Longshot Fiction

This week’s writing prompt: So, think of a character and decide what he or she needs/wants to buy and write it out.

The premise was that you can learn a lot about a character by sending them on a shopping trip. It’s a fun exercise to be sure, but a little hard because I don’t really write fiction very much. While I was thinking about this during the week, I realized one of the reasons I don’t write more fiction. I have a phobia of people thinking it’s autobiographical. I write about my life all the time, but it’s obvious that I’m writing from personal experience. Or so I hope. But the thought of someone taking a scene or a character from something I write and positing it as motivated by my own personal experience/beliefs just makes me cringe. I realize this is because I am probably a psychotic control freak. But it doesn’t change the fact that I fear the reader’s (mis)interpretation whenever I write fiction.

Is it just me?

Anyway….




Skywater Longshot looked longingly up at the climbing wall in the sporting goods store. It would be a ridiculously easy for her to scale it’s two story height, but still she longed to be doing that – or pretty much anything else – rather than shopping. Skywater Longshot was not a shopper.

Unfortunately she really, really needed a new pair of tights. Crime fighting was hard on the wardrobe. If only her superpowers included invisibility, she’d just do justice while naked and save herself all the time and trouble of buying replacement parts for her costume. On the other hand, naked superheroing might require some sort of skin cream to combat the chaffing that would no doubt ensue.

In reality, Skywater wore more clothing than your average female superhero. Today she was purchasing a new pair of full length black tights to replace the ones that had been sacrificed to a nasty case of road rash last week when she’d been run over by a speeding Hummer full of escaping baddies fleeing a botched bank robbery.

In addition to the ankle length tights, she also wore a long sleeved mock turtle-neck, black as well, under a black, knee length cape which did an admirable job of hiding a posterior not entirely ready for prime time. Skywater finished off her costume with a pair of bright yellow wrestler’s boots and a matching yellow mask. Yellow was supposed to induce happiness. In Skywater's case it induced a sort of tepid goodwill.

She pondered color-induced cheerfulness as she traipsed past a display of terry cloth sweat bands. There was a pair of wrist bands at the front that would just match her boots and mask. Picking up the cardboard backer they were attached to, Skywater ran her fingers under the edge of the band, pulling lightly, testing the strength of the elastic.

It tested badly. These were more for looks than function. Skywater replaced them and moved on. They’d given her an idea, though. She would look for some gloves. Yellow. Yellow gloves were exactly what she needed. And new tights, of course.
Her pace quickened and she headed for the baseball section. Batting gloves would work. A good pair of leather batting gloves in a feisty canary yellow would protect the skin of her hands and wrist much more effectively than a strip of elasticized terry cloth. And skin protection was important.

In the baseball area she found a small bit of wall with pairs of batting gloves pinned to it. The gloves appeared to be arranged at random – more by color than by size. At first there seemed to be nothing but black and white. Upon closer inspection she found a couple of red pair, four blue and finally, in the top corner, two pairs of yellow. Perfect.

Standing on tiptoe, she reached up as far as she could, fingers grazing the bottom of the gloves. Just as she reached her limit, teetering precariously on the ends of her toes, something popped out of the middle of the gloves, right at eye level and launched for her face. It snarled. Skywater yelped.

She jumped back, knocking over a rack of aluminum baseball bats that clanged violently against the concrete floor. The pimply-faced kid who was restocking socks doubled over laughing. The manager was unimpressed with them both and barked an order at the stock boy. Scrambling to her feet, Skywater glared at the rack of gloves, then turned in a slow circle, eyes scanning furiously.

“I know it’s you, you little rat,” she hissed. Her reply was an angry squeaking noise coming from beneath a stack of t-shirts. “All rodents are rats,” she said, picking up the shirts. “Especially those that act like you!”

A small white mouse wearing a tiny yellow cape was rolling around on the table under the shirts. It appeared to be laughing uncontrollably. Skywater eyed the bitty beast with undisguised disdain. Finally the mouse stopped laughing and jumped up onto her outstretched hand. Skywater lifted him up to stare him in the eye. The mouse grinned at her.

