SINCERELY, YOUR LOVING WIFE

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

It was not a red-letter day when she got and read the letter from Ledbetter. He had led her astray but then led her back. He kept her on track, or at least that’s what he said. He told her that in bed. He insisted. She made a fist just thinking about it. But maybe he was right about it. He said he had the gift of second sight and she could not doubt it. 

When the letter arrived she had returned from a drive. She spent a while eating. She was reading. The letter stopped her cold. She dropped her paperback, popped a pill out of a blister pack and downed it. A sound escaped her lips. She felt memories in her hips. She put the letter underneath her chair and said a prayer. She ran until her lungs burned to confirm that she was alive. 

She reviewed what she knew of this man, this writer. She tested herself. Her chest felt tighter.  

Ledbetter had not married her but he had asked her if they could operate in that mode. That was a kind of code. They had carried the idea in their hearts. They had sworn they’d never part. He owed her and she was his debtor. And still—and here she popped another pill—she had left. He was bereft. He had said so on the phone. He possessed a pleasant baritone.

She ate some more, felt hate in her core. She read the letter. It said that he’d been better. It said that he doubted he’d ever move on. It wondered about the assumptions she was under regarding people in her bed. His language was vague but she got the gist, made another fist. With her other hand she held her head.

The letter wasn’t right. She crumpled it up with all her might, her chest still tight. She tried her best to think of men other than Ledbetter. She thought of Sam from the fruit stand, of Hiram from the airlines, of her ninth grade teacher Mr. Meacham, of Lloyd Meacham his tall tan son, of Officer Kenneth Lombardi, who had impounded her car some years before. She thought of the Emperor Wu-ti, a historically significant horse-rustler who had brought Imperial China to the brink of destruction. She thought of Linc, of Stink-Brained Philip, of Gasoline Jerry, of Tony Romo, of Batman, of Perry Como. She thought of all the men she had met and all the men who had met her. But in the end, she knew she had to send a letter back to Ledbetter. She could not pretend otherwise. She closed and opened her eyes. She grabbed a pen and collected her strength again.

PERFECTLY PATIENT

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

She watched, not from her car window, but from his, looking across the field, focusing on the two teams competing, remembering the scoring that had already occurred, the cheers that had followed, the careful way the players took their time setting up new scores, the perfect patience with which their minds moved their bodies into place. Not just remembering: cherishing. Mountains backdropped the scene. Her husband was next to her, looking out the same window. He was both leaning in too close and not paying attention, and she thought about saying something, but she knew that if she complained his face would tighten with what could be violence, if she was not careful. She corrected herself: if he was not careful. Her shrink had taught her to make that correction. And also to say “thank you” and “I’m sorry” less, and “I don’t care” not at all. Her shrink was a wise old man who called his bicycle “mine steed” and every can of soda he drank “mine silver chalice.” His advice helped her but more importantly he made her laugh. Her husband never made her laugh. He focused on her too intently and couldn’t put across any real ideas of his own. Coming to watch was not his idea. She had brought it up a week earlier. He had ignored it. She did not bring it up again. That was another piece of advice from her shrink: Don't repeat yourself. Then one morning he had announced that he would drive her to the field at the foot of the mountains. He did not explain the change of heart but from questions he asked she was able to ascertain that she had said something in her sleep about leaving, and that he had planned the trip as a countermeasure. He committed to his performance fully. He talked about the players whose names he knew: there were maybe two or three. He tacked the schedule on the wall. The morning of, he set the alarm for early, made breakfast, supported every choice she made as she got ready. “Choice of clothing, choice of scent, choice of where the razor went.” That was her shrink’s song. He sang it when she talked about altering her appearance. She wanted more hair on her body or less. She wanted more revealing clothing or less. She wanted a thick natural odor or artificial citrus. But she worried the wrong choice would put her husband off. “Who gives a shit?” her shrink said. “If it puts him off, put somebody else on. Not me, of course. No thanks. I’m as old as a commandment. I shalt not. But if you ever want to give me a peek, let me know. It would warm mine cockles of mine heart.” He knuckled his chest merrily. Would he ever stop making her laugh? She was dreaming about putting someone else on the night she talked in her sleep about leaving. In her dream she had hair most everywhere and smelled both of herself and of grapefruit. She couldn’t wait to tell her shrink about the dream. Maybe she’d even give him a peek. She politely ate a few bites of breakfast though she was always saying that it was not a meal that interested her. She must have said that a thousand times over the years. Her husband frowned when she scraped off most of the breakfast into the trash but said nothing. He packed up the car in silence and drove all morning with his jaw set tight. “Looking forward to the game,” he said, though it was fact a match. “Nice day,” he said, ignoring the crushing heat. “We’re here,” he said, before they were. “I like this better than I though I would,” he said, leaning in too close, not even looking. “Matter of fact, I’m glad we did this.” She knew he was lying—facts were never like that—but she didn’t care. She watched the match, cherishing the players’ patience. On the field a girl scored a goal, not her first.

