“Two Good Turns”
By Kenny Jackson
Copyright 2015 Kenny Jackson, all rights reserved
Table of Contents
Title Page
The Story
More Stories and Contact Information
The lady jogger caught in the corner of Mark Strand’s eye and he turned his head.
“More joggers than ever, don’t you think?” he said as he followed the woman with his eyes.
Mark turned his ring on his finger. There was this conversation he felt like he had to have with his wife. But it was silly, really. Something on the inside of Mark’s ring caught against his finger.
“Hey,” he said, “my ring just poked me.”
Christy Strand was driving the car.
“The answer to your actual question about joggers,” she said, “is no, yoga pants were just recently invented.”
“I find un-asked for mental telepathy rude in the extreme,” said Mark.
Mark felt a weight on his legs. He looked down. There was nothing in his lap, only his hand. He felt the pressure all the same. It was the weirdest thing. The weight by itself was normal. If Mark closed his eyes, nothing was wrong. There was something sitting on his lap; nothing odd about that. But Mark’s eyes were not closed and there wasn’t anything in his lap. It was empty. He was having some kind of cramp, or a muscle pull. Mark decided that was it. He tried to massage it out. His hand gave a little tremor.
“Scanning… Scanning…” said Christy. “And I find your choice of mistresses disappointing. I like to imagine myself a mid to mid-high class floozy.”
Floozies? What were they talking about? Right, he thought, the telepathy joke.
“Just you wait, my dear,” Mark said. “The floozies love a good promotion.”
The weight on Mark’s leg lifted suddenly.
“And what ugly babies,” said Christy. “They look like they have complications.”
“Should’ve brought the practice interview-questions,” said Mark.
“Do they have complications?” said Christy.
“What’s that, sir?” Mark said to the imaginary interviewer. “My greatest weakness?”
“Because,” said Christy, “they look downsy.”
“My greatest weakness,” said Mark. “Whenever someone in authority asks, I give them sexual favors there on the spot, with no regard for my marriage.”
“Scanning…” said Christy. “You think you want to talk about Monday.”
“Even if I’m in some sort of interview,” said Mark.
“Scanning… Scanning…” said Christie. “But you don’t really want to talk about Monday.”
“And the person who asks me is some sort of, what’s the word, interviewer.”
Christy pulled the car into a spot right alongside the apartment building where Mark’s brother lived.
“We’re here,” she said. “Your brother’s apartment is number six.”
“You mean my brother’s landlord’s apartment, which my brother rents, is apartment number six.”
“How thoughtless of me,” said Christy.
“My brother is no better at blowjobs than we are, thank you very much.”
Christy knocked on Todd Strand’s landlord’s door and said “Initiating Distraction Plan Delta: brother and ducks” to no one in particular. To Mark, she said “There’s bread in the back seat.”
Mark’s brother Todd Strand came to the door carrying a heavy, lumpy bag.
“The duck pond is only a couple hundred yards away,” said Christy.
“I thought to myself, I won’t say anything about it,” said Todd.
He shouldered the strap and stretched his lower back.
“I’ll probably hurt my back again, but it’s necessary. We’ve been living a lie.”
“Notice he said back and not feet,” said Mark. “It’s the same everywhere. Hey!”
Mark yanked the bread out through the car’s back window. He dangled the loaf by its twisty-tied plastic.
“This, is a regular loaf of bread. Ducks like the husks.”
“Nothing likes husks,” said Christy. “Your mom told you that because you were poor.”
Todd shook his head yes.
Mark said, “I don’t believe you.”
Mark, Christy, and Todd walked down the blacktop bike path to the duck pond. They exchanged pleasantries and avoided goose poop. Christy had to move Mark off talking about Monday’s interview more than once. The three reached the pond. Mark and Christy began feeding the ducks. Todd heaped a series of thick, variously shaped books onto a red and peeling picnic table that was chained to the big burr oak beside the pond.
“Are you ready to hear?” Todd said, “I’m afraid Mark and I aren’t the men we thought we were. I’ve found something terrible in our family history.”
“Skeletons?” said Mark.
“Complications?” said Christy.