“You are, without doubt, the worst sidekick any superhero could ever possibly have.”
The mouse took hold of the edge of his cape and lifted it to his face. Standing on his hind legs he peeped over the edge of the cape, batting tiny eyelashes at the woman holding him. She sighed. “Whatever,” she said, opening her bag with her free hand. “Get in and stay out of trouble!”

The mouse hopped off her hand and into the bag, disappearing beneath her wallet with a flourish of his silky yellow cape. Skywater sighed and made a final grab for the yellow gloves, still attached to the top of the wall.

Gloves in hand, she made her way to the runner’s area and snatched up a pair of her favorite brand of tights. She didn’t bother to try them on. It certainly wasn’t the first pair she’d bought and it wouldn’t be the last. Such was the lot of an incompletely invulnerable crime-fighter.

Skywater Longshot’s superpowers included invulnerability and an ability to control pain. Unfortunately, the invulnerability did not extend all the way through her outer layer of skin. That layer was susceptible to cuts, scrapes, road rash, chaffing and mosquito bites. It wasn’t uncommon for Skywater to be a bloody mess following an especially intense battle, yet be completely unscathed other than superficial wounds. It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked.

Purchases in hand, Skywater turned back towards the front of the store, ready to check out. A series of squeaks sounded from the depths of her purse. Pulling it open, she looked into the bag. “You want what?”

More squeaks.

“What makes you think I’m buying you anything?” she asked. The mouse’s head popped up next to a wadded kleenex and he glared at her. Then he sucked in a deep breath, puffing out his chest and screwed his eyes closed.

“Don’t you DARE!:” Skywater yelped. She slammed the purse closed even as she hissed “Fine! Fine – I’ll get you the sunflower seeds.” Cracking the bag open, she caught a beady little eye in her own steely gaze. “But do not think you can blackmail me by threatening to blow up like that. Next time I’m leaving you at home.”

The mouse stuck his tongue out and then burrowed under the wallet once again. Skywalker grabbed a bag of bbq flavored sunflower seeds and tossed them on the counter with her other items. “Stupid Ghost Mouse,” she muttered to herself.
Ghost Mouse, the unimposing sidekick, possessing an ability to swell himself to the size of a hand grenade and then explode mightily when she tossed him at her targets. He would blow himself to bits, taking a few bad guys or getaway cars with him, then reasssemble quietly while Skywater completed the mission.

Skywater slid her debit card absently through the reader and collected her bags. She smiled a vague response to the clerk’s canned friendliness and made her way out into the sunshine. “Ghost Mouse, Ghost Mouse, Ghost Mouse…” she mumbled, as if trying it out on the tip of her tongue. How unfair was it that her sidekick had a superhero name and she didn’t?

She’d have to work on that. Later.

The Spy With Good Intentions: More

Walking again. Always walking.

I own a car but I never use it. The last time I parked it, down in front of my building, I did the best damn job of parallel parking humanly possible. In tight – right next to the curb. Perfectly spaced between the other two cars, fore and aft. I’ll never be able to duplicate it, so I’ve not moved the car since then. That was in 1998. Sometime in September.

The night air feels sharp against the exposed skin of my face as I meander down the midnight sidewalk. I suppose it doesn’t really feel sharp. Mostly it smells sharp. Like bad cheese. It’s as if we’ve been slathered with a great cosmic goop of rancid nacho sauce. Sans jalapenos. It’s a smell you never get used to – an underbelly kind of a smell and I’m smellin’ it now.

I walk alone.

In the night.

I scamper occasionally, from street light to street light. I’m not a daylight scamperer – by no means. But sometimes at night it’s ok. I’d rather slither, but I don’t have the hips for it. Spies really should be able to slither, but I’ve never mastered the skill. That’s not to say there aren’t skills that I excel with. There are. Lots of them.

I can kill you with a croissant. Kill you dead. With a croissant and a knife, to be perfectly truthful, but the fact remains that buttery, flakey, French pastry equals you dead and bleeding if you’re not careful. It’s one of my skills. There are others.

