Saturday, April 29, 2017

GIFTS FROM AGGIE CRONE


 THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
April 29, 2017



Greetings, friends and celebrators of the joy to be found in stories—writing them, reading them, telling them, or hearing them. If you enjoy a good story, this blog is for you.

This week, beginning the last Saturday in the month of April, I offer you another installment of my novel The King’s Eye: A Fantasy of the Farther Isles.
In case you missed the last installment, which appeared in February, here’s a recap:

Rodney Trapper the Goatherd’s 17-year-old son on the Isle of Goats stops at Ralf’s Alehouse at the end of the day. There he meets Prince Frogge, who has come to the Isle of Goats looking for someone to join him in his quest to kill the Giant Clobber and return the High King’s crystal eye. Rodney is interested in the idea, as he tells Bromalyn, Ralf’s daughter, with whom he is sleeping. She doesn’t like the idea, but she lets Rodney know she’s heard about this quest from another prince, Tamber of the Isle of Mirth, and she calls Tamber the handsomest man she’s ever met.

That was Chapter One, and this week you will meet Rodney’s ancient grandmother, who mixes herbs with magic and gives Rodney and Frogge some medicines and a crooked broom, which she promises them will come in handy during their dangerous adventure.

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THE KING’S EYE
A Fantasy of the Farther Isles
John M. Daniel



Chapter 2: Gifts from Aggie Crone




It was difficult for Rodney to forgive his new companion, Prince Frogge, for having such short legs. It was embarrassing to walk the high road through the town on their first morning as partners, Rodney forced to shorten his long-legged stride as Frogge trotted along beside him, puffing and yammering, and stopping every few minutes to hitch up the pack on his back. “How far is this cottage?” and “Is it dark in the forest?” and “Is your grandmother really a witch?” and “Does she have a broom?” While all this time Rodney could feel the eyes of the townsfolk on the two of them—all of the townsfolk having of course heard the infectious gossip brought home from Ralf’s Alehouse the evening before. Yes, Rodney Trapper, the Goatherd’s son, had been fool enough to sign on for this foolhardy if not doomed adventure, to sail off to the faraway Farther Isle of the South Wind, to challenge the pitiless giant who had slaughtered their own island’s goats seven years before. But that wasn’t the embarrassing part.
What mortified Rodney Trapper, the Goatherd’s son, was being seen in the company of such a fancy little fop, this short, round, over-dressed child who couldn’t keep up and wouldn’t stop talking.
“I say there, Rodney,” called out Cort Butcher, “who’s your new best friend? Or will he be the bait for one of your traps?”
“Rodney Trapper, is it?” added Cort’s wife, Olie Baker. “From now on we’ll be calling you Rodney Nursemaid!”
Rodney tried to laugh them off, but he flushed hot and red and muttered under his breath, “I’m doing this for you, you ungrateful lot. You’ll thank me when I’m finished killing the tyrant. And the only reason I keep company with this boy is because he has the boat to carry me there!”

