Hey! It’s Time For Some Fun Fiction!!

Please Note ! This piece was originally written in the 1980s to be performed live onstage. I did it a few times in bookstore readings and Story Telling events. They had no idea what to make of it.

Imagine this scene as a part of an old Humphrey Bogart movie or some Film Noir epic. Lots of shadows and sinister music. The only difference is that my detective is not the hard-boiled type. He is closer to  “Poached.”

This was the first episode of a series called “The Henway Chronicles.”

***

The Coffee Shop

A steady drizzle was falling – giving the dark city streets a sugar glaze that hid the bitterness of the late night.

As I walked into the coffee shop the red plastic counter stools gleamed a promise of hot coffee and maybe something to fill the void inside me.

A flash of green caught the corner of my eye. Sitting in the last booth next to the aging Wurlitzer Jukebox was, perhaps, the best looking woman these eyes had ever seen. And these eyes have seen everything and not liked most of it. Dark red hair the color of Irish heartbreak fell to her shoulders, a cup of coffee, half gone, sat in front of the lady who was completely gone.

The flash of green was a crisp $100 bill that she was spinning on the Formica tabletop.

I told the guy behind the counter, an old friend I’d never met before, to give the lady a refill – on me. He just grunted. He’d played this scene a hundred times before.

Déjà Vu on a damp night.

“HI, Doll. My name’s Henway. I’m a Dick – head of the best P.I. outfit in town.”

She looked up at me with two green eyes that flashed more than the Century Note and gave me a look that said both, “Hold my hand,” and “Go hold your own.”

I sat down and waited until our cups were filled the hot inky coffee and my old pal went back to his station by the cake dish.

“Tell me about it,” I said. “Maybe I can help.”

Those two emerald colored eyes looked over at me and her two too red lips parted. “Raaazzz,” was all she said. I used a napkin to clean my glasses.

“I think I understand,” I said with a nod.

“Your guy’s been two-timing you and tonight he got a little too rough when you called him on it. You ran out of the house in tears and now you’re here at 3 in the AM, afraid to go home. All dressed up and no place to go – right? And the hundred? You keep that pinned to your slip for emergencies. It’s enough to get you bus fare back home, right? Your name is Lily, you’re a Taurus, and you think men in pointy shoes are a turn-off, right? You had fried clams and a Valium for dinner and you think Barry Manilow sucks like a Hoover. Right, Dollface?”

They don’t make paper napkins like they used to.

It was obvious that the lady had a problem staring her in the face. I got up from the booth.

“I guess I hit too close to home, huh kid? Well maybe you just need to be alone to work it all out, right?”

I tossed a dime onto the table and it rolled a lazy figure eight around two crumpled napkins and came to rest in a pile of sugar next to her spoon.

“Here, call a cab and go home,” I said. “It’s late and a swell looking dame like you shouldn’t be out alone on the streets in this neighborhood. Nothing but Freaks, Geeks, and Low-lifes out there this time of night.”

I turned to leave, my thoughts already focusing on the last piece of German chocolate Cake I’d seen sitting under the plastic dome on the counter.

“Hey, Mister?” I heard her say in a voice like white silk.

“Hey, Mister?”

I stopped  and turned.

“Yeah, Dollface?”

“Raazzzzzze.”

Some people just ain’t got no class.

 

Something Is Brewing

 

Oh, Man! Am I getting tired of this – or what? It’s not the omnipresent virus and all of the foofuraw surrounding it that I’m talking about here. I’ve already done too much of that. There is nothing new for me to say about it or for you to read about.

No.

What I’m talking about is COFFEE.

You know- that golden nectar that every day brings millions of people back to life? That liquid DNA that transforms us from mere meat with shoes on into a planet filled with creative men and women – some of whom know the difference between coffee and …anything else you might pour down your throat in the morning.

I started drinking coffee when I was in high school. I wanted to look “grown up” and coffee seemed to be my best way to look older and more worldly. Of course I put enough sugar in my grownup looking coffee cup to trigger a Diabetic Episode and three cavities, but I looked “Mature.”

All through college, a long and tortuous journey, I stayed with coffee. By that time I was hooked on the need for the caffeine but the mass amount of sugar faded until it was gone the way of bicycle training wheels and that ridiculously futile crush on Jayne Mansfield.

The sugar was gone which left me with a cup filled with black coffee. I didn’t like black coffee and I still don’t. I don’t hate it. I’ll drink it in a pinch or an emergency. For instance, if some alien species from another world landed here on earth and fell in love with our bovines and cownapped them all back to their home galaxy there would be a crisis in a cup. If that happens I will be forced to drink my coffee black. And don’t even talk to me about “Non-Dairy Coffee Creamers.” Paint belongs on the walls not in my mug.

