Monthly Archives: April 2019

The Split

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After six miserable months living with his girlfriend Gail, Joe decided it was time to call it quits.
What had he been thinking? Sure, she was a gorgeous blonde. Smart as hell and could whip up the strongest cocktails this side of Manhattan, including a manhattan that could knock you on your ass. Joe knew what he was thinking. This was the hottest chick that had ever talked to him for more than two minutes. She had wandering hands and knew how to use them. While she was squeezing his ass she could list ten reasons why the American Revolution was going to succeed and by the time she listed ten reasons why the Articles of Confederation were doomed to fail Joe’s eyes were going back up into his head.
All the problems began when Gail brought her things over to the apartment to move in.
“What a pigsty. Don’t you ever clean this dump?”
Joe would have been insulted but her sharp tongue immediately went down his throat. A little housecleaning would not hurt anything. In fact, it was rather nice knowing exactly where the remote control was at any given time. Except that Gail had hounded him into cleaning. She cleaned up after herself but she regularly informed him she never accommodated slobs.
Next came the food.
“What is this eating out of cans? We’re not hobos.” Again she softened the edge of her criticism by sticking a finger in the pork and bean can, smearing it on Joe’s cheek and licking it off. “You taste better than the beans.”
Gail herself was an excellent cook but she swore it was her duty in life to bring Joe up to her culinary standards, not sink to his. Within a few weeks, he was chopping vegetables with speed and accuracy and mastered the technique of bringing the pot to a quick boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer, occasionally stirring.
The last straw, however, came as they lay in bed and she ran her long taut fingers across his stomach and chest.
“God, you call that a body? I gotta get your ass in shape.” Even though she immediately rolled on top of him and began a vigorous massage, Joe felt he had reached his limit.
No amount of erotic stimulus was worth the total transformation Joe was undergoing. He got a headache trying to figure out how she could be so sexually attracted to him while obviously repulsed by everything else about him. The relationship had to end. But when? How? He could not tell her in the apartment. She knew where every knife in the kitchen was, and he had seen her splay a chicken in twenty seconds.
Joe read the newspaper every day, and he had yet to come across a story of anyone being murdered in the aisles of Wal Mart. An old woman had pulled a gun on some guy who tried to steal her purse once, but she didn’t shoot. He, however, did soil his pants. At this point, Joe would endure a prominent brown stain on the seat of his pants rather to evolve into some perfect man which he did not want to be. The hard part would be to convince Gail to shop at Wal Mart.
“Wal Mart? That crap?” she said the next day in the car.
“The people in the office, we thought it would be a good idea to buy stuff for poor people. The last quarterly statement was too good. We don’t want the public to think we’re rich snobs, you know.”
“Good point. Wal Mart’s good enough for them.”
As he pushed a cart down an aisle, Joe began slowly, “Gail, you know I think you’re great and all—“
“Look at these amazing short shorts!”
Joe had to stop the buggy abruptly to keep from hitting two teen-aged girls who were examining a rack of shorts and tank tops.
“They don’t have a size big enough to cover that baby bump of yours,” Gail mumbled as she jerked the cart from around them.
“Gail,” Joe continued, “I think you’ve sacrificed too much for me.”
“Well, it’s been a shared sacrifice,” she replied with a smile.
“Occupy Wal Mart! Occupy Wal Mart!” A group of people of all ages carrying placards marched toward them.
Gail quickly turned the cart down another aisle.
“Blow back prices! Blow back prices!” the protesters chanted.
“Man, cave dwellers make me sick,” she whispered, looking back at the marchers in disgust.
“Actually, they may have a point,” Joe said softly.
“As a matter of fact, I’ve noticed that about you, Joe.” Gail looked at him, her eyes narrowed. “What’s normal to you isn’t necessarily normal for me.” She paused. “I think you need a new normal.”
Joe grinned impishly. “Isn’t that like telling your little dog to change?”
She shook her head. “I’m not a pet parent. I’m a girl friend.”
“Which brings me to my doubts about our future.”
“Don’t worry.” Gail patted his hand. “We can win the future.”
Just at that moment they entered another aisle intersection blocked by the protesters. One man was on a bull horn.
“They all said us poor people had to be patient and wait for the money to trickle down to us. Well, I, for one, am tired of waiting for that trickleration. It feels more than a trickeration to me!”
The crowd roared its approval. Gail grabbed the cart handle from Joe, lowered her head and slammed ahead through the protesters.
“Hey, lady, get your ginormous ass out of my way!”
Gail was busy putting canned beans in the cart by the time Joe caught up with her. He had taken a few minutes apologizing to the woman, saying her posterior was in a proper proportion to the rest of her body. Joe then had to explain to the security guards who were escorting the protesters out of the store that he wasn’t one of them. The woman with the big butt put in a good word for him, and Joe went on his way to find Gail.
“Where the hell have you been? If I have to stay in this store any longer I’m going to kill somebody!”
Joe closed his eyes. “I wish you wouldn’t put it that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Listen, you’re the hottest girl I ever went to bed with. I could listen to you talk about history, philosophy and geology all day. But you’re driving me nuts! I like who I am. I don’t want to be cleaner. I want to eat out of a can. And I don’t want to do a hundred pushups every day!”
Gail slapped Joe and stormed away. His face was still stinging when a sixtyish year old man in a Wal Mart apron came up and smiled.
“Wal Mart thanks you in advance for leaving your cart in the designated area in the parking lot.”

