Tag: short story

Posted on

Mr. Lilyfoot

Ruth Parker owned over two dozen dolls, and she knew them all.

“This is Snagglepants,” she’d say, holding up a Raggedy Andy with a torn pocket. She called her big Raggedy Ann doll Phyllis and the little one she took everywhere Roo-roo.

Ruth and Roo-roo were best friends. They had three tea sets between them, and if the other dolls were nice, Ruth and Roo-roo would have them for milk and cookies. “But you can’t have any peanuts because Roo’s allergic,” Ruth would remind them. Ruth lived with her parents in a big house on a wooded street.

Aside from Roo-roo, her best friend was the housekeeper, Lena. Lena was tall and her cheeks were very full. As she cooked and cleaned, she sang songs and made cookies for Ruth and Roo-roo’s tea parties, but she always told them she wasn’t supposed to. It was Lena who told her about Mr. Lilyfoot.

Mr. Lilyfoot lived under a tree at the end of the path in the garden behind Ruth’s home. He had a green cap, red overalls and a long white beard. He always smiled.  On nice spring days, Lena would sit in the swing with something to occupy her hands while she watched Ruth play in the yard. When she had to go inside to answer the phone or change a load of laundry, she’d tell Ruth Mr. Lilyfoot would watch after her.

At first Ruth didn’t like Mr. Lilyfoot; he was stiff, not soft like her dolls. She’d hold her little Raggedy Ann up to Mr. Lilyfoot’s smiling face and say, “Roo-roo doesn’t like you!” But Ruth was a sweet child, and when she saw that Mr. Lilyfoot’s face was dirty, she asked Lena for a napkin so she could wipe it off because Mr. Lilyfoot’s arms were always behind him.

Lena laughed at her one windy afternoon when Ruth tied one of her father’s socks around Ms. Lilyfoot’s neck and took care to hide the other one.

***

“Mommie, it’s cold outside. Can Mr. Lilyfoot come sleep in my room?”
Janet Parker brushed her daughter’s dark hair. “Sweetie, who is Mr. Lilyfoot?’
“He’s in the garden,” Ruth said. “He’s wearing a hat, but I know he’s cold”
“Oh, honey, I don’t want that nasty thing in your room,” Janet said.
“He’s not nasty.”
“Ruth, he lives outside. He’s an outdoor doll.”
“He’s not a doll.”
“Well, not like your other dolls, but he’s still a doll.”
“Roo-roo says he isn’t. Roo-roo knows everything.”
Janet cocked an eyebrow at her petulant daughter. “And what does Mommie know?”
“I love you, Mommie!” Ruth launched herself into her mother’s arms and looked into the back yard through the window.

***

When Ruth awakened that afternoon, Mr. Lilyfoot, scrubbed by the ever-patient Lena and bright as a new penny, was smiling at her from the corner of her room. She and Roo-roo immediately arranged a high tea with hot chocolate and frosted cookies.

When Janet looked in on her later she found that Ruth had arranged her favorite dolls around the little table, with Mr. Lilyfoot at its head.

“Mr. Lilyfoot’s warmer now, Mommie. But Roo-roo’s tired,” she said, holding up the little rag doll.
“Well, let’s put her to sleep,” Janet said. She gathered her daughter in her arms, made sure her doll was with her, and put her to bed. She glanced at Mr. Lilyfoot smiling from the corner, lowered the shutters and closed the door.
When Janet brought Ruth’s tray upstairs that night, she heard her daughter laughing from the hallway. She found Ruth sitting up in her bed, clutching Roo-roo, and smiling.
“What’s so funny?” Janet asked.
“Mommie, me and Mr. Lilyfoot took Roo-roo to Magicland, and she had tea with the King!”

Janet tucked a bib under her daughter’s so very thin neck and began feeding her with a spoon. “Did Roo have a good time?”
“She was scared at first because the king was so high up and her legs are really short. But then the king asked her to dance, so she didn’t have to go so far up.”
“Did you dance?” Janet asked.
“No, Mommie,” Ruth said. “I had to help Mr. Lilyfoot make the band play. I’m tired.”
Janet tucked her daughter under the covers, kissed her, climbed onto the sagging cot next to Ruth’s bed and closed her sad eyes.

***

Ruth and Mr. Lilyfoot, with Roo-roo in tow, went everywhere.

The tea parties became a thing of the past. Instead, they took buckets to the beach where they collected shells. Another time they sailed the seas on a boat made of glass and rigged with silver, and once they found a mountain made of chocolate and topped with ice cream. The following morning they went to the moon and found big gold rocks that glittered under the smiling sun. That afternoon Mr. Lilyfoot rearranged the stars, and later they all skated on swirls of light through a sparkling tunnel into a warm, black night.

