Nothing quite spices up the morning when, stooping to retrieve the paper from the driveway, a succession of pistol shots are fired nearby.
Pop-pop. Pop-pop-pop-pop, pop-pop, pop.
The possibility of one's neighborhood being featured as the headline in the next day's newspaper, suddenly becomes very real.
It happened in my neighborhood yesterday, shortly before 7am when the steady thrum of rubber tires on asphalt from the nearby four-lane highway, drowned out the sounds of bird-song and cockerels crowing. Yellow school bus diesel engines purred in concert, collected in a convoy as they neared the small community's single traffic light at the cross-roads, readying to turn toward the Middle and High Schools.
Dogs of all varieties, in, out and under a cluster of mobile-homes scattered within sandy and wooded lots bordering washboard dusty roads, yelped and barked.
Not a soul was to be seen except a cluster of scared-looking parents and children gathered, waiting for the later Bible School bus. Safety and curiosity tugged, briefly, before caution overruled and retreat to the comparative safety of the cedar-frame and tin-roofed Victorian house, won out.
The 911 Emergency Operator said she was already aware of the gun-shots, thank you very much, click!
Its very unsettling knowing one's active imagination has NOT transformed the backfiring of an old clunker, somewhere in the distance, to the reality of lethal gunfire nearby.
The instincts of a lifetime on the front lines of police reporting, pen and camera pushing toward the greatest source of activity to determine who did what to whom, when and why, were strong. However, as a “civilian” one has the right to pay pay taxes, call on the law when necessary, but otherwise, stay below the radar. Also, with maturity comes a realization of personal vulnerability and likelihood of becoming an innocent-bystander victim caught in a collateral collisions between good and evil. The certainty of invincibility dissipated along with hair and original teeth.
Dozens of scenarios race through ones mind: a domestic dispute, a drug-deal gone sour, feuding neighbors or an early celebration of an unknown Latino holiday. That last was cruel but real. Seems there can be no event, whether its the birth of a newborn, the outcome of a football/soccer game, or heralding the New Year, without fireworks and gun-shots.
As any student of Newton's Law of Gravity knows, what goes up must come down. And bullets, after peaking at their trajectory, have a return rate to earth of 32-feet per second per second.
There was nothing about the shoot-out on any of the area television newscasts. Apart from bickering, babbling and preening for the cameras – always a a split-second after the angle changed – the studio clowns joshed their way between an avalanche of commercials, weather reports, traffic updates and canned network newscasts,
No sense calling the local newspapers during the current economic crunch to get a recoded message stating: “You have reached an unoccupied desk. If you wish to leave a message call...” following by a string of gabbled numbers no one unfamiliar with could possible retain.
A day housebound, at least until the sound of sirens in the distance; patrol cruisers, emergency vehicles, fire-trucks fade away for good.
The laundry, file sorting, bill paying, tasks set aside for a rainy day loom as an immediate time filler until its deemed safe to venture out to the bank, post-office and grocery store.
All doors and windows closed and locked, while the mighty-mouth AM radio jockey babbling in the background, just in case a listener with a police monitors calls in an up-date.
The Middle-East is in turmoil, there are two wars being waged overseas, airports are combat zones with frisk and squeeze security scans, terrorists with bombs in their skivvies fly the friendly skies overhead, and some nutter is firing shots in the neighborhood.
And, as someone with the ear of the nation was wont to say as he signed off his newscast: “That's the way it is.”
Can't wait to pick up tomorrows newspaper and find out what happened – but not holding my breath of any explanation.
Ends...
Showing posts with label Lifestyle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lifestyle. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Bela Lugosi – In the FLESH!
By JACK OWEN
Halloween masks depicting Dracula cannot match the real thing - on the fright-scale.
This is not a tall tale but a true story (would I lie?) about a misadventure half a century ago when it seemed like a good idea to play hooky from school.
Today, the prank would probably land me in juvenile court. At the time (1951) my absence from the assigned classroom desk on a Wednesday afternoon, barely raised an eyebrow.