Like the fact that I can talk to animals. Did you know that? I can totally converse with the entire catalogue of earthen fauna. I plan to start working on the flora next week. The animals never talk back though. Quiet people, these animals. Not a lot to say. But I can talk to them. Oh yeah, I got lots to say to them.

Tim the Elevator Operator is kind of like that. I talk to him all the time. He can never think of anything to say in reply. Poor Tim.

It must be really hard to have such a boxed-in existence like Tim’s. Up. Down. Up. All day long. Well, maybe not all day long, because I know for a fact he works all night long and if he worked days, too, he’d never sleep and let me tell ya, lack of sleep does things to a person. Weird things. So yeah, Tim probably sleeps during the day. I wonder if he’s a vampire? A vampire elevator operator.

Vampire slaying is another of my skills. Tim better be careful. I have a cache of tooth picks that I keep in my jacket pocket. I like to kill ‘em slow.

Slow. Slow steps on the sidewalk. Stepping down towards the corner. Three-Finger Monte will be there. That’s what I call him. Because he’s got three fingers. Well, there are ten, total. But he’s only got three on that one hand. Not counting the pinkie.

Three-Finger Monte is my contact. My connection. My window to the underworld. He keeps me apprised of whatever is going on that needs handling. I’m a handler. First class. Not like the mail, but more like the dinning experience. That kind of first class.

What’s up? That’s what I say. He will say something like ‘things lookin’ hot over at the warehouse’ or ‘shipment coming in. The docks are your best bet.’ We don’t need details. We’re idea people. Facts are for sissies. Facts are for people who are afraid of reality.

Once I get the take on things from T-FM, I’ll probably saunter over to the other side of the street. I’m really more of a saunterer than a scamperer. Saunter is the poor man’s slither. I have to work on the slither. I need some roller skates. The kind with the key. The ones that will fit over my high-heeled black leather spy boots.

The other side of the street holds it’s own possibilities. Things look different over there. More shadowy. Deeper. Shadows don’t scare me. I pretty much am a shadow. Except for that pesky third dimension of mine. But I can flit around just like a shadow. I hang out in the dark but I need the light to function.

Not a lot of light. Just enough.

The Spy With Good Intentions: More

Walking again. Always walking.

I own a car but I never use it. The last time I parked it, down in front of my building, I did the best damn job of parallel parking humanly possible. In tight – right next to the curb. Perfectly spaced between the other two cars, fore and aft. I’ll never be able to duplicate it, so I’ve not moved the car since then. That was in 1998. Sometime in September.

The night air feels sharp against the exposed skin of my face as I meander down the midnight sidewalk. I suppose it doesn’t really feel sharp. Mostly it smells sharp. Like bad cheese. It’s as if we’ve been slathered with a great cosmic goop of rancid nacho sauce. Sans jalapenos. It’s a smell you never get used to – an underbelly kind of a smell and I’m smellin’ it now.

I walk alone.

In the night.

I scamper occasionally, from street light to street light. I’m not a daylight scamperer – by no means. But sometimes at night it’s ok. I’d rather slither, but I don’t have the hips for it. Spies really should be able to slither, but I’ve never mastered the skill. That’s not to say there aren’t skills that I excel with. There are. Lots of them.

I can kill you with a croissant. Kill you dead. With a croissant and a knife, to be perfectly truthful, but the fact remains that buttery, flakey, French pastry equals you dead and bleeding if you’re not careful. It’s one of my skills. There are others.

Like the fact that I can talk to animals. Did you know that? I can totally converse with the entire catalogue of earthen fauna. I plan to start working on the flora next week. The animals never talk back though. Quiet people, these animals. Not a lot to say. But I can talk to them. Oh yeah, I got lots to say to them.

Tim the Elevator Operator is kind of like that. I talk to him all the time. He can never think of anything to say in reply. Poor Tim.

