100 Word Stories Illustrated

Store Policy

2015-03-02T09:40:00.000-05:00

Store Policy

It was all normal. And that, of course, is why it is so impossible to deal with.

It was always so normal for me too and for a split second I wanted my eyes to say that to her. And then I didn’t.

In my professional peripheral seeing without seeing, I knew that they were in my department. She looking at blouses, pulling out sleeves, sometimes checking the price; he acting like he didn’t like being in the women’s clothing department. It was the middle of the day on Tuesday, Gretchen was at lunch, I had the floor to myself. I was re-sorting a rack of clearance tops. She started to look around for someone and I left the rack to go to her.

When I got to her I saw her eye. A French curve of brown and maroon and grey rainbowed below her left eye. The swelling was gone, there were just the leftover colors of dead pooled blood. My focus changed and I saw him looking at me with challenge. His face was puffy from drink and I knew the look. I know the look so well I can smell him still. When I refocus on her it is then that my eyes try to say for a split second that I know. I really know.

But because I really know I cool my eyes down. I don’t react. I have the rictus of my professional feminine smile in place. I focus back on him with my smile and his shoulders drop just a fraction and there is a micro-nodding of his head. We all know, nothing will be said about it.

The feelings, the smells, the sounds of it are like a bubble coming up inside me. Only the first punch hurts. But there is the intensity of it, the craziness of it, the hormones in the air, the pounding emotions. It has the intensity of a car wreck where you remember everything by the nanosecond. I know it all so well that I would never get involved. I will never get involved with her or him or them.

While I smile and look for her size and talk to her about how beautiful the silk is and how good the price is I am aware of him. He is the pagan animal. The wild bull in the pen who is wanting to tear everything into rubble and ruin. The pagan animal who wants drink to release him, excuse him.

Right now he has a ring through his nose. This place, this store, this time is his penance. I know about the tears in private, the bowed head, the self-hate, the confessions and apologies. I know that they both want to believe it will get better somehow and that they both already know it will only get worse.

I know all of this. The sorrow of her life pulses through me while I ask her if this is debit or credit.

I won’t get involved. It’s store policy.

So Close To Happy

2014-09-23T18:20:00.000-04:00

So Close To Happy

Feeling lonely, she went to the mall to be around people but being alone in a crowd was even sadder.

She wandered from storefront to storefront. People looked away. She felt invisible and lonelier than ever.

Stopping at an empty shop she stared into its dark window and wondered what life was about. Here was a store as empty as she felt. She searched the window for signs and understood.

Pulling out her credit card she went into the next store buying the first thing she could. She wasn’t happy but at least she was busy.

My Secret Love

2014-08-12T18:07:00.001-04:00

My Secret Love

She was my lover once,

Often –

That was before.

Before memories slipped away,

Before I did.

Cancer took part of her brain. The years slipped away stealing her piecemeal. We could see it coming. At one point she said she couldn’t be a full-time girlfriend anymore.

We never completely broke.

I see her still. We kiss, hug, talk about cruises, passions and laughter. Her skin is as white and smooth as Gardena petals.

When I’m with her,

Memory still sees her as beautiful and alluring.

And when I leave her she lays so still

That it breaks me inside.

Still.

Stress Test

2014-06-20T12:21:00.000-04:00

Stress Test

"Where are you heading Carol?”

“Didn’t Roger tell you? Dr. Wallace died, they’re burying him today.”

“Dr. Wallace who you work for?”

“No, his father was a veterinarian too.”

“How’d he die?”

“Some kind of cardiac failure, but he was at the hospital anyway, so there was nothing they could do.”

“He was at the hospital because of his heart?”

“Well, you could say that. He went there to get a stress test done and in the middle of the test, boom, he had this heart attack. He couldn’t have gotten better care though, I mean he was right there at the hospital. Obviously nothing could have been done.”

“Maybe not give him a stress test!”

“Yeah, Kinda’ funny how it worked out but when it happens, it happens. Ok boys have good time while I’m gone. Mickey, if I don’t see you before then, good luck with your surgery. By the way, where are you getting that done?”

“Chapel Hill Regional.”

“Oh, that’s a real good hospital! That’s where Dr. Wallace went. Ok, bye!”

Martha leaves.

Roger looks at me and laughs. “I told her I’m not taking any stress tests! I’d just as soon die here drinking a beer than running on some machine.” Roger stands, “Can I get you another cold one?”

image from Wikipedia Commons

Rosewood Guilt

2014-06-06T23:10:00.000-04:00

Rosewood Guilt

When I was in high-school I agreed to do volunteer work at Rosewood State Hospital. It wasn’t clear what I’d be doing there but the priest who suggested it assured me it was quite rewarding and not too strenuous. I and some of my friends agreed to go on a Friday after class.