SYMPOSIUM

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

A thing is coming up out of the ground. Everyone is scared and everyone knows that everyone else is scared, which scares everyone more than the thing coming up out of the ground, though that’s scary, too, “proof of certain death,” murmurs one person, but then another person turns toward the that person, shakes her head, turns toward all the other people, not shaking her head any longer, and explains that everything is proof of certain death, that death is certain, doesn’t need to prove itself, that it’s more a question of when rather than if, and this thing that’s got everyone scared, that’s got everyone knowing that everyone else is scared, has a similar approach, doesn’t furnish a timetable, that there’s no ticking or darkening or heating up or even a shadow thrown sundial-style across the ground where they’re standing, and she shakes her head now again, impatiently, “the thing,” she says, “about this thing,” and she’s speaking haltingly, fidgeting the end of a pigtail, “is that it’s just a symbol, and a symbol only scares people who can’t look past it or through it, so that’s where we have to look, we have to step away from it so it doesn’t take over our way of seeing,” and she’s speaking faster toward the end, more confident, now, hands out in front of her, free of fidget, palms up in persuasion, and that’s the pose that’s recorded on the wall in crude red brown-paint and discovered thousands of years later by archaeologists who determine that she was set upon by the panicked mob and torn to pieces, just steps away from the thing coming up out of the ground. They also determine that the paint was made from powdered minerals mixed with blood.

A FAMILY OUTING

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

The father goes to see the daughter, who’s in the bin. Or is it the mother going to see the son who's in the bin? “Don’t call it the bin,” says the child. “That’s an insulting characterization. The people here are struggling through a phase in their life, all hoping they pass through this time, that time passes through them.” Or is it the parent who speaks? Neither speaks. No one speaks. They sit on a bench, out in the courtyard, an alphabet book perched on the pads of the reader’s thumbs, pages turned in faith for the read-to, there’s an anteater, there’s a ball, there’s a cow. The clues are getting simpler as time passes through the book. “I’m calling it the bin,” says the child. “And you can’t stop me.” The parent sighs. “I’m the one who’s calling it the bin,” says the parent. “And you’re the one who can’t stop me.” The child looks at the parent. The child looks for love in the parent’s eyes. The parent’s eyes stay fixed on the book, still on cow. What’s next? Is it doll? Is it dog? Is it duck? The daughter looks at the father. The son looks at the mother. Both are afraid to turn the page. One lifts a corner. The picture is revealed, In part: a mound of dirt, a cross, a shovel. One releases the corner. The picture is concealed, in full. Time does not pass. Behind them, massed in the courtyard, leaning out of windows, fingers wriggling like worms in the spaces behind the leaves of trees, are all the other children in the bin, all the other parents, too, murmuring, yelling, buzzing, grumbling, shrieks and susurrations. Everyone is speaking.

BAKERS

By Ben Greenman / @2019
From future collection.

These bakers are all going to die. The one with glasses, the one without. The one who runs fast, the one who drives. The one with the worried face, the one who always manages to assume an air of preternatural calm. The tall, the short, the strong, the weak, the hopeful and hopeless alike. The inspector will come in the morning and pick up a stale loaf from the ground where it has fallen. Hard as a rock in his hand. He’ll set it back down—investigators and photographers will follow—and make for the back room, but he knows what he’ll find before he gets there. Dead bakers, lined up neatly, hats white, shirts white, laundry-fresh, free at last.

LITTER

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

Once there were dogs. They were in the neighborhood. They gamboled and panted. Tails wagged. Then boys with stones began to move in to the houses, first on the north side of the street, then on the south side. They weighed those stones in their hands and flung them at the dogs. Many were struck and injured. Three were killed. The rest ran off. 

Only one boy held himself apart from the violence. He became a historian of the neighborhood. He became me—or rather, I was already that boy. The history of the neighborhood weighed on me like an illness. I remembered what I had witnessed and recorded it all in a series of notebooks. I numbered them up until nine or ten and then lost count.

Over one summer I made of an acquaintance one of the other boys. He was as bad as the rest, but with hope of improvement. I invited him to my house to read the chronicle I had written. He sat at a chair in my kitchen, my notebooks piled next to him on the table, and read without saying a word. When he was done with the first notebook, he went on to the next. When he was done with the second notebook, he stood up. “In this neighborhood we did our best,” he said. “People can say all kinds of things. That cannot be stopped. But there is no sense of how the dogs wronged us. They took our food. They fouled our lawns and carpets. When we tried to stop them, they barked at us and frightened us, and when we tried to stop that, they bit us.” 