“Don’t be scared, Roo-roo,” Ruth said. “Mr. Lilyfoot will get us home.”

***

Ruth’s dreams ended. Lena boxed up the dolls for other little girls, and took Mr. Lilyfoot back under the tree at the end of the path.

Posted on

Chasing Dragons

The sun was well up, blaring over the trees when I parked in front of Rick’s apartment building. He stepped out of his door wearing his straw fedora and linen jacket, worn chinos, and canvas loafers, the picture of a dandy gone to seed.

Watching him wrangle his legs down the steep stairs, Ricky suddenly seemed frail to me, and I felt a pang in my chest. I’d known hm for less than five years, but in those years, I’d come to love him like a brother; he’d filled my losses, propped me up, and pushed me back into a life I could lead on my own. He claimed to be sixty-eight, but he said once he remembered seeing Elvis on Ed Sullivan, which added years to that claim.

He clambered into my old truck, and we headed to Linda’s market north of downtown. The market sits far back from traffic under a long tin roof, a colorful oasis in a dull, hot desert of asphalt surrounded by cars parked without regard to space or bearing. As we drew closer, we could hear the shuffling rattle of a homemade pea sheller.

Under the roof, our eyes adjusted to the shade and found melons mottled and striped, green-upon-green, blazing red cayennes, motley purple peas, and speckled beans. We paused over the corn, looking for fresh ears with tight shucks, green stem ends, and sweet-smelling tassels. We chose cucumbers that were slightly under-ripe, firm, and shading to jade.

The tin roof popped as the sun bore down. Ricky walked over to the peaches, rows of baskets filled with Chilton County Elbertas, saffron blushing to carmine, some with stems and leaves. Over these he lingered, walking back and forth, occasionally reaching down to brush one with his fingers, picking another up, holding it to his nose, and putting it down.

I brought him a paper sack and shook it open with a pop. “What do you look for?” I asked.

Ricky snapped out of his reverie, looked at me and smiled. “A dragon,” he said.

“When you’re a child, the world is full of magic things, wonderful things. A few of them amaze you so much you can’t get rid of them,” he said. “Those are the dragons, the ones you keep looking for long after you’ve been stomped on a time or two, and you can’t find the man in the moon anymore.”

“I remember this peach from a basket in Tupelo. When I bit into it, suddenly I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear. That peach just sucked everything out of me, and all I could do was eat that magical peach, and I’ve spent the rest of my life buying lousy peaches chasing that dragon.”

We loaded our sacks in the truck. As we were pulling onto the highway, Ricky reached into the back, rummaged around and pulled out a peach. He wiped it with the handkerchief he kept in his back pocket, turned it around in his hand, then took a bite. I looked at him expectantly. He smiled and shook his head, rolled down the window, and threw it out.

“I’ll find it one day,” he said, and my heart broke.

Posted on

Nipping the Bud

The afternoon had been long, impeded by discoveries of even more cracks to caulk, more questions to quell, more smoke, more smiling. Now the sun was slatted on the wall, and he heard Mazie closing her office. She came through his door minutes later, a sheaf of files in her hand.

“This is the last of them,” she said. “Do you want me to take them to the bank?”

“No,” Clayton said. “I’ve got to go see Eddie later, just leave them here.” Mazie hesitated.

“Just leave them here,” Clayton repeated. “I’ll take care of them. And Mazie, you should know that I’ve decided to let you have that free time you’ve always wanted.”

“Free time?”

“Yes,” Clayton said. “Now that Jack is gone, I’ve decided to make some changes, and one of them is rewarding you for your service to the firm. You and Bud will be able to take those long fishing trips you’ve always wanted.”

Mazie looked at him steadily. “You’re firing me.”

“I’ll give you a nice severance check, and you have the retirement account Jack set up for you,” Clayton said. “Things are changing, and we need someone who knows all these new gadgets we’re using better than you do.”

“You won’t get away with it. I know things,” Mazie said.

“I know things, too,” Clayton said. “I know lots of things, Mazie. Like I know that Jack kept Bud out of prison fifteen years ago, and I know why. There’s no statute of limitation on murder, you know. I have the evidence.”

“It was an accident,” Mazie said, too quickly. She knew that Clayton would have the facts that Bud fired the shots that ended the woman’s life, and shots fired with malice and deliberation. Jack, only Jack, could have kept Bud out of prison, and he did somehow, before Clayton had joined the firm. Mazie didn’t even know that Clayton knew about it, but now that he did, and now that he intended to use it to keep Mazie at home and silent, she set her mouth.

