End of Days

Mel looked across the green valley.
“Well, gov’ner, what’s your poison?” said Hiram in his best English accent.
“Same as always. Dead men tell no tales,” said Mel.
“I wrote that,” said Hiram.
“Yeah, but I was here first.”
“Touche.”
“I wonder why there are black holes?”
“Careful.”
Hiram laughs.
“Those days are over, gladly,” said Hiram.
“Some men like the cannonball roaring,” said Mel.
Hiram stood up and brushed himself off. “Same ole same ole.”
“You were saying something about the new bodies?” said Mel.
“To Hope or not to Hope? That might be the question.”
Hiram walked down the hill towards the city.



Shirley put an apple on top of her sandwich. Some condensation from the Pepsi had leaked through the paper bag. Her house sat in a clearing in the woods. The house once belonged to a famous writer. Jenny, her Golden Retriever, looked on with a smile and a wag. Shirley kissed the dog’s head.
“Henry!” she yelled, “I’ll be back at seven.”
Shirley rolled her eyes. Mel, who she had recently been calling Henry, was asleep on the couch.

Huge, sprawling oaks shaded the commons. It was a warm Spring day. Students in all stages of development were everywhere. Shirley passed a young man in a green corduroy jacket on the steps, upon entering the pink granite English building. He was talking with a blonde student in sweatpants.
“I’m on the hunt, and I like the terrain here,” said Hiram, sweeping his arm across the panorama of the commons.
The blonde looked at the brown leather patches on his jacket. “Why do you say that?”
“It’s a hobby of mine,”
The blonde smiled, revealing perfect teeth. She patted Hiram on the head. “In your dreams, little hunter.”
“You’ve got a bee on your hat. Here, let me knock it off,” Hiram could smell perfume as he brushed her shirt.
“Hey, dumb ass. Keep your hands to yourself.” The blonde pivoted and marched away.
Hiram went up the steps and into the cool of the building.

Hiram took a seat in a desk. Other students were busy pulling notebooks, laptops, pens, and books from their bags. Voices echoed from the hall. A student wearing a baseball cap sat to Hiram’s left. Shirley entered the room. She had tall, bushy black hair and was wearing a black, gauzy dress.
The class grew quiet.
“We were reading Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’,” Shirley said.
There was a rustling of pages.
“Can anyone tell me the definition of misogyny?”
There was a brief pause.
“Anti-marriage?” said the student in the ball cap.
“No,” said Shirley. “Anyone else?”
Jerry Sunrill looked at Hiram. Hiram was smiling. Jerry thought he resembled an ostrich. He had a long neck and large head. A few patches of acne dotted Hiram’s face. The lecture continued. Jerry was sure that was what the word meant. He tuned out Shirley’s voice and began stealing glances at a girl with black hair, sitting next to him. She was taking notes.
Jerry approached Shirley’s desk at the front of the classroom after class. He had seen her before at his parents’ neighbors’ house. He knew she was an English professor. He had hoped he would never have her in any classes when he first enrolled yet here he was. Shirley was typing on a laptop. “What does misogyny mean?”
“Don’t you have a dictionary?” said Shirley.
Jerry turned to leave.
“I’ll never remember this moment,” said Shirley, “but you will.”
Jerry absorbed the words. He saw Hiram In the hallway outside the classroom getting a drink of water from the fountain.
“Do you ever read any of that stuff?” said Jerry.
“What’s that, gov’ner?” said Hiram, turning from the fountain and wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
“Hills like white elephants.”
“Fuck that ole broad and her dried up paps,” said Hiram.
Jerry laughed and followed Hiram outside.
“It’s a fine day, gov’ner,” said Hiram.
“What do you want out of life?” said Jerry.
“Paps, paps, and more paps,”
Hiram jumped down from the steps and approached a girl. Jerry looked on as Hiram interacted with her. Hiram tickled the laughing girl. Jerry thought about all the studying he had to do. He put on his backpack and walked towards the student union.

Jerry took a seat at an empty table. Conversations continued between the crowd of students at the other tables. He took out a cloth bound journal and a pen from his backpack.
“Note to self:” he wrote, “be more aggressive with women.” The journal was filled with such directives along with day-to-day happenings he had recorded. He continued to write.