That boy stayed standing. “I had a dream the other night,” he said. “I was locked in a cage, with little hope of ever getting out. I understood that it was the neighborhood, but also that I was being punished for what we had done to others. At that moment a pack of dogs appeared. ‘Kill him,’ said one. ‘Starve him,’ said another. A brindle terrier stepped in front of the cage. ‘I cannot do that,’ he said. I was so relieved. I woke feeling more kindly toward the dogs, or at least less angry. That set me on the path which brought me in time to this kitchen.”

He stopped his story. I came to believe that we were friends. Only a friend would share such a story. We met in my house once or twice a month for years. Eventually we were young men, drinking too much whiskey, making too much of ourselves and too little of the girls who lived a few streets over. It was said that they had dogs, too, and treated them with kindness.

One day we made a pledge to visit them. We set out at dawn.  All along the first street was a series of caverns. At the corner was a sheer rock face. As we passed the second street we heard a loud crack, followed by a rumble. My friend clutched his ears. I clutched mine. It was thunder, betokening rain. We turned back. We’d meet the girls some other time, I told him. I was trying to cheer him up but the effect was something else entirely. As we rounded onto our corner, he turned to me. “I wish I there were dogs here,” he said. His face was wet with tears. “I’m going to read the rest of your notebooks,” he said. “I promise.” We walked down the middle of the street, neither on the north side nor the south, careful to avoid the lawns and the stones all over them that had been thrown there but never picked up.

CORRESPONDENT KEN

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

Here is a letter dictated to me by Ken, a man I see sometimes in my gym. He is older than the rest of the regulars, which prevented me at first from approaching him, while also creating in me the idea that if I did approach him, our conversation would be longer and more involved than those I had with the younger members of the gym, interactions that were mostly limited to raised hands or nodded heads, occasionally a word or two about a standout performance by an athlete the day before. I was right. When I finally introduced myself to Ken, he skipped straight over any pleasantries we might have exchanged me and asked me if I could take dictation. I was surprised by the specifics of the request but not by its general tenor. It was precisely the level of engagement I had expected before I spoke to him. “I can,” I said. He explained that he had damaged his hands, or more precisely poisoned himself with alcohol and the resulting tremors so that he could no longer keep them still, and that that much of the time he spent in the gym was in fact a novel physical-therapy regimen designed to steady him to the point where he could at least hold a telephone up to his ear. I wrote what he told me down without embellishing a single word. 

Dear J. —

Here, he took pains to explain that the J. was an initial rather than a name, and that prudence and a protective instinct prevented him from revealing the full identity of his correspondent. I nodded. He resumed.

Dear J—

To endure this level of contempt at this stage is confounding. We marched together for years, you and I. We fought side by side. We married, which was not easy in those days for two men. Think of all that we had to overcome. It was like fording a river without knowing exactly where it was. Danger rushed by in rapids beneath us for longer than we imagined. We crossed to the other side. And then what? When we were on dry land, when our bodies could be at rest and our minds came to be, that is when you chose to take your leave. 

What is wrong? I asked you several times. At first you would not answer at all. You merely turned away from me. In the fourth or fifth month you came forward with a list of grievances, most of which I felt were ordinary in the course of doing this kind of business: a partnership or what a weaker time would have called a “relationship.” I endeavored to address them in a timely manner. You wanted more time with me? Done. You wanted to sometimes pick our vacation destinations? Done. You wanted me to take a more active role in decorating, which had always struck me as boring? I could do that. I began to draft a letter back to you explaining that none of the things you were asking were impossible or even especially unlikely, but then I found myself more and more angry that you had not simply raised the issues with me when we were together. You escalated the issue to a point of no return, retreated down the other side of the peak, and then wrote your note. The more I thought about it, the more indefensible I felt your behavior to be, and I set aside the letter in which I planned to explain that I could accommodate your concerns and wrote this letter instead, in which I am explaining that your cowardice, more than anything I ever did—any words spoken, any drink drunk—has ruined things. You can go to hell. When you get there, don’t look for me. I’ll be elsewhere.

Love,

Ken

This was Ken’s letter. Again, I changed nothing, not a word. When I had finished, he seized it from me eagerly and read it back to himself, his hands shaking. “Ken,” I said, “were you happy with this J.?” 

“Is a strong man happy in the presence of corrosive weakness?” he answered. Now his tone was oracular. “Here,” he said. “Look.” He gave me a photograph. It was of a young man in a baseball cap, long hair matted on his next. He stared straight ahead as if he had been confronted, but his eyes were bright. Next to him, at a picnic table, sat a younger version of Ken. He held a beer can confidently in his right hand. His features were finer then. Next to them on the ground were two beautiful dogs, terriers of some kind. Why had he not mentioned the dogs? I thought. I almost cried it out. Instead, I handed the picture back to him. “Nice,” I said. He echoed the word as the photograph in his hand fanned the air between us.

