Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [27]

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Chapter 27. Oil Wells

By 1895, Claude’s office was running like a fine clock. For his Finance Administrator, he had hired Gerald Whitney from a firm in Chicago. Warren Townson was his Office Manager, and Jeffrey Wright had sold his real estate business and gone to work for Claude as Project Manager.
    Cornell Stevens, his gofor, went back and forth between Houston and Corsicana. At first a few places tried to turn Cornell away because of the color of his skin, but Claude had a way of making it clear that Cornell would be welcomed or there would be payback.

Mary’s Voice: Posthumously Speaking 16

Detail

Still life

By Mary Alice Condley (1925-2007)

[Editor’s Note: I am grateful to Mary’s niece Dawn Stella Story Burke, only daughter of our sister Flo Elowee, for sharing these four still-life paintings by Mary, which Dawn inherited from Flo when her frailty required that she be moved to a nursing home. (Flo’s husband, William Don Story, had died the year before. I remember him well; he taught me as a young teenager how to drive, shave, & tie a double Windsor knot.) These still lifes are so peaceful and eternal, I feel that Mary must have been especially at home with the close-at-hand.]

A Quiet Saturday Night (Part 1 of a short story)

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

“There’s just nothing good about 36-degree rain.” That was what the man thought, as they left Builders Depot with their two gallons of paint and trudged through the dark parking lot toward their car. “Enjoying your birthday?” he asked, glancing at his wife with what he meant as a smile but realized too late was likely a smirk.

Goines On: Empathy or hope?

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As Goines pushed the shopping cart toward his car, a woman perhaps in her 20-somethings crossed his path, on her way to Walmart’s entrance. His surge of compassion for the woman was immediate and involuntary, but somehow different from previous such experiences. Goines wondered what was “extra” about this one. The woman was not strikingly different from hundreds of other strangers. Instantly the idea emerged that his sympathy for the woman might not derive solely from his empathy for her, but also derive from his empathy with her circle of acquaintances, as though he loved her through her husband’s eyes, her mother’s, her family’s.

All Over the Place: A time of endearment

By Michael H. Brownstein



1
A blanch of stain, November,
leaf wrinkles to old skin,
wind trails into smoke,
everywhere a crust of sand.

Mary’s Voice: Posthumously Speaking 15

Detail of lighthouse painting

From field to shore

By Mary Alice Condley (1925-2007)

[Editor’s Note: I am grateful to Mary’s & my nephew Bruce Story, eldest offspring of our sister Flo Elowee, for sharing these three paintings by Mary. Her love of simple, traditional things sings sweetly through them.]

Goines On: Taking on characters

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Goines imagined that his friend Zen, who was working on a sort of experimentally complex novel, thought that his editor was crazy. How could the guy think, Goines imagined Zen thinking, that Zen wanted his story to be difficult for his reader to follow? Couldn’t he see that Zen just didn’t know how to say clearly what he was trying to convey? Zen didn’t think it, but Goines did, that the editor had actually realized this, too, finally, but without sensing that Zen himself had already begun to articulate it. Shit, thought Zen, thought Goines, where does the fucking artificer of this narrative get off thinking he can say what I’m thinking, or what my editor is thinking, or when we think it, who first and who second, who before whom? I can read Wayne Booth, too, he knows. Goines felt perhaps overly pleased with himself to have thought all of this.

Copyright © 2019 by Moristotle

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [26]

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Chapter 26. The Oil Game

Claude took a suite at the Royal Houston Hotel on the main street of town. He had a bedroom and a sitting room, and a private bath with a large tub and running water. He had a desk moved in and one of the new fancy telephones for his desk. There was yet to be any long-distance calling, but most businesses in downtown Houston were now hooked into the switchboard exchange. His first call was to Ricardo. “This is Claude. Did you get the men out doing their jobs?”
    All lines in town were party lines, so the business conversations had to be somewhat in code. “I contacted them and they are on the job. Where are you?”

Goines On: Trumpeteristics

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The moral insult that is Donald Trump couldn’t fail to cut Goines’ mind like a buzz saw. How could one credibly explain the rise of such a man to become President of the United States? When this question arose anew recently, Goines thought he might have a new twist on an idea of more than a year ago, when he had realized that traces of each one of Trump’s numerous character flaws could be found in most people, even a few of them in Goines himself.

All Over the Place: Three haikus, of fog, flood, & dust

By Michael H. Brownstein

fog...
snowbound piers
a mirage of ghosts

sudden flood
light
leaps into sky

volcanic dust...
the river
skin disease and warts

Copyright © 2019 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively.

Goines On: Up and down with Akhnaten

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Goines wasn’t an opera buff, but he much enjoyed the live HD broadcast of a NY Metropolitan Opera performance for which he and Mrs. Goines had driven to a Chapel Hill movie theater over the weekend. The Met had performed Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, its musical score so “different,” even professional opera reviewers might feel challenged to rise to the occasion. So, what could Goines possibly say? What would he even title a review?

Thanksgiving Special

How our Thanksgiving goose got cooked

By Pam Palmer

[Editor’s Note: Originally published on July 20, 2013 as a Third Saturday Fiction. Sharing this wonderful story by Pam Palmer at Thanksgiving has become a tradition of Moristotle & Co., and we are grateful to Susan C. Price, in her execution of Ms. Palmer’s estate, for conveying the story to us, and for her wry stories about her friend.]

“We should have roast goose for Thanksgiving,” Martin said.
    It was 1976, and David, my husband, and I had just bought a house across the street from our long-time friends, Martin and Joan. Two weeks after we moved into the house, David left for a six-month stint on a research ship in the Antarctic. It would be my first Thanksgiving in my first house and I felt overwhelmed. Of course, I could go to my in-laws’ house but it was a long drive from Long Beach to Mission Viejo by myself. My parents were going to the desert so having dinner with them was not possible.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [25]

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Chapter 25. The Ranch

Claude made it home in about the time it would have taken riding a horse. And driving the automobile was hard work and quickly became tiresome on the long trip from Houston. He planned to go back to Houston the next day, but it would be by train.
    He parked in front of the house and everybody came running out to see the new automobile. James said, “I hope you didn’t trade my horse for that damn contraption.”

Second novel in edRogers’ BODY COUNT series now available

By Moristotle

BODY COUNT: Roatán was published this weekend on Amazon. The story begins with Blake Harris’ team on their way to the paradise Island of Roatán, Honduras, for a well-earned vacation after their successes recounted in BODY COUNT: Killers, the first novel in the series. The island may provide a backdrop of mountain jungles and the clear, warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, but, as with most paradises, Roatán also has a snake, and Blake sees the pattern of a serial killer. The vacation turns into much more than hanging around the pool and diving on the reefs.

Goines On: Found haiku

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Goines walked home from the gym along the road that led to the Japanese candy manufacturing plant. He guessed that destination explained one item of litter among the many that disrespected the roadsides, its identity a gift for verse:

    crumpled box along the road
    proclaims its contents
    “Hi-Chew”

Copyright © 2019 by Moristotle