When Rodney and Frogge reached Aggie Crone’s cottage deep in the forest beyond the far side of town, they found the old woman out in her garden, on her hands and knees, up to her knuckles in the soil, yanking weeds.
“Good morning, Granny,” Rodney called from the lane. He held up his sack. “I brought you a fox.” He whispered to Frogge, “You mustn’t be alarmed by a thing my grandmother says. She speaks her mind, and tells the truth, even if at times what she says sounds peculiar.”
Aggie stood up slowly and stiffly, stretched her back, and shot Rodney a twisted-tooth grin. “About time you got here, Rascal Rodney, and I see you’ve brought along your young friend I’ve been hearing so much about.” She hobbled to the gate and let them in. She offered her hand to the boy and told him, “Hello, young prince named Frogge. I hope you become a man sometime soon, so you can make a man of my foolish grandson.”
Frogge smiled, shrugged the pack off his back, and took the old woman’s hand. She was no taller than he was, but her hands were huge, and her dirty fingers were leathery, with knuckles like rough stones the size of cobnuts. Frogge said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Mistress Aggie Crone. How in the Stars do you know my name?”
Aggie let go of the boy’s hand. “A bird told me.”
Frogge casually wiped his soiled hand on the backside of his purple breeches. “A bird?”
“It’s true,” Rodney said. “She gets her news from the birds.” He handed his sack of game to his grandmother. “Here, Granny. Two weasels, three coneys, three moles, and a fox.”
Aggie Crone took the sack and reached up to pat her grandson’s cheek. “Weasel stew tonight,” she said with a proud smile. “You’ll stay for supper.”
Rodney looked at Frogge, who appeared queasy at the prospect. “You’ve never had a meal so fine as my grandmother’s weasel stew,” he told the boy. “Yes, Granny, we’ll be here for supper, and we’ll stop here for the night as well. Then, tomorrow morning, as soon as Randy the Cock wakes us up at dawn, we’ll be off adventuring. Am I  right, Frogge?”
Frogge sucked on his lower lip. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble, Mistress Crone. Perhaps I should return to Ralf’s Alehouse for supper and a bed tonight, and then Rodney and I can meet tomorrow, down at the harbor.” He turned to his partner. “Say about noon, so we can set sail early?”
Rodney felt the time had come to establish which of the two was to give the orders. Frogge from The Fens might be a Prince, and he might own the boat, and this whole adventure might have been his idea, but he was just a boy, a spoiled whelp, pampered by privilege. “Frogge—”
“Frogge, you listen to your old Aunt Aggie,” the old woman said. “Don’t you be afraid of weasel stew. Get used to simple fare, lad. And my weasel stew may be the best meal you’ll have for quite some time. You’ll find nothing so tasty on South Wind Isle, I’ll promise you that. Nothing to eat there but grubs, slugs, and snakes, unless Rodney can trap you a vulture. There are vultures aplenty on that windswept island, legends tell, but vultures taste of rot. As for a bed tonight, you’ll sleep in the barn with young Pansy. She’ll keep you warm.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t do that,” Frogge protested. “I’ve pledged my affections to Princess Llanaa, so I—”
“Frogge, Pansy’s a heifer,” Rodney explained.
“And now,” said Aggie Crone, “the two of you can earn your keep by spending the rest of the afternoon in the garden, pulling weeds. Down on your knees, your Highness. You too, Rodney, the would-be hero. If the pair of you can’t do battle with this patch of clover and dock, how do you expect to lay low that Giant?” She nodded fiercely with that frightening face, then let it relax into a summery smile. “If you get hungry while you work, you may eat a few radishes. Not too many, mind. I don’t want you to spoil your appetites.”

That evening, the heat of the day was swallowed by a chilly fog. Supper had gone well; Aggie Crone’s weasel stew was especially tasty, and Prince Frogge, after his first timid spoonful, dug in and asked for three helpings. Now the four of them sat before the fireplace: Aggie, Rodney, their guest Frogge, and Rodney’s pa, Yvor the Goatherd. Yvor hadn’t said one word during supper, and now he didn’t say much more. He rocked back and forth and side to side on his chair, wearing a sad scowl and occasionally muttering, “Goats.”
Frogge had tried and failed to engage Yvor in polite chatter. He turned to Aggie and said, “Your son doesn’t say much, but he seems concerned about his goats.”
 “Goats.”