THANK YOU, SUSAN: A CHESSBOARD

By Ben Greenman

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

1. Harum-scarum.

2. He stood in his office brainstorming. 

3. Hell toupee.

4. Everything seemed like a bad idea.

5. He was in advertising, entrusted with devising a slogan for his company’s new hair-replacement system.

6. “Focus first on the failures of the competition,” Susan had said before turning and walking out slowly.

7. He and Susan had been married back in the day and still slipped and fell on each other’s steps at least once a year.

8. That was her phrase.

9. “Slipped and fell on my steps.”

10. She didn’t say it after she told him about focusing on the failures of the competition, but she did walk out of his office slowly, and he considered that an allusion to the same subject.

11. His phone buzzed.

12. His phone buzzed again.

13. The office was waiting for him and his slogan.

14. It was due at noon.

15. Well, at two, but at noon he had a call and then he would run aground on the day.

16. He touched his window and felt a shock of heat.

17. Outside it was at minimum a thousand degrees.

18. Rain hurtled toward the earth and sizzled on the ground. 

19. People could not be outside for more than five minutes these days, for the most part.

20. They would grow dizzy. They would grow tired. They would aspirate blood.

21. Susan’s first husband and third had both perished in that manner.

22. The third husband was on the clock still, so it shook her when he perished.

23. “Pete has perished,” she said when she called late at night.

24. She had been crying. 

25. He could tell from her voice.

26. She had cried often during their marriage.

27. She invited herself over.

28. She showed up at one in the morning, stepped out of the armor-plated taxi into the long stressglass tube that led to his front door, deradiated and deionized in the Whoosh Booth (this was what the entry chamber was called, and it was his slogan as well, invented for his firm, though done on a pro bono basis for a government still trying to explain to people what had happened, and he had been proud to work on it for free, had in fact demanded that he be paid nothing, though he also managed to look the other way when annual bonuses came along, at which time he was handsomely rewarded not only for thinking of Whoosh Booth, but for digging in his heels to make sure that it won out over the other bad ideas that made their way around the conference table, Jim’s obvious Clean Zone, Steve’s unwieldy Renormalization Station, Chris’s completely disingenuous Spa Cube).

29. The night before the presentations he got a tip from Susan on the phone that the two Olivers, who ran the company, were leaning toward Spa Cube.

30. Stupid smug Chris.

31. He couldn’t sleep.

32. He knew his idea was the better one. 

33. Susan agreed.

34. “It has music,” she said.

35. He so wanted to invite her over to slip and fall on his steps.

36. He invited her. 

37. She declined. 

38. He blamed Pete but then caught himself.

39. Jesus, what kind of monster was he?

40. Pete was dead.

41. He wished that stupid smug Chris had perished instead. 

42. Jesus, what kind of monster was he?

43. Chris had kids and a wife with some kind of foot thing.

44. He liked Chris fine when it came down to it.

45. They hung together sometimes outside the office.

46. Once on a business trip he and Chris had gone to see a show, some kind of samba review, and ended up having a nice talk about fate and disappointment and the shifting plates of identity.

47. Chris could be a good guy sometimes, a great guy.

48. He wanted to push Chris outside and watch as his fingernails started to roll up.

49. He was wigging out.

50. Wigging out!

51. The phone buzzed.

52. It yanked him back to the present.

53. The memory of the past evaporated the way that Chris’s nails would have evaporated moments after rolling up.

54. He had brought back something vital from the past.

55. Wigging out!

56. He answered the phone, now as relaxed as he’d ever been.

57. “Thank you, Susan,” he said, as he answered the phone.

58. “What?” said the voice at the other end of the phone.

59. It was not Susan, which he already knew—he could see Susan through the door and she was not on the phone.

60. “Oh,” he said. “Never mind. I was just talking to someone over here, and she had a great idea for a slogan for a hair-replacement system that we’re launching next year.”

61. “Does it focus primarily on its own virtues or does it first establish the shortcomings of the competition?”

62. “Shrewd question, my man,” he said. He was still trying to figure out who it was.

63. “Shrewd question,” he said again.

64. He sat, put his feet up on his desk, interlaced his fingers behind his head, and leaned so he could see out the window, where the world burned. 

