Menage_a_20_-_Tales_with_a_Hook

by Twenty Goodreads Authors

  Sera’s observations of Buddy have revealed that he has a selfish and callous heart. He swindles people seven days a week. He steals from drunks, pilfering their bottles of alcoholic beverages. Once he attacked a man who refused to give him some spare change. The man told Buddy to get a job. Buddy shoved him to the ground and took his wallet.

  She knows that Charlotte has not selected her subject. Charlotte trusts that an empathetic human being will rise to the occasion when the FPE human-nature test is administered. With angry eyes, Sera watches as an annoyed pedestrian kicks a starving cat that is begging for food.

  It is 5:45 P.M. The assessment time nears. As she rushes to the subway, she thinks of home. She will return to Egrah tonight, a celebrated warrior.

  Amme and Zarey hurry to the subway too.

  “Remember Amme, Charlotte’s allowing us to witness this test because we’ve promised to not get in the way. No matter what happens, we cannot interfere.”

  “I know Zarey. I know what we must do.”

  Zarey grabs her arm, “What we must do is nothing.”

  Amme pulls away from his grip, “You don’t have to keep reminding me. Charlotte already talked to me.”

  Charlotte waits for them on the platform. As they enter the train and take seats, they see that Sera is already there.

  Buddy steps into the train, carefully making no eye contact with anyone.

  It’s Christmas Eve; many people have packages. A pregnant woman wraps her arms around her belly and nervously walks past Buddy. She looks exhausted and grateful that there are some empty seats available. She sits next to Sera.

  The train rumbles to maximum speed and Buddy makes his move. He puts his hand in his jacket pocket. The man he will rob at knifepoint relaxes with his eyes closed. Dressed in an expensive suit and a London Fog overcoat, he carries a briefcase—the double thick type favored by attorneys—and wears an expensive watch, an onyx and diamond gold ring, and a wedding band. He is probably someone’s father, husband, son, brother, neighbor, and perhaps a little league coach.

  As Buddy inches closer to a vacant seat beside this man, a boy stands up, “Mister, you don’t have a hat. It’s too cold outside to not have a hat.”

  The boy reaches inside a crumpled sack, pulls out a new stocking hat, and offers it to Buddy.

  Buddy glares at the boy, “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need a hat.”

  The child’s mother smiles, “It’s all right. Tommy wants to give stocking hats to people this Christmas. He spent the money his grandparents sent him this year to buy them.”

  Buddy accepts the hat to get rid of the kid. He puts it on and sits down.

  His intended victim opens his eyes. “Mister, you are wearing a fine stocking hat.”

  Buddy and the man glance at the boy. He is five or six; has a cowlick, and is wearing Harry Potter glasses. He is a funny looking kid with big ears.

  Suddenly, a gush of liquid pours down the pregnant woman’s legs, and she cries out in pain.

  A lady moves forward, “I’m a nurse. How far apart are your contractions? Is there a doctor here? Someone, please ask around. Try to find a doctor.”

  The young woman looks terrified, “Not far.”

  The nurse rips her own coat off and throws it on the floor. She helps the young woman lie down. The man in the expensive suit and overcoat quickly kneels beside the nurse on the grimy floor.

  “Nurse, I’m an attorney, not a doctor. Tell me what to do, and I will help you.”

  Amme whispers to Zarey, “Look, they don’t care about getting dirty; they don’t care at all.”

  Everyone watches in amazement. The birth happens quickly.

  “We need a knife for the umbilical cord. Someone please, who has a knife? We need a knife.”

  Buddy fingers the blade in his pocket, looks at Tommy, then gives his knife to the man he had planned to rob. The nurse cuts the umbilical cord and ties it off. The man reaches in his pants pocket and tosses a set of keys to Buddy.

  “Please unlock my briefcase. Get my scarf.”

  Buddy unlocks the briefcase and takes out a cashmere scarf. The nurse wraps the squalling infant girl in the scarf.