Traditionally shops in Britain closed for a half-day Wednesday.
It was part of the long established retail custom of creating as much confusion and inconvenience to customers as humanly possible. Shops closed at lunchtime to avoid the annoyance of interruptions by the rest of the population, trying to buy food or clothing between the hours of 9 am. and 5 pm.
Sundays, everything was closed all day.
Home Economics classes at the nearby girls’ school concentrated more on plans of attack and ploys to shop for groceries, than actually cooking any food obtained. Which probably created a correlation between classes taught and the quality of meals served at home. Usually “something” on toast!
The poorer plodding relatives in our extended family group were all in the retail sector. Our rich relatives, who had homes with telephones and cars in the driveway, were stage, film and sports personalities.
My retail-working mother, whose brief high-kicking days in the chorus line of “No, No Nanette” were doomed when it was discovered she had two left feet, was totally star-struck.
Routinely I’d be hoiked out of school Wednesday afternoons to meet a “visiting relative”, at a matinee stage or movie performance somewhere. I never knew – to this day – which of the figures in films shown on the big screen were “real” uncles and aunts.
Names like Ida Lupino and Bonar Colleano didn’t sound very English to me, but I was told they were stage-names of relatives. It made sense, at the time. My mother regularly used four created first names of her own - and she only sat in the audience.
One of my ukulele-playing uncles, who appeared on the same bill as a well-known music-hall black-face comic, told me the comedian was traveling to London to meet his first agent but hadn’t settled on a stage name.
It was an inspirational journey. When he got off the train he’d adopted the stage name Nosmo King from the stern British Railway’s notice he’d spotted in his Third Class carriage, “No Smoking”.
Occasionally diminutive copies of the giant faces and physiques I’d seen on the movie screen would appear at my grandmother’s for dinner. The only one’s I was fairly sure were blood relatives would be those I’d seen on-stage and in their dressing rooms.
And, when they were “resting” between engagements at our house. The strain of performing must have been harsh. Some “rested” at my grandmother’s for several months at a time.
The modus operandi established by dear old mum suddenly jelled in my mind’s eye when, instead of trying to solve an algebra problem at school, I developed a ruse to see Bela Lugosi in the flesh performing his classic role as “Dracula”.
Convincing a stuttering friend - who had little ability to express his doubts - it would be an educational excursion, we slipped away from school during lunch break.
Most of the matinee audience at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre, fortunately, was too stiff of limb to clamber up three flights of concrete steps to the gods. The dark and foreboding stairwell was dimly lit by old-fashioned sputtering gaslights.
We had the section all to ourselves and plunked down in balcony front-row seats just as the house-lights dimmed.
Ages before the Beatles long locks style arrived in the USA, most UK schoolboys either looked like short-sighted sheepdogs peering through a mop of hair, or wore the pudding-basin-cropped model.
During Lugosi’s chilling performance mine, I was assured, looked like I’d put my finger in an electric outlet. It could have been a prototype for an Afro as Dracula, the personification of evil, commanded the stage just an outstretched hand away.
My mate, naturally tongue-tied, sat enthralled and agog throughout the performance. [He was so impressed at seeing a live performance he later took elocution lessons and speech therapy. His on-stage delivery is now powerful enough to blow a fuse in devices used by the hard of hearing.]
Courage flowed back into our veins as Dracula was dispatched with a stake through the heart. An almost visible tension ebbed from the audience as the curtain dropped.
Time was flying if we were to leave the theatre and merge with the school letting-out crowd to successfully complete our escapade without discovery. We inched toward the exit sign, clapping all the way as performers stepped forward to take their bows.
Lugosi moved toward the footlights, bloodied lips curling back on his pale death-mask face acknowledging the ovation. The curtain closed behind him. He held up his hands, silencing the applause.
His heavy Hungarian accented tones, mimicked into mockery in a multitude of movies, echoed throughout the theatre.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” he said pleasantly. ”Just a word before you go. We hope the memories of Dracula and Renfield won’t give you bad dreams, so just a word of reassurance.”
