Category: Short Fiction

Ms. Almond, our reading teacher, emanated a gaunt pallor and an unfit constitution, and she eschewed the bad breath of old age. She did not seem quite at home in her old woman ways—her shock of gray hair, her stoic and sad eyes, pools of blue that had seen far too much of the world, her permanent wrinkles that spread out like fans from the corners of her eyes and lips. Her etched forehead that told a thousand youthful stories.

I had never heard of John Fante until I saw an interview taped with poet Charles Bukowki in the 1970s. Bukowski had enough ego to support a planet, and when asked his favorite writers he spoke his own name three times. But he then thought about it for a moment before delivering energetic and obviously heartfelt praise for author John Fante. The man he said was his only influence.

I trudged into the kitchen, pulled my socks up over my long johns, and grabbed the parka we keep by the door for outhouse trips in the middle of the night. When you’re freezing, half asleep, and unable to hold it anymore you don’t want to hunt around for a coat and boots. The weathered Sorels sat under the coat hooks, rubber soles peeling back from the leather uppers, the thick flannel inserts compressed and frayed from years of use. I tugged them on and braced for the cold.  

The water shivers as it splits open, winding from the west. The boat is cold, a cast iron carcass, sleeving through the deep-down weeds and choking fish and ash-sugar surface without a sound. The only sound is the slick of the horse’s tail, filched up by flies. Mist sits on the water like a layer of fat. The water smells of underground, of church stones.