“I’m afraid both,” said Todd. “Remember how we’re German-English?”
“Course, Toddy,” said Mark. “The left side of us is German; the right side of us is English.”
Mark looked Christy in the face, pulled the husk from the bottom of the bread bag without breaking eye contact, and ate the husk whole.
“Also one half duck,” said Christy.
“I hate to tell you this,” said Todd, “but we aren’t German-English at all. We’re Irish-Swedish.”
“Take it back,” said Mark.
“I can’t look at you,” said Christy.
“The ducks won’t take my bread,” said Mark. “The ducks won’t take my bread! They know.”
“I do not blame them,” said Christy.
“What else?” said Mark. “I suppose we come from a long and distinguished line of child molesters, huh?”
“Not that I could find,” said Todd. “The Irish side of the family was named O’Donnell. They were, well, they were boring.”
“You mean to say,” said Mark, “our forefathers were teetotalers who didn’t blow up a thing?”
“Afraid so,” said Todd.
“It gets worse and worse,” said Mark.
“My condolences,” said Christy.
“The Swedish side however,” said Todd, “they were interesting.”
“I don’t even know Swedish stereotypes,” said Mark.
“Tall and blonde,” said Christy.
“I’m an awful Swede,” said Mark. “Our forefathers would be ashamed of the brunette-ism and medium-heighted-ness that has so tragically descended upon the Strand line.”
“I’m blonde,” said Christy. ”We’ll rebuild.”
“You’re dirty blonde,” said Mark. “Dirty blonde, dirty blood.”
“Pretty interesting family history, actually,” said Todd. “The Strands, especially the first born of each new generation, were all terribly successful.”
“Another thing we don’t have in common,” said Mark.
“They were lords and successful merchants and Cardinals and such, and they married tremendously well.”
“I hope the Cardinals didn’t,” said Christy. “Unless Swedish Catholics are okay with conjugated Cardinals.”
“The interesting thing about all that success is,” said Todd, “almost every bit of it was overnight success.”
“So you’re saying our forefathers were good at job interviews,” said Mark.
Todd opened up one of the books he had on the picnic table and began pointing at names and miniature reproductions of paintings.
“Charles Strand, he was the Cardinal. He was a priest, a normal unspectacular priest with one of the smaller parishes in Sweden. Out of nowhere, with no bigger parish and no monsignor status in between, he’s named a Cardinal.”
“At least some family traditions stay with
us,” said Mark.”
“Frederick Strand was a poor clerk working for a rich and powerful merchant. From everything I can find, he was absolutely the bottom of the barrel. Until one day, the old merchant dies and leaves his entire empire to Frederick. It isn’t as if the merchant hadn’t any next of kin. He had a son. I have no idea what happened to that son, but I do know he didn’t inherit a scrap. Our Fred got it all.”
“I work for a powerful merchant,” said Mark.
“Is a finance company a powerful merchant?” said Christy.
“This is a picture of Daniel Strand,” said Todd.
“I take back what I said about dirty blood,” said Mark. “That forefather has a unibrow, and his unibrow is not one of the top three things wrong with his face.”
“Is it hard to close a fallopian tube?” said Christy. “I just remembered I have this friend who wanted to know.”
“And this,” said Todd, “this is a picture of Elizabeth Strand, late O’Donnell, the wife of Daniel Strand.”
“That’s not a real person,” said Mark. “The picture shows clear signs of ancient Swedish Photoshop.”
“She’s beautiful,” said Christy.
“I un-take back what I said about dirty blood,” said Mark. “Dan the man. Dan the man.”
“How?” said Christy.
“Knocked her up, probably,” said Mark.
“How?” said Christy.
“It’s dark in the dark.”
“That’s not all,” said Todd. “Elizabeth had money, and I think I found somewhere she was married before. Divorce wasn’t easy back then, though I suppose she did have a lot of money.”
“You made all this up to get attention,” said Mark.
“Just because it worked doesn’t mean it was an okay thing to do,” said Christy.
“I have the original manuscripts,” said Todd. “Repeat, original manuscripts. They were in grandma’s house.”
“Why did all those first-borns have to work so hard if their fathers
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