It was so bad there it almost defies description. Built in the 1890’s the buildings were excellent backdrops for a Victorian Horror movie. Scattered over 10 acres or so, Rosewood was a large, centralized ‘mental hospital’. When we pulled up to our building that first day and saw SPASTICS in two foot letters on the front we were freaked out. Then we pulled open the door to a high-ceilinged hallway walled with old cracked white ceramic tiles and floored with grey stone. The smell was a physical presence, then a slap, then a punch. The hallway was lined with some of the worst. Grown men, big naked men with heads like watermelons sat wrapped in sheets on the floor. Some were slowly banging their enormous heads and moaning, some of them were masturbating. Other deformities sat cheek to jowl with them, people with hydrocephalus, microcephalus, no legs, or baby sized arms. They were blind, deformed, twisted, drooling - the variety was staggering. There were urine puddles around many of the men, but they didn’t seem to notice.

The nurse who met us said that those in the hall were the ones we shouldn’t bother with; she said that they couldn’t be reached. There were rooms off that hallway filled with beds and cribs and bassinettes. We were told we could try to connect but … the reachable ones were collected in the ‘TV Room’ in the back for us. There were TV’s in every room playing to blank stares and unnoticed tears, but that Friday afternoon the television was turned off in one large room that didn’t have beds or cribs and the TV’s drone was replaced with goofy laughter and excited chatter while some teenage boys played bouncy-ball with adult men. Not everyone wanted to do it again, but a core group of us did it every Friday after that.

Mostly we didn’t know their names, some we gave nicknames. One we called Muscles. Wheelchair bound with withered legs, barely verbal and smelling as bad as any of them, Muscles had a trick. He could raise his body up out of his wheelchair using his arms.

Every Friday I’d watch Muscles do this about 15 different times. “Know what I do?” he’d ask over and over and over and I’d say ‘no’ every time and he’d show me his trick again.

It was funny how I never tired of that ‘trick.’ We also played bouncy-ball and sometimes he’d pull out a photo so creased and old that it could have been a picture of anyone. “My mama,” he’d say pointing. “Oh,” I’d always say as I nodded and smiled and looked at it carefully. “Know what I do?” he’d ask and yet again I would be amazed at his strength as he lifted his shriveled lower body off the wheelchair’s seat. He would always laugh out loud at my amazement.

Sometimes I did venture into the crib rooms where the smells were even worse and the sounds were tinier and sadder. Some of the bed people could wave back, some could smile, but it was hard to look at most of them. Many of the crib ‘babies’ were hooked to feeding tubes or IV’s and they did little more than breathe. The attendants told us that although they were infant sized some of them were teenagers. I don’t know why but sometimes I would gently place my hand on one of their tiny chests and feel their breathing. Sometimes a tiny hand would reach up and hold on to my finger for a few seconds.

The patients were of all races but all the attendants were black and seemed to be either attentive old women with strong hands and sad eyes or young men who were strong handed and angry. We whispered between ourselves about abuse of various kinds but … we were advised to ‘leave that stuff alone.’

One day during a crib room venture I walked up to a bassinette and before I looked down into it I glanced up at the TV. The Mike Douglas show was on, the volume was turned all the way up. When I looked down there was a face looking back at me, a black face with intense brown eyes that could see me, relate to me. I saw a face and a head far too normal for its little two foot twisted body in a diaper. Pumping myself up with a big smile and a big cheery voice I said, “So, hi! How are you today?”

His eyes looked back at me, actually looked at me, and he said, “Look at me, how the fuck do you think I am?”

I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t think.

“How would you feel?” he said.

After all the terrible things I had seen and smelt and suspected - this was the worst. I went on overload and I said something inane like I had just wanted to say hello. I wandered away - down the hall to Muscles and all the ‘reachable’ ones.

After two hours we left and the people we were leaving behind waved and shouted “Come back, come back!” Muscles raised himself up and down, like he always did. “Next week!” we shouted back, “Next week!”

There were always ‘next weeks’ until graduation and my trips to Rosewood stopped.

I don’t think about that place much but once in a while I do think of my buddy Muscles. I can see him clearly right this second – his grey and red hair, the residue of lunch ringing his mouth, his twisted skinny legs, his dirty tee shirt tight over his bulging arms as he lifts himself out of his wheelchair.