As time passed my coffee needs did not really change, except perhaps in the quantity consumed, but Coffee Technology was in the fast lane. I went from a metal percolator to the first generation of Mr. Coffee drip brewers, Italian espresso in those tiny cups that were never enough. There was a brief romance with a French Press (It never would have lasted there was just too much pressure.). Then came the explosion known as Starbucks. They were everywhere. Where I lived in the city of San Francisco there were five Starbucks within walking distance for me…and if you know me at all you know that “walking distance” for me is “Drunken stupor crawling on all fours” for most other people.

I liked Starbucks coffee from the beginning. They brew it strong and I like my coffee to be able to fight back if it ever finds itself being poured in a dark alley. I have been a loyal slurper in Starbucks all over the country and even overseas. I have no complaints. But now a pretender to the Throne of the Golden Bean is in my kitchen.

Keurig!

I was first introduced to these devilish little machines a couple of years ago. It was Love at First Sip. Here was something that would let me brew myself a cup of coffee – toss it down my pie hole – and then, almost immediately make another, but a totally different flavor. I could do that all afternoon. And Morning. And Evening.

In deciding to write about this I knew that some people might disagree with me and my thoughts. Well, frankly, I’m not bothered by that. I might offer to share a cup with them and if they don’t see the error of their ways, may they spend the rest of their life drinking Airline coffee. I’m an easy going guy…at least until my tenth cup of the day kicks in.

 

 

The Angel Is In The Details

 

“People come and go so slowly here.”

It wasn’t the Cowardly Lion who said that and we are certainly not in anyone’s Oz. In fact, it seems that we are stuck in an opposite place – “Bitter Reality Land.”

The strange reality of the last month and more has created a new world. I’m not saying that it is one that I enjoy or even understand completely. It is…different – Different in a number of ways that are unfamiliar in my experience and I feel sure is unfamiliar in our collective experience as a nation. It is all rather upsetting. Stores that I like are closed. Restaurants are reduced to drive through lanes and forget it if you need a haircut. And then there are the masks.

“Who was that Masked Man?”

The doors at my bank are locked and you can enter by appointment only. Inside everyone is wearing a mask, including the person who handles mortgages and the like. That masked man is known as The Loan Arranger.

I know that I am not alone when I say that I do not like wearing a mask. I find them uncomfortable and they make my glasses fog up. The Where and When I am supposed to wear such a mask is revealed daily by a variety of contradictory “experts” who can’t seem to agree on anything. They don’t exactly inspire confidence and confidence is what people need right now. I do…and I’m people too. I can prove it. I watched all of Game of Thrones.

Things have changed while we are living, and in some cases dying, with this virus business. But change is a nonstop thing and, in time – long or short – we will start to rebuild our daily lives. Like any reconstruction project the target of the restoration will be different than what it was before no matter how hard we try to make it an exact copy.

As we restore our personal lives we will make changes big and small intentional and accidental. My question is how do you think your life will be different – post virus? Will it be better or worse? How do you want it to be different? This is something I think that we, each of us, have to start thinking about now! Think about it now when, like it or not, most of us have plenty of idle time on our hands. I know how I’m going to approach this.

How I intend to plan my life, however long or short that may be, is to carry around a small notebook and a pen so I can jot down my own personal thunderbolts of wisdom. I know that I want there to be changes. There will be changes in the things that I do and there will be changes in how I respond to other things as they affect me. There will probably be some big changes, but most will be so small that I will be the only person who will notice them. I’m cool with that. After all, in the larger scheme of the universe, I am nobody else’s business. I have no desire to control anyone else and I certainly don’t want to be someone else’s android.

I R2 D-etermined to allow that to happen.

I’m going to start planning my new Chez Krafty today. I will not be caught in a New Life without have a set of detailed blueprints. This brush with a planetary scare has made me realize that I have spent most of my life just drifting. I have drifted from one career to another, from one hometown to another, from one relationship to another, and from one set of standards to another.  But from now on I will be controlling the tides. Many, if not most of the things and people in my life will remain – but there are going to be changes. If there aren’t any changes it would prove that I just haven’t been paying attention – and trust me –

I have.

Weather Or Not

 

We are in that awkward transitional time of the year. It’s not really Winter any longer, even though there are mornings when we awaken to find snow on the ground. It is not really Springtime either. There may be a robin or two scouting for worms in the yard, but their red breasts are still shivering in the cold.

This is that spot on the calendar where we don’t know how to dress. Should I put on the old college sweats that have always kept me warm or should I try on that new short sleeve shirt I was given at Christmas?

These are the days when we don’t know which way to turn.  What should we do to be comfortable? What makes sense? Don’t ask me.