We hovered at the exit, loath to miss a moment. One foot on the concrete steps, the other on theatre carpet. “When you get home tonight, and the lights have been turned out, and you are afraid to look behind the curtains,” his voice became somber, his face screwed into a snarl. “And you dread to see a face appear at the window...why, just pull yourself together and remember that…”
He pulled his cloak around himself bringing his arms up toward menacing fangs. House-lights dimmed, the spotlight emphasizing his hypnotic eyes.
“… after all there are such things… heh, heh, heh…” he flung his arms wide, displaying the crimson lining of his cape, cackled and…
FLASH!
A blinding light burned into my retinas as he disappeared in a puff of smoke.
The audience shrieked.
But not as loud, or as long, as two terrified schoolboys plunging headlong into wavering shadows cast by flickering gaslights screaming all the way down three flights of stairs and still running way, way, into the parking lot.
Scary Halloween masks?
Bah!
They’re nothing, compared to Lugosi – in the flesh!
One of many chapters recalled in the forthcoming book
“The Day...The Cat Sneezed Its Nose Off”
Halloween masks depicting Dracula cannot match the real thing - on the fright-scale.
This is not a tall tale but a true story (would I lie?) about a misadventure half a century ago when it seemed like a good idea to play hooky from school.
Today, the prank would probably land me in juvenile court. At the time (1951) my absence from the assigned classroom desk on a Wednesday afternoon, barely raised an eyebrow.
Traditionally shops in Britain closed for a half-day Wednesday.
It was part of the long established retail custom of creating as much confusion and inconvenience to customers as humanly possible. Shops closed at lunchtime to avoid the annoyance of interruptions by the rest of the population, trying to buy food or clothing between the hours of 9 am. and 5 pm.
Sundays, everything was closed all day.
Home Economics classes at the nearby girls’ school concentrated more on plans of attack and ploys to shop for groceries, than actually cooking any food obtained. Which probably created a correlation between classes taught and the quality of meals served at home. Usually “something” on toast!
The poorer plodding relatives in our extended family group were all in the retail sector. Our rich relatives, who had homes with telephones and cars in the driveway, were stage, film and sports personalities.
My retail-working mother, whose brief high-kicking days in the chorus line of “No, No Nanette” were doomed when it was discovered she had two left feet, was totally star-struck.
Routinely I’d be hoiked out of school Wednesday afternoons to meet a “visiting relative”, at a matinee stage or movie performance somewhere. I never knew – to this day – which of the figures in films shown on the big screen were “real” uncles and aunts.
Names like Ida Lupino and Bonar Colleano didn’t sound very English to me, but I was told they were stage-names of relatives. It made sense, at the time. My mother regularly used four created first names of her own - and she only sat in the audience.
One of my ukulele-playing uncles, who appeared on the same bill as a well-known music-hall black-face comic, told me the comedian was traveling to London to meet his first agent but hadn’t settled on a stage name.
It was an inspirational journey. When he got off the train he’d adopted the stage name Nosmo King from the stern British Railway’s notice he’d spotted in his Third Class carriage, “No Smoking”.
Occasionally diminutive copies of the giant faces and physiques I’d seen on the movie screen would appear at my grandmother’s for dinner. The only one’s I was fairly sure were blood relatives would be those I’d seen on-stage and in their dressing rooms.
And, when they were “resting” between engagements at our house. The strain of performing must have been harsh. Some “rested” at my grandmother’s for several months at a time.
The modus operandi established by dear old mum suddenly jelled in my mind’s eye when, instead of trying to solve an algebra problem at school, I developed a ruse to see Bela Lugosi in the flesh performing his classic role as “Dracula”.
Convincing a stuttering friend - who had little ability to express his doubts - it would be an educational excursion, we slipped away from school during lunch break.
Most of the matinee audience at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre, fortunately, was too stiff of limb to clamber up three flights of concrete steps to the gods. The dark and foreboding stairwell was dimly lit by old-fashioned sputtering gaslights.