“That’s right,” Aggie said. “The poor man lost his spirit and most of his mind seven years ago, when our island lost its goats. My Yvor used to be the Master Goatherd, you see. As was his father before him, and his father’s father before that, and so on back farther than tales can tell. The Master Goatherd was an important man on the Isle of Goats, as you can imagine, and a chief advisor to the King. Now look at my boy. Poor Yvor’s no more important and no more with us than the wooden chair he’s sitting on.”
“Goats.”
“That’s right, Sonny. Goats indeed. Prince Frogge, I suppose you’ve heard how our island lost its goats?”
“No, Mistress Crone. I haven’t.”
“Isn’t that just like the other Isles, not to grieve for our great loss. Not even to tell the tale. Well, Your Highness, it was the Giant Clobber, of course. Him and his minions, seven years ago. They arrived in a large boat during the night of the first full moon of spring, and the next day, in broad daylight, they rounded up the herds and slaughtered nearly every goat on the island, and then butchered them in their own slippery blood. The minions did the rounding up, but the Giant Clobber did the killing. And when our good King Noel the Elder bravely walked out onto the scene to stop the senseless butchery, Clobber slaughtered the king as well, and left his body on the pile of heads and hooves and guts, to feed the foxes and the ravens.”
“You said ‘nearly every goat,’” Frogge said. “Did some of the goats escape?”
“Well, yes, there was a herd the Giant didn’t find, in a northern valley near the royal castle. Fifty goats were spared.”
“Well, that was fortunate,” Frogge offered. “Thank the Stars.”
Rodney coughed and spat into the fire. “Damn the Stars, and damn King Noel.”
“But wasn’t King Noel trying his best, doing what he could to stop—”
“Not Good King Noel the Elder,” Aggie Crone explained. “Rodney’s talking about that king’s son, King Noel the Younger, who took the throne upon his father’s death. To celebrate his coronation he slaughtered the remaining fifty goats, and fed them to his royal guests, visiting royalty from the Isles of Mirth and Worth, and the Isles of Thunder and Thorns.”
“Goats.”
“I’d like to slaughter our Young King Noel,” Rodney said, pounding his fist into his palm. “But since I can’t do that, I’ll have to kill the Giant Clobber instead.”
“And you’ll return a hero,” his grandmother said. “If you return at all.”
“I have to do this, Gran.”
“I know you do, lad.”
“And,” Frogge pointed out, “when we return triumphant from the Isle of the South Wind and give King Rohar back his crystal eye, you’ll have your reward: half of Blackberry Island to call your own. Blackberry Island is home to hundreds of wild goats, all waiting to be tamed.”
“Goats.”
“That’s right, Father, goats. Lots of goats. And you’ll come live with us too, won’t you, Gran?”
“Me? No. I shall live on the Isle of Goats, this Isle of Goats, and in this forest and in this cottage until the Stars call me home. But you’ll have plenty of company, with your pa, and your new goats, and I suppose that woman will go with you? That Bromalynn Alehouse woman?”
Rodney did not answer.
Aggie turned to Frogge and said, “Tell me, Prince, what made you choose this reckless rascal grandson of mine to be your partner in this unwise errand?”
“I didn’t choose Rodney.” Frogge smiled. “He volunteered.”
“You chose him. Don’t lie to me, child.”
Frogge dropped the smile. “Wisdom from the Island of the Stars led me to the Isle of Goats. I was told by the Stargazer that I’d find a goatherd here, and a goatherd’s son, who happened to be a restless fool—”
“A fool for goats,” Aggie said.
“Goats.”
 “And you, young Prince Frogge?” Aggie asked. “What will be your reward? If you live to claim a reward.”
The boy prince held his hands together as if in prayer to the Stars. “I’ll have my only wish. I’ll marry the Princess Llanaa.”
“Good luck with that,” the old woman said. “From what I’ve heard you’ll need it.”
Frogge nodded. “I know the odds are not in my favor when I fight the Giant, but with Rodney Trapper’s help—”
“I was wishing you luck with that marriage you think you want,” Aggie said. “I don’t know how to wish you luck in your rash plan to kill a brute who outweighs the two of you together, and would outweigh you still if there were four of you. Oh, of course I wish you foolish boys luck, but my wishes won’t do you any good. What will help you will be the potions and charms I shall give you.”
The old woman rose slowly and stiffly from her log stool, lit a candle, and shuffled to her shelves of jars of potions and sacks of herbs. Humming a tuneless song, she took her time assembling her gifts, which she then carried to the table where they had eaten supper. “Come join me,” she told them. “All of you.”
When they were all seated at the table, Aggie Crone handed Frogge a small wooden box. “Here, my young adventurer, is a powder for you to dissolve in clear water. Drink the water daily. It will give you wisdom and wiles, both of which, believe me, you sorely need.” Then she picked up a tied bundle of leaves. “Learn to like this sourmint, because if you chew it each morning upon rising and each evening before you retire, and if you swallow the juice, it will hasten your growth. Soon your voice will drop from a squeak to a rumble, thick hair will sprout in the places that give you pleasure, your hands will become large and hard, and you’ll be blessed—or cursed—with more confidence than is good for most youths, but such confidence may serve you well in battle.”
“Thank you, Mistress Crone.”
Aggie Crone then turned to her grandson. “Rodney, take this tiny blue bottle of fox-tooth powder and keep it with you always. A time may come when you are suffering from an unbearable pain. This fox-tooth powder will take away your suffering forever. You must take it all at one time, and you may use it only once. Do not treat this cure lightly, Rodney the Goatherd’s son. Use it only when you absolutely must.”
“Thank you, Grandmother.”
“And another thing, Rodney. Remember to concentrate. Pay attention. And learn. You’re a strapping young lad, but you’ve never been much good at concentrating. Isn’t that right, Yvor?”
“Goats.”
“One more thing,” the old woman said. She walked to the closet behind the stairway and returned carrying a crooked, well-worn broom. She brought it to the table and handed it to Rodney. “Here. To help you in your travels.”
<witche’s broom>
Frogge’s eyes widened. “Is that for flying? May I have a broom, too?”
“This one broom will do quite nicely for the two of you.”
“How does it work?” Rodney asked.
“You’ll know when you need to know. Now off to bed. You young men can both sleep in the barn with Young Pansy. Dream wisely, lads.”
“I’ll dream of the fair Princess Llanaa,” said Prince Frogge. “I always do.”
Rodney said, “I’ll dream of travel, adventure, and battle; and then I’ll dream of the beautiful Blackberry Island, land of—”
“Goats!” cried Yvor the Goatherd. He grinned at his son and said, “Goats.”



