Facing Grace with GloriaWilliam H. Coles |
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Facing Grace with Gloria, page 2
They paid their three bucks; I’ll give them that. I took them to a riverside grove of trees that hid the shrine that was a waist-high pyramid of round and oval rocks worn smooth and cemented together. Some rocks were gray or brown, but others were dried-blood red or almost white. A few glittered with mica. On top, I had supported with loose stones a plastic yellow flower with a red center and green leaves on the stem.
“The plane came down right over there.” I pointed to the river, very wide at this point. We were in comfortable shade, now, about seventy-five yards from the bridge.
“You saw it crash?” Brown said.
“Yep.”
The gray lady scowled. “Liar! We had loved ones on that flight. It went down nine miles from here.”
“I take exception,” I said firmly. “Plane came down late fall.” I told them about the pregnant woman and all the little children.
“We must insist you discontinue this scam.”
I took out two pictures of the crash and rescue from my pocket. Each was a newspaper clipping laminated with drugstore plastic and trimmed to fit the hand. But they ignored my photos.
“What exactly is that?” said Brown nodding at the shrine.
“A shrine to a man who sacrificed himself for another,” I said with the genuine pride Arthur had taught me. “You want to take a free picture? You’ll never see another one like it.”
“Using a tragedy to make money,” said Gray. “Disgraceful.”
“We’re in Washington for a settlement,” brown lady said. “We were appalled by your sign.”
“You must stop,” Gray sputtered.
“I’ve already settled,” said the girl.
Wow! This might be luck.
“A shrine to honor a real hero,” I said, pulsing to the potential, looking directly to the girl, watching those eyes for the faintest touch of sympathy for the dead. I saw the flash of caring!
The other two glared on.
“You’re lying to people,” said the girl.
“I was there! A little upstream,” I admitted. “But I saw it.”
“You’re sick,” the girl said, not with hate, but sad. Real sad. And her eyes shifted – washed with a cringe of fear I often see – as if I was a lunatic. Well, the last shrink I saw thought I was bipolar. She was a medical student and I said, “It’s schizophrenia, doc! We’re like Mensa, Harvard Divinity and Yale Law. Not lazy and not crazy. A disease of the genes!” But the doc shook her head and said I had a lot to learn. You can see my conundrum. Gloria had cash to give but she had no respect for me, and I just wasn’t clear on how to tap her reserve; but I was clear that this wasn’t the group to pass our best moneymaker, the red-painted shoebox with the slot in the top for donations to the families’ “relief fund.”
I followed them back to the bridge. My heart sank as they walked away. At the other side of the bridge, the girl said something to the two oldies, broke away, and returned to me as the others walked on.
Some driving need had overtaken her; I could see it in her walk. Up close, she stared as if I were some mysterious gift wrapped up in twice-used Christmas wrapping. I was panting with the possibilities for a trip to Eureka. And she was so pretty! She brought a flood of happiness like too many suds in a bubble bath.
“You really were at the crash,” she said. “One of the flight attendants was pregnant. She told me herself. But no one knew.”
I let her believe.
“What month?” she asked.
“February.”
“Day?”
“Fourth.”
“I mean day of the week.”
“Monday.” All that was in the clippings.
“I was there!” I said with conviction. “Me and my buddy were sleeping in a crevice under the bridge. It’s been filled in now.”
“Oh, no!” She started sobbing. “You weren’t really there.” She slipped down into a crossed-legged position like a monk. I couldn’t bend like that so I stood and tilted over a little bit. Nothing came into my head so I let her weep it out.
“I know that bridge. There was no place for people to sleep. I know every inch. I thought you might have really been there, in spite of all these lies.”
I tried to hold back, but something about this sweet innocent thing reminded me of Mother and told me it was time to paint a little truth. It wasn’t easy.
“I wasn’t there,” I said. “Only Arthur, my buddy was there. But he’s real sick and waiting on word from a class action suit on Agent Orange. So I’m the only one to honor the hero. He told me every detail.”
I decided not to tell her that Arthur, who glued the rocks onto government property, believed he’d seen the miracle face of God the night of the crash and did these shrine tours for free for years, passing a hat for donations of course. He began charging when his cough-spit turned red and he really needed doctor cash.