We had the section all to ourselves and plunked down in balcony front-row seats just as the house-lights dimmed.
Ages before the Beatles long locks style arrived in the USA, most UK schoolboys either looked like short-sighted sheepdogs peering through a mop of hair, or wore the pudding-basin-cropped model.
During Lugosi’s chilling performance mine, I was assured, looked like I’d put my finger in an electric outlet. It could have been a prototype for an Afro as Dracula, the personification of evil, commanded the stage just an outstretched hand away.
My mate, naturally tongue-tied, sat enthralled and agog throughout the performance. [He was so impressed at seeing a live performance he later took elocution lessons and speech therapy. His on-stage delivery is now powerful enough to blow a fuse in devices used by the hard of hearing.]
Courage flowed back into our veins as Dracula was dispatched with a stake through the heart. An almost visible tension ebbed from the audience as the curtain dropped.
Time was flying if we were to leave the theatre and merge with the school letting-out crowd to successfully complete our escapade without discovery. We inched toward the exit sign, clapping all the way as performers stepped forward to take their bows.
Lugosi moved toward the footlights, bloodied lips curling back on his pale death-mask face acknowledging the ovation. The curtain closed behind him. He held up his hands, silencing the applause.
His heavy Hungarian accented tones, mimicked into mockery in a multitude of movies, echoed throughout the theatre.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” he said pleasantly. ”Just a word before you go. We hope the memories of Dracula and Renfield won’t give you bad dreams, so just a word of reassurance.”
We hovered at the exit, loath to miss a moment. One foot on the concrete steps, the other on theatre carpet. “When you get home tonight, and the lights have been turned out, and you are afraid to look behind the curtains,” his voice became somber, his face screwed into a snarl. “And you dread to see a face appear at the window...why, just pull yourself together and remember that…”
He pulled his cloak around himself bringing his arms up toward menacing fangs. House-lights dimmed, the spotlight emphasizing his hypnotic eyes.
“… after all there are such things… heh, heh, heh…” he flung his arms wide, displaying the crimson lining of his cape, cackled and…
FLASH!
A blinding light burned into my retinas as he disappeared in a puff of smoke.
The audience shrieked.
But not as loud, or as long, as two terrified schoolboys plunging headlong into wavering shadows cast by flickering gaslights screaming all the way down three flights of stairs and still running way, way, into the parking lot.
Scary Halloween masks?
Bah!
They’re nothing, compared to Lugosi – in the flesh!
One of many chapters recalled in the forthcoming book
“The Day...The Cat Sneezed Its Nose Off”
Thursday, September 30, 2010
"We'll be right back..."
“...two officers shot – we'll be right back – after the commercial...”
That's all she heard before her cell phone began its St Vitus dance across the Formica-topped kitchen counter simultaneously buzzing and vibrating.
The landline telephone on the wall, kept just for emergencies like a hurricane or tornado when things flew through the Florida skies ripping buildings apart and blowing telephone and power lines down, begand to ring.
Charlie, in cranky pre-breakfast mode, whined for attention from his highchair, Oscar yapped his high-pitched dachshund yelp, jumping up at the unusual noise from the telephone and the kettle's whistle began shrieking for attention.
“Now is the time to drop everything and rush down to Pals Auto Mall where you can help us help you into the Last Days of Summer Sale gas-saver of your dreams,” shouted the precocious twin teen daughters of the local used car dealership. Sparkling cars draped with patriotic flags fluttering under the stimulus of off-camera industrial-strength fans, filled the plasma screen. A flashing red BREAKING NEWS banner ran across the top segment, a Weather Alert scrolled along the bottom portion warning of a late season tropical storm, riding counter to the ticker-tape plunging stock market prices.
Baby Angelia wriggled in the cradle of her mother's arm, was shifted to hip-rider mode and that familiar off-balance posture known to mothers world wide, before mom reached for and flipped the lid of the cell phone open, while nudging the wall phone loose from its hook.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Blanker? Wife of patrolman Ronnie Blanker,”a male voice came clearly from the landline phone, while a squeaky female voice echoed the same question from the cell phone juggled in the same hand.