I can also see those intelligent eyes looking up at me from that bassinette while Mike Douglas chatted with a movie star on TV.

On all of my later visits I never did go back into that crib room.

I never saw the tiny twisted man with the penetrating stare again.

And I’ve never gotten over the guilt.

That Kind of Girl

2014-03-15T20:56:00.001-04:00

That Kind Of Girl

She was the kind of girl who was easy to hate.

You know the type:

Cute

Bubbly

Fit

Happy

and a Hugger.

What a phony!

She talked like she was answering questions at a beauty pageant –

She wanted to help children,

She wanted to find the right guy,

She wanted everyone to get along…

Give me a break!

Before last week I hadn’t seen her for years -

She’d changed.

She was married, pregnant, teaching disabled kids & volunteering.

Still hugging, smiling & bubbly.

She surprised me.

I didn’t realize she was that kind of girl.

Coward

2013-11-20T20:59:00.000-05:00

Coward

No one knows.

But I know.

I know every morning, every night, every day.

I dream it, taste it on my tongue.

I try to wash it from my skin. But I cannot.

I’m a coward and marked forever - If only to my own eyes.

I look at the can every day, it reproaches me, mocks me.

Today I thought I was brave enough but, again, I was not.

I am a coward.

I just cannot eat a canned sardine.

The Best Thing That Happened

2013-11-13T10:30:00.000-05:00

The Best Thing That Happened

Last year the Sun was shining – a bright, clear day.

I was tooling along at 55.

The windshield turned to fur then exploded.

A dead ten-point whitetail lay on the curb.

The Subaru was totaled.

I had glass in my eyes.

But!

The Subie had over 250,000 miles and was leaking three different fluids.

The insurance paid out $2,000 more than I paid four years before.

I was able to buy a nicer car with lower miles and had money left over.

Nothing this year has been as good.

But!

I’m optimistic.

Someone did just punch me in the mouth.

Roads To Nowhere

2013-07-11T11:48:00.000-04:00

Roads To Nowhere

Always, I’ve traveled the roads. When I was new, everything along the road was new. New houses, new schools, new loves, new people, new losses, new beginnings – I was always heading somewhere new as the landscape went by in a blur.

Later on, nothing was new. Another house, another person, another loss – I kept moving on, the landscape still blurred.

Now I realize my road will end somewhere yet I continue on at breakneck speed. Still running from nowhere, my landscape’s still blurry, my destination is still unknown.

I’m melancholy - realizing that somewhere and nowhere are the same place.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

2012-12-17T21:10:00.000-05:00

Do You Hear What I Hear?

When you work retail the Xmas music starts early and plays endlessly. I hear the stupidest things. I mean, what is ‘gay apparel’ anyway? And French hens? Lords a leaping? Don’t even start with the fa-la-la’s!

There’s a point where the holiday seems cheap, plasticy and annoying. Traffic jams, weird TV shows, dark days, cold weather, rude shoppers and rinky-dink music make for a grim time of year.

But then, closer to the Day itself, I get a different feeling. It’s a warm feeling; a feeling of love. There’s a different sound I hear.

Cha-Ching! Ah, the sound of retail.

image from digsdigs.com

image from northshorehometalk.com

image from christmaslightsinc.com

The Investor

2012-12-11T18:43:00.000-05:00

The Investor

It was a cold day after a rainy one, ice hid in shadowed patches, glazing branch tips and fences. The scrawled sign out front said use the back door.

Around back, frozen mop water coated the steps. The woman’s angry face said, ‘Go away. No showings today.’

The Investor pursed his lips, thinking hard.

“Their lease is up in February?”

I nodded.

“Well…” he stopped and we listened to people screaming. There was a thump. A child cried.

The Investor shrugged.

“Let’s come back after Christmas, I’m still interested.”

I looked at the crushed wreath at my feet and nodded.

Drugs Or IQ?

2012-11-12T18:24:00.000-05:00

Drugs or IQ?

Chris is a young guy, he works hard at McDonald's and already is a manager. Turnover’s pretty high, so Chris does a lot of job interviewing.

He'd said that drug tests were worthless. He knew that lots of the kids he hired smoked pot and that learning how to beat a drug test was as easy as Google.

Then he had an awakening… The drug test was really an IQ test. He realized that if you did drugs and were so stupid you couldn’t beat the test, then you were eliminated.

Chris is happier knowing that McDonald's was right again.

image from clickr.com

image from freelogovector.com

Father Sky

2012-11-04T21:18:00.000-05:00

Father Sky

Father Sky is ascendant.

