Boy Soldier
AI-generated imageby Sascha Goluboff
Little Bobby Scofield didn’t want to go to the carnival. He’d rather play with the toy soldiers he’d set up as a battle between the Marines and the Viet Cong, but here he was with his mom, reluctantly walking the Midway the summer before sixth grade, kaleidoscope lights pulsing against a dark sky. Popping balloons at the dart game sounded off like sniper fire.
“Five-minute caricature,” a man called out from a tent behind concessions. He leaned on a snake-headed cane. His hair was white but his face unlined.
“Wouldn’t that be fun?” Bobby’s mom asked.
Bobby shrugged.
“What’s the boy into?” The man ushered Bobby to sit by an easel.
“His army men.”
“Marines, mom.”
She gazed outside, lost again in her own world.
The man sharpened a charcoal stick with his fingernail. He sketched in large loopy strokes. Bobby’s eyelids grew heavy.
Bobby liked to reenact the Battle of Hue City in Vietnam. Maybe if he'd been there – all grown up – he might have saved his dad and his fellow Marines.
The snake cane flicked its tongue.
“You wanna be a hero?” the man asked.
Bobby nodded.
The man handed him the portrait – Bobby in camo.
Bobby stumbled out of the tent into Hue City, leaving his mom behind. Real gun fire crackled across a sooty sky.
Bobby spotted his dad across the rubble and yelled out to him.
His dad turned to him in a flash of recognition. He moved towards Bobby, arms outstretched. A grenade detonated between them. His dad careened backwards in a red shatter. Bobby was thrown against a concrete wall.
When Bobby came to, he felt the snake curled mockingly around his feet.
“Hero,” it hissed.
Sascha Goluboff is a writer, mother, and academic who lives in Virginia. Her personal website is saschagoluboff.com.
A Mourning @ Dairy Queen
By Anthony David Vernon
My father told me I once pushed Alonzo Mourning.
But my mother says my dad is a compulsive liar.
My father told me we were in line at a roadside Dairy Queen, I couldn’t have been more than five, and Alonzo Mourning (with his son) was waiting in front of us.
But my mother says that she would never let me spend time alone with my dad when I was that young.
My father told me I pushed Alonzo Mourning at the Dairy Queen on US 1, by the Metro Rail, with the triangular punch yellow roof, the one you couldn’t go inside of.
But my mother says my father has two personalities: John A & John B.
My father told me that I really wanted my ice cream, so I tried to move Alonzo Mourning out of my way.
But my mother says I was never so bold as a child.
My father told me laughingly, “Of course, Alonzo Mourning didn’t move an inch.”
But my mother says my dad likes to make up stories.
My father told me I made my way in front of Alonzo Mourning, and that he grabbed me while apologizing to Alonzo Mourning.
But my mother says my dad would never apologize to anyone for anything.
My father told me that Alonzo Mourning calmly told him, “It’s okay, little man just wanted some ice cream.”
My father says I was too young to remember if I really did push Alonzo Mourning at that now closed-down Dairy Queen.
But my mother says that I have the memory of Ganesha.
My father says he doesn’t recall if I really pushed Alonzo Mourning and doesn’t even recall telling me the story.
But my mother says it is okay if I want my father’s stories to be true.
Anthony David Vernon is a fan of ice cream and knows chocolate is objectively the best flavor of ice cream.
Smoking
by R.K. West
Mike smoked more than anyone else I’ve ever known. He used the last half inch of his cigarette to light the next one, and could keep doing that for hours. Unlike all the other smokers I know, he had no brand preference. He’d consume a pack of Camels one day, and puff away at Marlboros the next. Watching him fire up a menthol Tiparillo with the stub of a Newport, I commented on his lack of brand loyalty, and he laughed. “In the eighties I smoked Virginia Slims almost exclusively,” he said, “because it really pissed off my old man.”
R.K. West is a former ESL teacher and travel blogger currently hiding out in the Pacific Northwest.
Credit: This piece originally appeared at Six Sentences.
Loose Change
Creative non-fiction
by William F. Smith
Our family was poor. Not so poor that we didn’t have clothes to wear, but poor enough that the clothes we did wear showed it. I didn’t think much about it, knowing that there were other families who had it worse.
One incident that I remember quite distinctly happened in the eighth grade. It was the end of the school year, and the class was going on a picnic. There were about 25 or 30 in the class. Apparently, there was a considerable amount of money in the class treasury, the money we had collected throughout the year from fund-raising activities. Our class gift to the school already having been bought, and the picnic already paid for, we could use the rest of the money as we saw fit. So it was voted to divide it among the members of the class. The English teacher who was in charge of the matter proceeded to figure out how much each student should get. All she had to do was divide the amount of money by the amount of students. On the day of the picnic the money was passed out, and you would think that would have been the end of that. But wait!
Remember, she taught English, not math. Somehow, she said, there was a little money left over. Not much, it would only amount to a few cents for each student, so she thought it would be a good idea to give it all to one of the more needy students, and what, she asked, did the class think of that? Naturally, the class thought that was all right. So the teacher proceeded to call this needy student to the front of the class to make the donation. And who do you think that needy student was?
Can you imagine how I felt to be called before the class to accept this money, not because it was a prize for being the best student, not because I had won it in an essay contest, not because I had earned it by selling the most candy, but because the teacher thought I was the neediest pupil? My face was hot, and I felt like sinking down through a crack in the floor, but what could I do? Her intentions were good, I suppose, but her way of carrying them out was dreadful. And do you imagine it raised my self-esteem any to have the other members of the class ask me how much was there, and when I counted it to find it was close to $10 – loose change from each member of the class?
Of course, after a few days it didn’t bother me any more - I forgot it consciously and suppressed the hot shame that smoldered in my stomach. To this day I cannot negotiate a salary or apply for a loan, or have anyone question me about financial matters, without feeling that sickening heat in my gut.
William F. Smith's stories, humorous verse and photographs have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mike Shane Mystery Magazine and Reader’s Digest. His stories have been included in several anthologies.
Interview with an Artist
By Michael Neal Morris
You lay the iPad on your chest. You start to fall asleep, but don’t quite get there. Setting into the hard pillow, you begin to tell yourself variations on the same story. You are deep, an artist, and you are being discovered, finally. A nice man interviews you, says he wished he’d discovered you much earlier.
You have wise words for the interviewer, but they don’t come, so you just lay there in your mind being philosophical and genial about nothing in particular. There is a voice over and images of you -- having dinner with your partner and children, speaking at a seminar, you volunteering for the animal shelter, people talking with you, you in quiet reflection as you create -- play in a montage as his deep baritone intones like a cantor something about your value.
But your back aches and you turn uncomfortably on the bed. You remember your age and try not to repeat the number and the old voice tells you should be ashamed. That no one is interested in your work or will be. That it’s just the breaks and you haven’t done anything in years, nothing to get excited about. That if you are honest, you’re a hobbyist, and the worst kind: someone who talks more than produces.
You get up. Your partner is sleeping quietly, light snores coming from her tired face. You stand and put the iPad on the night table. You go into the bathroom and without turning the light on, piss with practiced precision.
Entering the living room, you push the tiny button on the remote and turn the television on, quickly lowering the volume, lest you wake anyone up.
Michael Neal Morris has published several stories, poems, and essays in print and online. He lives with his family just outside the Dallas area and teaches Composition and Creative Writing at Dallas College’s Eastfield campus.
Michael Neal Morris:
Notes from the Overground, Books on Smashwords, This Blue Monk, Blue Monk Music
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