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Thank you for visiting. I am temporarily posting only occasionally on this blog. I’ll announce these occasional posts as they appear. I hope you’ll drop by then.

<photo jmd>



Saturday, April 22, 2017

Dear Friends…


THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
April 22, 2017 

Dear Friends,

I am sorry to report that this past week was so busy with editing projects, physical therapy, and rest that I haven’t had time to put a blog post together.

So I'm taking the week off. I apologize to anyone who relies on my weekly words to spice up their coffee on Saturday mornings. 

Will I return to the blog when my schedule of work and recovery becomes less demanding? I don't know. For now this hiatus is a one-time lapse that I regret. I hope to be back next week.

Till then, or till whenever, I encourage you to find pleasure from stories. They're a resource that won't let you down.

John D.



Saturday, April 15, 2017

HOW TO GAIN WEIGHT ON BOOKSTORE CLERK’S SALARY



THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
April 15, 2017




Greetings, friends and celebrators of the joy to be found in stories—writing them, reading them, telling them, or hearing them. If you enjoy a good story, this weekly blog is for you.

This week’s post focuses on my last year working as a bookstore clerk. You may have read this article before; it was first published in the literary magazine Black Lamb, and I’ve posted it on this blog before. But I’m fond of it, because it celebrates the pleasure of hand-selling books in a bookstore, and it celebrates my decision to give up that way to make a living and move on to other literary adventures.

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THE YEAR OF 
EATING DANGEROUSLY

