yarns, tales, stories, works of fiction
Driver’s Ed
A Texas Tale
Shortly after World War II, war widow Lorraine with her young son, Kevin, move from their family’s neighborhood in Chicago to rumored-near-tropical Houston, a move needed for Kevin’s medical treatments. These treatments are revealed to be of longer duration than initially hoped, and Lorraine, out of necessity, looks for employment, finding it in the town’s self-described flagship department store. As Lorraine enters the retail workforce and Kevin enters public school, they must learn to cope with the challenges of their new location, their new routines, plus the ever growing cultural and technical changes of post-war modernity.
Holiday on Asphalt
A small family, parents Joy and Roger, and Emma the daughter are on a road-trip vacation in a motorhome, when outside of an eastern Utah town, on a lonely backroad, they come upon a body, apparently that of a bicyclist, ostensibly shot. As the authorities become dutifully involved, the three learn of the familial relationship between the deceased bicyclist and a nearby relative they just happened to be coming to visit. That relative’s reaction to the news of the person’s demise, the question of who pulled the trigger, and subsequent revelations of family secrets, past and present, provide a much more memorable family vacation than the three had ever anticipated.
Clown: Bureaucrats & Love
A novella about “inside the beltway” love and power. Available as a free download.
Loosely based upon Ruggero Leoncavallo’s story Il paliaccio subsequently retitled Pagliacci as the opera is known today, Clown: Bureaucrats & Love is a fable of romance, deceit and business-as-usual that takes place at a small government agency in Washington D.C. It is a tale of love and unrequited love, professional ambition and the caretaking of prestige amongst and between members of the civil service and political appointees, this as staged against the backdrop of the agency in the normal operations over the course of a year. It is a comedy of perceived power, rivalry, and the social conventions amongst those who operate this agency.
Park Road Diary
A young man, Andrew, looks back on his early post high-school years, as he balances work, attending community college and dating, while living at home with his mother and grandmother. He is anxious to find his way in the world while feeling he lacks any sort of guidance, with his home and his immediate neighborhood offering the only stable references in his life. This changes as the city considers an industrial expansion at the end of his block and the Andrew’s actions inadvertently contribute to the death of the city manager. The stable environment that Andrew had relied upon for comfort seems to erode immediately and his dread of change must be confronted.
Sellabration in Traytopia
Recent big-city transplant and new small-town merchant, Arthur, finds himself selected to chair the committee for the Sellabration Days Festival, an annual “retail event” held by the town’s New Lower Old-Towne Merchants Association. His wife and business co-owner, Linda, finds Arthur’s ineptness in this role a source of mirth as Arthur must now reluctantly interact with fellow members of the Association and town-folk. This is complicated when an old friend of Arthur’s moves to town and sets up a business across the street which may be engaged in questionable activities. Arthur and Linda’s desire to keep a low profile is put at risk by the presence of his old friend, and events at the festival, and they must decide to stay or leave.
The Mullica Hill Protective Association for the Recovery of Stolen Horses
The four sons of an immigrant couple make their way in 1920s America. Having grown up in the secure and predictable confines of a small southern New Jersey town, they must each face the prospects of earning their own way in life. At a time of increasing mobility and growing material wealth, their choices appear limited in their home town and the attraction of the nearby expanding cities cannot be denied. Each brother eventually realizes the separate path he finds himself on as they grow beyond adolescence into the full of adulthood. Their home town remains to them a haven of stability and shelter, but its draw weakens over time owing to each their own happenstance, impetuousness and inevitably divergent life paths.
The Mullica Hill Protective Association
for the Recovery of Stolen Horses