Celia Blanker watched the televisions screen dissolve from a flourish of red white and blue bunting with stacks of dollar bills under a flashing yellow SAVE sign superimposed on it, to a scrabble of SWAT team members, cop cars with glittering strobe lights and Emergency Responders clustered around stretchers and a skin-head reporter, hand pressed to earphone while talking into a microphone and cell-phone, looking wide-eyed and earnest into the camera.
The dual shrieking of the unattended whistling kettle and high-pitched feedback from the telephone in her ear drove home the realization she was at the other end of the reporter's question.
“Mrs. Blanker...are you there,” sirens on-screen and through her telephone's earpiece joined the chorus of noise filling her safe place kitchen.
“Ronnie! Is Ronnie alright?”
“Mrs. Blanker. I have some sad news to pass...”
“And we'll be right back after this commercial break.”
A hearty bellowing voice broke in as the screen displayed a bottle of liquid soap and animated suds while the chaotic but comfortable world of Celia Blanker, Charlie and Angelia disintegrated – between commercials.
Ends...
That's all she heard before her cell phone began its St Vitus dance across the Formica-topped kitchen counter simultaneously buzzing and vibrating.
The landline telephone on the wall, kept just for emergencies like a hurricane or tornado when things flew through the Florida skies ripping buildings apart and blowing telephone and power lines down, begand to ring.
Charlie, in cranky pre-breakfast mode, whined for attention from his highchair, Oscar yapped his high-pitched dachshund yelp, jumping up at the unusual noise from the telephone and the kettle's whistle began shrieking for attention.
“Now is the time to drop everything and rush down to Pals Auto Mall where you can help us help you into the Last Days of Summer Sale gas-saver of your dreams,” shouted the precocious twin teen daughters of the local used car dealership. Sparkling cars draped with patriotic flags fluttering under the stimulus of off-camera industrial-strength fans, filled the plasma screen. A flashing red BREAKING NEWS banner ran across the top segment, a Weather Alert scrolled along the bottom portion warning of a late season tropical storm, riding counter to the ticker-tape plunging stock market prices.
Baby Angelia wriggled in the cradle of her mother's arm, was shifted to hip-rider mode and that familiar off-balance posture known to mothers world wide, before mom reached for and flipped the lid of the cell phone open, while nudging the wall phone loose from its hook.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Blanker? Wife of patrolman Ronnie Blanker,”a male voice came clearly from the landline phone, while a squeaky female voice echoed the same question from the cell phone juggled in the same hand.
Celia Blanker watched the televisions screen dissolve from a flourish of red white and blue bunting with stacks of dollar bills under a flashing yellow SAVE sign superimposed on it, to a scrabble of SWAT team members, cop cars with glittering strobe lights and Emergency Responders clustered around stretchers and a skin-head reporter, hand pressed to earphone while talking into a microphone and cell-phone, looking wide-eyed and earnest into the camera.
The dual shrieking of the unattended whistling kettle and high-pitched feedback from the telephone in her ear drove home the realization she was at the other end of the reporter's question.
“Mrs. Blanker...are you there,” sirens on-screen and through her telephone's earpiece joined the chorus of noise filling her safe place kitchen.
“Ronnie! Is Ronnie alright?”
“Mrs. Blanker. I have some sad news to pass...”
“And we'll be right back after this commercial break.”
A hearty bellowing voice broke in as the screen displayed a bottle of liquid soap and animated suds while the chaotic but comfortable world of Celia Blanker, Charlie and Angelia disintegrated – between commercials.
Ends...
Monday, September 13, 2010
Monday Morning Awakening
Monday Morning Awakening
A Florida fog shrouds pine trees and live-oaks with their clumps of tangled Spanish moss, in a moist post-dawn grip as a result of yesterday's thunder and lightening drenching.
Good.
We'll be spared the direct rays of the climbing sun, blanketed somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean 50 miles away, and its searing heat waves for an extra hour or so.