CATCH A COLD, CAPTAIN

“Catch a cold, Captain.“ It’s the Fourth of July, or some month. Do people catch colds then? Captain can’t remember. “Catch a cold,” the boy says again. Captain’s head is stormy and he blinks until he sees the baseball and the glove. Catch a ball? They are out on the grass, picnic blankets like band-aids on grass that is bleeding green. It is getting late and Captain is getting round the bend, had kicked it off early, had reached the outer bound, was heading back in, head heavying up again, fatigue fighting elation. He asks the boy to get him cigarettes. “You can’t do that,” the boy says. “Can’t tell you what to do?” Captain says. “No,” the boy says.  “Can’t buy cigarettes. They’re not in any part of the law anymore.” Captain closes a hand gently around the boy's shoulder and walks him out of the part. “I’ll show you,” he says. “You little so-and-so. Why, I oughta.” Captain is all patter so that the boy will know not to be afraid of him. He has used the same tone several times at home. He walks the boy to the corner of the park. There’s a wooden platform there covered by a latticework. Captain has crouched beneath it and taken breathers on days that failed him. He has addressed it directly over the months, called it Atlantis and Utopia and Shangri-La and Park Avenue. These are all places he once lived. The platform beneath the lattice is not a place he has lived. It's not home as much as the other home, the one with the boy and the tone. Where does he hang his hat? Where does he park his shoes? He has promised to throw the ball to the glove but will it ever happen? A man is only as good as his rotten word. It comes to Captain suddenly that he has been speaking out loud. The boy appraises him with an expression mixing pity and anger. Captain has lost his taste for cigarettes. He will go to the store across the way and stock up and go back to the park until here in July or some month at least there is a blanket of snow over his brain.

© 2020 Ben Greenman / Stupid Ideas

WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO MAKE YOU SOME TOAST?

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

She was getting dressed, bottomless, vest, remembering Kingsley’s hippopotamus test. “Put them in spirits,” she said. Putnam didn’t hear it. He was in the other room, sitting at the kitchen counter, drinking coffee. He was like that every morning. Similarity was the problem. She kept remembering Kingsley, and how he had observed with both mind and soul the debate over Darwin, Huxley for the defense, Owen for the prosecution. She recalled the battle over men and apes. Did one follow directly from the other? If you cut apart their brains what would you find? Kingsley, a broad church priest, had refused to duck the question, and had over time come to side with Huxley, his friend. Both felt Owen’s objections as a form of angry flailing. Owen claimed that only human brains contained a hippocampus. This briefly dampened enthusiasm for Darwin but science pushed back. Apes had them too, said science. Putnam coughed loudly, as he often did at this time. “Coming?” he said. She was not coming. She was staying where she was. Where was she? Oh, yes, the test. After witnessing the hostility between Huxley and Owen over apes and men, Kingsley had composed a bit of satire in the style of Lord Dundreary, a character known in the United States only as a result of the play that surrounded him, Our American Cousin, for it was playing in Ford’s Theater the night that Abraham Lincoln took a bullet from the gun of John Wilkes Booth, the president’s head was opened, perhaps a hippocampus was briefly glimpsed. Kingsley then reframed the debate for children in his more famous book of fairy-tales, Water Babies. He wondered if a Water Baby were to pass from life, if it was preserved in spirits and then divided, if half was sent to Huxley and half to Owen, what would they conclude? Here Kingsley changed hippocampus to hippopotamus, thinking it would better amuse young readers. He was correct. She framed the children’s tale. Did Kingsley succeed with it or fail? Did his jape protect Huxley’s position regarding Darwin’s disquisition about apes and men? And then: did Owen feel the shame of his limits? She did not know the story any further. She thought better of the vest. A white shirt would do. She knew it when she started getting dressed. She only wore the vest as a form of protest. Putnam did not like her in it. “Wait a minute,” he said whenever he saw it. He thought it made her manly. What did that make him, by extension? She ran a finger downward through her breasts, thought once more of the hippocampus test, Kingley’s fanciful embroidery, found a scarf that satisfied Putnam’s fondness for Chinoiserie, tied it round her neck, stood looking in the mirror at her body, skin and hair, thin here and fat there, places she had touched, places touched by others, knotted the scarf, discarded it, sat cross-legged atop the covers. She ran her fingers through fuzz. Her brain buzzed. She thought to touch again and then thought differently. She’d owe herself for later. Every body is a debtor and a creditor at once. “Breakfast,” Putnam called. She heard that same note of sameness, suffered it. “It’s nine,” he said. “Fine,” she said. Putnam didn’t hear her clearly. “Coming here?” he said. “It’s nine.” A second time, but louder: “Fine.” She pulled on underwear. She would eat breakfast like that. Manly? She dared him to come to that conclusion. But what if he still did? “Heaven forbid,” she said. She pulled them off, fingers twitching. In the kitchen, Putnam coughed.

