INVENTED FAMILIES: Two Stories in Five Parts Each. (25,791 words, 103 pages)

THE PARENTS WE DESERVE

The Parents We Deserve: When the parents of Paul and Paula, a rich young couple, die, they adopt new ones, Myron and Myrna.The foursome begin their subsequent adventures in New York, then pass through Heaven and Purgatory to Florida, where they meet up with Paul and Paula's real parents. Finally, they receive a valedictory letter from God. Four parts plus an epilogue.

The Parents We Deserve (1)*
The Parents We (Still) Deserve (2)
The Parents We Deserve: A Time of Reckoning (3)
The Parents We Deserve: In Search of Filial Closure (4)
The Parents We Deserve: Epilogue. The Letter.
(11,753 words, 51 pages)

* Part One appeared in Ellipsis, August 2006.


SAMPLES

1. from The Parents We Deserve (1):

After what seemed an eternity, it finally happened: they died. Paula’s mother (87) went first, and, two months later, her dad (89) came tumbling after.

“Oh, Paul,” she sniffed. “Now I’m an orphan, too.”

“There, there, babe,” he said with a smile, “we all gotta go sometime.” And they began to talk about whether to sell the Palm Beach condo immediately or to rent it month- to-month while they considered their options. Three weeks later, the magnificent property (two bedrooms, three baths, golf course view) was gone: a million, seven. Which brought their share of the total estate (one sibling, after taxes) to a decent, but not outrageous, 14.265.

Was it mere coincidence that their names, Paul (Mergers) and Paula (Acquisitions), were so similar? Hardly. A decade earlier, and about a month into the negotiations for what they would soon be jocularly calling their “non-hostile mutual takeover,” the name question had popped up at an expensive restaurant.

The expert waiter, having finished serving the snails, and having opened the excellent bottle of Pinot Egrigio for both diners to taste and praise, glided off into the restaurant’s dim recesses. The foreground music was loud and sexy: romantic.

“Paula and Paul,” Paula said, reaching over to take Paul’s hand.

Looking into her eyes, he said, “Paul and Paula, it was meant to be.”

“Yep. To love.”

“To self-love.”

Clinking glasses, they drank to that.

***

2. from The Parents We Deserve (4):

While they ate, of course, they talked, mostly with their mouths full. The exceptions were Paul and Myron, both of whom prided themselves on emulating the table manners of imaginary aristocrats. Paul was in survival mode during this dinner, wishing he were anywhere but here -–on the bench in hell, say, instead of Chad Green, or even standing before the bench in heaven of that consummate hypocrite whom Myron called Judge Drop.

Speaking of whom (Myron), as he was used to watching mush go through the spin cycle in Myrna’s mouth, his sensibilities in this regard, like so many of his other faculties, had come untenured --atrophied. Jabbing at his peas, he amused himself by hitting imaginary golf shots, fantasizing that he was trouncing Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson put together, although deep down he knew he could have been playing three-hole miniature golf his whole life and his score for one hole would still be higher than those of the two aces for an entire tournament --put together. Know thyself: Myron’s hand-eye coordination ran only to small squares of pasteboard. Up till now, in fact, he had successfully eschewed golf, as immune to the clumsy verbal thrusts of the living fruit-and-nut importer (who did play) as he had been to those of the dead tailor (who had also played). Or, as Myron put it, “Golf plays them.”

Suddenly, just as he was about to sink a three hundred yard putt backwards through his legs on the ninetieth hole using a tiny pastry whisk, he almost forgot himself. “Fore!” he shouted. He caught himself. “For heaven’s sake, Gert, Biff, Doug, Jacqui, it’s really great to meet…”

“Scott!” Scott corrected him, shoving home a forkful of mashed potatoes.

“It’s Myron, Doug, not Scott. But never mind. Nice meat loaf. Don’t let yours loaf, either. Yes, it’s pretty good to see you all, especially you, Dou …”

Paula intervened. “Allow me, Dads. Myron, remember? This is Scott. Scott, Myron. He thinks your name is ‘Doug,’ Dad. He doesn’t think your name is Scott, Myron.”

“That really clears it up, P,” said her grouchy spouse.

“The fish is excellent,” observed Peacemaker Myrna, who had been chewing the same piece of chicken breast for several minutes.



THE RENTED PET*:
This story is what I'd consider a genre-bender. Set in working-class Brooklyn during the 1970's, The Rented Pet is a lyrical prose serial about two dogs and the humans in their constellation.

Part One: Renting the Pet
Part Two: The Pet in Peril
Part Three: A Second Pet
Part Four: A Celebration of Pets
Epilogue: Death of Two Pets


SAMPLES:

from Part One:

Jerry Kaplan dry-washed the sawdust from his hands and slowly walked toward the front of his shop. Through the open door, he saw cars flashing by in the sun. Jerry's Lumber stands on a wide, gently sloping one-way street which runs down past an expressway entrance, and the traffic on this particular early Saturday morning was moderately heavy, as it normally is there and then. Any minute now, business would start trickling in, and soon Jerry would be selling plywood, wall molding and pine planks, all cut to customers' sixteenth-of-an-inch specifications (which often turned out to be wrong). Perhaps he would even sell the odd board-with-hole-in-the-middle, a board destined for use as part of a home gas dryer window exhaust unit. That board, twenty-eight to thirty-two inches by five inches of one-half-inch plywood, with its difficult to cut, four-inch, round hole, would cost you five dollars.

Jerry stood in the frame of the pulled-up garage door that served as the front entrance to his shop. He looked at nothing for perhaps a minute and then saw coming down the street a woman whom he immediately tagged as "Frustrated Spinster.” Among the visible features which inspired this snap judgment were: straight, skinny, stick-like legs somehow dominated by the shins, and encased in black stockings with a bluish tinge; sadly inadequate breasts and chin; a thin plain face marked only by a gash of lipstick so red you could taste it; a shapeless black dress too warm for this June day and too long or short (hem cutting sticks at mid-shin); a small, square, red plastic pocketbook that looked silly; and the absence of an appreciable behind.

Epilogue:

Of course, the dogs did finally age and die. Rex went off on a March night and, like the survivor in many old human couples, a few days later, Julia hurried after. It was Jerry Kaplan who tearfully made the four-by-four double coffin of pre-treated two-inch yellow pine, and Joe Bassano who, in a small company van on a rainy Friday, drove the deceased and their survivors to a small cottage owned by Dr. Matt Brunn in the Catskill Mountains. There, in a grove behind the cottage, the animals were laid to rest in a grave which Dr. Brunn had called ahead to order dug by local workmen.

After a moment of silence, Eddie Mays took Charles Miller by the arm and guided him around to the far side of the grave. (Miller had judged it best to leave his own dog, Bob, home today.) Facing the grave, the blind man stood with the rain falling on his red hair and dark glasses, and listened to the footsteps of Mays as he rejoined the group. Then, clasping the lapel of his flannel suit coat with one hand and gesticulating with the other, Miller recited without preamble the eulogy he had composed in his room the previous night.

"Amen!" and "Here, here!" the people cry softly, then, and Mays walks back across to Miller. He takes him by the arm, returns him to the group, and, in a silent row, the six humans stand with bowed heads, as the rain thumps down on the dogs' new coffin.

* nth position, April 2008. link to text