  Buddy, the attorney, the nurse, Tommy, Tommy’s mother, Amme, Zarey, Charlotte, and several other passengers watch paramedics take the mother and infant away in an ambulance.

  The attorney hugs everybody except Buddy and says, “Look what we’ve shared! I’m assembling a train set tonight after my son goes to sleep and putting training wheels on a pink bicycle after my daughter goes to sleep. My wife will pour me a brandy after I drink half of a glass of milk and we’ll eat two of three cookies our children will leave for Santa.

  “As wonderful as all that will be, it can’t compare to helping to bring a little baby into the world on Christmas Eve!”

  He walks to Buddy, gives him a bear hug, and slips his hand into Buddy’s jacket pocket. Then he wishes them all a Merry Christmas and goes on his way. When Buddy reaches into his pocket, he finds two crisp one hundred dollar bills.

  Charlotte, Amme, and Zarey climb the subway stairs. They will attend a Christmas party at Zarey’s restaurant tonight and then go to their transport portal, the Statue of Liberty.

  No human will remember them the next day. A couple with a spoiled Chihuahua will occupy their apartment.

  Sera transported to Egrah the instant Buddy handed over the knife. Ironically, the man she had selected as her own subject defeated her.

  In the end, Egrah’s cynical counsel committee is profoundly touched by Buddy’s change of nature. They decide that Sera should marry Buddy and devote her life to becoming a compassionate human being.

  ROY L. PICKERING, JR.

  I was born on the idyllic island of St. Thomas, USVI and currently reside in a quaint New Jersey town. In between, my formative years were spent in the Bronx, NY—the setting of my debut novel PATCHES OF GREY which was published in January of 2009 by M.U.D. House Books and has been lauded with stellar reviews. I am also the author of FEEDING THE SQUIRRELS, a novella published in electronic format by SynergEbooks. My personal preference when reading work longer than 10 pages is for it to be printed in ink on paper, but if others opt to read my prose by use of an e-reader or cell phone or decoder ring, that’s fine by me.

  A prolific short story writer, a diverse array of my tales have been published over the years since my graduation from NYU, with several of them collected at my web site—Previous anthologies that have featured my writing include PROVERBS FOR THE PEOPLE Kensington Books, ROLE CALL Third World Press, THE GAME: SHORT STORIES ABOUT THE LIFE Triple Crown Publications, and PROSE TO BE READ ALOUD, Volume One. In addition to fiction I enjoy writing about issues in professional sports.

  DOUBLE FAULT is a merger of two of my strongest passions, and as for the ending, it’s certainly not the only one of my tales to end with a twist. O’Henry was one of the first and strongest influences on my short story writing.

  http://www.roypickering.net.

  Double Fault

  Roy L. Pickering, Jr.

  Copyright © Roy L. Pickering, Jr. 2009 I marveled as yet another backhand stroke took off like a canon blast from my racquet strings. The ball headed directly towards its intended destination, sending my opponent scrambling cross-court in vain. He was tiring, each step increasingly labored. Half an hour ago the same shot probably would have been returned, but my rather masterful placement had begun to pay dividends. It was evident to me from our very first match that I was the superior athlete. Strangers would have reached this conclusion strictly at a glance, based on the gut he carried about while my own abdomen is nearly as flat as it was in my teenage years. An accommodating metabolism rather than strict diet and a cardiovascular enhancing workout regimen bore primary responsibility for this.

  Despite my higher level of fitness, I continued to be winless against Melvin at tennis. This was at least our fiftieth match. As usual, it was two out of three sets to determine the victor. Quite unusually, our latest match
had made it to a third set. Even if a win over Melvin was not guaranteed, I had already achieved the moral victory of not being vanquished in straight sets as had happened in each of our previous matches. But success of the merely moral variety would be vastly insufficient on this day. I reached this conclusion as soon as I took the second set six games to four.