SPELLING

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

Nap was the wrong word for the pit into which he fell. A black cylinder opened up beneath him. He braced himself against the top of the walls but they were slick like oil and down he went. Light was gone. Air was gone. Ideas were gone. Family was gone. Home was gone. Down at the bottom, all he had was sleep and the idea of sleep, which was something closer to death. At least there was a bottom. At least there was something solid beneath him: Blackness, but not hard and not cold, more a kind of soil. He felt around in it with his fingers and made out shapes that he knew were the tops of letters, sharp points of capital As, rounded shoulders of Bs, curves of Cs. He could dig those letters up and make words with them. But he was sleepy again, there in his nap, and he pushed the letters back into the blackness that was like soil and stretched out flat and thought about everything that was gone, and then about nothing.

PRAHA THE CAHA

Praha the Caha met Sidney Blitz in a senior-living facility. They were in the lobby, standing in front of the check-in desk where a pleasant young woman sat, and Sidney Blitz turned toward the tall man with the hat and cane and asked whether he was visiting a spouse, as Sidney was, or perhaps a parent. “I am visiting,” the man said, “an audience!” His voice leapt into the last word and carried it higher. Sidney Blitz wrinkled his brow. “An audience?” he repeated. The man turned toward him, and Sidney noticed the jeweled bat pin on the man’s lapel. “I am,” the man said, his voice at the same altitude it had been when he had left off with “audience,” “Praha the Caha! Perhaps you have heard of me.” Sidney did not unwrinkle his brow. “Prestidigitation and mystery and the wonders of the ages!” Praha the Caha snapped his fingers, and a flame rose from them. When it receded, a business card floated just off the tip of his index finger. Sidney Blitz reached out and took it. It said exactly what Praha the Caha had said: Prestidigitation and mystery and the wonders of the ages! There was no phone number, only a picture of an upside-down top hat that resembled the one that the tall man was wearing. Sidney Blitz put the card in his pocket, glancing down briefly, and when he looked back up, the tall man was gone. “Did you see that?” Sidney Blitz said to the pleasant young woman at the check-in desk. Now it was her brow that wrinkled. “That guy was here and then he vanished,” Sidney Banes said. “Maybe he was  a magician.” Her brow unwrinkled. “Mr. Blitz,” she said, “it’s time to go back to your room.” A man appeared and took Sidney Blitz by the arm. “Let’s do this,” the man said. “You have to take your medicine and then we can watch boxing and sit in the garden. Pills and thrills and daffodils, man. Pills and thrills and daffodils.”

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

ROOM SERVICE

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

The afternoon, to happen at all, depended on the morning, and the morning on the night. The scraping sound coming through the barely-open front window suggested that night might be in jeopardy. He tried to prepare himself. He had seen a movie about a man who was denied night, and in turn denied morning and afternoon. In the movie, the man checked into a hotel, ordered room service, accepted the tray from the man who brought it, and made a mad dash for the balcony, taking tiny bites of his sandwich as he tumbled over the railing and plunged downward through space. The man in the movie hit the ground as hard as anything ever had. The tray clattered on the ground beside him. The room in the movie was on the nineteenth floor, which ensured a consequential fall. The man checked into the tallest hotel in town. It only went up to six, but it would have to do. He ordered room service. The man who brought it was not a man. The woman who brought it looked at him in such a way that his whole plan went out the window. He ate the food, which was superb, but still turned bitter on his tongue. He was a coward. He was a patsy. He was a fool. Night was coming, or not coming, and it would be followed or not followed by morning and afternoon. A faint scraping sound was out on the balcony. He heard it as he went to bed and tried to dream of the woman who had brought him his food.

THE PEOPLE

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

1

The people are trying to make him their king. He can tell from their eyes and the gifts that they bring. 

The people are saying his name like a prayer. He hears it whenever he’s out anywhere.

The people are worried he’s too good to rule. He lets them think that for a while; he’s cruel.

2

The people are working on their lawns. It’s not backbreaking work, but it’s honest work.

The people are sitting in front of the television. One program makes them laugh so hard that they almost choke.

The people are waking up later and later these days. If only they were staying in bed and doing in with their partners.

The people are taking pictures of each other. They pass the camera back and forth, laughing, sometimes crying.

The people are contesting charges on their credit cards. No one in the house subscribed to something called “Updates Incorporated.”

The people are researching symptoms, worried they might have something wrong with them. As it turns out, researching symptoms is one of the most common symptoms.

The people are coming over the hill, wearing dark sunglasses. They are sure that it makes them look cool.

The people are eating in a restaurant, ordering coffee and dessert. They’re watching their weight, so they’ll split it.

The people prefer bloviating (or coruscating) narratives that “take aim” at “society’s foibles.” They remove the quotes when they speak.