No need for the air-conditioner to crank up into its expensive-sounding
rattle as it fights the heat and humidity of mid-September's last gasp of summer.
The wiseacre pundits, scoring points in their endless morning television banter, will hoot derisively when the ex-surfer turned forecaster comedically assumes the position emulating Igor, from a multitude of late-night Frankenstein skits, to announce the position of our seventh hurricane of the season.
Dripping beads of air-born moisture splash into the new pine deck, retarded by a weather-proofing solution which will probably prove fatal to humans in a few years. A game yellow blossom shows itself on the wilting potted tomato plant. Maybe one last tasty red morsel before biting into a waxen version from the supermarket, later. Purple wild Lantana cascades from its Terra-cotta pot, perched on the white-painted wrought-iron which now supports a wobbly metal side-table makeshift base for the bird-feeder.
Brilliant red cardinal families squabble in a pecking-order of their own making, scattered by the arrival of a blue-jay or interference from mourning doves who prefer its safer climes than nearby fields and alert hunters seeking something for the pot.
Seems to me there's been an added volume of shots, in or out of hunting season, during the past year or so of unemployment, lowered wages and foreclosures. Impatient fishermen, with families to feed, are as likely to clamber up a tree and shoot the shadows schooling in the stream below, as biat a hook and cast a line.
A scratching of nails on glass heralds the return of Basher, mostly spaniel with a splash of chow based on the black spot marking his pink tongue. He will have completed his morning rounds, touring his territorial half-acre boundaries hemmed in by chain-link fence. He's already had his breakfast but it won't stop him clanging the bowl with his collection of metal tags cluttering up his collar, before turning those hopeful dark brown eyes in beg-mode. Passively he'll sit when I dose him with anti-epilepsy pills, knowing there's a dog biscuit reward. It won't stop him emulating the squirrels.
(Ooops...shouldn't have said that out loud – his ears twitched and he tensed to dash out the glass sliding doors.)
Squirrels (soto voce), cats and the occasional rabbit, stimulate his exercise regimen. The tiny town of Interlachen, midway between touristy St. Augustine with its legendary Fountain of Youth and Gainesville, its University campus and Gator football team dominating the city, is a one-traffic-light community which just acquired a four-lane commuter highway divided by a median strip and, a second traffic light.
The heat, unleashed marauder dogs, rustling and rattling in the undergrowth all combine to limit safe spaces to walk the dog. There's a mile or so of ancient-growth live-oaks still intact after the Department of Transportation swept through with bulldozers, front-end loaders and tarmac to transform green swards into blacktop highways, The shaded arch of trees provide a concrete path, past homesteads with grape-vines held-shoulder-high off the ground in organized rows, and cattle clustered around a sink-hole pond of white blooming wild hyacinths.
That route, plus a circuit of a nearby supermarket plaza front and back, where the tantalizing odours of dumpsters tinge the air, are good walking spots for us. I get my daily dose of exercise, and Basher gets his nails “clipped” in an environmentally Green way, on the concrete, at no cost to me.
The first hour of Monday has slipped away. Tea gone, Basher itching to go.
Time to move into the new week before the sun burns through, shades come down and outside activities are dashed for the day.
When the cold snaps arrive I may look back at today with feelings of warm nostalgia.
But to echo Scarlet O'Hara's sentiment, I'll think about that – tomorrow.
Ends...
Monday, September 6, 2010
The Perfect Pair
THE PERFECT PAIR
By Jack Owen
Strains of Mendelssohn’s familiar Midsummer Night’s Dream wedding march floated across the congregation. Gossipy guests quickly assumed their places on either side of the aisle, their attention focused on the groom and best man.
Music blasted full strength as the organist spotted the bride and her father emerge from the vestibule in his rear-view-mirror, braced for the customary torturous advance through the gauntlet of rank and file opposing families and friends, to the altar.
Honey-blond hair peeked out under the bride's white lace bonnet. Her pale pink complection glowed, a confident smile on full lips as she glided down the aisle indicating recognition with a majestic inclination of her head.