Met a guy today who seems to have no inhibitions. I haven’t learned his name yet, but he intrigues me. He was pawing a girl near outside the English building, a nice looking girl mind you. The funny thing is she seemed to enjoy it. She was laughing. What does this guy know that I don’t? Notes from the hinterland.

Jerry closed the journal. The noise of the other students’ voices sounded like ocean waves crashing on a beach. Jerry bought a slice of pizza from the food court and headed to his apartment.


Chapter 2 What goes around

Vernon Samuels whistled as he applied finish to a rocking chair. He had bought the chair for his wife at a junk store. He had spent the majority of the morning sanding the wood. It was an old chair, but Vernon was not interested in such values. He was ex-military. His daughter, Kellie, attended the university on a cheerleading scholarship. She often babysat neighborhood children on weekends. The previous weekend she had sat with Bill Sunrill’s little boy next door. Vernon’s neighbor, Bill, had accused Kellie of stealing twenty dollars. Bill had come over to Vernon’s house while Vernon was mowing the yard.
Vernon killed the mower. “What can I do for you Bill?”
“I think Kellie stole some money from the house last night,”
Vernon stiffened. “That’s a serious accusation. Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. Betty said the bill was on the dresser when we left.”
“I don’t think Kellie would do that,” said Vernon.
“Well, I thought I would let you know. I don’t think we need her services anymore,” said Bill.
“Fine. Fine. I’ll tell her.” Vernon started the lawnmower.

Vernon watched from his carport as Bill checked the mail. Bill always opened the mail at the mailbox. Bill looked over at Vernon’s house after reading a letter. Vernon smiled as he applied more finish.

Jerry punched send on his cell phone after finding his parents number in his contact list.
“Hello?” said Betty.
“Hi mom,” said Jerry.
“Jerry! So nice you hear your voice,”
“I’m coming home this weekend. I have a lot of studying to do,”
“That’s fine. We’ll be glad to see you. Your father is having trouble with the neighbor,”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Vernon is forcing us to move our fence,”
“How can he do that?”
“He had the land surveyed and it’s on his property,”
“That’s not good,” Jerry pictured Vernon in his mind. He had seen Vernon’s daughter Kellie around campus. He had thought several times about approaching her.
“Kellie, you know, their daughter, stole some money from us,”
“Pam is still there, huh?”
“Yes. Baby Roger is so cute. He looks like granpa.”
“Is Pam ever going to get a job?”
Betty sighed. “I don’t know. She is supposed to be out looking today.”
“I’ll see you Friday night, after class.”
“Okay Jerry. We can’t wait to see you.”
Jerry ended the call. He opened his physics book and began the problem set.


Pam Sunrill took a sip from the margarita. Mark Stallings, owner of The Boar’s Apple Pub and Grill, sat across the table talking with a lawyer. Pam had seen the lawyer before at the country club.
“I need another,” said Pam.
Mark turned. “Okay, darling. Could you wait a moment?”
Pam shrugged.
The Westchester Country Club sat on a large tract of land off Highway 112, not far from the campus, at the foot of Mt. Carmichael. It included a well-manicured eighteen-hole golf course, tennis courts, and a clubhouse. It was an exclusive club in the sense that all the members were rich. Members included doctors, lawyers, university professors and others from local moneyed families.
Pam had been seeing Mark for three months. They had met in The Boar’s Apple, in downtown Cherry Valley. Her specialty was dating rich, older men. Roger, her two-year-old son, had been a product of a failed marriage. She had married right out of high school after getting pregnant. Roger was now usually kept by Betty and Bill Sunrill, her father and mother, at their house in the suburbs.
Pam thought Mark looked sexy in his tennis shorts. He dropped a twenty on the table as he stood up.
“I’m going for a game of tennis,” he said, “Pay for these drinks, will you?”
“Sure,” said Pam. She turned away and rolled her eyes. She sat under an umbrella near the clubhouse and studied the other guests.