Mother Earth is underfoot.

The Sky is wind & fire – we fear the Sky. The Earth is loam & water – we trample the Earth.

For Muslims, Christians & Jews it is their basic doctrine. They begin with Abraham, who owned his wives and children; Abraham who almost murdered his son at Father Sky’s command.

Pagans worshiped Goddesses. Pagans venerated Mother Earth, but the Sky religions overwhelmed them, erased them.

This made our world unbalanced - us unbalanced. We will remain perpetually at war - as long as Father Sky commands.

Mother Earth patiently waits and slowly dies.

lmbaumer@gmail.com

image from Library of Congress/ John Vachon/ Dubuque, Iowa

Testing my cover art

2012-10-31T21:58:00.000-04:00

The Prince of Highlandtown

a story of Catholicism, love, sin & forgiveness

in an America sixty years ago

(The following is an excerpt from my novel... Please let me know your reaction to the above as cover art for the novel. I hope to publish before year's end.

Thank You)

Highlandtown, you weren’t just my neighborhood, you were my town, my little town inside the big city. We were a place –a real place where people didn’t just happen to find themselves. No! We wanted to live here. Children bought houses down the block from their parents and across the street from their grandparents. Walk these gridwork streets today and see through my eyes and the grime will fall away, the trash will be gone and on a sunny winter’s day like today, the marble steps will gleam, the painted screens will cover the windows and the streets will be full of people.

When I was a boy, we all walked most places – we walked to school, we walked to the store, to the church, the movies, the park! Mothers pushed carriages full of babies, grandmothers, with scarves on their heads and nylons rolled down below their knees, pulled little silver carts full of groceries and, had I been a priest in those days, my cassock and collar would have meant something. Everyone would have tipped their hats, deferentially said “Hello Father” and smiled. Today, I’m mostly eyed suspiciously. Oh, I get the occasional nod and a few “Hello Father’s,” but to most, I’m just another old man who dresses oddly. Only the old women and I seem to remember.

The Sin Of My Father

2012-10-21T20:21:00.000-04:00

The Sin Of My Father

Senseless rages at midnight – hiding under my bed in the dark, my heart pounds, stomach aches.

…but he is your father

Breaking glass, the sickening sound of slapped flesh

…he deserves your respect

‘You little bastard,’ he calls me

…he does work hard

We live in madness.

He’s dead but he follows me.

I hear his echo in my voice, see his shadow cross my face, feel his rage burn inside me.

I’ll never trust myself completely. I’ll always fear what may be lurking within.

...but he is your father

Today, in the mirror, I saw his eyes looking back.

I Wanna Party Like It's 1999!

2012-10-16T20:53:00.000-04:00

I Wanna Party Like It’s 1999!

“Man,” he said, “What the hell’s happened in the last 12 years? I mean, am I crazy or stupid? Life was good … there was enough work. Our biggest problems were Monica and Y2K! The budget had a surplus, we weren’t going broke.

“How’d it happen so fast? A country this big? In 1999 we were the only superpower! Now we’re broken and exhausted.

“I had a lot of hope for Obama. I thought he’d put it back together."

Shaking his head, looking at his shoes, “Maybe if he hadn’t been black…”

All I could think was “Stupid Liberal.”

image from wiki-land.com

image from mccarthysweekly-paxvobiscum.blogspot.com

image from crooksandliars.com

The Bully Pulpit

2012-10-16T19:54:00.000-04:00

The Bully Pulpit

“you know you are not worthy. You know, in your heart, how craven, how selfish, how unworthy you are.

“thankfully, it isn’t too late; you can be redeemed. You can be better, do better, think better, raise better children.

“I will show you how. I will lead you into the light. we will bring about a better tomorrow.

“The evildoers will be punished, the voices of vice will be silenced & temptations will be banished. I will lead the way by pointing out the sinners among us.

“it's my job, I was elected president & I will save your soul.”

image from acclaimimages.com

Random Baby: Year 2012

2012-10-16T16:32:00.000-04:00

Random Baby:

Year 2012

Too young to think, you can only expect. You expect to be fed, to be comforted, to be loved. It’s right to expect these things.

But further than that…?

When I began as a random baby in America, I was taught to expect more. I expected that things would always get better, that there would be more food, more comfort, more love.

Now I’m told such expectations are selfish. Now I’m told to expect scarcer food, character-building hard times and respect – not love.

