Gables Court Read online

  Gables Court

  Alan S. Kessler

  © Copyright Alan S. Kessler 2018

  Black Rose Writing | Texas

  © 2018 by Alan S. Kessler

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

  First digital version

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61296-988-6

  PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING

  www.blackrosewriting.com

  Print edition produced in the United States of America

  To Wlodek

  Books by Alan S. Kessler

  A Satan Carol

  Shadowlands

  Clarence Olgibee

  Night Screams

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Books By

  Part I - The Sower

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  Part II - Vase with Dead Leaves

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Part III - Starry Night

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  BRW Info

  Part I

  The Sower

  1

  The teacher stomped over.

  “Samuel, what’s wrong with you! You can’t keep coloring the same picture! If you want your dog to have red ears and an orange tail, that’s fine. It’s called imagination. But you’re just putting one color on top of another.” Tall, looming above him, she reached down and grabbed the drawing. “You’ve used up half your crayons on this nonsense and broken the others! Look at your desk! It’s a mess!”

  The smallest child in his kindergarten class, Samuel looked up at the woman.

  “I wanted it be pretty,” he said, his brown eyes large and sad.

  “Well, it’s not. The other children in here aren’t as fortunate as you. They know how important it is not to waste what they’re given. Put what’s left of your crayons away and take your mat out for nap time. Art for you is over.”

  The teacher left and Samuel did what he was told, looking at each radiantly bright color before placing the pieces of crayon back in their box.

  His father had the woman fired.

  2

  The quiet in the library of the Boston area law school always gave Samuel Baas a stomachache. A step inside, and he would feel the pain. Most times he accepted the discomfort. Instead of leaving, he joined the bowed, unmoving heads studying intensely in this cloistered room sealed off by ambition and walls of books only the initiated were allowed to read.

  Whenever he could, Samuel visited the Museum of Fine Arts. He’d been going there since high school. Within its undemanding stillness he enjoyed looking at the paintings but had begun wondering why all the artists except van Gogh saw the world as he did: green dew glistened on leaves; amber branches reflected the sun; the total mass of a tinted forest marked the distinct boundary above which the sky pulsated with a deep, clear blue. Black birds on canvas, or ones he had watched fly, shone as if waxed. A pebble gleamed, whether on his palm or among the shiny stones scattered over the luminous black asphalt of an artist’s street scene.

  But van Gogh had saturated his paintings with colors that, by comparison with other painters, made Samuel view their work as sad, alternative abstractions of reality.

  “And I am just like them,” he thought, before leaving the museum for the last time. While sitting in front of the van Goghs, the quiet had given him a stomachache.

  At age 24, Samuel realized that van Gogh had revealed the truth.

  His kindergarten teacher had been right.

  He was a gray person.

  3

  Samuel thought the old man beautiful, his varicose veins as blue as the sky, his wrinkled skin matching in color and texture the creviced trunk of the palm tree dying in front of this small Miami motel converted to efficiencies.

  “All paid up. That’s how your dad likes to do things. It isn’t the Ritz, but it’ll do for now. Here’s the key.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Smith,” Samuel said. “And thank you for picking me up at the airport.”

  “Your dad asks, I do.” He wiped the sweat from his bald head, the liver spots on it slightly darker than his tan. “Think you’ll make a living as a lawyer? They’re a dime a dozen.”

  “I have a job.”

  “Doesn’t mean shit if you’re a putz.” The old man poked a bony finger in Samuel’s chest. “I checked this Eldridge out. He’s doing OK, has one big client. Your dad called him and bingo! You’re hired. But you have to be smart. Figure out the angles. Your dad can’t wipe your ass forever. I’m retired. I like sitting by the pool. But I’m going to keep my eye on you. Save that tie and jacket for court. You’re in Florida now. The heat will kill you.”

  “I like the way you look,” Samuel said. “You fit in.”

  “I coordinate. White shirt, 100% linen guayabera. White socks and loafers. Shorts are a must. Keeps your balls from sweating. Get a pair like mine. Tan, with big pockets you can button.”

  The old man put his reflective sunglasses on and when back in his yellow Cadillac, drove away quickly. Picking up his suitcase, Samuel went inside the apartment.

  Dark, humid, the space smelled old and unused. A few feet from the door he stood in the kitchen where, between the small stove and the waist high refrigerator, water dripped steadily into a dented sink. Samuel twisted the faucet tight. The water leaked a little slower.

