hit her?"

  "I dunno. Over a month ago… maybe two. What's the difference?"

  "How come nobody told me?"

  "Because you're an asshole who invites trailer park trash to the Jewish holidays, that's why."

  "They're not coming for Passover?"

  "Only Joel. The folks will make up some tawdry excuse… say that Miriam's sick with a sinus infection or that she flew to India to visit the Dali Lama or some other mindless nonsense. Whatever you do, don't mention anything about the missing sister-in-law. Just act like everything's normal… hunky dory." Without further elaboration, Elsie adjusted her ruby red turban and shuffled noiselessly from the room.

  * * * * *

  Joel and Miriam Berman’s wedding reception the previous summer was held in the Georgian Ballroom of the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. The ritzy landmark boasted floor-to-ceiling windows, two-story Baccarat crystal chandeliers and white glove service. Prior to the fancy-schmancy wedding, the female entourage attended a complimentary private menu tasting and bridal tea with ivory, floor-length linen and matching napkins. Lenny heard about it secondhand from Elsie who went absolutely gaga over the swanky extravaganza.

  But the proverbial train ran off the rails several days later at the gazillion-dollar wedding reception when an electric transformer at a substation on the Charles River blew, effectively shutting down the air conditioner. Temperatures in the ballroom soared to ninety degrees. The bride, a petite dark-haired sparrow of a woman, stormed about the lobby in her wedding gown and floral tiara, threatening to sue the hotel. An obdurate petulance lingered about the cupid bow lips. As the woman aged and became more settled in her ways, the harshness might gain the upper hand, but for now she was a pint-size package of feminine perfection.

  “This is the happiest day of your life, Miri darling.” Rabbi Hurwitz, an emaciated man with a wispy beard, tried to calm the bride. “Baruch Ha’Shem! Don’t let a minor inconvenience spoil the sacred moment,” he cooed.

  Baruch Ha’Shem! Praise God!

  The man was in the habit of repeating the salutary phrase over and over when he was unable to contain his emotions. Rabbi Hurwitz grabbed her left hand, raised it to his lips in a theatrical flourish and kissed the bulbous diamond on her finger. “B’Tabaat zu, art mikoodashet li.” “With this ring,” the
rabbi translated, “you are sacred unto me.” He wrapped his arms around the despondent bride. “Baruch Ha’Shem! Baruch Ha’Shem! What you do is this; you concentrate on all the happiness that awaits a new bride and forget about the silly air conditioning.” The rabbi threw in a few more Baruch Ha’Shems! for good measure and kissed the newly-minted Miriam Berman on either cheek.

  The hotel lobby grew silent.

  Miriam took a step back in her designer wedding gown purchased from Priscilla’s of Boston. The Melissa Sweet, one shoulder, silk Garza gown with ruched waist and clusters of beaded floral appliqués on the bodice had cost well over five thousand dollars. “Enough already with the Baruch Ha’Shems!” Miriam screeched. “I want the fucking air conditioning fixed, or I’ll have the maitre d’s testicle on a platter!”

  The rabbi sighed, shook his head and hurried away without further conciliatory remarks. Fifteen minutes later an emergency generator in the basement of the building got the air conditioner, which was on a separate circuit, running again. As the temperature in the ballroom gradually settled back into the low seventies, Miriam was transformed – in true Jekyll-and-Hyde fashion – from bride-from-hell to blissful soul mate.

  Following the wedding, the couple honeymooned on an island off the coast of Greece. “What a firecracker!” Lenny's father chuckled the following morning at the bridal brunch. “The maitre d's testicles on a platter,” he repeated Miriam’s vulgar threat, and the guests howled, hooted, jeered and laughed hysterically. Even Elsie considered her new sister-an-law’s gauche antics priceless. But now that Joel had assaulted his wife and been thrown out of the house without even a year of marriage to show for the lavish wedding, Lenny didn't know what to think.

  * * * * *

  "How are Joel and Miriam doing?" Lenny asked in the morning before leaving for classes.

  "Good," his mother replied. Did he detect a slight tightening of the vocal cords, causing her tone to drift upwards in pitch? "Why do you ask?"

  "I dunno. He hasn't called in a while."