She didn’t look surprised. Just disappointed. “I wish you had been there,” she said. “I want to know about the man. Can I talk to Arthur?”
This was where experience counted.
“Arthur is a loner. Keeps his peace, mostly,” I said, my head down and not looking at her.
“Is he here? In the city?”
“He’s on the edge.”
“I want to talk to him.”
“I can’t take the time,” I said turning away. “I’ve got to stay the day.”
She grabbed my coat sleeve near the patch. “I’ll pay. I’ve got money.”
“No way.”
“Please take me?”
She reached in her purse and peeled off two tens from a roll of bills—a big role of big bills.
Owwee! But I shrugged with disinterest. She added two more.
It’s cash from the crash, I thought. Probably more than she needs.
Then she peeled off two, three, four . . . biggies!
“Okay!” I said. “But the cab’s on you.”
I grabbed the flower and my laminated shots, slipped my sign in my plastic trash bag, grabbed my easel and we were on our way.
The cabby dropped us off two blocks from Arthur’s abode. The cabby said he didn’t drive into the valley of sure death for anyone.
“We can walk,” Gloria said brightly. A sweet girl totally unafraid and unaware this wasn’t Main Street, USA. Sure enough, on the way I saw human movement in the shadows of an abandoned warehouse, and I grabbed her arm and hustled her along so she never knew.
Near a landfill, she stared in wonder at Arthur’s two discarded Dumpsters tipped on their sides, angled like the open jaws of a dinosaur skeleton’s head, and covered with tarps and cardboard sheets held down with rocks and bits of concrete. He had a discarded PortaPotty, with no door, out back. He was asleep, sitting up in his aluminum chair, with tubes curving under his arm and over his chest and plastic wraps over his oxygen tanks.
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September 2nd, 2011 at 2:44 pm
I had troble following the story, but I'm glad I read it.
August 28th, 2010 at 10:31 am
Good thoughts. Your comments are very useful. Many thanks. WHC
August 27th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Mr. Coles,
I have the greatest respect for you and your site, as I have said elsewhere, and for your writing.
I do understand you are writing fiction here, but IMHO there are too many similarities to the actual event for the reader to assume you're not writing about it and to wonder why you altered the facts. This diminished the impact of the story for me, while for those that don't remember, it would not lessen the effect to have the actual facts memorialize the event.
At the time, I lived a couple miles upriver, directly under the flight path.
Every time I heard a plane I would wonder if were safe, and that jet might just as easily have come down on my house. So it is a very vivid and emotional memory for me (though I did have the bridge wrong in my comment, it was 14th Street Bridge, not Memorial.)
August 27th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Thanks. The story is fictional, although set in D.C., and the bridge photo used was to label the story for the Internet post, and was not meant to suggest reality. My apologies. WHC
August 27th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Thanks for the information. The characters and the story are entirely fictional, although the idea for the story was generated from descriptions of the crash years ago I think you describe. The crash scene as Arthur described it was used (and made up) only to advance story so the characters could reasonably make their story decisions. Again, thanks. WHC
August 27th, 2010 at 10:01 am
That photo is of Key Bridge, not Memorial Bridge.
August 27th, 2010 at 9:58 am
I was in Washington at the time. I remember it vividly. It happened late afternoon just before dark, not at midnight, as Arthur tells it. It was in the middle of a terrible storm, but I could see emergency vehicles headed down MacArthur Boulevard. One of them was towing a small boat. You wouldn't see that at midnight in a snowstorm. No way.
August 11th, 2010 at 4:52 am
Nicely narrated,Beautiful discription of the Characters’ & location's. A simple but good short story, just like it should be.Loved it!
July 29th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
I loved the story. It had just the right mystery to keep you reading and wanting more.
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:10 pm
I thought that this story was very beautiful and moving, but there really wern't enough clues for most readers to understand that Arthur was Gloria's father. Perhaps instead of 'We're in Washington for a settlement', it would be a bit clearer as 'THE settlement'. Gloria could have mentioned that her father's name was 'Arthur'. Great story–I loved it!