  Now that I had Melvin in deep waters, there was no excuse for not stepping up and causing him to drown in a barrage of drop shots and overhead lobs. Either I would secure match point or else cause him to collapse in exhaustion, granting me victory by forfeit. Losing to him after making it this far was unacceptable to my ego. Although our matches are friendly in nature, this being especially critical since we are next-door neighbors, this did not change the fact that I am a competitive person and my pride can only take so much battering.

  For this reason, unbeknownst to Melvin, I had been taking private lessons with a former professional for the past couple months. Vlad’s expertise was a rather expensive luxury, but my improved performance against Melvin proved that it was paying off. The brand new racquet I was playing with upon recommendation from Vlad handled beautifully. These factors inspired me to step on to the court brimming with confidence that Melvin’s term of having my number was coming to an end. My optimism was dealt a blow when he served to start the match and immediately sent an ace past me. He proceeded to hold me at love for the first game, and the second, and the third. By the time he sent a slice into the net to give me my first point of the day, Melvin was well on his way to taking the first set six games to zero.

  My head was hanging low when he double faulted to start the second set. When he sent a forehand wide to give me the next point, my pulse began to quicken just a bit. I then hit a winner down the line to reach forty-love and suddenly the impossible was within reach. Every game I ever took from Melvin in the past had been on my own serve. I had come close on a number of occasions, but never managed to break him.

  The rally that followed was the longest played between us in all of our matches. He kept going to my backhand, knowing it to be the biggest of my various weaknesses, but I continued to respond and send the ball back to the deepest part of his side of the court. Each of his shots had a little more spin than its predecessor, forcing me lower and lower as the ball dipped with increased pace. My tenth consecutive backhand clipped the net, remained suspended in mid-air for what felt like an eternity or at least the length of the chick flicks my ex-wife liked to rent, and finally fell on Melvin’s side. The point and the game was mine, and even more importantly, the invincible aura of Melvin’s service game had been punctured.

  Riding the high of this unexpected turn of events, I easily held serve to go up two games to none. As I faced the first of his serves in the next game, cockiness was replaced with nervousness. Ordinarily I was at relative ease when playing Melvin because defeat seemed inevitable each time out. Now that the opportunity to reverse this trend had presented itself, I tensed up with concern that I would blow it. Plenty of muscle was put behind the serve to come. The best I could do was to take a lunging stab at the green blur.

  I somehow managed to get the center of my shockingly expensive racquet in the right place at precisely the right time, returning the ball even faster than it had arrived. Melvin could do nothing but watch it rocket past him for a winner. My nerves instantly settled in realization that from this point on I would be giving as good as I got. Five points later I broke him for the second time to go up three games to nada. Things got a little tougher for me after that. Melvin turned up his game a few notches, but it was too little, t late to prevent me from taking the set and removing a tremendous almost literal weight from off my shoulders.

  Our first ever third set was an epic seesaw battle. Neither of us could maintain momentum because the other kept snatching it back. After twelve grueling games we were knotted at six apiece. Rather than playing the type of tie breaker used in the pro game, we decided to play one more game to decide the matter. I spun my beautiful new custom strung racquet on the ground. If the letter at the end of the handle came up W, it would be my serve. M would put the ball in Melvin’s hands and the match on his racquet. I had been unable to break his serve in the third set. Unlike previous contests between us, he had not been allowed to casually go through the motions and depend on my unforced errors to give him a substantial number of free points. Each one needed to be earned by performance at maximum capacity. I was dueling with him at his best and ably holding my own.

  As the racquet went round and round I looked closely at my worthy adversary’s face for signs of weakness. What I found was a stone face expression and enough perspiration trickling down it to form a waterfall. He was breathing heavily from our long rallies and my strategy of running him over as much court as possible before finishing off a point. My greater stamina would have to see me through because luck was not on my side. The Wilson racquet fell and we both peered to find an upside down W. Melvin came close to fully suppressing a grin, but not quite. He walked back wearily to the service line and prepared to finish me off. I set up to return fire with conflagration, unwilling to concede that I would have to wait for another day to end my losing streak.