3

The people are hoping that he will survive. He waves to them when he goes out for a drive.

The people are lying about their intent. They stand much too close to him at each event.

The people are taking his triumph to heart. They kill him in daylight because they’re not smart.

NO FEELING BETTER

A horse was in the house. No one knew how it got there. It was intended for the garage. Its carriage was still out there, where the horse was supposed to be. No one would have been opposed if the horse had never entered the house. But he had. He had already stepped on a carpet and broken two lamps. One by one we went around the room and asked the guests if they were responsible for this turn of events. “Alex?” Alex shook his head. “Terrence?” Terrence shook his head. “Louis?” Louis shook his head. “Richard?” Richard shook his head. Those were all the guests. We had no suspects left. Terrence raised his hand. Detective Javier Ruiz de Larrinaga-Somavia smiled at me. He was sure that Terrence was about to give a confession, and his certainty made me smile, too. I was every bit as interested as Detective Javier Ruiz de Larrinaga-Somavia  in solving the mystery of the horse in the house. “Yes,” said Terrence. “You see, what I think, well, the thing is, I mean to say.” Detective Javier Ruiz de Larrinaga-Somavia rushed over and began to strike Terrence with a riding crop. This was a technique of his that I had read about in books. It was called “Get The Villain With the Victim’s Gear.” Some police departments had come to abbreviate it as GVVG, or “Givivig.” Detective Javier Ruiz de Larrinaga-Somavia was givviging Terrence to move the words along. The technique works. As the books say, “The technique, if administered correctly, always works.” “Kirkpatrick,” Terrence said. “Kirkpatrick is not in the room.” We looked out the window. Kirkpatrick was in the garage with the carriage, pointing at us and snickering. He had been responsible all along. We forgave him because he had a beautiful sister that we all wanted to marry, even Detective Javier Ruiz de Larrinaga-Somavia. I sighed wearily while Alex, Louis, and Richard began to clean up the pieces of the broken lamp. Kirkpatrick kept snickering. The culprit profited from the pulchritude of another. The brother escaped on the basis of the sister’s face. A horse was in the house.

©2021 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

THE BUTCHER

By Ben Greenman

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

He delivered the liver, delighted. The house wasn’t lived in; the lights were unlighted. He left, his night blighted. He redelivered the liver the next night. Still no lights. He quivered with rage. He felt his age. He lived to deliver. He had no other love. He left, livid. Someone had lied. He died.

TO THE POINT

This is the first dog in this century, and only the second or third in recorded history, which has bitten someone in a pattern that can fairly be called a composition rather than simply an injury. This dog is a house dog that belonged originally to a family that petted it and played with it to the point where it looked as though it might smile evermore, spending much of that pet-and-play time listening to music to the point where the dog developed the ability to discern one melody from the next on the strength of just a note or two. Interactions between musical sounds became its specialty. After one year the dog learned to read sheet music though he told no one. How could a dog tell anyone anything close to that? It would not be believed in any form or fashion. But then after reaching a sort of plateau of satisfaction with music and its various iterations, the dog was rudely thrust out of that situation when the two parents developed cancer from chemicals leaked into the air by the company where they both worked, one developing a cancer in the throat, one in the stomach, and the pair of them became sicklier and sicklier over the course of a year and died within a week of one another, and the children were sent to live with relatives out of state, resulting in a situation where the dog was transported to a shelter where it put its paws over its eyes and ears, making a noise that the shelter staff called whining but was in fact a process of designing and assessing new melodies and various tempos at which those melodies might be deployed. Again, the dog told no one. There it languished, in that shelter, making melodies, until it was adopted by a very mean man, his very mean wife, and a very mean son. This new family hated music and hated dogs but hated strangers worse and planned to use the dog as a guard for their large and lavish mansion, which was putty-colored and located at the head of a large artificial lake. The dog looked mean but was nice. It was nice when it walked around the house. It was nice when it ran to and from the lake. The dog persisted in its fundamental kindness until it came to the point where it was not only not rewarded for that temperament but actively punished, and then overnight one night the dog had a nightmare, which dogs can have, and violent visions appeared to it, and the next day it was a perfect guard dog. When placed near the front gate it growled loudly and harshly, not musical any longer. It did not sleep. It  could not sleep. it walked around the house with only silence in its head and went stiffly to and from the lake, no longer interested in running, which connoted a joy no longer felt. Toward the end of its first week of cruelty the dog heard someone behind it and turned and lunged and bit. Its teeth went into a leg, came out, went in again. The victim was the mean son of the mean man and mean wife. He screamed and fell to the ground. His parents, mean but also immensely wealthy, called a private ambulance company which came and treated the boy. The ambulance driver and on-board medic both recommended that the dog be destroyed, but the mean rich people had only one trait that was more powerful than either their cruelty or their wealth, and that was their arrogance. As soon as the driver and medic offered their advice, the man put his hands on his hips and insisted that the dog would stay. The wife backed him up yelling a little. The boy, still crying, said nothing. The ambulance driver and medic went away. The mean man and his mean wife proceeded to station the dog by the gate, just as it had been before. The bite had alarmed them but had also reassured them. This was a dog capable of guarding. They looked at the dog from their window. They had not looked at the bite. Or rather, they had looked at it but had not truly seen it. Even if they had truly seen it, they would not have been capable of understanding it. Only a composer could have understood it. If a composer had looked at the bite, he or she would have gasped and dropped whatever he or she was holding—a coffee mug, a baton, a book about Scriabin, a bottle of pills—because the marks of the teeth were arranged exactly in what was almost certainly a nocturne. The year of 2019 coincides with the twentieth anniversary of this composition left on the leg of the mean boy by the talented, essentially kind dog, and the twenty-first anniversary of the death of the dog’s first and most beloved owners, the musicians who gave it love and affection and the gift of music. The nocturne, never performed, was composed in their memory. 