“Then I’ll go,” she said. “You’re a bastard, Clayton Isley, a shit-splattered son-of-a-bitch. Your buddy Ward Mason is in the conference room. He said you told him to come in the back door. If Jack were here . . .”

Clayton pounded his fist on the desk. “Jack is NOT here! Jack is DEAD! I’m in charge now, and things are going to be different around here.” He sat back in his chair, breathing heavily and loosened his tie. “Go home, Mazie. And don’t forget what I said about Bud.”

Mazie left, her face set in fury and resignation. Clayton took the files she had been holding, the last of Jack Delancy’s records, and tossed them into the smoldering incinerator out back as he had done the rest of them.

He walked down the hall to the conference room. At the end of the table sat a wiry muscular man dressed in a threadbare jacket and a badly-pressed shirt. His watery blue eyes were set in a long face topped with thinning blond hair. His hands held a cigarette that wobbled slightly over the ashtray.

“Hey, Clayton!” the man said. His smile was wide, and his teeth were large, long and bright.

Clayton walked to a cabinet against the wall and poured a generous shot of whiskey into a glass. He sat the drink and bottle on the table next to the man and watched as he gulped down the drink, wiped his mouth with a hairy hand and poured another.

“How’ve you been, Ward?”

“Great! Great!  I got a new car last week, found a place down on Hooper Road, and I’m going to start fixing up the cabins on the lake, run the snakes out, do some rewiring, fix the plumbing, you know.”

“That’s just fine,” Clayton said. “You know, Ward, since Jack died . . . “

“Loved Jack!” Ward said. “He knew that boy was all about a bunch of lies, sayin’ I did all those things. Hell, I got kids of my own, you know. Love kids.”

Clayton looked at him. “Well, I believe that, Ward, I really do. You know, Frances has been a total mess since Jack died.”

“I can see why,” Ward said, nodding. “Losing a husband like that and them both in the prime of life.”

“She’s been having a lot of problems,” Clayton said. “We’ve had to keep her under a lot of sedation. I talked to a psychiatrist in Birmingham and he said it’s best that she goes to a place where she can get some rest, a private hospital he runs up in Gardendale. My wife and I are going to take care of the little girl, but the boy, well, he needs attention, and that’s why I asked you here.”

Ward’s smile faltered. “What do you mean, Clayton?”

“Well, a boy his age, he’ll be fourteen next week, a boy his age needs a man in his life, and I just don’t have the time,” Clayton said. “Now, I’ve arranged for him to be sent away to school, to a school up in North Carolina, not really a military academy, just an all-boys school that stresses discipline. But I think it would be a good idea for him to get to the country for a while before he goes, and I think you ought to take him with you up to the lake. Take him fishing, get some good fresh air. It’ll only be for a month or so.”

Ward licked his lips. “Clayton, you know, that boy in Jackson who got me into trouble . . .”

“I know all about the boy in Jackson,” Clayton said. He also knew about the boy in Mobile, the boy in Greenwood and the one in Memphis. He had seen the photographs Ward had taken, the looks in the boys’ eyes, and he knew that if it weren’t for Jack, Ward would probably be dead; either shot by a father or killed in prison.

“But Frances . . .”

“Frances doesn’t need to know,” Clayton said. “Nobody needs to know but you and me. I’ll bring him to you myself next Friday to stay with you at the lake. You can go fishing, take the boat out, skinny-dippin’ . . . He’s a good-looking kid. You two should have a good time together. I’ll pick him up in six weeks, in time for school.”

“Nobody’s gonna know?” Ward asked.

“Nope,” Clayton said. “I’ll pay you, of course. Cash. I’ll arrange for you to pick it up at the bait shop on Cane Creek.” He took out a manila envelope and pushed it across the table.
“Here’s some photos of him at the swimming pool.”

Ward opened the envelope. A smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. He replaced the photos and put the money in his jacket pocket. “Wonder if he’s a real redhead?”

Clayton looked at him. “I’m sure you’ll find out, Ward. Now you’d better go. Did you park at the supermarket like I told you?”

“Yeah, and I came down the alley.”

“Okay, I’ll see you Friday,” Clayton said. “Now get the hell out of here.”

Ward left. It was dusk. Clayton drew a cigar from his shirt pocket, lit it and leaned back in his chair. Sometimes, he thought, it isn’t enough just to kill a man.