Dear Random Baby 2012, I’ll persist in expecting a better world for you. I’ll do my

best.

image from store.barackobama.com

All Purpose Political Speech

2012-10-16T10:49:00.000-04:00

All Purpose Political Speech

Unlike my weak, desperate opponent I won’t stoop to dishonest personal attacks. Despite his questionable ethics, lack of morality & unfamiliarity with truth, I will attack him only for his grotesque, treasonous policies.

My campaign isn’t for the special interests or for personal gain, but for the American children.

You see, I find my strength in the American people, the American spirit and the American way. Working together we will make America American again.

Together we can save America, tell the world the American people are back & that tomorrow will be better, just like it used to be.

images from publicdomainpictures.net (Michelle Waters & Petr Kratochvil) & freestockphotos.biz

The Ironic Surgeon

2012-10-04T16:35:00.000-04:00

The Ironic Surgeon

“You’re in good health,” his hand waved over files lying on the examination table, “For your age.” He smiled.

He picked up a Xeroxed page and frowned at it. “And except for these discs, of course…”

He went into a long lecture about spinal discs, tears, hernias and nerve roots. When he finished he looked at me again.

“Spinal fusions,” he said.

He showed me pictures of titanium screws, talked about bone grafts, car wrecks and four months in a brace.

“Funny thing is, the rest of your spine looks great, like a 25 year old's.”

“Yeah,” I thought, “Funny.”

Buttermilk

2012-10-03T00:28:00.000-04:00

Buttermilk

Nate is one of the old guys I take care of at the home. He’s a crank, but he says smart things sometimes. Sometimes he says crazy things.

Like Buttermilk.

Nate says America lost its way when we stopped drinking Buttermilk. He says, back in the day, everything wasn’t sweet and that made sweet things sweeter. Follow that?

He says people actually made some foods bitter on purpose, that they expected some things to be hard to do, that kids were supposed to cry sometimes.

Crazy, huh?

But he’s right about one thing – I’ve tried it and I like Buttermilk.

Buttermilk sky image from Flickr.com

image from Barbersdairy.com

Frack Me, Crack Me & Dream Me Green

2012-09-30T16:16:00.000-04:00

Frack Me – Crack Me –

& Dream Me Green

I’m a car nut who dreams in green. I envision a pollution-free future. I write to politicians saying “Make it Greener!”

It’s exciting times – Skyactive Technology, Eco-Boost, regenerative brakes, hybrids, clean diesel and the big Kahuna – Hydrogen engines! Fortunes have been spent on the engine that exhausts only water. So clean ~ except …

We get hydrogen by ‘cracking’ natural gas; we get natural gas by ‘fracking’ the earth … and fracking causes earthquakes and makes tap water inflammable. Sigh.

So after the hype, the research & the prototypes we’re back to the beginning – I’m back on my bike.

image from photobucket.com

image from progressnc.org

Matrie D'Amour

2012-09-22T17:52:00.000-04:00

Maitre d’Amour

He was elegant, handsome and sophisticated. Gracious in speech and action, he charmed everyone, most especially women. He knew the right wines, the right people, the right places. Everywhere he went, he found friends.

But he lacked passion.

Imperturbable, he took all things in stride – including his divorces.

His ex-wives, his ex-girlfriends all agreed that they loved him but that his distant reserve frustrated them. They thought that he didn’t REALLY CARE.

When the break-ups were over his reaction was always the same - he would look at the new woman and say, “My darling, our table is ready.”

Super-Something Me!

2012-09-21T12:34:00.000-04:00

Super-something ME!

We were the GM Superstore – Pontiac, Oldsmobile & Cadillac. We added Saturn when they dropped Oldsmobile, so we thought things evened out.

When the bottom dropped out completely, when the economy crashed - we hung on. Then GM pulled Pontiac & Saturn out from under us. We had 22 mechanics, 16 salesmen, 11 office people, 4 clean-ups & 4 managers & we were too big to go on. But we were too small to save.

There were super-bailouts – for the Banks, GM & Chrysler - but for the old Superstore – there was nothing.

Too bad they won’t super-something me.

The Way Things Used To Be

2012-09-08T04:49:00.000-04:00

The Way Things Used To Be

Crenellated, ornately festooned with mock battlements, floridly styled and overbuilt – it is a building that demands respect. For over 100 years, its solid brick construction has dominated the skyline.

It’s how workmanship was defined, it’s how things used to be made, it’s the way everything used to be. Companies planned for futures longer than two fiscal quarters. Planned obsolescence didn’t exist yet. It was an old-fashioned time of honor, respect and integrity without government interference.

Yes, it was only a warehouse built in 1904 but what it stands for persists – the power and wealth of big tobacco.