Lincoln in the Basement Chapter 93

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Previously: War Secretary Stanton holds the Lincolns and janitor Gabby Zook captive in the White House basement. Private Adam Christy takes guard duties. Duff and Alethia become Lincoln impostors. After two years of deceit, love and death, the war is over. Adam makes amends with hostages in the basement.
Adam smiled at Mrs. Lincoln, nodded, and turned to Gabby’s cubicle behind the crates and barrels. He watched Gabby on his pallet, stirring restlessly and mumbling.
“Cord—cord—cordiecordiecordie,” Gabby muttered. After twisting and moaning a few more moments, he suddenly sat up, shouting clearly, “Cordie!” His eyes were wide and blank; after batting them several times, he focused on Adam.
“I’m sorry to wake you up, Mr. Gabby,” Adam said, setting the plate on a chair which had dirty trousers and shirts strewn across the back of it.
“Cordie is dead, isn’t she?” he whispered, staring at the plate.
“Yes. Last night.” Love really did connect people, Adam decided, realizing Gabby already sensed his sister’s death. He envied the old man’s grief.
“I’m not hungry anymore.” He looked at the plate of fried eggs and toast and then glanced away indifferently. “They say we’ll be out of here by the end of the week.”
“Yes, sir. We can all go Friday night.”
“It doesn’t seem to matter anymore, does it? The rats are gone. Wish we hadn’t killed all of them so fast; it gave me something to worry about. I mean, something of no account to worry about. I’ve enough honest-to-God worries as it is.”
“You really don’t have anything to worry about now.” Adam tried to sound hopeful.
“Cordie’s dead. There’s plenty to worry about. Uncle Sammy’s dead. Mama’s dead. Papa’s dead. Joe’s dead. Everybody’s dead except me.”
“No, you don’t have to worry. Cordie had a friend at the hospital. She was with her right to the last moment. Her name’s Jessie Home.”
“Is she a young woman?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll scare her away. Young women have always been scared of me. Well, not always, but that was a long time ago when I was someone else. I don’t remember him very well, but I do remember young women were rather fond of him.”
“Jessie’s different than most young women,” Adam said. “She doesn’t care about what people seem like but what they are like.”
“You love this girl, don’t you?” Gabby looked at Adam. “I can tell by the way you talk about her. And your eyes. Say her name again.”
“Jessie Home.”
“See. When you say her name, your cheeks turn red. And you can’t help but smile when you talk about her. If you can trust her, then I can trust her; after all, you can’t love somebody you can’t trust.”
Adam darkened when he thought about how much he loved and trusted Jessie, and how little she must love and trust him now.
“And don’t worry. I forgive you.”
“I hurt you the night you jumped me,” Adam said quietly. “If Mr. Lincoln hadn’t pulled me off, I might have hurt you real bad.”
“You couldn’t help it,” Gabby said. “You just fought back like anyone would have. You know, it was all her fault.” He nodded beyond the crates and barrels to Mrs. Lincoln. Leaning into Adam, he added in a whisper, “I don’t think she’s quite right in the head. When people are like that, there’s nothing you can do but forgive them.”
“Are you sure about breakfast?” Adam asked.
“Maybe I’ll be hungry again sometime, but right now I don’t think so.”
Adam smiled and took the plate away. He stacked the dishes on the tray and left for the kitchen. Phebe kept her head down when he came in, and he did not say anything. Back in the hallway, Adam felt a tug at his elbow. It was Stanton, who pulled him into the stairwell.
“I’ve a new assignment for you.”
“No.” Adam moved away. “When the Lincolns are back upstairs, when the others leave, I want to go. I want to return to Steubenville. Forget the commission.”
“I have,” Stanton said. “You’re guilty of kidnapping and holding hostage the president and his wife. I was aghast when I learned of your plot.”
“Do you think people will believe that?”
“Do you think they will believe you?”
“Lincoln,” Adam said with confidence. “Lincoln knows the truth.” He paused and softened his voice. “Lincoln won’t judge me. He won’t judge you. He knows you did what you did to help the nation. The war’s over.”
“The war’s never over. We now have to make the rebels suffer. They must obey the law.”
“That war Mr. Lincoln can win. He won’t punish us. He’s a man of justice.”
“It is exactly because he is a man of justice that we will be punished.”
“I’ve already been punished.” Adam turned somber.
“You don’t know what punishment is.” Stanton’s beady eyes narrowed. “Do what I say. You murdered the butler. We hang murderers. If you cooperate, you can go home to Steubenville.”
“What is it?” Adam asked, hanging his head in defeat.
“The old woman, the sister of the janitor, the one who died this week. Did she ever say anything of interest?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“She’s dead,” Stanton said. “It makes no sense to protect her when your life’s in danger.”
“Oh.” He looked off. “One time she asked about troop movements.”
“Troop movements?” Stanton pursed his Cupid’s bow lips.
“She said her landlady might turn her out if she couldn’t get any information from her brother who worked in the White House.”
“Do you know the name of the landlady?”
“No.”
“Do you know where the boardinghouse is?”
“I escorted her home several times.”
“Very good.” Stanton paused to think. “Go to the boardinghouse to say you’re collecting her personal effects to give to her brother. Then keep your ears open.”
“What am I listening for?”
“Conspiracies, plots, assassins.”
“Assassins?” Adam’s eyes widened.
“What do you think we’re talking about?” Stanton snapped. “Lincoln must die.”
“But he’s forgiven me.”
“He’s never mentioned forgiving me, and if I go to prison, you hang.”
“I don’t think I can help kill President Lincoln.” Adam swallowed hard.
“You can, and you will.” Stanton paused. “If you find anyone interested, tell them to meet you under Aqueduct Bridge at midnight.”
“But I don’t know—”
“Just tell them to be under the bridge at midnight.”