The tall, chisel-featured groom ran a hand over a thick head of black hair then turned to watch his bride approach. He rubbed a finger alongside his perfectly proportioned nose to ward off the itch of a pending sneeze, then smiled to display strong straight white teeth and wink at his mother nervously watching from the front pew.
She sighed and bravely fought the tears back as the handsome pair stood facing each other, their hands linked briefly before the ceremony started which would join them together forever.
@ @ @
At the reception, mothers traded memories.
“She was such a Tom-boy when she was little,” gushed Sally Matterly. “I remember the times she came home with scratches on her legs.”
“And my Mark was such a devil, always getting into fights,” countered Becky Waters. “I thought I would die when he came into the kitchen with his nose all bloody.”
“But she settled down after she got interested in fashion modeling,” prattled Sally.
“My Mark too. God, the expense of it all, isn’t that right Harry?” she turned to her shambling balding husband who snuffled a non-committal reply before plunging back into the reception throng, his bulbous nose following the aroma of champagne-brandy cocktails.
“Expenses,” shrilled Sally.”All those years of orthodontics bills we had to foot.”
“You too?”
“And the modeling schools for make-up, and poise and bearing,”Sally flowed on. “Why, she couldn’t walk a straight line before the school took over. But they trained her to point her feet inward.”
“Just like my Mark,” Becky insisted. “And such suffering he had to go through with that plastic surgeon. It should happen to my worst enemy.”
“Oh?” Sally's eyebrows arched.
“Yes, his nose. He was always into fights. But who wants a male model with a broken nose? So the surgeon corrected it for him. But first he had to break it again. Such a perfect nose he’s got now.” Becky peered at the crowd,”Not like Harry’s hooter.”
They glanced across the reception from their vantage point of a raised alcove, at father and son laughing together, toasting the bride.
“Who was the surgeon?” Sally asked, a slight quaver crept into her voice.
“The man recommended by our orthodontist, what’s his name. Hammer, Hymen, Holterman, that’s it. Dr. Myron Holterman. Wonderful man.”Becky gushed.
“That…that’s who attended to Mary,” faltered Mrs. Matterly. “When did Mark have his cosmetic surgery?”
She held her breath, dreading the answer.
“Three years ago now,” a frown creased the forehead of Mrs. Waters. “What’s the matter Sally?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.” And to herself yet. But she remembered Dr. Holterman’s before-and-after comparison catalogue, and that tremendous broken bulbous proboscis he had honed into such classical lines.
A splendid nose, not unlike her son-in-law’s.
@ @ @
Sally Matterly’s sobs, silent as they were, shook the ancient double-bed.
“Sally, what’s the mater now,” boomed Sol in exasperation. “It’s all over now, you had your cry hours ago. Just get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a working day.”
She snuffled into her pillow, the mattress wobbling like a reducing machine as she fought to control her sobs.
Sol placed a hand on her head and stroked her hair, then patted her gently on the shoulder. “Don’t take on so. They’re a lovely couple, a perfect pair, and they’re in love. They’ll have beautiful grandchildren for us.”
A tortured cry broke free from her.
“They won’t, they won’t. And it’s our fault. I told you we should have met the family before they came here for the wedding. We won’t have grandchildren, we’ll have freaks!” her voice rose into an hysterical shrill pitch.
She had said nothing about Mary’s red hair or her squint, after Becky Waters revealed her son Mark wore a back-brace to counteract his stopped posture.
The perfect pair was married now with God’s help; and the assistance of surgeons, orthodontists, chiropodists and opticians. But all she could see in her mind’s eye was the picture of a red-haired, freckle-faced, crossed-eyed, buck-toothed, bulbous-nosed, bandy-legged, hunch-backed grandson.
Ends…
By Jack Owen
Strains of Mendelssohn’s familiar Midsummer Night’s Dream wedding march floated across the congregation. Gossipy guests quickly assumed their places on either side of the aisle, their attention focused on the groom and best man.