It must be really hard to have such a boxed-in existence like Tim’s. Up. Down. Up. All day long. Well, maybe not all day long, because I know for a fact he works all night long and if he worked days, too, he’d never sleep and let me tell ya, lack of sleep does things to a person. Weird things. So yeah, Tim probably sleeps during the day. I wonder if he’s a vampire? A vampire elevator operator.

Vampire slaying is another of my skills. Tim better be careful. I have a cache of tooth picks that I keep in my jacket pocket. I like to kill ‘em slow.

Slow. Slow steps on the sidewalk. Stepping down towards the corner. Three-Finger Monte will be there. That’s what I call him. Because he’s got three fingers. Well, there are ten, total. But he’s only got three on that one hand. Not counting the pinkie.

Three-Finger Monte is my contact. My connection. My window to the underworld. He keeps me apprised of whatever is going on that needs handling. I’m a handler. First class. Not like the mail, but more like the dinning experience. That kind of first class.

What’s up? That’s what I say. He will say something like ‘things lookin’ hot over at the warehouse’ or ‘shipment coming in. The docks are your best bet.’ We don’t need details. We’re idea people. Facts are for sissies. Facts are for people who are afraid of reality.

Once I get the take on things from T-FM, I’ll probably saunter over to the other side of the street. I’m really more of a saunterer than a scamperer. Saunter is the poor man’s slither. I have to work on the slither. I need some roller skates. The kind with the key. The ones that will fit over my high-heeled black leather spy boots.

The other side of the street holds it’s own possibilities. Things look different over there. More shadowy. Deeper. Shadows don’t scare me. I pretty much am a shadow. Except for that pesky third dimension of mine. But I can flit around just like a shadow. I hang out in the dark but I need the light to function.

Not a lot of light. Just enough.

The Spy With Good Intentions

Technorati Tags: fiction,spy,mystery

I was thwarted again. This time by an accidental circus.

The circus is never accidental, you might say, but you’d be wrong. This circus was an impromptu compilation of the sublime and the absurd; the kind of thing that happens every night in the spy world. And I should know. I’m a spy. A spy with good intentions.

What exactly are my intentions?

Well, I’ve never really been sure. But they are good. Altruistic even. I’m not one of the bad guys. They are always so poorly lit. I have no problem with noir lighting, but the good guy always gets the better end of that deal. Also, I have a better hat. The bad guy fedora is always sort of slouchy and malformed. Mine is crisp and well creased. And purple.

I only wear it at night.

It’s night now.

The sun hadn’t quite set when I left my apartment. I live high in the sky, but Tim the Elevator Operator always brings me back down to earth. Tim never asks questions. Hell, he never even makes eye contact. But I’m pretty sure he’s curious. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s one of those peripheral characters that could go either way. I smile at him – a smile that I feel certain conveys more mystery than Tim can handle. He wants to know – I can feel it. But I’ll never tell.

Tim will be one of those that they’ll interview in the aftermath.

“Yes, this is where she lives,” he’ll say. (Maybe catching his breath and then correcting himself: “lived.” Maybe not.) “I always knew there was something different, something mysterious, about her. But I had no idea that she was a spy.”

Yeah, that’ll be Tim. I’ll laugh at the TV when I see the interview on the television over the bar where I’m drinking a Tom Collins. The bartender will eye me with that same sort of curiosity that Tim has. Maybe I’ll wink at him over the rim of my glass. A knowing wink. A wink steeped in mystery.

Maybe not.

Once I hit the street, I tuck the collar of my trench coat a little tighter around my neck. The wind is cold and the rain sheeting its way to the sidewalk, washing it clean of the detritus of urban existence.

Well, that’s not really true. I’m wearing a trench coat, sure, but it’s May and one hardly needs it now. The wind is blowing but there are no clouds, no rain. There should be rain, but there seldom is. Probably an international cabal of monomaniacal meteorologists has commandeered the city’s rain and is holding it hostage. No more rain, drizzle or fog until we meet their demands. Funny that we’ve not been notified of the demands yet. What are they waiting for?