  In the windowless living room, he flipped on the light switch. The small bulbs of the Sputnik chandelier deepened the shadows over a plywood coffee table with two plywood chairs. Against the far wall, he saw a one cushion couch, beside it, an iron telephone stand with a padded seat and black phone.

  To
get into the bedroom, Samuel pulled on its folding, accordion wall. The handle came off in his hand. He pushed, and the wall moved back slightly, creating a narrow gap as it bulged off its metal track.

  Able to squeeze with his suitcase into the bedroom and past the two-drawer bureau, he found the apartment’s only window. The air conditioner in it blocked out most of the light, but a few rays seeped in. Samuel put his suitcase down and swirled his hand through the floating, gold tinted dust.

  He climbed onto the bed’s nightstand and reached over to the air conditioner. It rattled on, sending out a blast of chemically laced, hot air, before shuddering and choking to a stop. While climbing down, Samuel knocked over the table’s wooden lamp, the fall cushioned by its large, pink fabric lampshade.

  In the bathroom, he looked in the mirror.

  “I have eyes like his. Deep pools of brown.”

  But Samuel knew he wasn’t like his father. He remembered riding his bike past two boys, brothers, who lived down the block.

  They threw rocks at me and I told him. Their dad worked in an office. I learned later father went with one of his friends to see him. Those boys never bothered me again.

  “Father’s paint is power, strong and thick.”

  He sees the world like van Gogh.

  Samuel washed his face, plastered his coarse hair down with water, then, after unpacking and hanging up his suits and ties, changed into black corduroy pants and a knit, brown, long-sleeved shirt.

  “You in here?” the man called out.

  “Yes,” Samuel answered, tripping over his suitcase before pushing through the opening into the other room.

  “I’m the manager. I want to make sure you know—” He stopped in the middle of the living room. “What the hell happened to the wall? Goddammit!” Skinny, his eyes magnified behind large glasses, the manager nervously pulled at the straggly hairs on his chin, his thumb blistered and peeling. “I’m responsible for this place! What did you do?”

  “Tried to open it,” Samuel said.

  “We should have known better than to rent to someone we didn’t meet! But Rosalyn took the man’s money, the old fart who came here a few weeks ago in that new Caddie—thought he was a big shot!”

  “Mr. Smith.”

  “Yeah, that’s the guy. I didn’t like how he looked at Rosalyn and me. Thought we were stupid and would believe his bullshit story about you being a lawyer. Well I didn’t! Not for a second! And this proves it!”

  “I am a lawyer,” Samuel said. “I passed the Florida Bar a few months ago.”

  “You look more like a nebbish. Why do you want to live here? This place is for college kids. All they have to do is cross the highway out there and plop their lazy asses down at their fancy school.”

  “Mr. Smith found it. My father liked the location. It’s close to my job. “

  “You don’t have a car?”

  “I do. It’s being driven down from Boston for me.”

  “Your own personal chauffeur service! Must be nice! What kind you got?”

  “Ford Pinto,” Samuel said.

  “Know what I drive?”

  Samuel shook his head.

  “A red Bonneville! It might not be new, but it’s a doozy, and a hell of a lot better than some shitty Ford! I keep it polished and clean as a whistle! Anyone touches it, I’ll chop their balls off! Let’s get a few things straight…”

  The pager hooked on his belt beeped.

  “That’s Rosalyn,” he said nervously. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Is Rosalyn your…”

  “Wife. She doesn’t like being alone.”

  “Do you live far from here?”

  “Real far, Mr. Lawyer—two doors down, apartment off the office. I told you, I’m—we’re—the managers, but it’s my name on the door. Harry Lipman. No one sees the guy living in the apartment next to you. Rides a motorcycle. I’m sure he’s a hood. He puts his rent check under my door and goes out only at night. I call him the Night Crawler. He’ll probably sneak in here when you’re asleep and cut your throat!” Lipman grinned, one front tooth missing. “That wall was just fine when you moved in. You’ll have to live with it.”

  “I think the air-conditioner is broken,” Samuel said. “And the sink…”

  “I’ll put them on my list,” Lipman said, hurrying out the door.