John M. Daniel

When I lived and worked as a country innkeeper at Wilbur Hot Springs, California, from September 1980 to September 1982, I ate well. Mostly vegetarian, with a lot of brown rice, yogurt, tofu and other soy products in all different shapes and consistencies, fruit in season, veggies from the garden, cheese made from our own goats’ milk, lots of granola, and very little alcohol.
At Wilbur Hot Springs I also became a musician, stretching my repertoire from Burl Ives folksongs to the sophistication of Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, Rodgers & Co., as I entertained a lounge full of guests with my guitar and serviceable baritone voice on weekend nights.
And another thing: at Wilbur I learned how to manage a staff and run a business, and I took pride in the success of that business, knowing it was partly my success.
But this essay is not about my two years at Wilbur Hot Springs, during which I ate well, became an entertainer on the rise, and managed a successful business. No, this article is about the following year, September 1982 to September 1983, which I spent in and around Palo Alto, California, during which I managed a small business into the ground, tried and failed to perform American  standards to deaf audiences, and ate garbage.
Actually, my Year of Eating Dangerously didn’t start out all that bad. Almost as soon as I arrived in Palo Alto (which had been my stomping grounds before Wilbur), I landed a gig at Savoir Fare, a brand new restaurant, playing dinner music for $50 a night, five nights a week, plus tips and a free dinner. Good dinners, too: steaks, salads, dishes with French names.
I also landed a day job, five days a week, managing a small bookstore called Kepler’s of Los Altos for $500 a month. I had worked there before, when the store was owned by Kepler’s Books and Magazines of Menlo Park, the most successful bookstore on the San Francisco Peninsula. By September 1982, the smaller store had been sold off and was going through rough times, threatened by a predatory Crown Books around the corner on El Camino Real and a predatory Tower Books and Records in the shopping center across El Camino. But Kepler’s of Los Altos still had its name, still served some loyal customers, and still functioned in the same shopping center as before, which also featured a fine deli and a health food store. So I started off the year with a good lunch every day, as well as a good dinner. I had to pay for my lunches, but a sandwich was only $1.50 back then.
Off to such a good start, I decided I needed to buy some clothes, so I went to Value Village, a classy thrift store in Redwood City, where I bought twenty dollars worth of tweeds and dark slacks (for country club gigs, say), jackass pants and loud shirts (for luau parties, say), and casual business wear for my day job.
I also found a home, sharing a condo with a woman named Irene. Irene and I were friends only. Nothing intimate: separate bedrooms, separate bathrooms, separate shelves in the refrigerator. We shared the kitchen but did not share food. I ate my breakfasts there: granola with yogurt and fruit. Good, healthy food, at least at first.
Irene, meanwhile, ate her starchy breakfasts and heat-lamp lunches in the cafeteria of the senior retirement center where she was an administrator. For dinner she browsed the happy hour scene. She knew which bars had the pot-stickers, which the Swedish meat balls, which the nachos, and which the deep-fat-fried zucchini. If she wanted to splurge and get away from the bar crowd and the fried food, Irene took advantage of the salad bar at The Sizzler. A little roughage never hurts, and you could find a bit of protein there if you really looked for it.
I was scornful of Irene’s diet, at first.
Maybe it was Irene who greased the slippery slope to junk food addiction, her and her happy hour hors d’oeuvres. Of course I would never have cruised the cocktail circuit if the gig at the Savoir Fare had lasted. But, like many a brand new restaurant, the Savoir Fare went broke in a hurry. I hope my music didn’t contribute to its demise, but it was clear I was expendable. They cut me back to two nights a week, for tips only, and then they shut their doors.
Poor Savoir Fare, and poor me; $50 a night poorer, and no more free dinners. I had two choices, and I alternated between them: cook like a bachelor, which meant frozen pot pies and TV dinners, plus a salad consisting of lettuce doused in Wishbone Italian dressing; or barhop, which meant a drink or two to wash down whatever I had picked out of the hot serving dishes. I got adept at loading a tiny plate high with munchies, carrying my meal around the room, cocktail napkins under my arm and a drink in my other hand. I felt right at home, mingling and cracking jokes with others whose dreams had not yet come true.
My music career wasn’t technically over yet, even if it had suffered a major setback. I still played gigs around town—or towns, plural, the Mid-Peninsula cities blending along “the” El Camino from strip mall to strip mall. At a few of these gigs I was paid real money, although I never again earned $50 for a night’s work. Mostly I got free drinks at bars, or more often free coffee and pastry at coffee shops. That didn’t make for much of a dinner, but that’s what I ate on nights when I was lucky enough to play for tips. By the way, back in the early 1980s there was no rule of etiquette saying tips had to be paper money. I often ended up counting out quarters, dimes, and nickels, then spent them in a bar on the way home from the gig.
My steadiest gig, during this year of eating dangerously, was as the weekend evening entertainer for Uncle Gaylord’s Ice Cream Parlor in downtown Palo Alto, where I competed with an espre-ssssss-o machine and a Ms. Pacman’s doodleoodleooodle as I labored to sell American standards to the deaf generation. Tips from teenagers amounted to zilch-plus. But I got all the free ice cream I wanted, plus coffee, plus cookies. I spent the spare change on a drink on the way home. I parked and schlepped all my music equipment from the car to Irene’s condo, then spent a couple of hours practicing my guitar before bed, to wear off the alcohol, caffeine, and sugar enough to fall asleep.