Bill wiped his brow with a small towel. Removing a chain-link fence was hard work. He had to bust up the concrete which held the fence posts in place. It had taken him nearly two hours and now he was hot. The letter he had received which informed him he had to move the fence was from the County Assessor’s office. It had included a copy of a survey of his property. The letter informed Bill about the exact dimensions of the land he owned.
Bill finished up rolling up the wire mesh of the fence and stored it in the shed in the back yard. He noticed the water in the ditch behind his house was topped with frothy brown bubbles. He looked down at the water, then down the property line. A newly built shoe factory belched out white smoke half a mile away.
“That factory is spewing waste into the water,” Bill said as he sat down in his easy chair.
“The new shoe factory?” Betty said.
“Yep. The ditch is full of it,”
“Oh my,” Betty’s forehead wrinkled.
“I was afraid of something like this,” said Bill. “I knew when they put that thing in there would be issues.”
“It did bring in a lot of jobs though,” said Betty.
“Hmmmph, I tried to tell them.” Bill had gone door to door in the neighborhood before the factory went in trying to convince the neighbors to vote no at the city hall meeting where the factory’s fate was decided. The vote was close, but the influx of jobs was the deciding factor. The city had voted the factory in. Bill had been surprised there was a vote to begin with. Usually, the city did those kinds of things without asking anyone, especially the public. There must’ve been some federal guidelines involved or something, probably involving the crap floating in his ditch. Bill scanned the Cherry Valley Post, the city’s newspaper. There was an article on page three that caught his eye.
“Factory to add new workers,” said the heading.
The factory had received a contract for one hundred thousand shoes. A spokesman for the multi-national corporation that owned the factory was excited about the possibilities for the town and said a new public park was being built downtown with the company’s help. Completion of the park would take place sometime during the upcoming summer. Bill closed the paper in deep thought.


Mel was ex-army. He had been hired on at the factory when it opened the previous year. He operated a leather-stretcher. The leather that came in huge rolls from the backs of big rigs had to be conditioned before being made into shoes.
Mel had three children by two women living in Cherry Valley: two girls and one boy. He had not seen the girls in several weeks. The mother of the boy would not let him see the boy. Mel took his time card from a rack on the wall and placed it in the time clock. He pushed the button on the side of the time clock and it punched his starting time on the card. He replaced the card back in the rack. He took his position on the factory floor in front of the leather-stretcher and began the monotonous task of his shift.

Shirley arrived at Dr. Karnak’s office at eight forty-five. Her appointment was at nine. She took a Time magazine from the shelf near the reception desk and took a seat in the waiting room.
“The doctor will be with you in a moment,” said the receptionist.
The article was about what goat farmers in Iraq had to say about the crisis in Afghanistan. She digested the article quickly. A nurse opened the door to the examination rooms.
“Ms. Samuels?” said the nurse, “You can come on back.”
Shirley tossed the magazine on a table and followed the nurse to a room. A reclining chair with metal stirrups attached to its sides sat in the room. There were cabinets on the walls full of gauze and bandages. A picture of a doctor examining a young boy with a stethoscope hung on the wall. The doctor appeared after a short wait.
“How have you been feeling?” said the doctor, dressed in a long white coat, wearing a stethoscope around his neck.
“Pretty good,” said Shirley. “I get light headed sometimes and my back still hurts from that fall on the ice last winter.”
“Let me see,” said the doctor and placed the stethoscope on her abdomen.
“Breathe normally,” he said.
The doctor had Shirley open her mouth. He looked down her throat, depressing her tongue with a flat piece of wood.
“How’s the new medicine working for you? Any problems?”
“No,” said Shirley, “but I do get lightheaded sometimes.”
“How often do you check your sugar?” said the doctor.
“Three times a day,” Shirley lied. Although she was supposed to prick her finger at morning, noon, and night, she hated getting pricked and didn’t check it very often.
“Let’s get some blood and we’ll go from there,” said the doctor. He made some notes on a chart.
“What about my back? It’s really been hurting,” said Shirley.
“The x-rays didn’t show much, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have pain. I hate to start you on pain medication. It’s very addictive,” said the doctor. He scratched his name on the chart and left the room.
A lab technician entered with a basket of needles and tubes.
“Oh God, I hate needles,” said Shirley.
“It won’t hurt, I promise,” said the technician, wrapping and tying a tourniquet on Shirley’s arm.
Shirley flinched and looked away as the technician drew her blood.
“See, that wasn’t that bad,” said the technician.
“I could do without it.”
“We have to see if your blood is all right.”
The technician turned the tubes full of blood over several times and placed them in the basket.
The nurse came in.
“You’re all done, Ms. Samuels,” said the nurse, “We’ll see you again in three months?”
Shirley stood from the reclining chair. She took a new appointment card from the receptionist and walked to her Jeep.