  His first ace flew millimeters beyond my outstretched racquet. The second went right down the T with such ferocity that I didn’t bother to move for it, conserving my energy for when it might do me some good. His legs may have been shot but there was nothing wrong with his serving motion. When his next serve went into the net, I knew I would have an opportunity to take the next point. Melvin was adept at a few different styles of serve and skillful at unpredictable placement of them. This made dealing with his first serve a formidable challenge. But when it came to his second serve, he was as reliable as the rise and set of the sun. It came with minimal speed and kicked up high, forcing the receiver back deep. It was a safe serve that forced a timid return, leaving the point up for grabs until someone seized hold of it. I did just that to win the point, and the one after followed an identical pattern. With the set even at thirty, I watched another first serve ace fly by to set up match point for Melvin. On the next point he needed to go to his second serve again, and after a few shots back and forth I hit a stunning cross court winner for deuce. Advantage next went to Melvin followed by another deuce. The scoring replicated itself nine more times until two consecutive drop shots fell short of his stumbling reach. Advantage was finally in my favor.

  His next serve went blatantly wide. This was it. Match point for me on his second serve. I involuntarily held my breath, but quickly realized that breathing would be far more useful. Be calm, be cool, stay focused, and above all else I reminded myself, keep your eyes on the ball. I took a greatly condensed refresher course of Vlad’s teachings as Melvin went through his routine of bouncing the ball three times before his toss and swing. Yet I knew that reflecting on my instructor’s numerous tips regarding proper form would be useless. I could not will myself to perform with textbook execution. Once the ball was in play things would move too quickly for contemplation. Muscle memory would determine if my strokes were up to the task. Match point could not be treated differently than any other we had played. Succumbing to the pressure of the moment would no doubt cause me to either over or under hit. The final message I recited to myself as Melvin struck the ball was that this was just a game. In the grand scheme of things it would not matter if I won or not. Convincing myself of these lies was a futile effort.

  I was unprepared for what transpired next. Melvin did not fall back on his old faithful second serve. Instead he fearlessly went for broke and blasted the ball down the center of the court. Ninety-five percent of it, maybe even a little higher, fell on the wrong side of the line. But the outermost edge nicked it for an ace, the set back at deuce. At least that’s what I was supposed to confirm for Melvin.

  Instead I stared at the line for a few seconds before raising a finger to falsely call the ball out. Double fault – game, set, match to me I declared with a single digit, the l
ittle piggy that stayed home, pointed things out, and declared my new position in our rivalry as number one. Melvin and I played by the rules of gentlemen. The disbelief that his facial expression shouted was not verbalized. He briefly bowed his head and then trotted to the net. As we shook hands I understood that he knew I had cheated. His eyes spat accusations, but other than to weakly congratulate me for a “nice game” his lips remained pinched shut. I held his gaze and tried to figure out whether it was the intense physical exertion of the past couple hours or a guilty conscience that caused me to suddenly feel overwhelmed by exhaustion rather than euphoric in victory.

  The mother of all headaches kicked in about an hour and a half later. Unlike my ex-wife Sheila, who I hate to reference but find it unavoidable on occasion, I do not suffer from migraines. What I do find myself incapacitated by from time to time are brutal tension headaches. During the final six months of our marriage and the ugly divorce proceedings, the frequency of my headaches dramatically increased.

  Thank God we had no kids to fight over or else my head probably would have exploded. With lawyers on both sides who were adept at dragging matters out to their fullest possible length, it often seemed that no end was in sight.

  Then one day it was officially over. Every “i” had been dotted, every “t” crossed, every applicable line signed on. I was a free man who did not even have to move from my house because Sheila had latched on to a new guy, a wealthy one whose mansion-like home was more to her liking than our humble three bedroom Dutch Colonial. So I bought her out and began the next phase of my life. During this period the biggest changes in my day-to-day have been that my headaches went away, and I developed an enormous passion for the sport of tennis that is shared by my next-door neighbor.