June 23rd, 2010 at 12:11 am
This is such a beautiful story, so graphic and real, as if readers could step into it and experience it just as the author did. I wish I could write like this. :)
June 3rd, 2010 at 6:23 am
i'm in highschool and i think it is a great story :)!!!(:
May 27th, 2010 at 2:44 am
not so short tho i have to say for me ???
May 1st, 2010 at 12:20 pm
hi fan great boy POO
April 10th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
not so short but i love it im trying to get ideas for a story i all ready wrote 3
April 5th, 2010 at 6:57 pm
I love it I think I just might marry it!
March 18th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Okayy.? Lovely story, I personally think you should put more action into it but all in all great job!
March 18th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Nicee….story kids will love it. Hopefully, next time you can make a book out of it, if you do could you please inform me I would love to read it…!
January 29th, 2010 at 9:02 am
I sincerely thank you for your question/comment and I am honored that you want to send your story. I also regret that I can't help. I am not involved in publishing. The stories posted on the sight have had the single purpose to provide resources for writers and readers of literary fiction. I do wish I had an easy answer for you. Many of the more commercial publishers are now requiring fees for reading, which they justify as contest fees. I personally find this distasteful, but it is becoming common practice. There are magazines that still read (usually at restricted times) without charge. You can find lists of these publications on line, if you haven't already. Good luck. Publication opportunities are shrinking, but don't let that discourage you from writing your best and trying, as you are, to discover a way for your stories to find their readers. WHC.
January 29th, 2010 at 1:21 am
I would like to send you my short story for publication. Can you tell me where to send it. Thanks.
January 15th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Lovely story, beautifully illustrating some of the principles you write about on this site.
December 27th, 2009 at 4:55 am
Wake up people! Listen, here is what went down. You know old Arthur? HE is the girl's dad, get it now? When the plane crashed HE was on it! "…some of the bodies were never recovered…" He just stayed right there in that area and made a monument to himself, a dead hero that his daughter could respect rather than the wreck of a looser he evidently had become. We might have assumed the above not probable if he had really been a man with Vietnam veteran status now "waiting on agent orange settlement" but if that were so why would he have needed "dr. cash" when the VA would have provided. Recall him finally starting to charge for crash site tours? I'm thinking the daughter found out he was still alive when she joined the class action suit (probably did that more at her mom's insistence and a chance to perhaps find out something about her dad than for money" Or maybe she was never any part of that suit. she did arrived at the site along with the other two old spinsters but nothing else in common with them in fact she informed them that she "had already settled" Possible that since she coincidentally walked up at the same time that she decided to use the same reason for being there? Somewhere along the line when the pieces started coming together she looked for him. A likely address he might have used would have been that motel. She would then find out that he was homeless right in that area and that he did the "tours". She looked all over that Expressway for signs of him so she knew there was no "crevice" to sleep in. Who knows how many times she had visited the "crash site" before she got lucky. I'm thinking the cash she brought along that day was FOR her dad. Somehow she had pieced things together but when she found him he KNEW it was her but assumed and did not want her to know it was him. And even though he really needed money he would not take it from her, it being so much more valuable to have her believe he was a dead. Recall too that she did not ask Arthur but waited till later to ask Arthur's friend what his last name was. She honored her estranged father's desire to at least let him believe that she thought her hero dad was dead. All three characters came away richer for the day. Re-read it and see if you aggree, If you find differntly by all means please tell me what I missed!
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Compelling story, powerfully told. I was engaged mentally and moved emotionally. You are gifted.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:19 am
A homeless veteran finds grace, and two people finds redemption through sharing. A great story! I enjoyed it immensely.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:47 am
deanna
ilu
August 10th, 2009 at 2:32 am
All this and jazz piano to boot. Great story!
July 9th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
The real revelation was the ending wherein the narrator's inherent goodness won out over greed.This is such a well written piece and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
January 20th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
What a wonderful story, I felt as if I standing Grace as she listened to the gentleman describing the rescue of the woman in the water as her father, or even if was not her father, the gentleman gave her something that she could hold onto. She needed to have just a piece of her father's life. She needed this part of him, something that she was cheated up as she was growing up. Excellent storyline.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:58 am
This is an interesting story. It took my breath away and am loving it. The dialogue is great and the characterization is superb. Thanks for the story. I love it.