©2021 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

THE FRIENDS

By Ben Greenman

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

They got together for a chat. They were recording it. Everything was recorded, and to pretend otherwise would have been naïve or worse. Sam started. It was Sam’s house where they met, partly because that’s where the quality of the recordings ended up sounding the best, something about the acoustics of the den, the kind of panels on the walls, the kind of carpet on the floor. “Let’s start,” Sam said. They were talking about a television show they all liked. That was the projected topic not only for that chat, but also for the seven chats of similar length that were scheduled to follow, one each week, over the course of the next two months. They would not discuss the same show they all liked, but different shows they all liked, one after the other. Sam had suggested the first show that they would discuss. It was a show about a supernatural high school that had aired when Sam was nineteen years old. Sam had not been a fan at first. The pilot had reeked of desperation. Sam had almost turned off the television. But the show had righted itself over the course of the first season, and the second season was considered by many to be one of the finest examples of the supernatural high school genre. Sam watched every episode religiously, which always seemed ironic, since the show itself was so heretical, featuring witches and demons. “Apostate is enough,” Sam said. The joke fell flat. Sam made a mental note to remove that from the chat before it was released. Sam was always thinking that way, and as such always divided between the demands of the moment and an awareness of the final destination of the discussion. The host had duties. That was a demand of the moment. “And what did you think of the pilot?” Sam said. Chris and Alex both started shaking their heads. “I didn’t like it,” Chris said. “But then again I didn’t like the entire show. I rarely watched it and have almost nothing to say about it.” Alex was nodding now. “Me too,” Alex said. “Couldn’t stand it.” In the silence that followed, Sam made another mental note, larger than the first, about what else would have to be removed from the chat before it was released, and wondered if there had been a drastic error in judgment, not about the show that had been selected for the chat, not even about the chat about the show that had been selected, but about Chris and Alex. Were they even her friends?

ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL

By Ben Greenman 
From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

Let’s consider the possibility that the events of the past two years were no more than a series of misunderstandings, that even though all of them acted in ways that were not commensurate with the duties of their office, that they meant well, that things got away from them, that it’s not always a good idea to judge. So the mayor embezzled. So what? So the sheriff stole cars. So what? So the superintendent of schools trafficked drugs in the halls of the junior high, shades on, tucked into a corner by the lockers outside the band room, running his sales patter, “smoke smoke smoke, get yer smoke.” So what? So the rest of them served as the willing tentacles of a vast and wide-reaching criminal enterprise overseen by Susan Fairbanks, a middle-aged freeholder who lived in an “elegant Cape Cod” with a “bright and beautiful master suite” and a “spacious living room” featuring “Anderson windows and skylight,” not to mention “central A/C, two-zone” and “sliding glass doors” that “lead out” to a “backyard ideal for parties.” In that backyard, Susan Fairbanks assembled her lieutenants and planned mischief and mayhem, larceny and depravity, not only commanding the selectmen and -women, the aldermen and -women, the assemblymen and-women, but also instructing them to invite the others and tell them to stand by for their orders: the mayor (the order: embezzle), the sheriff (the order: steal cars), the superintendent of schools (the order: sell dope), and the head of the local chamber of commerce (the order: murder the rest of them, put the bodies in a storage space, build a Stonehenge of filled-to-the-brim gasoline cans, toast their immortal souls with a glass of whiskey and a cigar, walk out whistling, drip a trail of gasoline from the storage space, at a safe distance drop the lit cigar into the tail of the trail, drive away, don’t look back, never look back, drive straight to Susan, sit in lounge chairs, have some burgers). So what?