I made my way down the avenue, headed for my favorite all night diner. We don’t have those in the Southwest – back where I came from. All your eating has to be done by sundown or it’s just too damn bad. But in the city, hunger never sleeps. Burgers and fries available around the clock. I still feel guilty about it – eating after midnight. I do it sometimes, but just because I am edgy and live by my own rules. I step to my own drum. I don’t need your empty conventions.

The diner is empty. For the moment. I take a seat in the back, where I can watch the door. No tellin’ who’ll be coming in or what they’ll be looking for. Whatever it is, I’m prepared. That’s my job – being prepared.

I’m prepared for earthquakes, robbery, and 382 different forms of pestilence. I am all set if we have bombings, extra thick fog or rampaging rapists. I can handle it. I know the zig-zag run. I cannot be stopped.

A gun? No. Don’t need it. I live by my wits – my own special brand of chuptzpah. I can’t spell it, but I can sure as hell live by it.

The waitress is asking for my order. I know she’s curious about what I’m wearing underneath the trench coat. Wouldn’t she be surprised? She’d never suspect my crimson velour jogging suit – the color of dried blood and the texture of short, soft fur. Too bad sister. It’s mine and I’m not likely to share. The pants are a little bit hot where I have them stuffed into the tops of my knee high, high heeled leather boots. I can feel sweat run down the back of my knee.

I order. Frito pie.

Then I call her back and change my order. This is the city. The coast. The not my home. Their chili will have beans.

Blasphemers.

I get a cheeseburger instead. With tator tots.

It’s gonna be a long night. The city never sleeps. I’ll need my strength.

Don’t be afraid.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Pearl Pickrell was a twin.

Her brother Percy was the black sheep of the family. He ran off to join the Merchant Marines a couple of days after a young lady and her father drove over from Mobeetie to speak intensely with Pearl and Percy’s parents. The ladies sewing circle was abuzz with that news for several weeks thereafter.

Pearl didn’t have her brother’s gregarious personality. She and her twin looked an awful lot alike, which didn’t do Pearl any favors. What came across as slender and alabasterish in Percy manifested itself as skinny and sallow in Pearl. Percy was scholarly. Pearl was bookish. Percy was earnest, Pearl was desperate. She never quite measured up.

After the unpleasantness which resulted in the banishment of the prince of the realm to watery parts unknown, Pearl blossomed slightly. It was nothing really noticeable – Pearl never really came out of her shell – but she threw herself into her job at the local bank with renewed vigor.

Having graduated from high school the year before, Pearl had landed a position as one of two tellers at the local bastion of high finance when Mrs. Montbalm retired after 39 and one half years in the job. Pearl was diligent, pleasant and generally uninspiring and slipped effortlessly into the chair that Mrs. Montbalm had previously occupied. Customers congratulated the bank manager on his hiring prowess because, with Pearl in the job, it was as if nothing had changed and they could look forward to another 39ish years of pleasant inanities while feeling secure that their deposits had been properly credited.

Pearl spent her weekends in trivial household pursuits. Being only barely of age and as yet unmarried, with – let’s face it – few prospects on the horizon, Pearl continued to live at home with her parents. Her great pastime was going to the local theater to sample the weekly Hollywood fare. She was a student of films in all their glorious manifestations – Romance, Mystery, Drama, Westerns and Adventure. Her favorites were the noir pot-boilers: romance, crime, drama and adventure all rolled into one. She especially liked anything with Claudette Colbert or a leading man with a decidedly foreign air.

Her mother attributed the later tragedy to the lack of judgment that she and Pearl’s father showed in letting their daughter expose herself to such heady nonsense.

It was 1931 and Pearl had worked at the bank for a little over a year, when, one sultry afternoon in early autumn, a gentleman in a white suit walked into the lobby of the First National Bank.

Folks in town later reported they knew he was up to no good. None of the people they knew would have been caught dead in a suit like that. And he wore his fedora pulled way to low over his eyes. He had ‘convict’ written all over him.

When he stepped up to the counter of the First (and only) National Bank, Pearl thought he had ‘swarthy South American Casanova’ written all over him. She almost swooned dead away right then and there. He demanded, in a guttural voice, (Pearl would have called it ‘husky’) that she hand over the contents of the till.