I find this time of year to be transitional in more ways than just the weather. It is really the start of the time when we make life decisions. It is our Intellectual Springtime as well. Do we make that move to a new job, a new home, a new life? Or do we drag out the old and the comfortable for one more year? Do we try something new or do we postpone everything? For how many years can we mimic the weather patterns of being neither this nor that and being unsatisfied with both? Eventually we either have to make those choices and move on, or we must retreat into our closet and move to the rear where we keep the clothes we can’t bring ourselves to throw out.

The weather outside my window right now is at 51 degrees with a cold wind and showers threatening. Inside it is me in an old sweatshirt wondering what I should do about a dozen different things. Not all of those questions are life altering. Some are, but most are as simple as “What should I have for breakfast?”  Coming up with “French Toast” is not as earth shaking a decision as choosing to change careers, become a Parent, or to “Tune In, Turn On, and Drop Out” as many of us considered in the 1960s. Facing the simple questions is easy, but there are some that are soul wrenching.

Whether or not the Weather pleases us is really a temporary situation. No matter what it is like right now outside of my window I won’t have to wait long before it changes. On this planet Winter does give way to Spring and then on to Summer, Autumn, and then back to Winter again. We can choose which season we like the best but we can’t speed up its arrival or slow down its demise. We have to deal with what is in front of us now.

Our Life is different from our place in the flow of the Weather as it transitions through the year. We can be happy with our life or not, but if we are unhappy we can also do a great deal about it. We have Choices. We can choose wisely and enhance our life bringing us joy or we can choose poorly and send our life careening through the years like an out of control car. Often we can’t recognize the wisdom or the errors of our choices until time passes and there is no going back. Life rarely gives us a “Mulligan.” All we can do is think, learn, pray, and do our best when we come to those crossroads.

Whether we live through the Weather of our life enjoying our days, or we grumble and complain about everything is really our Ultimate Choice.

In this world there are Happy People who always seem to have a genuine smile on their face and then there are Unhappy People. Those are the ones who may also have a smile for the world to see, but are never content no matter what their station in life. They could be fabulously wealthy and famous, but they never have “enough.’ These are the people for whom the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.  

While the Weather outside my window is not to my liking I know that better days are coming and that is what keeps me going. I know for a fact that there will be warmer days when my body will not be so rebellious. The sun will shine and it will put a pleasing glow on my face. All I have to do is be patient and wait for it to arrive. Complaining won’t make it come any sooner. It will get here Whether the Weather today is warm or not.

 

Oatmeal and Ham

 

Oatmeal and Ham

 

Tradition! It’s more than a song from “Fiddler on the Roof.” It is what has us doing things from generation to generation even if we don’t really know why.

“We’ve always done it that way.”

For example: From my youngest days up until this very morning I have always eaten my nice steaming bowl of oatmeal covered not with fruit, sugar, or maple syrup, but with salt. I’ve never known anyone else who does that, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I like it with salt, but why?

I wondered about that for years without ever finding a satisfactory answer. Finally, after decades of eating my salty oatmeal, I asked my Mother. This is what she told me.

My mother was born in 1911, one of nine children in an immigrant family. Oatmeal was a cheap way of filling those tiny tummies before sending them off to school. What wasn’t cheap was enough sugar, fruit, or syrup to sweeten up all those bowls of oatmeal. So, in an effort to give the kid’s breakfasts some flavor my grandmother salted their oatmeal.

My mother ate salted oatmeal in her youth and when she had kids she passed that recipe on to her children. It became an instant tradition in our family. Even though I could afford some sugar or some other sweeteners I still reach for the salt shaker more than a hundred years after that poor family of Lithuanian immigrants didn’t have the money for sugar.

Tradition!

Someone told me, over coffee, about a mysterious tradition in her family.

This is where the Ham enters the picture.

The woman told me that whenever she bought a ham she would cut off a sizable chunk from one end before cooking. She’d been doing that for years…because that was the way her mother always cooked ham. It had become a family tradition.

After a number of years her mother was visiting her daughter who was going to serve ham for Sunday dinner. When the mother saw her daughter cut off the end from the ham and set it aside she asked her why she was doing that.

“I learned how to cook watching you and I always saw you cut off the end of the ham before putting it in the oven. I figured it was part of your secret recipe.”

When the mother finally stopped laughing she explained that her practice of cutting off part of a ham was because she never had a pan large enough to hold a full sized ham. She always trimmed it down just to fit the pan she did have.

Tradition!

Tradition is a shared memory that is passed from one generation to the next. It can serve to teach or to warn by passing on what the older generation had to learn the hard way. Whether it be an oversized ham, a bowl of salty oatmeal, or something equally mundane it is the simple traditions that glue the generations together and make us all Family.

 

Tradition!