I still believed I had a future as a semiprofessional musician, if only because I knew the lyrics, melodies, and Sears-Roebuck chord changes to hundreds of songs from the golden age of American popular music, which had to count for something.
Meanwhile, though, my day job at the bookstore was in serious peril. In addition to the Crown Books and the Tower Books and Records, we were at war with the landlord. This landlord (by which I don’t mean a greedy person who wanted to join a country club, but a corporation with no soul whatsoever) decided that Kepler’s Books of Los Altos must die, lease or no lease. The store wasn’t tithing enough, so the landlord hired goons to tear up our parking lot with boistrous jackhammers. The closest places our customers could park were closer to Crown Books or Tower Books and Records than they were to Kepler’s of Los Altos.
Managing a failing bookstore—no customers, all day long—while I was earning shit wages and virtually no spending cash as a musician was a two-pronged assault on my finances and my self-esteem. What does a self-disrespecting musician do when he’s going broke, fed up with his day job? Cut expenses, and eat crap. That’s why, come lunchtime, I quit buying sandwiches from the deli and the health food store and ambled across El Camino, then across San Antonio Road to the Sears shopping center, and saved 50¢ by eating at Burger King. It was comforting food: burger, fries, Coke. And it was lots to eat: “It takes two hands to handle a Whopper, ’cause the burgers are bigger at Burger King.” (I didn’t add that song to my repertoire.) I sometimes wondered why I became suddenly hungry again two hours later, but that was easy to fix with a Snickers bar from the deli. Oops, there went the 50¢.
By the time late summer 1983 arrived, my fancy pants from Value Village no longer fit me.
This decline happened gradually, although looking back on it with time-lapse memory my boredom and bad habits seem to have grown like weeds on steroids. The fact is, it took what at the time seemed like the longest year in my life for me to hit bottom. But come early August, 1983, here it was: bottom:
I wake up at about eight o’clock of a Wednesday morning, shower, dress in whatever is still clean and still fits, and load my amp, speakers, microphone stand, and guitar into the back of my ten-year-old second-hand Volvo, and drive from Irene’s condo to Kepler’s of Los Altos, stopping along the way to pick up a couple of doughnuts and a cup of coffee. I park wherever I can find a spot, on the other side of our shopping center, and walk to the store, open the store, and sit behind the cash register. Another clerk comes in, and we sit. We eat the two doughnuts and sit some more.
Midmorning I take a walk across El Camino to a branch of my bank, where there’s a coffee urn and a stack of miniature styrofoam cups. I wire myself together with more coffee, which tastes like yesterday’s.
About two p.m., I get my lunch break. I use two hands to handle my Whopper. I can’t finish my fries, but I sneak a refill on my Coke.
Late in the afternoon, when one clerk goes home and another comes on, I begin the process of changing the back room into a night club. The store has dwindled, and there are almost no books left in the back room; so the owner has moved in a bunch of lumpy thrift-store furniture, to turn this strip-mall bookstore with no parking lot into a community gathering spot. Nobody gathers, but on Wednesday evenings I try to lure in the world by offering my golden oldies. I put out a bowl of trail mix from the Lucky’s supermarket next to Tower Books and Records, set up my equipment, place a tip jar on a stool, and stand there singing and strumming and entertaining nobody till nine-thirty. By nine-thirty most of the trail mix is gone, thanks to me. Then I start lugging all my equipment back to my used Volvo, which has leaked oil on the parking asphalt but I don’t care, and by the time the car is packed, it’s ten o’clock and time to close the store.
Dinner time. I drive into the heart of Los Altos, park and lock, and walk into Mac’s Tea Room, one of the last piano bars on the Peninsula to hold out against disco and sports bars. I’m well known at Mac’s. I’m a star. Other customers greet me with smiles. Women want to sit next to me. The piano player urges me to the microphone, and I sing. They all applaud, and I’m invited, urged, to sing another. Do I get paid for this? No. In fact I throw dollar bills into the tip bowl, so I’m paying to give my songs away, and it’s worth every penny. Besides, by now Mac’s Tea Room and Uncle Gaylord’s Ice Cream Parlor are my only steady gigs. Only gigs period, lately.
Besides, when I’m singing at Mac’s I get free dinner. Dinner: bowl after bowl of free popcorn, as long as I keep buying drinks.
And I can hear that sweet siren’s song, encouraging me to keep buying drinks until I am flat broke.
I’m pleased to say this story has a happy ending. In mid-August, while I was sitting behind the register at the bookstore with nothing else to do, I read an article in Newsweek about small-press publishers in Santa Barbara. I had spent most of my adult life on the fringes of the publishing industry, I still believed in small businesses, and I had loved Santa Barbara for years. I had a good friend living there, who told me he would house me temporarily and help me find work. And Santa Barbara was populated by wealthy older people who might enjoy my music.
Within a month I was gone from Palo Alto and the Mid-Peninsula happy hours. Gone from Kepler’s of Los Altos, gone from Uncle Gaylord’s Ice Cream Parlor, gone from Mac’s Tea Room, gone from Irene’s condo, and gone from Burger King.
I was off to a new land, a friendly city, where I could make a whole new set of mistakes, perhaps, but a land where I would relearn to eat like a human being instead of a garbage disposal.