  Samuel wanted to call Minnie. He looked at the starburst wall clock. 4:30. She would still be at work, cleaning, making drinks instead of a family dinner. He remembered how happy he had been as a child when, in the large paneled room at the long dining room table, he’d sit in the middle and enjoy the quietness of his parents’ undisturbed colors, his father handsome in a black suit and silk tie, his mother beautiful, her jewelry glistening, her yellow hair piled high. Even better, sometimes his father and mother spoke. But one time, when they did, their colors broke apart.

  “Those boys with the rocks. We paid the bastard a little visit.”

  “Is he still alive?” Mother smiled from her end of the table, told Minnie to bring her another drink. Father sliced his steak. How old was I? Eight? He started staying away for weeks. I began eating in the kitchen.

  I knew then what I should have learned earlier when Miss Fletcher, looking at me, started to cry because father had taken her kindergarten class away. I couldn’t tell him if someone picked on me. He’d get them fired or visit their dad at work. I had to take care of my own problems and fight back…

  I never did, not realizing until I understood van Gogh why I was so different than he and father. They are of another world, bright and clean. I exist within its shadows.

  Father wanted me to be a lawyer.

  He kept me out of Vietnam and got me into law school.

  Now I have a job because he made a phone call.

  Samuel dialed his parents’ house.

  “Hello,” Minnie said.

  “Hi! It’s Samuel. How’s everything going?”

  “Just fine. Keeping busy. Have you moved to Miami?”

  “I have an apartment. Monday, I’m starting work. My car will be here in a few days.”

  “Bet you miss not having it.”

  “I miss you,” he said.

  Minnie laughed.

  “You miss my cooking! Came back for it even when you were in college and law school. I’m sure there are plenty of fine places to eat in Florida.”

  “I liked sitting in the kitchen and talking to you.” If bullied or I fell and hurt myself, you held me, told me not to cry. “I remember the cookies and milk.”

  “When you were a boy!” Minnie said. “You’re a lawyer now with a big life in front of you. You don’t need old Minnie’s baking.”

  “You always made chocolate chip…”

  “Did I? Well then, next time I see you, that’s what they’ll be!”

  “I’m so far away, Minnie.”

  “It’s time, not miles, Mr. Samuel, but I understand what you mean. I’m happy my little granddaughter lives with me and I can just reach over and give her a hug. I’ll tell your parents you called. I’m sure they’ll get back to you.”

  “Thank you, Minnie.”

  “It was nice speaking to you, sir.”

  He stood, holding the receiver, not wanting to put her back.

  She always had flour on her hands.

  Samuel left the apartment and in the late afternoon of Miami sunlight, still hot, but dimming inside streaks of pink and blue sky, he walked to Burger King on the corner, bought the ham and cheese Yumbo, fries and a coke, then back in his apartment, ate sitting on the bed.<
br />
  He took his comic books and turning on the light, looked at the pictures of the world van Gogh and his father lived in, the splash of colors giving superheroes and villains their beauty and strength. Later, in darkness, he watched All in the Family, its images flickering on an old, portable TV. Changing into pajamas, Samuel tried to sleep.

  Gables Court had three, one story buildings, sandwiched between congested Dixie Highway and a narrow residential street. The front of Samuel’s building faced the street, his bedroom window the highway. The broken air-conditioner blocked out air but not sound, Samuel hearing in the rush of cars and trucks past the motel the continuous swish of steel in motion as constant as the heat.

  A motorcycle starting in the motel’s parking lot added to the noise.

  Sweating, twisting and turning, Samuel did what he always did when restless at night.

  He put his mind into the past.

  4

  I’m back, in the center of a ring of boys.

  They are the same as before, smirking, looking at me with small eyes brightened by expectation. The oldest boy is the tallest. I know his name, but it’s unimportant. Next to him, his short, pimply brother holds a dead rat by the tail. I watch the bloody, dead thing swing slowly in the darkening, summer air.

  The ring tightens around me as the boys step closer.

  “How old are you?” the tall boy asks.

  “Thirteen,” I again answer.

  “You’re a midget!” a boy behind me calls out.

  Everyone laughs, just as they did before. They don’t see I’ve grown, that my black hair is straight and I’m strong, calm, and know just what to do.

  “I’m going to stick this rat down your shirt!” the pimply boy says.

  “And I’m going to beat the shit out of you,” I tell him. Shaking my fists, I charge forward. He runs away. “Your turn,” I say to his brother.