Pearl didn’t move. He thought she was being resistant. In reality, she was just smitten.

He growled at her – repeating his demand. Pearl was certain the sweep of his eye wasn’t at all meant to ascertain the location of the silent alarm button, but rather his way of declaring his approval of her rigidly slim frame and the stark white prettiness of her lace cuffs – a concession to frivolity in an otherwise somber working girl wardrobe.

She took the burlap bag from his hand, her fingers dancing lightly over his hot Latin skin. She almost giggled. He scowled. She shivered.

She filled up the bag with money then held it out to him. He reached out to take it, but she held it fast for just a moment longer than necessary, causing his gaze to meet hers and she batted her eyelashes daintily at him, just like she’d practiced countless times in the bathroom mirror.

He yanked the bag free and ran for the door.

Pearl took one look at Mrs. Easterhouse, the other teller, then stood up, closed her till and promptly jumped the counter and ran after the bank robber.

He was already in the car by the time she made it to the curb. No doubt heartbroken because he interpreted her hesitancy to follow as a lack of interest on her part. No worries, she could convince him otherwise once the car stopped and he rescued her from the passenger side running board. She clutched desperately at the car door and smiled serenely at her paramour, as she was already starting to think of him.

He glanced over at her, registered her presence with wide, wild eyes (no doubt overcome by passion) and yelled at her. She couldn’t understand what he said but it didn’t matter. There would be time for endearments later. For now they had to concentrate on getting out of town.

The Model A Coupe sped around the courthouse square on two wheels and took off on the southbound road. The sheriff peeled out of the courthouse parking lot and followed behind. Her love reached inside his coat and pulled out a gun. He started firing wildly behind him. The sheriff replied in kind.

Nobody ever bothered to determine for sure who killed Pearl - the lawmen or the bank robber. It didn’t really seem to matter.

Thanks to C. Wright for the pun and some of the other details!

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Like almost every one else who lived in Flat Mound, Texas, Ellis Harp was a farmer. He was a good man, a hard worker, all those sorts of pleasantly positive traits we ascribe to dull, unimaginative people who are otherwise nice folks. He liked to introduce himself to new church members as a “harp workin’ plowboy”. This was usually met with a nervous chuckle and a skittish, perfunctory handshake before the new acquaintance backed away.

Maude and Ellis were married the weekend after Maude’s high school graduation. Ellis left school a couple of years earlier, having learned everything he needed to know, and worked full-time on the family farm. Maude went to work as a full-time farm wife.

They did all the normal things – joined the Baptist church and sponsored local kids at the county stock shows. Ellis wasn’t going to get rich, but they were as well off as most of their neighbors. Maude wasn’t ever going to be a fashion plate or be asked to join the Ladies Garden Club, but she was treasurer of the local chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star.

They were happy and when Ellis died in ’48, Maude leased the farm land out to a nephew and moved into town. She was at a bit of a loss for what to do with her time. The war effort was winding down and she wasn’t the least bit interested in volunteering at the local hospital (blood made her puke) or the primary school (children made her itch). A friend invited her to a Thursday night canasta game as a way of introducing to new friends.

Maude took to canasta like nothing she’d ever done before. She and her friend, Minerva Marie Freeman began to enter canasta tournaments whenever they could find them in surrounding cities. One weekend, while Maude was on a roll through the final rounds of the Woodmen of the World bi-annual tourney in Wichita Falls, Minerva Marie picked up a flyer for a Canasta Cruise on a river boat leaving from New Orleans the next month.

As soon as she mentioned it to Maude, it was agreed that they would take the summer’s earnings from the Farmer’s Market and finance the trip.

Maude came in third in the on-board tournament and the ladies were hooked. Maude went pro and Minerva Marie became her agent and promoter. She booked trips to canasta conventions and championships all around the country and even got Foster’s Ford Dealership and Skating Rink to act as Maude’s sponsor.