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Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for May’s 99-word story submissions is May 1, 2017. The stories will appear on my blog post for May 13, and will stay posted for a week.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.
2. One story per writer, per month.
3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.
4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.
5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.
6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.
7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

THIS MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Tra la, it's May, the lusty Month of May, That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray.”

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Calling all published authors—

I try to feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.


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Thank you for visiting. Please drop by next week!





Saturday, April 8, 2017

A PHONE CALL IN THE WIND



THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
April 8, 2017



Greetings, friends and celebrators of the joy to be found in stories—writing them, reading them, telling them, or hearing them. If you enjoy a good story, this weekly blog is for you.

This month’s post is short, largely because I have been out of commission for two months. (Last month’s post didn’t happen.) Consequently I’m far behind in my work, with several editing jobs waiting impatiently for my attention.
The telephone rings.
It’s a good thing I love my job.
It seems the news of my accident spread among the writers who regularly read “The Joy of Story,” because I received only a handful of 99-word stories for the monthly Short, Short Stories feature.
Or perhaps the  prompts I assigned were too obscure, focusing on a  line out of Julius Caesar or an unanswered telephone.
Anyhow, I’m posting the stories that did arrive in March this month, one month late, with two mottos:
“Better Late than Never,” and
“Better Some than None.”

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Hello? Hello?
HELLO?

A Handful of
Short, Short
Stories




YOU TOO?
by Kevin Ruth Mahony

“This isn’t one of those things where you meet my family.”  Cesar said as they sat on the back of her SUV, door open.
  “Booty call,” she considered as she snuggled up, sliding out the stiletto.
 “That’s good for me.  And you?” he murmured. 
After she stuck him, she shoved him into the cargo space. Pulled over the cover.
Driving off she saw the lights. 
“You were weaving,” said the cop.
 Playing her best Barbie, she said “I was tuning in my favorite country station.” 
“Nice to see a sweet country girl,” the officer mused as he drove off.  
•••


BAMBI IS A DEAR
by Marilyn London

“Hey love. Just landed. come get me?”
“You bet. Missed you. Just watching the deer: Fawn’s dancing with the leaves. Doe’s eating our hydrangea.”
“You really love those deer, don’t you?”
“It’s sad to see them in the winter. The young one’s like a ballerina. The winds of march that make my heart a dancer.. Well, better get going.”
“Romantic. See you in a min.”
BAM!
“Never saw the deer coming. Just went flying over the side of that ravine!” the witness told police.
“Hear that? Sounds like her cell phone. A telephone that rings, but who’s to answer?”
•••


HER LAST SMILE, GONE WITH THE WIND
by Cora Ramos

The woman smiles, glancing at the clock. She refreshes her lipstick, primps her hair and waits.
An hour later, tears brim her eyes. She picks up a pen and writes on the note paper next to the phone. She carefully dabs her eyes before getting up to leave. The door closes softly behind her and through the open window, we watch her drive away.
The phone rings. And rings.
The wind gusts, the curtains flutter and the note tumbles to the floor. We read her words, “When you call, it will be too late. I’ll be long gone. Forever.”
•••

THE PROFESSIONAL
by Jim Gallagher

“The winds of March that make my heart a dancer;
 Not the winds of march, but a desire to perform with grace and dignity before a live audience.
A telephone that rings, but who’s to answer?”
The performer didn’t hesitate to break the fourth wall, to rebuke the offending patron.
“You want to get that, while we wait?” Sheepishly, the transgressor retreated to the lobby, as the audience verbally pelted him with catcalls, and whistles.
 Undiminished by the disruption, buoyed by the shouts of “Bravo” and applause, the performer resumed, as if no interruption had occurred.


•••

TWELVE RINGS
by June Kosier

I have something to tell him, but I am too scared to do it in person, so I call.
My heart races as I dial and flutters as the phone rings.  Will he answer? 
I hope I can just leave a message. This is one time I will be happy to get an answering machine. 
The phone rings for what seems like forever.  Twelve rings, one minute. 
There must not be an answering machine.  I decide to hang up but as I put the receiver in the cradle I hear “Hello?” 
Too late, I have hung up. 
Now what?
•••


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Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for May’s 99-word story submissions is May 1, 2017. The stories will appear on my blog post for May 13, and will stay posted for a week.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.
2. One story per writer, per month.
3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.
4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.
5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.
6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.
7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

THIS MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Tra la, it's May, the lusty Month of May, That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray.”

Make up a story inspired by the following
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Calling all published authors—

I try to feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.


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Thank you for visiting. Please drop by next week!