Music blasted full strength as the organist spotted the bride and her father emerge from the vestibule in his rear-view-mirror, braced for the customary torturous advance through the gauntlet of rank and file opposing families and friends, to the altar.
Honey-blond hair peeked out under the bride's white lace bonnet. Her pale pink complection glowed, a confident smile on full lips as she glided down the aisle indicating recognition with a majestic inclination of her head.
The tall, chisel-featured groom ran a hand over a thick head of black hair then turned to watch his bride approach. He rubbed a finger alongside his perfectly proportioned nose to ward off the itch of a pending sneeze, then smiled to display strong straight white teeth and wink at his mother nervously watching from the front pew.
She sighed and bravely fought the tears back as the handsome pair stood facing each other, their hands linked briefly before the ceremony started which would join them together forever.
@ @ @
At the reception, mothers traded memories.
“She was such a Tom-boy when she was little,” gushed Sally Matterly. “I remember the times she came home with scratches on her legs.”
“And my Mark was such a devil, always getting into fights,” countered Becky Waters. “I thought I would die when he came into the kitchen with his nose all bloody.”
“But she settled down after she got interested in fashion modeling,” prattled Sally.
“My Mark too. God, the expense of it all, isn’t that right Harry?” she turned to her shambling balding husband who snuffled a non-committal reply before plunging back into the reception throng, his bulbous nose following the aroma of champagne-brandy cocktails.
“Expenses,” shrilled Sally.”All those years of orthodontics bills we had to foot.”
“You too?”
“And the modeling schools for make-up, and poise and bearing,”Sally flowed on. “Why, she couldn’t walk a straight line before the school took over. But they trained her to point her feet inward.”
“Just like my Mark,” Becky insisted. “And such suffering he had to go through with that plastic surgeon. It should happen to my worst enemy.”
“Oh?” Sally's eyebrows arched.
“Yes, his nose. He was always into fights. But who wants a male model with a broken nose? So the surgeon corrected it for him. But first he had to break it again. Such a perfect nose he’s got now.” Becky peered at the crowd,”Not like Harry’s hooter.”
They glanced across the reception from their vantage point of a raised alcove, at father and son laughing together, toasting the bride.
“Who was the surgeon?” Sally asked, a slight quaver crept into her voice.
“The man recommended by our orthodontist, what’s his name. Hammer, Hymen, Holterman, that’s it. Dr. Myron Holterman. Wonderful man.”Becky gushed.
“That…that’s who attended to Mary,” faltered Mrs. Matterly. “When did Mark have his cosmetic surgery?”
She held her breath, dreading the answer.
“Three years ago now,” a frown creased the forehead of Mrs. Waters. “What’s the matter Sally?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.” And to herself yet. But she remembered Dr. Holterman’s before-and-after comparison catalogue, and that tremendous broken bulbous proboscis he had honed into such classical lines.
A splendid nose, not unlike her son-in-law’s.
@ @ @
Sally Matterly’s sobs, silent as they were, shook the ancient double-bed.
“Sally, what’s the mater now,” boomed Sol in exasperation. “It’s all over now, you had your cry hours ago. Just get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a working day.”
She snuffled into her pillow, the mattress wobbling like a reducing machine as she fought to control her sobs.
Sol placed a hand on her head and stroked her hair, then patted her gently on the shoulder. “Don’t take on so. They’re a lovely couple, a perfect pair, and they’re in love. They’ll have beautiful grandchildren for us.”
A tortured cry broke free from her.
“They won’t, they won’t. And it’s our fault. I told you we should have met the family before they came here for the wedding. We won’t have grandchildren, we’ll have freaks!” her voice rose into an hysterical shrill pitch.
She had said nothing about Mary’s red hair or her squint, after Becky Waters revealed her son Mark wore a back-brace to counteract his stopped posture.
The perfect pair was married now with God’s help; and the assistance of surgeons, orthodontists, chiropodists and opticians. But all she could see in her mind’s eye was the picture of a red-haired, freckle-faced, crossed-eyed, buck-toothed, bulbous-nosed, bandy-legged, hunch-backed grandson.
Ends…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