The two women went on to become legends on the canasta circuit, and were invited to headline a tournament at The Sands in Las Vegas not long after the casino opened. After their first Vegas experience, they decided it was the only place to be for a dedicated canasta professional, so they packed their bags and left Flat Mound behind in favor of a permanent move to the Nevada desert.

Maude got a job giving canasta lessons at a small, family-owned casino in Laughlin, Nevada. Minerva Maria thought family-owned meant a nice little Italian family ran the business as a means of putting the kids through college. Maude never corrected her.

The ladies enjoyed a bit of the high life for many years in Laughlin. Upon her death in 1962, Maude’s body was returned to Flat Mound for burial next to her not all that beloved Ellis, amid a dearth of fanfare.

Thanks to Mindy for giving me the word canasta!

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Tryphosia always wore big hats. The kind that would make Dolly Levi's ostrich plumes droop with envy. Tryphosia was all about the hats.

Her first husband, Mr. Foster, always found them a bit pretentious. There was a lot about his wife that he found pretentious once the newness wore off of their connubial union. He wished she were content to stay at home and can vegetables like the other ladies in town. There were quilting circles and the Women’s Missionary Union at the First Baptist Church that she could be involved in. Surely that would have been enough for any good Christian housewife.

But it wasn’t. Not for Tryphosia. She dreamed of glamour and glory. She longed for the theatre - spelled backwards, just like that. Theatre was rather more grandiose than plain old theater, she thought.

When Mr. Foster died unexpectedly in a freak plowing accident – they didn’t even bother with a burial, the minister just said a few words over the cotton field (that year’s harvest was one of the best in local memory) – Tryphosia used the insurance money to lure a director straight from New York City to come out to the plains to direct the “Happy New Century Musical Extravaganza” that the Ladies of Agriculture Theatre Guild planned as their first civic consciousness-raising performance.

The young widow was thrilled when James G. Scarborough answered her advertisement in the New York Times. He actually arrived before the copy of the paper with her ad in it that she had mail-ordered did. He told the assembled ladies of the guild that he was fresh from his latest triumph on the Great White Way – a musical-comedy revival of Othello – when he read the ad looking for a professional thespian willing to undertake their directorial duties. His muse beckoned and he took the first train west.

The ladies were thrilled.

Tryphosia was enthralled.

The show was a flop.

Tryphosia wasn't particularly distressed by the bad reviews and poor attendance because, by the second week of rehearsals, James G. was sneaking ever so discretely through the kitchen door of her rambling farm house every evening after dark. The Methodist minister agreed to marry them on-stage, following the first performance of the show. Rev. Simpson was new in town, having been summoned by the bishop from somewhere back east. The ladies of the Women’s Missionary Union at the First Baptist Church mentioned this as they clucked their tongues at the thought of such scandalous behavior being legitimized by the presence of clergy. Thankfully their own pastor, a long-time local, understood the impropriety of the situation and refused to participate in such vulgarity.

Tryphosia and James lived happily ever after.

For a couple of years.

Then, James disappeared. It was rumored he left town immediately after a Pinkerton detective had arrived and visited with the local constabulary. Nothing was ever proved. Tryphosia appeared heartbroken and immediately indulged in a recuperative trip to Buenos Aires as a means of rediscovering herself.

A telegram arrived a few years later, reported to be from Tryphosia’s Argentine spiritual and legal advisor, which detailed the death of Tryphosia resulting from an encounter with rampaging llamas. The wire indicated that in her will Tryphosia left a substantial sum to the municipality which was intended for erecting a towering monument in the town square to the memory of the Scarboroughs. Rumor had it the Tryphosia had been with child when she left for South America, but nothing had ever been proved and the telegram was frustratingly silent on that subject. Further attempts at communication failed and no one ever knew for sure.

The Women’s Missionary Union was charged with constructing a fitting tribute. After much discussion it was decided that the most Christian thing to do was to erect a simple tombstone and send the rest of the money to widows and orphans relief in the wilds of darkest Africa.

And that’s what they did.

Happy Memorial Day! (Or as I like to call it - Amateur Day.)